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mimiplaysgames · 3 years

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Terra Week Day 6 (Free Day)

Summary: Sometimes, a ghost is a wish. | Word Count: 3,218

Read on AO3

A/N: For Terra Week 2021! You can find that account on Twitter!

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The Tenets of a Master, Ch. 6

The Master’s bedroom is exactly as he left it many years ago. Bed made, dresser (now) dusty, curtains parted to let the sunlight in, walk-in closet neatly organized with not a single article of clothing in his hamper, as the Master was a fan of washing clothes every single day. Terra never found out why.

Terra has rummaged through this drawer three times already and still he can’t find them. He’s looking for a stack of sepia-toned pictures, cradled in a small envelope, the ones on the top dated many years ago when the Master was a student, while the ones at the bottom chronicle some of his adult life when Terra and Aqua were children. He’s tried searching every drawer, every box, every cupboard, and has even looked under the mattress and in the pillow cases. He couldn’t have misremembered them, could he?

One of the things he’s surprised to find instead is a small, delicately furnished wooden box with a latch. Full of cigars. The Master never smoked, but maybe he liked to smell like them. Though Terra would never personally choose to keep a set in his dresser, smudging all his clothes.

Sighing, Terra stands by the bed, taking another gander around the room to see if there’s a spot he could have missed. Maybe behind the mirror? No, not there. He slips his hands into his pockets, and finds something else. Folded over in four, the paper is crumpled, living in his pocket for the better part of a week. Naminé’s drawing of Xemnas is messier, the strokes of crayon meshed into each other that he’s less of a childish, crude figure and more of a smear. That ring of fire surrounding him stays closed.

Terra grunts.

Here comes another headache, a tense pulse above his brow. Massaging it never helps. Suddenly, Terra is not in his Master’s old bedroom anymore. Suddenly, he’s standing high on a cliff overlooking a wasteland, talking to someone in a black cloak with the hood up.

Now he’s back in the bedroom, the sun cutting shapes through the lace curtains with the breeze passing by. In a few minutes, the headache will go away. This is how it goes every single time.

Yes, it’s been a week since they left Radiant Garden. Only Ienzo uses the Gummiphone for contact, leaving long messages that take Terra too much time to reply back to. The rest of the team would prefer correspondence through letters, which is something Terra would rather do as well. He just hasn’t done so yet, focusing his attention on cleaning the castle as they start a new life without their old Master. Once that’s done, he promises himself to do so.

It’s a shame, he knows he should make more of an effort (and promises that he would once he takes care of the Master). Xion sometimes texts him with pictures, some of them with Roxas, who still hasn’t made an effort to talk to him even though they played a good race at the beach (Terra didn’t even need to let him win—that kid is fast). That’s okay. Xion has offered to set Terra up with what she calls a Kingstagram account, and Terra supposes that’s okay, too. He just doesn’t know what that is or if it’s worth his time.

In the end, he is still really bad at connecting with others, and he’s still out of pictures, and he still doesn’t know what to do with the Xemnas drawing. Any moment now, Aqua will come looking for him. They’re finally preparing for his memorial, to say goodbye to his Keyblade—

—And Terra has to say goodbye forever without ever seeing him again. What’s the point of staying linked to these memories if they do nothing for him?

Why does looking at this drawing of Xemnas the only thing that gives him reminders?

Grunting, Terra rubs his face. Maybe it’s as good a time as any to text somebody now, distract himself so he calms down and do some good so he’s not completely isolated. He waits for his Gummiphone to turn on to the initial screen, the whirring of the machine the only noise accompanying him. How did Ven do this again? He clicks on his address book. Now he has to remember how to open a text and take a picture, particularly of the Xemnas drawing.

terra

did he ever call you an also-ran

Send.

Terra doesn’t expect Lea to answer right away. He probably will read the text, probably take the time he needs to register how he feels before painting his usual bright smile that he uses to play everyone. Maybe Terra has him all wrong. Maybe this is really offensive, and Lea would actually be upset. It’s not his intention.

The Gummiphone buzzes several times.

lea

see

i told isa the other day

the first time i saw you i thought you looked like an asshole

Terra snorts to himself quietly.

terra

is that your favorite word

lea

So it’s all good. Terra breathes a sigh of relief, a smirk that’s warm on his cheeks. He doesn’t know if texting people randomly is the right way to go about doing this whole make-new-friends thing. It’s not as easy as walking up to somebody and saying hello anymore, but starting a new life doesn’t have a manual.

As though the chains he linked through Xemnas harbor resentment, he’s hit with another spasm of pain, drilling onto the side of his skull. Stars, they get intense sometimes, some of them downright gorey. He will not think about it. He will push it away. The pain subsides but only a bit, throbbing instead.

It can’t end like this. He’s avoided going back to Naminé ever since just to keep trying and see Eraqus, one more time. One more. It’s not much to ask for, so why can’t the stars be more forgiving? He swears to them he’ll never ask for something again.

Terra groans, pain hammering over his brow. What’s coming this time is going to knock him around, so he lowers himself to his knees. Several people dressed in extravagant embroidery, from some other world, being swallowed up by darkness, their hearts floating up to the sky and a small cry of Mister, is my mommy coming back?

When it’s over, Terra sobs, keeping a heave from rupturing his chest and wiping dry tears. If Aqua comes in and sees him like this, she’ll freak—she’s already brewed so many potions and teas for him whenever he has an episode.

He tries for the closet again. The Master kept his most expensive robes wrapped in plastic, preserving a faded scent of cedar. Terra takes the fabric, smooth as silk, and breathes into it. It’s weaker than last time. He could always spray it with the Master’s leftover cologne (his favorite), but it still wouldn’t smell exactly like him, and as Terra waits seconds for another memory to come, he realizes as soon as it hurts that it wouldn’t bother with giving him what he’s looking for. All he asks for is the sound of the Master’s voice, to see that smile move one more time so he makes sure he sears it into his mind for the rest of his life.

Instead, a strong voice (Xehanort’s) talks about the Darkness making way for the Light, just like the expansive sky that is home to the stars. It was necessary to pursue it, he had said to someone.

A single tear treads all the way to Terra’s jawline. He’s tried his best. No photos, no special memory. It’s like the Master doesn’t linger here anymore.

Defeated, Terra pulls his Gummiphone out, searching for Naminé’s entry. He won’t commit to an appointment. He’s only asking questions, wondering if there are better ways to maneuver through the memories so he gets what he wants. She doesn’t answer right away.

He pulls himself up at the foot of the bed, aching like an older man even though he looks twenty in the mirrors. What lies.

Where else to find mementos? Terra has already looked through the Master’s study and his favorite spots in the library. The only place left is the attic.

The attic sits atop the northeast tower. Terra is in the residential wing, in the southeast tower, so he has to travel several paces downstairs to make it over, just to climb all the way back up. Entirely built of wood, the attic has one stained-glass window that slices pastels through the floorboards. A lot of junk gets dumped up here—old knight statues from a Master that lived eight-hundred years ago or so, faded paintings that have names but aren’t recognizable anymore, couches that are stained and out of style, chests of outdated books and maps, and trinkets and gifts that litter everywhere else. Even Aqua can’t bear to let any of this go despite that none of it truly belongs to anybody. To her, it’s like rejecting their history. The Master probably had felt the same.

Before what happened, Master Eraqus was moving items up here, mostly stacks of papers. They were shoved in a leather binder, tied together with string. It’s a long shot the photos will be with them, but regardless, Terra begins the hunt.

It’s not in the chest of crystals. Not by the old (creepy) dollhouse. Not with any of the broken phonograms, nor with the folded rugs that stack from floor to ceiling.

But it’s right there, sitting neatly by a basket full of gold artifacts from worlds Terra has never been to and engraved in languages he doesn’t know, tied with a red string and stitched in handmade leather. When Terra pulls it open, he’s greeted by a handful of letters written to Eraqus about trouble in other worlds, asking for his help, and a stack of essays about the philosophy of the Keyblade, both in the common-tongue and the ancient.

It’s nothing like reliving memories or watching them like footage, but Terra imagines the Master working late into the night on his desk with a quill, writing these essays slowly so he keeps his impeccable script. He’d read books with a glass of wine every night, and keep at it in the morning with a mug of coffee, hair unbrushed as usual but that’s fine when he keeps it in a short ponytail every day. He’d disappear every week to some other world, leaving Terra and Aqua with a nanny until they were old enough to take care of themselves. Considering what these people are writing about—missing circus animals, their neighborhood mountain being possessed, and even an early report of Unversed showing up in the woods—the Master used to be a busy man.

Why did he have to die that day? Why can’t Terra keep the things that are supposed to come with home?

Terra sniffs. The smell of cedar comes up, as though the cologne was sprayed up here recently. Kicked up with a cloud of dust, as though the Master is here.

I am… well, for a short time at least.

Terra whips over his shoulder to find the Master behind him, a glow beaming through him as he checks the rust spreading on one of the oldest sets of armor. Picking up dust, Master Eraqus rubs it between his fingers.

This sorely needs urgent attention. I recommend some solvent and a spot of oil, he says, smiling at Terra as if it’s any other morning and breakfast will be announced soon. So many histories live here.

“Master?” Terra drops the papers.

Eraqus tsks his disapproval and like muscle memory, Terra immediately gathers the papers together, working on automatic mode, tucking them under his arm as if this is class and he has to be on his best behavior. When the Master approaches, he makes no noise: no thuds to his steps, no wind whooshed by his robe, gliding gracefully across the floor. Terra bows... though he cannot fight the urge to stare up. Terra has forgotten about the scar; it was on the Master’s face, every single day, but he’s never heard the story behind it. An elephant accident. A run-in with pirates. Those were the contradicting explanations he’s heard every time he asks.

The Master looks down, motioning with his hand to stand up. Look at you. Almost as tall as I am.

“You’re here.”

The Master smiles. This is the happiest Terra remembers him being; he must not feel his chronic back pains anymore. You have spent your whole week following me. He gives Terra a mischievous knowing in his eyes. I suppose it would be rude of me not to return the gesture.

“I’m sorry,” Terra gasps, mouth gaped open for all the words he prepared, but now that the moment is passing by, he doesn’t know what to say anymore. He reaches out with a hand but stops himself, scared of what it would feel like to to pass right through the image. “I missed you.”

And I have missed you all so much, Eraqus says with contentment.

“I wish it never happened,” Terra chokes. “Sometimes, I wish I could find some way—”

Shhh. The Master shakes his head lovingly. Don’t. No longer shall you venture down the path of grief. You have already experienced first-hand what such curiosities could lead to. And you already know you don’t need to.

“I know,” Terra whispers. “I know.”

When the Master smiles this time, he sighs and closes his eyes like he’s feeling the sun. I have reunited with so many of my old friends since. Such a peaceful existence. He opens them. Your friendships are something to cherish for as long as they can physically walk by your side, Terra. But who am I to lecture? You have always. Friends to love, who want to care for you. I am so proud.

So proud…

Tears, quiet and happy, fall like drops of spring, Terra hearing what he always yearned to hear since he was six years old, a comforting embrace that wants to tell him he can breathe again without feeling guilty.

But he still does. Every living breath is guilty by association.

“She’s so happy now,” Terra whispers as if to justify his actions, remembering Aqua sparring for the first time with Rainfell in years, hesitant at first, unsure of how it’s going to react with spells, but it comes fast. It comes like drinking water, natural and needed. “I don’t regret anything.”

Which was why you were the perfect candidate when I had asked you to look after them. He smirks. I couldn’t have trusted anyone better for the responsibility.

Terra swallows, searching for the courage not to ask, believing he shouldn’t. He’s weak. “I am?”

The smile falls. You are not weak.

You are willing to bare it all for your friends. Your bonds with Aqua and Ven are unbreakable, a magical, special, living Light to behold. A forge stronger than chains, weightless and free. I am sorry for seeding so much doubt within you, when you have so much to offer. If only I wasn’t—it was my duty to do better. That is my shame. He shakes his head at himself. But you’ve been so dedicated to the past, Terra, he says, concerned but not disappointed. Too much so. I worry.

Terra grimaces. “Ha, I never have any explanations for the dumb mistakes I make when I need to.”

You’ll find little answers in what lies behind you. The Master leans forward, pulling a small smile as he studies Terra’s eyes. But you are more than capable. Please do me the favor. Trace the past no longer. You have your bonds to nourish, and more to flower. Then he smiles more, an epiphany in his eyes like he wants to share a secret. Only in death did I realize what true Mastery really is. The living can be so foolish.

“You weren’t a fool, Master.”

Master… A Master is a forever student. To deny this is to be blind to your faults. Eraqus laughs, his eyes rolling. What would I have said to my younger self. You don’t see that one in the books.

“I don’t know, I… I think what I did for Aqua trumps any dream I had in becoming Master.”

Eraqus’s eyes glisten. Do you not see one when you look at yourself in the mirror?

Terra bows his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, warm and real. Terra could hug him. But he doesn’t, not when Eraqus slips something flat in his hand.

Do take care of them. He holds Terra’s jaw. Chin up, son.

Footsteps climb up the stairs leading into the attic, and Terra is alone with a smooth piece of paper in one hand, the other wiping tears from his cheeks.

“Terra? You okay? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Aqua is carrying a finished wreath with purple flowers. She stops when she gasps, looking around the attic. “That smells like the Master’s cologne,” she whispers.

When Terra smiles, he cries more. “Look at this.”

A sepia-toned picture of Eraqus as a young boy, sitting on a window seat with a chess board laid out in front of him, all teeth from ear to ear, sincere and hopeful. He looks at the camera like it’s his best friend.

Aqua’s eyes light up as she takes it, a tear for each eye. “Look at him. It’s so strange, but he was adorable.”

“Have you ever seen that one?”

“Never. It wasn’t with the others.”

“The others?”

She strokes the photo with her thumb. “Hm. I moved them into my room. I wanted to frame them.” She holds it to her chest. “Can I take this one?”

“For your room?”

“I’ve got one ready for yours. It’s that nice portrait that used to embarrass him.”

The one where he looked serious enough to judge someone to death. The Master had called it unsightly when it was presented to him.

“That one’s perfect.”

Aqua exhales deeply, shivering as tries to keep herself tall. “I’m so sad he’s gone, and... I don’t know. Sometimes I wish I had given him a Wayfinder. He feels so far away.”

He holds her chin softly, keeping it up as her heavy tears fall. “We could give him ours.”

She stops sobbing and stares through Terra when the realization hits her. She nods. “That’s a wonderful idea,” she says, nuzzling the wreath closer to her, her own little hug for the Master.

Terra’s Gummiphone buzzes in his pocket. That has to be Naminé.

“The wreath is beautiful,” he tells Aqua, and that grounds her back to reality. “You’ve done a marvelous job.”

“Thank you.” She strokes some of the leaves to keep them in place. “I’ll see you back at the front door?”

“Definitely.”

He’ll let her go downstairs first, pulling out the Gummiphone to read his new text. He’s going to tell Naminé that he’s changed his mind. He’s ready for an appointment.

#kh terra #terra #kingdom hearts fanfiction #kh fanfic #AHHHHHHHHHHHH #this one is def not as good #so is the last one #i just ran out of time i'm sorry #my fic

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captain-emmajones · 4 years

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Love, Emma (5/7)

(Art by the wonderful @carpedzem <33)

Loosely based on Love, Rosie (2014). Killian and Emma are best friends and neighbors. They’ve always been – until he leaves for the Navy when his brother dies. When he comes back, nine months later, summer has begun and childhood is ending. Emma can tell something is changed in him, but she doesn’t know what. Until she does. He’s fallen in love with someone else.

And then, suddenly, they’re kissing on her nineteenth birthday. When she asks him to forget their night out, and never talk about it again, Killian thinks she means to tell him she regrets the kiss they exchanged. Except she has no memory of it.

Killian and Emma will dance around each other, until their heads spin and their legs hurt, and everything becomes blurry and it has to stop – for both of their sake.

Thank you guys for your comments and likes, it means the world. Also huge thank you to @profdanglaisstuff who beta’d this and gave me her precious thoughts <3

Quick summary: Last scene of last chapter was Emma deciding to stay with Killian in Portsmouth in order to help him settle back into his life after losing his hand. This chapter opens on Killian and Emma, still in hospital room, one day after his surgery. It is still set six months before Emma's wedding.By that time, Killian has broken up with Milah, and Emma knows it.

Friends to Lovers - Mutual Pining - Angst - Fluff - 5500 words - ao3

Part 1 - MIRRORBALL, Part 2 - AUGUST , Part 3 - HOAX, Part 4 - PEACE, Part 6 - CARDIGAN , Part 7 - INVISIBLE STRING

PART 5 - THIS IS ME TRYING.

Six months before Emma’s wedding.

Large, golden sparkles dance over his closed eyelids. Wrapped up in a soft cloud of unconsciousness, Killian is reluctant to open his eyes. The pain has finally stopped. The buzzing in his skull as well. He is peaceful. He could remain like this forever.

Ah, denial, an old pal. But where is he, exactly?

As Killian emerges from his sleep, the first thing he becomes aware of is the soft, tingly sensation coming up from his forearm. Then, the pain radiating from his missing limb. And then warmth, against his body, a sunny and welcoming warmth. And then more pain, always pain.

Oh right. His hand. The machine. Then the hospital. Then Emma.

Bloody hell.

In a grunt, he finally lifts his eyelids and his eyes slowly adjust to the light cascading through his hospital room’s window. It’s a very bright, golden light spilled onto each corner of the room that highlights dancing sparkles of dust around his bed and lands onto the same golden threads spread all over his forearm. They are the ones to blame for the familiar tingles in his arm.

A small, white hand rests above his stomach, while another one acts as a pillow under her cheek. Killian’s heart beams. She used her red-leather jacket as a blanket.

If his face is still frozen by pain and medicine, a part of him – that part of him that believes in hope and happy endings – well, that part of him smiles. It’s a soft, timid, fragile flicker of light that spreads tentatively in his chest and leaves warmth there.

She stayed, stammers his ferocious, hopeful heart, she stayed. And the morphine he is under is simply too strong to allow him to fully understand what this means, as she lays asleep in this plastic chair, and her back must be killing her, and she stayed.

Shush, heart. Those are territories we do not explore anymore.

Except that his fingers have suddenly found a peculiar interest in her golden curls, and he only realizes he’s been playing with them when Emma grunts in her turn and raises a sleep-wrinkled face.

Killian takes his hand back in a heartbeat.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she mumbles, and her mouth sounds incredibly dry as she does so.

A small chuckle escapes his lips. Killian is glad she is still too tightly wrapped in Morpheus’ arms to notice his embarrassment.

Killian thinks Emma has always been a sight for sore eyes in the morning, as she rubs her puffy eyes and tries to untangle her hair with impatient fingers and her green eyes find his and steal his breath away.

“Aye. I believe so, love. Are you, though?”

And he thinks she doesn’t miss the tender irony behind his words. He can tell because she arches one mischievous eyebrow as she straightens her back, and her hands meet her waist and she winces.

“Oh, very much so. My back is killing me.”

And he casts a very amused eye on Emma as she stretches some more, hands up in the air, and dramatically sighs. Then, she rests her palms over his arm again and swallows him with the waves of her big, green eyes and he needs to keep breathing or he is going to stay far longer in this damn hospital.

“Did you stay all night?” he asks, because he only remembers falling asleep, while she appeared captivated with Sheriff files, red leather jacket on her back and feet propped on his bed.

Lord is he glad that he was under so much morphine when she told him, last night, that she would stay in New York as long as he is hospitalized – anyway, Graham owes me so many paid vacation days – and he did not dare ask any further questions. This was just too good to be true, and instead he stared at the ring on her finger, the one she was twirling, twirling, twirling and he said “Thank you, Swan.” He didn’t find the strength in himself to add “You didn’t have to”, because he was scared she would leave.

“I did,” she exhales, and suddenly her gaze is all over him again, and he swears he feels completely submerged in its intensity. “Made quite the deal with the nurse – trading my Snickers bar for her Twix – but definitely worth it.”

“Of course, you did.”

And then she pauses, mouth slightly open, as if words are about to come out of her mouth, and she’s looking at him as if he might shatter in front of her eyes, into thousands of bloody sparkles. He thinks he just might when a small sigh escapes her lips. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

The confession is followed by a frown, a shake of her head, and Killian thinks she regrets it right then.

His hand starts forward to grab hers.

And she doesn’t back away, although they’ve just spent more than a year apart, she doesn’t back away even as her muscles tense under his touch, and her eyes widen, and she stretches a smile on her face.

And there is so much loneliness in the gesture she doesn’t initiate, in the fingers she doesn’t tangle with his, in the straightness of her back.

