#swanfire ff

[namimikan]

i mean, i know i dropped ouat once neal died, and here’s a messy conflicting of feelings towards the show but.

- god, i loved that it’s a family drama, a super messy tangled, ever growing one tbh.

- i haaaaaated this goddamn show’s anti-adoption slant so much. yes, regina was a bad mom, idk how much she actually got better. doesn’t help that i didn’t find henry all that likeable. but ffs, i wanted a better balance here.

- tbh, i wanted even more family of choice than familiy of blood stuff. it’s not mutual, but the show clearly wants family of blood tbqh, and yeah, swanfire being endgame would have supported family of blood. but like? the mess? the mess of it all? i loved it. but stiiiiill would have wanted family of choice tbqh to feature more integrally tbqh.

- this show underutilized so many characters, most of all belle and neal iirc.

#ouat talk #onion sprouting text

[heytheredeann]

Swanfire Week (Day 3)

This is my fill for the prompt "Season 3 AU". Specifically, a 3x10 AU, because they deserved that lunch date. It’s also late, which was bound to happen LOL. Enjoy!

.

.

“Hello.”

Neal blinks, a little startled as Snow White in the flesh comes to sit in front of him, a friendly smile plastered on her face.

“I hope you don’t mind if I sit here for a minute,” she adds, her smile only widening. It looks sincere, but he can hardly consider it a coincidence that exactly on the day Emma is standing him up for lunch her mother – that is still weird as hell to think about – has decided to have a chat.

“Uh, no,” he manages to get out, so awkward that he almost winces. As she keeps staring at him, he isn’t sure if expectantly or unbothered by the silence or merely keeping up a friendly face as she looks for something else to say, he can’t help snorting. “Emma’s mother is taking pity on me,” he comments, without thinking. “That’s depressing.”

Mary Margaret furrows her eyebrows, her lips pressed together and a dimple appearing on her right cheek as she looks at him like he’s being a colossal idiot. She looks just like Emma.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m only keeping you company for a few minutes,” she informs him, with admirable confidence. “Until Emma arrives,” she adds, to which a brief smile twists his lips, the words making his chest ache a little.

“It’s okay if she doesn’t,” he clarifies, for himself to hear more than her. “Really. We didn’t even have a formal date, it was just—a thought.”

They can be friends. They are good at that, he knows, they were always good friends before they were good lovers.

What really matters is that, from now on, he is going to be there for whatever she needs, for her and for Henry, the way he should have been in the past decade.

“Well, even in that case,” Mary Margaret eventually concedes, though clearly unconvinced. Neal finds it a little funny that this woman, apparently so full of unshakeable optimism, is Emma’s mother. “Your father just came by, to give David the antidote to the dreamshade, without asking for anything in return.”

“Oh,” Neal mutters, a more genuine smile bubbling at his lips at the realization that he kept his word. The fact that he came to help with Henry was the beginning of a bridge between them, but it’s reassuring in an overwhelming way that he actually did them such a favour, and just because he asked.

It's—it’s something. Something big.

“More or less our reaction,” Mary Margaret nods, smiling fondly. “He said that it’s because we are family.” She gives him a pointed look, waiting until he meets her eyes to keep talking. “I’m here to inform you that, as my grandson’s father, I have every intention of considering you my son-in-law regardless of what happens with Emma, which is why I am here to chat right now.”

He chuckles, shaking his head slightly in amusement at the almost aggressive tone, and the overall absurd situation—there is a woman sitting in front of him, she looks about his age, but she is Emma’s mother, his son’s grandmother, she is literally Snow White, and she is attempting to aggressively mother him as a form of consolation after the mother of his child stood him up for lunch.

His life surely is something.

[More on Ao3]

#sfweek2021 #swanfire #swanfire ff #ouat ff #swanthief #swan thief #not spn #my fanfic #neal x emma #otp: almost home #neal x snow #ouat

[wistfulcynic]

from one minute to the next

A little something inspired by the prompts @winterbythesea posted here and here and here. This is not those prompts exactly (nor is it what I outlined on the discord, sorry guys) but I think it carries the same lighthearted dumbass energy as they do. 

Also, Killian Jones does not know what a ‘date’ is. Fight me, show. 

Summary: Emma’s not quite sure how it happened, but somehow she finds herself going from single and solitary in the city one minute to smoothly co-parenting with her ex, living with a pirate, and at home in a town full of storybook characters the next. 

Home. She never thought she’d have one of those. 

This is the story of how she got there. 

(also no! curse! renaissance! 3B divergence without Pan’s curse) 

<3k words  Rated T

AO3

-

from one minute to the next: 

Emma was never entirely certain how it happened. 

One minute she was telling Neal she didn’t want to get back together with him, that it was just too late for them now, and he was looking sad but in a resigned sort of way, as though he regretted the truth of her words while still recognising that they were true. 

“For what it’s worth,” he said. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have listened to August. I shouldn’t have left you like that. If I hadn’t…” 

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. They both knew how different things would have been if he hadn’t left her. And they both knew that it was far too late to undo what had been done. The only option left was to move on. 

“We found each other again, though,” she reminded him. “And we found Henry.” 

“You mean Henry found us.” 

“Yeah, that’s probably more accurate.” 

They shared a chuckle, and for the briefest moment the years fell away and she remembered why she’d fallen for him. And for the first time since she’d run him down in a New York alleyway, Emma looked at Neal and she felt hopeful.  

“Anyway,” she said, “Henry wants both of us in his life. He deserves that, and I think he needs it. And I think for it to work we need to try to be friends.” 

“No hard feelings, then?” Neal asked, hopefully. 

Emma hesitated. 

What did she feel for Neal? There was still affection, of course there was—the stubborn remnants of a passionate first love that she doubted would ever fully die. There was resentment too, a lot of it, and a lot of hurt. A fair bit of anger. So yeah, there were some hard feelings, but there also wasn’t much point in attempting to hash any of them out with Neal. Not when they needed to move forward.   

She produced a smile, slightly stiff at the edges but he didn’t seem to notice. 

“Sure. No hard feelings.” 

Neal’s face broke into a grin, the wide, happy kind that crinkled his eyes and once upon a time would have sent Emma’s heartbeat into overdrive. Now it just made her think of another crinkly grin, one far rarer and all too often tinged with sadness. 

“Neal,” she said. “I’ve got to go.” 

-

The next minute she was at the docks, breathing deeply and gathering her courage, looking up at the Jolly Roger and hoping Hook—Killian—would be there, in his cabin, maybe with his flask and one of the books that lined his shelves. More than once these past few weeks she’d caught him tucked up in a corner somewhere, reading, and Belle informed her that he actually had a library card. 

“He didn’t have the required ID,” she’d said with a little smirk. “But I think we all know who he is.” 

Emma was pretty sure she did know that, now, and the knowledge propelled her forward, onto the deck of the ship then down to his cabin where she knocked firmly on his door and shivered a bit when his voice called for her to enter. 

He looked up, surprise registering on his face followed swiftly by the delight he could never quite conceal when he saw her. 

“Swan,” he purred. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Emma’s heart was pounding and her throat dry, and honestly it was ridiculous to be this nervous, it wasn’t like he was going to say no. 

“I’m, um. Heretoaskyouout,” she blurted. 

He frowned. “To what?” 

Emma drew a deep breath and tried again. “Ask you out.” 

“Out of where?” 

“What? No. What?” 

“Where do you want me to go out of? This is my ship.” 

Emma resisted the urge to smack herself on the forehead. Of course he didn’t know what ‘ask you out’ meant, he was like a thousand years old. “No, no, I mean out on a date,” she explained. Tried to explain anyway, though his confusion just grew more apparent. “Like, to dinner or something. You and me. Out.” 

“Ah. Ah.” 

She watched as he turned the unfamiliar phrase over in his head, watched his eyes brighten with interest at learning a new thing, then when he finally realised fully what it meant she watched a rosy pink flush creep across his cheekbones and up to the tips of his ears. 

He swallowed, and when he spoke again his voice was gruff. “Let me be certain I understand. You want us, as in you and me, to go someplace and eat dinner together. Just—just us?” 

She nodded. “Yeah.” 

“And in this realm that is called a date?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And am I to understand that there are… romantic connotations to these dates?”

‘Romantic connotations’, she thought, for fuck’s sake, and did her best to ignore the fluttery feeling she always got in her belly whenever he broke out the big words. Aloud she said “Yeah.” 

“I see.” He swallowed again. “And when do you propose we have this date?” 

“Um. Tonight?” 

Aaand there it was, that wide and crinkly grin that made the blood rush far too recklessly through her veins, this time with no sadness lurking behind his eyes. None at all. 

“Tonight it is, then,” he said. 

-

One minute Emma was alone and telling herself she was content to be so, the next she had parents and a son and an ex who was almost a friend, and she was dating. Dating Hook, which she told herself firmly was only weird if she thought too hard about it. She wasn’t actually dating Captain Hook, of course she wasn’t. That would be ridiculous. No, she was dating Killian Jones—who was surprisingly, endearingly, sweet and nervous about it at first, like he wasn’t entirely certain her interest was real and was doing his utmost to tread carefully.

Emma didn’t want him always on his best behaviour, though, and while Killian was wonderful she knew that both of them still needed at least a little bit of Hook. And so it was that after their third date, when Henry was with Neal and Emma had made it very clear to her parents that they were not to expect her home before morning, that she and Killian stumbled back to his ship tipsy on rum but drunk on each other, and she made certain he understood exactly how interested she was. 

It was very. She was very interested. 

And when they awoke the next morning and she groaned at the glaring sunlight and pressed her face into his neck, muttering that it was too damn early and she needed caffeine, he ran his fingers through her hair and informed her he had a coffeemaker in his galley. 

She pulled back and blinked at him. “You what?” 

He flushed slightly, though with a pleased grin. “I asked Granny and she showed me what I needed, and helped me buy it.”

“But why? You don’t drink coffee.” 

He shrugged. “It’s growing on me. And besides, I thought—well, I hoped—that you might want to spend some time aboard ship in the future and, well, I want you to feel comfortable here and to have the things you like.” 

She stared at him for a moment as his flush deepened, then surged forward and kissed him, wrapped herself tightly around him and kissed him and kissed him until they were both breathless and the coffee forgotten until much, much, much later. 

-

Another minute passed and they were marking six months together. Emma had rented a place of her own, nothing fancy but hers, and she and Killian were spending most of their nights there. Her bed was bigger than the bunk in his cabin, softer and with actual springs, and her parents, Granny, and Ruby had all chipped in to buy her an espresso machine. Small but serviceable, like her apartment. Granny taught both her and Killian how to use it—and honestly, Emma thought, you haven’t truly lived until you’ve seen a shirtless pirate with a hook for a hand whip up a latte on a Sunday morning—and she was, tentatively, happy. 

Very happy. 

She didn’t see too much of Neal. He spent time with Henry of course and with Belle, renovating the pawn shop and brightening it a bit, removing what traces they could of the Dark One’s influence. She also knew he was volunteering at the convent where the Lost Boys lived, helping them get accustomed to life in Storybrooke and make it their home. 

He might also, she suspected, have become somewhat more than friends with Tink. 

-

And then one night Emma and Killian had dinner at a new place by the docks, where they gorged on seafood and drank a bit too much wine and decided, for safety and for old times’ sake, to spend the night on the Jolly Roger rather than trying to get home. 

Home. She had a home now, and a man who as good as lived there with her. She should really get around to asking him to live there officially, she knew. She kept meaning to. She wanted to, she truly did. But as conversations go that one felt so weighty and so significant that she wanted to be sure to do it right and so in the end she’d done nothing at all—nothing except feel that little bit more guilty each time Killian asked her politely if it was all right for him to stay. 

Yes, she wanted to tell him. Stay forever. Soon she would. 

They stumbled onto the ship and to his cabin, foolish and messy in a way they hadn’t been for a while. Emma realised she had missed this a bit, the dark, almost feral look in Killian’s eyes when he was just this shade of drunk and she was naked in his bed on his ship. 

“You are… so beautiful, Emma,” he growled against her throat as his fingers tangled in her hair. “Have I told you how you steal my breath away?” 

“Not for at least an hour,” she teased. 

“Remiss of me.” 

“Mmm. However will you… ohhh… make it up to me?” 

He pulled back and looked down at her, his eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Oh, I have one or two ideas.” 

-

They woke late the next morning as was their habit on a Sunday, and Emma groaned as the light pierced her eyelids and straight through her throbbing head. 

“Killian.” She poked him in the ribs. 

“Mmphh,” he replied. 

“You still have your… thing. Right? Coffee thing? In the galley?” 

“Aye.” He rubbed his eyes and blinked. “I believe there’s aspirin in there as well.” 

Emma turned her poking finger into a caressing one, stroking him with the tip of it. “Killian,” she said again, in a wheedling tone. 

“It’s your turn to make the coffee and you know it, Swan,” he replied, in his pirate captain voice. 

She huffed. He raised an eyebrow. 

“Fine.” She flung the covers off and rolled out of bed, snatched his shirt from the floor and threw it on, buttoning it just enough to keep it from flapping when she walked. “I’m guessing you don’t have milk though.” 

“Certainly not any in a drinkable state. Though there should be some of that horrid creamer.” 

She perked up. “Cinnamon?” 

“What else?” 

In the galley Emma found the coffeemaker and an open packet of coffee that smelled surprisingly fresh given how long it had been since they’d last slept here. There was also the cinnamon creamer, unopened, and a big bottle of aspirin. One minute she was pulling everything off the shelves and turning to set them on the table, and the next the door was swinging open and a person walking through it, and Emma found herself colliding sharply with a bare chest. A familiar bare chest. A familiar bare chest that was not Killian’s. 

“Neal!” she shrieked, dropping everything in her arms. “What the fuck!” 

“Emma!” He looked equally stunned. “What the—what are you doing here?” 

“Here on my—on Hook’s ship, you mean?” My boyfriend’s ship, she wanted to say, but calling a 300-year-old pirate a boyfriend was something she still couldn’t do, however objectively true it may be. 

“The ship he said I could use whenever I needed it?” countered Neal. “Yeah, that one!” 

“He said you could use his ship?” 

“Uh huh, he did. When I, you know.” A shifty look crept onto his face. “Wanted privacy.” 

“Priva-oh!” Emma’s eyes widened as the penny dropped. Neal was still living in his father’s house. The house where Belle also lived. “Um. I see.” 

“Yeah.” Neal didn’t meet her eyes. “But why are you here, don’t you have your own place now?” he demanded. “I thought Hook lived with you.” 

“Not officially,” she muttered. “And we, um, had a bit to drink last night at that new seafood place and you know.” She shrugged. “The ship was closer.” 

“Huh. Well that explains those noises I heard last night.” 

Emma was just about to ask him what the fuck that was supposed to mean when the door opened again and a voice called “Why don’t I smell coff—oh! Um. Hi Emma.” 

Emma pressed her thumbs against her temples. “Hey, Tink.” 

The fairy was dressed identically to how Emma herself was, only the shirt she wore was Neal’s. An old Metallica tee because of course. 

“Well,” said Tink. “That explains those noises we heard.” 

Neal nodded. 

“What noises—” Emma began, then the door opened again. 

“Did you find everything, love—oh. Er.” Killian appeared in the room wearing only his jeans and without his hook. He scratched behind his ear. “Hello, friends and enemies.”

“Hook,” said Tink and Neal. 

“Killian,” said Emma. She crossed her arms over her chest. “You never told me you were letting Neal stay here.” 

“Ah. I did offer him use of the first mate’s quarters whenever he was seeking a bit of privacy, yes. If you remember, love, my quarters proved invaluable in that respect when you were still living with your parents.” 

Emma felt her cheeks grow hot. “Yeah,” she muttered. 

“I merely thought Neal and Tink could do with a bit of the same benefit. And you know the Jolly gets lonely if she’s left by herself for too long. Although,” Killian favoured Neal and Tink with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, “I did make that offer quite some time ago now. And I don’t believe I said anything about staying here.” 

“Yeah, well.” Neal’s face took on that belligerent look he got when he was feeling defensive. “I don’t want to move out of Papa’s place and leave Belle alone.” 

“Are you kidding me?” Emma demanded. 

Everyone stared at her. “What?” asked Neal. 

“Belle’s seeing Ruby.” 

“Ruby?” 

“Yeah. For like three months now. Ruby’s constantly moaning about how they can’t stay at her place because Granny’s got wolf hearing and they can’t go to Belle’s because it’s full of you. Trust me, Belle will be okay if you move out.” 

“Oh,” said Neal blankly. “Well. Fuck.” 

Emma looked around the room, at her current boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend who was also her current boyfriend’s ex… something, all of them in varying states of dishevelment, hangover, and undress, and she started to laugh. 

“Yeah,” she said. “That about sums it up.” 

