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griffxnnage · 3 years

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chapter 2 - mieux vaut tard que jamais

pairing: george weasley x fem!french!reader

word count: 1.4k

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summary: after a few weeks, he’d become a regular at the café. and after even more, he finally asks her out. well, better late than never, i guess...

warnings: canadian french, swearing, nondescript mentions of food

“How many times have you been to this cafe, George Weasley?” Y/N shook her head at him, knowing full well how many times he’d been to the fine establishment; it wasn’t like she’d been counting at all. Totally not. Nope. Non. Je crois que non.

“Well, Y/N, I do believe that this is about my third time today,” George rubbed his chin, pretending to think really hard, but breaking character about two seconds in. Y/N just rolled her eyes, already used to how goofy he could be, and she was loving every minute of it.

It was refreshing to be in the presence of such a light hearted man, having been in the company of such glum, stuck up people for too long. She smiled to herself, thinking, “C’est la vie.” Her thoughts were pierced by a gentle “Hey, are you alright?” from the redhead seated at the table in front of her.

“I’m alright, Georgie- hey, is it alright if I call you that?” George thought he’d died and gone to heaven. The way she said his name, her French accent strong, intoxicating and washing over him like a wave. He was thinking about how his name would sound escaping her lips with his own on her neck when she started to wave her hand in front of his face. “Georgie, can you hear me? You’re staring into empty space!”

He shook his head to rid himself of those intrusive yet oh so inviting thoughts, to stare into her seemingly bottomless eyes and blurt out, “Go out with me. I mean, um, Y/N, would you do me the honour of going out with me? I’ve had this idea in my head for a while, and I want to see it through if that’s alright with you. I’d take you to a nice dinner and possibly a movie with English subtitles because my French is absolute shit, and then we would walk along the Seine with my arm around you, and we could have a small dessert picnic thingy in front of the Eiffel Tower-”

“Georgie! Of course I’ll go out with you!! I was actually going to ask you out when my shift was over, so how dare you beat me to it,” Y/N laughed, almost dropping all of the dirty mugs in her hands. “Brilliant! When’s your shift over?” George was almost dancing in his seat with excitement; he hadn’t expected that kind of reaction, but it was very welcome.

“At 5, so in half an hour; does that work for you?” Y/N looked hopefully at the captivating redhead, but she didn’t have to wait long for an excited “Yea, that sounds perfect!” to escape those lips she found herself staring at a lot.

“Ah, magnifique! Except for one detail,” George’s heart dropped; what did he get wrong? “We could watch an English movie, that takes place in Paris, so you don’t have to read those stupid subtitles, and then go to some of the places that were shown in the film, if you’re ok with that,” Her voice trailed off near the end of the sentence, contrasting with the excited tone she used near the beginning; she felt like she was coming off as overbearing, controlling.

George took her hand that wasn’t holding an overloaded tray, pulling her in his direction, slightly. She couldn’t stop her eyes drifting between his eyes and his lips; they were just too entrancing. “Y/N, I just want to spend more time with you. I don’t really care what happens, or where we go, or what we eat, for Godric’s sake. I just want to spend as much time with you as I can, if I may be so bold as to say that.” He squeezed her hand gently, waiting patiently for an answer.

“Georgie Weasley, you keep up that kind of talk, and I just might fall in love with you,” Y/N giggled, blushing like crazy, and staring into those eyes again. The two of them gazed at each other until that twat, the manager, broke the silence by yelling, “Y/N! Allons-y!! Les clients attendent, et tu ne fais rien!! Allez, allez, allez!!”

Y/N’s smile faded almost instantaneously, and all she could do was walk away, and wait for her shift to be over. However, the thought of seeing George outside of work for a freakin date made the time fly by, allowing her thoughts to be invaded by that dashing Englishman for the rest of the half hour.

Y/N’s spirits were lifted as soon as she stepped foot onto the quiet Paris street, thankful to have finished another day of work without her boss being a total dickhead. He was quite tame today, now that she thought about it. But thoughts of her asshole boss escaped her mind when she saw George leaning against the building across the road, looking absolutely perfect. Some of his hair had fallen into his eyes, and he lifted a veiny hand to brush it away.

Crossing the old cobblestone road, she subconsciously fidgeted with her outfit; did she look good enough? Was her hair out of place? Was her makeup alright? She assumed that she looked decent because of the way he looked at her.

After he straightened out, pushing off the wall, he looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her exposed collarbone and elegant neck, a few unholy thoughts entering his mind. He shook his head, telling himself to be in this moment, and that she probably isn’t that interested in him, so there’s no use getting hard over something that probably won’t happen.

“Salut, ma chérie!" George winked at her, causing heat to spread along her neck and face. “Wow, ton français est bien, non? Très bien, Georgie!”

‘The way those words left her mouth; so smooth, practiced.’ George thought to himself. ‘Well, I sure hope they’re practiced; she’s literally French-”

“Are we ready to go?” She grabbed his arm, linking it with her own, and started walking. “Yes, yes, of course, Y/N.” George smiled, ready to see where the Parisian night took them.

“Hey, Georgie. Est-ce que tu connais la date aujourd’hui?" He awoke suddenly, lying on his back, with a gorgeous woman on top of him, looking at him with wide, sparkling eyes.”Blimey, Y/N, let a man wake up, will you?” She giggled, shaking her head and running her fingers through his fiery locks.

“Well, first off, I have no idea what you’re asking-” A pillow came in for a rough landing on his face. “Hey, hey!! Calm yourself, mademoiselle. Ok, so ‘Est-ce que’ kinda means ‘what’, right?” Y/N nodded, a smile growing on her face.

“‘Tu’ is, um, kinda like the singular ‘you’?”

Nod.

“‘Connais’ is kinda like ‘know’?”

Nod.

“‘La date’ is ‘the date’, obviously.”

A laughing nod.

“And ‘aujourd’hui’ is today. So, with the information I’ve collected, you’re asking me what day it is today?”

“Mon Dieu, Weasley! That took forever, but yes. What is today’s date?” Y/N reiterated, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. George comically scratched his chin, and furrowed his brows. “It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” He asked, smirking at the way Y/N was getting dangerously close to beating his ass.

“Ok, yes, but no. Isn’t there something special about today?” She leaned forward, hoping he’d get the answer sooner than later. George snapped his fingers. “Oh! I got it!” He took her face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes. “It’s Bastille Day, isn’t it?”

Y/N whimpered and fell against his chest, muttering things against his neck. “I’m sorry, love, I can’t hear you. What was that?”

Muffled whining.

“Come again, darling?”

“It’s our anniversary, Georgie. 6 months.”

“Really? Wow, that’s a long time, innit?” George laughed when Y/N poked at his stomach, grabbing her wrists and flipping them over, leaving him on top. “Darling, do you really think I’d forgotten? Six months ago, when you first walked up to me in that adorable uniform and that entrancing smile; that was the happiest day of my life, and every day since has only been better. My world has gotten so much brighter since I’ve met you, and I plan on keeping you in it, if that’s alright with you.” He caressed her cheek while studying her face, finding happy tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, and the biggest smile.

“Well, I guess, mieux vaut tard que jamais." Y/N noticed the confused look on his face, and remembered his ‘vocabulaire en français’ was quite limited.

"Um, how do you say it in English, uh, oh yes! ‘Better late than never!" She corrected herself, to George's relief.

“George, how did I live without you?” Y/N flung her arms around his neck, and hugged him tighter than she’d ever hugged him before.

“I have no idea, Y/N. No idea.”

general/series taglist: @ur-local-reality-shifter @mullthingsoverinthehotwater @voidmalfoy @daltonacademia @freddieweasleyswife @amphxtrite @yourlocalspencerreidsimp @luvshack @henqtic @chaoswalkinq @slytherclawbitch @nerdyblogger06 @horrorxweasley @mollysolo @hufflepuffalice @ohnoitsmekc @eccentricbookworm @bellaiscool

if your url is crossed out, i wasn't able to tag you </3

#george weasley x fem!reader #george weasley x fem!french!reader #george weasley fluff #reader insert #george weasley x reader #george weasley x y/n #george weasley x you #food tw #tw food #tw swearing #tw cursing #george weasley series #c'est la vie series

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the-darkdragonfly · 3 years

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WIP Wednesday : Wash Us Clean - A Captain Duckling Tale

Chapter Eleven {coming soon}

Slightly AU / Multi-chapter / Captain Duckling: Captain Killian Jones has been hunting the Queen Anne's Revenge for years. When he catches sight of her far off the shores of Misthaven, he take up the chase into the mouth of a fearsome tempest. Determined to met out his brand of justice to her captain and re-take the treasure which was pilfered from him, he instead finds something far, far more valuable.

Princess Emma of Misthaven is traveling on her mother's flagship, The First Snow, when she is set upon by pirates. Taken hostage and left to drown in the brig of a ship, she finds herself once again at the mercy of lawless men, but something about their Captain intrigues her - she has never met someone like him before.

* * *

The blade resisted, the dull thrust of metal through garment and flesh. Blood ran down to her hands, slick and warm; she had never imagined killing someone before, and the shaking of her hands as they pressed forward towards the man’s belly pulled her attention away from the cold sweat which prickled at the nape of her neck.

The sound he emitted was that of an animal, the deep groan of a wounded beast before he slumped against the wall, the blade through him piercing the wood at his back. She hadn’t realized she was crying, sobs wracking her body as tears streamed down her throat. His rasping gasps pulsing across her face as they stood a mere breath apart until he sagged further, eyes dull and dim in the lantern light, one last breath shaking his large frame.

Shouting above stuttered against her mind, half registering in between the thundering of her heart, as she pried her blood covered palm from the grip, the blade sticky with the scent of copper.

What had she done?

* * *

IKR!!!!??? I can hardly believe it myself, but here we are! This last month has been exhausting (I'm sure I'm not the only one!) and I'm afraid my scheduled chapter drop of The Ripple Effect will have to wait until early next week. But this update deserves a HUGE thank you to @teamhook for reminding me that this little fic existed and by extension causing my muse to wake up and spit out a few words! xox thanks babe!

It's been a hot minute, catch up on the Tale here.