And it is terrible then, to stare at her, stare at the void between them, this gulf of pain and distance and grief, to be able to touch it, almost, to see the splinters of their lost friendship and love and to guess the shape it used to have, but to be completely unable to put them back together.

He doesn’t risk his “You didn’t have to” that time either, instead settles for: “Well, thank you, Swan. It means a lot.”

There are still golden sparkles reflected on the white hospital wall. There are still words stuck in his throat, words he desperately wants to tell her but knows he has no right to.

Thank you for coming. You saved me in so many more ways than you could possibly imagine. There is no one left in this world for me to love but you. And you, I will always love.

Of course he broke things off with Milah, when he learnt about her engagement to Neal. How could he keep up the charade? It no longer made sense.

“No need to thank me,” she abruptly answers, and her tone is not as fierce as she probably wants it to be, and she snatches her hand away from him.

A blink. A frown. She’s standing up, grabbing the plastic cup on the white sink, pours water inside and drinks it up.

Nothing makes sense anymore. And it should be fine, really.

But if it were fine, surely he wouldn’t be staring at her like this, as she drops the cup on the sink and looks back at him, the beginning of a smile on her lips, and surely that smile wouldn’t die into a frown when she gazes into his eyes. Surely she wouldn’t be nearly melting into the white wall behind her back.

“Want some?”

A pause. What the bloody hell is she talking about? Oh right. Water. “Huh, aye, I’d like that.”

This is bloody awkward.

The cup of water is handed down and more niceties with it.

But then Emma has a nervous blink down, what the bloody hell is she looking at and the plastic cup remains still in his hand, untouched. Why, hello there, the bandage around his wrist seems to tempt Killian — all white teeth out. And Killian feels absolutely numb. There is still an urge, inside of him, to stretch out this missing limb and grab her hand, but that will never happen again.

And that should also be fine but it feels like swallowing glass. And he congratulates his brain for wallowing over Emma and him, a long lost fairytale, instead of his missing limb – denial is after all a wonderful thing – but they are both unreachable, forever gone, and it should be fine.

Thankfully for him, Emma takes the cue to start babbling. That’s something she used to do when they were younger and she felt exposed, or uncomfortable, or vulnerable, she’d babble to muffle a deafening silence.

“I’ll be staying over at a small motel near the hospital. Mary Margaret and David are staying there as well. They’ll come by tonight to say goodbye. They’re flying back to New York. The nurse said you would have to remain under observation for a couple nights more. But then I’ll help you move back into your apartment, and surely there is some kind of support you can get from the hospital, like a nurse that’d come for your stitches at home…You have an apartment, right?”

He grins to muffle a scream.

“Aye, that I do, Swan.”

Something terrible howls in his chest. Not even her eyes in his are enough to soothe it.

Mary Margaret and David do pay them a visit, later that afternoon, when the sun begins its way down in the sky and leaves orange trails behind it, and Emma’s managed to sneak pizza into his room.

Mary Margaret lends him a pile of books. “Pretty sure you’ll find plenty of time to read those now.”

Killian finds comfort in their friendship. For a minute, as they all stand around his bed and David’s hand is pressed to his shoulder as Emma finally lets go of her red leather jacket to feel more comfortable, Killian forgets his missing limb.

“I’ll be sure to drop by New York on my next leave,” Killian says, and he means it.

When they decide to leave, David shakes his car’s keys in front of Emma’s eyes – your coach awaits you outside milady – and Killian feels a very childish fear tighten his chest.

“Thank you guys for coming all this way from New York.”

David ruffles his hair playfully. “It was the right thing to do, Killian.”

Killian smiles, blinks. Liam’s features burn his eyes. Has it always felt this lonely?

“Take care,” whispers Mary Margaret, as she presses a kiss onto his cheek.

“Always do.”

It’s Emma’s turn to glance at him, and Killian nods, and he hopes she doesn’t see the frightened look in his eyes.

Loneliness is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a satisfied smirk on her lips. She’s been his best friend for months now. And there aren’t a lot of things Killian is afraid of, but she is one of them. There’s no getting rid of her. She sticks to the walls and to his heart and she poisons his mouth.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Emma whispers, and she modestly squeezes his hand as a goodbye.

And the distance between their two bodies leaves pebbles in Killian’s belly and a lump in his throat.

They spend those couple of days together, navigating around the ruins of their friendship. Very careful as they step around each other, not to wound the other. It’s a real battlefield full of sharp edges, of long given up swords, of yellow irises and broken hearts.

Emma shows up as early as she is allowed, and Killian knows what it costs her. She’s no morning person, as confesses the coffee she holds tightly against her chest as she enters his room with eyes half-closed and purple under-eye circles.

“Have you been sleeping, Swan?”

“Of course I have.”

Liar.

Emma is more guarded than ever. It makes him sad. She didn’t use to be like that...well, at least, not with him.

Killian has to settle for niceties. It’s all she is willing to offer. He cannot blame her.

She leaves around five, red leather jacket firmly slung over her shoulders and the last dying rays of sunshine tainting her hair with blood.

“See you, Killian.” And she smiles, and he almost catches a glimpse of the girl who stood on his porch and held his hand.

“See you, Swan.”

Emma’s running. Again. She is late. She overslept. But she hardly slept all week, and it really had nothing to do with Killian, and she needed to.

There are yellow irises clutched to her chest with her usual morning coffee, and she knows Killian will forgive her as she twirls between the walls of Portsmouth hospital to avoid nurses in her rush.

Killian’s already all dressed up when she irrupts into his room, face flushed, and she hopes the nurses helped him with his shirt and – oh, he’s staring at her.

“Hello, Swan.”

And then he looks down at the flowers against her chest, and she tries her best to hide the grin that tickles her lips as she hands them to him.

“It’s been a while,” she mumbles and she figures in the eyebrow he raises that he is also attempting to conceal a smile.

“Still my favorites,” he simply answers.

All around them, dust dances in the sunlight.

“Good.”

Emma has trained her heart. Emma has trained her heart and she has given it armor – a red leather jacket – and she has taught it how to survive, how to remain strong.

But all the training in the world might not be enough to muffle her heart’s sigh when Killian Jones walks beside her to his apartment, and he is pale, livid, and he is in pain, and she cannot save him.

February is such a nasty month. February is cruel and cold and has little care for their human hearts.

No more Christmas lights in the trees, no more snow on the pavement, everything is dead but the blinding, evil sun.

Emma glances quickly at Killian as she walks at his pace, making sure she stays within his reach. He did not look at her, getting out of the car, he did not look at her and she thinks it was for fear that she would try to help him.

She clenches her jaw.

“Almost there, Killian,” she attempts, and he simply lets go of a groan. The surgery he went through was heavy. He looks positively exhausted.

And yet the sun shines its evil beams.

And Emma thinks, as her eyes remain fixed on his figure, that being with Killian always felt like being bare naked, exposed to his knowing eyes. There is not a corner of her soul he hasn’t seen and she only guesses what this must feel like – to have her stare at his missing limb and make out the extent of his anguish.

And she might be a complete grown up, independent woman, and she might wear a red leather jacket, but Emma Swan’s heart will always have a special strawberry weakness for Killian Jones, and that is something she needs to navigate around.

Open the front door of his building. Let him in. Breathe.

It was easy to convince herself, back in Storybrooke, busy with Sheriff duties and Neal, that she no longer cared for Killian Jones as much as she used to. That he absolutely wasn’t a living embodiment of a very big hole in her life. Nope. All it took to shatter this illusion was hearing his name on the phone.

“Careful, Killian,” Emma whispers as they finally reach the stairs leading to his flat.

She doesn’t dare to touch him as he begins climbing, lips pressed together in a firm line. She doesn’t want him to think she thinks he needs her or something. And she frowns, she fists her hands, but she lets him climb alone, right behind him, in case he falls.

And when they reach his threshold she lunges forward to quickly unlock the door, and she hears the small wheezing sound escaping his lips. She shifts to face him, she watches as he closes his eyes and pearls of sweat roll down his temples and well – her arms have reacted without her consent.

She’s suddenly all over him, arms wrapped around his torso, and he glances at her through his semi-closed eyes, and he is pale, pale, translucent, and it’s breaking something inside of her that she thought no longer existed.

“You don’t have to, Swan—” he begins, his voice hoarse, but she shakes her head.

“—It’s okay to need help, Killian.”

And his eyes shine in recollection. He remembers.

He was the one who taught her this, a long time ago, when she was new in Storybrooke and this neighbor and his bright blue eyes were staring at her from his fence. He saw her struggle with Ingrid’s yellow irises and he said in a very gentle voice “It’s okay to need help.” And her eyes were twitching because he didn’t understand, the nice blonde lady would send her back if she killed her flowers. And then his hand had been very warm and tender over her shaking knuckles, and it was the first time Emma Swan thought she was in love with Killian Jones.

While the fear of being abandoned retreated, the teenage crush lingered in one hidden corner of her mind for a very long time. She doesn’t think it still lives there though.

“Come on,” she eventually whispers, to break this silence that is far too heavy on their shoulders and to guide him inside.

The door shuts behind them.

And what Emma discovers stirs something very strange, very nasty in her belly as a smell of alcohol and rotting food fills her lungs and her throat does a strange heaving thing.

“Sorry for the mess, Swan. Didn’t think I’d get any visitors anytime soon.”

“Aha, don’t worry. I’ve seen worse.”

Except she hasn’t. Well, she has, but not applied to Killian Jones. Killian is proper and Navy and upright and clean and organized, and not whatever the hell this is.

As she opens her mouth to utter a smart comment, it is as if, suddenly, her brain disconnected from the rest of her body.

She comes up with a joke, bad break up huh, but she settles for keeping her mouth resolutely closed.

Clearing her throat, her gaze sinks to her feet as she helps him sit in one corner of his sofa that is not already invaded by empty cups and pizza boxes.

She crinkles her nose. Something, that is not cheese, is definitely rotting there.

“There you go.”

Her gaze resolutely avoids the empty rum bottles on the floor. She did not come all the way from Storybrooke to Portsmouth to lecture him, to guide him towards the light or whatever, she came to help a friend after an accident and it is no big deal.

And it is no big deal either that she feels him staring at her as she observes his place with the blankest expression she can come up with, anything not to make him feel worse.

Except that she is almost tempted to run the hell away from all of this, from him, to run and never look back, because this is far more than she ever signed up for, and what the hell was she thinking, that she could just be a shoulder for him to lean on without losing said shoulder in the process.

And then she notices a picture of them, on his fridge, just below one of Liam and Killian, and her hands come to rest over her hips.

It’s a picture they asked Granny to take on her nineteenth birthday.

Killian must have followed her glance because she hears him exhale behind her: “We had quite the night, didn’t we, Swan?”

And she nods, although no coherent thoughts are to be spotted in her mind, except for a distinct and distant smell of vodka and fruit juice and the sweetness of rocky road ice-cream melting over her tongue.

Emma flips back, a big grin on her lips. “Still fancy a grilled-cheese? It’s the only thing I can cook.”

And she smiles, harder, mostly to savagely crush this urge to run between her teeth.

Killian sleeps all afternoon, curled up on his sofa. Emma tucks a blue blanket under his chin and sets her mind on cleaning his flat. It’s rather a nice place to live in. It’s far bigger than Mary Margaret and David’s, back in New York, and only smaller than the one she shares with Neal in Storybrooke. It has one bedroom and a big living room and a small kitchen, and the walls are luminous and white and bare and – alright, it definitely makes her sad.

A pizza box hits the floor, near the trash can.

“Damnit.”

Emma grunts, bends down to drop the damn box back inside.

It’s as if Killian did not want this place to belong to him. She doesn’t even know how long he’s been living here. Perhaps he moved after his breakup with her.

Hidden behind the fridge, Emma finds a broom against the wall. She picks it up.

It isn’t exactly the kind of place she pictures when she thinks about Killian. She can see different hues of blue, and yellow, and a naval theme going on, and also a very neat place.

Her hands stop over the broom. Perhaps she doesn’t know him at all anymore. It’s been so long, after all, since they’ve had a true conversation.

“How can you settle for him, Emma?”

“You’re one to talk about settling, Killian! You’ve been clinging to Milah for years now, even though you are miserable!”

“You don’t know that, Swan!” he screamed, but she only heard: “You don’t know ME.”

“Well, if I don’t know… then, then I’ll just hang up!”

“Suit yourself!”

“FINE.”

Memories of their last fight flash before her eyes, and she grunts. Her eyes land on him — asleep on the red sofa. His mouth is slightly open. He looks peaceful, younger.

And then a sigh, a shrug. No need to look back at the past. They’ve made mistakes. They’ve made a lot of them. And so what? They’re still friends in spite of everything. They’ll always be.

And she sweeps the floor with more intent.

He wakes up to a smell of soap, and tomato sauce and basil tingling his nose and he opens his eyes in a groan.

No, she did not…

“Swan,” he grunts, and there are so many reproaches echoing in his tone.

He rubs his eyes, a terrible headache invading his skull – one of the many side effects of anesthesia – and discovers her behind his grey kitchen counter, hair up in a ponytail and a spoon in her mouth.

The sun of this late afternoon is long gone, and all of the lights are switched on in his flat, and she cleaned everything and he feels terribly ashamed.

“You really didn’t have to clean up my mess.”

“Oh don’t sound angry Killian, you’re gonna love this. Trust me.”

He raises one eyebrow.

“What is it?”

“Pasta and tomato sauce. What? I told you I’m no chef.”

“Wasn’t complaining.”

“Oh, but your eyes speak for you.”

And then the banter and the lime green apron are put down on the counter and she makes her way towards him, brows furrowed.

“Are you feeling better?” she asks and he has stopped breathing somewhere in her path between the kitchen and the living room towards him.

She looks infuriatingly beautiful, with her hair up.

“Aye,” he exhales, and then she’s leaning forward to grab his arm.

But bile climbs up his throat, and it is simply too much for him to take, and he has to push her away and... his arm jerks out of her grasp.

She backs away, immediately. Broken are the splinters in her eyes as he swallows glass again.

“Thank you, but I can do this alone,” he utters, and he tries to sound gentle, but the damage has already been done.

She stands in his living room with her hands on her hips and she’s smiling but it isn’t a smile, it’s the mere shadow of a smile, it’s killing him, and he cannot, will not reach for her.

They eat silently, as normally as possible. It’s a lot of awkward silences and “This is really good, thank you, Swan”, and “No problem,” and “Could you pass me the salt?” and “Sure, here you go,” and Emma’s tone is suddenly sharp and merciless and he stares at his fork with the serious intent of digging a hole through his plate.

Luckily for him, he did not lose the hand he uses the most.

And anxiety is just a blink away, it’s lurking in one deep corner of his mind, ready to roar and leap on him at any given moment. And Emma is twirling her ring again, twirling, twirling and suddenly it is difficult to breathe.

What is he going to do if he cannot re-join the Navy? What if they don’t want him back?

“Erm…Are you okay, Killian?” tries Emma in a small voice, and she must have seen him become paler.

He looks up with eyes wide open. No air is reaching his lungs.

She has tomato sauce in the right corner of her mouth, and he wants to tell her, but he cannot.

His heart is drumming in his ears. It’s as if he just understood the extent of his wound. It’s not only limited to his hand, it spreads to every inch of his life.

“Aye, I just…”

Breathe, Killian, breathe.

He sees her brows furrow, he watches as she leans forward. “Come on, Killian. There isn’t much you cannot tell me.”

And her ring glints under the white ceiling light, glints far brighter than the bracelet around her wrist, glints.

“Aye. I was simply thinking about the Navy and what’s to come, for me.” He is surprised his voice comes out this calm and collected.

He sees her give up on her fork and knife and seize his hand on the table, as if it is the most normal thing in the world.

Flashes of once upon a time pass before his eyes. Once upon a time, she held his hand on Granny’s table on a summer day and he thought she meant “I love you”, and the sun was reflected in her golden hair, and perhaps she meant “I love you”, but that doesn’t matter. The moment slipped between his fingers and there is no getting it back now.

Still, he takes the initiative of intertwining their fingers together and he smiles faintly, heart still beating far too fast.

“You’ll be okay, Killian. You’re a survivor, remember?”

And his knuckle is brushing the side of her hand, and she isn’t taking it away.

“Aye. Although it’s not very fair to use my own words against me, Swan.”

And she grins, and she is an angel of beauty in a house of decay, with her blonde hair cascading down her shoulder blades and her pink lips, and it is a hard endeavor not to stare too long at them, to look away in spite of how brightly she is shining.

“Come on, Killian, eat up before it gets cold.”

He nods, but the drop of his eyes to her mouth is inevitable. He is hypnotized, it seems, and suddenly he is bending towards her.

Her eyes widen. She doesn’t back away.

And he cannot quite prevent the chaos he is about to create, cannot quite stop the course of his lips towards hers, and he looks up, sees confusion in her gaze, then glances down at her lips, and up at her eyes again, and down, down… And before he knows it, his hand has cupped the back of her head, fingers slipping into her ponytail. She has a small whisper then, a small hiccup, “What are you doing—” but the end of her sentence dies on his lips and he is kissing her open mouth.

He shuts his eyes. Hard.

Tasting her after all these years sends a wave of shock rattling through his body. She tastes exactly as he remembers, as he tried to forget.

His heart drums, drums, drums and she does not back away. She kisses him back. She is kissing him back.

She steps into him, pressing her mouth harder against his, and Killian is no longer breathing because a firework has started in his chest and there is smoke in his lungs.

Somehow, she crosses the distance between their two bodies, and suddenly, she is straddling his lap, and her hands are in his hair, and they tug, they tug for dear life, and his arm comes to wrap around her waist as he holds her tighter, as close as he possibly can, and he cannot breathe...Her lips move above his, a hypnotic rhythm, open slightly to allow her tongue to taste him, and she bites his lower lip and his heart comes crashing down in his chest, it drums, drums, drums.

And then, it stops.

Just like that.

Drum, drum, drum.

She lets go. Stands up. Runs although her legs aren’t moving. As a brutal sea of frozen waves swallows him alive.

“Killian, I…I,” and she stammers, takes a step back, creates a necessary distance between them, is blushing furiously, brushes an inexistent strand of hair behind her ears, “what are we doing? You just had surgery, and you’ve still got drugs in your system, and I am engaged, and this should not be happening, and I cannot do this, you understand, right? This isn’t right. It isn’t.”

And as the taste of her lips lingers on his tongue, finally, he desperately wishes she were wrong. He is still high on drugs and that’s why he dared to kiss her. No other explanation. No underlying feelings.

“You’re right, Swan. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what came over me.”

Except, he knows full well. And you, I will always love.

She leaves the next morning in a deafening, groundbreaking silence. He watches as she makes sure everything is settled, that he is comfortable, that the nurse will come check on him every day for the next couple of weeks, and she tells him “call me if there’s anything you need” but they both know she doesn’t mean it, what she means is “call someone else”. And this rest of his life without her must go on.

That night, he sets his mind on finally writing down his thoughts. Finally telling her. After what feels like years of miscommunication, a good old-fashioned letter might do the trick to confess his feelings.

My dearest Swan, my oldest friend,

Thank you for coming. You saved me in so many more ways than you could possibly imagine.

I know the kiss was confusing, and it shouldn’t have happened that way, and for this I apologize. But I am begging you: if a part of you, no matter how small, does not want to marry Neal, do not do it. You deserve someone who loves you for who you are and who knows how lucky he is to have you. I don’t ever want you to settle like I did.

As for me, there is no one else in this world for me to love but you. And there is no else I would want to love. How could I? You are bloody brilliant, amazing, and I think a part of me has always loved you.

If you find that your feelings reciprocate mine, please answer this letter. If not, I’ll simply pretend I never sent it and we can go back to being friends.

Love, Killian.

“Emma, I’m leaving for work now!” exclaims Neal as he climbs down the stairs of their new house.

“Mmmm, see you tonight!” Emma gargles for answer, and Neal smiles.

When Emma brushes her teeth, she really goes all in.

Grabbing his satchel from the living room table, his eyes look down at their front door.

They’ve got mail. A lot of it.

“Damnit, I don’t have time for this.”

But then he’s already kneeling down and he goes through the envelopes in the blink of an eye, bills, bills, more bills, until – until one name catches his eyes.

Killian Jones.

What the hell does Killian Jones want to say to Emma in a letter?

“Fuck.”

He glances up at the stairs, watches as Emma rushes to the bedroom again, towel in her hair, completely oblivious to him and that’s for the best.

And he rushes to open the letter, fingers trembling with the fear of losing the love of his life.

What he reads then freezes something deep within him. They kissed. Of course they did. What was he thinking? That Emma could simply see her old pal and not make out with him?

And then another shudder.

He loves her. Killian Jones loves Emma Swan and he wants her.

