#cs-ff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snowbellewells · 2 months

Text

CSSNS24 ONe Shot: "On Wings of Storm"

This canon divergent AU was intended to be a shifter one shot, but I don't know that the character is a shifter in the strictest sense, as there is a curse and magic involved. It is set sometime post Milah's death in Season Two, and then embarks on a different path from there...

I apologize ahead of time for any errors that I might need to come back and fix; I was writing this right up to midnight and didn't have enough time to edit fully. My beta for this year's @cssns @myfearless-love did absolutely brilliant work, catching so many typos and run-ons and confusing phrases. She was invaluable and deserves so much love for all her help! Anything left over is 100% my fault for hurrying to finish.

**I am thrilled to be reposting now with the gorgeous cover artwork created for me by @motherkatereloyshipper! She captured so well the drama and intensity of the ship's danger during the storm and the petrel coming to her aid. I just love it!! Thank you, thank you, thank you SO MUCH @motherkatereloyshipper!**

Please enjoy, and I'd love to hear what you think!!

Summary: Killian Jones has lost everything and everyone he ever held dear. All that is left for him is vengeance and pain. None could have expected the strange twist of Fate that would change everything, or the surprising companion that will come to touch his heart in ways he would have no longer thought possible.

“On Wings of Storm”

By: @snowbellewells

“Attention, you bilge rats!” His angry voice rang out unmistakably over the planks of the majestic ship - carrying clearly despite the buffeting wind and rolling sea beneath. The power in the sharply accented words cracked like a whip, causing every member of his crew to flinch nervously and stand at attention to do their captain’s bidding and avoid his ire. Those who made their home and livelihood upon the Jolly Roger - even the few remaining grizzled veterans who’d once served on her decks when she was the Jewel of the Realm - knew her captain’s temper was perpetually on a knife’s edge. The harshness and cruelty of the lives they all lived, and the loss and betrayal Captain Jones had weathered, would bow and break many. It was understood not to cross those who had survived and been hardened by it.

Yet, even with that knowledge, the cause of his current tirade was unclear. When the ship had docked at the remote port, some had stayed aboard to handle various duties and keep watch while others went ashore to roam and shop, or to visit inns or brothels, but all had been attending to their assigned duties and nothing was amiss. However, the thunderous look upon their Captain’s dark brow spoke volumes. Something was amiss, and he would see it put to rights. Pity the fool who was found at fault. The cutlass at his hip bounced gently against his leg, and the still awe-inspiring metal appendage which had replaced his left hand mere months ago glinted menacingly in the low moonlight as he paced back and forth, eyeing each man with an intensity that would make anyone tremble.

It was old Mullins who finally dared to put the question to the Captain gingerly when no further explanation or action seemed forthcoming. “What is it that’s angered ye, Cap’n?” he queried respectfully, head bowed in deference as his speech drew Killian Jones’ attention. “We’ve been here aboard the Jolly and at our post since ye left. Did something happen on shore?”

Killian’s attention zeroed intently on the graying Mullins, who quickly gave another bob of his chin in respect or acknowledgement. Not about to contradict their captain, but also not knowing what had upset him, none of them could move to make it right. Those piercing blue eyes, like ice chips in Mullins’ shuddering imagination, beneath the dark, forbidding brows he used to great effect, seemed to be searching his subordinate’s face and sifting his words for any hint of dissension or deception. Finding nothing of the kind, the volatile man’s gaze swept over the rest of the crew assembled around him nervously for some time before offering the explanation in a menacing growl.

“It has come to my attention - and make no mistake, even a scoundrel such as meself has loyal allies - that some of you are dissatisfied with your position aboard this vessel. Let me be crystal clear; a place aboard the Jolly Roger is an honor and a prize - she is a marvel unmatched in speed and quality throughout the realm. However, your presence here is entirely voluntary. I have never, and will never, tolerate the enslavement of any crew member on the Jolly. Such dishonor shall not taint her decks. So, if any of you wish to depart, then by all means, leave now. But be warned; spreading false tales of captivity or coercion, thereby sullying our flag and reputation, will not be tolerated. Such lies will be rooted out and those responsible will face severe consequences.”

He paused, clearly waiting for any who might be bold enough to disembark under his watchful eye and be noted for their decision. None upon the deck moved or spoke, and old Mullins noted sadly that the only sound or hint of motion was the heavy breathing that escaped the Captain’s mouth and the heaving of his chest, evidenced by what had clearly been an angry charge from the town’s center and his impassioned outburst.

As Jones finally seemed to regain control, sending him back to work with a brisk order, Mullins couldn’t help thinking resignedly about how much the Captain had changed, in the past few months especially, but also in the years since his brother’s death. The man Captain Jones had once been - that promising but naive young lieutenant - seemed like a distant memory. Few of the current crew members had served under Jones’ proud and honorable older brother, Liam, who had been tragically struck down in his prime by treachery. Liam’s untimely death had altered the course of all their lives in ways none could have anticipated. Mullins found it painful to remember the wide-eyed, gangly lieutenant Killian had once been. That young man had spoken passionately of glory for the crown and the name of Jones, ready to follow his Captain anywhere. He had believed in righteousness and the power of individuals to shape their own destinies. That idealistic youth had hardened into a bitter and implacable man. The once-noble Killian Jones now sought only vengeance, becoming known and feared across the seas as the dreaded villain, Captain Hook. Mullins sighed and returned to his task; there was naught to be done for it.

Meanwhile, Killian Jones stood at the helm, staring out into the dark night. He sought fruitlessly for the rhythmic comfort of the waves against the hull of his beloved vessel, the solid planks beneath his feet, and the cool night air brushing over his face to ease his inner turmoil. These familiar elements had soothed him many times before, yet his agitation remained as he waited, forcing himself to take steady, regular breaths.

As he stood there, alone amongst his crew, Killian’s gaze drifted towards the gray, evening-darkening horizon. A shape materialized from the gathering twilight, drawing nearer - an unmistakable bird on the wing, yet not the familiar silhouette of gull or pelican often seen at sea. Morbidly curious, Killian watched as the creature approached, strangely silent compared to the trilling calls of most avian species he knew. Its relatively small body rose and fell on the air currents, rather than gliding with ease, weaving unsteadily in its course.

Despite having recently displayed harsh temper and callousness, Killian found himself holding his breath with each flap of wings that sent the bird painstakingly higher in the sky again, inexplicably concerned it might plummet into the rolling waves below.

As if drawn by his thoughts, the bird’s flight began to descend lower and lower. The men diligently working around him on the deck - and avoiding eye contact to steer clear of his ire a second time - seemed completely unaware of the creature’s plight. Killian finally released a tight breath as the dark-feathered bundle nearly landed at his feet. Though it seemed more a collapse than a graceful landing, it had found a resting place. He did not wish to closely examine why it mattered to him whether it had succeeded or not.

Glancing around surreptitiously, Killian stooped to gather the bird into his hand, his hooked arm wrapping around to steady and secure it against his chest. He hoped the dark attire he wore would partially conceal the fragile creature. Rescuing helpless animals contradicted the brash and dangerous pirate persona he had donned irrevocably, which had grown even more dark and forbidding of late. Yet, he simply could not leave the small, fragile bird on the planks, its strength almost spent and plaintively vulnerable.

Seeing that all was as it should be, he slipped below deck without a word, carrying the strange passenger in his arms into his cabin. Closing the door firmly behind him, Killian hurried to place the weakened creature on the table and lit a nearby lantern hanging from the ceiling to inspect its small form for injuries. It appeared fine, simply near the end of its endurance after a clearly long journey.

Just as when the bird was approaching the ship, he could not really understand why it mattered so much to him that the creature was alright. It did though, and so he obeyed his instincts and tried to tend to it as best he knew how. His new compatriot didn’t seem at all troubled by his admittedly anxious dithering and attempts at aid. The bird neither flapped nor made any attempt to flee. After a few full-body shakes to settle its plumage, the bird remained largely still, only moving with its breaths and blinking its dark brown eyes calmly at him, seemingly taking in its new surroundings. The creature exhibited an almost human awareness that it was safe, facing no threat from him.

As Killian watched, enthralled, the bird eventually seemed to settle enough that it tucked its head beneath its wing and appeared to fall asleep. Satisfied that his charge would be fine for a few hours, and needing to rest himself while his crew and ship were in order, Killian extinguished the lantern after preparing for bed. The churning anger and restlessness which had plagued him since boarding his ship was strangely lulled, and for the moment, he was too grateful to question it. Stretching out upon the Captain’s berth, he gave himself over to sleep, for once wrapped up enough in its comfort to be dreamless.

~~ * ~~ * ~~

Killian rose with the sun the next morning, habit waking him early enough to see the gray pre-dawn melt into the peach and pinkish glow of a clear new day. He stretched his lanky frame, washed and dressed before moving to the table to check on his unexpected guest. As he neared the makeshift nest he had created, he was surprised to see his small stowaway still appeared to be asleep. Startled by how calm the bird continued to be in such confined surroundings, Killian merely smiled tightly, his hand unconsciously rubbing his chest. He tried not to dwell on why the peaceful sight of a bird resting on the table in one of his old rags lifted his spirits so, as if the whole cabin felt less lonely in its presence.

He had a litany of his usual tasks to attend to, and he knew the rest of his crew would soon be active - if they were not already. Killian exited the cabin swiftly, hoping nothing would disturb the creature until it was restored enough to wake on its own, once the heavy sound of his boots against the wooden planks faded away.

However, he couldn’t avoid one quick stop before heading topside. Killian was pleased to see Turley, the ship’s cook, alone in the kitchen. He ducked beneath the low door frame and cleared his throat to get the grizzled man’s attention amidst the numerous pots and pans bubbling and sizzling on the stovetop.

“Mornin’ Cap’n,” Turley offered, with a gap-toothed smile. “What can I get ye?”

Killian lowered his voice, stepping closer to the aging cook as he explained that the rations he sought were not for himself, but for the seabird he had rescued the evening before. As he pondered why the bird’s fate concerned him, Killian found himself unsure why he felt compelled to hide his anxiety for the small animal. Anyone daring to question or mock him would regret it – if not immediately, soon enough. Was he questioning himself then?

He discarded the thought almost as soon as it entered his mind. Turley seemed pleased with his captain’s request, assuring him they still had some canned herring in their stores which he could fetch after the noon meal. Killian nodded approvingly and thanked Turley before turning to leave. Just as he did, Turley added, “Sounds like you found a storm petrel, Cap’n.”

“Oh, aye?” Killian asked, tilting his head with renewed interest, despite his desire not to seem overeager.

“Indeed, for how you have described it anyways, Sir. They’re quite rare in these parts, or so’s I’ve always heard. They tend to nest much further north, preferrin’ the cold.”

Killian nodded his understanding but remained silent, encouraging Turley’s talkative nature with a patient gaze. He was rewarded when Turley continued without pause.

“There’re many folks who consider ‘em an evil omen, Cap’n. Portents of storms and such like, but they’re such wee buggers, them petrels. I always wondered meself if they weren’t just allowin’ the winds to blow them to safety rather than heraldin’ the blast.”

Killian shook his head with begrudging humor. Even after nearly three years leading a crew of pirates rather than the formal naval sailors they had once been, he was continually surprised by their superstitious beliefs. They claim to be black-hearted, fearless outlaws, yet frightfully unwilling to take a woman aboard (even Milah at the beginning), sail under the red morning sun, or set out on a Friday.. All due to tall tales of downfall and destruction. It was just a bird, wind-rattled and knocked off-course, needing to regain its strength; certainly not some ill stroke of luck.

“I heartily agree with you, mate,” Killian said when Turley’s words trailed off, giving him a clap on the shoulder before leaving the galley. “I appreciate you finding the herring. I’ll be back for it once lunch has been cleared.”

Turley assented readily and turned back to his task, humming idly. The Captain seemed in a better state of mind than he’d been in since losing his hand, and witnessing his love’s death. To Turley it seemed nothing but good luck, and he was simply glad for it.

~~ * ~~ * ~~

Feeding the petrel at noon was a more awkward and messier business than Killian had anticipated; first he was struggling to open the sealed tin with just one hand, then handling the pungent small fish and their juices in his attempts to coax the bird to eat. Once it snatched the first bit in its delicate, curved bill, however, no more coddling was necessary. Soon, the petrel was grasping tiny herring right from the can, swallowing chunks as fast as it could manage. It emitted a rough sort of squawk in his direction once it finished its meal. Chuckling, Killian could certainly admit it was no nightingale’s song, but he chose to see it as an enthusiastic thanks all the same.

“I’m afraid that’s all for now, you shameless beggar,” he chided gently while clearing the empty tin away and wiping the table clean. To his surprise, the bird stepped nearer, lightly pecking at his fingers, almost playfully or in gratitude, not at all sharply enough to hurt. Holding his breath, Killian turned his hand open and palm up; the petrel nuzzled against his warm skin. Improbable as it seemed, the gesture could almost be called affectionate.

“You are a funny one, aren’t you?” the pirate murmured, scratching one finger lightly over the bird’s dark gray cap. He chose to ignore how his voice sounded equally fond.

When he returned that evening, the shadows outside his cabin’s windows were already long, and the sun had long sunk in the west. After its performance at midday, Killian was sure the petrel would be hungry again and eagerly awaiting its dinner. Yet, upon entering his cabin with canned anchovies, hoping they would not prove too salty for his animal guest, he found the bird absent from the center table altogether. Instead, it flitted for one spot to another at the desk in the room’s far corner near the window. It fluttered, then paused to alight upon the various open books strewn over the surface, cooking its tiny head and peering down intently at the pages. Had Killian not known better, he would have thought it was actually reading the words in Liam’s beloved tomes.

By this point, Kilian was charmed by the petrel’s odd antics, his lips stretching into an ill-accustomed smile as he watched before he moved to lay out his offering. The dark cloud that had hung over him before the bird’s arrival had dissipated. Though he couldn’t explain why, Killian welcomed the lighter mood, hoping it signified better days to come.

The petrel let out its brash trill a few more times before fluttering over to feed quickly on the anchovy, as enthusiastically as it had eaten the herring. Upon finishing, however, it did not relax as it had done previously. Instead, it flitted across the room, hovering near the window and making its distinctive call. The bird then fluttered around Killian’s head and shoulders before returning to the window, its desire for freedom as clear as if it had spoken the words aloud.

“Of course, little one,” Killian sighed reluctantly, no longer embarrassed about speaking to it as if it were human. “Naturally you would wish to return to the air.”

As he opened the window pane, the bird uttered a softer note, unlike its previous raucous cries. Killian smiled ruefully as he watched it slip through the opening and fly away. He had never considered refusing to let it go free; still, he missed the petrel’s presence in his cabin almost immediately. It might have been only a lost bird, but for a flicker of time, he felt a connection, a kinship, that had been sorely lacking in his life.

Yet, to Killian’s pleased astonishment, it was far from the last he would see of the storm petrel. While he would have expected the bird to be gone, never to return again, as days and weeks at sea went by, the small bird reappeared often - usually at first light, near the wheel where Killian was often steering, taking the night’s last watch upon himself as captain to be certain all was well when the Jolly was perhaps most vulnerable. After his intriguing initial encounter with his new feathered friend, he had learned that petrels were largely nocturnal and - like pirates and sailors themselves - rarely came ashore unless nesting. Again, that strange sense of kindred closeness swept over him; more than he had known for entirely too long. He had also learned that pairs of storm petrels were largely monogamous, and he could not help but wonder if the small gray co-pilot had lost its mate, leading it to return to the ship and humans where it had been shown kindness, strange as the attachment might seem. At any rate, once “his” petrel had begun to make recurrent appearances, Killian deliberately took the shift which found him at the helm when dawn’s first light crept over the horizon.

Though wise enough not to voice any notice or question him, the more observant and early-rising members of Captain Jones’ crew began to notice the bird’s repeated arrivals at the wheel near their captain. It seemed the small creature came solely to visit Jones and to snag a brief ride perched on the ship’s side, the sea breeze rustling its feathers until it either fluttered below deck to follow Killian at the end of his watch or took to the sky again.. Killian naturally sought to avoid seeming overly fond or doting on the petrel. For the leader of a band of miscreants and outlaws who lived a rough life by their wits and the sweat of their brows, it was dangerous indeed to show any sort of weakness. Any appearance of “going soft” could be a death sentence if his crew began to doubt his capabilities because of it.

All the same, those who worked nearby sometimes saw glimpses of his twinkling eyes or more mischievous smiles from time to time - things that had seemed lost to the past before the bird’s arrival. The cabin boy Killian had taken aboard at a port several months before - to save him from a life of abuse and privation - sometimes thought he heard snatches of the Captain singing or humming shanties under his breath when the petrel was present at Killian’s side. The boy’s loyalty, however, was unassailable and absolute. He’d never dream of breathing a word.

This continued for some time, the petrel’s comings and goings becoming an expected part of the rhythm aboard the Jolly Roger. Its diminutive gray form and rapid flight over the nearby waves became an easily recognizable sight to all who sailed upon the ship. What was more, the bird’s presence was gratefully welcomed - Captain Jones was less volatile and less prone to strike out against those who displeased him.

If the petrel had not yet proven its worth to any sailors reluctant to accept it, then one stormy night it would have silenced any doubts once and for all…

They had not taken an enemy vessel in some time, and the cargo taken in their most recent haul had been offloaded at the last port nearly two days prior. It was a good thing, too, because as shadows began to lengthen in late afternoon, wind whipped up wildly, frothing the waves and rocking the ship violently. The extra weight of a full cargo might have caused them to take on a frightening amount of water as the hull rose and fell.

At first, the men manned their posts with calm determination. A storm at sea was always serious, easily spelling the difference between life and death in how one met its ravages. They had faced many such squalls, and Jones guided them through with an indefinable but comforting mix of experience and assurance. This gale, however, seemed different, bent on their destruction as the walls of water rose and then dropped the Jolly as though it were a toy in a child’s bathtub. As they dipped, the rising swells threatened to pour over the sides and sink them permanently. The crew gripped their ropes or boards, holding tightly to whatever piece they manned, but more and more fervently sending prayers for mercy to Poseidon, Davy Jones, or the sirens that would greet them below the surface.

Amidst the rolling chaos, the rapid beating of wings swept low over their heads as a dark, familiarly recognizable form sailed across the deck and landed heavily, talons clinging to the worn leather on Killian’s shoulder. Though it had clearly fought mightily against the drafts, their petrel was claiming its place heedless of the danger.

Hardly able to acknowledge the delicate weight where it roosted at his side, even nearer than usual, Killian quickly raised his hook from the spokes of the wheel, brushing its curve over the bird’s downy underbelly in a single stroke of greeting. The bird trilled and seemed almost to rub its head against his rough cheek in affection. The exchange lasted only a moment, and in their heightened anxiety, few, if any, bore witness. Then, Killian gripped the wheel tightly once more with hand and hook, roaring out orders and encouragement, exhorting the men not to give up the fight, though the storm raged on and endurance flagged.

The petrel, not content to merely watch and ride along, was hardly finished - nor did it perch silently idle. Instead, it took to the air again, if only just, fluttering rapidly about the captain’s head, repeating its sharp, strident call, almost in his ear, and making itself nigh impossible to ignore. At first, Killian instinctively waved his hand to ward off its advances, calling out in consternation at its unusual behavior. However, it quickly became clear the tiny bird’s determined efforts would not falter.

Brow furrowed in thought, Killian squinted in concentration at his companion, finally sensing that it was trying to tell him something. Swiping the driving rain from his vision, Killian gave in and murmured low under his breath, “Alright, little one, I understand. What is it you wish to show me?”

Again, reacting as if it understood his every word, the petrel chirruped a sort of agreement and took flight again. It had to dip and bob against the lashing wind and rain in order to stay aloft, but it flapped madly, its wings battling back against the heaves of the storm. Valiantly, it hovered within sight, just ahead of the ship’s bow and almost seemed to look back expectantly, as if asking whether or not he meant to follow its lead.

Despite the tension in his shoulders, the worry and responsibility weighing upon him as the storm attempting to break them apart and bear the pieces to the depths, Killian couldn’t hold back a huff of laughter at the bird’s assumed insistence. “Aye, we’re with you,” he uttered aloud, turning the wheel just slightly to accommodate the direction in which the petrel led, shaking his head in disbelief even as he did so. It seemed a mite crazy, true enough, and yet birds survived the wild, its brutal conditions and weather, all the time. And what other chance of survival did they have at this point if the tempest didn’t slake soon? He could not see the way before them clearly enough to navigate by any of his normal methods. At the end of the day, they were all at the whim of Mother Nature, whatever their skill or experience, so the chance or fate that had brought this small creature to him and the feeling in his gut that urged him on seemed as good a course to follow as any.

Some few further agonizing minutes followed, as they still rose and fell in the grip of rolling waves. The entire crew seemed to hold their breath as the ship bobbed and soared, up and down, over and again, eyes riveted on the dark clouds and forks of lightning ahead of them and straining to glimpse in time the jagged rocks that lurked portending their doom.

Slowly, and yet more and more certainly as they persisted, the wild rocking, the careening to and fro, lessened, as though the churning water itself had begun to loosen its massive grip. They were moving into miraculously calmer waters, Killian noted with a breath of relief. The storm still howled around them, but in a bright flash of lightning, he saw that the ship had entered the sheltered lea of a hidden cove. The tall rock faces rising on either side as the Jolly sailed into their cover lessened the buffeting of the waves and allowed the ship to maintain its ballance once again. He would not have seen the entrance with the elements obscuring vision as they’d been - not without the petrel. It had led them to safety.

As if on cue, the bird came to rest atop the wheel, perching on the curve of wood between the two spokes where his hand and hook were placed. Blinking placidly, it seemed to look at him with a bit of pride before cooing softly and burrowing hits head and beak under its wing to snatch a moment’s well-earned rest.

Nodding and allowing himself a look around to take stock, Killian saw the reassurance on his crew’s faces as all realized they had made it through. Killian called out a few orders to check various parts of the sip for any damages and make certain the ship would stay in place until the storm blew itself out. This petrel with its almost sentient ability to sense when it was needed, come to his aid, and raise his spirits, would always have a safe place to rest with them on the Jolly Roger.

~~*~~*~~

Until the day it didn’t return.

The storm petrel had taken to arriving regularly every two or three days, wherever they might be sailing or how much distance they had covered, but then one evening it failed to appear. It didn’t come that night, or the next. Soon a week had passed, and still it didn’t come back to the Jolly, worrying Killian more than he dared let on.

He could not simply drop anchor and wait, nor could he leave his post, his men, and his ship, to search for his tiny companion - far dearer than even a pet could ever be. He had no way to call the bird; it had always come to him of its own accord and in its own time… but it had never stayed away for so long.

His men noticed as well, whispering amongst themselves when the Captain began taking his evening meals alone at night rather than joining them in the galley, when the door to his cabin slammed with such heavy finality that all knew it was a barrier not to be crossed until the Captain emerged again. They shook their heads in dismay when orders were bellowed more harshly or conversations were more clipped and terse. Killian Jones was too diligent a man to shirk his duties or lead them astray, yet all felt his unease and knew its cause. Many of them were aware enough to know the petrel had saved them from the storm, just as Killian did, and had grown to enjoy its visits and watch for it in their own ways. Its absence had stretched on long enough that it seemed clear something must have happened to the poor bird - not that any would say such to the Captain.

Turley and the cabin boy were the only ones genuinely close enough to ask Killian about it, and the youngster only dared question hesitantly one night as he brought the Captain his dinner tray if he had seen his gray bird lately. The dulled acceptance in his expected denial bowed the boy’s head and forestalled any further inquiry.

But that night, as young Billy left, Killian heard a light rapping sound at the small window above his bunk. Even knowing better, his heart leapt with a small flicker of hope. It was the portal by which his petrel had entered and left his cabin so many times. Scuffling and scratching followed, so weak and soft as to have gone unheard if he hadn’t been sitting alone and quiet at his desk. Hustling to the window, Killian unlatched it and carefully opened the glass pane.

To his astonishment and joy, quickly followed by rapid alarm, the storm petrel toppled from its weary perch on the windowsill and landed on the ledge just inside the room. Its tiny frail quivered, its little feathered breast rising and falling rapidly. It wasn’t a large bird to begin with; Turley’s familiar voice echoed in Killian’s head at the thought, needlessly rambling about petrels being some of the widest ranging seabirds known to man, despite being naught bigger than swallows. ‘Hardy little critters, they are,’ Killian could still hear the cook yammering internally until he finally shook his head clear. What he needed to do now was ascertain what the bird needed and what he could do to help.

Having been small already, the petrel looked terribly frail on the dusty, cushioned ledge amidst heavy tomes, navigation tools, and the other detritus of several years. It was obvious the poor creature had not been eating and was wasting away half-starved as a result. Along with that, it was soaked, its feathers in bedraggled disarray and missing in places. The bird lay still for so long without uttering any sound or even trying to right itself of explore the space that Killian feared for a horrible moment that it must be near death.

Peering closer with careful, gentle movements, he saw that the petrel was injured as well as weakened. Not immediately apparent because of how ruffled in was in general, Killian noted that its wing was bent at an awkward angle along its side rather than folded up properly in repose.

The bird hardly lifted its head as Killian stroked one finger down its back, hoping to soothe and offer even the tiniest bit of comfort. Striding urgently across the room, he swung the cabin door open, calling urgently down the hall for Whale, the ship’s doctor, to come on the double; he was needed in the Captain’s quarters.

Whirling to re-enter the room, Killian’s eyes quickly passed over the space, noting the crust of his bread left from supper and the seeds which had been baked atop it still littering the plate. He brought it quickly to his patient, then poured some water for the pitched by his washstand into the empty saucer which had held soup, hoping he might coax the petrel to eat even a morsel and gain some nourishment.

Next, he grasped a plush cotton dressing gown, hanging untouched on the door of his closest, purposefully out of easy sight. It had been Milah’s favorite to wrap up in after the rare luxury of a bath, and the sight of it or the feel of its material beneath his fingers had wrung his heart until now, bringing the hot, raging need for vengeance back to the fore. He was suddenly glad he had not parted with it though. He didn’t dare jostle the injured bird overmuch for fear of hurting it further. But while he couldn’t rub it down to dry it fully, he could tuck the robe’s downy layers around it and warm its shivering frame.

“There now, little one,” he crooned gently. “Take a bit of food and catch your breath. You’re safe now…” his voice caught and he swallowed before adding, “We’ll put you back to rights, don’t fret.”

Killian didn’t actually know if a ship’s surgeon could set a bird’s wing as he would a human man’s broken arm, but he could hear Whale’s footsteps pounding down the hall toward his cabin, and knew he would find out soon. Before Whale - or anyone else - could arrive to see him, Killian bent to carefully lean over the bird’s small form, not sure what possessed him, but following the instinct before he could question it. As delicately as possible for someone who’d had no cause for gentility in longer than he could remember, for just one breath, one single heartbeat, he brought his lips to the bird’s tiny head. Maybe it was brought on by some long-buried memory of his own mother, lost to his mind’s eye other than a voice whose soothing singing sometimes echoed in his sleep, but the kiss seemed an offering to ease fever pain and fear with hope and good wishes.

It was the barest brush contact - a mere moment’s touch - but the air in the room abruptly changed. Something seemed to shrink and then expand; the atmosphere held its breath. Glittering rainbow hues flashed in front of his eyes, and Killian jerked backwards in alarm. The petrel’s shape went a bit hazy as Killian strained to understand what was happening right before his eyes, and then his small friend began to grow and change, forcing him to take a few more stunned steps backward and wonder if he had somehow hit his head and addled his brain. His accustomed companion was transforming even as he watched.

He heard a shout as Whale - and probably a few curious others too - came to a halt behind him. Exclamations of awe and surprise were heard but left unacknowledged over his shoulder. Killian blinked, trying be sure he could trust his vision and to reconcile what shouldn’t be possible, but sat before him.

Where the storm petrel had lay near death just seconds ago, stood a blushing, beautiful young woman. She was equally soaked to the skin, long blonde hair plastered to her head and shoulders. Her lithe, slender frame trembled where she stood clutching the dressing gown around her tightly. Still, there was something about her eyes as she stared back at him silently; something that he knew deep within despite never having seen her before.

She cocked her head curiously, as if she too was trying to understand where she was and what had happened. With that motion, Killian knew without a shadow of a doubt. This young woman had been his petrel; his long lost avian friend was this lovely woman. He didn’t know how it was possible, but he was absolutely certain. And he was drawn to her just as he had been to her former guise. She took a cautious step toward him, and he held out a hand to draw her near and hold her close. Whatever had brought them together, whatever magic was at work, she was the most beautiful sight he had ever beheld.

~~*~~*~~

By the time rays of morning sunlight came slanting down the walls inside Killian’s cabin, he and his soulmate - he knew that now - had talked the whole night through. She was no longer a storm petrel but a princess what had been cursed to take on avian form, and his act of True Love - aware of it or not - had set her free. The jealous witch who’d cast the spell had falsely believed the princess was luring her chosen partner away rather than accept that he had a roving eye. Petrels were a migratory species, keeping her far from all she knew and loved - and of course, unable to speak or gain help for her affliction. For hours they sat side-by-side on his bunk, hands clasped tightly as this woman - Emma, her name was Emma - told him what she’d experience ever since the curse took hold, shifting her very reality to something unfathomable. Tears pooled in her eyes, glistening on her lashes, both while recounting her own trials, and then again while listening to the betrayal and loss that had shaken Killian’s world to its foundations as well.