Tagging:

@elizabeethan @donteattheappleshook @sailtoafarawayland @teamhook @xarandomdreamx @wefoundloveunderthelight @caught-in-the-filter @batana54 @ultraluckycatnd @veryverynotgood @veryverynotgoodwrites @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @jrob64 @kmomof4 @artistic-writer @gingerpolyglot @xarandomdreamx @xhookswenchx @justanother-unluckysoul @itsfabianadocarmo @zaharadessert @onceuponadaily @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @tiganasummertree @karlyfr13s @stahlop

#wash us clean #a captain ducking tale #the darkdragonfly #emma x hook #captain duckling #slow burn #the princess needs the pirate #and the pirate needs the princess

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thatguywiththefaceog · 3 years

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June Smut-Jackie/Chloe 69

A married Jackie and Chloe decides to please each other orally.

requested by anon

This story is rated E for explicit and is for adults only. All characters depicted are over 18.

“The sky is beautiful, no?” Both Chloe and Jackie were looking at the Earthnwi’s sky.

“Not as beautiful as you.” Jackie had her arms wrapped around her wife. Standing on their balcony, both girls were nude save for a few piercing adorning their bodies.

Chloe giggled as Jackie kissed the nap of her neck.

“Allons au lit.” Chloe took her hand and led her back to their bed. The two embraced, passionately kissing each other. The Parisian ran her hand down her crotch. “I want you to eat my pussy.”

Jackie bit Chloe’s bottom lip. “Only if you eat mine.” Chloe laid on her back, Jackie blocked her view with her hairy crotch. Chloe, on the other hand, was shaved and smooth. But the black girl didn’t mind her wife's hairy bush. It just made her beauty more natural.

Jackie started first, kissing Chloe’s black little nimb. Her tongue probbed her dark vaginial lips. Taking her two fingers, Jackie pulled about her vagina, showing her slick pink walls.

Jackie was interrupted by her wife’s tongue meeting her own crotch. Chloe had dug in with abandon. “Mon amour, ton jus a un goût si doux.” Jackie lost herself, rolling her hips into Chloe’s face. The heat from her wife’s pussy drew her back in. Jackie ate her out with the same a gusto Chloe was eating her.

Between licks Chloe began to moan. "Oui, oui, oui!” Her hips bucked, meeting with Jackie's pace. Jackie’s tongue work was too good and she made Chloe cum first. “La connerie!” She shouted.

“Tu as triché,” she pouted. “Let me make you cum.” Jackie got up, grinded her crotch into Chloe’s face. The Parisian’s tongue ran across Jackie's taint all the way to her pubic hair. After several swirls around her clit, she came. She fell off her wife onto the bed.

Chloe got on top of her pushing her tongue in her mouth. The two swapped juices, coming down from their sex high.

“Should we shower?”

“Non, ma pute, we should sleep covered in each other’s love.”

As thus the two fell asleep in each other's arms.

#lemon #star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #jackie/chloe #jackie lynn thomas

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marlasomething · 1 year

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(my) Mag a Week: Square Circle

Hello there!

I am participating in the "a mag a day" idea by @a-mag-a-day which is BRILLIANT and I decided to do "statement a week", rolling dice with the characters and fears that were ftw that week in the episodes I have listened.

For today I rolled Archivist!Elias Bouchard (the one that is already Magnus, not the pot-smoker one) and The Spiral (Eps. 126-132).

As usual, please do forgive my quick tipper and non-native speaker mistakes, Marla

Allons-y!

CW: almost of character in here is an ass, major character death (or worse), irreality, PTSD, insomnia

Also on AO3!

Statement of Lucia Wright, regarding the road she took to get here.

Audio recording by Elias Bouchard, still The Archivist.

Statement begins.

The decadence that set off the events that eventually brought me here begun months ago. It had already been about a week since I had spoken to your assistant…Gertrude, right? Yes, I believe that was her name…I thought talking about what had happened to me in Istanbul would made me some good, feel better, somehow. However, it just worsened everything beyond all expectations.

My nightmares have changed. They used to be vague memories, sometimes even just twisted reflections of what had actually happened. All too much to keep a sane mind in the long term, but within what could be expected after what happened to me. Now, I…they are not dreams anymore, they are still memories , but vivid ones. Not only in the sense of feeling quite realistic, but as if they were actually taking place as I dream about them. What happened to me, that hole of meat, all that people…they are really there and I just can watch from my very own frozen body, that only moves to imitate up to perfection all the gestures I did the first time. And then, there is the Darkness. The Darkness that stays where she , your assistant, used to do.

Because she was there, every single night, staring at my misfortune…Until she was no more, and, now there is this gap that I want, I need , to fill myself because I am certain that, if I let it remain open , whoever comes afterwards will be far worse than her.

So, in summary, sleeping had become an activity I would rather avoid, though most nights I just fall asleep, ready for my torture, by merely letting myself get relaxed on a horizontal surface. My life is far too tiring for any other outcome.

Only one solution possible: night walks.

It is funny how after enough days of going on with just the bare minimum of sleep that you cannot simply allow your body to miss, even the straightest, brightest street becomes the dingiest of passageways.

I was walking right alongside the Passport Office, in Eccleston Square and the wide well-lit street started to feel… confusing , blurry. My knees trembled and I felt the sudden need of having to hold tight to something, just to realise I had planted myself as far as humanly possible of all the porches nearby me. Hell, even the cars parked seemed to be miles away!

I bit my lower lip and cower a little bit over myself, folding my knees in a vain attempt of keeping my equilibrium and failing tremendously. I swear as those small shreds of glass weren’t there just before.

I yelled as the back part of my muscles was pierced and, just as my body was deciding that, maybe, this was the last straw and I had to go into deep sleep, almost clinical unconsciousness, a voice cut through the mist that had been installed in my brain for months already.

“Do you need help?” it was a typically female-presenting voice, and it gave me just the right tone for me to trust them immediately. Because they didn’t sound completely certain of what they were saying and, at that time, I would have refused the help of anyone who had perfect confidence on their own self.

The last few people I met that were that way…well, you already know that story, right?

They never actually introduced themselves, and just pointed to a door that tried to be yellow but instead was purple with some neon bright colours being born from the lowest part of it up to the top. Now, I am aware this not-quite-right door should have been the biggest red flag in history of red flags but, the thing is…I was in pain, tired and there was something about the wrongness of this person that felt as the only kind of “Ok” I could deal with at the moment.

So, as of what had been already years for me, I opened the door.

I am currently looking at your calendar…apparently, it had been barely a couple of months and, maybe…even less? What year you said we were in?

Sorry, I get dizzy. Even though I actually got some quality sleep while walking through this person’s residence , I am still deadly tired. Not that the ambiance helped, at all. It was all wrong, because I was supposed to be walking through corridors, but they weren’t always the shape a corridor should be. Sometimes, they were just turn into rooms, all kinds of them, without rhyme or reason. Mostly, rooms that had price-tags on them; I know it might sound funny from your perspective but…it absolutely isn’t. It made all feel as stock pictures. Stock pictures that I kept walking along with my host nowhere to be seen.

Literally, I didn’t get a single glimpse of them, not even the sound of someone breathing behind my neck…I was utterly alone . The one time I thought I saw someone, it turned out to be just my reflection; though it wasn’t truly me, not anymore.

The Me on the reflection without mirror was the woman that would have loved this place, having it being presented as a museum of the bizarre. I followed her and, just a couple of days later, I began to not only feel tiredness, but also hunger, thirst and other bodily function being reactivated…and, in barely a few hours, I somehow knew that the door in front of me was my only way out.

After all, it was the only thing that was truly yellow in the whole place.

Statement ends.

The Spiral, as untrustworthy as always. I guess this was whatever is left of Michael trying to just leave another prove of what a terrible monster Gertrude Robinson was…

…pot calls kettle black, I guess.

Funny how Helen is still a bit of a real estate agent. Jesus, maybe feeding her to The Spiral wasn’t as inspired as I thought…although…she might be useful.

I thought that, finally , after more than fifty years, I could get my Institute back, but, no, that… prick of Sims has to appear, courtesy of the Buried, with his trained Stockholm-Syndromed dog Daisy Tonner, took over and…well, I might not be as powerful as I once had the potential to be.

And, then, of course, there is the fact that that bloody coffin ate Peter. Not that I cared that much, but he is a useful ally for getting My Institute back (and in other fields) and I would hate for him to just be lost without having completely served me. It is just that.

I hope he likes the present I’ve sent him, though. My indications were intense enough for Miss Wright not to get lost inside the coffin, in her search of a final resting place, and it is not as if she wasn’t already alienated enough for The Lonely to take over.

Enjoy it, Peter.

End recording.

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rumdrum91 · 4 years

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Ever After: Prologue and Chapter 1

@captainswanmoviemarathon

check out @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 beautiful art work!! We collaborated, and she’s an incredible human : https://allons-y-to-hogwarts-713.tumblr.com/post/628147236387356672/captain-swan-movie-marathon-ever-after-a

My contribution to the event. No obligation to leave comments or kind words, but just know if you do, I will bake you virtual cookies and give you a puppy named Lloyd.

_______________________PROLOGUE________________________________

“My little swan,” he liked to call her. Like in the story. The ugly duckling was clumsy and gangly and loud—

“A nuisance!” Emma would interrupt delightedly. “Like me!”

Yes, a nuisance like her. The other ducklings would swim in their straight lines and let out respectable quacks to greet the bullfrogs and the dragonflies. But the ugly duckling could only squawk, flapping his gray, mottled wings frantically as he tried to catch up.

The others did not look back, not even once. They didn’t like the ugly duckling. They hid their heads in their wings, and pretended not to hear him.

Time went by and soon enough, the ducklings were no longer ducklings. They had grown over the long winter and returned from the south with long, silver feathers. They chattered and quacked excitedly, examining each other’s beauty and reveling in their own. But all that was forgotten when the most beautiful creature of all came into their mist. He was white as snow, with silky feathers and a long, graceful neck. He shone like a star come to rest on earth, and when he glided on the lake, the water around him seemed to sparkle in reverence.

Who was this mysterious creature, the ducks wondered? What was he? For he certainly wasn’t anyone they recognized.

“I know who he was!” Emma would sit upright, her eyes alight with excitement. “He was the ugly duckling!”

David would laugh, the warmth in his eyes glowing as he gently nudged his daughter back to her pillow. “This story is meant to help you fall asleep, little swan.”

“Tell me who the creature was,” Emma would insist. “This is my favorite part.”

The beautiful creature was someone they did not recognize, but they did know. He was their younger brother returned to them: the ugly duckling. Ah, but he was not a duckling after all, but a swan. A magnificent, beautiful swan.

“And that, sweet girl,” David would say softly, tucking her hair behind her ear, “is why I call you my little swan. Scraped knees and messy braids may be all that people see, but one day, they will look at you and realize that you are the most beautiful one of all.”