And something very green and nasty strangles Neal’s heart. He will not lose her, even if she made a mistake. He strangely finds that he would rather never address her betrayal, never confront her than risk losing her forever. (Denial is a nasty bitch anyway.)

Steps clatter down the stairs. Neal shoves the letter down into his pocket.

“Any mail for me?” Emma asks, arms slipping into her red leather jacket as her deputy sheriff star shines at her belt.

He simply smiles, his big grin, the one she loves. Presses his lips to hers. Conceals as best as he can this vicious, dripping mix of fear and anger. “Nope, nothing, baby. Just an enormous amount of bills to pay. Who knew adulthood meant paying a bunch of bills you know nothing about? ”

And she looks the slightest bit disappointed, and she wasn’t expecting him to write her, was she?

“See you tonight.” A last kiss and he’s out, with a letter capable of putting an end to his happiness in his pocket, and a rage he will never voice in his throat.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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frangipanidownunder · 4 years

Note

Could you write a story where Mulder comforts Scully after a panic attack or nightmare?

Same Old: fic

Angsty, longish, with a trigger warning for panic attacks/mentions of depression. This is also for @kega-umi and @baronessblixen who both requested “Don’t you dare touch her!” from the angst dialogue prompt list. Thank you, guys.

It’s the biggest irony that she put her all into trying to improve Mulder’s mental health, yet she failed to see her own emotional wellbeing withering away. From the gentle exercise program they did together (“I’m only doing this because you’ll be wearing yoga pants, Scully”), the soft therapies he didn’t outright dismiss (“I used to like colouring in when I was seven, and I still can’t keep my pencils between the lines.”), the midnight conversations on the deck as silver moths flitted under the lights (“I don’t think either of us has ever truly gotten over William, Mulder.” “We shouldn’t, Scully. If we do, all hope is lost.”), to the medication (“Please, Mulder, there’s no shame in taking anti-depressants; you wouldn’t think twice if I prescribed you Ventolin for asthma, would you?”), she pushed him uphill towards wellness, never considering the damage to own her physical and mental shape.

After all, she left him.

But he’s still the same old Mulder. Believing in anything except the truth in front of his very eyes.

Now, as sweat trickles down the back of her neck, she is paralysed with fear. Her heart bursts against her ribcage, temples throb with bruising pain, skin prickles with gooseflesh. This is the third night in a row where a nightmare has ripped her from the numb comfort of sleep. Her fingers scratch at her throat, as though to open up her airways.

All she wants is to breathe. To simply breathe.

She turns her neck and it creaks slowly. Her vision hasn’t quite adjusted in the dim of her bedroom. Red numbers drip from her alarm clock, an absurdly chilling reminder of her waiting responsibilities. Surgeries, ward rounds, paperwork, Mulder. These are the compass points of her days. There have been times when she’s forgotten to eat, where she’s woken in bed with the dull ache of dehydration tugging at her limbs, where she’s driven through an intersection on autopilot.

Physician, heal thyself, Mulder regularly teased her with the saying during their tougher cases, ones where he might have received a blow to the head (that man has the skull of an ox) and she tended to him or other victims or did a string of autopsies or chased alleged mutants into foggy forests and would end up on the verge of physical or mental exhaustion. To allay her exhaustion, he might draw her a bath, order the pepperoni pizza special, plump up a pillow and pat the mattress next to him while finding a black and white Hollywood classic to fall asleep to. Physician, and Mulder, often healed themselves that way.

But that was before she left him.

She’s still the same old Scully. Denying everything except the truth in front of her very eyes.

Getting out of bed is Herculean. Every cell is screaming at her to retreat back to the safe, anaesthetic nest of covers. She feels as fragile and hollow as bird’s bones. Her feet plant on the carpet but she is graceless and uncoordinated as she moves to the bathroom. A shower will provide temporary respite, the stinging water will open her pores, and close her mind.

There’s a missed call from Mulder when she gets out. He never leaves messages, instead she is left to run through the gamut of possibilities as she dials his number – has he forgotten his house keys and can he drop by to borrow hers, has he got himself arrested for stalking a supposed shapeshifter who’s haunting children, or is he on the verge of a breakdown? She doesn’t even try to guess any more.

“I need you to witness some papers, Scully.” His voice is distant, cagey. Years ago, he might have created a slideshow to support his evasive baiting. Teased her with the promise of a nice little trip somewhere. Asked her point blank why she doesn’t believe him when he’s right most of the time.

Now he just expects her to be where he wants her to be with little warning.

Still the same old Mulder.

On the drive to the café he’s chosen for their meeting, she tries to think what papers they could be, what has necessitated the sudden need for her assistance. She doesn’t see him for weeks. He goes for days without returning her calls, spends hours away from the house on ‘expeditions’ or ‘assignments’, and she’s found him, more than once, in bed at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, wearing stubble bordering on a beard, and smelling like a laundry basket.

There was a time when they couldn’t afford secrets. It was a matter of life and death. Those days on the run, every shadow under the motel door, every lingering look from a cashier, every click on the phone line had them hastily stuffing their holdalls into the trunk of whatever rusty sedan they’d picked up along the way, and finding a back road to a new town.

As she waits in the traffic lane to turn into the car park, with a headache binding itself over the middle of her head like a steel band, she couldn’t care less if she were to sign him up to a dodgy pyramid scheme or help him cash in his father’s stocks. She sits, indicating to pull into a spot being vacated by an overly large SUV driven by an old man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Without warning, his car lurches backwards at speed. She braces both hands on the steering wheel as metal crunches against metal and her car jolts back. Her head whips forward, then rights itself, tendons groaning at the sudden movement. She’s stunned. Unable to think, let alone move. The old man is out of the car, looking at the back of his vehicle, then up at her, fear written across his face.

There’s a cold blast across her body as her door opens. “Scully? Scully, are you all right? Don’t move. I’ll call the paramedics.” From the corner of her vision, she sees Mulder tapping at his phone with his thumbs before barking something into the mouthpiece.

“I’m fine. Don’t…” she says, but there’s no energy in her voice and he doesn’t hear her.

The old man is holding the brim of his hat, mouthing something about the gas pedal, and Mulder swings round to confront him. She recognises the dark glint in his eye and tries to get his attention but she calls out too late and he’s already lashing out at the man.

The buckle of her seatbelt is jammed into the slot and it won’t release. Her finger presses the orange button over and over but nothing happens. The old man is cowering under Mulder’s interrogation and in the distance, a siren wails. A gaggle of people have gathered around the vehicles. The blink of her indicator is percussive background pollution. Rain begins to batter the windscreen. The pressure in her skull builds. Her fingers crawl up the sides of her head to cover her ears.

“You didn’t even look!” She can hear Mulder’s accusations even through her hands. The same tone he employed every time he burned her about giving up William or about her trust in him or about the value of her weekend conferences.

Not the same old Mulder, but the cruellest version of him.

Finally free, and stumbling from the car, she slides along its side. In the frigid air, steam rises like fog from the hood. Her shoulders are tight, her legs heavy. She takes a breath in but the air is sharp, and it tastes metallic. She pads at her mouth with trembling fingers. Did she bite her lip, her tongue in the impact? She can’t remember. Perhaps the seatbelt caused an injury. Looking down at herself, she sees only her feet, enclosed in black pointed boots, her charcoal wool pants, her sleek belted jacket, all designer wear, all for show. Vanity. Fulfilling a need in her to prove her worth since she left him. Not just to the new people in her new life, but to the old ones too. Her mother. To Mulder.

Mulder is still ranting at the old man. Arguing over semantics instead of trying to get his details. The siren is louder. Her chest aches and with every inhalation, it burns, as though her lungs are on fire. She can’t find her voice. It’s stuck in her throat along with the breath she desperately needs. Her knees soften but she locks them, stubbornly clinging to the mirror of the car. Rain soaks her hair, sticking it to her face, her shoulders. Stupidly, she thinks about cutting it off, clipping it so that it swings about her chin, freely.

So she could be the same old Scully.

A thousand images rush through her mind. Blood. Albert Hosteen. Ice. Lightning. Her distended stomach. Lasers drilling. Cassandra Spender. William’s downy head. The scars on Mulder’s face. His coffin. Emily’s sweaty forehead. The brooding ocean. Melissa. Mulder’s scratchy beard. His wild eyes. His bitter silence at her goodbye.

She hears herself cry out. Pitiful.

Each breath stabs at her. Her heart sprints then slows. Sprints then slows. She clutches at her chest as though it might even the keel. Sweat mingles with rain on her face. The pavement is cold, wet, unforgiving. Mulder kneels at her side, taking her arm into his hand. Fear knits his brows together. The old man appears next to him and goes to bend over her.

“Don't you dare touch her!” Mulder’s voice cuts through the fog in her mind and the old man startles back. His hat falls and she’s struck by how absurd it looks, floating on a puddle that’s formed. Mulder’s hands are everywhere, her brow, her arm, her cheek, her chest, her thigh. He is panicking, yelling for paramedics. Bellowing her name. But she keeps watching the hat listing as it's pelted by rain.

Same old Mulder.

She can’t calm him because she can’t summon her voice. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, nausea pools in her stomach, bitter, churning. Her neck stiffens as she turns her face away from the staring eyes, then she vomits. This sends Mulder into overdrive and he tugs at her chin, twisting her face painfully around, eliciting a moan from her that shocks him into pulling his hand away.

“Scully? What’s going on? Are you hurt?”

She is. She’s hurting. Everywhere. But how can she tell him it’s not from the collision. “I’m fine,” she says in the end. Closes her eyes to his dismissive headshake. “I’m fine, Mulder.”

Same old Scully.

The paramedics arrive and check her over. They declare her unresponsive in their radio missives and load her onto a stretcher, despite her weak protests. Mulder is effusive in his thanks and squeezes her hand, promising to follow. Inside the ambulance, she closes her eyes against the hazy faces, concentrates on her breathing, lets other people carry the burden.

When she wakes, Mulder is on a chair pulled up so close to her that his legs are slotted under her bed, his head pressed into his crossed arms, at her ribcage. She can see a few greys and she strokes his hair, tenderly. Turning his face, he grins at her.

Same old Mulder.

“You scared me, Scully.”

She nods, still not sure if she can speak.

“They said you had an elevated heart rate. High blood pressure. We thought you were having a stroke.” Her hand finds his. “But then the doc said it could be a panic attack.” He waits a beat, for confirmation. “Scully?”

He shakes his head at her silence, stretches, scratches at his chin. She tries to move but it’s such an effort, she slumps back against the pillow. Her hair feels tangled and she rakes her fingers through it. He takes her hand, crushes it in his.

“Scully? What’s going on? Talk to me.”

This is the man who spent days holed up in his office, poring over the same ridiculous, paranoid conspiracies, who left the house without telling her, disappearing for days on the flimsy pretext that she ‘didn’t need to know for her own safety’, who would spend more time nursing a glass of whisky than their relationship.

“It’s nothing,” she manages to say. “Nothing for you to be concerned about.”

His eyes roll to the heavens. There’s nothing up there that she hasn’t already beseeched, yelled at and dismissed out of hand, she thinks to herself.

“Scully, you drove into a car. You collapsed. You haven’t…” His hand withdraws from hers and he grabs a fist of the thin woollen blanket.

“He backed into me. I’ve…I’ve been…I haven’t slept well. I’m just tired, Mulder. That’s all.” Speaking is exhausting. Her words sound pathetic. He knows it, she knows it.

Same old Mulder.

Same old Scully.

A nurse enters, eyes Mulder to move his chair. He stands, loiters in the shadowy corner as she goes about her business. When she’s gone, the air in the room is dry. Mulder scrapes the chair back to her bedside and plays with the plastic band on her wrist. Laying his forehead on her arm, she feels more than the weight of him as he begins to sob quietly. His shoulders move, his chest rocks the bed. She twists and caresses his hair with her free hand. Her tears drip down her face, gathering at her chin, falling as one onto his head. His tears flow around her wrist, burning his sadness at her pulse point.

“I’m sorry,” she says gently.

He half-chuckles, a strangled sound. “For what?”

“For scaring you.”

His watery eyes find hers. “You being sick is the thing that scares me the most, Scully.”

“I know,” she says.

He sits up, brings his arm around her shoulder to pull her into a fierce embrace, squeezing the breath out of her lungs. “Don’t do that again. Don’t…please.”

She can’t promise. She won’t promise.

“What were the papers?” she asks.

“What?”

“You wanted me to witness something. What was it?”

“Oh,” he says, his body reverberating as tears turn to laughter. “I needed a new passport. I was going to ask if you wanted to go on vacation.” He chuckles, still clinging to her.

“On vacation?”

“It was going to be a surprise.”

“I’ll say,” she murmurs, letting out a small laugh too, and burrows her chin into the dip between his neck and shoulder.

She lets him soften into her and pats the plane between his shoulder blades. His heart pumps next to hers. In perfect synchrony.

Same old Mulder.

Same old Scully.

#txf fanfic #my fanfiction #msr angst #tw: panic attack #same old

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turtlepated · 4 years

Text

The Handbook for the Recently Married (to the Deceased)

Chapter 6:

Again, sorry it’s been so long since I last posted! Life has been so crazy these last several weeks for all of us that I just haven’t had it in me to do much besides spend each weekend trying to decompress so I can start it all over again the following Monday.

Also be warned that this chapter ended up way angstier than I originally planned on but don’t worry! Next chapter is gonna be so fluffy you’re all gonna die.

Tag List

@sapphic-florals , @beetlejuicebeadoll , @do-ya-hear-that-sound , @imtherain , @imsuchahobbit , @pastelnacht , @tialanderrol , @sammyskip , @monsterlovinghours , @allmycrushesaredead , @missiheart123

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Well, things had certainly taken a turn that he never expected.

Beetlejuice lay in bed, still as a corpse and staring at the dark ceiling while the breather in bed beside him slept soundly. Although… he was a breather himself now, wasn’t he? He still couldn’t quite get over how weird it all was: lungs expanding in his chest as he breathed in and out, his heart thumping faintly, his skin warm under his own fingers. His hands kept running over his arms, marveling at the feeling. Even the lightest touch seemed to send sparks shooting up and down his nerve endings, he was so much more sensitive now than when he was dead.

He let his head roll to the side, his eyes tracing the silhouette of his new bride snuggled under the blankets next to him. She looked so peaceful, the comforter gently rising and falling as she breathed. If not for that simple, rhythmic bit of movement it’d almost look like she was the dead one. Beetlejuice couldn’t wrap his head around how breathers could just… switch themselves off for the whole night. That was the best part of the day! But they wasted it, out cold in their beds. He’d lain there for a while with his eyes closed, peeking every now and then at her like he was comparing his technique to see if he was doing it right. Try as he might, Beetlejuice had no luck with going to sleep.

It did cross his mind to shake her awake, but he eventually just slid his legs out from under the covers and stood, padding barefoot from the room and feeling his way to the kitchen. Wasn’t that what breathers did when they couldn’t sleep? They went to the kitchen for a glass of water or a midnight snack or whatever? He cut the corner from the living room to the kitchen too sharply, wanging his elbow on the wall.

“Ow! Shit!” he yelled, gripping the throbbing joint in his opposite palm and rubbing it vigorously. Squinting his eyes, Beetlejuice realized that he couldn’t see in the dark anymore, at least not as well as he had as a born-dead demon from Hell. Grumbling to himself, he reached out with both hands to find the counter of the kitchen island and felt his way along to the refrigerator. Opening the door let cool white light illuminate the room as his eyes roved the inside of the appliance. He wasn’t really hungry, he didn’t think, but he was exceptionally bored. With that and little else in mind, Beetlejuice began pulling things out of the fridge and setting them on the island. He did try to be quiet, sort of, as he rummaged in drawers and cabinets in search of what he needed.

Once all the essentials were laid out before him, he rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and got to work dumping ingredients together in a mixing bowl, smashing eggs together and depositing the runny, oozing yolks into the mix. Sure, there were bits of shell still in there but he liked crunchy textures so no big deal.

The sound of unsteady, shuffling feet drew his attention to the corner where he’d banged his elbow, where the kitchen led into the living room. His own little Sleeping Beauty stumbled into view, her eyes barely open, her hair mussed, still half asleep.

“Beej?” she said blearily, blinking in the light from the fridge that he’d left open. “What’re you doing?”

“Makin’ pancakes,” he replied at once, going back to furiously stirring the concoction in the mixing bowl.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, swaying gently in place while she took in the scene. “D’you know how to make pancakes?” she asked at length.

“Nope!” he chirped back. “But I watched the Maitlands do this, like, every weekend before they bought it.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “How hard can it be?” Though he continued what he was doing like she wasn’t even there, Beetlejuice watched her out of the corner of his eye, wondering when the explosion was going to go off. He was making a mess in her kitchen at three in the morning, he was certain she was about to get angry, yell, scream. But she didn’t do any of those things. Instead she shuffled around the island towards the pantry, closing the fridge door as she passed it, and he could hear her moving things around in the laundry room before she reappeared with some sort of cooking apparatus. She laid it on the stove and plugged it in.

“ ‘Lectric griddle,” she mumbled, yawning widely. “Less of a chance you’ll burn the house down. ‘M going back to bed, ‘kay? Try not to stick pancakes to the ceiling.” As she tottered off back toward the bedroom, Beetlejuice watched her with both suspicion and amazement. She just kept on surprising him, first with the marriage proposal, then the nice kiss (kisses! he reminded himself), letting him in her bed, trusting him not to destroy her kitchen? The more devilish side of him couldn’t help entertaining the thought of just trashing the place, giddy with excitement over the thought of her face in the morning when she walked in and saw what he’d done.

But another side of him, quieter and more subdued than his deeply ingrained instinct for chaos, didn’t want to abuse her absurd faith in him. Which, for a demon, was just ridiculous. He was a demon, for hell’s sake! Chaos and discord, panic and dismay, those were his specialties! His entire reason for being! Screwing with breathers had been his bread and butter for as long as he could remember! So why wasn’t he dousing the whole room in flour and nailing sandwich meat to the walls and ceilings? What was it about this breather in particular that made him want to…. behave, of all things?

The rest of the early morning hours slipped by and he still couldn’t answer his own question. He sat at her kitchen island on a bar stool, mercilessly vivisecting the results of his pancake making attempts which turned out flat and round and more or less pancake-shaped but were colored purple. She woke up late, he gathered, from all the swearing and running around and sounds of things falling that kept emanating from the bedroom and the en suite, finally rushing past him hopping on one foot as she wrestled on a shoe.

“I’m gonna be so late!” she huffed, not even mentioning the mess he’d left on the counter or the pile of dishes in her sink. “I thought I hit the snooze but I must’ve turned it off… I gotta run, Beej, I’ll see you later!” And with that inauspicious exit, Beetlejuice found himself left alone in what was essentially a strange house.

He soon lost interest in the pancakes and instead occupied himself by exploring/plundering to his heart’s content. Though it wasn’t as much fun without the thrill of potentially being caught being somewhere he wasn’t meant to be by someone who had things they didn’t want him to find. It was, somewhat disappointingly, all pretty run-of-the-mill since until he came along she’d evidently lived here alone. She owned lots of book (yawn) and movies (less yawn), but no dirty magazines or erotica novels. Not even an issue of Cosmo. Just his luck…

Beetlejuice had spent enough time watching breathers that when he got bored enough he flipped on the TV and surfed idly in search of something that held his interest. But with daytime TV it was mostly crummy talk shows, sitcom reruns and DIY home improvement. Switching it back off with a sigh, Beetlejuice slumped sideways on the sofa until he lay on his side, rolling over and stretching his legs out to dangle over the back of the sectional. How long had she been gone, now? Time had always been a slippery and irrelevant concept for him, born-dead demons and dearly departed souls didn’t care about time. It didn’t even exist in the Netherworld, so once he was shunted off to the Upperworld he never really bothered to try and get a handle on it. What would’ve been the point, when nobody could see him anyway. Thinking about the Netherworld gave him an idea, though. Wriggling his way off the couch, Beetlejuice bustled back into the bedroom. He was still wearing the pajamas she’d loaned him the night before, but what he was looking for now was in his suit jacket. Retrieving it from the back of the bathroom door where he’d left it, Beetlejuice rummaged in the pockets for a few moments before he found what he was looking for: an ancient and yellowed skull with leering, pointed teeth and three eye sockets.

He hustled back to the living room and plopped back down on the sectional, crossing his legs and setting the skull facing him on the seat cushion. He snapped his fingers and immediately in his hand was an ancient silver coin. Conjured currency normally wouldn’t cut it with a speaking skull, but Beetlejuice prided himself on his convincing forgeries. He fed the drachma through the gaping eye socket on the forehead and waited. After a moment a reddish glow flickered to life in each of the three empty sockets and the skull tipped back, hinging at the jaw and opening the mouth like a Victrola.