-

So Emma never did quite figure out how it happened, but somehow she ended up with a home of her own in a fairy tale town with fairy tale friends and a pirate boyfriend, where one minute she was drinking coffee in a ship’s galley with a group of people who knew each other far too intimately for anyone’s comfort and the next her ex and his girlfriend were her neighbours and her pirate was living at her place for good—at their place, now—and her son was bouncing happily between the two apartments save at least one night a week that he spent at Regina’s. She and Neal co-parented better than she could ever have hoped, and every morning she woke up to blue eyes warm with love and lattes made precisely how she liked them. 

And, well. Emma’s happiness wasn’t tentative anymore. 

-

She was happy. Really happy. Truly happy. So happy that when she came home one evening to find the kitchen smoke alarm shrieking and Henry teetering on a stool waving a towel at it as Killian and Neal grappled with some foamy, hissing, smoking substance on the countertop, she wasn’t even mad. 

“What the hell do you idiots think you’re doing?” she demanded. 

“Ems!” 

“Mom!” 

“Swan!” 

“It’s not what it looks like!” they cried in unison. 

Emma shook her head. “I’m going next door,” she said. “To have a beer with Tink. This,” she gestured vaguely at the room, “had better be dealt with by the time I get back.” 

As she turned and headed back out the door, the last thing she heard were three furious voices. 

“Now look what you’ve done!”  

“What I’ve done! It was your idea!” 

“And I still don’t have a science project!” 

Emma grinned, and shut the door firmly behind her.

---

@thisonesatellite @ohmightydevviepuu @mariakov81 @stahlop @kmomof4 @optomisticgirl @spartanguard @shireness-says @thesschesthair @courtorderedcake @everything-person @katie-dub 

#cs fic #cs ff #cs ff au #3b canon divergence #cs canon divergence #no curse renaissance #captain swan #captain swanfire #tinker bae #or whatever tf neal and tink's ship name is #it should be tinker bae my dudes #anyway #this is all very silly #but it should make you laugh #happy friday #profdanglaisstuff #from one minute to the next

[elizabeethan]

It’s About Bloody Time

A Neverland Fic

Canon Divergent after 3x7 in which Emma finally gives Neal a piece of her mind, and Hook reads her like an open book, thus ensuing smut.

Read on AO3

Emma cannot believe the amount of childish stupidity she’s just endured. Two grown men, both at least 200 years old, in a life or death situation nearly getting the three of them killed over a lighter. If she wasn’t so exhausted and hot from being on this godforsaken island, she would’ve yelled at them more. She figures she probably got her point across; they can’t be fighting like this when the only thing that’s important right now is getting Henry home safely. She’s been hoping Neal would at least understand that, as his father.

She can’t shake the feelings she’s experiencing whenever she’s around Neal, ever since they freed him from the Echo Caves. She told him that she loved him and probably always would, but she also told him her secret; that a part of her wished he had died so that she wouldn’t have to relive the pain he put her through. The pain of them being together. Now, she feels like she’s doing just that. The thought of losing their chance at getting off the island with Henry safely simply because he and Hook couldn’t stop themselves from comparing the size of their respective dicks brought those feelings of panic and insecurity rushing back to her. The feeling that he doesn’t really care for her or what she wants; that he only cares about winning her back, as if she’s a conquest to be gained.  

Of course, she can’t place all of the blame on Neal. Hook had been behaving just as stupidly in the Dark Hollow, trying to prove himself by fighting over something as trivial as a lighter. But she isn’t really expecting much more from him. He may have taken one for the team by bringing them all here on his ship, allying himself against Pan, and helping them navigate the island, but at the end of the day, he’s just a pirate, and Emma knows that. That’s why she keeps finding herself surprised when he does anything more than the bare minimum, which seems to be quite frequently since they set sail after her son.

But the fact is, Neal is Henry’s father, and she was hoping that would be more of a motivator for him than the potential to win Emma back. She and Neal had a history, sure. Neal should have the background information necessary to know exactly what Emma would want and where her loyalties would lie. And as much as it pains her to admit, because she truly does love him, he doesn’t seem to be able to see past his own thoughts and feelings for her.

He says he wants what’s best for her, but he doesn’t even know what that is. She told him her feelings wouldn’t change, hell, she literally told him that she wished he had died, and he still said that he wouldn’t stop fighting for her. What makes him think she wants him to fight for her? What makes him think he had ever started fighting in the first place?

So, when Neal says he wants to stop for water and to relieve himself on their way back to Tink’s, Emma doesn’t object to a short break. She feels as though she had worked off her frustrations with the arduous walk through the trees, leading the way and setting a fairly fast pace. She sits on a rock as Neal steps away from the group of three, leaving just Emma and Hook alone with the noisy, humid jungle.

“I apologize, Emma,” he starts softly. “I realize that my foolish actions could have placed your son at risk, and for that I am truly sorry.”

Emma isn’t surprised to hear Hook’s voice through the sounds of the birds and insects surrounding them. “You put yourself at risk, too. That was stupid, Hook. How the hell are we supposed to get off this island without you to sail the ship back to Storybrooke?”

He smirks slightly, breathing out a soft sigh and taking out his leather covered flask. “I’m sure you would have found a way. Bae was rather skilled at captaining, back in the day.”

Emma rolls her eyes, grabbing the flask when he offers it to her as he sits down on the same rock. “Well, that plan would have been foiled too if the both of you had your shadows ripped from your bodies. Then the only option would be to have the Dark One sail us home.” He narrows his eyes at her and takes the flask back. She can tell that he knows she’s joking but hopes that he can see her point.

“The Dark One is lucky to have a place on my ship at all. There is not a chance in all the realms that he steps foot behind the wheel.”

She scoffs lightly. “Remember that next time you want to try and impress me by doing something dumb.”

“Your wish is my command, love.” She expects to see a smirk on his face, but instead is met with his eyes making contact with hers, looking serious under his dark brows.

She stands up again, unable to sit still. She’s still keyed up from earlier in the Dark Hollow, and she feels herself getting jittery and restless after not moving for a few moments.

Hook can apparently read her quite well, because he stands as well and offers her another swig from the flask. “You’ve got to calm down a bit, Swan. Perhaps I should go and fill your canteen as well?”

“No,” she answers immediately, surprising herself. “I mean, I’m okay. I have enough water, just… stay here.” She’s not sure what the hell has gotten into her, but suddenly the thought of being left alone in the jungle makes her skin crawl.

He smirks again, raising a brow before saying, “as you wish, Swan.” She half expected him to respond with some sort of brazen flirty comment, but instead he’s silent for a few moments.

“Did you mean it?” she asks after a while, without giving any indication to what she’s referring.

“Mean what, love?”

“When you said you’d win my heart without any trickery?”

He quirks his brows again and responds, “yes, does that surprise you?”

“I mean, a little bit. I don’t know. I guess you haven’t really given me much of a reason to doubt you, at least since we’ve been here.”

He hums thoughtfully, dragging his thumb and forefinger against his bottom lip in a pinch. “Now, I wonder, is it a surprise to you because of who you perceive me to be, or because of the relationships you’ve kept in the past?”

It’s her turn to shoot one brow up into her hairline, cocking her head to the side at his statement. “That’s awfully bold of you.”

He takes a step closer to her before taking the flask back and drawing a sip from it, his eyes never leaving hers and his tongue licking his lips when he finishes. “Just my observations, Swan. Don’t think I didn’t hear your admission in the Echo Caves.”

He truly can read her like a book. Not only did he hear what she said to Neal, he’s also realizing that it’s impacting her willingness to let him into her life now. It’s pissing her off, for sure, but it’s also affecting her in a way with which she’s not familiar.

“So, I’ve been in shitty relationships, so what?”

“So,” he says, cocking his head in the same direction as she did hers, moving a piece of hair away from her face with his hook gently grazing her forehead, leaving a trail of flames in its wake. “It’s holding you back. Your relationship with Bae ended badly, even before this time when you thought him dead. I don’t need to know exactly what happened to see that as true. You don’t want to let your walls down for someone else because of whatever it was that happened between the two of you all those years ago. I’d even go as far as to wager that it has something to do with Henry.”

“You’re quite perceptive, Captain,” she says, reaching her hand up to boldly tap on his temple, unable to stop herself from attempting to use humor as a distraction. “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Well, to start,” he begins, answering her more seriously than she expects, “I suppose I’ll simply continue to work to make myself worthy of you until you finally trust that I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll respect you and support you and I won’t hold you back from achieving everything that I know you're capable of.” She draws her brows together thoughtfully. His face is so serious, and it’s throwing her off to see that he isn’t joking.

“That’s just to start?” she asks, her voice breathy and her chest heaving faster as he gets closer to her with each step forward.

“Aye, love. The rest will come with time, as I continue to get to know you, and you me; as I learn what you need and deserve in a partnership.”

Her eyelids feel heavy as she feels his warm breath brush over her face. “A partnership?” she nearly whispers.

“Yes, that’s what I foresee us having together. You and I as equal partners.”

She couldn’t stop herself if she tried. She grabs at his collar again and pulls his lips to hers in a scorching kiss. She immediately feels his mouth opening up to hers, his tongue dragging along the inner side of her top lip before he sucks on it gently. She groans into his mouth and attempts to pull him closer, reaching her hands into his hair and tugging to illicit a groan from him as well.

His hand moves to her jaw as he breathes her in and kisses her deeper still. She wants to feel closer to him, needs to get closer, and she starts to raise one knee up along the inside of his thigh until he breathes out a groan into her mouth again. She feels him pushing her gently backwards until her back is pressed against a tree, and she’s able to lift her same knee around the outside of his thigh until he takes the hint and lifts her, hook reaching behind her left knee and hand slapping playfully against her ass once her body is braced between himself and the trunk.

She moans breathily into him again, tugging on his hair when she feels his hardness pressing between her thighs, right where she wants him. She thinks she could let this go on forever, doesn’t even feel guilty about it as she thought she would, and he breathes out her name to her before biting her bottom lip.

“Fuck,” she exhales as his mouth travels from her lips to her jaw to the sensitive spot right below her ear, biting and sucking on the skin gently and licking over it to soothe the sharp, delicious pain his teeth and lips have caused. With his hook still braced under her knee and his body effectively pressing her to the tree, he reaches his hand around her front and under her thin shirt, hovering it lightly over her breast before she presses herself into his palm.

“Tell me what you want, Emma, and I swear I’ll give it to you.” His voice is absolutely sinister, deep and rumbling in his chest as he speaks against her collarbone.

“Oh god,” she says, and he responds with a chuckle.

“No, you can call me Killian, darling.” She breathes out a chuckle before another moan is drawn from her as he moves his hand lower, down her torso and landing just above the zipper of her jeans. “Here?” he asks as his fingers deftly trail lower, over her pants and landing exactly where she wants him.

She almost has a chance to respond-- she plans on giving him attitude, as she knows that he’s teasing her-- but she suddenly hears her name, and not in the way that she had hoped; not from him.

“Emma, what the hell?!” Neal was back, and Emma was hoisted against a tree with Killian practically fucking her with their clothes on.

Uh oh.

Hook drops her gently, careful to unhook himself from her leg safely before he takes a small step back. He refuses to turn around and barely looks her in the eyes. Emma’s eyes are bugging out of her head as she struggles to regain her breathe, and when she looks down, she notes exactly why Hook isn’t turning his body in Neal’s direction.

“I-” she starts, but it’s as if her brain has completely shut down and no words will come out.

“We’re in the middle of the damn jungle and I step away for five minutes, and here you are with him? What the fuck is wrong with you? The whole reason for us being here is to get our son back and you’re fucking making out with another guy? Are you deranged?”

She see’s something flick in Hooks eyes and he turns suddenly, either relieved of his (fairly sizable) erection or no longer caring whether or not Neal saw it. “Don’t speak to her that way,” he says, his voice rumbling in his chest for an entirely new reason. She can picture his dark eyes glaring into Neal and it sends a shiver down her spine.

“Don’t you get involved, Hook. This is a private conversation between me and Emma.”

“Obviously not, mate, since more than one person was involved in what you're currently loudly berating her for.”

“I don’t need your input on this, pirate! You certainly don’t need to speak for Emma, I’m sure she’s capable of defending herself.”

“I don’t need to be defended, Neal, what the hell?”

“Obviously you need some kind of intervention, Ems, or else you wouldn’t be making such a stupid mistake right now!” Emma backs away farther from him, pressing herself protectively against the same tree, astonished at the words that are coming from his mouth. “Seriously, you scream at me over endangering myself and letting my feelings get in the way of the mission, when you're doing the exact same thing with a dirty pirate!”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you because I’m not actively putting anyone’s life at risk by kissing someone who isn’t you!”

He scoffs, seemingly forgetting the Hook was even there with them during this conversation, and says, “What, so you think this is a good use of your time while we should be out searching for our son? Emma, how can you do something so selfish when your family needs you right now?” She doesn’t miss his meaning. She knows that he thinks that the three of them are a family, and that in him catching her with Killian, she has violated his trust.

She feels her guilt, the same guilt that he instilled in her all those years ago, rearing its ugly head in response to his words. A part of her, the part that she hasn’t seen in a decade, tells her that he’s right. In some way, she was being selfish by wasting time with Hook when she could be out searching for Henry. But on the other hand, Neal has no claim to her. He abandoned any semblance of ownership he may have perceived himself to have over her in Phoenix eleven years ago.

“I don’t need this. I’m a grown woman and I don’t need you to stand here and yell at me like I’m a child.”

“Emma, the chances of us actually succeeding and getting Henry off this fucking island are already slim. We really don’t need you getting distracted and messing everything up.”

She thinks back to Killian’s words only moments ago, when he told her she would succeed. He was so serious in that moment, when Emma was doubting herself and her ability to save Henry. It was as if he had not a single doubt that she could do it, and she believed him. Now, well, now she just felt like shit.

