#when she's not staring moodily out into the distance she spends like all her free time in the library/underground heirloom chamber

[desognthinking]

WIP... Wednesday

Tagged by @willowedhepatica  (thanks!) I'm so sorry that this comes so late 😭 life got in the way. Not sure who i can tag who has things in the works they can share, but please Please know if anyone has any snippets or sneak peaks I would love to see them and yell about them with you pleaseee

Not strictly a WIP but here’s just under 3.5k of an oldish experimental AU inspired by this post :’) in this one they’re… *checks notes*, ah, hmm. Chimerical tomb guardians carved from stone.   

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It’s a wickedly stormy day when a procession scores up the hill through beating rain and blowing dust, but there’s no time to waste. The wedding will not wait, and on its occasion, as a symbol of the new ties between the families of the bride and the groom, there is a terrible, beautiful new guardian grotesque to be received by the Silva tombhouse from the Salviuses. 

It is surely mounted on the property sometime during the silver-black onslaught of sky upon earth, but Beatrice cannot clearly see it through the rain and the  maze of trees that still separates the Silvas from their neighbors. The families on this hill are not quite rich enough to expand at the pace of the wealthiest among them, who slice and raze to add to their already broad campuses of tombs. Instead, in this part of town, modest, often unmatching clusters dwell amongst the wildflowers and long-lived trees sprayed across the land. 

Beatrice likes the nature. Her perch is kept cool by the damp and dewy mornings, birdsong flickering from above and around. In the filtered haze of heat and light there is some measure of peace too – here, there is less to fight over, and fewer lines of tension between the families. Hidden by farther slopes, there are fewer threats from beyond. And, overshadowed by the lower circuit of large gated tombhouses, there are far milder spoils for aspiring robbers. 

It’s from one of these large inner-city tombhouses that the new stone protector is said to arrive. The Salviuses have money spilling out their hands and down their wrists. It’s said, it’s said, it’s said – it’s whispered in the wind that carries the falling leaves from vine to vane, so easy for Beatrice to stretch up and put an ear to. The pollen clouds dispersed over grass in shapes spelling disruption  and newcomer. It’s gossiped over pages in the library, first with smug nods and just you wait and see, dear, we’re never wrong from the grandfathers and grandmothers as Beatrice pores through the volumes in the upper shelves, precious books pressed so high and so far back that they’re backed into both wall and ceiling. 

Then, inevitably, it carries through the air in the giggles and hushed gasps of the living members of this family, hands curling over yarn and needle as the youngest children breathlessly run and hide behind the walls and in the shadowy pockets of the tombhouse. The Great-great-great Grandmother who had been the first to break the news is mollified by the confirmation, and generously refuses to gloat.

A Silva girl is marrying a Salvius boy, and the Salviuses are pledging a guardian – the spirits know they have too many anyway, but still, a Salvius guardian – to this hill. 

“You’ve got to go over and see what’s going on,” Beatrice is instructed one morning, in no uncertain terms. They’re going over integration by partial fractions on the little platform at the back that looks down over the mills: her, Great-Grandfather, and Lilith, who’s slunk over yet again from the Villaumbrosias’ for some ‘peace and quiet’, and also because Beatrice’s family likes her for some mysterious reason. They pretend it’s because they need the extra pair – or, well, pairs, in Lilith’s case – of eyes. The massive, foreboding, Villaumbrosia affair the next hill over already boasts so many fearsome hands on deck, and they only have one Beatrice. 

Great-grandfather is gentle and teasing about it; Beatrice (and Lilith, although she will never admit it) is his favorite captive audience. 

Of course, it’s easy to treat her as one of their own on mornings like this — quiet summer days when she’s stripped of silica and scale, descended from her weatherworn perch. Devoid of the coarse matter of rock and metal twisted into hungry, flame-spitting fangs, and instead merely a soft-spoken spirit in a youthful skin. When the great grandfathers and mothers and their grandfathers and grandmothers look at her and see dark, almost-human eyes and loosely-bound hair in a bun above her shoulders.  

And when Beatrice walks Lilith out and across the rocky way that leads home, it’s easy for them to wave the two of them off. After all, Lilith is just a young woman with black waves she tucks carefully behind her ears and a handsome, slanting jaw that could almost pass as being real; as being pressed and molded with muscle and mandible and a fragile, mycelial network of vasculature and nerves. Not another delicate illusion that would slip and shatter at the first sign of danger, revealing in a flash the grotesque ugliness within.

There hasn’t been an attack in a while. When there hasn’t been an attack in a while Beatrice thinks the family tends to forget where exactly they hold court.

(Here, cradled close enough within these hills to walk back to where home once was. Children’s handprints on the threshold, coal scribbles on the floor. Walls still perfused with the fragrance and vapor of hot homemade stew.)

This is a graveyard. This is a necropolis, a city of the dead. It slithers amongst the roots of the living but does not make a home of it. In its palm lies the fragile in-between, the sickly sweet intersection where the living and the after-dead mingle like the meeting of two clouds. Within its grounds the family is wont to forget the ruthlessness that’s sometimes needed to keep it in balance.

Once they depart, Beatrice and Lilith’s guises fall away. Invisible to a still-beating heart, two terrible chimeras gouge skid-marks through the dirt to get to the Villaumbrosia citadel before its guests arrive at ten-thirty. Miraculously, only twice during the entire trip does Lilith half-heartedly threaten to snap Beatrice’s tail off. 

They make it there just in time. Beatrice watches as Lilith sweeps her way up the manicured moss columns and melds, in a quick thrash, with the magnificent dark-gray creature of stone that lunges out from the south turret. Frozen like this: mouth curled in a snarl and sharp wings flung out – in mockery, in bombast, in warning; Lilith at her most vindictive and most frightening, the elaborate Villaumbrosia insignia branded hot and painful down her side.

Beatrice knows it hurts, of course. Perhaps less so like this but certainly in the flesh, where it is always red and raw like the day it was carved down Lilith’s ribs in the workshop. Preserved unchanging in the meat as it is preserved forever in the rock. Lilith winces, when she thinks the others aren’t looking, but Beatrice knows. Camila might say something – probably does say something, but Beatrice doesn’t. She understands too well, and after all, what can they do?

After all, this is their work. This is life: whatever is asked of them. For Lilith today, it is to be a showpiece for guests at a bloated, overwrought tea ceremony. Broadly, it is watchman, and protector, and advocate. And at times like these, when there is a stir in the tangled ecosystem of bloodlines and their guardian-creatures, Beatrice is called upon to be an ambassador. 

So, the day after the storm, Beatrice leaves her perch to seek out the Silvas. She glides down from the still-slippery stone, and lands softly on the wet earth, scale meeting fur meeting soil and humid air. 

In her hands – her metaphorical hands – she clasps fistfuls of string that stretch, infinitely thin, to every corner of her tombhouse. She flexes each one and puts it between her teeth as she steps over the threshold and into the trees, testing their elasticity and tensile strength. If there is to be a twang, however minute, she must feel it. There is only one of her at home.

As she approaches the Silva tombhouse the air around her shifts and seems to solidify into a medium both probing and warning. Beatrice stills, allowing the woods to see her and course through her calmness. They know her, of course, and she waits for them to pass on the message to the newest guardian, still incredibly sensitive to the prickle of unfamiliar movement and sound. 

Presently, physically, the world exhales. 

Beatrice cautiously continues forward, until the treeline peels away to reveal the Silva tombhouse.

Tombhouse, as it goes, is a misnomer – a tombhouse is a complex rather than a single shell. It is no single cell for a coffin, but a collection of connected mausoleums and courtyards and passageways and corners and gates, lifted high and tunneled low. And as befitting a clan of esteemed craftsmen, the Silva tombhouse is a harmonious set spiraling outwards in organic whorls. Its walls are scraped clean and brushed beige, curled and leafed and folded in at the edges. Delicate and pretty in its strength in a way Beatrice’s own plain, stoic little set of residences could never be.

At the top of the central mausoleum, bounded by a parapet, rests a flat platform. On that ledge sits the new grotesque. 

Ink-black stone peeks curiously down at Beatrice. 

Immediately it is clear that she is like nothing Beatrice has ever seen before. Yes, as is tradition she is joined and jawed together piecemeal from various symbolic beasts, but this composition and style is unique. 