After another moment of silence, a familiar and harried voice emanated from inside the skull: “Netherworld Customs, how may I direct your call?” Beetlejuice beamed, folding his arms atop his crossed legs to lean in closer to the skull.

“Hi, Maria!”

His grin widened at the surprised gasp and the hissed string of swearing in Spanish. He could almost picture the deceased beauty queen at her desk, looking around to make sure no one was in earshot.

“Lawrence!” she seethed quietly through her teeth. “I’ve told you not to call me here unless it’s an emergency! I’m at work!”

“I know,” Beetlejuice replied, nonplussed. “You’re always at work. But I’m booooooooored.”

He heard her let out an exasperated sound. “That is not an emergency! We have a bit of a crisis on our hands here, if you care to know!” Cooing appreciatively, Beetlejuice leaned in closer, bent double over his lap and resting his chin in his hands. “Oooh! Do tell!” He could hear her rolling her eyes in disapproval.

“Living people, Lawrence! A girl and a man. They came through a door into the Netherworld and then left! The bosses downstairs are in an uproar, Juno is on the warpath!” At those words Beetlejuice full-on chortled, practically vibrating in place with glee at the knowledge that he’d had a hand in causing that old crusty battle axe even a moment’s worth of frustration. Miss Argentina scoffed reproachfully. “It’s not funny, Lawrence!” But he couldn’t stop giggling, wincing and yelping at a sharp cramp between his ribs from the uncontrollable laughter. “It’s pretty funny from here!” he wheezed, swiping at his face with the back of one hand. Oh yes, a pissed-off Juno might just be the funniest thing on any planet, so long as he was well away from the Netherworld’s most ruthless office manager. Silence continued from the other end of the connection while he got ahold of himself again, and again Beetlejuice could visualize the shrewd, calculating look on the fiery receptionist’s face as she drew her conclusions.

“You had something to do with this, didn’t you?” she surmised. Only slightly lying, Beetlejuice immediately argued his case. “Of course not, mamacita! I was only doing my civic duty, trying to help a couple dazed and confused newlydeads on their way to the other side! I drew a door for the two stiffs and before I could do anything the lil pipsqueak ran through! Nothin’ I could do! Cross my black little heart and hope to die! Again.”

If her aggravated, long-suffering groan was any indication, Maria was not convinced. “Listen to me, Lawrence, this is serious!” she whispered urgently. “If you had anything to do with it and you know what’s good for you, you’d better steer clear of the Netherworld until things quiet down!” Beetlejuice chuckled to himself, examining his own hand again which was now less of a pale, corpse-like gray and had taken on a rosier skin tone. Thanks to the blood that was now circulating through his living body! But other than him, his little biscuit maker and the dolts in the Maitland/Deetz house, nobody had any idea that he’d pulled off his plan to marry a breather and come to life! Chuckling to himself, Beetlejuice assured her, “I’m all over it, babes. You know me, I don’t like stirring the pot.” Maria huffed again.

“I do know you, Lawrence! Which is why I know I’m wasting my time to ask you this, but please, at least try to stay out of trouble, won’t you?” She sounded so sincere and genuine that it actually made his chest grow tight for a moment. It was no fun yanking someone’s chain when they actually gave a shit about you even when you annoyed them, so he decided at the very least he could tell her what she wanted to hear.

“I’ll do my best, babe.” She let out a pensive hum, then sighed. “I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself, Lawrence.” There was a click as of a phone receiver being laid back in its cradle. The skull’s mouth closed with a tiny creak, the lights in the eye sockets fading to nothing. What had started as some decent entertainment at a former coworker’s expense had left him feeling strangely wrong-footed and lonesome. Growing restless, Beetlejuice got to his feet and padded listlessly back to the kitchen, wondering again how much longer it would be before his new housemate/spouse came back home. At least then he’d have someone to talk to, someone to take his mind off this growing sense of unease.

Hours seemed to go by in bursts of speed only to slow to an unbearable crawl. Everything he tried to distract himself from the downward spiral of his thoughts only worked for a hot minute before the feeling came back, a pressure building inside him that seemed to squeeze in his chest until it made it difficult to draw breath. How much longer would she be gone?

By the time it started getting dark and she still hadn’t returned, Beetlejuice was all but in a panic. Which was bad enough before when he was dead, but now that he was alive? His heart was racing in his chest, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath, his hands were freezing, he was soaked in sweat and he couldn’t keep still, pacing through the house, debating just going out to look for her. But he didn’t have a car, he wasn’t even sure where she worked.

What if…? No.

He cut off that train of thought, not willing to let himself fall down that black hole but even as he very deliberately steered himself clear the yawning maw of the horrible idea opened wider and wider, threatening to swallow him. It was happening again. It was already happening again.

She’d said so just the night before, asking about divorcing him, when he’d be able to leave. Yeah, sure, she’d backpedaled hard when she saw that she’d upset him but she’d still brought it up! And that fact did nothing to stop him picking at his most recent wound.

“You’re leaving me? But I thought we were pals!”

“What’re you talking about? I’ve gotta find my mom!”

A soft, keening groan leaked out of his mouth before he could stop himself, agitatedly swiping at the dribble of saliva working its way over his bottom lip. This wasn’t like that, he told himself. She had said she wanted him here, she hadn’t even yelled at him when he woke her up with his pancake making. She’d said she would see him later, she said, she said!!

Beetlejuice strode purposefully to the back door, reaching out to grasp the knob and freezing halfway to opening the door. Where would he go? It did briefly cross his mind, very, very briefly… to ask the Maitlands if they knew anything about her. He dismissed the idea almost immediately, no way in hell was he about to go crawlin’ back to those losers and their pet breathers! So he stood at the back door, paralyzed by indecision, one hand gripping the doorknob while his chest heaved and his mind spun. There was a familiar ache blossoming in the center of his chest but now that he was alive it was so much worse. Tendrils of that painful tightness were crawling up the sides of his neck, constricting his windpipe, throbbing in the roots of his teeth and between his lungs and down his wrists into his hands.

Where was she? Why wasn’t she back yet? What if she didn’t come back at all?

Beetlejuice whined again, a pathetic sound even to his own ears as he leaned forward until his head thumped against the door. He pressed harder against it, turning his head side to side until his skin grew hot from the friction, not bothering with wiping his chin as a string of drool dripped from his lips to sink into the rug between his feet.

She’d come back, he told himself. She wouldn’t leave him alone.

Because if she did, he didn’t know what he’d do.

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Turns out when you keep getting left behind by people you start expecting it.

No ETA yet on chapter 7 but expect lots of ooey gooey feels because I am a soft bitch.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice broadway #beetlejuice x reader #beetlejuice x self insert #The Handbook #my writing #Pate writes

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shandycandy278 · 4 years

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Okay, so I came up with a bunch of stuff for the Role Reversal AU thingy, and this is also the reason why I was complaining in this post, but I THINK that I have looks for them! They’re just... not good. Or drawings. Because I can’t visualize them.

If you can come up with a better design, PLEASE TELL ME! I will GLADLY accept it!

These are also a bunch of fun facts about them.

Also, quick reminder that this AU basically makes Nightmare and Dream start where Error and Ink started and vise verse, as well as the fact that they have their own names:

Ire = Error

Aspire = Ink

Joy = Dream

Jeal = Nightmare

You can learn more here.

Without further ado, in we go! :D

——————

Joy:

Pastel yellow eyelights.

Beige scarf with pastel purple moon and pastel yellow sun intertwined by where it’s wrapped around his neck.

Simple, white short-sleeved shirt.

Pastel, fingerless yellow gloves that go halfway up his forearms.

Barefoot.

Beige pants.

Pastel purple over-the-shoulder bag with the intertwined sun and moon on it. It holds the few valued possessions that Jeal left behind when he left, and was also Jeal’s before he left.

Has magical ‘Shuri-suns’ as his weapon. (I’m hilarious XDDDD).

Mimics the emotions of the people around him when he wants to pretend to have a soul, but sometimes he just… doesn’t care.

He likes reading in his spare time.

After what happened with Jeal, he refuses to interact with the inhabitants of the AUs. He will resort to violence and give them a bad enough concussion to make them forget that he was there.

There are two halves of the Realm of Dreams- Joy’s and Jeal’s. Joy does his best to take care of Jeal’s side of the Realm the way Jeal did, but it’s never the same.

Sometimes, when the Creators are putting more emotions into their works than normal, Joy will start to cry and mourn his brother. He never quite understands what’s happening when it happens, but he always, without fail, crawls into his other’s bed to fall asleep.

The first emotion that Joy felt was, in fact, excitement.

Joy likes to go through the objects in his other’s bag when he feels lonely or bored. He’ll think back to and remember the times before.

He has never once stopped looking for Jeal. The Multiverse is huge, so if he keeps on going he’ll find him eventually.

Joy never learned to understand the limits of his own body. He’ll often run himself into exhaustion. Aspire has figured out how to help him with that, but he still passes out far more than people should because he forgets to give his body what it needs.

Joy uses his magic to put glowing yellow fillings into his injuries and heals them that way. He can also heal Aspire like that, but Aspire thinks it’s uncomfortable. Aspire would rather use his pain made for healing.

Jeal:

Wears a white, short-sleeved shirt under the oversized black hoodie he stole from Underfell.

Wears black sweatpants

His right eye is a pastel purple that glitches pastel blue, and his left eye is a pastel blue that glitches pastel purple. The inside of his skull is reminiscent to the glitching colors (meaning that the left side is purple and right side is blue).

His bones turned black after staying in the Anti-Void for so long.

He can’t see out of his right eye because of his fight with Ire and Aspire. As such, his right eye light is much smaller than his left one.

Before he forgot about his other, he carved their sun-moon insignia onto the palm of his right hand with his weapon, and his name into his right ulna so that he wouldn’t ever forget. He can now be found tracing the scars while thinking.

The first emotion that Jeal felt was frustration. He liked the second emotion he felt more, which was pride.

Yes, Jeal is left handed. So is Joy.

Plays with his glitches to make designs when he’s bored.

His glitches appear to be ‘dripping’ off of him, and he can manipulate them into various liquid-like attacks. There’s always a glitch around the center of his chest though, where Ink’s soul is.

Is also barefoot.

He used to have crescent moon sickles, but he’s lost all memory of both having them and having the ability to summon them. All of his attacks rely on his glitchy ‘goo’.

Jeal will randomly kidnap Blue so that they can watch Epictale, his favorite AU, together. After watching, he and Blue will have little ‘lessons’ where Blue tries to help him gather the courage to leave the Anti-Void.

Jeal is terrified of crowds and will attack out of panic, even if it’s peaceful. He doesn’t know why, nor does he know why he’s scared of leaving the Anti-Void again. He is also scared of touch, and Blue has to be very careful.

When Jeal crashes, he ‘melts’ into a moving puddle of code.

Blue always has tacos on him so that he can share them with Jeal. Jeal loves them, although he likes the chili peppers that Blue brought by once even more.

Aspire:

There’s a whole lot of fractures on his ribs, along with a BIIIIIG whole in his chest where Jeal tore out his soul. The injuries glitch every now and then.

He wears brown overalls that look like a hobo skirt that Ire made (Ire also wears a pair that looks like this, but dark red). They are covered in grass, paint, chalk- basically anything except for food and magic.

Like Ink, he doesn’t wear his overalls properly. The straps are peach.

The mark on his cheek is a soft grey color instead of black, but it looks very reminiscent of a peach (not quite, but enough that many people think that he has a thing for peaches. He’s actually actively avoided the fruit since Ire left, although before that he still refused to touch them).

His eye lights don’t change shapes, but they do change colors with his mood. They are never the same color, much less the same shade. Sometimes they’re a gradient between two or three colors.

Ire made all of their clothes.

Aspire wears a white short-sleeved shirt that is also stained in just about everything except food and magic.

He has a bandolier hanging over both of his shoulders. One holds various paint brushes and the other side holds various colors of paint. Hanging off of the right side of this is a bag full of paint balls.

Yes, Aspire has a paintball gun. It’s harmless (mostly). If you get shot you’ll be instantly struck with inspiration about something random. It hangs on the back of his bandolier when not in use.

Aspire’s paints can create the same effect as other magics. Dark green is ‘stay still’, light green is ‘heal’, dark blue is ‘gravity’, purple is ‘limited movement’, etc, etc. He doesn’t really like to use them though.

Aspire has a pair of old, cracked safety glasses on his head that he never uses. Ire stitched some fabric into the leather strap so that Aspire can tuck pencils there. He always forgets that he has a pencil on him because it’s out of sight.

Aspire loved walking around barefoot, but he kept on stepping on things that would stab his bones. Ire made a dark grey ‘tough glove’ for Aspire’s feet so that it felt like he was barefoot while also protecting his feet. Aspire adores them.

Aspire is a very forgetful person.

Aspire has a small doll of Ire that Ire made that waits at home for him. He sleeps with it every night.

When Aspire starts to create in an AU, it sens a jolt of creativity to its Creator. They then add something new to it, forcing a true reset and giving the humans their power back. Not everyone is happy when this happens (coughIrecough).

Aspire still returns to his and Ire’s home in the hopes that Ire will return. He’s made a gravestone for the tree and started up a garden with all of the dead peaches being used as fertilizer. He’s gotten really good at gardening because of it.

There’s a thin strip of silver metal wrapped around his head that looks like a crown. It has Ire’s strings tangled around it, and he never lets it out of his sight, much less takes it off. He also refuses to let it get dirty and has been known for freaking out and throwing a fit when it does.

Aspire can create objects with his paints, but nothing living lasts longer than one minute.

He didn’t have any weapons outside of enhanced bone attacks before he ate the peaches.

Ire:

Has natural black bones, but he didn’t gain his tears until the Tree-Incident. They’re a gradient of blue to peach (peach in the middle, blue on the top and bottom), and the same could be said for his strings.

He inherited his strings from his father. That’s all he knows.

Before the incident, his strings were just blue.

He doesn’t like using his strings for anything outside of repairing clothes and making things. Even now he only uses them as a last resort.

He has a badly-made dark blue trench coat that Aspire had wanted to make for him with him. He never takes it off.

Inside one of the pockets in there is a silver crown-like band that is in pristine condition. It has various intricate carvings on it that were from Aspire.

He wears a cream shirt under his coat with the dark red overalls that he wears properly. They also look like a skirt.

He wears red, fluffy slippers that he made himself. They can only come off if he wants them to.

There’s a liquid similar to peach juice that clings to his strings. Very sticky.

He is near-sighted and does wear glasses to accommodate for that. He keeps them on his head with his strings.

Ire can’t find it in himself to even touch a peach anymore.

Ire has dolls of Aspire and Jeal. Aspire looks loved, while Jeal has been sown back together more times than anyone could guess. Aspire is kept on Ire’s bed, and Jeal can often be found pinned to the floor or walk by a black bone attack.

Ire now lives in a timeline of Outertale. He refuses to return home until he’s gotten Aspire’s soul back, and he’s acquainted with the local Papyrus. Outer doesn’t know what to think about him.

Ire refuses to look at his LV. He gets physically sick whenever he’s reminded of what he has done.

Without Determination, he would have killed himself back when he first took out the village.

Ire doesn’t actually know what he’ll do once he gives Aspire his soul back. His mind screams at him that he doesn’t deserve Aspire’s forgiveness, much less that Aspire will actually forgive him no matter what he’s done. His Justice, however, demands that he make things right and his Determination gives him the drive to do so.

Ire apologizes to every AU he destroys before destroying it.

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jawsandbones · 4 years

Text

The Evening Red - Chapter Six

Rating: E

Summary: The blighted plague at your feet, and ghosts at your bedside. Those things that go bump in the night? They follow behind you. If only you had someone to protect you. A late-Victorian era re-imagining of Dragon Age Origins.

Pairing: Zevran x Female Warden

AO3 Link: Click Here

Chapter Six: Murmuration

The sounds hum together in the heat. This cacophony of cicadas, beetles and bees. She is formed of things that are not herself alone. Noya wears her father’s belt, tied around her mother’s dress, and boots which are from Alistair. The stockings belong to Morrigan, the gloves to Wynne. Leliana’s jacket on her shoulders, and Tamlen’s pin sits high in her hair. There is a necklace she doesn’t recognize sitting around her neck, and she lets her hand stretch wide over the long wheat. A blade of it moves between her fingers, tickles at her skin. The sun sticks at her back, burns down her neck. She stands in the field, surrounded by dense wood. Whispered breath escapes her.

She is widowed in the wheat, a strange feeling of hollowness inside her. From the wood, a creature crawls. The breeze moves through, and it carries with it the foul scent of what stalks her. It does not pass the treeline, nor does it move out of shadow. There is no point in cowardice. The boots stick in the mud as she walks towards the creature. The hollowness changes, becomes untenable weight which moves from her lungs to her skull. Her upper lip prickles as the blood begins to fall from her nose. She wipes it away with the back of her hand, but it will not stop. No matter.

She picks up her skirts as she moves forward, sinks low in the mud. There is iron in her mouth, a grisly blood drool. It overflows past her lips, stains the fabric at her chest. She loses the jacket in the field. The boots slip from her feet, staying where they are stuck. The stockings are inevitably ruined, the gloves as she tries to pull her feet free. The pin slips from her hair, immediately swallowed up by the earth. The blood chokes in her throat now, and her breath is more a wheeze, unable to hold air inside her lungs. Her vision cracks, blurs, hums along with the heat. The creature wavers before her. She cannot make out its shape.

She nearly makes it to the edge before she cannot walk any longer. Her hands claw at the mud which seeks to drown her, already cold at her ribs. It swirls, the bloodied brown, and her hair sticks at her temples, her forehead. She pulls at the wheat, but it cannot hold her weight. She is being pulled under. She has lost what was given by the others. When the mud pulls her under, the necklace is all that remains, a halo for a lost head. Noya’s eyes slowly open.

Her bed creaks underneath her shifting weight, and she rolls onto her back. She lets her hand rest against her forehead and watches the way the light presses against the curtains. It would be easy enough to close her eyes, drift back into sleep and the dream which has already begun to fade. She reaches for what strings it left behind, but all she has is some intangible idea of what it once was. A nameless fear, a spectral warning, soon altogether forgotten. Her hand falls back to her side, over the covers. She pushes herself up to sit, feet coming to rest against the floor.

Her elbow presses into her knee, and her fingers run over her lips. She did not expect Zevran to stay. Indications of his presence remain. The chair, fallen in their haste last night, is now righted. The small box which was beside her pillow, now peeks out from underneath her bed. She supposes he must have carried her, as she has no memory of how she made it to her bed. There’s a single piece of parchment on the table. Folded, propped up, meant for to find.

She rubs her shoulder as she plants feet against cold floor, makes her way over to it. Her fingers drift over the four indents in the crook of her neck. There is no blood, and to her surprise, the marks seem almost healed – as if they were days old, instead of hours. She picks up the letter, unfolds it with one hand. His script is neat, flowing, written in delicate cursive. She begins to make her morning coffee as she reads it, smiling at his telling of ‘a most pleasurable evening’. There are also apologies for leaving as she slept and assurances that they’ll meet again soon.

She folds it neatly, leaves it at her counter. The coffee scalds on her tongue, slightly burnt but strong enough. She sits at the table, and her finger moves over a tiny bubble of blood against the grain of the wood. Another, slightly splattered, and she leaves the cup where it is when she goes to the mirror. Cracked and clouded, still usable. She turns, pulls at her nightgown, and the back of it is soaked with her blood. Another thing to be scrubbed out. She leaves it with her clothes from yesterday. The bath is small, cramped, and the water cold. She runs the cloth over her skin, watches as gooseflesh prickles through the bruises which have fully flowered. The blighted hit bluntly, without thought or reason.

Is it Orlais, as Sir Loghain would believe? A plague in the capital of an enemy’s city would surely cause enough damage to render a conquest short. Still, unless they held a secret cure, it would run rampant through their soldiers as well. This tactic had been attempted before, to terrible consequence. Would the Orlesians really gamble on such a thing? King Cailain wants it to be the whim of the world, as untamable as a tornado or earthquake. It could run its course, it could not. Then there is the troubling matter of the blighted being directed. She rests her chin on her knee, and grumbles at being a playing piece – set without knowing the rules.

Duncan had instructed them to stay away from the university, but an inventory needed to be taken of what has survived. She pulls at her hair, does her best to make it into something resembling sanity. Twisted and braided, pulled up and around. The corset fits snug, undergarments loose and clean. A white pouter pigeon blouse, wine colored skirt, with a belt around her middle and a long but simple necklace. Dark stockings run high, and her pointed shoes much the same. She ties them comfortably, retrieves her coat. Fall will give way to winter soon enough.

