#Steel fabrication swan

[aayakashii]

granite and soft sand

Warning: mentions of violence and gore; angst.

Alan's fists were merciless.

He punched once, twice, thrice; a meteor shower falling down onto a wasteland.

Splatters of blood gushed out of the anomaly's body as he beat it down into a pulp – until there was nothing left; until the flame of its wrong, unholy life had been snuffed out by his hands and the ground it once stood upon was painted red.

Alan's ears rang loudly, silencing the inhuman screeches of agony from the thing that laid battered under his arms. It was long gone. The only sounds left were the splatter of its blood and guts onto the ground.

Alan's ears rang loudly, silencing your voice as you tried to save him from drowning in an ocean of grief of his own creation. You tried to yell louder than his grunts as he blindly hit the ground, voice hoarse and tired and persistent. You'd bring him back.

“I'm alive, I'm alive” you repeated, loudly, as he painted himself in red.

A small, lonely lighthouse in the midst of a raging sea. His boat crashed against the unforgiving waves, lost. There was no helm to steer him to safety in your arms. Still, you shined a light on his path.

Through his blurred vision and foggy mind, Alan finally heard your voice cutting through the dense mist of his violent trance.

He felt the warmth of your hand gently touching his back, shaking him lightly to snap him out of his daze.

He found your tired eyes, searching for a sign of conscience underneath the veil of grief and hatred that had clouded his vision.

You were alive? You were alive.

Alan reached out his arms towards you.

He had to feel you were real – that his mind did not decide to torture him even more by plaguing him with visions of a lost love.

In his memory, your cry for help – your cry for him, as the anomaly dragged you away where he would not be able to reach – echoed endlessly. It sounded like the swan song for his happiness.

All that he recalled after that was red.

Alan reached out his arms towards you. And then he stopped.

Bits of guts stuck to his skin and blood drenched his arms and his clothes. The iron smell was abrasive inside his nose. Beside him, an unrecognizable pulp laid still – cause of death: the anger of a hateful man.

It was all so red, so red, so red.

You reached out for him with your hands and intertwined his fingers with yours. He tried pulling away immediately.

The spoils of his rage had no glory and no dignity; he couldn't allow you to be dirtied by his violence.

And you couldn't let yourself be pushed away by hands that seeked nothing else but to protect you.

His fists were of iron, yet his skin was a petal under your touch, and you carved your nails into him, steeling your hold.

You'd cake them in the blood he spilt, if only not to leave him alone in his despair.

You finally pulled him into your arms, through his protests and flails, pressing his head flush against your chest.

His breath caught in his throat and he closed his eyes, a foreign pressure building up behind them – he didn't even remember what it felt like to cry.

“I'm alive, I'm alive”, each heartbeat drummed rhythmically in his ears, reminding him that you were there.

“I'm alive, I'm alive”, your lungs filled with the putrid air that surrounded the both of you, reminding him that you were there.

Your hands gently brushed his hair, matted with sweat, as you held him.

Alan was kneeling on the tainted ground, arms limp beside his body – he didn't deserve to hold you as well – and he stared at the bloodstains he left on the fabric of your clothes.

“I'm a monster.” he murmured, his thunderous voice just a fearful whisper against your heart. “I'm sorry.”

You kissed the top of his head and held him tighter.

“You saved me.” you replied, pulling his arms and placing them around your waist, where they belonged. “You're my hero.”

Fallible, angry, made of granite and soft sand at the same time.

Like every hero.

Like every human.

Alan choked out a small sob.

And you held him, amidst the blood and guts, as he allowed himself to cling tightly to you.

Okay I tried to do something ✨️poetic✨️ so I apologize if it sounds confusing rip

[rush-the-stars]

RUIN

minors and ageless blogs dni, 18+ only.

pairing: suguru getou x afab!reader

summary: after your family has fallen out of grace in the sorcerer world and you lose everything, it is decided by the higher-ups that you'll marry someone worthy for you; suguru getou. a troublesome sorcerer with no prominent family lineage, sway, or power in your world. it is a punishment, a laughing stock, and a badge of disgrace.

| arranged marriage au. mostly smut. a little angst or comfort if you squint. |

word count: 5.7k....this is a drabble to me ://

tw: smut, loss of virginity, dub-conish, one slap from the reader to getou and he kinda likes it, strange and unhealthy dynamics, getou has a corruption kink, slight blood? overstimulation. let me know if i missed anything!

author's note: first time posting writing on this blog!! this has been plaguing me!! this was supposed to be a little drabble!! and here i am!! anyways…this could be and i have thoughts on it being a whole fic. it could potentially take place somewhere before volume 0 and after he’s graduated from jujutsu tech. maybe. i didn’t think hard enough ab it so you shouldn’t either. is this out of character? likely!! enjoy!! let me know what you think!!

The night of your wedding to Suguru Getou, you are filled with ire and contempt.

The crescent moon is a sickle arch in the sky to look down on you, the curve of it as sharp as a mean smile, as a hooked knife. You glare hard at it through the window, hold tight to the silk robe you had been ushered into after the ceremony. All pearly on your skin and loose, shiny, smooth to the touch. Wrapped like a present for you new husband.

You grit your teeth.

("So proud for such a disgraced girl," Suguru tsks, your chin in his hand, forcing you to look up into the darkness of his eyes. You look up your nose at him defiantly. His thumb moves to your bottom lip, swipes there boldly, in a way that makes heat race over your face. It flusters you terribly. It makes you furious. It makes you shake.

You jerk your head from his grasp and he allows his hand to fall away, flutter down by his side.

"And so stubborn."

You sneer at him, gripping your skirts to hide your tremble, "what were you expecting? For me to simper and posture for you?"

His eyes dance bemusedly over you, the corner of his lips quirking up in the most horrible way. You have half a mind to strike him with nails and palm and bitterness, swipe the look right off his face.

"I'd hoped for someone a little sweeter, I suppose." He tells you and for some reason, this stings worse than it should, makes your anger grow teeth and claws inside of you.

"A good wife." You spit.

"Yes," he admits, "something that is finally mine. Only mine."

Later, he will tell you he always wanted something Satoru Gojo couldn't have but wanted. He wanted something everyone wanted. Instead, he got you. Instead, you got him.

"I will never be yours." You hiss through your teeth like a little asp. A warning sound, the way a dog growls before it bites.

"You'll be married to me whether you like it or not. Whether I like it or not." He says coolly, gazing down at you in a way that you can't place, in a way that makes you shiver.

"I may marry you, but I will never be yours–"

And when you catch the gleam in his eyes now, plum dark and glimmering, you know he took it less as a warning, and more of a challenge.)

You steel your courage. You breathe through your nose.

You untie your robe and let it slip from your shoulders.

It pools on the floor in a decadent swath of fabric. It looks like a swan, like a dead dove at your feet.

When you turn to look at Suguru over your shoulder, you are at least pleased to see that he is mildly surprised, brows arched upwards slightly, mouth parted.

He recovers quickly, "my, isn't this a surprise–"

"Don't." You snap. Your bottom lip trembles and you sink your teeth down into it to stop it. When you don't fear what your voice will sound like, you say defiantly;

"Do what you want. I'm not scared of you."

And you jerk your chin up again, too proud, too stubborn. Even when you are bare, even when your defenses have been stripped from you, even when his eyes are lightless, bottomless like the sea, infinite like the night sky as he gazes at you.

He approaches slowly, almost lazily, a predator that lopes closer to his prey. The breeze from the window makes you shiver.

"Look whose being brave," he coos, reaching out with his knuckles to touch your cheek, a brush of his skin. It's the first touch he gives you of the night.

He savors it. You try to hold still.

"Are you sure?" He asks and there is something unreadable in his face now, something monstrous at the edges, the flicker of it, of that hunger–a maw, opening wide in front of you to swallow you down like his curses, "I was going to let you have tonight."

"How merciful," you say, all heat and viciousness, all teeth. You jut your chin up, glare up into his face and say, "it doesn't matter. Like I told you; I will never be yours in any meaningful way."

The touch at your cheek becomes bigger, a palm that slides to the nape of your neck, fingers slipping into your hair. He holds you in a way that makes you feel the control, so you can feel the strength of his broad hand. The power in it. Horribly, it makes you feel small, too, to be cupped in his hands like that, to be guided.

His smile is lazy, almost aloof, like the sickle curved moon, but the burning of his eyes tells you differently. All violet heat, like the night sky swathed around that moon.

Tenderly, he promises, "I will strip you of your pride tonight. It will be the first thing you have to put down if you want anything good from me."

"I'll make you bleed," you promise back.

He laughs, low and soft and heated, before he says, "I'll tame you someday."

And he sways forward, lets his nose brush along yours, tilts your head up at the neck so your lips are offered to him like sacrifice, like a lamb.

"I'll kill you someday." You vow, just a whisper that brushes against his lips.

You can feel his smile when he kisses you, deep and slow and horribly burning. Leisurely, he forces you open, rolls his tongue into your mouth, forces you still, forces you to like it.

You feel your hands come up to tighten in his clothes, ruining them. You feel yourself go slack in his hold. You feel yourself warm to his touch, to his mouth, to his tongue.

For a fleeting moment, you wonder if he's trying to devour you, too, if he also thinks of you as his curse.

He bands an arm around your waist, forces you to press your bare body to his clothed one, fits his big hand along the curved cage of your ribs. And you feel–

You twist in his arms when you feel how hard he is, when it makes your stomach flip and then frightens you, when it makes heat swim up your chest and neck.

He can feel your shyness, moves his arm down to the dip of your waist to force your squirming still. He makes you feel him.

You part from his kiss, panting a little, pushing against him fitfully. He tightens like a snake around you, until you go still for him again.

"Undress me," he murmurs.

You swallow hard.

But with shaking fingers, you move to begin stripping him of his layers. Tanned, bare skin is revealed to you; silvery scars race and arc over his chest, along his shoulders and biceps. His stomach is toned, dark hair running down, further into–

You look away stubbornly when you get to his lower half. Your hands work blindly, until he says, "ah, ah, ah–" and he grabs your chin, makes you look at his face, makes you look down at your little hands near his stomach, near his hips– "Don't look away."

You swallow hard. You glare at your hands, heat rising swift and harsh to your chest, up your neck, to your cheeks. His clothes come away beneath your hands, leaving him bare, too.

You fight the urge to look away again.

"Touch me," he murmurs, watching your face, and you don't–you don't know why you listen. But as if possessed, you obey him.

He's hot to the touch, heavy in your hand, and you realize you can hardly breathe.

His intake of breath is sharp, coupled with your forced little exhale. You glare up into his face, jaw set tight with ire, face on fire. Embarrassed. Angry.

"Oh, if looks could kill." He hums, pressing his hips up into your hand. Uncertain but trying, you stroke slowly, carefully, get used to the feeling in your hand. "Such contempt on your face right now, wife."

"Enjoy it while it lasts," you try to snap, but your voice has gone thinner. You've lost some of your bite.

He laughs when he kisses you, meaner this time, teeth in your tender lip, his brutality like a slow ambling leopard. It's still leisurely, intimate in a way that is frightening, in a way that makes you feel like he's got you between his jaws.

He starts walking you back to the bed, crowding you, guiding you. And not for the first time, but certainly the most concerning time, do you realize how big and broad he is. Blindly, you let him urge you back. You let him lay down first, you let him take your hand, you let him–

"You want me–" on top? Your voice has a tremble in it.

"Scared?" He asks, tugging your hand, tugging you onto the bed. Over him. Holding your hand in his, laced fingers, palm to open palm.

"No, I just thought you'd want to–" You don't finish the sentence as you ease into straddling his waist, keeping up on your knees, away from him.

"Want to what? Say it."

You can feel your embarrassment come back up to strangle you.

"In what ways did you think I'd want you? Underneath me? Belly up and vulnerable? On your stomach with your back arched? On your side?" He asks and his voice is low, soft to your ears, but dark. One large hand of his grips your waist, fits itself around the curve, and forces you forward. You stumble a little, catch yourself on his chest.

"How did you think of this night? What way did you hope for?"

"None of them." You snap. "I don't want you."

"Liar." He says back, and he moves so his palm is on your lower abdomen, thumb moving dangerously close to the apex of your thighs, "if I touch you here, what will I find?"

You jerk away from his touch as if burned.

He readjusts his hold on your waist to force you still again as if dealing with an unruly child. This time, when his thumb swipes between your legs, it is through silken folds, slippery and gentle.

You strangle the moan that dares to bubble up, stifle it with an even smaller noise. He is so embarrassingly slow and careful with you, almost loving with the way he strokes, that you want to hide. You want to cling to him. You want to kill him.

"Ah, see? That's what I thought–" Suguru's thumb dips barley inside, and even that, just one finger, is bigger than what you're used to. His whole hand spans wide across your body. "–so wet for me."

You look away, attempting to bare it, teeth firmly stuck in your bottom lip. He never breaches you. Just strokes, slow and soft, painfully good and sweet, enough to make your hips cant a little. He doesn't say a word now, just listens to you breathe, to the small, slick sound between your legs.

It's so–

"I won't prep you more than that." He finally says and you feel your heart rabbit hard in the pit of your chest, like it might take off and run away from you. You look at his face. He must see your fear. "Unless you'd beg for my fingers inside you. Unless you'll beg me to be kind."

As if to emphasize, his thumb pauses, just outside, barely inside.

You can't bring yourself to ask for it. You won't beg. Even if you're shaking in his hold, even if you want to drop your hips a little, squirm until his thumb slips inside.

"Do what you want." You say again, stubborn and furious.

Suguru sighs lightly the way adults do with children. Have it your way, he seems to say, before he takes his hand away entirely. You watch as he fists himself, as he strokes himself easily. And then he's there, at the crux of your legs, and you panic a little because he's big and you remember the weight in your hand and–

"Wait–"

He forces you down onto him with one large hand gripping your waist. Your nails sink into his shoulders, body bowing forward as pain spasms through you, in you. You hiccup a breath, strangled, tears pricking your eyes sharply.

His mouth falls open, brows drawing together in mock sympathy for you. "Oh, you should've swallowed your pride, wife."

You whimper. He hisses.

"Maybe there is something you're useful for," he breathes, fingers flexing in your waist, moving to your back and then lower to grab and ease you up, ease you back down. You can feel him now, through the pain, deep and heavy inside of you. It's so raw, so strange and vulnerable, that you can't help the sudden swell of emotions.

Searing anger. Shameful arousal. Lingering fear. They all blend and blur.

He curses softly against your temple, "–knew, if nothing else, that you'd be good for this–"

Bastard.

You strike him with an open palm.

It cracks against his cheek, whips his face to the side. His cheek blossoms all hot and pink with it instantly. Satisfaction sinks into you. You feel him twitch inside you, feel your stomach flip with the look on his face.

He laughs, seizes you in a kiss, forces you down deeper onto him, "–knew you'd be perfect. Knew for how wretched you were that you'd be perfect for me." He says against your open mouth.

He lifts you, drops you onto him even slower, not to mitigate the pain by suspend it. You can tell he's being cruel, grinding you down onto him, trying to etch the feeling of him like this inside you forever.

You can't even speak and you force any noise that might come out of you down, down into the depths of you. You can feel your walls cling to him, latched tight, fluttering desperately. You can feel the way he burrows himself so deep inside you that you might be sick with him. You try so hard to breathe, to bear it, to take it. But it's too much–it's too much–

A small sob finally bursts out of you, shameful and tender.

"Wrap your arms around me." He commands, soft, almost a coo.

You don't know what to do but obey, wrap your arms tight around his neck, chest to chest, press yourself as close and desperately to him as you can. You tuck your heated, angry face into the crook of his neck, tears finally rushing hot and quick down your cheeks.

"I hate you," you cry into his skin, mouthing there, teething there. He controls you as you go limp in his arms, lifting and dropping your hips onto him like you weigh nothing. "I hate you."

"I know," he hushes, consoling you, one hand soothing over your back, "I know."

He tries to pull away fractionally, just to look at you, but you whine and cling harder, nails digging into the skin of his back.

"Look at me, darling," he says again and tentatively, you peak at him through your angry tears, brows furrowed, glare firmly marring your sweet face. He looks at you through half-lidded eyes, burning into you, and says;

"I will be the only person to hurt you like this. I will be the only person to soothe you like this."

It's a command. It's a vow.

You let your hand slip into his long, dark hair, tangle in it until it's a small fist. You pull to tilt his head back up to you, move your hips on your own finally, rock them tentatively, a small, aborted motion. And then you say, through your tears, through your anger and shame;

"And I'll be the only one you ever want like this. The only one you can't have fully."

"I have you now." He rasps, a little enamored, a little slack jawed.

You shake your head fractionally, lip curled, maybe in pain, in anger, "I don't love you. I won't ever love you."

You can tell this does something to him, hurts him in a way that he isn't prepared for. You aren't prepared for it, either, the look on his face. The way he kisses you after that, like he's trying to win you over, like he's trying to soothe you, just like he said he would.

"I don't need your love," he murmurs, spit-slick against your lips. Your hips stutter a little.

"Liar," you echo him and it's your turn to smile a little against his lips, the curve of it mean, your eyes still glossy with tears as the next roll of your hips becomes more sure.

You finally let out a little moan and he hums, "there, that's it, starting to feel better?"

And then, "maybe. Maybe this is all you're good for–"

A moan punches out of him.

He thrusts up into you this time, hard, a little spiteful. You yelp, tears stinging, and he kisses you as if to half-heartedly apologize.

You curl around him again, though, and he doesn't even need to guide your hips anymore. It still aches, in the core of you, throbs in pain, but it's beginning to feel syrupy and warm, the feeling of fullness becoming familiar. Almost welcome. A burning type of pleasure that you start to ease into.

You bite into his throat. You tell him how terrible he is, you dig your nails into his back, you warn him not to get used to this.

He kisses you hard and slow. He tries to own you. He let's you ride him, take from him, give to him. He draws his tongue over his teeth marks in your skin.

He builds you up, finally touches your breasts, your body, his hands feverish and scorching over you. He finally gives in to what he wants, gives in to your pleasure, lets you roll your hips in a way that has you crying out–in pain, in pleasure, in some horrible combination of both.

You can feel it all build in you, feel it all balloon beneath your skin, hot and too big for your own body. Too much. You need more, need just a little more–

You get just shy of begging, but don't, bite your tongue until it bleeds, let him lick into your mouth and taste it.

"So stubborn," he grunts against your throat, "I know you like this. I know what you want from me." And then, "is it everything you thought of? Or should I fuck you on your back? Press you down into the bed and–"

"You're vile," you moan brokenly, half cry, "you wish."

And when he forces you down into his lap, digs his face into the crook of your neck, into your hair, and comes deep inside you, you think it might be over. He groans into your skin, grips you so tight you're certain you'll bruise.

Whatever pleasure that had been growing inside of you comes to a frustrating halt. Your hips twitch, unsatisfied, seeking.

You can't decide if you're disappointed or relieved. You hold him against your chest, hands in his hair, body shivering. He holds you back, let's you squirm a little, let's you get used to the feeling of him filling you like this.

You try to move first but he tightens his hold on you and once more you are reminded of a snake constricting it's prey into stillness. You go limp again and that seems to appease him. He lays you back, into the bed. Into your wedding bed.

He pulls out of you slowly, gently this time, and it still makes you whine in pain. It still makes you wince. You're going to be so sore tomorrow–

At this point, you expect him to roll over and go to sleep.

But he kisses you tenderly, open-mouthed, tongue soft and pressing into yours. Seeking. Heat rekindles. He teases, drowns you in his lazy sort of affection; like he has forever to please you, like it is all he was meant for.

And then his lips cascade downwards, with his tongue trailing over your chest, and right over the bud of your breast to catch it in his mouth. So warm and soft, enough to make you arch a little, enough to make your hands come back up into his hair. You bite your lip but your hips twitch.

Dissatisfaction builds in you, squirms under your skin. It makes you become fitful in his arms, beneath the attentive warmth of his mouth. He moans a little around your breast when you pull on his hair. He rolls his eyes up to you lazily, half-lidded, almost asleep.

He is strangely content now, for all his unnerving, crackling energy. That restlessness that seems to live deep inside of him is soothed for the moment, with you beneath him, in his mouth.

His lips travel lower, over your stomach. You know it's a mess, can't imagine why he would ever–

"Suguru," you say and the fear in your voice is palpable. He pays you no mind, "Suguru–"

When his mouth opens against your core, warm and soft and wet, you aren't expecting it. You jolt a little but he's got his arms around your thighs, forces you open.

"Hold still for me, darling." And the lull of his voice does something to you, coaxes you to relax in his hold again. He hums lightly, "that's my girl. Going to let me enjoy you now? Suddenly quiet, aren't we?" he muses.

You glare down at him but it's lost a lot of the heat of your anger. Still, you say stubbornly, "just do what you want."

His lips quirk up and you feel it, feel it against your core when he drops a brief open-mouthed kiss there. A noise works out of you, small and desperate and unable to be kept down.

He tongues at you slowly, through soft ribbons of flesh, gentle and sweet. Adoring. He looks up at you with plum dark eyes, lashes fanning over his cheek.

He does what he should've done first.

You realize dully, faintly, through the haze of your mind, that he's done it purposefully. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted to soothe you after.

And you are sore, aching horribly, but his mouth is so warm and soft, so eager and strange as it moves against you.

“I’ll make you feel better now,” he murmurs, “I’ll chase away the pain.”

He licks long and flat stripes up and down, making a mess, making you burn. Making you love it. Making you hate it.

You twist a little in his hold, start to get desperate for it. You fist your hands in his long hair, twine them around your fingers to pull, to feel the rumbling purr of his moan against you.

You try to resist maybe, at first, the peak he's bringing you to. The pleasure he's giving you. But then it sneaks up on you and suddenly your breathing hitches all tight.

And he stops.

You look down at him. His mouth is on your inner thigh. His eyes flick up to you. He watches you keenly, like a cat, and waits.

He bites into the flesh of your thigh, sucks a love bite into it. Leaves the marks of his teeth in your skin. And when your breathing has slowed enough, he moves his mouth back to your center.

His tongue lolls out again, sliver of pink muscle darting out to taste you again. You whimper. You throw your head back. You give in to this one easily. He works harder, gets a little rougher, tongue moving quicker.

But then he's gone again, when you're about to fall over that edge. This time, you sit up onto your elbows to look at him. He quirks a brow at you, mouth all over your thigh again.

"Something wrong?" He asks, dropping a messy kiss to your core.

"Suguru, stop it–"

"Stop what? You said do as I please and I am."

He opens his mouth against your center again, scorching hot, dirty in a way that makes you keen sharp and high. You tilt your hips up into his mouth this time, offer yourself willingly, open yourself to him. His tongue delves inside, squirms and pushes and slides through you. It's almost gross– too vulnerable, too close, and makes your eyes slam shut.

He muffles a soft laugh, you can feel it against you, can feel the flush of your embarrassment and annoyance.

He pulls away. This time your glare is pointed. Sharper.

"Say what you want." Suguru says. "And I'll give it to you."

You stare hard at him, chest heaving, face overcome with heat. Your pleasure ebbs away, held back.

He does it again. Mouth on you. Thumb holding you open, dipping inside barely again. He pulls away when you move at all, when you allow yourself to give in.

You come down again. You get built up again. Until he finally presses his thumb inside, makes his tongue roll slow and tender against you.

His name comes out, desperate, almost pleading–

He stops.

And this time, frustrated tears rush back to your eyes.

"Stop it," you try to snap, but its wet and soft sounding, a little cry.

"Poor thing," he coos, "but you know what you have to do."

"I hate you."

He smiles like the cat that has got the canary between his sharp, sharp teeth.

"C'mon, it's not so bad–"

You grit your teeth. You try to breathe. He tongues at you again, slow and soft and teasing.

"Just let it go, let go of your pride and ask me. I'll indulge you. I'll give it to you." He opens his mouth against you again, adds pressure, adds suction, adds a finger inside you again. You twist, desperate, so close it hurts.

He draws off you again.

"Let go of your pride and I'll give you everything." He murmurs.

And again he builds you up and again you refuse to give in. Again and again until you're outright crying, until you're heaving with it, until you're just a live-wire, an aching, open wound.

And again he does it, adjusts so he sits up with you, so you're near bent in half, so he can look down at you now. It's so horrible, it's so embarrassing–

One more. He knows it, can feel it, hear it in your little hitching sobs.

And then finally, finally;

"Suguru, please–please, I'm sorry, I-I'm sorry–"

It hits you so hard that all you can manage is a strangled gasp. Your peak is a head rush, a full body surge, a wave that goes still for a moment before crashing hard and fast. You cry openly, twist in his hold, let him lay you back down, let him guide you through it. You pulse and burst on his tongue, throbbing, aching in a way you've never felt before.

"Good girl," he rumbles, and it's so–it's so proud. It's so condescending. You want to be mad. You want to push him away and scratch and kick and bite, but when he holds you, you just cry. And cry. And he kisses you hard on the mouth again so you can taste yourself. He says it again while you're still mindless, "good girl. That's it–that's my girl. My good little wife."

"You're the worst," you get out, even as you let him bundle you into his arms.

"I know–I know." He hushes. "And I'll be worse still."

When you feel his fingers prod gently at your entrance, you start fighting him a little, "no–no, I'm done–I can't–"

"Yes, you can." He hums, "because I said so. Because I want you to."

His fingers slip in gently, so big, bigger than your own. Two feel like such a stretch and all he does is move them slow and crooked. You whimper, tears leaking out, cascading down your cheeks.

And he makes you come like that, too. And again on his mouth. The next all he does is fit his thigh between your legs, while he kisses you slow. Humiliates you. Strips you of all your dignity. For the last time, he lines himself back up, let's his length slip through your folds a few times. He watches himself against you, admires how deep he must reach in you, how wet you are for him.

You're so swollen. So sore and tired. You barely realize it at first. And then you feel the head of him catch and you stir, "wait–no, no–please, I can't–!" You hiccup.

He fills you in one smooth thrust. Makes you claw down into his back until you're sure you've drawn blood. You wail a little, embarrassingly, into his throat. You claw and fuss and fight him this time, renewed a little, feeling him root down inside of you.