* * * * * * *

The day her new stepmother and -sisters arrived, Emma did not feel like a beautiful swan. She felt exactly what she was: a messy, muddy, graceless little girl, with too many freckles and not enough teeth. Lady Regina was dark and elegant, with full red lips that curled into a smile as Emma tried to curtsy before her.

“Lady Mother,” she said awkwardly, wincing as she bent her scabbed knees. The words felt strange in her mouth: Emma had never had someone to call “Mother” before. She hoped it would feel more natural as time went on.

“Girls,” Regina said, her voice smooth and lofty, “say hello to your new stepsister.”

Emma tried not stare at them, for they were almost more beautiful than their mother—as though they had skipped being ugly ducklings, and were swans from birth. Ruby was tall and willowy, and Belle was small and doll-like; both of them with long dark hair and piercing eyes. Their gowns were of the finest silk, studded with gold thread and tiny jewels in the bodice. The girls regarded Emma skeptically as they dipped into immaculate curtsies. Belle rose with a shy smile, but Ruby remained supercilious, glancing away in a show of derisive boredom.

“What do we say, Emma?” David asked, giving her a soft nudge to remind her of what they’d practiced the night before.

“Pleased to meet you.” She bobbed another curtsy, as wobbly and graceless as the first. On impulse, she added breathlessly, “I’ve always wanted sisters.”

“How sweet.” Smiling, Regina took David’s proffered arm, so he could escort her up the stone steps to the manor. Ruby waited until they were out of earshot, then turned back to Emma, her eyes cold.

“We’re not sisters,” she said flatly. “This has nothing to do with us. My mother married your father for his title, and he married her for her money.”

Emma’s cheeks burned at the implication that her father would ever marry for money. He was an honorable, good man. He would never do something so callous and cold. She clenched her fists, but said nothing.

“Come along, Belle,” Ruby said, still eyeing Emma with cold disdain. “Mother will be waiting.”

Belle obediently followed her sister up the steps, sparing Emma a sympathetic look as she passed. Clearly the kinder of the two, but too meek to stand up to her sister. The door closed behind them, as if emphasizing the separation with the the loud thunk! of the oak door.

* * * * * * *

“Which one shall we read tonight?”

Emma watched as her father, perched in his usual place at the end of her bed, thumbed through the book of fairy tales. “The ash princess,” she said after a minute. “With the fairy godmother.”

“Ag,” David smiled, nodding as he found the page. “One of my favorites.”

“Mine, too.” Emma played with the frayed end of her braid. “Father?”

“Mmm?”

“Can I come with you this time?”

He looked up slowly, his gaze way and exhausted. “Emma,” he began.

“I want to meet the king,” she pleaded. “Please, Father?”

“There’d be no one to look after you,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll be at council meetings all day. And besides—wouldn’t you miss your stepmother and stepsisters?”

Emma was silent. She didn’t want to tell him that they were the reason why she wanted to go so badly.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” David promised. “Just two weeks.”

“But you just got back.” Emma folded her arms, stubbornly pushing out her chin. “One.”

“Two weeks, little swan.” David looked down in amused exasperation as Emma balanced her fist on her palm, silently challenging him to rock-paper-scissors. After a minute, he gave in: each shook their fist three times and opened their fingers, David’s in a “scissors” and Emma’s in a “rock”.

“All right, all right,” David laughed as Emma triumphantly bounced her fist over his fingers. “One.”

* * * * * * *

They stood in a line on the cobblestone path, watching as David checked the horses and secured their harnesses. Marco, the old groomsman, wrestled with a particularly unruly black devil called, “Lucius.” The horse jerked his head back, fighting the bit being forced between his teeth.

“Cazzo Madre de Dio,” Marco swore under his breath.

“Non davanti ai bambini, Marco,” David warned. Marco’s English was limited, and Emma’s Italian nonexistent; but she imagined that Ruby and Belle were more than proficient in foreign languages.

“Must you leave me so soon, husband?” Regina sighed as David came around, placing her delicate fingers on on his chest.

“I’m afraid I must, my love.” David kissed her softly, once on her lips and again on each hand. Then he looked down at her girls, smiling. “Ruby, Belle…”

They dipped into their elegant curtsies. The formality seemed to amuse David, but he complied, offering them each a courtly bow before kissing the tops of their heads. Emma waited at the very end, tears welling in her eyes. Her father took her hands and lowered himself to one knee, his eyes warm and twinkling.

“You’ll look after your stepmother for me, won’t you, little swan?” he said.

Emma hesitated, then nodded slowly.

“And your stepsisters?”

“Yes, Father,” she mumbled, even as Ruby’s words echoed cruelly in her head. We’re not sisters.

“That’s my girl.” He kissed her forehead and rose to a stand. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“One week,” Emma reminded him.

“One week,” he agreed.

She watched as he climbed the step of the carriage and pulled himself into the driver’s seat. Marco handed him the reins, nodding a farewell to his master as he backed away from the path. Emma clenched her fists, willing herself not to cry. Her throat ached and her vision blurred, but she refused to shed a single tear in front of Ruby.

David snapped the reins and the horses began trotting down the cobblestone, the carriage rattling after them. Emma almost ran after him, but she hung back, her eyes fixed on his dwindling form.

“Come along, girls,” Regina said, starting to turn toward the door with a sweep of her skirts.

“Wait!” Emma said. “He always waves at the gate.”

Regina flicked a dismissive smile, and continued her departure, her daughter trailing after her. Emma remained, watching intently as the carriage rounded the corner of the gate. David raised his hand in farewell—and then, something happened.

He fell.

The world seemed to spin, her nerves on fire, her heart shattering as she watched her father crumple. “FATHER!”

Her own screaming echoed in her ears as she pounded down the path, not breathing, eyes swimming, panic racing through her veins as she ran toward her father’s unmoving form. Get up, get up. Oh, God, please make him get up. Why wasn’t he moving? Why wasn’t he moving?

“Father, please!” she sobbed, falling to her knees beside him. He was still breathing, but his face was contorted in pain, one side scraped with blood and dust.

“David!” Regina’s cry broke through the air. Emma hadn’t even realized she was there, and barely registered it now. Her stepmother’s hands shook as she reached to cup David’s face. “Don’t try to move, my love. I’m here.”

David looked at her, then slowly turned his eyes toward Emma. She choked, the tears she had tried to hold back now streaming down her face as her father looked at her for what she knew was the last time.

“I love you,” he whispered.

And then, his eyes dulled and saw no more. The warm, twinkling eyes turned gray and glassy, staring unseeingly at the sky.

“No!” Regina cried, her voice rising in hysterics as Emma bent over her father’s body, sobbing uncontrollably. “You cannot leave me here! You cannot leave me here!”

But she wasn’t the one he was leaving: Emma was. He’d left her to the mercy of her stepmother and stepsisters, unknowingly sentencing her to a life of misery and servitude. Because over the next twelve years, Regina would blame Emma for David’s death; for the fact that he had given his last words to his daughter, rather than his wife.

When Regina assumed control of the household and finances, she’d decided that Emma was too much of an expense and put her to work, demanding that she earn her own keep. “I have to provide for my children first,” she’d said, reminding Emma as she so often did that she was now an orphan. “I can’t afford a third child on a widow’s living.” Her daughters remained in the highest fashion with the finest possessions, and Emma was given a small, dusty room with naught but a few books and a crumbling hearth to curl by in the winter. She’d had to snitch a few horse blankets to keep warm, and only the kindness of the old cook, Mrs. Lucas, kept her clothed and shoed. The younger housemaid, Astrid, had taught her what she needed to know to be a servant in a lady’s household, and Marco assumed a protective, grandfatherly role over Emma. Together, the four of them created a broken little family that slightly soothed the ache in Emma’s heart. Still, Regina and her daughters seemed intent on destroying every ounce of happiness in her life. Belle less so than the others, though she said nothing when Regina and Ruby directed cruel words and biting commands toward Emma. The few sources of comfort Emma had left were her father’s books and the chest in the attic that contained her mother’s remaining possessions: remnants of the loving family she’d once had.

___________________________CHAPTER 1_________________________________

It was a hard life, and she feared she would never escape it. And for twelve years, she was right. Until the day she met the horse thief, when one perfectly-aimed apple would end up changing her life forever.

She could taste autumn in the early morning air. It smelled of smoke and frost and changing leaves, filling her lungs and leaving a pleasant sting on her skin. Emma smiled to herself as she picked her way around the thick bundles of trees and brambles, guiding the pig as he hunted for truffles. Later in the week, she would sell them in the street market, along with whatever fruits and vegetables Astrid could get from the garden.

The pig snuffled loudly as he found his treasure. “Good boy,” Emma whispered, kneeling down to gather the truffles and put them in her basket. The dirt caked under her nails and her skin was scratched by wayward twigs, leaving thin red lines. She lifted her hands, examining them with a small sigh of regret. They were rough and scarred: so unlike the delicate smooth whiteness of a lady’s. Just another thing for Ruby to mock.

By the time she was heading back to the manor, the sun had started to rise and golden streaks shown through trees. Marco should have been in the stables, brushing down the horses, but ever since the silverware had gone missing…

Emma’s hands tightened on the basket as she thought of the false accusations Regina had cast against Marco: that he was a thief and a liar, taking advantage of a widow’s generosity. She remembered his desperate pleas as clung to the bars of the constable’s carriage, trembling as he begged in broken English for release. His bail had been set at twelve silver florins, and it would take a hundred street markets before she’d earned enough to set him free. Still she couldn’t abandon him to the brutal prison conditions: he would never survive them.

“Morning,” she said, entering the kitchen through the side door. Mrs. Lucas was already working dough for the morning bread, while Astrid churned butter. The ladies of the house would still be asleep at this hour, but the preparations for their basic comforts began at dawn.

“Any luck?” Astrid asked, wincing from the blisters on her hands. Emma shook the basket in response, half-smiling.

“That’s a good girl,” Mrs. Lucas nodded. “Those’ll fetch a good price. Now—give those hands a wash, and see if you can’t get some apples for her ladyship’s breakfast. Might make her a bit more, uh…”

“Human?” Emma suggested, rubbing the dirt from her hands in the wash basin. Regina had a certain fondness for apples, and the treat might soften the normal bite of her marks.

“Well, they’re apples, not magic beans,” Astrid observed wryly. Emma snorted and wiped her hands dry, reaching for a clean apron. After securing it around her waist, she pushed her hair behind her ears and balanced an empty bushel on her hip.

“Back soon,” she called over her shoulder, nudging the door open with her toe. The other women responded with vague farewells and promises of breakfast when she returned.

