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soup-fish · 3 years

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Hiya I meant to send you asks like forever ago but I'm bad so I didn't do that so here they are now they're from this ask prompt thing you reblogged

Feel free to answer these about any of your OCs cause I don't really remember any except rabbit and Knight so~

1, 10, 25, 29, 33, 37, 46, 50, 61, 63, 78, 80, sorry there's so many you don't have to answer them all, I am just cursed with insatiable curiosity only balanced out by my fear of asking too many questions and being annoying—

Hi!!! You’re not bad!! You’re one of the coolest aliens ever!!!!

I am absolutely answering them all with multiple OCs because I will take every opportunity I get to talk about them.

Putting it under a cut because it is LONG and I don't wanna bother.

1. What is their gender?

The Knight: (she/her)

Rabbit: agender but they use (they/them) pronouns

The Apprentice: (he/him)

Dijon: (he/him)

Julienne: (she/her) (they/them)

Monty: (he/him) (they/them)

Diana: (she/her)

Captain Pumpernickel: (he/him)

William: (he/him)

10. What are some of their talents/skills?

The Knight: Swordfighting, Dancing, pottery

Rabbit: Parlor magic, puppetry, Acting

The Apprentice: collecting, Dunescotch [the world's rough equivalent of chess], chemistry

Dijon: cooking, writing, gardening

Julienne: biking, photography, bird watching

Monty: people watching, bingo, garage sales

Diana: fencing, archery, calligraphy

Captain Pumpernickel: Singing, acting, swordfighting

William: whittling, philosophy, accordion

25. What is their biggest flaw?

The Knight: her naivete

Rabbit: Their reluctance to be vulnerable

The Apprentice: His aversion to change and the unknown

Dijon: his self-pitying nature

Julienne: Her self-centeredness

Monty: his...not quite human-ness

Diana: She’s uptight

Captain Pumpernickel: hooboy where do I start? For one, his complete and utter dismissal of everything that doesn’t contribut to ADVENTURE

William: his lack of ambition

29. How would they describe their own personality?

The Knight: “Hmmm. I try to be as nice as possible and I’ve been told I’m rhapsodic! I don’t think my singing’s that good but it’s a sweet compliment!”

Rabbit: “Witty. Yes. Sarcastic? Yes. The people’s demon? In more ways than one~ Even hell can’t handle me.”

The Apprentice: “Simple, studious, and an enjoyer of quiet studying. I tend to be rather straight-forward in my methodology.”

Dijon: “God do I even have a personality? What am I besides a vaguely human shaped pile of mistakes and disappointments?”

Julienne: “A fun loving fun person!”

Monty: “Just your average Earth person! Nothing else to see!”

Diana: “Calm, cool, collected, the perfect dignitary”

Captain Pumpernickel: “AN ADVENTURER! And a lover! Of your mother! Bring out the good ale my good fellows! Your captain has won another battle of the wits!”

William: “Personality? Never heard of it. Wouldn’t even begin to know what the word means. I know no such words such as sarcastic, laid-back, carefree. Nooooo.”

33. What is their biggest fear? How would they react to having to face it?

The Knight: Being ignored and unheard. She’d probably get really frustrated and maybe cry a little as a result. If it really got to her, she’d need help being pulled out of a dark place.

Rabbit: Abandonment. Their general reaction to it is to put on a veneer of not caring and close off from the outside world more, even going so far as to act annoying and unlikable so that people leave before getting close.

The Apprentice: Not knowing. Or, by extension, not being able to learn. He’d probably lash out in anger and storm off.

Dijon: Being an unredeemable person. He faces it every day and he deals with it by being melodramatic in all of his writings and wallowing in misery. AKA, not dealing with it.

Julienne: People being genuine. They’d probably get really uncomfortable and try to excuse themselves from the conversation or make jokes to redirect the conversation.

Monty: The republic finding him hiding out on Earth. He’d fight or do anything possible out of desperation.

Diana: Being a disappointment

Captain Pumpernickel: Not being able to bang your mom not having adventures with his crew. He'd probably be reduced to a shell of his former self.

William: Not being able to talk his way out of a situation.

37. How easy is it for them to say “I love you”? Do they say it without meaning it?

The Knight: Pretty easy but she means it when she says it. She's just full of love tbh.

Rabbit: It's really hard for them to say "I love you". Really really hard. Especially at the start of their arc, they would never say it, however much they mean it.

The Apprentice: It's hard for him to say, simply because it's not quantifiable enough. How does one properly explain how much they love someone? He prefers showing love through actions and more direct compliments.

Dijon: It's not easy for him to say, but he says it without meaning it, both knowingly and unknowingly.

Julienne: She doesn't say it often, but she says it to the people she cares about occasionally. She prefers to say it through time spent and physical touch though.

Monty: The Dude Loves Everything. But they also barely understand the meaning of the word so...

Diana: She doesn't say it almost at all, but prefers to use acts of service and gift giving.

Captain Pumpernickel: He never says "I love you" because he usually doesn't really mean it. He'll use some other compliment or compound of it.

William: He doesn't throw it around easily, so when he says it, it has so much more weight behind it.

46. How easily can they express emotions? How easily can they hide emotions?

The Knight: She expresses her emotions a lot and very easily, but she has a hard time hiding them.

Rabbit: They think they're sly at hiding their emotions, but they let micro-expressions slip constantly. If anyone decided to notice, one would

The Apprentice: He's a blank sheet baybee. What is he thinking? Unless it's frustration or anger, you'll never know.

Dijon: He's just kinda sad all the time. He's miserable and everyone notices.

Julienne: She allows some emotions to come through. It's a bit of a calculated effort.

Monty: All of his emotions come through all the time and he doesn't mind.

Diana: Well, she hides her sadness and happiness, but allows her frustration and such to shine through.

Captain Pumpernickel: He expresses emotions very openly and very loudly. He is a dramatic ham of a captain.