He kisses at your tears, tastes them, "Look at you–" he husks, "crying like this for me. Look at the mess I've made out of you. Not so proud now, are we?"

He kisses your palm that tries to push his face away.

He bites your tender lip. He takes your hands in his own and laces his finger between yours to force them down onto the bed. He quells your fight. He ruts into you deep and hard.

He does that until you come again, so brutally around him that all you can do is tremble in his arms, that you feel as if you've fractured apart into little pieces. Your walls get so tight that he can't help himself, starts to babble a little, thrusts growing reckless;

"I'm never letting you go–you'll be mine if it's the last thing I do. I'm going to covet you. I'm going to ruin you, I'm going to fucking ruin you–"

You bite his shoulder so viciously that you start to taste blood.

He grabs your jaw, he squeezes until it hurts. He squeezes until you release.

"I'm the only thing you have now." He growls, thrusts turning mean, ruthless. Desperate. "I'll be the only thing you'll ever have now."

You glare through your tears, and get out his name, and then you croak, "I've already ruined you–look at you. Look at you."

A few more artless thrusts and he comes with a broken groan, raw, against your jumping pulse. You feel him fill you again, deep, and warm. Strangely soothing after everything, after all of it. You go slack for a moment as you heave, as you feel him breathe against your chest.

And this time he is done. This time, he holds you, even when you try to weakly push him away.

"Stop fussing," he scolds softly, stroking slow over your sides, petting you, soothing you. You feel so boneless that you listen, settle down into the bed, into his touch, into his weight still atop you.

He's weakened you to him, stripped you down so you're limp and exhausted, and in need of care. His care.

He bathes you. And before that, he makes you wrap your arms around him to carry you to the bathroom. He doesn't carry you like a bride but with your arms around his neck, with your legs around his waist, wants you to nose into his throat, to be pressed fully to him. He doesn't allow you something so dignified as being carried like a bride.

And he doesn't allow you privacy, either, not to use the bathroom or to clean yourself. He does it for you. You think about asking him to leave you. You think about begging him. You swallow it down and can't decide if it's pride now that holds your tongue or something else. If it's worse to beg now or if it's worse to be cared for like this. You can't decide if it's more embarrassing to ask him to leave or to let him stay and see it all.

He sits in the tub with you and wipes your tears. He runs the warm water over your shoulders, along your arms. He cleans inside you, even when you make a noise of protest.

He shushes you gently as his fingers delve into you again, "just settle. Relax." And when you go limp against him, head on his shoulder, he praises you in low, soft tones, "that's it–there. That's all, darling."

He is surprisingly gentle. Surprisingly subdued and at peace while he cares for you.

He dries you. He carries you back to bed. You're sore and tender, can feel all his marks and bites and the ache between your legs now very acutely.

He lays atop you, head on your chest, limbs thrown around you. You allow your hands to delve into his hair and you realize much of what he said is true;

He is all you have now. And the sorcery world is to blame, the ones who outcasted you and your family. Him.

Shyly, you draw a finger over the line of his brow, the slope of his nose. He is all you have. He is who you're stuck with, for better or for worse. You let it settle in you, deep and unmoving.

He is all you have.

You hold him tighter, know that maybe he could ruin you or that you could ruin him. You hold him tighter and know that he'll be yours. Or maybe you'll be his.

But more importantly, you know that he could ruin for you. He could ruin all of them.

As if possessed, you whisper it.

You whisper what you want him to become in his ear, as you trace over the scratches and the bites and the wounds. As you hold him to you. As you willingly wrap you arms around him. You tell him you want him to become a monster. You want him to avenge you, avenge himself, to tear it all down. You give him all your ire and contempt. You give him everything ugly while he sleeps and dreams and sighs into your neck.

You poison him. You curse him.

You will ruin them all. You will be something powerful. Something horrible. You will change everything. You will ruin everything.

All I have to do is ask, you think. All I have to do is ask.

And he will give you everything.

[contreparry]

Heyo! How about a prompt from the sexual tensions list for Fenders or whoever you'd like? [ UNBUTTON ] : due to heat or stress or other reasons, sender unbuttons the top of their shirt to reveal their neckline.

Here’s some Fenders from the modern!Thedas roommates AU (a prequel to this fill) for @dadrunkwriting !

It was an unmitigated disaster.

Fenris called management when the kitchen sink backed up that morning. He watched the murky water swirl around in the deep stainless steel basin, scraps of potato and carrot peels lazily floating about like boats on a summer lake. As the automated message cheerfully informed him to “please hold” for the third time in ten minutes, Fenris’ gaze wandered over towards Anders.

Anders stood in the middle of the kitchen. He wore turquoise running shorts, slippers shaped like nugs, and a pale pink short-sleeve collared shirt covered in smiling, dancing cats. His hair was tugged back into a stubby tail, tendrils of dark blond hair slipping loose to curl at the nape of his neck. As the dirty water in the sink slowly rose, Anders would methodically dip a large bowl into the mess and deposit the dirty water into a giant plastic bucket.

“Please hold!” the automated voice exclaimed joyously before it cut back to a soundtrack that a charitable person might call smooth jazz. Fenris watched as Anders unbuttoned one button of his shirt, then another and another until it hung open on his skinny frame. Fenris’ mouth went dry. Anders wrinkled his nose dipped the bowl back into the water. A tendril of hair curled along the back of his neck, long and elegant like a swan.

Fenris wanted to bite that neck.

“Please hold! -dooo woooo do da wah wooo-“

Anders bent down, grasped the paint bucket handle, and rose up in a fluid (ha) motion. He shuffled past Fenris on his trip towards the bathroom, and Fenris couldn’t help but wonder when Anders got those shorts. Anders hated running. But they were… nice shorts. Made his long legs somehow longer, as if fabric held that power.

Might be nice to feel those long legs wrapped around his waist again. He was always more of a hands on type of man.

“I’d say we should call in Hawke, but she might tear out the wall to find the damned clog,” Anders called out from the bathroom, and in that moment Fenris wanted to hang up, call Hawke, and get this whole plumbing problem sorted so he could drag Anders into bed and fuck him until the man lost all control of his tongue.

“Please hold! -doo daaah wah waaaah-“

“Hawke,” Fenris croaked, coughed, began again. “Hawke will bring the apartment down around our ears. I want my security deposit back.”

“Cheapskate,” Anders retorted as he emerged from the bathroom. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and the curve of his cheek into his stubble.

“You’d do the same,” Fenris replied, and he obligingly stepped back as Anders passed by him to return to bailing out the flooding sink. Anders only snorted and returned to his work, lean muscles rippling as he moved. Fenris bit his lower lip until it hurt. This shouldn’t be erotic. They were exhausted, sweaty and miserable as they switched off between calling their apartment’s management and bailing their kitchen sink, but Fenris’ eyes remained glued to Anders.

Anders couldn’t be more seductive if he tried, and there lay the great irony: Anders wasn’t even trying to appeal to him. He was trying to fix their sink! But Fenris’ libido had other ideas, as usual, and Anders in his “laundry day” worst was now the peak of eroticism.

“We’re ordering out tonight,” Anders declared with a huff. “I refuse to cook.”

“You rarely cook,” Fenris pointed out.

“I refuse to make you cook after this,” Anders amended. “This is- Maker’s Balls! I’m texting Hawke. Just to see who answers the call first.” Anders grabbed his phone from the counter and texted furiously, his expression pinched with annoyance.

“… might as well,” Fenris agreed, because the sooner this disaster was solved the sooner he might manage to shuck Anders out of his clothes.

[andsewingishalfthebattle]

I want to dress up as the swan from the movie The Other Sister or as one of the birds from Henny Penny episode from Golden Girls. The problem is, I have no idea how to even start making either. How were they able to get the shape for the body and be able to get in and out of it?

(Full disclosure, I haven't actually seen either of these, so I'm basing my recommendations on what screenshots I could pull up with an image search on airport wi-fi.)

There are actually a lot of options for creating a shaped body structure, depending on your budget and skill level. The lowest-budget option would be a shapeable wire mesh like hardware cloth, sculptural armature mesh, or even chicken wire (you'll want to wear heavy-duty leather work gloves to work with any of these; cut wire edges are sharp!). Use heavy gauge wire or another rigid material to create a structural frame (around the edge, and to support the weight of the body), then cover that with the more flexible mesh so you can shape the "skin" however you want. You can then cover the mesh with fabric, fusible felt, or thin EVA foam and attach the surface treatment (feathers, etc.) to that layer.

Going back about 15 years 😅 this is how I made my Archangel Michael wings, shown below as a WIP. The wire mesh pockets fit over the articulated PVC frame, with heavier (~10 ga.) wire ribs supporting the bell shape. These wings were much simpler and didn't require compound curves like the swan body would, but the principle is the same.

If your budget is a bit higher, you could also consider materials such as Worbla's Kobracast Art, FossShape, or Celastic, which can be heat-formed and fused to fabric to create a seamless structure that needs no covering. These materials are a bit more sophisticated and look more professional, but they can be quite expensive over large areas, so they are more commonly used for costumes that need to be able to travel and remain durable (e.g. for theatre or a cosplay competition) rather than a one-off costume (e.g. for a Halloween party). You know best what your budget and costume purpose are, so choose whichever material best suits your needs and skills!

As for getting into/out of it... The Other Sister is actually a pretty simple design, as far as that goes. It's a one-piece step-in costume -- the actor's legs go through a hole in the bottom, and then it's pulled up around her hips as a single unit. It's supported by suspenders that (probably) attach to structural crossbars inside the frame, maybe with an additional stay somewhere to keep it from rotating around the actor's body. The Golden Girls one is more complicated, as it was made long enough ago that it would have used more traditional methods and materials. It's likely built with a combination of boning, buckram, steel wire, and padded fabric rolls attached to a boned corset/bustier for support (similar to the support structures for things like Vegas showgirl backpieces). There's probably a base garment that the various parts of the outer costume attach to. That's not to say you couldn't simplify it in your version, though! Lots of new materials have been invented in the past 40 years, so we have more versatile (and lighter weight) options now.

If you want to go really hog wild with this concept, you might also want to look up some tutorials for Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere. I've seen some phenomenal swan-body shapes come out of that cosplay community! And for additional structural support recommendations and patterning guidance, the fursuit/mascot building communities also have a lot of great resources and tutorials.

Good luck! :)

[allwaswellrp]

" Secrets are ultimately too hard to conceal. The keys to the rites that will transform the world are neither hidden nor rare nor expensive. They are available to anyone. " - T.E.D. KLEIN, the ceremonies

grimoire summary -

Grimoire University is the only wizarding University in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2000 by Johan Hoffman, who believed that the key to success was education. The University is globally renowned for magical further education, particularly in the art of Divination. The University is situated in the beautiful Snowdonia National Park where the castle walls are enchanted with a Disillusionment Charm to keep our institute private for our students and staff. Within our grounds we have shops, cafes, entertainment facilities, gym facilities and advice centres. We are proud to say we also have botanical gardens, Llyn Mwyngil lake and are surrounded by mountain ranges which makes our University unique. Through partnerships with Hogwarts and other magical Universities across the world, we harness our expertise in research and education to advance magical knowledge, transform lives and shape a better future for our communities, and the world. 

the four houses

Below are the four houses of Grimoire University that students are sorted into once accepted. They are founded by Johan Hoffman and all have their own colors and mascots based off the constellations. Sorting is executed with a palmistry reading done by the Headmistress.

HOUSE OF CUPS

The Cups House is known for their compassion, idealism, creativity and spirituality. Students of whom -- upon undergoing the palmistry sorting -- experience the lines of their hand GLOW TEAL are placed into this house. The dormitories for the House of Cups is, on the contrary, frightening to some. To sleep beneath the moving waters is not an easy feat, but once you have taken the stairwell down, you are met with colors of teal and beige, and above, a clear, glass ceiling that gives you a visual to all of the creatures and life in the river. Edible lotus flowers are made daily for the students and candles in the shapes of doves adorn the walls. It is located under the river which leads to Snowdonia National Park. To enter, you must travel to the edge of the water that runs through the grounds of Grimoire. From there, you must find a still spot in the water; this is the door. house colors — Teal & Beige house mascot — The Swan

HOUSE OF PENTACLES

The Pentacles House is known for their gregariousness, practicality, insatiability and invulnerability. Students of whom -- upon undergoing the palmistry sorting -- experience the lines of their hand GLOW VIOLET are placed into this house. The dormitories for the House of Pentacles are exactly what you might imagine; an elegant archway leading into the main area, which is brimming with white lilies and divine foliage. The ceilings are scattered with floating clouds, almost as if you were staring up at the sky above, and the windows offer you the most beautiful view of the mountains in the distance. Gold accents decorate the furniture, giving the room an embodiment of riches. It is located in the highest tower to the East. To enter, you must simply knock thrice. house colors — Violet & Gold house mascot — The Crow

HOUSE OF SWORDS

The Swords House is known for their methodical approach, honesty, isolation and intuition. Students of whom -- upon undergoing the palmistry sorting -- experience the lines of their hand GLOW MAROON are placed into this house. The dormitories for the House of Swords is just beyond a large, towering door made of steel. Two swords are embossed in the center, crossing over one another to form a large 'x'. Upon entering, you are greeted with flags adorning the walls, wreaths embroidered in the fabric and decorated with marigolds. Every item is a pair; two of the same sofas, lamps, curtains, et cetera. The room is minimalistic, but that is just how they like it. It is located beneath ground level where you must walk down a long, winding corridor to reach your destination. To enter, you must stroke the handle of the left sword twice. house colors — Maroon & Onyx house mascot — The Little Fox

HOUSE OF WANDS

The Wands House is known for their intelligence, impatience, charisma and optimism. Students of whom -- upon undergoing the palmistry sorting -- experience the lines of their hand GLOW MARIGOLD are placed into this house. The dormitories for the House of Wands is dark yet bewitching, just as you might expect. Black was sprinkled in with the maroon furniture, and the decor and tables were all made of various wand woods. Vines covered the ceiling, some draped down the walls and lined the chairs, encompassing you in what might be reminiscent of a forest. In the center of the room, which has stairs encircling it, is a fire that never dwindles. It is located, simply put, on the first floor of the university just adjacent to the dining hall. To enter, you must tell the statue of Ignatia Wildsmith your fondest memory of the day. house colors — Marigold & Grey house mascot — The Owl

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Insanity

Prompt: Hi... I uh... I’m back, again anonymously.... to see if maybe... you could... write a thing? No pressure but if so... maybe a hurt/comfort?

Remus is used to dealing with feeling like he is loosing his mind on his own. Like he puts up an insane front so that the others don’t notice when he is loosing his grip on his sanity. Then he ends up laughing as he is falling apart and thinking that he has indeed found the real meaning of going insane. And he just laughs until it hurts and the laughing fades but the tears don’t stop. He’s thinking of doing something drastic like just running away to the subconscious so he doesn’t have to exist as a side anymore, but on his was he runs into Janus and Virgil or other people if ya want. Then they talk him down out of his insanity and realize remus needs a lot more help than they ever imagined.

I know this is a really long prompt and if you don’t wanna write it no pressure whatsoever. I just like your writing better than mine lol. Uh, thanks if you do and thanks for having boundaries if you don’t! <3

Thanks for the prompt! 

Read on Ao3 Part 2 (ish)

Warnings: as you can guess, this revolves not just around Remus, but on intrusive thoughts. Self-harm, suicidal ideation, psychosis, insanity. There is a happy ending where our boi gets comforted and grounded, but the way to getting there ain’t pretty. Take care of yourselves please

Pairings: LAMP, DLAMP, DLAMPR, can be platonic or romantic, you decide

Word Count: 3864

Sometimes the world just fucking sucks.

Sometimes the world just really fucking hates him.

Sometimes the world just fucking sucks.

 Remus doesn’t know why his brain decides that right fucking now is the perfect time to swan dive off a balcony into a wrought-iron fence, he just knows that the wind on his face cuts his cheek like ice because of how cold it is.

 He doesn’t understand the compulsion to stride to the middle of a volcano and dive into the magma just to see how the lava flows on the inside, he just knows that the burn in his hands from being even this close to a volcano is only matched by the burn in his head to just fucking go.

 He really doesn’t know how he ends up wanting to rip his brother apart, piece by piece, so he can see how every inch of his muscles work, he only knows that hat he’s got his arms tightly around Roman, it’s the most grounded he’s felt in fucking ages.

 Sometimes the world just really fucking hates him.

 The light switch would look perfect controlling the precise contractions of his organs. The bird that flies by outside the window tears his trachea out with its razor-sharp beak. The water bottle Patton uses would screw into his eye sockets until his corneas shattered.

 Remus knows to laugh them off. They can’t hurt him, they’re his! His ideas! They’re supposed to be disgusting, revolting, it’s a good sign if it’s him they revolt too. After all, he’s sure as hell got higher standards.

 On the other hand…is this what it fucking feels like?

 The idea of using a knife sometimes makes it feels like ants are crawling through his bone marrow. The steel glints way too harshly in the light as he picks it up and suddenly all he can see is blood, blood, and more blood, cuts in his arms, throbbing muscle, it hurts, why doesn’t it hurt that bad, make it stop, make it go away —

 Remus takes a deep breath and puts the knife down.

 He’ll walk past a window on a bad day and all he can feel is glass, sharp glass, in his skin, in his eyes, in his tongue, broken glass, inside him, cutting little nicks and tears and it hurts, it won’t stop hurting, why can’t he taste the blood, what’s happening to him—

 He draws the curtains and walks away without another word.

 The Sides are all there in the living room and his hands itch for his morning star, for a sledgehammer, something, anything to break them apart, put them back together, stitch them up in horribly beautiful ways, listen to their screams as their vocal chords break, why can’t he hear them screaming, why are their screams so loud—

 He smiles feebly and sinks out.

 Remus curls up in his bed and howls, the room collapsing in on itself, pressing against his lungs. He keeps screaming and screaming and screaming until he’s laughing. He laughs. He keeps laughing until his voice dies in his throat. He keeps laughing.

 Something has its wriggly little talons in his stomach and he can’t stop laughing. It hurts. He can’t breathe. He wants it to stop. He never wants to know what it’s like to laugh again. He never wants to stop laughing.

 He wants it to stop.

 He knows exactly what this fucking feels like.

 He can’t open his eyes sometimes because he can’t look at what he knows will appear in front of him. He can’t close his eyes sometimes because he’s too terrified of what will be carved into the underside of his lids. He can’t speak because he knows what horrifying thing will tumble out of his mouth. He can’t stay quiet because he knows what happens when all the voices stay trapped in his head.

 He can’t be because it hurts too much.

 He can’t not be because then it will stop hurting.

 The others don’t know about this. Of course they fucking don’t. They don’t listen to him when he fucking wants to talk to them about shit, why the fuck would they pay attention to the stuff he doesn’t want to tell them?

 Patton doesn’t give a single flying fuck about him. He made that perfectly fucking clear.

 Logan thinks he’s boring. That’s the most fucking offensive thing Remus has ever heard, and that’s fucking saying something.

 Virgil’s a scaredy-cat. And he’s gotten boring to terrify. Virgil’s afraid of fucking everything.

 Janus is so nuanced, it’s fucking annoying.

 Roman’s his brother.

 Remus growls and rocks himself faster, clutching the sides of his shirt until the fabric tears. He squeezes his eyes shut and ignores the pain in his ribs. The voices howl and cackle as the winds swirl around him. He ignores them as best he can.

 It’s fucking cold in here and it’s too fucking hot.

 They don’t see this part of the fucking mess that is Remus’s existence. They don’t see the un-fun parts of the crazy. They don’t see the reality of what Remus has to deal with.

 They see the sex jokes, the crude puns, the horrible images he plants in their funny little heads. What must it be like in there, it must be so boring.

 They don’t see the way he has to hold himself back from jumping onto every sharp object, throwing himself from every high height, digging his teeth into his own flesh and stripping it away from the bone.

 Remus growls as he shoves the pillow between his teeth. The cotton tastes awful but it keeps his teeth away from his own tongue. He’d tried that once, tried biting it off, maybe the horrible taste of battery acid would leave his mouth if he had no tastebuds. He just wound up on the floor of the bathroom, vomiting up chunk after chunk until his tongue grew back, twitching against the roof of his mouth. He started biting the pillows after that.

 It’s so fucking stupid, that they can’t fucking see this shit. He knows he can’t let them, he’s got fucking wires crawling around beneath his skin. He’s convinced of it. He can’t listen to Patton being condescending, he can’t listen to Logan flatly telling him he’s off his fucking rocker, he can’t listen to Virgil flip out at him, he can’t listen to Janus’s snide disapproval.

 He can’t fuck up his brother.

 So he just laughs.

 Long and loud and hard and obnoxious because if they’re listening to the laughter they’re not listening to him.

 There’s always going to be something they fucking want to pick on with him; they’re so fucking boring they can’t tolerate a little bit of difference. But if they start poking at his scars with their razor-long nails he’s going to rip open his skin and let the swarm of wasps inside him devour them whole. So he just laughs and laughs and lets them stare at him in disgust.

 Disgust is better.

 Sometimes his laughter is fucking hysterical, rising and rising and rising until they’re all screaming at him at the top of their lungs just to be heard. They say that he’s scaring them. Good. They should fucking be scared.

 Sometimes his laughter is just in his head. They say they can’t hear him but he’s laughing. He’s laughing and they can’t hear him. Could they ever?

 Sometimes he doesn’t realize it’s him. Someone will be laughing and they’ll all be glaring at him and oh, yeah, that’s him.

 Sometimes he just can’t shut the fuck up.

 Maybe it would be easier if he fucking could.

 If he could shut his brain the fuck up for two goddamn seconds maybe he could actually make this work. Maybe he could be palatable enough to be tolerated. What does being tolerated feel like? What does it look like? Is it red, like blood, does it run in rivulets down his arms?

 Is it dry, like the pillows? Does it just sit there in the corner, begging to be torn apart by razor-sharp teeth, or does it actively try to suffocate him as he wraps his mouth around words that won’t ever fit?

 Or is it empty, hollow, like the blood vessels in his heart? Does it make him ache when a strong breeze blows by? Does it taste like steel, ozone, does it burn his tongue as he tries to breathe?

 What does tolerance feel like, Remus wonders, because he’s all too familiar with isolation.

 He’s never really alone. The voices won’t leave him be. They scream and cackle and whisper and taunt him with their awful, awful words and ideas and images and sensations. But he’s alone in every way that matters.

 Except for the monsters.

 He and Roman haven’t told the others about the Subconscious. It’s the one thing they’ve both consistently agreed on. The others don’t get to know about the Subconscious.

 It’s not a nice place. It’s not even really a place. It’s a void, deep and vast, populated by things darker than darkness. The things in there are terrifying enough to make Remus’s skin crawl. They drag things down into the depths and rip them from the inside out, shredding tissues as they’re flipped inside out.

 Monsters live in there.

 Beasts. Creatures. Things.

 They whisper to Remus sometimes. Their tongues are soaked in fear. Not Virgil’s type of fear, a thicker type of fear. It oozes out of their gaping maws and coats Remus’s limbs until he’s stuck, drowning in a tar pit. Insanity.

 Sometimes he can struggle out of it.

 Not this time.

 The monster purrs in satisfaction as its shadows whip about the walls, crawling up to the ceiling, tapping their long, bony fingers against the very edges of the eye. His ribcage creaks, rent asunder by the sudden invisible weight. Dark passages yawn at the foot of his bed, around the fuzzy edges of the candle’s glow. Is there a candle in here? He’s not allowed a candle. Why is there a candle in here?

 The shadows creep closer, up the long winding staircase—staircase? Where is he? Is he moving? Are they moving him?—through the banister, dancing up the curtain strings. There is insanity here, delectable, soaking through the walls, coloring the soft breaths that sigh in the still interior. The shadows creep closer, luxuriating in the darkness, the unseen. Remus stands at the brink of madness, teetering, awake, dripping head to toe in insanity.

 A single candle burns atop the nightstand. He’s not allowed a candle. Its light flickers. His head pokes out above the sheets, fingers curled around its edge. He didn’t tuck himself in. He isn’t in bed. Yes, he is. The bed is standing up behind him. Now it’s lying down. He doesn’t know what’s real anymore.

 He dares not move, lest the shadows hear him and find him, and yet he dares not close his eyes. A chill reaches a long finger through the window pane and lightly strokes the space between his shoulder blades. He keens.

 The fingers lift his hairs to stand aloft, tugging them as if they are puppeteering his arms. They aren’t his arms. They never were. The chill cackles, diving to squeeze his legs, massaging its frigidity into his thighs. A knuckle comes up to trail along the soft skin under his arms, laughing as he curls up tight, trying to block the probing touches from snatching the rest of his warmth. He’s too warm. He’s too cold. The air atop him merely flutters, letting the chill dig and prod and one at him with its relentless talons. The insanity merely rumbles, soaking him to the bone. Is that what it wants? To steal his bones?

 As the insanity drips through the air, it fills his ears, sending the shadows along the walls, up the ceiling, down beneath the skin. The light flickers. The insanity pours into his eyes. The chill rubs it in, still reaching wiggling fingers toward the soft meat of his tummy, blowing the insanity into ripples across his pupils. It reaches two fingers into his mouth, sliding across his tongue. As he gasps, it wriggles back under his arms and cackles anew. The insanity simply hums, sliding across his skin, down to pool in the hollow of his arms, nestled against his chest. Crueler hands dig into the meat at the back of his knees, the undersides of his rear, delighting in how he shivers. He whimpers. A knuckle runs over the very edge of him and lingers, coaxing the insanity to its wiggling lure.

 The pit yawns beneath him, the monster voice luring him in, closer, deeper, come, down…

 He does the only thing he can do.

 He laughs.

 Loudly. Heartily. He laughs so hard it bends him in half, cracking his spine. The sound scrapes along his throat. It rips spittle out of him, flying off into the darkness. He laughs. He laughs. He can’t stop laughing.

 Spittle is joined by tears.

 He can’t stop.

 It won’t stop.

 They won’t stop.

 Nothing ever stops.

 “Remus? Remus!”

