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notthatiwilleverwriteit · 4 years

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Ficrecs? Haikyu Given and 19 days any good fics!

Hello, dear anon!

Sure! Unfortunately, though, I lost most of my bookmarks back when I deleted my previous AO3 account a couple of years ago. And I haven’t really been on reading binges for those fandoms since then. So, the list might be a bit sparse.

These are in no particular order.

Haikyuu!!

We Can Do Better Than That by spaceburgers

Pairing(s): Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru Rating: M Summary: Oikawa and Iwaizumi go on a road trip during the summer after their high school graduation. It doesn't go as expected, but maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

Unexpectedly by avalescence_hurlocked / @torujime

Pairing(s): Terushima Yuuji/Yamaguchi Tadashi Rating: G Summary: Yuuji groaned and hid his face behind his hands. He really didn’t want to fall for anyone right now, much less a first-year from a team that beat them.But he was really cute when he blushed. And his eyes were so nice and bright and warm—and god, he was really cute when he was all flustered. How the heck can someone be the epitome of cute? Yuuji falls for Tadashi in the strangest of ways, but no one’s really complaining.

The Concept of a Gift by kayejwrotes / @kayejwrotes

Pairing(s): Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru Rating: G Summary: A “gift” it’s something you give to someone else in order to celebrate something, or to thank them for something. Well, someone got the meaning wrong here, apparently, or so Tooru thinks.

Kintsugi - Tools of the Trade by kayewrotes / @kayejwrotes

Pairing(s): Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru Rating: T Summary: Kintsugi - or kintsukuroi - it’s the art of patching up broken things, make them beautiful and useful once again. It’s a work of hands, precision, patience, lacquer and gold. And love.

Close to the Chest by darkmagicalgirl / @darkmagicalgirlwrites

Pairing(s): Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru Rating: T Summary: It takes Yahaba thirteen years to realize he's different from the other kids, one to figure out how to hide it, and two more to learn to be happy just the way he is. Yahaba's journey ft. an extremely annoyed Kyoutani, best friend in the world Watari, and loads and loads of good senpai Oikawa.

Five Things to Do n an Elevator by skittidyne

Pairing(s): Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi Rating: M Summary: Tendou finds himself trapped in an elevator with his hot neighbor. His thoughts spiral from there.

Welcoming Home by Paintbrushyy_Ducky98 / @paintbrushyy

Pairing(s): Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru Rating: G Summary: Oikawa and Iwaizumi prepare dinner for a special guest in their little apartment.

A Many Splendored Thing by shions_heart / @shions-heart

Pairing(s): Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi, Semi Eita/Tendou Satori, Semi Eita/Shirabu Kenjirou, Goshiki Tsutomu/Shirabu Kenjirou Rating: E Summary: A collection of Shiratorizawa ships. Ch1: UshiTen,Ch2: TenSemi, Ch3: SemiShira, Ch4: ShiraGoshi

Sturdy by NovaCaelum

Pairing(s): Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi, Daishou Suguru/Kuroo Tetsurou, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru Rating: T Summary: “Wakatoshi, you’re already famous! I knew you would be, you are Shiratorizawa’s miracle boy!” Hearing that old nickname from Tendou makes Ushijima’s heart flutter and he smiles, “You were always popular too Satori.”

Cries in all the lost bookmarks I had for Haikyuu.

19 Days

Vulnerability by powerandpathos / @agapaic

Pairing(s): He Tian/Mo Guan Shan Rating: E Summary: He Tian and Guan Shan try something new (aka bottom!He Tian).

Sleeping With Roses by powerandpathos / @agapaic

Pairings(s): Mo Guan Shan/She Li, He Tian/Mo Guan Shan Rating: E Summary: ‘A shame,’ She Li says. He draws an invisible line in the table surface with his fingernail. ‘We both want what we can’t have.’

Cold on the Inside by incorrect19days / @incorrect19days

Pairing(s): He Tian/Mo Guan Shan Rating: E (rape/non-con) Summary: ‘Look at me.’ He Tian instructed softly. He took a deep shuddering breath and opened his eyes.