She’s simultaneously entirely unlike both the typical statues produced by-the-dozen in the workshops, and the specially commissioned sculptures like Beatrice herself. This guardian is a patchwork of shapes and textures Beatrice has only ever seen in the watercolor sketches of her tombhouse’s own library as belonging to exotic creatures from faraway places. Still other elements escape her recognition and description, and everything meshes deftly at smooth, near-invisible seams. 

Perhaps this isn’t surprising in a Salvius guardian – Jillian’s own commission too, it’s rumored. No less should be expected from someone the alchemists and scientists alike shy away from. Jillian Salvius considers herself a traveler, and a collector, and a dabbler, and Beatrice hears that the spokes of her gates are gnarled and carved in strange patterns from foreign lands.

The guardian shifts and cocks her head curiously, and Beatrice pulls herself together sharply.

“Hi,” the creature says. “You must be the neighbor from the east.”

Beatrice snaps back into polite, exceedingly proper posture. She nods, dipping forward in a movement resembling a bow. It makes the high-perched creature giggle, gauzy like air.

“Good morning,” she replies. “My name is Beatrice, and you’re right. How did you know?”

The guardian doesn’t answer. She separates from her stone in a miasma of color, swoops down noisily, and lands, a little clumsily, on a lower ledge. “Two heads, huh?” she says, thoughtfully. “Kinda perfect for the scholars.”

It’s not said judgmentally; more so with a further curious slant of her head, observational and light. Beatrice feels strange and semisolid all over.

She doesn’t correct the new guardian; tell her that no, she hadn’t actually been crafted or blessed for this bloodline, only gifted to them just one generation ago. And gifted rather carelessly, at that; an obligatory token presented upon the death of the benefactor’s tutor.

Before that her two heads were designed not as a tribute to wisdom or a paean to collaboration, but in order to stare proudly over an excessive estate, stretching out in opposite directions over land too vast for merely one head to behold. An arrogant symbol of not just physical, but political reach. She was a status symbol for powerful people – two-faced might be a better descriptor. 

Beatrice has always considered this with some bitterness, but today, she oddly feels no urge to self-flagellate. She feels, suspiciously, nothing at all; a fuzzy blank.

Instead, in response to the guardian, Beatrice blinks. Both of her heads do. They crane and incline together, like long-necked birds bending to convene. She feels sharp ears on each one twitch and flutter.

The creature laughs again. She descends further to the porch, then approaches Beatrice slowly. “I’m Ava,” she introduces herself, finally. Shyly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ava,” Beatrice repeats, careful and hushed. She parses it over and traces it as though threading a needle – how the strange, simple symmetry of the word, the hypnotic up-down-up of A-V-A,  doesn't begin to encompass the entity approaching her. On cue, Ava does a funny, shuddery motion that cascades down her whole form. 

Beatrice, leaning her heads over old tomes like water jugs tipped over a parched tongue, dreams of fantastical things, from places that often sound even more surreal. And yet before her now stands the most peculiar thing alive yet, that defies everything she’s known and seen. 

Yes, clearer now before her eyes, Ava is a patchwork of impossible parts. 

Up close Beatrice can see she’s also a riverbed of illusory things. Small divots seem to scoop themselves out, sink deep, and then ripple back up into the surface of her body. Bubbling, and collapsing, and reforming, like springs of molten mother-of-pearl. Each little cavity shimmers like roughened gemstones: a gasping, dark blue, like well water under the sun; or a moody green like the light-starved undershade in a storm; or a thawing amber that Beatrice cannot even describe except that it looks like the smell of hot bread with a sweet cream core, tempting and steaming.

“Beatrice,” Ava echoes, her eyes gleaming and dark. They bubble expressively and endlessly deep. Gazing at Beatrice, straight, still and pondering. Searching. 

Silence stretches until it doesn’t. 

Something snaps – a bird on a twig above –  and Ava shakes herself awake. “Where’s my manners!” she exclaims suddenly. “Come on,” she swishes around gamely. Beatrice, bewildered, sneezes. 

She’s learning quickly that when Ava laughs, the dense tassel-like feathers on the back rise in delighted reflex and splay apart. 

The two of them slip between trees into a little glade, buoyed by her relentless charm and a thrumming current of something else, in the undertow.

Once upon a time, this was a courtyard, although now that the Silva tombhouse has unfurled in the opposite direction it’s been allowed to tastefully overgrow into its former self, mossy and scruffy. Old pieces of wall and pillars still cordon off one side; Beatrice resists the temptation to bound about and explore, and instead parks herself primly at a corner, not fidgeting.

Ava has no such compunctions. She wriggles herself into a comfortable position on a large boulder. Her weapon of a tail dangles down and bats at the ground idly, uprooting chunks of grass. 

“How are you finding it here?” Beatrice asks, trying very hard to be normal. 

“Honestly? I don’t know yet,” Ava grins, “and you’re the first one of us I’ve met here.” 

She pauses, cocks her head to one side so strikingly. The gesture almost looks human. “You know, my new folks think very highly of you,” She looks appraisingly over Beatrice with an indecipherable expression.

Beatrice feels quite hot. “Mine are curious about you.”

There is a shift in the air as Ava straightens abruptly. Her tail stills. “What will you tell them?”

Beatrice bites her tongues, undecided. She’d meant to think of it later, to phrase and rephrase and turn the words over and over in her mouth on the way back to get them right. It takes a while, usually, to distill her thoughts precisely into words that balance both insinuation and tone, and half the time it ends up all too stilted and formal anyway. How people seem to be able to do that, off the cuff – it’s confusing. Far easier, Beatrice thinks, to sit quietly beside and let such people do the talking.

Especially now that this seems, somehow, to be important to Ava. And especially now that she finds she doesn’t quite have any of the words.

If Beatrice had hands she would wring them. She thinks, distantly, of what someone else wiser than her might say. “They’ll agree with me that you’re certainly unique,” she starts, and it’s like Shannon’s talking through her, stately and gentle. Bold, like Mary. 

She adds, in an abrupt impulse that’s, alarmingly, all Beatrice, “I do think you’ll fit in well here.”

“Oh,” Ava seems surprised. Her tail, heretofore curled tightly on the boulder, relaxes and turns a loose arc in the air, hacking at the grass. “Thanks,” she looks at Beatrice, and inhales sharply, although not unkindly. 

Pauses. Sheepishly, she adds, “I’ve heard some people, uh, calling me devilish and other things, you see. But you know, it’s fine. Whatever.”

Beatrice grimaces involuntarily, then schools her expression back into an empathetic nod. It’s not unexpected. There’s bound to be a procession of curious gawkers and onlookers filing through to try and catch a glimpse of something hailing from the elusive Salviuses. Beartice knows the type: traditional, gossipy and busybodies.

They’ll take one look up the roof and gasp in disbelief or disgust, probably. Sneer up at the twisted, unnatural proportions, if they’re brave. Ava runs too close to the precipice of their diluted tolerance.

“The Silvas are good people. They’ll stand by you.” Beatrice isn’t sure if it helps, but it’s true. The households here are the little silver lining of this part of town, otherwise ragged and out of the way and a little discordant in its hues.

Ava exhales gently. Beatrice thinks there’s a small smile there. “I know.”

“It doesn’t make it easier.”

“Yeah. I know,” repeats Ava, her eyes shining, and it’s almost like she really does. 

Beatrice understands. They did it to her, too, after all.

The people who commissioned her had made a puppet of her. They had demanded a departure from classical references and therefore affixed to her frame things like startling, swiveling joints and odd angles.  Two heads, of course, among other modifications – all in an arrogant, ambitious drive to defy tradition and create a visionary symbol of fear and envy.  Instead, the lay beholder glanced upon the warped anatomy and thought it blasphemy. And so, Beatrice rapidly became that to her own family too: acrid to the eyes, rotted in the soul, a disembowelment. Failure. An embarrassment. 

The whispers billowed large like cotton sheets drying in the fields, caught and blown out in the wind.

It was a matter of time. Beatrice imagines the tiny family offspring being taught their true oral history in a sugary sick little chant, clapping their chubby hands cheerfully and squealing every grim word, 

Then the old teacher died / and it was a great relief / The family rushed to ready / a token of public grief

Her, of course. Her, and not any of the cruder, more sedate, stone guardians that studded the estate. The small ones who, on a good day, sat patiently and circulated air and respired noisily, and who were not capable of thought or pain. The family had a lot of them lining their walls, not much more than large decorative lumps of dough programmed to trap, waylay, or bite at intruders. 