 “Jesus Christ, Remus, what’s going on?”

 “Come away from there, sweetie, you’re going to fall.”

 “Remus, come on, come here, listen to us, come on, you’re—you’re gonna fall.”

 Hands wrap around his arms and yank, sending him hurtling back from the edge. He falls into something soft.

 “Hey, hey,” comes the quiet growl, “hey, dude, it’s okay. Shh, shh, breathe, Remus, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

  Too late.

 “You gotta breathe, man. It’s gonna be worse if you don’t.”

 I can’t, Remus thinks frantically, I can’t breathe.

 He’s still laughing. There are still tears running down his face.

 “In and out, Remus, you can do it…”

 Virgil? Is that Virgil? Isn’t Virgil scared of him? Why is Virgil here?

 “There you go, Remus, it’s okay…” Virgil’s rubbing his arms. Arm? How many does he have? “It’s okay.”

 Something hits his chest like a thunderclap and he gasps.

 “That’s it, that’s it…it’s okay, Remus, it’s gonna be okay.” Something’s strangling him. No—no, trapping him. Also no. What’s happening? “You’re alright now, Remus.”

 “V—Virgil?”

 “Yeah, Remus, it’s me. J’s here too, it’s gonna be okay. We got you.”

 Remus cranes his head backward to look up at what’s holding him. Janus smiles down at him, concern written plainly all over his face.

 “Hey, sweetie,” he says softly, stroking Remus’s damp cheek, “you gave us quite the scare there.”

 “S-scare?”

 “You looked like you were hurting,” he says, not unkindly, “and that you were scared.”

 Something twists in his gut.

 “What would you know about being scared?”

 To their credit, neither of them fucking blinks.

 “I know that I care about you,” Janus murmurs, still cupping Remus’s face, “and that the thought of you falling into that pit scared me.”

 “I care about you too,” Virgil says, “and you were hurting.”

 “Everything hurts,” Remus hisses, yanking at Janus to get him to let go, “there are ants crawling around inside of me and monsters force-feeding me insanity.”

 Virgil shoots Janus a worried look. Janus reaches behind them to fetch a tissue box, silently cleaning Remus’s face.

 “It won’t stop,” he mutters, “it never stops.”

 “What never stops, sweetie?”

 “Everything.”

 Janus glances up. Then back down.

 “The others are worried,” he says softly, “they want to come see you. Should we let them?”

 He can’t hold back the scoff. “Why would they care?”

 “Because they care about you, sweetie, you’re important.”

 “No, I’m not.”

 “Of fucking course you are,” Virgil says immediately, “don’t say that.”

 “You’ve got a fucking funny way of showing it,” Remus hisses, “you don’t want me around.”

 “That’s not true!”

 “Patton.”

 “No, Logan! He doesn’t believe we care about him, let me go—“

 “Patton?” Remus turns his head.

 Patton…Patton is also crying?

 The other Side drops to his knees in front of Remus, reaching out to catch another set of Remus’s tears in his palms. His lip wobbles, curling around Remus protectively.

 “Of course we care about you, kiddo,” he manages, “you’re so wonderful.”

 “You can’t fucking stand me.”

 “I don’t understand you,” Patton corrects, “but I could never hate you. You’re so passionate. I love the way you love things.”

 Fucking pause.

 “You—you what?”

 “I care about you, kiddo.” Patton presses his forehead against Remus’s. “Please don’t leave.”

 What the fuck is going on? The monsters pull back, uncertain, but the ants have no such qualms. They burrow deeper into his bones, crawling through his muscles in searing agony.

 “Remus,” Logan calls softly, “Remus, can you hear me?”

 “Yeah,” he gasps, “yeah, I can hear you.”

 “Good.” There’s a gentle hand under his chin. “What’s the matter?”

 “There are ants in my bones and monsters trying to drown me in insanity.”

 Logan just nods. He fucking nods. “Why do you think there are ants in your bones?"

 “I can fucking feel them,” Remus growls, “they chewed through my veins. They’re in me.”

 “Where do you think they started,” Logan says softly, “can you show me?”

 Remus just lifts his wrists limply. Logan takes one in his hands, frowning in concentration as he runs his fingers gently over the skin.

 “There aren’t any marks here,” he pronounces after a moment, “no holes, no bite marks.”

 “There…there aren’t?”

 “Not here.” Logan holds his hand out, palm up in offering. “Where else?”

 He lays his other wrist shakily in Logan’s grip. He looks it over with the same attentive care, pronouncing no bite marks. No ants.

 “Are you sure?”

 “I’m sure,” he promises, rubbing his thumb over the back of Remus’s hand, “is there anywhere else you’d like me to check?”

 “Behind my ears,” he blurts before he can stop himself, “I—I can hear them.”

 Logan nods and stretches his arm forward. “Come here, then.”

 Has Logan always been this…soft? The gentle fingers pressing and stroking behind his ear, carding through his hair, have they always been so…kind?

 “Would you like me to take a picture,” Logan whispers after a moment, “to show you there’s nothing?”

 Remus nods. There’s a quiet click of the camera shutter.

 “See?”

 “…yeah. Yeah.”

 “Anywhere else?”

 “My back. My spine. It—it hurts.”

 “May I have a look, then?”

 Logan checks him over. Every single spot. He doesn’t once roll his eyes or huff that Remus is being ridiculous. He doesn’t scold him for it. He doesn’t pretend that the ants are real and he knows how to get them out. He doesn’t tell Remus that he’s going to be eaten alive from the inside.

 He just…checks. Patiently and thoroughly. His hands are warm. His voice is quiet.

 “I can have an x-ray ordered,” he says after he checks the last spot, “if you’re still unsure.”

 “N-no,” Remus manages, shaking a little, “I—I believe you.”

 Logan nods. He reaches out to cup Remus’s chin again. “Are you alright?”

 Is he?

 Has he ever been?

 “N-no.”

 “That’s okay.” Logan smiles—fucking smiles—at him and glances up at the others. “Can I show them how to check for you, in case it happens again?”

 The question shocks him to his core. He barely has the wherewithal to nod.

 Logan’s hands are back on his skin, turning and pointing carefully. He can feel their eyes on him as he works. Janus gently undoes the top of Remus’s collar so they can make sure his neck is clear as well.

 “Roman?”

 Remus’s heart sinks.

 “Roman, do you want to see how to—Roman, what are you doing?”

 Remus peers nervously over his shoulder to see Roman standing in front of the pit. From the line of his shoulders, he can see how tense Roman is. His hands are shaking.

 “...Roman?”

 He turns. His face is deathly pale. His gaze finds Remus and he swallows heavily.

 “…Re?”

 “Roman?” Remus swallows. Is that what his voice sounds like? “Ro?”

 “Were you…” Roman glances over his shoulder. “Did you…?”

 Shame.

 Shame bubbles up so fast it springs hot, guilty tears behind Remus’s eyes. He ignores the worried noises from the others as he slumps.

 A truly wounded noise comes from in front of him as Roman barrels forward, knocking his brother flat on his ass and wrapping his arms so tightly around him that Remus gasps awake.

 Warm. Real. Roman. Roman is here, Roman is safe, Roman cares about him, Roman is fucking here. He lets out a cry of his own and clings to his brother.

 “Not one of them is gonna touch you,” Roman swears, his voice shaking, “you hear me? I’ll gut them myself. They’ll have to get through me before they can even touch you.”

 “I know, Ro—I know—“

 “Swear to me,” Roman whispers frantically, “tell me you know I would never have let them take you. Tell me you know I’d’ve torn that place apart just to get you back.”

 “I know, Roman, I—I—“

 “Don’t ever scare me like that again, Re, I can’t take it.”

 “I’m sorry.”

 “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you, you’re staying right here—“ Roman holds him tighter and it’s the good kind of sore—“right fucking here.”

 Distantly, he hears Janus chuckle and there’s another warm swirl across his back. He looks up from the crook of Roman’s neck to see Logan settling in, reaching out to give them a hug. Janus sits behind him. Virgil and Patton grab blankets and join the pile.

 It’s…it’s good.

 “Listen to us,” Roman keeps whispering, “not them. They’re not gonna lay a hand on you. We got you, Remus, we’ll keep you.”

 “Gonna keep me?”

 “Always, Re.”

 “R-Roman—“

 “Let it out, Remus, come on. We’re not going anywhere.”

 Remus cries.

 Sometimes the world just fucking sucks.

 But sometimes, as Patton ruffles his hair, as Virgil leans his head on his shoulder, as Janus rubs a hand across his tummy, as Logan starts talking very softly, as Roman holds him tight, sometimes it doesn’t.

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[remakethestars]

CABIN 10 — APHRODITE

Headcanons.

❝I want to apologize to all the women I have called pretty before I’ve called them intelligent or brave. I am sorry I made it sound as though something as simple as what you’re born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed mountains. From now on, I will say things like, ‘You are resilient,’ or, ‘You are extraordinary.’ Not because I don’t think you’re pretty. But because you are so much more than that.❞ 

— Rupi Kaur

Headcanon masterlist.

They’re the camp hairdressers. You need a trim? You want it cut? You want it died? You want to shave it all off? Hit ‘em up.

The type of people that will straight-up chop their hair if it doesn't match their outfit. Somehow, it always works out? I'm looking at Micarah Tewers.

They also run a secret ear piercing — or anything else you need to pierce — parlor.

Okay, but consider: children of Aphrodite that grow up to be models.

They can charm speak the photographers into letting them pick their own poses & not make them do seductive ones if they’re not comfortable with them.

Some create clothing lines that represent sustainable fashion & have big names but small carbon footprints.

Some are spies.

Think about it! They know how to switch subtle bits of their personality to fit in with everyone they come across, when & when not to use their charm.

The hide outfits under other outfits & can slip one off in public to reveal the other & lose a tail.

And they'd probably be great at disguise makeup. Add a prosthetic chin, contour their nose differently, pull off their wig, & they're a completely different person.

Plus, their combat training at C.H.B. makes them the perfect agent.

The floor next to their bunk is scattered with fabric cuttings, pins, needles, their sewing machine, serger, & measuring tape.

The number of times someone's gotten a needle or pin in their foot's a tad concerning.

Will absolutely not wear a top with an overstitched collar. Fast fashion is so tacky! Understitch is the way to go, the staple of a quality garment.

Vintage is better. Not because it's in style (that's a plus, though), but because the seams are big enough for you to let out, & it's made to last.

Experts at thrifting. Not just 'cause it's trendy or whatever, but because they're excellent at upcycling & far too many perfectly good clothes go into the land fill each year.

Make stunning dresses out of Good Will table cloths & curtains.

Or stitch two items together into one better whole.

They iron their clothes; they're not animals.

Really good at getting stains out?

Totally in on the corset bustier top trend, but they're using spiral steel boning in place of zip-ties. Because, again, they want things to last & they're not tacky.

Pass each other tips. Like to tuck your top into your tights to avoid the bulge under your skirt.

Some found big-name, organic makeup companies that don't test on animals. They use packaging that can be recycled or that's biodegradable.

Borrow their clothes, sure, whatever, but double-dip in their makeup & die. The bacteria will give them acne. (Or is it the oils? Either way, you'll perish.)

Happy to drop their skincare routine, though.

You need to cover up that tattoo you got from C7? They got you.

Flawless makeup on a budget. Expensive doesn't always mean better.

They're taking you to the pool for a first date? Take a seat, C10 knows just the stuff. They use what Disney Princesses use.

Can guess the right shade of foundation/lipstick for you on the first couple tries.

A lot of them invest in magnetic lashes because glue's a b¡tch.

Reusable makeup wipes.

Rick says C10 kids just sit around the lake & check their reflection, but consider: working out gets them their dream bod. So, yes, they do, in fact, train.

They just do it with intricate braids/hair gel & stylish sportwear.

And if a potential partner finds it unattractive that they’re “too muscly,” they’re no longer a potential partner.

Weapons disguised as jewelry or chapstick/lipstick.

Thalia had a mace canister that turned into a spear, & I gotta say, I.D.K. how she planned to get that through security. Imagine, alternatively, a tube that appears to be full of bright red lipstick when the T.S.A. agent opens it, but actually turns into a spear when opened by a half-blood.

(I have a headcanon that Riptide would just be a pen in the hands of a mortal. Bounced around for years as random objects until Poseidon nabbed it & took it to Chiron — recall that pen you lost?)

A pink, velvet choker that turns into a kopis with a dove embossed in the handle.

Many choose to train in heels. Might as well wear in training what they’ll be wearing when attacked in the street.

They’ve got no time for internalized misogyny. 

“C10′s weak ‘cause they like being pretty!” Good way to lose a kneecap, Annabeth. You’ve grown up in this camp, you knew Selina, & you should know better.

They confront Piper’s misogyny pretty early on after The Lost Hero, but Piper still takes some time to get over her bias toward pink.

Are we not gonna talk about Rick’s fashion choices for Piper throughout the series? “She looks so fashionable.” To whom, Rick? To whom?

You couldn’t’ve done a little internet surfing just to see what was in style? I never leave the house in anything but jeans, Converse, & a graphic t-shirt from Walmart, & even I know she’s dressed like a middle-schooler! Probably because that’s how I dressed in middle-school… That’s not the point.

The point is just because a character likes makeup or fashion or the color pink, doesn’t mean they can’t/won’t fight for their lives & the lives of their friends if/when the time comes. And it doesn’t mean that they’re stupid or judgmental.

I don’t know a lot about makeup. Hades, I don’t even wear makeup — you can’t rub your eyes or scratch your face; it would drive me crazy. I don’t know a lot about fashion either. I don’t understand it, but I can respect it.

❝‘Jesus,’ Sara says as Branley walks past us. ‘Too cold to show off cleavage, so instead she goes for jeans so tight I can see her thong.’ ‘She looks nice,’ I say, and she does. Branley always looks put together in a way that tells me she spends hours in front of a mirror before going outside. And while I don’t understand that, I can respect it.❞

— Alex Craft, Mindy McGinnis’s The Female of the Species

According to The Lost Hero, all children of Aphrodite intuitively speak French. Cool, cool, cool — but consider, all of them also intuitively speak the language of flowers. 

They see a red rose, and they just know it symbolizes love & passion. They see an orange lily, to contrast, & they know it symbolizes hatred. 

There’s a copy of The Language of Flowers in their cabin, and it’s full of annotations, like, So-and-so gave these to so-and-so for Valentines Day! And, So-and-so gave these to so-and-so after their kiss on the Fourth of July; they obviously didn’t do their research! 

They work together with C4 (Demeter) to provide flowers for funerals & the like.

C10 bookshelves also contain a lot of romance novels. 

Beaten up copies of Pride & Prejudice & The Fault in Our Stars with faded highlighter over the beautiful lines & annotations in the margins.

The outside walls are a dusty pink, & the wood’s stained a dark brown that goes surprisingly well with the pink.

Inside, the walls are covered in faded wallpaper.

The southwest wall has a bay window with extra storage in the seat. (There’s not a body in there; they swear.)

(That’s an Arsenic & Old Lace reference, for you youngsters.)

The curtains have one chiffon layer closer to the window & a thicker floral fabric for inside. The thick curtains are replaced based on the season & whether or not someone’s decided to make a romper out of them.

They have a real bell jar with a real rose in front of the window. Legend has it it’s from Aphrodite herself.

Said window is a stained glass image of a dove.

The chaise lounge was probably beautiful when it was brought it, but it’s got fingernail polish & makeup stains on it now. Honestly, someone should really have that thing cleaned.

As you might have noticed, I placed a gif of swans at the top instead of a fancast for Aphrodite. This is because I think, as I believe most Percy Jackson fans do, multiple people should play her. I'd cast Arden Cho, Camila Mendes, Candice Patton, Diane Kruger, & Gal Gadot to start with.

Visit my Aphrodite cabin Pinterest board or my headcanon masterlist.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ I know I got a tad political with this one, but I didn’t & don’t intend to offend anyone. ━━━ These headcanons are what I consider to be canon in my fanfictions. They may be others’s headcanons I’ve subconsciously filed away in my noggin. If one’s yours and you want it removed or credited, please send me your post and let me know.

[sailtoafarawayland]

Savage

(A Dark Swan/Dark Hook vignette)

It was cruel, she knew that, knew that she shouldn't do it – but she was slipping a little more every day in her steadfastness to keep some small part of herself from the darkness, and his kiss had made her remember, had called her back to herself if only for a moment. She needed to feel him, to remember what it was like to be loved by him, held by him. She needed it as she needed to breath, and she was just far gone enough that she would drag him through hell to get it.

My muse wouldn't leave me alone yesterday, and this was her demand. It takes place during S5 Ep2 - “The Price”. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you all are as well. Please read through the tags if you have any triggers.

Rating: Explicit (sex, language, trigger warnings - rough sex, hate sex, verbal humiliation, degradation, anal sex, come marking, emotional manipulation) 

AO3 - FF

Savage

Killian could hear the sound of glass clinking to his left as she spoke, but drowning out even her voice was the the call from dead ahead, a heavy, bolted door looming – whispering, drawing him closer. His breath quickened, his body thrumming with something he couldn't place as it neared, and then like the tide receding all at once, the pull was broken, Swan's hand appearing in front of him, the scent of rum burning sweetly as his eyes found hers.

“I still also know the fastest way to a pirate's heart is through his liver,” she smiled, drinking in his gaze, tumbler of rum extended in her hand.  

“There's an even faster way,” he breathed, desperate to find his Emma once again in those eyes that were like looking through frost.

He swallowed her small gasp greedily, pouring every ounce of his love for her into the kiss, her taste a balm for his misery as he clung to the hope that this would be enough to bring her back to him, but the touch of her fingers in his hair was hesitant, and then it was gone altogether. Their lips parted, her words filling the space between.

“Now there's the pirate I remember,” she teased, leaning back in to claim him once more, but the sound of her voice, distant and unable to bridge the gap between them made him pull back entirely, his eyes taking in everything that their kiss hadn't changed.

“It didn't bloody work,” he breathed, panic threaded through each word as he stared at her unbelievably.

“You've been talking to Belle.”

The distance between them seemed to grow even as she stared intimately into his eyes, something in them luring him with a dark whisper.  

“Why didn't it work?”

“It didn't work because there's nothing to fix,” she retorted, her voice climbing in a way that felt almost human – almost like his Emma. “This is who I am now. Why can't you accept that – why can't anyone accept that?”

“Because this isn't you,” he insisted, knowing that somewhere beneath the guise of the Dark One, his Swan was still there, waiting for him. “What the hell happened in Camelot?”

“That seems to be the question of the day,” she nearly spat, face hardening as she looked away from him and moved toward the door.

“Then bloody answer me!” he roared, anger rippling beneath his skin like something alive as she turned, her face as closed to him as his memories.

“I wish I could.”

He strode across the distance to where she stood, needing to find something between them that felt familiar, something that felt how it used to be – that they were it for each other, meant to be.

“You can tell me anything.”

There was a flicker of something at the edge of her mouth, words she was holding back, but then they were gone, replaced with a tired smile as she slung her arm over his shoulder in something that was far from an embrace.

“But that would be no fun,” she purred, leaning in, their breath mingling and noses bumping as she inhaled him, “and I'm tired of talking – now, do you want to stay, or not?”

“Sorry, Swan,” he said, pulling back just enough that he could gaze into the eyes he knew were hiding something. “This may be who you think you are, but this isn't who I am.”

He felt the weight of her arm fall from his body, her head tilting curiously as she watched the battle he knew she would see inside of him – how the small step he took away from her clawed at his chest. Regret rose bitterly in his throat as he made the decision to leave her and moved toward the door, the exit that would be their last chance all too close – and then she spoke.

“But what if it is?”

He could hear the hint of truth in her words, something that fell oddly between the Emma he knew and the coy demeanor of the Dark One.

His footsteps stilled against the floors of the house she'd called her own, the soft white curtains of the door separating him from outside, a barrier between what he knew, and what she was tempting him with.

“No more games, Swan,” he growled, turning about and bearing down on her, though it seemed she had expected as much. “What does that mean?”

It was cruel, she knew that, knew that she shouldn't do it – but she was slipping a little more every day in her steadfastness to keep some small part of herself from the darkness, and his kiss had made her remember, had called her back to herself if only for a moment. She needed to feel him, to remember what it was like to be loved by him, held by him. She needed it as she needed to breath, and she was just far gone enough that she would drag him through hell to get it.

“You've always been a pirate, Killian – a man playing hero. You don't remember Camelot. What makes you think you haven't forgotten one more black spot on your heart, and that I became exactly who I needed to be...for you?”

“More riddles,” he hissed, the nauseating wave of fear in his stomach overwhelmed by anger, his fingers wrapping painfully around the bare skin of her arm as he drew her close and gently shook her – his hand barely feeling like his own as he did so.

Panic surged in his chest as he struggled to ease his grip, but her words had woken something inside of him – something dark and vengeful, something that wanted to make her understand how much he was hurting. How was it that there were no ends he would not go to for her, and yet she still wouldn't trust him, wouldn't give him the truth?

“You see,” she shrugged, stepping into his anger and stroking the painfully tight line of his jaw as her eyes flickered toward where he was leaving bruises on her skin. “It's never far below the surface, Killian, who you are.”

“You're wrong, Swan,” he muttered, forcing his fingers from her around her arm and stepping back, his breath coming on a shudder.

“Stay with me,” she coaxed, but beneath the impassive demand he could hear her for the first time, feel her – his Emma – and the temptation was too much for him to turn away from again. “This is where you belong, I promise you, Killian.”

She brushed her lips against his once more, her body calm as his raged in front of her, a storm caged within a glass bottle, savage and waiting to burst free.

Time seemed to still as she waited for him to respond, her lids heavy with desire as she studied the chaos churning beneath the clear blue gaze focused only on her. Her warmth was so close to the surface, and yet unreachable. He wanted to shake her until that thin layer of ice shattered, until she cracked and the truth came pouring free. He wanted to feel her skin hot and pressed against his own, alive, her precious control swept away as he made her scream his name over and over.

He wanted, gods, he wanted.

And so he took.

Maybe he was exactly what she said he was.

He slanted his mouth roughly against hers, taking no care for her comfort as he bent her backwards, the steel of his hook snagging her dress and tearing down the side of it, the firm, pale swell of her breast and its rosy peak bared to him from beneath the remains of her torn undergarment. Satisfaction pounded through his veins like the sea itself as she returned his kiss with equal passion, the glass tumbling from her hand and shattering against the floor as she threaded her nails into his hair, biting his lip hard enough that he pulled away, and giving her the opening to take back some control, yanking him closer and slipping her tongue into his mouth, the both of them falling to the floor.

He returned her aggression, biting her lip roughly and reveling in the sharp hiss of pain he drew forth. She held a finger to the swollen wound and pulled it away to show him what he had done, a bead of red blood staining its tip.

“There you are,” she teased, and before she could utter something else he didn't want to hear, – words that would stir the fury within him more than it already was – he was pinning her down, the back of her hands smacking the hardwood floor as he pressed her roughly into them, brace and hand equally demanding of her submission as he hovered over her, darkness swirling in his gaze.

“Shut up,” he hissed, ignoring the creeping certainty that something was wrong, that this should have all gone differently – that somehow, he'd ruined everything, “and don't bloody move.”

She obliged with a smirk, her eyes hungry as she followed the path his hook made against her skin, dragging along her collarbone just enough to leave a red welt before snagging on what remained of her dress and freeing her other breast for his perusal. They rose and fell with her excitement, nipples hardened and begging to be touched.

He pinched one roughly, delighting in the keen of pleasure his unkind touch pulled from her, her hips bucking beneath the spread of his legs, still wrapped in the useless fabric that had once been her clothing.

That wouldn't do.

He rose to his feet, ignoring her cry of frustration at the thought he was leaving – he had no such intentions. She'd woken something inside of him that he couldn't name, but it was angry and tired, wretched and needy, and he planned on letting it have its way with her.

He looped his fingers and hook into the balled up material around her hips and dragged it from her body, her feet kicking at it eagerly, pale legs falling back to the floor and opening for him – her arousal soaked through her panties and shining at the edges of her thighs.

“Look at you, Swan,” he hissed, tossing the garment aside and kneeling over her body once more – claiming it, “all powerful, and yet here you lie on the filthy floor, cunt sopping wet and begging to be filled by a dirty pirate.”

He dropped down, hook digging into wood as he fisted his hand among her tightly coiled hair, each silver strand drawn back into perfect obedience. He took pleasure in yanking until she gasped, feeling the strands that had once been a beautiful, soft gold pull free.

Emma let herself feel it all, the throbbing pinch at her lip, the stinging tug of his hand in her hair – let herself feel human again. Pain, pleasure – it didn't matter. Each of them was a sword that cut through the darkness suffocating her, surrounding her and whispering, making her forget who she was and why they were here to begin with. She needed all of it, needed him to remind her – or she'd lose everything.

“How does it feel, Dark One, to beg like a bitch in heat?” he growled.  

His words were another jagged cut, another blade she'd need to take responsibility for, but they reminded her what tears felt like, even though she wouldn't let them fall.

“I haven't had to do much begging, now have I?” she quipped, lips twisted in a smirk as she rolled her head purposefully against his grasp, her scalp burning, “and you seem plenty eager.”

“Oh, you'll beg for it,” he promised darkly, “because if you don't, I'll walk out that door and leave you lying here in your own desperate need.”

It was a lie, she knew. He could no more leave her now than she could ask him to – yet another choice she'd stolen away from him.

His cock was raging against the confines of his jeans, and in his heart he knew that whether she begged or not, he'd be taking her right here, sating the gnawing hunger that was burning through his gut and trembling at the tips of his fingers – but he wanted to hear it, wanted to hear the Dark One pitiful and helpless for something she couldn't otherwise get – his willing participation in her little game.

He released her roughly, the back of her head knocking against the floor as he stood and loomed over her, fingers nimbly unfastening the button at his crotch and freeing his throbbing length, its weight heavy in his palm, swollen head thick and glistening with his own smeared arousal as he jerked it over her naked, writhing form.  

