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seriouslyhooked · 5 years ago

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Lost Souls and Reveries (Part 22)

24 part AU written for @cssns. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21. Story available on AO3 Here and FF Here. Banner created by the amazingly talented @shipsxahoy!!

Killian Jones is a wolf shifter without roots, without plans, and without a pack. He’s a rogue, someone humans should avoid and shifters should be wary of given his lineage. But one night years back set him on a path he didn’t realize he was taking, a path leading to a future he is destined for. That future is tied up in one woman – a human named Emma Nolan. Together Emma and Killian will find not only answers, but a love that’s truly fated. But will love be enough to set them free, or will past demons win out in the end? (Answer: love always wins – I am writing this so despite some tiny pockets of angst it’s basically a fluff-filled insta-love fest). Rated M.

A/N: Hey everyone! I know it has been such a long time since I updated this fic, which is crazy because the chapters are taking place one right after another still, but this fall has been filled with travel and very little free time for me. I didn’t get a chance to write, and though I wanted to get the story out there and share the ideas I’ve had all this time, I wanted to give myself the space to do this story justice. It’s been an ambitious AU for me, there’s a lot of moving parts and way more reveals than I ever do, making it a really big undertaking. But all of your support along the way and your continued interest has helped keep me motivated even in the time I couldn’t work on this. As such, I really hope you will all enjoy this chapter, and I thank you all for reading!

She is never leaving my sight again, Killian thought to himself as he held Emma to his side, keeping ever vigilant about their surroundings out here in the woods.

The two of them had stolen their temporary moment alone after the encounter with the bear, but both of them knew that quiet couldn’t really last forever. Nevertheless, the wish to run away with Emma and barricade her from anything that might harm her was strong in Killian. He resisted, knowing that leaving would not only put everyone else at risk, but that it would make his Emma deeply unhappy, but in the privacy of his own mind, he allowed those thoughts to wander. At the end of the day, his priority was Emma and the baby that she was carrying now, and there was just no changing that.

As if she could hear his mind’s rampant musings, Emma’s hand came to cover his arm, a silent show that she was here and that she was readily accepting his need to protect her. She looked up to him, and though he was certain he hadn’t pushed the worried internal dialogue her way through their mental link, he could see that she knew anyway. He couldn’t hide the hurt and the harried frenzy that nearly losing her had conjured up. It still lingered here with him, as it would until all of this was over and done.

We’ll get through this, she pushed to him quietly, and in response Killian quietly brought her hand to his lips, pressing a delicate kiss atop her smooth and creamy skin before leading it to rest above his heart. The smile she graced him with at the reassuring motion filled him with renewed hope, but yet again their quiet shows of intimacy were short lived.

“I still don’t get it,” a voice interjected, pulling Emma and Killian from their semi-private moment. “He comes to town, tries to kill us all, claims Anna, barrels into the magic force field, and now… nothing.”

Tink’s words, lobbed at the bear that had at first seemed like nothing more than a foe, prompted all of them to look in the beast’s direction. The grizzly was ferocious and imposing still, with eyes a tempered red color, but they lacked the vibrancy of before. Now, instead of glowing a sickening scarlet, they were more molten, a deep burgundy where they were once so bright. The mellowing out of the color signaled to Killian that the bear had calmed somehow, not breaking from its fever, but tamping it down. That didn’t mean he trusted this unknown shifter though, and until they were certain he posed no threat to Emma, that bear was getting nowhere near his woman again.

“Could we maybe keep our less helpful thoughts to ourselves for the time being?” Emma countered, and though the words were sharp, it was understandable why she said them. For as much as the bear was an enigma to them, he was just as much of a puzzle to Anna, if not more so. Emma’s friend was still somewhat dazed from it all, and currently Elsa and Liam were standing with her, the former trying to comfort her sister, and the latter keeping his reflexes sharp in case the lass made a break for the bear.

“Sorry, it’s just…” Tink trailed off, unsure of how to phrase this precarious situation.

“It’s just bat shit crazy is what it is,” Ruby exclaimed.

“And about to get crazier,” Emma’s Uncle Lance noted, commenting on the impending hubbub that was coming down the road right now.

The Nolan’s were all together in their car, not having had the chance to run as Liam, Killian, and Graham had. They’d also had to wait until they were given some sort of all clear. The situation was now somewhat contained, but before that there was too much risk in having Neal, Mary Margaret, or Ruth out here. Killian had never seen Emma’s father in action, but he knew the man had been trained his whole life to be a hunter. David Nolan would have all the necessary skills to have been a part of this fight, but as it turned out, the fight came down almost entirely to the instincts of Emma and her wolf.

“Emma!”

The car was still in motion, braking on the loose, dirt path, but it did nothing to stop Mary Margaret from jumping out and running to her daughter. Killian moved back ever so slightly, knowing what would come next, but he stayed as close as possible to the massive hug Emma’s mother bestowed on her. Tears of relief streamed down the older woman’s face, but she didn’t break down, even in her moment of vulnerability. She may have been human, but Emma’s mother was strong, and fiercely protective of the children she loved so dearly.

“I told you I’d be okay,” Emma whispered, attempting to share a smile with her Mum, and the words felt like a punch to his gut. He closed his eyes briefly, seeing again the image of Emma trapped beneath the snarling bear, but he shook it away, willing himself to be strong for his mate. Reliving that terrible moment did nothing but make him weaker and more worried.

Emma’s father, brother, and grandmother all surrounded her as well, hugging Emma close before turning their attention to the others. Mary Margaret immediately moved to Gwen, trying to take strength from a woman who had answered in their hour of need, and David clearly felt the support of his lifelong friend and capable shifter Lance, but soon the greetings and reunions were tossed aside, and all attention turned to the problem at hand. It was interrogation en masse, and the questions tossed out were free game for all of them and in dire need of answer.

“Is everyone all right?”

“Everyone’s in one piece,” Graham said, having taken account of the whole group’s status as soon as the bear was contained. No one had withstood anything that amplified shifter healing wouldn’t clear up by the end of the day. All in all, they’d been incredibly lucky.

“Any injuries?”

“Just to my pride. Damn bear got the better of me at one point, and I can’t say I’m too thrilled with that,” Granny quipped, prompting the ghost of a smile to tug at Killian’s lips. In another moment he’d laugh at the old wolf and her totally serious resentment at having been bested, but things being as they were, he couldn’t quite get to the level of comfort needed for a good dose of fun. “But other than that, we’re all fine.”

“Barely,” Emma’s aunt coughed out and Killian watched as Emma’s head snapped to her. A quiet contest of wills elapsed between them. Clearly her aunt wanted to disclose how close things had really come, but Emma wanted to spare her parents the pain of what could have been. It wasn’t clear who would prove victorious, but then Mary Margaret caught the exchange and there was no avoiding the conversation.

“What happened?” Her tone held the firm but alarmed kind of shrillness only a mother could produce.

“Uh, it might be totally out of the realm of normal, but it’s also kind of straight forward,” Tink hedged, shrugging a shoulder as she proceeded to give the barest of highlights, thus helping Emma keep things under wraps. “A giant, angry, magically roided up grizzly shifter came to town, we lured it out here, we got it in the magical crystal thing, and now here we are.”

“Is that all?” David asked, having caught on to his wife’s increased agitation. “Emma?”

Emma’s muscles tightened significantly as the conversation went on, her stance looking more and more like she might just shift and run away from all of this. But instead, she looked to Killian, asking him only with her expression if he’d have her back. Of course he would, and he sealed that silent oath with a kiss to her temple. She leaned into the action for only the briefest of moments before taking a deep breath and coming clean.

The look of anguish on her parents’ faces was likely punishment enough for Emma, who had already felt some guilt about the danger she’d put herself in. Neal, for his part, looked awed at her bravery, and at one point he even interrupted with a word of praise, before a look from his mother quickly cut that thinking off. When Emma was done, it was clear that her mother especially was both wracked with worry and terribly angry. Her emotions were big and jumbled and messy, but though she probably deserved to get them out, Killian felt it was time to step in.

“Obviously there’s a lot to unpack there, but the big thing is Emma is safe now and there will never be another similar instance again.” He looked to Emma, who nodded readily. “And right now we don’t have the luxury of examining this all again. Gold has essentially declared war on us with this attack, and we can’t assume that’ll be the end of it.”

“So we’re certain now that it’s him?” Ruth asked. She was struggling to keep up given how much had been happening and that was understandable. Between Gold and Emma’s great uncle George’s appearance, there were so many unknowns hanging about right now, certainly more than could ever be easily understood.

“There’s too much magic involved for it to be anyone else,” Ruby replied. “But we were hoping you might confirm. The enchantment on the collar is still pulsing even now. It should look similar to the charms you witnessed.”

Ruth followed Ruby towards the choker, which had still yet to be touched by anyone but Emma. Without any discussion about the chance of her being jinxed somehow by the object, Ruth reached out to examine it. She nodded as soon as her skin made contact with the magic itself.

“This is definitely Gold’s work. It looks and feels the same. It’s reptilian almost, if that makes sense.”

“It doesn’t, but not much does anymore,” Liam remarked, and again Killian wished he was in the place to laugh. God knew they all needed it, but with so much still unknown every bit of their energy needed to be tied up in solving this life threatening puzzle.

Ruth continued to examine the artifact, her eyes taking in the material that appeared to be leather bound together by some kind of silver or platinum. It was a strange combination, but there was something in Ruth’s eyes that spoke to familiarity. Killian didn’t know if it was just her identifying the magic or what, but the hairs on the back of his neck went up just before she turned the leather over, a shocked look rushing across her face as she dropped the object back to the ground.

“Grandma?” Emma asked, having picked up on the same nervous energy that Killian did even before it truly managed to manifest. They both moved towards Ruth, searching for answers, but she appeared speechless as she looked back at them.