William: He keeps a near perpetual smile that occasionally wavers when things go wrong. He doesn't like to open up emotionally.

50. How would you describe their style of clothing? How would they describe their style of clothing?

The Knight: "fun and comfy!" Light armor with room for mobility but colorful

Rabbit: "...sexy" literally naked except a cloak.

The Apprentice: "practical and sensible" like a fucking nerd

Dijon: "presentable" the best time to wear a sweater, is all the time

Julienne: "quirky" quirky.

Monty: "human clothing for humans! :D" weird mixture of 1800s stuff and modern day stuff. Weird guy.

Diana: "regular??? Clothes???" Fancy ballgown at first then swashbuckling but still expensive.

Captain Pumpernickel: "EXTRAVAGANT AND ASTOUNDING" sexy hobo pirate.

William: "only the highest tier clothing/s" ...rags. doesn't care enough.

61. Which season is their favorite season?

The Knight: Spring

Rabbit: Autumn, harvest festivals and such are good for demons.

The Apprentice: Winter, you have excuses to stay inside and work. Plus the vibe is nice when it's harsh outside and cozy inside

Dijon: Summer, fewer holidays and he's not really cold resistant.

Julienne: Summer. They like the general vibe and popsicles and shorts and sunglasses and such.

Monty: Winter, they love the holidays.

Diana: Summer, she likes the heat.

Captain Pumpernickel: Autumn! He just thinks the weather and vibe are RIPE FOR ADVENTURE!

William: Winter! He like staying inside and the cold.

63. What is always guaranteed to make them smile?

The Knight: her partner! Or a silly joke! Or a delicious snack! Or friendship!

Rabbit: schadenfreude

The Apprentice: order and productivity

Dijon: his favorite childhood book

Julienne: her pet rats! Or pet frog!

Monty: A human thing like paperclips

Diana: this one is a hard one. Succeeding at any of her hobbies.

Captain Pumpernickel: ADVENTURE. and friends

William: seeing Diana smile and be free.

78. Who do they consider to be their best friend?

The Knight: The prince!

Rabbit: the Knight

The Apprentice: books

Dijon: julienne

Julienne: no one. Monty is close.

Monty: ALL HUMANS ARE BEST! AND FRIENDS!!

Diana: no one [William eventually]

Captain Pumpernickel: The sea. And his first mate. And his quartermaster.

William: no one [Diana eventually]

80. Are they a morning person or a night owl?

The Knight: Morning person

Rabbit: Night Owl

The Apprentice: Morning Person

Dijon: Night Owl

Julienne: Morning Person

Monty: Morning Person

Diana: Morning Person

Captain Pumpernickel: Morning Person

William: Night Owl

#arc-gx #17th #February #2021 #February 17th 2021 #THIS TOOK FOREVER #IM SO SORRY #FINALLY GOT THROUGH THEM ALL #THIS WAS FUN #THANK YOU #dante babbles

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gothamdetected-a · 4 years

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multiverse.

i know what you’re thinking. sim are you absolutely fucking insane, don’t even TRY to tackle this one. you’re right i am insane. and yes i am still going to try and tackle a meta about DC multiverses HOWEVER, to give myself on shred of sanity on this treacherous journey, i will say that this is mainly going to be about the multiverse from a bruce perspective. this ride is a batman focused train i’m afraid. also i want to state that this is by no means a perfect explanation – i’m a) trying to keep it simple and b) still am lost on parts of the timeline myself so. its what i can offer.

ok so, originally NCP, or the national comics publication (who will one day become DC), wrote their golden age heroes on an earth now designated as earth-2. in the 30s, just before the war, comic books absolutely exploded as a media format, and a bunch of companies all jumped the gun on creating superheroes. many of DCs most endearing and recognisable heroes were created all the way back then, however many of them also are not quite who you will recognise as the character today. hal jordan wasn’t green lantern, but was instead a man called alan scott, jay garrick was the flash instead of barry allen etc etc. don’t worry though! batman is still batman, and has been bruce wayne since 1939. earth-2 batman, as he will come to be known, is a bright kind of guy found on technicolour pages with a cute lil robin by his side – there is a reason for this. the war. literally NCP said we cant be sending out dark and gritty comics to people dying in trenches so time to make it colourful and faintly ridiculous, and bruce wayne is a surprisingly optimistic guy for a man who watched his parents be slaughtered in front of him.

of course, by the 60s, NCP (who are also sort of known as NPP and really known by your average joe as superman-dc, based on their most successful comic runs) had realised their timelines were getting a bit squiggly for their golden age heroes, and most of them had been replaced out by their silver age counterparts anyway. so between 1961 and 1963, NCP start creating another “earth”, officially designated earth-1, which would become their main planet for all kinds of superhero shenanigans. the justice society of america becomes the justice league of america, and when you think of batman, you’re probably thinking of earth-1 batman. at least pre crisis. and, once they get taste for building whole new earths, we also get earth-3 (1964), or “opposite world”, where the good guys are bad guys, and batman is owlman and instead of the jla we have the crime syndicate of america.

so sim, what other earths did dc come up with? well, i literally refuse to list them all because it was a multiverse and they did not slow down, but the ones that are most important to me are earth-5 where the only hero to live on this planet is bruce wayne/batman, and earth-89 where lois marries bruce instead of clark ahAHAHHAA. but i can tell you that pre-crisis there are 91 designated earths, and basically it could have gone on forever. there was an earth-c minus, earth-124.1, an earth where everyone was reptiles, honestly it was a MESS. and therein lies the problem.

