#it's the inevitability of the black sheep of the family being pushed away and everyone else trying desperately to keep them

[supercasey]

“A frozen memory from a simpler time.”

Day 23 of participating in imakestuff1987’s COTL prompt list! I love these tragic siblings more than words or art can ever describe 💔

[legolaslovely]

Protector

A/N: Thank you so much @heliumblaze for sending me this request. As you can see, I got really into this one haha! I’m so glad I got out of rehearsal early tonight so I had time to write this! I truly enjoyed your idea. Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy it! 

Pairing: Legolas x Human!Reader

Word Count: 1,740

Warnings: Violent nightmare, including fire, burning and sword fighting, parent death, angst and fluff

Mellon: My friend

The Lullaby: Is Mir Da’len Somniar- Elvish Lullaby, from Dragon Age, (I believe a videogame?) but I found it on Youtube here and thought it was so beautiful and fit this story really well. You guys should totally go listen to it because it really gave me the Legolas feels. 

You were new to this. Honestly, it was all very overwhelming. 

You were content with your life before this. The oldest sibling of four, it was your job to cook for the family and do most of the housework. You had long ago accepted this as your fate. In your free time, you read books and tended to your family’s sheep and chickens. You had a pretty normal life in your small village. 

Then the Black Riders came. They terrorized your village, breaking windows, stealing boats, and setting everything aflame. Anyone in their way met their demise. Including your parents. 

Now, everything rested on your shoulders. You were the head of the family, the protector. You cared for your siblings and your grandparents while you learned archery and sword fighting. The next time the Black Riders came, you would be ready. 

That’s why you were here. No one who knew you in your past life would have guessed that you’d grow to wield a bow and sword so well. When the wizard, Gandalf escorted you to Rivendell and requested that you join the Fellowship of the Ring, you didn’t have much choice other than to agree. The idea of avenging your parents only pushed you more toward the adventure.

But the fear that you have felt in the past few weeks has made you want to turn around and run back home to your cooking and cleaning. You were always looking over your shoulder for orcs and searching above you for giant spiders. Fighting for your life every day was taking a lot out of you and you weren’t even a quarter of the way through your journey. 

You were plagued by shocking and horrific dreams that sent your heart beating out of your chest. Your baby sister had them after your parents died and your grandmother called them “night terrors.” You prayed every day that you would get through a night without being jolted awake, but it was as if you were being punished for leaving your home looking for revenge. 

This night, as you laid down your belongings on the ground and rolled out your blanket, your face was like stone as you were deep in thought. When you sat and finally lifted your head, you saw the entire Fellowship looking at you with pity in their eyes. 

“I wish I could make you some kingsfoil tea, (Y/N),” Pippin said.  

“Kingsfoil? Why?” you asked. 

“My mum used to make me a batch before bed so the demons wouldn’t visit me in my sleep,” he said. 

You lowered your eyes and fiddled with the strap on your boot, realizing you weren’t the only one your night terrors were bothering. “Have I been waking you all every night?”

No one spoke for a moment. 

Gimli cleared his throat and sighed loudly as he laid down and rested his hands behind his head. “Just remember, lass, they’re only dreams,” he said with a smile. 

You hummed in agreement and watched Legolas as he set up his blanket a few feet from yours. He gracefully unrolled his blanket in one swoop and sat noiselessly on the ground. 

“They came to me also,” he said to you. “They will stop soon, mellon.”

When you joined the Fellowship, you and Legolas bonded immediately over your shared love of archery. He gave you lessons, tips and tricks and soon you were almost as skilled as the prince. You often fought side by side and he had saved your life countless times. Of course, you had returned the favor a couple times too. 

Soon, everyone around you was asleep and you guessed you had put off the inevitable long enough. You closed your eyes and drifted off to sleep. 

Seconds later, you were being shaken awake. 

“(Y/N), my sweet, wake up.” 

You sat up quickly, unable to believe the voice resonating in your ears. The world was spinning around you, and though you felt hands around your arms pulling you up to stand, you couldn’t find the face of the voice. “Come, come with me,” the voice said.  

You were being pulled through fire, though you felt no pain. The flames rose around you in blurry orange and red lights. 

“Where are we going?” you asked, but there was no answer. “Who are you?” you yelled.

You suddenly came to a stop and out of the flames stepped your father. He was smiling at you, his eyes bright with love. “What do you mean, who am I?” he laughed. 