“Is this what you wanted, Swan? Is this why you brought me here?” he sneered, eyes flickering closed for a moment as his fist rolled over the head of his member, his entire body shuddering with anticipation at having her. It felt too long to have been without her, without the tight clasp of her walls, the way she arched into him, the soft caress of her fingers against his face, the way she'd sigh into the air when his stubble razed her neck.

His hand slowed as his mind conjured memories of Emma golden and warm, welcoming beneath him, offering herself up and shyly taking the praise he showered on her – her curls long and splayed on his bed, hips bucking into his mouth, his name falling like a dream from her lips...

“Having second thoughts, pirate,” Emma goaded, noticing how his movements had stilled, his face taking on a look that was far away in another time, another place. “Still think you're the hero?”

Her words dragged him from his reverie, reminding him that this was not the same Emma lying beneath him anymore.

“Tell me, Killian, how much of a hero will you be when I find someone else to give me what I need?”

Blind, red rage overcame him at her words, at the thought of her seeking release with someone else, another man's hands mapping the curves of her body that he knew so well, the pieces of her that were the same no matter which version of her was lying before him.

“Make no mistake, Swan – Dark One or not – you'll always be mine. This body,” he snarled, dragging her roughly to her feet and tossing her bodily onto the nearby sofa, his temper flaring anew at her smug look, “is mine – and while you may entertain ideas of soothing that ache somewhere else, we both know you've been ruined for other men. It will always be my cock you imagine filling you completely, my seed painting that beautiful skin of yours, my hand at your throat, pushing you over the edge, isn't it, Swan?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, spreading her legs lewdly in front of her and dragging a finger – the one still smeared with blood from her bitten lip – through her wet folds, pink flesh parting to reveal her tight center throbbing for him, “but a girl can only be so patient – Dark One or not.”

He was on her before he could rightly understand how he'd gotten there – no memory of crossing the distance between them – but his nails were digging into her thigh, yanking her forward so that her pert bottom hung over the edge of the couch, the sound of a table clattering to the floor behind him as he kicked it out of the way and knelt between her splayed legs, his hand moving to angle the raging hardness of his cock against her core.

Feeling her warmth for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he surged forward.

She cried out beneath him, her body flexing as his entire length was buried inside of her, impossibly large and tight and feeling as if he were splitting her in half in the most sinfully perfect way. There was no breath of a reprieve before he was dragging himself free and repeating the action, his hand gripping her side as if it were the only anchor he had, his hook rending the cushion beside them as he pounded relentlessly into her.

“Tell me then, Swan,” he panted, his words broken by the wet sounds of her arousal spreading between them both, skin slapping against skin, “is this what you needed? A good fucking by a ruthless pirate?”

She bit back the words pushing against her closed lips, words he was dragging up from somewhere deep and forgotten with each thrust of his body into hers, words she couldn't say – I just needed you, Killian, to pull me back, no matter how much it hurt. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

Her sharp breaths built into a whimper as her body opened around him, his thickness stroking every hidden place within her, waves of pleasure rippling through her core and shooting down her legs, building in her body like something that would snap and tear her apart. She was near her climax, but one look into his eyes, hollow and hungry above her, made her realize he was far from done with her.  

With a pained grunt he pulled out of her grasping depths, ignoring her keening pleas as he lifted her up and flipped her over, her chest tossed against the back of the couch as he spread her legs, revealing her abused sex to his gaze. She shuddered wantonly as his fingers explored her, spreading her wide and dragging the slick wetness from her walls before smoothing it over her clit and pulling a broken cry from her lips.

“You should see yourself, Emma,” he rasped, shoving several fingers back into her at once as she jumped away from him toward the couch, whining at the nearly painful sensation, “so open and ready for me. No other man would have you, would they, Swan? Not like this, stretched open by a filthy pirate – rather used, aren't you?”

He threw the words at her purposefully, meaning to hurt, to wound her the same way she'd wounded him – the way she'd made him doubt who he was and what he could be. His cutting words reminded him that whatever had happened in Camelot, she'd done what she had to match him, to equal the the black-hearted pirate he would always be. He needed her to feel just as broken.

“Another man would simply leave you wanting, Swan, but not me. I'm yours as much as you're mine, so tell me, love – do you want it?” he purred, swiping the belled head of his cock along her folds once more. “Do you want me everywhere?”

“Yes,” she hissed, knowing what he was going to demand next.

“Then beg for it,” he commanded, slapping the side of her ass with his throbbing length, staining her cheek with the mix of his precum and her own juices . “Beg for it, and I'll give it to you.”

She wriggled against the couch, the words leaving her pitifully as she searched for the feel of his length anywhere against her.

“Please, Killian,” she moaned – she could give him this, could let her control slip for just a second. It wouldn't break her, not entirely.

“That's not good enough, Swan.”

“I need you,” she whispered, every word she pushed past her lips far too close to the truth of what she wanted to say, too dangerous. “No one has made me feel what you do. There's no one else, there never will be. Please, I want you – need you, all of you...”

“Where do you want me?” he purred darkly, his fingers swiping the viscous arousal seeping from her folds and dragging it higher to where her tight ring of muscle was bared for him. “Do you want me here as well? Is every part of you mine, Swan?”

“Yes,” she hissed, thrusting back against the pressure of his finger as he pushed against her unyielding muscle. “Need you...everywhere, Killian, please...”

“That's a good girl,” he praised, and rising up on his haunches, he pressed the tip of his cock against her opening. It had been some time, but he knew she could take him like this, remembered how tight she would be around him – and if it was too much, well, he wanted to make sure he left his mark with his body as well as his words, something inside of him demanding it.

His grip was uncompromising around her shoulder as she moved instinctively away from the burn of him entering her, pulling her firmly back and only making him stretch her more quickly as she breathed out soft, desperate noises beneath him.

“Just like that, Swan...take it, darling...gods, you're so bloody tight.”

“Yes,” she ground out, her body finally relaxing as the thick head of his cock slipped fully inside of her, every inch that followed a welcome burn pushing back the fog of darkness she could never truly escape from.

He paused in his thrusting, and Emma both heard and felt a cold wetness spreading between her cheeks, his saliva dripping down to meet where his cock was settled tightly inside of her ass, his fingers spreading it thickly along his shaft as he worked himself further into her.

“I'm going to fuck you so deeply that you'll be able to taste my seed as I spill it into you, would you like that, love?” he panted, his body rutting into hers as his saliva spread between them, easing his intrusion just enough. “You're not going to be able to sit without remembering how it felt to have me fill it up – is that clear?”

“Y-yes,” she stuttered, gasping and biting her already bruised lip as he drew far enough out that she thought he would pop free, her body already craving the fullness of him as he left her empty. Shameful pleasure ignited along every inch of her skin as she bowed beneath what she had turned him into for her own selfish needs, at what she had forced him into becoming because she was weak.

She couldn't help but remember the times they'd done this before, how deep he'd been, how connected they felt, and she let that memory wash over her, taking away the guilt and leaving only bone-deep satisfaction as his cock reamed her, his balls slapping against her sensitive flesh as he took what he needed from her, what she'd forced him into wanting.

“Oh god...” she moaned, her thighs trembling alongside his own as he sped up, her back sinking lower as he gripped her sides painfully between his hand and brace, his own groans joining her own. He thrust erratically into her pliant heat, the tight grip of her channel dragging his orgasm from him at the same time hers tore past every last barrier she had, her core clenching achingly around nothing as he swelled impossibly large and burst deep inside of her ass.  

His nails bit into her as he growled and pushed harder against her, the zipper from his pants branding her skin as he pumped rope after rope of his hot release into her. Then with a harsh breath, he yanked himself free and grabbed her, twisting her down so that she fell onto her back against the cushions, staring up at him as he jutted his hips forward and jerked the last of his cum from his balls, splatters of his seed landing across her cheeks and chest as he groaned out his satisfaction.

Emma closed her eyes, regret and guilt surging back in to fill the emptiness that he'd left behind, her body sore and longing still as he rose shakily to his feet, stepping back from both her and the couch. How much farther had she pushed him toward that looming darkness in an attempt to pull herself back from its edge?  

The air stilled between them, both of their breaths settling as they watched one another, knowing that between them, something had shifted – some path washed into nothingness behind them.

He tucked himself back into his jeans, feeling like some of the tension he'd been shouldering was gone, perhaps the burden of what he had needed to live up to vanished. His eyes drifted along her body, limp and splayed across the couch, his release leaking from her abused body and dappled like stars across her chest. Her lips turned upward into a slow smirk, one that they'd often shared before after making love – though this one was changed, haunted by shades of things he didn't yet understand.

The need to suddenly be somewhere else – far from this place she'd called her own when he didn't really know her anymore, when he felt as if he didn't know himself – rose up like the bottom of the sea greeting a long awaited friend.

This is where you belong. I promise you, Killian, her voice whispered in the back of his mind.

Whispering, whispering.

But it wasn't his Swan that whispered at the edges of his mind, and instead of turning toward the front door, he found his steps leading him toward the back of the house, back toward the basement door that had caught his attention earlier – when she'd distracted him with a drink and some nameless hope that had fled his body along with his release into her.

This time, she didn't stop him.

A wave of her hand made the bolt slide free of its own accord.

His hand wrapped around the knob, and when he turned back to look for her, she was standing in the hall, silver hair perfectly coiffed once more, her body hidden beneath the sinuous black of her dress, the only reminder of their activities the ring of bruises blooming around her arm like dark flowers.

She nodded, encouraging him forward – and the handle turned smoothly beneath his palm, ushering him into the darkness below.

END

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Tagging:  @justanother-unluckysoul​ @kmomof4​  @the-darkdragonfly​  @teamhook​  @zaharadessert​ @xarandomdreamx   @jrob64​  @wefoundloveunderthelight​ @tiganasummertree  @pirateprincessofpizza​  @lfh1226-linda @alexa-fangirl-forever  @alifeofdreams  @superchocovian​ @donteattheappleshook  @hollyethecurious​  @caught-in-the-filter @snowbellewells  @itsfabianadocarmo  @stahlop​  @karlyfr13s​ @elizabeethan  @rkrbirdgirl  @batana54​  

[sleepymccoy]

This isn’t exactly what you asked for. By chance, last night my housemate asked me what my favourite human discovery through history was, so I used that brainstorming session as a launching pad for this fic cos otherwise i had like no ideas. So it’s more of a debate than you asked for, but I think it’s a fun read. And the ending is unbelievably sweet. I don’t think I’ve every written something that sweet without referencing trauma in some way, but this is just sweet sweet fluffiness. @megers67​ hope you enjoy it mate

-

Crowley stared out at the lake, mulling over Aziraphale's question. The angel had gotten bored of waiting for a response and had pottered off to get a closer look at a baby swan. Crowley laughed as the mother swan squawked, startling Aziraphale. 

A few seconds later found Crowley speed walking alongside a harried Aziraphale as they stalked away from the angrily squawking mother, Aziraphale pulling Crowley along behind him by his hand.  

"Well," Aziraphale said haughtily, "I never."

Crowley laughed again, keeping pace with Aziraphale more so their hands wouldn't become detached than out of any concern over a pursuant swan. 

They crossed a bridge, Aziraphale's footfalls heavy and swift, Crowley's just swift, and heard one last distant squawk as the swan fare welled them.

Crowley didn't laugh, Aziraphale was still holding his hand and he didn't want to push his luck and be dropped.

Instead, he answered the asked question.

"The typewriter was pretty good."

Aziraphale glanced at him, the slight gleam of madness leaving his eyes. "You surprise me," he said. 

Their pace slowed, Aziraphale's grip on Crowley's hand slackened, still holding him but less of a vice. 

"But why not go a step back to the printing press?" Aziraphale asked.

"Oh yeah, that's a point," Crowley admitted. Was the typewriter really an invention if you had printing presses? And what about writing before that, does the printing press count if you already have ink? "Why not go another step back to all those enslaved monks?" 

"Why must they be enslaved monks?"

"You know," Crowley waved his other hand, not really proving that Aziraphale knew. "Monks were the only literate folk for ages. All those illuminated manuscripts."

Aziraphale squeezed his hand for a memento and Crowley felt very fond. "But, enslaved?"

"I guess they weren't enslaved. Indentured?"

"You just dislike organised religion."

"Guilty." Crowley squeezed Aziraphale's hand back, eliciting a quiet chuckle. "But typewriters, you know. In terms of ticking boxes, they've got sound. Good sound, they sound good."

"Sound?"

Crowley nodded. "Sound," he said certainly.

"Is that important in an invention?"

Crowley could feel Aziraphale's gaze on him and turned to meet his eyes. Aziraphale's thumb ran gently across Crowley's first knuckle.

"Well," Crowley said. "What about you, then?"

Aziraphale hummed and went back to looking at the path. Crowley let him lead and kept staring at his face, enjoying the wrinkle that appeared on his forehead as he thought. 

Crowley tripped on a rock and as he stumbled (kept standing by Aziraphale's suddenly appropriate firm grip on his hand) and wrenched his attention back to the path. He realised just how sickeningly in love he must've looked, gazing at Aziraphale like a desperate dog. He glanced around self-consciously and noticed an ice-cream stand. He quickly forgot his worries.

"Ice-cream?" Crowley offered.

Aziraphale turned to him, so bemused it bordered on anger. "You think ice-cream is the best invention? What kind of lack-luster suggestion-"

"Shut up, no," Crowley groaned. He threw his body around in exasperation, holding on tightly to Aziraphale's hand, still talking. "There's a blessed ice-cream stand, d'you want one?"

"Oh, certainly," Aziraphale said without a touch of humility from his misunderstanding. 

Crowley realised too late that he'd have to let go of Aziraphale's hand to complete his task. He steeled himself for a moment, then did so. 

He returned quickly with an icy-pole for Aziraphale and a cone for himself. 

"Democracy?" Aziraphale asked as he accepted his icy-pole.

"Fuck off," Crowley groaned, "pick something proper."

Aziraphale began to walk. Crowley followed, regretting the ice-cream as he couldn't hold Aziraphale's hand any longer. 

Then, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, Aziraphale swapped which hand was holding his icy-pole and reached out to Crowley. 

Crowley took his hand and grinned, remembering about seven second too late that he was meant to look cool. But Aziraphale's returning smile was so nice he couldn't force nonchalance into his features. 

"Fabric was a pretty good one," Aziraphale said as they walked, fingers quickly entwining. 

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"Well, it got them warm. Far more versatile than those hides they wore early on." He gesticulated with his icy-pole, waving it in circles as he discussed hides. 

"And look at where it's gone," Aziraphale said cheerfully, "my pants are marvelous."

"They are," Crowley agreed  "But fabric's hardly a make or break kind of thing. It's nice, yeah, but it doesn't do anything a big ol' leaf wouldn't."

"What about in summer," Aziraphale argued. "How else would you avoid sunburn than a light linen shawl?"

A good point. But Crowley wasn't ready to give up the goat just yet.

Aziraphale waited patiently, licking his icy-pole in a manner that delayed Crowley's memory.

"Clay!" Crowley finally said, a lot more triumphantly than their peaceful stroll through the park should've allowed.

"Oh, I forgot about clay," Aziraphale hummed.

Crowley preened.

"Does clay count as an invention?" Aziraphale asked.

"Nah," Crowley said. "'s'in the dirt already."

Aziraphale made a wordless agreement. His thumb began to run across Crowley's knuckles again.

They walked quietly. The pressure of Aziraphale thumb picked up, feeling the bones of Crowley's hand confidently. Crowley walked and enjoyed it. 

They finished their ice-creams. Crowley took Aziraphale's stick from him and threw it out.

"Oh, I might have it," Aziraphale said as they approached the edge of the park, meandering back towards the Bentley. 

"Go on," Crowley invited.

Aziraphale paused, then, with all the confidence in the world, said, "Glass."

Crowley cocked his head to the side. "Wine glasses," he said slowly. 

"Yes."

"Sunglasses."

*Lovely," Aziraphale told the birds.

Crowley thought. Then, "Windows."

Aziraphale's hand in his jiggled as the angel nodded. "Those are good," Aziraphale agreed.

"Computers-" Crowley interrupted himself and palmed his mobile out of his back pocket to illustrate his point. "Even phones have glass now."

Aziraphale dutifully looked at the displayed phone. "So they do," he said.

"I mean, it is a bit clay though," Crowley said. "I mean, it is made naturally."

Aziraphale frowned. "Not often," he said widely.

"'s'just hot sand, innit?"

"Very hot," Aziraphale said. "It can't be easy."

"I s'pose," Crowley agreed reluctantly.

"And glass blowing is definitely creation," Aziraphale continued, sensing Crowley's reticence. "That's discovery. That's man made, that is."

"I'll give you that."

"Bottles don't form naturally."

"Love a good bottle," Crowley said. "Could've said the same for clay, you could've."

"But I didn't," Aziraphale grinned, "I saved it for this."

They reached the Bentley and Crowley slowed, coming to a stop before they had to let go of their hands to climb into the car. 

"And that kind of forward thinking should be rewarded," Crowley said. 

"Were we playing for a prize?" Aziraphale asked with a delighted laugh in his voice.

Crowley spun to lean against the door of the Bentley, facing Aziraphale. He quickly took Aziraphale's hand in both of his. "Sure," he said.

"Well," Aziraphale said. He stepped closer to Crowley, crowding him against the car. "You listed all those good glass things, perhaps you've earnt the reward."

"Nah," Crowley said broadly. "Your idea." He tugged on Aziraphale's hand to punctuate his argument. "Your reward. Go on, what d'you want?"

Aziraphale's smile softened. His eyes fluttered down to Crowley lips and back to his eyes. "I would like a kiss," he whispered.

Crowley leaned in and kissed him.

It was brief and tasted faintly of artificially sweet red flavouring. Crowley leaned away with a smile.

"And another kiss," Aziraphale said without opening his eyes, for he had closed them when Crowley had been too close to notice. "Please," he added.

Crowley raised one hand to cup around Aziraphale's jaw and kissed him for longer. 

He leaned away again, just as Aziraphale began to press into it with sincerity. Aziraphale gasped quietly as Crowley settled back into place against the car door. 

His insides writhed in joy and want, but externally he kept his smile warm and simple. He watched Aziraphale and waited for the actual prize to be asked for.

"And-" Aziraphale said, eyes just barely beginning to flutter open.

Crowley chuckled and interrupted. "You can't just keep asking for kisses, that's not a real reward."

Aziraphale met his gaze and smiled. His blush, born of being kissed, deepened. "Whatever not?" he asked, so sweetly.

Crowley grinned. "Because I give you those anyway."

Aziraphale shuffled in half a step, his belly pressing against Crowley in an intimacy Crowley relished. "What do you think I would possibly ask for that you don't give me regardless?" Aziraphale asked. "Besides, I wasn't going to ask for another kiss."

"No?"

"No," Aziraphale said with certainty while watching Crowley's lips. "I want-" 

Crowley licked his lips and enjoyed how Aziraphale's eyes followed it. Aziraphale did not finish his sentence.

"Um," Aziraphale squeaked, "what's the word for a really long kiss?"

Crowley laughed and slid his hand from Aziraphale's jaw to around the back of his neck and pulled him in close, kissing him full and open on the mouth. 

Aziraphale dropped Crowley's other hand and balled his fists into Crowley's jacket. He pressed forward and Crowley found himself joyfully pinned between the hard, cold car door and something the opposite in every way.

He fought every instinct to raise his legs and wrap around Aziraphale's waist, they were still in public after all. 

Aziraphale broke away with a grin and cried out, "And an almond croissant!" 

Crowley laughed, delighted, and found himself being kissed as he laughed. 

He wrestled Aziraphale away, although no effort was really kept up, and said something about scandalised middle aged women and a promise to pick up croissants later tonight if they went home right now. 

Aziraphale got the gist of what Crowley was quietly sure had been almost incomprehensible vowel sounds, and practically skipped across the road to get in the car. 

[helaens]

i was tagged by: @und0miels and @r-walker, thank you so much lovelies! ♡

if i were a month, i’d be: october. ･ if i were a flower, i’d be: rose. ･ if i were an album, i’d be: born to die by lana del rey ･ if i were a mineral, I’d be: ruby ･ if i were a sound, i’d be: gentle rain. ･ if i were a colour, i’d be: red. ･ if i were a drink, i’d be: strawberry milk. ･ if i were a fruit, i’d be: strawberry. ･ if i were a quote, i’d be: ‘my skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.’ by sansa stark. ･ if i were a television series, i’d be: once upon a time. ･ if i were a movie, i’d be: black swan. ･ if i were a fashion brand, i’d be: victoria’s secret. ･ if i were a mythological creature, i’d be: a mermaid. ･ if i were a taste, i’d be: sweet. ･ if i were a scent, i’d be: lavender. ･ if i were a fabric, i’d be: tulle. ･ if i were a body part, i’d be: hands. ･ if  i were a song, i’d be: art deco by lana del rey. ･ if i were a goddess my 4 attributes would be: aphrodite’s attributes.

tagging: @danielsousa @ohwarnette @generalpoes @dinidjarin @djiarin @madney @jennlawrnce @phoebejanes @hecthledger @bellamyblakez @gretchenweener @opheliaaa @tophbefong @misshosks (feel free to ignore!)

[capnjay21]

A House is Never Still 6/6

Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.

A/N: and here is the conclusion! I’ll ramble a little more at the end, but for now, please once again accept my repeated and evermore wildly gesticulated thanks for @hollyethecurious​ for this beautiful aesthetic which made the fic - I literally would not have done it without it! also hollering at the kids from the @csrolereversal​ way back when for starting the event that I originally signed up for, it was so much fun to be part of and while I’m a lil disappointed with myself for finishing so much later, life happens! thanks all! 

and now - story happens!

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death, and some Spooky Business™.

Continuing the teeny tiny taglist - but if you want off this list for the epilogue (pending), just let me know and I promise I will not be offended! <3

@snowbellewells​ @carpedzem​ @kmomof4​ @optomisticgirl​

AO3 | one | two | three | four | five

-/-

6 - when the first man awoke in the night

Present Day

There was a pervading sense of strangeness to seeing them all in the same room again.

It was like listening to your favourite song for the first time in years, but the lyrics were now backwards. Instead of humming along in that easy, thoughtless way, it felt jarring to the ears and forced you to really consider what exactly you were hearing, line by line, word by word.

Killian couldn’t stop thinking about every word he offered up into their shared space now; everything felt permanent, nothing could be taken back. What they said in this moment would mark how every moment after it would come to be. He was sure of it, and he was sure the other three felt the same, which was why very little had been said since Mary Margaret had warily invited he, Regina and David over the threshold and into her loft.

Regina had taken a position nearest the door, arms folded, expression neutral, leaning steadily against the wall. She looked like someone trying desperately to imitate the pose of one unaffected, but the tension in the set of her shoulders gave her away. Killian had perched on the stairs that led up to the upper floor, and David stood in the centre of the room shifting his weight from foot to foot and glaring sadly around him, as if he had no idea where he fit into this room anymore and imagined any of her items of furniture might have been the one to oust him. Mary Margaret sat at the side of her dining table that allowed her to face all three of them at once, hands clasped tightly together over the tabletop.

Mary Margaret had offered them tea and they had all declined.

It was the distance, Killian decided, that was most difficult to take in. It was the closest they had been to each other in five years, but the space between them had never felt wider.

The tape recorder was clutched tightly in Killian’s right hand. It was a little slick with sweat from his palm, but he refused to let it go.

“Is this about Emma?” Mary Margaret asked, and while she asked politely, the edge in her voice was unmistakable. She did not want her house of cards to come down around her. When they didn’t immediately reply she offered with a wry eyebrow raise: “It’s not likely to be about anything else, is it?”

“It is,” Killian said, seeing no point in drawing it out. “It’s about the house.” He and David exchanged a look. “It’s back.”

Something ticked in Mary Margaret’s jaw. “I don’t know how to make this any clearer – I don’t want to know.”

In that moment, Killian couldn’t see anything but Emma in her – except he had always had an instinct for how to scale Emma’s walls, but with Mary Margaret he floundered.

Fortunately, there was someone else in the room who knew how far better than he.

“Hey,” David started, gently, in that tone so earnest and warm that none of them had ever really been able to ignore. “You know who we are, you know what this must be. Just look at us.” No matter what else had happened, there they all were. “This isn’t something from nothing – we wouldn’t do that to you.” He gave her a sad sort of smile. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Mary Margaret stared back up at him, and not for a second did Killian believe their story was as over as they had both claimed it was. “What is it, then?” she asked.

“It’s this.” Killian stood up, opening his palm to reveal the tape recorder inside. It was sturdy and blocky, resembling a clunky child’s toy more than the instrument that had brought them together that night. He laid it on the table, and before she could ask he cut her off. “I recorded this five nights ago, in Brooke House.”

The tape immediately began to crackle and scratch, and Killian fast-forwarded just long enough until it started. It whirred, and it tck-tck-tck­-ed, and eventually there was a voice.

‘Emma?’

His voice. Cutting through the static. There were a few thumps. A rustle as he’d stuffed the recorder in his pocket, some creaks as he climbed the stairs within Brooke House. Through the recording, Killian could relive the second night he had gone to the house since coming back to Storybrooke, the same way both Regina and David already had.

‘Emma?’

There was a crash, and the unmistakable tear of book bindings. Except, where Killian had heard Emma’s voice that night, the tape recorder had picked up nothing. Instead it sounded as if Killian had stood in silence, waiting.

‘Why didn’t you show yourself to Regina?’

Another thud, as another book was hurled against the wall. Otherwise, quiet.

‘Come here,’ the Killian on the tape said, ‘let me look at you.’

Mary Margaret was frowning, and lifted her bemused gaze up first to Killian, and then the others. “What is this?”

“Just wait,” Regina answered quietly from her place by the door.

The Killian on the tape let out a long breath. ‘I’m so sorry.’ A pause. ’All of it.’

Killian bristled at the memory, felt the cold touch of her lips like a steel edge. You couldn’t tell from the recording what had happened, and Killian had not been quick to fill the others in on his actions during that particular interval. But even as the seconds passed, his pulse began to race – he had listened to this recording a hundred times already, listened to Emma’s spectral presence like a non-entity, had initially resigned himself to having caught nothing of measurable value to show she was there at all.