Instead, they parted ways with the looming, ghastly and elaborate figure that guarded one of their main wings, and painted it as a great outpouring of sadness. Beatrice knew better.

The whole event was swift; almost planned in advance. She’d barely had time to send an urgent warning to Lilith before she was gone – a failed experiment in pomposity that took an unforeseen and regrettable turn into the profane. 

In a matter of days she was transplanted from lush green gardens into dry hills bathed in reedy, half-obscured sunsets. The kind of neighborhood her old family would call avant-garde or ‘forward-thinking’, although with a scoff that betrayed what they really thought.

And at night, looking down to sleeping homes, Beatrice would hear in the nothingness the same whispers splashing down the stone like rain, all over again.

Mindlessly, now, she has the sudden urge to reach out and feel. Fluttering cells or hardened stone, it doesn’t matter. She wants to transmute a hand of tender human pulp and skin, and run fragile fingers softly over the strangest braided foldery and flattening of membrane, bumps and spindles until they catch, pierce and bleed. 

And she so badly wants to tell Ava: I think you’re nightmarish and very beautiful. You would hold an army off this humble hill. like holding out a pathetic little bundle of flowers– but she doesn’t. It’s too long and too much; I’m here. is too short, and both are too naked. She’s not that kind of creature. She’s carved from solid rock and even when she sheds it it still feels like its weight chains her to the earth.

Her voices remain even and steady, somehow. 

“I –This isn’t the customary welcome and introductory visit,” Beatrice confesses, in lieu of it all.

“Oh. It’s not?”

Beatrice shakes her heads. “There’ll need to be a more official one.” 

The overlapping layers of spines along Ava’s limbs rise and then flatten, quickly.  “So I’ll get to see you again soon?” 

Feeling warm, or moist, or something like a pillar of pressurized foam, Beatrice clears her throats. “I suppose so. Yes.”

[wistfulcynic]

The Bend of the Arc (1/ 4)

SUMMARY: Emma Swan hates Killian Jones at first sight. He's everything she despises in a man: arrogant, provocative, and a known criminal associate of the city’s most notorious gangster. She’s determined to put him behind bars, until a shocking event forces them together and Emma discovers that there’s a lot more to Killian than meets the eye. 

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY @stahlop​! ~ I know it’s a little early your time, but I have zero chill. Lisa, it’s been so wonderful getting to know you this past year or so, especially watching you get back into writing! You said you’d like to see my take on the enemies-to-lovers trope, and so here it is—I hope you enjoy it. Have a FANTASTIC birthday 😘😘😘

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(note: Crime is soooo not my genre, but I did my best with it. If there’s anything I completely effed up it’s okay to tell me about it, but please be gentle 😘😘) 

Rating: M (language and eventual smut)  Words: 5.8k (of 30k total) Tags: Modern AU, enemies to lovers, bounty hunter!Emma, criminal!Killian, smut, bedsharing, stranded together

On AO3

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PART ONE: 

She could smell the despair the moment she walked through the door. That wasn’t unexpected; grim places frequented by grimmer people were the bread and butter of her trade and this particular grim place—a grimy hole in the wall near the harbour—bled exactly the same hopelessness as the rest of them. It was, however, not where she’d expected to locate this particular mark, and she didn’t care for the unexpected. In her line of work, unexpected could get you killed. 

He was here, though, right where her informant had said she would find him, and she spotted him the moment she walked through the door. He didn’t even look out of place, despite the expensive cut of his hair and his jacket, despite his goddamned Italian shoes. He should have stood out, been chased away, should never even have known a place like this existed, and yet here he was, slumped over the bar staring moodily into his drink the same as every other sad sack in the joint. 

She didn’t like it. It was unexpected. 

She slid onto the barstool next to him, taking care to allow her hair to drape across his arm. He didn’t move, not so much as a twitch. She exhaled a breathy sigh. No response. 

The direct approach it would have to be, then. 

“Hey.” She nudged him with her elbow. “What’s good here?” 

“Lass.” His eyes never left his glass. “I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree with me this evening. I’m not in the mood.” 

“What mood?” She gave a light, tinkling laugh. “I just asked what’s good.” 

“Try the rum.” He drained his glass and set it down firmly on the bar. “The Botucal. Only place in town that serves it. Everything else here is swill.” 

He stood up and left, without so much as a glance in her direction. 

I didn’t matter, though. She’d seen enough to know that it was him, and with her mark positively identified it was time to move in for the kill. She slipped off her stool and followed him out into the night, shivering in the chill breeze that blew in off the sea. She always forgot how much cooler it was near the water. 

She looked around for the mark and spotted him a short distance away, walking in the direction of the marina. Probably headed for his boat, she thought. She hurried to catch him up, moving on the balls of her feet so her heels wouldn’t click on the pavement. 

When she reached him he was just passing the harbourmaster’s office, a small building made of weatherbeaten wooden boards and with its door secured by a heavy iron chain looped through the handles, and she smiled to herself as she extracted her handcuffs from beneath her skirt. Perfect. In one swift, practiced move, she grabbed his arm and snapped a cuff around his wrist. 

“Killian Jones,” she said. “I’m here to—” 

He moved faster than she would have imagined him capable, using her hold on his arm to spin her around and slam her back against the door of the office, knocking the wind out of her. 

He held her there with his body pressed firmly against hers and even in her dazed state she registered the warmth and sturdiness of it, the spicy smell of his skin. His breath ruffled the fine hairs on her temple as he leaned in close to murmur in her ear. “I know precisely who you are, darling, and what you’re here to do,” he said, his voice a low, rumbling purr. “And I’m afraid I can’t allow it. You should have stayed in the bar.” 

“Then I wouldn’t have caught you.” Her own voice was breathy.

“You haven’t caught me now.” 

Her head snapped up at the amusement in his tone and she got a good look at his face for the first time. Even in the faint glow of the harbour lights the sight was breathtaking. Photographs really didn’t do him justice. 

“Yeah? Who’s the one in cuffs?” she retorted. 

There was a tug on her wrist and an ominous click, and the smile on his face became a smirk. “I believe you are, love,” he replied. 

“What the fuck?” She looked down to see her own damn handcuffs, now attached to her own wrist. He held her un-cuffed wrist firmly as he looped the cuffs through the heavy chain securing the door handles then clicked the second one into place on it, chaining her to the door. 

“What the fuck?” she repeated, her voice rising to a shriek as she tugged on the chain. “How the hell did you—” 

“Come now, you must have read my files. I dare say you know more about me than I do myself.” He held up a small leather case that she recognised as a set of lock picks and regarded her with a raised eyebrow. “Did it never occur to you that I might be able to get myself out of handcuffs? No?” He clucked his tongue. “That is a shame.” 

She tugged at the chain again, “Let me go!” 

“I fear that’s impossible, darling. As I told you before I can’t allow you to take me in. I have business to attend that won’t wait while I spend the night in a cell.”

“It’ll be a lot more than one night!” 

“It won’t be any nights. Also a shame. I wouldn’t mind at all spending a night with you, particularly one in which bars and handcuffs feature prominently.” He leaned in close to her again, dragging his nose up her cheek as his hand curled around her hip, thumb stroking just above the apex of her thighs. She snarled in outrage and he chuckled. “Beautiful, fiery woman like you,” he growled into her ear. “I’ve no doubt you’d make it memorable.” 

“I wouldn’t—” She was so furious she could barely speak. “Never—not in a million—not if you—the last man—” 

He chuckled again and stepped back. “Aye, love, I get the picture. Not if I were the last man on Earth, et cetera et cetera. I could change your mind, of course—” he smirked at her furious snarl “—but alas I’ve no time.” 

He shrugged off his jacket and moved to drape it around her shoulders and she recoiled with a hiss. “Get the fuck away from me!” 

“Now, darling, you may be here for some time. It’s a chilly night and you are, if you’ll forgive me, not appropriately attired for the sea air. Don’t freeze to death out of spite. If nothing else it’d be a highly embarrassing way to die.” 