“Da!” You couldn’t believe your eyes. Incredible relief and joy swept through you in a whirlwind. You could hardly breathe, every exhale turned into a sob. You felt tears streaming down your face in rivers as you looked upon the face you had lost not very long ago. You threw yourself at your father, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and crying into his neck. “Da! I love you, Da.”

But the second your skin touched, he started screaming in pain. The awful sound sent lightening through you and the flames pulled you away from him. No matter how hard you tried to reach him, to take away his pain, the flames surrounding you kept you in place. You were forced to watch him burn.

In the blink of an eye, everything you saw disappeared. Your father and the fire around you were gone, and you were standing on the cobblestones in front of your home. 

“How did I get here?” you said.

“What do you mean, my love? You never left.”

You spun around to see your mother standing in the road. She was as beautiful as you remembered her to be, her wide grin lighting up her pretty features. 

“Ma,” you breathed. 

You ran to her, but with every step you took, she seemed to glide farther away from you.

“Come here, my love,” she said.

You continued to run to her but never grew any closer. Looking behind your mother, you saw a dark, hooded figure on a black horse galloping down the road toward you.

“Ma! Run! There’s a Black Rider behind you!” you screamed with all your might. 

“Come here, my love,” she said to you again. 

You were sprinting toward your mother, but the horse was faster. As the Black Rider passed her, his sword was out, ready to slice. 

“Ma! Go!”

Legolas was awakened by the sound of your blanket rustling on the grass. He looked over to you and felt dread overcome him. You were having another night terror. How he wished he could go through this for you. As he had many nights before, he lifted your shoulders and slid beneath them, so he was holding you, your back resting against his chest.

You were tossing and turning and soon began thrashing, your fists hitting his chest in hard blows. Your whimpers grew into screams as he held your hands to keep you from hurting yourself in your fit. 

“No, stop!” you yelled. “Don’t leave me again!”

Legolas shushed you and rubbed your arms hard until you suddenly awoke. You gasped for breath and looked around frantically for fire and Black Riders. Legolas gently grasped your chin and pulled your face even with his. 

“(Y/N), look at me. It’s alright,” he said. 

You froze for a moment, staring at him, realizing it was all a dream and you were in the woods with the Fellowship, instead of at home with your parents. In that moment, all the grief came rushing back to you as if you lost your family all over again.

You turned into Legolas and buried your face in his neck. All you could do was cry. The pain was overwhelming. Wave after wave of grief and despair hit you. 

Legolas simply held you, feeling your ribs shake with sobs. He wished he could do more. He rocked you back and forth in his arms, his tight grip acting as a safe place for you to hide from the fire and the Black Riders. His nimble fingers gently and effortlessly ran through your hair, straightening out the knots, and drawing symbols and pictures up and down your spine. 

After a while, your pain subsided. Though no fresh tears fell, the aftermath of your sobs was evident in your breathing. Your lungs could only take in shallow breaths and every few moments, an inhale would catch in your body and cause you to shake again.

“It’s alright,” Legolas told you. His rocking motions stopped and he reached for your chin that was still hidden in the crook of his neck. When your eyes met his, he saw your skin was red and soaked with tears and an odd feeling he had never felt before rushed through him. “I will always be here to protect you, mellon.”

He sang softly in Elvish to you. Though you remembered little of your night terrors the mornings that followed, you recognized the lullaby he sang to you every night. 

Sun sets, little one, time to dream.

Your mind journeys, but I will hold you here.

Where will you go, little one,

Lost to me in sleep?

Seek truth in a forgotten land

Deep within your heart.

Never fear, little one,

Wherever you shall go,

Follow my voice, I shall call you home.

I will call you home.

You leaned back into his embrace and rested your head against his chest. As if telling him not to let you go yet, you wrapped your fingers around his arms, feeling the muscle beneath his pale skin. You thought of the companion you had in him and your agony seemed to numb a bit. 

He kissed your forehead and his lips remained there as he continued to hum the melody. He inhaled the scent of your hair, it was unlike anything else he’d ever known. He listened to the sound of your heart beat finally normalize as your breathing rhythm matched his. 

He felt you fall asleep again in his arms and he hoped with everything he had this would be your last night of terror. He wasn’t sure he could bear to hear your screams and cries another time. He was your companion, but you were much more to him than that and he hated to see you in such agony. 

But he would remember for the rest of his endless life what it felt like to hold you, safe in his arms. 