“Mom?” David asked, moving towards her quickly, trying to see if she was all right before sparing a glance at the cursed collar. Instantly his face portrayed the same shock, and then he let loose a very rare curse. “Son of a bitch.”

“Language,” Mary Margaret and Emma’s Aunt Gwen both said absently, but it was obviously instinct and driven by no sort of real intention. Within seconds Emma’s mother was at David’s side and held his hand in hers once more. “David, what is it?”

“That sigil.”

Killian turned his focus to the emblem on the leather collar. It was all hard lines and angles, and though it was a random association, Killian thought of how it looked so unlike most shifter symbols. It was clearly old, dating back far before the flags and figures of most great houses, but it sliced through the collar with an authority and a bluntness that looked like many knives hard at work.

“You know it?” Emma asked, prompting her father out of the angry and confused mood he was now grappling with,

“It’s the Nolan crest,” her Dad said. “And not only that, it’s my Uncle’s work. See here,” he motioned at the ridges and how the slices were jagged but perfectly symmetrical. “Nolans for centuries used branding techniques to establish our crest, but my Uncle said it left the smell of smoke. He wanted something cleaner and so he studied the old ways. All this was done with one knife in one stroke.”

“But with magic anything can be recreated, can’t it? It could be a set-up, something to throw us off the trail,” Anna said. Yet even as the words left her lips, she was still trying to figure it all out for herself. “Still, the magic is so obviously Gold’s. No one else can recreate that, why bother with any attempted distraction?”

“It’s not a diversion. It’s a claim. Gold made his with his magic and my brother made his with this,” Ruth said, her words finally reappearing though her eyes were still somewhat glazed over by ghosts from her past. “God, I wished I’d never see this symbol again, never mind the man who made it. To think he’s working with Gold. This is a nightmare.”

“I just don’t get it. Why are they both doing this? What’s the end game?” Graham asked.

“My Uncle’s will be as it always was – to eradicate shifters.”

“Even family?” Killian asked and David nodded.

“But what about Gold?” Elsa asked. “He’s got no ties to any of us but Ruth. Surely she can’t mean that much to him. She’s been awake five years, and he could have found her in any of that time.”

“Look, I don’t know the guy, but from everything you guys have found out, does it really seem like he needs a reason?” Tink asked. “The man is clearly more than a few marbles shy of a whole set.”

“He’ll have a reason,” Ruth responded. “But Elsa’s right, it can’t be me. Most likely it’s you all.” She gestured at Ruby, Elsa, Anna, and Emma.

“All of us?” Emma asked. “I mean I get them, they’re witches, but I’m -,”

“The Nolan heir and a hybrid shifter. Not to mention you’re mated to the true alpha of one of the strongest packs in America. Elsa, Anna, and Ruby have tremendous power, to be sure, and having joined together in one place, they’d be a natural threat to a power-hungry beast like Gold. But you’re truly unique, Emma, something that can’t be recreated, and to Gold that’s worth more than anything.”

“Clearly he’s willing to die over it,” Liam said shaking his head as his eyes met Killian’s. “And he will. Soon as we can find that fu-,” A shove from Elsa reminded Liam of the smaller ears in the group now and he cleared his throat before finding another word that didn’t fit nearly as well. “foe?”

“Not terrible. Not a great save, but not awful,” Neal joked, earning a smile from the adults who were still all in awe that this young boy was managing to swim in the deep end of all of this shifter drama.

“Where’s Lance?” Emma’s father asked, drawing attention to the fact that his old friend was missing from this conversation. Killian hadn’t even noticed, a testament to the extreme stealth of mountain lion shifters.

“He picked up a scent earlier but with the bear and all there was no time. We had to get to you all as fast as we could,” Gwen explained. “He’s circling back to track it now.”

“Another shifter?”

“No. I mean I don’t know. I didn’t even smell anything, but he said there was something…”

At that moment, the low rumble of a wild cat running came through the underbrush and then Lance appeared at the tree line in his shifter form. In the blink of an eye he transformed to human again. This was pretty normal for all of them, as even Emma and her friends had more exposure to shifting this summer, but for Neal it was a shock and that manifested when the boy gasped aloud. One look spared in the boy’s direction showed he was nothing but excited. No fear, no dismay. Just the giddy look of childlike wonder that a kid might have in the face of a perfect Christmas or a trip to Disney World.

“You didn’t recognize it because it’s a scent from before we ever met,” Lance said emerging from the woods. “It’s feint, but it’s citrus rinds and tea leaves.”

“George,” David and Ruth said at the same time, both resigned but obviously perplexed.

“Lance?” Gwen asked, putting her hand to his arm in question, echoing everyone else’s confusion.

“Hunters bathe in salted citrus waters with tea leaves before an attack. It largely suppresses human scent and keeps them nearly untraceable, blending in with forest smells better than any other combination. I only know about it at all because it’s what David always smelled like growing up.”

“He’s here?” Emma’s father asked, skipping over the tea bath tidbit.

“If he isn’t then he was. Trail leads to the clinic. It’s strong there but no sign of him. SUV tire tracks in the dirt. Recently left.”

“Was the SUV big enough to hold him?” Anna asked, motioning towards the bear, her face angrier than Killian had ever seen it.

“Would have been a cramped cage,” Lance admitted, making the air around Anna practically crackle with her resentment of David’s Uncle. A breeze floated in the glen around them, and in it there was a glinting of light that spoke to something more than wind. It was Anna’s palpable energy, and though she did her best to conceal it, the storm inside her mind and heart was starting to brew in the world around them. “But there’s more. The clinic has been marked, and the animals inside are feeling very on edge. You’re gonna want to get over there before some humans do.”

“Wait but hold on, how is this even possible?” Emma asked, stalling everyone in their tracks before they sped off to the clinic. “How would your Uncle have had time to get here after messing with Neal? The bear attacked maybe thirty minutes after you left. And I’m sorry, I don’t care how skilled a hunter he is. You’re telling me he brought a giant grizzly in a huge SUV into the city Boston? Doesn’t that seem like a really dumb idea?”

“Emma’s right, the timeline is all off,” Killian affirmed, and it seemed to dawn on the others how accurate that was.

“I showed Neal a picture once we got back to the house, and he confirmed it was definitely George who approached him.”

“But what if it wasn’t?” Ruby asked, turning her inquiry to Emma’s brother. “Neal, was there anything strange about the man who approached you?”

“You mean other than the fact that he cornered me and said all that cryptic stuff about my being a hunter and his family?” Ruby nodded. “Uh, I don’t know he spoke kind of fast. Like a little faster than was easy to follow. Made the already crazy stuff he said even more confusing. It also felt like he was kind of talking to himself, answering his own questions when I didn’t really feel like he’d asked anything. And he kept flicking his wrist as he talked and then balling it up. His face got mad when he did that but only for a second.”

“That doesn’t sound like George,” Ruth said critically. “He’s a methodical man. His whole life has been about control and perfection. He speaks so well, he’s a vocal coach’s dream. Same with his movements.”

“Hunters don’t fidget,” David said, sounding like he was repeating words he was oft told in his past life as opposed to making any sort of additional commentary.

“Could a human smell a hunter, even though shifters mostly can’t?” Neal asked and Emma’s father responded.

“Yes but it would be almost unnoticeable. Why do you ask?”

“Well I didn’t really think much of it but I smelled something awful in the air when he came up to me. I thought it was just one of those city pockets you know? Where the air is just dirty and you kinda have to walk through it.”

“Could be,” Ruby said, “But sulfuric smells can be a side effect of dark magic. Ruth, what was Gold like when you interacted with him all those years ago? Do you remember?”

“Well he was much more unbalanced than George, that’s for sure. Gold used to talk in riddles anytime I met with him and always so fast you barely knew what he was saying. Now that you mention it the wrist thing sounds like something too. He used to kind of flick his up like this,” Ruth said, displaying a gesture that was almost caricature of what a person with magic might do.

“So the body language and the other clues hint that Neal was actually dealing with Gold and not George, and if that’s the case he must have used a glamour spell,” Elsa acknowledged. “Unless there’s another way?”

“No, for him to look like George it would have to be a glamour, it would explain the smell, but it would also take a lot of magical energy. He should be really weak after expending himself like that. I mean between that and the magic that’s been spent on trapping this bear… he shouldn’t even be alive.”

“’Should’ doesn’t really seem like a word that fits in our world at the moment,” Granny sassed and they all agreed. There was no reason to assume Gold was anything but fully healthy right now, no doubt through some sinister means.

“I think realistically we need to split this up. George has apparently left this mess for me at the clinic. We should start there,” Emma’s father said, nodding to Lance and his mother who both silently accepted their new assigned posts.

“Usually I’d say I’m all we need over at team ‘scent tracker,’ but with everything that’s happened today and all the breaches…”

“You need help,” Graham said, filling in for Tink without hesitation. “I’d go, but we need to keep up the appearance of normalcy for the rest of the town, and after this bear warning people are going to have questions.”

“I’ll go with Tink,” Granny offered, surprising most of them before letting out a disgruntled huff and straightening her shoulders. “Oh please, I’m old, I’m not dead. Heck the kids would say I’ve got ‘mad skills’ when it comes to tracking.”

“Any kids who would have said that are probably in their mid-thirties by now,” Killian whispered, and despite everything Emma squawked out something close to a laugh. She then sent him a sharp but loving look, telling him that now was not the time but that she did find him funny.

“As much as we have to find George, we need to track Gold just as badly,” Elsa proclaimed. “I still don’t sense him as being the biggest threat, but he’s in this too and if we’re ever going to get an idea of what the end game is, we need to know everything we can.”

“So that leaves what?” Ruby asked. “Bear watch? Liam and Killian can handle that.”

“What about us?” Emma asked, motioning towards her brother and her mother.

“We need to put some of that natural organizing to good use,” Ruth said adamantly. “Mary Margaret, you more than anyone could try and map this out. Getting everything we know in one place could help make everything more clear.”