The connection between them from Emma’s first appearance on his ship drew them ever closer as they talked, and touched, and inevitably joined in another kiss. This time it was two souls meeting on equal footing, and they drank deeply of the perfection that shook them each to the core. Perhaps it was always meant to be this way; the two of them bound to meet long before they ever knew. Neither could explain the pull, but it also couldn’t be denied.

As they went topside the next morning and Killian began to introduce her to an eagerly enthusiastic crew, he didn’t even try to explain, but simply savored the moment, thrilled that all the heartache and pain had finally brought him there, with Emma at his side. Her smaller frame tucked seamlessly into his side as she beamed at his new ally and charmed them one and all.

When they stood at the wheel - just the two of them again at last - Killian behind her, his arms encircling her as he steered the ship, he felt the same joy he had when she’d kept him company perched on the wheel so many times before, but magnified exponentially now that they could fully communicate and understand one another. With the salt air in their faces and the horizon in view, they set sail - a happy new beginning stretching out ahead of them.

Tagging a few who may enjoy: @cssns @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi

@jrob64 @apiratewhopines @anmylica @scientificapricot @xarandomdreamx @booksteaandtoomuchtv

@spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @tiganasummertree @optomisticgirl @lenfaz @jonesfandomfanatic

@eastwesthomeisbest @grimmswan @stahlop @belovedcreation @xsajx @bluewildcatfanatic

@winterbaby89 @undercaffinatednightmare @hollyethecurious @darkcolinodonorgasm @caught-in-the-filter @resident-of-storybrooke

@the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @elizabeethan @goforlaunchcee @mie779 @kday426 @iamstartraveller776

#cssns24 #cs au ff #cs shifter one shot #on wings of storm #ouat season two divergent #pirate captain hook #cursed emma #cs ff

55 notes · View notes

zaharadessert · 23 days

Text

Forget Me Not

Prologue

The village of Storybrooke is as unremarkable as any number of villages in the English countryside. It has a pub, a church, a post office and a village green. But one summer a little boy and his mother come to stay, and suddenly some remarkable things start to happen...

Mature, for now.

No idea of length yet because it's not done, but I'm already late putting this up!

Thank you to the @cssns Mods for running this, I like to think that the event won't be over until all the fics are completed, so I'm doing what I can to keep this event alive... And thank you to the wonderful @exhaustedpirate for the lovely mood board!

Have the prologue for now, and the rest when I'm done writing!

Thank you all in advance for your support! Love you all xxx

@kmomof4 @teamhook @winterbaby89 @jonesfandonfanatic @undercaffinatednightmare

@anmylica @elfiola @booksteaandtoomuchtv @tiganasummertree @motherkatereloyshipper

@xarandomdreamx @myfearless-love @lfh1226-linda @pawshapedheart @xhookswenchx

@wefoundloveunderthelight @superchocovian @onceratheart18 @snowbellewells @karlyfr13s

@captainswan21 @spaceconveyor @pirateprincessofpizza @sparlecorn93 @hollyethecurious

As always, let me know if you’d like me to add you to my taglist for future fics :)

#captain swan #cs ff #CSSNS 2024 #captain hook #Emma Swan #henry mills #captain cobra swan #zaharadessert writes #ouat #fanfiction

34 notes · View notes

hollyethecurious · 1 month

Text

CS AU: Pan Says... (13/13)

Summary: After waking up in a strange room with a naked stranger, Emma and Killian must endure the twisted game their kidnapper insists they play in order to gain provisions and avoid punishments.

A/N: We've made it! The final chapter is here. Thank you all for going on this journey with me! I hope is does not disappoint!

Much love to my @kmomof4 and @ultraluckycatnd for being amazing cheerleaders and betas! A shout out to all of you who sent me prompts. This fic would not exist without y'all!

Rated E / Also available on ao3 and ff.net / buy me a coffee / add to tag list / Curious? Come Ask Me!

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven / Part Twelve

Part Thirteen

“There has to be a way out of here,” Killian grumbled as they hit yet another dead end.

Never had he been more eager to get his Swan to safety. Sure, the man who’d been tasked to eliminate her may well be dead, but that didn’t mean she was out of danger. Cassidy was still lurking somewhere within the maze and Killian didn’t want to take any chances of him getting his hands on Emma.

“Killian?” Emma whispered softly next to him, both of them trying to draw as little attention to themselves and their position as possible. “What do we do if Neal finds us before we make it out of here? Assuming there is a way out.”

“There has to be,” Killian replied, bypassing her initial question and leading them down a new corridor. Or had they already been down this way? “Pan can’t trap us in here forever.”

“Sure he can.”

Killian and Emma spun around, stunned to find Neal Cassidy making his way around the corner they’d just turned. Where had he come from? That way had been a dead end. Hadn’t it?

A baseball bat was firmly gripped in one hand as he menacingly tapped the cap of it in the other. No need to guess the weapon he was meant to use in order to complete the grizzly task Pan had assigned him.

“Looks like Emma already took care of your dear old dad,” Neal commented, his eyes taking in the blood soaked into Killian’s sweatpants and smeared across his bare torso and chest. Shifting his attention to Emma he added, “I knew Pan would give you Brennan, leaving Killian and I to duke it out to the death.”

Killian let the man keep his wrong assumptions and tightened his grip on Emma’s hand, hoping she would do the same. Having his focus on Killian as both his target and would-be assassin allowed them the upper hand, even if they were both loath for Emma to be in a position to have to take the man’s life. Neither of them wanted it to come to that, but Neal seemed not the least bit concerned with the idea of cold-blooded murder.

“I’m gonna enjoy this,” Neal murmured darkly, continuing his advance as Killian and Emma both crept backward down the corridor, unwilling to take their eyes off the danger in front of them. “Do you know how often I’ve dreamt of killing you? How many times I begged Pan to let me be the one to punish you?”

Arriving at a T junction, Killian signaled for Emma to go to her right, hanging behind for a moment to ensure Neal did not lunge at them unexpectedly. She’d only just rounded the corner when a panel slid out from the wall, cutting him off from her completely. Forgetting about Neal, Killian spun around and yelled Emma’s name, desperately feeling his way along the panel for a way to remove it.

“Swan!” he hollered, but was unable to determine whether or not she could hear him. Her name had only just left his lips when a whooshing sound gave him a mere moments warning of Neal’s attack. Ducking out of the way, Killian nearly had his head taken clean off by the swing of Neal’s bat, which instead collided with the solid panel separating them from Emma.

“Quick bastard, aren’t you?” Neal muttered, taking aim once more.

His next swing was stalled when Killian demanded to know, “Where’s Emma? How did you manage to separate us?”

“Don’t look at me, pal,” Neal scoffed. “Haven't you noticed the walls moving before now? Hallways seal themselves all the time, creating new dead ends. It’s all part of Pan’s genius.”

“Awfully enamored with Pan, aren’t you?” Killian stated derisively.

“Pan is my family,” Neal shot back. “He’s always looked out for me.” Cocking his head to one side, a sneer crept over his lip as he taunted, “Unlike your own father who left you and your brother to rot in foster care. Left you to the mercy of someone like John Silver.”

Killian tamped down the anxiety and panic the mention of his abusive foster father’s name brought up. He could not afford to let Neal rile him up or make him lose focus. In fact, perhaps it was time to turn the tables.

“Always looked out for you?” Killian countered. “Was he looking out for you when he brought Emma here? When he let me have her instead of you?” Neal’s knuckles turned white as he clenched the grip of the bat tighter in his hands, his teeth grinding together in anger and rage Killian hoped he could work to his advantage. “Tell me, Neal,” Killian continued to taunt, “How was Pan looking out for you when he let me pleasure Emma? Let me caress her body and taste her cunt before fucking her to heights of ecstacy you were incapable of giving her?”

A guttural roar of rage preceded the wild swing of Neal’s bat, but Killian managed to side-step it before it made contact.

“Or was he looking out for you when he forced Emma to her knees to suck me off?” Killian said, throwing another barb at the man who was growing more and more unhinged by the second. “Or when she washed me, or kissed me, or fondled me, or rode me like a bloody goddess?”

Another savage swing broke the air, but when this one also missed its target, Neal, in a rage, rushed at Killian, nearly knocking the breath out of him as they both landed on the ground.

“You think any of that meant something? You think it means she’s yours?” Neal bellowed, striking Killian in the jaw with his fist when he attempted to get up, landing him flat on his back once more. “She’ll never be yours!” Neal roared. “She’s mine!”

Crushing the bat against Kiliian’s windpipe, Neal continued to rail at him. Perhaps he’d done too good of a job riling the man up in the hopes he’d make a mistake. It was clear, however, that Killian had been the one who’d made the fatal error. Frantically, he clawed at Neal’s hands as the man continued to spit vitriol at him, not that he heard a word of it, the sound of his blood thundering in his ears as a ringing began to swell from the lack of oxygen effectively drowned the murderous man out.

No! He couldn’t let the man win. He couldn’t leave his Emma at the mercy of Pan and Neal. He couldn’t… he had to… he must…

Killian’s vision began to tunnel, the black edges of oblivion quickly creeping in as the pressure in his face and head continued to build and his lungs screamed from want of air. With the last of his strength he tried anything and everything he could to dislodge the man from his chest and bat from his throat, but it was no use. Neal would not be moved.

The last vestiges of consciousness began to leave him, his final coherent thoughts of his Swan and the grief he felt as he mourned the life they could have had together. He wished he could see her one last time. Hold her. Kiss her. Tell her he--

Killian jolted from the blast of gunshots that rang out and his lungs suddenly opened, allowing him to draw in a much needed breath. His eyes, which he hadn’t even realized had shut, flew open in time to see Neal Cassidy being propelled backward by the force of the bullets hitting his chest, blood splatter from his wounds erupting in the air and hitting Killian in the face as he continued to choke and gasp for breath.

“Killian!” Emma screamed, her footfalls rushing towards him as he rolled over onto all fours in an attempt to get up. She practically knocked him on his back again, throwing herself at him and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.

“Careful, love,” he choked out, settling back onto his heels as he knelt before her, threading his fingers through her hair and holding her as close to him as he possibly could. Once he was able to breathe again without a choking fit, he pulled back and looked over at Neal’s prone body.

“Is he… dead?”

“I unloaded the clip on him,” Emma told him, her tone giving away none of what she might be feeling over the matter. “So, yeah. He’s dead.”

“Good.”

She released a heavy breath in response, tears pooling in her eyes as relief seemed to engulf her. Cupping her cheek, Killian nuzzled his nose against hers and affirmed, “You did what you had to do, Swan. You saved me.”

“I tried to hurry,” she told him in a slightly hysterical tone. “I knew there had to be a way back around to you. I’m sorry it took me so long to find it.”

“Shhh, love,” Killian soothed, pulling her back into his arms and cradling her head against his chest. “It’s all right now.”

Emma’s eyes fell shut and a tear slipped past her lashes. Before Killian could wipe it away they were both startled by the sound of more panels closing in around them. Getting to their feet they frantically looked about for a means of escape, but there was none. All access points had been closed off to them.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Killian hollered, grabbing on to Emma’s hand for fear they might get separated again. “It’s over! We completed your tasks and survived! We won! Why have you trapped us in here?”

“Yes, yes,” Pan said in an unenthusiatic tone with a half-hearted slow clap accompanying his words. “You’ve won. Congratulations.”

“That's right!” Emma chimed in. “We won, so let us out! You said we’d earn our freedom if--”

“And I am a man of my word,” Pan replied, though there was clear reluctance in his tone. “Even if letting you go will end up costing me dearly. Think of the revenue I’ll lose from my guests when they discover their favorite playthings are no longer available to them?”

“Forgive me if I don’t lose any sleep over it,” Killian grit out through clenched teeth. “Something tells me you’ll manage just fine without us.”

“I suppose,” Pan sighed. “Part of the fun was watching your father and Neal suffer and stew while I played with you. Now that they’re gone…” Another heavy exhale filled the corridor as a panel slid open. “Well, I suppose a deal’s a deal. Pan says, follow the corridor.”

“Wait!” Emma called out, clearly unconvinced that he meant to make good. “This is really it, right? You’re letting us go? We’re free? Forever?”

“Of course,” Pan replied. “Unless you would wish to stay and remain a part of my--”

“Fuck that,” Killian said, pulling Emma along the corridor with haste, ready to be done with this god forsaken place once and for all.

The path led them back to one of the rooms they’d started in and a cold stone of dread dropped in Killian’s stomach when the door shut behind them.

“I knew it!” Emma exclaimed. “I knew it was a trick! I knew he never meant to--”

Her words were cut off by the hissing sound of the fog filling the room. Terror filled green eyes caught his own as they stared at one another in fear.

“K-Killian?” Emma stammered. “Do you… do you think he means to--”

“Relax,” Pan’s voice exasperated from the speaker. “It’s only going to knock you both out. I can’t have you remembering any details that might lead the authorities back here, now can I?”

A shuddering exhale of relief left Killian’s lungs, but it was replaced with a fresh breath of panic. Where did he mean to take them? Would they remain together or would he dump them back where he’d had them grabbed that fateful night?

“Swan,” Killian said desperately. The air around them was already filling with the noxious choking gas and he knew they didn’t have much time. “I’ll find you,” he promised. “If when we wake we aren’t… I swear I’ll find you.”

“I know you will,” she said, clinging to him as she nodded furiously. “Or I’ll find you. We’ll find each other.”

“Aye.” Pressing his forehead to hers, he lowered them to their knees, not wishing for either of them to become injured when they eventually lost consciousness and fell to the floor.

“Killian, I…” Emma gazed up at him, a sentiment he’d longed to hear swirling in her jade depths as the words began to form on her lips. “ I lo--”

“Don’t,” Killian said, cutting her off. “Not here. Not like this.” Taking her face in both hands he pleaded with her, “Tell me when we’re free. Tell me after… after you’ve found me or I’ve found you. Please, love.”

“As you wish,” she slurred out, her body becoming too heavy for his weakened arms to hold. Together, they collapsed to the ground, their bodies entwined with one another as darkness pulled them under.

~/~

A horn blared from the street outside the window jarring Emma awake. Bolting upright, she was stunned to find herself in her apartment, the air thick with two months worth of dust collecting on the surfaces. Glancing down to assess her physical state, she was again taken aback. Someone had dressed her in the very clothes she’d been wearing when she’d disappeared. The same tight jeans, the same gray tank top, the same red leather jacket, the same tall boots, even the same ponytail, she realized, reaching back to run a hand over her hair.

Out of instinct she called out for Killian, hoping against hope he might be somewhere in her apartment as well. After a very short, quick search - her place was tiny with only an open concept living and kitchen area, a bathroom, and a bedroom - she was devastated to discover she was alone.

Patting at her pockets, she found her phone tucked away in one of the interior ones of her jacket. A curse fell from her lips when she tried to unlock it. The thing was completely dead. Rushing to her bedroom, she started tearing it apart in search of her phone charger, all the while trying to decide who she should attempt to contact first.

Obviously, she needed to find Killian, but there was also David and Mary Margaret to consider. They’d been through hell and she didn’t want them to suffer a moment longer than they had to. Not to mention, the police had to be notified, she was probably gonna need a good lawyer, she was desperate to find out if Henry had indeed been returned to his mother, it would probably be a good idea to have a doctor check her out, but out of all of the concerns and worries spiraling through her brain, the thing that continued to drive her as she searched for her damn phone charger was Killian.

She had to find Killian.

Someone started pounding on her front door, causing Emma to freeze. As the assault against her door continued, Emma realized there was one thing that had not been returned to her from the night Pan had her taken.

Her gun.

Looking about for something she could use as a weapon, Emma froze again when a voice began to accompany the banging.

“Killian?” Sprinting to the door, she didn’t even check the peephole before throwing it open.

Hand still raised, ready to set another round of knocks on the surface of her door, Killian stared back at her with equal disbelief and elation.

“Swan,” he breathed, barely able to complete the exhale before Emma launched herself into his arms.

He struggled to keep hold of her and make his way into her apartment as she wrapped her legs around his waist and peppered his face with kisses.

“How… How are you here… How did you… find me so fast.”

“It was Pan,” he muffled against her lips, causing her to flinch back.

“What?”

Setting her back on her feet, he reached into the pocket of the jeans he wore - tight fitted jeans paired with an equally tight black shirt, charcoal colored waist coat, and a black leather bomber style jacket - and produced a familiar looking folded piece of paper.

Closing the door as she took the message from him with trembling fingers, Killian recited the words as Emma read them.

“Pan says… find her.”

Included on the paper was her full address.

“Well,” she said, wetting her lips and handing the note back to him. “Good thing you did, because tomorrow I’m moving to an unregistered address.”

Killian chuckled and they were back in each other’s arms, lips sliding and tongues tangling as their hands clung to the fabric of the other’s clothes.

“You’re alright? Truly?” he murmured in the space between them when they broke apart for air.

“Yes,” she assured him. “But I’m not sure how long I was out. I only woke up a few minutes before you arrived.” Pulling back further, she gazed up at him and asked, “How did you get here so fast?”

With a stunned expression, as though he himself hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of what he was about to relay to her, he said, “I live just on the other side of town.”

Emma was struck by the fact they never once talked about where they lived. All of his stories had been of his life back in the UK, having only mentioned once in passing that he’d moved to the US for a fresh start after his court martial.

“After I woke up and saw the note, I raced over here. Breaking several traffic laws in the process, I’m sure.” Taking her face back into his hands, he caressed the apples of her cheeks with his thumbs. “I had to see. I had to see for myself that you were alright.”

Reaching up, she placed her hands over his and closed her eyes, letting his touch and the comfort of his presence wash over her. When she opened her eyes again, she led them to her sofa, asking, “What about Liam? Or the police? Have you--”

“I called Liam on my way here,” he told her. “He’s booking the first flight out.”

“I guess I half expected him to already be in the States, working with the police or at least connecting with David and Mary--”

“Aye, he did all that,” Killian added, cutting her off so he could relay what Liam had told him over the phone. “After our phone calls to them, Liam and David and Mary Margaret were in contact with one another immediately and he came here to help them convince the police to take up the case again. Unfortunately, his leave ran out and he had to go back, but he said he would reach out to David and Mary Margaret, as well as the detective that’s working our case, to let them know of my return.” With knitted brows he looked around and said, “I’m surprised they aren't blowing up your phone or already at your door.”

“My phone is dead.” She nodded at the coffee table where the useless device was still laying, then glanced around once more as she said, “I was looking for the charger when you…” Emma returned her gaze to his, not wanting to take her eyes off him for fear he might simply disappear. Shaking off the absurdity of that feeling - while trying to convince herself it was absurd - Emma cleared her throat and informed him, “David and Mary Margaret live more than an hour away, so… we have a bit of time before they come barging in.”

“Aye,” Killian acknowledged. “And Liam asked that I wait to go to the station until after he arrives. He uh… he wants to be here. To support me through…”

“Of course he does,” Emma said, running her hand up and down his arm in a supportive and comforting manner. “He’s your brother and he loves you.”

Killian stood and started to pace, his hands sweeping through his hair over and over again. “I’m not sure what I’m going to tell him,” he confided. “About what we’ve been through. About what we… what I had to do in order to gain my…” Stopping dead in his tracks he looked over at Emma with mournful eyes and asked, “How am I going to tell him about Brennan? How do I confess to him that I killed our father?”

Emma sprang up for the couch and wrapped her arms tightly around his middle. “You didn’t kill him, Killian. You weren’t the one responsible for his death. And regardless, you won’t have to face it alone. You won’t have to do any of this alone.” Craning her neck, she captured his gaze and reminded him, “We will get through this the way we’ve gotten through everything else. Together.”

“Aye, love,” he expelled on a relieved breath, crushing her to him. “Together.”

After a few more minutes of simply holding one another, Killian loosened his grip and chagrined, “I’m sorry, Swan. I know I’m not the only one facing a daunting amount of trauma to work through.” Taking her hands in his, he brushed his thumbs over her knuckles, his Adam’s apple bobbing heavily before he spoke. “I know now that my father sacrificed everything to protect Liam and me. That he gave up his life to ensure I had a future.” Gently, he placed her hands against his chest and cradled them there, flicking his gaze up to meet hers, the intensity swirling in those forget-me-not depths nearly drowning her. “And I damn well intend to have one,” he murmured fiercely, their lips now only a hairsbreadth apart. “I know you must have your own trepidations about entering back into the world, but I want you to know that I will be by your side. For all of it. Always.”

“I know,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his and losing herself in the fervor of his kiss and the promise it left simmering between them.

After taking a much needed breath, Emma burrowed her face into his chest, refusing to let go as she tightened her arms around him. “For now though?” she implored. “For the little bit of time we have before David gets here and goes all Nolan, or before the police descend with their questions and interrogations, or before your brother arrives and I have to worry about earning his approval…” Killian chuckled at that, giving her a comforting and commiserating squeeze. “Can we just… do this? Can we just… be? Can we just leave the world outside for a little bit longer? I just want you to hold me. Can you just hold me and let me forget about everything else for a while?”

“Aye, love,” he murmured into her hair. “I can do that.”

The tightening of Killian’s arms around her alerted Emma that there was something she needed to do first.

“Um… actually,” she said apologetically, wiggling out of his embrace and shooting him a slightly embarrassed look. “Real quick, I need to um… use the restroom. Sorry.”

Killian chuckled again and fully let her go. “Go,” he said in an amused breath. “Take care of necessities while I make myself useful and get us some tea.” Waggling his brows at her he added, “Then we can cuddle up with a cuppa until the masses arrive.”

Emma smiled and threw out instructions of where to find things as she made her way to the bathroom. When she reached the door, she paused and turned back.

“Oh, and Killian?”

“Aye?”

Drawing in a cleansing breath, she declared, “I love you.”

He whirled around from the cabinets and beamed at her, elated. “And I you, Emma,” he murmured back, clearly torn between taking her in his arms again and letting her continue on with what she needed to do. “And I you.”

“Hold that thought,” she told him with a coy smile, her hand pressed against the bathroom door while her attention remained focused on him for a second longer. Watching him smile that adorable boyish grin as he went back to puttering around her kitchen, Emma placed her other hand over her chest. Her heart was full and feeling as though it might burst from relief and joy and hope and a certainty that settled deep within her.

They were going to be okay. There was a lot for them to face and get through and overcome, but… he loved her and she loved him. They were going to be okay.

Swinging the door open, she stepped into the bathroom, then stopped short with a gasp falling from her lips that took her elated smile with it.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed before clamping a hand over her mouth.

Killian’s rushed footfalls were accompanied by his frantic tone as he demanded, “What is it? Swan, are you--”

She flicked her gaze up to the mirror, her face white and her eyes wide as saucers. When he joined her his attention was on her reflection, but then followed her gaze as it returned to the counter, and the note laying there.

A note she somehow had not seen earlier when she’d quickly checked the bathroom for Killian.

A note that was sitting atop a very distinctive object.

“Is that…”

A pregnancy test.

Emma nodded and they both leaned down to take a closer look. Hands shaking, Emma picked up the stick and a shuddering breath left her lungs as Killian read the scrawling words that had been penned on the paper.

Pan says, congratulations are in order.

The End

(cue evil laugh)

Tagging the Curious Crew: (add to tag list)

(Please be advised that I only keep one tag list for all fic updates and new works. If at any time you wish to be removed, just shoot me an ask or a DM. No worries.)

@kmomof4 @jrob64 @zaharadessert @laianely @booksteaandtoomuchtv

@the-darkdragonfly @undercaffinatednightmare @killianxswan @mie779 @motherkatereloyshipper

@jennjenn615 @jonesfandomfanatic @anmylica @superchocovian @caught-in-the-filter

@winterbaby89 @wyntereyez @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @gingerchangeling

@exhaustedpirate @cocohook38 @donteattheappleshook @lfh1226-linda @teamhook

@jackieorioncat @paradiselady19 @snowbellewells @earanemith @ultraluckycatnd

@pirateherokillian @calmjoonie @unworried-corsair @tiganasummertree @captainswan-kellie

@soniccat @kday426 @djlbg @fairytalepretzkle @maggiegreenvt

@natascha-ronin @ilovemesomekillianjones @iamstartraveller776 @deckerstarblanche @shadowsaur

@qualitycoffeethings @idristardis @phoenix-untamed @bluewildcatfanatic @bananachickens

#csff #csfic #cs au #cs ff #cs fic #captain swan #pan says...#complete fic #words by hollye

38 notes · View notes

exhaustedpirate · 3 months

Text

in your moon-lit eyes

here it is, my first project for the last year of CSSNS and I went for werewolves! and what are werewolf stories without sexy times? a million thanks to my beta @thejollyroger-writer and check out her awesome art to accompany this fic!

Summary: Treading through a forest at night alone is a terrible idea. Doing so during the full moon is even worse. You never know what sort of creatures you may find. Killian Jones finds that out in the worst way… or so he thinks.

Word count: 10350 words

Rating: Explicit

read on AO3

This was a terrible idea.

He could be at home wrapped around his warm blankets and watching some random movie on Netflix. He should, actually. But, apparently, he thinks it best to traipse through the woods on the coldest night of the year while being turned around by the strong winds.

Killian Jones is going to die in these woods and all because—

A loud snap of a twig sounds behind him, and he turns for all but a second before rushing his pace as best he can in the ankle-deep snow. If he doesn’t die of the cold, maybe some animal will jump him and kill him. He pulls on the scarf around his neck to cover more of his face.

Great, like this whole thing isn’t scary enough. He hopes they omit his stupidity in his eulogy. If his body is even found.

That’s not helping.

A warm light acts like a beacon between the trees, did he actually make it or is that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel? It doesn’t matter at this point, really. Whatever waits for him at the end of the light will surely laugh in his face if they find out he died trying to return a—

A louder, more forceful, snap echoes behind him and he turns around sharply, a growl louder than the winds. He hears it before he sees it, bursting through the trees. A wolf just as tall as he is approaches him, mouth open with bared teeth, ears turned back and eyes glinting with murderous intent.

He feels his blood drain from his body and his body freeze in fear, unable to blink, to breathe. Pure panic flows through Killian’s veins even as his brain urges him to move. The animal approaches slowly, its black fur contrasting sharply with the white snow. Distantly, over the pounding beat of his heart in his ears, he hears another growl from behind him. Just his luck.

To his surprise, Killian doesn’t become dinner to two hungry wolves.

The wolf that approached from behind him jumps just as the darker one does, but instead of sinking their teeth on him, they clash in front of him and he stumbles to the cold ground. He can see now that the new wolf has light fur, a darker shade from the surrounding white.

They are fighting each other. The darker wolf fights in a deranged, desperate way, its eyes landing on Killian’s any chance it had. The lighter one looks more cautious, its movements calculated, practised. His life rests on that wolf’s paws.

Killian moves for the first time when the darker wolf sinks its teeth on the other wolf’s flank, reaching out at his rescuer’s loud whine, despite everything. That distracts his attacker, its eyes so full of hunger, he stops once more. It approaches slowly, its tongue licking the blood off its maw.

No more saviours, Killian Jones. This is it. Liam is waiting.

He closes his eyes, not wanting the last thing he sees to be the inside of a wolf’s mouth.

But death doesn’t come. Instead, there’s a loud shriek and thumping paws rushing away from where he stands. He opens his eyes slowly, and sees the last thing he expected: the light furred wolf panting heavily, its eyes on Killian with an angry glint overcome by pain and tiredness.

Before he can take a breath, before he can move, the wolf’s eyes roll to the back of its head as it slumps into the ground. Killian is unable to move for moments after, his brain trying to take stock of what happened. In the last minutes he expected death, he found relief, only to repeat the cycle once more. Now, here he is, in an unknown forest with an unconscious wolf in front of him and blood splattered over the white snow.

He should run away. Wolves are wild animals, prone to violence, and that’s what he had witnessed — wolf on wolf violence. But even if he could ignore the guilt at having been the one to initiate said encounter by his mere presence where he shouldn’t be, he knew this was no regular wolf.

Nevermind his decade-old interest in the supernatural, Killian knows the difference between wolves and these wolves, having spent just as long studying and practising the care of animals. So he knows, more than anyone else, that the unconscious wolf in front of him wasn’t a mere wolf but a werewolf. And a werewolf who had saved his life.

With a steadying sigh, Killian looks at where the warm light is coming and hopes it belongs someplace warm, someplace safe. He slowly approaches the animal, worried that it might not actually be unconscious despite its clear stillness and slow breathing.

Crouching, he pulls the animal’s heavy paws over his shoulders, its large head lolling onto its left paw. He wraps his arms around its back and pulls experimentally. When the wolf remains unmoving, he continues to pull, slowly making his way towards the light.

He is very happy to be right. It was not a metaphor for death, it is a cabin. The warm light is brighter since the cabin’s door remains open, as if someone exited in a worry.

“Hello?” He calls with panting breaths from the doorway. “Anyone home?” There is only silence and he sends one more little prayer to whoever has been keeping him safe that he is not entering some psycho killer’s home.

Killian pulls the wolf towards the dwindling fireplace, laying it on the warm rug. He rushes to close the door, shivering at the sharp improvement in temperature inside the cabin. As he takes his jacket off and rolls up his sleeves, he inspects the wolf’s unconscious form. The wound isn’t too deep. Deep enough to hurt, to rip the skin but he’d seen much worse. This will be a walk in the park. Ha!

The cabin consists of a single room: kitchen, living room, dining room and bedroom all in one, so he assumes the single door at the end of the cabin to be the bathroom. There are no sentimental trinkets, no scattered picture frames of loved ones, no paintings or even a TV — that last one isn’t surprising, they are in the middle of the woods. But there are books, just as good entertainment as a TV, in his opinion.