[hencethebravery]

Title: “Beloved,” (1/1) Summary: David Nolan is in love with Killian Jones. He just doesn’t know what that means. Notes: I’ve been wanting to write a modern Captain Charming college AU for a hell of a long time. Last week’s episode really sealed the deal. This is very much an explorative fic, in the sense that the meat of it really lies in David’s perspective and his feelings about love and Killian Jones in particular. It is not an end-game CC fic; it’s more so about how these two characters might be important to one another. It is not at all intended to be a valorization of heterosexual love over homosexual love or vice versa. Also on Ao3. Because I told them they would be tagged and/or they assisted me: @abbadons-little-witch @seastarved @the-reason-to-sail-home​ @captainwiley​ @zengoalie @mahstatins​ @mossandmushroom xo

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. -- Raymond Carver, “Late Fragment”

+ When David Nolan met Killian Jones, it had taken nearly every inch of his rather considerable will to keep from socking the guy across the jaw. He had seemed the infuriatingly smug, disreputable type, and what was worse, seemed to have an uncanny knack for trailing longingly after his sister. Emma Swan wasn’t his sibling by blood, but they had grown up together. His father had simply brought her home one day, and although David could sense an implicit attempt to replace the brother his parents had lost, they had all grown to love her regardless.

David had been able to see it in her eyes sometimes, this desperate, pleading feeling to live up to James’ absence—and while David would have never mentioned this to his parents, he had never really known his brother, but he had known Emma. He had seen her in clumsy, pre-pubescent limbs, all twisted up on the ground, scraped knees, red cheeks, lost teeth. He had seen her in the grips of nightmares he couldn’t imagine, had held her tiny frame with his own gangly limbs, and he had told her, so many times now, had tried to explain to her that she was more a sister to him than his dead brother had ever been. That she had nothing to live up to—that their parents were trapped in their grief, no matter how much they insisted that they were free of James’ echo.

And he didn’t blame them for it, David; he was an almost irritatingly wise, patient child, and he didn’t fault them for their sadness. But he harbored some degree of anger for the anguish in his sister’s eyes—because she didn’t ask for this, their family, they had brought her here and they didn’t think. They didn’t treat her as if she were this separate person who had lived a life before them. She had been broken when she arrived, and they should be stitching her together, not keeping all those pieces mismatched and ill-formed; rubbing against one another in a harsh kaleidoscope of painful memories and feelings that all children know but can’t understand, won’t understand, for too many long, confusing years.

So when Killian Jones, mysterious, charismatic, handsome, Killian Jones had wormed his way into their tight-knit circle of friends, he had been understandably concerned. He wore a lot of black and well-worn plaid, kind of like a malnourished extra in a Nirvana video—and his hair was always carefully disheveled (David suspected he spent hours in front of the mirror trying to get it that way). He swore a lot, like an old, gruff sailor on leave. More than Emma, even, and she had developed an extraordinary affinity for swearing, despite his mother’s sweet, but naive, attempts to dissuade her otherwise.

Killian Jones was in love with David’s sister from the very moment he saw her. Everyone could sense it, but David felt it, like a hard blow to the body; a hard-knuckled fist to the kidney. The jewelry, the make-up, it all fell away in the softening of his features, the genuine smile in her presence that revoked all that harsh, predictable cynicism of the “angry young man.”

“I wish you’d just give him a chance,” she had quietly pleaded during a late-night study session. Their books had been scattered between the two of them, empty coffee cups, candy wrappers, apple cores; all the basics. “He’s just lost.”

Like me, was the silent follow-up, the remark that left his heart soft, like a fresh, newly-fluffed cushion waiting for a new shape to form in all that willing potential. Emma hadn’t even wanted him then, not in that way at least; she had simply wanted a friend that was hers.

“Okay,” he had conceded gently, his heart tightening at the look of relief that crossed her features, “I’ll give him a chance.”

David gave Killian Jones the same amount of chances that he would afford anyone else; only Killian Jones met those expectations with a passion and a fury that David had rarely seen or felt. And it wasn’t even as if he were only trying to deserve Emma, which he was, of course, but there was also a sense that he pushed forward, made the difficult choices, did the hard things, for himself. It wasn’t an improvement of self merely to satisfy the expectations of someone else, but to be at peace with who he was and who he had become because who you are is all you have.