Noya locks the door behind her, races down the stairwell, her hand lightly on the banner. She finds Alistair at the entrance. “I was just coming to get you –” he’s saying, but she takes his hand from the door, and holds it in hers.

“We need to go to the University.”

“Noya, wait. Duncan told me what happened. I was going to get you food. Take you to brunch if you were feeling up to it. Are you going to the University to work? Even if everything was… okay, we don’t work on Saturdays.”

“It’s not for work.”

“Noya, brunch.”

“Later.” She gives his hand a small tug, a slight squeeze, looks over her shoulder at him. Reluctant but following, Alistair matches her pace. Only when he’s side by side with her does she let go of his hand.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Noya says. “Nothing but a few bumps here and there.”

“Duncan’s barely come out of his study. He’s worried and working on something,” he says.

“Then he won’t be here to get in our way today,” she says.

“About that…”

No one pays them any mind when they reach the University. It’s practically deserted, the medical ward sectioned off. Alistair follows Noya through the servant’s hallways, a way around the guards and those meant to keep wandering eyes away. She brings a finger to her lips as they approach Wynne’s usual room. The glass of the door is shattered out into the hallway. Noya quickly peeks her head around the doorway. Duncan is wearing one of his better suits, without stain or wrinkle. He has his arms crossed, his brow furrowed as he speaks. The sight of Loghain’s slick hair twists a knot in her belly.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” She asks Alistair, in a whisper. He frowns, but steps forward, tilts his head towards the door.

“Duncan is discussing what was destroyed. Saying you lot must’ve been close to the cure… sabotaged by someone who wants the plague to ravage Denerim… That a cure must still be worked on. Loghain is telling him that his orders are final and that the work must be stopped. Something about those with a royal permit working on it instead? Oh fuck.” Alistair grabs Noya by the arm, pulls her down the corridor and around a bend.

“Gooday Sir Duncan. Please give the others our King’s sincere appreciation for their hard work, but that is ended now,” Loghain’s voice carries down the hallway, as does the sound of his shoes walking away. Duncan, however, is still in the doorway, boring holes into his back with his gaze. After a moment, he finally sighs, lets his shoulders fall. He rubs his eyes as he begins to move away. Slipping from Alistair’s grasp, Noya makes her way to where he once stood. The theatre is in ruins. She steps inside, glass crunching underneath her shoes.

Chairs have been thrown, the desk overturned. Paper is strewn across the floor, stained with mud and who knows what else. The door to the lab has been torn from its hinges. She doesn’t make her way inside this one. Every glass vial has been crushed. The floor is wet with unknown liquids. Somewhere, in all of it, is Zevran’s blood. “I’m sorry,” Alistair says as he looks at the ruins of it.

“We’ll have to start again,” Noya says mechanically, “and likely without the University’s funds and support, if Loghain truly is shuttering everything behind royal walls.”

“You don’t think one of those researchers will a cure?”

“I think that if they do, they’ll start at the top down,” she says, turning to look at Alistair, crossing her arms. “By the time they make it to Tamlen, it might be too late.”

“Oh.” Alistair sways on his feet, then stiffly puts his hand on her shoulder. She holds herself tightly, and he sighs. His touch relaxes, makes its way to the nape of her neck. He leans forward and lets his chin rest on the crown of her head. “It’s Tam. He’ll be okay.”

“I hope so.”

“He will. I promise.” They stand in silence, and he listens to her breathe. When he’s certain… he pulls back, both hands on her shoulders and takes a deep breath. “Can we please go get brunch now?” Noya breaks into startled laughter, rests a hand on his chest, and smiles up at him.

“Yes, we can go get brunch.”

“Thank the Maker.”

---

The afternoon goes quietly. The evening even more so. Dinner sits untouched on her plate, pushed away from her at the table. She is bent over the notebook, pen in her hand. Her writing is not as clean as Zevran’s – far less focused, each stroke pointed and pressed into the page. The language is also different, and she doubts that anyone besides Tamlen or herself might be able to read it. Which is fine – it isn’t meant for reading. So when the knock comes, it’s followed by pages fluttering, the book closing, and Noya shoving it into the nook above the stove.

“No need to invite me in, my darling. I have come to invite you out,” Zevran says, at her doorway, his hand extended towards her and a smile on his face. It’s one Noya matches as she slips her hand into his, manages to grab hold of her coat with the other. He manages to maneuver her so that their arms are linked together, shoulder against shoulder as they walk down the street. Feeble gas lamps do their best to light the way. Side and secondary streets are not lit at all. There are a few others, here and there, going about their business.

“Where are we going?”

“You shall see,” he says, turning to look at her, the smile still on his face taking a more mischievous quality now. “It is not a place many go, but I find it quite charming.” He leads her towards the edges of the city, near the Amaranthine Ocean. Fish takes over from the smell of soot, while most places on the waterfront are closed, there is one still with lights on. A bell chimes when they enter, and Zevran gestures for Noya to take a seat anywhere she likes. She chooses one by the window, looking out over the docks.

There is only one other person in the building. A stocky figure, hair untamed, dark and wild around her face. Her apron is covered in messy handprints – something of chocolate powder, perhaps a jelly for that one. She takes one look at Zevran, and they give each other a familiar nod. Then, she disappears behind the counter. He takes a seat across from Noya. “Do not worry, I am assured the food here is quite delicious,” he says.

“Can you eat? Or is it only…” she looks towards the doorway where the woman had disappeared.

“I may eat, but what you would call normal food is only ashes to me. It has a distinctly disgusting flavor. Blood is all that sustains a vampire,” he says. He makes a waving motion with his hand. “And do not worry about Mrs. Cane. She knows my nature, as I know hers. She is one of the púcaí.”

“What is a púcaí?”

“A shapeshifter. There are many stories of them. Most are about beautiful horses which entice humans to take a ride on their back. They would get a most wild and terrifying journey before the púca dropped them back at home.” Noya smiles politely, thanks Mrs. Cane as she sets an appetizing plate down before Noya, and a single cup before Zevran. Then, she disappears into the back once again. Zevran drinks deeply, licks his lips.

“Ah, strong coffee is the only thing which does not taste of shit,” he tells Noya. She smiles as she takes the knife and fork, cuts into a gleaming thigh of chicken. Maple, and perhaps honey? A sweet glaze, moist and perfectly cooked. The potatoes are covered in gravy, the beans green and steaming.

“It is delicious,” Noya says, “but how many women have told you that?”

“Many woman and men.” She chuckles and shakes her head. “Does it bother you? That I also enjoy the company of men?”

“No. I think anyone, regardless of gender, is a fool if they turn you down.”

“Oh?” Noya touches fingers to her lips as she finishes chewing, swallows, and sets her fork down beside her plate. Her own reflection looks back at her in the glass, distant waves only barely able to be seem.

“There are people whose bones are dust, and who only you remember. You carry all those lives with you, through the ages.” She shakes her head, sets her hands down in her lap. “You would think that I would have nothing in common with someone from a hundred, two hundred years ago. Except that I do, through you. They’re not truly gone, because they stay with you.” On the table, Zevran’s hand clenches into a fist.

“And if I do not remember them as well as I should?” Noya puts her hand lightly over his.

“You can share their memory with me.”

“Perhaps another time.” The fist comes undone as he turns his hand over, fingertips fluttering at the base of Noya’s wrist. “You almost made me forget the reason I asked you here.”

“Oh?”

“You are perfectly allowed this, please do not mistake my asking for judgement. Please also do not either think it some sort of necessity for our courtship to continue.” A smile flickers across her face. “I simply wished to know the reason that I cannot kiss you. Everyone has their own, and I am quite curious of yours,” he says.

“If I’m going to kiss someone, then it should be someone that I love.” His eyebrows rise.

“If I was expecting a certain answer, it was not that one. You do not strike me the romantic type,” he says. Noya smiles as she leans forward, rests the corner of her chin on her knuckles.

“Then it will surprise you to learn that I’m a deeply romantic person. I enjoy having sex, and the pleasures that come with it. It seems contradictory, but I believe there’s a difference between sex and an intimate encounter between people in love,” she says.

“A unique stance for a woman of this age,” he says.

“Do you disapprove?”

“Rather the opposite. I will never understand denying yourself on of life’s greatest pleasures,” he says. “Then, Miss Mahariel, have you kissed someone you love?”

“I have,” she says.

“Should I be jealous?”

“No,” she says, “we’ve grown apart.”

“I see. I won’t press you further. Though I would have been fairly put out had a jealous lover made an attempt on me with a wooden stake,” he says. She laughs, and he leans back in his chair, satisfied. Her hand is free to return to knife and fork, eating while he sips at his coffee. He looks out through the window, at those distant waves. The moon’s reflection struggles over the ocean, broken and chopped.

“Are you the only vampire in Denerim?” she asks as she dabs at her lips with the napkin, sets it down over her empty plate.

“That suggests that we all know each other,” he says, playfully. “If the vampire is inexperienced, or careless, there will be signs. I have not seen any, so it could be I am the only one in Denerim. Or it could be that there is another, who is experienced and careful. It is hard to say.”

“Signs?”

“Ah, well, bodies, I suppose. Perhaps thralls – the dead who should not be walking, under the control of a vampire,” he says.

“Do you have thralls?” His face twists.

“No. I dislike robbing someone of their free will. I do not want a slave. The very idea disgusts me,” he says.

“We are the same in that regard. I am one of the Dalish,” she says.

“I suspected,” he says. He leans forward, playfully looks around and drops his voice to a whisper. “Do you have tattoos?” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Somewhere naughty, I hope.”

“You’ll have to see,” she says, with a smile to match his.

“You are a terrible tease. If you will not tell me, then I suppose there is no point in delaying dessert.”

---

As promised, on the appointed day, Noya and the others stand outside of Duncan’s estate. “I’ve knocked plenty, but there’s been no answer. Do you think he went out?” Leliana asks, standing beside Wynne. Morrigan touches her hand to the doorknob.

“I could break this,” she says.

“No,” Wynne says instantly, disapproval resounding in the word, “Morrigan.”

“If he was missing something for tonight, he would have sent a servant or had Alistair go and fetch it,” Noya says. “In an estate with a master and a ward - there is no one answering this door. We were attacked. The University was attacked. Loghain tried to shut Duncan out.” She looks directly at Wynne. “We should break the door open.”

“I brought my lock picks!” Leliana says rooting around in her carry bag.

“Why do you have lock picks?” Morrigan asks. Leliana only shrugs, and smiles.

“Why do you have lock picks? I have a key.” They all whirl around at the sound of his voice, and Alistair fishes a hand into his pocket. He brings out the ring of keys and steps through them to put the correct one into the lock. “He sent me to get wine. Can you believe it? He plans a dinner party and then forgets about wine.” His other hand is preoccupied with keeping four wine bottles close to his chest. After unlocking the door, he distributes one to each of them. “Duncan?”

His voice echoes through the hallway, and one by one, they all filter through the doorway. Noya keeps the bottle tight in her hands. The silence brings uneasiness, although Leliana is chatting quite amicably with Alistair. Wynne is smiling, contributing here and there, while Morrigan rolls her eyes. Noya opens the door to the dining room, and pauses, closes it almost completely once again. She holds out her bottle. “Alistair. Can you take this to the kitchen? Leliana can help you. You should bring us some glasses,” she says. She gestures at Wynne and Morrigan to hand back their bottles as well.

“Alright, if you insist. This better not be a habit, or else I expect to be paid like a proper servant,” he says. Leliana tilts her head questioningly, but all it takes is one short shake of Noya’s head to send her towards the kitchen.

“Alistair, I was meaning to ask you…” her lightly accented voice floats down the corridor. Once she’s sure they’re gone, Noya opens the door for Wynne and Morrigan. Wynne’s face immediately falls, eyes beginning to well up with tears. Morrigan rolls up her sleeves. Noya does the same, and walks over the threshold.

Duncan sits at the head of the long table. His body is bowed, his throat slit. Someone has placed a bowl beneath his neck. It fills with blood, a foul goblet.

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myouki · 4 years

Text

The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Chapter 1

This is a Christmas special/continuation of ‘My Gift to You’, so it would be wise to read that to know what’s happening here.

So Merry (early) Christmas and enjoy~

Credits:

Goth: @nekophy

Palette: @angeutblogo

Dream: @jokublog

Geno: @loverofpiggies

Reaper: @renrink

***

Palette opened the door to his oven, inhaling deeply as the scent of freshly baked sugar cookies wafted from within. Sticking a gloved hand in to retrieve the hot tray, a slight weight brushed against his leg.

Glancing down, Goth's feline form was weaving in and out of the skeleton's legs. Palette lifted the tray from the oven, shutting the door before his best friend could get ideas to use the hot lid as a step onto the counter. His companion lifted onto their hind legs, trailing up Palette's pant leg in a languid stretch before meowing in interest.

Goth was affectionate to be sure, but Palette already knew what he really wanted.

Placing the tray on the stovetop burners next to the simmering kettle, he walked over to an already-prepared plate of biscuits specially made for Goth and picked one shaped like a small fish from the pile. The cat was already right behind him in an attentive sitting position, his tail gently flicking back and forth.

Crouching down with the biscuit in one hand, Palette instructed, "Up." Goth lifted onto his hind legs, resting on his haunches while focusing on the baked prize. "Paw," the skeleton continued, placing his hand out before his friend. The cat reached both paws forward, pressing their weight into his palm so they could lean toward the biscuit.

"Close enough," Palette laughed, handing over the treat. Goth took it eagerly, trotting into the living room and onto the couch where Dream had been watching a Christmas special in one deft leap. He curled up in the dip the older skeleton had created in the cushion; receiving long, slow pets while munching on his reward.

Palette watched the scene with a smile as he began transferring the cookies onto a paper towel; even though Goth was still pretty small, he was no longer the scrawny kitten Reaper and he rescued from the alley eight months ago. Starting out thin as a bone and barely able to scale the couch without help, it wasn't long before he put on a healthy weight and discovered the joys of climbing and exploring... which included the counters, tables, and the dryer on one occasion, among other things, though a squirt bottle resolved most of those issues.

They had also learned three weeks ago that blinking lights and glass ornaments on the Christmas tree were a very bad idea with an adventurous cat in the house; no one was injured, but the tree now had plastic substitutes.

Thankfully, Goth had been getting better about his climbing places. The large cat condo in the living room certainly helped, giving him plenty of hidey-holes to explore, sissel to scratch, and a cozy perch to watch over the residents. The only place he didn't seem keen on exploring was outside; Palette didn't know if that was a result of residual feelings from his past life or the feline simply preferring the indoors, but he certainly wasn't complaining.

Regardless of energy levels or curiosity, Goth had become a common fixture in their household; curling up on the pillow by Palette's skull or burrowing under the covers each night before bed, greeting him with eager chirps each morning, and keeping Dream company whenever the younger skeleton had to go somewhere his friend couldn't follow.

The cat perked up moments before the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of the two guests that had also become common fixtures. He bounded off the couch to the door, meowing as he rubbed against the frame.

"Get back, Goth," Dream chastised gently, nudging him aside with their foot so they could open the door. Palette plucked his friend off the floor, lifting them into their usual spot over his shoulder and scratching at the fur under their red collar, eliciting rumbling purrs and headbutts as the door was opened.

"Merry Christmas Geno; Reaper," Dream greeted the pair waiting on the doorstep, brightly wrapped gifts in-hand. Stepping aside, he let the two enter the house and shut the cold weather out behind them.

"Thank you for having us, Dream," Geno said, walking over to place the present in his hands down at the Christmas tree as Reaper followed suit, being mindful not to touch the tree.

"Being here definitely spruces up the holidays," Reaper chimed in with a chuckle. Their host rolled his golden eye lights but smiled regardless as Palette approached with Goth's squirming form.

"And how's my little man?" Geno cooed, his one eye light shining as he reached forward to run his thumb along Goth's cheek, a motion that was always welcome as far as the animal was concerned. Palette handed him over, his sockets crinkling in joy as his best friend ate up the attention, purring and chirping while nuzzling into the older skeleton's neck and chin.

"Outside of being a bit overweight for his age, he's doing well according to the vet. He's due for his next round of shots in two months," Palette relayed.

"I know I always say it, but thanks again for taking Goth in," Reaper said, his smile holding a melancholy tinge to it, "I really don't know what I would have done if ya said no."

"Of course, I couldn't leave him out there," the young skeleton stated, running a hand down Goth's back as he continued burrowing into Geno's scarf.

"And thank you for letting us come to visit so often," the smaller parent added, "I know it's probably a hassle having us over all the time, but being able to see our boy really helps."

"It's no problem; I enjoy having the regular company and the mood in the house has really lifted since he came," Dream admitted as Goth started squirming to be let down. Geno complied and no sooner did his paws hit the floor, the cat made a beeline for Reaper.

The skeleton hovered just out of Goth's reach in a practiced manner, digging into his cloak while the cat batted at the edges, chuckling, "Woah there kitto, ya know the rules." Pulling out the ever-present teaser wand from the folds, he dangled it a fair ways away from himself.

Goth's attention fixed on the jingling toy, abandoning the tattered hem for the more alluring bells and fluffy strings. Reaper grinned as he played with his furry son, but everyone could tell he desperately wanted to hold them as his friends and husband could; unfortunately, no one could say for sure if the feline at his feet would be safe from his powers, so he settled for carrying a teaser around to use in all his interactions while letting Geno handle the cuddling.

"I made some sugar cookies and hot chocolate if you want something to eat before we open presents," Palette chimed in, hoping to shift the somber mood.

Geno seemed to catch on, moving himself and Reaper toward the couch, "That sounds great; I'd like to try some."

"Do ya have any coffee?" Reaper asked, bouncing the teaser as Goth followed along after it, "Work's been brutal the past couple days."

Dream looked up from where he'd started sorting out the presents to be distributed, "Have things been really busy?"

"I don't wanna bore ya with the details, but let's just say there's been a lot of paperwork to process and my bro's been really adamant about making sure we don't fall behind," the older skeleton chuckled half-heartedly. Everyone let the matter drop since his job wasn't the best topic for the festive season.

With Geno and Reaper seated on the couch, starting a conversation with his mom while Goth jumped up onto Geno's lap, Palette left the room to retrieve the cookies and drinks.

#Poth #Goth #Cat!Goth #Palette Roller #Dream #Geno #Reaper #TGTKoG #Short stories #MyWriting #MyArt #Christmas special #Puns

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pacifistofpatience · 5 years

Note

Ut, Uf, and Ht Sans who wake up one day to notice that their SO has painted flowers that remind them of their skelebae all over said skelebae's skull

Undertale (Iris- your friendship means so much tome/ Lily of the Valley- you’ve made mylife complete/ rose leaf- you may hope/ Blue violet- ill always be there)

Sans

A giggle roused Sans fromhis nap.

He knew that laugh well. Itwas one he had grown to love over the time he had spent with you, but also meant someone was plotting another prank on him. Duringone of his (many) sacred naps as well! To think- his own datemate- getting himwhen he was most vulnerable!

Sans bit back a grin. Stars,he taught you well!

But now it was time forpayback.

(Which, surely would notbe hard, you were always an easy target.)

Something soft touched hisforehead. Using the moment, he opened his eyes. His one eye light flashing abright blue as he used the smallest bit of magic to jostle the bed.

“boo!”

“Ah–!!”

The object that had beenon his forehead slid down his face and to his chin, along with it came thisoddly wet feeling he didn’t care enough to consider. You yanked your hand away,looking at the skeleton below with a frown.

“—You Bitch!!”

Sans chuckled.

“Oh my god seriously!” yousaid, jumping away form him in order to pull up what looked like a hand mirror.

You shoved it in his face,huffing in anger, “I was going to surprise you!”

Sans head lulled to the side,finally taking in his reflection. For a moment all he did was stare at the array of colors on his skull, as if trying to piece together a particular hard puzzle. But then his eye lights widened and he really saw what you had done.

Flowers dotted everywhereon his face with no rhyme or reason to where they went. Little bell-shaped onesfacing every way, with a string of them right under his left socket. On top of hisright socket stood a brilliant blue flower- one that’s insides changed into yellowsand then faded to white as they reached the center. It was followed by a burstof smaller blue flowers that looked like an attempt at some sort of idea, but eventuallyjust devolved into placing them anywhere you wanted them to be.

(Oh– Did you really? Had you really?

Gosh, what was he going to do with you.)

And, in the center, down theridge of his nasal cavity and going past his ever present grin, was a long streakof purple.

(Never mind…)

“It was going good untilyou ruined it…” You said, without a hint of actual malice behind your voice.

Sans shrugged. He leanedback, “whelp, guess that means were gonna have to start from the beginning then.doesn’t it?” He closed his sockets, and you noted with a small grimace that thecolors on his lids were nothing but smudges.