Without saying a word, she breathes out heavily and shoves past the both of them, making her way back towards the camp.

~~~~

Henry’s safe. Henry is safe. Henry is safe.

She continues to repeat it to herself like a mantra as she clings to the rail of the ship, her knuckles turning white and her nails digging crescents into the wood. She no longer needs to be on edge; doesn’t need to jump at any little sound or reach for a weapon when she sees someone approaching out of the corning of her eye.

More importantly, she doesn’t need to feel the constant weight of anxiety on her chest over the safety of her son. He’s just below her, sleeping in the captain’s quarters, and she can breathe easily now.

Knowing this to be true and actually believing it are two completely different things, she finds.

She does jump then, when she sees his figure advance towards her from her left. His blue shirt is wrinkled, and his hair is greasy, and his face is covered in dirt. She fights back the feelings of irritation and resentment that sit in the pit of her stomach, trying to maintain an air of civility towards the man she once thought she would love for the rest of her life. The man she hates herself for still loving, even if it’s just a little bit.

“Hey,” he says, resting against the same rail as her.

“Hey,” she responds, keeping her body facing towards the glistening sea hundreds of feet below them.

“You okay?” he asks, and she fights off the scoff that threatens to escape her lips.

“Yeah,” No. “You?”

“We got Henry back. I knew you could do it, Ems.” Though she isn’t facing him, she knows he can likely read her body language enough to tell that she’s angry when she goes stiff and her fingers dig deeper into the timber of the rail.

“Yeah.” She can barely contain herself, anger bubbling at the surface as she remembers everything that happened in Neverland. Every time he doubted her magic, doubted her.

“Look, Em, I just want you to know, when we get back to Storybrooke, I’m sticking around. I meant what I said earlier in the jungle, I’m not going anywhere. You and Henry need me, and I swear I’m not gonna abandon either of you.”

“Again,” she nearly whispers, kicking herself as the word escapes from her mouth. She so doesn’t feel like arguing right now, and yet…

“What’d you say?” he turns his body to face her.

She thinks about being placid. About saying Nothing and moving on. But her mind is still running a mile a minute and she feels like anything he said could have set her off. It’s as if she’s wound so tightly from the stress she’s feeling that she’s about to snap in two. So, while she may have made a different decision if she was thinking more rationally, she fights.

“You aren’t going to abandon us again. Is that what you mean?” she turns toward him now, her brows set as if to challenge him to disagree. Which, of course, he does.

“I said I was sorry, Emma. You can’t keep living in the past like this. If I had known about Henry then--”

“But you knew about me, Neal! You knew I was in jail for your crime, and you left me! Hell, you even tipped off the cops! You abandoned me in there, and you moved on! You told me you loved me and then you knocked me up and left me to deal with it at seventeen while I was in prison!”

He appears to be stunned to silence, not moving much but looking around quickly to see if anyone had heard her not-so-subtle outburst. “It’s like I said, I’m sorry that that happened, but it was so long ago. I can’t change what happened between us, all I can do is say that I’m sorry and hope that we can move past it. And besides, it seems like you handled things just fine-- you didn’t even keep Henry.”

She scoffs now, unable to even think of a response. How dare he? She knows she can’t move past this, no matter what feelings she may still be harboring for him. No matter what, she knows the primary emotion she has for him is anger.

Not for the first time, she huffs a breath and pushes past him, making her way down the narrow steps and onto the lower deck before descending below, not bothering to look back at him, hoping he isn’t dumb enough to follow her.

Once she gets below deck, she stands still for a few moments, focusing on evening out her breaths. She isn’t sure what she’s doing or where she’s going. She knows that her parents, Regina, and Gold were sleeping in the crew’s cabin, and she certainly doesn’t feel like seeing any of them now. She could go to the captain’s cabin and check in on Henry, but she doesn’t want him to see her this angry. She feels fire in her veins when she hears footsteps descending in her wake, and rolls her eyes as she spins too quickly, practically ready to pull Neal off the steps and physically fight him at this point, until she notices the dark leather coat making its descent.

“Hook,” she says, feeling somewhat surprised, but more so at the fact that she wasn’t very surprised at all to see him.

“Swan,” he returns, nodding his head in her direction, kinking an eyebrow up just enough. “Looking for a place to sleep? I’m sure your boy wouldn’t mind sharing the captain’s quarters.”

“No,” she replies too quickly. “I mean, I can’t sleep right now.”

“I see, too high strung to relax, are we?” The way he says it, with a clear implication that he would volunteer to help her relax, nearly drives her mad.

“Yeah. I don’t suppose you have any more rum on board?”

He hums lightly as a soft smile graces his face, moving around her and walking away. “This way, love.”

He leads her down the slim hallway towards a door that opens into a small room, the very same one in which he gave her Neal’s cutlass their last time on the ship. Once they arrive, he gestures towards the bench and pulls out a bottle of rum from a small storage cubby.

“Thanks,” she says as she takes the glass he offered and pours a hefty amount in. “So, if you’re down here, who’s steering the ship?”

“Actually, Baelfire volunteered. It would seem he’s retained many of the skills required to captain the finest ship in all the realms, even after all these years.” She fights against her strong desire to roll her eyes and shoots back another swig of rum.

“You two seem to have a pretty strange dynamic,” she states passively, deliberating the fact that they knew each other hundreds of years ago, when Neal was a kid and Hook was the same age he is now. She watches as he takes a seat on a bench across from her.

“Aye,” he answers, “perhaps as strange as yours.”

She nearly chokes on her rum, snorting slightly and feeling a burn in the back of her throat at his audacious response. “You heard that, then?”

“I heard enough.”

“Enough to come down here and offer me a drink,” she says with a laugh and roll to her eyes.

“Actually, Swan, I think you’ll find that I did not make such an offer. More like you assuming and taking advantage of my plentiful supply,” he says lightly, clearly joking.

“I can’t believe what a dick he is.” She really didn’t plan on talking it out with him, but he’s made it so easy. He leans over towards her with his flask raised, offering to pour another ounce of rum into her glass, seemingly unphased by her quick change of subject.

“It would appear that Baelfire and Neal are two separate people indeed.” She shrugs lightly, taking another draw from her glass as he does the same. “I’m sorry, Emma. For what he did.”

She’s somewhat shocked to hear her name from his lips but moves past it quickly. “Ah, so you did hear everything.”

“I was standing at the helm, not very far from the two of you, so I’ll admit that it was difficult not to. I apologize for eavesdropping.” He’s being sincere.

“He said he knew I could do it, but he was lying. When we were in Neverland, he said I couldn’t. He said the chances that we would get Henry off the island were slim. He’s always doubted me. Do you know why I went to jail?”

He seems surprised at her question, raising an eyebrow while he raises his glass to his lips. She’s staring, and she doesn’t try to stop herself.

“Neal stole a bunch of watches from a jewelry store and stashed them at a train station locker. I went to the station to get them since he had a wanted poster floating around, and once I had them, he gave one to me. And when I went to the meeting site, after he was supposed to fence the watches a pick me up, the cops were waiting for me. He set me up. He called the cops on me and told them where I’d be.”

“Love,” she doesn’t look at his face, taking the rest of her rum in her mouth before she continues.

“He could’ve just left. He didn’t have to call the cops. He didn’t have to have me sent to jail for something he did. And then I had Henry while I was still in jail and he has the nerve to shove the fact that I gave him up in my face up there!” Hook moves in his seat, standing suddenly and walking the few feet across the room to sit down next to her. He brought the flask with him, but she and he both know that she doesn’t need any more.

“Emma, I had no idea.”

“Why would you?”

“Obviously I knew that Henry calls both you and Regina his mother, but I didn’t realize that was the reason for it. I’m sorry, love.”

“You don’t have to say that you’re sorry.”

“I may not have any idea what it’s like to be a parent, but I have witnessed the impacts of leaving a child behind, for whatever reason. When Milah left with me, she abandoned Bae. Although she wasn’t exactly emotionally fit to parent him at the time, I saw what it did to her. And she didn’t leave him for such selfless reasons as you did when you let Henry go.” His tone is soft and comforting, completely lacking judgement towards her.

“You think what I did was selfless?” she asks, scoffing.

“Aye, you were merely giving him his best chance at a prosperous life, I’d assume. And despite that, I can see that it’s had an influence on you. I’m sorry for that.”

Like an open book.

She racks her brain to remember whether she’s said this around him, perhaps to her parents, or maybe even to Regina. But she can’t come up with an instance where he would know that that was why she gave him up.

“You really loved her, didn’t you?”

“Aye, with every bit of my heart.”

She nods lightly, casting her eyes down to the floor. “Then I’m sorry you lost her.”

“Thank you, Swan, but it was long ago. And I meant what I said in the Echo Caves.” She figured they would have this conversation eventually; she just wasn’t sure if she was ready to have it off of the back end of a fight with her ex.

Rather than say anything, she looks back up at him to meet his blue eyes with hers, noting the depth of their color and how closely they mirrored the sea of which he was so fond. The emotion that he conveyed with just a single look to her was overwhelming, and she suddenly feels her breath catching in her lungs and her chest compressing on her tattered heart.

She places her cup down on the bench that they were sharing and clears her throat, speaking cautiously, worried that if she raises her voice much high than a whisper, she would ruin the relaxed mood that he brought into the room with him. “You know when you said that I would have to choose, and I said I pick Henry?”

She sees his Adams apple bob up and down with a gulp and hears his breathing hitch before he says, “Aye.”

“Well,” she takes a beat, “I’m not saying that I’m choosing you. I’m still putting Henry first. But you should know… Neal isn’t really in the running anymore.”

“Emma,” he says, shifting his body so that his right hand can reach across himself and brush a bit of hair away from her face, “I would never ask you to put me above Henry. I would never expect that from you.”

She feels herself relaxing into his touch, and while she feels calmer now than she has in days, there’s a part of her that has ignited and set her entire body ablaze, burning with a fever of desire and longing. “How do you always say the perfect thing?” she asks, without meaning to speak at all.

He chuckles softly, his fingers still delicately dancing through her hair and along her scalp as he says, “hundreds of years of practice.”

“I’m sure you have a lot of practice with other things as well,” she ventures, smirking up at him and fighting the urge to plunge her fingers into his chest hair.

“I suppose you're right, love. I am a man of many talents, with plenty of time to hone my skills.”

She laughs lightly, softly, then says, “I can vouge for at least two of your orally-related talents.”

It’s his turn to smirk, his left brow shooting up and his right shadowing his cerulean eye. “Name a time and place, love, and I’ll show you a few more.” She draws in a breath and bites her lower lip involuntarily, then catches his eyes glimpsing down to her mouth.

Without thinking, she does what she’s done each time they meet like this, grasping onto the lapels of his greatcoat and drawing his lips to her. Only this kiss is soft and soothing, with fire burning just below the surface. His lips are gentle on hers as his hand moves through her hair again, and she feels his hook pressing into the outside of her right thigh as if to ground himself. The way he kisses her is overwhelming in that it doesn’t overwhelm her; she can feel the emotion behind his mouth as he draws his tongue along her bottom lip, and she doesn’t mind.

He breaks away from her gently, his fingers caressing her jaw and cheek and chin as his nose brushes against hers. She’s completely breathless, and she doesn’t even realize that her hands are knotted through his hair at the back of his head.

“So much for a one-time thing, aye love?” She breathes out something between a sigh and a laugh but doesn’t pull away from his touch. He doesn’t try to remove his hand from her, either.

“I guess I lied,” she says, gently running her hands through his messy hair.

“I know you said you aren’t making a decision now, love. I want you to know that’s alright. I’ll follow your lead.”

She nods softly, his nose still touching hers lightly as she breathes in the rum on his breath, before moving towards him and kissing him again.

This kiss, unlike the last, was heated and passionate. Her fingers tug at his hair some more, one hand moving from the back of his head up to the top while the other made its way down his neck and to his chest. She feels his hand moving back into her hair as well, pulling softly, just enough to elicit a groan from her. His tongue slips past her lips and strokes gently along her upper lip before she feels the sharp sting of his teeth biting down, another groan sneaking out of her throat. She responds in kind by sucking his lower lip lightly into her mouth.

“What do you want, Swan?” he asks again, and he sounds just as wrecked as she feels, his voice gruff and his cheeks flushed when she pulls away briefly.

She could say anything, could pushed him away and run as she so often does, but something feels different. Something feels right.

“You,” she says simply, pecking his lips with hers once more. “I don’t know exactly what I want to happen with us, when we get back home, but I know I want you right now.”

He obliges almost immediately, diving forward and taking her in his arms in an embrace that feels almost more emotional than she’s ready for. While she first expects it to scare her, she instead finds herself sinking into his arms and letting him hold her as he kisses her fiercely and then she falls, her back landing against the hard, wooden bench and his weight settling on top of her as she hears the crash of the glass and flask hitting the ground.

Her legs spread enough to allow the weight of him to settle between them, and she can already feel him prodding her inner thigh. His arm strokes up her side until his hand lands on her left breast, and she can feel the cold metal of his hook settling on her side just under her shirt. Her hand plunges into his hair again, tugging to draw a moan from him, while her other grips onto the triceps of his left arm and appreciates the rippling of his muscles. He wasn’t exactly the most jacked man she’s ever seen, but seeing the light definition of his muscles under his shirt at night in the jungle was enough for her to feel her cheeks flush.

He’s being gentle, and she’s so keyed up from everything that has happened that she almost becomes frustrated. Rather than voice her thoughts, she pushes him away lightly and grips the bottom of her shirt, tugging it off of her and exposing her sports bra to him. It may not be the sexiest garment, but he seems appreciative enough, a smirk gracing his face as he looks down at her before attempting to push it aside and feel her breast with his hand. He’s stopped thought, the tight fabric giving him very little room for movement. She can see the cogs turning in his head as he reaches behind her, checking for laces or straps or a clasp, she isn’t sure.

“How the bloody hell does this thing work,” he huffs, pulling lightly and giving her an irritated look.

She laughs jovially before sitting up slightly and reaching her arms over herself to haul the tight raiment over her head. She always did hate taking them off, and she can feel herself squishing her face in the unforgiving fabric. It makes her laugh harder, and she hasn’t felt this light during such activities for as long as she can remember.

The levity of the situation fades quickly once she’s bare to him, and she can see the change in his eyes as the fire ignites again before he moves his head down to take a nipple between his lips. She feels his tongue swirling against her right breast while his hand reaches the other again, pinching her nipple between his fingers.

She gasps, her fingers still laced through his hair, tugging lightly on him. She feels his hook drawing down her body and tracing along the edge of her jeans as she moans again. “Hook,” she breathes out, pulling his hair. He removes his mouth from her and looks up to her face, his cheeks and ears reddened. “More.”

He sits up and pulls away from her in order to get a better angle at her jeans, undoing the button and zipper with one deft hand and pulling them down unceremoniously. He keeps her panties where they are, leaving her almost completely naked in front of him. She suddenly realizes how unfair this is, as all she can see is his dark chest hair and the outline of his erection through his leather trousers. Reaching up, she pulls on the laces and hopes it’s enough to get her point across.

He throws his greatcoat off of himself and onto the ground, then moves to hook his aptly named appendage in her underwear and she can feel the cold metal pressing against her coarse blonde hair. She lets out a surprised gasp at the sensation as he hovers over her clit, not quite meeting her where she needs him. She reaches out again and pulls on his shirt, not bothering (or needing) to undo any more buttons before she pulls it over his head, and she’s met with his defined torso. His muscles are rippling through his arousal, and the sight of his fair skin covered in dark hair that trails into his pants makes her sweat.

“Take these off,” she demands, gesturing towards his leather trousers. “This better not be like that episode of Friends. I don’t have any baby powder on me.”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about, Swan?” he breathes out roughly before reaching back down and marking her breast with his mouth, dragging a slow moan past her lips.

“Never mind, just please take those off and fuck me.” His eyes darken somehow as he reaches down and unlaces his pants, pulling them off smoothly and exposing his erection to her, finally.

Before she could take too much time to admire him, he’s sliding down the expanse of her body and trailing soft, gentle kisses in his wake. He stops occasionally to suck on the skin of her breasts, her stomach, her hips, before dragging his hook through her underwear again and tugging them down her legs. Her arousal draws out in a glistening strand as he pulls them off of her, and she hears him growl in response to how wet she is.

“Absolutely bloody gorgeous,” he murmurs, his breath hot against her. “May I have a taste, darling?”

“God, yes, please do.” He obliges quickly, and she cries out much louder than she intended to when she finally feels his tongue on her.

