#this is now taking precedence over him seeing black swan

[femslashspuffy]

Me and my dad talking about which Batman's we like and he says that he really liked when Jack Nicholson was the joker: heheh yeah but I really like joaquin phoenix as the joker 😎

Him: huh?

Me: joaquin phoenix

Him: when was Joaquin Phoenix the joker?

Me: in Thee Joker

Him: what?

Me: the JOKER it came out FOUR YEARS AGO

Him: I don't know what that is *looks it up* I still don't know what this is

And that's how I learned that my dad is so caught up on the news but he doesnt know what the JOKER is

[fleckcmscott]

Coffee & Donuts

Summary: Arthur’s thrilled to be part of a crowd. Though the evening doesn’t go perfectly, Y/N’s flirtations make it sweet.

Warnings: Smut

Words: 4,602

A/N: Alright. After the heart wrenching angst of my last piece (which I love, by the way; don't get me wrong! 😂), I had to write another story in which Arthur and Y/N are happy and together. It's inspired by one of Arthur's visions during their kiss. I hope you all like it! Special thanks to @jokerownsmysoul for beta-ing!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask. Requests for Arthur and WWH are open!

Parties and celebrations weren't foreign to Arthur. He'd worked plenty, enough to make him realize what he'd been missing out on. He was well-versed in pin the tail on the donkey, musical chairs, and balloon animals. But as an adult, those activities didn't satisfy. He wanted to be included rather than paid. Connect with people, introduce himself. Discuss his experiences and pursuits. Feel sufficiently at ease to loosen up a little and have a good time.

Now he was a guest - a certified guest - at Patricia Gorman's fifty-sixth birthday party. The first party he'd been invited to since being the weird kid in class who'd rotated between three worn out sweaters and could never afford a gift.

He'd been a tad apprehensive about going to Burnside. Gotham's nicest borough had a reputation for high rents and low tolerance. When Y/N and he had entered 2E, however, Patricia's greeting ("You made it!") and the apartment were thoroughly welcoming. Crocodile brown walls and forest green shag carpet made the spacious living room a cozy hideaway. Marigolds leapt across the polyester of the T-cushion sofa and its easy-chair companion. The floor lamp's amber, crimped glass shades cast the spacious living room in a glow borrowed from warm autumn days.

Patricia's husband, Robert, was out on an emergency call. An HVAC had gone haywire in a residential building in Hinckley. Her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson had been by for lunch. That meant the only other guests were Matt - Y/N's old boss - and a bottle-blonde in a black halter dress and spike heels, who Y/N introduced as Laura. ("She's Matt's ex-wife," Y/N later disclosed. "He's been trying to win her back since I moved to Gotham.") Both shook Arthur's hand when he offered it, and he felt a little thrill whirl his stomach when Y/N laid claim to him by telling the woman, "This is my husband."

A collection of appetizers served as dinner, a fun and novel menu. The slow cooker meatballs Y/N and he had lugged over on the subway were a bit tangy; he still couldn't believe the recipe called for grape jelly. The deviled eggs with paprika, a pleasant mix of savory and sweet, was a dish he'd heard about on television. Cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches were light and airy, a good match for his iced tea. Only the artichoke and spinach dip gave him pause. Its beans and hot sauce made his taste buds wince.

That unpleasant flavor was quickly forgotten when Y/N pulled him to sit next to her on the sofa, so Patricia could open her presents. She proudly showed off the orange, clay ashtray her grandson had made for her. Arthur, having successfully kept the secret of her light smoking from Y/N, chuckled at Patricia fibbing she'd put candy in it. She thanked Matt and Laura for the champagne, wrapped in a silver bow with a simple "Happy Birthday" tag. The bottle wasn't popped. Upon peeking into the large giftbag Y/N placed on her lap, she made a soft sound. The Dazey whirlpool bath, which attached to the side of the tub and had three strength settings, was a hit. She announced her plans to try it in the morning. The dark blue Rexbuilt briefbag was intended to replace her cracked, leather briefcase, Y/N explained. Patricia ran her fingertips along the expanding inner compartments, the personalized planner that included the credential "CLA" after her name, and flipped through the included steno pads, eyes brimming.

She sipped at her cocktail and put an arm around Y/N. Melancholy tinged Patricia's voice. "At my age, the people in your life tend to stay the people in your life. Whether you like them or not." She reached further and patted Arthur's knee. "I'm glad an old dame like me gets to call you all friends." His throat clenched in gratification, though he wasn't daring enough to squeeze her hand and thank her for deciding he was a friend.

Still on top of the world an hour later, Arthur sauntered to the red and white enamel dining table to serve himself a second slice of upside-down pineapple cake. The evening had gone well, better than a guy with a natural inability to mingle could've expected. He bobbed his head to the beat of "Come Fly with Me." It was a happy coincidence that Patricia's taste in music aligned with his. She'd regaled him with tales of seeing Sinatra and Count Basie on her and Robert's honeymoon in Vegas. Arthur took a bite absentmindedly, wondering how long it would take for him to save the money to surprise Y/N with plane and concert tickets.

The daydreaming didn't last long. Matt's plodding footsteps preceded him, followed by a long sigh as he propped himself on the beige stone of the dining area's accent wall, across from the u-shaped kitchen. He held out a Budweiser and smirked. "Marriage is a hell of a lot of work."

Pleased that he was being treated like one of the guys, like a regular husband with a regular relationship who got to speak about his regular wife, Arthur accepted the beer and considered the comment. Matt's sentiment was hard to grasp. Dr. Sally had said marriage could be difficult, and Y/N's first hadn't survived the ripples of her life. But it didn't feel like work with her. Their arguments were minor. Her nagging him to find a primary doctor for annual check-ups, even though he'd survived this long without one. Or back in Missouri, when he'd told her to stop shielding him and trust he could take anything she had to give.

Arthur adopted a similar nonchalant posture and jutted his hip against the table's edge. "I like it. It's easy to take good care of her." He wasn't able to completely erase the smugness of success from his tone.

"You're what? Two years in with the most headstrong woman in Gotham? She's great and all, but she spikes my blood pressure." Matt slapped Arthur's back and let out a hearty guffaw. "Give it five more and you'll be in my office trying to avoid alimony."

"Don't. Say that." Arthur crinkled the can in his grip and glared up at him.

"Hey," Matt started, withdrawing even as he tried diplomacy. "It was just a joke. I didn't mean anything by it."

Flinching, pulling at the cuffs of his red sweater, Arthur fought the surge of anger in his veins. It wouldn't do to lose control and cause a scene. Of course Matt's comment about them splitting up was supposed to be a joke. But Arthur didn't find it one bit funny. Even with his complete faith in her and his firm belief that they were meant to be together, the possibility that she'd stop wanting him hurt. It didn't occur to him that the implication of the punchline could be that he'd get sick of Y/N.

With a muttered apology, Matt walked to the others in the kitchen. Arthur glanced over to see her laugh tipsily, until she grabbed her stomach and swatted Patricia's shoulder, a stark demonstration of how much he and Y/N differed. She always knew how to respond to people, the right comebacks. Appropriate timing and levels of interaction. It seemed she was in her natural element, the loveliest swan on a lake. Whereas after years of therapy and practice with her, he was still a fish out of water, flopping around on the shoreline in hopes some stranger would take pity on him and throw him back into the sea.

Maybe that was the real punchline. Eventually their contrasts would no longer complement each other and instead become a chore.

Scowling, he ambled towards the record player stationed before two double-hung windows. Increased the volume to drown out the intrusive notions. It didn't really work. He settled on a grounding technique he'd practiced, all the while lamenting that he couldn't handle a party without needing it. His attention went to the spinning LP, the needle following its grooves. The bright blue album cover, where Ol' Blue Eyes beckoned him, the scuff marks on the cardboard's corner edges. He acknowledged the spider plants sat on the windowsill, worried a papery leaf until it broke off. He stared out the window, taking in the whole of the city. Pinpricks of light dazzling in the darkness.

"Gotham's beautiful at night," Y/N said from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to watch her approach. Her cheeks glowed with alcohol and good cheer, the collar of her ivory blouse unbuttoned. "There's a life behind every light out there. Ten million of them. Here. Try this." She offered her hurricane glass, filled with an off-white slush.

He sipped the pina colada with cautious skepticism and grimaced as soon as it hit his tongue. The blend of pineapple and coconut tasted of cheap sunscreen and tropical imitations, the kind advertised in smudged brochures for bad cruises to islands with made up sounding names. "No, thanks."

Snorting, she shrugged and embraced his back at the waist. "How are we doing?" she asked, curling into his side. After a few seconds, she prodded him. "Had your fill of Matt?"

"He was just joking." Arthur rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.  She set the drink next to the record player and brought her hand to his, trailed it over the inside of his wrist, up his forearm. She pecked his chin and nudged him until he turned to her. As soon as their gazes met, the concern in hers told him she'd continue to pepper him with questions. But he wasn't about to let his misplaced doubts spoil her evening. And he knew the perfect way to distract them both.

A new song started. An oldie that sang of Jupiter and Mars, playfulness among the stars. He cupped her cheek, thumb sweeping the corner of her mouth. "Dance with me," he said. Before accepting his proffered palm, she laid a sloppy kiss on him. With a flutter of her eyelashes, she grinned, and his smile grew to match her own. As he held her side, led her in a slow, swaying circle, he marveled at her. At her ability to soothe every molecule, every lingering ache. Self-assurance welled in him, chased away his earlier dejection. He cradled her to his lanky frame, trembled and felt himself blush. She was the only woman for him. That was as certain as his cigarette habit.

Despite Patricia's reassurances she was fine, that Robert working late wasn't unusual, Y/N insisted on staying until he got home. Though Arthur would have preferred they take their leave an hour earlier, being allowed to smoke inside blunted his grumbling. The disarming flirtations she bestowed on him also didn't hurt. She'd pour herself a drink (four in total, if he counted correctly), help Patricia make a plate of leftovers for her husband, then throw him a wink. Whisper and cackle while cleaning, then kiss his temple.

Around midnight, Patricia put her foot down. Ushered them out with a promise to call and a hug fierce enough to crush his ribs. She raised a brow at Y/N's unsteady gait, grasped Arthur's arm, and said with a wry, tired smile, "Make sure you put that woman straight to bed." His dark brows shot up and held. Had she intended a pun? Or had Y/N's spare caresses caused the interpretation? Either way, he liked being trusted to take care of her. And the hint of arousal that flared in his belly.

By the time they stumbled into their apartment, that arousal had reduced to a dull exhaustion. She kicked off her heels on the way to the bathroom, calling a slurred "night!" as she closed the door. Yawning, he put dish soap and hot water in the crockpot, scrubbed burned bits of sauce from its rim, turned it upside down on a towel to dry. Once he'd brushed his teeth for one minute rather than the recommended two, he tossed his sweater, trousers, briefs, and socks in the hamper, and went to the bedroom. He found his blue pajamas in their usual spot, the chair in the corner, and slid them up his skinny but toned legs. Tucked in next to her, he was carried to sleep on waves of fatigue and her quiet, wet snoring.

~~~~~

A tickle threatened to rouse him. Whispers along the waistband of his bottoms. Heat snuggled his back. Delightfully drowsy, he cuddled deeper into cozy, cream-color sheets, already returning to a pleasant, dreamless slumber. But a rumble of exhaust, likely from a bus that needed a new muffler, dragged him to consciousness. Arthur grumbled and tucked his arm under his pillow, not ready to transition to a world of overcrowding and concrete, commotion and bad jokes.

Yet, Y/N's insistent grazes continued, luring him with promises of placid pleasure. Her toes wiggled at his heel until he made space for her to slip her foot between his ankles. The corner of his mouth quirked. He was reminded of last night's playfulness, her endless teasing. The way he'd held the crockpot as a shield to fend off her advances on the train home, her forwardness to the point that he would've preferred having a laminated card to present on her behalf. Forgive my wife: she has a condition. It causes frequent and uncontrollable displays of affection.

Nimble fingers edged lower, loosened the tie of his pajamas before dipping beneath the loose elastic to lace through his dark brown curls, darker than the chestnut hair on his head. Her knuckles ran over him, lazy caresses full of intent. Up and down, up and down. Delicate. Deliberate. The blood racing to his groin, the pleasant swelling, made his abdomen twitch. Soon full and heavy, the sensitive tip straining the cotton seams, he pressed his lips together. When she skimmed the tender skin resting on his inner thigh, he flexed the muscle at the base of his erection. It bobbed and hit her wrist and she let loose a girlish giggle, more intoxicating than wine.

With her left leg draped over him at the knee, she undulated against his rear. Plush lips brushed the boney knobs of his spine, damp breath fanned the nape of his neck, labored, needy. Pebbled nipples grazed his back through the thin nylon of her nightgown, taunting and compelling. He made up his mind to throw an arm around her, to yank her on top of him. To eagerly take part in her seduction.

But she withdrew from his bottoms to palm his stomach and plant a gentle kiss to the shell of his ear, whispering, "Sleep tight." The mattress shifted and she rolled away from him. He furrowed his brows. She rarely relented this easily - other times he'd awakened, hard and aching, enveloped by the captivating wetness of her mouth. What was she up to?

Covers rustled. Her calf bumped his. And the opposite of what he'd assumed occurred. Instead of light footfalls leading out of the room, there was silence, silence that seemed to stretch on and on...

Until a hitched gasp gave her away.

Touching herself. She was touching herself. She'd just been all over him, acted like he was some sort of model on the cover of Vue magazine, and now she was touching herself. Right beside him! Ecstatic to have inspired such brazenness, he grinned and fisted the pillow. Her fleeting, stifled moans tangled him in knots, implored him to give her what they both burned for.

He flipped in her direction, his hand shooting under the sheet to grab hers. "Gotcha."

Eyes wide, she gaped at him in surprise. But adoration softened her expression as she entwined their fingers. "How long have you been awake?" she asked.

"Long enough."

He stretched to rewind the shades, the diaphanous curtains staying in place. Sunlight diffused over them, wrapped around her face, lent her disheveled hair a warm luster. He twirled a feathered lock and pecked her eyelids. "Finishing what you started on the subway, hm?"

"Me?" Y/N brought his knuckles to her mouth.  "You're the one who came to bed without any underwear."

"Well, it was a late night." The pad of his thumb tugged at her bottom lip to reveal the pink tip of her tongue. He bent to claim it. "I was lucky to find my pajamas."

Chuckling, she broke their connection. "Did you have a good time?"

"Yeah. The cake was good. And the music. Everyone was nice."

"Patricia loved having you there. She thought you were very sweet." A pause as she mapped a dimple. "Matt said he'd upset you. Something stupid about breaking up?"

Vague shadows of discomfort flashed through Arthur, a frustration he'd mostly moved on from. He did his best to ignore it, waving her concern away. "Don't worry about it."

"He was just jealous, you know." Her nails ran along the small of his back. "He wants Laura to look at him the way I look at you."

Arthur had spent so much of his life yearning for change, to understand his purpose in the world and improve himself. The idea that a man with a good education, a successful career, and no disabilities could ever be jealous of him was, frankly, bizarre. But he didn't correct Y/N, instead locking her praise within his heart, preserving it for when he needed it most. He boosted himself on his forearm and fiddled with her V-neck, traced its button loops as he slipped the plastic knobs through them. "And how's that?'

A hint of scandal glimmered in her irises. She arched into him as he eased a strap down her upper arm to reveal her shapely breast, the lilac fabric momentarily catching on its taut peak. "Like I can't get enough of you."

He huffed at that, fondled her faintly before his lips met the velvety skin of her chest. A tonic comprised of the musk oil she'd dabbed on before the party and distinct sexual wanting wafted to his nostrils. He licked at her nipple, the bumps on her areola, and drew it between his teeth. She whined softly and lifted the bottom of her nightdress to her waist.

Hurriedly, he yanked on the waistband of her cotton panties, pushed them past her knees. She kicked them off while he knelt to lower his bottoms. Straddling her, he pumped himself back to hardness and opened the drawer of her nightstand. He searched haphazardly until he retrieved a small, glass bottle of lubricant. (She'd ordered it from a mail catalog, both of them a bit too bashful to walk into an adult shop, even together.)

She snagged it from him and poured half a teaspoon in her hand, then palmed herself. He moved between her legs and she grasped his length, coating him with the warm, slippery liquid. He pushed forward into her. Gradually, slowly, savoring every millimeter of her enticing heat. He noted the stretch of her mouth, the jut of her jaw, the lifting of her upper lip. "Mmm..." she breathed and begged him to keep going. When he did, her head tilted back into the pillow, eyelids falling shut. A smile cut across her cheeks as she purred her satisfaction. "Arthur, I love you."

His touch wandered down the curve of her thigh. At the sight of her subtle writhing beneath him, the sway of her slightly uneven breasts in time with his languid thrusts, he pushed her knee into the mattress, splayed her wider. He grunted lowly. "Look at me."

Their gazes met but didn't hold for long; hers dropped to where they were joined. She caressed right above his pubic bone. "I love seeing you like this." Her fingertips walked a line up his sternum to his chest. "And touching you like this." She wrapped her arms around his middle and drew him to her, locked their lips in a greedy kiss. "And making love like this."

He snorted. "I think this is the only reason you married me."

"Well, not the only reason. There's your good hair, too."

"I've been thinking about cutting it. Trying something new."

"Don't you dare." She tugged at his loose curls, wore her best pout. "What else would I hold onto when we're doing this?"

Laughing lightly, he bumped his nose to hers. Falling into her was like falling into his old fantasies, the ones that'd sustained him through years of isolation. Dates at diners, at comedy clubs, at donut shops, at home. Their shapes had changed as he'd matured, his role in them, his aspirations and infatuations. But they'd remained a warm comfort nonetheless, a place that felt like belonging. And now he belonged with her. Hunger filled him. Happiness. And love. So much love, more than he'd ever believed he'd carried in him. He bucked a little harder. "You feel so good," he murmured. "You make me feel so good."

A strained cry left her and her pelvis answered his steady rhythm with demands of its own. Her calves rose to squeeze him closer, encircle his narrow hips. They were pressed together so tightly; it felt like they were one flesh. He never wanted it to stop. But a dizzying euphoria had ignited, one that eclipsed the romantic yearnings of his heart, twisting his desire to last all morning into the desperate drive to possess her. Gasping, Arthur raised himself to his knees, delving deeper with each push. Their foreheads met and he grit his teeth at the scald of her, the texture of her walls. She fit as though she'd been made for him.

He supposed she was.

Pressure began in the base of him, building and building in terrific torment. The muscles of his inner thighs contracted inward. Tingling climbed his shaft, his tailbone, his spine. He wove his fingers into the sheet, his grip a vise that wrested its corner from the mattress. She kissed the spot where his jaw met his neck, all the while murmuring encouragements for him to let himself go.

Bliss shot through him, from the tips of his toes to the follicles on his scalp, and his back stiffened as he whimpered and poured into. Fever engulfed his frame, sublime in its frenzy, leaving him in a heady stupor. Aftershocks made him tremble. Once, twice. Until, sated and spent, he landed on top her. He closed his eyes, ribs rising and falling as he forced air into his lungs.

A minute later, he swallowed and looked down at her. "You didn't come."

She carded through his sweaty locks. "It's all righ-"

"Shh." He slid out of her and settled at her side, reached between her legs to swipe at her core. "I'm not done," he declared, tracing the edges of her entrance, slick and swollen. One of his favorite things about getting her off was demonstrating his prowess in bed, how well he'd learned with her. His thumb met her plump clitoral hood, and he felt her throb beneath his ministrations.

Nails biting his bicep, she rocked upwards. A bewitching blush crept up her breast, her neck, spread across her cheeks. Shallow pants hit his face, short puffs suffused with high-pitched whines, utterly irresistible. He circled her nub at a steady cadence, tapping when she'd shiver, and she clasped the back of his hand. He swirled his tongue around her nipple, sucked the pretty peak, and lowered the other strap of her nightgown to bare her completely. A hushed plea fell from her lips. "Please, please..."

Suddenly, her vulva grew white hot and she seized, her hips stuttering with each flutter of his touch to her folds. She thrusts her breasts towards him, a sharp moan caught in her throat. Liquid pooled against his fingers, proof of her rapture that made him wish, with mild amusement, that he could be an unmedicated young man again. He would've gladly taken her a second time.

Giggling and rubbing her temple, she released a long exhale and opened her eyes. He brushed her hair back and grinned, completely smitten, like the first time he'd heard a joke and understood the punchline. The light brown picture frame on his nightstand caught his attention, and he regarded the wallet size photo in it, one of the shots of Y/N from the booth at Amusement Mile. The last thing he looked at before turning in each night. He lay his head her shoulder and hummed, listened to the drum of her heart.

She smooched his hairline and wriggled out from beneath him to stand. Her nightie had been reduced to a crumpled stripe of lilac cinched about her waist. It felt tawdry and shameless and he wanted to see her in it for the rest of the weekend. But she peeled it down her legs, wrinkling her nose when it got stuck on her thighs, and stepped out of it one foot at a time. She dropped it on the floral bedspread and retrieved her bathrobe from the closet. "Meet you in the kitchen," she said, opening the door.

The sun had risen higher, its beams slanting across the covers. He basked in it, catlike, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He pulled on his pajamas, got a new pair of socks from their dresser, and made his way to the kitchen. He washed off the remnants of Y/N's arousal from his fingers, popped open a prescription bottle and took a tablet. He poured water into the coffeemaker, grabbed the can of grounds from the second shelf, added three scoops to the paper filter. Their three-tone brown mugs sat in their spot next to the machine, waiting to be filled.

When the glass coffeepot was half full, Y/N emerged from the bathroom, chuckling to herself. She opened the breadbox on the opposite counter and took out a wax paper bag. "Do you have any idea how dull this morning would have been if we'd never met? I'd have read the Sunday paper, had a drink. Probably worked on a file." He handed her a couple dessert plates, watched her put a donut on each one. "I wonder where you'd be. What woman you'd have breakfast with, what jokes you'd be writing, what magic tricks you'd have learned."

"Um..." At first he wanted to ask where this speculation had come from, if Matt had let her in on exactly what he'd said. But the confident slant of her smirk told Arthur she was teasing. He tried to play along but winced. No matter how appealing, how extraordinary she found him, his gut told him there wouldn't have been another woman. There'd be no more stand-up routines, no more Carnival. He certainly wouldn't be taking care of Penny. He'd likely be locked up in the hospital, maybe even dead. Without an anchor, his life would have lost what little sense it had.

Y/N was one of his anchors now, hooked into the sand alongside his material, treatment, the ability to pay bills. He seized her hand and squeezed it tight, unaware he was squishing her fingers. "I don't wanna think about it," he said quietly.

She sidled up to him and pulled him to her side. Rubbed his flank soothingly and pecked the corner of his mouth. "Don't worry." She took his chin and guided him to look at her. The intimate comfort of her smile helped him believe her next words, even before she spoke them. "I'll always be here."

~~~~~

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve @ithinkimaperson @sweet-nothings04 @stephieraptorr @rommies @fallenstarsabyss @gruffle1 @octopus-plasma @tsukiakarinobara @arthur-flecks-lovely-smile @another-day-in-chuckletown @hhandley80 @jokerownsmysoul @fakestreet​ @ralugraphics​​ @iartsometimes​

[starrygalaxy04]

Songs That Remind Them of You (MLQC Headcannons)

Victor

Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Elton John)- Victor is a sucker for romantic-style music, and this song is no exception. He can't help but imagine dueting this song with you whenever it plays softly in the background while he's making your favorite caramel pudding.

Adore You (Harry Styles)- He would never admit it, but this man just wants to shower you in affection. His favorite moments are when he gets to hold you in his arms and he can just gaze at you with the insane amount of joy, admiration, love, and unfiltered affection that only you get to see. He's been searching for you for a very long time, and he's going to cherish every second of being with you.