She ground her teeth, but when he stepped forward again she allowed him to tuck the jacket around her shoulders. She hadn’t registered just how cold she was until engulfed in its warmth, in heat carried by his body and still bearing his spicy scent. His fingertips brushed the nape of her neck as he pulled her hair free of the jacket and she shivered, not from the cold this time. 

“Such a shame,” he murmured, almost to himself. 

“You’ll pay for this,” she spat.  

“As much as I hate to keep contradicting you, darling, no I won’t.” He smoothed the jacket over her shoulders and gave them a little pat. “Now you just sit tight right here and I’ll send someone to collect you. Let’s hope they don’t take too long.” 

He backed away with his eyes still on her, tilting his head to the side and biting down on his lower lip. Fury surged through her and she yanked at the chains again, letting out a guttural shriek when he simply laughed and turned away. She kept her eyes on him as he strolled along the waterfront like a man without a care in the world, until he turned onto one of the piers and disappeared from view. 

~

“Emma?” 

The voice, masculine and familiar, jolted her from her half-doze and she lifted her head, blinking in the harsh glare of a flashlight and trying to focus.

“Is that—Graham?” 

“Fucking hell, Emma, it is you! I thought he was—here, let me get you out of those cuffs.” 

Emma struggled up from the awkward crouching position she’d been in as Graham put his flashlight away and took out his keys. “Graham, what the hell are you doing here?” 

“Rescuing you.” 

He undid the cuffs and waited as she stood up straight and stretched her aching arms and shoulders. 

“How did you know where I was?” she asked, reaching out her hand for her cuffs.

He held them out to her, but when she took them didn’t let go. “Emma,” he said solemnly. 

“What?” 

“You’re not gonna like it.” 

“What?” She tugged on the cuffs and he released them. “What the fuck is going on, Graham? Tell me!” 

He sighed. “I need you to stop chasing Killian Jones.” 

“What?” 

“Come on. We need to go to the station and then I’ll explain.” 

~

“He’s working undercover!?”

“Yeah.” Graham’s face was solemn, with no hint of the smile he usually had for her. “He is. For over two years now.” 

“Two years? Fuck.” 

 “Exactly. But it’s nearly over. We’re so close, Emma, to the biggest RICO case of the last fifty years. We can shut down Pan’s whole operation in one move, but all of it, everything, hinges on Jones. We need him.” 

Emma’s lip curled. “And what does he get out of it? Immunity, I suppose.” 

“Yes. His record will be completely expunged. Clean slate.” 

“But he’s a criminal!” 

Graham sighed and rubbed his temples. “They all are, Emma.” 

“See, this is why I never wanted to be a cop,” she sneered, leaning back in her chair. They were sitting in an interrogation room in Graham’s precinct, surrounded by confidential files and cold coffee. “You ignore the crimes of one asshole in exchange for getting your hands on a bigger asshole. But that still leaves the first asshole loose on the streets, and with a clean slate this time. How is that justice?”

“Justice is never perfect,” said Graham shortly. “Nothing is. We do the best we can.” 

“That’s not good enough!” 

“It has to be, because it’s all we’ve got.” He leaned across the table, his eyes intense. “Emma, listen to me. Jones believes you actually did him a favour tonight. He’d been getting the sense that Pan no longer fully trusted him, but being actively pursued for a freaking eight-year-old bench warrant of all things seems to have brought him back in the boss’s good graces. That is the only, and I do mean only reason you are not in some serious fucking shit right now.” 

“What, for doing my job?” Emma scoffed. “You can’t be serious.” 

“Do I not seem fucking serious?” snapped Graham. “Did you not hear me say this is the biggest case in half a century? Do you not understand the goddamn consequences if it goes wrong, especially now?”

“I—” 

“Let me be perfectly clear about this. You cannot bring Jones in. If you do, this precinct will never work with you again, and neither will any of the others once they hear about it.” 

“But I—” 

“And that’s not all. I’ve put you in serious danger by giving you this information. I’m sorry for that, but I knew you wouldn’t back off just because I asked you to. And frankly we are all in fucking danger. Jones’s cover is as deep as it gets and the position he’s in right now is deadly precarious. If he’s blown before we can close the case it won’t just be him who dies. Do you hear what I’m saying, Emma?” 

She nodded, too frustrated for speech. 

“I’m trusting you, trusting your discretion and hoping like fuck that this one time you can leave your damn principles at the door and be realistic. Forget about Killian Jones. Not for his sake, for your own.”

~

It was the biggest RICO case in fifty years, and it went off without a hitch. Every member of Pan’s criminal organisation was arrested, from the kids who ran the street-level scams right up to the boss himself. Moles that had been embedded in the police department for decades were rooted out and an entire network of sham businesses collapsed. Crime in the city came screeching to a halt as even Pan’s competitors scrambled for cover. 

The evidence against them was solid, detailed and airtight, and one by one every single mob canary begged to sing. Fingers were pointing in every direction, many at each other but most of them straight at Pan, and the district attorney was confident that with a bit of manoeuvring she could see every last one of them behind bars for a very long time. 

Every one but Killian Jones. 

He was never mentioned by name in any of the reports or the news articles, simply referred to as ‘an undercover informant’. But Emma knew. He’d done one job and now he was free and clear, and the fact that he had spent ten years as Pan’s right hand didn’t even seem to faze the police. 

“How do you know he won’t just step into the power vacuum left by Pan?” she demanded of Graham one afternoon, as he processed the paperwork for a shoplifter she’d brought in. “Someone’s going to.” 

“It won’t be him.” 

“But how can you know?” 

“I trust him.” 

Emma stared, unable to believe her ears. “I can’t believe I ever considered dating you,” she spat. “You’re not who I thought you were.” 

“You considered dating me?” Graham repeated, gaping at her. 

She shrugged. “Yeah, for like half a second, back when we first met. You were hinting pretty heavily and honestly? I don’t shit where I eat, otherwise I probably would have said yes. But that was before I found out you trust criminals.” 

“Not criminals. Criminal, singular. Just this one.” 

“But why?” 

“I can’t tell you that.” 

“God damn it, Graham!” 

Graham set his jaw stubbornly. “Look, Emma, I get that you feel betrayed and I’m sorry for that. But this is how the police work. It’s legal and it’s final. Killian’s record is clean now. Leave him alone.” 

~

But she couldn’t. She did try, as much as she was able, but Emma Swan could never let anything go once her sense of outrage had been triggered and she couldn’t think about Killian Jones or anything related to him without outrage. She still had the jacket he’d left her in, hung in her closet right next to her own so that every time she donned the red leather she saw it there, mocking her, keeping her anger burning fierce and hot. 

And so she watched him. Subtly, because she could be fucking subtle, using her own network of informants that the cops didn’t know about. She tracked his movements, all his comings and goings from his house to his offices, and she traced his business dealings, bank records, tax reports, everything and anything she could get her hands on. 

It was all clean. He was never seen in any of Pan’s old haunts or associating with anyone remotely shady, his accounts showed a healthy income from legitimate sources. Businesses he had set up as part of his role in Pan’s organisation and then cleaned up once Pan was taken down. 

And yet. There was too much income, Emma felt. It was too clean. Too much money, too many businesses, far too quickly. Leopards, as the cliche goes, do not change their spots, and Emma was certain that Killian Jones was as spotted as they came. She just wished she knew how he was hiding them. 

~

The elegant marble foyer of the Gold mansion was the furthest imaginable thing from a grimy dockside dive bar but the smell of despair was here as well, just of a different kind. The despair of people who have more money than they could ever spend and are still unhappy, who have come to realise that however many cars or jewels or houses they buy the emptiness inside them remains. 

At least the other smells were better. Emma inhaled deeply as she entered, breathing in the aromas of a dozen different perfumes and colognes, along with some mouthwatering canapés of which she fully intended to partake. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to wrangle this invitation, she might as well enjoy herself. 

Snagging a glass of champagne from one passing tray and a mini crab soufflé topped with caviar from another, she sauntered into the room, deliberately drawing and ignoring the eyes upon her. The dress she wore was far subtler than her usual work attire, long and flowing and draped in a way that suggested far more than it revealed. Its deep crimson hue flattered her pale hair and skin and the faint shimmer in the fabric caught the light as she moved. 