As you can see, it’s really been a while since I’ve read 19 Days fics. I also lost a lot of bookmarks the same I did with HQ. As a side note, I noticed that I had the first Qiucheng fics published in English on AO3.

Given

Put Me to Rest in Your Gravestone Chest by ikvros

Pairings(s): Kaji Akihiko/Murata Ugetsu Rating: E Summary: Ugetsu had always looked delicate, like an especially valuable china doll; elegant and well-made, but still breakable. Don’t touch, he seemed to say, with the motion of his bow, the angle of his thin wrist as he smoked a cigarette, the painted perfection of his cavalier smile. I only exist to be admired from afar. Still, Akihiko had—he’d reached out all that time ago and touched, like a spoiled child who couldn’t help himself—and found that Ugetsu’s body was not made of glass, but flesh and bone and blood, the same as his. His skin was thinner, body softer, nails sharper. He was warm. And yet he was still breakable.

I haven’t really entered the Given fic scene. I’m not really interested in reading other pairings than AkiUgetsu but I feel like that tag would be just pure angst. I like writing angst but for me to read it requires a very specific mood.

Overall, I would say my most active fic reading days are behind me. I have moved on to mangas and djs. Lately, I have been going through the KiriBaku tag, but it takes time to weed out the good ones in such huge fandom. I don’t know if the fics I listed were already something you had read but I hope you found something!

Thank you for your question, dear anon!

#haikyuu!!#19 days #given #other asks

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swanslieutenant · 7 years

Text

If the Stars Align - Chapter IX

Summary: The Musketeers AU. Danger lurks around every corner in the French court and as a Musketeer in service of the royal family, Killian’s duty is to protect them from any and all threats. As his relationship with Queen Emma develops into something more than just friendship, threats against the queen escalate and put everything they hold dear into jeopardy.

Rating: M

Content warning for the story: violence, mature themes, minor character death.

Art by @hook-and-star-ink , @acaptainswaneternity and @seastarved. Follow this to check all the pieces currently published and give them some love!

Catch Up on tumblr: ch1, ch2, ch3, ch4, ch5, ch6, ch7, ch8

AO3: ch9

As the nuns promised, the convent is secure and unable to be breached. The bandits attempted to break into the convent by scaling the walls and a few of the nuns scared them off by pouring hot water (intended for a bath for Emma) over their heads, sending them shrieking and screaming back down the hill.

After that, the rest of the bandits retreated, slinking back into the forest like shadows. There’s a thin plume of black smoke rising above the treeline, wafting away from the convent with the wind, and they know the bandits haven’t left yet.

Killian stays downstairs all afternoon, helping out where he can and trying very hard not to think about Emma upstairs; if he does, he knows he’d turn right around and walk back upstairs.

To keep himself busy, he checks on Aurora in the convent’s small nursing quarters. She’s better, unconscious from sleep now instead of the hit to her head, and the nun in charge tells him she will be better in a few days and not to worry.

Though the convent looks secure, he, Robin, and Lancelot explore it further, trying to find any weaknesses. The entire building is sturdy, but the wine cellar appears to be the least secured. An old delivery door, unused for years, is only blocked off by several crates of old, dusty wine. To counteract the weak point, they shove even more crates and heavy wooden benches from the chapel above in front of it and set up a rotation of watching the door through the night.

At dinner, with Tink having volunteered to watch the wine cellar while they have something to eat, the four Musketeers sit down with Emma and Mother Superior at a small table in the dining hall.

No one says anything, picking at their cabbage soup until its lukewarm and lumpy. Everyone is too on edge to have much of an appetite, not when there are dozens of bandits outside the gates, waiting for them.

Killian feels a twinge of guilt as some of the nuns pass by the dining hall, peering in with looks that range between fear and anger. The Musketeers have brought this threat to the door of the convent, and though Killian knows there was no other option, it doesn’t sit right with him. He may not share their religion, but their devotion to their values has offered them shelter and now they could pay for that with their lives.

Reinforcements are at least two days away at the most. If David is riding as hard as he can and if he rides all night, he should be back in Paris by tomorrow night, meaning another whole night for reinforcements to get here by the late afternoon of the second day.