His hundreds of years of experience certainly do pay off. Never in her life has she had an experience quite like this. Even though he’s never touched her, it’s as if he’s known her body for centuries. Each move of his tongue and lips has her drawing nearer and nearer to what she can only assume will be the fiercest orgasm she’s ever felt. He continues to lick through her folds, paying attention to fucking her with his tongue before dragging it back up and sucking her clit into his mouth. When his middle finger finally enters her with no resistance, she cries out again at the sensation of his finger curling into her and his cold ring sitting just outside, all while his tongue continues to work its magic. She sees now that when she joked about him being orally talented, she didn’t realize just how right she was.

He adds a second finger, curling them both delightfully as he continues to nip and suck and lick at her, and its mere moments before she feels herself clenching tightly around him, ready to explode with pleasure as he draws her closer and closer to her release. When she finally does come, she thinks she must be astral projecting; her soul has left her body and is looking back down at her writhing form as he works her through the most pleasurable, intense sensation she’s ever experienced.

If she was conscious, she would notice the way he sucks his fingers into his mouth to clean her off of them. She would also notice just how hard he was just from making her come, his hips rutting lightly against the bench, although that couldn’t be too comfortable.

When she finally feels her soul reentering her body, she allows herself to look down at him as he moves up to her side and kisses her mouth sweetly. She expects to see an amatory smirk but is met instead with a soft smile and kind eyes. His hand runs along her side as she feels her breathing start to even out, although she’s still panting.

“You weren’t kidding about practice, huh?”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, Swan,” he says, his smile still gracing his features.

“Enjoyed? We aren’t finished here, Hook.”

He takes this as a signal from her and leans back down to her, meeting her mouth with his. Before he has a chance to take over, she presses on his shoulders until he’s on his back and straddles his hips with her own, feeling his erection pressing between her folds and into her clit as she rocks back and forth. It draws a lewd moan from his lips, and she can’t help but lean down and kiss him fiercely as she continues to moisten his cock with her own arousal. She’s not sure she’ll survive actually having sex with him if this is this good.

His hand is moving wildly along her body, squeezing at her hip and massaging her ass as she continues to roll her hips against him. Rather than continue to torture the two of them, she finally reaches between them and angles him upward, moving his length along the outside of her entrance before pressing herself down onto him. The two of them groan in synchronicity at the feeling of him filling her up so effortlessly, so flawlessly. She remains relatively still for a moment, enjoying the feeling of his thick cock pressed inside her, before she starts to rock over him, throwing her head back until her long hair scrapes his knees.

“Fuck, Killian, so good.”

“Say it- agh, fuck. Say it again, love.”

She doesn’t have to ask what he means. When they were in the jungle together, he told her that she can call him Killian. She hasn’t until now, and it appears he appreciates the effort.

“Killian,” she says, rocking faster, her thighs burning as she hops up and down and back and forth along his length. “Ah! Shit,” she cries out when he shifts under her, his knees coming up to give him the leverage he needs to fuck up into her.

They continue like this, her rolling over him and him thrusting upwards into her, for several minutes before he draws his hand to where they meet and presses his thumb to her clit, causing her to cry out once more. “God, Killian, don’t stop. Right there, don’t stop,” she begs, only he does stop briefly enough to take her in his arms again and flip them both over. He’s sitting back on his knees now and she’s still straddling him, but the new angle, with her sitting upon his thighs and her legs behind his, sends him deeper into her and drives her closer to the edge. Before she can do it herself, he reaches his hand back to where she needs him, the curve of his hook pressing into her lower back to stabilize her as he continues to fuck into her and she continue to ride him at this new angle.

“Emma, you're so good. You're so tight and wet, gods keep doing that, love. I love the way you move on me.” She never thought she would be into dirty talk, but hearing Hook- no, Killian- praise her like this is driving her insane with lust and bringing her even closer to her release. She’s nearly there when she feels his mouth meet her neck, right at the pulse below her ear, sucking hard enough to surely leave a mark, but she doesn’t care because she’s over the edge again, careening towards absolute bliss.

She thinks she’s shouting, or at least moaning and swearing very loudly, but she absolutely can’t bring herself to care. In order to muffle the sounds coming from her, he meets her mouth with his again, kissing her as she tumbles over the edge. She comes hard, and she knows that with her walls tightening around him, he’s close. She squeezes one last time and feels him empty himself into her in hot ropes, relishing the feeling of him inside of her, of his cock continuing to pump into her with the added sensation of his release.

She feels him planting soft kisses along her cheeks, jaw, down her neck, over her collar bone as she comes down, easing her back into the sensation of feeling anything other than him and her powerful orgasm. “Fuck,” she finally says, her legs still wrapped around his middle as his cock softens slightly inside her.

“Aye, seems like that was needed, love.”

She laughs lightly, breathlessly, before unwrapping her legs from him and pressing her hands into his shoulders to get enough leverage to remove herself and sit back on the bench. Once she’s off of him, she lies down, her chest still heaving. She feels a soft, calloused hand touch her stomach gently before he stands and turns, giving her a nice view of his ass. She wonders for a second where he could be going, until he’s back with a small cloth, handing it over to her and using a second to clean himself. She takes it and does the same, then notices him standing awkwardly in front of her before she speaks.

“Are you gonna sit down? Or was this more of a hit it and quit it type of thing?”

“What a crass statement, Swan,” he says, although she can see the humor and relief in his eyes as he sits back down beside her. She can’t fight the smile growing on her face.

“I guess you were right about me needing to relax.”

“Aye, it was quite obvious how high strung you were, love.”

“Ho- Killian,” she says, drawing the conversation from light to serious. “I don’t regret that, but…”

“You’d rather keep it between us?”

She smiles softly at his understanding, at the fact that he always seems to know her. “At least for now. Is that okay?”

“Of course, love,” he says, leaning down and kissing her nose chastely. He pauses there, as if wondering whether the action was alright with her. She confirmes that it is by catching his lips in hers once more, kissing him one last time before she stands to get dressed.

“Swan?” he asks after a few moments, when they're both dressed and ready to leave the small room and show their faces on the ship once more. She should maybe reconsider, based on the bruise forming just under her ear, but she lets bygones be bygones.

“Yeah?”

“What’s an episode of Friends?”

#once upon a time #once upon a time ff #ouat #ouat ff #captain swan #Captain Swan ff #cs ff #captain hook #Killian Jones #Emma Swan #Neal Cassidy #anti-neal #anti neal #anti baelfire #anti swanfire #Neverland Fic #Neverland Smut #neverland renaissance #some fluff in there I guess #somewhat emotionally mature Emma #I don't like neal sorry #my writing

[morosoro]

This two episodes of Once a day thing is already driving me mad!

It feels like we’ll never get to Skin Deep...

and don’t even get me started about Tallahassee

#I’ll never understand how people can just not binge an entire show at one time #like seriously how the fuck do you have so much restraint #I just want to watch my favourite ships set sail again #but it’s gonna take DAYS... WEEKS! #and I know I’ll just wind up disappointed and upset again because ffs the canon really starts to suck #ouat #once upon a time #skin deep #rumbelle #tallahassee #swanfire #i want to diiieeee #i want to cry #I want to get there already!

[anonymouswriter2311]

Summary: AU (ish) With a pain-in-the-ass publisher breathing down her neck and no motivation to fulfill her promise of a sequel to her bestselling fantasy novel, renounced author Regina Mills heads to Storybrooke Maine, hoping that the quiet small town might open her mind and free the words trapped in her head. But Storybrooke isn’t as boring as she originally thought. Swiftly she’s brought into a world that she never could have imagined, and the line between fantasy and the real world starts to blur. Slow burn SwanQueen. Past SwanFire (non-toxic, co-parenting)

#swan queen #swanqueen #emma swan #reginamills #emma x regina #slow burn #Henry Mills #Swan-Mills #AU-ish #once upon a time #once upon a time ff #swan queen ff #new story #past swanfire

[thejollyroger-writer]

Bottom of the Ninth, Two Outs, Full Count

Part Two of Opening Day, Starting Pitch, which is a prologue for Love, Baseball, and Other Things (Part One // Part Two)

Also on AO3

WARNINGS: This story contains both Millian and abusive Swanfire. Sorry if that's not your cup of tea, but this is a prologue, and I'm obsessed with traumatic backstory. This also contains death of a character, grief, alcoholism, verbal and physical abuse, and abandonment. It starts exactly where part one left off.

Thanks again to @welllpthisishappening and @profdanglaisstuff for prompting this story into existence, @ultraluckycatnd for reading over it, and @kmomof4 for flailing so much over this little verse that has become the only thing I can think about. If you'd like to be tagged for future installations, let me know!

(also, sorry there's no cut, I'm on mobile and apparently Tumblr hates me anyway.)

-----

By the time Milah’s birthday rolls around in the middle of April, he has the ring tucked inside a box of letters from his brother and a reservation for the night she turns 26 at her favorite restaurant across town. He even bought them a night at the quaint little hotel next to Washington Square, so they don’t have to trek back across the river to get home that night. And he has the whole thing planned out: dinner, then a show at the Walnut Street Theatre before taking her dancing and taking her back to the hotel through Independence Square, finally lit up for spring, where he’ll stop and ask her to marry him. It’s a perfect plan, really, and he realizes when he calls the restaurant two nights before to confirm the reservation that he has never been this excited for anything in his life.

His friends can tell, too. David is happy for him, planning to propose to his own girlfriend while they’re on their post-graduation vacation, and Emma pokes fun at him regularly about the smile that is always on his face.

So when two uniformed officers knock on the door to his apartment three days before Milah’s birthday and ask if he’s Killian Jones, emergency contact for Milah Smith , it takes all his strength not to lose the contents of his stomach all over their finely-polished shoes.

“Yes, I am,” he says, pulling himself together enough to talk to them, to make sure that he’s not overreacting. “Why, has something happened to her?”

The way their emotionless faces seem to fall at his question causes him to lose his balance, and he reaches out to hold on to the doorway before he falls at their feet.

“There’s no easy way to say this, Mr. Jones,” the one to his left says, and Killian doesn’t fail to see the irony behind the fact that his name is Marry . “I’m afraid Milah was involved in a car accident on the Ben Franklin Bridge this morning, and by the time the paramedics got to the scene, there was nothing they could do for her.”

“Oh, god,” he groans, his shoulder hitting hard against the doorway, the only thing keeping him standing. “No, no, no, no.”

“We’re terribly sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” he chokes out, starting to close the door before the men standing on the other side of him see him fall apart. But once the door closes, he loses the strength to stay on his own two feet, and he falls to his knees, his head resting on the cool wood of the apartment door.

In losing Milah, he lost everything. Three days from spending the rest of his life with her, and now he would have to live with the question of whether she would have said yes for the rest of his life.

Of course she would have said yes , he tries to convince himself, but it’s useless. He’s learned to never assume even the easiest of things, that’s how he’s survived everything that’s happened so far in his life. So that little voice in the back of his head keeps telling him over and over that there’s a chance she may have said no.

He has no idea how long he stays seated against the door. He does know that the sun has swung across the sky and begins to shine brightly through the front windows, and that by the time he pulls himself back onto his feet, his legs are numb.

He wishes the rest of him was just as numb.

So that’s exactly what he makes happen.

It started with one glass of whiskey, then turned into three, then six. By the time David and Emma come back from visiting their mother for the weekend, the sun has turned the sky a dark shade of crimson, and he is passed out on the couch, what remains of the last glass still in the cup his hand is wrapped around.

“Killian!” David yells, rushing across the living room to make sure he’s okay. He’s breathing, but refuses to budge, and once Emma finds the now-empty bottle of Jack on the counter, they figure out why.

“I hope he’s okay,” Emma comments, adding the bottle to the pile of recycling under the sink. “He usually doesn’t drink this much, and especially not whiskey.”

“Either something happened, or he just randomly decided he was in the mood for half a bottle of Tennessee whiskey.”

“Well, given that he usually refers to it as ‘number 7 swill,’ I doubt he decided just on a whim.”

David turns his eyes down to Killian, his whole face painted with worry, but there’s nothing they can do for him until he regains consciousness, so they leave him there, returning to the piles of papers they left spread across the kitchen table. They study in silence for a few minutes, the ticking of the clock over the stove driving Emma insane, so she speaks, her eyes flitting up to her brother for just a moment.

“I, uh, need to stay here again,” she says quietly, her eyes glued to the paper in her hands so they don’t have to reach what she knows is a worried glare from her brother.

“Neal again?”

“For fuck’s sake, David, don’t say it like that.”

“When are you going to leave his sorry ass for good?”

“I love him, David. I know you know this, and I know you understand. And he loves me, too, he just has some issues he needs to work out and everything will be just fine.”

“Everything is not just fine , Emma,” David growls, his back teeth grinding together angrily. “You think I don’t notice the marks he leaves on your arms? The fact that you’re always crying after you talk to him? You need to leave him, before he does something that he can’t just apologize for.”

“I can’t just leave him,” she says, her voice soft, and when she adds, “Not anymore,” he drops the textbook he was balancing on the edge of the table.

“What does that mean, Emma? Are you— did he—”

“I’m pregnant, alright?” she says bitterly, throwing the paper in her hands back down on the table so she can hold her head. “I’m almost three months pregnant, and I’m too afraid to tell him because I know when I do, he’ll just leave. Is that what you wanted to hear from me?”

“Christ, Emma,” he whispers, and as soon as he realize that her shoulders have started to shake with silent sobs, he pushes his chair back to walk across the table and wrap his arms around her. She turns in the seat, burying her head in his shoulder. “I can’t — I’m sorry.”

While they stay like this, David shedding a few tears for his sister, as well, Killian begins to slowly wake on the couch, head pounding and stomach churning, and when he slowly makes his way to the kitchen to find some water, he is surprised to find David and Emma, but when they see him, they begin to break away from each other.

Sitting down across the table from them, taking very careful sips out of his glass, he finally says, “I take it this means you heard about Milah.”

When they both seem to be more confused by this statement, he realizes he must have made an error.

“Is she alright?” David asks, and somehow Killian smiles instead of breaking down once more, but it only lasts for the quickest of moments.

“No, quite the opposite, actually. She was killed this morning in an accident on the Ben Franklin.”

“What a fucking day,” Emma says under her breath as David moves back across the table to pull his friend in for a hug.

Four days later, the day after Milah would have turned 26, they hold her funeral in one of the nicer churches in town. After asking Liam and David to wait outside, to give him a minute alone with her casket, there is nothing comparable to seeing her laying there, lifeless, surrounded by silk and flowers. Pulling the small velvet box out of his pocket, his hands grip the edge of the wood, the only balance he can find.

“I was — I was going to give this to you,” he chokes out, doing nothing to stop the stream of tears that fall down his face. “I still… I’ve been trying to decide whether I should give it to you, or keep it as a reminder of just how damned much I love you.” He reaches up to tuck his index finger under the buttoned collar of his shirt, pulling out the chain that holds his mother's ring. “But I think, now that I'm here and thinking about it, that I will keep this, both as a keepsake of you, of the years we spent together, and a reminder that my life has been torn apart one too many times from letting people into my heart.”

He holds the ring out in his palm, staring down at it for a moment before he closes his hand around it, feeling the edges of the diamonds cutting into his palm.

“I love you, my darling,” he whispers, leaning down to press his lips against her forehead, a sob fighting its way up his chest when he feels the coldness of her skin against his.

The pain overtakes him. He spends the next three days numbing himself, a dangerous combination of rum and whiskey and whatever else he can find in the apartment, only leaving the confines of his bedroom to find the next drink or relieve himself. On the fourth day, Emma, Neal, David, and Mary Margaret are sitting around the table in the kitchen, actively ignoring the subject of the grieving man who has locked himself away from the world.

Emma knows that David is worried about him — he’s told her that much at least a dozen times since Killian first told them of Milah’s death. The fact that her friend is struggling so much, so obviously, and no one is trying to reach out to him, though, just angers her.

So she decides she can’t take it anymore.

“Christ, enough of this,” she says, slamming her empty water glass down on the table. “That man in there needs help, and if I have to be the one to give it to him, then I will be.” She pushes her chair back, jumping to her feet, but before she can walk away, she feels Neal's hand wrap around her wrist.

“No.”

She whips her head around to face him. “Excuse me?”

“The darkness that took over Neal's face lightens, but his grip on her wrist does not. “He'll be fine, just give him time. Stay here.”

“What? No, he's — he's not okay, Neal. And on the off-chance that he is, he can be the one to tell me that, not you.”

Even if David wasn't watching his every movement intently, he would have noticed how hard Neal pulled on Emma's arm to get her to step back to the table.

“I'm not gonna tell you again, Ems,” he growls, his fingers beginning to leave marks on Emma's wrist. “I don't want you to go in there.”

“Good thing that's not your decision to make,” David says, his whole body tense, but when Neal snaps his head to face him and he sees some of the tension leave Emma's shoulders, he knows it was the right moment to step in.

“Well, it certainly isn't yours.”

“That is my sister that you have your hand around, if you'll remember.”