But with a guy like him,you were sure you had plenty of time to fix it up.

“Guess we take it from the top.” You said.

You grabbed your brushagain and placed it right above his grin. For a moment you swirled it around, bidingyour time as Sans began to slowly drift back to sleep.

Just as he seemed to relax, you shoved the brush up his nose.

“hrrrrrnnnnkkk—!!!“

Underfell (red poppies- remembrance of war/ Azalea –take care of yourself for me/ Holly- domestic love)

Red

Sans had woken up alone.

It didn’t bother him asmuch as it used to, because he wasn’t in the Underground any more. He didn’t haveto worry about waking up without you there and thinking the worst had happened whilehe was asleep. Not anymore. Now all he had to do was take a deep breath in, rememberwhere he was, and just know everything was better.

You were here, with him,the clatter of pots and pans and the wafting smell of pancakes from somewherein the house told him as much.

Sans stretched, his bones rattlingas he slowly got up from his mess of a bed and started towards your sharedbathroom. A long time ago he would have laid in there for a few more hours,wasting the day away until his brother finally dragged him out and forced himinto his Sentry station, but now… now he had something else to wake up for.

(And it’s not that hisbrother wasn’t one of them, its just that there was always so much more thatweighed down on him before the barrier broke. He never got the chance to even thinkabout something so… domestic like this, let alone hope for it. But now he washere, now far off fables of a home and someone he could love was right there.Right within in his reach.)

Sans stumbled his way tothe bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror, looking briefly at his brightlycolored skull. He looked down, turned on the faucet, put toothpaste on hishands, paused, looked back up.

“huh…?”

At first all he saw wasthe vibrant colors adorning the top of his skull. Cute little flowers of differentshades of red all clustering together with little balls of other red, berrylike dots. Green spiked leaves twisting with stems wove themselves together. Onthe top left of his skull, the flowers became even more clustered, merging intoone large, stunning pink flower that took up the entire top half of his face. He followed the flowers, seeing how theywrapped around his skull.

A crown?

“Oh…”

Sans turned around to seeyou standing in the door frame, two plates filled to the brim with pancakes anda glass of milk for the both of you.

You huffed, “I was hoping you’dstay asleep for a little longer…I wanted to see your reaction.”

“babe?” he said, “did—did youdo this?”

Once again, he turned backto the mirror. His fingers trailed along the pink flower committing it tomemory (And leaving a very sticky, oddly minty trail of something his sleep addled brain couldn’t quiet remember in its wake) . Occasionally his eyes would dart to your reflection, but he seemed farto entranced in his new decoration to really say anything.

“Well… I mean, they didn’tjust pop-ie up in the middle of the night, did they? I think that’d be awholly different kind of thing then say, me painting them on your skull…um… i.. zay… don’t have a pun for the last flowers…”

Sans chuckled. And, Oh,Of course that was it, “eye-zay-lee-a they look absolutely beautiful, doll.”

You lifted the tray alittle higher, hoping to hide your blushing face behind it.

“I—um— thank y—I got us breakfasttoo… you know? For bed.”

Stars, you really were perfect.

Horrotale

Jupiter (Dogwood - durability, constancy and undiminished love,sometimes forgetfulness/ Daisy- loyallove/ Narcissus- stay as sweet as you are/ Rose – unwavering love)

“havin’ fun there,starshine?”

You jumped, nearly sendingthe paintbrush right into his now opened socket as you yanked your hand back.

“Sans!”

“sorry sorry…” he said, closinghis socket, “…didn’t mean to scare ya… keep going… i promise i won’t be toomuch of a pain-t… maybe i can can-vas you i never even woke up…”

You smiled, “No, it’s fine.I just… wanted to surprise you…”

Sans snored, loudly and obviouslyfake. It pulled a giggle from you which, in turn, caused a grin to pull at hismouth. He tried to hide it, still intent on keeping up the whole ‘sleeping’charade.

It didn’t work.

“Alright, stay still.”

“still as the dead…”

You placed the brush backon his skull, and with a feather light touch to begin to work on your creation.

A moment passed between thetwo of you. Sans snorted.

“Sans!”

“… sorry… it tickles…”

Figuring this was a battlelost, you placed the brush down along with the palette of paints, “iI’s Ok. Iwas done anyway. Just wanted to see what I could fix before you woke up.”

Sans opened his socketsonce again, taking in the art supplies that surrounded you two. As you werecleaning it up he asked, “…if it ain’t too much trouble… I would love to seewhat was so a-muse-ing to paint on my skull.”

With a smile you presentedthe mirror you had placed off to the side for him. His sockets went wide whenhe saw the array of color, little white flowers dotted the outside of his skull,interchanging between daisies and something that he didn’t quiet remember thename of. They swirled around slowly forming into ones with a yellow middle thatdid one last loop around his working socket. There, the unmistakable paintingof a vibrant red rose bloomed.

Biting back the excited smile you had you waited…

…Only to feel your heartdrop as Sans began to tear up.

“Oh no I’m so sorry i—”

Arms wrapped around you.He pulled you against his chest and nuzzled into the top of your head with his verywet, very paint covered face.

“Sans!!

“hnnnnnn… starshine!!” Hewailed, “i—i loube yuh su-suoooooo much!”

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anistarrose · 5 years

Text

Hour Hand’s Gone and Now You’re Feeling Strange (Gravity Falls - Same Coin Theory)

Summary: Memories of a previous life return to Stan late at night. (Based off the Same Coin Theory.)

Word Count: ~2100

Warnings: nightmares, physical illness/nausea, implied drug use, alcohol mention

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19030285

Aside from the Same Coin Theory, this fic is also heavily inspired by the song You’re At the Party by Lemon Demon, which is the source of the title. The song has always given me huge Bill vibes, so I figured it was about time to finally write something about it!

(Can be taken as canon to Some Sunny Day, but there’s no need to read one to understand the other.)

***

The red glow of his alarm clock tells Stan that it’s 3:59, but the strobe lights so bright his windowshade can’t block them and the never-ending, deafening bass line that sends his whole room vibrating tell him that he’s still no closer to sleep than he was an hour ago.

Fucking teenagers — what the hell do they think they’re doing, partying so close to the Mystery Shack before the fucking asscrack of dawn —

He buries his head in his pillow, clapping hands over his ears, but they do nothing to muffle the sound. His back protests each time he rolls over, until his spine feels just as twisted and contorted as the sheets his legs are tangled up in, and the ache travels up his back and to the base of his skull, where it intensifies into a violent throbbing sensation that resonates with the bass line.

He breaks into a sweat. It’s one of those unforgivingly hot, humid May nights from which Stan always wakes up drenched, one of those nights that would be sickening enough even without the world coming to an end just outside his door.

The euphoric screeches outside are abruptly drowned out by an agonized wail, and Stan thinks he might throw up — but before he can disentangle himself from his sheets and hobble to a trash can, the walls burst into bright blue flames.

Sweat beading on his face so quickly that he’s afraid he’ll choke on it and drown, he moves a trembling hand towards the fire. It can’t be real, it must just be a figment of his imagination — but it feels blistering hot even from a distance, hot like it’ll melt his very soul away…

His splayed hand lands on a solid, cool wall, vibrating so hard that it makes his teeth chatter. He withdraws his hand quickly, and something crumbles between his thumb and index finger as he rubs them together — paint chips, he realizes after a flash of the strobe light illuminates them, cracked and peeled off the wall by the sheer intensity of the music.

There’s a resounding crash from upsettingly close — probably right near the foot of the stairs — and Stan feels the bile rising in his throat.

They got in the Shack. What the fuck kind of partiers are these?

Ignoring the illusory flames, he staggers to his feet and pulls a baseball bat out from beneath his bed.

I’ll show them what happens to people who keep me up all night and then break in to try and wreck my shit.

He barrels down the stairs, swinging at the first thing he sees move, but his bat passes through it with hardly any resistance, and the intruder’s amorphous dark form splatters on the steps like oil. There’s more of them, though — creatures of all shapes and sizes, but with all their features equally obscured by shadow aside from their dull red eyes.

Stan tightens his grip on the bat, and all the eyes narrow in unison. Some are large and others small, some round and some angular, but each and every one is fixed on him.

He turns tail and tries to run back up the stairs, but he slips on the oily remnants of the first creature, and topples down onto the steps as his legs fly out from under him. He doesn’t have time to process the pain before he feels alien hands running over him, some curling around his fingers and others grasping handfuls of his shirt, but all of them united in dragging him back down towards the ground floor as his head bounces on step after step.

The pain is hitting him now, but it isn’t making him cringe like it should. In a detached sort of way, he almost finds it funny.

King! the creatures whisper, almost reverently. Join us once more! Reclaim your throne!

Stan tears his fist out of a cool, scaly grip, and punches straight through the nearest thing that feels half-tangible. He doesn’t stop punching until his knuckles graze something wooden and cylindrical, and he grabs ahold of his baseball bat again, swinging it in a wide arc as he struggles to his feet and ascends the stairs facing backwards, barely able to hold off the assault. He slams the door to his room closed and heaves his dresser in front of it, then crumples to the ground with his back against the wall and tries to catch his breath —

The screech of microphone feedback from outside deafens him as his window shatters, flat shards of glass spilling across the floor in front of him. Almost all the pieces are oddly regular, tiny flat squares and pentagons and triangles —

A bitter taste so strong he could choke on it pervades his mouth and throat, and he shuts his eyes tight but still sees a blue flame light up in front of him, and feels long, cold fingers intertwine with his own.

What’s happening to me?

(WELCOME BACK TO THE PARTY!)

Is this just a nightmare? Will I wake up any second now —

The fire engulfing his hands now fills his veins too, turning them to tingling puppet strings that stretch up his arms and down his legs, jerking him up to his feet. It creeps up his neck, slips through a crack in his skull, and fills his mind with a cold blue blaze —

He’s at the heart of the party, and he’s been here before.

Got to wake up —

(TOO LATE!)

The lawless revelry of fiends and abominations surrounds him, and he dances alongside them, bright green liquid sloshing in his cup and spilling down his face. The shadow obscuring their features begins to subside as he drinks, fading from a uniform black to an uneven gray, and he can begin to make out bloodied claws and drooling orifices, chipped teeth and crimson eyes where teeth and eyes should clearly not be.

He gets a face full of pyrotechnics and laughs it off, and then his laugh turns into a cackle, and then into a discordant electronic screech that shatters the few remaining windows. He is the party, he is the nuisance. He’s the monster to end all monsters, and it’s not a nightmare.

Something catches his eye — a shimmering sphere hanging from the ceiling, beams of all colors of light shooting out of it. But it’s no disco ball — no, its shape is cloudlike and amorphous, constantly shifting as the galaxy pattern inside distorts.

He needs it. The party won’t be complete without it in his hands. With it, he can get out of this crumbling shack and take his chaos worldwide.

He steps towards it, and his touch immediately disintegrates the bat-winged abomination that’s foolish enough to fly in his way. Even over the roar of partygoers reveling in his monstrous glory, he can hear the cloud hissing unnaturally, like it’s a hole his strobe lights and pyrotechnics have burnt in the fabric of the universe itself.

His index finger grazes the rift, and he jolts awake in bed with a throbbing head, a pounding heart, and a convulsing stomach.

“Fucking… nightmare…” he whispers aloud as he gasps for breath, and slowly sets to work extricating himself from the sheet he finds his legs ensnared in. The digital clock at his bedside reads 5:15.

One measly hour of sleep, and all of it felt like shit…

He can’t bring himself to go back to bed, not with the songs from the party and the nightmare still echoing in his ears, grating on his skull and quickening his heart rate.

Was the party outside even real? he wonders. Was all of it a dream?

…or was none of it?

He’s on his feet again now, hand resting on the doorknob, but he doesn’t dare twist it open. It’s cold on his fingers, and heavy like lead.

“The fuck is wrong with you, Stanley,” he mutters. “It was just a nightmare.”

It wasn’t.

“There’s no one out there. Just open it. What are you, a five-year-old? You might as well be scared of the monsters under your bed.”

Stubbornly, his hand still refuses to twist the knob. Something downstairs creaks — and yeah, the Shack makes inexplicable but harmless noises all the time, but if any day was to be different, it would be today…

He cracks the door to peer down the hallway, sees nothing alarming, and swings it further open, making his way down the stairs cautiously. No bloodthirsty monsters nor unruly teenagers assault him — if anything, the hallway unnerves him more because of how dusty, and poorly lit, and altogether dead it looks.

The scene outside the Shack looks similarly dead, he realizes as he reaches the ground floor and heads to the kitchen. No warm morning light shines in through the windows — just a sickly green glow emanating from somewhere just out of sight, illuminating the underside of dark red clouds that stretch as far as the eye could see. No birds are chirping, either, nor are any other woodland creatures scuttling about.

A storm must be brewing.

The thought brings Stan delight in a way that it shouldn’t, and his stomach churns upon recognizing the emotion as not his own. He coughs — an immediate involuntary reflex, trying to rid his system of this unnatural euphoria — and feels acid burn his throat. He can’t bear the thought of eating, but he needs something to dull the hammering pain at the base of his skull and drown out these alien thoughts infiltrating his mind, so he clumsily rummages through the fridge for a beer.

He comes up empty-handed, though, and remembers that he opened the last one the previous evening. It’s still sitting in the sink, half-empty and almost certainly a gag-worthy room temperature by now — but it’s all he has, so he picks it up and opens his mouth…

The glass neck of the bottle feels flimsy in his grip, and he squeezes it so tight that it shatters, sending alcohol spilling down the drain and glass shards skittering all across the counter and floor. It’s pouring outside now, waves of rain pounding on the roof with the rhythm of a panicked heartbeat, and Stan looks to the nearest clock only to see that all the hands — second, minute, and hour — have disappeared.

He goes lightheaded as a tremor from the basement tears up the floorboards beneath his feet, and he’s thrown backwards, striking the wall and collapsing into a kneeling position. An eye-scorching bright light beams through the jagged gashes in the floor, and he’s lifted into the air —

He raises his hands in front of him, and finds them cloaked in blue fire. His fingers are cold and tingling, like an asleep limb regaining proper blood flow for the first time in hours, and he watches them stretch out, turning thin and black and featureless.

His face contorts, lips pulling back from bared teeth to display a wide, delirious smile.

(WELCOME BACK, NIGHTMARE KING!)

He wants to shut his eyes but he can’t. They’re already shut as tight as they can be, but he’s still seeing these things —

(TOO LATE! YOU’VE BEEN INVITED!)

The Mystery Shack is on fire, the whole town is on fire, and he and his entourage are dancing in the ruins. A giant X slices through the sky, shifting in color from an opalescent yellow-green to a nebulous purple, and the edges of the rift drip orange like the universe itself is bleeding. When he lays his eye upon it, he only grows more delirious as memories that have spent a lifetime buried finally resurface.

It’s not a nightmare, but he is.

The monsters are visible in all their grotesque horror now, devoid of any obscuring shadows, but he hardly even pays them any mind as he grows increasingly drunk on recognition and high on irony. He really is the lifeblood of the festivities, the sun at the center of its orbit — every party that never ends needs a host that never dies, and that’s exactly what he is. He can’t stay down for long.

With a snap of his fingers, he raises a castle from beneath the debris-filled streets of the town, levitating it into the sky and lifting the revelers up with it.

Claim your throne! Claim your throne! they chant. Nightmare King!

The throne is built of a thousand screaming faces, petrified and doomed to eternal terror. He lights the seat ablaze with a flick of his hand, and his eye deforms into a mouth to take a sip of a bright red beverage that burns his lips as he drinks and singes his eyelids as his face transforms back. Cackling, he lowers himself down to sit —

Stan wakes up, for real this time, and doesn’t remember anything.

***

(Thanks for reading, reblogs/feedback are appreciated as always!)

#gravity falls #same coin theory #stanley pines #bill cipher #rosalia writes fic

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welllpthisishappening · 6 years

Text

Holding the Edge

Killian Jones does not want the questions. He doesn't want the interviews or the spotlight or the sky-high expectations.

The world, however, does not seem to care. The world, after all, loves a good comeback story.

And Killian Jones is one heck of a comeback story. With his eyes on gold. And maybe slightly gold'ish hair and green eyes and, yeah, maybe he's got some questions of his own.

Rating: Teen. Olympic angst. Olympic makeouts. Word Count: Just clocking in around 9.5K. That was a speed skating joke. AN: There is no excuse for this. I wrote one Olympic AU already so my brain naturally was like...write another Olympic AU. So I did. And I’m on some weird, personal quest to see how many sports I can write about. Welcome to the list, speed skating and curling! @distant-rose & @katie-dub were enablers on this.

Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll.

The first thing he remembers is the noise.

It’s loud.

There’s screaming and yelling and someone’s shouting his name and then, quite suddenly, there’s a sound that might be a screech and it seems to rattle around his brain and his skull and it might be coming from...him.

He closes his eyes after that and doesn’t remember the rest.

It’s loud when he wakes up again. There are beeps and clicks and the sound of slightly squeaky shoes on linoleum floors and even more voices. These ones are more subdued. They’re low and earnest and decidedly sad and the words echo in between his ears because the words absolutely, positively do not make any sense at all.

The faces are all a little blurry when he blinks open his eyes and it takes a moment for shadows to form actual shapes and then he’s not entirely certain he wants to see the shapes. Because they’re all so goddamn depressing.

And staring straight at him. And still talking. And possibly crying. He’s not sure who’s crying.

It might be him.

The words themselves aren’t loud, but it feels like they’re being screamed in his face – unprecedented, complete loss, lucky to be alive. They’re all there, spoken in that same, even tone that sounds like screams and Killian doesn’t really process any of them until he glances down and sees a distinct lack of anything at the end of his left arm.

“It’s over, Killian,” Robin mutters, resting a hand on his shoulder like that’ll lessen the blow of the words or the rushing in his ears.

It drowns out the machines.

Killian shakes his head. “Bullshit,” he says.

He’s getting on that ice.

Killian does not appreciate the phrase international sensation, but people keep using it and saying it and he’s fairly positive it’s on some kind of graphic every time his face is on TV and his face is on TV quite a bit.

Too much.

But that’s, apparently, par for the course or whatever. Or so Robin tells him.

“You knew this going in,” Robin reasons, crossing his arms lightly and the move only serves to twist up the Team USA sweater they’ve been told they have to wear. On pain of death. Probably not those words.

Killian hasn’t been listening.

There have been a lot of interviews. He is not convinced his brain hasn’t just melted.

“Yeah,” Killian sighs and he can’t run his hand through his hair the way he wants to because there is a goddamn hat with stars on it in the way. It’s freezing in South Korea. And very loud.

Again.

It makes him jumpy and irritable. Regina has already told him that sixteen times.

“And?” Robin prompts.

Killian rolls his eyes. “And I will answer questions with a smile on my face and the pride of America in my heart and promises that I’m just happy to be here no matter what happens.”

“Yeah, that sounded really sincere.” “I practiced in front of the mirror this morning.” “That’s weird.” “Your wife threatened to strangle me if I didn’t.”

“And that’s a lie,” Robin laughs, stepping out of the way when another NBC correspondent appears in front of them with a microphone in hand and a camera crew and the lights are getting brighter.

Killian is positive.

“A stretch of the truth at most,” he mumbles, shrugging when a tech starts putting something on his face because God forbid he’s shiny on national television. Robin hums, lower lip stuck out slightly and it’s the most obnoxious noise in the history of the world.

And they’re on.

Or so the reporter says in a slightly strangled voice that doesn’t belong in the situation because the Opening Ceremonies are going to be tape delayed and Killian barely suppresses his laugh before he turns towards the camera.

The questions are, as expected, exactly what they’ve been for the last two years.

His smile feels decidedly forced.

It shouldn’t. Because he’s lucky and stubborn and some kind of comeback story for some kind of history book in the metaphorical sense and, really, Killian has never been more excited to strap dangerously sharp blades to his feet and skate as fast as he can.

If only to prove that he still can.

He absolutely can.

It’s all going according to plan – questions about the rehab and the training and how excited he is to be representing America – until the plan gets tripped up a few inches from the finish line and promptly crashes into the boards and it’s all déjà vu and bright lights and Killian’s not sure he’s breathing.

“Was there ever a moment where you thought it was all too much?”

Killian’s eyes water under the lights, a distinct lack of blinking as he tries to remember the English language and it’s strange that it’s that question because the answer is obvious.

Of course.

He sat in that hospital bed and they told him his hand was gone and skating was gone and he’d never been particularly good at anything except skating. The whole thing had been a fluke – the slightly broken, always fuzzy TV that sat in the corner of his and Liam’s apartment when they were kids only able to get over-the-air channels and neither one of them had ever cared about sports.