Except right then –

‘Killian?’

Emma’s voice was unmistakable.

Mary Margaret’s reaction was instant, and visceral. She almost bolted out of her chair. In fact, she looked so suddenly pale and faintly ill that Killian nearly offered to fetch her something to throw up in. What were you supposed to do when you heard the voice of your long dead friend, five years after the fact of their dying?

But it was just that one word – then it was Killian promising to help her, and then there was nothing at all.

“There’s more,” he said grimly, but he had a feeling Mary Margaret wouldn’t have been able to form words just yet anyway. Killian clicked a finger on the fast forward.

He had completely forgotten about that recorder after Emma had kissed him – it had sat on those bookshelves for five days, running continuously in the study on the landing. He was fortunate it was such an old, robust thing. Even without attention it had continued diligently fulfilling his purpose, and his only regret was that it had run out of tape after a day and a half.

But in that time, it had caught enough.

Having wound the tape to this point so many times, Killian stopped it once more and let the noises trickle out.

A rustle of fabric, something scratching on old floors. A faint, but tangible sigh.

‘Killian?’

Emma, again. Killian shut his eyes. He let the sound wash over him.

‘Killian?’

There was nothing for a minute or so here, but Killian left it running. They all needed time to process it, and together they listened to the soft sounds of Brooke House murmuring quietly. Ancient wood groaned, the stairs told the bannister that someone was coming, the wind pushed doors open and closed them. But eventually, reverently, they heard her speak again.

‘Yesterday, I dreamed…’

She hissed out a breath. Her voice was quiet, and terribly sad. Killian’s heart seized to hear it, because he knew it was his Emma. This voice wasn’t rich with delighted, dark secrets. It was hollow and resigned and a breath of condensation across frosted glass.

‘I don’t know where I am. I thought I heard your voice.’

Something fluttered, possibly the pages of a book. Then there was only silence.

Killian knew this quiet stretched the tape for a few hours, so again he tapped his finger to fast forward, until they could hear her speak again.

‘It’s – it’s the car. I don’t want to see it anymore. Is David there?’

David dropped heavily down into a seat at the dining table. The Emma on tape continued, oblivious.

‘I thought I heard your voice. We have to finish it. It’s…’ Something scratched loudly, and the four in the kitchen winced at the sudden volume of the sound. ‘Killian? Is that you? I’m so cold. I –’

The recorder clicked, sputtered and stopped. It had reached the end of the tape.  

Then they waited.

It had been enough to convince David; it had been more than enough for Regina to let go of her scepticism about whether Emma needed rescuing. For Killian, it had lit a fire under him. Not only was Emma, their Emma, trapped in Brooke House somehow, but she was cognizant. He had seen it. In those breathless few seconds after their lips had touched, his Emma had bled through like a blot of ink stretching across paper, and she had asked after him.

Now he intended to answer.

But they couldn’t do it without Mary Margaret, not if they needed what he thought they did – three pairs of eyes turned to look at her.

Killian was unsurprised to notice she was crying. Her shoulders shook, and she did not resist David when his hand came over to rest atop hers. In fact, she curled open her palm and allowed him to thread their fingers together as she let out a tremulous breath, her eyes misty and fighting for clarity.

“Please tell me this isn’t real.” She sounded as miserable as she looked.

“It’s real,” Regina answered.

“Our girl is in there,” David urged. “We have to get her out.”

With her free hand, Mary Margaret furiously wiped her face with the back of it. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “How?”

Killian brushed a finger across the edge of the tape recorder, and for a wild moment considered rewinding it and letting it play again just so he could hear her voice.

“The ritual. The same one we started five years ago.”

It had always bothered Killian, had niggled in the back of his mind for years. If the sole purpose of that ritual had been summoning a malevolent spirit in order to control its power, then why had Liam Jones allowed himself to become embroiled in it? Liam was honesty, integrity, and fierce loyalty. It didn’t add up.

“It was never about bringing something evil out – I should have recognised the signs the moment I came back, but I was too busy thinking about Brooke House now to worry about then.” Turning abruptly to the coffee table, Killian plucked a pen and ripped a page from a notebook that had been lying there and brought it back to the dining table. On it, he carefully sketched the five-pointed star he had drawn into the floorboards at Brooke House. “History lesson. One of the earliest known uses of the pentagram is actually as a Christian symbol – its points are supposed to represent the five wounds of Christ.

“Then, as time goes on, you start to see a rise in occult practices, and they pretty much liberally borrow as much symbolism as possible from anywhere they can. Particularly the pentagram – which, if you turn around –” Killian swivelled the image so the tip of the star was pointing down, and the two points jutted out upwards. “—Has been known to represent the two horns of Satan, here. The rejection of heaven and all things spiritual. That’s what I thought I was looking at when I saw it needed to be in the ritual.” He’d spent a few days absorbed in old library books, researching what Liam had written down and left in his toolbox.

He had allowed himself to be influenced by Belle Gold, by all the talk of evil, and as a result had only bothered with one interpretation of the symbol – which was reductive, and a potentially fatal error.

“But way, way before all of that, you have its uses in Taoism, with Pythagoras and the Greeks, in early iterations of paganism. Some perceive it as a representation of the elements, but most agree that it’s about balance. It’s perfection in mathematics, the human body, words; it makes its uses in religious ritual and magic basically inevitable. But by the time the pagan revival begins – well, mostly a re-invention or re-construction of older practices – it’s become so strongly associated with malevolence and Satanism that it’s a little difficult to adopt as a symbol of faith. So, what do you do?”

Killian grinned.

“You turn it the right way up and draw a big fat circle around it.���

He rotated the paper again, so the single point was facing upwards and drew a circle around its points, connecting each one.

“It’s a different symbol. It’s what most modern wicca practices call a pentacle, it’s supposed to represent a physical object used in ceremonial evocation – the act of calling upon a spirit – for protection. It’s a talisman. Liam wanted the circle made from salt, which is a common ingredient in purification spells. There are candles at each point to give energy, but –”

“You should have left one unlit,” Regina cut across him, eyes widening once she’d put the pieces together.

“Exactly.”

David and Mary Margaret, for their part, looked entirely nonplussed by the turn of the conversation. Killian winced internally – perhaps he’d spilt out the word magic a few too many times for them.

David blinked. “What – what are you talking about?”

“One candle should have been unlit to let energy out,” Killian explained. “This isn’t a ritual for summoning or capturing a demon. It’s a ritual for banishing one.”

Mary Margaret dropped her head in her hands.

“Years. Years of therapy. All undone in a single evening.”

“Did you hear her?” Killian pressed, tapping the tape recorder emphatically. “Did you hear her calling out for us? She said it herself. We need to finish this. There’s no moving past it until we do.”

“I can’t. I just – I can’t.”

Killian could feel frustration mounting, but David laid a hand on his arm before he could burst out something furious and likely detrimental to their cause. They could attempt the ritual without Mary Margaret, but without a person sat at every point of the pentacle the spell would be weaker. It had to be her – there was no one else.

“Mary Margaret,” David began. He shifted his chair a little closer. “Mary Margaret.”

Miserably, she raised her head, hands clasped on the back of her neck.

“I think you need a little of something that you used to give all of us,” he smiled. “Hope.”

Her eyes welled with fresh tears, and Mary Margaret shook her head. “Hope – hurts.”

“Only when we give it up.” To Killian’s surprise, it was Regina who had spoken, pushing away from the wall to stand at Mary Margaret’s shoulder. “I thought I could bury this beneath the way the world had opened up. That it was the price for new eyes.” She locked eyes with Killian, offered him a nod of understanding. “I was wrong. And… I’m sorry. We should have supported each other, stayed together.”

“Regina’s right,” Killian continued. “And this is on me, too. I should have been here. I shouldn’t have missed… everything I missed.”

He had missed the service for Emma, he had missed old Henry Mills’ passing, he had missed David and Mary Margaret going their separate ways, he had missed the coda of their friendship with Regina, he had missed Archie leaving town, he had missed the library closing its doors for the last time, he had missed, he had missed, he had missed.

Killian had thought leaving Storybrooke was the best decision he had ever made; that without Emma, all that was left was walking in the dust.

Admitting that he had spent five years missing Storybrooke was like releasing a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.  

“Emma needs us,” David urged, taking one of Mary Margaret’s hands in his own. “One last time. All of us – together.”

They were all pieces of the same, scattered glass. Some edges sharp, some smooth. All Killian knew was the completed image was soft and golden, and he ached for it so harshly and so tenderly that he couldn’t bear it if the night ended any other way.

Mary Margaret took a steadying breath.

Her fingers clasped around David’s.

“Hope,” she said, and it settled it.

They were doing this.

-/-

The sky above Main Street was a deep, midnight blue, the winking light of stars only clearly visible if you fixed your gaze on it for longer than a few seconds. All appeared still, other than the stirring of crisp and deadened leaves in an unhurried brush down the road, and long shadows cast by the bronze streetlights were black in the way the sky should have been.

In the corner of Killian’s eye, everything seemed to shift. Every few metres it felt like something flashed at the edge of his vision, just out of sight, daring him to turn and look, trying to pull them from their singular focus of getting to the edge of town as quickly as possible. He was sure it was Brooke House. The dagger felt cool against his chest from the inside of his jacket. How did Emma put it? Testing the boundaries? Stretching her limits? A spectre at the edge of Main Street, a shadow at the end of David’s bed.

He could feel her all around them watching, waiting, trying to deter them from coming any closer. Perhaps she knew of their intent. Streetlights flickered overhead, and the groan of steel scarring tarmac could be heard distantly.

Killian felt so exposed. The others had huddled in close, walking swiftly as a unit – maybe they could feel it too.

He was so involved in wondering after the otherworldly, that the reality of a car pulling up beside them didn’t even register until the occupant was already climbing out. The door slammed definitively, purposefully, and it drew them to a halt. Once Killian had identified who now stood there in the gloom, features lit by the fading amber light of the street, he let out a string of murmured expletives.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole gang was back together again,” Sheriff Graham Humbert growled, his voice as melodic and dangerous as it had been when Killian was just seventeen, frightened, and exhausted beyond belief on the night that had started it all.

Killian fought to keep his voice level. “It’s been a long time, Humbert.”

“Long enough that you’re ready to finally give me the truth?”

“Graham,” Regina began quietly, and it was the way her tongue curled around Graham, it was the intimacy of it, the sheer fact that they were on a first name basis that sent Killian’s mind into a tailspin, cataloguing a few more ways the town had continued to tick without him.

They were all adults now, weren’t they? So why not? Why not Graham?

Because he didn’t like it.

“Don’t,” Humbert said shortly. “So where is it you’re off too? The ravine, maybe?”

He looked older than when Killian had seen him last. He had only just been elected the month before Emma had disappeared, gruff but bright-faced and enthusiastic about his future turning over small town misdemeanours. Then he had been thrown into a missing-persons-assumed-murder case, and nothing about Storybrooke had felt small anymore. Had Emma’s disappearance given him those lines, pulled taut at the corner of his eyes? Could the unhappy curve to his mouth, the adamant line of his jaw, be because of Emma, too?

He had only wanted to find Emma, it was all any of them had wanted. On any of the countless nights Killian had lain awake, unable to dream of anything but the night that Emma had vanished, could Graham Humbert possibly have been doing the same?

Not to mention his instincts were correct. The four of them did know something more about it than what they had told him. It must have churned him up inside to know that, and not be able to do a single thing about it.

“We’re going for a drink,” Mary Margaret offered, and she surprised Killian with the smoothness of the lie. “Just old friends catching up.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Humbert snapped. His badge glittered in the dim light. “You were up to something then, and you’re up to something now.” He folded his arms. “I’d like to invite all of you to come down to the station and have a chat, seeing as you’ve got the time.”

At the end of the street, a bulb blew in a shower of orange sparks. Glass rained musically down onto the sidewalk. Killian thought he saw the flutter of white fabric dart around the corner.

Watching, waiting, daring.

“We don’t have time for this,” Regina muttered. “Step aside, Graham.”

“Fine, go. I’ve got no problem with it. The way you all look tonight,” Humbert stared at each of them in turn, scathingly, “I have a feeling you’ll lead me straight to her.”

He had only ever wanted to find Emma. That, Killian reminded himself, they had in common.

Movement flickered at the edge of his vision, and for a moment Killian was certain once he turned his head he’d see another spectre of Emma, dirty white and terrible, but it was David, David had surged forward and his fist was swinging and Killian heard the crack of Humbert’s head hitting the sidewalk before his eyes had even processed that he was witnessing his crumpled form falling backwards. Out cold.

David was hissing with pain, shaking out his hand and wincing.

The other three were blinking, astonished.

“Sorry,” he offered to Humbert’s motionless form. Then, turning to the others and noticing their expressions, he suddenly grew defensive. “We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?”

Inside a convenience store, a radio burst to life. The scattered notes of Only You could be heard scratching across the quiet street.

Killian narrowed his eyes. Yes, they were.

The four of them stepped carefully around Humbert, and continued their brisk journey into the night.

Given their intent, Killian had half expected for Brooke House to be gone by the time they got there, like when they had returned on the first night to look for Emma. After the ritual they had scattered into the trees, tearing off in different directions to try and find where she might have gone, voices hoarse with their continued calls out for her. By the time they had returned to the site of the house to regroup, faithfully following the trail of Killian’s orange string, it had gone. Taking Regina’s Ouija board, Mary Margaret’s scarf, David’s Apollo chocolate bar wrapper and Emma with it. A piece of all of them lost to the maw – some bigger than others. It had feasted on what it could and disappeared into the night.

Perhaps, Killian thought, as he stared at its broad foundations, the beckoning creek of its front door, the gasping cavern of its insides, it looked at them all like an unfinished meal.

It waited, it watched, and it dared them closer to finish them for good.

Killian’s hand tightened on the hilt of the dagger.

Emma needed them. And she had waited long enough.

As one, he and Regina stormed up the steps and headed inside. Behind him, he could hear Mary Margaret whimper, the urgent, hushed tones from David pushing her forward, but he paid them no mind. They each had a job to do here – this was his. Regina immediately pulled out a black marker and began tracing the shape of the pentacle on the floor, while Killian rummaged in the rucksack they had brought for the salt. He started sprinkling it in a perfect circle around the edges, and it wasn’t long before David had coerced Mary Margaret through into the sitting room. She had her palms over her eyes, as if by not looking at the aged walls of the house she might not have to acknowledge she was stood there.

Something crashed upstairs. David and Mary Margaret jerked towards the sound, the latter dropping her hands. Killian and Regina exchanged grim looks.

“It knows,” she said.

“Get the candles.”

There were other loud bangs of protest, like the sudden opening and slamming of doors, and at every noise it brought the four of them closer together, until Killian could feel Mary Margaret’s small hand clutching tightly to his upper arm. He spared her the briefest of glances – in the gloom she looked completely pale, but her features were set into something determined. The house could screech and moan, but she would not be so easily spooked anymore.

This was the girl he remembered. The one who could be both; afraid, and brave.

Killian fumbled with the matches, but not a single one would light. Killian stuck his finger into the packet and found, bafflingly, that the tip of every match was damp, even though they had been tucked away in his pocket. With irritation Killian thought of the damp wall and the wallpaper, and he thought he could hear laughter. It might have been the wind whistling past broken glass, but it was something.

“Here,” David said. He’d pulled a lighter from his pocket.

At four of the five points they set a lit candle, and at the fifth they set a final one – unlit, for the release of energy they had intended. Quickly they took their places behind a flickering flame, leaving the gap between Killian and David where Emma had sat all those years ago.

Killian’s pulse raced, his heart felt jagged and stuttered; hope, that treacherous notion, couldn’t help but imagine that at the end of all this, she might once again be sitting there.

“Ah,” came an icy voice from over his shoulder. Killian shut his eyes, knowing who it was at once. “You finally brought my dagger.”

“Ignore her,” Killian said firmly, refusing to turn around, but the others weren’t paying attention to him. Their stares, slack-jawed and stupefied, were fixed on the phantom that had just entered the room.

David’s voice was hoarse. “Emma?”

“David,” Killian barked. “Take Mary Margaret’s hand.”

“David,” Emma’s voice was honeysuckle and thick. “David, it’s me. Come on, come away from there. It’s time to go, don’t you think?”

Mary Margaret snatched his hand from where it had been hovering near her, and in a daze, David turned his head back towards her.

“Look at me,” she said, fiercely. “My eyes. Only.” David looked torn. “That is not our girl.”

“David,” Emma sang. His shoulders tense, but he did not turn to look at her again. Instantly, Emma’s tone turned nasty. “Get out.”

Killian didn’t care for ceremony anymore; he didn’t care for the weight of it all, for the ritual, for the sense of preserving the past – he felt like he had spent his entire adult life consecrating devastation. Regina’s hand was tight in his, their incomplete circle ready and waiting. The candle flames danced backwards and forwards, and Killian used his spare hand to pull the dagger from his coat pocket.

There was a loud hiss from behind him, like the hum of a cooped-up predator, and something ice cold and hard swung in front of him and gripped his throat.

Killian gasped.

Mary Margaret screamed.

He felt the air being squeezed from his windpipe, the dig of Emma’s nails into his skin so harsh he was sure they must’ve drawn blood –

With effort, Killian raised his hand –

And flung the dagger into the centre of the circle.

The effect was instantaneous. Emma released him immediately and wailed, something loud and drastic and terrible, as the air began to crackle. There was no slow build up this time, a steady gathering of wits as the room began to take in its breath, there was just the rumble of distant thunder, the storm they made to summon forming as suddenly as a tornado. The wind howled through the cracked windows; one of them shattered under the force of it and carried shards of glass towards them, hurtling around them with great speed.

Through the gap between Killian and David, Emma had stumbled backwards into the middle of the circle, and her eyes were black and furious. Right in front of them, she began to curl in on herself but it was impossible, her back had bent at a right angle and the contortions were too much, too strange, that his brain tried to tell Killian that it wasn’t happening at all. The wind whipped away her crown of flowers until it disintegrated, and her mouth gaped open in a silent scream, wide, wider, a yawning arc of darkness.

Something sharp dug into Killian’s cheek – glass, he thought, helplessly – and he reached up his free hand to try and shield himself. Mary Margaret and Regina had their eyes tightly shut, expressions scrunched up with pain and Regina’s lips were moving, but Killian couldn’t hear anything over the roar in his ears.

That was when the lightning struck.

In unison, arcs of obsidian light latched onto both the centre of Emma’s chest and the dagger, tying the two together like an ugly, pulsing artery. Again it flashed, this time onto her back, and again, her left hand, again, her right, until Emma was entirely obscured from view by the opaque jet of the zephyr.

This was where they had lost Emma before – she had thrown herself into the centre of the storm.

Killian tensed, maybe – maybe –

Regina’s hand tightened on his, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts.

Not a chance, it said, and gripped even harder.

Instead he yelled out into the darkness.

“Emma!”

The only response was rage – the door to the sitting room swung off its hinges, dropping heavily onto the floor. The wallpaper was ripped to shreds. A hole the size of a fist splintered into the floorboards behind him. Even so, on hearing him, the others took up the call – screaming for Emma to come through, to break free, to take her place in their circle and complete them.

“I know you’re in there!” Killian hollered, and his throat felt hoarse but he needed to make himself heard. “Emma, you can do it!”

And then – and then – he saw her.

Not the twisted, luminous Emma that the house had been showing him, but Emma, their Emma, staring out from the centre of the tornado. Through jets of black lighting he could see her, eyes wide, palms facing upward as if waiting for the rain to come, her mouth open in a cry that he couldn’t hear.

He couldn’t hear it, but he could see it. When she locked eyes with him her mouth formed the same words that had haunted him from the minute they’d first been ripped from her.

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

Not this time.

Killian wrenched his hand free.

“No!” Regina cried.

If you have to have someone, he thought, furiously, then have me.

Killian hurtled in after her.

For a moment, everything was blindingly white, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he felt the touch of her hand.

It all fell quiet.

There was – nothing.

-/-

His heart was still beating. That was something, he supposed.

Behind his eyelids the light had dimmed, but it was still bright. That was how he knew it was no longer night. The air felt damp, and cold, and smelled faintly of wet moss and pine. The ground beneath his feet felt soft and earthy, and experimentally he wiggled his toes inside his boots. Obligingly, something squelched. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. About a metre in front of him the ground gave way, dropping hundreds of feet below him in stacked and uneven layers of rock, grass and sediment. A distant roar sounded from beneath him, and pitching himself forward a little he could see the crash of the river against the edges of the rockface.

He was standing at the edge of the ravine, he realised. The ravine that Liam had driven into.

“This is what it does,” Emma said from beside him. “It makes you relive all your worst moments.”

His hand was tucked into hers, not unpleasantly. Their shoulders brushed.

“Where am I?”

In the distance something screeched, and he and Emma turned their heads towards the sound. Belatedly, he realised it was the exhausted brakes of a car accompanied by the rumble of an engine, and a wave of nausea began to rise within him. The harshness of the sounds felt dissonant with the relative peace above the ravine, but as Killian turned his eyes to the right he could remember how it had looked in the days that followed. It had rained heavily that afternoon, the police report had indicated that had wiped away most of the evidence, and everywhere mud had been churned over and over, plants ripped from their roots. But at this moment everything was still, undisturbed.

The sound of the motor grew louder.

Killian couldn’t remember how to breathe. He began to feel the light patter of rain on the back of his neck.

Not this, he begged, not this. I don’t want to see this.

“It’s alright,” Emma said, squeezing his hand tightly. “I’ll be here.”

Then the trees exploded.

Liam’s old Mustang burst through the shrub, and although Killian was anxious not to see it, he couldn’t tear his eyes away, tried to fix his gaze on every single detail in the impossibly short space of time between the car careening from the forest and tipping over the edge of the ravine. It was like watching it in slow motion. The windshield had already cracked in two places, and the Mustang swerved dangerously to the left – attempting to wrench itself to rightness before it was too late, but it was too late – and when Killian finally felt brave enough to look into the cabin, he realised something else with a chilling rush of dread.

Liam was not alone in the car.

Someone else – something else – had two hands on the wheel, and Liam was wrestling for control. Acting purely on instinct Killian surged forward, but Emma’s grip on his hand held him back. He knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, that nothing he could do would be able to stop it.

Then he blinked, and Liam was alone in the car, and the Mustang had hurtled over the edge of the cliff. For a few seconds, the forest had earnt back its stillness.

Then, with an almighty crash that made the ground beneath him shake, the Mustang hit the surface of the water.

Killian couldn’t bring himself to look over the edge. On the cliff, just metres from where Killian now stood, someone else watched the car disappear beneath the walls. It was a man – or no, was it a man, his skin looked more like slick bronze, glittering like the scales of a fish – and then he was gone.

Killian reminded himself to breathe in, and breathe out. Emma reached across and brushed tears away from his cheek with a gentle finger, which was how he realised he had been crying. He clutched her other hand tightly in his own.

He couldn’t speak, and mercifully Emma didn’t seem to expect him to. It could have been minutes that they stood there together, breathing in, breathing out, or it could have been hours. It might not have been more than a few seconds. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled again. Killian began to feel a splatter of rain against the back of his neck, which was how he realised it had stopped raining the first time around.

“Careful,” Emma said. “Here it comes again.”

In the distance, he heard another screech of tired brakes.

Alarmed, Killian turned – and realised the treeline looked exactly as it had when he arrived, before Liam had burst through it.

Overwhelmed by the urge to throw up, Killian bent double and retched, but nothing came out. Emma rubbed a soothing hand on his back.

Again, he watched as the Mustang crashed through the thicket, as Liam fought for control of the wheel with the strange man – the same man who stood on the cliff afterwards before vanishing into thin air, he now realised – and skidded over the edge of the ravine. The world fell apart once more as the car pounded into its final destination.

“Where am I?” Killian repeated, in between taking large gulps of air.

The scaled man on the cliff watched the car, satisfied, before disappearing completely.

“It’s hard at first,” Emma sighed. “I watched my parents abandon me on the side of the freeway, like, a thousand times.” Her hand squeezed his own. “The car pulls over, my Mom gets out, she picks me up in my blanket and puts me down. Then she gets back in and it drives away. It was like picking at a scab I thought had already healed.”

It hadn’t, though. He could have told her that. Some scars were meant to stay with you forever.

We’ve all got ghosts here.

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

“I saw the kid who found me, too,” Emma added, bitterly, “his name’s August. Not that it matters now.”

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

Killian was finding it difficult to process what he was seeing with what he was being told.

“They say that’s the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result? I waited for them to get back out, just once, to not just leave me there. But that’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you want something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets.”

With a shudder, Liam’s Mustang broke the treeline again. It swerved, splattering mud across the clifftop. Liam wrestled for the wheel and the tail of the car swung out; hope shuddered to life within Killian, this time this time he would pull it back, he’d regain control, he’d turn before it –

The Mustang sped over the edge of the ravine.

“He wasn’t alone in the car,” Killian managed to get out, as his heart seized in his chest. “He didn’t – it wasn’t suicide.”

The scaled man on the cliff stared at the disappearing Mustang, and then vanished.

“That’s what the spirit of Brooke House looked like,” Emma said, nodding at where the scaled man had stood. “When it came to Liam.”

When it came to me, he wanted to cry, it looked like you.

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

“It threatened you,” she continued softly. “It said it would kill you if he didn’t help the spirit escape the house.”

“But he didn’t,” Killian added, needlessly. Of course he didn’t.

He thought of the ritual, the one Liam had outlined to banish the demon, and he felt weak. Helpless to stop the chain reaction of Liam’s death – both in the weeks that had led up to it, and as witness to his final few moments as the car crashed into the ravine. He would have died on impact, the coroner had said. The body swept up by the rush of the water below, taken out to sea. Just like everyone had always said. That final, private wish that he had only whispered aloud once, that the lack of a body meant that maybe, maybe something else had happened, was finally snuffed out.

Liam had been in that car. It was small comfort to know he hadn’t done it to himself.

The Mustang thundered out of the undergrowth, swerved, screeched, and fell.

“He tried to banish it, but he was missing one key ingredient.”