Emma popped the last bite of soufflé into her mouth and resisted the urge to lick her fingers. Instead she sipped her champagne and looked around for another tray. One passed by bearing what looked like tiny donuts and she almost dove to grab one. Biting into it, she found that it was savoury and filled with a feather-light truffled chicken mousse. She closed her eyes on a moan of delight, and when she opened them again Killian Jones was standing in front of her, watching her with an expression she found deeply objectionable. 

“Well, darling, I do hope you’re not here for me this time,” he said. 

Emma sneered. “I’m not.” 

“Learnt our lesson, have we?” he replied with a smirk. 

She ground her teeth. “I’ve simply got bigger fish to hook,” she said. 

“Indeed. Considering that I am an entirely innocent man.” 

She snorted. 

“That infuriates you, doesn’t it,” he observed, smirk deepening. “That I walked free.” 

Nearly a year’s worth of frustration and righteous fury bubbled up inside Emma, bursting forth before she could stop it. “It’s not right!” she exclaimed. “It’s not justice!” 

“No, it’s just not perfect justice. Though one certainly could argue that a decade spent under the thumb of a madman is more than enough punishment for whatever crimes I committed.” 

Something in his voice troubled her, a pained sincerity that niggled at her conscience. She ignored it. “Rationalise it all you like, if it helps you sleep at night,” she retorted.  

“Oh, I have no trouble sleeping,” he said, stepping closer and leaning into her space, hips first. “Though occasionally I do forgo it voluntarily, in favour of more… enjoyable activities.” 

“You’re filthy.”   

“I certainly can be,” he purred. “If that’s what you want.” 

“I want nothing from you.” 

“Well love, we both know that’s not true.” 

“Oh do we?” 

“We do. You’re something of an open book, you see.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I am the opposite of that.” 

“You’d like to be. But for those who know how to look, your tells are obvious.” 

“Bullshit.” 

He shifted, standing straighter and observing her with blue eyes that went, between one blink and the next, from flirtatious to coolly assessing, sharply analytical. She felt a flare of alarm in her chest, and the worrying suspicion that she may have underestimated him.  

“The relaxed posture,” he said. “That’s one. You’re a woman of action, rarely still. If you stop moving you start thinking, and you, Emma Swan, hate nothing more than being in your own head. You’re tense all the time unless you’re pretending not to be, as you are now. Playing the role of carefree society girl, perfectly at home in these glittering surroundings where you are in actual fact deeply uncomfortable.”

She attempted a laugh. “Maybe I’m just having a good time.” 

“You’re holding that glass so tightly you’re in danger of snapping the stem, and you’re digging the heel of your shoe into the floor. It takes a lot of effort to maintain that outward calm, which is why you don’t normally bother. You hate artifice, bullshit as you would call it, and your plan tonight is to get in, get your mark and get out. After you’ve eaten your fill of the food, that is.” The corner of his mouth curled into a half-smile. “Do correct me if any of this is wrong.” 

“It’s all wrong,” she snapped.  

“Now, love, don’t you start to bullshit.”

Emma’s fingers clenched tighter on the champagne glass and she deliberately forced them to relax. “Why don’t you just leave me alone,” she hissed. 

His eyes softened, and heated with an expression that made her belly clench. “Because you intrigue me,” he murmured.  

“Well you disgust me.” 

He laughed. “Liar.” 

“How dare you—” 

He brushed a lock of hair off her shoulder, his fingers close enough that she could feel the heat of them but not their touch, and when he spoke again his voice was rough. “You’ve a delightful pale pink flush all across your skin, your pupils are dilated, your breathing shallow. And your pulse—” His hand glided down her arm and wrapped around her wrist, fingertips pressing gently onto her pulse point. “It’s racing, love. I don’t require any special skills to pick up on these tells.” He caught her gaze, his own heated and intense. “Would it help if I confessed that the attraction is entirely mutual?” 

“No!”  

“Pity.” 

She tried to pull her arm from his grip but he held fast, leaning closer still to murmur in her ear. “He’s over by the fountain.” 

She wouldn’t look, thought Emma. She wouldn’t. She closed her eyes as Killian released her and the heat and intoxicating scent of him moved away. She didn’t want his help, didn’t need it. Resented it. But she couldn’t stop herself from looking and of course there he was. Her mark, standing in front of the fountain at the centre of the room. 

“How the hell did you know—” she spun around but Killian was gone. 

Emma took a deep breath and then another, to calm herself and focus her concentration on her task. She smoothed her hair and the front of her dress and tossed back the rest of her champagne, gave her boobs a little boost and headed for the mark, a soft smile on her face and a gentle swing in her hips. 

She had crossed about half the distance between them when he tensed visibly and his shoulders shifted, like he was trying to pull them back and stand straight but was defeated by the power of his own sullen slouch. For a moment she thought he might have made her, but his eyes were fixed on something across the room, something—or someone—blocked from her view by the fountain. Emma slowed her pace, keeping her distance until he made whatever move he had planned. For several seconds he stared intently at whatever, whoever, held his attention and then he nodded, shoulders slumping even lower than they’d been before, and moved on surprisingly light and agile feet towards a small door behind the foyer’s grand staircase. With a quick glance around the room he slipped silently though it and a moment later Emma followed. 

Behind the door was a long, shadowy hallway that fulfilled her every expectation of what a mansion corridor should look like. The carpet beneath her feet was so thick that her steps made no sound as she followed the mark, past paintings and statues and even an honest-to-goodness suit of armour. She felt her jaw drop as she took it all in, until the mark turned a corner and she had to speed up her pursuit so as not to lose him. 

She made it around the corner in time to catch a glimpse of him disappearing through a door, and when she reached it she found that it hadn’t fully shut. She slipped her foot through the gap and eased it open until she could see into the room beyond. 

It looked like a museum. Or at least what she imagined museums should look like; she hadn’t visited many. It was a vast room that felt curiously airless, with tall ceilings and no widows, panelled entirely in wood. The same wood that made up the many low tables scattered over more of the same thick rugs that lined the hallway. Upon each of these tables a statue stood. Women, mostly, and some men, all naked. Made of marble, Emma imagined, though she was hardly an expert. Weren’t statues generally made of marble? They were definitely some kind of stone, or she supposed possibly plaster. It was hard to tell the difference from so far away. 

Tentatively she nudged the door and when it made no noise pushed it open further and slipped into the room, weaving through the statues in search of her mark. A voice spoke just ahead and to her right and she moved quickly over the silent carpets, stopping when she caught sight of a pair of polished shoes and the tip of a black cane, and ducking behind a statue, out of sight of the man who spoke.

“So,” he said, his voice cold and without inflection, and with a hint of an accent she couldn’t place. “Do you have it?” 

“I—” the mark began.

“Do not disappoint me, Felix,” the cold voice interrupted. “You would not like for me to be disappointed.” 

Emma crouched down and peeked around the leg of the statue that shielded her, just enough so she could see both men clearly. The mark, Felix, was in his early twenties, with a sullen face to match his posture and lank blond hair that fell into his eyes. He’d been arrested for loitering two months ago and missed his court date, but there was nothing else on his record worse than a few shoplifting charges and possession with intent. This meeting, this whole damn situation, seemed well above his pay grade and she should have known that, Emma berated herself. She should have smelled a rat from the start, but instead she’d let herself be distracted by canapés and by Killian goddamn Jones, and forgotten what she was supposed to be doing.  

She could almost hear Felix’s terrified gulp. “I—I couldn’t get it,” he whined. “Jones said—” 

“Do not speak to me of Killian Jones,” hissed the other man, a slight, elegantly dressed one with long hair and a thin face in which teeth and eyes were prominent. “I will deal with him when the time is right. For now—” He lifted his cane and Felix cringed. 

“No, sir, please. I’ll get it I promise—” 

“Your promises are worthless to me,” said the elegant man, with a reptilian smile that made Emma’s skin crawl. He was enjoying this, she realised, feeding off of Felix’s terror and craven grovelling as he slowly advanced. He twisted the head of his cane and with a faint swish and a mechanical clank a long, sharp blade appeared from the end of it. Felix stared at the blade, frozen in fear. 

“They are, in fact,” the elegant man continued, closing the remaining distance between them, “as worthless as you are.” He bared his teeth and plunged the blade into Felix’s heart. 