now i’ve just used the term “pre-crisis”. what’s that, sim? maybe you’re not very familiar with comics, or with the recent dctv version of said comics, and so i will endeavour to explain one of the most brain numbing storylines that spans DC. also known as a retcon. see all these earths with their own histories and heroes and well everything really was becoming very inconvenient and meant a lot of world jumping and who can interact with who and everything was getting like spaghetti because they couldn’t calm down on the earth-building. so DC (who are officially DC at this point, 1977 babeyy), specifically a guy called marv wolfman (coolest name ever) who was sick of so many earths, comes up with the bright idea that will later form into a comic run called crisis on infinite earths (1985-1986). it was a serious crossover event, really considered by many to be the first of its kind. it sold extremely well, boosting dc’s flagging sales against it’s biggest rival, marvel. and as for the plot, it’s a bit convoluted but essentially some bloke turns up and starts to destroy all these worlds, and it becomes a race between the heroes and villains as to who can save/conquer the remaining earths that are left. although there are crises before and after this specific run, pre-crisis basically always refers to this particular crisis event, as it really shaped DC for the next 30 years.

for a while the retcon does an okay job of keeping the number of earths low. there’s still some earths that are considered non-continuous floating around, but mainly there’s just earth-1, which is now a merger of the most important “earths” that existed pre-crisis, and a way for all of DCs heroes to now be in one place and interact with each other. other earths at this point include;

earth-23 (1986) – a small pocket dimension

earth-17 (1990) – we don’t talk about this. honestly spare yourself and. don’t look. its horrific.

earth-27 (1990) – a historically divergent planet with a hero actually called vegetable man.

earth-85 (1987) – a hodgepodge of post-crisis characters live here, chillin

earth-988 (1990) – superboy is the only hero in this universe

the antimatter universe – all of pre-crisis’ earth-3 villains, including owlman, get shoved here for later use when dc need a couple of villains to come back.

and for a while all is well. then comes DC elseworlds (1989). which. you know. i love. it gave me victorian batman. pirate batman. caveman batman. vampire batman. frankenstein batman. terrorist batman fighting against russian!superman. they even gave me marvel crossovers, with captain america meeting batman. it was a glorious time. technically elseworlds is not considered canon, ran outside of canon as a way for writers to explore those wacky kind of worlds lost to the crisis, which is dumb because some of the plot lines are both hilarious and incredible. but the numbers started to get ridiculous again. most elseworlds are named after the year that the plot takes place in, so we get earth-1889, earth-1938 etc, but even more of them just seem to have random designations. i think by the time they reached earth-5050 they sort of knew that theyd fucked up again. we’ve had zero hour, we’ve got hypertime and kingdom come, and besides, its been a while since they had a good crossover, so by the time 2005 rolls around its time for crisis pt 2 (because dc love to use the word crisis for crossovers) or as it’s officially known infinite crisis. infinite crisis has an even more confusing plot involving a bunch of slightly nuts versions of characters escaping a pocket dimension, earths being created and then merged, and a rogue ai which batman made and then has to destroy because his own creation becomes too powerful etc etc. the only good thing to come out of it was earth-0, or bizarro world, because bizarro & batzarro are my babies. don’t worry though, this new set of earths won’t last long either, as in 2008 DC conclude their trilogy of crises with final crisis that featured one of the most important events in batman’s history – darkseid “killing” him. yes the quotations are important. i’ll leave you to infer what they mean.

so 3 crises later and everything is still just as messy as they’ve ever been and there’s 60 years worth of comic history being tangled about, and marvel had already established a very successful reboot in 2000, and anything marvel do, we can do better, so DC do their first, full and proper reboot. unlike retcons before it, which is where they retroactively try to fix what people already know and simplify timelines & earths, this is like someone shaking the etch-a-sketch and starting fresh. back in infinite crisis an arbitrary number was assigned to how many “earths” there could be – 52. and so in 2011, DC go hey that’s neat and create what becomes known as the new- or nu-52. heroes are given shiny new backstories, everything is streamlined and wonderful, sales rise, DC has a clean slate to build off again.

ha.

yeah that doesn’t happen.

this reboot, also known as flashpoint, due to it being spawned from another big ol’ crossover of the same name, shows barry allen trapped in an alternate universe where everything is not quite right – his mother is alive, superman is nowhere to be found and he doesn’t have his powers. worst of all thomas wayne is batman. yeah, batman’s dad is batman. thanks DC, i hate it. reverse-flash has tried to change history and stop the jla from ever being formed – le gasp. barry goes to fix it, merges three universes together – earth-0, which isn’t a bizarro world but now the “main" earth, also called new earth or prime earth (DC), earth-13 (vertigo) and earth-50 (wildstorm), but also causes 10 years to be “lost” to these characters. there are now 52 brand spanking new earths, each sitting in their own universe as part of the multiverse. no one remembers anything except barry. even for a reboot and convergence of DC’s franchises, it’s messy as fuck. and it goes to shit very very quickly. people don’t really like n-52. DC have cancelled everything, certain characters such as cassandra cain-wayne are fucking ERASED from existence, no one likes the new costume designs, its an absolute shit show and the plots get very confusing very quickly.

so what do DC do?

they reboot again. sigh.

only 5 years after the mess of nu-52, they produce DC rebirth, a new relaunch of all their famous runs. brainiac does some magic and collects a bunch of worlds together and magically we’re all going to forget the last 5 years of comic hell. it is a reboot to retcon flashpoint as though that never happened. yes, DC are actually retconning their own reboots. talk about sweeping it under the carpet. technically “rebirth” only ran for a year as a promotional thing for the reboot, before joining with the larger, now-singular DC universe, however everyone still calls it rebirth because if we don’t give these things names it will get even more fucking confusing than it already is. rebirth also still has 52 universes making up the DC multiverse, just to make things even more simple and easy to understand (DC what is it with 52. why 52.) although lots of the earths in this multiverse have been re-designated – eg. pre-crisis earth-31 was home to an aged batman who fakes his death to go train a bunch of new vigilantes (the dark knight returns), and now 31 is an apocalyptic wasteland or some shite. a lot of these earths were re-designated during the flashpoint/nu-52 era, and even though rebirth was supposed to erase that, DC have decided never mind we’ll keep it. there’s also 7 mysteriously undesignated earths – ooh spooky, they definitely won’t feature in the next major crossover. also for a multiverse with 52 universes, they sure do have more than 52 : there’s the microverse, a bunch of universes collectively called “the sphere of the gods” where apokalips and like, literal heaven & hell exist, an innerverse???, dreamworld, limbo, DC are taking the piss they only said there were 52 earths but that means they can make as many other shitty dimensions and pocket-universes as they please apparently. don’t even get me started on the source wall. for the most part the writers just. don’t acknowledge this and stick to the main prime earth. for the most part. thanks for throwing thomas wayne as batman back into the mix, rebirth.