He quickly throws a few logs to revive the fire to chase away the chill still clinging to him before turning to the animal with a professional eye. He needs some sort of disinfectant. It won’t do to let his saviour die of infection. He looks around to find a small collection of bottles. Grabbing one, he uncorks it, taking a sniff of the delicious rum inside.

He sighs in reluctance to spill such a treasure. But needs must.

He takes care not to jostle the wolf too much before wrapping its wound with the scarf he still had around his neck. The animal is large, heavy, made even worse by its dead weight, no other bandage would have contained the wound. Once he finishes, he has worked up a sweat and the excitement of the night is taking its toll. He slumps against the couch, wolf head on his lap, keeping a sort of monitoring on its well-being with his hand on the wolf’s neck.

“Thank you for saving me,” he whispers tiredly. He lets out a breath, his body slumping in exhaustion, eyes shutting on their own. Before he knows it, Killian is fast asleep.

---

Killian wakes up slowly to a warmth at his feet. The first thing he notices is the pain in his body, especially the way his ass hurts from the hard floor. He opens his eyes, taking stock of his surroundings. He is in a cabin, and he can see the bright sun high in the sky and blue skies through the slanted skylight.

Right, last night. The cold forest, getting lost, the wolves. He sighs, then shuffles in his seat, trying to bring some relief to his body but as he moves, he hears a deep breath.

The second thing he notices is the way his hand touches bare skin, the weight of a head on his lap. Looking down, he realises why — there is a woman, a naked woman curled on the floor.

Startled, Killian scrambles away, jostling the stranger into wakefulness. He stops, a couple of feet away from her as he watches her raise her head from the floor. He knows her, it’s her.

Of course, any recognition doesn’t stop her from widening her eyes as she takes in his presence and her nakedness, shrieking in shock before she pulls a blanket down to cover herself, moving faster than he ever thought possible.

“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my home?!”

Killian’s mouth opens and closes, not for the first time at a loss for words in her presence. Her eyes clear as they look at each other, the panic and rough awakening washing away as she rises to her feet. Her sighed “oh” tells him she recognises him, too.

“M-My apologies,” he stutters and clears his throat at his rough voice. “I-You—”

“You’re the dumbass who almost got himself killed by traipsing around the forest at night!”

She winces as her arm hits her side and she wavers on her feet. He scrambles to his feet, holding out his hands to keep her standing. But she tightens her fist on the blanket around her and holds out her hand in front of him to stop him.

“You’re hurt,” he explains, keeping his distance while looking between the stained blanket and her eyes. “I cleaned up the wound and bandaged it last night but…well, you were rather bigger then.” His eyes twinkle with mirth while hers widen in surprise.

“How…Why—”

“I couldn’t leave you to die in the forest after you saved me,” he explains with a small smile and a shrug.

“I wouldn’t have had to save you if you hadn’t been so stupid as to walk through this forest alone during a full moon.” Her voice is hard and her eyes deadly, even if her hands still tremble and he can see the pain she tries to hide.

“You’re right, you’re right, I know,” he sighs, this really isn’t the best time to tell her why he was there. “But please, let me help you, it’s the least I can do.” She is quiet, her eyes focused on his face, searching his eyes. His heart is racing and his hands feel damp now. “I’m a veterinarian, I’ve treated millions of animal bites.” His smirk is half-hearted at best.

Her eyebrow rises. “I’ll be healed soon.”

“And in the meantime, you’re prone to infections.” She hums in contemplation. “It won’t take long and I’ll feel better knowing I was able to make it up to you. All I need is a first aid kit.”

She shuffles her feet, and the movement must disturb her wound because she winces and forces the blanket tighter against the wound. “Fine,” she groans.

He follows her eagerly as she opens the only door in the cabin, revealing a small bathroom, like he suspected. “I’m Killian, by the way. Killian Jones.” He curses the breathless tone of his voice.

“Emma Swan.” She says distractedly as she carefully sits on the toilet seat lid. Swan, of course. That explains why the— “The first aid kit is in that cabinet over there.”

He quickly retrieves the small kit and is glad to find everything he needs. When he turns back to her, he notices that she’s arranged the blanket so it covers her private areas but keeps the wound area visible. The bite mark looks less angry now than it had last night, but the punctures are deep, still dark red — they go up to her stomach and down to her belly button and he is sure they have the same placement on her back. She protected him.

“Are you just going to stand and stare?” Her voice lacks the bite he expected and when he looks up at her face, he sees a pink hue to her cheeks even as her eyes remain exasperated.

“Apologies, love, I was just…analysing the situation,” he stutters. He really needs to get a grip on himself.

“Right.”

Not wanting to make her more uncomfortable, Killian places the open kit on the sink, grabbing the disinfectant and some cotton balls. “This is going to hurt, love,” he says as he holds a cotton ball close to the wound.

She scoffs. “Right.”

He holds his breath as he presses the disinfectant to her skin. Emma gasps, her hand grabbing his wrist and digging her nails in. “Son of a— Fuck!”

“I warned you,” His eyebrows furrow in concentration, feeling no delight in hurting her. “Just take some deep breaths.”

Emma does as he says, and her grip loosens a bit. Killian carries on his work, focusing on tending to her wound, knowing that the faster he gets this finished, the better it will be for her. He makes sure to disinfect every inch of the wound, not wanting to think of how soft her skin looks or how she smells like the rum from the night before and forest and a hint of cinnamon.

“Is it done?” She is panting, her chest rising and falling fast from the pain.

“Aye,” He clears his throat and grabs the gauze from the kit. “I just, hmm, need to wrap this around the wound.” He explains looking between the wound and the blanket she holds against her naked skin.

Emma follows his gaze. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Swan, I-”

“It’s fine,” She waves her hand with a forced relaxed movement, even if she doesn’t look at him. “It’s not like you haven’t seen boobs before.”

“Well, I don’t usually expect to see a woman’s breasts after only meeting her for less than an hour,” he tries to tease, trying to keep his voice light, hoping she doesn’t notice how his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest.

Her chuckle is quiet. “Right, well…” Her hands loosen their hold on the blanket. “Here’s to another first.” The blanket falls to her lap, keeping her covered below the waist.

Killian knows he needs to remain professional, not act like some sort of pervert. Even if they are the most perfect breasts he has ever seen. He spares her chest only a quick glance before unfurling the roll of gauze. “Can you-” He clears his throat. “Can you hold the leading edge of the gauze, love?”

Her eyes meet his and he swears they look darker than they had before. “Sure,” she breathes out.

With her pointer finger carefully in place, he unrolls the gauze around her back, making sure to cover the wound. His chest presses against hers and he hears her sharp intake of breath. As he brings the gauze to her front, Killian can’t help but notice how her nipples have gotten harder. His tongue runs along his lower lip and he hears her breath grow shallower.

“You can let go,” he whispers. It takes her a moment to do as instructed and he wonders if she is as affected by their proximity as he is.

Killian wraps the gauze around her body, choosing to focus on the soft feel of the bandage rather than on the way her breath shifts or how his jeans get tighter by the second. With every inch of the wound covered, he tucks the gauze behind her back, unable to keep from feeling the softness of her skin and smelling the citrus scent of her hair and hearing her harsh breathing.

“All done,” he breathes, backing away from her as fast as he allows himself to go.

Their eyes meet and the green in hers is all but swallowed by her black pupils, her lips are parted in fast breaths and her chest rises and falls quickly. She looks like a predator looking at her prey, and Killian should be scared, should run from the cabin, but he finds himself entranced by her gaze.

“Emma—”

The sound of his voice shatters the moment and Emma’s eyes return to normal, her shoulders tensing. He steps away, acknowledging her tension to his unwanted proximity. Killian puts away the kit, giving her a break from his gaze and when he turns back he sees the blanket back over her shoulders.

“Do you, hmm…” He scratches the back of his neck, unsure where to look. “Do you need me to bring you some clothes?”

“Oh, hmm, no, I got it.”

Emma stands up, far too fast, and he notices her swaying before she does, his hands grabbing onto her arms for support. “You should eat something,” he whispers, her green eyes capturing his gaze. “So you can get your strength back.”

She pulls back from him and he clenches his fists, stopping himself from holding her again. “I know what I’m doing.” Emma walks determinedly but carefully out of the bathroom. “You know,” she says from the closet area. “I appreciate your help and all but you should go, there’s not going to be any wolves outside during the day.”

“Right, right,” Killian runs his hand through his hair and exits the bathroom, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Hmm, thank you for saving me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Killian nods once, grabbing his jacket — he would like to say that he tried but there had never even been a chance — and walks to the front door. The doorknob is cold but after being so close to Emma’s warmth, anything would be. There is resistance when he tries to open the door. When it does, he finds out why: a mountain of snow covers almost the entire height of the door, blocking their way out.

He closes the door in silent surprise and turns his back to it. Emma looks up, and there is relief in her face before she finds him still inside her home. Her face scrunches in confusion and surprise, her shoulders tense. “What — What are you still doing here?”

“Well, uh—”

“You’re supposed to leave!”

“Actually, it—”

She is fairly steady on her feet as she walks towards the door. “Leave.” Emma turns the doorknob and gasps when snow hits her still bare feet.

“I was trying to tell you,” Killian says as she looks at the blockage. “It appears I’m stuck here.”

Emma groans and slams the door shut, forcing it against the snow that wanted to come in. “I can’t believe this!”

“I’m sorry, Emma but I don’t control the weather!”

She turns sharply towards him, the intensity of her gaze making his heartbeat quicken and he watches as her eyes grow dark with hunger and her breathing turns raspier. Maybe taking shelter with a werewolf, even one that saved his life, hadn’t been the best idea. Add it to the long list of them, in the last 24 hours alone.

“It’s fine,” She finally says with a rough voice, breaking their eye contact and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Just… Just stay out of my way.”

“I’ll prepare us some food, it’s the least I can do.”

“Fine, fine, just—”

“Stay out of your way.” His smile is thin as she looks up at him.

“Exactly.” She looks like she’s shaking herself out of the thoughts going through her brain before she crosses the room to the dresser.

So his morning is not going as he expected. Not that he had had much of a plan apart from where to find her cabin. He had been looking for her, and considered it lucky that she had found him before he could die of hypothermia in the forest, but the circumstances were undeniably more complicated than he could have planned.

Killian focuses on… lunch, he guesses, as they must have slept later than he thought. Like he said, the least he could do. He finds the coffee machine, thanking every deity that at least she has power, and sets it to brew. He finds eggs and bread and turns on the gas stove to scramble the eggs while his mind wanders. Wanders into fanciful notions of fate.

With the plates in hand, he starts to turn. “Lunch is—” Emma is right in front of him when he faces the table, dark eyes focused on his neck. “Ready.”

She looks sharply up at him and appears to shake herself out of some thought or other. “Good,” She takes the plate from his hand, making her way to the small table at the corner. “I was starving.”

Killian sighs and follows her to the table before coming back for the coffee mugs. They sit in silence with only the sounds of them eating and drinking. He feels it dig into the skin of his thigh and he wonders if he should just rip off the bandage as it were, just tell her why he came to find her. Maybe she’ll even find it funny that he almost became a wolf’s meal just to—

“You weren’t surprised.”

Her voice startles him out of his thoughts and he looks up at her furrowed brow. “Pardon?”

“You weren’t expecting to wake up next to me, specifically, but you weren’t surprised about the werewolf thing.”

“Ah,” He looks away, scratching behind his ear. “I did say I’m a veterinarian.”

Her unimpressed stare would make him laugh if this was a laughing matter. “Right, I’m sure veterinary school has a major in werewolf.”

“It was an extracurricular, actually,” He lets out a breathy laugh and even her expression softens with the sudden joke. “I wanted to know everything I could about werewolves so I, hmm, so I wouldn’t be caught unprepared again.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “For all the good that did me.”

He looks up to find her looking at him, an understanding glint to her eyes. “Yeah, I think I should give you some slack for being an idiot and traipsing around the forest during a full moon.” He shares a small smile with her. “This wasn’t your first encounter with werewolves then?”

“No,” he breathes out, blinking against the memory, before grabbing their empty plates and mugs and taking them to the sink. “I was young the first time I saw one, I didn’t know what they were until I saw what normal wolves looked like.” He chuckles wryly, starting to wash the dishes, very aware of her eyes on him. “My brother Liam loved nature, we would go camping, on hikes, we helped on farms. Because of him, I could identify more than a dozen types of insects before I was in high school.” He smiles wistfully and hears her hum, clearly noting the impending unhappy turn of his story.

Despite Liam’s actual love for nature, there had been a need for them to spend time away from home — they would camp out in nature when his father went out to drink so they wouldn’t be his targets when he came back, their hikes were well-timed for when their father hosted his weekly poker games with his horrible friends, and the farmers were generous to pay them for their helping hands, money that they hid from their father. He didn’t find out about any of that until their father died and Liam took custody of him.

“We were camping on a new spot, we’d settled down for the night, made a fire and Liam was telling these stories from his job when we heard growling. Liam sent me inside the tent so I could warn the forest rangers,” Killian takes a deep breath, turning off the tap. “They told me to stay put, that they were on their way, told us not to run, not to turn our backs.” He grabs a cloth and focuses on drying the dishes. “But they kept approaching and Liam kept trying to reassure me, it was all so loud.”

His hands stilled as he dried a plate. He could still see their glowing eyes, dark bodies, could hear his own cries, Liam’s reassuring voice, and the growls. It was all so loud.

“Liam grabbed a log from the fire, waved it in front of him to scare them, it should have worked,” Killian whispers, his eyes far away. “But there were so many of them and they surrounded him. There were so many of them,” he sighs, closing his eyes. “They jumped him, Liam screamed, I screamed, and then the rangers showed up.”

It got louder after that. Jeeps running, voices shouting, Liam’s continued screaming.

“He was barely alive when they took him away,” Killian continues with a heavy breath, putting down the last plate and leaning against the counter. He keeps his eyes on the ground. “He died in the hospital and I didn’t say goodbye.”

“Killian—”

“The doctors didn’t tell me anything, they told everything to the social worker,” he continued. “He had to tell me that my brother had lost too much blood and that his lungs had been punctured too badly and then I couldn’t even go home because Liam was dead and I was still a minor.”

“That’s horrible.”

“And I kept wondering, you know? Why would wolves attack someone like that? Years later, I realised they weren’t wolves at all and I started obsessing over the existence of werewolves because I didn’t want to end up in that position again, and then I did, and I was still that scared lad inside the tent and—”

“Killian.”

Her hands are on his shoulders and her eyes on his, stopping the words in his throat. He now feels the tears on his cheeks, didn’t even realise he was crying. He didn’t think he had any tears left to cry after that day, almost 15 years ago. But they were still there and he was crying in front of her. Her.

Killian looks down, shame filling his chest. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you this. Especially you.”

“Especially me?”

He sniffs, wiping away his tears. “Aye, I mean you’re a werewolf and we just met.”

“And yet, you have already seen my boobs.” He lets out a surprised laugh, looking up to see her soft eyes and kind smile. Wow. Her brow furrows and her eyes grow worried. “Are you scared of me?”

“I— I—” He wants to say no, that he could never be. But he wants to be honest. “I was.” He takes a gentle hold on her wrists, keeping the comforting weight of her hands on his shoulders, thumb slowly rubbing her skin. “I thought I was going to die in that forest either by that other wolf or by both of you but then, well, you saved me.”

Her cheeks flushed red and she slowly pulled away from his touch, arms crossed over her chest. “His name is Henry,” At Killian’s frown, she clarified. “The wolf who attacked you. He’s young, recently turned, this is his second full moon. He didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I assumed,” He shrugs and she looks up at him, surprised. “I read a lot about how full moons affect werewolves.”

“And yet—”

“We’ve established that I was stupid, already, Swan.”

She snorts a laugh and it makes him smile. “I found him during his first transformation and we talked, I tried to help. But this time you were there and so he lashed out.”

“I’m sorry—”

She waves away his apology. “It’s like I said, I’ll heal soon.” She shrugs.

“You weren’t affected,” he says after a minute. “You didn’t attack me.”

She shrugs with a deep breath. “I’ve had a lot of time to control this, and with time, Henry will learn too.”

“How long have you been like this?”

“If we’re getting into my origin story, I need to sit down. This still stings.” She waves towards her side before gesturing for him to join her on the couch.

They sit on opposite ends, even as he turns towards her. She sighs, and he watches as she closes her eyes to focus. “I was 16. I was living in the streets of Boston and I met this guy, Neal. He was older and I thought he was so cool,” She shakes her head in shame and he places his hand on top of hers on the couch cushions. She takes a deep breath, keeping her eyes on their hands. “We were together for a while, crashed at empty motel rooms, and it all looked so exciting back then. One day, he tells me he has to leave. He has to leave because someone bad is looking for him. He tells me he stole something from them and they have been trying to find him.”

Her breathing gets quicker and he holds her hand. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” she interrupts, her hand tightening its grip on his. “Neal tells me he wants to give it back but he’s afraid and so I volunteered to do the drop for him. I didn’t know what to expect but I thought I was in love and that if I did this then we’d be able to be together and have a future.” She scoffs. “He tricked me, he sent me to the middle of a literal wolf’s den and they were furious when they found that the bag was empty.”

Her hand grips his painfully hard but he says nothing, simply listening.

“I must have blacked out. I woke up alone in an alley and my body felt different. Everything was so loud and hot and overwhelming. My first transformation was so painful and I was alone, I didn’t know what to do. I ran. I ran until I found myself here in Storybrooke.” Emma takes a deep breath, her grip loosening on his hand and he rubs her skin with his thumb. She pulls her hand away from his grip and he forces himself to let her go. “Granny found me and helped me. I got this cabin after the sheriff died and I work at her diner.”

“Why here?”

“Graham was a friend, he cared for me and I cared for him. He left me this place in his will and I needed a place to deal with the full moons. Granny helped me but I needed reassurance, I didn’t want to put anyone in danger.”

“And now?”

“I like this place,” she smiles softly as she looks around the living room.

“What about Ruby?” Emma turns to him with a frown. “I work with her. Veterinary, remember?” She rolls her eyes and he smiles. “I asked her about you but she didn’t say anything.”

“You asked her about me?” She smirks but there is a red tint to her cheeks.

“Well, aye,” he scratches the back of his ear with a matching blush. “I would see you around town and — just — does she know?” He stutters to try and change the subject.

“She does,” she nods, her smirk softening. “She’s my best friend and a big help.”

Her tone hid something. “Is she—?”

“Yup. She was born like that so yeah, big help.” She chuckles.

Killian sits back with a sharp exhale, hand in his hair. “Wow, I never thought I’d find myself in a town with so many of you.” He pauses and turns to Emma, watching as she hides her frown. “I mean, I came here for a fresh start. I went through a rough break-up and just wanted to drive until I found my place. My car broke down by the town sign and while I waited at Granny’s, I heard Ruby talk about the problems her clinic was going through. I wanted to help and I ended up staying. That was almost two months ago.”

“She talks very highly of you.”

“Oh, well, the feeling is mutual,” He blushes and sees a spark of something in her eyes even as she tries to hide it with a smile. “She is a good friend and an even better partner. I just never thought she was a werewolf too.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, I — I mean,” he stutters and lets out a groan at his inability to express his thoughts. “I thought it would be a problem. For more than a decade, I’ve feared and hated werewolves for what they did to my brother, that I forgot to consider that there were people behind the animal. I admire Ruby and care so much for her that I can’t think about being afraid of her.”

“And me?” He turns to see her watching him intensely and he is unable to look away.

“You saved me,” he breathes out. “In a short moment, you turned my world upside down. You made me reevaluate all that I thought I knew. It’s not a problem, Emma.”

Her eyes stare into his in silence, his heart thumping against his ribcage. Her hair is like gold under the late morning sun and her skin looks so soft. He can’t stop himself from running a finger down her forearm, feeling its warmth. Her breathing hitches and her eyes widen.

He wants to kiss her. The thought barrels into his mind so fast that he feels his own breath get stuck in his throat. He knew how beautiful she was, remembers thinking it during the second they had looked at each other, but that was nothing compared to the desire filling him now.

“I don’t know if you remember,” he speaks quietly, not wanting to shatter the moment. “But we’ve seen each other before.” She hums and his lips tick up in a small smile. “We, um, ran into each other a couple of days ago in the supermarket?”

“I — I remember.”

He swallows against the lump in his throat. Rip the bandage.

“I asked Granny about you and she told me where you live.” Emma frowns. “You dropped this.” From his pocket, he takes out a small silver pendant, a swan carved on it. “I found it on the floor after you ran away.”

“Oh.” She takes the pendant from his hand, her fingers touching his.

“I, uh, I came here to give you that.”

“You went into the forest, at night, through a full moon, just to give me this?” Emma asks with an even tone, her shining eyes gazing into his.

Killian takes a deep breath. “Aye.”

“You’re such an idiot.” She breathes out, and before he can defend himself again, her lips are on his and there are other more important things he could be doing with his mouth.

Her mouth is hard against his, her hands strong on his shoulders and her tongue demanding entrance. He places his hands on her neck and waist, urges her to slow down, needs her to slow down. He has spent so much time dreaming of kissing her that he can’t have their first kiss be an impulsive mess. She lets out a breath and allows him to kiss her calmly, softly. Her hands dig into his hair and he moans against her lips. Her kisses stray to his cheek, to his jawline, small nibbles making him breathe heavier, his hand clenching on her waist.

Her lips are soft when they get to his neck, focusing on his pulse, her tongue licking and tasting. His breathing is harsh, pleasure coursing through his veins to pool at his crotch. Her teeth sink into his skin and he gasps. She quickly pulls away, wide eyes on his neck and whatever she sees there and his face.

“Emma—” He brings his hand up to touch her face but he barely feels the softness of her skin when she pulls away to stand.

“No. No.” She shakes her head and he is still as he watches her run to the bathroom and lock the door behind her.

“Emma?” He follows her, calling her name from the other side of the door. “Emma, is everything okay?”

“No, no,” She answers and he can tell she is pacing on the other side. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

He ignores the stab to his heart and clears his throat. “I mean, I was a willing participant.” He tries to joke but all he hears is a groan from inside. “Emma, please, open the door, let’s talk about this.”

“No, there’s nothing to talk about, it was a mistake.” Her voice is panicked and he pushes down his emotions.

“Fine, we’ll forget about it,” he forces himself to say. “We’ll call it an act of gratitude, I returned something precious to you and you saved my life. What do you say?” There is silence from the other side. “We’re stuck in this small cabin together, Emma, don’t hide away in there.”

The silence continues for a moment longer and he holds his breath. The lock unlatches and he takes a couple of steps back. The door opens to a much calmer Emma but with a guarded expression. “Neal gave me that pendant,” she says and her voice is quiet. “I felt so special. After he abandoned me, I saw it as a reminder not to trust again.”

He presses his lips together, his hands eager to reach, to comfort, to beat this Neal to a pulp. “I’m sorry, love, I almost wish I had lost it in the snow.”

Her chuckle is weak but it’s real. She takes a deep breath. “Do you like to read?”

The question takes him by surprise and her smile widens. “Hmm, aye, I do.”

“Good,” She walks past him to the living room, stopping at the bookcase. “As you can see, there’s no TV so—”

“I am good with books,” He grins at her and surveys her collection. “The Princess Bride? I haven’t read this in years.” He takes the book off the shelf, noting its overused state, and turns to watch her looking at him with curiosity.

“It’s my favourite, actually.”

“Fan of dashing pirates?” He raises his eyebrow before sauntering to the couch, sprawling on one side.

“Actually, yeah,” she smirks as she grabs a different book, an adventure book, he notices, and imitates his movements to settle at the other side. “Are you a fan of princesses?”

“I did dress up as Buttercup my last year in college,” he answers, focusing on opening the book. “I even found a few Westley’s to complete the ensemble.” He turns to her with a wink.

Her mouth is parted for a few seconds before it stretches into a smile. “Oh, I would have paid to see that!”

“I cut quite the figure in that dress.”

She lets out a delighted laugh that he can’t help but match. Emma leans back on the couch as her laughter dies down, watching him with interest. “You are definitely not what I thought you would be.”

“I could say the same about you.” He smiles back at her.

Her eyes are so green that even the lowering sun can’t keep them from shining. His lips still tingle from her kiss, his hands still ache for the touch of her skin and yet, he is unable to have her once more. He wants to feel her touch, her kiss. But he’ll follow her lead, he wants her to be able to trust him — he doesn’t want to take, he wants it to be given.

“We should, hmm,” Emma presses her lips together in a small smile and raises her book as a way to finish the sentence.

Killian nods, understanding the need for a reprieve. “Aye.”

They turn to their books as one, letting silence fill the small, warm cabin. He wishes he had picked up an unfamiliar book, something he’d never read before. He knew the story of Buttercup and Westley like the back of his hand, had read it as many times as his second-hand book had allowed. And while it was still easy to get absorbed in their universe of adventure and romance, he was still very aware of Emma’s presence, her breathing, her warmth. It’s not uncomfortable but he feels the tension in every hair on his body.

Night falls in the quiet and the full moon’s light joins the artificial light in the cabin. Emma inhales sharply and he turns to her for the first time in hours to watch as she looks up at the skylight.

“Are you alright?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Emma nods, dragging her eyes from the large face of the moon. “It always catches me by surprise the way it calls to me.”

He joins her with his neck stretched on the back of the couch to watch the moon for a minute. When he turns, he finds her watching him. “Is there anything you need?”

Emma shakes her head, in more than just an answer. “No, it’s been a while since I’ve been a slave to it,” she clarifies with a small smile. “It just makes everything so much clearer and intense.” She takes a deep breath. “Are you hungry?”

He snorts in surprise. “Aye, actually.”

“Great,” she grins. “Make us something good.” She winks at him before making herself more comfortable on the couch.

“Right,” he laughs. “I have to earn my keep, don’t I?”

“Exactly.” Her smile makes his heart flutter in his chest, the brightness and beauty of it stealing his breath away. “Just a hint, I’m a big fan of grilled cheese.”

He stands up, dropping the book on his empty seat and grins. “That sounds less like a hint and more like a menu.”

“Get to it then, chef.”

His laughter follows him into the kitchen.

“You know, while I cook,” Killian calls from the kitchen. “You should probably check on your injury. You said you heal fast, right?”

“A chef and a doctor, maybe I should keep you around.” She grins before heading to the bathroom.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” He mumbles under his breath.

Killian tries to stop himself from imagining what a life with Emma would be in this cabin, how they would spend their evenings. The smell of cheese fills the whole cabin and with it, the sound of a hungry werewolf’s feet padding to his side.

“Something smells delicious.” He tries to keep himself from reacting to her voice so close to him.

“Grilled cheese, just like milady ordered.” She grins up at him before taking the plate from his hands. “How did the wound look?”

“It’s scarring,” She lifts her shirt only enough to show him the barely-there bite and he nods. “Is it approved, Doctor Jones?”

He laughs delightedly at the sound of it from her lips before joining her at the table. “Aye.”

Though the food is good, the company is better. She tells him about the book she was reading, an adventure in Egypt with a very clever librarian and a brave if arrogant adventurer. They return to their books after tidying up the kitchen. Buttercup is about to attempt to stab herself in the chest when a yawn startles him. It has been a long day.

“Maybe it’s time to sleep,” Emma suggests, closing the book. She bites her lip as she looks around the cabin, her eyes landing on the bed.

As much as he would love to share one, they had agreed to put that kiss behind them. “I’ll take the couch,” he says, dropping his book on the coffee table.

“Oh.” He wonders if he truly hears disappointment in her voice or if it’s just wishful thinking. “Right, that’s great. I’ll bring you some blankets.”

Emma moves faster than he could, rummaging around a wooden chest. The couch is comfortable and wide enough to fit his long body, but he can’t help but wish he could share the slim bed with Emma, to feel her body close to his. Then again, that would also be a dangerous and torturous situation.

He removes his sweater and jeans, folding them neatly on top of the table. Blankets land on the couch and he turns to see Emma standing far closer to him than he expected. Her eyes are wide and her pupils almost black and he wishes he could read her mind.

“I—”

She shakes her head, taking a step back. “Goodnight.” She blurts out before wrapping herself in her bed, the only thing visible is the top of her blonde head.

“Goodnight.”

Killian takes his time getting comfortable on the couch, forcing himself not to search for her silhouette in the dark. He forces his eyes closed, forces his body to relax, to find sleep so that he might forget his desires. He isn’t cold under the blankets, but there is a lack of warmth that he recognises as the one he felt from her skin. He forces himself to sleep and begs for relief.

---

This was a terrible idea.

Her skin is filled with prickles, a need to move, to run, to touch, to be touched. Her nose is buried in her pillow, hoping her own scent will distract her from the intoxicating scent of his sleeping body. His scent is delicious torture, she knows it well, not only from the day they’ve spent in each other’s company but from all the times they’d pass each other in town.

Her breathing is ragged and she feels as if she can’t take a proper breath. She clenches her hands against the sheets, hoping that it will stop her from succumbing to her nature. She wants to feel his skin against hers again, to feel his pulse against her lips. It has been hours of torture in her bed and she forces herself to endure a few more.

It doesn’t work.

She is standing next to his sleeping body before she has taken her next breath. He is on his back, one arm behind his head and the other over his stomach and his legs are crossed. The blanket that she gave him is at his waist and she can feel how warm his body is even from a distance. His lips are parted and his breathing is even and quiet. His heartbeat is calm and she can hear his blood in his veins.