Emma gasped. She couldn’t help it. For all the hardships she’d suffered in her life—the uncaring foster families, the time on the streets, the teenage pregnancy—she had never witnessed a crime more serious than petty theft and drug dealing. Nothing like cold-blooded murder. She would have liked to think herself tough enough to handle the sight without flinching but she was overcome by the sheer horror of it. The blood that bloomed across Felix’s shirt and the way the life drained from his body. The cold, cold triumph of the man who killed him. It was the worst thing she’d ever seen, could ever imagine seeing, and though she clapped her hand across her mouth it was too late. The noise of her indrawn breath was loud in the room’s still air and the man looked sharply at her. He couldn’t see her behind the statue—she didn’t think he could—but he knew precisely where she was. 

“Well, well,” he said. “It appears we have a loose end.” 

Emma ran. She didn’t hesitate or stop to think, just leapt up from her crouch and sprinted, as fast as her high heels and the confusing layout of the statues would allow. She had no idea if the man had any backups—he seemed the sort who would, though she hadn’t seen or heard anyone but himself and Felix—but  she knew that no matter what it was riskier to try to hide than just to run, to put as much distance between herself and the man as she could and try to get away. 

She headed straight for where she thought the door was but soon found herself disoriented. There was no clear path through the statues and they all looked the same—white limbs and torsos atop identical tables, on a carpet with the same repeating pattern, in a room with no markings of any kind on the walls. She could hear the man behind her, his steady breathing as he pursued her across the thick carpet, not running, of course not, because doing so would tire him and that steady, deliberate pace was far more terrifying, damn him, and she tried to run faster, grabbing blindly at a small piece of statue as she passed. It was lighter than she’d expected—perhaps plaster then, not stone—and she flung it back the way she’d come, not looking at where it flew, not stopping to see what it hit when it crashed and shattered behind her. 

She reached the wall but there was no door on it, just identical wooden panels repeating all along its length. One of those must be the door, Emma thought. There had to be a door, she’d come in through one. She began to feel along the wall looking for a knob or a button or a loose join, anything at all that might trigger it to open. Now that she was no longer running she felt her fear much more acutely, gripping her chest and clouding her mind and edging her dangerously close to panic. 

“I don’t know who you are,” called the elegant man’s voice, from much closer behind her than she’d hoped. “But I’m very much taken with your lovely hair and that glorious red dress. Very… memorable, both of them. Very distinct.”  

Emma’s search for the door grew frantic. She tried to keep calm and focused but all she could think was that she was alone in this room with a murderer. An absolutely remorseless killer was mere feet behind her and there was no door. There was no fucking door and that meant no escape. She was trapped here in this airless, noiseless place and she was going to die. 

A sob rose in her throat, almost drowning the soft click to her left. The panel next to her swung open and she could just make out the silhouette of a man among the shadows of the hallway beyond. Was this the backup, then, she wondered? A henchman come to block her escape, force her back into the clutches of the elegant man? The appearance of this new threat snapped her back into herself, gave her something to do, and she seized on that with desperate relief. Holding herself loose but alert she bent her knees, settled her weight over the balls of her feet and prepared to defend herself as best she could. It wasn’t likely she could stop them killing her, but she could damned well make it difficult, and now that the door was open she had at least a slim chance of escape. 

The shadows shifted as the man in the doorway reached out with a speed and deftness of movement she’d seen only once before, and quicker than she could react he grabbed her and yanked her against him, clapping his hand over her mouth and pinning her arms to her sides, pulling her back through the door and letting it fall shut behind them. When it had latched with another soft click, the man swung Emma to one side and gave the door a sharp kick with the heel of his shoe, jamming the delicate mechanism that controlled it. 

Emma seized the advantage of his momentary imbalance to try to struggle free, wriggling in his loosened grasp and aiming a kick at his instep, but again he was too quick for her. He shifted his weight to avoid her swinging foot and adjusted his hold, tucking her tightly against his side and dragging her with him as he headed away from the door, moving rapidly despite her furious squirming, along the hallway and down a darkened stairwell and through a side door of the mansion then out into the night. 

“I have a car waiting,” he growled in her ear, picking up their pace now they were out of the house. “It’s idling at the end of this driveway. If you don’t get in it, right now, you will die. Don’t make me tie you up, Swan. As much as I would enjoy that in other circumstances.” 

Emma could see the car he meant, the only one in the long driveway that was running. When they reached it she dug her heels hard into the loose gravel beneath them, throwing Killian Jones—because of course it was fucking him—off balance just enough that his grip loosened and she was able to jam her elbow into his ribs, wriggling away when he huffed in pain. 

“Let go of me!” she shrieked. 

“Keep your voice down,” he snarled, grabbing her arm and pulling her back again. He scowled down at her, his eyes angry and frustrated and scared. It was the fear that caught Emma’s attention, made her pause. “I should bloody well let him kill you,” Killian muttered. “But instead I am going to save your life, whether you like it or not. Now get in the damned car, woman.” 

Emma yanked her arm from his grasp and this time he let her go. They stood glaring at each other, breathing hard, gripped by a very similar anger and, more worryingly, the exact same fear. 

“Why should I trust you?” she demanded.

“You have no earthly reason to,” he replied. “But that man you saw in the gallery, that is Robert Gold, and however vile you think me I assure you he is a hundred times worse. The devil or the deep blue sea, take your pick, love.” 

Emma stared at him, searching for the lie, for the deceit she knew had to be there. But there was none. For the first time in their acquaintance he was being completely serious, and completely honest. Damn it. 

She got in the car. 

-

Millions of thanks to @thisonesatellite and @ohmightydevviepuu for holding my hand in this unfamiliar genre. Also, tagging everyone who showed an interest in the snippet of this I posted a few weeks ago. If you don’t want to be tagged in further updates, PLEASE let me know 😘 @kmomof4​ @mariakov81​ @katie-dub​ @spartanguard​ @darkcolinodonorgasm​ @courtorderedcake​ @squidvisious​ @cluttermind​ @teamhook​ 

-

[honeymoonjin]

Chapter One

Summary: When you hear that your recently deceased grandmother left you her property in her will, at first you think that a dinky old cottage in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to mean much for you. But after spending a night there, you discover something far more valuable than the house itself: a hidden door that leads to another time, the same place but over 200 years in the past. In the late 18th Century, there is a king who will die before his 21st birthday unless you can save him. Will you help him, even if it means leaving your own life behind?

A/N: It’s here! Please enjoy the first chapter of my new fantasy AU, Sovereign! It’s been a joy to write so far and I hope you love it as much as I do!

“Okay, what time was it again?” You adjust your cellphone, clamping it between your ear and your shoulder as you rohjdojwiggle a worn key into the front door.

“Come on, Y/n, we’ve been through this! It doesn’t matter what time you come over as long as it’s before 2, because that’s when I have to get ready for work. Maybe like ten? That should give us a decent block of time to hang out.”

You smile at your boyfriend’s lilting voice and finally get the door to unlock and swing open. “Okay, can do. I just got to my grandma’s old place, so I’ll be spending the night here, and then I’m all good to go this morning.” It’s musty inside, but not actually that messy or dirty. You tug your overnight bag in behind you and close the door, wandering around the cramped cottage aimlessly as you chat on the phone.

“Oh, yeah, what’s the big idea with that? I don’t get why I couldn’t come with and keep you company.”

“Something in the will,” you mumble half-heartedly, “it makes no sense, but she wanted me to come here when I received the rights and spend a night alone. I don’t know, she was a pretty superstitious and sentimental lady. I’m sure she had a reason.” You come to a stop in the poorly-lit hallway, staring at a strange sight on one of the walls. “Anyway, this house is so far away from uni and it’s not exactly prime living. I’ve already called mum to get her to give me the details for our real estate agent. Maybe whatever cash I make off this dump will help put me through my last year of med school.”

Jimin laughs on the other end. “From what I’ve heard, you’d be lucky to get a couple coffees in exam season for the price that place is worth. You’d be better off keeping it, maybe one day you and I can move in together.”

You squat down as he talks and run your hand along the wall. For some reason, embedded no more than two feet off the floor, is a crystal doorknob. You had assumed it was for a cupboard, but there weren’t even any seams in the wooden panels of the wall where the door could be. You try twisting it experimentally, but it doesn’t give.