so that’s the last of it, right sim? eh, almost. it should have been the last of it, really. and then geoff johns couldn't keep his mouth shut and produced possibly the worst comic in recent history, if not ever, doomsday clock. now doomsday clock is a nightmare for an impossibly long list of reasons that i won’t get into here because this isn’t a rant about why i think doomsday clock is the worst thing to ever happen to dc (although that’s a catchy title i should use that some day) - no, the reason i bring up doomsday clock is because. oh my god even saying this makes me sad. doomsday clock proves that the pre-crisis universes still exist and are still out there. somewhere. canonically. sim why is that sad i thought you liked everything pre-52. it’s sad because it means at any point now, DC could bring them back, ruin their own legacy, make everything even more confusing than it already is. i love pre-52 stuff but you gotta leave it alone. currently doomsday clock has only established that these universes exist as a way to honour every era of superman, because DC didn’t want to completly erase some of the incredible work and storylines put into him as a character. fine, fair enough. but it does leave the possibility that they will try and return to them too. comic book writers love doing funky story lines like that. they think they need to write something that’s never been done before and instead of coming up with something actually unique, they just poke around in the multiverse WHICH IS HOW WE ENDED UP WITH THIS AS A PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

ahem.

hopefully this helped clarify some stuff for people, especially those folks who aren’t big comic fans/expereience dc through the DCEU or DCTV, when encountering rpers who say they base their characterisation off of, for example pre-n52/flashpoint comics, like myself.

oh, and thank you for coming to my ted sim talk.

#i dont know if i can put this as a meta #its just me ranting again #hm #\system\directory\hidden.txt ›› META #long post /

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donteattheappleshook · 5 years

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Just Human Volume 2 Part 5/5

Ao3

Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4

Part 1

A continuation of last year’s @cssns story, Just Human. Now that Killian is a ghost and Mary Margaret knows everything, what does life have in store for a group of supernatural misfits? With the threat of Gold gone, Emma learns that sometimes just being human is the most complicated challenge of all.

So here it is guys, the final chapter of this story that started over a year ago. Thank you guys so much for all your comments and likes and reblogs, it’s really made writing it all worth it and I hope I did these four idiots justice.

*I’d also suggest reading it on Ao3 because tumblr takes away all my italics and there were a lot of them in this chapter...

As always, thank you to the ever patient and talented @djlbg for not just one but TWO beautiful artworks and to the wonderful @thejollyroger-writer “the comma queen” for all her work and support as an excellent beta!

And another, special thanks to @kmomof4 for inviting me to join the CSSNS last year which lead to this whole story being started in the first place.

EPILOGUE

Henry stayed with them for four years. Four years where Emma and Killian raised him as their own alongside Leo. Henry was there for the boy’s first steps, for his first words, and for Mary Margaret’s announcement that she was having another baby. Henry was also there when David finally got his act together and proposed. Actually, they were all there when it happened. Maybe they were hiding a few tables away at the restaurant after Henry had figured out where and when David had planned to pop the question, but the important thing was: they were there.

“I can’t believe you guys haunted my proposal,” David had griped.

“Shouldn’t have told the kid then,” Emma shrugged. She didn’t miss the wink David sent Henry and she wondered how much Henry had actually figured out and how much David had spoon-fed him to ensure they would all be there. She smiled. She also smiled when she listened to Killian tease David for crying as he watched Mary Margaret walk down the aisle with baby Ruth in her arms and Emma, Leo, and Killian standing at his side.

Emma remembers the panic and the joy that had gripped her heart that night two months after Henry had come into their lives - the day his door appeared. She, Henry and Killian were curled up on the sofa, Killian having read to him from a book of fairytales for the upteenth time. Emma pretended she didn’t take offence to the fact that Henry had declared Killian the superior reader. She couldn’t fault him though, he did the voices much better than she could.

“Mom?” Henry had asked and the two of them froze.

“Yeah, kid?” she answered, barely getting the words out over the lump in her throat.

“Do you think we could go look at the ships again tomorrow?” he turned his big puppy dog eyes on her and Emma melted.

“Sure.”

Killian smiled, leaning in conspiratorially. “You know, if you’re really good and practice your ghost skills we might even be able to sneak onto one.”

Henry’s eyes had lit up. “Really?!”

Killian winked and Emma nudged him in the ribs. ‘Please don’t teach our kid to be a criminal,’ she wanted to say but the look on Henry’s face stopped her. Henry lunged at Killian, wrapping his arms around his middle.

“You’re the coolest dad ever,” came his voice, muffled in Killian’s chest.

Killian looked at her and couldn’t stop the affectionate smile at the look of amazement on his face. He cleared his throat, ruffling the boy’s hair.

As if nothing had happened, Henry leaped up, announcing he was going to get ice cream, Emma vaguely reminding him not to take a lot so it wouldn’t melt. As if he hadn’t just changed their lives forever with two little words. When he’d left the room she turned to her husband who still looked a little shell-shocked.

“He’s never called us that before,” Killian said softly.

Emma shook her head. “No, he hasn’t.”

“I really like it.”

Emma laughed, tears stinging her eyes. “Yeah, me too.”