Her nose is a whisper away from the bulging vein in his neck. Just as she remembered, like the sweetest fruit, like the most powerful poison. She feels his warm breath on her fingertips, sees his eyes move underneath his eyelids and she wishes to know what he is dreaming of. She feels the soft skin of his lips on her forefinger. She wants to feel that softness on her own lips again. She wants to take, to claim him. She wants— She needs—

Emma swallows his surprised breath with her lips, with her kiss, their mouths moulded perfectly to one another once more. She forces herself to pull away, even as her hand clenches in the fabric of his t-shirt. His eyes are wide and she is sure hers are much the same.

“Emma…”

Her name is a whisper from his lips, the most bewitching of enchantments and the most beautiful of songs. Like before, he isn’t stopping her, isn’t refusing her kiss, her touch, and she hears his heart beating fast and loud against his chest. His breathing is ragged and his warmth has risen several degrees. She wants him. She needs him.

Their lips lock in a passionate kiss, his warm hand burning the skin of her neck. She pulls her leg up to straddle him, wanting to be closer and closer. His other hand lands on her waist and she feels the stirring of his arousal beneath her, making her moan against his lips.

Killian pulls away, his thumb on her lips but she is far too gone to stop now, kissing his finger, the palm of his hand, the thumping pulse on his wrist, her tongue licking, tasting. Words pause at his throat, chest filling with a sharp inhale.

“Emma.” His voice forces itself firmly under all the passion that is surely matching hers. “I thought—”

“I know,” she interrupts, her nails running down his chest. She knows — knows that she was the one who stopped their kiss before, knows that she’s the one who ran. She was scared of her desires, scared that he would be afraid of her nature, but she feels the urge of the moon. Feels it urging her to take him, to claim him. “But I need you.” Her teeth nip against his bottom lip, her hands finding their way inside his shirt, and she swallows his moan with a kiss. “Please?”

He looks at her, searching, and she feels her skin crawl with need. His breathing is rapid, his heartbeat under her palm and echoing in her ears, she grinds her hips down against his, involuntarily. He nods, a frantic motion as his hands grip her hips, whether to stop her or to quicken her movements, she isn’t sure he knows which either.

“As you wish.”

His hand grabs her neck and pulls her in for a kiss. His mouth takes control, and she is glad for it — she feels overwhelmed by his taste, his scent, his other hand grabbing her ass and urging her to move against his growing erection. It’s too much and not enough.

His teeth nip her bottom lip as her thumbs find his nipples. She feels his chest hair on her palms and is eager to feel it against her breasts. His hand runs up her bare back and she is glad to have removed her bra before jumping him. His breath stutters as he finds nothing stopping him from feeling her skin and his hand moves back down only to run up her side, shivers making her buck in his lap. His thumb finds the underside of her breast and he inhales sharply. She pulls her lips away from his but keeps eye contact. She sighs as his hand cups her breast, his rough palm on her nipple making her moan.

“Fuck,” he moans, his thumb flicking her nipple. It’s too much. It’s not enough. She removes her hands from under his shirt to pull her own off her body. “Fuck.” He repeats before he pulls her down to run his lips down her chest.

His mouth finds her nipple and she digs her fingers in his hair, keeping his talented mouth right where she needs it. His hand stimulates her lonesome breast while his other hand finds its way inside her shorts and underwear. She stutters out a moan when she feels his fingers on her clit.

“Killian,” she moans and is surprised when he raises himself into a sitting position, his mouth more firm against her breast. “Killian.”

“Say it again,” he demands as he sucks on her nipple and his fingers slide into her wet folds. “Please, say it again.”

“Killian,” she moans, tugging on his hair to bring his face up to hers. His eyes are blown-black and his breathing is heavy. “Killian.” She presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. “Killian,” She moans as she tugs on his bottom lip when she feels his thumb circling her clit. “Killian.”

“Emma,” he moans and she can see why he wanted her to say his name again. “Emma,” It’s like a shock to her system, like a warm blanket on a cold night, like a kiss, like a bite. “Emma.”

“Fuck,” She groans and pulls his shirt off, needing him naked, needing to see him, needing to feel him. “I need you.”

“I need you too.”

With his hands on her ass, he raises her up on her knees. He tosses the blanket to the floor before pulling off his underwear. After, he pulls her to lay on top of him and she feels his erection against the fabric of her shorts and the tingling of his chest hair on her nipples. His mouth crashes against hers and she is overwhelmed with sensations but needs more, needs it all. His hand pulls down her shorts and she takes them off the rest of the way. His body is warm when she lays back against him and she lets out a satisfied sigh.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers against her lips, his hand running up her bare leg while his other lays on her neck. “You’re brilliant.” His fingers skim the roundness of her ass before moving down. “You’re intoxicating.” His fingers find her wetness and she gasps.

“Please, please, please,” she mumbles as her hips grind against his fingers.

He takes her in a passionate kiss just as his fingers slide inside her. Her moan is lost in his mouth and she digs her nails in his arms. She moves her hips in time with his hand, urging him to take her faster and she gasps when he does. She wonders if this is only a very realistic fantasy, if it’s possible for someone to make her feel this way so easily. She can’t wait anymore.

She pulls away from him, his fingers slipping from her to land on her butt cheek. His eyes are hazy with lust and hers are much the same. She sits on his lap and feels the thickness of his cock against her, teasing her, calling her to her. He inhales sharply and holds his breath, watching the stars shining up in the sky behind her, the glow of the moon illuminating her bare back, waiting for her next move.

“I need you,” she repeats and grinds against him, covering his length with her essence. He nods, his jaw tight and his hand clenching on her ass.

Splaying one hand on his chest for balance, she takes hold of his cock, lining it up to her awaiting cunt. With locked eyes, Emma raises herself up and allows it to enter her. He is thick, hard and warm, and she takes it all in one slow drag. They both breathe out as one, embracing how full she feels, how right she feels around him. How perfect it is to be joined.

His hands run up her thighs, settling at her hips. She closes her eyes at the softness, the warmth of his touch. “Emma,” he calls quietly, his hands urging her hips to move, and she finds him watching her. “You feel amazing.”

She moves slowly, unrushed. She lets her body adjust to this amazing intrusion as she studies him, the effects of pleasure in his face, his furrowed brow, his parted lips, his tightening grip. Her fingers clench over his chest at every wave of pleasure this languid motion brings. Their eyes lock as she moves and she feels it like a caress over her body. His hands drag slowly up her torso and her back arches in expectation of his touch. She gasps as he palms one breast while thumbing the other’s nipple.

“More,” she moans, bucking up and down faster on his lap. “More.”

Emma whimpers as he directs one hand away from her breast but grins when she feels his thumb on her clit. “That’s it, love,” he urges her, his voice tight with restraint. “I want to see you.”

Her nails dig on his chest when his feet find purchase on the couch cushions to thrust up against her. His gasp turns into a moan at the pain mixed with pleasure and dimly she wonders how far she could take it without breaking him. His thumb presses down on her clit and she throws her head back, her orgasm catching her by surprise, a loud moan spilling from her lips.

He slows down his ministrations, allowing her to ride out her climax, her body buzzing in need of more. She lets out a breath and locks eyes with him once more, a silent demand in her green eyes. Killian sits up, changing the angle of his still hard cock inside her and making them both inhale sharply. Her arms wrap around his neck, his soft hair between her fingers.

“You want more?” Emma nods, their noses bumping with one another at the movement, and she thrills at the smirk on his lips. Is this what prey feel under her stare? “I’ll give you more.”

He crashes his mouth on hers, a hard, burning, desperate kiss. His hands run up her back, and she arches against his chest, moaning against his lips at the feel of his chest hair against her hard nipples. He manoeuvres them so that she’s on her back on the couch, his hot, heavy body on top of hers making her feel safe, cared for, in a way she’d never felt before.

The new position sends him deeper inside her, shivers running down her body. He chances a slow thrust of his hips. “Give me more,” she moans, sighing when he complies. “Give me everything.” Her nails dig into his back as he starts a steady pace. “Everything.”

Killian groans as he speeds up, setting a faster, deeper pace, their foreheads pressed against each other. The breath is stolen from her lungs every time he hits that spot inside her, the spot that demands that she take him, that she keep him, that she claim him. Her legs wrap around his waist, pulling him ever closer and she feels his laboured breathing on her face.

“I want you,” she whispers, nails dragging deep in his skin and she thrills at his moan. “I need you.” She kisses his cheek, his jawline, his neck, inhaling the smell of his blood, his essence. “Can I take you? Can I keep you?”

His hips falter in their rhythm as he pulls back to look into her eyes. She lets him see, opening herself up to him in more ways than the obvious one. His eyes are wide but even that couldn’t hide his desire, and he nods.

Her grin is barely stretched over her lips before they part in a gasping moan when he resumes his thrusts, pushing in deeper than before. She kisses his neck, licking the sensitive spot below his ear, following his vein. She kisses and sucks on his skin, he groans against her skin and his hand tightens on her skin before she bites down until she tastes his blood on her tongue.

“Fuck!”

She feels him spill inside her, a string of curses groaned against her skin. His orgasm triggers her — his talented ministrations joined with the taste of his delicious essence. An all-encompassing climax that makes time stand still, makes her feel like she’s flying. She pulls away from his skin, the mark of her bite on his neck filling her up with pride and satisfaction.

“Emma,” he breathes out, before groaning at the feel of her tongue cleaning up his wound. The renewed taste of his blood makes her moan and clench around him. “Emma,” he whispers.

She pulls back to look into his eyes, the starry night behind him making him look almost ethereal. He moves them to their sides, legs tangled. “I’ve been wanting to taste you for a while,” She confesses and tries to hide her blush at his tired smirk and raised eyebrow. “You smell good,” She shrugs, her fingers following the veins of his arms. “I was trying to keep in control, I didn’t want to scare you or take you against your wishes. But I’ve wanted to…”

His smile becomes more genuine and she lays her hand on his chest, over his heart, feeling his steady heartbeat. “I’ve wanted you for a while too,” he confesses, pressing a chaste kiss on her lips. “Since I first saw you, I wanted to talk to you, to kiss you, to be with you. When I saw that pendant on the floor, I made it my chance.”

She looks down at where her hand is threading through his chest hair. “Bet you weren’t expecting all of this…” She lets sarcasm hide her worry.

“No, I wasn’t.” He tucks a finger under her chin, bringing her gaze up to his. She finds him still smiling, his eyes open and trusting. “But I’m not complaining. This was perhaps the best night I’ve had in a long time.”

“Yeah,” she breathes out, arms wrapping around him. “I’m not complaining either.”

“Well, you complained a lot earlier.” He raises his eyebrow at her, a smile taking the accusation out of his remark.

She rolls her eyes. “That’s because I could barely control myself at a distance, much less in such close quarters.”

She expected arrogance, or pride, but he just looks worried. “Am I allowed to hope that this won’t be a one-time thing?”

She pressed her lips together to hide her smile. “Is your stamina that bad? I could go for anot—” She is interrupted when Killian pushes her against her back once more, his half-hard cock pressing against her.

“Oh, I haven’t had my fill of you, you minx.” He grins, grinding against her clit to make a point and thrilling when she lets out an involuntary moan. “But I meant,” he licks his lips and looks at her with sincerity. “After today? When we’re no longer snowed in?”

Emma wraps her arms over his shoulders, her fingers tracing the marks she left on his back. She tries to find that feeling in her gut that warns her, tries to find reasons not to accept what he’s proposing. But she can’t. There is one thing she knows for certain: she can trust Killian Jones.

“When we’re no longer snowed in,” she starts slowly, feeling the tension that accumulated in his body. “I know a great restaurant for our first date.”

His smile is bright enough to put the sun to shame and she knows she made the right decision when he kisses her like he never wants to do anything else. Because neither does she.

#cssns24 #carolina writes #werewolves #snowed in #ouat ff #cs ff #captainswan #killian jones #captain hook #emma swan #ouat #once upon a time #smut

43 notes · View notes

cssns · 3 months

Text

We are ONE WEEK OUT, y’all!!!!

Who’s ready???!!!

We have an INCREDIBLE line up of authors and artists posting in the month of July, and I am absolutely BESIDE MYSELF!!!!

Keep a weather eye out for fics and art to begin dropping next week!!!! As a general rule, we’ll have new fics and/or art dropping every other day through the end of August, so everyone…

#cssns24 #one week yall #cs ff #cs fanart

34 notes · View notes

swanslieutenant · 20 days

Text

a place in time - chapter xv

Available now on AO3 (catch up on the rest of the story here)

Fic Summary: Emma’s an agent working to reunite missing people with their families when the biggest missing persons case of all time appears in front of her in a flash of bright, white light. Thousands of missing people from throughout history, including one particular pirate, appear on the shore of a lake in the middle of winter: none have aged a day since their disappearance and, with no memory of their missing time, must venture into a strange and uncertain future. Loosely based on the TV show “the 4400.”

Rating and Warnings: Teen. Wordcount (this chapter): roughly 8K

Due to the current atmosphere of potential AI theft, this chapter is only available on AO3 to registered users.

Read Chapter 15 here

#cs ff #cs mc ff #captain swan #cs fic #a place in time #sorry its been forever #my life sort of fell apart about 2 months after posting the last chapter and only now am I feeling like myself again #I know most of the CS fandom has moved on but I am determined to finish this

27 notes · View notes

everything-person · 1 month

Text

Captain Swan SuperNatural Summer

I was looking so forward to this event. I had so many ideas and concepts. But real life happened and my muse ran away so i was unable to write any of my ideas no matter how hard. But with this being the last event I will not turn up empty handed so I made art for all the ideas. @cssns

TRIGGER WARNING under cut has 9 art pieces they are numbered the 9th piece contains images of blood

1.) Sands of time based on the movie/video game Prince of Persia. King Nemo ruled with his brother and right hand Jafar. The King already had sons but one day while wandering the market he found two orphan boys that showed grant potential and took them in. After invading the sacred oasis of MistHaven Killian is framed for the murder of his adoptive father. With the help of Princess Emma he escapes and finds there is more to the dagger and plot behind his fathers death then he thought.

2.) Phoenix Diamond Based off of Onward. Henry never knew his father Graham. ON his 16th birthday his mother gave him a gift from his father it was a magic wand powered by a phoenix diamond to bring Graham back for one day. He tried the spell himself but it didn't work. But when his mother touched the wand it began to glow. The spell went a miss and now they are in a race against time to find another phoenix diamond to bring him back unbeknownst to them the dangers that lie in their quest.

3.) Living in the Dark inspired by Being Human. Killian is a vampire that has stopped drinking from fresh blood. Graham is a werewolf. They get an apartment together and be roommates. They wind up renting from Emma but there's something strange about her son who randomly pops in on the guys. Everyone trying to get a sense of normal life but how can they living in the dark.

4.) Wrong Ship inspired by Doctor Who episode. Jolly Roger magically tranforms into a human woman and goes to find Killian. Confusion and misunderstanding puts a rift into Emma and Killians relationship.

5.) Sandcastles and Riptides Liam and Killian are mermen raised under their grandfather King Triton brother to King Poseidon. Emma is the princess of misthaven raised under her well meaning but over protective parents. Each of their worlds forbidden from each other but fate demands them together.

6.) The Swan and the Hook is a pirated themed story with lots of twists and turns. I know doesn't appear supernatural but trust me there was/is supernatural undertones.

7.) Witches of Storybrooke loosely based on Hocus Pocus. After Henrys mother dies he goes to live in the sleepy town in Maine. He learns the legend of three witches that used to live there and of a candle that was to bring them back to life. Hoping maybe he could find some magic to bring his mother back he ventures into the woods. But he finds there is are two sides of every story when the witches do come back.

8.) Dance with the Devil Killian succeeded in his revenge against Rumplestiltskin and turned into the Dark One as a result. For centuries he stayed in the dark ones castle until one night he heard of princesses coming of age ball. Unable to turn away the temptation he slipped into the ball and had a hypnotizing dance with a beautiful blonde before barricading himself back into his castle. What happens when he finds the same blonde battered and abused in his forest years later?

9.) How a got a pet vampire was a supernatural comedy that came about from a discord discussion of a prompt.

Those were my ideas and maybe some day I can actually write them the titles might change if I do these were just the best I could come up with.

#captain swan #cs fanfic #cs ff #cs fic #cs art #cs aesthetic #cs fanart #cs fan art #emma swan #killian jones #henry mills #ouat #once upon a time #cssns24 #captain swan supernatural summer

34 notes · View notes

booksteaandtoomuchtv · 4 months

Text

Witchy Woman (10/10)

0.5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

LOOK AT THIS STUNNING ARTWORK BY @cocohook38

Summary: When Emma came into her position as Storybrooke Coven Leader, she ended things with the powerful Vampire Overlord, Killian Jones. She’s spent over a decade working alongside him and ignoring the growing tension between them.

During his best mate’s wedding, Killian decides he is done waiting. He is ready to have his mate back in his arms (and bed) again. Emma is not an easy woman to woo, but Killian has never backed down from a challenge.

When Emma’s jilted ex-boyfriend returns to town and Emma goes missing, Killian will stop at nothing to get her back and ensure that nothing can ever separate them again.

Rating: E

CW: Mention of domestic abuse, blood and blood drinking (vampires), threatening situations, minor violence, death, mention of parental death

Entry for Captain Swan Supernatural Summer 2023 (@cssns)

Tag: @anmylica, @deckerstarblanche, @elfiola, @goforlaunchcee, @jrob64, @kmomof4, @pirateswhore, @stahlop, @teamhook, @tiganasummertree, @undercaffinatednightmare, @xarandomdreamx, @zaharadessert (let me know if you want to be added or dropped)

Author Note:

I confess that I struggled with this chapter far, far more than I could have predicted. Some of it was stress-induced writer's block that has started to clear as we approach the final stages of this move. Some of it was the fear of ending this in a way that leaves you disappointed.

I have pages and pages of struck material as I debated what to do with this chapter. With the conflict resolved and most of the questions of who, how, and what answered, I wrestled with what ending would make this story feel complete.

After months of writing, rewriting, stalling, scowling, and saying "I need to write this one chapter for my supernatural summer fic this weekend", I humbly set this before you and hope that it was worth the wait.

I cannot thank the CSMM Discord server enough for the encouragement and unfailing support in getting any writing done, but especially for the love and check-ins surrounding this fic. Thank you so, so much.

Finally, extra love to Marta and Krystal for having a sixth sense for when I was writing again. Your notes, check-ins, cheering, listening to my life drama, prayers, and such have meant more to me than you could ever know.

Enjoy! ---- ---- ---- ----

Sometime later...

Killian had never known nerves as he did now. He could feel his hold on his magic slipping as his emotions threatened to get the better of him as though he were a child again - rather than a mature vampire with centuries of experience successfully regulating his emotions and controlling his magic. Not knowing what to do with this abundance of jittery energy, Killian paced around the beautiful, blooming red Middlemist flowers.

When he pictured this scene in his mind, he thought the flowers would set a romantic scene. They were a favourite of Emma’s and with Ruby’s affinity for earth magic, they’d made a beautiful field of flowers where Regina’s corrupted magic had once left nothing but rot. Now, he wondered if the red was more reminiscent of blood than passion. Maybe the location of that horrible event in their past should not have been revisited for this particular moment.

He could hear her careful footsteps entering the forest, her steady heartbeat calling to him and calming him all at once. He reached into his pocket - just making sure - and waited for her to arrive at the clearing.

“Killian,” she called before he could see her, a smile clear in her voice. “You do know…” But whatever she intended to say next failed her as she stepped into sight. "Oh," Emma breathed out. Her eyes were wide as she scanned the flowers now overflowing the grove.

“I, erm,” Killian’s voice cracked. “You came into my life and filled the bleakest parts of it, of me, with hope, so I wanted to do the same for you.”

“This is beautiful. Thank you.”

Killian knelt before her and held the intricate ring between them, the sapphire and diamonds glittering in the sunlight. He smiled up at her, the shimmer of tears present in her eyes, and - instantly - all the words he rehearsed for weeks escaped him. “Please, will you share the rest of your life with me?”

Sometime a bit later...

At some point, when Emma was not paying attention, Killian had become essential. It wasn't that she needed him to survive, that fear that had kept her from giving herself over to the pull of their connection when they were younger. Rather, with him, her life was simply better.

Looking back on it, she realised this was a truth that she had always known - when they spent all those years apart, they still worked together and were friendly. Even with solid walls protecting her heart, she could not deny they made a good team. Now those walls were a distant memory. Now her heart beat in time with his, a ribbon of magic between them confirming the pull she had always felt toward him had always been more than a passing attraction. Killian had once told her they were mates. Mary Margaret had said they shared True Love and that was a powerful, but rather mysterious, magic. Emma thought of it more as two wandering, lost souls finding a home, a sanctuary, in one another.

Coming home to Killian every night had been a bit of an adjustment. Emma spent her life solving problems for other people, but she often buried her thoughts or issues away. Killian gave her space to exist without and room to…feel. At first, she would apologise for spilling out all her problems or being so needy. He’d pull her into him, ask her about her troubles and validate her feelings until her guilt faded away and just peace remained. Overtime, she realised that this was something she should have always had - space and time to be more than someone else’s problem solver.

A sharp jab beneath her ribs interrupted her musings. She rubbed her hand against the round protrusion now visible on one side of her hugely pregnant belly. Mary Margaret assured her that her baby bump was perfectly normal, but Emma worried she would never see the stairs below her or be able to pick up something she'd dropped, again. A part of Emma wondered if her little one was maybe too comfortable and would just keep growing and growing... Elsa assured her that her healthy baby boy would be here very soon. Emma had been so thrilled to tell Killian they were having a boy that she forgot to ask Elsa to define “soon.”

The tiny foot pushed into her palm. Unlike the previous movement, this was a gentle pressure against her hand. As ready as she was to meet her little one, she knew she’d miss having him to herself like this. She knew he was a creature of habit; she could tell the time down to the second based on his movements. About five minutes before her usual lunch break, he would be active except on Wednesdays. He didn’t move much on Wednesdays, probably busy growing and such. After dinner, he got the hiccups. He always played back when she pressed her hand against him. It was strange how much she felt she knew this little creature despite having never seen his face or heard his voice.

"Your smile could ignite wars," Killian said as he crossed to her. He kissed her cheek, "inspire masterpieces." He kissed her other cheek, "and revive the blackest of hearts." He met her lips with a sweet kiss, his hand cradling her jaw and his eyes closed as he savoured the kiss as though it were water and he a man lost in the desert. No matter how often they kissed or how chaste the kiss, Killian savoured them all in this way - as though he had been dying and she had given him the air he needed to survive.

Despite the flush his flowery words brought to her cheeks, she rolled her eyes at him. She wrapped her hand around his and took a small step back, pressing his hand to her pregnant belly where the foot had been moments before. "He's up."

"Hey, lad." At the gentleness and awe wrapped around those words, Emma's heart threatened to burst. She thought she could not love this vampire more, but still, more depth remained. Sometimes, she wasn't sure her heart could hold it all.

A series of kicks met his words and touch. Killian's answering smile made her eyes burn with tears - the moment too perfect, too...everything...for her to process.

"I love you," she said wishing there was another word or phrase to relay the emotions rolling through her in this moment. It was love, sure. But, it felt like so much more. It was bigger, endless and boundless, eternal and ancient. She felt a sudden warmth wrapping around her and flowing through her, Killian's emotions meeting hers and holding them together through that strange bond they shared.

Even more time later...

Emma’s head rested heavily on his chest. Killian ran his fingers through her hair, gently taming the wild locks that had reached out to tickle his chin. He listened to her heart and breathing as she slept. Despite the soothing sound of her steady heartbeat and the softness of her features as she dreamed, he felt the chill of fear creeping up his spine.

She will wake with the sun. He held firm to that thought; it was his anchor through this particular storm.

Years may have passed, but the dread he’d felt that long week, as he waited for her to wake, refused to dampen or fade. Rather, it wrapped around his heart and stole quiet moments like this one from him.

He recalled the evening before in as much detail as he could pry from his memory. The long relieved sigh that had escaped from Emma as she sank into her side of the bed, the soft sound of her voice carrying from Liam’s room as she read last night’s chapter to him and his sister as they drifted off to sleep, her green eyes sparkling with humour when Hope transformed her lamb stew into cereal when Killian refused to give into the toddler’s demand, the comfortable - almost routine - kiss she gave him when she arrived home. Hundreds of similar moments came together to paint the full picture of their life together. Recalling them had loosened the tightness in his chest until he was able to watch his wife as she slept without wondering if she would find his way back to him when morning came.

She rolled off him, taking the covers with her. Rest would be even more elusive than usual this evening. Killian considered slipping out of bed for a late-night drink, but the chill of fear threatened to return. The warmth of Emma’s back pressed against his arm kept him grounded - leaving was not an option tonight. With a sigh, Killian picked a book up from his bedside table and settled in to pass the night.

A few chapters later, a solid thud from Liam’s room pulled him back out of the story. The soft sound of blankets rustling followed shortly after, his only warning, before the air shimmered and deposited his youngest in his bed. Hope’s small toes were already digging into his side like tiny daggers as she wiggled and snuggled in what little space existed between him and his wife. He wrapped an arm around the little intruder and tucked her close to his chest, hoping not to disturb his wife. Hope turned into him- her head tucked comfortably (for her) in the crook of his arm and her eyes already closed. A soft sound between a coo and a sigh escaped from the intruder - somehow she was asleep once more. Killian watched her in wonder.

“You two are heartbreakingly beautiful together. It’s almost unfair,” Emma teased, her voice a gentle whisper in the night.

“Amazing how they fall asleep so quickly when they crawl in here at night given the battle they wage at bedtime. I am sorry we woke you, love.” He leaned toward her to press a kiss into her temple. But, pinned down as he was beneath the sleeping tot, he could not quite reach. He frowned dramatically at her - take pity on a poor vampire?

With the slightest eye roll, Emma relented and brushed the softest kiss on his cheek. When she pulled back and made to lie back down, his frown deepened into a full pout. A slight curve to her lips was all the warning he got before she leaned forward once more and nipped his bottom lip. She soothed the sting of her teeth with a few deep kisses before breaking their contact with a very self-satisfied smile.

Killian ran his tongue over his lips to capture the warmth lingering from her kisses. Her loving teasing had melted away the last of his earlier anxieties. She slipped from the bed, his shirt falling to her thighs, and disappeared down the hallway. He smiled at her disappearing form and, content with his daughter in his arms and a lightness in his heart, drifted off to sleep.

Much later…

It was Sunday, so the delicious rich scent of a roast permeated through the house. He found Emma in the kitchen with flour covering her arms and the tip of her nose as she formed a pie crust. It would be spiced apple pie since that was Artie's favourite and Emma doted upon the child. Killian was also known to spoil the young boy, but who could blame them?

Killian was fairly certain that Hope’s little boy was the most perfect creature ever to have been formed, so they took every opportunity to shower Artie with all the adoration and love they could.

Being a parent had been a journey - sometimes rewarding and sometimes endlessly frustrating. Being a grandparent, however, was an absolute delight. Not only did he get to watch his strong-willed, independent daughter grow into a compassionate and endlessly patient mother, but he also got to soak up the phases of Artie's childhood in a way he hadn't as a parent. Rather than anticipating the next developmental milestone, worrying over the best school decision, or trying to figure out the best strategy to parent finding his child on the top of the kitchen cabinets at four in the morning, he found his role as a grandparent allowed him to be able to just play again.

“Are you revealing your secret project today?”

“I believe it is ready.” Killian looked out of the window overlooking the play set he had been designing and building over the last few weeks. Since Artie was over a few times a week, hiding the mammoth from the little pup had been quite a challenge, but Killian had somehow managed.

“The pirate ship theme is a nice touch. Artie loves your high seas tales, even as unbelievable as many of them had become…” Emma said as she smiled up at him. The sight stole his breath, as it had the first time she turned the full force of her unfiltered smile on him. Would there ever be a time where this woman would fail to affect him so deeply?

“Are you accusing me of embellishing my stories?” Killian asked with mock offence.

“It has been a few hundred years. You cannot be blamed for misremembering a few details.”

“I have fabricated no details of my experiences.”

Emma cocked in eyebrow - or tried to, Killian was still the most skilled that that trick - in disbelief. “The kraken, Killian?”

“Every word of it is true.”

“Oh, yes. The kraken saw into your soul and deemed you a kindred soul and so joined your fight against the Royal Navy.” Killian’s ears turned a pink, even as he confirmed that, that was the truth of it. “It had nothing to do with your crew sneaking the fish you were feeding the monster for over a month onto their ships the night before the battle.”

“Aye...well, that might’ve played a small part,” Killian admitted sheepishly.

“Mmhmm,” Emma agreed. She was pouring the filling into the crust - cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar warmed the air around them.

Home. Both the feeling and the word filled him at present. He’d always pictured it as a building, a physical safe harbour to weather one’s life. But after decades spent with Emma, he knew it could be found in a relationship, in another person, and in the life that you create with them.

“PAPA!” The shout was the only warning he had before his grandson launched at him, propelling them down to the floor in a heap of giggles. Today, their home would be filled with the family they created and there was nothing more Killian dared to want.

Much, much later…

The legend that soul mate lifespans were entwined was proven true as decades of life faded into centuries. They shared joys beyond what either of them had dared dream. They weathered storms together, learning to turn in toward one another when they needed strength or a haven in which to be vulnerable. And through it all, they held fast to one another, secure in the love they shared and the partner with whom they shared it.

In other words, they truly lived happily ever after.

Notes:

Oh, I hope you enjoyed this. I have been really anxious about hot to end this work and I really, really hope that you enjoyed the glimpses of their ever after. I look forward to hearing from you... even if I've let you down a bit. (If so, I am very sorry. I cannot emphasise just how many rewrites and attempts I made at this - and this is the one that felt the most right to me. I would ABSOLUTE understand if it doesn't feel as such to you.)