“Y/n?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, Jiminie, that would be really nice.” You stand up again and continue down the hallway, dismissing the architectural oddity. “How about you come out here tomorrow night and see what you think of it? It would need some serious renovation, but we could make it work.”

You pause as you hear shuffling on the line. “Fuck. Sorry, baby, one of my classmates just text to say our grades for the midterm have been put up, I’m gonna go check.”

You smile softly. “No worries, I’ll see you when I come over tomorrow. Should be there around ten, like you said. I love you.”

“Love you more. Bye, baby.”

When the line goes dead, you put your phone away and decide to not bother with cleaning the place up at all before retiring. It’s nearly midnight, and you came straight here after a day of classes, so you’re ready to go set up the spare room.

You hadn’t really visited this place often in recent years; truthfully, you hadn’t seen your grandmother much since you grew up. You did have faint childhood memories of listening to her rambling for hours about what flowers fairies liked to grow in their gardens and how to listen to the trees whispering. Your parents quickly realized all her stories of magic and fantasy were making you a very dreamy young girl, and from the age of around eleven or twelve they stopped taking you out to the countryside to visit.

But now here you were, full circle. Lying in the narrow guest bed you had frequented as a child, one year away from graduating from medical school, something you had no doubt she would’ve found cold and absurd. She had liked to tell you you’d become a princess or a witch or something wonderful like that. Doctor didn’t sound nearly as exciting.

The exhaustion from the day as well as your reminiscing pulled you quickly into unconsciousness, and you slept well enough until a loud thud awoke you.

You shot up in bed, heart racing. There were no other houses for miles with the cottage being so far from the city, and it was untamed forest rather than farmland, so if the racket was an animal that had somehow gotten in the house, it was probably wild. After waiting a few moments, three similar thuds resonate through the small building. With one hand clutching your phone, torchlight on, and the other rubbing at your sternum in an effort to calm down, you sneak slowly out of your room and into the hallway. Blinking to adjust to the glare of your phone light, you barely pay attention to your surroundings, fully focused on the racket coming from the kitchen.

Upon arriving, you relax with a great sigh when you’re confronted not with a fox or a rat or a burglar, but an overly fluffy black cat sitting delicately on the kitchen bench, licking a paw. Below him is a misshapen pile of candles, another one of your grandmother’s obsessions, that the cat has apparently pushed off the counter.

You click your tongue and hold out your free hand gently. “Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty kitty. Oh, you’re so cute! Where did you come from, kitty?”

You recoil when what can only be described as a scoff comes out of the creature’s mouth. But, like it could understand you perfectly, it leaps gracefully onto the floor and leads you back the way you came, tail swishing impatiently. You follow dumbly, until the cat comes to a stop in the hallway, in front of an open door.

You frown and stare at the black shadowy square in shock. The doorknob, which before seemed so absurdly placed, was now attached to a door of the same wood paneling as the wall, swung open to reveal an open space behind it. You swear just earlier today, or perhaps at this point it was yesterday, that doorknob wouldn’t move at all, and now a cat was sitting in front of it moodily, licking a paw and whipping its tail against the carpet.

What was odder still was the height. It wasn’t a full doorway like the rest of the house; really, were it not for the apparent depth of the hole, you would’ve called it a cupboard. Nevertheless, the cat blinks up at you with baleful silver eyes and slips into the blackness, completely disappearing from your view.

You patiently wait for a few moments for it to have a look around and come back out, but there’s no sign of it. “Kitty,” you call out awkwardly, “come out of there. Where did you go?”

But silence is your only response, so you just sigh and hunker down on your hands and knees, gingerly sticking your hand into the cupboard, which, judging by the way your arm disappears down to the shoulder with no back end in sight, is perhaps a room more so than a cupboard. You wave your outstretched hand back and forth, but the only thing you come in contact with is roughhewn brick, scratching your knuckles as you pull your hand back.

Whatever it is, it isn’t a room or a cupboard. It’s a hallway of sorts. Your grandma has a secret hallway in her house. “Okay, you got me, I’m coming in now, kitty.”

After no response, you prop your phone up so that the light splays as far into the darkness as possible and begin the crawl. Your shoulders scrape against the sides and your hair keeps catching on the rough edges on the ceiling, but you crawl on.

It must be no more than five or so meters that you travel before your hand knocks against a solid wall instead of more open air. Fuck. You’re at a dead end, with no space to turn around. But just before you can start to panic at your situation, you remember the cat. It must’ve gone somewhere, so you tentatively push against the solid wall, only to feel it give way beneath your fingertips. It’s another door.

A warm light greets you, but it’s such a change from the pitch black of the tiny crawlspace that you squint, pulling yourself free finally. When you do open your eyes again, you look around in confusion. The walls are lined with bookshelves, some filled with incredibly ancient-looking leatherbound books, and others with glass jars containing unidentifiable powders and herbs. Some of them even have objects floating in some strange clear liquid. In the middle of the room is a table covered in papers and rudimentary laboratory equipment, like thick glass beakers and iron crucibles.

You don’t recognize this part of the house, but even if you did, something’s clearly not right. Because to the far right of you, in the corner of this rather large room, is a hearth with a roaring fire blazing inside it. And directly in front of that is a tall man. Your instinct is to scream, but the stranger seems awfully calm for having broken in and started a fire, so you just clear your throat awkwardly.

He turns around, and you’re taken aback by how young he is. You never expected good-looking young people to stoop to thieving, but there’s a first for everything. “May I help you?” he questions pleasantly.

You frown at his patronizing tone. “Uh, yeah. Maybe start with why the fuck you’re in my house.”

He brushes down his hair, a startling silver that glints in the firelight. “This isn’t your house yet, actually.”

You tilt your head in disbelief, finally standing up off the ground to be a little more on level with him. “Are you serious? Yes, it is. The will was signed two days ago. Who are you?”

His eyes soften as he stares off into the middle distance. “The will? So, she’s passed away then.” His gaze flickers back up to you. “I hate to break it to you, Y/n, but you don’t own this house yet. In fact, you won’t own it for another two hundred and seventy years, give or take.”

You feel your blood run cold. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Welcome to seventeen-forty-three, Y/n.”

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[needdl]

Shifting, Part One

“The process of shifting was generally very complicated. It involved changing the caster’s entire essence into a new physical form, all the while hanging on to the magical and spiritual traits that formed their soul. Many shape-shifters lost themselves in the process.

Tenten was a well-seasoned veteran, but she had an added difficulty of keeping their child safe.”

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Chapter One   Chapter Two    Chapter Three   Chapter Four   Chapter Five

Neji didn’t even know that a person could read angrily, but Tenten had always been good at surprising him.

Cautiously, he slid into the bed next to her. Most of the time her anger wasn’t directed at him- in fact, very often she would seek him out to make her feel better (though of course she would deny it vehemently)- but in the few occasions her anger had no palpable cause, he always preferred to tread lightly.

Tenten ignored him for a few moments, before throwing her scroll to the side and demanding, “I’m not moving that much slower, right?”

Neji frowned. “Moving slower…? Tenten, were you trying to spar with Gai-sensei again?”

“...No.”

“You know that at this point in your pregnancy we agreed you would stop.”

“I changed my mind.” Moodily, she kicked the scroll off the bed. “It seems like all anyone will let me do is eat and sleep and sit demurely.” She raised her eyes to meet his, something more vulnerable showing in her gaze.

“I’m just so sick of it.”

Neji’s face tightened, and he felt a stab of remorse for what Tenten had been subjugated to ever since she married into the Hyūga Clan. More than once, he’d caught her baring her teeth in a dangerous smile as someone told her that motherhood would make her settle down, make her stop wanting to fight at the Hyūga Priestess’s side on the front lines any longer.

The very notion of such a concept only proved to him that Tenten would never be understood by his clan, and likely would never conform to their traditions. She was naturally restless, was constantly on the move. A lifetime spend traveling would not be stifled or cast aside on behalf of parenthood. It would be to Tenten like discarding a part of herself.

He would never ask her to do such a thing, and she knew it. Sometimes he thought it was one of the few things that allowed her to endure such long stretches of time spent in a single city, in a single Compound. To him, she was free to leave, as long as she always came back. And she always did.