There were more important things to worry about.

Eating. The rent. Keeping the lights on.

But there was a moment and probably divine intervention of some kind and Killian Jones had sat down in front of the TV when he was eleven years old and watched the Olympic Games and it was as if something switched on.

And, suddenly, the idea was there. He could have a life through sports. He could fix it.

All of it.

It didn’t work, naturally, because skates were expensive and ice time was expensive and there wasn’t anyone within a thousand-mile radius of Norfolk, Virginia who knew enough about speed skating to tell an eleven-year-old kid that he was already too old to start.

Liam, naturally, did not care. He bought Killian second-hand inline skates for his twelfth birthday and it was an unmitigated disaster of scraped knees and bruised hands and Killian fell far more than he moved, but he did, eventually, move and then he started racing and winning and it went from there.

He found ice and skates that actually fit and blades that were only a little intimidating and he kept racing. He kept winning.

And the goddamn United States of America started to take notice.

Robin found him, prepping for nationals or Worlds or some other event that Killian was only dimly aware of – or, as Robin liked to tell it, discovered him in some run-down rink in Tampa because Liam had been transferred and there was, inexplicably, ice in Florida and it clicked.

Again.

There were more races and more blades and everything went in some kind of blur because short track speed skating was an adrenaline rush of a very specific kind until it, suddenly, stopped.

Crashed right into the boards.

And managed to fuck up nearly every nerve-ending in his wrist in the process.

The blades were very sharp.

“Killian,” Robin mumbles and it’s obvious it’s not the first time he’s tried to get his attention. Killian, finally, blinks. His retinas apprecaite it.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he says, knocking off the hat when he tries to run his hand through his hair. “That was...what was the question?” The reporter smiles, soft and easy and just a hint patronizing. “When you were rehabbing,” she says. “Did you ever think about walking away? It must have been an appealing thought.”

“No. I didn’t. This sport has been everything for as long as I can remember and missing the chance to compete in 2014 was something I’m still bitter about. I always knew I was going to come back. No matter what.” Liar.

There are more questions and Killian doesn’t do anymore damage to his eyes in the process and he’s just about to walk into the stadium when he hears an exclamation and something that sounds a bit like a yelp and the noise seems to rattle around his brain like it’s trying to make sure he knows how important the moment is.

The body that crashes into him is incredibly solid and clearly frustrated, a string of curses that would scandalize the entire population of America if they were, actually, live.

Killian stumbles back, arm wrapping around her waist – because it’s definitely a her if the blonde hair currently trying to suffocate him is any indication – and that only serves to draw another pointed fuck out of her.

“What the fuck are these wires doing here?” she asks, the words muffled a bit when they’re spoken, mostly, into his shoulder.

He tries not to laugh. He does. He bites his lip and his tongue until they’re both bleeding, but there’s a woman draped over him and hair trying to kill him and a slightly scandalized NBC crew and it may be the single most absurd thing that’s ever happened to him.

Until he realizes that it’s his left arm around her waist and Robin looks like he’s waiting for the world to end and Killian’s never moved faster in his life.

Even on the ice.

“They tend to use wires where there are TV cameras involved, love,” Killian mutters, leaning back when the woman uses her fist to push off him. “And you’re the one who crashed the set, I don’t think you get to be the angry one in this situation.”

She grumbles, shaking her hair out of her face and...oh.

Oh.

In the days and weeks and years that follow – the rest of his goddamn life – Killian will promise that it was a little bit like seeing the sun. This will, eventually, make her laugh, but in the present moment she’s just as disgruntled as ever, all narrow eyes and a slight sneer to her lips that’s almost threatening.

She’s wearing Team USA paraphernalia.

She’s wearing the hat.

“Are you an athlete?” Killian asks, ignoring Robin’s stifled scoff at the absurdity of the question. The woman’s eyes widen.

“Yes.” “And?” “And what? You really shouldn't have all these wires here. It’s...it’s a hazard.”

“A point you’ve proven rather well, love. And it’s not my set. Not my rules.” “Ok, that’s got to stop,” she hisses and her eyes turn hard, a flash of green that’s somewhere closer to steel and he desperately wants to know everything about her. “I don’t care whose set it is or who’s in charge of it, you should just move these wires or someone is going to kill themselves.” “I promise not to let you die.”

He’s not quite sure what she does with her face – a twist of her lips that feels far too judgmental to be positive, but with just a hint of curiosity that gives him some sort of hope. He’s clearly lost his mind.

“Was that a line?” she asks incredulously. “It sounded a hell of a lot like a line.” Killian shrugs, rocking back on his heels and he hopes NBC isn’t recording this. “Depends on your reaction, I suppose.” “No.” “No?” “No.” “Ah,” he says, but it might be a sigh and he can only imagine what Robin looks like behind him. Probably stunned. Or texting Regina. Or, God forbid, Face’timing Regina.

And that should, probably, be it. The conversation should be over and they should be marching or whatever the appropriate term is for an Olympian making his debut far later than originally expected, but she’s still staring at him and that hope is still simmering in the pit of his stomach and Killian can’t seem to stop talking.

“You have a name?” he asks. Robin doesn’t even try to mask his laughter. Killian glares at him. The woman, maybe, smiles.

“Yes,” she says cooly, but the ends of her mouth are still quirked up and maybe this isn’t the disaster he thinks it is. Until she doesn’t say anything else.

“And?” “And you need to learn how to phrase your questions so you get the answers you’re actually looking for. See you later, Killian Jones, international sensation.”

She’s gone as soon as the words are out of her mouth, the smile on her face obvious and Killian would swear in front of several different judges and a whole platoon of reporters that her eyes, somehow, get brighter.

Robin laughs louder.

“Stop it,” Killian warns, but he doesn’t and it’s, almost, understandable.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Robin chuckles. “Try and act like that’s not the best thing that’s happened to you in actual years.”

It absolutely is.

The Opening Ceremonies are loud.

There are fireworks and screaming fans and some kind of drone presentation that only kind of freaks him out because technology is kind of freaky, but that only gets Robin to make fun of him more and by the time Killian lands on an incredibly uncomfortable mattress in the Olympic Village, he’s exhausted and a bit disappointed and he really shouldn’t be either.

This is the moment.

As they say.

And they have – several thousand times in several hundred different articles and TV reports and he’s got a heat in two days, but he can’t seem to stop thinking about blonde hair and green eyes and he really should have gotten her name.

That, however, appears to be some kind of impossible task because the Olympics themselves aren’t just loud, they’re busy and hectic and he’s impossibly overscheduled.

“You did this to yourself,” Belle says pointedly three days and four races later and it feels like his thighs are on fire.

That can't be healthy.

“Thank you,” Killian sighs, slumping into the corner of the chair he’s claimed as his own in the quasi-common room of the Team USA building and he hasn’t seen any blonde hair in three days. Well, at least not the right blonde hair. “Are you even supposed to be here?” he adds. “Don’t you have a sled to be driving?” “That’s bobsled.” “Honestly?” Belle nods, mouth curling into a smile and she’s very clearly trying not to give him some kind of overprotective speech. “Why would I lie about that? Also how could you possibly think drive was the correct verb? I’m, literally, lying down. I don’t even see where I’m going.” “That gives me pause.” “I haven’t crashed yet.”

It’s a joke – he’s well aware it’s a joke, but Killian can’t stop the way his stomach lurches or whatever it is his face does and Belle looks momentarily traumatized because they’ve all had to censor themselves for the last four years.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, twisting her legs underneath her and there’s a TV on in the background. He hopes NBC doesn’t play that spot about him again. He might kick the screen if he sees photos of Liam on a national broadcast again.

“Don’t be. You are not required to consider your phrasing before you speak.” “That sounded like a very impressive sentence for a guy who I know is only getting a couple of hours of sleep a night.” “You don’t know that.” “See, you keep arguing with me, but you know I’m right,” she grins, resting her chin on her knees. “Of course, that’s why you’re arguing, but that’s not the point.”

“And what, pray tell is the point?” Belle’s eyes flash, a knowing look born of the last five years and a random run-in at the Team USA media summit just before the Sochi Games and she didn’t crash in 2014. She won a gold medal. And a silver. And she was absolutely going to repeat.

When she wasn’t busy lecturing Killian about his sleeping habits.

“You know you could just ask around,” Belle says knowingly. “I’m sure someone knows what her name is.”

Killian groans and this chair can’t be doing anything for his spine or his overworked thighs. “I’m going to murder Locksley.” “Regina won’t appreciate that.” “Regina can deal. Why is he gossiping?” “He’s worried,” Belle shrugs. “We’ve circled back around to the not sleeping thing. And he claims you’ve been preoccupied on the ice.” “I won two of my heats.” “You raced in three.” “And you think I should be winning all of them?” he asks, arching an eyebrow and it’s the most obvious defense mechanism in the history of the world. Belle does not look impressed.

“No,” she answers. “But you do. Add it all together and you get one very disgruntled and slightly exhausted Olympian. So, c’mon, spill. Why haven’t you tracked her down?” Killian groans again and he wishes he could come up with a better sound to make, but the TV is distracting and people are yelling and, possibly, sweeping ice and the only excuse he has will, absolutely, paint him in the worst light possible.

“Because that sounds a hell of a lot like stalking,” he reasons, tugging on the hair behind his ears and Belle’s face, somehow, gets more knowing. “And did you just use the word spill in conversation? Is that a thing that actually just happened?” She blushes, eyes falling to her feet and lips pressed together tightly and maybe the tide of the conversation is turning. He can’t come up with an appropriate speed skating analogy. He hopes that’s not a sign.

“I’m going to tell Lucas she’s rubbing off on you,” Killain grins. Belle glares at him. That may be the first time that’s happened.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” “No, no, love conquers all and all that. When does she race?” “Tomorrow and we have to be there at noon, so, try and actually get some sleep tonight because I’m going to be really annoyed if you sleep through your alarm.” “That would require me to get some sleep,” Killian mutters, a quiet admission he didn’t really have to make because Belle absolutely knew and Robin was probably waking up once every two hours to check on him or something.

Lucas has probably researched REM sleep.

Regina definitely made a chart.

And, honestly, it's nice. It's supportive and vaguely familial which, while skating on the other side of the world against international competition, is some sort of wonderful thing, but Killian really didn’t want to watch Lucas ski down a mountain tomorrow and he was super pissed about that one heat he didn’t win.

Over-competitive asshole.

“Oh my gosh,” Belle breathes and for half a moment he thinks she’s talking about his sleep schedule, but she’s not looking at him when he glances he up.

She’s looking at the TV and the flash of blonde hair and green eyes and he doesn’t remember standing up.

Or walking.

He’s in front of the screen before he realizes his brain has directed him there, mouth hanging open and breath coming in wholly unattractive pants and it’s her. Right there, standing in front of him, or whatever, it doesn’t matter.

She’s there on TV with a broom in her hand and a Team USA shirt on and there’s a name on the graphic – Emma Swan.

Curler.

“Holy shit,” Killian mumbles, fingers tapping out an impatient rhythm against his thigh and he’s not sure what to do next.

There’s not anything to do next.

Except maybe learn all the rules to curling.

He spins back around, still breathing erratically and Belle looks as if she’s seen several sunrises occur at the same time. She’s already got her phone out.

“Did you know that a round of curling is called an end?” she asks and he’s not sure what sound he makes. It might be a sigh. Or just general acceptance. “And that you get eight ends in mixed doubles? Which, by the way, is also making its Olympic debut?” Belle grins, something that feels like joy or possibly his entire future just stretching out between them, and Killian’s shoulders sag a bit when the sigh turns into a laugh and that goddamn hope he felt just before the Opening Ceremonies.

He’s definitely lost his mind.

“You just know that off the top of your head, then?” he asks.

“Research. And you’re missing the point. Again” “Naturally.”

“It’s her first time here too.”

Oh.

He doesn’t sleep through his alarm, but it’s very close – groaning when a pillow hits his face and Robin’s laugh is far too loud for whatever time it is.

It is impossibly cold at the bottom of a mountain in South Korea and Killian doesn’t hate the hat quite as much anymore when the wind seems to actually start whipping at them.

“God, how do they not actually freeze on the way down?” Robin grumbles, bobbing on his feet and there’s already a camera trained on them, waiting for their reactions as soon as Ruby skids to a stop in front of them.

Killian has no idea when that might be.

“They get used to it,” Belle says, but she keeps tugging on her hood like that will make a difference. “And you skate on ice. You go fast.” “Yeah, not that fast.” “Both of you want to stop?” Killian mumbles and he doesn’t have to glance to his right or left to know that both Belle and Robin are making identical expressions. “It’s too cold to be complaining.”

Robin hums in agreement and Belle mutters something that sounds like yeah, sure and the Austrian skier that stops in front of them sends a sheet of snow towards all three of their faces. They make matching sounds of surprise and anger and the TV catches it all because of course and Killian wishes his legs would stop moving before he’s given them permission to do so.

“I’m going to…” he starts, but the sentence never ends and he’s already walking anyway.

He’s not paying attention to where he’s going, eyes on his feet and mind several hours away at a different Olympic venue and he’s got a semifinal the next day. So, naturally, he runs into her.

Like.

Right into her.

She swears again.

And he’s absolutely fucked. “Do you have a death wish?” Emma asks, growling out the question with a pinch between her eyebrows and she’s not actually looking at him yet. “Shit, I think I’m concussed.” “I really don’t think you’re concussed. Bruised, maybe, but definitely not concussed.”

“And how would you--” She snaps her head up and Killian resists the urge to tell her she wouldn’t be able to do that if she was concussed. He’s far too busy being stunned by her anyway. “You,” she seethes, but her tongue darts out between her lips and it’s incredibly distracting. “Are you stalking me?”

“No, no,” he stammers. “I’m actively trying not to stalk you, actually.” “Excuse me?”

He’s impressed that he’s managed to put his foot in his mouth while standing still.

They’re still touching each other, chests pressed together and it’s a dangerous realization because he’s suddenly aware of how much she absolutely does not make sense – a mix of strength and soft and, he imagines, absurdly defined arms because it takes a lot of muscle to get curling stones to move.

Or so his research told him while he was being the world’s biggest creep the night before.

“Yeah, that came out like absolute shit, didn't it?” Killian asks and Emma’s eyes widen, but then she’s scoffing under her breath and it’s just enough like laughter that he’s fairly certain she won’t kick him.

“It did,” she agrees. “Why...why are you trying not to stalk me? How is that even possible? Aren’t you crazy busy all the time? That’s what they’re saying on TV.” She winces as soon as the question is out of her mouth, nose scrunching and the pinch between her eyebrows deepen. There’s a flush on her cheeks that he likes to believe isn’t entirely from the wind.

“Shit,” Emma mutters and she’s squeezed one of her eyes closed. “That was...I’m not, like, actively seeking out your interviews. Just for the record.” “Ah, so you’ve heard of me then?” She scowls. “You’re on television every other commercial break. It’s annoying. You are annoying.” “Yeah, I’m getting that impression.”

“Why are you even here? Don’t you have some record to break or another sponsorship to hawk?”

“That’s rude, Swan,” Killian grins and it feels a hell of a lot like flirting until he remembers that she never actually told him her name, let alone gave permission for quasi-nicknames and he wonders if it would be too much to ask of the mountain to just...fall on him.

Emma blinks, lips twisting slightly and she crosses her arms. Her eyes trace over him, like she’s looking for the joke or the lie and is only slightly confused not to find either.

She doesn’t look at his left arm once.

He’s positive that will also affect his sleep schedule.

“I wasn’t aware we’d been officially introduced,” Emma says. “You’re not doing yourselves any favors on this whole not stalking thing.”

“You were on TV too.”

It’s, obviously, not what she expects to hear and there’s far too much green in her stare when her eyes widen again. “You were watching that?” she asks softly and the caution in her voice does something absurd to both of his lungs.

“I will admit that I don’t entirely understand how it works, but you seemed to be doing it well.” “That sounds like a line too.” “It wasn’t,” Killian promises. “The first one might have been, but that one wasn’t. Just facts.”

“You just admitted you didn’t know how it worked.” “Are you trying to hit a contradiction quota or is this just how our conversations are going to operate from here on out?”

He needs her to stop doing that thing with her eyes – widening them and saying things without saying things and he briefly wonders what she would look like before, during and after kissing him, but it’s an absurd thought and he’s freezing cold and making out at the bottom of a mountain would probably just get them on several other TV broadcasts and a handful of gossip websites.

“That seems to suggest that there’ll be more conversations after this one,” Emma points out, but there’s definitely a smile on her face now. “Confident, huh? That’s what the TV keeps saying.” “Ah, you shouldn’t listen to everything you hear on TV, Swan.”

She hums and it sounds far more understanding than it probably should. He still wants to know everything about her. “Noted. Why are you here, though? Unless the TV was lying to me again you’ve got some kind of unprecedented schedule to prepare for.” “Again, that’s an exaggeration, but, uh…” He glances over his shoulder when he hears the cheer, not surprised when he already knows it’s Belle and Robin and Emma is shouting something, using his shoulder as leverage to try and see above the crowd around them.

Killian is certain his brain short circuits.

He can’t actually feel her through her glove or his jacket, but she’s still touching him and it’s so casual and normal and neither one of those things should affect his center of gravity, but they do and he’s grateful that his knees don’t shake.

“Go, Rubes, go, go, go,” she shouts and she’s kind of jumping and kind of standing and it only hurts a little when his heart explodes out of his chest.

“Wait, what?” Killian snaps. He turns on the spot, arm colliding with Emma’s side and her hair hits him in the face again. “Are you cheering for Lucas?” “Lucas?” “What?”

“This conversation is going absolutely nowhere.”

“Em,” another voice calls and Killian’s whole body sags under the weight of his disappointment. Emma bites her lip. “Em! Seriously. You said you were going to get hot chocolate and you just disappeared. I thought you’d been swallowed by an avalanche or something.” She rolls her eyes, still leaning against Killian and neither one of them has tried to walk away from the other. “I was on my way back,” she mutters and the voice makes some kind of dismissive noise in the back of his throat.

“Yeah, yeah, sure you were. I...oh, hey. You’re Killian Jones. You’re on TV all the time.”

The voice, it turns out, is a guy who is also wearing Team USA gear and the voice has eyes and the eyes glance immediately at Killian’s left hand.

Or his distinct lack of a left hand.

“So they tell me,” Killian says, working a laugh out of Emma. He’s never going to sleep again. “And I don’t think you would have been able to miss an avalanche. Noisy, you know?”

The guy quirks an eyebrow and it feels like some kind of standoff, but Emma groans, twisting away from Killian with a hand resting on his chest.

He swallows.

“You didn’t have to come find me, David,” she grumbles. “Did you even see Rubes run?” “Did you?”

Emma bristles and Killian’s brain continues to do things he’s not entirely in control of, pushing his hand out into the space between them. “Killian Jones,” he says, as if they haven’t already done this. “And you are…” The moment seems to stretch out forever and he’s briefly considering just throwing himself at the mountain, but then his hand is moving and they’re shaking hands and Emma breathes an audible sigh of relief.

“David Nolan,” the guy says, a note of something in his voice that feels a bit like a threat. “I’m Emma’s older brother and partner.”

“Oh my God,” Emma mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose with her free hand. The other one hasn’t left Killian’s chest.

They are a pretzel of feeling and Olympian and criss-crossed relationships that might actually be fate. Lucas would call it fate.

Lucas is a bit of a secret romantic.

“Are you here to just generally support America then, Killian?” David asks. Emma shakes her head.

“No, no, a very specific support,” Killian answers. “And apparently similar to yours. One of my best friends is dating Lucas.”

“Belle?” “Unless there’s a lot more to that relationship than I’m being told.”

Emma laughs again, trying to turn it into any other sound, but the attempt falls a bit flat. “It’s definitely Belle,” she says. “I can’t...how do you know Belle?”

“The last Olympics.” “But…” “I had every intention of going before I got hurt, love,” Killian shrugs, like it’s not still devastating to talk about or every question isn’t some kind of fresh cut and open wound that he’s fairly positive is festering in a worse-than-metaphorical kind of way.

That would probably ruin the moment.

“Oh, right, right,” Emma stammers. She doesn’t argue the endearment. He doesn’t think about that for hours later. “Of course, I, shit, sorry.” “That’s not something you have to apologize for.” “Ruby know my sister-in-law. Went to college together and friends for life or whatever and now she’s, like, running our Olympic lives.” “It can be kind of overwhelming to start,” Killian says, voice dropping and he desperately asks the mountain to, somehow, get David to leave. The mountain ignores him. Figures. “Loud.” “Oh my God, it’s so loud, right? And that’s coming from someone who’s honestly supposed to shout while competing.” “Yeah, not a lot of that in speed skating. Usually.” “Usually?” Killian nods and the air seems to get crisper. Or tenser. And Ruby probably has to race again soon. He thinks.