The grass was still damp with morning dew as she cut across the grounds to the small ring of apple trees. Red-gold globes hung heavily from the branches, the sweet and heady scent pervading the air. Emma set the bushel down and dropped to her knees, gathering the few apples that had already fallen.

They were scattered around the trees in a vague circle, so rather than moving the bushel around, she used her apron to hold them. She was just reaching for one that had fallen a bit further than the others when she heard a familiar, high-pitched neigh resounding through the air. Emma frowned and whipped around, recognizing the powerful black horse kicking up on its rear legs as a cloaked figure on his back pulled at the reins.

Lucious.

Her father’s finest horse, his fierce and fiery black devil—and some common thief was trying to take him?

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she muttered, getting up and running toward him. The apples tumbled from her apron— all but one. In her hand, it became a weapon: one that she hurled with deadly accuracy at the thief, hitting him squarely in the head.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, tumbling from the horse and landing painfully on the ground. Lucius bolted, grateful for his freedom, but rather than going after him, Emma scrabbled for the fallen apples to launch at her enemy.

“Thief!” she spat furiously, pummeling his head—his shoulders—his chest with apples. “How dare you steal my father’s horse!”

“Stop!” he shouted, struggling to stand up, raising his arm to shield himself. “Madam, I command you to stop! By order of—”

“Of what?” Emma shot back. “Lord of the thieves, are you?”

“By order of the king!” The thief flung back his cloak in an indignant flurry that Emma might have laughed at, had she not recognized the shining golden crest the pinned the cloak to his shoulders. Terror struck in the pit of her stomach and she fell to her hands and knees, trembling.

“Forgive me, Your Highness, I did not see you!” she stammered, begging every saint in heaven that he—who she now realized was the prince—would have mercy.

He let out a wry chuckle, and Emma peeked through the curtain of blonde hair shielding her eyes to see that he was massaging his jaw, regarding her with a mixture of amusement and disdain.“Your aim, madam, would suggest otherwise.”

“I-I—” Emma swallowed, fear swelling in her throat so that her voice was a croak. “I thought you were a thief, my lord.”

“Indeed, I am.” There was the sound of leather scraping leather as the prince swung himself onto Lucious’s back. The horse trotted around her in a circle, and the prince spoke again, “Rest assured,” he said, the sounds of metal on metal clinking within the folds of his cloak, “I will return the beast to you, since you care for it so. And as an honorable thief, I shall compensate you for the misfortune.”

Then came the heavy sound of a bulging leather sack, dropping from his hand to the ground. Emma hardly dared to breathe, let alone look inside. Even so, she couldn’t helping looking up again, barely raising her head to glimpse the prince’s handsome face and tousled black hair. His eyes glinted, and she wondered if even through the dirty tangles of blonde hair obscuring her face, he could sense her gaze.

“My mercy exists on one condition,” he said, though his smirk seemed more amused than bitter this time.

“Y-yes, my Lord?”

He snapped the reins, and Lucious reared again. “Never let it be known that Prince Killian was nearly bested by a country maid with a bushel of apples!”

With that, Lucious took off, his hooves beating the ground heavily as he galloped away. Emma remained bowed and trembling, never daring to breathe until the sound of Lucious’s hooves had faded completely. Only then did she slowly straighten up, bones cracking, to stare at the bulging leather sack before her.

It was about the size of her fist, tied with a thick leather cord. Emma cradled it in her hands, feeling the hard metal edges of what couldn’t have been coins, because that would have been too generous a stroke of luck. Still, she managed to pull the cord, effectively opening the sack, and a small avalanche of golden florins spilled into her hands.

“Madre de Dio,” she whispered, marveling at the wealth before her. This would more than buy Marco’s freedom. Emma let out a laugh of disbelief before a flood of joyful tears came to her eyes, and she thanked God for the rich thief who’d just changed everything for the better.

#ever after au #captain swan #emma swan #killian jones

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initiala · 4 years

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The Dark and Light Along the Sea

Hello, wow, I actually wrote something. This is a @csrolereversal fic with art provided by the lovely @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713.

So, uh, this fic goes some places. It’s got graphic depictions of violence, gratuitous goriness, death, destruction, body parts in places body parts shouldn’t be... It’s a Dark One Killian fic with Emma as... not quite the good little witch we’re used to her being. So if that’s not your jam, then go ahead and keep scrolling! Otherwise, please enjoy.

=============================================

Once upon a time, a little girl was stolen from a castle in the dead of night. She’d been born with magic, you see, and that magic was coveted by dark forces across the land. She knew she’d been stolen, because the woman she’d been forced to call Mother told her often while complaining about how much food she ate and the cost of clothing to keep her warm. Mother taught the little girl how to use her magic, though the kinds of spells she learned felt wrong -- slimy under her skin and a cold draft down her back with each success.

Mother didn’t like hearing that it felt wrong. The more the little girl spoke about the wrong feeling, the more she was forced to train, drowning in the feeling of wrongness until one day, finally, she snapped.

Mother looked like a doll that had been thrown across the room, her limbs at odd angles, her head bent uncomfortably.

The little girl, not so little these days, left without looking back.

She traveled far, searching for something to ease the knot of terrible feelings in her belly. Voices whispered in her mind after night fell, echoes of Mother twisting anxiety into her heart and others she couldn’t name leading her to fear she was going mad.

Seasons passed and her search remained fruitless. She grew tall and fair, slim from traveling the realm on foot, and earned her way through performing the only bits of magic she dared: illusion. She could turn a bushel of apples into a basket of snakes and back again, pull a dove from a child’s pocket, make coins vanish and reappear in her shoes. She stayed until the whispers in her mind became real in her ears, suspicious villagers or townsmen who looked a little too long at the traveling magic maid, then took off down the road, still searching for something that felt like peace.

One night, years later, the magic maid found herself in quiet port town; quite the oxymoron, she inquired at the inn as to why this wasn’t the bustling pirate haven or trading port she was used to.

“The Dark One, miss,” the old barkeep told her, setting before her a trencher of bread filled with a thick stew made from potatoes and ham and a mug of watered down ale. “Claimed the castle up the way. Doesn’t much bother us townsfolk, but his presence bothers outsiders. Anyone as wants to trade here comes and does his business quickly, then sails out again on the next tide. As fer pirates, rumor is the Dark One used to be one hisself and knows their treachery. Forbids it, see, less someone else comes to try and claim his power.”

She thought about his story as she ate slowly. She’d heard of the Dark One before, mostly as a bedtime story from Mother to warn her about how people would want to use her power for their own. The last Dark One, Rumplestiltskin, had apparently vanished a few hundred years ago and no one had seen concrete proof of his successor. Yet, allegedly, he was here, in this out of the way town, living amicably beside a town that didn’t seem to care he was there. Then again, she mused, if they’d all grown up knowing he was there and hadn’t done anything before, they probably didn’t see a need to feel afraid of him. And if it kept trouble away, all the better for them.

People around these parts, she discovered, turned in early; she considered herself lucky for having made so much coin in the last town since there would be scant opportunities for her to sing for her supper. She paid up front for two nights at the inn, giving herself a chance to rest and maybe find a cobbler to fix her boots before going somewhere without the Dark One’s shadow looming overhead. Trying not to count and recount the coins left in her purse, she retired early as well, looking forward to a night indoors with a soft bed. Maybe, she thought with a wry smile, mice and bugs would be terrified of the Dark One too, and she’d have a peaceful rest.

The candle was unlit when she got to her room, and she scowled, fumbling in the dark for the flint and steel she kept in her pouch. Sparks flew as she tried to light it, cursing under her breath the whole while; she wasn’t good at using this stupid thing for small fires, she could barely do it for a campfire out on the road-- “Why do you use that thing?” a male voice asked, the candle wick flaming to life.

She whirled, conjuring a fireball in one hand and ready to burn whoever dared come for her in the night. “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing here?”

“Interesting questions,” the man replied, waving his hand carelessly. Her fireball vanished and she felt like the air was being squeezed from her lungs. “Some might call me hell incarnate. Others simply call me by my more colorful moniker.”

Several other candles lit around the room, giving her a better view of the man before her. He dressed simply, in either dark colors or simply black, with a long leather greatcoat and heavy boots. A hook where his left hand should have been glinted wickedly in the light. His hair fell rakishly over his forehead and one eye, slightly disheveled and looking like it had been some time since its last wash. But it was his piercing blue eyes that caught hold of her, red-rimmed and exhausted as they were, watching her with cautious interest. “The Dark One,” she said faintly.

“Ah, so you’ve heard of me. No need to answer that, I know all about your little chat with the barman downstairs. I’ve got ears and eyes all over this town, looking for people such as yourself to cross into my territory.”

“People like me?”

“Magic, love,” the Dark One said, his heavy footfalls echoing around the room as he came closer. “I could practically smell your magic the moment you crossed the border of this little place,” he continued, leaning in and breathing her in to prove his point. “Never before have I met anyone with as much raw power as you.”

She shivered, her magic reacting to him in a way that made her hair stand on end. It liked him and that frightened her -- her magic barely liked her, leaving her with those terrible feelings when Mother had trained her, fighting from her control every time she tried to use it to light a fire or performing for her own survival. She felt it wrenching from her control even now, reaching for him and twining about him like a cat. “Interesting indeed,” the Dark One murmured. “What’s your name, love?”

Mother had drilled in many things to her over the years: don’t eat so much, stop growing so fast, stop being ungrateful for the roof over your head, listen only to Mother, never do any sort of magic without exacting a price, never give anyone your name lest they have power over you. She hesitated now, and his eyes hardened. “Your name,” he said again, and she felt his power squeezing her, forcing her to obey his will.

She closed her eyes and forced her magic out, against his and whatever hold he was trying to put on her. He flew back, stopping just before he hit the wall, and when she opened her eyes again she took some satisfaction from the infuriated look on his face. “You have no power here, Dark One,” she said firmly.

But, just as quick, she felt her magic slip from her grasp as if he’d pulled the rug from under her feet. It hurt, having her magic pulled from her, and she pulled back with all her will to keep it from escaping into whatever magical trinket he was keeping in his pocket. He stared at her like he’d never seen anyone quite like her before, and the magical tug-of-war ended. She felt her magic slip back under her skin, under her control, and glared at him defiantly. “Killian,” he said finally. “If it makes you feel any better, we can trade names. Mine’s Killian.”

She kept glaring, unsure if this was some kind of Dark One trick; she didn’t know a lot about this particular Dark One, but she knew his predecessors weren’t afraid of using any sort of trickery to get what they wanted. “What do you want, Dark One?”

“Your name. And to know why someone so powerful as yourself has crossed into my domain.”

