#also very nice anon: my big bang is bellarke!

[welllpthisishappening]

I’m going through a “reading all the CS fics I can” phase and I JUST remembered you’re ao3 account and when I tell you that you are THE BEST. like you are unmatched and I don’t think I have come across an author I love more. You’re fics are so magical and Iove how you characterize Emma especially. I just started Out Of The Frying Pan and it’s so cute!!

Anyway, I just think I just wanted to ramble about how you’re the best. Also I saw that you wrote a Bridgerton fic and was wondering If you’d ever write in that fandom again? (no pressure to actually write more bridgerton btw!! I was just curious<3 )

anon, i showed this message to my husband. that's how nice it was. and also partially why it's taken so long to answer. the other reason (and the answer itself, really) is that... i would love to write more bridgerton. or... anything. ever. i live in want of the time and/or desire to finish that ouat time travel/pirate/soulmate fic i was writing and posted the first chapter of and then just stopped. same for the bellarke big bang i just never posted. and, like, all those blue line stories. there are so many blue line stories, anon.

the (mostly) short story, my dear anon, is that a little over a year ago, we made our second multi-state move in the last three years and then, about, four months ago i moved into a much bigger, time-consuming role at my job that we moved all those states for. which leaves me here: working a sometime 9-5 but also a job that revolves around sports, which happen on nights and weekends and traveling sometimes and i absolutely love it, but i also am very tired, like, all the time now, and really my only creative ability when i'm not getting paid to be creative is to read the absolutely trashiest trash i can find on kindle unlimited.

so, for now — the answer is probably no. but it warms the cockles of my very soul that people are still reading the words i shoved at the internet and enjoying them and sending very nice messages.

[welllpthisishappening]

Newbie here for all the hockey and Captain Swan nonsense (and pretty much everything else on your blog!) Can I request either "bloody kiss" or "a hoarse whisper “kiss me”"? Also, I definitely am interested in what Big Bang you just completed!

Hi, hello, welcome to this nonsense! You can absolutely request both of those things and I can semi fill those prompts with far more words than I was planning on writing. Eventually, maybe these prompts won’t all be canon, but that’s apparently the vibe we’re riding right now. Everyone else is welcome to partake in the aforementioned nonsense of this blog and the kiss prompts extravaganza so I don’t keep shouting about the book I finished this morning. It was real dumb. Like, super dumb. Anyway, here’s some making out. 

“You know I could hear you?”

He doesn’t hear. Her. Emma. Almost hears. Words filter through a haze that appears to finally be catching up with Killian, eyelids fluttering and pulse steadying and he imagines a lot of that has to do with the placement of her fingers. Trailing across his forehead and just above one of his eyebrows, studying him with a sort of intensity that he knows only she has. 

Fiancée. She’s his fiancée, again. 

Even the thought makes his heart feel as if it’s going to beat its way out of his chest. Explode, possibly. That would be rather violent though. Could ruin the moment, as it were. 

“When was that, exactly?” 

He mumbles. Barely moves his lips. Can only manage to crack open one of his eyes and it’s not the one with the eyebrow Emma appears so intent on memorizing. Not that he’s especially opposed to the memorization. Of his eyebrow or any other part of him, not after another involuntary and far too long separation and he hopes Blackbeard drowns. 

Somewhere off the coast of Neverland. 

None of those mermaids are particularly merciful. In Killian’s experience, at least. 

“Couple days ago,” Emma says, “the chest started talking.”

He opens the other eye. “Be more specific.”

“You’ve got an exceptionally dirty mind.”

“Chose your words more carefully then,” he challenges, but there’s no real heat behind his words. Not that way, at least. “Do you think we’re winning now?”

“In the non-existent True Love race?”

Smiling as widely and as suddenly as Killian does threatens the structural integrity of his cheeks. Both of them. Muscles strain from lack of use and recent frown-like tendencies, and furrowing his brow even a little bit sends a flash of pain through all of him. Gods, but he’s tired. And strangely comfortable. Stretched across sheets that apparently boast a rather high thread count, though he’s still a little shaky as to what, exactly that is, and even less sure it really matters, not when her fingers are so soft and his heart continues to do that erratic beating thing and—“Last I heard your mind-reading powers were a little suspect, witch.”

“I don’t think we’ve reached the insult portion of the evening.”

He chuckles. Keeps smiling. Doesn’t even consider pulling her fingers down. Despite the growing need to kiss directly beneath her ring for as long as she’ll allow. “Let me know when we get there, aye? And yes, I do believe we are. Winning, that is. Underworld challenges, magical doors fueled by magical flowers. Am I missing anything?’

“Sucks we didn’t get a rainbow kiss.”

“Perhaps that’s waiting in the wings. Of romance and whatnot.”