Still the One (One Direction)- He would never admit he ever listens to this song because like hell is anyone going to find out that he listens to boy bands, but this song's lyrics strike all the right chords with him. He loves the message it sends because its the very message he will always reiterate to you when you feel like you're not enough or he could do better. Its you, its always been you.

Lucien

Dark Side (Kelly Clarkson)- This man has a hard time knowing that you love him and are blissfully unaware of the monster that lurks just below the surface. He often finds himself wondering if you would still love him if he were just Ares, or if you would leave after you found out all of the things he had done for the sake of progress. But every time you wrap your arms around him or smile at him, all those worries melt away because he feels true emotion when he looks at you.

Its Gonna Be Me (NSYNC)- He knows that anyone in this world can have you, and it would kill him if you chose anyone else besides him. So he wants to make absolutely sure that he will never even have to think about letting his beautiful butterfly go. He is forever yours, and you will be forever his, even if it takes an eternity for that to happen.

Line Without A Hook (Ricky Montgomery)- This song mainly applies after Lucien no longer remembers MC, because I feel like it accurately describes how he feels. He knows MC doesn't trust him and is purposefully being distant, but at the same time the feelings that the other him felt are slowly trickling in and before long he's wishing that he could fix whatever it was that was tearing MC up so bad inside. And he knows that as he is, he's no good for you. But that doesn't mean that he isn't going to ignore the voice of reason in his head like the other him did and try his hardest to be what he once was for you.

Kiro

Fight For This Love (Cheryl)- Kiro knows that with him being a huge pop idol that sometimes the pressure gets to you. And he wants you to know he is always there and will be there next to you to fight through the thick and thin. He always wants to be with his favorite person ever, and will do whatever it takes to make sure that you're okay and he can be there to experience everything life has to offer with you, and to assure you that you are worth it.

100% Pure Love (Crystal Waters)- True to the name of the song, everything that Kiro feels (well almost everything, if you get what I mean) comes from the purest parts of him. He always wants you to be the happiest you can, always making sure that you have a bright smile on your face. And he knows what you two have is something people could only dream of, and having you in his arms is the best thing that ever happened since he met you again at that convenience store.

Price Tag (Jessie J)- He knows that when you two are together, nothing else matters. He knows you're not with him just because he's Kiro the superstar, but because he's Kiro. The bubbly 22 year-old who has an affinity for sweets and puppies with an adventurous streak. And he knows that if you two are next to each other, you wouldn't need anything else to have a good time.

Gavin

Treasure (Bruno Mars)- Honey, you are the center of this man's universe. He had treasured you since the first day he laid eyes on you, and wanted nothing more than to be by your side. And now that he is, he is over the moon. He may not be able to shower you in lavish gifts like some of the others, but every single moment you two spend together more than makes up from it, whether its a picnic under the stars or a midnight flight.

What A Man Gotta Do (The Jonas Brothers)- This brings back some of his older memories, back from the high school days. He was so shy when it came to you, and he never even knew how to approach you the majority of the time. So he always watched from the distance, wondering what he could do to get you to notice him. The song allows him to reflect on those cringey memories with a smile, and let him enjoy the fact that you were his, even after all that had happened.

Loving You Tonight (Andrew Allen)- This man can't wait to come home and just lay in your arms, or have you lay in his arms. His favorite moments are the ones of pure domesticity, things he never saw between his mother and father when he was younger. It feels so pure and freeing, and just so right. He loves every moment of it, and wouldn't have it any other way.

Helios

Popular Monster (Falling in Reverse)- While Helios is indeed a person, Helios is somewhat of a character that Kiro is playing. Its the side of him that he can't show to the world. He has killed people to protect others, to protect you, and in that way, he's exactly as the title reads, a popular monster.

Therefore I Am (Billie Eilish)- As Helios, he knows that everything relies on technique and execution, so he has completely shut out emotional functions for the most part, except when he's around you. But because Kiro is such a good actor, its very hard to tell. He knows that he's that bitch, and is not afraid to prove it, being blunt about literally everything. But he also knows that you have the perseverance of a God, to the point that its stupid, but as you build the confidence that comes with the identity of your Evol, he sees you growing in a way that he could have never taught you as Kiro.

Cigarette Duet (Princess Chelsea)- Helios knows that he can't associate with you as much as when he was Kiro because Black Swan is a bitch, but one thing he always wants to make sure is that you haven't fallen down and devolved into bad habits. The one thing that didn't leave Helios was his ability to care specifically about you, and even thinking that you would get into a habit that would harm yourself makes his blood boil. So he always makes sure you've remained drug-free and that you see him just enough that it won't get him in trouble and can give you comfort.

Shaw

No Roots (Alice Merton)- Shaw's idea of you is something much like how Victor saw you in the beginning. Someone who thrust themselves into something way over their head and now had to deal with the consequences of it. The only reason he believed you was because he knew of things (the man has his ways) and decided to help you because he found you just interesting enough that he thought it might be fun. But he found himself envying the fact that you didn't have a past in this world, and that you were free to do whatever you pleased without a reputation preceding you. He didn't like the fact that it caused you pain, but thanks to his asshole of a father the idea sounded a little too good to him.

Sad Girl (Lana Del Rey)- Shaw often found you moping around at first, mourning the fact that you had lost everything. But in the end, he was the one who helped you get over it, getting you back to your normal self. He still catches glimpses of that depressed look in your eyes, and always makes sure to lighten up on the teasing when he does see it. He never got the chance to be a kid and grow up properly, so he couldn't fathom exactly how hard it was for you. But he still tried.

White Tee (CORPSE)- We all know Shaw would be more into the punk style, and his music taste is no exception. He likes listening to mostly emo style music, and dabbles into a little bit of everything when he feels like it. However, this song mixes together his anger at the world for giving him such a shit childhood and the fact that with you he feels like he can start fresh. Because even though everyone else falls into the same category with him, you were different, and he wanted to explore that kind of different.

[hollyethecurious]

New CS AU Coming Soon (1/2)

Summary: After being in the wrong place at the wrong time, bounty hunter Emma Swan finds herself conscripted into working for one of Storybrooke’s most notorious crime families. Tasked with finding a rat that has infiltrated the Jones family enterprise, Emma tries to keep things just business between herself and the all-too-tempting Killian Jones. If she can unmask the rodent, she’ll receive not just a reprieve from the family, but her freedom and a hundred grand to start a new life. But what kind of life? One that exists in black and white, where there is a right way to do things and one must overcome their demons? Or the kind Killian can offer her, where one can revel in the grey areas while enjoying the company of demons?

A/N: I’ve only been teasing this thing for, like, a year, and now I’m FINALLY ready to share it with y’all! Official drop date is March 28th. It’ll update every other week, alternating with my CS Bridgerton AU, The Duke and His Swan. A preview for that one will post soon.

I want to give a shout out to @artistic-writer for creating the amazing cover art for this fic. Also major flails to @itsfabianadocarmo and @cocohook38 for already creating some incredible art inspired by this fic. You can check out Fabiana’s aesthetics here and here, and Jules’ mob Killian rendering here. Please go flail at all of them for their awesomeness!!

Much love to @kmomof4 and @artistic-writer​ for being my sounding boards and cheerleaders for this, as well as the fantastic @elizabeethan and @thejollyroger-writer​ for being my kick-ass betas!

Preview:

Emma braced herself against the wall, her mouth falling open as her eyes blinked furiously to take in the scene, each time expecting to see something different. Did that really just happen? Had she really just witnessed a man being gunned down in cold blood?

An echo of voices reverberated off the brick walls around her, but they were distant in her ears, like noises at the end of a long tunnel. When she finally heard, grab the girl, Emma’s faculties snapped back into full awareness.

The mouthy goon with the buzz cut tried to take hold of her, but Emma turned into him and brought her knee up sharply, connecting with his groin before shoving him back and sprinting towards her bug.

“Bloody hell. I’ll get her,” Jones groused, and she heard heavy footfalls in pursuit.

Wrenching open the driver’s side door, Emma slid into the seat, slamming and locking it before thrusting the key into the ignition. Frantically, she pressed down on the clutch and brake and turned the key, only for the damned thing to whine and sputter without starting.

“Come on. Come on,” Emma urged under her breath, trying again.

A loud tapping sound of his gun against Emma’s window preceded Jones' voice. “Unlock the door, love.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Emma shouted at him, persisting in her attempt to get the engine to turn over while knowing her panicked actions were just flooding it, making it a hopeless endeavor.

“Last chance,” he warned.

Emma ignored him. Having given up with trying to start the car, she reached into her back pocket to grab her phone. She needed to call Graham for backup. 

Before she could get past her lock screen, the window behind her exploded in a shower of glass, and a black leather clad arm reached in to unlock her door. Jones slapped the phone out of her hands before yanking her from the driver seat. Emma stumbled, trying to gain her footing as he spun her around and pressed her against her bug. She felt the cold metal of her handcuffs snap around one wrist, then the other, and noted a car now backed into the alley with Walsh’s dead body being loaded into its trunk.

“Now, lass,” Jones said, pulling her into his side and practically dragging her towards the vehicle while pressing his gun into her ribs. “Are you going to be a good girl and ride nicely in the back with me and my associate, or do I have to put you in the trunk with our poor unfortunate Mr. Walsh?”

In the Company of Demons / Rated E / add to tag list

Tagging the Curious Crew:

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[morelike-bi-light]

unplanned unexpected unwarranted vampire charlie au

au where bella decides she cant leave her dad behind like her mom did and convinces edward and carlisle to protect him too. carlisle ushers him out of the house and explains things to him, providing proof as needed - as much as he can. they go to arizona to hide out, charlie stumbling over his words to convince renee that he and bella were threatened and are in enough danger to need to hide out in a different state.

bella still gets the phone call, and renee doesn't answer when either of them call. when the others are distracted, she still gets away to meet james, but when the cullens go to save her, charlie's waiting outside with esme and rosalie (who are guarding him on the road instead). victoria is there too - and she gives them more trouble than they anticipated. emmett and jasper are distracted by the redhead and the noises from inside the studio getting louder and more concerning by the second.

when a scream rings out — he's never heard bella sound like this, not even when she was a mousy little girl buried under his seahawks baseball cap far too big for her head — charlie can't help but wrench open the door and run inside. his baby is cowering away from a bloodthirsty monster and there's not even a pause in his step as he sprints over to shield her form with his own, squeezing her against his chest and praying for the first time since he heard she wanted to come up to forks for the rest of school

his prayer's interrupted by a loud shattering sound and a malicious laugh. "aw, look at that! daddy's trying to save you. what a noble, pointless sacrifice!" a smack like stone hitting stone. "well far be it from me to deny a man his dying wish."

he doesn't hear what he says next - he doesn't hear anything, or see anything, because everything is white and sharp and pain, burning like a star, blooming in the crevice where his shoulder meets his collarbone. nothing exists right then but the cold fire in his skin, burrowing in his bone. it feels like hours before anything changes. the first thing to slip through is wet on his cheek and cool hands scrabbling to clutch at his.

"dad! dad!" bella? "edward! carlisle! anybody, any of you, please, I need help! my dad — needs help!" a hand on his cheek, trembling and frantic. "dad just hang in there! somebody help us!"

his fingers twitch, stretching towards her. "bella —you okay — bells — "

"im okay! im okay, im so sorry, dad, im so sorry! im sorry, it shouldnt have been you — this is all my fault — edward! edward please, you have to help him!"

hers is still the only voice he can discern but there are more emerging, blending together but getting closer. he catches snatches of words like 'bit', and 'spread', and 'minutes', and 'sorry', and 'safety'. a pale shape stands at the edge of his vision, and at once he's lifted from the floor. he convulses, eliciting another audible choke from his sweet daughter, and he recognizes a familiar, soothing voice from above.

"we can't stay here..."

"what? what do you mean?"

"we'll bring him back with us..."

"what are you going to do?"

"let him take him, bella, please"

"we'll watch over him, i promise."

"Im not leaving him, i can't just let him go!"

"i promise," softer. "jasper — will he sleep?"

the world softens and fully crumbles away. there's nothing left. nothing but fire.

time doesn't exist here, but then the fire, it doesn't go out. yet it stops hurting. it stops eating. it starts feeding. a single thought pops into his head that will make no sense to him when he recalls it later — a weary 'oh. i see.'

three days after the ballet studio, he wakes up to a brown popcorn ceiling. he blinks. he can see every crack and cranny in the plaster.

"mr. swan?" a tinkling voice says, and he sits up. "good, I thought you'd be up." the little black haired cullen girl beams up at him, chipper but sorry. her hand is curled around his wrist. "bella will be back any moment, and carlisle soon after. they're just across the hall, actually. he says we'll need to look after you for a while, just in case, —"

she pauses, just soon enough to avoid being interrupted by the sound of beeping and pressing keys and the door swinging open. bella is whole and wonderful — he can see every inch of her and she's really actually fine, not even a scratch — and she freezes seeing him but then she's flinging herself forward, pale face contorting

"dad—!"

"b-bells," he stands up, quickly, too quickly, to meet her, tugging alice along with him, but edward catches his girlfriend's hand and holds her back as he voices her objections to her entering at all. charlie scowls at first, when a scent reaches his nose — a smell that might've made his stomach growl if it could. his eyes cast up in open question.

edward is stiff, eyes looking conflicted but legs poised to pounce. "it's her."

"oh." charlie shifts uncomfortably on his feet, properly spooked, willing the despairing thirst away. as moments pass since making the connection, the scent of blood — of food — fades, to the point he can hardly detect it at all. it's a sharp relief.

"you — how do you feel," bella forces out, eyes locked with his with an uncomfortable intensity that makes him squirm and anxiously rake a hand through his hair. carlisle and the others filter in behind her and he's grateful for something else to look at, now he knows she's safe.

"better," he settles on. "than before, I mean. was that — did —" he waits for someone to interrupt him and fill him in, but it's quiet. "are you okay?"

a bark of laughter bursts from her chest and she assures him she's fine, eyes wide and brows furrowed like she can't believe he's a real person, the way she gets sometimes when he says something so awkward and sincere it makes her want to groan. but she doesn't want to groan anymore. instead she's torn between crying and singing.

"what do you remember?" carlisle asks, gently stepping forward, his gaze a mix of clinical fascination, wary confusion, and personal concern. charlie would flush beneath it... but the heat never comes to his cheeks.

"exactly how much are you looking for," he grumbles. "last thing i recall..." no need to go into the pain. "finding bella with that... guy at the studio."

"just finding her?"

"trying to protect her," he amends, focused on avoiding everyone's gaze. "and... it was..." then he notices how much there is to see, even when hes trying not to look at anything. he frowns. absorbing this much — it feels like a headache, minus the pain itself. overload. "it was him wasnt it. he bit me"

esme and jasper nod, but carlisle and bella just look away, the brunette visibly cringing. edward's jaw tightens, and for some inexplicable reason, the sight of that is what makes it all click for him.

"so," he fumbles for a second, but the word comes out so clean and sure when he says it, not at all like he feels. his mouth is physically incapable of tripping over itself like hes used to, no stammer, no stumbling. he grimaces and all the muscles pull exactly like he intends them too. he shakes his head. "he bit me. and? can i assume that's what's got me feeling so weird? the... some sort of effect of the bite?"

bella doesnt answer. neither does carlisle. surprisingly, it's that blonde girl that replies, though not to him.

"show him," she says, and after a moment, esme creeps forward, gesturing for his hand. he hesitates, but takes it. edward shifts to place bella behind him, as if she needs to be protected from him the way charlie protected her from james, a move that breaks his heart. gently, esme maneuvers him over to the bathroom. she turns on the lights, though she didn't really need to. he blinks. red. in the middle of a face with skin more suited to a shelf at a morgue than the tasteful backsplash of the bathroom, framed with dark, curling, concerningly long lashes, his irises were red. that wasn't it, either.

"am i..." he huffed. "am i seeing things, or am i way better looking than usual?"

a ripple of good humor disturbs the room, from esme's warm giggle, to a watery chuckle from bella, to a great, booming crow from emmett.

"way to focus on what's important, chief," alice nods, at the man's back in an instant. she doesn't sound nearly as sarcastic as those words should warrant. "finally, a man after my own heart."

"wait till you try running for the first time," emmett interjects, joining her behind him. "mind, blown."

some of the other family members sigh and shake their heads. charlie runs his eyes along his sharper jaw, still sprinkled with the stubble he'd acquired in the preceding chaos, now even and almost roguish where before hes pretty sure it made him look old and unkempt. he looks younger, he thinks, not young exactly, but good. better than his age.

he pulls away from his reflection, eyes flickering from face to face around him. he might even have said that he fit in with the mythically beautiful family. hes struck by how silly he was to dismiss the strangeness of the gorgeous, antisocial group out of hand, now that he sees how strange he's become himself, before his eyes fall to his daughter.

"im sorry dad" she mumbles, humor evaporating, and a pain resounds like a crack in his chest.

slowly, carefully, he moves forward, and the rest of the vampires stand on high alert as they realize what he's about to do. bella's eyes are bloodshot and he presses his lips together in a bittersweet line as he wraps her in his arms and tucks her close, just under his chin. a shudder runs down his spine as a phantom pain ghosts over his shoulder, but he brushes it aside and it evaporates like water. when he breathes in, she smells the way she always has, and he is not hungry.

"it's okay, kiddo. we'll get through this. im just glad you're okay."

and they do. charlie's vampiric powers are related to shielding, like his daughter, but his are more like putting things on mute, if that makes sense. small things, obviously, and usually physical. he's got a great deal more resistance to thirst than most newborns, for example, because it's muted by his powers, particularly for those he cares about. unfortunately this makes it likelier for him to, uh, die of thirst, as it's possible for him to forget to feed. and he can't block edward from hearing his thoughts completely, but they're muffled naturally by his powers (and always will be. hes not helping anyone into his head any time soon, especially not his daughter's boyfriend). he can also mute his own scent to the shapeshifters — which means he and billy, after things are all sorted, will still be able to hang out and be best friends!! he can also mute his own footsteps,

anyways this started as a meme post intending to go into how comedic it would be if charlie got changed and bella spent the rest of the series complaining that edward wanted to spend the rest of eternity with her father but not with her but then i got struck with some mad charlie feels and this happened so anyways vampire!charlie everyone @charlieswanismyrealdad @effervescent-emmett @cullen-trash @emmettmccartycullen @jaspell @leahclearwaterdefensesquad is this anything

[swanlake1998]

Article: Ashton Edwards Is Breaking Down Gender Barriers in Ballet

Date: July 1, 2021

By: Marcie Sillman

When Ashton Edwards was 3 years old, the Edwards family went to see a holiday production of The Nutcracker in their hometown, Flint, MI.

For the young child, it was love at first sight.

"I saw a beautiful, black Clara," Ashton says, "and I wanted to be just like her."

Ashton has dedicated 14 years of ballet training in pursuit of that childhood dream. But all the technical prowess in the world can't help Ashton surmount the biggest hurdle—this aspiring dancer was born male, and for the vast majority of boys and men, performing in pointe shoes hasn't been a career option. But Ashton Edwards, who uses the pronouns "he" and "they," says it's high time to break down ballet's gender barrier, and their teachers and mentors believe this passionate dancer is just the person to lead the charge.

A Childhood in Motion

Ashton's mother, Latisha Edwards, says for as long as she can remember, Ashton, the sixth of seven Edwards siblings, has been in constant motion, dancing on any flat surface in the house. "He'd crash into plates in the kitchen," she laughs. She knew she had to find something to focus all that energy.

The year after the family trip to Nutcracker, when Ashton was just 4 years old, Latisha signed them up for a dance class offered through Flint's Head Start program. Karen Jennings, now chair of the dance division at the Flint School of Performing Arts, ran the Saturday program at the time.

"There was this little guy out in the hallway," Jennings remembers. It was Ashton, and Jennings saw the child was copying the students in her intermediate class.

"I was afraid he was going to fall and crack his head open," she says. "So, I invited him into the studio."

Jennings recognized Ashton's natural flexibility, rotation and body proportions, the physical assets that often propel a hopeful ballet dancer to success. Beyond these gifts, Ashton had what Jennings calls a "spark": the enthusiasm and self-discipline to devote to regular ballet classes. Once the Edwards family decided Ashton would continue ballet training, Jennings was happy to place them in her classes with the more advanced students. She kept a close eye on the aspiring dancer throughout their 12 years in the Flint School of Performing Arts program—though Ashton's journey there wasn't always easy.

Ashton was one of only a handful of boys in the school, and one of very few Black students. And though Ashton never felt treated differently, their keen awareness of being Black in a room full of white dancers created a pressure to excel.

"I've had to be 12 times better than everyone else my whole life," Ashton says. "We have no choice but to be the best if we want to be treated equally."

Finding a Dance Home in Seattle

By the time Ashton was 11 or 12, it became clear they had the raw skills to pursue ballet seriously, and Jennings met with the Edwards family to spell out what that would mean: leaving Flint for more rigorous pre-professional training. Latisha Edwards worried about sending her child out of town, but she supported their decision to enroll in summer classes at both Chicago's Joffrey Ballet and then at Houston Ballet.

Although Jennings believed the Joffrey would be a good long-term fit, at age 16 Ashton decided to audition for Pacific Northwest Ballet's summer intensive. They traveled to Chicago where the Seattle-based dance company was holding a large, regional audition. PNB artistic director Peter Boal says managing director Denise Bolstad spotted Ashton before he did.

"Her eyes got bigger, then she pointed to the name and audition number on the card." Boal immediately saw what Bolstad had noticed in Ashton. "His lines, his energy, his placement."

But something even more special struck Boal: This teenager had the kind of stage presence that's difficult to teach. "There are dancers that you just look at them, and they have their own special spotlight."

Boal offered Ashton a summer spot; despite their mother's qualms about the distance from Flint to Seattle, she let her son travel west, where they fell in love with both PNB and Seattle. After the summer, Boal accepted Ashton into the company's Professional Division training program.

Chasing the Dream of Dancing On Pointe

While the move to PNB made sense in terms of preparation for a professional ballet career, it didn't ensure that Ashton could immediately pursue gender-blind ballet training. In fact, the teenager didn't even consider it at first.

"Growing up I always knew all the choreography for the female roles," Ashton says. "I learned everything, but those were unreachable dreams, just insane fantasies." So, when Ashton first arrived at PNB, they focused on traditional men's classes, and on building strength, to develop into what they call a "man's man."

But the pandemic hit midway through Ashton's first year at PNB. When the ballet school shut down, Ashton had time to reflect on their efforts to fit the male ballet dancer stereotype. At 5' 6" with long, slender limbs and androgynous facial features, they didn't necessarily resemble a Romeo or an Albrecht. And deep down, they still harbored the dream of dancing Juliet or Giselle.

So, during quarantine in the spring and summer of 2020, Ashton embarked on a rigorous self-directed training program. They sought out online pointe technique videos, studying them carefully. A friend gave Ashton her old pointe shoes, and every day they'd go outside to the patio to practice what they'd seen in the videos.

"I was out there for six hours a day, as soon as the sun came out," says Ashton. "And I realized, maybe this dream is possible."

So, last fall Ashton approached Boal and Bolstad with a proposition: The dancer would continue with the official men's curriculum if the school would allow them to pursue pointe classes, as well. And they showed the teachers what they'd learned over the summer.

"I had no hesitation," Boal remembers. "If anyone had said to me 'This student has danced on pointe for just nine months and this is what they're able to do,' I wouldn't believe it!"

The Lewis and Clark of the Ballet World

Since classes resumed last September, Ashton has juggled a rigorous schedule: two days a week they take pointe class with their Professional Division female colleagues; the other three days they're working with the male students, although sometimes they take that class in pointe shoes as well.