Killian reached out, brushing her hair back behind her ear and letting his thumb come up to wipe away an errant tear. He looked like he wanted to say more, but was cut off by a tiny bundle of energy precariously holding a bowl of ice cream crashing into their laps. They’d sat, taking turns tasting the spoonful of ice cream until Henry looked up quizzically.

“Why did you guys put a door in the bookshelf?” he asked, raising a brow in a way that was so reminiscent of Killian that Emma almost laughed. Almost, then his words hit her. A door?

Both their heads snapped towards the bookcase where a small, blue door had suddenly appeared right beside the shelf where they kept Henry and Leo’s books. Emma’s heart raced in her chest. She felt the blood leave her face, her body numb, humming and empty except for one feeling, dread.

No. No, she thought helplessly. Not yet. It’s too soon. She hadn’t had enough time. She would never have enough time.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Henry asked, causing Emma to blink and look up at Killian who looked white as, well, a ghost.

“That’s…” Killian started, the words getting caught in his throat. Emma wanted to shake her head at him. Please don’t tell him! she wanted to cry. But she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t make this decision for him, as much as she wanted to keep him forever.

“That’s your door,” Killian said finally, reaching out to brush Henry’s hair out of his face. He looked to her, begging, and she knew he couldn’t go on. He’d done his part, now it was time for her to do her part.

“It will take you to the other side… to whatever there is after this,” she explained as delicately as she could.

Henry looked at both of them, his lip trembling as he continued to glance back at the door. “I don’t want to go,” he said quietly and suddenly, the door was gone. “I want to stay with you.”

Something washed over Emma then: relief, sorrow, joy, fear. He’d turned down his door. What could that mean? Would Henry we trapped here forever? Would he stay a ten year old boy forever? On a selfish level Emma wanted exactly that, to keep him here like this, keep them here like this forever. But she knew it wasn’t right. All little boys have to grow up.

She didn’t know what to say, so she pulled Henry close and told him he didn’t have to go, that she loved him, but as she looked at Killian, she knew. She knew that they both knew that this could only end in heartbreak. As she looked at the little boy in her arms, though, heard him tell her he loved her too, she decided the heartbreak was worth it. She would do everything in her power to help him move on - but not until he was ready. And until then, she would love him, love all of them more than anyone had ever loved another human being before.

It was four years later when that day finally came. Emma and Killian had taken Henry to the park to play with some of the other kids, some that he remembered from his days as a living child. He was with a small group, all the other boys and girls towered over him now. When they all ran off to start a game, Henry hung back. His parents watched as he made his way to the top of the small, wooden tower in the jungle gym, the one he’d named his castle. He sat for a moment before pulling a book from his bag, staring at it intently.

Emma nudged Killian, who had been watching two little girls sword fighting with sticks, and nudged her head in their son’s direction. They joined him at the top of the tower, squeezing in on either side of him. Emma took note of the book in his hand. Peter Pan.

“What’s troubling you, lad?” Killian prodded gently. “You don’t want to play with the other kids?”

“They’re…” Henry paused. “They’re not kids anymore.” Emma looked at Killian. She knew. She knew this moment was coming. The moment where Henry realised that his life wouldn’t ever be the same as the other children’s. That he wouldn’t grow up and change like them. She’d had that realisation herself a few months after turning down her own door; but it was different for her. She was an adult. Being twenty-eight forever was very different from being frozen at ten years old.

Emma looked at the book in his hands again, wishing she had something to say that would help. She’d known this moment was coming, so had Killian, but neither of them had any idea what they could possibly say to make it better.

“I think…” Henry hesitated again and she and Killian waited, letting him process whatever he needed to process. “I think I want to grow up,” he admitted, looking at them for help, like he wasn’t sure what to do with this revelation.

Emma bit her lip to stop it from trembling. “Of course you do,” she said, placing a kiss on his temple. He was done being Peter Pan. He was ready to leave Neverland and grow up. And he couldn’t. Because Emma had been selfish all those years ago and hadn’t pushed him to go through his door. She looked at Killian over Henry’s head, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was staring fixedly at a spot behind her. Emma followed his gaze and let out an audible gasp as her heart jumped into her throat.

There, just above the ladder they’d climbed up into the tower, was a little blue door with a pirate ship carved in it. She stared at it in silence and bewilderment until Henry, who had noticed something was different, looked up to see what they were staring at.

“Is that for me?” he asked.

Two things happened that day.

The first was that Killian and Emma learned that ghosts didn’t only get one door, that there wasn’t only one chance to move on, one bit of unfinished business in a person’s life. And how could there be? People were too complex, too multidimensional, too human to have only one desire.

The second, was that Henry left them. After long, tearful hugs, kisses, promises, ‘I love you’s’ and a few more tearful hugs from Emma, Henry had stood and walked towards his door. Just before he opened it, he paused, turning back to them to thank them.

“Thank you for being my parents,” he told them before stepping through, and Emma felt as though her heart had been ripped from her chest. She let out a sob that was almost a scream at the pain of watching him leave. She knew that one day she’d be happy. That she’d look back on this moment with fondness and remember the happy boy who’d come into their lives. But for now, she only grieved.

Killian stayed silent. He was silent for almost two full days, leaving Emma to explain what had happened to David and Mary Margaret through her tears. It was an awful day in the house, the only one Emma can remember there ever being.

After two days of her crying, and Killian being silent, Emma finally let her tears dry, largely, she was sure, because she had none left in her body. It was then and only then that Killian had let himself cry and Emma realised he’d been trying to stay strong. She’d told him what an idiot he was as the two of them cried together, laughing eventually because they didn’t know what else to do.

They cried and laughed as Killian pulled her close and brought her lips to his as they both sought comfort in the most basic and intimate way they could, drowning out the pain with pleasure if only for a moment.

Later, when their tears had dried and they lay under the sheets, holding one another to make sure they wouldn’t float away, Killian spoke silently.