“Plus no one is better at wrangling multiple groups,” Gwen added, waving her walkie talkie in the air before nodding towards Graham. “You’ve got a direct line to all of us, and the patience and know-how to get everything you need.”

“Well when you put it like that,” Emma’s mother said, clearly pleased with her role. “So what are we waiting for? This war ain’t gonna win itself.”

And since that was true, they all moved off to their designated jobs, though Killian kept track of Emma constantly. Luckily her mother decided to set up their brainstorming outside here in the glen, so as much as Killian was on bear watch, he was also looking out for his mate. Killian would not let anything happen to Emma and their family, so right now it was his mission to use all of his years of experience as a shifter to aid in their protection. In the long span of his life where he sought to avenge his mother, and then in the years spent tracking and avoiding any signs of Liam and his pack, he had become a well-honed machine. His skills allowed him to feel ready for whatever may come, and he trusted that his love of Emma and his want to protect both her physical being and her heart would make anything possible. Whatever foe may present themselves, he would handle them, because there was no other option as far as he or his wolf were concerned.

That readiness and familiarity with trouble, however, did not apply to everyone, and there was one person amongst them who more than anyone must be flummoxed and uneasy given all the tumult. Killian looked even now at young Neal and he felt for the boy. He was putting on a brave face, but there was still concern that made its way to the surface now and then. Emma’s brother hid it well from his overbearing and constantly watchful mother, but when Mary Margaret moved away to talk with Gwen on the walkie talkie about everything going on at the clinic, Killian saw a chance to try and do some good.

“You holding up all right, lad?”

Killian posed the question like it could in any way be straight forward to this young boy. Emma’s brother had woken up this morning a gifted but largely ordinary child. He was brilliant to be sure, but he had no real notion of what any of this meant. Human science alone couldn’t prepare him for this, not when the books they taught in schools mentioned nothing of this whole different part of the world. It must be a great shock to him, yet here Neal stood, ready for action and above the fray of questions most people, no matter what age, would grapple with when a situation like this arose.

“It makes sense in a way,” Neal admitted, shrugging his shoulder. “Not the whole my great uncle is working with a warlock thing. That’s just crazy.”

“Aye it is. But the shifting, and your wolf, they’re not as surprising to you?”

“I had dreams, back when everyone thought I was going to die.” Neal shrugged at the memory of those times, because his childhood illness was just a part of his life. It was a painful chapter of the Nolan family story, but Neal looked to be all the stronger for it now. “They were pretty all over the place. I was sleeping all the time and I was in and out, but there was a woman towards the end, that I remember. She was nice, with a smile like my mom. I knew I could trust her, and the next thing I knew she turned into a wolf and I did too. It was weird, but it felt right, you know?”

Killian gulped, knowing that the woman Neal spoke of was his mother. He debated telling the boy the full truth, but given everything that he was saddled with now, it didn’t seem wise. There would be time, hopefully, when all of this had been resolved and he and Emma could have a full discussion with Neal about all they’d learned. They’d tell him of Emma’s own dreams, of the process Elsa’s magic had undertaken to save them both, and how Killian’s mother found a way even beyond the grave to watch over him and the family he would one day love. But for now, the best course of action was bolstering Neal’s faith and telling him this would all work out okay.

“It must be strange, to learn of what you are later like this. I know for Emma it was a unique process. It can be overwhelming. But it’s also…” he searched for the right words.

“Uh, totally cool?” Neal filled in, looking genuinely enthusiastic. “I mean I can turn into a wolf. That’s pretty bad ass.”

Killian and Neal’s heads both whipped towards the direction of Mary Margaret, but despite her motherly senses, she seemed to have missed her son’s bit of cursing. That was likely for the best.

“It’s an amazing gift to be sure. I know I’d never feel truly whole without my wolf. I’m glad you and Emma will have that now too.”

“Yeah. I just wish I didn’t have to wait. I mean five more years? That feels like forever.”

Killian smiled and he knew that for Neal it must seem like just that. As a kid, years felt like they’d never pass, and time would never move in the direction that you wanted it. It took the benefit of hindsight to see that everything comes exactly when it should, and as a new shifter, Neal would be in much better shape if he had a few years of understanding who he was before moving into that phase of his life.

“When things calm down, we should talk. You’ll have questions, and while your father is well versed in much of the shifter world, he might not have all the answers.”

“Did your Dad have them?” Neal asked, not out of any malice, but because he just genuinely didn’t know the history of Killian and his family.

“No, but I was lucky to have an elder brother.”

“And now I will too,” Neal said, like Killian’s new status in the family was a long time given. Killian smiled at that, nodding.

“Aye. That you will. Whatever you need, Neal, I’ll be here to help. So will Emma, and Liam, and all of us.”

“Like a real pack,” Neal said and Killian thought about it a moment before nodding. After all, what else could they be called at this point? There were so many of them, shifter, witch, and otherwise, tied together through love, through family ties and friendship. If that wasn’t a pack as it was intended to be then Killian didn’t know what it was.

Feeling secure in the fact that Neal was okay, Killian planned to switch his attention back to the others and their deliberations, but the bear suddenly let forth a harsh huff of air, propelling the front of his body up into the air, before stomping its thick paws into the earth below. Killian went on alert, preparing to get to Emma if the grizzly should break free, but then he gathered that the others were talking about the bear and the bear was somehow communicating, though perhaps not very effectively.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” Neal said, shaking his head as he watched the captive beast.

“Seeing a mammoth grizzly in a magic cage? Yeah, weird is one way of putting it.”

“It’s not that. It’s the smell around him. It’s sterile and sharp. I swear it smells like when I was in the hospital. Like an IV but not quite.”

Sniffing the air, Killian could at first only sense the overwhelming stench of a shifter sickness and Gold’s magic, but there, underneath those notes, there was something he belatedly recognized as medical. Now that Neal said it, he wondered how he, or any of the other shifters had missed it all this time.

“I’ve got news for you, lad: those supposed genius tendencies of yours are not purely human. You’re gonna be a hell of a shifter.”

Neal grinned at that, and after Killian urged him to tell the others, a whole new door of inquiry opened. Everyone came back from their separate corners of Storybrooke, seeking to put a new piece of the puzzle in place.

“Magic and medicine? But that’s crazy. Can it even be done?” Tink asked.

“I think we’re looking at the proof,” Elsa hedged, gesturing at the bear.

“Did anyone get a bite of his neck?” Emma asked and the others who had been there in the thick of the fight shook their head. “He’s got two puncture marks there, I saw a flash of them when I took the collar off, but I just assumed…”

“Let’s all just make a plan to stop doing that for the time being,” Graham said and they heartily agreed, for surely assuming anything was getting them nowhere. They had to start from scratch and do as Neal had done, study the problem just with the facts and clues before them.

“Are the marks identical, Emma?” Neal asked and after a moment of reflection Emma nodded.

“Yeah, they looked pretty similar. I only caught a quick glimpse though.”

“Can you get him closer to us?” Neal asked and Mary Margaret shook her head.

“Neal, no -,”

“He doesn’t need to leave the enclosure, Mom. I just need to see his neck. Emma said there’s two punctures. That’s rare in medical treatment of any kind, human or animal. There’s usually only one puncture site. Whenever I needed more than one medicine they stuck me in different places or they’re infused through one site, resulting in only one puncture. Two identical pierces is almost unheard of. In fact, the only researchers I know that have regularly and successfully used two study genetically based nervous system manipulation.”

“Uh, can you repeat that in English?” Liam replied and Killian related to his brother’s sentiment. This was elevated stuff well beyond the experience set of any of the adults here, save for maybe Emma and David who had a veterinary background, and Neal was a teenager. How did he know about this?

“Basically treatment to regrow and stabilize a broken nervous system. Yes, it’s super complicated and obscure, and before you ask, I just spent the summer rooming with a medical prodigy who is headed to Columbia pre-med at 14. You pick up stuff when all your friend talks about is cutting edge science stuff.”

“That’s brilliant, Neal, but what makes you think that this has anything to do with that?”

“Well the dual needle there wasn’t just used for fun, it was necessary to yield any positive results. The doctors were trying to infuse damaged nervous systems with a lining that would revamp nerves and allow for an artificial system reboot. They needed two different solutions to do that, and they needed to mix at the same rate through the body while not being combined outside of the system itself. They said that allowing the chemical interaction to happen inside the body actually improved the lasting effects of the treatment.”

“So that begs the question, how do we get closer to him?”

Granny’s query prompted all of them to look to Anna automatically, but that only prompted Elsa to get defensive.

“No! No way! Absolutely not! You are not going in there.”

“Elsa we need to know,” Anna replied, her tone even, not matching the loudness or the fear of her sister. “And it’s like I keep telling you. He won’t hurt me.”

“Maybe we can just ask him to come closer?” Emma added, clearly not wanting her friend anywhere near that bear without the barrier still between them.

“But what if one of the solutions Neal is talking about isn’t just science?” Ruby replied, her brow furrowed together. “If it’s magical then we need a witch to gauge that and that would be damn near impossible with Elsa and Anna’s enchantment as strong as it is.”

“We’re not doing this,” Elsa said, her anguish clear, but the fight in her starting to fail somewhat.

“What other choice do we have, Elsa? We’re in danger and more than that we’re blind. We need answers. We need them to stay safe, and we need them to heal him. He has to be okay, Elsa. He just has to be.”

The connection Anna felt to this bear was strong already though she’d never even seen his human form. Killian understood that, and though it must feel impossible to accept that Anna might be in any kind of danger, Elsa did too. All she needed to do was think about when it was Liam. When the two of them first met, Liam was still unstable and unwell, perhaps to a different degree, but Elsa stood by him. She was devoted right from the start, and she did everything she could to heal his brother and to stop his pain. Anna wanted to do the same thing, and now Elsa had to support her, fear and all.