“David, please,” Emma says softly, and Neal smiles up at her, though that smile scares her more than anything else.

“Yes, David, please,” Neal repeats, the wicked smile still spread across his face when he turns back to him. “Emma knows how this works, and she knows what happens if she doesn't listen to me.”

“You son of a bitch!” David yells, jumping out of his seat angrily enough that it clatters to the floor behind him.

“David!” both Emma and Mary Margaret yell, but he's already halfway around the table, his hand flying out to grab the front of Neal's shirt.

Neal still hasn't let go of Emma's wrist.

“You're going to take your hands of my sister and never, ever touch her again, do you hear me?”

Neal is still smiling.

“And what, exactly, are you going to do to me if I don't?”

David pulls him out of his seat using the front of his shirt. His hand around Emma's wrist tightens further.

“See, that depends on just how angry you make me, because right now, I want to rip your fucking throat out.”

Mary Margaret has turned so white in her seat that Emma fears she may pass out — but she seems to be the only one that's noticed.

“Can I — can I ask you something, Nolan?” Neal asks, his voice free of any of the fear David was hoping to instill, but Emma feels the way his hand trembles. “Why the Knight in shining armor act all of the sudden? This can't be the first you've learned about me — “

“David, please ,” Emma begs, but David either fails to hear her or chooses to ignore her, taking the bait he's laying in front of him.

“She's pregnant, you bastard,” David practically yells, the secret that he's been trying so hard to keep, not even sharing it with Mary Margaret. “She's carrying your child and you're too goddamned selfish to care about it one bit.”

“David,” Emma whispers, and she is finally able to pull her hand out of Neal's grasp, that's suddenly loosened.

“Oh, Emma,” Mary Margaret says at the same time, her big brown eyes full of both excitement and sadness.

Neal turns slowly to Emma, who has covered her face to hide the tears that have started falling, and David finally releases his fist from his shirt. “Is he — is he serious, Ems?” He has the nerve to soften his voice so much, to suddenly take all of the anger it's always full of away, and it just hurts her all the more. She's so afraid of his anger, his temper, his fear of commitment, but he's —

She nods, a glimmer of hope lightening the pounding in her chest. Opening her eyes, she darts to look at him, and she can tell that he is thinking over something.

And then he shakes his head, raising his hands in surrender, and backing away from the table. “I’m not — I can’t —” he sputters, but his coherency is gone. “I’m sorry.”

The three of them watch, stunned, as Neal grabs his jacket from the back of the chair and walks out of the apartment.

Everything is silent. Still. David and Mary Margaret are too afraid to move, knowing that as soon as they do, everything will crumble.

Emma will crumble.

But instead of either of them breaking the silence, disrupting the stillness, it comes instead from a bright-eyed and uniformed Killian Jones coming from his bedroom. The three of them dare to move enough to turn their attentions towards him, and when he finally senses the tension that has filled the apartment, added only by his escape from his bedroom, he raises his eyebrows in question.

“Where are you going?” David asks the question they’re all thinking.

Emma asks the other: “Are you okay?”

He pushes the front of his hair back to slide his baseball cap over it. “I, uh, have a game. I can’t wallow in grief forever, so I’ve decided instead to focus on my pitching game. It’s what…” his voice drops off, his eyes falling to the floor as his hand reaches up to grasp the same chain that always hangs around his neck, which they all see holds another ring beside his mother's. “It's what she would have wanted.”

The engagement ring , Emma realizes. It's what Milah would have wanted.

For a moment, Emma is inspired. Sure, it took him four days to get there, but he's pulled himself back together after losing Milah — and really losing her, not just having her walk out like she knew Neal was going to do. He's turning the energy he's been using to destroy himself back into something more productive.

She can do that, too.

Grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair, she slings it over her shoulder and follows Killian out towards the living room.

“I'm going with him.”

“What?” Mary Margaret asks, at the same time David says, “Stay here, we can talk about it.”

She turns to Killian, his bright eyes lighting up the shadow the brim of his hat lays across his face, and shakes her head, turning back to David.

“I don't want to talk about it. It's over. He did exactly what I expected, so there's nothing to even talk about.”

“Emma—” David starts, but she walks out of the kitchen, leaving the three of them bewildered.

“No,” she calls through the doorway. “I'm leaving.”

“Yeah, uh, me too,” Killian says, a million questions on his lips, as he follows her out of the apartment.

Their walk down the steps and out to the street is silent, and it continues that way for a few blocks, Emma's hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket and Killian's fidgeting with the strap of his duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

He has almost decided on how to ask the question lingering on the tip of his tongue when she speaks instead.

“I'm really proud of you, d'you know that?”

He turns to her, but her eyes are still set on the sidewalk at her feet.

“Come again?”

“Your whole world crumbles down around you, and you took a few days to grieve before you pull yourself back up and focus on something productive.”

“Thanks?” he asks, her words igniting a warmth in his heart that he wasn't sure he would ever feel again. “I watched my father drink himself half to death after my ma passed, and when I looked in the mirror last night, I realized I was doing the same thing. The only thing I ever wanted in life was to not end up like my father, and I saw myself doing just that.” He tugs at the chain around his neck, threading his pinky through the ring that has just been added. “And that's not what Milah would want. She always told me to — to stick with the things I enjoy the most, and I realized the reason I stopped focusing on my pitching game was in hopes of finding a career to sustain us. Now that I… now that I no longer need that, I can go back to doing what I love without the fear that it's going to be enough.”

Emma has no response to this, so they walk in silence again for a few more moments.

“Neal's gone.”

Killian breathes out a small chuckle, though once it's out, he can't figure out why. “How long do you think it will be this time until he comes running back?”

Emma flattens her hands against her stomach, but since her hands are in her pockets, Killian doesn't see it. “He's not coming back this time.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, for one, David threatened him. I believe the exact promise was to 'rip his fucking throat out,’ and I wouldn't put it past him to follow through on that.” They both allow themselves to laugh at this, a small release of some of the tension built around them after all that's happened in the past few days.

“And for two?” Killian asks, and when he sees Emma turn to look at him out of the corner of his eye, he returns her gaze.

“He’s too afraid of commitment to stick around and become a father.”

She watches as Killian's eyes grow wide before turning down to her stomach, a smile growing across his face.

“You're pregnant?”

He's relieved so see her begin to smile, too, as she nods her head. Stopping them on the sidewalk, he wraps her in a hug — and she realizes just how excited she really is, even if Neal is no longer in the picture.

Maybe it's even better this way.

“And you know you're not alone, right? You have David and Mary Margaret to help you, and me.” He leans back, his arms still wrapped around her shoulders, and when he smiles at her again, she believes for the first time since she saw that positive sign that everything might actually be okay.

#baseball verse #bottom of the ninth #love baseball and other things #cs fics #my fics #my writing #wordsbymeganmichael #ouat ff #millian #anti sf #anti neal #anti swanfire #tw: character death #tw: assault #tw: death #tw: violence #tw: negativity #tw: alcoholism #tw: verbal abuse #tw: physical abuse

[icecubelotr44]

Storybrooke Has Fallen (1/?)

Summary:   Based entirely too closely on the movie Olympus Has Fallen.  Secret Service agent Killian Jones has always taken his job seriously - perhaps a little too seriously if his supervisor were to have her say. But when terrorists attack the White House with Emma and her son inside, Jones will stop at nothing to find them and get them to safety.

Rated:  T, for violence, kidnapping, some dark themes

This is for the elusive @nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable​ on the occasion of her birth.  Which occasion, I won’t tell you, but suffice to say, she’s a few days younger than me.  Also, tagging @killian-whump​ because I’ve been taunting her with it forever and it’s RIGHT up her alley. @xhookswenchx​ because I made her read part of it and she pretended to like it :-P, and @cocohook38​ because I know you’re a whump fan.

Word count:  ~ 4,600

From the beginning: AO3 / FFN

The punches continued to rain down as Killian Jones bobbed and weaved around his opponent.  Sweat glistened under the lights and the smell of blood filled his nose from a lucky shot.  He waited patiently for an opening, baiting the combatant into a momentary lapse in judgment that would let him score a few body shots.  Finally, an elbow dropped carelessly away from its guard and Killian pounced.  A flurry of body shots dropped the other hand to protect vulnerable organs and he moved on instinct to jab towards his opponent’s head.

Emma Swan growled in frustration and swung wildly, clipping Killian’s jaw with her boxing gloves but leaving the other side of her helmet open to his attack.  He grinned around his mouth guard as he tapped her ear tauntingly, then laughed outright when she swatted his hand angrily away.

“For the love of God, Swan, keep your guard up!” he forced out around the plastic and gel in his mouth.

Emma tucked her elbows in and let him swing at her now-protected midsection, grunting with the exertion, but with a gleam in her eyes.

“Oh no you don’t,” he smirked.  “You’re not gonna rope-a-dope me.  That’s a move for geriatrics.”

Swan glared, but changed up her plan, going on the attack and backing Killian up with a flurry of punches.

He grinned, ducking and jabbing to keep her off-balance, purposely leaving his left side open to gauge whether or not she’d catch it.

She did.

Killian gasped a little at the force of the blow, leaving a little more of his ribs vulnerable than he’d planned.  Emma’s answering grin let him know that she’d heard the sharp intake of air, but neither let up.

The sound of a throat clearing stopped the sparring session immediately.  Killian and Emma both looked up from the tiny boxing ring.  “Madame President, it’s almost time,” the new agent - unfortunately dubbed ‘Happy’ by Emma’s son - announced.

“Thank you, Michael,” Swan mumbled, spitting out her own mouth guard and nodding.  “We’ll be up in a moment.”

Happy left swiftly, leaving Emma and Killian alone in Camp David’s basement.  “You know, Jones, you’re not supposed to hit the President of the United States.”  She smiled slyly.

“Yeah,” he allowed.  “I know.”

He wasn’t agreeing with her.

Emma disappeared into the first family’s private quarters to get ready for the evening’s Christmas party, so Killian stalked through the house checking on the readiness of the agents under his command. The weather reports were coming in from the different agencies and networks, but Killian glanced out a window and frowned - it was really coming down out there and something niggled at the back of his mind.  He had half an idea to call off the excursion, keep the entire family safely ensconced in the camp’s borders where they were warm and out of danger.

But the next election was coming up soon and he knew that President Swan would scoff at his overprotectiveness if there were any chance that it was safe to drive to the dinner party.  Instead, he listened to the comm in his ear and nodded grimly - the weather was predicted to remain steady for the next several hours.

At the end of his loop through the residence, Killian hit the shower then changed quickly into a suit for the evening.  Finished wrestling with his tie, he marched out of his quarters and found himself in the family room, the warmth of the fire peaceful.

Until the sound of machine gun fire on the television assaulted his ears.

Killian cut his gaze over to where Emma’s ten-year old son Henry was glued to the television, the Playstation controller in his hand bopping about wildly as he ducked around the bullets flying on the screen.

“Now the real bloodbath begins when your father finds you playing this game,” he snarked before shutting off the television.

Henry glared at him, but threw the controller on the couch and flopped back on the cushions dramatically.  “You suck.”

Killian snorted.  “Just protecting your life, young sir,” he commented - earning a very Swan-like eyeroll in response.

Henry climbed over Killian’s lap, reaching for his latest book and curling up in a corner of the couch to fall into the latest story.  “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Killian replied before getting up with a check of his watch.  “Your parents should be out in a few minutes.  Be ready to go, yeah?”

Henry nodded, already lost to the outside world.

Killian moved past the Christmas decorations and the mountains of presents for the First Family’s own celebration the next morning - when their extended family and friends would arrive for Christmas breakfast.  His brain was already cataloguing the logistics he’d need to accommodate Neal’s batch of relatives.

He knocked on Neal and Emma’s bedroom door, greeted by Swan herself - or at least the top of her head as she read over her speech.

“Five minutes, ma’am,” Killian intoned formally, knowing it would get a rise out of Emma.

She looked up, startled for a moment, and then glared at him.  “Why thank you, kind sir,” she intoned sarcastically, moving away from the door.

“What do you think, Killian,” Neal spoke up from the bed where he was fiddling with his cuffs.  “Emma’s useless at picking.  The gold or the platinum.”

Killian refrained from rolling his eyes at Neal’s need for opulence.  “The gold.  Classic look for the First Husband.”

Neal considered him for a moment.  “That’s what Emma said, but nah, I think I’m going to go with the platinum for tonight.  But thanks,” he threw out, already moving towards the ensuite bathroom.

Killian shared a conspiratorial smile with Emma before backing away from the door and letting her close it in his face.  “We’ll be out in a minute, Jones,” she assured.

“Very well, ma’am.”

As promised, the couple emerged from the room a few minutes later, dressed to the nines and ready to go.  They met Henry in the living room, his book tucked discreetly into his tuxedo for when the party inevitably bored him to tears.

“Do I really have to go with you guys tonight?  I’ve been to hundreds of these parties!” Henry whined, moving towards the door as if he knew his request would be denied before he finished asking.

“Re-election is hard work, kid,” Emma snarked, reaching out to run a hand over Henry’s hat.  “Are you really going to bring that book?”

“I think it’s fine,” Neal cut in.  “It’s age-appropriate.  I wish I could bring a book, too!”

Henry grinned at his father.

Emma rolled her eyes.  “Fine, but keep it out of sight for at least the first hour, okay?”

The boy smiled brightly.  “Only if I can ride with Killian?” he wheedled.

“It’s up to Jones.  He’s in charge,” Emma agreed with a smile.

Henry turned puppy dog eyes on Killian.  “Please, Killian?”

He’d already planned on letting his young friend ride in their car - giving Emma and her husband some alone time on Christmas Eve.  Killian nodded though, rearranging the secret service detachment as if it had only just occurred to him to do so.

The ride was tense, the wind and snow putting Killian on edge as he focused wholly on their surroundings.  It took him a moment to notice Henry leaning forward from the backseat, trying to see what Killian was looking at.

“Henry, your seatbelt,” he reminded, his heart rate skyrocketing until the boy was safely secured again.  They chatted for awhile about the responsibilities of his job - Henry had it in his head that he was going to grow up to be just like Killian and took every opportunity to question the agents assigned to him.

They were quizzing him on the number of escape routes in the White House when it happened.  The car in front of them - the one holding Emma and Neal - began to skid and then spun uncontrollably.  Killian was already fumbling with his seatbelt when the car crashed through the guardrail and the front wheels skidded over the edge of the embankment.

“Henry, stay here!” he screamed, one pointed look at the boy and a finger jabbed at Walter - Henry’s assigned agent - before he was out into the storm.

The car was tipping precariously over the edge, several agents already scrabbling to hold onto the car’s trunk and keep it on the road.  Killian barely spared them a glance before he was jerking open the door he’d only recently closed behind Emma, grabbing for her shoulder and trying to yank her from the car.

“Neal!” she cried, fumbling with something on the seat.  “Killian, his seatbelt’s stuck!  I can’t get it-”

Neal was barely conscious, his head dripping blood and his eyes glazed over.

“I need to get you out of here, Swan,” he yelled in her ear, trying to grab hold of her to pull her to safety.

Emma threw his arm away.  “I can’t… you have to save Neal!” she yelled, ignoring every attempt to get her away from danger.

“The door’s stuck!” one of his agents yelled from the other side, trying in vain to get to the now unconscious First Husband.

“Emma, come on!” he yelled in her ear, finally getting an arm around her and yanking her back towards him.  “I’ll get Neal in-”

They fell backwards into the snow, Emma still scrambling in his hold to get back to her husband.  Killian was still struggling to hold her, already mapping out a strategy to keep her safe and get Neal when the shouts of his team reached him.

There was no more time to react, the car careening over the side with a horrendous screech of metal and crashing through the trees.

Everything went silent, Emma’s screams and his own fading into numbness where everything slowed down comically.  The brake lights of the car shimmered through the night until those, too, were lost to the darkness.

Neal had still been inside.

Time sped up at Henry’s panicked shouting, Emma limp in Killian’s arms with shock.  Tremors raced up and down his own arms, tears tracking down his face unchecked.  He barely had a moment’s notice before Henry was in reach, instinct the only thing that fueled Killian to grab the boy and tuck him into his chest.  Hot tears soaked his dress shirt and Henry’s cries echoed in his ears.

“Why didn’t you save him?!  Why did you let my dad die?!”

The alarm clock’s blaring ring shot through Killian’s consciousness, jolting him from the nightmare that had plagued him every night over the last eighteen months.  Neal’s death, Emma’s hatred, his own dismissal from her team, it all paled in comparison to the tears in his heart from Henry’s anguished screams.  They’d recovered Neal’s body and that of the driver the next day, their seat belts still securing them in the vehicle.

He’d been reassigned to the Treasury twelve hours later, not even a word from Emma about it.

Not that he blamed her.

He’d failed.  Failed so utterly that he was lucky to still have a job at all.  He’d been tempted to pack it all in, flee across the pond with his tail between his legs and beg his brother for a place to crash as he grieved in private.

But the safety of Liam’s flat in London was a kindness he couldn’t afford himself.  He didn’t deserve the comfort of his only family.

Not when he’d torn Emma’s apart.

So Killian rolled himself out of bed and got dressed robotically, half-listening to the news reports about the upcoming summit between Swan’s administration and South Korea’s diplomatic entourage.