“That’s easy enough. I’m traveling.”

His eyes glinted, clearly aware she continued to dodge the question of her name. “Traveling where? And for what?”

She shrugged. “Nowhere. Everywhere.”

She felt a tendril of his magic reach out to probe hers again and she pushed it back, fixing him with a steely gaze again. The Dark One -- Killian -- regarded her again. “Your magic walks a fine line between darkness and light, a line I find interesting. The depths of the darkness you’re capable of -- and the strength of the light -- should have most of the realm after you. Is this why you travel to places like ‘nowhere’ and ‘everywhere’?” he asked, his tone mocking as he threw her answers back in her face.

“Maybe.”

“Not very forthcoming, are you?”

“With strange evil wizards who let themselves into my room? Why should I be?”

In a flash of red smoke, he was in her face again, nose brushing up against hers. She could feel his breath on her cheek when he spoke, “Because I may be the only one capable of helping you.”

She put her hands on his chest and shoved, but he didn’t budge. “Why do I need help?”

A slow grin stretched his lips, making crow’s feet around his eyes, but it did little to soften him or reassure her. “There’s darkness in you, little witch, and I sense trepidation where it’s concerned. You want the light, but don’t know how to reach it. You fear the dark, yet you’ve dabbled in it. Who taught you darkness?”

She found she couldn’t look away from his eyes, intense and oh so blue. She wondered if he could simply hold someone with his stare like this, or if there was something else at play, the same something that forced the words from her mouth, “Mother. Not my real mother, the… woman who took me.”

He blinked and she could look away, though she did so only briefly. “What happened to her? If she’d already taken you as a prize, I’d be sure she wouldn’t let you slip away so easily.”

Her throat worked but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it. Her gaze dropped to the floor, staring at the way her feet fit neatly between his wide stance. “You killed her, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“No controller, but no protector either. You’ve been running ever since.”

Another nod.

“Did you want to?”

She hesitated. She’s thought for years about this very question. Had she wanted to kill Mother, or had it just been some kind of unfortunate accident? Her powers slipping out of her control, spiraling from her own frustrations and fears, directed at the one person who’d sparked those feelings for her entire life?

Did she want to? Maybe, in some small, dark part of her heart.

Maybe not such a small, dark part anymore.

She met his gaze again, unsure, and an unreadable flicker of emotions crossed his face as he considered her nonanswer to his question. “Emma,” she whispered. “My name is Emma.”

=====

Once upon a time, a man fell in love with a woman. This happens often enough, you see, but this particular woman was already married. But she was desperately unhappy in her marriage and begged the man to take her away; the man happened to be a pirate, renowned and feared across the seven seas, but the man also believed in good form, and carried on with ideas of dashing rescues and the like -- what could be more dashing a rescue than a woman trapped with a man she described as a monster?

What the man didn’t know, however, was that the monster was more than what he appeared.

The monster killed her, this woman they both claimed to love, and the man swore revenge as he buried her at the bottom of the sea. He left that very day to find the tools to enact his revenge, stopping time itself while he laid out his plans. And it took years more before he finally succeeded, swiping the blade that was the key to the monster’s power and taking it for his own.

The blade and the power.

To kill the monster was to make a monster of yourself, for the power of the Dark One could only pass on to whoever slayed their predecessor. It was a terrible price to pay, but the man was too far gone into his hate and drive for revenge to care much for what happened to him next.

The power of the Dark One buzzed in his ears for decades. He locked himself away in a castle -- he may have killed the previous owners, he couldn’t remember now -- drinking himself into a stupor to quiet the voices in his head telling him how to use the darkness to his advantage. Darkness had taken the woman he loved from him, and for all he cared it could drown with her at the bottom of the sea.

Time moved differently when one was functionally immortal, he discovered, and spending most of that time drunk made it nearly impossible to tell what century it was. Occasionally he woke out of his stupor to find blood on his hands or entrails in the entryway, with no memory of how any of it got there. But the voices of the darkness whispered in his ears still and he found himself wondering if the darkness just took hold, using his body as some sort of vessel to carry out its desires.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

By the time Emma found her way into his castle, he mostly had himself under control. He’d spent years actually reading the tomes that had found their way into his collection, learning to set defenses like invisible glass walls between himself and the darkness, meditating to quiet the voices in his mind. He drank less, though it became increasingly clear that awareness of the passage of time was incredibly boring. Immortality and having no clear purpose of what to do with that time was terribly dull, and when the boredom became insufferable he would drink again, only to find himself with the same problem as before. The fragile glass that made up his protective walls was shattered every time, the darkness flowing through his defenses and dragging him down further each and every time. There were fewer mysterious body parts strewn about after these blackout periods, less blood on his hands, but sometimes treasure would find its way into his possession and he had no idea where it came from.

Once a pirate, always a pirate, the darkness would taunt, until he slammed up his defenses and shut the darkness out again.

Keeping the darkness at bay proved to be more difficult as he introduced Emma to his books on light magic. The taunts grew louder and more frequent and he found comforts at the bottom of a bottle four nights in seven. Even Emma noticed something was off with his manner, seeing as how they were the only two living creatures in the castle. After a month of him disappearing in these blackout rages, she confronted him after their lessons. “Is it me?” she asked pointedly. “Do I drive you to drink and run off somewhere? Do I need to leave?”

“No,” he said hoarsely. “Yes. I don’t know.”

“Are those answers to my questions, or is it a general statement of incompetence?”

He glared at her, the darkness whispering in his ear to silence her smart mouth permanently. “You walk a fine line, little witch.”

“Silence me then,” she said, shoving herself up in his face. “Do it. I know you can, you just haven’t yet -- I’ve seen the mess you leave when you come back. Is this your normal thing or is it just too much to be in the same fucking castle as me?”

She was right, he realized. He could kill her, but something kept him from doing so, even when he was in one of his rages. That was curious -- clearly he had no problem doing away with whatever was bothering him, but even though she was what brought the darkness out she was never the target of his ire.

Curiouser and curiouser.

“No,” he said finally. “This is something that requires… meditation, I think. And perhaps a change in your lessons.”

He would keep her from the books containing only light magic, that was all. The darkness whispered in his mind that she could be a power to rival his own, a terrible and beautiful queen at his side, if he would show her the books with the blackest of magics, but he didn’t want that. The darkness in him hated and feared her potential for light, but it was something else that drew him to her, like a moth to a candle. She wasn’t wholly tarnished, not like him, but she knew the taste of villainy and what it could do.

What do you plan to do with her? the darkness hissed, the evil imp always lurking over his shoulder. He paced in what amounted to his study, the sky full of stars and Emma slumbering somewhere below in the castle. It wanted to take her and twist her, but he refused to allow it.

For the first time in years, Killian spoke aloud to his demons. “I don’t plan to do anything. She gets what I never had in all of this: a choice.”

====

Once upon a time, a young woman lived in a castle. This wasn’t the castle of her birth, but it was a castle all the same -- drafty and enormous, far too many rooms for the only two people living in it, and full of secrets. She found many of these secrets on accident: hidden passageways, libraries full of cobweb-covered books, a treasure room full of magical artifacts that made her magic itch under her skin. Some secrets were laid in the open but never talked about: the blood on the doorstep most mornings, the hand she found in the kitchen, a collection of ears in a chest.

This should have, and would have, frightened any number of normal young women, but Emma was far from a normal young woman anymore.

She knew he was the Dark One, so finding collections of strange, arcane objects and evidence of dark doings wasn’t as outrageous as it may have been. Killian treated her well and never made threats against her -- outside of arguments, where she gave as good as she got and was rewarded with an amused smirk -- so she never felt unsafe in his presence, but the way he seemed to drink heavily and return with more strange talismans and more blood left around the castle after their lessons did bother her. If she was the cause of all this rage and theft and dark magic, why wasn’t he taking it out on her?

She shouldn’t be asking why she was still alive, but the thought nagged at her all the same.

Mother had always drilled into her to expect the worst in people, after all.

But even confronting him didn’t give her any answers, only a change in what she was given to study. Light magic left her feeling odd, like her head was stuffed with cotton and her limbs tingled like she’d touched something metal after walking on carpets in winter. It wasn’t worse than the feelings she’d had when Mother made her cast dark spells, but it still didn’t quite sit well with her. “Not a light witch or a dark wizard, just… something dull and gray in between,” Emma muttered one night, flipping a page and squinting to read the writing by the light of her candle.

“Hardly dull, sadly.”

It was Killian’s voice, but there was something different about it. She turned in her chair and he leaned against the window. He looked terrible, sallow and hollow-eyed in the candlelight, his hair matted down as if he’d been sweating through a fever. He grinned and it was unnerving, lips stretched a bit too wide and showing a few too many teeth. His skin even glistened in the light, making her wonder if he really was feverish -- could Dark Ones get sick? “He likes you,” he said, and again she tried to pinpoint what was different about his voice. “That’s the only thing keeping us from slitting your throat when you sleep -- no, that’s far too easy, we like to watch people squirm. You’d shriek, wouldn’t you? Beg for mercy, offer us whatever we like if only we’d let you live?”

There were multiple tones in his voice -- a deep baritone cracking over words, a high-pitched giggle trilling at the end of a question, a cold feminine rasp. This isn’t him, she realized. “Is this what you do?” she asked. “Take him over like he’s some kind of puppet and whisper scary bedtime stories?”

The Dark One moved so fast it was like a blur, hovering over her and pressing her back in her chair, and this close she could see the manic look in his eyes, the pinpricks his pupils had shrunk to, the redness and the deep purple splotches under his skin. “He’s weak,” they rasped -- and it had to be the voices of Dark Ones past, that’s what Mother had said, right? No one could truly kill the Dark One, only take on the mantle of all who came before? “He refuses to act as he should, dabbling in training a witch like you in light magic. He could be powerful and feared but he locks himself away like--”

“Like a terrible thing that needs to be locked away?” Emma snapped, pushing him -- them -- away. “I haven’t heard of anything as bad as the last Dark One, so apparently he’s doing a good job of that. You’re just mad you don’t get to run as free as you want, you’re like a dog tied up at the market--”

Pinned to the wall by the hand to her throat, the rest of her taunt died as she struggled to breathe. Her feet couldn’t touch the floor and she wrapped her hands around his wrist in futility. “K--Kil--”

The wicked snarl on his face only widened and for the first time she felt true fear around him. “Killian--”

His face twitched and his features relaxed into something less feral, his eyes returning to normal, then widened in shock and fear before he pulled away, letting her drop to the floor. Emma gasped, pulling in air until her chest hurt, and coughed to clear the tightness lingering around her neck. She saw his boots shuffle backwards, and then a swirl of red smoke signaled his departure, leaving her to process what had happened.