#captain swan #once upon a time #killian jones #captain hook #killian x emma #cs fanfic #cssns23 #emma swan #ouat #cs ff #the most delayed chapter that has ever lived?

33 notes · View notes

donteattheappleshook · 8 months

Text

(not so) young, drunk and alone 1/1

“Swan, it’s me. ‘M so sorry I ‘avnent called for… September, October, Nov… three months. Shit that’s too many months. ‘M sorry but I need your help. The sherrffeff won’t let me leave. He says you have to pick me up - well not you but ‘ynow someone. I don’t know anyone else. Oh! It’s Killian by the way. Killian Jones. I don’t know how many Killians you know but I’m that one. The dickhead who ghosted you. ‘Nway, if you could call me back that would be just - awesome. Yur prolly not gonna call me back. I wouldn’t call me back. ‘Nway… yeah. It’s Killian. Thanks.”

(We'll give this a light M)

Oh hey, it's me, neglecting all the WIPs for something new.

This fic is a little birthday present to myself. It's completely ferral and I had very little control over it but I listened to Dial Drunk on repeat for 3 days and then this happened. This fic is unbetaed but thank you @the-darkdragonfly for answering all my texts and rambling calls while I was writing it!

A Silver hook story because apparently everything I write is now...

Read it on Ao3 (where my italics work)

******

(not so) young, drunk and alone

She shouldn’t be allowed to look at him like that. Not with a smirk caught between her teeth in a way that makes his throat dry and his pulse race. Not with the barely restrained promise of a laugh he’s sure would come out in different company that makes his face burn and and his eyes unable to meet hers. He can’t look at her when she looks like that, and she’s looking at him like that, and he looks - he assumes not great.

So he focuses on the floor instead. The floor is safe. The floor doesn’t stir up conflicting and confusing feelings he’s managed to ignore for the better part of a year. The floor doesn’t make him question every terrible decision he’s made in his life that led him to this exact moment. The floor is… moving. It’s not supposed to do that. Although that’s likely the booze, he rationalizes. But the floor isn’t interested in being rational so Killian lets his forehead fall against the bars he’s already holding onto in an attempt to stay upright. The bars are nice, they’re cool and solid and it slows the spinning in his head a fraction.

“Big night?”

He takes a full ten seconds, counted slowly, and a few deep breaths before raising his head again and facing that smirk. It doesn’t help. The absolute delight in her eyes delivers the same gut-punch it always does - even if it’s at his expense - and the soft blonde curls that have fallen from her probably hastily pulled up bun make him ache to reach out and brush them away from her face just so he can feel the strands between his fingers.

He shouldn’t have called her. He knew it was a mistake when he did it. He should have just let the sheriff keep him in this bloody cell. It’s not as if he hadn’t slept it off a night or two in another cell in another town throughout his youth. But he’s not so youthful now and the sight of the cold, hard bench, the thought of his aching back and the copious amounts of rum still coursing through his blood had been enough to send him over the edge into madness apparently. So he’d pressed the blurry little “absolutely not” in his contacts and called the only person he knew in this whole bloody city.

“Swaann.” He attempts a smile but it turns into a wince as he manages to slur the single word. When he works up to meeting her eyes again - so green, like the sea glass he used to collect on the beach when he was a boy and that takes his breath away every time - there’s a bit of pity mixed in with the amusement.

He feels pretty pitiful. Forty-five and so stumbling drunk that he’d been tossed out of the pub and into a police car, only to be forced to face the one person he’d hoped the rum would chase from his mind. He’s too old to be acting like this. Even with his wits sloshing around in the drink he’d tried to drown them with he knows he’s too old to be acting like this. When you’re young, it’s funny, an anecdote for another time - spending the night in the drunk tank. When you’re his age, it’s just pathetic.

“Alright, let’s get you out of here.” Her voice is sweet, with a laugh still hiding somewhere behind it, and it’s the first sound since he was brought here that hasn’t made his head feel like it was being scratched at from the inside.

“You shouldn’t’ve come here. S’the middle of the night,” he tells her. She doesn’t belong in this sad little room in this sad little jail with the lightbulb that keeps flickering in and out. Still, he can’t stop the stupid smile that finds residence on his face whenever she’s near - because she is here. She came to get him.

Emma raises a brow in a way he thinks she may have picked up from him. “You called me three times.”

He blinks. Fuck. He doesn’t remember that. He looks at the sheriff waiting a little ways back who nods in confirmation, giving Killian his own pitying wince like he tried to stop him. Killian sighs. “‘Mm usually much more charming.”

She rolls her eyes but smirks again as the sheriff slides a key into the ancient looking lock. “Yeah, I know. Come on, Graham’s going to let you off with a warning -”

He nearly falls flat on his face when the door he’d been leaning against swings open.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay with him, Em?”

Oh great, they know each other. He’d be more annoyed at her cozy relationship with the unreasonably attractive sheriff if he wasn’t a little bit grateful to the man who caught him and is still holding him up now. If he can just get his legs to go back under him where they belong…

“I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

Killian feels himself being passed from the man who smells strikingly of the forest, to the woman with the irreplicable scent of honey and drugstore soap that overwhelms him with the memory of every time he’s had his mouth or his hand on her skin. The fingers of his one remaining hand burn with the urge to feel her under them again so he balls them into a fist as she drapes his arm over her shoulders. “What about you?” It takes him a moment to realize that he’s who the question is directed at. “You going to be okay to walk out of here?”

Sheer determination not to make an even greater fool of himself than he already has in front of Emma Swan is the only thing he can attribute to both not falling right over with the nod of his head, and the steadiness of his first step as she leads him out the door.

He stumbles three times between the building and her car. She catches him every time with a hand on his chest, her head turning so that her hair brushes his cheek and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t do it on purpose after the first time - though he can’t really trust his own thoughts at this point since they have to be yelled at him through an ocean of rum.

“It’s your bug!” he beams at the old, yellow car. “I love your bug.”

“You hate my bug.”

Oh, right. He does hate the car that broke down every other time they drove to his hotel in the middle of the night, the one that had broken down the night they met. ‘I swear I’m not trying to stand you up. It’s just my car is literally on the side of the road right now and the tow won’t come for another hour at least and there’s… smoke.’

It had been an interesting night, getting an Uber in a strange city to go pick up a stranded woman from a dating app who'd been on her way to his hotel for anonymous sex - a woman he found out had lied about her age when she pointed out that the 1993 beetle was older than she was. ‘I didn’t think you’d swipe right if you knew there was a whole high school senior between us.’ ‘Anything else I should know about?’ he’d teased when they were back at his hotel room where she’d managed to get him out of his shirt with impressive speed. ‘Is Anna even your real name?’ ‘Uhhh, about that…’

She leans him up against the aggressive yellow of the door as she fishes in her pockets for her key. Her cheeks have gone red from the cold and it reminds him of the flush that would sometimes come over her skin if he found the right words or the right touch.

“You’re so lovely.” His thumb is tracing over her cheek though he doesn’t remember raising his hand or reaching for her.

She snorts. “Yeah, okay, Jones. So not gonna happen tonight, but nice try.” This time her smirk is wicked and if he had any real control over his body or his brain he would kiss it right off her smug mouth.

“I wasn’t trying to do anything!” he swears, prosthetic on his heart as she unlocks the passenger side door. “I’m just grateful you came all the way out here to rescue me. My knight in awful yellow armour.” He gasps. She rescued him from a dungeon. “Bloody hell, Swan -” He speaks slowly, managing to get almost every word out coherently. “I’m the princess.”

He’s waiting for her to come to the same mind-blowing realization as he has, but she just shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Get in the car, your highness.”

It takes an impressive amount of self-control for him to sit still and keep his hand to himself despite his racing heart and thoughts as she leans over to help him secure his seatbelt. Because he’s not supposed to have those thoughts. And his idiot heart can keep its cruel reminders to itself. He shouldn’t have called her. He hasn’t called her - not in months. Not since he realized his mistake and knew this thing between them had to come to an end.

He’s missed her so bloody much.

“Killian.” She’s beside him now in the driver’s seat and saying his name like it’s not the first time she’s asked him this question. “Where are you staying?”

“Oh, I…” Shit. He knows this. He’s got this. Think. There was a hotel. A big hotel with really good room service. Maybe they could go there and he could buy her room service. She always liked that. ‘Listen, I know I came over here for sex and that was great and everything, but there’s a freaking lobster grilled cheese on this menu so do you think I could be here for sex and room service tonight?’ She’d looked at him with that same wicked, eager smile and he was already reaching across her for the phone. ‘I feel like I should be concerned that you seem more turned on by this sandwich than you did by anything else tonight.’ ‘Well, it’ll probably take them a little while to deliver it if you want another go at out-seducing bread and cheese.’

“A hotel,” he tells her finally.

“Yeah, I kind of figured. Which one?”

“Which what?”

“Which hotel, Killian? Which hotel am I driving you to?”

“Oh.” He knows this one! “Mine.”

She sighs, forehead falling against the steering wheel for a long moment. He waits, not sure what he did wrong but positive that he did something. “Okay,” she says, sitting up and starting the car. “It’s late. You can sleep it off on my couch for tonight and I’ll drive you back in the morning when you’re less… wasted.”

She sounds frustrated and he thinks it might be his fault. He looks at her carefully as she turns out of the parking lot, really looks at her for the first time since she walked back into his life a moment ago. Holding his breath against the eyes and hair and skin that always try to steal it away, he takes note of her messy hair, the lack of any makeup, the grey sweats he knows she likes to sleep in. He looks at the clock next, the late - or rather early - hour shining angry, bright and orange. He can figure this out.

“I’m sorry.” He’s an idiot. She glances at him before turning back to the dark highway ahead of them.” “I shouldn’t have called you.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” He hangs his head, hoping he looks sincere and not just as pathetically pissed as he is. “I woke you up.”

“Really, Killian, it’s fine. I was just going to bed.” He looks at the clock again and he envies her youth not for the first time since meeting her. He supposes he’s up this late as well, but that wasn’t by choice. That was the rum’s decision. The rum always makes bad decisions.

“But it’s cold.” She must be cold. She’s always cold and he made her go outside. She hates outside. She probably hates him now. ‘Listen, I’m all for this whole hooking up when you’re in town no strings thing.’ She waved a hand in his general direction. ‘Big fan of everything you’ve got going on here. But it’s cold as balls outside, so from now on you can come to mine and I can stay inside where it’s warm, or I’ll see you in the spring.’

The smirking curl of her mouth tugs at her cheek but he doesn’t reach for it again. “Yeah, it’s November.”

November. The last time he saw her it had been the dead of summer, both of them hot and sticky and barely dressed, stretched out in front of the single standing fan by the bed in her little apartment with no bloody air conditioning.

He misses that apartment. Misses being there with her and letting her make him boxed mac and cheese while he complained about her eating habits. Misses the ridiculous sheets with little Millennium Falcons on them that she’d found when he was running late to meet her that one time. He’d made her wash them before putting them on her bed - ‘fine, mom’ - and then listened to her make Star Wars puns from between her thighs until they tightened so hard against his ears he couldn’t hear anything at all.

And he misses the way she would smile at him when she opened the door, just before she dragged him inside, asking about his flight between heated kisses and frustrated hands. ‘I hate your stupid ties’.

He’s a bloody idiot and he should have never stopped calling. Or he should have stopped calling a long time ago, before there was anything to miss. They had a good thing going, an understanding, no strings. He’d reach out when he was in town for work and they would meet for one or however many nights he was staying. No expectations or dates or sleepovers, none of the complicated stuff. And he’d screwed it up.

His feet slip dangerously against the icy ground - at least he’s pretty sure there’s ice, or the ground isn’t staying still again - as Emma practically hoists him out of the car. “You remember the stairs right?” she asks, ducking under his arm again to steady him. She fits well there with her arm wrapped around his waist.

He hadn’t remembered the stairs. Though he should have, he’d complained about them enough times. ‘What’s so wrong with an apartment with an elevator?’ ‘Aw, can your old knees not handle it?’ He’d caught her as she bolted up the last few flights at his glare, laughing the whole way, and he’d spent enough time on his ‘old knees’ to make her take it back. This time, he’s not so sure he can handle it as he looks up at the rotating stairs that seem unable to settle on a height.

“It’s either that or you’re sleeping in the lobby, Jones.”

He considers it. “Is that David guy still your landlord?” The one who was particularly hostile to the man in his forties coming over at random hours of the night to visit his twenty-eight year old tenant. ‘Give him a break, he still thinks I’m the sixteen year old kid he illegally rented to when I first moved here.’

In fairness, Killian would probably judge himself too if he were in the landlord's shoes. He has judged himself many times for becoming a stereotype of Dicaprio-sized proportions. But the alternative would have been resisting Emma Swan, something he’s incapable of doing - or at least had been until that morning he ruined everything.

“Okay.” The stairs are still moving.

“Hold on.” She takes out her phones - there’s definitely two of them - and holds them in front of his face. “I just want to get you on camera saying that I’m not liable if you fall down these stairs and break your neck.”

“Is that really necessary?” He got that whole sentence out in one try.

“I know you have a lawyer.” ‘You have a what? Wow, I knew you were older but I didn’t know you were like, old old.’ ‘I don’t think it counts if you’ve stolen from parent’s liquor cabinet.’

“Fine. Don’t sue Emma if I die. She’s very nice and doesn’t have any money anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“It’ll never hold up in court.”

“That would be way more convincing if you could pronounce all your consonants.”

The climb takes twice as long as it should and he’s forced to stop once when he makes the mistake of looking down and his stomach rolls violently. ‘I swear to god if you puke in my hallway I’ll leave you here to sleep in it.’

“I don’t remember there being this many floors.”

“It’s four floors. You’ve done two.”

He might die.

He doesn’t die, but just barely, and when Emma leads him through the door and into the studio, she practically drops him onto the old couch. It’s not her fault; he’d made himself very droppable in the last few minutes. At least he landed on the couch and not the collection of wooden crates she’s glued together next to it. ‘That’s not a coffee table, Swan.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry, is that or is that not your coffee cup on it right now?’

He doesn’t see her for a few minutes, his head too heavy to lift, but he can hear her moving around the apartment and he can picture her, walking through the kitchen on her toes. ‘It’s not weird, shut up.’ ‘I just thought you’d like to know that most people use their whole foot.’

When she finally comes back, he forces his eyes open, unsure who exactly glued them shut or how they did it without him noticing. Fuck she’s beautiful. Even through the boozy marinade he’s made of his head he can see that, and he wants to tell her. He could. He could blame it on the rum. But that would be a bad idea. Complicating things between them would be a bad idea. They’d already gotten complicated enough. God, he’s such a fuck up. Things were good, they could have stayed good. He just had to go and ruin a good thing with his stupid, greedy heart.

“Here.” Two little pills and a frighteningly large bottle of water are set down in front of him. He’s not sure what the pills are but he’s also pretty sure she wouldn’t try to poison him even if he is an asshole who called her in the middle of the night after ghosting her for months. Pretty sure. The water sounds like a good idea.

“Have you eaten anything or did you have rum for dinner?”

“There were peanuts at the bar,” he tells her after guzzling down enough water to drown himself with. She shakes her head and walks out of his line of sight again. This time she comes back with a bag of crisps and he thinks maybe she doesn’t hate him as much as he thought because they’re the kind he likes most.

“Eat that, drink that, and take those,” she orders, pointing to each with a stern look. “And then lie down on your side so I know you won’t choke to death in the night, and get some sleep.”

“Yes ‘mam,” he salutes.

“Don’t get cute with me.” He wasn’t trying to be cute. But it makes him unreasonably happy that she thinks he is. She rolls her eyes at his probably once again dumb smile and repeats, “eat,” before disappearing where he can’t see her again.

When she comes back this time her hair is down, falling over the shoulders of her oversized Jonas Brothers t-shirt she’s apparently had since she was twelve, and he wants to whine or cry at how desperately he wishes he could reach for her and what an idiot he is for being the reason he can’t. She’s carrying an empty garbage can, a blanket draped over one arm.

“Do not puke on my rug. It’s the only new thing in this whole apartment and I love it more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life.”

Killian leans over from where he’s stretched out on the couch that’s too small for him, running his fingers over the blue and white pattern and nods. “It’s lovely, very soft.”

She’s silent for long enough that he looks up again, only to find her with her lips pressed so hard together against a laugh that he can see her chest lurch with the force of containing it. He frowns, looking from her to the rug and back again before realizing that he’s been stroking the rug with his prosthetic hand.

“Emma… I might be drunker than I thought.”

The laugh that bursts out of her is loud and horrible and obnoxious and it’s the best sound he’s heard in a long time. He’s missed that sound, the one that had shocked him so completely the first time he heard it that they’d both ended up on the floor, stomachs hurting and eyes tearing, neither able to remember what had set her off in the first place and unable to stop giggling like teenagers.

“Aw, babe,” Emma crouches down in front of him with a pitying look before beginning to work the straps of his false hand loose. Her hand settles soft against his cheek once it’s free, smirk still lingering on the corner of her lips. “I don’t think anyone’s ever been as drunk as you are right now.”

Her face is so close to his that his heart forgets how it’s meant to work, stopping and racing of its own accord. He wishes she would close the distance, that he could feel her mouth against his for the first time in months, or that she’d simply stay here with him for the rest of the night because the distance and the silence between them has been more than he can take. He doesn't know how he ever convinced himself that staying away would eventually make the ache for her fade.

She smiles at him again, giving his cheek an affectionate pat before draping the blanket over him, the soft one he knows had been her prized possession before the rug. “Get some sleep, Killian. I don’t think anyone’s ever been as hungover as you’re going to be tomorrow either.”

He’s not sure whether or not the way his fingers close around hers before she can pull away was his idea or the rum’s, but she’s looking at him, waiting for him to say something and he doesn’t know what he was going to say or what he was thinking. He just knows that he missed her and he screwed it up - and then he screwed it up again, possibly beyond repair the second time.

Being in this city that he managed to avoid for months in the hopes that he could forget about her has been one of the worst decisions he’s ever made. To think he really believed that he could live here, that he could take the job that was offered and not be haunted by her every waking moment, not dread and hope to see her around every corner.

Being naive enough to think he could ignore the draw of her is how he ended up in that bar tonight. He’d tried to figure out how many shots of rum it would take to make him forget that he loves Emma Swan, but it seems there isn’t enough rum in the world for that - or at least not enough in that bar.

She’s still looking at him and he wishes she wasn’t watching him with a hesitation and a carefulness that hadn’t been there before. It had always been so easy between them; he’d never felt less self-conscious with another person in his life and now it’s all consuming. She’s lost the carefree warmth he used to see in her eyes, like he took it with him when he left that morning and didn’t come back.

“I’m sorry.”

He can’t tell if it’s relief or disappointment in her sigh. “I already told you, it’s fine.”

He shakes his head. “Not for calling you tonight. For not calling you. Every other night. I’ve been an ass and I’ve been a coward. You didn’t deserve that.” By the grace of whatever gods might be listening to his poor apology, he doesn’t slur a single word.

Her pause is long enough that he worries he said the wrong thing, and he can’t read her expression through the haze of booze and exhaustion swimming around in his head. He should let go of her hand, but he’s painfully aware that this could be the last time he gets to touch her and she’s not pulling away.

She sighs again. “Why don’t we talk about this when you’re feeling better?”

He lets go. “Aye, Swan, whatever you want.”

She walks away. Beyond repair then.

***

Killian jumps, heart pounding. He feels like he’s woken from a coma, body so heavy with sleep that parts of it aren't responding to him and never having been more confused than he is in these first few moments. It’s daytime, but it’s not morning, the light is too dim, and he’s asleep but not in his bed or in his hotel room, on a couch he recognizes but can’t really place. He has a vague recollection of things that may or may not have happened while he lay here; the sound of someone moving around the room, someone saying his name, a door shutting, an angry car somewhere far off and the bark of a dog somewhere close, the sound of keys and the strange sensation someone poking him in the face - hard.

All of it feels like a fever dream now as he looks towards the tinny sound of the belligerent man’s voice coming from the phone in her hand.Oh no. Oh god what the hell had he done last night? He recognizes the room, the soft blanket he’s under, the long legs clad in grey sweatpants perched on the table in front of him. He doesn’t think he can bring himself to look at her.

“Oh! It’s Killian by the way. Killian Jones. I don’t know how many Killians you know but I’m that one. The dickhead who ghosted you. ‘Nway, if you could call me back that would be just - awesome. Yur prolly not gonna call me back. I wouldn’t call me back. ‘Nway… yeah. It’s Killian. Thanks.”

If you’d like to save this message, press - there's a loud beep before another message begins to play. Bloody hell. He remembers the pub, and the cop - sort of - and he remembers that little line on his phone screen. ‘Absolutely not’. From the looks of it, he absolutely did.

“Heey, isme again. I don’t think I told you where I am. Is’not great, Swan. They put me in the jail.”

He winces, sitting up carefully, head still light and disoriented. “Did I…”

“Mhm.”

Another wince. “Are they all-”

“Oh yeah.”

“‘M not even that drunk. The sherfs just got a commpelex or something.”

“Swan, we really don’t have to -”

“Shh, this is my favourite part.”

Killian hangs his head. “I - Oy, I’m on the phone, sherirff! Don’ they teach you manners at cop school? The cops in your city are rude, Swan. Hey! No - iss my phone. I can call whoever I want.” There’s a shuffling sound that stirs up a faint memory of trying to back deeper into the cell, then a small shout and he remembers why his ass hurts and that he’s probably got a bruise on his hip the size of the one on his ego. Emma has her lip caught between her teeth again, flashing him the same look she had when she arrived at the station.

“Hello? Swan? Oh, right. Yur prolly asleep. You should be asleep, that’s good. I jus’ called ‘cus I…” For a blissful minute he thinks he might have had the sense to hang up, the silence on the other end dragging on and he almost breathes a sigh of relief. But then the message rings out again. “I can't remember why I called you. I think somethin’ made me think of you.” His voice gets softer and so does her expression for just a moment.

“That happens a lot. I been thinking ‘bout you a lot, all the time, really. And not just in a sexy way and not just yer face.” Killian hangs his head. “Even though I’m a fan of your face. And all your other parts too.”

He wishes he could just perish right here and now, wishes the dull ache in his head would become an aneurysm and take him out without a fuss.

“I been thinking about those ridic’lus tiktoks you used to send me and when I was in meetings ‘n I jus’ wanted to be with you. I don’t know anything about Taylor Swift anymore, Swan - I don’t know how to find those myself.” There’s another pause but he knows better than to hope this is over, much of this coming back to him now in mortifying waves.

“I’ve too many shirts in my closet now - It’s so many shirts. I always brought extra ‘cause I knew you’d steal ‘em an’ then you’d walk ‘round your kitchen in ‘em with no pants like yur a sexy Winnie the Pooh or somethn’ and I had to watch you climb yur counters while I had a heartattack ‘cuz you wouldn’ jus’ let me get things off the top shelf for you. Bloody stubborn.” There’s a sigh over the machine. “I don’t want this many shirts, Swan…

‘Anyway I - What? Who does? Sorry, Swan the sherf is being rude again. He wants to know if yur picking me up. Are you picking me up?” There’s so much hope in his past self’s voice that he almost feels bad for him. But he also knows what a bloody idiot that man is and it’s hard to feel anything but the overwhelming urge to disappear into this couch and not have to listen to any more of his drunken rambling. “That would be nice. But it’s okay if you don’t want to. I’d understand. Gnight, love.”

To delete this message press - She hits a button. Message saved.

Killian braces himself for the next one. Gods, how many of them are there? But this time it’s not his voice that comes out over the speakerphone, it’s another man, Irish and vaguely familiar through the sleep and the unfortunately returning memories.

“Hey, Emma, it’s Graham.” Killian’s heart drops into his stomach at the sound of another man calling her in the middle of the night. Of course she wouldn’t have sat around pining like he did, not for a man who treated her as carelessly as he had. Of course - “Listen, I don’t know who this guy is but he says he knows you. I thought maybe he was one of your clients but when I asked him how he knows you he just asked me if I’ve ever been in love...”

The brow Emma raises at him is equal parts question, challenge and amusement and he feels the blood rush from his face. Fuck. He wonders whether four floors would be high enough for him to end this misery if he just went out the window.

“Anyway, just let me know if this is another Walsh situation and I’ll make sure he stays in here, alright? Goodnight, love.” Killian can’t even begrudge the man or the endearment he adds to the end of his message when he’s only looking out for her. Probably a good thing she has someone to keep old, drunk dickheads away from her.

He hears another beep of her mailbox and braces himself for whatever’s coming next. “Hi, love, ‘m sorry for calling so much. I know I made too many ms’takes to be ‘loud to say this, but… I miss you, Swan… And I’d jus’ really like to see you again.”

End of messages. To -

Emma shuts the phone off, setting it down next to her on the coffee table. She tilts her head to see his face which he’s currently trying to bury in his hands. “Sounds like you had quite the night.”

“I thought I’d be more hungover.” His head hurts and he’s tired and his mouth is dry but he expected to be near death after the way he threw them back last night.

“It’s four in the afternoon.” Oh. He does the math of how long she’d let him sleep in her apartment after everything he’s done - after she picked him up.

“At one point I had to make sure you were alive. But I figured if you were able to leave such eloquent voicemails last night that you probably weren’t in danger of alcohol poisoning.”

“Swan, I…” He’s fully aware that he deserves her mocking but he’s too humiliated to even begin to try and explain his behaviour last night. How can he without explaining everything right down to that morning in July where he messed up the best thing in his life.

She takes pity on him, giving a small shrug. “Forget about it. Everyone says stupid stuff when they’re hammered. Everyone calls people they know they shouldn’t.”

“No, Emma -” He finally lifts his head to look at her. “That wasn’t…” He needs her to know that wasn’t what this was, she wasn’t just some drunk dial in the middle of the night. He thinks of how many times in the last three three months he’s looked at that contact in his phone, her name replaced with a reminder that he should not and absolutely could not go there. She mistakes his hesitation.

“You okay?”

“No.” He needs to talk to her, to apologize and beg her forgiveness. But he can’t find the words in his tired, muddled head to tell her without telling her everything. “I’m a bloody idiot.”

Emma smirks. “Yeah, we established that last night - a bunch of times.”

“I mean it. It wasn’t -” He rubs at his eyes, trying to clear the sleep and avoid looking at her. “I didn’t just call you because I was drunk. I’ve wanted to call you. For months. Last night just gave me an excuse.”

“You needed an excuse to call me?”

He sighs. “I was coward enough to convince myself I did.”

When he finally forces himself to face her, he finds her watching her phone, fingers wrung in her lap and lips pressed together tightly the way they always are before she asks something that’s answer matters to her.

“How much of last night do you actually remember?”

“Most of it, I think.” It’s been coming back to him in increasingly horrifying details since she played that first voicemail.

“You said a lot of stupid stuff.”

“I know.”

“How much of all of that was true?”

“All of it.”

She raises a brow. “All of it?”

“Aye.”

“Sexy Winnie the Pooh?”

A smirk tugs at his mouth. “I stand by what I said.”

He wonders which parts of what he said she’s focusing on as her silence stretches between them, heartbroken when he sees a little wall go up. This is why he stopped calling. He knew this would happen.

“It’s fine. It’s not like you owed me anything. We weren’t -”

“Don’t do that.” His hand reaches out for her, fingers playing carefully with the fabric of her too-big sweatpants. “We may not have been in a relationship but we weren’t nothing.” He won’t let her excuse his behaviour, not after they spent over a year in each others’ lives only for him to disappear from hers. “I shouldn’t have acted like we were.”

“So then why did you stop calling?” It’s the most vulnerable he’s ever heard her sound even though she hides it well and he can’t bring himself to look at her. “I liked what we had going. I liked spending time with you.”

“Aye, so did I.” Too much.

“I guess I thought - I guess I thought we were friends at least.”

“We were.” His fingers dance along her calf through the fabric he can’t stop fiddling with and he feels the muscle tense but she doesn’t pull away from him.

“So then what gives?” The anger in her voice makes his gaze snap up to hers. Finally. He’s been waiting for her to be angry with him, she deserves to be angry and he deserves it too. It gives him that small flicker of hope he’d been unable to find until now, a hope that if she’s angry, it’s because she cared enough to be hurt. “Why did you just…” She gestures vaguely with her hands. Disappear.

“Because I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Do what? Hook up? Jesus, Killian, I’m a big girl. You didn’t have to run away because you were over the benefits part of this friendship.”

“I wasn’t. I left because I broke our rules.”

“What rules?”

The ones they’d so carefully established when they decided to continue this arrangement beyond the first and second time he saw her. The ones that were meant to keep either of them from getting hurt like they both were now.

“The last time I was here, we fell asleep and woke up in the morning still in your bed and I…”

“That’s why you freaked out? Because you accidentally slept over? That’s a bit dramatic don’t you think?” He can hear the disbelief in her voice and also the relief but he’s not done. “It wasn’t like a hard and fast rule -”

His fingers curl around the back of her knee, squeezing as he draws her attention. “That’s not why.” He traces his thumb over the fabric covering her shin and he knows he has to tell her because he can’t do this anymore without telling her and he can’t go back to how things were.

And he thinks that just maybe, she’ll want to hear it. Because as small and insignificant as it may seem, those aren’t her sweatpants, they’re his, lent - stolen - after a rather frantic afternoon in his hotel room six months ago where he may have torn her skirt in his haste to get it off. ‘You need better quality clothes, love.’ ‘Is this you finally offering to be my sugar daddy?’ They have his bloody initials on them - a strange gift from his lawyer friend. And she hasn’t gotten rid of them, didn’t toss them away when he did the same to her. She still sleeps in them.