He didn’t want to imagine the logistics involved in securing that meeting, but his brain helpfully supplied it anyway.

The problem with sequestering yourself away from human interaction, Killian mused idly, was that there was no one else in your apartment to tell you when the coffee can was empty.  With a growl and the slam of the cupboard, Killian clipped his weapon and his badge to his belt and stalked out the door.

He stumbled across Mary Margaret Blanchard in the closest Starbucks to work, slinking in the entryway and collapsing onto a seat next to her.  He clutched the precious caffeine to his chest, inhaling the familiar scent.

She ignored him as she perused the newspaper.

“How was your Fourth?” she finally asked, proving that she was aware of his presence and also of his mood.

“My fourth what?” he snarked, not quite saturated enough with caffeine for idle small talk.

Mary Margaret side-eyed him and shook her head.  “The Fourth of July, Hook,” she corrected, falling back on his callsign easily.  “Don’t be a jerk.”

He shrugged.  In all honesty, he’d forgotten there was even a holiday, spending most of it contemplating the bottle of rum and its ability to drown out Henry’s accusations.

To erase the memories of happier times with Emma and her family, feeling as if he actually belonged somewhere.

He’d give anything to be back on her detail, to be able to protect her and her son.

But Emma hated him now, and Henry likely did, too.

So Killian shrugged, made small talk like Mary Margaret wanted, and gauged her mood before he carefully commented, “This desk job is killing me, M’s.  I want back in.”

She sighed and nodded.  “I know you do, Jones.  We all know you made the right call on that bridge.  Even Emma knows it; she just…”

“Can’t stand the thought of me failing her again,” he cut in.

Mary Margaret glared at him.  “No.  You didn’t fail, Jones, you just made an impossible decision based on the situation and your training.  Emma just needs to focus and seeing you every day would be a reminder of what she lost.  Maybe with the next President.”

Killian nodded sadly.  “I know.  How’s… how’s Henry?”

“Misses you,” she responded, surprising Killian.  “He asks about you all the time.  When he’s not giving his agents heart attacks running around the White House and hiding from them.”

Killian smirked.

“Laugh it up, Hook.  We all know who taught him that.”

He shrugged unapologetically, remembering teaching Henry all the hiding places the huge building had to offer.  Remembering how much fun it had been, and how much he’d lost that night.  How much Henry had screamed and cried in his arms.  He couldn’t quite reconcile Mary Margaret’s words about Henry with the tortured screams that haunted his nights.

The boy missed him?  Henry didn’t hate him?

God, he wanted to find the boy right then and hug the stuffing out of him.

Alas, Killian had a job to get to and Mary Margaret had a team of agents to direct.  With a curt nod and a promise to “just get out of the apartment,” Killian left the Starbucks and trudged over to the Treasury building.

He lost several hours reading over briefs and filling out paperwork, the busywork not nearly exciting enough to fulfill his adrenaline needs.  He was almost in a trance when he heard it.

Explosions.

More than one and entirely too close for comfort.  Killian’s head whipped around, all traces of fatigue erased as the adrenaline began to pump through his veins.  The alarm rang through the building, more explosions in the streets, and the first sounds of panic began to reach him.  Killian didn’t think, he just moved.

Unclip his weapon.

Thumb off the safety.

Look left, look right.

Get to the danger.

He ducked and dodged around other agents, lay people, interlopers who were between him and the perceived threat.   The code that echoed in his ears frightened him, but Killian couldn’t focus on the fear.

999.

Terrorist attack.

He didn’t know exactly where, he didn’t know how, he most assuredly didn’t know who, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing did outside of his training.

Identify the threat.

Neutralize the target.

Protect the innocent.

Get to the President.

Save Henry.

Killian didn’t overthink his reactions, didn’t stop to muse on how Emma would react to seeing him, didn’t wonder on Mary Margaret’s words from earlier that day.  He didn’t have the luxury of worrying about that.

There were more explosions and now the sound of automatic gunfire on the street.

Killian ducked behind a car as a modified aircraft flew low overhead, opening fire on the civilians running in panic for their lives.  Bodies littered the sidewalks and the streets, holes ripped through them from the large bore ammunition that was raining down on them from above.  The tang of copper was heavy in the air, the smell of gunpowder and burning, well, everything, assaulting his nostrils.  More gunfire, more explosions, more screaming.  It was like the Middle East all over again, but they were on the streets at home.

This wasn’t supposed to happen here.

The aircraft made another run, strafing the street he had just turned down and throwing yet another part of the city into panic.

Killian grabbed the nearest woman who was flailing and forced her down behind the SUV he was using for cover, ignoring the screaming in his ears as he kept her pressed tightly against the metal.  The other side of the SUV exploded under the assault, and Killian knew they had little time to move.  Shoving her in front of him, he led the woman to an alcove and left her huddled and crying against the wall.  She’d be relatively safe there for the moment, and Killian needed to keep moving.

Leaving her behind, he took a side street that would lead him to Pennsylvania Avenue, where he could hear the gunfire increasing.

He had just turned the corner when-

BOOM!

The echoes that wavered through Killian made him sick to his stomach, the aftershock of the car exploding to his left shuddering through his system.  He was sprawled across the street, everything moving in slow motion and nothing making sense.

He needed to move.

Forcing his body to obey, Killian pushed shakily to his feet and checked his weapon.  The sight was wavering, but he wasn’t sure if that was damage to the hardware or to his eyes.  His head was pounding and his hand was shaking, but Killian didn’t have the luxury of time.

Keep moving.

Get to Emma.

Find Henry.

The White House came into view and Killian’s focus sighted in on the men on the front lawn trying to defend it.  There were gunmen, armored trucks full of terrorists, insurgents he needed to take out.

He had 14 bullets.

Killian opened fire with calculated precision, aim, sight, fire.

Aim, sight, fire.

He had taken out four before they realized the new threat behind him and he was forced to duck for cover again behind a nearby wall.  A bullet whizzed by his ear, the chips of granite from where it skipped past him burning the skin under his eye and making him blink away on instinct.

If he’d ducked the other way from the assault, he’d have taken a bullet to the chest.

He needed to move.

Silence.  Was it over?  Killian wasn’t inclined to believe it, but the minutes dragged on and people came out from hiding to gawk at the disaster strewn across the front lawn of the White House.  His adrenaline started to abate, his head coming to rest against the cold iron fence still in place.  He still needed to get inside, needed to see for himself that Emma was secure and Henry was safe.  He needed to know-

BOOM!

His head whipped to the side, dodging the crowd of people fleeing from the bus that had just exploded.

It wasn’t over yet.

There were two men with backpacks just standing at the fence, still staring at the front lawn.

They weren’t fleeing.

Killian raised his weapon.

“Hey!” he shouted.  “Get down on the ground.  Now!”

The first man turned towards him, his hand wrapped around a trigger switch.

Killian took him out.

He had just sighted in on the second one when the terrorist depressed his switch and detonated.

Killian hit the ground hard, his ears ringing worse than before.

There was a great, smoking hole where the fence had been.

More men came running, automatic weapons firing as they ran, shooting indiscriminately.  Killian ducked inside the fence, his back anchored to another tree as he opened fire.

He was badly outmatched.

A ricochet nicked his shoulder, sending bright hot tendrils of pain racing down his arm and making his hand go numb for the moment.

It didn’t matter.

He had to ignore it.

If he didn’t, he was as good as dead already.

Raising his weapon shakily, Killian drew a bead on a sniper set up just outside the fence.  She was taking potshots at the Marines and the agents who were spilling out of the White House to protect it.

A bullet from Killian’s weapon silenced that threat but revealed his position.

Before he could move, another crash, this time sounding more like a car accident, jerked Killian’s attention away from the men advancing on his position.

The terrorists took more notice of it than of him slinking away, and Killian wasn’t about to look a gifthorse in the mouth.  He crawled away from the men, needing to find out what had drawn their priorities away from ending him.

One of the armored trucks had barreled through the hole in the wrought-iron fence, spilling terrorists onto the grounds and making the threat to Swan and her son all the more imminent.

Killian needed to get to their sides.

He snuck around the truck, ducking for cover as the combatants spread out and engaged the secret service agents returning fire.  He wanted to help them, wanted to fall into line, but that wasn’t his target at the moment.  These men had contingencies and plans and protocols in place - Killian had helped to tweak most of them when he was still Emma’s lead agent.  Inserting himself into their ranks would only throw things into disarray.

And as much as Killian felt for them, for the men who were falling before his eyes as he took evasive actions to get inside the building, they weren’t his priority.

They weren’t his mission.

More explosions, more bullets whizzing overhead, more chaos.

Killian took the steps three at a time, his eyes only for the protection of the front doors, guarded by men he’d assigned to their defense years ago.  A nod of acceptance was all the permission he was granted, and Killian dove behind a column, taking a single moment to catch his breath.

Control the adrenaline.

Focus on the target.

Eliminate extraneous information.

Breathe.

Focus.

Go to work.

Killian watched with clinical detachment as a man to his left slid two full clips of ammunition along the smooth ground.  He pocketed them without a thought, picking out his targets and taking them out.  His breath was coming in short pants, the trickle of blood down his cheek a warm, wet trail, the cold sweat at his back sparking tremors that increased the pounding between his ears.

He fired again.

Again.

Again.

“RPG!” a shout from his left was the only warning Killian received before the marble above him began to crumble, the cacophony reaching him moments later.  He barely made it out from under the rubble before the terrorists were on them again, weapons fire strafing the ground as he scrambled for cover.

There was a fire along his left side, the tearing of muscle from bone and the heat of lacerations distracting him momentarily from his plight.

“Help me,” a weak cry to his right.

Killian looked down, Walter was splayed out across the marble, two bullet holes neatly scoring the white of his shirt.  He grabbed at the agent’s arm, pulling him up and slinging him over his back.

“Where’s Henry?” he shouted at the agent, but got no answer.

Walter likely wouldn’t make it, not without help.  But Killian wouldn’t leave him behind if he could help it.  He stumbled under the extra weight, shouldering the burden as he staggered through cover fire to relative safety.

“I’ve got him, L-T,” a voice echoed.  Tom, one of the men from Killian’s original detachment, helped ease Walter down, applying pressure and a field dressing from his vest.

Killian squeezed Walter’s shoulder once before moving on, shaking the pessimistic thoughts from his head and ignoring the wounds to his own back on his trek towards the open doors.  He needed to get inside.  Needed to get the doors locked down and take stock.

Another grenade whistled over his head and struck the doors, crumbling the framework and crippling his plans.

Get inside.

Take stock.

Find Emma and Henry.

Save them.

Someone barreled into his side, taking them both down just inside the doorway and knocking the breath from Killian’s lungs.  He grappled with the man, trading punches and trying to gain the upper hand.  He saw stars as the man locked his throat in a vice grip, blackness starting to encroach as he struggled, strained, fought for enough room to-

His knife in hand, Killian plunged the blade up into the man’s throat and ended the fight instantly.

Two minutes later and he had the luxury of a tactical vest that he had stripped from the dead man, supplying him with another gun, more ammunition, two more blades, and a handful of field dressings.

Never mind the protection from the kevlar that he secured painfully around his torso.

The sting from open wounds faded with the adrenaline that continued to pump through his veins.  It was quiet in the building, the men, women, and children who worked and visited here on a daily basis long since fled.  His footsteps echoed through the halls as Killian stalked their lengths, alert and focused on moving forward.  He needed to get to a secure location, take better stock of the situation, and formulate a plan.

Emma would be in the bunker.  The agents assigned to her protection would have moved her at the earliest threat.

But Henry.

Killian had no idea where the boy had been when this all began.  His agents would have gotten to him as quickly as possible, but there was no guarantee that they were at his side if he was in the residence.

And Walter had been outside.

He needed to find out more intel.  He needed to get a bead on one of the men and figure out who was attacking them.  He needed to get to the Oval Office where there was a secure line and another weapon.

He needed to move.

A radio echoed down the hallway, drawing his attention.  One of the agents, calling out an SOS, a last ditch cry for aid.

“Storybrooke has fallen.  Storybrooke has.  Fallen.  Storybr-”

The bullet that took him down came out of nowhere.  The impact in the middle of his back sent him sprawling, his head connecting with something solid as he fell.  He couldn’t breathe, the wind knocked completely from his lungs and the radiating pain spreading out along his ribs and down his legs.

He blacked out momentarily, long enough for his assailant to stalk down the hall and toe at his side.  Killian only had half a second to hear the intake of breath that signaled another shot was coming, and he whipped around to put a bullet in the man’s head.

Two hundred pounds of dead weight settled on his chest and Killian couldn’t fight the darkness any longer.

#cs ff #ouat ff #captain swan. #whump #whump fic #my fic #storybrooke has fallen #did I mention the whump? #fictional attack #secret service agent killian jones #president emma swan #henry mills #starts off swanfire #but that gets nixed pretty quickly #nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable #birthday fic gift

[justanoutlawfic]

To Build A Home: Chapt. 1

For Day 2 of Swanfire Appreciation Week: Tallahassee AU @mysteryandnonstopfun

Emma and Neal make it to Tallahassee. It's not always easy, but at least they have each other.

At least that's what their fake memories lead them to believe.

On AO3/FF

#to build a home verse #sfweek2021 #swanfire #swanthief #swan thief #emma swan #neal cassidy #ouat #once upon a time

[anthonybrxdgerton]

Rec Fanfictions time

Fandom: Once Upon A Time Title: Burning Bright Author: @rufeepeach Relationship: Swanfire Chapters: 11/11 Summary:  Neal survived Quiet Minds and was the one to accompany Emma into the past at the end of season 3; Ariel didn’t show up in Poor Unfortunate Souls, so Hook drowned. Assume everything else is the same unless stated otherwise. Warning for pre-fic major character death. Season 3 AU

Fandom: Teen Wolf & Heroes of Olympus Title: Bite Author: @bananannabeth Relationship: Stydia, Frazel, Percabeth Chapters: 10/? Summary: What should have been a simple scouting quest leads to Frank and Hazel being kidnapped by an unknown enemy, and Percy and Annabeth head to Beacon Hills to rescue them. Things go a little awry when some locals take more of interest in them than they'd like, and it soon becomes apparent that Frank isn't the only shapeshifter in town.

Fandom: Once Upon A Time Title: Drag me To Hell Author: @zoe19blink Relationship: CobraFire, side Rumbelle Chapters: 8/? Summary: 5B Canon Divergence, in which Henry decides he is fed up with the bullshit of Captain Swan. He's going to get his father back, goddamn it. And no one's going to stop him.

Fandom: Once Upon A Time Title: To Catch A Swan Author: @phoenixfeatherquill Relationship: Swanfire, PapaFire Chapters: 12/? Summary:  A reimagining of season 1, where Henry finds Neal first instead of Emma. Swanfire.

#swanfire #zoe19blink #bananannabeth #phoenixfeatherquill #rufeepeach #ff #ouat #hoo #tw #stydia #zoe tag

[hungrywhovianjedi]

In an alternate reality, everything is different. Emma got to raise Henry, Neal never died, and Hook never changed. This is the story of when Hook changed the past, and Neal never left

Read where it all began: : Prologue, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6chapter 7 Epilogue

IHTSYH Also on: FFN

read the rest of If I Never Leave: The prologue, Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

If I Never Leave also on: FFN

The I’ll Fight it for You: Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

I’ll Fight It for You also on: FFN

Tagging a few who showed interest: @andiirivera @revanmeetra87 @we-are-disney-universe

When Henry was turning six, Emma surprised him, bringing home plane tickets to Chicago, telling him that she was paying for them to go to Navy Pier for Henry’s birthday.

When they got there, Emma told him, she wanted to do everything. That after their day at the pier, they would go to some museums and the aquarium. The day of the pier they spent hours riding the Ferris Wheel, and the teacups, with a giggling Henry. On the boardwalk, he won him a giant plush dragon, that Henry lovingly dubbed, Reggie, and was passed out in the back of the rental, before they got to the hotel.  

The museums, didn’t disappoint, as Henry ran along in front of them, choppily reading the signs, and asking questions, eyes wide. Emma holding him up to look at the dinosaur bones at the natural history museums, and Henry announcing with a straight face, and a childish level of seriousness, the he was going to. “Be the first person to go back and find a dinosaur, and ask it what it was like to be a dinosaur.”

Emma bit back a grin, as she asked her son how he was going to go back.

“With my time machine!” Henry declared, giving her a toothy grin.

Neal feigned a shocked expression. “You have a time machine?”

Henry frowned, and looked at his dad. “Not yet, daddy. I’m gonna build one, and then we can all go back!”

Neal smiled, and ruffled the boy’s hair. “Well then, let’s make a pact.”

Henry looked confused. “What?”

“If we do travel in time, we won’t change a thing.” He told his son.

Henry nodded. “Just to get an A on my history test.” He told his parent’s seriously.

“Now Henry” Neal began, even with knowing that Henry couldn’t travel in time, his own experience with time travel fresh in his mind, despite the fact it was almost seven years ago. “Time travel is very serious” he told his son. “If you’re going to go for a good grade, aim at least for an A plus.”

Emma couldn’t hold it in, as she belted out a loud laugh, making Henry giggle too, and several other museum goers to stop and look at them in annoyance.

Six years went fast, but it seemed in the blink, seven and eight were gone just as fast, when Henry came out of school, eyes puffy, nose red. The way the little boy’s shoulders slumped, rang warning bells in Neal’s mind. “Henry?” Neal asked getting out of the bug. “Hey, what’s wrong kid?” He asked.