Former PNB principal dancer Jonathan Porretta, one of Ashton's instructors, says he never knew his student wanted to dance on pointe until last fall, when Ashton started posting photos to their Instagram account.

Porretta says he has always approached teaching his classes outside male and female roles. For him, ballet is about working toward technique and developing the artist.

For his part, Porretta calls Ashton a "star," someone he believes can help pave a new future for men, and women, in ballet. Porretta says it's time for the art form to loosen its hide-bound gender roles.

"There will be some companies very ready to be thrust into the future of dance, while others are more set in their ways," Porretta says. "But art is here to push boundaries and possibilities."

PNB soloist Joshua Grant agrees. Years ago, when he was a young student, Grant's ballet teacher suggested he take pointe classes to help strengthen his ankles. He loved dancing on pointe, but professionally it didn't seem like an option for him. In 2006, after stints with both PNB and National Ballet of Canada, Grant auditioned for, and was hired by, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the all-male troupe known for its campy send-ups of classic ballets.

"I was told it would be career suicide," Grant recalls, because "men on pointe? That's either drag or comedy."

After five years as a principal dancer with the Trocks, Grant returned to PNB, where he's back to performing traditional male roles and developing his own choreographic career. He's currently creating a dance for Ashton and some of their fellow students, for Next Step, PNB's choreographers' showcase. Ashton will be on pointe. Like Porretta, Grant is excited that a young dancer like Ashton is eager to push to transform a centuries-old art form.

"I told Ashton, 'You're like Lewis and Clark, making your own path,'" Grant says. "'There's no precedent, so do what you want to do.'"

Looking Ahead

Ashton is hoping to embark on a career dancing with companies that will cast them not only in gender-blind contemporary work, but in the traditional roles from ballet's classical canon, everything from Odette/Odile in Swan Lake to the long-coveted Clara in The Nutcracker.

"I want to be part of changing, evolving those traditions to modern day life," says Ashton. "We can preserve those ballets, those classic works, but also make them reflect our modern world."

Boal believes in Ashton's ability to be a ballet change-maker; more than that, he's convinced that ballet has to welcome gender-blind casting and men performing on pointe as more than a novelty act.

"We're not going to laugh at this or point at it," Boal says. "We're going to admire it, and eventually we're not even going to talk about it as something out of the ordinary, as it continues to evolve."

Despite the support Ashton has received in their quest to be a nonbinary professional dancer, landing a job is tough for any ballet student, let alone for a Black dancer. But Ashton professes faith that they can make their dreams come true.

"I just decided, my entire life, this is what I'm going to do. This makes me happy, so I have to do it," Ashton says. "There is no other way I can exist."

[victimhood]

Nicolò Di Genova: “Football is my faith, San Siro is my church”

The Guardian, 22 May 2028

“I have no regrets, not even the World Cup.” Inter Milan captain Nicolò Di Genova has announced his retirement from club football. He will play on with the national squad for the 2028 Euros this summer, where his country plays host, his swan song before the final bow.

The man and the mystery started out as a 7 year old with the youth side of Genoa Cricket and Football Club, the oldest football team in Italy. He played with his hometown club for 10 years, making nearly 30 appearances for the under-17s before moving on to the Primavera side, where he established himself as a regular starter at the center of defence. Before the age of 18, he was named to the first team bench, and after only 3 starting appearances, he was snapped up by Inter Milan for €30 million.

A crowded roster meant that he was loaned out to get playing time, and he made his way to England, for the Wolverhampton Wolves under the prophetic Nuno Espírito Santo. The Wolves were a well-regarded team of underdogs, and during his spell, the team reached the semifinals of the FA Cup and achieved a 7th place finish, sneaking into the Europa League under special circumstances.

He was recalled to Inter Milan from the 2019-2020 season onwards, a season of unusual circumstances when the COVID-19 pandemic spiraled in Italy, leading to the declaration of a total lockdown in early March 2020 that delayed the season end until August of the same year. The pandemic also meant that the 2020 Euros were postponed to the following year. Where the early buzz was that this player might be Chiellini’s heir in the lineage of great Italian defenders, it was the summer of 2021 that he sealed his place as the heir apparent.

Against a host of superstars old and new, in a tournament star-studded with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé, and Erling Haaland, one man rose to brutalize them all. Fearless, reckless, and with a single-minded focus on preventing a goal at all costs, Di Genova was the insatiable black hole to these superstars, swallowing all their light and shine, with no regard to the entertainment value of TV audiences worldwide. Quickly building a reputation as a fearsome menace and a bully, his playing style did not make for attractive viewing, at times defying the stereotype of the measured Italian defender with his English-style grit as if in homage to the origins of his boyhood club.

Then again, the best central defenders make the most natural candidates for captaincy, and this is where Di Genova’s reputation acquired some polish. After a league-winning 2020-2021 season beset with financial problems, in which the majority of Inter players went unpaid for months, the older players and bigger names were sold to keep the club liquid. Di Genova found himself in the fortuitous position of going from substitute captain to a permanent one, at the tender age of 24. Blessed with a chiseled face like a Roman statue, emanating a raw, unbridled masculinity and sporting a fresh haircut that signaled the beginning of the post-vaccine era, his popularity began to surge on account of being the subject of viral memes.

Adversity sometimes breeds success, and in the midst of Inter Milan’s financial turmoil, together with Yusuf Al Kaysani and Dominik Brunczvik, he formed the steadfast backbone of Antonio Conte’s old-school catenaccio-flavored 3-5-2. Discipline, organization and solidity were key values, leading to a consecutive scudetto win even as the club had to undergo financial restructuring. His partnership with Yusuf Al Kaysani in particular withstood the onslaught of uncertainty that plagued the club for years, and a revolving door of managers who flip flopped between a back three and back four lineup. At Inter, they were the new “silk and steel” in the tradition of Claudio Gentile and Gaetano Scirea, with Di Genova providing the mettle and Al Kaysani the flair.

Though he is not a one club man, his near decade of service at Inter Milan have made him the bastion of loyalty, earning the undying adulation of all Interisti. Other clubs have tried to come knocking, and yet those efforts to lure him away never amounted to much. His devotion to the club is such that even rival fans cite him as a player with old-school values they truly respect, in a world where money speaks loudest.

For all his loyalty to his club, there is one other that takes precedence—the national team. Sometimes seeming like he stepped off from a different era into the modern game, Di Genova radiates the energy of a classic man-of-the-people footballer for whom a call-up to the national team is the highest honor. Putting in solid performances in the 2022 World Cup, Italy made it to the finals with the fewest goals conceded, only to lose the trophy to Germany in a penalty shootout. By Euro 2024, he was named captain of the Azzurri, and he took his team to an inspired victory over Belgium. As for the 2026 World Cup, despite the controversy of the final, it was his ability to stop important goals that brought the Azzurri there, and he has a winner’s medal to prove his worth despite being unable to lift the trophy.

A fiercely private individual, he keeps his personal life strictly out of the public eye. This hard boundary only serves to further the enigma and mystique, such that he is spoken of with the kind of mythos usually reserved for the ancient gods. He started out as a brute and a bully, the burden of captaincy taming his wilder impulses, with years of dependability to burnish his credibility. He now has the unassailable reputation of a great military general, a charismatic leader able to command authority over a field of jostling, overinflated egos.

Never one to shy from an ugly victory when the circumstances call for it, he provided the grit and backbone to Andy Skifska’s glitzy, fast-attacking team. Trusted by Skifska to lock the deadbolt across goal, he finally achieved the coveted Champions League in the 2026-2027 season, with a garnish of the Club World Cup in 2028.

He retires as someone who has taken his team to victory in every major tournament, the faithful servant of club and country. Within Italy, he is an undisputed national hero with a permanent spot in the pantheon of calcio greats. To his legions of adoring fans, he remains a former heartthrob, or absolute beast, depending on who you ask, and a role model and cautionary tale at the same time.

It is difficult to get any quotes from the man himself, but when asked about his retirement plans at the final league match of the season, he coyly replies, “I am going to take a long holiday, and then, we will see.”

(taken from Chapter 103 of The Beautiful Game)

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  Magical Loopholes

Chapter 62:  His Closest Ally

He returned to his shop that morning feeling renewed, with an energy he hadn't felt like he'd possessed in many hundreds of years, if ever. He felt…he wasn't sure he had words for what he felt. Alive? Thriving? Like the luckiest damn bastard that had ever walked the face of this world or the last or the next? Honesty of the heart…that was a concept he'd never in a million years would have thought he'd embrace. And yet, here he was, feeling it right down to his black soul when he was with Belle. She should have said goodbye to him for good last night. She should have listened to everything that he said and then kicked him out, told him that she never wanted to see him again so that he knew if he ever came near her again, she'd kill him. Instead, he'd told her everything, and she'd stayed. She hadn't liked what she'd had to tell him, but the fact that he'd told her, that he'd shared everything with her…"honesty of the heart," as David had called, it was a fucking miracle cure. And it left him in his shop to consider other things.

He hadn't lied to her. He was looking forward to their lunch the next day, counting down the hours until it was time to see her again, but in the meantime, he kept himself busy with other tasks, and his brain began to consider quite seriously things he had only thought about before.

He worked to bind his two potions together; the memory enhancer and the talisman spell were one by lunchtime. Now, all he needed to do was pour a bit of that potion over the top of the object he wished to make a talisman, Bae's shawl, and so long as he kept that shawl with him, he should be able to maintain his memories outside of Storybrooke, beyond the town line barrier. Furthermore, he was pleased with the sheer amount of the stuff combining the two potions left him with. It was good because he knew that he wasn't done yet. It still needed something. When he walked through the town line, it would recognize that magic and work to take it from him. He needed to add something to it to ensure that the magic remained intact when he crossed. The experiments that he'd done to begin all this already pointed him in two directions: strong magic and weak magic.

His first option was to mask the magic within with a spell that was so strong, so overwhelming, that hid his magic and offered itself up as a sacrifice for the town line to take. The second option worked much the same way but with weak magic. He could find a spell that would hide his magic and trick the line into believing that he was a being of little to no power, so that when he walked through it, it took only a small amount and left him still strong. Two options, many variations, hours of experimenting, all to get one answer in the end. Daunting as the task was, he kept at it, all through the day and night. He worked on it as he communicated with Dove about a party that night for Emma and Mary Margaret's return and confirmation that Dove could not locate Aurora. Interesting information, but all either unimportant drivel or old news to him. He worked on his experiments and let his mind wander to the dagger.

He was going to tell Belle about it. He'd made up his mind. The night before had gone so well he was almost bursting at the seams to do it. Taking it with him into the real world was his true preference, but he had to admit that out in that world, there were dangers for it he did not know about. Leaving it here, unguarded, while he was out in a World Without Magic and wouldn't be able to sense it had him feeling nervous. But now, he had an ally. Now he had someone he could trust with its location and importance. It might terrify him to think of leaving her to it all on her own, but his Belle was a remarkable woman. She showed bravery and courage, and beyond all that, she was intelligent. He'd never had someone so firmly on his side before, and for the first time in all his life, he couldn't wait to tell her everything.

He warmed when she let herself into the shop the next day, carrying a basket that he could only assume was their lunch. Smart woman…this way, they were guaranteed privacy. A lunch break all to themselves, it was perfect. Nearly as perfect as she was. As he settled it on the counter between them, he reached for her hand, and she leaned over to exchange the kiss he'd wanted to give her. Perfect. So perfect he might have been blushing without stopping himself. Oh, how hard and how fast he had fallen in only a few short weeks.

"Ah, well, that looks delicious!" he beamed as she shucked off her jacket, and he peeked inside. "Thank you very much, Belle!"

She smiled and reached into the basket to pull out what she'd brought-

And the bell over the door of his shop rang out. Emma, Mary Margaret, and David came striding in so purposefully that he knew he could tell them to leave all he wanted, and they wouldn't until they came for whatever they needed. He should have locked the damn door.

"Ah! Nothing warms the heart more than a family reunited!" he pronounced, making his way out to them. "You have your mother's chin, Ms. Swan-"

"We know that you killed him!" Emma spat before he could work his way up to the glorious moment he could tell them that he was busy and they could bloody well fuck off. But with a pronouncement like that, he knew something like that would never work. At least now he knew why they were here.

"And your father's tact…"

"Someone's dead?" Belle questioned over his shoulder.

"Dr. Hopper," Emma answered, glancing over his shoulder at Belle as if she was a suspect, as if she thought Belle might have a hand in the death solely because he might. But he didn't.

True, he already knew about Archie's death. Dove had texted him perhaps an hour or so ago to inform him of the unfortunate death. It was the only thing that had given him pause in the last day and a half since he'd last seen Belle. He hadn't thought anything of the death, to be honest, other than to think that it was a loss. He hadn't been close to the cricket, but he hadn't exactly wished him harm either. He'd served his purpose in finding his son, but still, hearing about the sudden loss had piqued his interest for all of two minutes when he heard about it.

"How did he die?" he'd texted Dove.

The answer was simply, "no one has said yet. Seems it happened in the night. The only one around when he died was his dog."

It was a shame. But not one that affected him enough to stop his work. At best, it might shake the puppet out of hiding. So he'd returned to it and figured he'd hear about the death through gossip for the foreseeable future. He hadn't planned on being accused of the murder.

"Why on earth would you think I had anything to do with that?"

"Because all the evidence points to Regina!" Emma stated as if it were obvious.

"And she's not possibly capable of doing something so vile?!" Belle spat back, sidling up to him and offering his own thoughts before he could. An ally…he really had never had one like her before in his life.

"It's a frame job," Emma explained as if that proved he was the one who had actually killed the cricket.

"It wouldn't be the first time you used someone to try to hurt her," Mary Margaret accused.

He smirked. No, it wouldn't…but that still offered no proof that he was the one who had done it this time either. And in this world, the relevant phrase here was "innocent until proven guilty."

"Nice to see your memory is still intact, dearie," he replied calmly before giving a small shake of his head. "But this time, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you; it wasn't me."

"Why should we believe you?" David questioned, crossing his arms over his chest as if he'd just given all the irrefutable proof he needed. Admittedly, it wasn't a bad argument. He did have past precedence for such a thing; a lawyer here would probably make the same argument in court. But here in Storybrooke, they had two things that the outside world did not. First, they had magic. Second, they had a Savior capable of using magic. The extent of her powers he'd not yet seen and hardly thought of, but when the opportunity to observe them presented itself…

"Because I can prove it. Ask the witness."

"No one was there," Emma snapped in an unimpressed tone. Like father, like daughter.

"Well, that's not strictly true now, is it?" he pressed, recalling the information that Dove had sent him. There was a simple way to extract memories from animals. The magic required was minimal, but the reading of those extracted memories was a bit more…challenging. Not impossible. It wasn't a difficult spell; it just wasn't an easy spell. It would give him a good baseline for seeing exactly what Emma could do. Once she realized what he was talking about, of course.

"Pongo!" she finally gasped after a second. Her eyes went wide before she glanced back at her parents. "Pongo was there!"

"Pongo's a dog, Emma," Mary Margaret sighed as if it were foolish. If they were planning on talking to him, then it was a foolish suggestion, but fortunately, magic let them be a bit more creative.

"And he has eyes, doesn't he?" he interjected quickly. "Let's put them to good use. Bring him to me."

[thenovelartist]

Childhood Friends Headcanon -MLQC

I’m sorry to all the people who come to my blog for ML only to get bombarded by posts for MLQC. But I’m enjoying myself.

Premise: What if the boys and MC actually stayed together once they met?

(Note: Minor spoilers for chapters 7-13, particularly surrounding boys backstories.)

Gavin

He’ll never forget that day in the rain meeting MC.

She knew about him—his reputation preceded him—and it was clear she was leery of him.

But with a little time, she came around.

So much so that she was sad that he graduated before her.

He was kinda sad, too, to be honest. He didn’t want to leave her.

But they never lost touch. Made sure to meet up as frequently as they could.

He didn’t attend his high school graduation—he both didn’t care and thought the everyone else would appreciate him not being present—but she did watch him with pride as he graduated his cop training program.

He almost cried over the fact that he actually had someone there to support him. He didn’t have familial support, but that didn’t really matter anymore when he had his own personal cheerleader.

He surprised her by showing up at her high school graduation.

Not really a “Surprise” but she was still wildly excited to see him, nonetheless.

Though they didn’t get to see each other often—Gavin busy with his demanding job and MC busy with college—they were instantly contacting the other when they had a moment of free time.

Gavin totally tried to coordinate his days off with hers.

They were that couple that claimed they were just friends but looked to the world like they were dating while also each wishing they were actually dating but both being too chicken to confess.

But Gavin finally gets the guts one day.

No surprise MC quickly followed up with a confession of her own.

How do you date?

They’d been so close and doing couple-y things for so long. Like, what was even a date compared to what they normally did?

They decided to do something they wouldn’t normally do and have a nice, truly ‘couple-y’ dinner.

Then they chuckled all the way home because that really wasn’t their style.

Still enjoyed it.

Gavin took her home, dropping her off at her door… and totally chickened out of kissing her goodnight.

They try the “date” thing again. This time, something more casual.

And that time, it did end with a kiss.

Gavin’s little mind went “boom”.

Already positive he’s gonna marry this girl.

Waits a little longer to propose, though. Just to make it seem like he’s not rushing it.

Courthouse wedding a few months later. Her father witnesses.

Then when her father passes shortly after, leaving her with the company, she’s constantly having to ask her coworkers for new copies of documents because she’s not used to signing her new last name quite yet. Especially when everyone still calls her by her maiden name. Or sometimes addresses her like they would her late father. (It’s a change for everyone.)

She’s got it down in a couple of days and likes her new signature better than her old one.

After marriage, Gavin also has a problem of his own. Particularly with the ring on his hand.

It’s his new nervous tick to play with it when he’s stressed on a scouting mission. And when he has to take it off for an undercover one, he’s a mess without it on.

Feels like he’s being unfaithful to the love of his life. MC has had to reassure him many times he’s not but secretly is touched that he feels that way.

These two have disastrous schedules, which is why when they both have time off they can spend together, phones go on silent. Someone can literally come to their house if it’s an emergency.

Kiro

They make it out of the lab together.

Poor kids were terrified out of their mind, each only five. They never let go of each other’s hands during their escape.

And they don’t want to be separated afterwards.

These two kids are each other’s “emotional support person.”

Literally inseparable.

These kids’ guardians bend over backwards to accommodate them. MC has a killer set of puppy dog eyes, but Kiro’s pout is downright impossible to resist.

They end up in the same classes at school.

Play together on the playground at recess and spend lunches together.

They are the “class couple.” And do get teased for it.

They’re told to ignore it, but it still takes a toll on them.

Eventually, Kiro steps out of school to become home-schooled, thanks to his music career.

Oh, these two kids do not know how to handle themselves.

But they are growing up and they can be apart from each other, right?

Right?

Wrong.

They survive not being in class together, but the moment they’re each out of school, they are attached to their phones, texting or calling each other.

Get together to hang out as much as humanly possible.

Kiro has 1000% both snuck off sets to go see MC and snuck MC onto sets to have her around.

MC has also enabled Kiro’s snacking by sneaking him anything he desires.

Usually it’s chips. She’s his chip dealer. Which only leads to the nickname “Miss Chips”.

They were so close that this mutual crush thing was absolutely unavoidable and unsurprising to most people who watched them.

They were fifteen and each exploring their feelings for each other and what dating was like.

And by sixteen, these two were totally making out in closets.

Savin just deals. As long as it doesn’t get out to the public, he’s fine with it. They’re generally discrete, anyway.

Though, the poor guy has had to hunt Kiro’s hiding spot down more than once. Generally, he scopes out the building beforehand so he knows where to find Kiro and MC if the superstar disappears from set.

Kiro would totally get her a promise ring. “I can’t officially propose now, but… I don’t think I’m going to be letting my Miss Chips go anytime in the future.”

She’s in tears.

Kiro’s already planned out proposing to her as soon as they are eighteen and has scoped out the perfect wedding venue.

Though, Savin now has to do everything in his power to keep the whole thing under wraps. He thinks it’s best the public doesn’t know Kiro’s getting married so young. They’ll slowly break it later.

MC travels with him everywhere, attending school online for convenience sake.

But when her dad passes and she has to take over the company, Kiro does his best to settle down more in Loveland to be by her side and support her more.

He fights to film exclusively at her company.

They totally have a closet that they make out in there, too. One MC has the sole key to.

Victor

He doesn’t loose track of her during their escape from that hellhole disguised as a “lab”.

She saves him, and he manages to carry her to safety.

Refuses to be separated from her after that.

Victor soon becomes like her over-protective big brother.

If he’s with her, he’s got his eye on her. And he’s with her a lot.

He’s so soft with her. Yes, there’s name calling on occasion, but he’s always met with a giggle when he calls her ‘dummy.’

He doesn’t really mean it, anyways.

Totally helps her with her homework.

And she always helps him in the kitchen. Rather, she tries and just ends up being the dishwasher after an incident with the fire alarm.

But she’s just happy if pudding is involved.

And though Victor swears he’s not going to make pudding every single night… there’s pudding more nights than not.

She goes to all his graduations; high school and college.

And he’s there supporting her at hers, looking on like the proud big brother his is.

“Good job, dummy.”

He totally teaches her how to write reports and such. Makes her do them and redo them until up to his standards.

“If you can impress me, you’ll win over anyone in the business world.”

Also teaches her all the ins and outs about running a business and how to thrive in the business world.

She’s always ready to take advice he offers.

Everyone in LFG knows that unless Victor actually is in an important meeting, MC is allowed in his office any time.

Has always seen her as his little sister.

Until she takes over her father’s company.

Suddenly, there’s a warmth in his chest as he watches her handle everything with ease.

It no longer feels like he’s watching over his little sister but rather watching a strong, capable woman handle the high-intensity job of running a company with confidence and poise.

… okay, poise was too generous a word. But his point still stood.

Suddenly, he notices she’s actually on his schedule. And their meeting takes place with none of the familiarity that they’ve become accustomed to.

He won’t coddle her as the business owner. She assures him she expects that from him.

And when she leaves his office, Victor finds himself a little bit of a mess.

They slowly lose their brother/sister mentality and grow into business partners that are close enough to have dinner a couple times a week.

“Question,’ he asks her one night. “Can these be considered ‘dates’ or not?”

She drops her fork in surprise.

They date for a several months before Victor proposes. He wouldn’t have proposed so early to anyone else but MC has always been an exception.

They put the wedding together in eight months. It’s a good, large, proper wedding, and they honeymoon out of the country. Because of course they do. Victor wants to give MC the best and only the best.

Total power couple, and Victor takes pride in that.

Lucien

This tree, or their tree, as Lucien likes to refer to it as, holds a very special place in his heart.

It started off as his sanctuary, the spot where he came out to draw.

But then it became the place that he got to bond with the girl who saved him.

After his parents were killed, everything went downhill for him at a rapid pace.

But she…

“It’s going to be okay.”

He still remembers the warmth of her hands when she held his and the tightness of her hugs she engulfed him in.

This girl’s smile lit up his dark world.

She’s the sole reason he escaped the pull of Black Swan.

Being four years apart as they were put a little gap between them growing up.

People looked at them in disdain so often that Lucien constantly lied about her being his sister.

He didn’t like that kind of attention from people, though he also logically knew why they received it.

Though he did his best to act respectfully and appropriately, he couldn’t help but feel all fluttery around MC. Every single time she came around, he had a physical reaction to her proximity.

Did his best to always act the gentleman. The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable.

For now, he focused on his studies, partly because he found them interesting, partly because he wanted to be the kind of man who could provide well for his family.