“I freaked out because I liked waking up with you, and I started thinking that I’d like to wake up with you every morning.” He’d been hot and sweaty and sore from sleeping on her old mattress but he’d looked down at the woman wrapped around him despite the stifling heat, her cheek pressed to his chest and her hair in his mouth and he knew that he wanted this, wanted her, maybe forever. He hears her small intake of breath, his thumb still stroking her skin though the fabric as though it’ll give him the strength he needs. “And I hadn’t felt that way about anyone since…” He can’t finish and so she does for him.

“Milah?”

“Aye.” His reason for never wanting anything more, love lost in the same instant that cost him a piece of himself. He’d told Emma about her, one night when they’d lingered a little too long entangled in the aftermath. He didn’t know the details of her reason, only that she’d been far too young and that he’d hurt her deeply enough to make her wary of anyone who claimed love or devotion.

“I hoped that if I stayed away for a little while that it would fade away and that we could go back to how things were because I knew that if I told you I would lose you. But the longer I stayed away, the more I missed you and the more I wanted you and I realized it wasn’t going to go away - because I loved you.”

Killian watches her for a reaction as he tells her the truth he’d been hiding from her for months and from himself for far longer, but she remains unreadable, fingers still wringing nervously in her lap, breathing a little shaky. But there’s no abject terror in her gaze as she waits for him to finish.

“And by then I’d avoided you for too long and it was too late to tell you or try to go back to how things were and I lost you anyway. Then I managed to convince myself that it was for the best because this wasn’t what you wanted and you deserved better anyway.” Better than an old widower with a used up heart who’d run the moment things became real. “But I thought you had the right to know that I didn’t leave because I didn’t care about you. I left because I cared too much.”

Fabric slips from his hand as she stands, circling the coffee table and leaving him feeling untethered without her and with a barrier set between them. He focuses on the rug, her reaction expected but no less painful, as she paces the length of her glued together crates a few times.

“Okay two things.” Her tone snaps his gaze up to where she moves anxiously and restlessly in the small space. “First of all, that’s the last time you make a decision for me.” He hadn’t expected this reaction. “I don’t need anyone to decide what I do or don’t deserve or what I can or can’t handle. If you want to know what I want, you ask me. You talk to me like the grownup you keep pretending that you are.” That one hurts but he nods. It’s all rightly earned.

“You’re right.”

“Good.” She stops, shoulders squared as she faces him from across the table. “Second.” He waits, the anger from before no longer sustaining her as he sees the wall she hides behind slip just a little. “You said you loved me.”

He’s not sure what answer she wants, but he gives her the truth. “I love you, Swan.” Try as hard as he did not to, he knows it’s not going away. And he’s not willing to attempt another eight shots of rum a second time to make sure.

She nods. He waits, or she waits, he’s not sure who’s supposed to speak here only that he needs to know how she feels and he’ll wait as long as he needs to.

“Well? Are you going to ask me what I want?”

“What do you want?” He’d give her whatever she asked for at this point as he watches her bite her lip and definitely doesn’t wish he was the one biting it.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Fair enough.

“Look, I get running away from feelings - I’m very familiar with the concept. But the way you did it was really shitty and -” Her voice goes quiet, arms wrapping around herself in a move so full of self-preservation that it breaks his heart a little. “It hurt, okay?”

Her words, thick with betrayal and rejection, pierce sharp through his chest, painful and deserved as she avoids his gaze as determinantly as he’d avoided hers. God, he’s an ass. He’d pieced together enough about her past from the small glimpses she’d given him late on those nights where they were still tangled naked in her sheets and the dark lent them the boldness to be vulnerable to know that she’d been left before.

He joins her on her side of the table, reaching to touch the soft, golden waves that he’s spent months wishing he could tangle his fingers in again. “I’m sorry.” He pushes them behind her ear, thumb stroking over her cheek like her skin could break beneath his touch.

When she looks up at him her eyes are red and wet he pulls her to him without thinking. “I’m sorry,” he breathes, Emma feeling fragile in his arms for the first time since he met her. She’s a force, his Swan, a tempest that could devour a thousand ships and it hurts to see her storms wane.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, quieter, pressing a kiss to her temple as he brings a hand to stroke the hair at the base of her neck, feels her lean into him. “I’m sorry,” he speaks against her brow. “I’m so sorry, love.” His lips brush over the crown of her head and he feels her arms slip around his waist, holding tight to the back of his shirt. He holds her just as tightly, nose settling in the crook of her neck where he presses another kiss and whispers a thousand more apologies. “I’m an ass.”

“Yeah, you are.” Her voice comes muffled from where her face is pressed against his collarbone and he laughs in relief to hear her tease him. He pulls back enough that she can lift her head to face him, eyes still red as he wipes at the dampness left on her cheeks. All he wants is to kiss her and spend the night and the next day and every day after that making this up to her, but he knows better than to push her.

Her hands slide from his back to his chest as she meets his gaze and takes a steadying breath. “I still don’t know what I want. You’re not the only one who’s bad at dealing with feelings and you just put some pretty big ones out there.”

“I know.” He doesn’t expect to hear the words back, not after three months of silence. But if she gives him the chance to stay and try to win her heart then he’ll spend forever earning back her trust.

“But maybe, if you’re still in town for a bit, you could stay for dinner.”

It takes everything he has to contain the ecstatic smile that wells up from his chest, afraid he’ll scare her off. “I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.” He’s not leaving her again. Not unless she sends him away.

***

“When do you go back?” she asks when they’re sat at the kitchen island. ‘What, exactly, do you have against real furniture? Especially tables. They seem particularly discriminated against.’ ‘Do you see any room in here for a twelve-piece dining set?’ He swallows the bite of the boxed mac and cheese she’d made him cook ‘Because I’m still pissed at you and I’m going to enjoy watching you suffer through this.’ ‘Sadist. Can I at least add -’ ‘No.’

Killian looks at his watch. “My flight was an hour ago.”

“What? You should have said -”

“And miss all the delicacies that Maine has to offer?” he asks, lifting his mismatched bowl. “It’s fine, Swan,” he adds when she looks genuinely concerned. “I’d rather be here.” He can get another flight at the last minute before he’s due back in New York on Monday. Getting his things back from the hotel, however, may be a tad more difficult.

“That’s sweet and all but I think you’d also rather be employed.”

“Aye, well, I may not be employed there much longer anyhow.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh god, don’t tell me you left them voicemails too.”

Killian snorts. “No, I’ve just… had another offer.”

His heart pounds frantically as she asks, “where?” terrified that he’ll scare her off.

“Here.”

“Here?”

He nods. “I wasn’t going to take it, not after realizing how much I’d miss you if I was here. But, well, that was before I drank a full bar. And this town does have its benefits.”

She gapes at him and he can see the thoughts racing behind her eyes. “You’re not moving for me, right? You want the job? Because I told you I don’t know what I want or if I can even do… whatever this maybe is and I -”

He reaches for her hand, calming the rambling that had started. “I do want the job, but of course I’m moving for you, Swan. And I know you’re not ready to decide anything, and I’m not asking you to. But whether you do or don’t decide that what you want is me, I’m going to be right here while you figure it out. I’m not going to leave you twice, Emma. I don’t want to miss you like that again.”

Emma just stares at him, mouth opening and then shutting with questions that don’t find voice and he sits, stewing in the worry that he said too much, asked for too much. He swallows as she jumps out of her seat, his turn to ramble now as she rounds the island.

“I mean, I will have to go home and get my things and resign but I -”

“Shut up,” she tells him, hands sliding into his hair and mouth colliding with his.

He’s more than happy to do exactly that, wasting no time in gathering her up in his arms and pulling her close, returning the kiss he’d missed so damn much all these months, missed the feel of her soft and warm against him like this, for the little sound she makes when his own hand tangles in her hair just hard enough that he can keep he there a little longer.

“Wait,” he breathes and her hands pause where they’d been working the buttons of his shirt free. “Maybe we should slow down.” There’s a part of him screaming at his stupid mouth right now for the words falling out of it. “You said you don’t know if this is what you want. So maybe we shouldn’t rush things.”

She barks out a small laugh. “You’re moving to another city for a ‘maybe’ and you don’t want to rush things?” He doesn’t really have an answer for that.

Her brow and mouth quirk up in one devastatingly attractive motion that has him ready to go back on everything he just said. “This was never our problem,” she reminds him, fingers tugging the buckle of his belt loose. “We’re good at this part. Everything else is where we get messy.” She works the button of his jeans open next. “So just try not to make any more big confessions while you’re inside me…” She runs her teeth over the skin below his ear as she slides her hand into his jeans and he nearly chokes. “And we should be fine.”

“Bloody hell.” His rational self may judge him later, but his current self has Emma Swan with her hand around his cock trying to get him out of his clothes and he’s already established that he’s not a very smart man. “I promise.”

***

It’s a strange feeling to be laying here, wrapped up in an old duvet and Star Wars sheets with Emma’s head on his shoulder and her fingers drawing patterns over his chest. They’ve never done this part, never lingered beyond the time it took them both to catch their breaths before untangling themselves from one another and going about their day - or tangling themselves again. He likes it, but it’s strange, new, something he hasn’t done in a long time. Not with anyone.

“This is kind of weird right?” she asks, breath warm against his neck.

Killian laughs. Bloody mind reader.

“Aye, a bit. I think I’m out of practice.”

“I never practised in the first place.”

He presses a kiss to her hair. “But, it’s not bad, right?” She can probably hear his stupid heart racing as he waits for her answer.

“No,” she shakes her head, sliding her arm around his waist and fitting herself more snugly against his side. “It’s not bad.” He can feel her smile against his skin, glad she can’t see the absolutely ridiculous one stretched across his own. They lay there a little longer, the room darkening with the earlier and earlier nights as he begins to dread the fast approaching hour where he’ll have to leave, until Emma shifts. “My neck hurts.”

“My arm’s asleep.”

She sits up and his arm is flooded with the sudden relief of no longer being squished, but he misses the warmth and the closeness of her immediately. He has two arms. Who really needs both? He’s done fine with one hand. “Where are you going?” he asks when she rises from the bed, reaching for his shirt that she tossed on the floor and he made himself leave there. ‘Do not fold your clothes while we’re in the middle of having sex or I swear I’ll put mine back on you fucking weirdo.’

“Thirsty,” she says as she finishes buttoning it. “You?”

“Aye, thanks.”

“Water? Or would you prefer rum?”

“Hilarious.” His stomach rolls, not finding her so funny. She certainly seems to think she is, smirking as she fetches two water bottles from the fridge. “You know you’re going to have to give me my shirt back this time. It’s the only one I’ve got.” At least until he finds out if the hotel hung onto his suitcase when he missed his checkout. “Unless you have the others squirrelled away here somewhere.”

“I thought you had ‘too many shirts, Swan,’” she reminds him in a poor imitation of his accent and he rolls his eyes. She hops back onto the bed, climbing into his lap to sit astride his hips. His hand and wrist settle on her waist, the shirt in question riding up and making him groan at the feel of her pressed against him.

“Aye well I’ve only got the one to wear out of here tonight and while you look infinitely better in it than I do -”

“Like a sexy Winnie the Pooh, would you say?”

He sighs. “I’m never living that one down am I?”

“You want to show me your hundred acre wood?” Killian lets his head fall back against the headboard as she laughs herself silly. “I have another solution,” she tells him, hands wringing nervously in the sleeves of his shirt. “I was thinking, maybe, since you’ve already missed your flight, and you probably don’t have a hotel room anymore, that you could stay here tonight. And maybe we could give that whole waking up together thing a shot.”

Her cheeks are flushed, freckles bright against the soft pink as she looks up from her hands to catch his eye. He kisses her hard enough that she’d have fallen right off his lap were it not for his arms holding her steady and close to him.

“That a yes?” she asks, mouth curling against his and he catches that smirking bottom lip between his teeth like he’s wanted to since she showed up at the station.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

She nods and it’s him smiling against her mouth now. “For tonight at least. But I think there’s still a lot of grovelling in your future before it becomes a regular thing.”

He kisses her again, rolls her onto her back beneath him. “Then I’d better get started right away,” he says, lips finding the length of her neck as he begins to work free the buttons of his stolen shirt.

“Well, you did promise you would write poetry about my boobs.”

“I what?” He looks up only to see her wearing the same confused frown as himself before her eyes widen with laughter and she covers her mouth with her hands.

“Oh my god. You haven’t seen your texts have you?”

Fuck.

*******

Tagging the usual people but let me know if you want to be removed or added!

@kmomof4 @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly @undercaffinatednightmare @jennjenn615 @dramioneswan @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot @kazoo5480 @lfh1226-linda @csalltheway @xsajx @xarandomdreamx @onceratheart18 @ownedbycaptainswan @teamhook @pirateprincessofpizza @lostintheskyfaraway @zaharadessert @thejollyroger-writer @ultraluckycatnd @justanother-unluckysoul @spartanguard @jonesfandomfanatic @deckerstarblanche @jrob64 @klynn-stormz @wefoundloveunderthelight @sailtoafarawayland @tiganasummertree @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @stahlop @superchocovian @snowbellewells @xellewoods @sals86 @karlyfr13s @ouatpost @skairipakomtrikru @lonelyspectator12 @anmylica @alexa-fangirl-forever @inspiredbystardust @marcella2727 @paradiselady19 @koryandr @killiansprincss @goforlaunchcee @motherkatereloyshipper

#captain swan #cs fanfic #captain swan fanfic #cs ff #cs angst #but also just a lot of funny drunk Killian #killian jones #captain hook #emma swan #this thing is ferral guys #I don't even know what this is but I hope you like it #silver hook #silver killian

77 notes · View notes

shady-swan-jones · 1 month

Text

August Rec List!

So, it's August after April, right? RIGHT?

Today is Author Appreciation day so that ties in nicely, thank you @4getfulimaginator2022. Show your appreciation in the comments, it's mandatory. I have no way to enforce this but come on, spread the love!

She's Perfect But You're Mine (3/3) by me

Killian has a girlfriend. Emma handles it with the utmost maturity and grace. Or not.

Dark Swan Story by isaballerina89

What if Emma is pregnant as Dark Swan? Based in season 5 captain swan love story fanfic. It is different from the show.

What if... (Season 4) by Kml19

What if Captain Hook turned into the Dark One to get revenge on Rumplestiltskin? What if he only met the heroes in Neverland?

I can’t love you in the dark (oceans apart) by weareforeverstarlaced

Emma had long resigned her role as princess and Killian did the same, having left piracy. But now, as the mist covers their cliff side cottage, Emma and Killian say their final goodbyes when Rumplestiltskin steals the former pirates heart. And all they could do is wait it out until Rumplestiltskin’s torment was done and it’s crushed. Not knowing when it would happen. However, when morning comes and Killian is gone, Emma has one final idea to bring him back.

Ties That Bind (6/20) by Anonymous

When Killian Jones returns home after years away, it's not for a warm reunion—he’s there to confront his adoptive father, the powerful and rich politician Mr. Gold. Desperate to free Milah from his clutches, Killian finds himself ensnared in one of Gold’s infamous deals. In exchange for Milah’s freedom, Killian must carry out a dangerous mission that puts him on a collision course with Emma Swan, a sharp and determined agent for a secretive government force.

Into the Parallel by CSColifer

Emma and Killian are Travelers with and ability to travel through time and across parallel realms. A chance meeting will change their lives forever.

Cann I Be Your Werewolf? by @belovedcreation

After a particularly nasty encounter with a criminal, bounty hunter Emma Swan's friend convinces her to adopt a guard dog from the shelter. Little does she know that the massive dog she brings home is really the werewolf Killian Jones, who's laying low in wolf form to hide from danger.

Heart Bound by @4getfulimaginator2022

CS historical AU (mid-19th century), real world setting, teacher!Emma and artist!Killian. After years of private tutoring, Emma goes to teach in a village by the sea in a desperate bid to escape her heartbreak and the outside world. She thinks that she'll always be lonely and out of place, but the local lighthouse keeper, a fellow recluse and the town outcast, makes her see that she is right where she belongs.

Animal Instincts by @hookswench

Killian Jones noticed the moment Emma Nolan walked into the tavern. She was innocent... and she was trouble. As a lone wolf, he wanted no part of her pack politics. But when rival Neal Cassidy attacks, Killian can't just stand by. One quick escape later, and Killian finds himself alone with temptation. And Emma isn't one to back down from what she wants.

The Secret Romance by CaptainSwan02

Emma Swan and Killian Jones have been hiding their relationship for a while now, not wanting anyone to find out. The two have navigated treacherous waters and clandestine meetings, all to keep their love hidden from prying eyes. But as their feelings deepen and the challenges they face grow, the strain of their secret weighs heavily on them.

haunted by the ghost of you by @exhaustedpirate

Killian is cursed - cursed to lose Emma over and over again. He is doomed to live, to lose his love forever until he can break it.

For All Life and For All Time by @snowbellewells

Having lost her dearest friend and with her own life on the line, Emma Swan joins a noble band to face an ancient evil. Three of them stand by her in honor of the one they loved and lost. The other might be the first man she could love. He might love her as well - even more than life itself. Time will tell... if they both survive the fight against their immortal enemy.

Pan Says... (13/13) by @hollythecurious

After waking up in a strange room with a naked stranger, Emma and Killian must endure the twisted game their kidnapper insists they play in order to gain provisions and avoid punishments.

Flight 815 (3/?) by @honey77bun

Emma moved into a new, incomprehensible world for her, in 1986. What to do? Unclear. And in this chapter, she'll have to find the strength to figure out what the hell is going on.

Too Well Tangled (12/21) by @myfearless-love

Killian Jones, the enigmatic Marquess of Hookstone, has more than earned his sinister sobriquet, the "Prince of Darkness." His past, a stormy mosaic of rejection and rebellion, has forged a man both feared and revered. Yet, the indomitable Miss Nolan proves an unexpectedly formidable opponent for his infamous charm.

Dracula in Storybrooke (6/?) by @grimmswan

“You don’t seem to be a vampire like the ones Dracula made.” Emma said softly, tracing her fingertips along Killian’s jaw. They were laying in bed. Holding one another. Gazing at each other lovingly.

Yet another villain had tried to tear them apart. And had failed.

Not Broken At All (17/?) by @donteattheappleshook

A season 1 Neverland AU. Emma is still trying to adjust to her new life as Sheriff of Storybrooke and mom to Henry, who still believes everyone in town is a fairytale creature. When she finds a badly beaten, one handed man while patrolling, she’s convinced he’s crazy. But when Henry is suddenly taken out the window of a house everyone believes is haunted, the madman in the hospital might be her only hope of getting her son back. Whether he likes it or not.

I’ll Wait a Lifetime or Two by @hookedonapirate

At forty, Emma Swan is living her best life. She's happily single and owns a thriving art gallery with her best friend Elsa. And of course, there's the love of her life, her teenage son, Henry. Since the divorce three years ago, her carefully curated life has been quiet, peaceful, ordinary. So why does the one guy she ends up falling for have to be the rockstar her son has a poster of on his bedroom wall, whose life is nothing short of extraordinary?

Independence Day by @whimsicallyenchantedrose

With the Black Fairy defeated and the final battle won, Storybrooke is enjoying it's happily ever after and trying to make new memories. Emma has some exciting news for Killian.

Timeless (4/?) by @killiansprincss

Season 3 divergence - When Zelenas time portal works, Henry wakes up alone in Storybrooke and must travel to the Enchanted Forest to get his family back. Only once he gets there he quickly realises its not like the one in his book, theres no Evil Queen and his mother Emma wasn't put through a wardrobe, theres even a poster inviting the entire kingdom to her engagement ball, to Hook. What will happen once Henry gets them to break this new curse and they get their memories back?

@caught-in-the-filter @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @the-darkdaughter-blog @teamhook @justanother-unluckysoul @karlyfr13s @snowbellewells @xarandomdreamx @klynn-stormz @omninerdgirl @facesiousbutton82 @finmnsoh56 @followbatb @killianxswan @booksteaandtoomuchtv @exhaustedpirate @anmylica @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @undercaffinatednightmare @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @stahlords @darkshadow7 @fleurdepetite @captainswan-kellie @motherkatereloyshipper @soniccakes @jonesfandomfanatic @zaharadessert @bluewildcatfanatic @once-upon-a-happy-end @ultraluckycatnd @spartanguard

#cs fic rec #captain swan #cs ff #cs au #cs modern au #cs fic #ouat ff #ouat fic #ouat fanfic

46 notes · View notes

snowbellewells · 21 days

Text

Self Promo Sunday: "A Cottage by the Sea"

This 7 chapter MC was written for the @cssns20 event, and I have always been pretty proud of how it turned out. This one pulls a bit from Pirates of the Caribbean and a bit from 1989's The Little Mermaid, and then throws in the happy ending vision that came into my head that I just needed to find a story to help them reach. I've been travelling back through all my @cssns entries recently, and I hope you'll enjoy this one if you didn't see it then - or if you decide you might want to revisit it!

**Beautiful cover art is by @searchingwardrobes! I'm still in love with it and grateful to have it to put with my story.

Summary: Princess Emma has always been drawn to the shores of Misthaven, where the sea meets the shore near her parents’ castle. When an unknown boy washes up on the sand, with eyes as fathomless and blue as the waters that brought him to her, he soon becomes Emma’s best friend, her partner in crime, and her other half. But the tides give and the tides take away, and as her blue-eyed boy sails in her father’s navy and risks all in defense of those who made him family, unexpected danger and challenge will try to tear them apart, and might well show him just where he came from that day he first appeared to her from the sea…”

**Also available on AO3, if that's your preference**

By: @snowbellewells

Prologue

The land around her parents’ castle had always called to Princess Emma. The open spaces and craggy cliffs she could see in the distance as they plummeted into the churning sea, were windswept and wild much like herself. Though she had always been cared for and beloved, the sole heir to the kingdom of Queen Snow White, Emma also felt the desire to run free, as if she were destined for more than curtsies, crown fittings, and learning to smile demurely. Naturally, she adored her happily devoted, perfectly paired father and mother - just more so when they were teaching her to ride or aim a bow than when they were reminding her once again that she must exude patience and diplomacy at even the most interminable state dinners. She valued her kingdom and its people, understood the honor of her role in it, but that knowledge and affection failed to negate the fact that she often wished just as strongly to rip the fancy curled updos and jeweled tiaras from her head and run streaking like a loosed cannon along the wet sand at the ocean shore she could see from her chamber window, hair streaming behind her and cool, salty air on her face. All the proper princess etiquette and worries left behind.

The easiest - and her most favored - cure for that feeling of wanderlust and burning energy within was for either her mother or her father, or both whenever possible, to take her walking along the water’s edge in the evening. Emma would almost swear the Queen and King enjoyed the calming getaways almost as much as she did, both as a moment to be free of so many fussing, crowding, obsequious attendants and hangers-on, as well as to feel the open air of the world outside their palace cleansing them. She knew - though from nothing more than history and bedtime stories - that her parents had once lived and thrived out of doors, falling in love on the run as rebels before her mother regained the kingdom she had been born to lead. Both her mother, once a legendary bandit, and her father, who had started life as a humble shepherd, seemed to appreciate the chance to escape the castle walls of stone and venture out on their own with their adored and wild-hearted little girl. It concerned neither of them that Emma was bold and adventurous, bucking the traditional prim and dainty image of feminine royalty; in fact, they might have treasured those traits in her even more for how they harkened to what each loved most in the other.

One such evening, however, Queen Snow had been kept well into the twilight hour in a council meeting over trade routes and revenue, along with Emma’s father, and even Red, her godmother. Waiting impatiently, Emma fretted that she wouldn’t get outdoors and down to the shore at all, as she sat in the wide, cozy window seat of her tower room, looking out over the waves crashing up on the sands. She took in the lights of ships in their harbor, the mist and waves, and she longed to be closer - to be part of it all. In fact, she was mischievously contemplating whether or not she could scale down the outer walls in her nightdress and robe, and get to her usual walking course alone without being detected, when the door to her room opened behind her.

Snow White entered in a pleasantly flushed bluster of activity. Charming followed her with an indulgent smile, happily sweeping his daughter up into his arms as she ran to him in an excited blonde blur. She might be nearly 10-years-old, but he could still swing her up in his arms and twirl her through the air and all around the room as easily as he did when she was but a babe. Giggling happily, Emma threw her arms around her Papa’s neck and revelled in the exuberant joy of his affection.

When he put her down again, she immediately hopped around him excitedly tugging on his hand. “Can we go out for our walk now, please? Down by the shore… can we? Can we, pleeease?”

The King shook his head with a rueful chuckle, having known this would be her request the moment they set foot in their daughter’s room. She was made for the out-of-doors, an enchanting sprite of waves and sky, and he found it nigh as impossible as ever to disappoint her if her wish was within his power. “You’ll have to ask your mother this time, Sweetheart. I have more meetings, stores to check for the winter, applicants for aid to hear, a few more hours of work this evening yet.”

Snow smiled at him over Emma’s tousled blond head, nodded her agreement to a short jaunt while there was still light, Emma squealed with glee and danced an excited little jig before scampering toward the door, pulling at her mother’s hand impatiently, determined to hurry her along, Queen or no.

“You and Granny had better have cocoa and biscuits waiting for us when we return, Charming,” the dark-haired monarch grumbled, appearing stern, but the playful spark in her eyes told her husband she wasn’t really that upset. He was assuring they had what was needed for charitable giving to those less fortunate throughout the kingdom once harvests were over for the season; it would take but a moment to let the head palace cook know his wife’s wishes before continuing with his tasks.

“Anything for you, Dear,” he playfully mock-bowed before happily accepting a sweet kiss on the cheek and following his wife and daughter from the room. He was off in one direction; Marco and Jiminy both waiting down the hall to help him judge numbers, ask questions, and take notes, while Emma and Snow went in the other, headed down the stairs to the first floor side entrance and quickest path to the shore Emma was so anxious to reach. Charming supposed that many might think it strange he was not more troubled by letting his beloved and his only child wander outside the grounds alone, but his Queen could more than take care of herself. And if he knew Snow’s trusted bodyguard at all, the Huntsman they had long ago freed from Snow’s stepmother’s control, he would not be far if they had need of him when David could not accompany them - whether he was in view or not.

~~***~~

They were hand in hand, Emma’s shoes in her mother’s grip, as she skipped with exuberant satisfaction at her side, toes squidging with the exquisite feel of the wet grains of sand as she did. It was all Emma had wanted all day, from the moment she’d gotten dressed and shared breakfast with her parents and godmother, informal as they had no visitors in the warm, cozy castle kitchens. Throughout her interminable etiquette lessons with the Blue Fairy, and studying with her tutors, she had wanted nothing more than to be carefree by the water like this, and she was beside herself with excitement to be there at last.

Ruffling her daughter’s hair, Snow let the worries and concerns of meetings, treaties, budgets, and protocols slide from her shoulders while the evening breeze caressed her face. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes for a moment and laughed into the wind right along with her precious child. Perhaps she had needed the escape just as much.

Then, with a sharp jerk, Emma’s smaller hand tugged from hers with a cry of surprise. “Mama, look there!” she called, her fingers slipping from her mother’s grasp as she began to pelt across the sand in alarm. “A boy! A boy just came out of the water! He’s hurt!”

Immediately, Snow White’s focus was sharp, snapping back into full awareness, scanning ahead of them to where she saw a dark, bedraggled shape, not much larger than Emma, lying on the lighter colored beach. Emma had run forward in such concern that she had already almost reached the small shape, and her mother quickly gathered up her skirts and jogged forward to catch her, not sure yet what to expect. “Emma! Wait! Be careful!” she warned, though she already knew the caution would fall on deaf ears. Emma was fearless for her own safety, and had a soft spot for any person or thing injured or in need; she wouldn’t be stopping if she thought she could help.

Nearing the indeed soaked, disheveled, and unconscious child, Emma had already fallen to her knees, trying to shake and urge the unknown person back to awareness. The queen’s concern for her daughter’s safety instantly melted into compassion for the waif who didn’t move, didn’t speak, and barely seemed to breathe. For a child of his seeming height, he was frighteningly thin, his clothing threadbare and torn, hair too long, nearly hiding his closed eyes as soaked to his skin as it was. The Queen’s maternal heart ached for him, wondering how he came to be in such a state, alone and washed up from the sea. Taking Emma’s hand to stop her jostling him, Queen Snow could only hope they weren’t too late to save this mere boy’s life. It was only just beginning.

She looked up, wondering how they could get him back to the castle and trying to gauge how far they had traveled from the gates. Just as she was vaguely considering whether or not she could call one of the birds she was able to use as messengers - a gift that had served her often throughout life - when a tall shadow materialized from the woods bordering the shore, before she even needed to call out. Her long time bodyguard, Graham, Snow realized with easy relief; she should have known he would not be far, and regardless of the necessity - or lack thereof - in this moment she was glad he was there. This child needed help, and they needed to get him to a physician as soon as possible.

The Huntsman scooped the still-motionless boy up easily and began to carry him back the way they had come. Snow and Emma hovered on either side in anxious worry. As soon as they got him home to safety, they would bring him around. They had to. They had to have found him for a reason.

~~***~~

Once the unknown boy had been carried back to the castle, his slight form hardly causing the Huntsman to strain himself, bundled down before the warm hearthfire of the kitchens, boneless still, but changed from his wet rags into a old castoff tunic of the King’s (long enough to be a nightshirt on the lanky youth) and covered in numerous blankets, it took little time for the youth to come back to himself.