Henry shrugged, and moved past his father, to get into the car. Neal could have gotten in the front and taken them home then, but instead he slid into the backseat with his son. “You gonna tell me, what’s wrong?” he asked. “Or are we going to become car people, until mom comes and finds us.” He told the eight-year-old seriously. “You know mom wouldn’t be happy to have a car child. She likes her family outside of this bug. Spill.”

Henry sniffed, pulling a ruined notebook out of his bag. “We’re supposed to make family trees in my class, and…” he looked up. “Am I weird, because I only got a mom and a dad, and not a grandma, or grandpa?”

Neal’s heart broke, he should have seen this coming, he thought that all Henry would ever need was him and Emma, but he didn’t think his school would make them do that. “No.” He told his son. “You know why?”

Henry shook his head. “Why?”

Neal wrapped his arm around the boy. “I’m gonna tell you a story, and then we’re going to go get some ice-cream.”

Henry perked, and nodded.

Neal took a deep breath. “There’s a reason you don’t have any grandparents. Me and your mom? We didn’t want to tell you, because we didn’t have very happy childhoods.” He admitted. “Your mom? She never knew her parents.” He explained. “They left her on the side of a road, when she was born, with nothing but a baby blanket.” Henry’s eyes widened.

Neal continued. “Then, she was bumped around the foster system until she was seventeen. She’ll have to tell you more about it, if she wants too, but I can’t share that for her. What I can do, is tell you, that I remember your grandparents from my side.” He told Henry softly.

“Are they out there somewhere?”

Neal thought for a moment. “My father might be, but you don’t want to know him.” He explained. “When I was born, my father was a soldier, and he abandoned his post, and became a deserter, because he wanted to know me, but it was a good life. Good until I was a little older than you. My mom was killed in a terrible accident.” He said, looking down at her hands. “My dad? He was never the same after that, he was afraid of the world. Then, one day, he changed. He got power, and when he got that power, he used it to hurt people. He told me it was just to protect me, but he never stopped, he seemed to like hurting people, so… I ran away. I was thirteen when I left, and my father had the chance for us to be a family, but he chose his power over me. So, I never looked back. That doesn’t make you weird. It makes our family unique. We’ve never needed more than us. Me, you, and your mom. Isn’t that right?”

Henry nodded, thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess so.” He mused. “I never thought there was anything wrong with us. The kids in my class, told me it was weird.”

Neal frowned, what do those kids know? “Well, maybe our normal, just isn’t the same as theirs. So what might be normal for them, is strange for us, and vice versa.”

Henry nodded again, sniffling, before he launched himself into his father’s waiting arms.

#Whovian writes #IHTSYH: IINL #swanfire #ouat ff #If I Never Leave

[heytheredeann]

Swanfire Week (Day 1)

AH, can’t believe I’m on time! This is my fill for the “Enchanted Forest AU” prompt. Well, technically they are on Neverland in this fic, but it's part of a verse where Emma was raised by her parents in the Enchanted Forest so I figured it would fit LOL. This fic is technically part of a series, but it should make sense on its own too. You certainly don't need to read the first fic in the series because chronologically it comes after this one. The context is that Emma was raised as a princess by her parents, but she was kidnapped by the Shadow and brought on Neverland, where she met Baelfire. The second fic in the series is the one that shows that first meeting. Enjoy!

.

.

Emma is a fighter.

Baelfire isn’t sure if he was like that too, when he first landed on Neverland and things didn’t seem as bleak: maybe he was, maybe he was fighting tooth and nail to get out with the same unshakeable optimism that he can see in her now, but he can’t quite remember what that felt like.

He thinks it’s a little bit contagious, though, when Emma talks to him of her parents and her life and starts including him in it like it’s a given that they will get out of there. He can almost see that new life for himself now.

Still, stubborn as Emma is, as the weeks pass it begins to wear on her.

They still get out for a bit every day, just in case her parents actually came and are searching for them: Baelfire tried to argue that he should be going alone, because Pan is probably unhappy about her escape and he might try to punish her, but she argued that, should he fail to turn up after a reasonable amount of time, she would still get out to search for him, so it’s better to be together to begin with. And, well, considering that Pan has left them alone every time they’ve ventured outside, they haven’t stopped yet.

It doesn’t seem to be enough, though.

Nights are hard in Neverland: Baelfire has gotten used to sleeping anyway, tuning out the sound of crying and keeping his thoughts from spiralling as he tries to fall asleep, but Emma—she’s used to home, she says. She’s used to her big bed and her parents in the next room and birds waking her up. She’s used to feeling safe, he understands even though she doesn’t tell him.

(He remembers what that felt like too, but he supposes that he’s had to learn how to sleep under many different circumstances over the years. He thinks he likes his cave a little better than the streets in the Land Without Magic anyway.)

He tries to help as best as he can, by keeping close and telling her stories, ones that he got from his father and from Mrs Darling and from the constellations Hook taught him, all mixed together but still doing a pretty decent job both at helping her and keeping him occupied.

(A few times, she tries to repay the favour, claiming that they should be taking care of each other and he deserves a bedtime story too. She’s bad at it, but it’s sweet and he revels in it.)

One day, more than a month in, with no sign of her parents and after a useless trip outside, she blows up on him.

[More on Ao3]

#sfweek2021 #swanfire #swanfire ff #ouat ff #swanthief #swan thief #not spn #my fanfic #neal x emma #otp: almost home #ouat #swanfire appreciation week

[heddagab]

OUAT 1-7

Assuming this means 1 through 7 and not 1 and 7, here we go:

1. Who is your OTP?

Golden Queen 100% I do ship other ships as well, I think that for Ouat the better question would be “who’s your OTP for each character” haha. Like Snowing, Swanfire, Mad Archer, Dragon Queen, Red Beauty, Zades, Captain Hearts, Hookriel...

2. Who is your NOTP?

Outlaw Queen, Rumbelle, Captain Swan... Swan Queen because of my experience with the fandom’s mentality and behavior all these years (I don’t have a particular issue with SQ as a fanon ship and I also assume that the people who follow me and ship SQ don't subscribe to the above behavior and mentality because... why follow me then, right?) I have others too since Ouat has a million ships but I think those are the most talked about in general.

3. Favourite OTP moment?

Oh god, so many, I can’t even answer that question properly. All of them? *lol* I honestly have a sweet spot for the small details that are not much talked about, like when their fingers touched fleetingly in 6B because that’s the only contact they could have at that moment or how they drank from the same glass in s7

4. Who is your OT3?

Golden Dragon Queen 100% I also ship Red Golden Queen and in a very specific way Golden Shadow Queen. I do have an OT4 though and it’s Golden Snowing Queen of course

5. 3 favourite characters?

Yikes, only 3? Regina Mills, Rumplestiltskin, Neal Cassidy

6. Least favourite character?

I can’t choose ony one, it’s impossible. It’s Milah, it’s Hook s2-s6, it’s canon Belle, it’s Robin....

7. Scene you’d like to see?

How about all the scripted/shot deleted Golden Queen scenes FFS?!! We were so robbed. If we’re taking about things that should’ve happened in canon, do you have an hour? *lol* I mean honestly the general idea is them not tiptoeing around Golden Queen like... Regina calling him a “friend” after everything that happened is a joke. We know Roni and Weaver fvcked. We know the last kiss was a TLK. Why use the imagery and not fully commit? I just.. I can’t, Golden Queen deserved better plain and simple. They intended to have Rumple and Regina as having a sexual/romantic/whateveryouwannacallit relationship from the very beginning, their first drafts were written as such, hence why you think in 1x02 they were about to kiss in the cell, but what they ended up doing is just... writting it in their story continuously on one hand (so you’d think they did that for a reason right?) but then tiptoeing around it. I’d just like a show where Golden Queen would be treated with respect.

Send me a fandom and a number

#golden queen #gq text #Anonymous

[emospritelet]

Sprite: out of everything you written... what is your favorite? least favorite and why? Other than Rumbelle, who are your ships?

My favourite is still Penance, because I just think the writing is beautiful and it’s full of angst emotion.  Gotta say Pixie Dust and Empty Corridors are nudging it from behind, though.

My least favourite is probably Red Velvet.  It’s a 1,500 word BJ fic in the Honeymoon series that I wrote 3 years ago, and I’m a much better writer now.  I can’t imagine writing such a short smutty one-shot now XD

Ships other than Rumbelle...  Do Golden Lace, Woven Lace, Rushbelle, Rushacey, Ivelle etc count?  Basically any combination of Bobby and Emilie characters getting naked is good (with certain exceptions, obviously *glares at Hitler*) :D

In the OUAT verse I ship Swan Queen, Swanfire, Red Cricket, Red Warrior, Brave Warrior, Sleeping Warrior (give Mulan a girlfriend FFS) and Dwarf Star.  There are probably others that I lowkey ship.  I shipped Emma with pretty much anyone apart from who she ended up with.

As far as other fandoms go, I ship Whouffaldi, Ten x Rose, Nine x Rose, Banna, Lizzington, Rebel Captain, Storm Pilot, Dany x Jorah, Jaime x Brienne and probably a bunch of others that I can’t bring to mind.  None of them comes close to Rumbelle, though :)

Thanks Nonny!

#rumbelle #anyelle #golden lace #tmi tuesday #hey nonny nonny

[timelordthirteen]

Sometimes I get so frustrated. I saw a post bashing Belle for blackmailing Rumple into not killing Regina in Broken (which is not what she did at all) and for responding that she has to stay (in that same episode) after he tells he he's a monster and she has to leave. I wanted to respond, but then I'm like, what's the point? I don't want to get into an argument about it and I know that I wouldn't be able to convince anyone. Did you ever feel that way - not necessarily about Rumbelle?

I don’t know what post you’re talking about because I block anti- posts for Rumple, Belle, and Rumbelle. And honestly if you’re making an anti post, putting it in the main ship tag is just fucking tacky. As is putting a vague blog about a post (which I did see) in the same tag. Like just don’t. Be decent fandom citizens ffs. Honestly though, Rumbelle is not a health ship. No ship on OUAT is all that healthy. Snowing is probably the best overall, then Swanfire and Rumbelle? But really this is a show where some of the showcased characters are flat out villains who have not been redeemed in the least, and with relationships that are flat out abusive. 

While I disagree that Belle ever really blackmailed Rumple, there were things she did I disagreed with. I don’t think her demanding Rumple not murder people or she will leave him is blackmail. That’s like pretty fucking basic relationship stuff where you expect the other person to be a decent human being. Belle often tried to appeal to the man Rumple wanted to be to encourage him to do what was right or what was at least not fucking murdering people. Because that’s a thing I think is easy to just ignore when you have your ship goggles on. One half of your OTP is a murderer. He’s complex and he’s not always one thing, but he has actually killed people and you can’t just gloss over that. Now that’s obviously part of the appeal for a lot of us, that the characters have these layers and that it’s all fantasy world without real life consequences, so we roll with it. But it’s not like it’s an admirable trait and it’s definitely a thing Belle should take strong exception to, so I cannot fault her for doing what she could to keep Rumple from doing bad things, overall. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Belle’s actions can be seen as questionable and manipulative. Even if she has the absolute best intentions at heart. But isn’t that a running theme of the show? How on any given day a hero can do a bad thing and a villain can do a good thing?I can, however, find fault with the way things were written or ignored, and with the lack of continuity. That’s not on the characters and we need to be able to recognize that, or else you’ll just end up hating the whole show.

Do I ever get the urge to reply to a post, in general, because its content annoys me and I think the OP is wrong? Like every 5 minutes on this fucking hellsite. But I just…don’t. I link a friend to the post and we bitch about it to each other and validate each others opinions and move on. If I reply to a post like that, you’ll know it has caught me on the wrong day. If it’s a fandom thing, I still try to be reasonable about it.

#tag1 #tag2 #tag3 #tag4 #tag5 #rumbelle critical #hey look this is how you avoid putting your bullshit #in the ship or show tags #novel fucking concept #Anonymous #asked and answered #ouat ask

[mariequitecontrarie]

All of Me: Chapter 13

The Fic: Belle French is a pudgy librarian who’s in love from afar with “town monster” and ace reporter, Mr. Gold. Little does she know, he’s head-over-heels in love with her, too. Chapter Summary: Belle continues to bond with Gold and his family while trying to keep Gold away from Edith and Maurice. A/N:  So many of you asked for a family game night that Gold/Cassidy Family antics took over the majority of this chapter. Lots of Swanfire and Papafire feels here, too. Hope you enjoy! Thank You: Amazing beta: @magnoliatattoo; Artwork: @rumpledspinster

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Stay with Me (between Ch 9 and 10) | Pieces of Me (Q&A)

{On AO3} {On FF}

“Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you.”  —Dr. Seuss

Belle sipped her mulled cider, the warm, rich beverage rolling over her tongue and warming her from the inside out like a hug. She licked her lips and looked over the rim of the cup.

All the nasty rumors and comments circling town about her and Gold had been set aside for the moment, and she was at peace as she lounged in Emma and Neal’s recreation room. The Cave, as Emma had dubbed it, felt like anything but. It was a large, airy room above the garage with high ceilings that Neal had built as an add-on soon after Henry was born. There the family watched movies, played games, and entertained. Although she was only a first-time guest, Emma and her family had welcomed Belle with open arms, and the indescribable quality of being surrounded by a loving family made her feel cozy and happy.

Beside her on the couch, she felt the warmth of someone’s gaze, and shifted her attention toward Erskine. Sure enough, he was toying with a letter tile and watching her, a slight smile on his handsome face.

She returned to studying the neck-and-neck Scrabble board laid out on the coffee table, but the puzzle swam in front of her eyes. Her heartbeat quickened and she swallowed. Concentrating with his warm, admiring eyes on her was impossible. Belle fidgeted with an ‘x.’ “Stop looking at me when I’m trying to build a word.”

“I can’t help myself,” he said, and the way his soft brogue washed over her made her shiver. He shifted closer so they were sharing the same sofa cushion. “Your beauty is distracting.”

Belle gnawed on her lower lip as she shuffled her letters. She looked up at him through her lashes. “You’re trying to fluster the competition.”

“Maybe.” His hand found hers, and he traced her knuckles with his index finger one ridge at a time. He blinked at her, the picture of innocence. “Do you want to trade letters?”

“Not a chance, Gold.” She grinned, then popped four tiles on the board to spell ‘EXUDE.’ “Triple word score.”

“Brilliant.” His eyes darkened from chocolate to onyx as he stared at her mouth. “Did you win?”

“Yes.” Belle tallied the final score with a pencil, growing confused as he eased even closer. The scant few inches of gingham couch between them disappeared. Had he thrown the game? He seemed downright cheerful about losing.

“Good,” he said with a growl. “Come here.”

He yanked her toward him, and she collapsed against his chest, dropping the pencil. “Well, if you insist,” she said, smiling into his paisley tie.

It felt so good to be cradled in his warm embrace and she savored his fresh, masculine scent. Gold’s arms were a safe haven, strong and sure, and she was content to be close to him for hours—talking, reading, teasing, or sitting side-by-side with o words needed.

Across the room, Henry, Emma, and Neal were engaged in a vigorous game of Twister. Emma spun the wheel, and Neal was instructed to move his right elbow behind him to the red dot over his head. He was stretched backward over Emma and Henry, his back arched like a bow, his face beet-red and strained. Belle winced; that did not look comfortable.

Neal groaned, nearly doing a backbend in his effort. “I’m not going to be able to walk tomorrow, am I?”

Emma giggled and stretched her left foot toward the green dot in the corner. “You’re the one who wanted to play this game.”

Belle said a silent prayer of thanks that she hadn’t been asked to join in. Twister was intense and physical. With her luck, she would have flopped on top everyone and crushed the entire family. Watching was great fun, though, and she laughed when Henry launched himself on top of Neal and the Cassidys all toppled into a pile on the carpet.

Erskine, who was declared exempt because of his bad ankle, laughed with her, then dropped a kiss on top of her head and looped his arm around her shoulder. Belle burrowed more snugly into his chest with a contented sigh.

“Hey!” Neal grabbed for Henry’s middle and tickled his belly. “We made a Henry sandwich!”

At his parents’ mercy, Henry squealed in delight, and Gold turned toward her, beaming. “Are you having a good time, sweetheart?” He placed another sweet kiss against her temple, and Belle thought the width of her smile would crack her cheeks. She couldn’t remember a time when she had enjoyed herself more.

“Yes, thank you.”  

And it was true. Being an audience for these antics certainly beat her usual evening plans of sneaking chocolate walnut cookies out of the pantry after midnight and hiding out in her room to read home improvement magazines. This happy family—hugging, laughing, teasing, and playing with each other was such a contrast to the cold, silent tomb she lived in with Edith and her father. At Belle’s house, they never joked and teased. A family game night was out of the question. Her father would fall asleep even before the board was set and Edith was like a spoiled child: brimming with nervous energy and too fidgety to relax into the simple pleasure of a game. Yet here was Henry, eager to learn and play anything his parents suggested. Of course, he was ahead of Edith in the maturity department. Probably in intelligence, too.

“All right!” Emma clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention. “We have a few minutes before dinner, so I think it’s time to calm things down with a round of Pictionary. Now for teams. Teams, teams, teams…” Smiling, she looked around the room at each person, eyes slanted as she strategized. “Girls versus guys. Belle? You game?”

“No fair!” Still sprawled out on the Twister mat, Neal jumped up and wiped his hands on his jeans. He bounded over to the couch and tried to wedge himself between her and Erskine. “Shove over, Papa.” He looked down at the Scrabble board. “Geez, Pop, she trounced you. You better get yourself a new dictionary. Maybe Belle has one at the library.” He chortled at his own joke, slapping his hands on his knees.

Gold raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “Noted, son.”

Neal turned back to Emma. “Em, baby, you can’t claim the best player in the room without even giving the rest of us a chance to convince her.”