Two days of sitting here, not knowing what is going to happen next.

His eyes slide to Emma, staring unseeing at her soup and fiddling with her spoon. They haven’t had a chance to speak since the afternoon in her room, and since they noticed the bandits’ fire, the mood in the barracks has darkened. Any earlier lightheartedness has gone up in smoke with the flames.

“I can’t eat,” Emma says after a while of silence, pushing her full bowl away. “Mother Superior, will you take me to see Aurora?”

Mother Superior pushes away her own uneaten bowl. “Of course.”

Killian starts to rise but Robin stands at the same time. For a moment, they stare at each other, before Robin waves Killian back down.

“Finish your supper, Jones. I’ll go.”

There’s not really a way he can argue, so he sinks back down. Killian catches Emma’s gaze, a flash of disappointment in her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything either as Robin leads the way out of the room.

When the three of them are gone, any pretense of eating the awful soup is over. Killian, Will, and Lancelot split up their duties for the night’s watch. They’ve got two areas they want for surveillance – the wine cellar and Emma’s quarters. The view to the outside gates is best from Emma’s quarters, so whoever guards her will also be watching that wall too.

Killian is, of course, hoping to be assigned upstairs, but to his disappointment, Lancelot sends Will up there, ordering Killian down into the wine cellar instead.

When he trudges downstairs, Tink is seated on a barrel, staring with glazed over eyes at the sealed door, and she jerks in surprise as Killian enters the room. He chuckles at her, and she lets out a sigh of relief and hauls herself to her feet.

“Thank God. I’m starving.”

He snorts, and drops down onto the barrel she just rose from. “Thanks for the warm welcome.”

She’s already headed to the door, her stomach growling, but she pauses, looking back to him, a strange look in her eyes. Killian tenses; he’d hoped she’d forgotten her desire earlier to catch up, but it appears not.

“Tink,” he starts, warningly, but she ignores him.

“You have to tell me how you ended up in this situation, Killian.” She gestures at his fleur-de-lis pauldron, shaking her head in disbelief. “A Musketeer? Really? I thought I’d lost my senses when I saw you earlier.”

Killian sighs, not wanting to get into it right now (or ever), and he stares at the wall instead of her. “It’s a long story.”

Tink snorts, and her growling stomach forgotten, moves across the room and plops back down on the barrel beside him. “I think I can make the time.”

He doesn’t say anything, and Tink rolls her eyes.

“Fine. I’ll start the story, shall I? Last I saw you, you and Liam were going off to London, to join the English Navy. All seemed set in stone, so what happened?”

This is exactly why he didn’t want to talk about it. He stiffens at the mention of his brother’s name, and Tink notices, her brow furrowing.

“What? What’s wrong?”

A lump grows in his throat, and he has to clear it several times before answering. “Liam. He’s ... he’s dead.”

Honest shock crosses her face, and she closes her eyes briefly and Killian wonders if she’s praying for Liam’s soul, long gone already to the depths of Davey Jones.

“I’m so sorry, Killian. What happened?”

He hesitates; he hasn’t talked about Liam for years, mostly to keep his past as an Englishman private, but also because it’s too painful. He lost his brother, his only companion, his mentor, his captain, in the blink of an eye, no time to say goodbye. Talking about it makes his hands shake with anger, his memories dipping down a dark path, and it’s better to just avoid it and pretend he never had a brother.

But he can’t do that here; Tink knew Liam too.

“We did join the Navy,” he says, voice rough. “And, for a while, it was wonderful. Liam excelled to captain, and I to lieutenant. The way we were going, we’d have made the admiralty in no time.”

He thinks of the way he’d once stood, proud as anything with the English crest on his chest, and his chest aches as he tells the next part of the story. “But one day, we were out on a mission, and we were attacked by Spanish privateers. It was awful, and Liam ... Liam didn’t make it.”

Tink sucks in a deep breath. “Killian. I’m so sorry.”

Killian can almost feel the rage he felt then, resurfacing as he remembers why he left the Navy after Liam died, and he clenches his hands into fists.