You will not hurt her, do you hear me?

The mental push came from Emma and was aimed at the bear, but Killian still heard it. Her eyes were wary, set on the grizzly as her face gave nothing but seriousness away. The bear snorted but gave a sharp nod, unwilling or unable to reply with coherent thoughts, but showing with animal action that he was not in an aggressive place.

“Okay, Anna. You can go in there, but only for a minute. You find out what we need to know and then you get back out here. Are we clear?” Emma asked and Anna nodded. Without any more deliberation she moved to the edge of the crystal enclosure and then she stepped in.

Not knowing how things would go made the moment of Anna’s examination emotionally fraught, but beyond that this was a moment that both Emma’s friend and this unknown shifter must be craving on a cellular level. They were fated mates, destined to be together and yet unable to have more than a brief interaction. They couldn’t even speak to each other, and the fact that this was all happening while he was a bear must make things even more confusing. Yet none of that translated. Instead, Anna approached with cautious determination, stopping just before the bear and pausing only for a moment before she raised her hand to the bear’s face. Her hand made contact and everyone held their breath until the bear made a low, but welcoming growl.

“Hi,” Anna murmured after a moment, her voice raspier than usual. “This isn’t how I thought something like this would happen. I had all these ideas about who you’d be and how we’d meet and this is just… well, different.”

The bear closed its eyes for a moment exhaling what could only be called a grizzly form of a sigh, and then nuzzled more so into Anna’s touch. A sign of agreement and docility that was so alien a concept with a shifter this sick.

“Anna.” Elsa’s calling out to her sister reminded Anna of her mission and she straightened her stance and nodded.

“Right. I have to fix this. I have to help you. And I don’t know if you heard what we were saying but -,”

The bear didn’t even need to hear the rest of her request, instead shifting so Anna could be up close and personal with his neck and the site of the punctures Emma had seen. Anna let out a sound of sadness at seeing where the bear had been injured.

“What do you see?” Neal asked.

“Two puncture marks, just like Emma said. And they’re really big and thick. I can see why you thought someone bit him. He’s started to heal over it but there’s scarring and…” she raised her hand over the wound but trailed off from speaking to them.

“And what?” Ruby asked.

“You were right Ruby, I can feel the magic. Some sort of potion of something. But there’s something else here. Some residue of something else.”

“We need to see that!” Neal said, his desire to figure out this puzzling situation clear as day. “We can test his fur or maybe get some blood work, but it would be better if we had the actual solution itself.”

With just the barest flutter of her fingers Anna used her magic to extract the droplets of whatever liquid coated the bear’s fur. It was entrancing to see, and the little bits of whatever injection was used hung suspended in the air. It was a small amount, but small was better than nothing at all. “I need something to put this in.”

A vile was produced from Mary Margaret’s bag, and no one bothered to ask why she had it. No doubt some sort of ‘always be prepared mentality’ and Emma brought it to the edge of the barrier with Killian right behind her. But while they expected Anna to come right away, she was stalled, wanting, no doubt, to stay close to her mate.

“I know how hard this must be, Anna, but the sooner we figure out what this is the sooner you can heal him.”

“I’m going to fix this,” Anna said, for the bear’s benefit and not for any of theirs. “We’re gonna find out what this is and I swear I will fix it.”

At the mention of her leaving, the bear’s eyes went dark, looking more onyx than any shade of red. It reminded Killian of his father and of Liam and it all clicked. This was some sort of manufactured alpha sickness. It had to be. But just as soon as that darkness came, the bear shook its head and pushed it back again, its irises back to a deep burgundy color. The bear hoisted its body up and then stomped its two front feet to the ground but made no more sounds. It was a dismissal of Anna, and a nonverbal warning that she had to go now before he lost control. Anna seemed to understand and she moved quickly towards the barrier and back outside with all of them. With shaky hands she used her magic to put the droplets in the vial and then sealed it before handing it to Neal.

“You want me to look at it?” Neal asked, his eyes growing wide.

“Yes, Neal, I do. You were right about the injections, and if we didn’t have that we’d pretty much have nothing to go on,” Anna said. “You are brilliant, and you are my brother, in every way that matters. Right?”

“Right,” Neal agreed without hesitation.

“I know it’s asking a lot, and I know you might not be able to handle everything alone, but I just need you to try. Anything you learn is helpful. Anything. I can do the magical stuff, but I don’t know anything about medicine.”

“I’m gonna need help,” Neal said looking to Emma and Emma nodded.

“And you’ve got it. You’ve got me and Dad. I don’t know much about double injections or genome treatments, but I’ll do whatever I can. We’ve got equipment at the clinic. We can run some tests and see what compounds we’re working with and -,”

Killian was about to speak up and say that Emma needed to think about this before making any bold decisions. She’d been through the ringer today, and this testing would no doubt be an involved process. It worried Killian that Emma would continue exerting so much energy when she’d had such a close call earlier, but surprisingly it was Neal who vocalized that worry first.

“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do, Emma. But I think Dad and I have got this for now. You should rest up. You’ve had a way longer day than the rest of us.”

“But I can help too,” Emma reasoned.

“And you will. But maybe tomorrow, all right? This is gonna take a while. We won’t find any answers right away anyway. You know that.”

Killian waited eagerly, hoping that Emma would reach that conclusion on her own as well, and he felt himself relax when she agreed. It was such a relief to know that Emma wouldn’t be over extending herself into the wee hours of the morning. The day was already fading away, with the sun dipping low in the trees, and Killian knew that what his mate needed was food, rest, and time away from the insanity of their world right now.

The others all agreed with Neal’s take, and with a new plan in motion people started to split up, headed for their evenings in different ways. The Nolans headed to the clinic to grab start testing things both at the lab and then back home, while Ruby, Anna, and Elsa agreed that they should try and process the magical concoction that Anna had sensed in the bear and in the collar. Ruby would do so with her family’s archives back at Graham’s, but where Elsa tried to offer a similar scenario for her and Anna, Anna was uninterested.

“I’m not leaving him,” Anna said sternly, looking back to the bear with a fierceness of conviction that had no chance of being swayed. Knowing this instinctively, Elsa let out a small sigh but nodded.

“Okay, so we stay.”

“You two mind?” Liam asked, and Killian smirked at his brother’s question. Even if he did mind it wouldn’t matter much. Liam would just camp out here with his mate and her sister. But there was no need, not when he had somewhere else he and Emma could go.

“Knock yourselves out,” he quipped, gesturing to the doorway. “We’ll just pack a bag and be out of your hair.”

“We’re not staying?” Emma asked, looking surprised, but also a bit relieved if the flash in her eyes was anything to go off of.

“I have a better idea, love. That is, if you trust me.”

“Always,” Emma said, and though he stole a fleeting kiss from her lips, it was but a mere morsel to tide him over until real privacy could be procured.

True to their word, they took only a few minutes to pack what they needed, and then they were off. They could have walked to their destination, or shifted and run over, but with George still on the loose and Gold MIA Killian wanted the opportunity at a faster getaway if need be. The drive was rather short, even with a stop at the town diner to grab some dinner, and the most notable change was that they went from the deep woods where their cabin was further towards the coast just at the edge of town. Eventually the paved Storybrooke road turned to one of pebbles and dirt, and Emma looked both amused and confused at why they would be going this way. Her eyes soon shifted though to mere enjoyment, as she took in the picturesque surroundings of this coastal lane, surrounded by greenery and bushes that held large summer flowers in shades of pinks and blues and whites.

“They’ll be paving this soon,” Killian announced and Emma’s brow furrowed as she looked from their surroundings back towards him once more.

“How do you know that? No one even lives here.”

“Ah, perhaps not yet, but the house has been recently purchased and a move in is likely inevitable.”

“Well the new owners have done a ton of work. This was all overgrown before. Has been since I was a kid. I always loved this house though.” Emma made the comments just before they pulled around the bend, and when she saw the house in question her jaw dropped and her shock was palpable in the car. “Oh my God! Look at that. It’s… well it’s…”

“Do you like it?” Killian asked and Emma nodded immediately though her brow furrowed with confusion.

“I do, it’s gorgeous, but I don’t understand. When you said there was somewhere else we could go I assumed you meant my place above the clinic.”

“We could have gone there, but tell me you wouldn’t have then been tempted to burn the candle all night searching for answers.” Emma couldn’t say that truthfully so she opted not to respond, giving Killian the space to pull her closer as he confessed his intentions. “When we were in the woods before I told you that someday would be here sooner than you think. This house was meant to be your wedding present, but I think, all things considered, we should cherish every moment that we have.”

“I thought you were talking about the baby” Emma whispered, her eyes misting over with happy tears as he stole a kiss from her lips with soft but sure affection. His hand came over her stomach automatically at the mention of their pup and when his lips pulled away from hers, he couldn’t help his genuine smile.

“I was, my love. Our family is on the path to exactly what we’re wanting. But as much as I cherish our cabin in the woods, this,” he waved his arms at the house before them. “This is the home you and our little ones deserve.”

With Emma still stunned into near silence, Killian produced the keys to the house from his pocket, having grabbed them from the cabin discretely enough to escape Emma’s notice. On the keychain there was also a token charm that had caught his fancy while in town. It had a swirling design that looked like the fur of a wolf when examined up close, or the sea in the midst of great uncertainty. In the foreground of the metalwork, there was an anchor, and for whatever reason, he found he liked that symbolism and that it made him think of his mate and the life that they were building together. In every way, Emma was his anchor, an anchor to goodness and love and hope, all things he now could no longer live without and that he wished to carry with him always.

“Killian.”