Emma hovered anxiously next to the little stranger she had found, feeling oddly protective of “her boy” as she was already thinking of him in her head. She only paused in her agitated fidgeting to briefly take a cup of cocoa for herself and return the supportive hand squeeze offered her by their friend Red, Granny’s actual granddaughter and Emma’s frequent babysitter and playmate as well as her godmother.

Of course, Doc, the castle’s rather unofficial physician, had been sent for upon their return, but as the child before them began to stir of his own accord, Emma let herself hope that it would prove a mere precaution and their charge would be just fine. Heavy-lidded eyes blinked open slowly, as if still weary and reluctant to revive. When finally the thick, dark lashes parted to reveal rather stunning, unbelievably sea-blue eyes, Emma gasped at the shock that ran through her. Even as the boy’s widened in equal surprise and alarm, his eyes fixed on her gaze for several endless moments before darting around his surroundings, clearly unsure where he was or what had happened.

“Shh…. sh… hush now…” Emma felt her own tense muscles loosen as her mother’s voice calmly bathed the scene in gentle comfort. The Queen, soft and careful, and looking for all the world in that moment just like any other mother hoping to reassure her frightened child, stooped down to eye level with the boy they had propped up in a heaping nest of pillows and quilts by the fire. She reached out to softly brush his dark hair off his forehead, but froze when the boy flinched back like a startled animal. Instead, she only added in the same low, sweet croon. “You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you… It’s alright now.”

The youngster’s eyes continued to cast about him for several tense moments, but then he seemed to finally register the calm surrounding him and accept that he would be alright. The tentatively crooked smile he offered back to the Queen sparked a bit of hope in all who were gathered around him. And when a steaming cup of cocoa was pressed into his hands by Granny with a brusque but concerned admonishment to “drink up, it’ll warm your insides” before the cook bustled off again, he seemed to come back to himself even more at the scent which wafted up into his face of chocolate and their family’s customary hint of cinnamon.

Emma could practically see interest light up those expressive eyes, but the child hesitated rather than bringing the cup to his lips for a taste. Darting from Queen to Princess uncertainly, he seemed to be gauging whether or not it was truly acceptable for him to take a drink.

“Go ahead,” Emma urged, smiling in what she hoped was reassurance. She wasn’t known for her patience, and she couldn’t know that this youth had never experienced hot cocoa, nor many pleasant treats at all, in his young life. Hoping to encourage him, she lifted her own mug to drink and then smacked her lips at the delightful taste, making Ruby laugh and her mother shake her head at her dreadful table manners. The boy’s face, however, lit with a bit of humor and happiness that it had not yet held. “It’s good, I promise,” Emma added with a grin. “You’ll like it.”

Almost as if he could resist no longer, the boy tipped his cup and took a sip of the warm, rich beverage at last. Then, it seemed he discovered the powers of liquid chocolate that everyone else in the room well knew. His eyes widened in delight, and he tipped his head back to get every last drop as he quickly guzzled down the rest, making Emma giggle, and him startle guiltily as if he’d done something wrong.

“Don’t worry,” Emma assured, reaching out innocently to lay her hand on his, “You can have some more, right Mama?”

Queen Snow White’s eyes were a bit misty with unshed tears, having already met Granny’s gaze over Emma’s head and Ruby’s as well, the three women piecing together things Emma in her sheltered, loving world could not yet know about what this youngster must have gone through. His reactions and his guardedness spoke volumes, even in silence. Nodding simply, not sure at first that she could speak around the painful lump in her throat, Snow finally managed to agree, “Yes, for tonight at least, our new friend may have all the hot cocoa his heart desires.”

~~***~~

The boy’s name, it turned out, was Killian Jones. He did recall that much once he regained his bearings, as well as the fact that he had possessed a father, mother, and older brother in a happy little house before his mother had seemingly vanished from his young life, and they had sent sail on the boat he had been on before washing ashore. No matter how many questions they asked or how he tried to call more forth, he remembered little else of what happened to his mother or father. He knew he had been told she fell ill and died, but all he could bring forth in his mind’s eye was that one morning he had awakened and she had vanished from his life as if she never existed at all - just a pleasant dream. His elder brother Liam had been on the boat with him, and Killian had shed tears that broke all their hearts when he recalled the day his brother had been swept overboard and lost to him forever. But as to what had become of his father, and how he had been sentenced to the life of hard labor he had clearly endured afterward, there was nothing but a blank and questions.

As days and weeks, then months, and finally years went by, he remained with them at Misthaven castle. Though far from a young prince, Killian was raised as a member of the royal household, growing up side-by-side with Princess Emma. They appeared to be quite close in age, and joined by the fact that she had found him and seemed to take Killian on as her own, he and Emma were quite inseparable - the best of friends and as “thick as thieves” as Granny always lamented when they were underfoot or stealing berries meant for tarts and pies on the royal dinner table.

As they reached adolescence, the King and Queen began to wonder where Kilian would be happiest as he came of age. The young man they had come to adore almost as a son had several skills: he was invaluable in the stables, exuding a calming force over the horses and evincing a knack for their training and care; he was quite good as an extra hand in the kitchen when Granny was understaffed or had more visiting mouths than usual to feed (for all her tough talk the aging widow had a soft spot for the boy and would no doubt have mentored him as a cook). Killian was bright; genuine knowledge and curiosity made him a voracious reader and student, honestly gaining more from the princess’ many esteemed tutors than Emma ever had and enjoying the study much more. He would have been easy to train as a page or diplomat, but none of those options seemed quite right.

It was not until his fifteenth birthday that the way Killian hoped to take became clear. It might have seemed improbable to most, knowing that the sea had once nearly swallowed him whole and claimed his life, but to Emma who knew him better than anyone else, it made sense. Those restless, wandering waves held an appeal, a mystery and adventure, and perhaps even still some bit of himself that her friend needed to claim. He stated his intention to join her father’s Navy with a proud certainty. And Emma’s heart swelled with equal gratification, but also fear. The sea had given him to her, but it wanted to take him back again…

It had taken them all such a long time to show Killian that he was welcome there, truly a part of their loving extended family. At first, Killian had shrunk back - shoulders hunched, head bowed, breath coming quickly in frightened pants - any time he might accidentally drop and break a dish or he reached for a second roll at the table, making it clear was that he had been punished and berated, to the point that he cowered like a whipped dog whenever he feared he might have put even a toe out of line. Princess Emma knew that her parents suspected beatings and physical abuse; it was clear in the concerned way their eyes met in silent communication whenever Killian reacted with the intense fear and apology he often showed in his bearing; she sadly had to agree that they were quite probably correct. She shuddered to think of how he might still be suffering under some cruel captain’s mistreatment, miserable, stranded and helpless to change his situation if it had not been for the shipwreck which brought him to Misthaven instead. There had been no question for any of them that he must stay, when they had learned of his indenture and how he had been orphaned and abandoned. She couldn’t have been more glad that all in the castle were in agreement; Emma had already decided that “her boy” needed to stay there with them, where he was safe and she could be sure he was happy and free. Neither of them were small children anymore, but Emma’s care and affection for him had never changed.

For so long before Killian’s arrival, she had been the only child in a palace of grown-ups: rulers, dignitaries, staff - a whole caravan of people who doted and adored, but very few who could be peers, to play with, talk to, and simply understand her. As the days had flowed into one another, turning into months and years until most people could hardly remember when she and Killian were not linked, they were practically siblings in every way that mattered. The princess knew that she didn’t intend to live - not could she imagine - her life without him ever again.

And then, seemingly in the mere blink of an eye, they were fifteen and moving from playing tag amongst the grape arbors and lilac bushes in her mother’s gardens and slipping out of the interminable poise and etiquette lessons which Emma detested yet was never allowed to miss, to the stage where Killian was serving as her partner while she learned the waltz and other ballroom dances she would need to master for formal balls and ceremonies. Not only that, but as they edged into adolescence, Emma’s heart thumped against her chest differently than it used to as Killian led her gracefully through the steps. Even as her heart seemed ready to ricochet from her body, the warmth of Killian’s skin where they touched and the utter safety she felt in his hold half intoxicated her. As awareness spun her head round, uncertain what to do with it or how to proceed with these strange new feelings suddenly flooding her, all Emma could be certain of was the pang of loss she felt at knowing that Killian’s desire was to soon join her father’s naval fleet. At fifteen, he was at last of age to sail as a cabin boy and begin to work his way up in a ship’s ranks. Though she knew that had long been her friend’s desired course, Emma’s heart still ached to see him go.

However, her parents could not deny him the chance to seek such a worthy ambition. Indeed, they were proud of Killian, happy to help him secure a place on one of their finest vessels and make certain he knew their confidence in him and their faith that he would succeed. All too soon, after years with him at her side, it was the day Emma’s confidant and companion was set to sail on his first voyage. Though she knew in her head that the kingdom was in a time of peace and that it was a mere routine mission, her heart could not ignore the fact that sea travel always came with risk. Not only that, but she would miss Killian terribly.

Still, goodbyes had been said, all was made ready, and she was left on the dock, waving goodbye as the best friend she had ever known met her eyes and waved back. His pretty blue eyes, that had long since begun to speak to her as ardently as his actual words, expressed a potent blend of pained anxiety at leaving his adopted family and the life he had known and excitement for the adventure ahead on the waves that stirred his blood. She stood there long after the rest of the crowd seeing him off had dispersed and gone back to the castle, watching as the naval ship bearing “her boy” (as she sometimes still in the deepest and most secret depths of her heart thought of him) became a small dot on the horizon before fading from view entirely.

And only then had the journey truly begun...

Part One

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @searchingwardrobes @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi

@jrob64 @apiratewhopines @grimmswan @ultraluckycatnd @caught-in-the-filter

@stahlop @ineffablecolors @let-it-raines @tiganasummertree @optomisticgirl

@spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @shireness-says @snidgetsafan @mayquita

@thislassishooked @drowned-dreamer @kday426 @lfh1226-linda @winterbaby89

@darkcolinodonorgasm @hollyethecurious @resident-of-storybrooke @teamhook @revanmeetra87

@the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @elizabeethan @gingerpolyglot @gingerchangeling

@xsajx @bluewildcatfanatic @anmylica @booksteaandtoomuchtv @xarandomdreamx

@jonesfandomfanatic @motherkatereloyshipper @myfearless-love @belovedcreation @goforlaunchcee

#self promo sunday #cssns fi rerun #cs ff #lieutenant duckling au ff #Enchanted Forest Au ff #with a supernatural twist #a cottage by the sea

27 notes · View notes

myfearless-love · 1 month

Text

Too Well Tangled (Chapter 12/21 - "From Brawls to Blueballs")

Chapters: 12/21 — "From Brawls to Blueballs"

Rating: Mature

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Relationship: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan

Characters: Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Emma Swan, Prince Charming | David Nolan, Arthur (Once Upon a Time), Knave of Hearts | Will Scarlet, Robin Hood (Once Upon a Time), Mad Hatter | Jefferson

Additional Tags: Captain Swan - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Regency, Enemies to Lovers, Angst and Fluff and Smut, BAMF Emma Swan, Angst and Romance, Banter

Summary: Determined and tough-minded Emma Nolan is on a singular mission: to rescue her dim-witted brother from the clutches of Killian Jones, the infamously rakish Marquess of Hookstone. Little did she anticipate her own burgeoning desire for the audacious, unscrupulous scoundrel she intended to despise. Killian Jones, the enigmatic Marquess of Hookstone, has more than earned his sinister sobriquet, the "Prince of Darkness." His past, a stormy mosaic of rejection and rebellion, has forged a man both feared and revered. Yet, the indomitable Miss Nolan proves an unexpectedly formidable opponent for his infamous charm. But when Killian's reciprocated passion lands them in a scandalously compromising, and very public, predicament, Emma is left with no recourse but to demand satisfaction...

Previous chapters: ch. 1 II ch. 2 II ch. 3 II ch. 4 II ch. 5 II ch. 6 II ch. 7 II ch. 8 II ch. 9 II ch. 10 II ch. 11

READ HERE: AO3

Preview:

HUGE thank you to my amazing beta @xarandomdreamx for always catching my mistakes and leaving me smiling with her comments!!❤️

Tagging some folks who might be interested:

@anmylica @elfiola @zaharadessert @gingerchangeling @undercaffinatednightmare

@jrob64 @teamhook @kmomof4 @jonesfandomfanatic @mie779

@winterbaby89 @tiganasummertree @stahlop @rylieblu @ultraluckycatnd

@eddisfargo @booksteaandtoomuchtv @laianely @hollyethecurious @resident-of-storybrooke

@beckettj @whimsicallyenchantedrose @captainswan-kellie @veryverynotgoodwrites @lfh1226-linda

@snowbellewells @caught-in-the-filter @shady-swan-jones @bluewildcatfanatic

(Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the list)

#cs #captain swan #cs ff #killian jones #emma swan #captain hook #once upon a time #emma x killian #ouat #ouat ff #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #cs fanfic #enemies to lovers #regency au #niki writes #TWT

24 notes · View notes

deckerstarblanche · 22 days

Text

CSSNS 2024 Entry!!!!!

Hello, friends! After a year and some change, I’m finally back with the conclusion to “An Offer She Can’t Refuse.”

I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 3

As soon as he cracked his eyes open the next morning, Killian knew she was gone. With a frustrated groan, he glared up at the stucco ceiling and flipped over onto his stomach, pressing his face into her pillow and feeling like a fool.

Really, he should have expected this from the beginning. Knowing Emma, her heat had probably finished sometime in the early hours that morning, she took a look at where she was, and who she was with, and bolted.

It’s not like she would go to me as a first choice, he thought to himself. And so Killian closed his eyes, allowing him to feel the hurt and the anguish and the pain, until he stuffed them back down into the part of his brain, where he’d stored all of his worst thoughts about himself for so many years.

And it did hurt, a lot. He knew, deep in his gut, that they were supposed to be together. Her shell of self-protection might be too tough to crack, though. For him, Emma Swan – her laugh, the intoxicating sweet scent that he would be able to pick out blindfolded – would always be his ideal. Now that he had had the chance to actually be with her physically, Killian felt like he’d been granted access to heaven for three glorious days. How could any other woman compare?

Pathetically, he hoped that one day they could still be friends.

When he finally set foot back inside the dorms, the clean, familiarly blank scent in the air confirmed that the filtration system was running smoothly. It was almost as if the past three days had been neutralized as well, leaving only a possibly ruined friendship in its wake.

“Jones? Where the hell have you been?” David asked, concerned etched on his face as Killian entered their room, aggressively tossing his backpack onto his bed.

He narrowed his eyes at David’s suspicious tone, hackles raised. The other man clearly knew something, probably from Emma herself.

“Did you not get the update from your girlfriend?” Killian sneered, unable to resist recklessly channeling all of his pain and anger toward his roommate. “After she got what she wanted, Emma chewed me up and spat me out! Well, I don’t want to talk about it, and I’ll know that you're lying if you tell me otherwise…”

David’s surprise quickly morphed into hostility, and he rose from his computer desk. “What exactly are you accusing me of? Are you gonna cry because a woman finally rejected you? That’s why you don’t fuck around with your friends!” he roared back, forcefully pushing Killian in the chest.

“She needed it– she begged for it, Dave. What kind of a self-respecting Alpha would I be if I said no? It doesn’t matter if it’s your best friend or a complete stranger, right? You’ve got some experience with that yourself, don’t you, eh?” he said crudely, shoving David back as soon as he regained his footing.

“What the hell does that mean? If you want me to kick your ass, say one more thing about Mary Margaret…” David replied in a growl, putting his fists up.

Killian laughed, ready to hit something, preferably David’s face. “Listen, I’m done with every Omega at this school, especially Emma Swan. I’m not the simpering asshole she seems to think I am, and she can come apologize to me if she wants to go back to being ‘just friends.’” he sneered, building a wall of his own ego around his fragile heart.

David put his fists down, hands angrily balled at his sides.

“Fuck you, Jones. If you don’t have enough sense to fight for Emma, then you don’t deserve her!” David thundered, hurling the door open and slamming it shut behind him so hard that the wood nearly cracked off the hinges.

———-

About an hour later, after he had cooled down from his argument with David, Killian heard a hesitant knock on the door. Hoping it was Emma, but unsure, he got up to open it. There she was, standing awkwardly in front of him, shoving her hands in and out of her pockets.

“Killian, I came by to apologize. My leaving wasn’t your fault. I was a coward, so I’ll understand if—” Emma began, but he cut her off, shaking his head.

“No, you don’t get to do that— slink off like everything has been said. I was hurt that you’d left without a trace, and I let that morph into anger. A man’s ego is a fragile thing, Swan…but I want to be a better person than that,” he told her, his blue eyes locked on hers with a penetrating gaze.

Taking a deep breath, he continued.

“Emma. The truth is, I care deeply for you. I have since the first day we met, so when you said that friendship was all you desired, I made my peace with that. But after what we shared last week, I knew that watching from the sidelines would never be enough.”

Killian looked away as soon as Emma did, color rushing to his cheeks. He readied himself for rejection: that speech, no matter how inauthentic it would sound about another woman, would definitely have anyone else melting in my arms, he thought to himself, barely suppressing a chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” he heard a small voice say, and he looked back at Emma, whose eyes were glittering with what looked like tears.

“Nothing, love. I’ve said my piece, and now I’ll give you your space. Hold on, why are you crying?” he asked her cautiously, furrowing his brow.

“I’m not crying, you idiot, I’m just emotional over what you said– there’s a difference!” Emma replied with a watery chuckle, raking her fingers through her hair.

Killian decided to throw caution to the wind.

“And what was it that I said? I want to know so that I can say it again,” he told her, summoning up his most rakish grin.

Emma rolled her eyes, but he knew from the way she blushed that things would be ok for them— maybe even better than ok. She hadn’t spurned him, and she hadn’t stormed out.

“Killian, I care about you too. I cared so much after our…um, time together last week that I freaked out. Big emotions are tough for me, you know that,” Emma admitted, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets.

“I do know that, Swan. I think that’s why we’ve worked so well as friends— we’re both godawful at expressing our feelings,” he began, drawing a few steps closer to her. Emma looked at him with wide eyes, like a deer in the headlights, but he wasn’t going to be put off by that anymore.

“Emma, I’m going to tell you something that I’ve never shared with anyone else before,” he murmured, close enough now that he could tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. She was so attuned to him that she gasped at the innocent contact, making him smile.

“Being with you was the most intimate I’ve ever been, with anybody. I don’t want to go back to the way things were before, and I don’t want anyone else in my bed but you.”

Terrifyingly, Emma was silent, her gaze dropping away from his and going to the floor. Killian felt like his heart was pounding loud enough for her to hear, and that humiliation was imminent.

“Emma, I’m—” he began, but she looked back up, a huge smile lighting up her face. She flung herself forward into his arms, pressing her lips to his, kissing him with what felt like years of pent-up emotion. Then, she pulled away, almost reluctantly.

“I don’t wanna talk. I mean, I know we have a lot to say to each other, but not right now. Just kiss me, ok?” she said breathlessly, tearing off her jacket. Killian barely had time to agree before she nearly jumped into his arms, the force of her excitement knocking them over onto his bed. Clothes were shed quickly, and soon enough he was hovering over her, admiring her golden hair as it spilled out over his pillow.

After one more searing kiss, he rose up, sitting back on his heels as he stroked his hands down her thighs. Emma shivered violently under his touch, as a rush of slick coated her inner thighs from the fairly innocent gesture.

“Oh Killian, please do that again,” Emma sighed, opening her knees wider. Surprised, he let his hands glide from the tops of her thighs all the way down to her knees, watching rapturously as she thrashed beneath him. Every attempt she made to raise her pelvis, to seek him out, was caught by Killian’s firm but gentle grip as he grounded her to the mattress.

“Do you think you could come just from this, love?” he asked, breathing harshly, as it was taking every ounce of his self control not to sheath himself inside her pulsing cunt.

“I…I’m not sure,” she admitted, opening her eyes as she reached up, grabbing the hair on the back of his head to smash her lips against his.

Emma’s kiss was electric and confident, and it made him thank whatever higher power existed in the universe that she’d given him another chance. When she finally tore her lips away, he felt dizzy with anticipation.

“Fuck me, Alpha,” she commanded, grabbing the nearest pillow and shoving it under her ass. Killian’s eyes lit up with amusement at her take-charge attitude, but he was soon distracted by a small warm hand shooting out to stroke his rock-hard length.

“As you wish, Emma, always,” he purred, and without another thought, he plunged in, savoring the feeling of being inside of her again.

They matched each other stroke for stroke, and as the room filled with the sounds of their frantic coupling, Killian realized that it was her first time fucking him with a clear head. She was choosing him, and not out of any desperation.

He was determined to make it last as long as possible, so after a few more thrusts, he rolled them so that Emma was on top, her long hair surrounding them like a curtain. She yelped in surprise, but quickly gained control, setting her own rhythm as she clutched at his chest.

“I seem to remember liking this view of you in particular,” he teased, reaching up to gather her hair with one hand while kissing up the long column of her neck.

“Is that so?” Emma asked breathlessly, moaning as he hit a spot deep inside of her, pinpointing it so he could press up into her as many times as he could. “Fuck, yes… keep going right there, please!”

From the way her inner muscles fluttered against him, he could tell that it wouldn’t be too much longer before she came, so he kept his pace brisk, giving her exactly what she needed. Moments later, Emma exploded, shouting his name as she clamped down like a vise, spasming multiple times. He’d felt it during her heat too, but never with anyone else.

“So fucking tight you are, Emma…so gorgeous when you come,” he praised, murmuring in her ear as she came back to herself, dazed and sated.

“You’re the gorgeous one,” she mumbled, “all of the girls on my floor talk about you like a sex god.”

“And what, pray tell, would you tell them after all of this time we’ve spent together?” Killian asked her playfully, nudging his erection against her inner thigh.

“Hmm…well, I’d definitely mention your impressive stamina,” she quipped, pumping her hand up and down his shaft.

“And then I’d tell them that they’d never find out for themselves because you’re MY Alpha,”

The sound of those words coming out of her mouth set Killian’s libido on fire. Quicker than lightning, he flipped her over on the mattress.

“If I’m your Alpha, that makes you my Omega, does it not?” Killian thundered, using a tone that their kind referred to as uniquely Alpha. While it may have been used in the past to force Omegas to submit, contemporary couples used it to spice up bedroom play.

“Yes!” she squeaked with delight, lifting herself up to hands and knees.

“Then present for your Alpha,” he ordered, slapping her on the ass. Immediately, she knelt, pressing her chest down as she sank further back onto her heels.

“Is this what you wanted, Alpha?” she asked sweetly, playing along with the game, which was about mutual consent rather than domination.

“Bloody perfect,” he growled, easing himself into her channel inch by inch, trying to prolong the moment they gave themselves to each other.

They were both so keyed up, emotionally and physically, from the events of the day that Emma cried out almost immediately, unable to stave off a powerful orgasm. Killian held on, pumping into her with determination to satisfy her as much as he could.

“I want your knot, and if you’re really an Alpha, you’ll give it to me,” Emma faux-jeered from below, all a part of the game.

“Are you sure you can handle it?” Killian bit out, watching as drops of his sweat beaded on her back.

“You fucking know it!” she shouted, clenching down on him as encouragement. It was an almost primal moment, the two of them acting on instinct instead of emotions; and moments later, he was coming, locking their bodies together as streams of cum filled her womb.

It took awhile for them both to come back to Earth, floating in a haze of post-orgasmic bliss. Killian felt her sigh contentedly, burrowing a bit closer as he covered them in his downy comforter.

“I’m so glad it’s you, Killian,” Emma told him sleepily, looking back so she could kiss him one last time. He smiled into her neck, gathering her into his arms with a feeling of completeness and affection.

“I couldn’t agree more, love.”

#cssns24 #cs ff #captain swan #ouatedit #captainswanfic #omegaverse #college #captain swan smut

19 notes · View notes

hollyethecurious · 1 month

Text

CS AU: Once Upon A Grimm (1/?)

Summary: The world was far more complex than most people realized. Humans went about their lives, completely ignorant of the fact that there was a world of fairytales existing right alongside them. Well, not really fairytales. Not in the Disney sense, anyway. Many, like the Grimm brothers, had woven the truth into their stories, but the creatures they wrote about were even more nightmarish than their macabre and monstrous depictions. Creatures known as wesen. Supernatural, other-worldly beings who have always lived among humans and have always been hunted by those who had come to be known as Grimms. A struggle of secrecy, balance, and power among these species has existed since the beginning of time. This is a story of a man with his own struggle. The internal struggle of being a human, a wesen, and a Grimm, and the external forces that seek to eradicate one or all of his natures, especially those he tries to keep hidden. Fortunately, Killian Jones is not alone in his struggles nor his secrets. His personal savior, Emma Swan, has secrets and struggles of her own.

A/N: This fic is inspired by and will borrow from the NBC show Grimm. I confess I did not watch Grimm when it first aired, but absolutely fell in love with the show during a binge fest years later. If you have not seen the show, no worries! My beta - who has not seen the show either - assures me that it is not necessary. If you have seen the show, then I hope you’ll forgive the huge creative license I am taking with the material. This is not a strict Grimm retelling with Once characters. This is my own spin on the lore and cannon of both shows.

I had hoped to be further along in writing this before my posting date, but alas… ‘tis not the case. This is turning out to be a much bigger beast than I intended and will likely be one of the longer fics I have written to date. That said, I do want to attempt to keep to some sort of schedule, so for now, I will be posting every two weeks in the hopes that I can bank more chapters and eventually update more frequently.

I cannot express how much I have enjoyed being a part of the @cssns all these years. Thank you to the mods who have kept it going year after year. We've had a terrific run! Huge shout out to @kmomof4 for always being my cheerleader and for her exceptional beta skills. A HUGE thank you and many fangirl squeals to my artist @eastwesthomeisbest for the amazing job she did on the cover art that accompanies this fic. Please go show her some love!

FYI: Because the show took cues from the Grimm brothers’ works, much of the vocabulary associated with the supernatural creatures was based on German or German coded language. For words like wesen and woge (which will be explained in the text) the w is pronounced with a v sound on the show. I’ll be using terminology from the show and more common creature names interchangeably within the fic.

Rated E (eventually) / Also available on ao3 and ff.net / buy me a coffee / add to tag list / Curious? Come Ask Me!

Prologue:

The world was far more complex than most people realized. Humans went about their lives, completely ignorant of the fact that there was a world of fairytales existing right alongside them. Well, not really fairytales. Not in the Disney sense, anyway. The Grimm brothers had woven the truth into their stories, but the creatures they wrote about were even more nightmarish than their macabre and monstrous depictions.

Wesen. That’s what one of the Grimm brothers had called them in their other writings; in the journals and manuscripts they’d kept, cataloging these beings who walked among humans, yet were anything but.

Though Jacob Grimm had not been the first of his kind - those who were capable of seeing these creatures, these wesen, for what they truly were - for whatever reason, the men and women who possessed this same ability, this same birthright, would primarily become known as Grimms throughout the wesen world.

Perhaps it was because of how meticulously the elder Grimm brother had kept records, or how he had been the first to re-establish connections and relationships with others of his kind for the first time in many centuries, allowing the exchange of knowledge and organizing a more methodical way of dealing with the creatures their forefathers believed must be eradicated.

Though no one knew how or why, at some point, long before the brothers penned their first novel - no doubt inspired by the eldest brother’s encounters and retold as folklore by the younger - those who now called themselves Grimms had taken up the responsibility to protect humans from wesen, slaughtering entire bloodlines of these creatures without hesitation or remorse.

Never considering that they themselves weren’t exactly human either.

For just as wesen were born unto wesen, Grimms were born into Grimm families. The ability to see the truth, literally, passed through the family bloodlines, but there was only ever one Grimm in a family at a time. Possessing special abilities, Grimms had superior strength and stamina, as well as an ability to heal faster from injury. They were quick studies in the use of weaponry and had a natural talent for art and story-telling, which was a necessary trait given that they were compelled to chronicle all of their wesen encounters.

However, the most important gift was their ability to see a wesen woge when others could not.

A woge was when a creature would change from their human to wesen form, revealing their true, animalistic or nightmarish self. Although humans were capable of seeing a creature for what they truly were should it woge fully, most woges were a half measure, a demi-woge as some called it, only perceptible to other wesen - because they possessed wesen sight - and Grimms who could use this trait to identify their next target. However, it was also during a wesen’s woge, demi or full, that they could, in turn, identify a Grimm as well.

While Grimms only existed through birthright - a new one obtaining his or her powers when the previous Grimm in their family line died - not all creatures were born wesen. Some were made. Which, in the Grimms’ eyes, was one of the reasons they were so dangerous. Although gemacht - created - wesen were typically outcasts, and not favorably looked upon within wesen culture, the fact that some creatures had the ability to curse humans with a bastardization of their form, giving them the worst of their traits, was more than enough reason to eradicate their kind.

Some Grimms wondered whether wesen created these halflings as a way to throw suspicion off themselves, leaving Grimms to deal with these feral, newly turned and disoriented wesen while the pure-blooded wesen made their escape. Perhaps they were created for these types of distraction or even as a way for wesens to draw the attention of Grimms towards rival groups, using the hunters to dispatch their enemies for them. Whatever the reason, gemacht wesen were typically hunted by Grimms and wesen alike, considered by both sides to be an abomination, therefore, little was known about them, but there were some records within the logs kept in Grimm families, if one cared to look.

Killian Jones, however, had no interest in looking, or knowing, or learning, or indeed, having anything to do with his family’s Grimm legacy.