Because he had his heart set on making one with her.

It was irrational, if he thought of it logically, to be become romantically attached to someone simply because he was emotionally attached to. Yet he could not separate the pull of romantic notions from his emotional relationship to her.

He eventually surrendered his attempts at trying to separate the two and gave up entirely in his quest to understand it.

He was already on his track to a doctorate when she graduated high school. And suddenly, them both being adults made those four years that separated them growing up seem a little less of a hurdle.

That’s when he asked her out.

“I had to wait so long, but I think now’s finally an appropriate time.”

And that’s when she admitted she had feelings for him, too.

It warmed his cold little heart.

They did take things slowly.

But they were already discussing marriage by the time MC had to take over the company when her father suddenly passed.

Honestly, though it was a terrible tragedy, Lucien is glad he finally gets to return the favor of being there for her just as she was there for him all those years ago.

He also decides to hide the ring he’d bought in a drawer, only to open it again when things were stable.

Well… relatively. The life of a media company manager is never fully stable. Mostly, Lucien just got tired of waiting.

He takes her back to their tree to propose.

They get married there, too.

[unfolded73]

Husbands: Two Years In (5/5) - schitt’s creek ff

Here it is, the final chapter!  There's nothing I can say that can get across how touched I've been by the comments on this fic. The number of people who have shared things about their own struggles with mental health -- I'm not worthy of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

While I'm including this fic as part of the "Labels" series, the preceding fics are not required reading. Previous fics in this series: Boyfriends; “I Love You”, Partners, Fiancés

Warning: This fic deals with depression as one of its major topics.

Rated Explicit, this chapter 4718 words. (ao3)

Thanks to @high-seas-swan for cheerleading and B13_MaybeThisTime for many valuable comments (and also cheerleading).

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 5: Winter

“So how was your week?” Jessica asked.

Patrick always felt like he should plan before therapy what he was going to talk about, but he never remembered to do that.

“It was a little crazy. The holidays at the store always are, although it’s very lucrative. The money we make in December will carry us through at least half of the upcoming year,” he said, pinching the webbing on one hand between his thumb and forefinger of the other.

“And did you feel more equipped to handle that? The busy store, and all your responsibilities around that? Especially with Christmas a few days away?”

Patrick shrugged, feeling obstinate. “I don’t know.”

Jessica let a silence settle, waiting for him to talk. Patrick hated this part; it made him feel like he was failing at therapy when he didn’t know how to fill that silence. What the right answer was. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the sofa cushions, calling her bluff.

Finally, she relented and spoke, and Patrick felt like he’d won a round of whatever game they were playing. “You’ve never said much in here about your sexual orientation other than to talk about your husband and to say that things with your family are good. Was it always that way?”

Patrick tried not to roll his eyes. He knew this would be coming eventually. He’d been avoiding the subject of Rachel or his coming out process because he knew it would be something Jessica would fixate on. “I’m not depressed because of being gay, or… or anything to do with that. I love being gay.”

She smiled genuinely. “I’m glad. But humor me.”

“My parents always accepted me,” he said quickly, but that felt like a lie even though it was technically true.

“How old were you when you came out?” Jessica asked.

Patrick let out a frustrated sigh, seeing no way to avoid the truth now. “I was… I was in denial about being gay for a long time.” Might as well get it all out, he thought. “When I was twenty-nine I broke off an engagement to my high school sweetheart — who was a woman — and moved away from my hometown. Pretty soon after that, I realized I was gay.”

“That must’ve been hard,” Jessica said.

“Yeah, but once I got through it and… and got together with David, I’d never been happier.”

He couldn’t help but see the smile she gave him in response to that as patronizing. “New love can flood the body with so many good chemicals that it swamps out all of the bad ones.”

Patrick narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying I wasn’t happy?”

“No, I’m saying that the way you’ve framed things in some of our past sessions — that you were depressed before you moved here, and then you weren’t, and now for some reason you’re depressed again… that may not be the right way to frame it. Do you think perhaps it puts a lot of pressure on David as the source of your happiness?”

“I don’t put pressure on David,” Patrick protested.

“Is it possible that you put pressure on yourself, then? When it comes to your relationship with David and its importance in your life?” Jessica asked.

Patrick huffed and didn’t answer. Now she was contradicting herself from one sentence to the next.

“When did you come out to your family?” she asked.

“That isn’t why I’m depressed either,” he said.

Jessica sighed like he was finally challenging her constant state of serene acceptance. “Untangling the web of depression isn’t straightforward. It might be helpful to pull on different threads and see what they’re connected to. Okay?”

Patrick supposed that made sense. “Okay.” Then after another pause, he admitted, “It took me a while to come out to my parents.”

“Why is that?”

He stared at Jessica’s bookshelf for several seconds, his eyes running over the titles without reading them. “I worried that my parents wouldn’t be okay with it. They didn’t talk about gay people when I was a kid, really. Or when they did, they made it sound like a sad thing that we needed to tolerate because it wasn’t a choice. You know, that brand of ‘tolerance’ that is just that and nothing more.”

She shot him a sympathetic look. “It’s understandable why you were hesitant to come out to them.”

“But they were great about it. It wasn’t long after coming out to them that I asked David to marry me, and they were great. They love him, and all my worries were unfounded,” he said, trying to figure out why tears were threatening to spill over.

Jessica took a few seconds to rearrange herself, setting her ever-present portfolio aside and leaning forward on with her elbows on her knees. “I understand that, looked at a certain way, you’ve had a purely positive experience with coming into your sexuality. You had David, who from what you’ve said before is a very loving person. And based on what you’ve told me, you live in an accepting community. And then your parents stepped up and were there for you when you asked them to be. That’s all wonderful, and not to be discounted. But it doesn’t change the fact that for all of your formative years, when maybe on some subconscious level you did know that you were gay, or at least different in some fundamental way, you didn’t feel like your parents or the community you were living in would accept you. That kind of experience leaves a mark, even though everything turned out fine.”

She smirked, leaning backwards again. “Or not. Perhaps your serotonin is low due to simple physiology and I’m completely off the mark.”

Patrick felt strangely reassured by this honesty, this admission that she knew that she didn’t know everything. “So I need medication, then?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Medication might help. Or cognitive behavior therapy could help you. Or both together.”

His reassurance quickly dissolved, leaving Patrick wanting to scream at his therapist, fix me, goddammit! Instead he said, “That all sounds very nebulous.”

She grinned. “From what I know about you so far, I bet that’s driving you crazy, and I’m sorry about that. Can you bear with me for a little while, though? Work through the process?”

He sighed. “I’ll try.”

~*~

Patrick drove past the empty storefront on Elmdale’s main street as he was leaving his therapy appointment. He’d noticed every week that the ‘for lease’ sign was still in the window. After the second time he saw it, he’d texted Ray to ask if that was the space he’d mentioned to David. David hadn’t said anything about the second Rose Apothecary location in a while, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that he was still thinking about it, and probably wondering when Patrick would be ready to seriously entertain the idea again.

On impulse, he pulled into one of the parking spaces that lined the street and got out of the car, walking over to the empty storefront. The windows were covered in paper, but he could see enough through the gaps to make out that it had a scuffed up hardwood floor. It would need to be refinished, he thought, but it looked like it was in pretty good shape.

The smell of coffee attracted Patrick’s attention, and he looked over to see that there was a coffee shop next door. Grind House, the sign that hung under the awning said. Curious, Patrick went over and opened the door.

The barista looked up and waved. It being around two in the afternoon on a weekday, the place was mostly empty other than two people at a table in the corner who were huddled over laptop computers. The shop was decorated tastefully for Christmas, and he thought David would approve of the warmth and coziness of the space.

“Hey, what can I get you?” the barista — Taylor, her name tag read — asked him with a smile. Tattoos snaked out from under the sleeves of her t-shirt, black ink against dark brown skin.

“A small earl grey tea?” he asked.

“Sure thing. Is that it? We’ve got a few pastries left.”

His eyes strayed over to the pastry case. “Yeah, could I get a couple of those butter tarts to go? My husband is a real connoisseur.”

Taylor grinned at him. “Smart man.”

“Hey, what do you know about the empty space next door? Do you know if there’s been any interest in it?”

“Oh man, I’m still bummed about that. It used to be a comic book shop. I was afraid to go in there for the longest time — comic stores aren’t necessarily the most welcoming places to black queer women, you know? But the old guy that ran it was super nice. I remember he made a point of telling me when Ta-Nahisi Coates started writing Captain America.”

“What happened to the store?”

She shrugged. “Amazon drove him out of business, I guess. That’ll be $9.25,” she said ringing up his tea and butter tarts. As Patrick put his debit card in the reader, she added, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh.” He scratched his cheek. “My husband and I run a store in Schitt’s Creek. Rose Apothecary?”

“Holy shit, really? A friend gave me some of your lotion for my birthday. It’s great.”

Patrick swelled with pride. “Thanks. Anyway, we’re considering opening a second location in Elmdale.”

Taylor smirked, handing him his tea and a box with the tarts. “Sorry, I can’t allow you to have a store right next door to my coffee shop. I’ll spend all my profits there.”

Laughing, Patrick accepted his purchases. “Oh, well. Guess we’ll have to look for another place, then. Although David would return the favor, I’m sure.”

“What’s your name?” Taylor asked.

“It’s Patrick Brewer,” he said, setting the tea down again to shake her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Patrick. I’m Taylor. And I hope you guys get the space.”

“I… do too,” he said, surprised to find that he meant it.

The store was bustling when he got back to Schitt’s Creek, and David and Bethany were both busy with customers. Patrick put the box of butter tarts in the back room and went to work restocking Christmas decorations. Given how many decorations they sold every holiday season, Patrick had to assume that by now every Christmas tree in Elm County was fully outfitted in David Rose’s aesthetic.

As soon as David finished with the customers he was helping, Patrick went over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I got you something for your afternoon break,” he said. “There’s a white box on the table in the back.”

David’s eyes lit up, and he hurried into the back before he could be waylaid by another harried holiday shopper.

They didn’t have a chance to exchange any more conversation until Bethany finally flipped the sign on the door to Closed and locked up. Patrick felt dead on his feet, but he had to admit that the thought of all the money in the cash register made him feel pretty good. Bethany went to work cleaning the windows while David leaned against the center table.

“Oh my god, Patrick, where did you get those butter tarts? Those are the best ones I’ve had in years.”

Patrick walked over and put his arms around his husband, pulling him into a hug. “A little coffee shop in downtown Elmdale that happens to be next to an empty store that I believe Ray mentioned to you a couple of months ago.”

David pulled out of the hug, his eyes darting back and forth as he studied Patrick’s expression. “It’s still vacant?”

Nodding, Patrick leaned up and kissed David’s cheek. “We should call Ray after Christmas and go take a look at it.”

“Are you sure?”

Patrick shrugged. “No, I’m scared as hell. Among other things, I’m afraid I’m going to miss having days like this with you, working together in our store. But I want to go look.”

David kissed his lips gently. “Okay.”

~*~

Stevie stood shivering on their back porch, bundled up in her hat and puffy parka. “It’s way too cold for this,” she said.

Patrick exhaled pot smoke in a crystalline cloud of breath and handled the joint back to her. “Our families are getting here tomorrow and I don’t want the house to smell like weed.” He giggled. “It doesn’t match David’s holiday aesthetic.”

His phone chimed, and he took it out to look at it, expecting a complaint from David. Instead the text was from his cousin. There were no words, just a picture of Justin pressed cheek to cheek with another boy.

Patrick: Who’s this?

Justin 🌈: his name is Jonah

Patrick: Very cute. And closer to your age, I hope?

Justin 🌈: 🙄 you sound like my mom he’s 18

Patrick: Good. Merry Christmas, Justin.

Justin 🌈: thanks you too

Then a text arrived from David, just as Patrick expected. She’s got even more luggage than last year.

Patrick laughed. Maybe it’s a lot of presents for you, he texted back.

David: You give my sister entirely too much credit.

Patrick: See you soon.

“Why are you suddenly so fucking popular?” Stevie groused, her teeth chattering, handing him the joint back as he put away his phone.

“Sounds like Alexis’s flight got in on time,” he said. “And my cousin Justin has a new… boyfriend, I guess?” He took another hit.

“I can’t stand this anymore; I’m going inside,” Stevie said, taking the half-smoked joint from him and carefully extinguishing it, then putting it in a crumpled sandwich bag that she produced from her coat pocket. Patrick followed her back into the house. “Is this the cousin that you rescued a while ago?”

“How many gay cousins do you think I have?” he asked, pulling his coat off.

“I mean, statistically? Given how many cousins you have? More than one.” She flopped down on the sofa and stretched out on her back. “So are you liking your therapist any better?”

Patrick dropped into the overstuffed chair across from her. “I don’t know. As I predicted, she’s starting to fixate on my sexual orientation and…” He gestured airily in a very David way. “All that.”

Stevie turned her head and regarded him balefully. “The fact that you were in denial about being gay until you were thirty? And didn’t come out to your parents until you were ready to ask David to marry you? Is that what ‘all that’ is?”

“Fuck off,” Patrick grumbled.

“I’m just saying, there’s probably some stuff to unpack there.”

“Stevie, I’m completely comfortable with being gay,” he said.

“Didn’t say you weren’t. It’s not about you being gay, but maybe it’s about how you get so wrapped up in your obligations to other people that you lose track of yourself. Or that you’re so obsessed with not disappointing the people you care about that you have a hard time being truthful about who you are or what you need.”

Patrick blinked. “Wow. Maybe you should be my therapist.”

Stevie laughed. “The problem is, I need to be high to have these deep insights.”

They settled into comfortable silence for a few minutes. Finally Patrick admitted, “I don’t like the way it makes me feel cracked open.”

“What does?” Stevie asked, her mind clearly having wandered.

“Therapy.”

“Oh. Yeah, I don’t think I could deal with that either,” Stevie said.

“It’s like… you know how if you pick up a big rock in moist soil, there’ll be all these bugs underneath it?”

“Ew,” Stevie said in a perfect imitation of David, and the two of them burst into gales of laughter for a while. When Stevie finally got control of herself, she said, “Sorry, what about the bugs?”

He wiped away tears from his cheeks. “It was a metaphor for my brain. I’ve got a lifetime of practice not moving those rocks. I don’t know if I want to know what’s underneath them.”

“Yeah, I get that.” She stretched her toes out, brushing them against the arm of the sofa. “You know you’ll be okay though, right?”

Patrick felt a swell of love for Stevie and he would have hugged her, but it would probably be weird. Also he was comfortable in his chair. Maybe he’d hug her later.

When David arrived from retrieving Alexis at the airport, Patrick put his coat back on to help with the luggage. David opened a bottle of wine and turned the lamps in the living room off, leaving only the light from the Christmas tree to illuminate the four of them as they settled in to talk.

They told Alexis about the new location in Elmdale that they were considering leasing, and she made some marketing suggestions that were good enough that David went and retrieved his journal from the bedroom so that he could make some notes.

“One thing I’ve seen businesses do to get market penetration is sponsor relevant conferences,” Alexis said. “Like, professional association meetings. Then they get their business name and logo printed on everything for the conference — tote bags, lanyards, USB sticks, all that stuff.” Her free hand that wasn’t holding her wine glass flopped around to indicate all of the stuff.

“We don’t really have general store conferences,” Patrick said, bemused.

Alexis rolled her eyes. “But it works for other events too. Summer festivals, parades, whatever.”

“Elm Valley has a pumpkin festival every year,” Stevie said.

Patrick was starting to have a germ of an idea related to what Alexis had said. He sipped his wine and filed it away to mull over later, when he was sober.

Tomorrow, Johnny and Moira and his own parents would arrive and things would take a turn for the chaotic, but for right now, Patrick could enjoy the warmth of David’s hand on his shoulder as his husband bantered happily with his sister and his best friend. Leaning into the crook of David’s arm, Patrick smiled and tried to soak up all of the love in the room, an inoculation against the darkness that might lurk around the next bend in the road.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” David murmured against his spine later in their bed. Their kisses had been drowsy and a little bit drunk as they decided that sex was happening tonight in spite of their houseguests. Alexis was in the guest bedroom and Stevie had zonked out on the living room sofa, David tucking an afghan around her shoulders before he and Patrick went to bed themselves.

“It’s not Christmas yet,” Patrick said with a chuckle, writhing, pressed against the sheets as David worked him up and up.

“I know it’s not technically Christmas, but tonight was so nice,” David murmured into Patrick’s shoulder, words alternating with kisses. “It filled me with holiday spirit.”

Patrick tried not to laugh, he really did, but it was a losing battle. He made an attempt to smother his giggles into his pillow.

“If you say something about me filling you with the holiday spirit, it’s over between us.” The things he was doing to Patrick with his fingers belied that statement.

Laughing again, Patrick pushed his hips back against David’s hand, and then his laughter turned into a moan, and then neither of them said anything coherent for a long time.

~*~

The first town council meeting of the new year came on a grey January afternoon, the threat of snow on the horizon. Everyone was subdued and low energy, even Roland, and Patrick felt drowsy, struggling a little bit to pay attention and type at the same time that they discussed several budgetary issues. A lot of the topics were the same every meeting, with tiny, incremental changes almost too small to detect. Or worse, they were recurring issues that indicated no progress had been made at all.

When they got to the bottom of the agenda, Ronnie asked if there was any new business, and Patrick almost didn’t say anything. The idea that had occurred to him during the holidays had seemed strong on a happier day. Today, he wasn’t sure he had the energy to argue for it. But then he thought about the things Ronnie had said to him about queer activism, and he thought about Taylor and her coffee shop, and he opened his mouth.

“Have we ever considered having something in Schitt’s Creek for Pride?” he asked.

Ronnie raised her eyebrows. “What, like a parade?”

“No offense, but it might be kind of a sad little parade,” Roland said.

“No, not a parade. Like, a street festival. Tents with food and other vendors and LGBT educational booths. Opportunities for people to find out about meetings in the area. Maybe a stage with speeches and musical performances. And we don’t have to limit it to only Schitt’s Creek. I looked into it a little, and even Elmdale doesn’t have anything like it. We could draw vendors and patrons from all over Elm County.”

Ronnie crossed her arms. “Sounds like a way to line your own pockets. I assume Rose Apothecary would be one of the vendors?”

Patrick met her gaze. “I’m sure the rest of council could be counted on to keep us on a level playing field with everyone else. Come on, Ronnie. Can you honestly say it wouldn’t be a good thing for the community? And a good way to bring money into the town?”

She tilted her head in acquiescence. “Put together a formal proposal and we can vote on it at the next meeting.”

“I’m going to vote ‘yes,’” Bob stage-whispered to Patrick.

“Thanks, Bob.”

After the meeting had adjourned, Patrick went over to Ronnie. “I thought later this month I’d go to that Thornbridge LGBTQIA+ meeting you told me about. See what they’re doing and make some connections. Ask if they’d be interested in helping out with our Pride festival.”

Ronnie stared at him for a second. “Your festival idea hasn’t been approved yet,” she said.

“Assuming it’s approved,” he said, unable to keep himself from grinning. “Would you like to go with me?”

“You want me to spend hours in a car with you, driving to Thornbridge. Really.”

“Come on, Ronnie. Someday you and I are going to have to bury the hatchet for good.” He put on his most guileless expression, the one that caused David to accuse him of weaponizing his eyes. “Why not in service to the queer community, of which we are both pillars?”

She almost, for a split second, looked like she was going to crack a smile. Instead she sighed. “Fine. Let me know when it is. I’ll see if I’m available.”

~*~

They celebrated signing the lease for the new store with pizza at David’s favorite spot in Elmdale. There were paper hearts colored by children in the front window, and it reminded Patrick that he only had a few days to find a suitably tacky gift for David for Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t worth it if he couldn’t get David to threaten to divorce him on this, David’s most hated of holidays.

While they waited for their pizza, Patrick reached across the red and white checkered tablecloth and took David’s hand. “Thank you,” he said.

David had been fiddling with his phone, but at the sound of Patrick’s voice, he set it face-down on the table and gave Patrick his full attention. “What for?”

“For being there for me so many times this past year. For… for putting up with me at my worst.”

A crooked smile threatened to erupt on David’s face. “Patrick, you know your worst is still pretty good, right?”

“I hope you’re not still grading me on a Sebastien Raine curve, David.”

David rolled his eyes at that. “No, I’m just saying that maybe you don’t have the most objective perspective on what being married to you is like.” His eyes softened. “I’m as happy being your husband today as I was the first day. Okay?”

Patrick swallowed around a surprising lump in his throat. “Okay.”

“You’re nervous about the new store,” David surmised.

“I am, but it’s the right decision,” Patrick said with confidence.

“I’m nervous too,” David said. “Don’t mistake my outward confidence for anything other than a thin veneer over all of my anxieties.”

That statement automatically put Patrick into reassurance mode. “The marketing ideas from Alexis are going to be helpful. The customer base in Elmdale is huge and has more disposable income compared to what we’re used to at home. I’ve run some numbers, and I think the revenue from this location may outstrip our Schitt’s Creek location in a matter of months.”

David grimaced. “Well, that somehow makes me feel irrationally protective of our first store. It doesn’t deserve to be the under-achiever.”

Squeezing David’s hand, Patrick said, “Never. I fell in love with you there, and there’s nowhere in the world more important to me than that store.”

“We can make new memories at the new store,” David said softly.

Patrick knew, realistically, that he and David probably wouldn’t be spending that much time together at the new store after they got it open. They’d have to split time between the two locations, and there would be even more work to do out on the road, expanding their vendor base to support the increased demand.

David seemed to read his thoughts. “And when we spend our days apart, it will make being at home together in the evenings that much more precious.”

“Yeah,” Patrick managed to say, his voice raw. He averted his eyes from David’s piercing gaze, staring out the window between the gaps in the paper hearts. “Can you… can you talk to me more about that?”

David smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Well, imagine a day when I’m at the store here in Elmdale, and you’re at the store back at home.”

“Are you at the one in Elmdale because of Taylor’s pastries?”

“Shhh,” David said, reaching out with a finger like he was going to put it over Patrick’s lips. “I leave the store a little early, letting one of our trusted employees close up, and I bring home some wine and cheese from the store. Maybe some of Heather’s new triple cream.” He closed his eyes like he was having an erotic fantasy about Heather Warner’s cheese.

“Wine and cheese that you pay for,” Patrick said.

“Naturally. Oh, and fresh berries. It’s summer, and there are berries in season. So I set everything up on the kitchen table, just in time for you to arrive home from the other store. And we drink wine and eat cheese and we tell each other all about our days. The sun is setting, and the light is all golden,” David said.

“I like this story,” Patrick replied. “Then what happens?”

“Eventually we move to the sofa. Maybe watch some TV or listen to some music. We put our feet up and finish our wine and you remember something funny that you saw on the internet and you tell me about it. And then when we get tired, we go to bed.”

“What happens then?” Patrick asked as their server set their pizza in front of them and David grabbed a slice.

David’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile and he waggled his eyebrows. “The rest of the story is very interesting, but you’ll have to wait to get home to hear that part.”

“Hmm, okay.” Patrick reached for his own slice of pizza.

“Hey,” David said, drawing Patrick back to looking at him. “I love you. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings for us.”

Patrick smiled. He felt bolstered, lifted up by David’s support and for once, he allowed himself to feel good about it. “Me either, David.”

[hirikka]

Virtues in the verse - Chapter 5

Read on AO3

Geralt needs somewhere safe to take Ciri for the winter—it is too late to make it to Kaer Morhen—so they try to seek sanctuary at Oxenfurt. Unfortunately, the chancellor insists they only offer sanctuary to faculty and their families. Jaskier hasn't seen Geralt since the dragon hunt, but perhaps this will be a way to make up for his past failings as a companion. They just need to get married, and Geralt and Ciri will be safe.