“Even though they were Spanish, the English king refused to condemn the privateers. He was trying to broker a treaty with the Spanish, and feared this would put it all on hold. The lives of ten Navy soldiers wasn’t worth it to him. So it wasn’t worth it to me to stay with England either.”

“So you returned to France and joined the Musketeers?” She says it incredulously, and he nods.

“It’s more complicated than that, but I didn’t want to join a merchant ship again and the French Navy is almost non-existent. I’d been trained as a solider so ... here I am. Serving the French royalty instead of the English.”

Tink sits up a bit straighter, and narrows her eyes at him. “And they’re okay with you being English?”

Killian doesn’t answer, and Tink shakes her head darkly. “Killian.”

“Emma knows. And the captain of the Musketeers. But no one else does.”

She sighs, and levels him a severe look. “I won’t say anything, but Killian ...”

He knows she’s thinking of the current war with England, the anti-English sentiment he’s sure has made its way out to her convent, and he smiles tightly.

“I’ll be careful, Tink. I’ve been so far. Don’t worry.”

She looks unconvinced, but her stomach growls loudly again. It’s clear she wants to interrogate him further, another loud growl has her getting to her feet with a sigh, and she leaves him alone to his thoughts, still shaking her head in dismay.

The moment she’s gone, Killian pulls out his flask from an inner pocket of his coat. It’s already half drained of rum – the days on the road having done its trick – but he takes a generous swig of the remainder, letting it burn its way down his throat and into his belly.

He tries to focus on anything but his past as the night goes on, the hours dragging and long. But now that it’s been drudged up from the depth, as unforgettable as a hurricane, he has no choice.

He wonders what Liam would think of him now, sitting in the bottom of an old convent, guarding the French queen against bandits trying to kill her. He probably would laugh and tell Killian to get his head on straight and get the hell out of here. Liam had had no love for the French monarchy, preferring to pledge his loyalty to the monarch of their English roots ... how ironic it was that king who had let his death go unremarked or avenged.

If they’d been apart of the French army and Liam had died in that service in the way he did, Killian knows Emma would never let the treatment he received happen here. With his rank and the way he died, he’d have been honoured as dying for his country, not ignored and swept under the rug as if he never existed.

Killian leans his head against the wall behind him, tucking the flask back away after another swig. He wonders what Liam would think of Emma. She’s good and kind, like him, so he bets they’d have gotten along. Liam would have been honoured to serve a good queen like her instead of a selfish and cruel king.

Speaking of Emma, he wishes he could go upstairs, to talk to her, to see how she’s doing. There’s not much he can do for her in terms of reassuring her worries, but he’d be at least able to offer her some company, and maybe he himself wouldn’t feel as lonely as he does now.

But as if the universe is trying to send him a message, somehow, he doesn’t end up on a rotation standing guard outside Emma’s room, instead spending most of the night watching the cellar door. It’s the opposite of restful, alternating between his thoughts dragging him back to Liam’s death and the creaking and cracking of the old convent making him feel like every nerve he has is on full alert.

It’s exhausting, and hours later, when Will comes to relieve him, he trudges back to the makeshift bedroom set up for them in an old study room, his eyes drooping. He drops onto a cot, asleep before he’s even fully horizontal, drained by the day.

A hammering sound permeates his dreams, sometimes as galloping horses or the rocking of a ship against heavy waves. When he wakes, warm morning sunlight lighting the room, the sound continues and he realizes it’s not just in his dream.

When he’s dressed, he stumbles into the large antechamber outside the chapel, the room they’ve set up as their makeshift headquarters. Lancelot, Will, Emma, Mother Superior, and Tink are seated around a table, papers scattered all about it, and they look up in unison as Killian enters.

“Finally,” Will mutters, rolling his eyes. “It’s half eleven already.”

Killian ignores him, dropping into the free seat between Lancelot and Tink. “What’s going on? What’s that sound?”

“They’re building something,” Lancelot grits out, glaring out the window.

Goosebumps raise on the back of Killian’s neck. He can’t see anything but the convent courtyard when he looks out the window, and he frowns.

“What is it?”

“We’re not sure yet. Robin’s upstairs, keeping an eye on it.”