Alone.

====

Once upon a time, a man slew a monster, only to become a monster himself.

The darkness loved to play with his mind, replaying the deaths of those he loved most over and over in his memories, twisting them and making them worse than even the horrible truth had been. He saw Liam’s skin crack open and bleed black blood, darkness seeping out of his nostrils and the gurgling sounds of a man drowning in his own blood so real that Killian was no longer sure if he’d only died of dreamshade poisoning and a stopped heart. He saw himself ripping Milah’s heart from her chest and crushing it, watching her collapse lifeless onto the deck of his old ship -- worse was knowing that the previous Dark Ones shared his mind and this was entirely likely to be a true memory with his own face plastered over Rumplestiltskin’s. But there were other nights when he was treated to visions of abusing the power one had over possessing another’s heart, taking possession of her mind and her body. He didn’t know if someone could be killed while their heart remained whole and outside of their body, but the darkness showed him all the ways it could have made Milah walk willingly into her own death, by her own hand or others.

Once, Emma commented that he looked feverish all the time, like he was overheated and needed a cool bath. Dark Ones were hardly bothered by something as simple as the temperature, but the worst fates that could be laid upon those he’d once loved were enough to give even the most mortal of men the sweats.

Waking from his latest plunge into the darkness, seeing Emma fearful of him and being crushed by his own hand? He was willing to walk into a thousand fiery deaths if only to make up for the terrified look on her face.

He stayed away from her for a time; she didn’t leave, which was curious, but he saw her in his scrying bowl in the library, her head bent over her books and purpling marks around her neck.

He hated the sight of that. She had such a lovely neck, she --

You like her, the darkness had whispered, weeks before, and he’d vehemently denied it. He was interested in what she could become, that was all, and it was to his advantage at the time to indebt her to him. But she had a choice now, he’d promised himself. He’d freed her of the debt she never knew she’d had, removed the price of learning.

The darkness liked exacting payment from people. Was that why it had acted out, taking over in his moments of weakness, hurting her?

She was still in the library later when he slipped in, his hand in his pocket. She looked up when his footsteps grew near and it was a small comfort that she didn’t cower away from his approach. “You look better,” she commented.

“You don’t,” he said, and went behind her, draping his gift around her neck.

The diamond necklace had arrived in his treasury as most things did: with no knowledge or history of how it got there, only his bloody hand and hook and the scent of expensive perfume lingering on his clothes. But diamonds, like all gemstones, held magic well and the sheer number of them would do wonders to speed up the healing spell he’d placed on it. Emma’s hands went to it, automatically holding the chains in place as he looped them around her neck and used a bit of magic to help close the clasp. Stepping back, he noted with pleasure that the bruises were already starting to fade.

She conjured a mirror to see the full effect and he noted how easily the magic was done; when she’d arrived, she couldn’t even conjure sugar for her tea, but this was more solid, more real, and easily broken if done incorrectly. “You’ve improved immensely,” he murmured, watching her admire the jewelry and the healing effects.

“I had a good teacher,” she said, her voice just as low.

“Emma, about the other night…”

“Don’t. I know it wasn’t you,” she said, catching his reflection’s eye.

“It doesn’t make it right,” he said. “I apologize, for harming you as well as frightening you. I…”

She shook her head. “It’s… well, we can move past it. It was something beyond your control.”

Fury built in his chest, not at her but at the circumstances of her life that made her shrug away a brush with death. He could have killed her, the power at his fingertips -- the power controlling his fingertips -- should have killed her, but something in her had broken through and found him drowning in the depths. “No, Emma,” he snapped, making her look back at him. “The darkness is afraid of you.”

“Me?” she asked, surprised.

“You. You’re… different. It’s… it doesn’t like to be challenged, only obeyed. I have been a consistent thorn in its side, refusing to do as it wants or follow orders.” He felt like he bled these words out, the darkness ripping at his defenses to keep him silent, keep him from spilling its secrets to this woman it feared so much. “It’s particularly damaging when my defenses are down, or when it can break through them. I don’t remember where I go or what I do, though I have an idea. I’m weak, especially susceptible to its control, and your challenge only made it… worse.”

“So it is my fault,” Emma said softly.

He turned her chair and knelt before her, looking at her properly for the first time in days. “No,” he said earnestly. “You… you frighten it, which is enough of a miracle on its own. It’s not your fault I was weak, that I couldn’t control it. I’d wondered why it hadn’t led me to kill you if it was so frightened of you. And I wonder still, but I believe the other night was because I refuse to let it indebt you to me when you’ve completed your training.”

He watched a thousand emotions cross her face; she’d told him how she’d grown up, enslaved to the woman she’d called Mother with fear tactics and the threat of being controlled by others for her magic. He refused to be one of the monsters in her childhood nightmares, chaining her and claiming her, using her as the darkness saw fit -- just as he’d hidden the dagger that bore his name, refusing to let others chain and claim him to be used as his jailer saw fit.

He knew what it was like to have the threat of freedom stolen from under you and refused to allow her the same fears.

“It’s afraid of me?” she asked, and he wondered when she’d taken his hand in her own; she squeezed as a flicker of wonder and fear crossed her face.

“Terrified. I don’t… I don’t know how well I can control it, but it’s why I changed your learning around. It was worse with the light magic.”

She looked away. “I see… and it would probably like it if I did more dark magic, but I can’t stand the feeling of dark magic.”

She’d like it more if she practiced more, the darkness whispered in his mind, and he wondered how often that her mother had the same thought. He gripped her hand tighter as he slammed his defenses back up, imagining a wall of glass three feet thick between himself and the demons taunting him. “You don’t have to do more dark magic. You don’t have to do anything to appease the darkness, Emma, that’s my burden to bear. In fact --” The idea struck him so suddenly that he didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. It wasn’t as if he’d formed a particular attachment to the place, and there were enough enchantments to keep it running that she would hardly notice if he’d left. “Perhaps I should be the one to leave. There are enough learning tools here to keep you busy until you feel ready to move on. You’ve been doing well on your own with the magics I can’t do, and you’re surer of yourself than you were when you came here. I can spell a few rooms to make them safe to practice in without causing havoc across the countryside.”

The more he spoke, the better an idea it became. He would leave the castle to her, let her practice and perhaps visit the port enough to reassure them the Dark One was truly gone. He knew the town suffered a bit from trade from his presence, but the threat of him had also kept the peace so no one seemed to mind all that much. Perhaps she’d simply stay, take over as the lady of the land. She’d do good here, not some insufferable white witch like those blasted fairies, but not a terrible dark queen like his demons wanted her to become -- a real person who understood there needed to be balance.

“Killian.” Emma’s voice brought him out of his thoughts, and he noticed the confusion in her eyes. “What are you saying, that you’d give up your home for me?”

“Well, more that I’d give it to you, let you--”

Whatever he’d been planning to say next died in his throat as she leaned forward and kissed him, and for the first time in a very long time all of the voices that haunted him fell silent. He felt normal, with no looming darkness in the back of his mind making him feel like he needed to keep looking over his shoulder, keep running, keep doing something to keep the darkness from swallowing him whole.

Like there was a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel of his life.

She started to pull away and he realized he’d done nothing but let her kiss him with no reciprocation. Well, that simply won’t do, he thought, and for once there was no response from anyone else except himself: I need to kiss her again.

And so he reached for that light, meeting her lips again, and feeling like her shine could ward even the darkest of his nightmares away.

====

Once upon a time, darkness descended from a castle tucked away, and brought light to a town by the sea. The traveling magic maid, it seemed, had staked her claim, though to what exactly the townsfolk were never quite sure. No longer did she dabble in tricks of her trade: instead, they found her hands pressed against the earth, against feverish skin and splinted limbs. She disappeared each night, back to the castle where darkness lurked, but returned each morning with a smile and a will to continue her work. What to make of her, they hardly knew, but it was the pirates, in the end, that brought shadows on the heels of her light.

Rarely had the Dark One been seen in all the years he’d festered in the castle up the way, but down he came, in answer to the maid’s call, a raging force stronger than any sea. The townsfolk stuck to the shadows while he made quick work of the pirates, trading murmured words when the maid removed her cloak and made to follow. Light turned to dark, turned water red at port, and only when the screams were silenced and their hands met did the magic in the air fizzle into something altogether gray.

The blood didn’t seem to bother her, the maid, and it went hardly noticed by the Dark One as a heavy mist crept into town, his teeth gritted all the while muttering about bad form. The maid only leaned in close, her hand on his cheek and an almost peaceful calm on his face at her touch; she whispered something that may have sounded something like home, and the red followed them up in a cloud of smoke.

And when the next dawn broke, the maid returned, with the same beatific smile on her face as always, and went back to her work keeping all but the worst darkness at bay.

#captain swan #cs ff #cs fanfic #cs role reversal #cs angst #ouat #it's angsty yeah and also just.... it's fucked up in parts

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goingsllightlymad · 5 years

Text

Blinded By Your Light - Part 1. On Meeting

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x reader

Summary: Y/N is the definition of ordinary. Studying at a medical school as far as she can get from her rainy hometown of Birmingham, she never expected to be shipped off the Flanders when the war was at it's peak. Much less to meet a handsome young patient with the most beautiful pair of blue eyes she had seen in her life who as fate would have it would fall into her lap.

Word Count: 5035 (I had to split this one up into two chapters because it was getting hella long).

Warnings: I have absolutely no writing skills.

________________________________________________________________

The sunlight on the windowsill was more depressing than it was bright. Wan and pale, you knew that you would find no warmth there in the light of that cool, indifferent sun, shining on a fate much more dire than even its own fiery glory. August had not been kind to either of you.

The last traces of summer were fading away, and everyone in the hospital knew it. Gone were the summery days when you could wake and catch the glimmer of hope that the sunshine had brought with it, the apple trees in the orchard laden with fruit and the last of the spring's bright blossom on their rich branches, the birds wheeling in the sky as though they could not hear, not far away, the rattle of machine gun fire and the sickening crash of bombs. In those clearer nights, sat upon your windowsill and gazing out at the unending sky, you could almost see the flames leaping from the wreckage of today's attack, the occasional flare shooting up into the sky in a sudden burst of bright green light, casting a lurid glow on the trees and fields below.