He and his brother, Liam, had been raised with the knowledge of their mother’s family’s ancestry. She had been the Grimm for her family line, until her death when Liam was sixteen and Killian twelve. A car accident that had claimed both of their parents' lives, and had altered Liam’s. Violently.

Upon Alice’s death, Liam had acquired the powers and abilities of the Grimm, but not the discipline or the skills to hone them. Fate, being the fickle, wretched bitch that she was, had placed the Jones brothers into a foster family of klaustreich, an alley-cat type creature that was prone to aggression and cruelty, as well as jealousy and a sense of possessiveness towards anything or anyone they felt a proprietary pull towards. Not typically known for their altruism, they likely only fostered children for the paycheck and as the Jones boys could attest, often mistreated and abused their charges.

The boys might well have been able to endure if the klaustreich son had not, in an attempt to intimidate and scare Killian into submission, woged with Liam in the room. Once the family had identified Liam as a Grimm, all hell had broken loose.

Fortunately, as most Grimms did, Alice Jones had made preparations in the event of her and her husband’s death, leaving the care of her sons and the knowledge of her bloodline in the hands of a fellow Grimm, Nemo. A longtime friend of the family, Nemo had, unfortunately, been overseas when he’d heard the news of Alice and Brennan’s demise. Having just arrived in town with the intention of taking custody of the boys, he showed up to the house with the authorities on the very same day the cat had been let out of the bag, so to speak.

Battered and bruised, but none too worse for wear, the Jones boys - who had fought off the feral, feline family and barricaded themselves in one of the rooms - were removed from the home, and into Nemo’s care. The clowder of klaustreichs was arrested by the police, who thought they had stumbled upon yet another sad, but all too common case of child abuse and neglect within the foster system.

That tussle with Liam was not the last time the klaustreichs met a Grimm in battle. However, the next one did not end as favorably for them. Nemo made certain of that.

Shouldering the responsibility left to him, Nemo moved the boys to Maine for a fresh start. By all outward appearances they lived a normal life, but nothing could have been further from the truth, although Killian certainly was allowed more normalcy than his brother.

After school, the boys had to endure hours of instruction, learning the various types of wesen and the most effective ways of killing each of them. Decapitation seemed to be the most popular choice among their Grimm ancestors, earning them the secondary moniker of dēcapitāre, as noted in the journals they kept in the basement of their Nantucket style house. That was until a break in had made Nemo overly cautious, causing him to acquire a second property - an old, abandoned, paint factory warehouse - where he’d fashioned an off the grid, bunker-style safe house on the harbour. He moved all of the Grimm artifacts, manuscripts, weapons, and supplies there, while keeping he, Liam, and Killian in the family home for appearances.

As the years passed and the boys grew older, Nemo and Liam spent less and less time at home. Often they crashed at the safehouse after a late night of sparing or studying, or they would be gone for days at a time… hunting. Though he missed his brother, Killian had reconciled the fact that he’d effectively lost him the day of their parent’s accident. Nothing had been the same between them since Liam had become a Grimm, but that did not mean they did not still care for and love one another. They just weren’t as close as they had once been, and they likely never would be.

After Killian had graduated high school and went off to college, the three men had effectively gone their separate ways. Nemo had fulfilled his promise and duty to Alice, and Liam had his own path as a Grimm to forge. During undergrad, Killian got a chance to embrace a true sense of normalcy for the first time in his life. Campus life, girls, classes, girls, parties, girls; he relished it all and even found his calling during one of the university's many job fairs and recruitment events. With his degree in criminology completed, he enlisted in the police academy and quickly worked his way through the ranks of the Storybrooke Police Department, located in the very town Nemo had moved them to all those years ago.

Though the Nantucket style house had long been sold, Nemo had transferred the deed of the safehouse to Liam and Killian, using false names and a dummy corporation in order to hide the identity of its true owners. While Killian wanted nothing to do with his family’s legacy, and had gone to great pains to try and forget the horrors he had learned about as an adolescent, he had relented when Liam begged him to take up residence at the safehouse for his own protection.

“Please, little brother,” Liam pleaded over the phone, the sketchy connection muffling Killian’s petulant response of ‘younger’ before he continued, “I know you want to distance yourself from me and our heritage, but if the wrong sort of wesen found out you were related to a Grimm, then--”

“Aye, I know,” Killian said with an exasperated sigh. “Having a Grimm brother puts a target on my back. I’m not a fool, Liam.”

“Then you’ll live at the safehouse?” Liam pressed. “And you won’t ever tell anyone or bring anyone there? You swear?”

“I swear.”

He’d been good to his word. Though he rented a modest studio apartment in the city so that he might have a physical address to keep on file with his work and avoid questions, his real residence for the past several years had been the loft in the safehouse, one level up from the bunker that still held remnants and reminders of who his family truly was, books and artifacts Liam had left behind when he’d filled a trailer and left Storybrooke for bloodier horizons. Books and artifacts Killian was determined to ignore, even if part of the agreement in him staying there was that he’d watch over things and keep them protected.

Perhaps, if he’d ever taken the time to look through those manuscripts when he’d dusted and oiled their bindings and covers, he would have realized the danger he’d fall victim to before it was too late.

~/~

“Are you sure this is even a homicide?” Killian asked the detectives who were about to leave the gruesome scene. He was still just a uniformed officer, but his application to take the detectives exam had been accepted and he was eager to work crime scenes through a detective's eye. “Looks more like an animal attack.”

“DNA will tell us for sure,” one of them said while scribbling down something in his notebook. “Make sure the scene stays secure while CSU finishes their work.” Shooting him an apologetic look, he added, “I’m afraid it’s gonna be a long night.”

“Will do, detective,” Killian replied, lifting the crime tape for them, so they could pass under it and make their way back to their vehicle. Their heated vehicle with comfortable seats and snacks likely stashed away in the glove compartment.

Killian sighed and turned his attention back to the grisly site where a hiker had been found mauled and torn to pieces, with no clue as to what could have done such a thing except, strangely enough, a lone, fresh, boot print that had not belonged to the victim. He had asked whether this was truly a case of homicide because that was the question other officers and even some of the techs had been asking, but in reality Killian had his own suspicions. Suspicions that might have him calling his brother later should the case be deemed an animal attack, knowing full well it had not been an animal who had caused such carnage. He may not remember much from the lessons Nemo had tried to teach him alongside Liam, but he knew enough to suspect that this attack had been committed by a wesen. And a brutal one at that.

Killian’s pocket buzzed and he reached in to retrieve his cell phone, groaning silently at who was on the other end of the line.

“What is it, Will?” he answered. “I don’t have time for whatever it is you’re calling about. I’m trying to secure a crime scene.”

“Aw, come on, Jones. Not you, too. It’s Friday night, the moon is full, you ought to be out on the town and livin’ it up!”

Killian tried to stifle a half smile, then asked, “What do you mean, not you, too?”

“Rob’s gotten roped into extra duty tonight as well,” his mate informed him. “Something about a missing girl over in Glowerhaven.”

Glowerhaven, like Storybrooke, was a suburb of the larger city Killian’s precinct had partial jurisdiction in. Robin, Will, and Killian had all met at the police academy and despite Will washing out several months in and Rob being assigned to a different precinct, they’d all remained close over the years. Will now ran a bar at the epicenter of the intersecting lines of the city, Glowerhaven, and Storybrooke, and often tried to make it a hub for his mates and their uniformed colleagues.

Unfortunately, it sounded as though the SPD and the GPD would be too busy with their respective cases to live it up anywhere, much less at Will’s bar.

“Sorry, mate,” Killian commiserated. “Afraid I’ve got a long night ahead of me as well. Rain check?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Will replied in a feigned disgruntled tone. “I’ve heard that before. I’ll add it to your growing tab of IOUs.”

“I promise I’m good for it.”

“Yeah, sure.” A more serious sigh crackled over the line before Will added, “Take care and watch your back out there, mate. The world is full of crazies.”

“Will do,” Killian promised, ending the call then muttering to himself, “Don’t I know it.”

For the next several hours Killian vigilantly patrolled the perimeter of the crime scene while the techs gathered evidence. It was just after midnight when the CSU officer in charge told him they were finished.

“Do you need me to have one of my guys stay to help you finish clearing the scene?”

“No,” Killian replied, waving them off. “You lot still have hours of work ahead of you.” With his thumb in his belt and his hip cocked to one side, Killian jutted his chin towards the scene and said, “It’s only a bit of tape and one final patrol. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” the tech said, already motioning for their people to pack up their things and head out.

Killian watched the vans depart and began tearing down the police tape they’d used to cordon off the area. The techs had left behind one of their flood lights for him to use while finishing his own tasks, but after he stowed it away in his cruiser he realized how unnecessary that had been. The moon was bright enough for him to do a final patrol with the assistance of his flashlight to illuminate the hidden areas within the trees’ shadows.

He’d just finished a sweep of the perimeter when the skin at the back of his neck prickled and his hair began to stand on end. The area, which moments ago had been softly soundtracked by an ambiance of crickets and distant hoots of owls, had gone quiet.

Too quiet.

Reaching down to his holster, he flicked loose the restraining strap with his thumb before palming his side arm. “Who’s there?” Killian called out as more prickles of unease crept over his skin and up his spine. “Storybrooke PD! Identify yourself!”

Movement flickered in his periphery and the quick succession of snapping twigs alerted him to someone fleeing the scene.

“Halt!” he yelled out while in hot pursuit with his gun drawn. “Storybrooke PD, I demand you stop and identify yourself!”

Barely able to keep pace, Killian chased after the suspect. His attempt to call in the incident over the radio on his shoulder had been met with static as he was clearly too far out of range. Not wishing to lose the perp, he did not want to risk digging his phone from his pocket, lest it slow him down. The pursuit lasted for an agonizing length of time, drawing Killian deeper and deeper into the woods, his legs burning and his lungs screaming from the extreme exertion.

He finally stopped after bursting into a clearing, biting back curses under his heaving breaths for having lost sight of the suspect. Holstering his weapon, he doubled over with his hands on his knees in an attempt to catch his breath. A painful stitch began to form at his side and sweat from his forehead threatened to blur his vision.

The snap of a branch was the only warning he had before something solid collided with him, knocking him to the ground. Inhuman snarls and the gnashing of teeth curdled Killian’s blood even before he caught sight of the monstrous wesen he was currently trying to fight off with all his might.

Blutbad. The Big, Bad Wolf. In full woge and ready to tear Killian’s throat out.

With his left forearm braced against the beast’s neck in an attempt to keep its canines from getting any closer, Killian reached down to try and retrieve his gun. Searing pain ripped through his arm. The blutbad had chosen to sink its teeth into the nearest bit of flesh he could get to, and Killian screamed as the bite turned to tearing. A shot went off, startling the creature and forcing him to release his prey, and it took Killian a moment to realize he had fired the weapon while in the throes of agony. Nearly blinded by the pain, Killian sat up and took aim at the fleeing blutbad, but could not manage to get another shot off before it disappeared into the trees. Shakily, he got to his feet, a howl in the distance making his blood run cold and causing his entire body to shake.

He had to get out of the woods. He had to call for back-up. He had to…

Stumbling, he headed back towards his cruiser. At least… he thought he was heading that direction. Brambles and branches scraped against his face and caught on his uniform while everything around him turned hazy. Off to his left he could see the flicker of a campfire. No. That wasn’t right. There were no campsites in this part of the forest, only hiking trails with strict policies regarding nighttime use. He headed towards the flames anyway and had to shield his eyes when he got closer, the light practically blinding him.

“Is anyone… is anyone there?” he called out, weakly, even as his other senses were being assaulted. He could smell a pungent mix of ingredients but had not the knowledge to identify them. There had been a grating sound of stone scrapping stone that had stopped when he’d entered the site, and it had been followed by a gasp that he was certain had meant to be soft and nearly silent, yet it had rang clearly in his ears.

Unable to hold himself up, Killian collapsed to the ground, his entire body shaking violently and causing his teeth to chatter together. Footfalls pounded against the ground like a drumline and he managed to pry his eyes open in time to see a woman rushing to his side.

“H-Help,” he pleaded. His arm was still on fire from the pain while his body was wracked by chills. When the women bent over him, he was certain he was starting to become delirious as well. What other explanation could there be for an angel to appear to him?

“What happened?” she asked, looking him over. “Were you--”

“Attacked,” he choked out, lifting his arm so she could see his wound.

Peeling back the torn remains of his uniform, she examined the bite mark and her face grew pale and pensive.

“Oh, no,” she murmured.

Quickly, she stood and rushed back to where she’d come from. Killian tilted his head backward to try and keep his eyes on her, not wanting to let her out of his sight for several reasons. The scraping sound returned as she began to grind something with her mortar and pestle and though he could not decipher the words, he could hear them slip from her lips in a chant. Blackness began to creep from the corners of his vision, but not before he saw an unnatural shimmer erupt from beneath her skin. The last coherent thought he had before slipping into oblivion was that she must be an angel, because witches did not possess such beauty when they woged.

Quite the opposite really.

~/~

His body was stiff, his clothes soaked through from sweat, causing him to shiver. Attempting to pry his eyes open he coughed past the cottony feel lining his mouth and throat, then groaned when he began to shift positions.

“Don’t sit up too fast,” a soft, feminine voice warned him.

A hand pressed against his chest and the padding of whatever he was laying on dipped. Blinking, he tried to focus his vision, but had to clamp his eyes shut again when the soft lighting of the room blinded him.

“Bloody hell, that’s bright!”

“Oh, right!” the woman said. He could feel the bedding move as she did, and the room dimmed behind his eyelids. “There,” she said a bit further away now. “That should be better.”

Forcing his eyes open, he winced in anticipation. Fortunately, the lighting was easier on his vision now, so he took the opportunity to survey his surroundings. Bottles and canisters filled wooden shelves of deeply stained and aged cases that lined the long walls of the room. There was a massive workbench in the center of the space with a door at the far end. Behind him was a large, curtained window that overlooked the street. He could hear the occasional car and sounds of the city beyond. Beside him was a cased opening that led out to another space. Some sort of shop, by the looks of it. Spices and aromatics danced on his tongue and made his sinuses flare and itch.

Achoo!

“Bless you,” the voice said from the shadows next to the opening, and the blond angel from the forest emerged with a wary, yet concerned expression.

“You,” Killian said in a scratchy and unfamiliar voice. He tried to clear his throat, but it was too dry. Undeterred, he said, “You’re the woman from the woods. The hex, uh… hexen…” He cursed himself for not being able to remember the wesen term for witch.

“A hexenbeist?” she supplied with a tone of surprise.

“Aye!” Killian replied a little too enthusiastically, erupting into a fit of coughs.

Her expression and posture still guarded, she took a few steps towards him, assessing him with her brilliant green eyes. “You know about… us?” she said. “Wesen?”

“Aye,” he replied in a tone of gravel.

“How?”

Again, Killian tried to clear his throat, but he seemed incapable of producing any saliva.

“Could I trouble you for some water?”

The request snapped her out of her wary, slightly accusatory stance, and she quickly made her way to a small fridge at the back of the room. Killian considered his answer carefully as she grabbed a water bottle and brought it back to him, giving himself a few extra seconds to craft his response as he slowly sipped the water and coaxed moisture back into his throat, knowing she’d likely ask him again…

“So, how do you know about wesen?”

“I, uh…” he began, working through a few more coughs and deciding that something close to the truth would be best. “I had the misfortune of being fostered by a family of klaustreichs after my parents died. The son took great pleasure in tormenting me with his woged state.” His brows knit together and he cocked his head to the side as he glanced up at her. “How did you know I wasn’t just wesen myself?”

The pinched look of concern returned to her features and her gaze slipped from his down to his bandaged arm. “Because of that,” she told him. “If you were wesen then it wouldn’t have…”

She turned and grabbed one of the chairs resting against the wall. Bringing it over, she set it next to the bed then lowered herself onto the seat with a resolved and resigned sigh.

“You knowing about wesen is going to make this a little easier to explain, but it by no means is going to make it easier to accept.”

“Make what easier to accept?” Killian asked with a sense of dread.

“Do you know what attacked you tonight?” she asked.

“Aye.” Killian nodded. “A blutbad. In full woge.”

She shifted uncomfortably, causing the chair to creak annoyingly in his ears. “And do you know the significance of him being in full woge during the full moon?”

“I, uh…” Frantically, Killian searched his memory for any knowledge regarding blutbaden and the full moon. He couldn’t seem to concentrate over the pounding of his heart and ripples of anxiety coursing through him, though.

Perhaps sensing his distress, or simply wishing to deliver the blow with a measure of comfort, the woman took Killian’s hand and asked, “What do you know about lycanthropes? Werewolves?”

Killian shot off the bed with an unnatural speed and agility, forcing the woman from her chair and causing her to skitter back several steps. Her hands, raised protectively in front of her, were illuminated with a soft glow that seemed to originate from her palms. Killian lifted his own in supplication, an apology slipping from his lips.

“Sorry, love. I just…”

I can’t be, he thought with chaos and hysteria threatening to overtake him. I can’t be a lycanthrope. Liam kills lycanthropes.

Shaking the thought from his head, Killian swallowed hard and fixed his attention back onto the wary woman.

“Apologies,” he began again. “I don’t know how I… I’m not sure what--”

“It’s okay,” she assured him, lowering her hands as she took measured steps towards the workbench. “I can only imagine how much of a shock this is.” She braced her hands against the top of the table, an old, worn book laying open between them. “According to this, you're going to feel the effects of the change immediately. So, it’s only natural that you--”

“The change?” Killian croaked out. “You mean… becoming a werewolf? I’m a… Are you saying, that thing has turned me into a…”

“Yes.”

Something about her direct yet compassionate tone eased the hysteria threatening to overtake him. Releasing a heavy breath, he ran his hand through his hair, tugging on the strands at the back, before dropping his hand to his chest where he pressed against the thundering in his ribcage.

The sound of the book sliding across the table pulled his attention back to the woman. Her expression beckoned him forward as she propped herself onto one of the stools that had been tucked under the work surface. Slowly, he shuffled forward until he stood hovering over the open pages of the book. He was struck by the similarities it held to the journals and manuscripts he’d been forced to study in his youth, with hand sketched illustrations and captions that had been translated into a myriad of languages.

“Not all blutbaden can create a lycanthrope,” she told him. Reaching over, she gestured to a section of text. He read without comprehending, his mind still racing. Fortunately, she paraphrased it for him.

“Lycanthropes, or more commonly known as werewolves, are created by blutbaden with a specific genetic mutation. The blutbad essentially goes off the rails during the full moon, and if they bite a human, and the human lives, they transfer some of their wesen characteristics to them.”

“Which characteristics?” Killian asked, even though he already had a pretty good idea.

“Your senses will be heightened. Sight, sound, smell. You’ll notice an increase in them in your day to day life, but they’ll be on overdrive, like they are now, during the full moon.”

“Will I…” he paused, swallowing back the bile working its way up his throat. “Will I… transform? Woge?”

“According to this, you’ll only be capable of woging during the full moon. I don’t think you’ll see other wesen woge outside of that time frame either.” Bringing the book back towards her, she turned the page and added, “Basically, everything is intensified during the full moon. Your senses, your mood and emotions, your abilities. You’ll be stronger, faster, have greater endurance and stamina, but will also be prone to volatile reactions. Your temper will be shorter. You’ll likely be more aggressive.”

“Violent, you mean.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “Aggression doesn’t have to turn into violence. You’ll just be more…”

“Like a powder keg.”

Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his, causing his eyes to flick up to hers.

“I can help with that.”

Relief and hope filled him and he gripped her hand in his. “You can… you can reverse this? You can cure me?”

She squeezed his hand and her expression effectively burst the elated bubble that had formed in his chest. “There’s nothing I can do to make you human again,” she said, remorsefully. “But there is something I can do to help mitigate the symptoms and keep you from falling prey to the worst of the condition.”

His shoulders slumped and he took a moment to come to terms with his new reality. He was no longer human. From this point forward his life would never be the same. It was like losing his parents all over again. Like losing Liam to the calling and duty of being a Grimm. He already hid so much of himself from those closest to him. From Will. From Robin. Now he would have to hide away these parts of himself from Liam. From Nemo. No one could ever know the fullness of who he was. The true him.

He wasn’t even sure if he knew who he was.

Bringing himself back to the here and now, Killian pulled his hand from the woman’s grip and asked, “What do you mean? How can you help me with… all of this?”

Again, she turned their focus back to the book. “Wolfsbane is a plant known for its uses against blutbad,” she told him. “It can hide one’s scent from them. It can also subdue them if they ingest it in great quantities.” Her eyes fell to where his arm was bandaged. “I made a paste of it and other herbs to apply to the bite so your transition would be less… intense, and it appears there is a tonic you can take at the outset of each full moon that can help minimize the effects of the cycle.”

Turning the pages again, she gestured towards a list of ingredients as well as a recipe for the tonic.

“There isn’t much here about the tonic’s effectiveness or what side effects it might have, so it would probably be best if we plan for you to just stay with me during the next full moon so I can keep tabs on you. See how it makes you react.”

Before he could even comprehend what he was doing, Killian moved into the woman’s personal space and wound a section of her hair through his fingers, his eyes hooded in a smolder and sultry tone dancing on his tongue as he cheeked, “If you wish to spend time cooped up together, love, just say so. No need to stand on ceremony.”

The widening of her eyes and sharp gasp falling from her lips made him balk and stumble back.

“I’m sorry, lass. I…” Forcibly shaking himself he took a tentative step back and declared, “I have no idea where that came from. Please forgive my…”

“It’s okay,” she said in an amused tone, waving off his apology.

“It is?” he replied, incredulously.

“I mean,” she continued, “I understand where it came from.”

“You do?”

She hummed, affirmatively, and explained, “It’s a blutbad trait. Using flirtation, charm, and guile to disarm their prey or throw off their rivals.” Turning the page again, his eyes fell to an excerpt he vaguely recognized from the Red Riding Hood tale. “How do you think the big, bad wolf charmed his way into the grandmother’s house after ingratiating himself with Little Red?”

“I don’t see you as prey,” he said in the hopes of assuring her, even as something within him wanted to counter the statement.

“Of course you do,” she said with a shrug. “I’m an attractive woman all alone with you.” Wetting her lips (which absolutely did not have his pulse rate ticking up and his uniform trousers tightening), she swallowed and cleared her throat before adding, “Some part of you is provoked by that and your new wesen side, being severely heightened, became overly stimulated by it. Hence the inappropriate proposition.”

“I swear you have nothing to fear from me, lass,” Killian vowed. “You’ve done me a great service and the last thing I would ever wish to do is--”

“I know,” she assured him. “I told you. It’s okay.”

Killian exhaled a shaky breath and a thought occurred to him. “Why are you so keen to help me? Not that I’m not grateful. It’s just… you don’t even know me.”

“I know you didn’t ask for this,” she said. “I know, being a cop, that you're a man who likely just wants to help people and that you were just out there trying to do your job.” Her demeanor, which up to this point had been a mixture of confidence, toughness, and candor with an undercurrent of compassion, shifted to one of vulnerability. “Also,” she began in a quiet voice. “The truth is… I’m not a natural wesen either. I’m a gemacht, a made wesen. I’m not… I’m not entirely accepted by others of my kind. By the covens. So I guess…”

“You have an understanding of what I’m going through and what I’ll face.”

Straightening her shoulders, her resilient bearing returned. “No one should have to go through this alone,” she told him while opening a drawer and taking out a small card and pen. “So, take this,” she said, handing him the card after she’d jotted something down. “It’s my business card for the shop, with my personal number on the back. Feel free to call or come by any time.”

Killian took the card from her hand, his fingers brushing against hers which sent a ripple up both their arms. He ignored the physical proof of their mutual attraction, just as he had been ignoring the growing chemistry during their entire encounter, and focused his attention on the card.

Swan Spice and Tea

Emma Swan, proprietor

“Thank you, Swan,” he said, tucking the card into his pocket. “I’ll be in touch about that tonic and we can make a plan for the next full moon.”

“That sounds good, Officer Jones.”

Killian cocked his head quizzically to one side, prompting her to nod towards his uniform.

“It’s on your name badge,” she reminded him. “K. Jones?”

“Right,” he said, reaching up and sheepishly pawing at a patch of skin behind his ear before extending his hand towards her. “Killian Jones. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Swan.”

“Likewise,” she said, placing her hand in his and offering him a soft smile.

They stood there for the span of a few erratic beats of his heart, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to not pull her into his arms. She was stunning, with her creamy skin and golden tresses. Even in the low light he could make out the splashes of freckles across her nose and shimmer of gold flecks in her captivating green eyes. Although smaller in stature, there was nothing weak or feeble about her form, even in the softest places. A form he found rather alluring, from the shape of her curves to the swell of her breasts. The way her hair flowed over her shoulders. The way her breath hitched when he skimmed his thumb over the pulse point on her wrist. The way she wet her plump, pink lips with a soft swipe of her tongue.

The way her skin glowed with an ethereal light that suddenly turned blinding.

“Bloody hell!” Killian cursed, wrenching his hand from hers so he could cover his eyes.

“Sorry,” she said with a note of contrition. “But you were… doing it again.”

“Doing what?” he huffed against the irritation spiking through him. Blinking hard, it took a few seconds for his vision to focus. When his sight finally adjusted, he found her several steps away with an amused smirk playing at her lips.

“Eyeing me as though you’d like to make a meal out of me,” she said matter-of-factly, yet without any hint of admonishment or fear.

Killian cursed under his breath. He’d developed something of a reputation in college: lady’s man, player, rake, charming bastard, scoundrel. In the years that followed, he’d done his best to put his womanizing ways behind him, choosing instead to use his looks and natural charm to his advantage as a cop when it came to comforting victims or disarming perps. So, while his current behavior was something out of character to who he had fought to become, he was certainly no stranger to this emerging personality the newly bred wesen side of him was cultivating.

“It’ll get easier to control,” she assured him. “Remember, these traits will be strongest during the full moon, and just as the paste is helping to lessen them now, the tonic should help you keep a rein on things going forward.” Closing the book, she skimmed her fingers over the cover and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth before glancing over at him once more and suggesting, “Although, it might be a good idea, as much as you are capable, to limit your contact with people during that time. I don’t know how feasible it would be for you to take those days off from work, but avoiding high stress, high confrontational situations would probably be a good idea until you’re better equipped to--”

“Aye,” he said in agreement, running his hand through his hair again. “A wise suggestion.”

He shuddered at the thought of losing control of himself at work, surrounded by his fellow officers. His fellow armed officers.

The desire to make detective was now about so much more than his own personal pride and sense of accomplishment. As a detective, he’d have greater say over his schedule. Until then, he may have to slack off on his paperwork and use the days of the full moon to isolate himself in one of the private offices in order to “catch up” on his reports.

“I’m sure I can work something out,” he told her.

“Fortunately,” she said, jutting her chin towards the window and the soft, pre-dawn glow that was beginning to creep through the gap in the curtains. “This was the last night of this full moon cycle, so you should be okay once the sun is up.”

Killian’s heart thudded hard in his rib cage and panic swept through his bloodstream. “Bloody hell! What time is it?” he frantically patted his pockets in search of his phone. How long had he been gone? Who knew he was missing? He had to get back to the woods. His cruiser was still there. At the crime scene.

The crime scene.

The body of the hiker.

The blutbad who’d attacked him was a killer.

He needed to find him and--

“Whoa! Slow down,” Swan urged, grabbing onto his forearms and giving him a slight shake. “Your phone is on the table next to the cot. I don’t think anyone is aware of anything being wrong. You have no missed calls or texts.”

Killian balked. Had he said all of that out loud?

Releasing him, she grabbed his phone from where it had been laying and along with it, his keys. “Your cruiser is in the alley out back,” she told him, gesturing towards the backdoor at the far end of the room.

“You… You drove it here?”

A sheepish expression scrunched through her features as she confessed, “Actually. My brother did. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed to go get it after I got you back here.”

“Your brother? You’ve a… is he… is he wesen also?”

“He is,” she confided. “He’s a leschen.”

Killian’s ignorance must have been apparent in the pull of his brows and tilt of his head.

“They’re sort of… tree-like, wooden wesen.”

“And he took some convincing because…?”

“Because you’re a cop,” she confessed. “He’s been on the wrong side of the law a few times. Nothing violent,” she added quickly. “Just… maybe do me a favor and don’t have your car fingerprinted?”

“I suppose,” he conceded, “Given the circumstances. I can overlook your brother’s involvement in this evening's events.”

“I appreciate that,” she said on a relieved breath and with a soft, weary smile.

The side of him he was beginning to identify as the wolf caused him to feel torn about leaving. The longing he felt to stay, the primal, proprietary drive that kept creeping up within him as he remained in her presence was one he could now discern, and though not quite as overwhelming as it had been before, was still very much present.

“I should go,” he choked out with conviction, subduing the beast. “It’s late. Or rather… early?”

“Right,” Swan replied, wetting her lips and guiding him towards the back door. “We’ve both had a long night and could definitely use some rest.”

For the first time since he awoke in her spice shop, Killian was struck with curiosity as to what she had been doing in the woods when he’d stumbled upon her. It was clear from the way she swung open the door, revealing his cruiser parked in the alleyway, and issuing her farewells with a stifled yawn that it would be a question he’d have to leave for another time.

“Remember,” she called out before he could slip behind the wheel. “I’m here if you need anything.”

“Aye, Swan. Thanks. Thank you for everything,” he replied with a deep, rich sincerity in his tone. “I’ll be in touch.”

“See you at the next full moon?”

“Aye,” he promised. “See you at the next full moon.”

Chapter One - Coming Soon!