He flashed a dazzling, white-toothed grin at Belle.  Her heart fluttered and she glanced at Erskine who wore an expression that matched his son’s. Ah, that was it. Among his father’s other incredible qualities, Neal possessed his stunning smile.

“C’mon, Belle.” Neal winked. “You know you want to play with me.”

Belle wasn’t used to so much positive attention being directed at her at once. The Cassidys were loud and direct and bursting with life. She shrank against Erskine for a moment, and he gave her an encouraging caress, rubbing his warm palm in circles on her back. Emboldened by his support, she leaned forward, her hands braced on her knees, and locked eyes with Neal. “It appears charm is a family trait. What makes you think I’m any good, Neal? I don’t have any particular drawing abilities to speak of.” She schooled her face into what she hoped was an innocent expression.

Neal scoffed, then looked at Emma. “This is your influence, isn’t it?” He turned back to Belle. “I know this trick, lady. You’re sandbagging.”

Belle narrowed her eyes in challenge and pushed her shoulders back. “Am I? You’ll have to play Emma and me to find out.”

Gold snickered, banging his cane on the floor. “My Belle gives as good as she gets, son.”

“I can see that.” Neal scratched his chin with his fingers, a grin splitting his face.  

Waving his arms with excitement, Henry jumped up and down and laughed. “Yay! Mommy and Miss Belle are gonna play me, Daddy, and Grandpa!”  He crossed his arms over his chest, his dark eyes serious. “You girls are toast!”

“Henry…” Emma gave him a warning look. “We play nice in this house.”

“Sorry,” he said. Henry’s stomach growled in complaint, and Belle suppressed a smile. “Mommy, can we order pizza? I’m starving.”

“No, honey, I’m making…” The obnoxious buzz of the smoke alarm cut Emma’s words short, and she leapt off the loveseat with a groan and flew down the stairs, presumably toward the kitchen. “Damn it!”

“You said a bad word,” Henry called after her, leaning over the railing.

“Buddy.” Neal shook his head. “Not now, ok? But you can go grab the menu for Luigi’s Pizza from my office. It’s underneath Daddy’s blueprints.”

“Yessssss!” Pumping a fist, Henry vaulted over the back of the couch and ran downstairs.

Neal flashed Belle a sheepish smile. “Don’t tell Marco.”

Luigi’s was the only pizza shop in town, the only option besides the thin crust wood-fired pies that Marco served at his restaurant. Marco despised Luigi and called him a pretender—impostore—claiming his pizzas weren’t authentic Italian. He was still trying to figure out how to add pizza delivery to his already overwhelming restaurant enterprise. Meanwhile, Luigi’s shop was inexpensive, fast, and right down the road. And they delivered.  

“Don’t worry.” Belle gave a mock shudder. “Marco loves me, but if he finds out I ate Luigi’s pizza, he’d never make me tiramisu again.”

“That would be a travesty.” Gold nodded. “We won’t say a word.”

“I’m going to check on Emma.” Belle pressed a kiss to his cheek and hopped off the couch.

A string of muffled curse words drifted up the stairs as Belle followed her nose toward the odor of burned food. Her mobile phone buzzed in her sweater pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the screen, the smile on her lips dying when she saw who the text was from. She plopped down in the middle of the staircase with a heavy sigh.

Edith: Will you be home for dinner?

Belle: I don’t think so.

Edith: Why not? I made that reduced-fat tofu and broccoli casserole from the diet you liked.

Belle hovered over the power button, tempted to shut the phone down. It seemed that every time she was out having a pleasant time with Erskine or Emma, Edith was screaming for attention. After she’d stayed the night at Gold’s during the storm, Edith had wrung her hands and whined because Belle hadn’t called. “How could you do that to your father and me?” she had asked. “We were up all night, sick with worry.” No matter how many times Belle had explained that her phone had died and Gold’s home was close, Edith wouldn’t hear her excuses.

Following their disastrous introduction in Gold’s foyer, Belle had come home to find Edith lying prone on the couch, a heating pad pressed to her abdomen. In a feeble voice, she’d asked Belle to bring her a cool washcloth for her forehead and had even managed to squeeze out a tear or two. Belle rolled her eyes against a wave of guilt as another text bubble appeared.

Edith: Your father misses you.

Belle felt a stab of pain at the mention of her father. Oh, how she wished those words were true, but she knew better—Edith was grasping. The desperation in that message stunk worse than the smell of scorched rice wafting from the Cassidy’s kitchen two floors below. Belle knew she had no choice but to confront Edith tonight, no matter when time she came home.

Belle: I’ll see you when I get home.

Edith: What time will that be?

“Neal says the pizza will be here soon,” Gold said from behind her. Belle turned around on the stairs. Gold glanced at the phone in her hands, then his gentle gaze caressed her face. “Is everything all right, sweetheart?”

The affection in his eyes took her breath away. Belle’s heart squeezed as her brain replayed his confession of love, mere hours ago in the kitchen at Marco’s.

He loves me.

She couldn’t believe such an incredible man wanted a relationship with her, to be saddled with her myriad dysfunctions. He’d overlooked her weight, her baggy clothing, even her social awkwardness. Fear nagged at her, fueling the familiar anxiety that once he knew all her secrets and shame—not to mention her family—he would run screaming for the hills.

But those worries were for another day. They were having a wonderful time, and she wouldn’t allow Edith to poison it.

She switched off the phone and dropped it into her handbag. Stepping into his arms, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “Yes,” she said, closing her eyes in bliss. “Everything’s perfect.”

xoxo

After everyone had devoured pizza loaded with sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, and extra cheese, they’d divided into two teams to play Pictionary—Emma and Belle against Neal, Henry, and Gold.

Several rounds into the game, Emma and Belle were winning, trading high-fives and knowing glances. Gold shook his head in amusement. It was as though they were reading each other’s minds after spending a weekend on one of those team-building exercises where they gave you a rock and a slice of bread and told you to build a fire. Whenever it was their turn, one of them would scribble some obscure lines that may as well have been hieroglyphs and the other would guess the correct answer.

Gold tried not to cheer when Belle drew books and a clock to represent ‘Story Hour’ and Emma guessed in record time.

“No fair,” Neal said, elbowing Emma in the ribs, “she’s a librarian. And Papa—” his son raised his eyebrows and sent him an accusing look—“you’re supposed to be on our side.”

Gold snickered, the sound coming out more like a choke than a laugh. The unspoken bond developing between his daughter-in-law and the woman he loved made his throat clench with emotion. If he wasn’t so in love with Belle and happier than he’d been in years, he might have been jealous of their easy camaraderie. He and Belle had only been a couple for a matter of weeks, but he’d cared for her long before that; long enough to know that his feelings were true. This wasn’t some fleeting infatuation or a mistake.

He’d been a bit stung earlier today when he’d told Belle he loved her for the first time and she hadn’t said the words back. But as he reflected on the moment, he hadn’t given her much chance to speak. He had shared his own feelings and silenced her with a kiss.

Nice going, Gold.

He could only pray she would say the words when she was ready.

“Papa? Hello? This is mission control. Are you with us?” Neal was standing at the easel with a marker between his teeth, waiting to take his turn.

Oh, right. Pictionary.

This was the Gold men’s last chance at winning the game. As with the Scrabble match he’d already lost, Gold couldn’t have cared less. Under ordinary circumstances he was competitive, but not tonight. He waved Neal on, allowing his gaze to drift in Belle’s direction once more. Watching Belle in bloom, her countenance open and her eyes filled with laughter, was more pleasurable than any game he could think of.

Drawing a card, Neal grimaced and motioned for Emma to start the timer. He drew a large square, then turned to his teammates and shrugged.

“Um,” Gold pinched his nose. He had no idea what Neal was drawing, but he was supposed to play along. “A square?”

Neal shook his head and whirled back to the board. He drew two circles on the side of the box, then an angry, dark arrow to the center.

“Oh, Daddy! I know, I know!” Henry exclaimed, jumping in excitement. “It’s a toy box! With balls in it!”

Neal shook his head frantically and stabbed his finger at the nondescript drawing, his eyes pleading with Gold and Henry to guess again.  

“Five….four….three…two…and…Time!” Emma and Belle said in unison. They collapsed on the floor in another fit of giggles.

“Television!” Neal roared as he threw down the marker. He pointed at Belle and Emma. “You two should be docked fifty points for distraction!”  

“That’s a television?” Gold snorted and gestured at the crude drawing on the easel. “Let’s hope the sketches you draw for your clients are better than this.”

“Very funny, Papa.” Neal rolled his eyes.

“It’s good we’re finding out about this now,” Gold said. “We could have construction sites collapsing all over town.” Feigning boredom, he frowned at his nails. He was overdue for a manicure.

“Dad,” Emma said, inclining her head toward Henry. “Sportsmanship. Little ears are listening.”

Neal laughed. “Yeah, Pop, you could have at least tried. You know that you’re supposed to be looking at the drawing, not at Belle, right?”

He shrugged. “I prefer my strategy.”

“Do we have to separate you two?” Belle asked, beaming at him and Neal.

“Uh oh.” His grandson stared at him with owlish eyes. You’re gonna be in time out if you’re not nice, Grandpa. Mommy will make you sit in the corner and you will not get dessert.”

He grinned at Henry and ruffled his hair. “All right, I’ll behave.”

Emma looked at her watch. “It’s almost bedtime for Henry. Last game of the night is your choice, kid. What’ll it be?”

“Just Dance!” Henry yelled, holding out his small hand to Belle.

Gold’s heart sank when Belle’s eyes went wide and two bright spots of red appeared on her cheeks.

“Oh, um, I’m going to sit this one out, ok sweetie?” she said. “Thank you for asking me.”

“Please, Miss Belle. I wanted you to dance first!” His puppy dog brown eyes were wide and hopeful. “It’s Disney. You love Beauty and the Beast.”

“That’s true, but I’m sure someone else wants to go…” Belle trailed off and bit her lip, meeting his eyes.

Gold white-knuckled the head of his cane, wanting to help but not knowing how without causing her embarrassment. It was obvious she didn’t want to disappoint Henry by confessing that she didn’t want to dance. And with his bad leg, he couldn’t do more than sway back and forth to a slow song. He opened his mouth, ready with an offer to take her home, when Emma jumped to her feet.

“You know what? I’ll go first!” Emma put her foot up on the coffee table and bent over her calf to stretch.

“You?” Neal scrunched up his face. “Em, I love you, but you’re the worst…” Gold met his son’s eyes over Belle’s head. “Oh! Yeah, honey, you go first. That’s a great idea.”

Henry sat on the floor, propping his elbows on the coffee table to watch. “Mommy, what are you doing?”

“Just limbering up, kid. I haven’t danced in a long time.”

Gold watched his daughter-in-law with interest as she shook her shoulders and kicked her legs in as awkward a jig as he’d ever seen. Her jerky movements reminded him of Elaine Bennis from that comedy show Seinfeld that used to be on television. He glanced sideways at Belle, relieved that her expression had changed from pinched to relaxed.

Emma’s dancing was, in a word, pathetic. All arms and legs, she shuffled around the mat, resembling a newborn colt trying to find its footing. She tripped over her own feet and fell sprawling on her behind.

Gold had never loved his daughter-in-law more than in that moment.

“All right,” Belle said after Emma limped back to the couch laughing. She pressed her lips together. “I’ll give it a try. But only if you’ll dance with me, Henry.”

They danced together to “Be our Guest.” Belle’s movements were graceful and sweet, and the loving way she clutched Henry’s hands made his heart thump so hard he may as well have been up there with them. With her chest heaving and damp tendrils of hair sticking to her neck, Gold thought he’d never seen anything more lovely in his life.

Out of breath, Henry threw himself on the floor in a red-faced sweaty heap. “This is the best family game night ever!”

“Well, that’s one thing we can all agree on,” Emma said, holding up her beer in a toast. “To Belle.”

“Yeah, Belle, that was awesome! You’re welcome to join us whenever you like,” Neal said with a wink, as they all clinked glasses. “Gotta be on my team next time, though.”

Gold grinned and raised his glass, gratified by the blush that stained Belle’s cheeks. He truly was blessed with the most wonderful, accepting family a man could want.

xoxo

Belle tiptoed into the dark house, groaning when she remembered that she’d promised Edith a conversation. Her stepmother was snoring in the recliner, so Belle slipped off her shoes and made a beeline for the refrigerator, her stomach rumbling with every step. If she was going to face Edith, she needed a sugar fix first.

When Henry had hauled out the dance mat earlier, Belle thought the lone slice of pizza she’d consumed at dinner would boomerang back up. She’d felt ungainly, like a massive, sad rhinoceros, and even worse because Henry had so badly wanted her to join him. Then Emma had stepped in and made a total fool of herself, the offer to dance in her stead one of the most thoughtful gestures Belle had ever received.

Even with Henry at her side, it had taken all her courage to stand in front of the television with her back toward Neal and Gold, her huge bottom wiggling and shaking for everyone to see. But none of them had judged her or looked at her with anything other than admiration. She’d been…accepted.

Entering the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator as slowly as possible so as not to make any noise, but the door squeaked, betraying her. Belle winced and peeked into the living room, seeing Edith shift on the chair and open her eyes. Sneaking around was pointless—when Edith looked at her, she would know the truth. Your body looks like what you put into it, Belle. She slammed the fridge closed and crossed her arms over her chest, prepared to do battle.

Yawning, her stepmother padded into the kitchen, and Belle’s bravery withered like a daisy in the desert.

“You’re tired,” Belle said in greeting, starting toward the stairs to her room. “We can talk tomorrow.”

“Where were you tonight?” Edith asked without preamble.

Belle looked down at her bare toes. “With the Cassidys.”

“And Gold, of course.” Edith’s look was knowing. She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. “Oh, sweetie. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. It’s never going to last.”

“Why not?” Belle balled her hands into fists and backed up until her hips hit the kitchen island. It was uncanny how easily Edith forced her on the defensive.

Edith pursed her lips. “You can’t believe that Gold is serious about being in a relationship with you? I’ve been trying to piece it together for weeks and I don’t understand…”

“Why he would want me?” Belle finished.

Something flashed in Edith’s eyes. Her smile was feral, ugly, and Belle knew she had walked straight into a well-laid trap. Stupid, Belle. Always trying to fill the silences.

“Those are your words, dear, not mine. But now that you mention it, it does give a person pause. An impressionable, naïve young lady dating a wealthy, older man? And he’s not come see us, yet you’re spending lots of time with his family.”

Guilt twisted her insides. Erskine had asked several times about getting to know her parents and she had put him off again and again. Not for their sake, but for his. She didn’t want to expose him to their rudeness any more than she already had. Who are you kidding, Belle? You don’t want him to find out who you really are.

“Well, not yet.” Belle scrambled for excuses. “We’re taking it slow. Enjoying the journey. He…he loves me.”

“Is that what he told you? And do you return his…feelings?” Edith said the last word like it was something dirty. “Don’t bother answering, dear, it’s written all over your face.”

“You know,” she continued, her expression sly, “Gold called looking for you the night of the storm. Before you lumbered into his house and spent the night there. It was obvious he thought you should have contacted us.”

Belle raised her head in surprise. She hadn’t known that Gold had called Edith looking for her. “I said I was sorry about all that,” she mumbled. “But the fact remains; we’ve done nothing wrong.”

“So you say. If this relationship is as serious as you claim, invite him here. For dinner. Or is it your goal to start another round of talk? This time gossip that drags your father and me down with you?” Edith traced her fingers on the table, waiting for a reply.

Belle tried to take another step back, but she was already backed against the counter. Edith loved to feign ignorance, but she knew that her stepmother was feeding off the rumor mill.

“Of course that’s not what I want.” Belle shook her head. “And Gold isn’t the one who doesn’t want to come here. I’m the one who said no!”

“You’re ashamed of us. I see.” Edith nodded. “Or could it be that you aren’t certain of his feelings?”

Tears burned her eyes, and Belle dug her fingernails into her palms. Concentrating on the pain kept her from crying. As usual, everything she said was being twisted. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Prove it.”

Belle pressed her lips into a hard line, her mind whirling with doubts. No! Erskine loved her. He’d told her so today. Twice. And she believed him. He’d given her every reason in the world to trust him.

“I will.” Belle stalked to the pantry, making a sudden decision. Two could play at this game. She whipped out a package of Oreo cookies, and stomped back to the table. Yanking out a chair, she sat down with a heavy thud.

Edith shrank back in horror as Belle ripped open the shiny blue package. “Where-where did those things come from?”

“I bought them,” Belle said, leaning over the package to inhale the fresh scent of brand new Oreos.

“What do you mean? They’re horrible for you!” Edith sputtered.

“Some health experts would argue they’re the healthiest cookie you can eat,” Belle said, rising again to saunter to the refrigerator. She poured herself a tall glass of milk and set it on the table.

Edith’s eyes darted between Belle and the Oreos. “I don’t understand.”

“They’re Vegan, of course. No animal fat. They’re on that diet plan you were raving about.” Belle blinked and held a cookie out for her inspection. “Want one?”

“No!” Edith shuddered and backed out of the kitchen. “I’m going to bed.”

“Good night,” Belle said with a wicked smile.

After Edith had disappeared, she slumped into her chair, her knees wobbling like grape jelly. God, she loathed confrontation. But for the first time since she was ten years old and Edith had come into her life, she had been the one to force a retreat, instead of the other way around.

There was no denying she had been backed into a corner: Edith had coerced a dinner with Gold out of her, but it was Belle who had the last word. And Gold had mentioned he wanted to know her parents better, so even if Edith was getting her way, she was making the man she loved happy.

Maybe everything was going to be okay after all.

She twisted the top off an Oreo and dunked it in the milk, then took a thoughtful bite, savoring the taste of chocolate and victory. Remembering the look on Edith’s face made every calorie worthwhile.

It was far and away the best cookie she had ever eaten.

###

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #mr. gold x belle #swanfire #papafire #chubby belle #all of me #mqc writes