Listening to her laugh is his favorite thing in the world. Bar none. The way it flutters out of her occasionally, like she’s still a little surprised that it happens and Killian used to worry about that. Not anymore; not now, certainly. Now, he wants to keep surprising Emma. Wants to be surprised. To never grow entirely complacent or completely content. Although, he’s awfully close to content now. If he’s being honest. 

Piracy often frowns upon complete honesty. 

“Maybe,” Emma concedes, “and you’re not letting me tell my story.” “You’ve got very distracting fingers, that’s why.”

She rolls her eyes. Keeps tracing and it’s wonderful and comforting and—

Killian hisses. Grits his teeth before he can completely school his features, which makes Emma’s expression twist almost immediately and he’s not interested in that. Unless the twist is coming from the precise way her hips tend to buck when she’s beneath him. As it is, her eyes widen and his breath catches and she pulls her fingers away. From the gash he’d almost forgotten was on his forehead. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she chants, but he’s already moving, and using the hook he’d removed hours ago to tear off a corner of the shirt he also should have taken off is not quite as simple as he’d like. Takes a moment for him to get any worthwhile fabric off, dragging it immediately across Emma’s blood-stained fingertips. 

“Stop that. Apologizing does not become you, Your Highness.”

“That’s stupid.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

Her eyes widen. More. To an almost comical size, catching Killian off guard because he means those words as well. The syllables, too. Down to each letter and each sound that rolls off his tongue and he’d like to use his tongue for a variety of other things, but this feels important and a line they can’t come back from, and Emma’s magic surges. Jumps over him in a way that feels as much like a blanket as a semi-aggressive wave and he supposes there’s something in that contradiction. To the way he feels and the way they are and a True Love competition that absolutely does not exist. 

He knows he’s not bleeding anymore. Neither one of them move the fabric from her fingers. 

“I’m sorry,” Emma repeats on a whisper, shaking her head before Killian can so much as open his mouth to object, “for not thinking and not trusting and I—well, maybe the shell phone was another True Love sign. That puts us at three, at least. Definitely winning.”

Heart explosion does not hurt nearly as much as Killian expects. And his heart’s been yanked and squeezed and used against him, more often than he thinks is average. Even in this realm. So he’s got plenty to compare it to. Only now—well, he doesn’t think his heart is actually bursting and he cares less about the realm than the people in. About the flash of golden hair he noticed well before his eyes met hers and he knows he’ll think about the way she stumbled over her own feet in a magical doorway every single night for the rest of his already far-too-long life.  

He only cares about her. That’s the point, he supposes. 

“I love you too,” Emma says, answering a message from several days earlier. “How did you hit your head, by the way?”

“Blackbeard is a noted bastard.”

“God, fuck that guy.”

Scoffing is not laughing, but weariness is creeping back beneath his skin and Emma’s lips quirk up all the same. He’s staring, that’s how he notices. Unabashedly, so. And it’s entirely possible she’s blushing. “That’s the spirit, aye. You really could hear me?”

“Yeah. It’s, uh—there was tear magic involved, apparently, so I guess you couldn’t hear me?” She doesn’t mean for it to come out as a question. Killian knows. Shakes his head anyway. “Right, right, yeah, I figured, and I...well, I knew you wouldn’t leave, too. Even when I wanted you to have left.”

“You wanted me to have left?”

“That sounds shit, that’s not—” Emma’s nose bumps his. There’s not much room between them. So, he kisses her fingers. Makes sense. Plus, he doesn’t have much space to do anything else. “That’s not what I mean, not really. If you left, then it was just...another failure, you know. Would have made it easier to shove into the corner, try not to think about it because I could say I always knew it would happen, or I expected it. But that’s as shit as advertised and I know you’d never do that and I don’t want you to do that, don’t want you to leave, not again or ever and—”

“I think you should kiss me,” Killian interrupts. Gruffer than he’d like, and he’s not capable of magic anymore. Can’t rip hearts out of chests or threaten them with anything more than this realm’s poor food options, but he’s fairly certain the golden-haired woman lying impossibly close to him on these ridiculously soft sheets is all too aware that she already holds his heart in both her hands. And he can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather it be. 

She moves. All arms and feet, fingers in his hair and mouth slamming into him, catching his gasp and his groan in equal measure while he tosses the goddamn hook on the floor. It falls with a clatter that draws laughter out of both of them and makes it easier to pull Emma against his chest, Killian already shifting onto his back while his tongue manages to accomplish at least a few of the things it would like to. 

Nails scratch and hips do, in fact, buck. Desperately searching for a rhythm and tearing a bit more at clothes he’s willing to burn eventually. There’s no rainbow. No swelling or invisible orchestra, save for the roar between Killian’s ears, but he can’t bring himself to worry and finds it ridiculous to care. 

He knows. Emma knows. The goddamn magical door knew. And his message got back, even if it wasn’t perfect. To her, just like he did. 

For as long as they both should live.