Or, Jaskier and Geralt get fake married so that Geralt and Ciri can claim sanctuary at Oxenfurt.

Chapter 5: Shopping! Part One.

Geralt hates cities. The academy isn’t as bad as Oxenfurt proper. At least there is a bit of space there, and the campus is mostly kept clean. The actual city is noisy and crowded—the market bustling with merchants and traders, townsfolk and students. Jaskier navigates it with the practiced ease that Geralt has always envied. Ciri is holding Jaskier’s hand to avoid being separated in the crowd, while Geralt hangs back slightly. He doesn’t think Nilfgaard has made it this far north, but he is still wary; a witcher with a child is bound to draw attention.

Jaskier leads them into a tailor’s shop that’s down a slightly less crowded street. The shop itself is empty of people, and Geralt relaxes slightly as the door shuts and the sounds of the city fade. He looks around at the colorful bolts of fabric with a sense of dread.

“Master Julian!” a cheerful voice calls. A moment later a young man appears behind the counter. “Back already?”

“Not for me this time, Aleksy.” Jaskier smiles and shakes the man’s hand. “I’m afraid that my dear Fiona—” he rests a hand on Ciri’s shoulder “—had to leave for Oxenfurt rather abruptly and doesn’t have much in the way of winter clothing. She could do with a few dresses and a new cloak. Perhaps a shirt and pair of trousers as well?” Jaskier looks to Ciri for confirmation and she nods tentatively. “Any colors she would like for the clothes, but something in a natural color for the cloak.”

Aleksy has been jotting down notes as Jaskier speaks and, Geralt notices, seems unfazed by Jaskier’s request to get Ciri trousers.

“Good, good,” Aleksy mutters. “Let me fetch Reneta; she’ll take the girl’s measurements and discuss anything else she needs.” He disappears into the back room again.

Jaskier turns to give Geralt an appraising look. “What clothes do you need?”

“I’m fine,” Geralt says. He doesn’t have much coin as it is—isn’t entirely sure how he is going to afford Ciri’s clothes. He won’t argue against buying her the things she needs, but he isn’t likely to find work until the spring, which means he can’t afford unnecessary luxuries

Jaskier gives him a look. It’s a look Geralt is extremely familiar with. It usually precedes Jaskier bullying Geralt into taking a bath and then going to some kind of event he doesn’t want to be at.

“Fiona?” Jaskier calls, not taking his eyes off Geralt. “Does Geralt have any shirts without holes in them?”

Ciri considers this for a moment. “He mostly wore the armor, but I don’t think he does.”

Geralt can’t believe his own daughter would betray him like this. And oh, that was a thought he would have to put aside until later. He hasn’t thought of Ciri as his daughter before.

“That’s what I thought.” Jaskier sniffs haughtily. “I can’t have my husband traipsing about in rags, and you can’t wear your armor all the time; that would be ridiculous. Ah—” Aleksy returns with a woman. They look similar enough that Geralt guesses they are siblings. Jaskier turns his attention to them. “Aleksy, dear, while Reneta is looking after Fiona, would you take Geralt’s measurements?”

Aleksy nods, passing the sheet of paper to Reneta who leads Ciri into the back room, and pulls out a measuring tape.

“Step over here, sir,” Aleksy instructs, pointing to a smaller area with a door that can be closed for privacy. Geralt sighs but does as he is told. He will talk to Jaskier when they have a moment of privacy.

Aleksy is quick and efficient and either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that Geralt is a witcher. They finish quickly and return to the main storefront. While they were gone, Jaskier had pulled out several bolts of fabric and placed them on the counter. Two are black and the other is a dark blue that Geralt eyes dubiously.

“Aleksy—for Geralt’s things, make sure they aren’t restrictive—he needs to be able to move easily. And nothing too fancy; he’s likely to put whatever it is, no matter how fine, under armor so nothing too bulky,” Jaskier instructs. “Geralt, any other notes?”

“No.”

Aleksy nods amiably. “Alright. Everything should be ready at the end of the week. If you come in yourself on Saturday, Julian, I’ll have the new shipment of fabrics in from Poviss, if you want to take a look.”

“Oh, yes, absolutely!” Jaskier exclaims with a bright smile. Aleksy and Jaskier exchange a few more pleasantries before Aleksy excuses himself to his workroom.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, as soon as they are alone. “I can’t afford new clothes right now. Mine are fine.” He doesn’t like to admit it. It isn’t like he hasn’t run out of funds before when traveling with Jaskier; they each had times when they brought in more coin than the other, and had long since gotten past any discomfort in paying for the occasional room or meal. But this is different. Geralt is already relying on Jaskier for room and board for the entire winter, and he doesn’t have any likely prospects for bringing in coin until the spring comes. There is a reason he and his brothers usually wintered in Kaer Morhen.

Jaskier, however, just looks at him as if he can’t figure out what the problem is. “I can pay for the clothes, Geralt; it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine ,” Geralt growls.

Jaskier just rolls his eyes. “I was serious before: You are my betrothed ; if you don’t have any decent clothes while I’m swanning about in a new doublet, people will think I’m an ass. Besides, I do get paid to teach here. I have enough coin for this, especially since I won’t—” He cut himself off.

Geralt wants to ask what he wouldn’t be doing. He also wants to argue more about the clothes, but he has to admit that Jaskier has a point. He can always pay Jaskier back, eventually—if nothing else, it will give him an excuse to see Jaskier again after this is all over.

** Jaskier sends Geralt to buy groceries while he and Ciri go to purchase the rings. Geralt had offered to come, but Jaskier and Ciri had given him matching expressions that made it very clear that his aesthetic opinions wouldn’t be helpful. Geralt’s more than a little relieved; he’s been trying to avoid thinking too hard about the actual fact of marrying Jaskier, and he’s not sure he’s ready to look at rings. He focuses on practicalities. The things he’ll need. He uses some of his coin to purchase supplies to replenish his potions; while he isn’t likely to encounter monsters, he wants to be prepared in case any dangers come for Ciri. He’ll feel better once he’s well supplied, and it will be one less thing to worry about.

[vannahfanfics]

Could I request a Nami and Bepo friendship fic with the theme "Mittens," please? I'd just love a cute fic starring my two favorite navigators!

Here it is, lovely! I threw some dashes of LawNa in there just because I know you love them so much LOL. Thanks for the wonderful prompts and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

EDIT: This lovely image was drawn by @searchfortheonepiece whom from this moment forth has all my love and affection. 

Even Polar Bears Need Mittens, Too!

Nami was painfully aware of two things upon waking up that morning. Dirst, the ordinarily comfortable warmth of her bedroom had been replaced by a bitter, breath-fogging chill. Second, the soothing rocking motion of the waves beating upon the Thousand Sunny was eerily absent. Panicked, she threw the covers off herself. She immediately hissed in displeasure and flung the warm, soft blanket back on as the winter air leaped forward to dig into the sensitive bare flesh of her legs with eager teeth. 

She rubbed her palm over her legs to find that goosebumps had already sprouted. Treading more carefully this time, she gathered the comforter around her body to serve as a fluffy shield from the cold and eased out of bed. She hopped around, not wishing to touch the icy wooden floors with her bare feet for too long until she found the slippers she always kept at her bedside. 

After a few minutes of digging, she was able to procure a set of winter gear— slim-fitting, dark jeans, black combat boots, a maroon knitted sweater, a black overcoat inlaid with ginger faux fur, and a pair of maroon gloves with a matching beanie complete with a black pom-pom. Dark colors absorbed the sunlight better and made Nami’s tresses of tangerine hair pop all the more (because a girl always had to consider her image!). 

She walked out into the hall, and it was no wonder it was so cold. Snow flurries buried themselves into her hair, decorating her like glitter, while others spiraled down the current into the hall to flutter lazily down to the iced-over wooden floors. Shivering, she carefully walked up the icy steps out onto the Thousand Sunny’s main deck.

The Grand Line’s unpredictable weather patterns had struck again; the Sunny looked like it had ventured into the Arctic. Snow was steadily falling from the cloudy heavens. It had piled up on the deck about half a foot deep and decorated the balustrade in a fluffy layer. Everything else was completely encased in a sheath of fine, crystalline ice. It wove fern-like patterns within the glass windowpanes, the only reference to the green world in this universe of white and gray and blue.

“Zoro?” she called as she tromped through the snow. Sinking up to her calves, Nami had to take extra-large steps to keep from tripping in the thick icy fluff. The swordsman was often awake in the wee hours of the morning. Yet, he was usually taking an early morning nap around the time the others were awakening, and Nami knew that the dense man could easily sleep through a snowstorm and awaken with hypothermia or frostbite— if he didn’t just wake up a solid blue corpse. 

Thankfully, it seemed the chill had roused him plenty. He came stomping through the snow dressed in a coat, though the lout insisted on keeping his chest bared to the unforgiving winter’s bite. Sanji, with a small snow shovel propped on his shoulder and wearing a blue winter coat lined with cotton, came tromping along after him.

“Nami-swan! Please tell me you know when this damn blizzard is gonna end!” 

“Why does that matter? We can just sail out of it,” Nami shrugged. 

“Not exactly,” Zoro grunted and gestured to the railing of the ship. Nami sloughed through the snow until she got to the edge of the boat and immediately groaned in annoyance. The sea was frozen over in a solid block of ice. Even if they attacked it with pickaxes and tried to coax the Sunny to the faint line of warm blue water hovering at the ice’s edge, it would take days to do so. Nami grimaced at the thought. Who knows how long that’ll take, and it’s cold as balls out here! 

“Guess we’ll just have to suffer,” she moaned. Raucous laughter at the end of the deck caught her attention; she turned to see Usopp, Chopper, and Luffy gathering up little handfuls of snow and flinging them in each other’s faces. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth; they were idiots sometimes, but it always did do her heart good to see them having some good plain fun.

“Hey, why don’t you make us all some hot chocolate?” she called to Sanji. “I’ll see if Law is okay in the submarine, too.” 

While the cook tossed heart eyes her way and dashed off to cater to her whim, Nami walked the edge of the boat until she reached the place that the Polar Tang moored against the Sunny.

After the business in Wano, the Straw Hats and Heart Pirates’ alliance had decided to appreciate their company a little longer (which was more Luffy’s doing than Law’s). Franky had rigged up a handy contraption to allow the submarine to the Sunny without damaging it when they were fully underway, and by combining the natural sailing capability with the submarine’s engine, they had improved their speed by fifty percent as well. 

“Law? Hey, are you guys popsicles in there?” she called as she climbed down the set of ladder rungs leading to the submarine. The soles of her boots striking the surface of the uppermost deck made dull clunking noises. She walked across the deck to the door, preparing to knock, but was startled when it was suddenly thrust open. She instinctively jumped backward.

She pinwheeled as she lost her balance and tipped back, but before she could land on her behind, the submarine’s captain grabbed her firmly by the elbow and hooked his foot under one of hers to brace her. He held her up by the strength of one arm, which brought a hint of rose to Nami’s cheeks and reminded her once more of how strong Law was even though he hid all his muscles under that long coat of his.

“Careful, Nami-ya. I wouldn’t want you hitting that pretty head of yours.” 

Nami’s relationship with Law was an interesting one; one never knew what would come out of their mouths, whether it be purred compliments or insulting jibes. They yipped at each other like a couple of cunning foxes in a perpetual game that dangerously bordered on courtship; it was not uncommon that their words and looks mirrored those of two individuals in a saucy game of “hard-to-get.” 

Sure enough, his mouth curled in that undeniable smirk that just begged Nami to retort with some minxy jibe, but with the persistent cold seeping beneath her coat to nibble at her skin, she decided to save it. Using Law’s grip as a bracer, she straightened herself up and ensured that she had a solid stance on the ice. It was only then that she could get a good look at him and see that he too was not immune to the brisk weather, as he had zipped his coat up to hide his sprawling tattoos and had white gloves on his hands. 

“So, I imagine that we won’t be escaping this climate anytime soon,” he guessed with one glance at the surrounding ice.

“Nope.” She glanced up at the sky to analyze the speed of the clouds. “The system is moving pretty slowly, so I guess that we’ll be trapped in this ice storm for at least a few days or so.”

“Damn… It’s taking our heating system all it can to keep all the metalworks from freezing over…”

Before the two of them could exchange any more words, a snowball exploded in Law’s face and sent him shooting back into the depths of the Polar Tang. The furry bulk of the arriving Bepo provided a soft landing, thankfully. Nami made no attempt to stifle her laughter as the Surgeon of Death came stalking back out, shaking snow out of his face and hair. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who had flung it at him, either. “Straw Hat-ya, you imbecile, now is not the time for games!”

“Trafalguy! Come have a snowball fight with us!”

“Did you not hear me?!”

“A snowball fight?! We wanna play!” came the simultaneous chiming of Penguin and Shachi from the entryway, and Law let out a strangled urk! as the two boys muscles past him to scamper out onto the deck of the Polar Tang. They slid around on the ice like a couple of buffoons for a few minutes trying to reach the ladder, eventually resorting to easing over on their hands and knees.

“Aw, come on, Law, they’re just having fun. We might as well play in the snow; there’s nothing better to do,” she smiled as she listened to his crewmates’ raucous hoots and hollers of laughter drift down from the Thousand Sunny with the occasional stray snowball.

“I don’t play, Nami-ya.”

“Law! Will you come build a snowman with me?” 

As Chopper’s innocent sing-song voice preceded his little furry form and hopeful eyes peeking over the railing of the Sunny, Nami watched Law’s body stiffen. He flushed pink and pulled down his hat, mumbling under his breath for a moment, before he thickly called up, “I’m coming, Chopper-ya…” 

Nami chuckled heartily as she watched Law Room himself up beside Chopper, who jumped up and down and hugged his arm elatedly. Not even the Surgeon of Death can say no to our sweet little Chopper.

“N-Nami?” 

The navigator turned her head as the polar bear Mink abruptly addressed her.

“What’s up, Bepo?” His watery black eyes could not bear to meet hers but flickered downward to train on the intricate icy patterns adorning the wood. His nails clicked lightly as he tapped them together in a nervous fidget. “Would you mind teaching me more about maps?” 

Nami blinked slightly in confusion. In the time that the two crews had spent together, the talented cartographer had been sharing her knowledge of maps with him. Still, she wasn’t sure why he wanted to do such an everyday activity when the opportunity to do something new and fun had presented itself.

“Wouldn’t you like to come play in the snow with us, Bepo?” she suggested with a bright smile. The poor thing couldn’t blush, but she could tell that he was embarrassed from the way he flattened his ears to his head and twitched his massive body.

“I can’t… My paws get cold.” 

Nami had no idea how a polar bear’s paws could freeze but considering the circus troupe of colorful people she sailed with, anything was possible. 

“Everyone else can play just fine because they have mittens, but we’ve never been able to find any in my size,” he lamented while holding up his clawed paws. Naturally, no market would sell mittens for a bear. Poor thing! He doesn’t deserve to have to sit out while everyone else has fun! Nami thought as a pang of pity pierced her heart. She grinned brightly and reached up to grab one of his furry paws with both of her hands.

“Don’t worry, Bepo! Come with me. I’ll whip up some mittens for you!” she assured him before whirling on her heel and pulling him across the deck of the Polar Tang. The bear just silently shuffled along behind her. 

She trekked back through the snow covering the spacious deck of the Sunny. It was falling so heavily that the small trench she had produced just a few minutes ago had already largely filled, forcing Nami to track a new path through the thick fluff. The layer had already thickened up to her knees. Nami pulled out her Climatact to help shovel the snow to wither side to help clear her way, but only with marginal improvement; very soon, her arms were aching. 

“Jeez! You wouldn’t think snow would be so heavy. I’ll have to get Franky to shovel some of this stuff off before our deck collapses!” she panted. Bepo, despite his bulk, seemed to have no problem pushing through the snow; after a moment of watching her struggle, he let out a nervous mumble before lightly tapping her on the shoulder. Nami paused to turn around, leaning on her Climatact for support. His tiny ears fluttered, and his little nails clicked together as he considered something silently for a moment. Then, to Nami’s surprise, he leaned down to pull her gently into his big furry arms.

“U-um, I thought it would be easier this way…” he admitted shyly while scratching the side of his head with one claw. Nami beamed, wrapped her slim arms around his thick neck, and nuzzled her nose into his fluffy cheek.

“How considerate! Thank you, Bepo.” She felt the bear’s skin warm as he did the Mink equivalent of blushing, and his words were an incoherent gush of mumbles. Feeling a burning gaze, Nami glanced over her shoulder to see Law staring intently from across the deck. 

“Jealous?” she called over while sticking out her tongue. Law snorted in derision and pulled his hat down over his face, but Nami could see the haze of pink over his cheeks. “Don’t worry, Law, I’m sure Bepo would carry you too if you asked him!” she laughed while rubbing the top of Bepo’s head through his hat.

“Ugh, Nami-ya, that’s not what I—” he snapped at her, then flushed further. Grumbling under his breath, he whirled around to instead re-focus his energy on the half-finished snowman that Chopper was molding with his hooves. Nami laughed mischievously again before looking back at the polar bear, who was just trying to pretend that Nami hadn’t been so boldly flirting with his captain.

“Mittens, right? Let’s go!”

Bepo carried her the last leg across the deck in record time. He gently set her down on the steps once they arrived, and Nami carefully picked her way down them, holding one hand against the frosty wall to aid her balance. She would hate to ungracefully slip and tumble down the stairs to earn herself a bruised bottom or sprained ankle on a day that promised a lot of fun. 

She led Bepo to her and Robin’s room. His massive frame barely was able to squeeze through the threshold, and he took up a large amount of space, requiring Nami to navigate around him as she searched her belongings for old clothes that she could retrofit into a pair of mittens for him.

“I’m sorry if I’m in the way…” he sighed apologetically and resorted to his nervous tick again. Nami smiled brightly up at him as she rifled through one of her trunks of sweaters.

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Bepo. You’re never a bother!” It was no secret that he was a little insecure, and so Nami always tried to do her best to encourage him. He smiled shyly and shuffled his feet, indicating that Nami’s compliments were warming him a little. 

“Ah-ha!” she cried merrily as she procured a lovely yellow wool sweater patterned with black stripes. “It’ll match your jumpsuit, too!” she grinned as she poked at the jolly roger emblazoned on the fabric as she passed him. She walked over to a small sewing machine situated on a table in the corner. 

With how much Nami loved clothes and saving money, she of course knew how to sew, and with the boys tearing their clothes to shreds all the time, she had invested in the small machine to make quick work of the many repair jobs. Bepo lumbered over to stand over her shoulder to watch her work, ears fluttering in curiosity; smiling, Nami leaned back so that he could observe her handiwork.

“You’re going to make mittens from that sweater?”

“Mhmm. There’s no sense in letting this fabric just collect dust,” Nami nodded as she cut out the patterns of the mittens using a large pair of shearing scissors. Tossing the rest of the fabric aside into a little basket for later use, she turned on the sewing machine and put the fabric in place. She felt Bepo release an awed breath over her shoulder as the needle began punching thread into them at high speeds. 

Nami’s nimble fingers guided the fabric to form the seams. In no time at all, she had produced one bear-sized pair of mittens, complete with holes in the fingertips so his claws wouldn’t shred the fabric. His ears flattened to his head as she whirled around in her little stool to hold them up. “Here you go! Try those on.” He very gently took the mittens in his paws before slipping them on, pushing his claws through the added holes and flexing his hands experimentally. He then gave Nami a huge smile that crinkled his already small eyes.

“Thank you, Nami! They’re wonderful! Now I can play in the snow too!” he rejoiced and jumped from foot to foot. Nami giggled and stood up from her chair.

“I’m so glad you like them.” 

“Nami! Will you make snow angels with me?!”

“Of course!” She grinned, then gasped in alarm as Bepo suddenly took off to squeeze out of the doorway and hurry up the steps. “Hey! Not so fast; you’ll fa—” 

She heard a startled yelp followed by a series of rapid thunks that could only be the polar bear Mink tumbling down the stairs. 

She exhaled deeply with a wan smile, shaking her head before walking out to see if he was all right. She found him on his back at the base of the steps in the process of rolling over; it seemed the fall didn’t do much, as he immediately scrambled back to his paws and went shambling up the stairs with an excited, impatient, “Come on, come on!”

“I’m coming!” she assured with another laugh and carefully followed him back up to the winter wonderland that the Sunny had become. For the next several days, the two crews busied themselves with all sorts of winter revelry, and Bepo made sure he showed everybody the marvelous mittens that the gracious Nami had made for him…

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to perusemy Tableof Contents!

[charmingturkeysandwich]

I Could Use a Love Song (2/22): where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases

Pairing: Emma Swan/Killian Jones (AU) Words: 3k(ish) Rating: T for this chapter, I’d say. (M overall) Chapter Summary: The band’s first day with their new roadie gets off to a shaky start.

Read on AO3.

---

Having grown used to shitty sleeping situations through foster homes, homelessness, couch surfing, and now touring, Emma awoke the next morning refreshed and ready to fight.

Yep, fight. Because the prior evening she’d been exhausted and hovering in that weird stage of drunk where you’re basically pre-hungover, and life had thrown a hot roadie at her. Except it wasn’t life that had done that. It was David. David who in the year of our lord 2019 most fucking certainly had a cell phone and could have shot her a text that a stranger was going to crash her quiet night alone.

Not that Killian crashed in any sense beyond sleep. They were seemingly both out before even the first song had finished playing through her speakers and he was still eyes-closed and breathing steady now that Emma was crawling over the seat and out the door, dead set on properly raging about the ridiculousness of this decision in addition to the lack of communication that shouldn’t exist among people who literally write words for a fucking living.

Seriously. How hard is it to send a text? Don’t wanna do your dirty work yourself, you can just tell Siri to piss of your bandmate on your behalf.

A little warning might have been nice. But she got none. So they weren’t getting any either.

“Rise and shine, motherfuckers!” Emma squawked as she flung open the door to David and Mary Margaret’s bedroom (they knew she had a copy of it, so really they should have thought twice before giving her no warning that she was going to have to deal with some weird ass alternate universe, very fuckable Captain Hook every single day for the foreseeable future. And pay him.

“Emma!” Mary Margaret gasped, yanking the comforter over what was probably her bare chest, but Emma didn’t bother to even glance at her. Accomplice in lack-of-communication, probably… but David was her object of fury.

Speaking of… “What the hell are you doing?!” he shouted, more confused than angry at her intrusion.

“I have a leather-jacket-wearing bone to pick with you, sir.”

“Aw, shit. You met Liam’s brother then?”

“Met him, slept with him, you know, the basic first steps in an employer-employee relationship.”

“Emma! You had sex with Killian?!” Mary Margaret sounded positively scandalized, which made sense for her own personality in addition to the fact that Emma hadn’t slept with anyone in … well it would probably be measured in years and not months, so. It would have been a shock if it were true.

“No, mom, but he slept in the van with me, which is my happy place. Not a place for strays.”

David stood up from the bed, raking his fingers through his hair in what looked like frustration or perhaps the pain of a hangover headache (good).

“We’re all strays, Emma. Can’t you be a little more accepting?”

“Can’t you be a little more with the warning?! You’re lucking I didn’t punch him when he approached me in a dark fucking alley, David.” Which was true. After much of the shit she suffered in her younger years, she didn’t take a chance or give anyone the benefit of the doubt if they seemed to have ill intentions.

He paused, daring blankly at her before taking a swig of the water next to their little bed. Light was just barely filtering through their curtains, so it was still early. No rush to hit the road quite yet, still time to get breakfast and drink their weights in coffee.

Usually the mornings were more pleasant than this.

Usually it was just the five of them in a diner, and usually she was listening to their post-gig stories, not sharing much of her own.