Killian knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, what that missing ingredient had been.

“The dagger.”

Emma nodded. “Right. After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man.”

But how had he known? How had he even thought to banish the demon? It seemed with every answer he got, a thousand more questions rose in its place.

“But the dagger… his name was on the dagger. Why didn’t he –?” Look like you?

If Liam had died in the ravine, just like they had always said he had, why was his name on the dagger?

Emma looked out across the ravine, darkly. “That’s just how it keeps score. Its victims. Liam isn’t trapped here, but I’d say he’s still a victim.”

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. Killian began to feel the splatter of rain against his neck.

“Wouldn’t you?”

In just seconds, gone forever. Not trapped, but gone.

Trapped.

For the third time, he asked: “Where am I?”

Emma shook her head. That wasn’t the right question.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang squealed.

So instead, he asked: “How do we stop the demon?”

“I’ve already told you,” Emma sighed, airily enough that it felt as if he were just disturbing her at work in the library again. Her voice sounded faint. “God, don’t you ever listen?”

Listen.

With the suddenness of breathing, his hand closed on empty air where it had once been holding Emma’s. She had gone.

So had the clifftop.

It was like waking up, when you weren’t sure how long you had been asleep.

He was standing in the single room of the old apartment he shared with Liam, and he had always been standing there. It was smaller than he remembered; just the open plan kitchen-stroke-sitting room-stroke-Liam’s bedroom, attached to an even littler bedroom that had been Killian’s. The kitchenette was in the corner, dark and musty smelling, and Liam’s bed was propped against the opposite wall, impeccably made as always. There had only been room for the bare minimum of additional furniture – a chest of drawers for some of Liam’s clothes, the rest hung on a metal rack like the kind found in a shop, a moth-eaten sofa and a small, boxy handheld television plucked right from the jaws of 1994 perched atop an overturned wastepaper basket serving as a table. It was dark, lit miserably by a single window next to the sofa, and warm in the uncomfortable way that a gym was warm; lived in.

It looked so insignificant. Almost barren, certainly cheap. Nothing to be proud of.

Killian longed for it with something so profound that it was an almost physical ache. This was life before Liam had died.

A key clicked in the lock, and the front door to the flat was flung open with more force than necessary. Killian’s heart sank once he realised what he was looking at.

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

In tumbled Liam, exactly as he remembered him, and a younger Killian – twelve years old, freckled, dark hair askew, and furious.

“—So unfair!” The younger Killian was scowling. “I don’t want to move again! I just started making friends!”

Killian had forgotten what it was they had fought about – it had faded completely from his mind beyond the core sentiment, which had been bloody and foul, in the wake of everything else that had happened that day. Now it all came back to him with startling clarity.

This was the last time he had seen Liam alive.

“Well, tough,” Liam said wearily, setting a plastic bag on the counter next to the refrigerator. “We are.”

The younger Killian rounded on him angrily. “Why?”

“For work.”

“Has all the wood been chopped in Storybrooke, then?”

Liam fixed him with a withering look. “Don’t be facetious. It’s important, Killian. You just have to trust me on this.”

He had wanted them to leave town, he remembered now.

After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man.

He would have known, even then, that Brooke House was coming for them.

It struck the older Killian, then, just how tired Liam had looked – dark circles clung to the bottom of his eyes, and his skin looked stretched and pale. It also occurred to him how young he was. Liam had always been taller, older, wiser; even after he had died Killian had never thought of him any differently. Yet, here, Liam Jones was just nineteen years old – and he already been looking after the brothers Jones for years already. Killian had already outlived his brother’s unfairly short life by almost three years.

The younger Killian threw himself dramatically down onto the moth-eaten sofa. “I bet Dad wouldn’t make us move.”

Liam scowled, busying himself taking a few meagre groceries out of the bag and putting them away. “You don’t know what Dad is capable of.”

“I would if you just told me!” The younger Killian twisted on the sofa so he could look at his brother, bristling with indignation. “What is it that’s so bad? Why won’t you talk about him or Mum?” Liam kept his mouth set in a thin line. How that had infuriated him at the time. “How about you just tell me, and then I’ll go without a fuss. I’ll even pack tonight! How’s that?”

“I don’t like being held to ransom,” Liam replied tersely. The younger Killian let out a cry of frustration, delivering a swift kick to the sofa, then stormed over to his bedroom door. “And a tantrum won’t help. So long as you continue to behave like a child, I will continue to treat you like –”

The younger Killian whirled around, hand on the doorknob and eyes ablaze.

“I hate you!”

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

“I’m not finished,” Liam snapped, “don’t you walk away from me.”

The younger Killian did not listen. He stomped into his room and slammed the door shut behind him.

Don’t, Killian begged, come out. This is it. This is the last time.

Liam had followed him to the door, let his hand hover above the handle.

Open it, he longed, pleaded. Don’t leave it like this.

He watched Liam change his mind. He watched him pick up his car keys. He watched him curtly inform the younger Killian that he was going out for a little while, but he would be back soon. He watched him wait for the younger Killian to respond.

He did not.

Liam left the flat.

A key clicked in the lock and in again came Liam, with the younger Killian in tow.

“—So unfair!”

Like the clifftop, he was apparently doomed to watch the same moment over and over – but Killian refused. Seething, he tried to think himself into being somewhere else. He didn’t know the rules here, but somehow he had moved from the ravine to here, and if that was possible then he could move from here to somewhere that was not here.

Not this time, Killian thought furiously, no more than once.

In part instinct and in part miserable fury, Killian put his fist through the thin plaster wall.

Behind his eyes, pain exploded – but it was not from his fist. No, his wrists were smarting, burning with an agony he could not see, and someone was screaming and he thought it might be him, he was back in the sitting room at Brooke House, the storm raged, a tornado of wanting and longing and hoping and nothing ever changing, and he could feel his left hand clasped around the dagger but his right – his right –

Emma was there, and she was holding tightly onto his right hand.

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “Listen!”

He was in Granny’s Diner.

He knew this because he could hear the quiet lull of patrons around him, and the faint smell of melted cheese had begun to permeate. He could feel the hard, well-worn cushion from one of the booths beneath him, and he could still taste vanilla cake on the tip of his tongue. He knew because Emma’s arms were around his neck and she was holding him tightly, and he could feel her breath on his lips. He knew because he had lived in this moment so many times, and begged a thousand times to have ended it differently. He didn’t need a demon to do that for him

“Thank you,” Emma had said, her cheeks flushed with glorious delight (he had done that, he thought fiercely). “For always knowing exactly what I want before I do.”

“You’re…” he trailed off, because he had become distracted by the bright and welcome jade of her eyes. “You’re welcome.”

All it would take was moving himself closer just an inch. He was suddenly conscious of his hand on the side of her hip, of his desire to move it further around until it brushed her spine, to use it to tug her to him, bridging the final distance between them. Her lips looked soft and pliant, a rosy pink that had spent their lives shaping around his favourite words in the entire world, because everything she said was a gift, and he loved her, God, he loved her, he loved her so much.

The jagged beat of Only You was rattling from the jukebox in the corner, and Killian Jones wanted to kiss Emma Swan more than he had ever wanted anything.

He could feel her unsteady breathing, rising and falling against his chest, and he was sure her pulse would be racing to match his – but fear gripped him. What if she didn’t want this? What if it scared her as much as it bloody terrified him? If he leaned forward and she didn’t meet him halfway he didn’t think he could bear it. He hesitated

He hesitated –

He always hesitated when it was important –

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

Killian had sailed past this moment more times than he could count, he didn’t need a ghost to remind him of all the roads not taken. For the last five years, Only You had been the song he had almost kissed Emma Swan too, days before he had lost her forever. In that moment, he couldn’t think of anything worse than watching himself, feeling himself not doing it over and over for eternity when that had been his only chance.

That’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you want something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets.

Is this what Emma had done, for five years? Replay over and over the worst possible pockets of time it could think to show her, wishing ardently for something to be different, praying desperately for some hope of rescue. He thought back to the tape recorder – she had sounded lost, confused. Defeated. Trapped in an unending limbo of nothing ever changing.

It had to stop today.

How do we stop the demon?

Listen.

Emma’s eyes flickered to his lips, he felt her swaying dangerously forward. The air smelt of burnt toast, vanilla sponge and anticipation, and Killian felt untouchable.

Only You trickled out from the jukebox in the corner.

“‘Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love… Can you hear me?’”

Killian froze.

That song had been following him around for days.

Piss off, ghost.

A taunt, he had thought. A wretched reminder of everything he had almost had. But what if it wasn’t?

I’ve already told you. God, don’t you ever listen?

The tape recorder was proof, Emma had the ability to bleed through the machinations of the demon, to touch her surroundings cautiously, gently, from inside her void of almosts and never-have-beens, and she had been hurling this moment into his path ever since he returned to town.

Maybe something in it had to change.

But if you fight it, Killian thought furiously, that only makes the demon stronger. So what was he supposed to do?

Emma’s arms tightened almost imperceptibly around his neck.

In the space of a steadying breath, he allowed himself another long look at her. Pretty, dainty eyelashes, but fierce and warm eyes of jade, capable of spitting fire and turning his insides into something weak and wanting. Her lips were parted and daring him closer, and as he entertained the thought of leaning in his heart hammered against his ribcage. God, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her more than anything.

The future was only sky. They had all the time in the world.

So maybe he didn’t fight it.

He didn’t want to, not anymore. He was so, so tired of fighting his way through life, Mary Margaret had lauded him over his stamina but that’s not what it was, not really, he just couldn’t remember what life had been like before he’d needed to throw up his fists. So he decided he was done with all that. If giving up meant he could live in the sensation of her breath on his lips, of their almost and their never-have-been, in that half a second before they decided no, then he would happily give up on life outside of this oblivion.

“‘All I needed was the love you gave…’”

Because almost kissing Emma, he decided, was so much better than living in a world where he hadn’t done it.

If you have to have someone, he thought, have me.

It was like waking up, when you didn’t know how long you had been asleep for. Suddenly mobility was possible, and he could feel his own chest rising and falling unevenly, aware of his own breath in a way that made it feel like he hadn’t been breathing before. Once he realised with awe that he could move it, he lifted a trembling hand up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, cupping her face with the other. As his pulse raced, he just wanted to be sure that she was real.

“Emma,” Killian said, and his voice sounded far away. His thumbs brushed across the shells of her cheeks. “I’d very much like to kiss you now.”

Emma grinned, and he realised she was crying.

“You fucking better.”

Instantly, Killian surged forward.

It was everything he had hoped it would be. Emma was warm, soft, eager, and mimicking the same little sighs he could hear escaping through his own lips – kissing Emma was like kissing air. It was tightness in the top of his stomach; it was saturated mornings under the oaks; it was winter at the door, brushing its feet on the mat; it was the final ten seconds before the whistle blew in a championship game when all that was left was that startling, adrenaline-pumping hope. Kissing Emma was a race that he had been training his entire life for.

Everything was noise.

Wind surged, static hummed, someone screamed but still Killian resisted; he was determined to inhabit this moment, this second, if this was the rest of his life then he didn’t intend to stray too far. If it was just the space of a single exhale then he would breathe out, and he would breathe out, and he would learn to go without oxygen because as far as he was concerned, there was no other possible choice he could make. He heard someone calling his name. A hand scrambled at the hem of his jacket. Something fizzled like a power line coming loose and he could hear the sound of glass shattering –

Emma pulled away.

He could still feel her hands in his hair, though. That had to be something. He kept his eyes tightly shut.

He was cold, and he could smell the forest. Dry leaves crunched underneath a boot. He tasted only velvet, mist, and Emma.

“Killian,” she said softly.

Killian shook his head. He didn’t want the dream to end.

“Killian, you can open your eyes.”

Reluctantly, he did as he was bid. He was standing in the middle of a familiar patch of forest, his hands tracing the edge of Emma’s face – because she was here, and she was solid, and there wasn’t a lot else he cared about other than that – it had to be the middle of the night, as the sky overhead was a black curtain pulled taut, specks of light barely visible scattered across it. The earth looked black beneath his boots but he knew from the crackle underfoot that in daylight it would be a watercolour pad of New England autumn, but that didn’t make his being there any less disorienting.

“Where did – how did we get out here?”

Was that – Regina?

“Oh, oh – Emma!”

Killian felt the wind knocked out of him as someone came crashing into the side of he and Emma, throwing their arms around them – David? – and again they swayed dangerously, but this time someone was crushing him from behind and someone was crying and eventually his knees buckled and they were all tumbling down onto the forest floor. It was haphazard and dizzying, but he recognised their hearts just as clearly as his own; all relief, all love, all fierce, fierce joy.

Emma was clinging to David while he sobbed into her shoulder, and Mary Margaret was holding on tightly from behind and speaking in such a floundering, nonsensical babble that nobody had any idea what she was saying. Killian was dazed, and more than a little confused, but blisteringly happy. He had no idea what had just happened, but since this was the outcome he had been praying for, he chose not to dwell on it.

Regina clapped a hand onto his shoulder, and he spotted her wiping something from the corner of her eye that looked suspiciously like emotion.

“It’s over.”

-/-

Brooke House was gone.

That was what they had managed to surmise after they had finally been able to disentangle from each other. It wasn’t that they had been transported to some other location, it was that the house itself had vanished around them, leaving them sprawled in the dirt feeling more than a little shaken and more than a little relieved. The ritual had worked, they had banished the demon, and the only evidence it had ever been there at all was in their story shared, their hard-won memories, and a curving, silver dagger stabbed blade first into the earth. A close inspection revealed its edge to be flat and smooth. No names. Just a dagger. They left it there, buried in the soil. They were finished with it now.

Killian had tried more than once to explain what had happened after he’d hurtled into the storm after Emma, not just to the others but to himself – but Emma had laced their fingers together and she looked so paralyzingly pained and sweet and sad that he had stopped trying. Some things were easier not to explain.

She hadn’t spoken much on the way back, just tucked herself tiredly into Killian’s side and dropped her head against his shoulder. She was wearing the same outfit she had disappeared in, which made her look oddly like something stitched together from different times – she was a woman now, wearing the old, worn, coat and boots of a girl. David had attached himself to her other side, putting a strong arm around her shoulders and occasionally patting her hair, murmuring tender reassurances and kissing her forehead.

Killian knew how he felt. He thought he might have a panic attack if he had to let go of her hand.

Somehow, they had done it. The demon was gone and so was Brooke House, and Emma had been given back to them.

She had been amazed to discover she had been gone for five years.

“I’ll go to the sheriff station first thing,” Emma said, nodding her head like it would settle everything. “Clear your names.”

Regina looked unconvinced. “I’m not sure that’ll do it.” The fact that David had punched Humbert in the jaw was just now coming back to them, and Killian couldn’t help but agree.

“Why not?” Emma argued hotly. Then she pointed at herself. “Missing girl. No longer missing. Case closed, right?”

Killian squeezed her hand. “We don’t have to settle anything now.”

For now she was here, and it was enough.

As they turned onto Main Street he felt Emma begin to tremble, her shoulders shaking underneath David’s arm. Whether it was fear or relief or anticipation or a combination of all three, Killian couldn’t tell, but after he had asked her she reluctantly revealed that where she really wanted to go was to the Nolan house; to Ruth.

David turned away to hide a fresh wave of overwhelmed, happy tears, but Emma’s attention was fixed on Killian.

She rounded so she was in front of him, her free hand fisted into the lapel of his jacket.

“I want to see Ruth,” she said, looking agitated, “but I –”

She cut herself off, stared fixedly into his eyes. Willed him to understand.

I don’t want to be away from you.

Something warm bloomed in his chest.

“I’m staying at Granny’s,” he offered with a smile. “You could – after. If you want.”

I love you I love you I love you I love

“No, he’s not,” Regina cut in. “He’s staying with me.” When they all turned to look at her she bristled, adding lamely: “I’ll… make lasagne.”

Emma laughed and it was such a beautiful sound. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I want.”

By the time dawn had kissed the sky with streaks of pink and orange, that offer had become too tempting for any of them to resist. Regina and Killian had immediately decided sleep was impossible and had started depleting her stores of homemade cider to try and relax their nerves and carry them until morning. They talked about nothing at all, and although Killian could tell Regina was desperate to ask about what they had done, what he might have seen, itching for a chance to make a comparison to her book of spells, Killian did not give her the opportunity to do so. There would be time for all of that.

An hour or so in, Mary Margaret had arrived at the door. Wordlessly, she had proffered a bottle of Jose Cuervo, and they had invited her inside.

The sky was just beginning to brighten when David and Emma returned, which was how they now found themselves laid out on the floor of Regina’s sitting room, gorged on the perfect lasagne and mellowed by fatigue and Jose, watching the sun come up through the tall, French windows.

Emma was curled in Killian’s lap, her legs slung across his and her head resting against his chest, listening to the steady gallop of his heart. He very much wanted to kiss her again – hell, he wasn’t even sure he had kissed her the first time. But there would be time for all of that, too.

Everything was bathed in golden light. Regina was dozing on a sofa, David and Mary Margaret were talking earnestly in hushed, gentle voices, their foreheads touching. Killian was struck by something so right, so definite, that he wasn’t sure anything he had experienced since Emma had disappeared had been real. This was so clearly how everything was supposed to be that it was inconceivable to imagine it had been any other way.

“Thank you,” Emma murmured against his chest. She lifted her head up so their eyes met. They were a soft storm of emerald, rimmed with a tired scarlet edge along her eyelashes. “For not giving up.”

I love you, her fingers curled into the worn leather of his jacket, danced a pattern across his chest. Tapped a beat to match his aching heart. He could hear her. I love you.  

“How could I?” he replied. “You know where Archie hides the good snacks.”

She kissed him in the dusty light of morning, and it chased the last of his ghosts away, out into the dawn.

-/-

A/N: if you made it this far - THANK YOU! I am honestly so grateful for all of the support I received for this fic, it was my first try at writing something kinda horror/spooky and I’m really proud of how it came out. I’ve honestly been blown away by some of the comments I’ve got, I am SO happy, you guys are so awesome and I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed it so far - it’s been a pleasure to make your hearts race and keep you up at night! 

I’ll be posting a short epilogue on Wednesday, so keep an eye out for that! for now, turrah, and thank you so much! <3

[ddaenggtan]

666 Butterfly Kisses | ksj | m

The Most Unedited™️. I wrote this straight in Tumblr drafts like a heathen so I barely got a word count for y’all. Entirely here because @personawife loves 666jin despite having known nOTHING about him and also because @minyoonkeeks is the biggest jin stan ever and deserves jin smut on her our birthday, even if its the unedited trash this is dammit, so happy birthday keeks, i hOPE it isn’t awful and lives up to the Jin Standard

-note: this can be read as a standalone, but is part of my 666verse, with the same MC as the other two, which I really should make a masterlist for at this point. This is set somewhere around Renaissance Italy, but like, not really. I know nothing about history except what I know from Assassin's Creed so.

Warnings/Genre | vamp!reader, fae prince!jin, historicalish, sword fighting (not an innuendo), oral: female, throat riding (yes, you read that right), unprotected sex (you are not a vampire or a fae or in renaissance Italy, but you cAN get stis and babies, plEASE use condoms), creampie, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, dirty talk, praise, slight blood drinking mentions at the end but nothing graphic

pairing | ksj x reader

word count | 4.7k

Cool air brushes your shoulders as you strut onto the balcony. The ballroom is crowded and loud and hot, especially with the several layers to your dress. The twilight air is soothing against your heated skin, and you do your best to ignore the way the lace at the edges of your mask tickles your skin.

You only stay outside for a minute; there's too much to do for you to keep to yourself for longer than a moment. Your friends - if you can call them that; you have no doubt they would stick a knife in your back the moment it became beneficial to them - are still suspicious and on edge. Not without reason, either. Tonight would be the best night for an assassination; crowded and masked and distracting as the ball is, it's almost too easy to sneak inside.

As proved by the man wandering in from the courtyard.

Your eyes stay on him as he enters the ball and begins to mingle; whatever fabric his clothes are made of is transcendent. They sparkle in the candlelight and ripple like water as he struts around the room, accented by the golden accessories and trim. His mask matches, a beautiful gold with black around the edges designed to mimic a butterfly, and it all sets off the tan of his skin in a most beautiful way.

It's curious; you would know if you'd seen him before, you're sure, yet someone as starkly noticeable as he would be a terrible assassin.

Nevertheless, you're here to do a job and gain a favor, so you make your way back into the ballroom. You catch his eye for a brief second, sending a coy smile before curtsying lightly and disappearing into the throng of dancers.

The dancing of this century is much more structured than before; it brings you comfort to know that so long as you know the steps, you can't make a fool of yourself. Your partner for the moment is a well-known merchant. He's not particularly handsome, or charismatic, but he's kind enough, and his hands don't wander.

Still, you catch the mysterious stranger's eye several times as he joins the dancing himself. The light catches on his jeweled throat-piece nearly much as it catches on your own ruby that's situated on your chest, just shy of being proper.

The partners change, and you catch his eye once more. You bite back a smile when you see him dancing with Lady Montilyet, a sweet girl who knows more than she should about you but never fails to get flustered when you wink at her. Her cheeks tint when you catch her eye, and the Butterfly looks intrigued when he next looks at you.

Too soon your partners change again and you lose track of him, distracted with keeping wandering hands away from the dagger stored in your bodice and the poison stashed in your hollowed ring. They're there as precautions, of course, one can never be too careful, but there are a handful of people here who are acutely aware of just how willing you are to use them, should the situation arise.

"Someone is deep in thought." You blink and smile when you find Butterfly before you, bowing deeply for the start of the dance.

"I was," You agree as you curtsy in return. "Surely you don't wish to hear about a lady's idle thoughts, though, good sir."

"You may call me Farfalla," He says easily, taking one of your hands in his and leading you in the steps. "May I have your name in return?"

"You may call me whatever you wish," You tell him; it's habit at this point. You don't think anyone there knows the name you were born with, and it's been so long ago that even you only remember because you force yourself to do so.

"Well then," Butterfly - Farfalla - says with an amused grin, "I shall call you Fiora. All butterflies are attracted to flowers, are they not?"

"Some," You agree. He spins you in the air in time with the others and you ignore the rush of elation that comes with it. It's a new feeling; you're usually better than this at remaining impartial to potential assassins. "Now what is a butterfly such as yourself doing in a garden such as this?"

"I could ask the same of you," He counters. "I'm sure I've never seen such a beautiful flower. Not in a Medici garden, for sure."

"Is a Medici garden somehow lesser?" You ask, surprised. He may as well have just spat in their faces, at their own event no less. Your allies have their fair share of enemies, but none so bold as to insult them so obviously.

"Not at all," He says as he steps back into a deep bow. "Merely an observation that they tend to choose their blooms for popularity, when the most stunning of gardens are cultivated for the rarity of the blossom and the beauty of the petal."

You dip into a curtsy but before you can ask him anything else, he's whisked away by the giggling wife of some beaurocrat and you're left to politely decline the invitation to continue from someone in a swan mask. Instead you turn and make your way carefully towards the back of the room, where you know Niccoló is lurking, and you oretend you can't feel the weight of the Butterfly's eyes on you the whole way.

--

The night is calming down slightly. The drunkards have either passed out or left and now all that's left is the hundred or so people who have actual business to conclude. You can see Giovanni near the doors to the balcony, chatting amicably with Leonardo. At least, it looks amicable. You never know with Giovanni; he tends to smile while he watches people drown.

You run your palms over the skirts of your dress, cursing the fabric. It's the softest silk available and yet it still feels coarse to the touch after feeling the Butterfly's garments. Even if he is an assassin, you really need to find out who his tailor is, because snyone that can stitch the night sky together and drape it over someone's shoulders like that needs to be in your employ. Speaking of the Butterfly, your eyes dart around for the millionth time, doing their best to spot the tall man amidst the crowd. It's curious that you haven't been abke to, because he's done nothing but draw your eye all night. He's proven charismatic and charming, always ready with a witty quip or a perfectly chosen compliment, and you wish it didn't make heat roll under your skin.

The waning candlelight has you nervous; the wicks are burned nearly to the base, and the smell of it always makes your stomach turn. It also adds to the shadows in the room, providing ample areas to hide away. It's useful for you, of course, but also for anyone else.

Particularly butterflies.

With a sudden gust of air, the balcony doors burst open; the scent of camellias drifts in with them and you frown at the familiarity of it. You're already moving, taking advantage of the way everyone has stilled as half the remaining candles have blown out. You remember where Giovanni and Niccoló were, for the most part, and when you get close, you can only just catch the glimpse of gold darting away.

When you get there, Niccoló is cradling Giovanni on the ground and waves you off.

"He's fine, just startled, go, now," Niccoló tells you. You bristle slightly at being given orders from a mere human, but you also know that he's right. You're off down the halls without another moment wasted, chasing the twinkling stars kf fabric down the halls. It's pitch black and you're glad for your superior vision as you run, otherwise you'd likely have lost your target long ago.

You turn the corner into a long entryway and barely duck out of the way as an ornately carved dagger flies at your face. You pull your own out and tuck it against your arm.

"I see this butterfly bites," You call. There's a stifled laugh from the room, and you hate that you're endeared by the sound.

"Says the flower who hid her thorns," He calls back. You dart inside and behind a column, avoiding another dagger in the process. A careful peek around the stone shows that he's had a similar idea; you can just catch a glimpse of his soft brown hair peeking out. The glint of light against steel catches your eye and you realize he's picked up a sword somewhere. That won't do at all, not when you've just got a dagger. You look around and smile when you catch sight of two of Giovanni's rapiers mounted on the wall.

"Did you really expect me not to have thorns?" You call to him, tiptoeing your way around the column and towards the one beside it. Your footsteps are muffled against the marble floor, and you're hoping your voice does more to distract from them.

"No, flowers that pretty always have thorns," Butterfly says with a laugh in his voice. You can hear him moving as well, and you dart towards the rapiers as another dagger slams into the stone where your head was.

You rip the blade off the wall and duck behind a column again, doing your best to ignore the fire burning under your skin. No one's gotten to you like this in a long while, and you'll be damned if you let a would-be assassin do so.