And now the cold was seeping in, with its grim promise of longer nights and the worst that was yet to come, and the war was far from over. Sometimes you had to wonder how many men were left, as through the doors to the hospital there came every day the steady flow of men half-dead and some already long since gone, draped in their funeral gowns of stiff brown uniform and the bloom of rich red blood like roses on their unnamed grave. This war would leave no man untouched, and you could see the poison as it crept into the eyes of those who made it out of here, chilling and colder than that false bliss that washed over the still faces of those who weren't so lucky.

It was the same routine as always - waking in the cool morning light to dress in the harsh white uniform and make your way to the dining-rooms for breakfast, eaten in silence in a crowd of sullen, sleepless faces, then working until late in the evening, all night if they needed you, as they did more and more these days. It was getting worse out there, though no one dared to mention it.

It would be an understatement to say that no day at Flanders General Hospital was without a new surprise, still today had to be an exception. Walking into the main ward at 6:00 in the morning, the last thing you expected was for the ward to be filled with bustling crowds of nurses in sharply-starched aprons and men carrying stretchers.

"Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? (What's going on?)" You turned to another nurse as she made her way past you, busying yourself with folding a blanket over the edge of a bed and scanning the room for clues of whatever had happened.

"Il y a eu une explosion dans les tunnels la nuit dernière.. Un gros, clairement. Des hommes de partout. La directrice dit qu'il semble que nous allons courir pendant plusieurs jours. (An explosion in the tunnels last night. Big one, clearly. Men from everywhere. Matron says that it looks like we'll be running around for several days)." she whispered quickly, raising her eyebrows and gesturing wildly at the rows and rows of narrow white beds, already filling with bloodied men. You took in the pained expressions of the wounded men and the frantic ones of the nurses, and all at once you had to fight the urge to run away. You had never seen so many patients at once, and the noise was something that you knew you could never forget. The screams and wails and sobbing drowned all of your senses, and you wondered if Hell could ever sound so bad.

"C'est affreux... Que puis-je faire? Dis-moi que je peux faire quelque chose. (It's awful... What can I do? Tell me I can do something)." You followed her as she set off briskly down the ward, collecting soiled towels from beside the beds.

"Faites tout ce que vous pouvez voir qui doit être fait. Habiller les plaies, nettoyer les lits, transporter l'équipement. Tous sur le pont, vous savez. Ne les laissez pas vous voir rester les bras croisés. (Do whatever you can see that needs doing. Dress wounds, clear beds, carry equipment. All hands on deck, you know. Don't let them see you standing around idly)."

You sent her a quick nod as she ran off with her armful of towels, then turned to the bed beside you, where a man painted with soot and thick red blood was splayed across a bare mattress. Grabbing a basin of warm water from the bedside stand, you set to work scrubbing his tired limbs gently, eyes wandering across the thin and broken form. Reaching up to his face with the now-blackened washcloth, you brushed the heavy mass of matted blonde hair away from his face, swiping at the cracked skin underneath in slow movement. He flinched, tensing up involuntarily, and the eyes that flew open to stare at you were deep and hazel and terrified.

"Tu vas bien, tu vas bien. Je ne vais pas te faire mal. Sûr ... tout est en sécurité maintenant... (You're okay, you're okay. I'm not going to hurt you. Safe... all safe now...)" you murmured to him in your stumbling French, rubbing soft circles on his stained cheek with a shaking fingertip and wetting the washcloth once more. His whole body trembled and his eyes rolled around madly in his head like the eyes of a God forgotten. You wished you would never know what it was like last night.

For the rest of that day, you were rushed off your feet with helping the patients. More and more seemed to flood in from all directions, filling the wards and drawing the nurses in like a swirling cesspit of blood and gore and pain. Grime was washed away, leaving behind faces that were somehow worse, haunting in their shell-shocked horror.

By the time dusk rolled in through the windows high in the stark white walls, the ward was only beginning to quieten, the last of the soldiers carried in almost an hour ago. In a gradual tide of hushed movement, the nurses retreated once more into the dorms and the backrooms of the hospital, the last few remaining to sit by the bedsides and wrap and rewrap the same wounds in the soft glow of candlelight.

Sitting alone on the windowsill of your dorm, you tried again and again to read, your brain dizzying in some other realm of thought that was nowhere near those bleak black letters and the story you'd read before. You'd moved here in a hurry, leaving behind everything you'd known before, and the books were no different. In your carpet-bag when you'd left had been only the three small novels you knew you could never live without, and only enough clothes to last you your journey there and back. You were meant to be home by Christmas, with all the books you could ever hope to read, but as time passed it was becoming increasingly clear that Christmas was going to be a long, long time in coming.

A knock at the door startled you out of your thoughts, making you jump slightly and slam your book shut. You opened the door cautiously, and were met with the sympathetic face of another nurse.

"De quoi avez-vous besoin (What do you need)?"

"La matrone a envoyé pour vous. Il y a un homme dans la salle, anglais. Il est agité, il parle dans son sommeil. Vous êtes anglais, n'est-ce pas? (Matron has sent for you. There's a man in the ward, English. He is restless, he talks in his sleep. You are English, are you not?)".

"Je suis. De quoi a-t-elle besoin pour moi? (I am. What does she need me to do?)"

"Parle lui. Voyez ce qu'il a à dire. Il vaut mieux qu'il parle à voix haute plutôt que de déranger les autres avec son sommeil (Talk to him. See what he has to say. It is better for him to talk aloud than to disturb others with his sleep)."

You sighed, pulling on your apron, wrinkled and creased from the day's hard work, and stepped past the nurse into the corridor. She placed her hand lightly on your arm and gave you a small smile, directing you down to the west ward, where all the British soldiers were lying.

It was not difficult to see which one she was talking about. In the stillness of the ward, one bed was rocking slightly, the patient thrashing wildly in his sleep. His cries echoed throughout the room, piercing through the whimpering and sniffing that hung heavy in the air from all the other beds. A particularly loud wail stopped you in your tracks, and you wanted to throw your hands up to your ears and block out the dreadful noise, but you forced yourself to keep moving towards his bed, biting down on your lip hard enough to taste the hot, metallic blood gathering on the tip of your tongue.

You sat in the chair beside the bed, pulling the curtains tight around the two of you until there was only the bed and you beside it, and in it the man flailing blindly in his horror-stricken fever dream. His hands dropping to his sides to clutch and tear at the bed sheets, you used the opportunity to reach out and stroke his cheek gently, hushing him and pushing the hair back from his sweaty forehead. Over his eyes there was a strip of warm, wet cloth, and you didn't even want to know what would be there should you move it back.

"Who are you." his voice almost made you jump. Low and husky, with a thick Brummie accent, it filled the enclosed space around the two of you like cigarette smoke hanging in the night air. You had not sensed him waking up, but now his breathing was steadying and his body smoothing down against the bed.

"A nurse." you soothed him, still tracing the soft white skin of his face. He made as though to sit up, trying to push up off the bed with unsteady hands, and you pushed him back down lightly, "Shh shhh... Lie down, Mr Shelby. You're weak."

"'M not weak." But his voice was broken and uneven and you could almost hear the smoke in his lungs in the slight wheeze when he breathed.

"Soon, no. But for now let's just let me do the work." He relaxed into your hands, his hands falling back to the bedsheets and you rubbed the back of one of them with your own.

"Where am I?" he croaked.

"General Hospital, Flanders. We found you out by the river, near dead." you spat out the rumour that by now everyone had heard. Five of the men half-drowned, half-suffocated, lying on the riverbank in a pool of soot and blood that seemed to spill from within them, like the war was in their very veins. Five men with no homes to go to and no way to get to them, and four without names. Only Mr Shelby, a name you could swear you had known in some distant lifetime, had been identified, and only he out of the five had survived, although no one was quite sure how.

"Should have left me there." He stiffened, removing his hand from yours and trying to turn away from you, but his ribs ached and it was all he could do not to cry out aloud at the sudden movement. He made do with turning his head to the other side, and you caught the trail of dried black blood that ran down his neck and disappeared under the stiff collar of the white hospital robe. "Y' don't know what I did." His voice was hard and bitter, sad as you had never heard sadness before, but sad at himself, as though even the war was better than what he saw in the mirror every night.

"And I don't particularly want to know. But I can't just let you die, considering my job." you joked lightly, smiling a little at him to cheer him up and then realising that he couldn't see you anyway, and your smile faded away into the evening gloom of the hospital ward.

"Why don't you go save someone who actually deserves it."

"I am, right now." you persisted, and he didn't know whether to laugh or to scream at you or to break down and cry. There was something about you, know you as little even as he did, that drove him a little insane, listening to you challenge him and contradict him as no one had ever done before, and he thought perhaps he liked it. Liked you, but that was cruel and that was weak, and that was something that Tommy Shelby would never do to another soul.

"If you only knew the things I've done-" he chuckled lowly, bitterly, and you got the feeling he was laughing more at himself than at you.

"If I only had a pound note for every man who's come in saying that, I wouldn't be washing and fixing your filth, now would I." and it was true - war was the cruellest thing you know, and it broke men like nothing else. First their bodies, then their minds, then their very souls themselves. In a job like this, it was very difficult not to think about souls, but you were sure that, somewhere within the prison of his broken body, Thomas Shelby had the most beautiful soul that you had never seen.

"Would that you wouldn't, eh." He almost smirked - almost. His lips settled back into a grimace as he tried to laugh.

"I'd have bought meself a set of uniform and be standing in the trenches as we speak."

"So desperate to get to the front line?" He tilted his head as though studying you, and you had to remind yourself that he couldn't see you from beneath his blindfold, or else you were sure you would have squirmed under his scrutiny.

"So desperate to get away from it?"

"Need a way home. 'S work for me back there, and work must be done."

"Then," you spoke decisively, smoothing out his blankets and straightening his chest onto the mattress, and he wheezed painfully at the action, making you flinch instinctively, "I suppose you ought to lie back and let me help you, else you'll never be out of here." you tapped him on the cheek softly, a motherly thing that you hadn't even thought about but now seemed too close, too patronising and at the same time too affectionate. You stood quickly, anxious to run away before he could react and tell you that you were being unprofessional, but as you turned your back to the bed you heard from behind you a quiet chuckle, breathy and honest, and the shifting of bones beneath weary skin.

"Suppose I ought."

You smiled at that, and walked away.

________________________________________________________________________________

Early the next morning, they called on you again to make up his bed linen, ladling into your arms the thick reams of bleached fabric and shoving you in the direction of the west ward. As you saw him, lying on his back and grinning at you as you approached, staring into you with those unseeing eyes as though he had known all night that you would be coming back, you couldn't help but smile. You weren't one to pick favourites but this man was really testing your morals.