“Where did you leave him, then? Or did you already fire him?”

“Now, David, how could I fire someone I never even hired?! You remember we voted that we didn’t have the money to add staff.”

At that, Mary Margaret perked up, her back straightening as her mascara-smudged face scrunched in guilt. “That one is actually on me. We were on FaceTime with Killian and he’s just so… he’s in a bad place, Emma, and he needs money and people and we couldn’t just let him… “

“Go to the pound with the other strays? Fine. I get it. He doesn’t seem like the worst person in the world. But, like, give a girl a heads-up? And to answer your question, David, I left him soundly asleep in the van. I’m not a goddamn monster.”

Emma stormed out with no real destination in mind, just a deep craving for coffee and a bear claw and space from any other living human who might attempt to converse with her when she needed a minute to wallow in her semi-justified rage.

-

Of all the people to find her, of fucking course it was Killian.

Known him 12 hours or less and he was already the biggest pain in her ass.

“Swan, fancy seeing you here!” His voice was bright despite the wrinkles in this clothes and the hair that was no longer ‘artfully mussed,’ but more… hurricane-ravaged.

“Why are you so chipper?” is all she croaked back in response.

“Well I’ve already had an unpleasant encounter with Brother Dave and figured I would try to make this one a little less fraught with tension and don’t get any ideas about Emma you wanker.” Killian plopped down across from her, already clutching a coffee from somewhere that definitely was not the diner she’d wandered into and been sulking at for at least 2 hours.

“Why would he yell at you? And why are you calling him brother? And… just why?”

“Apologies, Swan, I assumed you’d had enough coffee and sugar to cope with me by now. I was warned of that. You see, apparently I was supposed to just go ‘sleep on a bench in a park’ or something to that effect and then not introduce myself to you or the rest of the crew until morning. Silly me. So David, who appears to think of himself as your father but who was best friends with my brother, proceeded to lecture me about how I’m not allowed to get in your pants. As if you didn’t have a say in the matter. Don’t worry, darling, I clarified that you will without a doubt never care for me beyond tolerance and he seemed to unbunch his knickers.”

“You know, Jones, if I’m not your love I’m probably not your darling, either.”

“Goodness sakes, woman, can you perhaps glean the important information from my babbling and not focus the filler?”

“Fine. Fuck your filler. We’re probably late for leaving by now, though,” Emma said, glancing at the clock on the wall and then at her message-filled phone. She rose from the table slowly, downing the rest of her lukewarm coffee and shoving a doughnut toward Killian in the process. “Shall we?”

He did some type of bow/curtsey nonsenense and flourished his arm toward the door as if to say ladies first and Emma stomped right past him, already 110% fed up with his weird country boy/Jane Austen hero attempt at chivalry when she knew he was no gentleman and she was no goddamn lady.

-

It appeared that the new guy had already met the rest of the team, Ruby fist bumping him and Graham giving him a hungover nod to acknowledge his return. David and Mary Margaret were blessedly silent about any of the morning’s arguments and simply hopped in the driver and passenger seats so they could meander over to the next tiny ass New York town full of Their People.

Some days were harder than others when it came to the places they played. None of them were the hellish ‘hometown’ she’d steadfastly refused to ever revisit, but each seemed to capture some kind of echo of her past. It was really a shame that scent was so tied to memory, because dive bars were smelly places. The right combination of Marlboro Menthol Lights, Miller, and whatever was in that black bottle from Avon and suddenly Emma was back at the Buckhorn, drinking to forget the hurt she hadn’t quite sustained yet, but was inevitably coming.

She always got past it. Rage was good like that, strong enough to overcome the heartbreak of individual memories. Whiskey helped, too.

Graham and Ruby were sprawled on either side of the middle row in the shabby van, both passed out (clearly they hadn’t done enough sleeping wherever it is either of them had gone the night before). David and Mary Margaret, meanwhile, were quietly singing to each other from the front, songs too cheesy for the other three bandmates to ever agree to allow to be performed on stage.

So that left her and Killian, the only two life forms currently active in actual reality.

“So what’s your story, Jones?

He rolled his head on his shoulders, sliding his line of sight from the video to meet her (probably too-harsh) stare. “What makes you think I have a story?”

“You’re on the road with a country band. In my experience you don’t get to that point without some stuff preceding it. Come on, Jones. Someone stole your truck, shot your dog, or screwed your wife. Which one?”

“Where are your manners, young lady, you definitely take a bloke to dinner before you ask for his Tragic Backstory. That’s got to be written somewhere. For shame!” he whisper-shouted, quite overdramatically.

Maybe he’d gotten his heart broken at drama camp.

“What else am I supposed to ask you? I don’t have much information to go on here.”

“Why don’t you start with, ‘Killian, it’s so nice to meet you. How about you tell me a little about yourself?’”

Her answering eye roll reminded her she hadn’t properly removed her makeup from the night before, not having taken her usual five minutes in the lovers’ hotel room bathroom to allow for proper skin care. Fuck, her pores were going to be pissed.

“I’m not quite that polite, but fine. We’ll have it your way. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

That “little about himself” went on for about an hour, covering everything from his love of football to how underrated asiago cheese was on casual dining menus. They disagreed on silly subjects like the best fast food and what to take on a deserted island. They pretty much only agreed that David and Mary Margaret were insufferable and that love was for losers.

(And yes, that was the closest she got to unlocking even one small detail about his Tragic Backstory.)

They talked all the way to the next hole-in-the-wall bar, which did, in fact, like it might have some holes in it in the light of day.

“Thank the fucking lord we’re finally here. Will you two shut up now?” Ruby moaned into the seat cushion, apparently not as knocked out as Emma had assumed from her unmoving silence the entire ride.

“’s not our fault you two oafs don’t use the nighttime for sleeping,” Killian snarked back at her.

Hmm. Maybe they’d gotten more acquainted than Emma had realized.

Add that to the pile of Killian Jones-related mysteries.

-

Graham had been so exhausted, he didn’t even awake when the van emptied out, still snoozing even as they hauled all their shit into the bar. Just to be a jerk, Emma even tossed a drum stick at him. But he just grumbled and turned, unfazed by her minor assault.

“Hope he lost sleep for the good reason, if you know what I mean,” Killian said, as he bumped his shoulder into hers. He was carrying a guitar case in his right hand and had his left forearm wrapped around one of the boxes carrying electrical equipment.

“Yes, in that tone, I’m pretty sure people up in Vermont know what you mean?”

“I’m not sure about that one. Have you been to Vermont? I don’t think I’ve ever met a fuckable person from that whole state.”

“Don’t say that around David. I’m 99% sure he’d fuck Bernie Sanders.”

The two of them laughed so hard they almost dropped their very expensive equipment, especially when David, as if on cue, turned back toward them: “what’s in Vermont? There’s this ski place I’ve wanted to go to…”

Their laughter turned to near howling as poor, out-of-the-loop David rambled on about Mt. Snow being a great place to take a date and how exactly that could be so funny that two people who’d met last night had already been reduced to giggling middle schoolers.

-

Mary Margaret and Killian quickly started setting up for their set, even though they had a few hours until people would actually show (she was a worrier, and it was technically his first day on the job). So that gave the other slackers some time to rest and eat greasy food and hopefully get properly buzzed before the show so Emma didn’t have a random panic attack at some dude wearing a blue plaid shirt with pink Vans like Neal used to, once upon a time.

Catching up on the night before was usually their breakfast routine, but having avoided that, Emma assumed she’d just end up not knowing how Graham and Ruby had spent their time. Thankfully, both were perfectly happy to provide a secondary replay of their evenings.

Well, Ruby was happy to. See, she hadn’t done anything scandalous the night before. No fucking strangers for her! Turns out, a friend of hers from college lived in that little town and she’d gone over to her place to catch up. Friends old and new were there and she mostly missed out on sleep for conversation and a few truly ridiculous board games (who played Chutes and Ladders when they were plastered?).

Graham, on the other hand, had not had as enjoyable an evening. He’d met a girl, a very pretty girl, and she’d asked him back to her place. He had enthusiastically agreed right up until he was pounding into her against her kitchen counter only to be interrupted by her boyfriend. Thankfully there was no macho how dare you touch my girlshowdown, but it did leave Graham with a bad case of blue balls and nowhere to sleep.

“Wait! Why didn’t you come to the van with me? I don’t bite,” Emma protested as Graham was describing wandering the roads with streetlights until it was appropriately light enough to be breakfast time.

“You don’t think that’s the first place I went? I peeked my head in the fan and saw his shaggy ass and thought you might actually have taken the leap and met someone. No chance in hell I was going to spook you if you finally found a guy you didn’t want to murder on first sight.”

She yelped out a very offended hey, but deep down, he wasn’t wrong. He and David were just the only two men to ever prove to her they were interested in her as a human being and not a punching bag or human fleshlight. She was thankful for finding them and realizing that the whole not all men has some merit, but not enough to take any chances on a guy.

“Well now that you know your assessment couldn’t have been further from the truth, I bet you’re feeling pretty silly for missing out on sleep.”

“No, I stand by my decision. But, yeah, tonight I’m crashing in the van with you two. Unless, I mean, if you ever want privacy with him…”

“YES!” Ruby squealed. “You two would make the cutest babies. You know, someday. With little leather jackets and horrendous attitudes. It would be legit adorable.”

From the corner of her eye she could see David’s face turning fuchsia and she was reminded of the speech he’d apparently given Killian that morning (as if she needed protecting). Not even close.

“Hah, very funny there, Rubes. You think he’s so good looking, you can go for it.”

“Oh, no you will not!” David shouted. “No casual sex within the band.”

(Hey, at least he was yelling at someone who wasn’t her.)

“But you and Mary Margaret!” she protested.

“Nothing casual about that. Marry Killian, fine. I’ll throw the bridal shower. But do not fuck him for fun. We need him and he doesn’t need another mess.���

Before Emma had a chance to ask David to elaborate on that clear Tragic Backstory Hint, Mary Margaret and Killian plopped down at the table, set-up apparently finished.

“So… what do we do now?” Killian asked, the blunt end of his left arm fiddling with the thick ring on his right thumb.

Mary Margaret, David, and Graham collectively responded, “Eat!”

Ruby and Emma were more of the let’s get drunk frame of mind and instead replied, “Shots!”

So the crew of six ordered shots for 12 and their first official day as a team had begun.

By the time they were being announced for the stage, Emma was red-faced and stumbling, Mary Margaret was giggling about the word “banana” and Killian had already told sixteen different dirty jokes, all met with a deeper scowl from Emma each time.

-

That night Graham’s drumming was just a tad out of sync and David forgot that he wasn’t actually supposed to sing the girl parts of their one duet-style song, but none of that mattered. The crowd was wild, totally tuned in and screaming their hearts out right along with them. Halfway through their set, just before Emma relinquished lead vocals to Mary Margaret for Sappy Hour, she clutched the microphone in her hand, swaying as she returned it to the stand at the edge of the stage, yelling, “I love everyone in this bar!”

This whole ‘having friends’ thing just got better and better every single day.

Especially when puking in the dumpster at 3am. You find out who your friends are, right about then, and only Ruby was mockingly taking SnapChat videos. Killian got her water and Graham held her hair and the last thing she remembered before she passed out was telling the other strays she was just so glad they all somehow found each other.

[mock-star-aq]

Supermonster Dinner Party: a Dragula fic.

Happy Holidays y'all! This is my fic for the @rpdrficexchange for Wolfie, aka Wolfie @thepastpresentandfutureofdrag !! I hope you like this darling! (For some reason I can't tag you in this?)

This is a weird cannon divergent style where they are their drag personas but dragula and drag race still happened, (if that makes sense) so make of that what you will.

Edit: Thanks to @hellobiqtchlasagna for helping me come up with the surprise at the end. I forgot to credit them in my rush to get my fic up and I feel bad😅

"Do you know anything about him?" Vander asked, pulling a batch of cookies out of the oven and sliding them onto a cooling rack. Biqtch was leaning against the wall, nursing a mixed drink.

"Just that he's Boulet approved, same as you." Biqtch drawled. " Swan actually told me to be nice, as if I would be mean to anyone who wasn't mean first, or a Republican." 

"You can be a bit crass at first. Drac told me to be mindful of not coming across too snooty, but she's one to speak." 

"Oop, I'm snitching! I'm going to tell her you said that!" 

"Oh, she knows, she makes fun of herself. And she would just brush it off. I can tease her a little since I know her relatively well." 

"Yeah that's fair, Lord knows they talk shit about us all the time in private."

"I'm pretty sure it's mostly good things, but yeah, they absolutely poke at our screwups with each other. " 

"Because they want the best from us, cause we're super monsters and all that." Biqtch pushed herself up from the wall, crossing over and rinsing out her cup to use again later. 

"And also because we have to work together from now on, so we have to be at least cordial to each other." Vander said, pulling out her phone to check the time. "He should be here anytime now. I told him 6, and it's 5:55." 

Just as Vander stopped speaking, the doorbell rang. 

"Speak of the devil, that should be him." Vander motioned for Biqtch to follow her as she went to the door, smoothing out some wrinkles from Biqtch's shirt before opening the door wide. 

"Hi, nice to finally meet you! Landon, right?" 

"Yup, Landon Cider. Nice to meet you too." He affirmed, holding a hot bag. Vander waved him inside and relieved him of his dish, allowing him to hang his coat up as Biqtch closed the door. 

"Nice to finally meet you, I'm Biqtch Pudding, and that's Vander Von Odd. You're hot as shit." Biqtch introduced herself, leaning against the wall as Landon took off his outerwear. The most prominent thing about him was how chiseled he was, even his face. The Boulets weren't ones to choose supermonsters based on conventional standards of beauty, but Landon was certainly very attractive. 

"Ah yes, you two are infamous. The first two supermonsters!" Landon smiled, slightly blushing at Biqtch's remark.

"I hope our fearsome reputation precedes us." Biqtch flexed, her arm about half the size of Landon's. 

"Landon, does this need to be warmed up at all?" Vander asked, holding up a casserole dish from the hot bag, interrupting before Biqtch could embarrass herself more. 

"Maybe? I pulled it out of the oven before I left, so it should still be warm." He crossed over and took off the top, holding his hand over what appeared to be a lasagna. "Oh it's fine. It probably needs to cool down a little actually. Biqtch, I know you're a vegetarian, so this is just cheese." 

"Yasss thanks doll!" Biqtch cheered. "What do you want to drink?" Biqtch led Landon over to Vander's drink cart as Vander pulled together the last little bits of the meal and set the table. She put the basket of rolls down as Landon and Biqtch came back, and Landon immediately put his drink down to help Vander put the last few things on the table. 

"Thanks babe." Vander said as they all sat down at the table and started serving food. It was quiet for the first few minutes while they ate, but then Vander started asking Landon questions, since the main point of the dinner was to get to know him. 

"So tell us about yourself Landon, where are you from, what do you do outside of doing performing .."

"Are you single?" Biqtch interjected. And Landon chuckled before responding. 

"Well, I'm from Long Beach, and I have a Hispanic background. I am happily married, sorry Biqtch." He apologized, and Biqtch pretended to be upset, pouting and snapping her fingers before sitting up and shoving his shoulder, indicating that she was joking. 

"We fucked like the all of the drag race winners do when they win but neither one of us liked it, so she was hoping to get a second chance." Vander explained, and Landon spit out his drink. 

"And you know that HOW?!" He spluttered as Biqtch clapped him on his back. 

"Sasha told me. She doesn't love the tradition, but I have a feeling she'll change her tune if Shea wins an allstar season." 

"So they haven't fucked?" 

"Oh no, they have. And they'll take any excuse to fuck. They're just rarely in the same place at the same time anymore. Trust me, Sasha's an open book once you get to know her well enough. So are most of the other RuGirls. Several of the other winners have offered to include us in the tradition, but unfortunately that probably ends with you. At least the sex part, most of them would probably be willing to makeout with you or cuddle with you." 

"Fine by me!" Landon declared, wiping his brow. And they all started laughing. 

"Yeah, we all saw you make out with Evah!" Vander teased, and Biqtch hooted appreciatively. 

"Neither of you can talk!" Landon retorted, and they all started laughing harder. "Biqtch is a dick pig and Vander handled a pup during her final floor show. Hypocrites, both of you!" He wheezed out, clutching his stomach with one hand while pointing with the other. 

"Look at the pot calling the kettle black!" Biqtch screeched. 

The rest of the night dissolved into hysterics, scream laughing at each other so loud it was a wonder they didn't get a noise complaint. The food was barely touched and cold, but no one cared. 

"I was inside so I couldn't see, but you could just hear her screaming! FUCK THE BIG PICTURE CLINT!!!" 

"That's better than Loris's temper tantrum. "NoT tOnIgHt!" 

"Well we didn't have any fun catchphrases like y'all did!"

"Bitch the fuck you mean? Everything that came out of Disasterina's mouth was fucking iconic! "Attention human males? She's murdering my pussy?" You just gotta think!" 

"Ooh ooh! I know! "You're just a trigger happy alcoholic that's what I said bitch you gotta pop a xanax every 10 fucking minutes!" That's the closest thing  Dragula has to the sugar daddy speech so far!"  

"Ok, you both are right. What can I say? I just a dummy ass thick Biqtch." She joked, standing up slightly to twerk slightly to the amusement of Vander and Landon, who laughed even harder.

The doorbell rang, interrupting their laughter. Vander got up to answer it, and came back carrying a white box, slightly damp from the snow. 

"What is that?" Biqtch asked as she and Landon got up and walked over to the counter where Vander sat it down. 

"No idea, but it's addressed to me and it's from a really nice bakery." Vander replied, cutting the string tied around the box off with a pair of scissors and opening the box. All of their jaws dropped as the lid fell back and revealed what was inside. Biqtch came to her senses first, hunching over laughing and clutching the counter. Vander covered her mouth and started wheezing as Landon chuckled and pinching his forehead as if he couldn't believe his eyes. 

"That is not what I think it is." 

"It is." Vander and Biqtch said in unison. Biqtch pulled out her phone and took a picture, still laughing. 

"I'm sending this to her right now. It's so lifelike, and I should know, I stared at her mug for weeks!" Vander laughed, kneeling to get a better look. 

"Did she send it?" Landon asked, taking out his own phone to take a picture. Vander plucked up an envelope that was beside the cake and opened it, laughing harder when she read it. 

" It's from the Boulets." She wheezed. 

" Happy Holidays uglies. Hope you don't mind if Meatball crashes your supermonster dinner party. We truly are proud of you all. XOXO. Dracmorda and Swanthula."

"Swan wrote that." Biqtch said, looking over Vander's shoulder. "Drac has chicken scratch." 

"Ooh! I'm snitching!" Vander mocked, and Biqtch doubled over again while Landon laughed in a confused way. 

"So who wants to do the honors of cutting Meatball's head and seeing what flavor her brain is?" 

"Landon should do it, welcome to the family bro. " Biqtch said. Vander nodded and handed Landon a knife, which he took. 

"Alright, cheers Meatball." Landon said as he sunk the knife into the cake shaped like her head and cut away a piece. 

"It looks like Red Velvet." Vander said as she held out a plate for Landon to put the cake piece on. 

"That's clever as fuck!" Biqtch smiled, watching as Landon cut the next piece. 

"Now I know how the Boulets feel, this is a powerful feeling, slicing someone up." 

"Oh he's definitely one of us!" Biqtch cheered, high fiving Vander. Biqtch high fived Landon as Vander's phone went off and she unlocked it. 

"Swan's glad to hear we got it and Meatball sent a bunch of grave emojis." 

"That tracks." Biqtch said as Vander put her phone away and went to grab wine glasses and a bottle, uncorking it and handing them all a glass of red wine.

"A toast." She said as she held up her glass. "To the Boulets, to Dragula, to good food and good times, and to the supermonsters, past, reigning, and future. Cheers." 

"Cheers!" Biqtch and Landon echoed. And they all drank. 

"Now let's go eat our cold food and our Meatball head cake." Vander directed. "This is a dinner party after all." 

"A holiday dinner party! Where's the mistletoe?" Biqtch joked.

"I am not kissing you again! Once was enough!" 

"Spoil sport. Landon will make out with me, won't you Landon?" 

"Umm, we'll talk. " 

"That wasn't a no!" 

Landon rolled his eyes and laughed at Biqtch's perseverance and Vander's apologetic face. This family was strange and weird and unconventional, but he loved it and wouldn't have it any other way.

[hookaroo]

Vocivore, Ltd. (45 of 46)

Also on FFN and AO3 (ListerofTardis)

Tagging @ouatwinterwhump, @killian-whump, @sancocnutclub, @killianjonesownsmyheart1, @courtorderedcake, @facesiousbutton82 <3

***THE MOST WONDERFUL, HEARTBREAKING, and BEAUTIFULLY WHUMPY COVER ART BY @cocohook38 HERE and HERE!!!!!!!!!*************

***Chapter 12 animation and art that will absolutely astound you!!!!!!!!!**********

***LETHAL Chapter 19 art in all of its BLOODSTAINED GLORY!!!!************

**POOR STABBED KILLIAN falling into the sheriff station! Ch. 7 & 23 art!!**

****KILLIAN AND HIS MASTER IN THE GORGEOUS CATHEDRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!    CHAPTER 1 ART THAT KILLS ME EVERY TIME I SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*********

*CH 34 ART! A DEFEATED KILLIAN, HEAD BOWED BEFORE HIS MASTER!!*

***CH 36 ART! DETECTIVE JONES BOWS BEFORE HIS NEW MASTER!!!!!!***

***AAAAHHHH!!! THANK YOU MY WONDERFUL COCONUT FRIEND!!!!!!***

________________________________________________________________

Present (Thursday)...

Zzzzzzzz…

Shave day.

Killian had only to close his eyes to be transported back there. That dreadful hovel with its table of pain. Those callous hands dragging a dull-edged blade along his jaw. And nothing ahead of him but more suffering. No hope.

Focus on the differences. Warm, soft bed, no splintered, uncomfortable wood. Blankets and a gown instead of cold nudity. The din of automation replacing the scratchy ring of imprecise steel. Similar pungent disinfectant but less decay, less blood and pain and fear. And, most important, gentle touch. No intent to hurt or degrade. Only meticulous, loving care from the one person on Earth he trusted without reservation. 

“Holy crap,” teased Emma, “I think we need to get Whale to put a sign on your door warning that there's a handsome pirate inside.”

Knowing that he still looked like a wreck despite a neatly trimmed beard, he played along for her sake. “And what would its purpose be, to entice eligible nurses inside, or warn them away from his jealous bride?”

“I don't mind them looking,” smiled Emma. “What's the point of having a gorgeous husband if a girl doesn't show him off every once in awhile?”

Killian clenched his teeth as a wave of violent shivering overtook him; to a casual observer it would have appeared as if he were suddenly chilled to the bone despite climate-controlled surroundings and the layer of blankets draped atop him. Through nauseating pain, he heard Emma lay aside the razor and felt her grip his elbow in solidarity.

Whale remained hesitant to classify them as seizures, stating that the corresponding brain activity did not match any known convulsive disorder and responded to none of the anticonvulsant drugs they’d tried. Of course, that didn't rule out the possibility of eventual development into actual seizures, as most of the slave fatalities had experienced just before their deaths.

Killian had managed to catch snippets of conversations, grave tones and sobering words that betrayed what they seemed to be trying to hide from him. He would probably have guessed on his own, anyway, with his worsening state mirroring the course of the slaves who had preceded him in death. Sometimes he was able to comprehend what a shame it was, for him to have survived so long only to succumb now, when peace had returned to his home. In those moments he tried to take solace in the thought that he'd been granted more cherished memories with his wife and daughter, without a threat hanging over them, when he could focus on lavishing them both with the fierce love he felt for them. Emma would remember. Hope... he liked to think she would.