His name was all that Emma could seem to say in this moment, and her fingertips came to cover her mouth as she shook her head in awe. For a split second he wasn’t totally sure if he had made the right call. Buying one of her favorite houses in town might seem like a great idea, but perhaps Emma wanted to be more involved herself in the process of finding their forever home. There was so much that had to be selected and chosen to bring the house into this century and up to a livable code, while still maintaining the quintessential charm of the coastal Maine mansion. But when Emma’s green eyes welled with happy tears and her cheeks flushed that familiar shade of pink, he knew he’d made no wrong moves. Emma was happy with this, and that was all that he had ever wanted.

“Now I should warn you, love, not everything is finished. I gave them a timeline of the end of the summer, knowing that I wanted it done by our wedding night. But it’s structurally sound, and the upstairs is all furnished. Well at least it’s supposed to be and I -,”

Emma laughed at his sudden feeling of remorse, and then she pulled him in for a kiss so fast that he lost all sense of himself before his worry could actually begin to take hold. All there was in this moment was Emma and her happiness. Out here, away from everyone else, Killian allowed his overprotective need to kick in, and with a quick maneuver, he had Emma backed against the front door, knowing he had boxed her in, but never going so far as to hurt her. If anything, it just turned his mate on, and she arched even closer, taking as much from this kiss as he did, until they finally broke apart.

“You bought us a house,” Emma whispered.

“Aye, love,” he said, cupping her cheek after brushing some of her hair back from her beautiful face. “I bought us a house.”

“How do you always manage this?” She asked, and Killian didn’t know what exactly she meant by ‘this’ but he awaited her assessment whatever it may be. “Every time things go sideways, there you are, making things better. This is perfect, in every way. There’s only one thing I wish was different.”

“What is it love?”

“I wish I was already your wife. I wish we didn’t have to wait anymore.”

Hearing that amplified Killian’s own want for the same exact thing, but despite the fact that they had tonight ‘off’ so to speak, a wedding, a real wedding, worthy of his mate and all her hopes and dreams, just couldn’t be done. As such, he had to improvise.

“Do you, Emma Nolan, choose me, Killian Jones for this day and all your days? In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, in this life and any more we may be blessed enough to see?”

“I do,” Emma said, with tears glistening in her eyes as she smiled, looking at him with all the love in the world. “And do you, Killian Jones, choose me back? Will you promise to love me, to cherish me, and to honor me in every way I plan to do for you, for this day and for always, no matter what may come?”

“I do,” he replied and Emma let out a soft laugh, a tantalizing sound that caught on the wind before fading away as their lips came together to seal their vows to each other.

They were now, in their hearts, man and wife, mate and mate, and though it might not be ‘official,’ Killian knew in that moment that he and Emma had bound themselves together in a new and enduring way. And so, even though things might not be going exactly according to plan, Killian delighted in the moment when he swung his love up in his arms and whisked into the house of their future and showing her the place that would be the site of their hopefully impending happily ever after.

Post-Note: So there we have it! I know this chapter has taken so long to come about, but with so many elements that I had wanted to incorporate, I knew I needed time to not only write, but to read through what I’ve already written. This whole George and Gold fiasco will soon be coming to a head, BUT please be informed it might not all be in this particular story... For those of you who have been begging me for a story that includes CS but is mostly told from the POVs of others, you will be *eventually * getting your wish. Elaborating more would be spoiling what is yet to come, so I’ll leave it there, but suffice it to say I am really excited for this next cool idea when it does come to pass. aAs always I appreciate you guys reading this, and I hope you all enjoyed and have a wonderful rest of your week!!

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anonymous-wolf22 · 5 years ago

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Fuck Yeah

1: Name Kai

2: Age 22

3: 3 Fears Fiance leaving me, never meeting him face-to-face, being alone with my thoughts

4: 3 things I love My fiance, food/desserts, and animals ^^

5: 4 turns on Hell, anything my fiance says to me, forced to submit, pain, and just looking at my fiance

6: 4 turns off Talking bout my parents, my current life situation, thinking about a certain asshole, and my depressing thoughts seeping through

7: My best friend That one’s hard.... It’s a tie between David and Kiana, though I’m leaning more towards David

8: Sexual orientation Bi-sexual <3

9: My best first date What first date?

10: How tall am I 5.1 ft :’(

11: What do I miss Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake

12: What time were I born 1:03 pm

13: Favorite color Black, Red, Purple, and Blue

14: Do I have a crush Yep :)

15: Favorite quote I got lots

“It’s funny how someone can break your heart and you still love them with all the tiny pieces”

“I choose you. And I’ll choose you, over and over. Without pause, without a doubt, in a heartbeat. I’ll keep choosing you”

“The demons are back and stronger than ever. They are looking for a fight, looking to win, and this time, I might just let them.....”

16: Favorite place Does in my fiances arms count if I haven’t been there yet?

17: Favorite food They are all number 1 <3

18: Do I use sarcasm Sometimes

19: What am I listening to right now Criminal by Britney Spears

20: First thing I notice in new person Hmm, the way they act, their personality~

21: Shoe size Fuck, idk lmao

22: Eye color Blue

23: Hair color Dirty-Blonde (Wish it was black)

24: Favorite style of clothing I don’t know, I guess loose and comfy

25: Ever done a prank call? Can’t remember

27: Meaning behind my URL Don’t have one

28: Favorite movie Fuck, uhhhh..... Deadpool 1&2 for now~

29: Favorite song Lot’s, Baby Don’t Cut - Bmike, Anxiety - Blackbear, Hold On - Chord Overstreet, and more fucking depressing songs <3

30: Favorite band Hmmm.... Ramstein

31: How I feel right now Eh, depressed, loved, horny, sad, upset, happy, it’s all jumbled up

32: Someone I love My fiance~

33: My current relationship status Engaged <3 <3

34: My relationship with my parents I wouldn’t care if they died, not going to lie, I would do it if there were no consequences

35: Favorite holiday Halloween ;o

36: Tattoos and piercing i have Sadly, no tats yet. Only piercings I have so far, are my ears

37: Tattoos and piercing i want Tattoo: A knife going through a skull with chains loosely wrapped around it Piercing: The tip of my ears

38: The reason I joined Tumblr My fiance told me about it, and it was an easier way for us to chat with each other and send each other all of the dirty little naughty things we want~

39: Do I and my last ex hate each other? I don’t know if he hates me, but I don’t know if I hate him, I’m just fucked up and confused

40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? Sometimes

41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? Nope, but I hope to soon~

42: When did I last hold hands? Hold hands? I think that was in 8th grade when my friend Kiana was dragging me away from the bullies

43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? Like 5-10 minutes

44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days? Yep

45: Where am I right now? In my cursed room

46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? Depends, where am I? In England, my fiance. Here? I don’t know, Kiana

47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? Depends on the type of music playing, and also what it’s playing from, like headphones.

48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad? Unfortunately

49: Am I excited for anything? 2024 :3

50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? Yep

51: How often do I wear a fake smile? Honestly? 97% of the time

52: When was the last time I hugged someone? I don’t know, uhmmm..... think it was in 11th grade

53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? Well, that’s a hard one, cause I have yet to kiss anyone. But, say if it was my fiance, I would slap the shit out of whoever he is kissing, and probably shove a stick up their @$$

54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not? ....

55: What is something I disliked about today? No chocolate

56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? My fiance, I just want him in front of me and to hug him and never let go~

57: What do I think about most? 2024, Desserts, Fiance, Music, Pets, unfortunately, John

58: What’s my strangest talent? Uhhh.... Don’t really have any, I guess hiding how I truly feel inside

59: Do I have any strange phobias? Is being deathly afraid of ants a strange phobia?

60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Behind, 100%

61: What was the last lie I told? That I was fine

62: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? I don’t know, they both seem a bit weird to me

63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Ghosts, yes. Aliens? I don’t know

64: Do I believe in magic? Who knows

65: Do I believe in luck? Sometimes

66: What’s the weather like right now? Clear

67: What was the last book I’ve read? A fan-fiction of RWBY

68: Do I like the smell of gasoline? Yesssss

69: Do I have any nicknames? K

70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? My arm twisting completely around

71: Do I spend money or save it? Save

72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue? Nope :(

73: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me? Eww, fuck noooo

74: Favorite animal? Entire Cat family and wolves

75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM? Watching “Love 020″ on Netflix

76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is? Hmmm.... I have no clue, never really thought about it

77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? Lots, but, definitely this one: Dream of You - Camila Cabello and Battle Scars - Lupe Fiasco

78: How can you win my heart? Be mindful of how I truly feel, care for me like no one ever has, be a dominant

79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? "I had so many battle scars from my war, but my love healed them away~”

80: What is my favorite word? Chocolate

81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr @thelonewolf84 @we-are-beautiful-s0uls @britishdom

82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? I don’t give a fuck what you think about who I love

83: Do I have any relatives in jail? Yeah, my bio-father

84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? Invisibility

85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? What my thoughts are about my ex or how I feel towards him or what I would say if I was allowed the chance to ask him 1 thing

86: What is my current desktop picture? I have it on shuffle, but currently it’s on a picture of an anime boy playing the piano in the rain

87: Had sex? Not yet ;)

88: Bought condoms? Nope

89: Gotten pregnant? Do I seriously need to answer that?

90: Failed a class? Yes.... I think

91: Kissed a boy? Not yet ;)

92: Kissed a girl? Nope

93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? Haven’t kissed anyone!!! Omg

94: Had job? Not yet

95: Left the house without my wallet? What wallet?

96: Bullied someone on the internet? Fuck no!

97: Had sex in public? -sigh-

98: Played on a sports team? Yep, soccer and baseball when I was 8-11

99: Smoked weed? Nope

100: Did drugs? Nope

101: Smoked cigarettes? Almost

102: Drank alcohol? Mhm

103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan? Fuck no! I want my bacon and kielbasa!!!

104: Been overweight? Nope

105: Been underweight? Currently am

106: Been to a wedding? Yep, my aunts

107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? Yes lol, longer

108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight? Yes lol, longer

109: Been outside my home country? Not yet

110: Gotten my heart broken? ....yes.....