Apprehension growing, Killian looks over to Emma. She’s frowning, a crease of worry between her brows, and Killian knows that whatever these bandits are up to, it’s not going to be good.

As the day goes on, they realize what the bandits are building – a scaffold. Killian joined Robin at the top of the north tower after he had a quick breakfast (or lunch, as Will so sweetly put it), and they’ve been watching the progress of the bandits for hours now.

“They can’t get in through the walls, so they’re gonna try to go over.”

Tink thinks they should drop torches on the half-assembled structure, but Mother Superior is afraid the dry grass outside will ignite and surround the convent with fire. Emma suggests the hot water again, and they do attempt that. Killian and the other Musketeers crawl along the top of the large wall, pushing sloshing buckets ahead of them, but one of the bandits catches sight of them and fires his musket at them, so they’re forced to retreat, full water buckets abandoned on the top of the wall.

After that, they’re unsure of what to do. Robin and Lancelot retreat to keep watch, and Killian, Will, Tink, and Emma assemble the nuns in the chapel. It’s looking like this is going to descend into a fight, and they need all the weapons they can get.

Its a pretty disappointing haul – there are gardening tools (shovels, stakes, weeding hooks, and hatchets), fire stokers, and kitchen knives. Tink finds three rusty swords and Will finds an old barrel of gun powder hidden away at the back of one of the storerooms, but other than that, they’ve only got the weapons the Musketeers had when they came in.

Emma is quiet the entire search, her eyes darkening each time one of the nuns returns with a new garden tool. When they’ve collected everything, laid out on the kitchen table, it’s more pitiful than Killian could’ve imagined.

He and Will exchange a dark look, but Tink hardens her jaw and takes it upon herself to arm the rest of the nuns. Will follows after her, muttering about cleaning the rust off the swords, but Killian lingers in the kitchen, noticing Emma hasn’t moved.

“Emma?” he asks, moving closer. “Are you coming?”

She looks up from the weapons, her eyes watery. Killian steps forward instantly, hand out to comfort her.

“What is it? Are you okay?”

She steps back, away from his hand, her voice hoarse as she says, “This is all my fault.”

“No, no, it’s not –”

“It is,” she snaps, wiping at her eyes. “They’re after me. Aurora’s injured, all these nuns are in danger, you’re in danger. We have no weapons other than shovels and rusty swords, and those men are out there building a scaffold to storm this convent, and it’s all because I’m the queen.”

“Emma –”

She turns away, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Just give me a minute please.”

He hesitates, hand still outstretched towards her. He doesn’t want to leave her, not when she looks like she’s going to burst into tears, but she’s stiff and tense, angled away from him, and he respects her wishes, turning away and closing the door quietly behind him.

After that, Killian doesn’t get a chance to talk to Emma until dinner. He gets busy helping Robin and Lancelot show some of the nuns basic defensive moves, and though Emma comes out to watch, her eyes ringed in red and mouth dipped in a frown, she doesn’t join in.

Dinner that night is the strangest one Killian’s ever had. The nuns have warmed up to the Musketeers after the afternoon defense lessons, and they join them in the dining hall, sitting interspersed between the Musketeers, soldiers and nuns sitting together as equals.

As well, despite their earlier unfriendliness, most of the nuns have warmed to Emma and are now clustered around her, asking her all about her life in Paris. Some are younger daughters of nobles, eager for news of any shared acquaintances, and others are girls from simple country origins, wide-eyed at the description of the lavish Parisian life.

Though a lingering unhappiness lurks in Emma’s eyes, some brightness returns to her as she talks about the dances at the Louvre, the swans in her garden, the wedding they were supposed to be attending.

But that only lasts until the end of dinner, when the conversation fades out and is replaced by the incessant hammering of the bandits outside. She pushes away her food, and goes up to her chambers, Lancelot following her for the first shift of guard duty, and the other Musketeers spread out for their own positions.

Killian starts out in the cellar, and like last night, every creak and crack of the convent settling is as loud and as threatening as a shot. The hammering continues all night, becoming such a constant rhythm that in the moment it does pause, Killian keeps imagining he still hears it.