"So tell me," You call into the echoes of the hall, ears straining to hear if he's moving. "Why would a butterfly want to kill one of the de Medicis?"

A noise almost like a scoff echoes around you, bouncing off the marble. You can't pinpoint where he is, and your eyes strain to see him even with your enhanced vision.

"Why would a flower?" He whispers into your ear. You jump and turn, dagger swinging wide toward where his voice was. It's a useless attempt, too easy for him to dodge as his own rapier slices through the air towards you. You parry and step back, doing your best to regain control.

"Flowers can be poisonous, but only to those who treat them wrong," You tell him, attempting a thrust and jab only for him to sidestep.

"Butterflies are the same, and yet I'm left with no real answers." He attempts his own jab that you quickly deflect, and the banter quiets for a while as you both focus on the swordfight. He's a skilled opponent, definitively better than you are; he moves with a grace and fluidity you've never seen before, and it only makes the heat in your belly that much worse. The hunger begins to seep in as well, and your vision clouds as your mind wanders to what he might taste like.

It's a poor thing to think, especially since it gives him the opening he needs. Moments later he has you against the wall, the blade of the rapier balanced carefully against your throat. You bite back a curse, but he can no doubt see it in the twitch of your nose and curl of your lip.

"So do I get an answer before you kill me?" You ask him. "Why would you want Giovanni dead?"

"Me?" He asks, a laugh in his voice. "You're the one trying to kill him." You cock a brow, barely visible over your mask.

"I assure you, I am not. It's a terrible businessman what kills his customers."

Butterfly frowns and his eyes narrow slightly. He reaches a gloved hand up and runs his thumb across your cheek, a light touch that makes you shiver nonetheless. It's only a breath later that he's tugging your mask off and studying your face.

"You," He says softly. "Vampire?"

"Yes," You say, letting your mouth hang open slightly so he can the fangs at each side. "And how do you know of me and mine?"

He grins, amused and secretive. "I trust you aren't one to bite the hand that feeds you, then." The wink he sends almost has you laughing at his joke.

Almost.

"No promises about the hand that has a blade to my throat," You warn. His lips quirk in an unvoiced laugh and he steps back, sliding his rapier back into place on his hip.

"I'm not trying to kill Giovanni," Butterfly says. "I owed him a favor that I'm repaying, much as I suspect you are, by being a watchful eye at his events for the time being."

It makes more sense than him being an assassin. He'd be a terrible assassin; he draws too much attention.

"You were running because...?"

"I thought I saw someone run this way. And then I was being chased, and assumed you were trying to kill me instead now."

"Fair assumption, I suppose." You can still feel his chest against yours, the scent of peach blossoms on the air around him. He hasn't stepped away at all, and your mouth is watering with the need to taste him.

"You look hungry, petal," He whispers. There's a laugh in his voice and you have to admit, it only makes him more attractive. A vision appears, him sprawled underneath as you taste him, but he steps back a ways before you can. "Go get dinner. I'll tell Giovanni and Niccoló that there was nothing to worry about tonight."

He's gone before you can protest. You didn't even see him move; one minute he was there and now he's not, no sign that he even existed save for the mask at your feet.

Your hands tremble slightly as you pick it up, and you don't know why but you hold on to it the entire way to your home.

---

Weeks pass. You haven't seen him again, not at any of the parties that Giovanni throws or the meetings that Niccoló organizes. Nowhere, no matter how much you look.

You mourn that fact as you sit at your vanity, silk sleeping gown cascading down your crossed legs. Your mirror is useless; its made with silver and offers no reflection, and you hope that there will be something better in the next hundred years so that you can stop relying on your maids to make you look respectable.

The window to your room clicks open with a breeze, the scent of peach blossoms strong on the air before he appears. You watch it happen in the mirror; the swirl of shadow and mist and flowers before he steps inside completely.

"At least I ask for an invitation first," You tell him. "Imagine the scandal if anyone were to know you sneak into an unwed woman's rooms at the dead of night."

He steps forward and presses a soft kiss to the top of your head. "Apologies," He whispers. "It did take me a fair while to find your abode, though. And I am a very busy man." He looks up into the mirror and smiles at where your reflection should be. He's even more gorgeous without the mask; full pillow lips, soft brown eyes, bone structure that humans would kill to be born with.

"I suppose the fae prince is indeed a busy man." The way he stiffens only confirms your suspicions, and the fact that you were right just spurs you on. "I can't imagine what he would be doing here with me."

"Maybe he likes not being treated like a prince for once."

"Maybe he should tell me what he wants so we can make an arrangement that will suit both of us."

"Is it not enough that I want you?" He groans, burrowing his nose into your neck and inhaling. "Won't you give yourself to me?"

"No," You tell him simply. He pouts as you stand, but he doesn't fight you as you push him towards the lush bed at the far end of the room. "But I will give you this one night."

"I'll take it," He says.

His lips are on yours in a heartbeat, sealing your deal and encouraging the fire between your legs. You push him back until he sits on the bed and you climb up to straddle him, his hands gripping the backs of your thighs to keep you steady.

"You're radiant," He tells you. "Breathtaking in so many ways."

"Stop talking," You respond as you dart down to suck a bruise onto his neck. You've not been able to stop thinking about it; marking it, drinking from it, his throat has featured in nearly every fantasy that you've had lately and you're more than ready to taste the real thing.

He goes without resistance when you push him onto his back, pulling your hips down to grind against the tent in his pants. Your wetness is already seeping through the silk of your gown and you can't find it in you to be embarrassed.

"On my face," He says, panting. "Want you to ride my tongue." Heat hits you again and you nod. You like to think you're always graceful, but you know how you must look, scrambling to hike your gown up to your waist and plant your knees on either side of his head.

He isn't afraid to tease, giving soft kitten licks to the sensitive skin of your thigh before darting in to lap at your folds for real. Your moans can't be contained so you don't try; you've had several bed partners, but none have felt like this between your legs.

"Christ, Butterfly-"

"Jin," He says, hands gripping your ass to lift you up. "You can call me Jin tonight." He's back to work in no time, tongue dipping into your tight heat to swirl around before licking up to your clit so he can suckle on it.

"God, Jin, yes!" Your hands grip his hair tightly and he moans into your folds at the feeling. It only spurs him on, sucking hard on your clit before he starts to fully fuck you with his tongue. It's a glorious feeling and you nearly cum just from that as you grind yourself down onto him. It's been too long since you had a partner as enthusiastic as you are, and it shows with the way your legs tighten around his neck.

A strangled choke comes from between your thighs and you lift off him immediately.

"I'm sorry, I-"

"No," He interrupts. With a brief scoot, he's watching you with eyes blown black, your wetness dripping down to land on his neck. His chin is already soaked, but something about seeing yourself on his neck - something you've already fantasized about tasting - has your hips moving in aborted thrusts.

He notices and cocks a brow. It only lasts a moment before realization creeps over him, eyes turning impossibly darker as his grip on your thighs tightens. He moves one hand to the small of your back, guiding you carefully down until your folds rest against his throat.

"What...what are you-"

"Ride," He commands. There's power in his voice, an authority that even you can't question, so you do. Your hips are guided by his hand on your back, and you can't lie, it's heavenly. His throat is thick and firm against your heat, and provides the perfect amount of pressure to your aching clit. His Adam's apple hits you just right, and you're moaning before you can even register the sound. Jin himself is clearly into it; the hand not on your back has disappeared, and if you cared enough to pay attention, you might look back to see it rubbing gently at his hardened length.

As it stands though, he's gasping for breath against your weight and the way it makes his throat clench makes you clench in return. You grind hard against his throat and he moans - loud and unabashed; the vibrations go straight to your clit, and the heat inside of you nearly explodes at the feeling. It's one thing to hear someone moan, and it's another thing to feel them moan while they eat you out. But to feel their throat vibrate with pleasure as you ride it?

Transcendent.

You raise slightly to allow him to breathe, hips still grinding mercilessly against his skin for any sense of friction. He pushes you back down and gives you a taunting smile.

"Are you close, petal?" He asks, vibrations from his voice making you whine. "You're so close just from grinding on my throat. I wonder what would happen if I touched you right now. Would you cum for me so easily?" You whimper and nod.

"Please, Jin, I want to cum," you gasp. Something about it strikes a nerve in him, because he groans again. You're already half-gone, but then he swallows; his Adam's apple hits your clit hard and your orgasm explodes through you.

Jin waits until you're finished spasming on top of him before he flips you around, carefully laying you back on your bed before stripping out of his shirt and unlacing his leather breeches to pull himself out.

You'd heard rumors about the fae, of course; everyone said they were supernaturally gifted in certain areas. You'd previously thought that was all a trick, one of the many ways they use their magic to goad humans into selling their souls. Looking at Jin, though, is a learning experience. There's no magic in the way that he weighs down his hand, or the throbbing purple of his head. Not in the way he strokes it slow and languid as he settles between your thighs.

The stretch as he slides into you is all too real, and has you quaking around him.

"Oh my god, Jin," You gasp, hands darting up to grip his broad shoulders. "Fuck, you're huge."

"Thank you," He chuckles, continuing to press his length into you. It isn't hard; you're soaked and relaxed after your orgasm, and all too willing to take every inch he gives you. When he finally bottoms out, you both groan, your pussy contracting around his thick shaft.

No one that big had ever been inside you, and he was reaching places nobody else ever had.

"Fuck, my pretty petal," He whispers as he slides halfway put before pushing back in. "You're so wet for me, petal. Did you like that then? You liked riding my throat so hard you came on it?" You moan and your walls flutter around him, and he takes the opportunity to speed up.

It doesn't take long for him to begin really pounding into you. Your legs are hitched up around his waist, ankles crossed over his lower back as he slams into you over and over again. The curses you spew are in so many languages you can't count them all, a mixture of all the ones you've learned in your time on this earth, and Jin sounds like he's praying, the way he's moaning softly above you.

It's minutes before you can feel the string inside you growing taut once more. Jin must notice because his palms push at your calves until your knees are as close to your shoulders as they can get, and suddenly he's that much deeper inside. You can feel him up to your cervix, fucking hard and fast into you, and he watches as you bring one hand down to tease circles into your clit.

"Beautiful, petal. Love watching you touch yourself for me, watching you cum for me. Come for me, let me feel you come on my cock, give me another and I'll give you all the seed you could ever need. Does that sound nice, petal?" You nod, fingers speeding up as his thrusts become more pointed, searching.

It takes four. Four thrusts for him to find that spot inside you that makes universes bloom behind your eyelids. You scream when he does, pushing down hard on your clit so that the constant pressure might distract you, might prolong the feeling.

"Oh no, sweetheart," Jin tuts gently. He drops a hand to push yours away from your clit and resumes the teasing himself. It's different when it's him; where you had been keeping rythm with his thrusts, he doesn't bother, instead moving slowly and teasingly against the bundle of nerves as he continues to pound hard and fast into your heat. "No, I want to feel this sweet pussy come around me. I want to watch you fall apart on my cock, and then I want to fuck you full of my cum. Will you make that happen for me, my sweet petal? Will you be a good girl for me?"

You don't even get a chance to warn him before you're coming, contracting so hard around him that you're worried he might get pushed out.

It doesn't stop him though; he continues his thrusts. He changes it though, shifts so he's sitting back on the bed and you're in his lap, propped up against his chest so he can thrust up into you. His hands are on your hips, lifting you up just to pull you down to meet his hips as they fuck harder into you.

"Very good, petal," He murmurs. "You were so good, so now it's my turn, right? I get to use your pretty pussy. God, you're too fucked out to even speak, aren't you?" You manage a quick nod and he laughs, sweet and lilting, and pinches at your nipple. A third orgasm rushes through you and you're jolting against him, riding the waves as he continues fucking you through the overstimulation.

"Fuck, you're so good for me, the perfect flower. Can you give me one more, petal? One more orgasm. I know you can do it."

"No," You whine, even as your hips grind down to meet him. "Can't, I'm, too much."

"Okay, petal, okay," He whispers, massaging the muscles in your back as he fucks you. "Fuck, you're so fucking wet, the perfect pussy for me. You take it so well, like you were made for me."

"Was," You mutter, too high on your own orgasms to manage proper words. "Made...just for you..." There's more you want to say, like how the smell of peach blossoms has always been your favorite and how you've never seen anyone handle a dagger or a rapier like he does, but it won't come out.

It seems to do the trick though, because a minute later, you can feel him coming inside you. It triggers a fourth orgasm, both of you shuddering as you ride the highs. You pant ass he slides you off his dick and lays you back; he groans as he watches his cum slide out of you and stain the sheets underneath.

"Fuck, you're so beautiful like this," he whispers as he throws an arm over you and pulls you close. You don't respond, already half-asleep. "I'll have breakfast ready when you wake up, petal. You rest."

You manage a nod, a mumbled 'thank you' barely making it out before you're asleep.

--

When you wake the next evening, the scent of peach blossoms hangs in the air. Your thighs are almost as sore as your pussy, the bed is cold next to you, and there's a beautiful woman sitting at your vanity, brushing her hair. You frown at her, rubbing your face. She hears you moving and turns with a bright grin.

"Oh, you're awake. The Prince mentioned you might be hungry when you woke, so I'm here with breakfast." She stands, the silk nightie leaving nothing to imagination as she slides into the bed beside you.

"And where is the prince?" You ask her, already leaning forward to press kisses to her neck.

"He left you a - ah! - a note," She says as you sink your fangs into the tender flesh of her neck. You drink until you're sated and refreshed, and you wave her out after she's done cleaning herself up.

There is indeed a note left on your vanity, in the quick scrawl you imagine is Jin's.

Thanks for a good time, petal. I won't forget it. -Butterfly

[unkindledsuggestions]

the sweet agony of the sword piercing through your chest makes you grin, the feral smile confusing your attacker. he’s only doing what he must, what is right-- after all, you are the demon here, the sinner hunting others for the fun of it, the blemish in the eyes of long dead gods. his duty is to defend the innocent and in that he is excelling.

or, he was.

the red bitch who invaded alongside you fell to his blade, and surely he expects you to crumple too as the steel slides free of your torso, your bubbling, choking breaths a certain swan song.

but you’re still grinning. the laughter bubbles, too, blood dribbling from your lips as he stumbles away and you press a hand to the wound. the blade was smooth-edged, not meant to bleed one out, but ohhhh, how sweetly the blood flows still. it soaks into your glove, turns the moss-green fabric dark dark dark with the wet and red of it, and you raise that hand to your nose, breathing in the perfect tang.

his whimpered “fuck...” is a wondrous counterpoint to your rapturous moan, his only reprieve before your katana is back in your right hand, your bloodied left dropping to uncork your Estus so you can take a gulp of the live-giving nectar.

foolish boy. impalement such as that serves well to dispose of Fingers, Faithfuls, Watchdogs and all manner of random invaders, but a Mound-Maker? a Mad One come to revel in the Hollow grasp of chaos? please.

no sooner has the wound to your chest healed than you open it once more, plunging your own blade through your sternum with a hiss of pain.

he’s running now, back turned to put the most distance between you before you pursue. foolish, foolish boy. it only takes seconds to catch him, your blade slicing across his back and cutting through cloth and leather as though it were butter-- and it may as well be; slicked with your own blood, fed by your own Madness, the blade bites deeper. it is the Mound-Makers’ birthright, the weapon bestowed on those devoted and determined to build their mounds.

but he’ll learn that soon enough, you know, watching him collapse with the sheer amount of blood he’s losing from just those few attacks. you’re gentle when you kneel beside him, stroking a hand along his ruined back. there’s no need to be cruel about it. after all, he’s about to join your family too.

your murmured reassurance does little to calm him as you angle your blade toward his lower back and carve out the vertebra shackle you’ve earned.

[spacegaywritings]

Imperfect Phoenix (Oneshot)

 Marinette x Kagami(MLB). Commission for  @wombatking​

 Summary: Kagami’s perfectionism does not allow for breaks, weaknesses.. When she meets her body’s limits, she is reminded of how much she needs to look out for herself - all thanks to her lovely girlfriend.

Tags: foot injury, perfectionism, hospitals, fracture, bad mindset, They are lesbians Harold, pet names, fencing, outbursts, angry feelings, bruises, indirect self harm, food/eating.

ao3

My KoFi  - Support me ♥ or Commission me

“Allez!”

 Blades clinked together, pieces of cold metal vibrating at one another with the impact of intense swings and advances.

Opponents approached, yet jumped away from one another like preying ticks. All students of the fencing class were engaged in heated battles. Much like these two friends - Kagami and Adrien, the top of the class were fighting one another once more. Their blades were shaking in pain exertion and cold steel.

 Kagami lunged forward to hit Adrien. Clank. He dropped his guard, he was vulnerable-

 No. No, he was prepared. The model dodged halfway and decided to strike for himself. Their shoulders collided, sending Kagami onto the floor.

Hard.

A dull clash came from where she landed. She hissed at the sudden emergence of pain and rolled over. At once, she was back on her feet and took her fighting stance. Coal hair fell back into her face, bangs slightly blurring her vision.

 “Arrêt!”

 The director interfered, gradually approaching Kagami. She was in place, prepared to fight and send Adrien into one out of many many more losses to come. The foot she had landed on was lightly burdened with only a small deal of her body weight. She heavily relied on her unaffected leg to carry her through this.

Still, she stood tall, slightly bowed. One of her hands was around her handle. The other one was close to her body.

 “Kagami, are you okay?”

 Adrien rushed over while his friend remained en garde. However, when he pulled his mask off, she had the courtesy to validate his concern and lift hers, too.

 “Of course I am! Go back, I want a rematch!”

 There was a fire in her words, yet the blonde looked at her, a sceptical look pulling his facial features down. The usually rather sunny and carefree expression was wiped off his face. His mouth opened to say something but Kagami insistently put her foot down. The ambitious student ignored the shocking pain striking her like an unexpected avalanche.

Their instructor shrugged. By now, he was close enough to see for himself.

 “If you can put weight on it without pain, it should be fine. Are you sure you are good to go?”

 The girl gave the man a maroon side-glare through her bangs and nodded. Her voice was cool and composed as ever, unusually deep for a girl so pretty, some conservative souls would think.

 “Yes.”

 Her warm eyes were set on the invisible goal of success on all levels and in all areas. Even if she tried to care about the pain in her ankle, she wouldn’t be able to stop her urge to compete and succeed in life.

It was too deeply ingrained in her to be perfect and strive for constant improvement. She had the stress to impress.

 Adrien looked at her for long enough to doubt his own doubt in her. Kagami’s determination egged him on to step back and get into position. She followed suit, both feet firm on the ground - as if to assure her friend.

 “Tell me, if you change your mind, Kagami.”

 The director stood before them, examining the scene. His eyes wandered to Kagami and both students lowered their masks to cover their faces.

It was the silent agreement for another fight.

 “En garde.”

 They got into position, their movements like mirroring images to one another. The friends were in perfect sync. Kagami was a little slower but it felt like less than a heartbeat.

It was just the sudden command. Nothing about the foot, he reminded herself.

 “Pret.”

 Bodies tensed, orbs gazed.

 “Arrêt!”

 ***

 Kagami sighed, clutching her sports bag. Marinette was on the other side of the room, watching from the sidelines. Sometimes she was not sure whether her girlfriend was here to support her or Adrien. She did not mind it, yet it stayed in her mind for longer than it should.

 Marinette was just an exceptionally positive and supportive friend. She wanted them both to have a good time, to have a successful time!

No. Actually, she was.. she was not like this. Marinette cared about their well-being and joy more than any competition.

 The black-haired girl sat down, kneeling ceremoniously as she cheered for the two. Kagami*s little butterfly was so loud, the director had to silence her.

 “You got this Adrien! Kagami - you can do this! Have fun!”

 If Marinette was a little less shy about feelings and more affectionate, she would yell out her feelings for these two - for all here friends - at all times.

Kagami smiled at this thought. It was hidden under her mask but she was. Her eyes glanced over at Marinette and she could swear her girlfriend knew about it judging from how her pale face lit up like a light bulb. Her cyan eyes gleamed like the ocean on a sunny day.

Looking at Marinette was like looking at holiday pictures. Her face was a landscape to admire.

 The instructor yelled the usual commands, his words pushing them into position and straining their muscles when they got ready to lunge at one another and attack.

 Marinette’s spark faded, eyes dulling as she saw how Kagami’s was skewed to one side. The secret teenage super-hero lifted herself off her knees.

 “Arrêt!”

 She walked over to the instructor in terribly slow steps. There was caution on her feet as if she was suffering for her love instead. Her sky-blue orbs focused on the limping.

Kagami’s foot seemed a bit bigger than usual, too. Maybe that was just her imagination, her worry taking over. There was a dark concern eating at her heart like hungry wolves.

 Seeing her little phoenix in anything but her best condition was a stab to her own happiness.

 “Excuse me, Monsieur. Can you see Kagami’s foot? I think she might have hurt it. She doesn’t seem to really put a lot of weight on it.”

 The man nodded over to her and stepped in, breaking the duelling students apart. Commands in French and other things came from him and the two took a few steps back, putting distance between one another.

 “Kagami. Can we see your foot?”

 The black-haired girl looked up at the instructor, then at her girlfriend. A sense of confusion veiled her honey-brown eyes like another set of bangs, an invisible one.

 “Of course.”

 Voice composed as ever, she slowly bent her legs to lower herself onto the mat. Her movements were measured in grace only. Not even swans were as majestic. When she moved, it reminded Marinette of ballet.

The girlfriend gingerly squatted down to Kagami’s level while the director knelt down. The fencing student took one of her shoes off and slowly removed the remaining sock. It revealed more than just flawless, milky skin. A large bruise lounged all over her foot, centralised on her ankle. It was colourful, almost in an artistic way. Several shades of blue and purple decorated her pale skin, darkening and tainting her porcelain skin.

 Gasps filled the air. Kagami internally flinched at the sounds of disappointment hitting her like actual punches.

 “Kagami, this is horrible! Look at your foot!”

 Marinette tenderly leaned over to properly examine her girlfriend’s injury. The dark colours were clouds of bruises. Her face was in an empathetic scowl. Kagami felt the indescribable urge to cup her face and tell her it was fine. She knew better, she knew this pain on Mari’s face was a mirror to the pain she tried so hard to not cry about.

She needed to keep exercising, to move and work more in order to be better. An injured foot could not stop her from establishing a good career as amazing fencer.

 “I was aware of this.. I have been icing it for the past few days. Do not worry, it is nothing, Mari.”

 Daisy fingers, almost as light as Princess Snow White’s face, wrapped around the ankle, a sock in place. The fabric was pulled over quickly and swiftly. It looked painful.

Marinette’s face twisted uncomfortably. She seemed sick.

 “Kagami, no. This looks really bad, I think you need to take care of this!”

 Marinette’s concerned voice piped up. At the same time, the director chirped up.

 “I am sorry but I’m unable to let you participate in this state. I suggest you visit the hospital.”

 Maroon eyes turned dark as black coffee as the ambitious student looked up at the instructor. Her orbs were reading his words. The instructor gazed back at her, feelings undecipherable.

 “This looks like a serious injury and pushing your body any further isn’t going to help. I want you out of here and going to the doctor instead.”

 The fateful words donned onto the passionate fencer with a bitterness. She grabbed her shoes and pushed her injured foot into it as if to stuff a pillow in rage. Marinette squeaked, flinching in empathetic pain.

 “Fine. If you won’t let me, I will train on my own.”

 There was an ice-cold rage in her composed voice.

Marinette flinched at the tone, flinched at when her girlfriend shot up and dashed out of the room. She quickly thanked the director of the fencing class and rushed after Kagami.

Icy shivers blew goosebumps all over her body when she followed the fleeing figure. She had never seen her girlfriend this angry.

 Hot footsteps echoed through the building as Kagami quickly pushed her things together. Instead of packing up properly, she just strapped herself off the fencing clothes. The mask was first. She threw it from herself as if putting it in the garbage. Her sports bag carried the burden of being a trash container for this deed. Disgust lead her fingers like tainted motives.

Kagami freed herself from the sweaty prison and pushed everything into the bag. The usual practice of folding and preparing her clothes for the transport was gone but so was her composure.

 “Kagami!”

 Marinette burst into the locker room, breaking the eerie silence around the lonely Asian. A small blush of embarrassment took over her pale cheeks. They matched the exhausted, tensed look on Kagami’s face.

She looked at her girlfriend, eyes dark and retreated like a hurt doe. Marinette wanted to wipe all the pain away.

 Slowly, she approached her friend, her partner and sat down opposite her. She gestured for Kagami to take a seat too. After a small moment of hesitation, she followed her girlfriend’s example and lowered herself onto the bench.

She sighed. Marinette tried to initiate eye contact but Kagami’s face was averted. It stayed this way, even when Marinette’s piercing blue eyes were veiled in worry.

Concern distorted her usually so gentle features. Kagami could not help but feel her heart being shredded into tiny pieces of twitching meat. Seeing her girlfriend hurt, feeling the whole world crush down onto her. It was a weird mix of annoyance, hurt - physical and mental - as much as pure rage.

 She needed t keep exercising!

 Between all these thoughts and screaming pressure, a calming voice lowered onto the fire inside of her. The helpless student almost breathed freely when she heard Marinette speak up.

 “Kagami, I - I am sorry to burst in and be so pressing about this. I really care about you and I see your foot in terrible condition. When I come to see my girlfriend fight and cheer for you, I want to know you are alright.”

 The tension fell from her face, giving way to the softness akin to the velvet-y warmth in her voice when she continued to speak.

Kagami’s eyes widened a little and her bangs-covered face slowly turned to face her girlfriend. She was at least looking into her vague direction by now.

 A slight smile appeared on Marinette’s face.

 “I just got worried because you are my girlfriend. You mean so much to me and I know fencing means so much to you. I want to make sure you are in excellent condition, so you don’t have to suffer or sit out on one of your favourite hobbies.”

 Kagami looked up, caramel eyes blooming in wonder as she saw the genuine agony in Marinette’s facial features. She could see wrinkles of concern, of worry and regret fighting little dents into Marinette’s usually so perfect face.

It did things to Kagami’s chest to see the other so conflicted and hurt over her decisions.