111: Been to a professional sports game? I...think so....?

112: Broken a bone? Many, many times. I was very clumsy in my teens, I still am but have yet to break any bones so far

113: Cut myself? Yes and yes, to both ways

114: Been to prom? No, skipped it

115: Been in airplane? -shivers- Too scared to be in one, but I will have to when I go to England

116: Fly by helicopter? Nope

117: What concerts have I been to? None

118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex? Yep

119: Learned another language? Mhm, spanish

120: Wore make up? No

121: Lost my virginity before I was 18? Still a virgin.....

122: Had oral sex? Nope

123: Dyed my hair? Want to

124: Voted in a presidential election? Nope, fuck politics

125: Rode in an ambulance? Yep

126: Had a surgery? Mhm

127: Met someone famous? Nope

128: Stalked someone on a social network? Hehe....yeah lol

129: Peed outside? I don’t remember if I have or have not

130: Been fishing? Yes... My instructor ate the worms ;-;

131: Helped with charity? Yep ^^

132: Been rejected by a crush? Yep

133: Broken a mirror? Yeah

134: What do I want for birthday? Depends, which birthday? This year, Triple Chocolate Fudge cake. 2024, to be in my fiance’s arms~

#took to long #it was awesome though #love surveys #and my fiance #more of me #surveys #depressed #i got insomnia #love yall

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freifraufischer · 7 years ago

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1.01 Pilot Rewatch

This is largely going to be stream of consciousness because I’m sick...

By the time I watched the pilot of Once Upon a Time for the first time I’d been watching Vancouver based shows for years and really I think this is one of the best uses of the landscape to build the epic-ness of the story. There is really something amazing about watching Charming ride so fast through the landscape with mountains and forests. We used to joke during Stargate fandom about how all alien planets look the same and the fact that they managed to make fairy tale land look so different than “Maine” was really so well done. Now “Maine” looking nothing like Maine is another story entirely...

Josh and Ginny have so much chemistry it’s hard to believe that they’d just met at this point in the show and weren’t already married for a billion years. And Josh Dallas is so dreamy.

I also remember at the time thinking the concept of the series sounded dumb and wasn’t going to last a season but that Jennifer Morrison was hot and I’d really liked her on House. I think one of the negative feelings I had though was honestly about the costumes. Which feels weird given how much I came to love Eduardo’s work but honestly Regina has some really terrible costumes in this pilot. The cape made of fishing lures and the random craft store feathers in her hair. And boy I have always hated Snow’s wedding dress. Like seriously this is a woman who is friends with woodland creatures and she decides to wear their plucked dead bodies on her wedding day?

But that said Ginny manages to pull it off and I think Snow was my favorite character. I was in love with her as soon as she grabbed David’s sword. Though I do wonder why women in the Enchanted Forest don’t routinely carry swords as a matter of fashion given there doesn’t seem to be a social stigma about fighting with them.

I know that there are people who think that the queen walking down the isle at the wedding is “bad CGI” but I think I always saw it as an attempt to convey her otherworldly quality. And really they manage it so well.

“It’s the Queen, run...” has to go up there with one of the more on the nose line’s in the show. Thank you Oblivious the Dwarf.

I do think I wonder about the “She’s not a queen anymore she’s nothing more than an evil witch.” Maybe because I’ve always thought about the geopolitics of this kind of thing but I really think that there is political power and political power play in denying her the title. But I also feel like Snow and Charming don’t actually have the power to pull off stripping her of that power because even if they won a war she carries herself with such personal power that it almost makes them seem ... a bit impotent. Which really you are a peasant and you watch the princess just can’t keep this woman down. She just keeps coming. In most real world monarchies the king isn’t deeply beloved but a powerful warrior or tyrant and so I almost think this would set up a really fascinating social-political dynamic.

That sense of impotence may even be made worse when David throws that sword and she just puffs away.

Which... why oh why do they have to throw so many swords on this show. I mean he’s gotta know that she’s going to disappear.

But now we cut to modern day Boston. And my next question is why none of these adults blink an eye at the 10 year old with a credit card in the name of Mary Margaret Blanchard traveling alone? And it opens so many questions in my mind about Storybrooke bank accounts and land without magic money.... but mostly I’m like.... Why are none of you calling the cops? Is there an Amber Alert going on in Boston that we just didn’t hear about? Did they really call the cops? And did Henry walk how many miles to a real town to catch the bus? Did he try catching the bus that never comes in Storybrooke first?

But mostly... Jared is soooo small!

Socially Awkward Bounty Hunter Emma Swan was I think one of my favorite parts of this pilot. And when she’s insulted she’s so wonderfully violent. I miss violent Emma. It was one of the things that was always missing from depictions of Princess Emma because man she’d be so punch you in the face. And it would be hot. Like Anna. Only you know... hot because she’s not a cartoon.

The music makes this pilot so amazing. I think the shift in tone is really carried when Emma lights up that birthday candle.

Which brings me to Henry’s total take over of Emma’s life as soon as he shows up at the door. How he is so sure of himself and walks in and even drinks out of the bottle of her juice. It makes me wonder about Henry back in Storybrooke and what we know later about how indulgent and total softy Regina is as a mom. I think he really was the little prince of the town who could basically go and do anything he wanted and that just transferred to Emma.

I do wonder what happens to her apartment and all of her stuff since ... none of this furniture shows up in Storybrooke with her stuff.

Snow... what are you wearing? And who did your hair? Do we need to have a chat with Teasy The Hair Dressing Dwarf?

I really love how much fear and humanity Ginny and Gosh bring to this conversation. You really get a sense of how much power the Evil Queen still carries to terrify. I do wonder about the line about cursing her because she’s prettier than Regina. I brush this off usually as a pilot thing where you just kind of ignore it. Like ER or Hill Street Blues where characters die in the pilot but are just fine in the series because things change. But also... has she not told David about Daniel at this point? Is he operating on all of his assumptions up until this point that the Evil Queen is just a vanity obsessed nutcase?

And also... who looks at Regina and thinks “She’s obviously jealous of Snow White’s looks.”?

I also wonder about this conversation in the context of what they did to Maleficent and Lily. The unicorn mobile is there so it means this happened after they had their own baby stealing...

I’m really curious about what the Rumple side of the fandom thinks about Snow and her kind of casual reliance on him. She goes to him a LOT to fix things while it bites other characters when they go to him once. Is this him having built up her reliance on him so that she’d do what he said when it finally came to sending Emma through the wardrobe?

I loved how menacing and just inhuman Rumple is in this one scene in the mines.

I’m also reminded... again... of just how much of this show really relied on the power of Ginny and Josh as Snow and Charming at first.

And now we arrive in Storybrooke. The town in Maine with long straight streets that are super wide clearly laid out 100-150 years after any town in New England. Really the environmental historian just wants to shake people and point out that this kind of city lay out has a history and a geography and this isn’t it!

I really love the tinkerbell windmill thingy they pass in the bug. My complaints that Storybrooke looks nothing like Maine don’t change that the town really is evocative. Especially when wet like this.

Okay question... Does Emma just ignore when electrical lines explode around her? Is this part of her life? Does she think this happens to everyone? Because girl just DOES not react and I would be freaking out.

Jennifer Morrison has brilliant comedic timing and she’s a great straight-man for a lot of the weirdness of this show. Her reaction to Archie is just so wonderful. But also the interaction with Henry when she suggests he’s Pinocchio... because that would be silly.

Back to this war room scene. What the hell is Red wearing?!

Also David’s dialogue here kind of enforces my feeling that he’s acting the way he thinks a Prince acts and it’s a little over the top. But his model is ... George. So he’s kind of aggressive and you just kind of want to ask... you’ve been fighting her for ages. What makes you think you can take the Evil Queen out now? And what is Snow thinking as she’s silent here...

David really loves that jacket Rumple made for him.

Enter the jellyfish with the stripper heals and the beehive hairdo!

Who are these random knights around the table?

And the tree lie. That makes you want to slap Geppetto and Blue both. She’d at least fly across the room with a satisfying thud.

Honestly I feel like the Storybrooke side of Regina is almost written to make you think on first viewing that Henry’s assessment is right. That she’s only pretending. Because how could the woman we saw in the flashbacks be really this desperate. But now we know she really was this desperate. How long has Henry been missing? He had to walk to another town, catch a bus to Boston... I gotta feel like he’s been missing for more than 24 hours.

I also think about how tactile Regina is with him and how he instinctively returns the hug before letting go. The pilot script describes Emma as an adoptive mother’s worst nightmare and I really think they were counting on Lana to convey a subtext of her genuine worry and heartbreak that could also be read as over the top faking. Not helped by her switch in demeanor to small town politician that IS fake. But this is also Emma’s worst nightmare. She gave up Henry for his best chance and he’s sitting here telling her that he ended up in a bad place. So she’s struggling with her own guilt and playing right into Regina’s fears of her coming back to taking him.

Jamie Dornan is a pretty pretty man. I remember think that at the time too. So pretty.

And boy oh does Regina drink a lot. Just saying.

Once Upon a Head Trauma starts! Emma and that crash ... I’m surprised she doesn’t total the beetle.

I love everyone’s accents. Like does no one wonder where they came from? And again I’m just reminded of how wonderful JMo is at playing the fish out of water.

Two things I love about the scene in Henry’s bedroom. Regina is looking at his fairy tale stalker wall like she’s never seen it before. Does she not go into his room? Is that because she doesn’t want to invade his privacy like her mother did to him? Did he put up one of those no tresspassing signs like kids do on his door and she actually obeyed it?

Also ... was “whosyourmama.org” the first thing he typed into google?

I really wonder if Regina ever wanted Snow to be Henry’s teacher? Did she try and get him in a different class? Or did she just ... not think about it? But also how mousy and scared she is compared to how feisty she is in FTL. Ginny is just such an amazing actress.