"You're back." his voice was still monotonous and weak, and his words hung heavy with exhaustion and a bleak, dark emotion that you hoped you would never feel, yet still you caught a hint of amusement. His statement seemed so decisive, like he had wished you back and here you were, just as he had wanted you to be. Even broken in his bed, Thomas Shelby had a curious power over you, and you hesitated to say you didn't like it.

"Are you so disappointed?"

"On the contrary, love. I quite look forward to our little chats."

"And what's on the mind of the great Thomas Shelby today?" you laughed, snaking an arm around his back and lifting his torso off the bed a little, then pausing as he coughed forcefully to cover up the whine of pain that had slipped out.

"Well wouldn't you like to know." he shot you a trembling smile as his body settled back into your arms. A thrill of pity shot through your heart and you pulled him a little closer into you, gazing down thoughtfully into his weary face and covered eyes. Somewhere between today and yesterday, those eyes had become the most important thing in the world to you, the only thing you wished to God you knew. Something deep within you was stirring when you looked at them, trying to make out the shape through the tough white blindfold, and you knew it wasn't good at all. Men like him weren't made for girls like you, and men with pretty eyes were only ever trouble.

"Well now, let's suppose I do." you pulled back the covers and folded them over the foot of the bed. Looking back at his uncovered form, you couldn't stop your eyes from roaming. From the scars on his legs to the blood that hadn't washed away, to the tired bones that jutted out unnaturally from under withered skin, Thomas Shelby was exhausted, physically as well as mentally. Beautiful, so beautiful, and irreparably fucked up.

You wrapped your free arm under his knees and pulled him into your arms in an awkward bridal position where you could smell the sweet, metallic blood in his skin and on his clothes and he could almost taste the harsh carbolic soap from that awful night before, you kneeling in the water in the darkness, scrubbing the taste of war from your skin again and again until your very soul could bleed white blood and the darkness within you seeped out through every breath into the darkness without.

You almost threw him onto the spare bed that had been cleared beside him.

"If you must. I'm thinking about you." he murmured thoughtfully, as though those words were much deeper than you could ever see, and you longed to see the meaning in his eyes as he stared, unseeing, up at you.

"Nothing too saucy, I hope." you joked, but part of you wondered if you really meant it. You thought perhaps you wouldn't much mind it if he did.

"Never! Get that a lot here?" He tried to gasp in mock indignation, but the breath ended up catching in his throat and he hacked and coughed violently, his eyes stinging with tears at the pain in his chest. Your hand flew out to grab his, and you rubbed small circles on the back of his hand reassuringly, holding him against your chest and rubbing his back with the other hand as he collapsed into you once again.

Once the coughing fit passed you pulled yourself away, trying to ignore as best you could the empty feeling that rushed into your arms in the space he left behind, and the way he tensed up again as soon as you had parted. A trick of the early morning light, and you were beginning to get the feeling that that was a common feature of this man, with all his tricks and secrets.

"Wouldn't be too surprised. Lot of lads missing their gals, and I'm just walking sex appeal. Or so I've been told."

"Bothers you, does it?" there was a cold edge to his voice, protective, possessive even. If you didn't know better, you might say that Thomas Shelby was laying a claim on you.

"Not too much. Flatters my ego, 's all. Got a girl at home, Mr Shelby?" and now it was you that was keeping secrets, trying to control your voice in what you told yourself was a perfectly professional question. Had to know if he had any emergency contacts, that's all there was to it. Still, as he let out a weak laugh and grinned up at you, you could not help but let out a long, shaky breath that you had not known that you were holding. Well, that was one thing cleared up at least, and you thought perhaps you might be happier because of it."

"Tommy." you tested the word, let it roll off your tongue and fill your lungs with its false air, stain your lips and taint the sanctity of that unholy mind. A name you wanted to shout, to scream and to whisper and to plead and to say into the darkness in places you knew were much less professional than this white corner of the hospital ward. It was a name you wanted to keep all to yourself, and it was so much more than just a name. It was a confession, and it was holy. Nah, nothing at home for me but cold and dark and office work."

"No family?"

"None at all." he said far too quickly and you knew not to push it any further. There was trust and there was Thomas, Tommy, Shelby, and something told you that the two didn't coincide much.

"Must be awful lonely." you almost felt bad for him, living all alone in his cold town with his dull work and his tiny little life, and you knew that you and him were not so different after all. For a moment it felt almost like you were lying in the bed beside his, and that these two worlds were somehow one. You felt united, and you understood, because this was a secret the two of you could share, and god, wasn't it domestic?

"I shouldn't say so. Look on the bright side - I'm lying in bed with a pretty girl next to me right now. Not sure I should be so excited to go home just yet." your heart sped up a little with the last statement, aching and leaping at once with the fear of him leaving and the knowledge that while he was here there was nothing you could do but stay by his side. You almost didn't want him to go home at all.

"Aren't you just incorrigible! What must the others all think of me?" you teased, pretending to scold him as you giggled and how long had it been since someone had made you laugh like this?

"Hopefully not what I'm thinking of you, love, else we might have a bit of a fall out." his smooth, easy words and comfortable tone made your smile falter a little despite yourself, and you wondered how many girls he had told the same thing to before.

"Been here too long. Bet you're just itching for a fight."

"Told you I was no good." he said, half-joking and half-sincere, and there was an unnerving depth in his words that really should have made you turn and walk away, back to the others in their little back rooms and the laundry that really did need doing now. But you were right - it had been so long since you had seen the light of a proper day that didn't dawn on the cold grey wards and chambers in a country you had never loved before and now could never stand, and in your bones you longed for a story to take you far away, so against your better judgement you stayed, and all the more thought none the less of yourself for it.

"And I told you that was bullshit." you chastened him softly, lifting him back into your arms and returning him to his now-made bed. You laid down his limbs carefully, straightening out his arms and legs and smoothing down his hair against the pillow as he sighed into the crook of your neck, thick, hot air that burned like kisses down your jaw.

"You should really watch you're mouth while you're working."

"Why don't you watch it for me?"

"Take this bloody thing off my eyes and maybe I will." he grinned, but this time there was an earnest, almost pleading note in it that had your hands already reaching up to his face, and to the cruel blindfold that had so robbed you of the truest beauty that you had ever wished to know.

With soft, tentative movements you peeled off the strips of adhesive that held the cloth in place, pushing aside the blindfold and, cupping his jaw with the other hand, tilting his head to look at you. Those closed, scarred eyelids, and suddenly they were twitching and fluttering, lifting heavily as he forced his eyes to open. And there they were - such bright blue stars that burned your blood and sent your heart to frenzy. And time had stopped around you, arrested in their brilliance, blinded by their light, and a bolder girl than you might say that this was all that there would ever be, for he was here and so were you and didn't it seem a lot like fate?

"Beautiful. Nurse (Y/LN), you've been holding out on me." he almost gasped, holding your hand to his lips and pressing a small kiss against the back, his eyes on you like you were all that he'd been waiting for and you wished, you wished, you were.

"Mr Shelby..." you blushed against your better judgement, and he hated himself for doing this to you. He wasn't entirely sure how it had happened, but somehow and so suddenly he was holding the hand of the most beautiful girl he had seen in a very long time, and she wasn't trying to run away. This was the most afraid that Tommy Shelby had been in his life.

"Tommy." he chided gently, and your smile widened.

"(Y/N)."

"So beautiful."

Your faces were closer than you knew you should be, the hospital far away and all around and you wondered if the others were watching you two now, pressed together and so close and still too far away. It was all you could do not to bridge the gap and kiss him, and in another world perhaps you would because then perhaps there was a chance that this could be something more than just a week in a crowded hospital in the grim hell of war. But as it was, you pulled away, closing your eyes so as not to see the light in his flicker and dim as you parted, a thousand times the worse to want his light.

"I should-" you choked out, and his eyes were large and pleading and Tommy had no idea what was going on but he knew that this was the worst that he had ever felt and he could feel his very heart splitting in two a little as you stood to leave.

"Or you could stay."

"I really shouldn't."

"Please." he whispered, and you wished and wished, and you began to walk away again, bed linen under your arm.

"Sleep. I'll be back tomorrow."

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It was not for him to know that, later that night when the other nurses had retired to their chambers and the dimly-lit backrooms of the darkened hospital, you crept once more out of the nurses quarters and down to the west-wing, where he lay, for once, asleep. Sitting by his bedside in the gloom, you longed to reach out and touch him, and knew that you wouldn't wake him for the world. He looked so peaceful while he slept, and you ached for him as you had for no other, wished that life would bring him rest like this again as you could not seem to bring him health no matter how hard he tried. Even now, in the purplish shadows of evening, he looked so small and thin, a ghost among his fellow men. He looked a world away from when he'd boarded his train to the front line, know that man as you did not. Something in him whispered that, just as it whispered that you should leave, and just the same you pushed it back and sighed into the palms of your hands, drunk with your bittersweet melancholy and the fear with which you loved him endlessly.

And of course it would not mean anything that, when he stirred in his sleep, early in the morning and you still beside him, and began to shake and sob, you rested your hand on his shoulder gently and, for the first time since this bloody war began, you let yourself sing quietly to him. Snapshots of memories from a lifetime that had come before, softening in the blurred blue darkness and painting the world around the two of you, and for a moment you could almost believe that there were only the two of you in all the world, playing at games of war and house that were too old and too dull to tie you down. You could almost spread your wings and fly away to greener gardens where days were meant for living and nights for dreaming dreams that did not wake you colder than you began.

To the sisters who would ask the next morning, when they caught you half-asleep in the chair beside his bed, you were afraid that he would have another nightmare and disturb the other patients, but even you knew that that was not the case. You were there because you wanted to be, and you wanted to be there because he was there, and there was no where else on Earth that you could breathe as freely as you did when by his side.

But you didn't need to tell him that, because he was Tommy Shelby, and it seemed he had problems enough on his own.

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A/N: so here it is! This was originally going to be a really long oneshot, but then I got really into writing the plot and making it more and more angsty so it kind of became the first part of a REALLY long series plan (I have no self-control, this is a problem). Just a warning, this is the fluffy chapter. Like, one of literally three or four or whatever chapters with no heartbreaking angst (I say optimistically, knowing this is all gonna be so underwhelming I swear to God). ALSO (this is the last thing I swear), this is gonna take me so long to update I don't even know any more, I have a shit ton of exams between now and July, so any of y'all that actually like my shitty writing skills ARE gonna end up hating me for this.

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@actorinfluence @captivatedbycillianmurphy @stressedandbandobessed7771

#peaky blinders #Tommy Shelby #Tommyshelbyxreader #fanfiction

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