“I already miss being a father,” he said and Emma’s heart ached for him. “Being his father,” he clarified.

“I know,” she sighed, placing a kiss to the centre of his chest.

“What do we do now?” he asked, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck.

“We keep living,” she told him.

And they did. They let their lives continue as they had before, though slightly emptier, helping their friends raise Leo and Ruth, celebrating when Mary Margaret announced a third was on its way. It wasn’t easy - but when was being human ever?

Killian was pondering this, coming to terms with the fact that he may have to live with an emptiness in his heart forever and musing that this was technically the final stage of grief, when Emma walked through the door. In each of her hands was a smaller one. At her elbows stood a boy and a girl whom Emma introduced as Ava and Nicholas.

“I didn’t know where else to bring them,” Emma told him as they set the children up with crayons and paper in front of the TV. Killian smiled, wrapping an arm around her.

“You did good, Swan,” he told her, and as he looked at the children who had now started throwing crayons at each other, a small bit of the emptiness started to fill.

At that moment, David and a very pregnant Mary Margaret had walked in with two children and several bags of groceries.

“Oh,” Mary Margaret had exclaimed, stopping dead when she saw the kids in the living room. She looked at Killian and Emma and a smile spread across her face at Emma’s shrug. “How wonderful!” she said, rushing over to introduce herself and Leo.

“You know, Emma,” David said, balancing Ruth on one hip and digging through the baby bag for her pacifier with his free hand. “We’re gonna have to build some bunk beds pretty soon if you keep bringing home strays,” he teased, “make this a proper foster home.”

Emma’s eyes met Killian’s and everything clicked. Yes. that was it. That was exactly what they would do. Not the bunk beds, but the foster home. A home for the lost souls out there who had nowhere else to go. They would give them a home, a happy one, for as long as they needed or wanted. A home full of love and laughter and joy and family, the likes of which she had never had.

She raised a brow at Killian who smirked at her. “Yes, Swan, I heard it.” He came forward, wrapping his arms around her from behind as they both watched the scene in front of them. “Emma Swan, the saviour of lost souls,” he teased, and Emma gave him a light elbow to the ribs but snuggled more deeply into his embrace.

She glanced at David and Mary Margaret and their children, playing with Nicholas and Ava, then up at Killian. She’d been wrong before when she’d thought she never had a real home, a real family, a happy one. She did have it. And now she wanted to share it.

The four of them stayed in that house for a long time, years building a life together for themselves and for every new addition that came and went. Over the years they welcomed dozens of lost children, some stayed only for a short while, needing to feel safe to move one, others stayed longer, like Alice, a new vampire that Killian had found driven half mad by her bloodlust but more so by her desire not to succumb to it.

With a few blood bags in her, Alice had warmed up quickly, particularly to Killian, whom she began looking at as a mentor of sorts. She was a sixteen year old street-kid who and had been turned accidentally when an older female vampire had left her for dead. She’d latched on to the kindness and guidance Killian had offered her with a desperation that broke Emma’s heart and left her to wonder how many people had hurt the poor girl before they found her.

And Killian loved her. They had a bond that Emma couldn’t fully understand, maybe it was a vampire thing, but she couldn’t begrudge them it either. Killian lit up when she came into the room, telling him about her day and how she’d made it through home room without even thinking of biting someone. Her heart had leaped at the blush that had risen to his cheeks when Alice had teasingly called him ‘dad’ for his over-protective nature. Eventually, the teasing had left the title and she’d taken to calling him dad all the time.

Emma had felt a warmth overtake her whole body the day Alice called her ‘mom’ for the first time. Emma had never imagined raising a teenage girl, but she found that there was something truly wonderful about the kind of bond that came from both of them being mature enough to talk about serious things like life and love and the future, and the responsibility that came with ensuring the teenager didn’t do stupid stuff and get herself killed. They were friends, and as Alice grew up, emotionally though never physically, the bond between them strengthened, growing slowly and surely, digging in its roots. Different from the immediate, intense bond Alice had formed with Killian, but just as powerful.

When Alice turned eighteen, she decided to try her luck at college in another city but continued to come home to visit at every possible opportunity and kept in touch. FaceTime was a fantastic invention. And while the house might have felt emptier without her, there was no chance for it to with David and Mary Margaret’s three children, a little ghost girl named Wendy, and the young werewolf named Will that David had taken under his wing last month. It was taking a lot of work, but slowly he was learning to control his change.

This wasn’t the first werewolf they’d welcomed into the house. The first had been Ruby, twenty-one and freshly turned. She didn’t even know what was happening to her, her blackouts were so intense. But she’d stayed with them for nearly a year until she felt capable of controlling her wolf. David suspected that Graham, the young, new deputy officer at the station had something to do with it.

The house had begun to build a reputation. Often the children and young people there had been found by one of the four, but every once in a while someone would show up on their doorstep, saying they’d been told this was a safe place. They never turned anyone away, regardless of space, or numbers or whatever else was going on in their lives. This was a safe place.

They had, in fact, eventually had to build bunk beds.

Leo turned for the first time the month of his twelfth birthday. It had been a shock to all of them, including the boy. Thankfully, his wolf was small enough that David was able to shift and drag the cub outside by cover of darkness into the woods where he wouldn’t harm anyone, including himself. It was shortly after that that one of the next biggest changes in Emma’s life happened.

“What do you mean you’re leaving?” Emma had nearly shouted when Mary Margaret and David had told them the news.

“We’re not leaving you, Emma,” David said kindly. “We just need more room. With Leo’s transformation and Ruth’s change sure to come along in a year or two… the place isn’t big enough for two preteens and a kid, especially when they’re all going to be wolves soon. They need space to run and they can’t find that in the city.”