After a few hours, Lancelot clambers down the stairs, startling Killian half-to-death. Lancelot laughs at him, patting him on the back and shooing him away.

“Get some sleep, Killian. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”

Not one to argue with that, he treks off to the makeshift bedroom. Robin is the only one there, sound asleep on a mat on the floor, and Killian settles himself down on his own, trying to get comfortable on the stone floor. The blankets are lumpy and smell vaguely of mothballs and with the danger outside, sleep is a long time coming.

When he does manage to drift off, his dreams are composed of the past few days of sword fighting with Emma, her bright smile and the warm sun glinting off her blonde hair. But they twist into darker nightmares, the bandits are scaling the walls of the convent while everyone’s asleep. The bandits are a mix of the men he saw out on the road and the rogue Bastille guards from last month and they slaughter everyone inside with razor sharp knives, screams reverberating through the stone walls, Emma’s the loudest of all.

Killian jolts awake, not sure if it’s from the screams in his nightmare or something else, but for a moment he lies there in the dark, completely disoriented. As his eyes adjust, he realizes there’s a candle in the room, a silhouetted figure moving through the shadows, and his stomach clenches. He sits up, squinting in the darkness, and as the figure shifts, the candlelight catches his face, illuminating the features of Will Scarlet. Relief floods Killian, and he lets out a hard breath of air, and running a hand over his face, dropping back onto the mat.

Paranoid much, Jones?

“Wake up, mate,” Will hisses, nudging Robin’s sleeping body with his foot, and Robin jerks awake.

“Wha – what’s goin’ on?”

“It’s your shift with the queen.”

Killian, suddenly feeling wide awake, sits up again. They may just be nightmares, but the sound of Emma’s scream is still reverberating in his, and he needs to see her, to reassure himself it was just a dream.

“I’ll go,” he whispers to Robin, who is still trying to unravel himself from a pile of blankets. “Come get me at dawn or so; I’ll sleep in the morning.”

Robin squints at him, but shrugs and drops back into the blankets, rolling over with a snore.

Other than the hammering going on outside, the convent is quiet. His footsteps seem twice as loud as usual, heavy and echoing down the halls and the staircase as he goes up to the eastern tower.

The door to Emma’s bedroom is open, a candle flickering inside. He expects her to be sound asleep by now, but she’s wide awake, seated in the single dining chair, knees up to her chin and staring out the window.

“Emma?” Killian asks quietly as he stops in the doorway, making her jolt in surprise. “Are you alright?”

“I can’t sleep,” she replies, looking back out the window and leaning her head on her knees. “Not when ... not when they’re out there.” She looks away from the window, her eyes finding his. “Will you sit with me?”

He retrieves a chair from the receiving chamber, setting it beside hers and sitting down. She’s returned to staring out the window, hugging her knees tight, and she’s quiet for a long time, the hammering of the bandits the only sound between them.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks quietly after a moment.

“Henry,” Emma whispers, and Killian’s heart clenches at the sorrow in her voice. “He’ll be wondering where we are. We should have arrived at the halfway point by now.” She pauses, clutching her legs tighter. “I’m afraid he’s going to grow up motherless like I did.”

“He won’t,” Killian promises. “You’re going to see him again, Emma.”

She sighs. “I admire your optimism, Killian, but I don’t share it.” She leans her head against the back wall, and closes her eyes. “Henry, Mary Margaret, Ariel, my other ladies. All the people I love ... I don’t know if I’ll ever seem them again.”

“You will, Emma. I promise.”

Emma continues as if she didn’t hear him. “If I’m not around to protect Henry, Gold will corrupt him. He’ll turn him into a puppet like he’s done to Neal. There are some days I don’t even recognize him anymore, and I can’t let him do that to Henry too.”

Killian is quiet, not sure what to say, and Emma opens her eyes. She regards him quietly for a moment, and then says, “Do you remember that little stream I showed you on the hunt, with the little pile of rocks? Where I hurt my hand? That’s where Neal and I used to go to talk about our dreams for France before Gold got his claws in him. We’d put a little rock there every day we went out, a marker of another day spent planning to make the country great. But now ... its just a reminder none of our dreams were achieved.”