None of that mattered in the moment, though, as quivering muscles shocked every single inflamed nerve ending into high gear, enveloping him in a fog of inescapable agony.

Emma met his watery gaze with a sad, stiffly calm smile, and he read the desolate grief in her forged reassurance even as he realized that the attack was finally subsiding.

"Morphine?" she asked quietly, but he shook his head. Hope would be coming by for a visit soon, and he wanted a clear mind for her.

Her grip on him relaxed by degrees as some of the tension drained away from his body.

“I'm so sorry, Killian,” she whispered. “If only we could somehow bring magic back. I might not be able to stop these attacks, but I could at least heal your wounds and prevent some of this pain.”

She sniffled and before Killian could summon the breath to respond, she continued, 

“It doesn't make any sense; I mean, we thought it was related to the Vocivore, but maybe we're wrong, ‘cuz it seems like we should have found something by now…”

“I have something to report about that,” came Regina’s voice from the doorway. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Emma turned with a weary expectancy, and Regina stepped inside. She was the very picture of classic irritated aloofness, but she did glance at Killian and say,

“Sorry for barging in like this.”

"You found something?" demanded Emma, and Regina stopped at the foot of the bed. Her scowl could whither the blossoms off an apple tree.

"It's those damn pigeons."

"The... pigeons," repeated Emma slowly. In his mind's eye, Killian saw a ragged pink feather coated in slime; white, powdery droppings splattered on chancel cobbles; black and amber irises reflecting nothing but pure animal instinct. He heard the trilling cooing that had been the quiet backdrop for many a scream, memories as clear as if the blasted birds were right there in the room with him.

"Those ridiculous pink pigeons, Sheriff Swan," Regina confirmed, completely oblivious to Killian's uneasiness. "I cannot fathom how, but they're the ones responsible for the magical shielding. Pesky vermin."

Emma looked unconvinced, and Killian wanted to agree, but considering how the birds seemed inextricably linked to the Vocivore's presence, perhaps the idea wasn't so farfetched.

"Regina, are you sure? They're just dumb birds. How can they possibly block magic?"

"I'm... still working on that," admitted the queen. "But I know I'm right. Did you hear about those hooligans who set off the fireworks in front of City Hall this morning? Right in the middle of an inter-realm council meeting?"

"David filled me in, yeah; said he thought it was some Lost Boys from the Wish Realm."

"Well, as disruptive as it was to the meeting, it was a hundred times worse for our feathered friends. They took off like their tails were on fire and made for the Enchanted Forest or... Madagascar or somewhere; trouble was, they're too stupid to remember that for long, and they were back within 10 minutes. But in that time, there was a brief window in which I could almost access my power; it was there, just on the edge of awareness, just out of reach." She made a growl of frustration, both hands tightly fisted. "I thought for a second that the shield was collapsing for good, without us having to do anything about it, but wouldn't you know, we're stuck with our usual luck again."

Regina looked like she'd rinsed her mouth with lemon juice as she continued ranting. "The first bird to come back, while we were still searching the area for any unexploded fireworks? A pigeon. A fat, iridescent pink pigeon. And that's when I made the connection."

"Well, I've been saying we needed to get an exterminator, but just because you saw one doesn't necessarily prove that they're the culprits."

"I think she may be right," Killian said with another shiver. "They were... fairly strongly bonded with the Master. Sometimes would even ride on its shoulders." He cringed as the haunting outline of the beast filled his imagination, complete with winged companions, its tentacles pulsating as they reached toward him....

"And we have only recently started noticing them around Storybrooke," added Regina. "Just about the same time as magic failed. They’re remarkably distinctive, and I remember being surprised the first time I saw one."

"I don't see the connection," Emma began, still doubtful. "But it can't hurt to check it out. So say it is the pigeons. What's the next step?"

"That's the bad news." Regina glanced at Killian in apology. "It won't be a quick fix. Short of poisoning them, or making the town somehow inhospitable to birds in general--both of which are options that I can't see our critter-loving neighbors approving of--we're down to trapping and relocating each one individually, or trying to figure out what exactly gives them the ability to block magic. And either way, it's going to take time." She folded her arms, waiting for questions, but Emma and Killian were quiet, mulling over the situation. "I've tasked Robin with the job of bringing one to me for study. Don't tell your mother."

Killian was only half listening as a whole movie's worth of scenes replayed in his head. Pigeons, pigeons everywhere. He felt foolish for not noticing their conspicuousness before, but, of course, he did have other things to worry about at the time. 

He felt his spirits sinking impossibly lower as the consequences of the news took shape. No quick solution would mean no magical healing. He'd be stuck in this infernal hospital, recuperating in the conventional way, spending whatever time he had left uncomfortable and in pain. Somehow, the Master had managed to orchestrate continued torture for him; even in death, it was having the last laugh at his expense.

"Pigeons," scoffed Emma. "Pigeons and a crab. Who would have guessed?" Seeming to sense Killian's dark musings, she stroked his cheek with her thumb. "Sorry, Killian. This sucks."

"They must have evolved together," muttered Regina absently. "Developed some kind of symbiosis; they shield the Vocivore, and it gives them, what, shelter? Protection from predators?"

"Blood," realized Killian suddenly. The inspiration had come out of nowhere, a thought buried deep within his subconscious that had burst unbidden into full awareness. He'd only ever seen it out of the corner of his eye, with no attention to spare, his own misery and how long he'd been given before the next Session at the forefront, always. But there they were. Pink bodies fluttering to earth, a writhing mass behind him as he left the church, squabbling among sticky smears and warm pools, dipping dainty beaks, plunging belly-first in some macabre bathing ritual…

Then outside. They would be strutting through the gutters, congregating near fresh corpses while his tunnel vision kept him limping in the direction of Z's cottage, never truly seeing how beady little eyes sized him up even as blood-crusted heads burrowed into decaying flesh in search of more nourishment.

"Um... what?!"

Killian returned to reality to find Emma and Regina staring at him with matching expressions of revulsion.

"The pigeons, they... they seemed to fear the noise and, f-for the most part, remained in the rafters... during..." He hesitated, winced, then carried on with great effort. "But afterward... the Master didn't care about the stains on the floor, yet I never saw fresh blood when I first arrived. I... I think the pigeons... consumed it."

Killian thought he might vomit. Both of his visitors seemed to share the feeling.

"Okay, that's... disgusting."

Regina gulped and plastered on a weak smirk. "So. ‘Carrion’ pigeons. I wonder if their feathers are just stained, then, or if they turn pink from some substance in the blood they eat, similar to flamingos."

"Gross," moaned Emma. She took a sip of her bottled water. "But hold on a sec. If they're so fond of... that... then why did they make their way all the way to Storybrooke? There's way less... that... around here."

"Guess they can do without it. Or maybe they live off roadkill out here."

"Overcrowding?" suggested Emma, answering her own question. "Better nesting sites?"

"Would have made an intriguing Exchanges topic." Killian cringed at the thought. "Had I known to ask."

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the trio, until finally, Regina grunted her irritation at the whole thing.

"Well, I can try to confirm all of this once I get my hands on one of those little pests. Guess it's good to finally be getting some answ-"

"Mr. and Mrs. Hook, get your Thank-You cards ready; I've just-" Dr. Whale paused when he noticed Regina in the room. "Oh. Your Highness."

"Victor."

Whale caught Killian's glower and smirked. "What's that look for?"

"I'd explain but I'm still recovering from that utter shipwreck of a salutation."

"Sounds like you're feeling better. Guess I'm wasting my time, then, working around the clock?"

"Did you have something to tell us, Whale?" Emma's feigned irritation fooled no one--it was obvious she anticipated more important news.

"We've had a bit of a breakthrough, thanks to the data gleaned from you and Detective Jones." The physician held up a cautionary hand. "Results look promising, but this is by no means a sure thing, and there's no guarantee of long-term success. We'll of course continue to tweak it as we go along, but for now I think Killian could benefit from an initial dose as soon as possible."

"You think you've found a cure, then?" clarified Regina.

"A therapy," he corrected. "To slow the degeneration and maybe, eventually, reverse it. Tested on some lab animals, then this morning on two rescued slaves who were near death. They seem to be doing better." He pulled a hand-labeled vial from his pocket and set it on a table with a flourish. "The FDA would burn my license and probably toss me into prison for this. Good thing none of us officially exist."

As Killian stared at the little container of clear fluid onto which, suddenly, all of their hopes were pinned, he was struck with unexpected anxiety. It was all well and good when there was nothing that could be done, his fate seemingly sealed. Now that there was a reported chance, he wanted nothing more than for it to work. He wanted to live, to be a husband and father, to watch Hope grow and be there for her. The vial represented that future... and what if it didn't work?

Whale took Killian's silence as reluctance, and he sighed. "Yeah, I can't guarantee its safety either, or provide you with a list of possible side effects. Just that for you, with your weird, extra barrier that we still don't entirely understand, I'd like at least the first few doses to be administered directly into the CSF, and we do know the risks and side effects of lumbar puncture. But, well... listen, if it were me or a loved one in your position, I would still say that we need to try something, because the risks don't matter once the condition becomes terminal. Make sense?"

"None of that is in question," said Killian slowly. Then he flashed a short, tired smile at the physician, radiating self-deprecation. "Believe it or not, I actually do trust your medical expertise. I was only... praying for its success, I suppose."

Whale looked genuinely touched, for a fleeting instant. But soon enough his cocky demeanor was back. "You're right: I'm not sure I do believe it. I'm gonna take that admission as another symptom and then we can just carry on the way we always do."

He tossed some forms at Emma, ordering,

"Read and sign for him. Assuming you want to go through with it, we'll be back shortly to perform the procedure."

He left in a swirl of white lapels, muttering a polite farewell to Regina on his way. The queen turned back to Killian and Emma, wearing a slightly uncomfortable grin.

"Well. Good news, then. Or, a seed of hope, at least." She brushed invisible dust off her jacket and made other I'm-about-to-leave cues.

"Yeah. Thanks for filling us in about the pigeons." Emma glanced down at her phone, and a tiny frown creased her forehead. "Although you could have just called me."

Squirming, Regina blustered,

"I... thought the news would be better delivered in person. And... well... maybe there's a... small part of me that wanted to see how Killian was doing."

"That's most appreciated," said Killian. "Thank you."

Regina nodded stiffly, shot an, "I'll keep you informed," then exited.

Killian gritted his teeth through another bout of shivers--thankfully shorter this time--and when he could open his eyes again it was to find Emma watching in sympathy.

"Hope that's over with for now. You don't wanna be doing that while they're trying to stick a needle into your spine."

Throbbing and aching, Killian grimaced. He needed a distraction. "Everything okay, love?" he growled. "You were rather tight-lipped toward the end there."

It was then that he noticed the tear tracks staining her face.

"Emma?"

She lay aside the consent forms and wiped at her cheeks. "I've been so scared, Killian. Starting a month ago, but it hasn't stopped even with your rescue. I... well, Whale's been pretty pragmatic about your condition, and... truth is... I was starting to prepare myself to lose you." She caught two droplets before they had a chance to fall. "I mean, how horrible is that? You aren't even gone yet and I'm coaching myself to start saying goodbye."

She started to reach for his hand but stopped and gripped his wrist instead.

"That's human nature," he pointed out. "I've been doing it, too."

Her eyes glistened with sad questions. "We didn't... I mean, Whale thought that..."

"No, no one's told me anything; not before now at any rate. No one had to."

Emma leaned forward to kiss his cheek gently, brushing back some stray hair as she murmured,

"I'm sorry, Killian. Shoulda known better than to give up so soon."

His eyes found the vial, which Dr. Whale had left on the table. "Do you think it will work?"

"It has to," she said simply. "If nothing else, to give us more time. And you know... Whale's kinda the expert at this sort of thing, even if his attitude leaves something to be desired."

Killian was tiring rapidly; it had been one hell of an afternoon, and this was the most he'd participated in a conversation since his rescue, if not longer. But he still had one final question before hopefully catching a nap between interruptions.

"Whale mentioned 'data,' gleaned from you and Jones. Did I hear that correctly?"

Emma waved a dismissive hand. "Just a couple of tests he did on us; no big deal."

"You subjected yourselves to becoming his laboratory animals, all on my account?"

"And to help the other rescued slaves." She flashed him a twinkling grin, which softened into loving fondness. "But... yeah, mostly for you."

"Thank you, Emma, truly."

She graced him with a quick kiss, saying,

"You're welcome, and like I said, no big deal, and that's all we're gonna say about that." Noticing his heavy eyelids, she smoothed an eyebrow and then sat back. "We better do that paperwork before you fall asleep. Want me to hold it up so you can read it, or I could read it aloud to you..."

"Don't bother about it, love," he murmured. "You can read them yourself if you'd like, but I think we both know that there isn't much they could say that would change our views on the matter."

Killian cast his eyes on Hope's artwork once more before succumbing to his weariness. Perhaps it would guard his dreams and bring positive thoughts from here on out. Because now that he had a fighting chance at survival, healing his psyche had suddenly become that much more important, and it would most definitely be a longer road than the not-insignificant path to physical health.

Would he be up to the challenge?

________________________________________________________________

AN: Well, obviously I failed to get this posted quickly enough. Blame @cocohook38​ and @lillpon​ for killing me in their own wonderful ways :) Less than 36 hours til I’m on the plane to Ireland!!! Sorry to make you wait for the conclusion! It’s really not that long of a trip, though. I should be back to somewhat functional by July 10 :D

I’m looking for some milestone that gives me an excuse for “Winter Whump” to have lasted this long... XD The closest I’ve come is that I probably had the first inklings of what the premise would be sometime last summer, as sign-ups for the event closed June 30, 2018. So the final chapter will be released approximately 1 year later. *Shrug* Best I can do.

[snidgetsafan]

The Curse of the Black Roger: Chapter 7

Rating: T

Summary:

“You should start believing in ghost stories, Miss Swan – because you’re in one.”

When young Princess Emma found a pirate necklace on the baby rescued from the sea, she never expected years later to be swept into an adventure worthy of her favorite novels.

And she certainly never expected someone like the legendary Captain Hook.

A “Pirates of the Carribean” AU

Notes: Here is my offering for the CSSNS! Thanks to @amorecolorfulmoniker, whose pic set inspired this fic. Thanks to my betas, @gingerchangeling and @shireness-says who acted as a sounding board, a crying shoulder and grammar enforcers where needed. Thanks also to @slow-smiles, who created amazing two pic sets for this fic! (1 and 2) And thank you to @wingedlioness for making the amazing header!

This chapter was also done for @csmarchmadness. Thanks for organizing this event, which not only kicked my butt into finishing this chapter, but which is also providing us with wonderful fic!

On AO3

Previous chapters: Prologue, Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6

Emma sat curled up against the headboard on her bunk, trying to stay calm and stave off the panic that she could feel rising. She had woken up as the first rays of dawn had bathed her room in red light, only to find a stranger seated at the foot of her bed, startling her into instant alertness.

Dr. Almasi, as he had introduced himself, had checked her for any injury before declaring her in perfect health. Despite her unease, his movements had been efficient and to the point, if a little brusque, as he had examined her in silence. Hirudinas, the court doctor, had always taken care to treat her carefully and ceremoniously, mindful of her rank, chattering on and on about the weather and the latest gossip in court. Almasi hadn’t taken the same precautions; after all, as far as he knew, she was just a maid. Surprisingly, Emma had found she quite liked it.

Before departing, the doctor had told her she could find breakfast in the galley if she so wished. When Emma had reminded him she was a prisoner and couldn’t really roam the ship, Almasi had turned around and asked her in his cultured, accented voice with no hint of any mockery, “Well, why not? There is nowhere you could escape to, Miss Swan, so it makes no sense to confine you to your cabin.”

And with those matter-of-fact words, the doctor had gone, leaving the door wide open as if to make his point. Emma, however, had hurried to close it as soon as she had heard his footsteps fade in the corridor. With the door open, she was free to go, true. But others were also free to come in. And she didn’t want to see anyone – not yet, at least.

Especially not Hook.

At that thought, Emma had felt a chill go down her spine as the events of the night before came back to haunt her. Every time she tried to rationalize what had happened, images of Hook transforming flashed before her eyes in excruciating detail. The noise Gill’s head had made as he had torn it off his neck wouldn’t leave her mind either. Tears came to Emma’s eyes as she realized in what dire straits she now found herself. Her situation somehow kept getting worse and worse, ever since she had put on that damned medallion.

Which is why she had to calm herself and think , the princess thought determinedly. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself. She had been trained all her life in diplomacy; this situation wasn’t that different, was it? It was just that the stakes were a little… higher than the usual diplomatic blunders she had to look out for.

Just her life; that was all.

She had to concentrate on the facts. What did she know? The pirates had kidnapped her because they needed the last coin and someone to sacrifice to break their curse. She was thus important, and this gave her leverage. Apart from the previous night, when they had terrorized her, they also ensured her well-being: she was fed, clothed, had her own cabin and no one had touched her. Whether this was due to some obscure pirate code article, or for some other reason, this also indicated they would not resort to violence. More power to her.

Now, how to use that power.

~~~~~

An hour later, with the sun well over the horizon and her stomach rumbling, Emma found herself at the bottom of the ladder leading to the deck, her insides knotting with nerves. She had no idea where the galley was, and she didn’t want to explore the dark corridors on her own. Which left the deck, bathed in sunlight, but full of undead pirates. With some luck, she’d be able to ask the doctor where the galley was, or even maybe the pirate with the red hat – Smee, was it?

She could hear the normal noises you would expect to hear on a ship trickling down from the open trapdoor – orders being shouted, creaking wood, the sails flapping in the wind. The princess took a moment to gather herself, her heart beating erratically in her chest. Emma had no desire to interact with any of the pirates, and not only because they turned into monsters at night. No, it had more to do with the fact that they wanted to sacrifice her in a dark magic ritual .

Emma took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself down. They needed her, she told herself again. So until they arrived at their destination, she was as safe as she could be while on a pirate ship. Which, granted, probably didn’t mean much. But  in order to find a way out of her predicament, she had to use the time she had to gather as much information as possible. The princess started to slowly, carefully climb up the ladder, not knowing what to expect as she peeked her head above the opening and looked around her,.

If she didn’t know any better, she’d think she were on any regular ship, with sailors attending to their tasks to make sure they arrived safely at their destination. But this was not a normal ship; even if the macabre scene she had seen the previous night was not permanently imprinted on her eyelids every time she closed her eyes, the black planks, sails, and ropes of the ship would tell her something was amiss. And if she raised her eyes to the top of the mainmast, the skull and bones flag floating from its peak would remove all her illusions about this being a normal ship.

Seeing that no one was paying her any attention, focused as they were on their work, Emma gingerly climbed the rest of the way and stood near some barrels, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. From her vantage point near the stern, she could see that there were half a dozen men on deck. She recognized Smee’s red knit hat near the bow, and she thought that the tall bald man pulling on a rope across her might be Fagan, the man who had almost hit her when she had come aboard.

Emma stood in the shadow of the quarterdeck, not far from the steps leading up to it for a few minutes. She didn’t dare turn around or go up the stairs, not wanting to face the ship’s captain yet, despite the stare she could feel burning on the back of her head. She didn’t know how, but she knew it was Hook. Emma didn’t want to think about how she knew that. She instead watched the crew working, trying to reconcile the mundane scene in front of her with the nightmare she had stepped into the previous night. As she was watching a slim pirate swinging on the rigging, apparently checking the various pulleys near the mainmast, a familiar gravelly voice interrupted her contemplation.

“So, the princess deigns to grace us with her presence.”

Emma whipped her head towards Gill, fear taking hold of her again. They knew . However, instead of the gloating or angry expression she had expected to see him sporting, she was surprised to see an uncomfortable one that deepened at the alarm he saw on her face. To her bewilderment, the brash, vindictive pirate she had come to know and despise shuffled his feet, looking anywhere but at her, his eyes focusing somewhere behind her before he opened his mouth.

“Look, lovely… It was brought to my attention that my behavior towards you last night was apparently ‘highly inappropriate’ and on ‘the edge of being cruel’,” he began, reciting words that were clearly not his own. “So… yeah. I guess I’m sorry, and I won’t do it again.”

Emma stared at him, completely baffled, her mouth agape. What on earth had just happened? While it was clear that his words had been a repetition of what someone had said to him, his promise had sounded sincere, even if he didn’t seem that contrite.

Gill finally looked directly at Emma when some time had passed with no answer seemingly forthcoming from her. Scowling at her shocked expression, he barked, “What? Do you want me to drop to my knees to beg for your forgiveness as well? Well dream on, sugar, that’s never happening.”

Strangely, his coarse words allowed Emma to find her mental footing again. An antagonistic Gill was easier to deal with than a contrite Gill. She was used to the pirate being hostile; seeing him this sheepish made her… nervous.

“Oh please no. That’s the last thing I need to see,” Emma told him, wrinkling her nose at the mental picture of the pirate kneeling in front of her.

“Good,” Gill said, again looking anywhere but at her.

“Good,” Emma repeated, doing the same, focusing on the barrels next to her as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

The two stood side by side, the silence becoming more and more uncomfortable as the seconds passed, until Emma’s stomach rumbled loudly. For once thankful for the noise, she turned towards the pirate, drawing on all her etiquette training to ask him as politely as she could, “Could you direct me towards the galley, please?”

Gill grunted, and with a jerk of his head, invited her to follow him as he headed towards the trap door. Wordlessly, he led her down the ladder, turning right instead of left. After a few seconds, the stocky man stopped in front of a doorway, gesturing for her to precede him into the room.

Emma stepped inside carefully, looking around for other pirates. She was glad to see the galley empty, the only movement coming from the pots swaying gently on their hooks as waves rocked the ship. The walls, floor and ceiling were the same black as the rest of the ship, lending a very gloomy atmosphere to the windowless room. The only light came from a couple of lanterns swinging over the big table set in the middle of the galley. Curiously, Emma couldn’t help thinking that even though the walls of her cabin were also dark, the sunlight had revealed chestnut reflections in them this morning which had only brightened as the light had increased. Here, however, they were as black as night, seeming to absorb the light despite being made of the same wood.

Fitting, really , Emma thought as Gill brushed past her, heading to what seemed to be the larder. He got out a dish with some meat on it with one hand and grabbed a few pieces of bread in the other before putting them down, gesturing for her to take a seat on the long bench that ran the length of the table.

With a murmured thank you , Emma sat down, struggling shortly with her skirts, and started to eat. She stopped chewing  when she saw the pirate reach for a piece of bread, which he started to munch. Feeling her gaze on him, Gill raised his eyes.

“What?” he asked.

“I thought you weren’t able to eat because of the curse?”

“Nah, we can eat. It’s just that it does nothing for us. We can’t taste it, and it doesn’t sate our hunger,” the pirate answered before taking another bite.

“Then… why eat?” Emma asked, completely flabbergasted.

Gill shrugged, shredding his bread thoughtfully with his hands. “Not everyone does. It’s just… old habits die hard.”

And it helps you feel human , Emma realized, reading between the lines. Emma couldn’t imagine being hungry for days, let alone for hundreds of years. This was worse than Tantalus’ punishment; they could eat, unlike him, but still their suffering did not end. They were truly without hope. Despite her resentment towards Gill, Emma couldn’t help but feel compassion for him. She wouldn’t wish this fate on her worst enemy. Choosing not to voice her thoughts, she instead said, “So that’s why there’s so much food, and how you were able to whip up yesterday’s dinner.”

The pirate snorted, looking at her with an amused smile. This was the first time Emma had seen him without any hint of hostility in his expression, and he looked softer, almost kind. “Well, you can thank the lads who raided the castle. At the prospect of getting the last coin and breaking the curse, they got a little… over enthusiastic in your kitchens. Morons forgot that fresh meat doesn’t hold long enough to get to Black Rock, and neither do fresh vegetables. McCullough was actually relieved when the captain ordered him to cook you a meal, he kept whining about throwing away that much food.”

Emma smiled wanly, continuing to eat as Gill spoke, filing away the information that their trip would be at least several days. Granny must be furious they touched her kitchen , she thought, her smile widening. Imagining the matron cursing the pirates out when she realized her larders had been raided entertained Emma as footsteps sounded in the corridor.

The princess’ shoulders stiffened, making her realize with surprise that at some point during her conversation with Gill, she had relaxed. Half-expecting to see Hook, Emma turned towards the door, but she had never seen the man who stepped in the doorway. His blue eyes, set in a weathered face, were framed by deep laugh lines, and his thick red beard covered the bottom of his face and part of his neck. He looked at Gill briefly before focusing on her, his accent making his voice surprisingly melodious.

“Everything alright, love? Gill here treatin’ you right?”

What is it with these pirates and calling me everything but my name? Emma thought, miffed. Out loud, she answered the newcomer briefly, choosing to be prudent and not make any waves. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“Did he apologize? Did you apologize, you stupid lout?” he pressed, his accent getting thicker as he addressed Gill, looking at him in disapproval. Gill huffed, grumbling about bossy bastards as he started munching on his bread.

“Yes, he did,” Emma answered for him, looking between the two men curiously. She was missing something, some piece of information.

“He did? Good. What he did last night was completely inappropriate, lass, despite his grudge. Which is totally unjustified in the first place,” he finished, looking pointedly at his crewmate. His wording made Emma realize that she had been right, and Gill’s apology had not been spontaneous. The ginger pirate seemed to have quite the sway over his crewmate.

“Did you want something, Mr. Evans, or would you like to continue berating me?” Gill barked without much bite. He looked almost… fond? Honestly, they sounded like an old couple, Emma thought, observing their bickering.

“Eh, you know you love me,” Evans replied, smirking at Gill.

“I often wonder why,” the seated pirate grumbled.

Oh , Emma realized. They were a couple. Looking down at her plate, Emma wondered why Evans loved Gill . Guess Papa was right, and love does make us blind , she thought bemusedly, not understanding how anyone could love a man so brash. Although that glimpse she had gotten earlier of a softer man...

“Of course you do,” Evans said, before turning towards Emma. “If you’re finished eating, lass, the captain is waiting for you.”

Oh boy, here we go.