“We won’t be far,” Mary Margaret reassured her. “The farm is only twenty minutes away.” It might has well have been in another country - another solar system. For nearly fourteen years Emma, Killian, David, and Mary Margaret had lived in this house, had built a home, and now, now it was all slipping through her fingers. She hadn’t felt this kind of ache since Henry left.

“We understand, don’t we, love?” Killian had said gently, rubbing her back soothingly.

“Of course I understand!” Emma had practically snapped. “I’m just pissed off about it!” A cup went flying across the room and smashed into the wall, spilling its contents on the floor.

Killian had looked at her with wide eyes, before turning them on David and Mary Margaret. The three looked at each other in shock at her outburst until eventually… David laughed. David laughed and then Killian laughed and then Mary Margaret laughed and finally, Emma laughed too. And, for some strange reason, sitting here, laughing with her husband and her family, made Emma realise that nothing could change what they had, not distance or time, or where they ended up living.

She’d thought for a long time that their friendship revolved around the house, depended on it, that the house had been what had brought them together, what had made her life whole. And maybe it was, on some level. Maybe the house had brought them all together but it hadn’t built their friendship. They’d done that. They’d done it with patience and love and support and kindness, and no stupid farmhouse was going to change that.

Emma and Killian had debated for a long time what they should do about the house now that their friends had moved to their new place. A small part of Emma was reluctant to give it up - not because she felt she needed it. She’d been tied to that house for far too long. But, well, it was her home. The only one she’d ever had. Killian understood. Of course he did. He always understood. But he also really, really wanted to show her the world, to take a break from their lives here - they didn’t have any ghosts at the moment and Alice, Ruby, and Will were all doing fine on their own.

“You know what would be really nice?” he asked as he trailed his lips down from her sternum to her navel one morning.

“Hmm?” Emma asked, distracted.

“Doing this in Paris,” he said, letting his tongue dart out and taste the skin just above the waistline of her underwear.

“We can do this right here,” Emma retorted but there wasn’t any strength behind it.

“Come on, Swan,” he continued, sliding his hand up along her leg from ankle to hip where he teased the stretchy fabric there. “Can’t you imagine it? Waking up with the sunrise? Walking down to the bakery for breakfast? Eating pastries in bed? Spending all day in bed?” He ducked his head down and pressed a kiss to her fabric-clad centre.

“Fuck,” she moaned, squirming. But she would not be defeated.

“If we’re gonna spend all day in bed then there’s no need to leave the house,” she told him smugly. Killian laughed, crawling his way back up her body and placing a kiss to her jaw. Then a nip.

“Hey!” she cried in surprise then rolled her eyes at his smugness. “Vampire,” she mocked and he laughed again.

“We could also get a ship,” he mused, lips trailing down to explore the column of her neck and the dip of her collar bone as his hand trailed up her side to her breast, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

“A boat?” she asked, confused.She couldn’t focus. He nipped her again.

“Ship.” he corrected. “We could set a course, sail the sea from one exotic land to another.” His hand was working her underwear down her legs now and she scrambled to push his jeans off.

“Freaking pirate,” she mused and he smirked, both at her comment and at her eagerness.

“Always.” She gasped as he pushed himself inside her, her legs rising to wrap around his waist. “Ever made love on a moving ship before, love?” Emma was not responsible for the sounds that came out of her mouth as he began to move. “Something about the rocking of the ship,” he mused before doing something with the motion of his hips that had Emma gasping and clutching at his back, nails digging into the skin she found there. “Yeah,” Killian said sounding as smug as she’d ever heard him. “It’s just like that.”

She fought with everything she had to keep her wits about her, her words coming out between breathless pants and cries of pleasure. “It’s really starting to sound like you just want to fuck me all over the world.”

Killian laughed, reaching to pull her hands up over her head and pin them there. “That’s exactly what I want to do.” he told her. “What do you say, love? Will you let me show you the world?”

He looked at her hopefully and a little bit wrecked, not stopping the motion of his hips and Emma knew he wasn’t playing fair - he knew he wasn’t playing fair - asking her for favours as he drove her higher and higher and she couldn’t even stop herself from pushing her hips up to meet his, let alone argue. But it was the look in his eyes as he asked her, the smugness gone and replaced with love and hopefulness and desire, that made her cave. The house would be here when they got back.

“Okay,” she said breathlessly and his face lit up, and she decided that making him look at her like that was better than any victory. He leaned down to press their lips together, the kiss a little messy, all slanted mouths and desperate tongues and the ongoing rocking of their bodies, but she could feel his smile in it and it brought out her own.

“But only,” she stressed, “if you finish what you started so that I know it’ll be worth all the hassle just to get laid in some other city,” she teased, and the look that came over his face was downright wicked. He loved a challenge.

Emma cried out as he redoubled the speed of his hips, hands and mouth somehow everywhere as her brought her higher and higher, until she came with his name on her lips, back bowing under him as her hands grasped frantically for any part of him to hold onto as he rode her through it. He looked smug for all of ten seconds before she tightened her legs around him, lifting her hips and he broke, his face falling into her shoulder. Yeah, she thought. Definitely worth it.

“That was a dirty trick,” she told him later when the sweat had cooled on their bodies and their breathing had nearly returned to normal.

Killian smiled at her. “Oh, love, I have all sorts of dirty tricks,” he promised, leaning in to nip at her bottom lip. “And I plan to show you them all…” his hand trailed down her side and Emma felt an exhausted but very real flutter of desire begin to burn low in her belly. “....just as soon as we book those tickets.”

Emma groaned, letting her hand fall over her eyes. Stupid. Bloody. Pirate.

Killian did show her the world. All the places he knew, then all the places she’d always wanted to see, and then the places neither of them and ever even heard of. Emma never stopped being the saviour of lost souls, picking up strays along the way. Sometimes they were supernatural and sometimes they weren’t. Any time they found someone in need, they helped. It was what they did. It gave them a purpose beyond aimlessly travelling. They had each other, they had something that made them feel they were doing good, and they had the world.