Never in a million years had David Nolan thought he would arrive at the seemingly inevitable point of admiration for the man he had sworn so vehemently against a few years before. If he had been able to ask his younger self, How do you envision your relationship with this man? It would be almost certainly true to imagine that the reply would not be anywhere along the lines of, laughing with, talking with, drinking with, finding comfort with—learning who you are with. Like Emma, Killian Jones had found his way into their lives and changed them for the better. Unlike Emma, who had been given little choice in the matter, as she had been small, vulnerable and directionless, Killian had been almost nearly grown on their metaphorical doorstep. He had somewhat loudly arrived, had been made to feel unwanted, could have just as easily left; only he had clung to their obstinance with all the strength of a man at the edge of a cliff.

He had fought for them, just as Emma had fought for him to stay. Just as David had fought, to his own, subdued surprise, for the tense cords of Killian’s deceptively vulnerable heart, wrapped and knotted around his sister’s own strong, formidable hands. They were perfect for one another. Similar enough to understand the cracks in one another’s foundation, but different enough that they could force the other to grow, to evolve into and around the other.

“When I asked you to give him a chance,” Emma playfully began, her lips resting against the tip of a bottle, “I didn’t mean ‘fall in love with him yourself.’” She’s joking, clearly, the gleam in her eye, the chuckle in her voice. And he’s knocking his shoulder against hers, and laughing easily along with the idea of the golden-eyed star of the wrestling team, buttoned-up and broad-shouldered falling in love with the lithe, wild-eyed literature major with a tendency to fall on the black leather side of the fashion spectrum, but he can feel the tightening of the knot somewhere deep in his chest as they laugh together.

There’s an uncomfortable pressure there, deep within the cavity of his chest, because Emma is clearly in love with Killian, just as he’s clearly in love with her. There’s a tightness because, no, Emma had never suggested that he fall in love with this lost, black sheep with a penchant for sad, Irish sea ballads; and there’s a strange, unknowable tightness because he doesn’t fully understand what this love is. Because it is love. And it might be an “in love,” but he doesn’t know with what, and he doesn’t know for how long, and he knows it’s a little different than the norm, and he knows he doesn’t want to lose it.

He knows that it’s Emma and Killian, that it always was and it always will be, and he knows that he’s also in love with an absurdly small, fair-skinned, pixie-haired, elementary education major with a rough-and-tumble streak that ended with a raised scar somewhere along his otherwise untarnished jawline. He knows all of this. What he doesn’t know is what to make of that Saturday night in late February, still cold, still snowing; all of them falling back into the familiar habits of the post-break college student.

There had been booze that night, of course, copious amounts of it, given the fuzziness of his memory the following morning. From what he could remember, it had been one of those nights devoid of any sense of unpleasantness. They were all stressed, over-worked, underpaid, cold and tired, but they were together. They were full of greasy bar food, they were wrapped in one another’s scarves and sweaters and arms. They were honest and playful, and all of their insecurities about themselves or one another had been forgotten, at least temporarily, in the warm nest of Killian and Robin’s two-bedroom apartment.

It had been late, he remembered that much. Emma and Mary Margaret had, at some point, slunk away towards Killian’s bedroom to crash, their arms threaded through each other’s in order to steady their drunken, lumbering steps. Robin was awake but just barely, his head thrown back over the couch, various limbs askew—Killian had dropped a blanket over his still, quiet form, and Ruby had made some crack about being a mom, to which Killian had tossed a pillow at her smiling face.

“I’m not tired,” Belle mentioned offhand, her stockinged feet resting in Ruby’s lap, “Can we play a game?”

“No more drinking,” Robin mumbled from beneath the quilt, one eye cracked open, “The drinking is over.”

“Agreed,” David answered, his own head slightly gummy from all the scotch ale that Killian had kept insisting he drink, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get up for practice in the morning.”

“That’s the trick, Dave,” Killian spoke from over his shoulder, his voice growing louder as he took a clumsy seat at his side, another cold beer in hand, “You don’t.”

“Don’t get up or don’t go to practice?”

“Either one, I’m sure,” he answered with a wink, his dark eyeliner long since smudged and faded beneath impossibly blue eyes.

“What kind of game, babe?” Ruby asked Belle gently, running a hand through her thick, tangled hair. “Nothing that requires too much effort, please.”

David must have lost track of the conversation at that point, because the only thing he could remember following Ruby’s soft question was a large, empty wine bottle spinning wildly in front of him, lots of giggling, and the sudden, indescribable feeling of Killian Jones’ mouth pressed against his own.

“He’s bi,” he can remember Emma casually explaining, her cheeks round with donuts and hot chocolate, “No big deal.”

It’s not like he had been offended at the thought of Killian being romantically involved with a man, it had just been unexpected, what with his being in love with Emma and all. But he supposed the guy couldn’t wait around forever, eyes the size of dinner plates, heart thumping comically loud whenever she was in the room.