Instead of verbalizing the sentiment, he reached out and clasped his hand around Tenten’s, tilting his head to rest against hers.

Tenten took the gesture for the silent support he meant it to be, and slid into his embrace with a sigh. Her belly pressed against his abdomen, and he shifted his arm down to press gently against it.

Under his palm, their child fluttered in movement. Tenten made a small sound in the back of her throat and moved her hand to cover his.

“Baby won’t do that when I want to impress Lee and Gai, but will do it for you with no prompting. Figures.”

“What can I say? I’m very charming.”

“See, now that was a good joke.”

Neji let out a long-suffering sigh and bent his neck to kiss her temple. She had other ideas, instead reaching to cup his jaw and meet his lips with her own. She opened her mouth and kissed him lazily, but with purpose.

Before Neji quite knew what was happening, he was on his back with Tenten straddling his waist, looking pleased but breathless. He raised a brow and put his hands to her hips, commenting dryly, “Now what will you do?”

“I hadn’t worked that part out quite yet. Surprised I made it this far, to be honest.”

Neji smirked slightly. “If I may make a suggestion.” Neatly, he undid the tie of her yukata and she shrugged it off, the fabric pooling over her legs.

He took in her exposed skin with as neutral an expression as he could. “No breast band today?”

She huffed in exasperation. “They’re too much work to put on, plus my breasts got bigger and I outgrew my old ones.”

“I see,” Neji said, already lifting his hands. “I’d better confirm that for myself.”

Tenten eventually decided that the best way to prevent her from killing one of his relatives was to take a final vacation away before she gave birth. He was slightly wary about that particular plan.

“Tenten, you’re due very soon, wouldn’t it be better to remain where you can get immediate medical attention? Besides, we need to pack.” With the imminent arrival of their child, their rooms were not spacious enough anymore. They had been planning on relocating to a set of rooms large enough to hold a nursery.

Tenten didn’t seem too bothered by the idea.“Sure, sure, sure, we could do that, or you and I could go to a hot springs resort and love up on each other before little Hyūga shows up.”

Neji paused with his mouth still open in protest. Frankly, it was a sorely tempting idea. Within the Hyūga Compound, their rooms had a tendency to be entered at any time by relatives- Hanabi in particular dropped by unexpectedly. She adored her Tenten-obasan, and was positively vibrating with excitement at the thought of their baby.

She’d had an uptick in the frequency of her “surprise” visits as Tenten’s due date got closer, and while Neji appreciated his cousin’s earnest enthusiasm, some private seclusion with his wife would not be remiss.

“Fine,” he sighed. “But someplace close.”

Tenten snorted. “You’re so long-suffering,” she said. “As if you’re not about to go on a sex-cation.”

“You’re practically on bedrest, Tenten.”

“Uhh, yeah. Sexy bed rest.”

He stared at her for a minute. “How can it be that your libido is so high now, when you can barely move? Earlier in your pregnancy you’d smack me if I so much as touched you.”

She grinned mischievously. “What can I say? Hormones are a beautiful thing.”

A few days later, he and Tenten made their careful way to a hot spring located a small distance away from Konoha. Much to Neji’s aggravation, Tenten insisted on walking for most of the way there, refusing even an enchanted cart.

However, there was something to be said about the entertainment value of watching Tenten waddle determinedly on, hands hiked up to rest on her lower back, brows lowered and mouth scrunched in a stubborn pout.

“Stop laughing at me,” she called over her shoulder.

He grinned. “I can’t help it if you’re the most stubborn, ridiculous person in Konoha.”

“Ugh.” Tenten stopped short, out of breath. She surveyed the hillside they were about to descend, looking thoughtful. “What if I shifted?”

Involuntarily, his eyes flicked to her protruding belly. He frowned. “Have you shifted while you were pregnant?”

“Yes, but it was so early that I didn’t even know yet.” She smoothed her hand over her abdomen. “I’m going to try it. We’re close enough to the resort that I’m sure it will be fine.”

He nodded guardedly. She gave him a sweet, reassuring smile and closed her eyes in concentration. In the next few seconds she shifted into a dhole.

The process of shifting was generally very complicated. It involved changing the caster’s entire essence into a new physical form, all the while hanging on to the magical and spiritual traits that formed their soul. Many amateur shape-shifters lost themselves in the process. Tenten was a well-seasoned veteran, but she had an added difficulty of keeping their child safe.

She stood still for a few seconds in her new form. He had seen her shift before, and her form was nearly the same except for its obvious pregnancy. Finally, she let out a soft whuff and trotted forward to brush against his legs. He took it as a sign of reassurance, and the two of them continued walking, this time at a faster pace.

Just before their arrival at the hot springs resort, Tenten shifted back into her human form. She stretched her arms with a happy sigh. “That was nice.”

Neji pulled clothing out of their bag and passed it to her. “Is everything…”

She patted her belly. “It’s all fine. I actually kept all the baby stuff human, and avoided that conundrum entirely.”

He raised his brows, impressed. That must have taken a particular amount of concentration and skill.

Tenten hummed happily to herself as she pulled on her yukata. In some cases, shifters could keep their human clothes in a separate space as they shifted, and then turn back fully clothed. However, Tenten had been concentrating on keeping herself and her child as safe as possible, and likely chosen to disregard it as inconsequential.

Fully clothed, Tenten drew his face down and kissed him firmly for a few seconds before stepping back and giving him a wild grin. He softened at her obvious giddiness. Clearly this was what she had needed.

“All right. Let’s go check in!”

Tenten slid into the water with a happy sigh. At Neji’s inquiry, they had been directed to one of the cooler springs, where Tenten would be more comfortable. It had an added benefit of being nearly empty as most of the clientele went to the hot springs, so the two of them were in private.

Tenten tilted her head back to rest over the back of her seat. After a moment of consideration, she turned her neck to look at him.

“You know what would be really fun?”

Neji raised a brow. “What.”

“Giving me a back rub.” She gave him a cheesy smile, her eyes looking impossibly dark and soulful. He gave her a flat look, despite knowing he was going to cave. Immediately. He always did, and they both knew it. At his point putting up any front of resistance was only for his dignity’s benefit.

Tenten turned around, and he pressed his fingers firmly into the muscles between her neck and shoulders. She instantly sagged against him, rolling her shoulders slightly with a quiet sigh.

They spent over two hours in the spring before returning to their rooms for the evening and ordering a tray of food to be brought up.

At Neji’s suggestion (insistence), they ate by candlelight, their fingers entwined except for every half a minute when Tenten would pull her hand back in order to shovel food into her mouth faster.

Eventually she grew sick of the repeated motions. “Let’s make this simple,” she announced. She walked around the table and nestled into his side. “There. Cuddling plus eating. My two greatest pleasures. Except for later tonight, ha!”

Neji paused mid-bite, then slowly continued to eat, his face turning pink. Tenten laughed. “You’re such a blushing virgin. We’ve very clearly had sex before, my love.”

“There’s a difference in speaking so openly about it-”

“Open- what do you mean openly? It’s just the two of us here.”

Neji ignored her, focused on his rice as his face darkened. Tenten snorted.

“You Hyūgas. Always with the blushing.”

“I have fair skin,” Neji said primly.

“Yes, I can see all of your veins. I know exactly where to cut you to get you to bleed out fastest.”

“You knew that already anyway.”

“Aw. You always know just what to say.”

They took their time returning to the Hyūga Compound three days later, neither of them really willing to return to the real world. Just out of sight of the gates, Neji drew Tenten aside and kissed her firmly.

“I love you,” he told her intensely. “I know that living with my family is hard for you, and it means everything to me that you do it.”

Tenten kissed him again. “It’s what you do when you love someone. You support them.”

Neji thought of his father, writhing on the ground, clutching his skull, of Hinata whimpering over her broken hands, of the seriousness that was already etched into Hanabi’s face. “Not always.”

She tenderly pressed her lips to his forehead. “It’s what I do. An it’s what you do. And it’s what our child will do.”

Three steps back into Konoha, Tenten had her first contraction.

i had this up months ago for nejitenmonth2018, but it didn’t show up in the tags because of that sweet sweet tumblr algorithm 

anyway, ao3 and ffn have all of my author’s notes about this au if you’re looking for explanations on anything. there’s some stuff that may not make total sense without them, but i tried to write in a way that left things relatively clear.