They also had David and Mary Margaret, who they travelled back to see several times a year. They also had Leo and Ruth and Ariel and Mary Margaret and David’s fourths, which turned out to be twins, Killian and Emma. Yeah, Emma had cried when they got to the hospital and were told what their friends had named their babies. Killian had made a joke, suggesting that a name like Killian was far too high a standard for the kid to have to live up to. David had threatened to change it. Eventually, they also had grand-nieces and nephews and then great grand-nieces and nephews.

They sold the house, deciding that they had built a life and a family there and now they wanted to give someone else a chance to do the same. They sold it to Will and his wife Belle who had promised to always keep the doors open to anyone who needed a home.

They had everything. They had love and they had family. Emma and Killian may not age, their hair may never turn grey and they’d never find their laugh lines replaced with the deep wrinkles like the ones that had found their way onto David and Mary Margaret’s faces and even on Leo’s the last time they saw him, but this was life they were living. Watching the babies they cared for grow up and have babies of their own felt more human, more mortal than anything Emma could have ever imagined.

It was nearly sixty years later when that fateful call came from Leo. ‘Yeah, I think you guys should come home. It’s time.” They were in Seattle visiting Alice and her wife, Robin, but they were on the next train home within the hour.

“Jeez, Killian, you’ve really let yourself go,” David greeted them as they walked through the door. His hair may have been thin and white, his face marked with lines and age spots, and he may even have breathed heavily getting the quip out, but he was still David.

“Please, David, I’m as devilishly handsome as ever,” Killian threw back as they exchanged hugs with the family that had gathered for their friends’ final moments. “As is your lovely wife, I see,” Killian added smiling at Mary Margaret who was drifting in and out of sleep on the bed next to her husband, curled up against him.

“Ever the charmer,” she breathed out softly, eyes cracking open to smile at him. “Emma,” she said happily, reaching out a hand to grasp her friends. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she told them both, and David smiled.

“I think this is it, guys,” he told them, his own eyelids starting to grow heavy after the burst of energy it took him to mock his friend.

Killian swallowed a lump and Emma fought her tears.

“Yeah, it looks like it,” she said as the two of them sat on the bed with their friends, their best friends, their family.

“It was a hell of a ride, wasn’t it?” David asked softly, eyes fluttering closed.

Killian gave a choked laugh. “It was,” he agreed, grabbing David’s hand and holding tight.

A small smile crossed David’s face. “Wouldn’t trade it for the world. Werewolves and vampires and ghosts and all.”

It was Emma’s turn to cry now. “Neither would we.”

His eyes were closed now, face starting to relax. “I love you guys,” he told them and Emma threw herself against his chest, trying to steal one last David Nolan bear hug.

There was a long silence that hung heavy in the air before it was broken by the sound of David’s voice:

“Oh shit! I’m hot again!” he exclaimed, and Emma and Killian whirled around to see David, young David, standing at the foot of his own death bed. They looked at him, confused. What unfinished business could he possibly have?

“What?” he asked in disbelief. “You guys didn’t think I’d leave without her, did you?” he said, walking over to Mary Margaret, who still lay curled against his body. She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. She shouldn’t have been able to see him, but maybe it was the prolonged exposure to the supernatural, or the fact that she was so near the end herself -- or maybe it was just that they were David and Mary Margaret, but she smiled a sleepy smile at him.

“Hey, handsome,” she said and David edged his way onto the bed, wrapping himself around her so that she was wedged between his body and his soul, right where she belonged. “This is really weird,” she remarked and David laughed.

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “You take all the time you need, sweetheart, I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

It wasn’t long at all, and Emma wasn’t surprised. She never thought either of them would do well in a world without the other. They were all like that. They did better together. Emma remembered Killian’s words from so, so long ago: ‘Being alone is good. Being alone is safe. But take it from someone who tried being alone for a long time… people - others help. It makes it all feel more… human’. She’d had no idea back then how true his words were, and as she watched her friends say their final farewells and walk through their communal door - because of course they wouldn’t even be apart for their trip to the ether - Emma reached for Killian’s hand and held it tight.

“You know,” Killian started and Emma looked at him, waiting for him to say what he needed to, thinking it would have to do with Mary Margaret and David, but she was surprised to find his thoughts were along the same line as her own.

“I want to thank you,” he told her, “thank all of you really,” he said, acknowledging the others in the room and their friends who had just moved on. “But especially you.” He paused and she looked at him affectionately, waiting to hear what she’s being thanked for. “I’ve lived nearly four hundred years but I never had this. This is the life I always wanted. I was stuck for so long, and maybe I didn’t grow old, but we really lived, didn’t we?” he asked her and Emma nodded through her tears. “I got it all, everything I ever wanted and I had it with you, because of you.” He drew her hand up to his lips and placed a kiss on the back of their interlocked fingers. “Thank you, Emma, for giving me everything I never knew I needed.”

Emma was about to speak, was about to try and tell him in her own, clumsy, bumbling way that he had given her everything she’d given him, that he’d made her life worth living, that they all had, that him, this, all of it was all she ever wanted from life, when she noticed the door. It was black with a red swan on it and Emma stopped breathing for a second.

She didn’t know if this was her door or Killian’s door or both of theirs but as Killian noticed her silence and turned to find what she was staring at, his hand squeezed her’s tighter. He took a deep breath, looking first at the door and then at her.

“What do you say, love?” he asked, giving her a slightly impish smile. “Together?”

Emma smiled back, nodding, certain, more certain than she’d ever been of anything in her life. Because that’s what it had been. She may not have been alive but it was a life. And it was a wonderful, fantastic life.

“Always.”

Their friends were already there waiting for them, sat around the coffee table and on the old battered couch with a mug of hot chocolate.

#CSSNS #captain swan #cs fanfic #being human au #cs smut #csff #snowing #just human

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