“Right,” Emma breathes and he’s not entirely prepared for her to thrust her hand out towards him. “Emma,” she adds, the caution back and his stomach flips and flops and then settles back into its appropriate place like it’s been waiting his entire life for that moment. “Swan. Emma Swan.”

He takes her hand.

He imagines it’s warm.

“Killian Jones.”

She smiles. And gravity is vastly overrated. “I’ll see you soon?” “Absolutely.”

It is not soon.

It is a frustratingly long amount of time and there are more races and more workouts and more practice and Killian sleeps through the night for the first time on a Wednesday in PyeongChang.

And, honestly, he’s not sure how it all works, but he asks Regina for help and he’s fairly positive she knows someone in the IOC so he gets a ticket and a seat and attempts to learn how curling works while watching Emma Swan and David Nolan try and earn a berth to the gold medal match.

He’s almost confident they win when the crowd starts yelling and Emma starts yelling and Killian is standing again.

She jumps towards David, the smile on her face wide and exuberant and there are American flags everywhere and Killian doesn’t know how she sees him.

She does.

She turns, feet dangling above the ice when David lifts her and Killian feels his mouth tick up as soon as Emma’s eyes land on him.

He waves.

God, what an idiot.

It gets her to smile wider.

Emma mouths something, waving one hand over her brother's shoulder and it takes a few moments for him to figure out what she’s saying.

Don’t leave.

He doesn’t. He has to battle a few security guards, but then they see his face and there aren’t anymore questions and Killian briefly wonders if the United States will let him back home if he doesn’t return laden down with medals.

It takes, what feels like, forever, and his phone is close to dying when he hears footsteps. She’s still smiling.

“Hey,” Emma says, licking her lips quickly and Killian’s pulse stutters. “I didn’t...were you here the whole time?” He nods, sitting up a bit straighter. She doesn’t sit down. “I don’t think they’d let me in after the fact, Swan.” “Don’t you need to be skating somewhere? Or making moves on the outside turn?” “You’re very worried with my schedule.” “I’ve been spending way too much time with Ruby.” “Ah, well, no, I don’t. At least not until later. And I wanted to see if I could get a handle on curling.” “Right,” Emma mutters, stretching the word out and her fingers are tapping on her thigh when she bends her knees and sits down. In the seat right next to him. “And did you? Get a handle? I feel like that’s a speed skating pun.” “Edge,” Killian corrects. “You get your edge in skating.” “Naturally.”

“And, to answer your question, possibly. I’m not sure I entirely understand the scoring without judges. How does that work?” “On your honor.” “Honestly?” “Honestly,” Emma echoes, nodding seriously. “There is no room for dicks in curling. Mixed or otherwise.”

Killian chokes on air, dimly aware of how disappointed his friends will be if he suffocates in the otherwise abandoned stands of the curling arena. Emma smiles. “Shit, Swan,” he mutters, tugging his fingers through his hair and it’s definitely flirting. Unless he’s going crazy. He might be going crazy. “You can’t just say shit like that.” “That was funny!” “I’m not disputing the humor of it. Just give a man some warning next time, huh?” She hums, amusement flashing across her face when she rests her head on the back of her chair. Her knees nearly bump his. “Congratulations, by the way,” Killian adds softly. “We should have led with that.” Emma’s expression changes, amusement morphing into disbelief into something that looks a bit closer to awe and just a bit of confusion and the questions are practically falling out of him.

“Thanks,” she mutters. “That’s...it’s nice that you were here. Or are here. Present tense.” “I had a rooting interest.” She laughs, low and honest and it settles in between each one of his ribs, warming him from the inside out and it’s easily the most sentimental thing he’s ever thought. “That was a good line.” “Third time’s the charm.”

He asks his questions.

And they avoid security guards for another hour and a half, ignoring schedules and friends and, likely, the American Olympic committee, but Killian can’t even consider moving when Emma keeps talking and he wants to know absolutely everything.

She started curling – ”That’s a real verb, I promise, it is.” “I’m not questioning your grasp of the language, Swan, just pointing out that it’s a fairly ridiculous verb.” – as a joke, not even a decade before and there’d been alcohol involved and her sister-in-law had looked the rules up on her phone.

“We used actual brooms,” Emma recounts, voice getting scratchier the longer they keep talking. “Stole them out of Ruth’s laundry room in the middle of the night over winter break and, you know, it was totally Ruby’s idea, but Mary Margaret is the single most positive person in the world, so she was certain it was a good idea too. I nearly broke my leg six different times.” “That’s an admirable feat, love.” “Right? I didn’t, but we wrecked those brooms and it just kind of spiraled from there. We had to crowd-fund to get here, did a whole lot of less-than-dignified begging and it was touch and go for a while, but now we’re guaranteed a medal, so suck it everybody else.”

Killian barks out a laugh, leaning towards her until they’re practically breathing the same air. “That’s the Olympic spirit, love.”

“Not all of us have a TV crew following them around, documenting their comeback.” “I didn’t want that,” Killian mutters. “None of it. Not really.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured.” “And Ruth is?”

It’s the wrong question or one question too many and Emma’s body tenses immediately. She clicks her tongue, as if she’s considering her answer or the closest exit and Killian tries not to breathe too loudly.

“My mom?” she mutters, shrugging slightly. Killian bites his tongue. “I mean kind of. David’s mom, but my...foster mom’ish? I mean she never adopted me, but I stayed there until I was eighteen and it’s, you know, just paperwork. So, yeah, mom. Definitely mom.” He freezes.

His body is stuck in some weird limbo where common ground exists and tragic backstories aren’t relegated to just him and Killian maybe, suddenly, wants to win for a totally different reason.

“What?” Emma presses cautiously and he shakes his head, like he’s trying to shake away memories or break through metaphorical walls.

He tells her. He talks until his voice sounds like someone else’s – about Liam and the apartment and the static on the TV he can still hear if he closes his eyes. He tells her about the distinct lack of parents and how cold that apartment was, even when they were in Florida and she smiles like she understands what it feels like to lose something.

He tells her about finding the sport and the speed and the rush that came from the sound of the crowd and how much he loved the noise.

“I swear I could feel it in me,” he whispers and it’s the first time he’s told anyone that. “The cheers and the shouts and the blades on the ice. God, I loved that.” Emma bites her lip and blinks twice and he’s not sure either one of them are ready when she moves, fingers brushing over his left forearm. “They’re going to yell again,” she says and it sounds like a promise and feels like something bigger. “You wrecked those two semis.” “Two, not three.” “Nobody’s perfect. It just gives TV time to show your promo spot again.” Killian scoffs, the muscles in his face almost confused when he smiles. “What…” Emma continues, lip still tugged in between her teeth when she speaks. “What happened? In the crash, I mean. I’ve watched that TV spot eight-hundred times and they say it shouldn’t have happened.” He quirks an eyebrow, the smile turning into a smirk and, sometimes, it’s easier to be a dick. Even if there isn’t room for them in curling.

Emma sighs.

And, well, that does it.

He tells her.

Again.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Killian mutters. “About...anything, really. Liam, my, uh, my brother he was was always kind of the one making sure I was on some sort of straight and narrow and then the bastard had the gall to go and die and everything just kind of fell apart.”

Emma’s eyes widen, a hint of panic in her stare that twists something in Killian’s gut. He keeps talking.

“So, uh...he gets a bunch of awards from America and the United States Navy for some accident that shouldn’t have happened and...I lose my head for the next six months. Practice way more than I should and harder than I’m supposed to a couple months before the Games and I’m a complete disaster at Worlds and maybe a little sleep deprived and I went to make a move and I bumped him. The guy from the Netherlands. You know, he was supposedly my direct competition?” “That’s what they said on TV,” Emma mutters and Killian is going to destroy every copy of that spot with his bare hands if he has to.

“They’re not lying about that. So I make my move and bump the guy and the whole world falls apart. I wasn’t thinking. Just racing and trying to get to the front and the podium and it was the dumbest move I’ve ever made. Some Australian’s the last guy standing and he wins a medal and it changes his life and I’m going into shock against the boards. Or so they tell me. I don’t really remember much, honestly. It was loud.” “That seems to be a trend.” Killian nods, a noncommittal movement that’s a deflection and a total dick move and Emma sees right through it.

He’s glad.

“But you came back,” she says intently. “I mean, you’re here and two out of three finals appearances really isn’t bad.” “I feel like you should have said that in rhythm, love.”

She rolls her eyes, smacking her hand against his chest and neither one of them flench when he catches her around her wrist. “I’m trying to give you a compliment. That was a compliment.”

Eventually, he will regret that he doesn’t kiss her right then.

He could have.

He wants to.

He’s, at least, ninety-six and a half percent positive she kind of wants him to as well.

He doesn’t.

Because this is new and cautious and Killian Jones has never considered himself much of a coward, but that was before the boards and the noise and the nearly overwhelming expectations sitting on his shoulders in South Korea.

So, he doesn’t kiss her. He smiles instead. And hopes.

“I know it was,” Killian says. “I appreciate it, Swan. And you’re absolutely going to win a gold medal.” “Flirt,” she mumbles and he hums in agreement. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” Killian nods, silent and a bit nervous and Emma rushes over the words like she’s trying to set some kind of Olympic record. “Why did you come back? Honestly. You didn’t really have to. I bet people told you not to.” “Several dozen people.” “So...why’d you do it then?” Killian considers his answer and it’s a question he’s been asked once a week for the last two years, as soon as he told Team USA he was going to skate again and no one believed he could. And he’s always given the same answer – I wanted to.

It’s not a lie, but it’s not the complete truth either and it’s the same reason he never walked away, even when he felt like he had to.

“My brother used to tell me a man who wasn’t willing to fight for what he wants, gets what he deserves,” Killian says and Emma’s fingers are warm when they lace through his. “I couldn’t..”

“Yeah, I get that,” she finishes. “Stubborn idiots. The both of us.” “I’m told that’s a prerequisite for Olympians.”

“Probably.” They’re silent for a moment and there’s a security guard looming just out of the corner of his eye, but neither one of them move and Killian’s heart jumps when Emma talks again. “He’d be proud of you,” she says softly, squeezing his hand and Killian skates the best he has in years that afternoon.

Emma Swan and David Nolan become the first-ever gold medal winners in mixed curling on a Saturday morning in South Korea.

Ruby cries.

Belle cries. Killian cheers.

Loudly.

And Emma’s laugh echoes in his ears when she jumps towards him, an American flag draped over her shoulders and a smile on her face and the moment burns itself into his memory forever.

They get hot chocolate the next day.

He doesn’t kiss her.

Things are turning desperate.

He makes two finals and the first one is on a Tuesday evening in the second week he’s in South Korea and Emma is sitting in the stands.

Killian tries not to think about that.

It doesn’t work.

“Stop it,” Robin mutters, keeping his balance even when he rocks back and forth between his blades and the team relay is not Killian’s forte.

There are too many skates and too many blades and it’s impossibly loud because South Korea fucking loves speed skating and Killian’s isn’t sure his heart is supposed to be beating this quickly. Like it’s trying to break his ribs.

“I’m fine,” Killian lies. Robin lifts his eyebrows. “Just...you know.” Robin nods, clapping a hand on his shoulder when he gets close enough. “Breathe. No sudden movements. Stay in your lane.”

“Right.” “It’ll be good. Medal good.” It is not, in fact, good. Medal or otherwise. It’s a goddamn disaster, a mess of bodies and shouts and Killian swears his blood runs cold when he feels his legs go out from underneath him.

He squeezes his eyes closed when his head collides with the board, the visor of his helmet somehow pressing into his nose.

The air seems to catch in his lungs and his throat feels like its shrinking and expanding at the same time, but that might just be a reaction to the distinct lack of oxygen he’s providing his brain and it’s so fucking loud.

They promise it’s not his fault and it really isn’t – not like it was the last time. It’s Italy’s fault and a domino effect that’s “bound to happen when there are so many people so close together.” Or so Belle promises, standing in the hallway outside the locker room.

Killian’s nose is still bleeding. HIs visor cut up his nose. He tries not to dwell on that.

“That guy should be disqualified,” he growls, not the first time he’s proclaimed that and Robin nods defly in agreement.

“Killian?” He snaps his head up and that’s probably not good for the slightly precarious bandages stuck to the bridge of his nose, but he doesn’t care when he sees her face – a flash of green eyes and worried and he’s moving as soon as his brain realizes she’s standing there in front of him.

“Emma,” he mutters and that’s the first time he’s done that. She smiles softly, thumb brushing over his cheek and Killian tries not to collapse against her.

It doesn’t work.

It doesn’t matter.

“Are you ok?” she asks, hands moving over his arms and his shoulders like she’s taking inventory. “That was...I was really worried.”

And, just like that, the world recenters or rights itself or something that is absolutely impossible.

He still doesn’t kiss her.

Idiot.

“I’m fine, love,” Killian says, the smile almost honest. “That Italian guy should have been disqualified though.” Her laugh is shaky and slightly watery and it does something very particular to, like, his entire life. “Yeah, he was,” Emma mumbles. “God, is that what you’re pissed about?” “It was a dick move, Swan.” “Yeah, yeah, I know it was.” She hugs him before he’s entirely ready for it and Killian is almost worried that Robin’s eyes will actually fall out of his head.

And, just like that, Killian realizes he’s got one more chance to make this right.

He’s going to.

He’s not quite so confident that he’d call any one particular race his “speciality,” but he’s not quite so unconfident that he would say the 1000-meters isn’t his speciality.

The double negatives are confusing.

It’s a Friday and they are running out of Olympics and Killian has less than five minutes to change his entire life.

And impress America.

And Emma.

He mostly cares about Emma.

He glances up to the small section he knows is cheering specifically for him and it’s far closer than he imagined it would be.

Regina knows everyone.

Killian imagined quite a lot.

And it still didn’t get her smile quite right.

If he wins a gold medal he’s absolutely going to kiss her. For sure. Definitely.

He’s just got to win a gold medal.

No big deal.

There’s an announcement and he has to line up and raise his hand when they call his name and nothing is as loud as his own pulse between his ears when the starting noise goes off.

It all kind of happens in a blur.

There are people around him – he can hear them, the sound of their panting turning into some kind of twisted metronome – but Killian just keep staring ahead and biding his time and there’s not much ice left.

They call it short track for a reason.

He makes his move on the eighth lap, an inch of space between the two skaters in front of him that’s just wide enough to twist through and keep his balance, fingers dragging on the ice and blades just barely hanging on.

Killian holds his breath.

And hopes.

He keeps his edge, taking the outside corner with a push of energy and emotion and determination and the cheers seem to settle into his bones and his skates and he doesn’t remember the rest of it.

Honestly.

Killian pushes off his right foot and keeps his center of gravity as low as he possibly can and he’s absolutely lost track of the laps. It doesn’t matter. The cheers are a pretty good indication of when it’s over.

It’s loud.

It’s joyful.

And his knees can’t quite cope with it.

Killian lands on the ice with an impossibly loud thump, hands flat to try and brace his fall and he can’t catch his breath. His mind is still racing and possibly reeling and he won.

He won a gold medal.

In the goddamn, fucking Olympics.

There are chants of USA, USA, USA and his vision blurs in front of him, a lack of oxygen and a distinct surplus of emotion and he needs to stand up, but his limbs don’t want to move and it’ll be embarrassing if he cries on international television.

He takes a deep breath, pulling air in through his nose and closing his eyes and he tries to let it all sink in – the moment and the feeling and how much his thighs are absolutely killing him because it was all absolutely, positively worth it.

Killian pushes himself up, blinking at the crowd and the flags and they’re still yelling, jumping and screaming and he’s only vaguely aware of the announcement and a string of words that sound like Olympic record.

“Holy fuck,” he breathes and it is, unquestionably, the least Olympic response to an Olympic medal in the entire history of sport.

His thighs don’t appreciate it when he starts skating again, tugging off his glasses as he moves and Killian will probably have to thank Regina for whoever she bribed to get these tickets because they’re all leaning over the barricade with flags in their hands and flags painted on their faces and Emma’s smile probably rivals the gold medal they’ll, eventually, give them.

He doesn’t say that out loud.

That would also be embarrassing.

“Nice move,” she shouts. “Super fast. Super impressive.” “Was that a line? Sounded a lot like a line.” “It was absolutely a line.”

The crowd makes some kind of ridiculous noise when he jumps the boards and he barely keeps his balance, wobbling on his skates when he lands on slightly cushioned ground. There’s not really a plan, just some kind of absurd hope that lingers in his veins and mixes in with adrenaline and how much he desperately wants to kiss her.

“How do I get up there?” Killian asks and Emma stares at him like he’s started talking in Korean.

“What? No, God, you’re going to kill yourself.” “Swan, I just set an Olympic record.” “Those two are not connected at all.”

He smirks at her. And that’s all it takes.

It takes a few minutes to get his skates off and he can feel the cameras on him, the entire goddamn world watching some absurd display of emotion that probably shouldn’t happen after a few weeks, but gravity is still fluctuating and, if necessary, he’ll blame the crowd noise.

The crowd has nothing to do with it.

Killian nearly falls no less than three times, David and Robin both trying to grab onto his shoulders, but his suit is too aero-dynamic and they can’t get a grip. Emma keeps mumbling oh my god under her breath.

He, eventually, gets on the ledge, hooking his elbows over the barricade so he doesn’t kill himself a few minutes after winning a gold medal, and she rolls her eyes when he flashes her a smile.

“Hey,” Killian grins. “Crazy seeing you here. Are you stalking me, Swan?”

Emma groans, shaking her head and that’s all the warning he gets before she kisses him. Figures.

It’s a rather precarious balancing act and hardly his best work when Emma has to keep pulling him back towards her, but it’s also good and great and a slew of other adjectives and Killian silently congratulates himself when she sighs against his mouth.

He chances moving his arm, left arm finding its way back around her waist and these Olympics are incredibly cyclical. Emma doesn’t flinch, doesn’t stop kissing back or doing whatever it is that she’s doing with her tongue – and he may appreciate that more than the medal and the record combined – and Killian considers that this might be the moment.

Trademark pending.

When he first decided he was going to do this, the training and the working and the skating towards something, Liam promised there would be a moment when, suddenly, it would all be worth it and Killian’s definitely the most sentimental person on the planet because he’s certain this is the moment in some kind of life-altering way.

“There are cameras everywhere,” Emma mutters, but she doesn’t move away from his mouth and her eyes are definitely greener than they were before.

“I absolutely do not care.” “God, we’re going to be on TV all the time.” Killian laughs when he ducks his head again and she kisses back and it’s so goddamn perfect it almost unreal.

It’s definitely real.

He gets a medal.

And a medal ceremony.

And they play that clip of him climbing the stands, like, once every hour for the next three days.

Ruby keeps track.

“You have to go answer questions.”

Emma eyes him with something that would almost be frustration if she hadn’t been kissing him a few minutes before. “Do you always have to be right?” she asks, tugging on the front of his red, white and blue sweater and they’re both wearing medals.

It’s only kind of ostentatious.

David promises it’s fine.

Robin laughs.

Ruby and Belle take photos.

“No,” Killian says. “Just tends to happen more often than not. And if I go do this interview are you going to run onto the set again?”

“There was no set. You were blocking the way.” “Ah, you ran into me, love.” “I tripped over wires. Because they were a hazard. You were a hazard.”

“I’m still not in charge of NBC, Swan.” She groans, but there’s a smile on her face when she presses up on her toes and catches his lips with hers, fingers knocking his hat off his head when she cards her fingers through his hair. “Idiot,” Emma mumbles and there’s an affection in the word that does several different things to several different parts of his life and the moment seems to continue forever.

He stands just off camera when NBC interviews her and David, the medals around their neck reflecting the lights and it’s loud when they walk back into the arena.

Together.

The moment never really stops being a moment. It just, sort of, evolves into their life and the future and they, somehow, settle into something even when they get stateside.

And months later with snow falling and actual, honest to God brooms in their hand that they stole from the closet in Ruth’s laundry room, Killian wraps an arm around Emma’s shoulders and whispers the words in her ears.

She’s holding hot chocolate.

It’s quiet.

“I love you,” he says, soft and honest and more important than any question he’s ever answered.

She turns slowly, eyes wide and mouth parted slightly and he tries not to yell when she answers. “I love you too,” Emma whispers and he hears her perfectly.

#cs ff #captain swan #cs #captain swan ff #cs fic #i don't know man...i couldn't get killian jones speed skater out of my head #and that brother and sister were american curlers #and it all just kind of happened in one frustrated-with-work rage writing sprint

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