He had seen him loitering outside the Humanities building, per usual, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his fingers, all normal, until he followed Killian’s familiar, charming gaze to the enamored, upturned face of a guy in his fiction-writing class—Merlin, possibly—a quiet, polite student by all accounts. They made a strange picture, the two of them. Merlin dressed in his usual buttoned-up flannel and woolen cardigan, square frames perched on his nose. And then there had been Killian, adorned in the usual black leather jacket, dark, well-worn denim and boots. Despite being fairly thin and of average height, he certainly knew how to take up space.

There was something enticingly dangerous about the whole thing, the way Killian had rested his arm near Merlin’s head, a flirtatious smirk cutting dangerously across his face. David had known Killian pretty well at that point, not well enough to know about his other proclivities, clearly, but well enough to know that most of… this? Most of it was an act. A way to throw people off the scent of his softer, “weaker” parts.

Maybe it hadn’t been the fact of Merlin’s maleness that had thrown him off. Maybe it had been the performance; maybe he didn’t realize how well he knew Killian until he had been forced to see the act again, to see the rough facade of a boy with a too-fragile heart so expertly put forth in the face of those he did not know.

“No big deal,” David had reassured his sister, smiling at the small dollop of whipped cream on her nose, “Just wondering.”

He tasted like scotch, but that wasn’t very surprising. He smelled vaguely of sweat and the sweet, cloying scent of a cologne that only men of a certain age seemed to wear. He was patient, and soft, and it lasted… seconds. It was brief, and chaste, and somehow both exactly like he expected and nothing like he had ever imagined. Which wasn’t to say that he had spent hours thinking about what kissing Killian Jones might be like, only he had spent a good deal of time wondering what being loved by him might be like.

Because he saw the way he looked at Emma, loved Emma, and David knew that it was exactly what she deserved. To be loved, unconditionally, to be seen and known for who she is, and not what Killian or David or his parents wanted her to be. David knew he was a fairly simple guy—he hadn’t had it too rough growing up, had met most, if not all, of his parents expectations. Got good grades, performed well in sports; practical, patient, kind, all the things that they had hoped he would be.

Killian Jones was nothing like what anyone thought he could be. His parents hadn’t expected much of him (seeing as how they had abandoned him as a child), his brother had wanted grand, great things for him, but, as Killian had explained, “Bloody well buggered that up, didn’t I?” David had anticipated low, incorrigible things from him. Had seen the potential for his corruptive influence on Emma, Robin, Mary Margaret, all of these people he had come to love as he did his own family—Killian Jones would ruin all that, just as he had his own life.

Only he wanted so badly to be loved.

And David knew how to love. So well, in fact, that it was often too much and too hard, and it only left him feeling disappointed. And suddenly there was this boy, who became this man; this man who could live in a way that David never could, but who seemed to walk around as if there was an emptiness inside of him that he didn’t know how to fill—and it made David want. It made him want things for himself that he might’ve never tried to obtain for himself otherwise.

It had made the taste of Killian’s lips all the more sweet in the brief moment of time in which they touched. It happened so fast he almost missed it. But lying on top of Robin’s empty bed the next morning, the sound of Ruby and Belle lightly snoring from their place curled up on the floor, the briefness of their kiss had been charged and slow. In his memory it is warm and rough from the unshaven hairs of Killian’s chin. It is masculine and delicate in a way that only Killian Jones would know how to be.

“Wow,” Ruby seems to sigh from somewhere to his left, his eyes closed because his lids have become impossibly heavy in the last few moments (and a little bit because he’s too afraid to open them).

“Um,” David eloquently tries to begin, his mouth falling slightly open in somewhat of an awed expression. He can’t help but think he looks a might similar to Merlin in this moment, his own facade, that of the popular, well-liked, polite jock thrown carelessly to the breeze by the mere fact of Killian Jones and the gentleness of his scotch-flavored kiss.

“Don’t be so quick to offer critique now, Dave,” Killian says quietly, laughingly, his own arm coming up to swing around David’s shoulders, “I’ve had a bit much to drink tonight and it would be poor form to judge my performance based solely on the one-off.”

“No, uh,” he tries to reassure him, slowly, in a meandering voice that he’s having a hard time placing despite the fact that it’s his own, “I would never.”

“There’s a good man,” Killian replies happily, tugging him closer in order to place a wet, sloppy kiss against the side of his head, “So bloody charming, this one.”