And then into her playing distressed birthing mother. Which is just... Ginny deserves all the acting awards. She’s just so viscerally GOOD.

I remember counting the knights that Regina has with her when they take the castle and thinking... that’s actually a large army for someone who has supposedly been overthrown. Are they loyal to her? Does she still have access to a treasury? Does she have their hearts? Either way it goes back to my earlier thoughts that Snow’s “she’s not a queen anymore” is more political fiction than fact on the ground.

Is Doc a midwife? Or did he tell them he’d supervised a lot of egg hatching.

Ginny’s acting after David leaves. The primal scream....

And then the sword fighting. David sword fighting with his daughter in his arms is such a character defining moment! You just know he’s the BEST dad. Someone make a gif set of that sword fight.

I do wonder if Regina thought about the fact that she was standing over Snow just as her mother hand stood over her as she desperately tried to kiss Daniel back to life. It’s such a really painful parallel when you know the history. She’s such a little shit in that scene as the curse hits.

And then you get this contrast with the scene where she lays out for Emma that being a mother isn’t giving birth. It’s all the things she did with Henry over the years. That is a real grounded thing and when you hear A&E talk about it the want you to know that she’s absolutely right there.

But I think it’s undermined by Emma’s “superpower”. Does Emma’s superpower really exist? Or is it just her reading of people and compromised by the emotions she’s feeling. I’ve met fans who insist that Regina didn’t really love Henry because Emma didn’t believe her in that moment. I personally dismiss the superpower as not being magical but a good judge of character that is flawed by her emotions when she asks this. And Regina’s reaction is entirely “how dare you ask me that?”

I also remember debating for ages with my at the time girlfriend if Regina was awake in Storybrooke.

#1.01 #watching fairytales #long post

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justanoutlawfic · 7 years ago

Text

Open Up Your Eyes: Chapt. 6

Story Summary: A toss of a coin separated not only twin brothers, but a mother from her son. Decades later, they try to find healing and strength.

Chapter Summary: Emma reflects on the changes that have happened since she got back from New York and takes a walk with her mother to discuss her true feelings on them.

A/N: This chapter is heavily anti-C$ and sort of anti-H00k. Chapter is rated Mature for sexual content.

Also on AO3

Sometimes the farmhouse was too quiet for Emma’s taste. The loft was always noisy, even before her baby brother came along. With it’s lack of walls, you could hear every single breath a person took. The floorboards creaked and the furniture made noises when you settled down on it. (Regina hadn’t been too kind with what she cursed Snow with, they joked that was the real price of the curse.)

The farmhouse was big, three stories high with plenty of rooms for the family and their guests. Her house as the Dark One had been quiet, but she had been completely alone in it. Here, there were people…a lot of people. Yet, when she woke up, she couldn’t hear anyone. She knew it was a necessary change. Neal was getting bigger, they had James and Ruth living with them. Henry was getting older and sharing a room with his mom when he visited wasn’t the kick it was when they were still getting to know each other.

Still…the loft had been her first home. The place where she had been chosen by a woman who barely knew her. The kind stranger that had insisted she live there rent free, who didn’t mind if Henry came over or when she was trying to hide Nicholas and Ava until they figured out what to do. It was where they bonded, opened up with one another. It was where all of them had first lived as a family.

Now, it belonged to Belle. Snow had bought it a little after the curse and it was one of the few properties in town not owned by Rumple, so she was renting it for the time being. It looked different when Emma went back to visit. Nice, but different.

Mostly everything in the farmhouse was new. They had sold all the old furniture, taking advantage to finally decorate their way. Most of the house was a comfy farm style, while Emma’s room was mostly reds. It was just how she preferred things and her parents were okay with that. She loved the new house, she just wished they could hold onto the old.

Emma knew she had issues with letting go. She had chased her boyfriend to the Underworld and for what? Well, maybe that wasn’t the best way of looking at it. They had helped so many people move on and it lead to Ruth and James being able to come back into their lives. Even so, her parents missed out on a month with Neal, she put Henry in danger. (Why had she and Regina thought it was a good idea to bring him along, again?)

The worst of it all was, as she finally grieved, she realized that she hadn’t even loved Killian. She had loved the idea of finding her own happily ever after, but knew it wasn’t supposed to be with him. She should’ve let him go in Camelot, avoided all the pain that followed. But she was selfish and screwed up so much. She wanted to go back to the person she was before she took on the darkness and she was getting there. She was making amends, even if most people didn’t think there was anything to apologize for. They were far too easy on her, a part of her wished they’d just scream and yell.

Yes, life was going back to normal, or as normal as it could be. Yet, she still felt empty, like a piece of her was missing. The truth was, a part of her heart was in Arendelle.

As she got ready, her mind floated back to that night with Elsa. It was after she nearly gave up her magic, the night she could’ve died. Elsa had saved her life and she felt suddenly attracted to her.

She could still remembered the way Elsa tasted, the way their skin rubbed against each other. The hot breath that fell on her skin, in a way it never had before. She had kissed girls before, she knew she was bisexual, Lily had helped her realize that. This was her first time sleeping with a woman, though. Elsa’s mouth went from Emma’s own, to down to her breasts, her stomach and finally, Emma’s clit. The latter hadn’t orgasmed in so many years, it was hard to keep the moans inside.

Then, just as it started, it was over. They headed outside and realized that Ingrid had put bracelets on them. Even when they finally defeated Ingrid, Emma knew that it couldn’t last. Elsa was a queen, her life was in Arendelle. Emma was technically a princess, but she certainly act like a traditional one. To be fair, neither did her mother or Regina, but she felt different. She didn’t belong in Elsa’s world. Besides, her family was in Storybrooke. She couldn’t give up on that. Killian had preyed on her insecurities and jumped in as soon as Elsa left. It was as almost if he could tell her heart had been broken again.

Emma had only loved, a real romantic love, with three people. Neal, Walsh…and Elsa. Two of those people, she had proven true love with and that scared the shit out of her.

True love didn’t mean that you could be with them, though. Neal was dead, Elsa was gone.

She had her parents, her son, her whole extended family. They had always been enough, they would always be enough. She was learning to let go and that meant letting go of Elsa.

Letting out a deep breath, she headed downstairs and was greeted by the delicious smells of pancakes and scones. Her entire family was crowded around the table, Regina and Henry included. James was even sitting next to her father, since when did they get along?

Ruth smiled over at her. “Good morning, take a seat, I made breakfast.”

“It smells delicious,” she said, sliding in next to her mother.

“Who do you think taught your father to make pancakes?”

David chuckled, bouncing Neal on his lap. “It’s true.”

Snow noticed the look on her daughter’s face, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You okay, sweetie?”

“Fine.”

Snow tilted her head, giving her that look. “Em. Do you wanna take a walk after breakfast?”

Emma went to shake her head, but then stopped herself. “Um, that’d be great actually.”

Snow smiled and kissed her cheek. Once they had their fill of pancakes (which Ruth made Emma way too many of, she had that whole Grandma thing down already), the two put on their jackets and slowly started walking around the block.

“We haven’t talked about how all of this has been for you.”

“We’ve talked about Killian.”

“Not him.” Snow stuck her hands her in her pockets. “I meant James and Ruth coming to live with us.”

Emma paused. “It’s fine. I love them, they’re family.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s hard. For so long, it was just us, then we added in your father and Henry, then your brother…I know change is hard on you, Emma.”

“I’m not upset that they’re here. Change is a part of life and I’m glad they’re here, I’m glad to get to know them, that dad has them again.”

“I can tell there’s more.”

“I just…I want things to slow down, to be good for us, you know? After we got back from the Underworld and Regina defeated Hades with Zelena, I thought it would. Then Grandma and James showed up and now Dad’s all upset.”

“He’s not upset, it’s just a lot for him.”

“Exactly. I already put so much on you guys this past year…”

“Hey,” Snow touched her chin. “We’ve forgiven you for that. You forgave us for our role in things.”

“Still. When can we just be a normal family with no issues?”

“Oh honey, every family has problems. Look at mine growing up. My father was a terrible person, my mother wasn’t always the greatest either. Even the best of families have problems, what’s important is that the love is there and it is. We love you, so much. That is one thing that’ll never change.”

Emma gnawed on her lip. “Really?”

“There is nothing you could do to make that go away. You’re our child.”

She nodded. “I love you too, Mom. I know I don’t say it enough, but I really do.”

“That’s okay, I feel it every time you look at me.”

She pulled Emma into her arms and Emma let out another breath, resting her head on her chin, shutting her eyes. For the first time in a long time, she let go of the guilt and the sadness. She just wanted to focus on being happy.

“Emma!”

That all too familiar voice…it couldn’t be…

Emma got out of her mother’s grasp and turned around to find Elsa heading straight for her. She was too much in shock to process as the arms were thrown around her neck.

“You…what…how?”

“I heard about everything you went through.” Elsa pulled away, putting her hands on her shoulder. “I…I had to come here to be with you.”

“But Arendelle…”

“Anna was always meant to be queen.”

“Elsa…”

“The truth is Emma, I haven’t felt right since I left here last year. I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

Tears filled Emma’s eyes and she felt a shallow breath escape her lips. She was still getting used to being chosen by Henry, her parents. Now here was someone choosing her again. She looked back at her mom, who was already searching for tissues and bawling herself. She laughed and turned back to Elsa.

Yes, this year had plenty of changes. Her grandmother and uncle coming back was the best, but this was a close second.

#open up your eyes verse #charming family #charming family au #mama snow #mama snow au #daddy charming #daddy charming au #frozen swan #frozen swan au #anti cs #anti hook

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astro-b-o-y-d · 7 years ago

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Instigation

Daniel experiences his first sunburn, one that he definitely didn't get by accident. So naturally, he's miserable.

[Read on Ao3]

"That is...a very fitting look for you."