 She extended a hand.

 “If you car- can... would you come to the doctor with me? I really don’t think it is such a big deal but I see you are worried and I trust your judgement. I am sorry -”

 Kagami brushed through her bangs, a velvet smile adorning her features. Marinette slowly took the hand and squeezed it.

 “I will always be with you, as much as I can. I am sorry for being so pushy. I am just really worried.”

 Marinette grinned at her.

It was one of these grins that looked a bit less like a smile but was somewhat between a beam and an embarrassed giggle. She really was about to just chuckle it away but Kagami tugged her over by their connected hands. When Marinette leaned over the bench, Kagami shot forward and sealed that pretty mouth with a little peck to it.

 “Let’s go to this doctor before I change my mind. Again, I am doing this for you.”

 Her girlfriend cheered, heat and love on her lips when she leaned in to peck her cheek.

 “I am fine as long as you are okay! I just want to know I care about you.”

 Her lips curled into another delicious smile, teeth flashing like porcelain and shining bright as the rest of her face. Kagami could not help but smile back at her. No matter her conflict and the voice screaming at her to keep exercising and keep fighting, she felt more love for her girlfriend than annoyance over this ordeal.

 “W-well.. I care about you too.”

 Kagami cuddled up to her girlfriend who softly ducked down to lay one of Kagami’s arms around her. A little tug and she had the passionate fencer leaning onto her a bit. Their bodies were closely touching.

 As much as she wanted to go back to practising or complain about losing time by going to the doctor, she was more than glad to be with Marinette in this moment of potential need. She had someone to care about her, to really bond with her.

The warmth of love overshadowed the burning annoyance in her heart. Needless to say, she was not not-annoyed. She just cared more for Marinette than fencing at this moment.

 “Let’s go.”

 “Okay.”

 Marinette got them a cab and brought them to the closest casualty doctor. It took almost two hours and more than enough stressing over formulas and other things for Kagami to finally have a doctor check her up.

 Anxiously, Marinette was waiting outside. She seemed to talk to herself, mumbling something about encouraging words and other nice things. It seemed to straighten her posture and ease her shoulders, so the approaching doctor did not say anything until the student swiftly turned around, surprising the two.

 “I can do- OH! Hello, doctor.”

 One of her hands found the back of her neck instinctively and scratched it while the doctor clicked her clipboard. She could have sworn she had seen something read just now. Well, maybe it was just the hair ties in the girl’s dark strands.

 “Hello. You are with Kagami, right?”

 She jumped into position, seriousness shooting a straightness into her posture as if she was trying to impress the military with salutes.

 “Yes, yes I am. She is alright, isn’t she? Please tell me her foot is okay! It won’t have to be cut off, will it? Oh no, you do-”

 As soon as she talked, terrifying ideas and suggestions left her mouth without her consent. She could barely stop the flow of words until the doctor chuckled and waved her clipboard gingerly.

She seemed to fan the horrible scenarios and thoughts out of Marinette’s head. Silenced, she looked at the woman with a polite smile. Her mouth was closed and her attention span was opened.

 “Don’t worry, don’t worry. Your friend is going to be fine. I just came over so I could tell you we will give her an x-ray scan. Her foot seems injured but we need to make sure whether it was a fracture. It might very well be. She will definitely need crutches. I am glad you brought her over. She said she would not have come without you insisting on it. You did a good thing, there.”

 A smile spread all over Marinette’s face.

 “Thank you doctor! Thank you for helping my girlfriend! I am glad to know I did the right thing and that you are doing so much to take care of her.”

 “You are welcome!”

 The student settled onto her seat once more. The friendly white coat disappeared with clipboard, pen and clacking sounds to her steps. They seemed to echo distantly through the wide, white hallways when Marinette emerged into her little dream world of thoughts once more.

 “Kagami will be alright.. “

 She smiled.

 Time seemed to move forward from then on. Before, the minutes had dragged but now time was rushing, was fleeing the present and abandoned it to become the past after every beat of the heart.

 “Are you Marinette? Kagami will be out in a moment. You two can get ready to go.”

 A nurse popped in, smiling kindly. Marinette waved at him, her face beaming like the sun herself.

 “Thank you, Monsieur!”

 The nurse disappeared and Marinette got up to greet Kagami who walked in on crutches. She sighed upon seeing Marinette, mild annoyance painting her face.

Maybe it was pain? Knowing Kagami, she was probably upset about how crutches kept her from fencing. Not that she would not try.

 Marinette would have to keep an eye on that

 “Oh, hey. How is your leg?”

 Crutches scratched over the cool, tiled floor.

Marinette looked at her girlfriend, hope in her eyes. She really wanted it to be something the other could get over with as soon as possible.

 “My leg is fine. I am fine. It is just a small fracture. Can we go?”

 Her girlfriend smiled at Kagami and nodded, cheerful as always.

 “One more thing!”

 She held up her index finger as if to give a lecture. She looked like a teacher with this presentation of herself. Glasses would have made the perfect cliché teacher.

Slowly, she took a few steps to approach her girlfriend.

 “I missed you.”

 She leaned in, this time. Their soft lips meeting for a moment just enough to let hearts melt and worlds disappear. Kagami’s whole life seemed to be cradled close when Marinette touched her like that.

When the artistic student stepped away, Kagami was sort of just staring at her, eyes frozen.

 “I am glad you are okay, my little phoenix. But now it is time for you to be protected, too.”

 Marinette gently took the sports bag from her friend and dangled it over her shoulder before rushing to open the first door on their way out. She held it open, spreading the door wide enough to let the whole world see what was inside. It felt as if she was presenting her girlfriend to the world, introducing her like the gem she was.

All proud and excited.

 “Come with me?”

 The inviting smile on Marinette’s ever-shining features lured a content smile out of Kagami. Eventually, she put the crutches down onto the ground and started making her way over to her lovely companion.

 “i will always be with you, injured or not.”

 The two giggled, foreheads meeting when they leaned in once more. They shared another short kiss, a peck, really. Together, they moved home to accommodate Kagami at Marinette’s place.

Right now, Marinette was - more than ever - glad about summer break. Her parents were busy working but she had time to treat her partner and make sure she is okay. From what the doctors had mentioned, Kagami was supposed to stay in her lower-leg cast for about two months. They said that she had tortured her foot so much, she could have severely complicated the fracture and ended her fencing career. If she had pushed it just a bit further, maybe she would be without fencing forever.

 The two had discussed all information and decided for a sleepover. They needed each other’s support and comfort in order to digest all these things. To think of Kagami without fencing was too scary for any of the to consider.

But once at home, they got comfortable. Kagami was cuddled up in Marinette’s bed, foot prodded up on a pillow and blanket covering her body to keep the unmoving figure warm and cozy. Marinette stumbled upstairs, a tray of tasty treats in her hands.

 “I brought you a little something!”

 She quickly moved over and set the tray down between the two. The artistic one herself placed her body on the bed, close to Kagami.

 “Thank you very much. This is a ..lot of sugar. Do we only have sweets?”

 Marinette smiled.

 “I texted my parents about what happened, and my mom said she will make you soup. I will get it when it is done. They said it is okay if we eat upstairs, so you don’t have to walk too much. Are your parents okay with you staying for a few nights at my place?”

 Kagami nodded, her hair falling into her face a bit. Marinette leaned in to kiss her temples and brush some her bangs away.

 “Are your pain killers working?”

 Another nod came from Kagami.

Another smile appeared on Marinette’s cheerful face.

 “We can do a lot of funny things, if you want to. How about watching a film?”

 Kagami smiled.

 “I never really do that... I mean, I don’t usually just sit down to watch movies, especially not with others.”

 Marinette leaned her head against Kagami’s and sighed. Their bodies rested against one another and Kagami allowed herself to slouch just a bit.The tension fell from her body but Marinette stayed in place and kept her up.

 “I know you care a lot about fencing but you need to make more space for your social life. For friends or.. for me. If you never allow yourself to do other things and enjoy anything but fencing, you will be really upset and bored in situations like now. Make time for the people who care about you like you care about fencing classes, little knight. It’s good to self-care a bit and just”, she took a deep breath as if to demonstrate what she was about to say, “let yourself breathe. If you never regain your strength, you will tire yourself out, my phoenix.”

 The sportive youth sighed in return and softly nodded her head. Marinette could feel her move. They were oddly connected by just sitting so close to one another.

It blossomed a warm feeling in her chest.

 “It is hard to change habits.. I am not used to having friends, having a - a partner. I am new to all of this. I hope I’m not letting you down - or the others. Am I?”

 She looked over at Marinette who shook her head. Instead, her girlfriend leaned in to grace the top of her head with the faintest of kisses. A pink blush adorned her cheeks. The sweet scent wafted over to her, lulling her into the saccharine bubble of a stress-free time.

 “You are good. We are proud of you.”

 Kagami sighed, probably in relief.

 “I am glad you are introducing so much change into my life. I would have never imagined living in Paris with multiple friends, even a girlfriend. I will try to watch this film with you”, she started, then paused, “I can try to make a change, now.”

 “Hooray!”, Marinette cheered. One of her hands reached up over her head and she jumped up to get her laptop. She had the best film in mind already. She has heard so much about “La vie d’Adèle” and was excited to watch it with Kagami.

It was supposed to be romantic.

 “What are we watching, butterfly?”

 Marinette’s face flushed as she picked out the film but instead of playing it, she moved to close the other side of her bed. Her body rose and she walked over to her desk to pick up a pen. With a “clack”, she removed the cap.

Her eyebrows formed into a mischievous position, accompanied with a sly grin.

 “I forgot to sign your cast! Time to change this, little knight.~”

 An excited skip was in her voice. Her words were metaphorically dancing and jumping in excitement.

In contrast to that, she carefully knelt before the bed and started writing and drawing over the cast. All the while, Kagami tried to sneak a peek at the activity but she did not see anything. Marinette was covering her actions with her back, shielding the words from her view.

 “What are you writing, Mari?”

 A smile graced her lips. Gradually, she moved off the foot and revealed the writing to her girlfriend. She quickly leaned forward to see it. Squinting, she looked at her girlfriend in confusion. The cast had her immobile enough to not see the navy blue writing enough to decipher it. Marinette snapped a photo and handed her phone to Kagami to read. Caramel eyes widened as she saw the picture. Her eyes watered a little and she swiftly put away the phone in favour of tugging Marinette over for a tight hug.

 “Mari, how are you so sweet - what did I ever do to deserve someone as good as you, my dear butterfly?”

 The addressed student emitted a lovely giggle. She held her girlfriend close and comforted her with open arms and gentle brushes over her bed.

 “You do because you are a great person. You are lovely”, she answered, slowly pressing a kiss to the top of her head,” and kind.”

 She leaned in, lowering her body before carefully kissing her eyes which fluttered shut at once. When Marinette pulled away, Kagami opened her eyes to view the preciousness of her love.

 “You are head-strong and care about fairness and justice”, Marinette peppered a few more kisses over Kagami’s face. She was shaking and a few tears escaped her eyes but the artist easily kissed them away, making them all disappear.

“Kagami, I would never date a person I don’t consider to be great. You are precious to me, my dear phoenix. It is rare to find a person as principled and disciplined. You are an amazing friend. We are all glad to have you.”

 She sighed, inhaling the sweet scent of Kagami’s hair. Sure, she was a bit sweaty from training and the whole odyssey of coming here but her hair smelled of almonds and early spring flowers in a wild garden.

 “I am so glad to have met you in my life.”

 Marinette leaned in, slowly closing the gap between their noses, their mouths and faces. Their lips collided and embraced one another like the lovers they were. Pink shades melted into one, forming a heart that was their love.

When they pulled away, they only saw the warmth in each other’s eyes. Azure orbs gazed upon syrup brown ones.

If eyes could smile, they would beam at each other only.

 “Let’s watch this film, Mari. My little butterfly.”

 Marinette quickly moved over and cuddled up under the blanket, one hand pulling the laptop in place and the other intertwined with Kagami’s hand. She squeezed it a bit and both smiled for one another as Marinette started the hand-picked film.

 The artist reached for the macarons and offered it to Kagami. She nodded and opened her mouth when Marinette rose her fingers to level with Kagami’s head. Kagami accepted the little treat with a flushed face. She reached for a pink macaron and did as her girlfriend, gently approaching her mouth with the little delicacy.

The little butterfly split her lips and allowed the treat in.

 “They are really sweet.”

 Marinette nodded.

 “Not as sweet as you, though.”

 The sun started to go down. Ruby rays streamed through the windows, bathing the two in the warm lights of the loving sun. The sky over Paris was never as rosy as now.

Between them, the phone display illuminated the growing darkness. “Love your imperfections, my phoenix.” A small butterfly kissed the words written over the lower-leg cast.

[sailtoafarawayland]

The Choices We Make (the words that matter)

He sighed into the darkening emptiness, knowing every mistake he'd made in his thirty-nine years had simply been practice for this one, for the one that would haunt him with every breath he took until he took no more. She was gone, and it was entirely his fault.

Rating: G

AO3 - FF

An angsty, Silver Hook birthday present for @the-darkdragonfly​ 

Chapter 1/1

The soft, morning light glanced into the room, capturing each mote of dust and illuminating them with an otherworldly glow as they spun through the air, clinging tenuously to the march of cracked spines that lined the bookshelves from ceiling to floor.

Killian swallowed heavily, his pulse thumping in his ears like the panicked breaths of a freed beast begging for the security of its cage once more.

She took another confident step forward, long swathes of hair golden and shimmering. The pale expanse of her hand rose to splay against his chest, a soothing comfort where his heart was beating wildly. Her fingertips just brushed the curls of gray hair peeking from the neck of his shirt – silver, she'd told him once, her lips caught between her teeth as she brushed a stray lock from his face, silver like the moon.

“Swan,” he breathed, his own hand moving to cover her own, each scar and callous, each mark of his age a glaring reminder of why this couldn't happen, “we can't, love.”

“Why not,” she sighed, tension lining both of the small words as her green eyes met his, each freckle scattered across her cheeks calling out to be studied, mapped and memorized, “because you think you're too old for me, that you don't bring anything to this?”

His frustration echoed her own, but it was tempered by years of familiarity. He stepped down carefully from the rolling ladder, his back protesting only slightly as he bridged the gap between them, her palm still pressed warm and insistent against his chest. Their bodies were that much closer as she stubbornly refused to step back, a single eyebrow arched defiantly.

“My failings are reason enough, though the least important among them. You're young, and brilliant, Emma. You've so much to offer the world. Don't tether yourself to me instead of seeing it.”

She opened her mouth to speak, and he knew he would hear the same words she'd said to him so many times before, sometimes borne of frustration, and other times carrying the heavy promise of steel – I don't care that you're older than me. I want this, and if seeing the world means that I can't have this, that I can't have you, then forget the damn world – but he silenced her with a look, reaching for the book he'd left balanced on the rung of the ladder above him.

It was a book he hadn't seen in decades, but today, knowing how their paths would diverge, he wanted her to have it.

His fingers closed around the binding and pulled the nondescript book into the space between them. He did his best not to linger over the difference in how it felt all these years later. With his damaged hand, he could no longer feel the rough scratch of the cover, or the indented, gilded lettering, the small tufts of fabric that sprung from the endband – just one more failing that spanned the distance between them.

“Stop it,” she whispered, her smooth, lithe fingers folding solidly over his own, stiff and scarred, somehow knowing exactly what he was thinking.

“I read this very book quite often when I was a lad,” he mused, the words leaving his throat far more roughly than he intended as he studied the soft silk of her skin against his. “Captain Blood – a tale of a man who was once a slave, but he dared to make his own fate, Swan.”

They'd spoken late one evening of his past – of his mother who'd left too soon, his father who'd traded his sons as labor for his debts, and his youth spent under the thumb of people it took him near his entire life to finally be free of. She knew of his losses and heartaches, of every wretched decision that had led him to the small, haunted peace he'd finally found.

“It's a classic adventure, take it.” he added unnecessarily – because she knew him, knew the escape and hope it had given him over the years in the same way she'd lost herself among the pages of her own stories.

“Killian...”

“It was a comfort to me on many difficult nights, Emma. I'd like you to have it – use it as a coaster for your hot cocoa if you must, but keep it all the same, as something to remember me by.”

“I'm not taking the job offer, Killian.”

“Nonsense, Swan,” he parried, pressing the book into her grasp and swallowing back the solid lump in his throat. He replaced it with a wan smile, knowing she'd see right through it. “It's an opportunity you'd be foolish to pass up – a job like that, it will open any door you could ever hope for in life. You'll go far from this old bookshop and the old man who runs it.”

The bell at the front of the shop tinkled, the sounds of a bustling, midday main street encroaching upon the silence between them as it swung closed and a voice called out for assistance. Knowing that another moment spent at her side would be the end of his fortitude, his smile already fading to something that hungered with desperation, he ducked his head and stepped around her, missing the warmth of her presence as soon as he walked away and left her standing alone in his office.

“Don't go missing that train to Boston now, Swan,” he called back, his voice traced with a bravado he was no longer familiar with, years and disappointment having beaten it out of him.

He listened politely to the woman who'd entered his shop, nodding at intervals as she explained what she was looking for, but his eyes and heart were trained on Emma as she crossed the shop from the back room, her head bowed and flaxen curls swaying around her as she left, casting one last, confused glance in his direction.

It landed in his gut like a knife, her lips tight as she shook her head and disappeared, closing the door soundly behind her.

/

Killian busied himself in the main area of his shop for the rest of the day, filling his moments with menial tasks that did as much to assuage his loss as the last, frantic swipes of a drowning man for light. The air no longer stirred with the scent of cinnamon and vanilla, and though there were times he had been tempted to return to his office if only to breath in the ghost of her once more, he knew he didn't have the strength. In there, the memories were too many, each of them a shadow of the woman he'd just let walk out of his life – for her own good, he reminded himself.

He'd lived his years changed by many things – tragedy, love, loss, hope – he'd served other's needs and then his own, traveling the world and leaving misery behind as soon as he was able. He'd lived stories that had left their marks on both his body and his spirit, and yet...he'd been entirely unprepared for the way his world had shifted on its axis when she'd walked into his shop all those months ago.

The bell had chimed on the door no differently than it always did, and he'd pulled himself from the repair he was working on, glasses that he'd started needing a few years prior slipping down his nose as he leaned around a stack of books to see who'd entered – and there she stood, all gold curls and high cheekbones, determined eyes alighting on him with a strange pull that snapped every facet of his world into perfect clarity.

The floor had swayed beneath him like the sea and he'd never felt his age more keenly, the soft lines etched around his eyes and the grey that had steadily stolen away the inky darkness of his hair. The silence stretched between them like the world drawing a breath, and then she'd laughed, his eyebrows jumping skyward in response, a glimmer of something he hadn't felt since his youth rising in his chest.

It was a search for obscure references for her work – a thesis that would bridge her joint areas of study in psychology and criminal justice – that had brought her to his door, and once she'd entered, she slipped so easily into his life, arriving on an inhale and falling seamlessly into the rhythm that kept air in his lungs.

He avoided examining the reasons why he'd offered to let her work in his office, perhaps telling himself a little too firmly that it was simply because she had three flatmates and no quiet area of her own – and with the library undergoing renovations, even that option was gone – but it didn't take many sleepless nights for him to acknowledge that there was more to it than that.

There had always been more. From those first confident steps she took through his door and into his life, they'd both known there was something more.

Killian was used to silence in his life – loss and solitude had gifted him with a familiarity for its echoing vastness – but the quiet that stretched between he and Emma as they worked on their own projects was never awkward or heavy, it didn't ring with hollowness or chew at his heart. Instead, it was punctuated by the whisper of pages as she flipped back and forth between books, taking notes with a furrowed brow and her bottom lip caught in her teeth.

Her presence was a soft wind that stirred life back into the stale air of his shop, and he found himself far more attuned to her every movement than someone nearly twice her age should be. He spent every night reminding reminding himself of that fact as he readied himself for bed, washing the day from the gray stubble on his cheeks and folding his glasses neatly on the bedside table. She made every effort possible to get to know him, and he'd had enough experience in his life to see the obvious interest she held for him, but he did what he could to discourage it, pushing down that same calling that he himself felt.

He answered her questions as easily as she shared her past with him, trying to show her through the stories of his past that he was far from the person she imagined him to be – that he was a man broken and beaten down by a life filled with poor choices and pain, barely deserving of the small, lonely life he'd scraped out for himself, let alone the grand things he knew she was meant for.  

Perhaps he should have pushed her away more resolutely back then, suggested she return to the library rather than continue to join him at the shop, but he was weak and hungry for the companionship she so readily gave – the small notes she'd leave, the pastries that began appearing on his desk from the bakery down the street. At first they'd been shared quietly between them as they started their work for the day, but as time passed, cups of tea and hot cocoa became their new routine.

He'd taken to keeping a box of the sugary packets in his desk for her, and as he finished helping customers out front, he'd often hear the soft whistle of the electric kettle singing. Just knowing that she would have left a fresh cup of tea for him at his desk was more than enough to warm him.

Killian shook himself from his thoughts, pulling himself back to the present that no longer included that warmth or the woman who'd managed to return it to his life. It wasn't until the last customer of the evening left, the light on Main Street slowly dimming, that he finally gathered the courage to go back into the space that he'd come to think of as their own – never for anything more than a brush of fingertips against heated skin, a lingering embrace, and that one, life-altering kiss that had made him certain she was the one he'd been waiting for his entire life – but he'd never allowed it to progress any further, had felt the guilt of even desiring it every moment that they spent together.

The shop rang once more with that echoing silence, his footsteps swallowed by it as he crossed the floor and eased the door to his office open, everything just as he knew it would be – empty of the one thing that had made his life full. He moved to the desk, plucking up his worn jacket from the chair and fishing for the keys in its pocket, wanting nothing more than to lock up and find a place that wasn't swimming in memories, a place where he could truly drown his misery, at least for the evening.  

“Bloody hell,” he growled, tossing the jacket back to the chair when he found nothing but lint in its pockets, his hand rifling through his hair in frustration.

This wasn't what he needed right now. What he needed was to find the nearest bar and find some relief in the bottom of a bottle, to forget that for a few measly months in his life, he'd been content – he'd been truly happy.

What he needed was his bloody keys so he could lock up and get away from everything surrounding him – the memory of how she ran her fingers along the worn edge of the shelves, the pale slice of her hip as she stretched on the ladder, reaching for something just beyond her fingertips in a way he knew was anything but innocent, the way she sipped her hot cocoa and then ran her tongue over her lips, catching the sweetness left behind...the way he'd always held himself back from doing the same.

What he wouldn't give to feel them pressed against his own just once more, and in the cloying silence of the shop, his heart was screaming that he was the most foolish man who'd ever lived.

He loved her – gods, if he didn't love her more than he'd ever though possible – and he'd chased her out, practically thrown her through the door and told her to move on.

“You're a bloody fool,” he groaned, his head falling into his hands as he leaned across the surface of his desk.

It was then that his eyes caught sight of something unusual left among the clutter and invoices, something metallic reflecting the low glimmer of lamplight from the shelf – no, that that – a delicate, silver chain lay in a serpentine pile against the dark wood, an all too familiar ring nestled in its center.

“Take it, Emma, something to keep you safe when you move on from our small town to the big city.”

“I'm not taking your brother's ring, Killian,” she'd whispered. “It's all you have left of him.”

“Aye, and it's kept me safe all these years, but I think I'd rather the comfort of knowing you had at least this small part of me when you leave...”

He sighed into the darkening emptiness, knowing every mistake he'd made in his thirty-nine years had simply been practice for this one, for the one that would haunt him with every breath he took until he took no more – a glance at the clock and the weight of the cold, silver ring in his palm telling him that he was too late.

She was gone, and it was entirely his fault.

“You're a fool, Killian Jones,” he muttered, “an old fool.”

“You're not a fool, just a little stubborn.”

“Emma,” he gasped, papers flying from the desk as he spun around, his chest tight with confusion and disbelief and hope that pressed so hard against the back of his throat he thought he would choke on it. He took a hesitant step toward where she was leaning in the doorway, but the ring she'd left behind was solid in his palm, and he clenched his fist tightly around it, wondering if hoping at all was just one more thing a fool would do. “What are you – you came back, why?”

“I didn't go to the station to get on the train, Killian,” she said, smiling softly. “I told you I wasn't taking the job. Turns out the only door I'm interested in opening was yours.”

“I don't understand,” he started, needing to desperately, because she couldn't possibly be standing here choosing him after how callously he'd pushed her away.

“I gave my ticket to August a week ago. He's got plans to do the whole starving writer thing in a place with more than one starving writer, so I went to say goodbye – and then I just, I needed some time, so I sat for a while down at the docks.”  

“You were never going,” he echoed, aching to close the gap between them, but still uncertain of the small weight in his palm and what it meant, his fingers worrying the slip of its chain. “Then why leave the ring I gave you?”

“Because, when you give it to me for a second time,” she spoke quietly, closing the distance between them and brushing her fingers along his graying stubble, “I want it to be with a promise – no more running, not for either of us. I'm here, choosing my own fate, choosing to be a part of something. This is it for me, you're it for me – and if you feel the same, then you can go ahead and give me that ring back, and one day we'll make good on it.”

“What have I done,” he breathed, his fingers trembling as he wove them through the loose strands of her hair, “to deserve you, Swan?”

“Well, life can be infernally complex – ”

“It sounds like you acquainted yourself with Captain Blood while you sat at the docks,” he chuckled, tilting her head back and sinking into the depths of her gaze as she finished her thought.

“ – but it can also be really, really simple,” she whispered, pushing onto the toes of her boots, her words ghosting against his lips, “and right now, it's as simple as I love you, Killian Jones, I love you – ”

The ring nearly slipped through the fingers of his damaged hand as he pulled her against him, his lips claiming the promise of her words, her warmth washing over him. She pulled him closer, hands knotted in his shirt as their breaths became one, hungry and desperate before settling into something so like a heartbeat he could feel it in his bones.

“I love you, Emma,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to hers as he whispered the words into the space between them, knowing that out of all the words surrounding them, the ones they'd shared were the only ones that mattered.

END

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