~~~~~

The captain’s quarters looked different in the daylight. While still dim because of the dark walls, the portholes lining one side of the cabin let the morning light pour into the room, dispelling the shadows that had seemed so overwhelming the night before.

Hook sat at his desk, clad in black from head to toe. As soon as Evans ushered Emma in the room, the captain stood up, his hand going to his belt buckle. Now that he stood in broad daylight, she could see that his hair was not completely black, and that his beard held ginger hues, breaking his monochromatic look. Emma stayed near the door once it had closed, leaving the table between the pirate and herself.

“Swan,” Hook greeted, smiling at her thinly. “Did you sleep well?”

Her frosty look must have been answer enough, as his smile faded quickly and he cleared his throat.

“Right,” he said scratching behind his ear. The movement attracted Emma’s gaze to his palm. She could still vividly remember the previous night when she had thrust her knife into his hand, the blade slicing through flesh and tendons before sinking into the tabletop. Looking down quickly, she could see the stab mark in the table, but, try as she might, she could see no trace of a mark on Hook’s hand, even now that it was resting again on his belt buckle.

“If you’re looking for a reminder of when you… nailed me to the table, Swan, you won’t find anything,” Hook said, raising his eyebrow and licking his lips slowly when Emma looked back at his face.

The princess shifted on her feet, troubled by his salacious expression before she processed his words. “I didn’t nail you to the table, I used a knife,” she told him, frowning. What was he talking about?

The pirate blinked, looking out of his depth for a second before he cleared his throat again.

“Anyway, no mark, as you can see,” he rallied, showing her his hand first palm up, then palm down while taking a step forward. His tanned skin indeed seemed unmarred. If not for the gash in the table, she could have thought that she had dreamt the whole scene.

Emma looked at his hand until he dropped it to the table, leaning forward. “I think there might have been a slight misunderstanding between us last night, lass,” Hook told her, trying to catch her gaze.

“I don’t see what there is to misunderstand about needing a blood sacrifice to end your curse,” Emma snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. “The fact you intend to kill me leaves nothing to interpretation.” Only how you intend to do it , she thought, a shiver running down her spine.

“That’s where the misunderstanding is, Swan. We’re not going to kill you,” Hook told her, before gesturing to a chair with his hook. “Sit down, love, so that I can explain.”

“Oh please, don’t try to placate me! Dark magic always requires a high price, there is no way I’ll walk out of this ritual unharmed,” Emma snapped, choosing to remain standing. What kind of idiot does he take me for?

“You said you can tell when people lie to you. Well, Swan, have I told you a lie?”

Emma pursed her lips, frustrated that she could not say that he had. But it made no sense – he hadn’t lied either the previous night, and he had told her… Had he though? Or had her imagination run away from her, fueled by her fear? The princess raised her head, locking gazes with the pirate captain. With a short, jerky shake of her head, she indicated that no, he hadn’t lied to her.

“See? Then sit ,” he commanded, the former request turning into an order as he took a chair, looking up at her expectantly.

Not looking away from his face, Emma pulled over a chair from across from where he sat before plopping down on it. If there was a time to draw on all her diplomacy training, then this was it. The princess took a deep breath, which helped to center her. “I’m sitting. Now explain.”

“The blood sacrifice we’re asking of you is in no way life-threatening,” Hook began, “Blood magic does not require the death of the offering; hell, it doesn’t always mean the spilling of blood at all. In this particular ritual, all we need is a very small quantity of blood.”

“Then if you need so little, why bring me with you? Couldn’t you have taken it from me in Misthaven and released me?” Emma asked, ashamed to hear a whine in her voice.

“Because the ritual is very particular and demands blood freshly spilled.”

For the first time in their conversation, Emma could feel he was not entirely honest. He’s holding something back , she thought. “You’re not telling me everything. What are you trying to hide?”

Hook sighed, although he didn’t seem particularly upset with her. “Quite perceptive, aren’t you? Aye, you’re right, there is something else. The blood must be willingly given. We can’t take it by force.”

“Seriously?” Emma asked incredulously. “What is this curse? Why not use someone from your crew?”

“Because we all have already given our blood. Yours is the last ingredient we need to break the curse. Well, that and the last coin,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Why are you telling me all this?” Emma asked abruptly. Hook was giving her incredible leverage. He was far from an idiot, so why was he being so straightforward?

“Because we need your help, Swan,” Hook said, “And to deceive you to get it would be bad form.”

“So kidnapping me is not bad form, but lying to me is. You have twisted standards, you know that, right?”

A shadow crossed Hook’s face before he leant forward, his voice low. “Understand something, Swan. For three hundred years we have searched for a cure for this curse. Now that we’re so near our goal, we are getting desperate to be free, and we’re not afraid to take a few shortcuts.”

“And what shortcuts will you take to gain my compliance?”

Hook chuckled, “Oh, I have no illusions about ‘gaining your compliance,’ lass, I know you’re too strong-headed for that. No, what I’m trying to earn is your cooperation .”

“And how do you intend to earn it?”

“By answering your questions. No trickery, no deception.”

Emma leant back in her chair, considering the pirate and his words. All her assumptions were being turned on their heads since she had stepped foot on this ship. Since she was stuck in this situation until she could find a way to escape, she might as well get as much information as she could.

“Alright then. First question: let’s say I help you break the curse. Will you take me back unharmed to Misthaven?”

“Well, I’m not sure it would be a good idea for us to sail right into the bay, but I’ll get you home safe – or as close to home as I can.”

He was sincere. He did seem to have some sort of ‘good form,’ as he put it.

“Right. Next question. How did you end up cursed? Did you get punished for stealing from the wrong person?”

“In a way, yes, although not in the way you think. What you must know is that this ship was not always a pirate ship, and this crew were not always pirates. We used to belong to the Braesal Navy.”

“Wait– Braesal? But that kingdom disappeared hundreds of years ago!”

“Aye, it did.”

“But that would make you…”

“More than three hundred years old, aye. But this is not the first time I’ve told you.”

He was right: he had told her just a few minutes ago, but she had swept the fact to the side, focusing instead on the curse and her apparent imminent death. Emma watched the pirate carefully. He didn’t look three hundred years old. In fact, he barely looked a handful of years older than her. But then, Emma remembered what he had looked like the night before, emerging from the hatch into the moonlight. She could believe that Hook was three hundred years old. A three hundred year old corpse, to be precise.

Suppressing a shiver as she remembered the previous night, Emma nodded at Hook, conceding his point. “Okay, but what does Braesal have to do with the curse? I thought you said it was from Agrabah?”

“As I was trying to tell you, we used to be in the Navy,” Hook began, “The Roger was called the Jewel of the Realm then, and my brother Liam was its captain. Our admiral, the King’s brother, ordered Liam to retrieve a chest, promising its contents would help end the war that was suffocating our kingdom. So we did,” the captain said, chuckling bitterly while playing with the tip of his hook. “But the weasel had lied. He wanted the chest because of a legend that said whoever owned it became immortal. He wanted to use it to overthrow his brother, you see. We tried to stop him, but for our efforts Liam was killed, and the prince had me imprisoned. After he took a little souvenir, that is,” he smiled sarcastically, waving his hook in the air, chilling Emma once she understood he meant his hand. “The crew freed me with the help of a palace guard, and we took the chest back as our severance pay, as well as the Jewel .”

Emma listened to him intently. She had studied the fall of the Braesal kingdom when she had been a child. She remembered that the last king, Brendan, had orchestrated a coup against his older brother. The Mad King, as he had been known, had reigned for three short years before being captured by the joint forces of Misthaven and Camelot when they had taken the capital. He had died a few months later, murdered by one of his former officers.

“So that tells me how you became a pirate, not how you were cursed. If owning the chest made you cursed, then how come the King was not? I’m pretty sure a king transforming into a skeleton at night would have been quite hard to miss.”

“Turns out the the prince’s Agrabhese wasn’t quite up to par. Owning the chest was not sufficient to be cursed. You had to take coins from it for the magic to take.”

“So he didn’t?”

“No. I guess planning to murder your brother to take his throne must be quite time-consuming, luckily for us.”

Emma privately agreed. Thank the gods Brendan hadn’t gained immortality. If someone power-hungry enough to kill his own flesh and blood had become invincible, what would the world look like today?

“So you and your crew took the coins.”

“Aye, we did. After all, what better way to take our revenge on the King than by spending his precious gold to wage war against him?”

Emma blinked. What did he mean, wage war? Then she remembered that the reason Camelot and Misthaven had been able to invade Braesal had been that the latter’s navy had been so weakened by pirate attacks that the two allies had been able to navigate straight into the capital’s harbor. But surely he didn’t mean...

“You took part in the Pirate War?” she asked in disbelief.

“If by taking part you mean engineering it, then aye,” Hook told her, raising an eyebrow at her tone.

“You engineered– you were in the Pirate War ,” she said, completely in awe and forgetting her situation for a minute. She remembered reading accounts of the conflict, the naval battles, the boardings, the battles to the death. And he had been in them . But then, if he had spent the coins...

“If you spent all the coins, then how come no one else was cursed?” Emma asked, secretly wondering how come she hadn’t been cursed.

“Only people who take coins directly from the chest are cursed,” Hook answered, staring at her with amusement, “so don’t worry yourself, you’re quite safe.”

“I know I’m safe, I’d have noticed turning into a monster at night,” Emma snapped, miffed that he’d somehow divined her thoughts. But then something he’d said a couple of times finally registered. “Wait – if you need the blood of the original thieves… what do you need me for? I’ve never taken anything from that chest.”

“Well… you haven’t, Swan. But do you remember that palace guard I mentioned earlier?”

Emma blinked, baffled by the non-sequitur. “Er… yes?”

“Well, after he helped us escape from the castle, we took him onboard the Roger. Pirate life didn’t suit him, and he had a young lass waiting for him, so after a few days he went home, but not without a little parting gift from the chest,” Hook explained, getting the coin out of a pocket in his waistcoat. “When we knew what we had to do to break the curse, we realized one of the “thieves” was missing, and we figured it had to be him. However, when we came back to the village we had dropped him off at, he was long gone, chased by the war. We searched for him, but only managed to find his wife, who told us he had disappeared one day, and that she had never seen him again.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me,” Emma interrupted. Why was he telling her all this?

“Because while we never heard from McEala again, he’d had a son with his wife before disappearing. And that son had two sons, who had children of their own. And so on and so on, until we get to you, love. You are the last descendant of Ian McEala, Swan.”

Oh. Oh no. Emma realized with horror that their plan hinged on her actually being McEala’s great-great-grandchild. Which she definitely was not; as a royal, her bloodline had been carefully traced back five hundred years, ever since her family acceded to the throne. And there was definitely no Braesal guard among her ancestry.

“But how can you be sure I’m the one you’re looking for?” she asked, a little desperately.

“Well, for one, you had the coin,” Hook started to list, “second, we always kept an eye on the McEala family’s whereabouts, even when searching for the other coins. We lost them about ten years ago, though, when the ship they were on exploded.”

Emma felt a shiver go down her spine. “You were actually there, I didn’t imagine it,” she blurted out, leaning back in her chair. “It was you, you attacked the ship!”

Hook’s gaze grew dark at her words. “We certainly did not,” he bit out. “While we were approaching to board to get your father, the ship exploded. We don’t know what happened, though we suspect an idiot blew up the powder reserve. We would have come nearer, but then another ship approached, and we couldn’t stay without being discovered. We thought the McEala line was extinct, until the other night, when you told us your name.”

“But my name is Swan,” Emma protested, “and you said your guard was called McEala.”

“Ah, but my dear, don’t you know what Eala means in old Braelish?” Hook asked with a smirk. Emma looked at him, thinking hard, before she realized. Henry’s blanket, embroidered with swans, prompting her to name him after them. It had been decorated thus because...

“Aye, it means swan, love,” the pirate finished her thought, seeing the realization on her face.

Emma suddenly felt overwhelmed. Only a couple of hours ago, she had thought that her life had been in a downward spiral ever since she had put the medallion on – was that only two days ago? But she was coming to realize that events had been set in motion more than ten years ago, when she had taken the necklace from Henry’s blanket. And now here she was, prisoner on a pirate ship whose captain believed her capable of breaking their curse. But she couldn’t, she realized with growing alarm.

“Swan? Swan!” Hook’s voice came from afar, bringing her back to reality. The touch of his hand on her shoulder snapped her back to her senses as she jumped up and away from him. How had she not noticed him getting up and walking around the table? she thought wildly as she backed away until one of the sturdy chairs was between them.

Hook watched her warily, his hand now resting on the back of the chair she had been sitting on. Emma was thankful to note that he made no move towards her, as her heart slowed down to a normal rhythm.

“Are you alright, lass?” the captain asked, his blue eyes fixed on her face. It was eerie, now that he had moved out of the direct sunlight, how his hair and beard appeared once again black, his blue eyes the only spots of color on his whole being. They seemed to glow as Hook waited for her answer, his features cast in sharp contrast as he tilted his head, his eyebrow slowly rising as her silence lengthened.

Watching him, Emma couldn’t ignore how striking he looked; she shivered, for a reason she did not want to acknowledge. It was getting cold, that was all. Hook however straightened, his brow furrowing in consternation as he took a step forward, stopping when he saw Emma stiffen.

“You don’t have to worry, Swan. I know we didn’t meet under the best circumstances,” he began, causing Emma to raise her eyebrow in disbelief. That was quite the understatement, after all. “But I promise you we’ll take you home once we’re free of this curse. And the blood giving ceremony is not that dreadful, it’s just that you’ll have to give twice more than we did because you’re not the original – no, that’s not what I meant!” the captain backtracked, hearing her gasp and seeing the look of horror on her face as Emma felt her heart jump in her chest. “The ceremony requires three drops, so you’d only have to give six. Word of honor, Swan, that’s all we ask of you.”

Emma turned her head towards the window, biting her lip in thought. All he had said had rung true, but since boarding his ship all her beliefs and assumptions had been proven wrong. What was to say her lie detector wasn’t going awry too?

The princess also found she couldn’t stop challenging Hook. Apart from the fact he had kidnapped her, he had given her no reason to doubt him; she had her own room, had been fed twice now, and he had never lied to her. He did seem to be in earnest; he just wanted to be free from the curse which had plagued him and his crew for three centuries. Maybe that was the problem; he was making it too easy to trust him.

Emma also realized that out of the two of them, she was the deceiving one. But what was she supposed to do? Tell Hook the truth? At best she would be held for ransom, and at worst she’d be made to walk the plank. She had no choice, she had to continue this charade, at least for the moment.

As she had been thinking, Emma had been unconsciously rubbing her arms. She realized she had been doing so when Hook cleared his throat, sounding closer than she expected. As she whipped her head back towards him, she saw that he had sneaked up on her once again. Although, instead of standing close to her, he was standing at an arm’s length – literally, in this case, as his right arm was stretched out towards her, his coat hanging from his hand.

The princess looked at the pirate in surprise, not understanding. She also noted how he kept not only his distance, but his hooked arm away from her, trying to appear as harmless as possible. He wasn’t very successful, but Emma appreciated the effort nonetheless.

“You seemed cold,” Hook merely said in response to her questioning look, shaking the coat gently, encouraging her to take it.

Emma took it gratefully, preferring to hide her thoughts behind this excuse. Plus, it was getting cooler in the cabin, especially for someone who had been used to the sweltering heat of a Misthaven summer, and who was only wearing a light dress.

“Thank you,” she said softly, putting the heavy coat over her shoulders, getting surrounded in the captain’s smell. Strangely enough, she could feel no warmth coming from the garment, even though he must have had taken it off his own body not more than a minute before.

“You’re welcome,” he answered just as softly, looking at her with an odd expression for an instant, before blinking quickly and taking a step back. “Although you’ll be needing warmer clothes as we travel up north, lass. There are some in the hold, I’ll take you there.”

–--

Emma ducked her head as she entered the hold, Hook’s lantern casting dancing shadows as it swung from his namesake. With yet another shiver, this reminded Emma of the ghastly lights that the harbor fire had cast on the castle walls. Was her family okay? How many casualties had there been? She hoped David and her father were safe, and that they were with Henry. Gods, she even had time to wish for Cassidy to be okay before Hook interrupted her thoughts.

“If you turn left behind that crate, lass, you’ll find where we stashed the clothes,” he guided her, pointing over her shoulder to a large crate full of dinnerware.

Emma followed his instructions, advancing slowly as the heavy coat swished against her legs. The light fell on three chests full of garments, both masculine and feminine. Some of the dresses seemed familiar to her, especially that light blue one at the back. It looked like…

“Wait, did those clothes comes from m– the castle?” she snapped, turning towards Hook, who was leaning against the pile of crates on which he had put the lantern.

The captain smirked, spreading his arms. ”Pirate, love, of course they did. What, do you expect me to carry a whole wardrobe around in case I need to clothe a pretty lass?”

The princess rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore his last comment as she turned back towards the clothes. She was mad, that blue dress was one of her favorites. Emma quickly realized that she had to be careful in her choice of clothes. Not only had he mentioned them going North (something she would dwell on later in the privacy of her cabin), but she was supposed to be a maid. What would Hook think if she went for her usual fabrics and cuts? She didn’t want to take any risks.

Searching through the chests, she saw from the corner of her eye a fourth one, apart from the others, full of women’s clothes which seemed to come from the servants quarters. Before she could take two steps towards it, Hook stopped her.

“Not this one, lass, that’s part of Allen’s bounty.”

“What does a pirate want with women’s clothes?” Emma blurted out, completely baffled. “Wait, I don’t want to know,” she hurriedly added after a second’s thought. She wasn’t sure she could take another shock today, she thought, resolutely ignoring images of dancing skeletons wearing lacy dresses and bonnets.

Hook chuckled, however, mirth dancing in his eyes at her reaction. “It’s nothing like that, lass. His descendant is getting married in two days’ time, and he’s taken that chest to complete her trousseau .”

Emma nodded before turning back towards the chests, wanting to hide her face from the captain. Just when she thought the pirate couldn’t surprise her anymore, he managed to find a new way to do so. They had families? Did they know about the curse, or that they were pirates? Emma wondered as she rifled through a chest, finally finding an outfit simple enough for her persona, and warm enough for colder temperatures. A couple more minutes provided her with a cloak, and even with clean stockings. Search as she might, however, but she couldn’t find any shoes. After her trek to the ship, and the last two days, her slippers were the worse for wear, and were definitely too slippery to walk on the damp planks of the deck.

As always Hook seemed to be able to read her mind, as a pair of boots landed near her, his voice ringing in the empty hold. “I think these might be your size, you’d better check though.”

After close inspection of the boots, Emma privately agreed, but the pirate was right, she needed to try them on. Sitting down on a closed crate, she leant down to remove her slippers before suddenly looking at Hook, who was watching her with a smile on his face. “Do you mind?” she snapped. He had already seen her in her nightgown, she certainly wasn’t about to let him see her bare legs.

The captain raised an eyebrow, his smirk widening as he made a show of turning his back to her. Emma hurried to try on the boots. While she felt a slight pinch at the level of her toes, they were fine, and would adjust to her feet with a little time; after all, it’s not like she could call the court cobbler to make her a new custom pair. She would have to make do.

––-

A couple of hours later, Emma sat in her cabin, dressed in her new breeches and shirt, fiddling with the laces of her vest as she remembered the last words she had shared with Hook. After they had come back to her cabin, just before she’d stepped through the threshold, the pirate captain had caught her arm, turning the princess to face him.

“Swan… Emma,” he had begun, watching her earnestly, “I know all of this is a lot to take in, and that you have no reason to help us but… can we count on your cooperation?”

“I…” Emma had stuttered, flustered at being so close to him.

Before she could gather her wits enough to answer him, he had plowed on, eager to persuade her. “With the coin in your possession, you are the last piece to free us from this curse, so that we can live our lives. I know it’s a lot to ask, but we… I need you, Swan.”

Emma hadn’t needed her lie detector to know he was telling the truth; his eyes had been imploring, passionate in their plea. How could she say no to him?

So she hadn’t. She’d nodded, and had been rewarded by a smile – a true smile, nothing smirky about it – and a squeeze of her arm, before he’d let her go inside her cabin.

And now here she was, consumed by nerves and something that felt a lot like guilt. Even though she was still afraid of the Black Roger’ s crew, she couldn’t help but pity them now that she knew about their plight. And to think they’d endured it for three centuries... she thought with horror. Through her few interactions with them that day, she’d seen a human side to them: the obvious affection between Gill and Evans, Allen’s family…

As for the captain of the ship, she didn’t know how she felt about him. Each time she thought about the previous night, his monstrous transformation, that picture was now replaced in her mind by his earnest eyes and brilliant smile of relief when she had accepted to help.

And that was exactly what was causing her feeling of guilt. Because ultimately, the captain’s hopes would be dashed. She wasn’t the one he needed; that was Henry. And that fact would quickly come to light when they performed the ceremony, and nothing happened.

Although… Hook had said that the curse needed the blood of those that had stolen the coins… And wasn’t that what she’d done? She had stolen the medallion from Henry, so maybe the curse had somehow transferred to her? Despite not being a direct descendant of McEala, maybe she could still break the curse, and free Hook and his crew.

She wanted to help them – and she hoped that she could, because she didn’t dare imagine the consequences if she failed.

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