Killian frowns, hating the bitter edge to her tone. “What were your dreams?”

Emma drops her feet to the floor with a sigh. “There were so many. The prison sentences would be re-examined, as would when death was a suitable punishment. The nobles would have stricter guidelines on how much grain they could take away from the farmers and how much they could tax them. All the wars we were fighting would be settled, and all those husbands and fathers and brothers could return home to their families.” She pauses, biting her lip, and her voice is soft when she speaks again. “I wanted to open more orphanages, and make sure they were properly regulated, with adequate food and warmth for the children, to make sure they were all safe and well-cared for.”

She smiles then, lost in memory, and it’s easy to imagine her as the younger woman she had been then, much too young to have the weight of the world on her shoulders but trying her hardest to make it a better place for all.

He rests his hand on hers across her thigh, and squeezes it. “I wish you had gotten a chance to build your France. And when we’re out of here, I know you will one day.”

Though sadness lingers in her eyes, she smiles at him, and tilts her head curiously. “Why do you always say things like that?”

He lifts her hand, pressing his lips to it in a gentle kiss. “Because I believe in you.”

“Because I’m the queen?” she asks wryly. “That’s what’s gotten us into this mess.”

He chuckles. “No, Emma. Because you’re you. If you put your mind to something, whether its telling Cardinal Gold to go to hell or teaching a Musketeer how to dance or learning to fight or living another day to build a better France, one way or another, you’ll get it done.”

The look in her eyes changes, from reminiscent to charged in a moment, and Emma slides forward in her chair so their knees bump.

“There’s one more thing I want to do,” she whispers, and she grabs his collar, pulling him forward and pressing her lips to his.

This kiss is different than their others, less rushed and desperate, tender instead. She edges forward again, and Killian pulls her onto his lap. He breaks away from her lips to kiss up her neck and the side of her jaw.

Emma groans, and she fists her hand in his hair, dragging his face back up to hers to kiss him again. Her tongue slides across his lips, sending fire through every nerve in his body, but she’s a tease, moving to kiss his cheeks, his jaw, her panting breaths ghosting across his skin.

“Bed,” she whispers, and he stands, carrying her in his arms to the small bed, and dropping them both down onto the bed. Emma pulls him closer, hands drifting to the belt at his waist, untucking his shirt as she continues to kiss him.

Though he’s already straining to press Emma into the small mattress and feel her body underneath his, moving from the chair has knocked some reason into him and he pauses. Emma was mourning the potential loss of her future not five minutes ago, and he doesn’t want to take advantage of her emotional state.

He leans his head back, breaking free of her kisses, even when she leans further up to try to continue.

“Wait, Emma, stop.”

“Why? What are you doing?”

He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. “Emma, you’re upset. We shouldn’t do this. Not when you’re so unhappy –”

She was confused, but there’s a flash of understanding in her eyes, warmth growing in them, and she leans forward to kiss him again, so forcefully Killian forgets what he just said.

“I am upset,” she says when she pauses for breath, leaning back to look into Killian’s eyes. “But I am not doing this because I’m upset. I want this, Killian, I want to be with you before it’s too late. We might not have a tomorrow.”

He searches her eyes for any trace of doubt or uncertainty, but there’s only determination, desire, and a feeling he doesn’t dare put a name to; he’s not sure his heart could survive it.

Emma abruptly pulls back, a shadow crossing her features and a heavy stone wall shuttering over her eyes.

“Unless you don’t want me. I know I’m the queen, I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything because I say so –”

“No, Emma, that’s not it. Of course I want you.”

He leans forward, caressing her cheek softly, and draws her back to him, pressing his lips against hers. It’s a slower kiss, both of them taking their time to explore each other, and he wonders if she looked into his eyes, if she’d see the same expression in his he sees in hers.

When they pause for breath, Killian looks at Emma seriously once more. “You’re sure?”

She smiles, tugging him down beside her and pressing her lips against his own wide grin.

#cs ff #csbb #captain swan #captain swan big bang #cs mc ff #fic: if the stars align

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