"Burn in Hell, Gwen."

Gwen made a face, as if she was struggling desperately to hold back a laugh. "It's funny you should say burn. And Hell."

"Not to worry, Daniel!" David said quickly, as he hurried to the nightstand by his bed. "One of the most important parts of being a camp counselor is to be prepared for any sort of emergency! Just sit down and try not to move so much while I find the Aloe Vera."

Daniel scowled as he seated himself in the wooden chair by the desk, every inch of his exposed skin stinging from what would normally be a painless motion.

He had only experienced pain this intense one other time in his life. The moment after the poison had passed his lips and began to work its terrible magic on his insides had been followed by unforgiving, agonizing pain, that no amount of emptying his stomach contents could soothe. The painful burning of his throat and nose as his body still tried to force the poison out of his system regardless of whether or not it would be successful. The constant fading in and out of consciousness, with no knowledge as to whether or not he would actually wake up the next time he passed out.

He used to think that nothing could top that as the most painful moment of his life.

Until he had woken up that morning, the majority of his body as red and as hot as the flames of Hell themselves.

"I warned you to put on extra sunblock yesterday during swim camp," David said, as he rummaged through the drawer. "It was one of the hottest days of the year."

"I did apply extra sunblock, David!" Daniel said through gritted teeth as he pointed at the bottle of sunblock on the dresser. "In fact, I triple applied it after I watched Nikki eat about half a pound of hers."

"...And you didn't stop her?"

"As if I care about what the little gremlin puts in her body," Daniel pointed out. "Besides, it was a brand made specifically for children, meaning it was non-toxic. Probably."

David paused his search to give Daniel a disappointed look. "What?" Daniel asked defensively. "You know how she is! Plus, it's not like I could actually stop her from eating it, even if I wanted to!"

"Yeah, honestly, I gotta take his side on this one," Gwen said. "I saw Nikki try to eat a fork last week. She's a weird kid with a stomach of steel and I doubt he would have been able to stop her from eating sunblock if she was determined enough to keep doing it."

"In any case," Daniel continued. "I was also...distracted with a more important task than stopping her from putting things in her mouth."

"And that task was?" David asked, returning to his search.

"None of your business."

"It is my business, if it involves you doing something you're not supposed to be doing," David said. "What did you do?"

"It wasn't anything bad!" Daniel insisted.

"He was helping Space Kid put on sunblock," Gwen said with a smirk. "I saw him from the cabin."

"Not necessary, Gwen," Daniel said through gritted teeth, while David let out a gasp of joy behind him. "David, don't you say a single word-"

"Aww, Daniel, you care about him, don't you?" David asked, ignoring the warning. "You care about a camper!"

"I am not having this conversation with either of you," Daniel said, crossing his arms as best he could. "Can we please return to the topic of why I still got burned even after applying that much sunblock to my body?"

Gwen let out an amused noise. "Aww, is the big, bad cult leader afraid to talk about his feelings?"

"Sunblock. Not doing it's job," Daniel said, giving her a look. "Let's get back to solving that, please."

Gwen rolled her eyes and strolled over to the dresser to examine the bottle. After a moment, she flicked open the cap and gave the concoction inside a curious sniff. "...Yeah, this isn't sunblock."

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

"I mean, it doesn't smell like sunblock," Gwen said, and gave it another sniff. "What the Hell is that?"

"That's not possible," Daniel said. "I've used it every day this summer and it's worked perfectly-"

His voice traveled off as he began to piece things together. "...Max. Max did something to it! I know he did! He probably had Nikki distract me while he switched the bottles!"

"Now, Daniel," David said, as he finally pulled a bottle of Aloe Vera out of the nightstand and returned to Daniel's side. "I know Max can be a bit of a prankster, but-"

"Don't you 'but' me, David!" Daniel said fiercely, his voice rising. "I know he did this! I don't care what the judge or either of you say, he is DEAD! Do you hear me?! DEAD! No one on this godforsaken planet will be able to convict me after I strangle the life out of hi-OW!"

Daniel let out a cry of pain as David (a little harder than was probably necessary) slapped an Aloe-Vera-covered hand against his burned shoulder. "There's no need for talk like that," David said sternly. "I know how painful sunburns can be, but I'm not giving you a pass on the threats because of it."

Daniel glared back at him, the temptation to press his luck strong. But he couldn't deny that he was in a tremendous amount of pain, and the threat of breaking David's hand if he tried that stunt again would likely be met with either another slap, or Gwen slamming him against the nearest hard surface; neither of which sounded ideal in his condition. "At least tell me you're going to punish him for this."

"I will talk to him shortly," David assured him. "No matter your history with the camp, I do agree with you that, if he is responsible for this, it was crossing a line and he shouldn't have done it."

"Also, to be fair, you're the dumbass who left your sunblock unattended in a camp full of kids who hate you for trying to kill them," Gwen pointed out. "Honestly, that's on you, Shia Lebouf."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that you shouldn't have left-"

"No, I meant the nickname."

"Shia Lebouf?" Gwen repeated. "You know, because he wore an ankle bracelet in Disturbia?"

Both David and Daniel gave her a blank look. "Seriously? I'm the only one who saw that? ...Okay, David I can almost understand, because he's not into scary movies." She pointed at Daniel. "But you're seriously telling me that you haven't seen it?"

"I don't think you realize what it means to be part of an..." Daniel paused for a moment. "...unpopular religion that happens to dabble in...sacrificing children to appease our gods."

"It was a cult," Gwen said. "You can pretend it wasn't all you want, but it was the textbook definition of a cult."

"Regardless, such activities didn't leave a lot of extra time to peruse the selection at Blockbuster," Daniel said.

"Blockbuster hasn't been relevant for years, genius," Gwen said. "It's either Netflix or you just straight up pirate stuff online."

"Which is illegal, not to mention rude!" David added quickly. "So, don't do that or I will have no choice but to call the judge!"

Daniel let out a groan as David finished applying the medicine to his burns. "There, that should help for the time being," he said, rising to his feet.

"Great, so instead of feeling like I'm on fire every time I move, I'll feel like I'm covered in slime?" Daniel said bitterly, as he also stood up from his chair. "Aren't I lucky?"

"At least slime doesn't hurt," David said, snapping the lid of the bottle shut. "With burns as red as yours, though, I think it might be smart for you to stay in bed for a few days. Maybe a week, depending on how quickly you heal."

"Wait, hold on," Daniel said slowly. "You mean, I don't have to babysit the pack of demons for a week?"

"Not necessarily how I'd phrase it, but yes," David said. "There's no sense in making you work when you can barely move."

"So, just to be completely clear," Daniel said, as he began to back towards his bed. "You're saying I don't have to participate in any of your ridiculous camp activities for the next few days?"

"They're not my activities, they're Mr. Campbell's," David said matter-of-factly. "But again, yes."

Daniel had reached the bed before David could finish his sentence, the cool sheets and soft pillow a welcomed sensation against his hot skin. "That's the smartest idea you've had in the time I've been here, David. Actually...it's probably the smartest idea you've had period. Cherish that idea, because you probably won't have another one like it any time soon."

Gwen let out a scoff. "Uh, I don't think you can make fun of him when you were hospitalized for drinking your own poison, idiot."

"I was distracted, Gwendolyn," Daniel growled. "Also if I recall correctly, you're the one who not only decided to bring a Satanist into the camp, but you also let her escape."

"At least she could, Joseph Christiansen," Gwen said, crossing her arms.

Daniel lifted his head. "Okay, now what does that nickname mean?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"...Don't you two have activities to run?"

"Oh, my gosh, you're right!" David said. "The campers will be finished with breakfast soon! Daniel, you just try to get some rest, okay? I'll leave the Aloe Vera on the nightstand, but if you absolutely need anything else, Gwen and I will be back to check on you in a bit."

"And if you try any funny business, I'll smack your burns as hard as I can," Gwen warned.

"Gwen!"

"Come on, David, he'd deserve it."

"Noted," Daniel muttered, his head hitting the pillow again. "And don't forget to tell Max I hate him and I hope he dies."

"Yeah, yeah, save your energy, Tom Cruise," Gwen said, as she followed David to the door. "Sunburns are fucking draining and you'll be too tired to feel anything besides exhausted. Trust me."

Daniel pointed at her. "Okay, now that one's just offensive. My religion was completely different from Scientology-"

"It really wasn't."

With a sigh, Daniel let his arm gently fall down to the side of the bed. "...Yeah, it wasn't."

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

It took about an hour for the cool bed sheets to become hot and uncomfortable against his burns. He had long since pushed the blankets to the floor and had already reapplied another layer of Aloe Vera in the hopes it would keep the pain at bay long enough for him to nod off to sleep for more than a few minutes.

No such luck.

He wanted to be angry, no, furious at Max for his little prank. Not that he wasn't, quite literally, red with anger over it. But as Gwen had warned him (he hated to agree with anyone at the hellhole of a camp outside of Space Kid, but once again, facts had to rear their ugly heads), it felt like someone had taken a vacuum to his energy and left him a drained, burned husk of a man and he couldn't even find the energy to keep hold of his anger for long periods of time.

Not for a lack of trying, for Daniel had tried desperately. He tried picturing Max's smug little face in his mind, or picturing him doubled over in a fit of obnoxious laughter upon hearing that his little prank had done the job. But eventually, his thoughts would be brought back to his aching skin and lack of energy, a lack of energy that not even the pitcher of water that David eventually brought him could fix.

All he could do was just lie there, too hot and tired to stay properly angry at Max. And the thought of Max taking away the opportunity to even stay angry at him was making Daniel even more miserable.

"Hey, Cult Man~"

Speak of the devil.

Daniel glanced towards the doorway with as much hatred as he could muster. Sure enough, Max was standing there with a cheeky grin on his face. "What are you doing here, you little monster?"

"Just checking on you," Max said, his smile widening. "David said you got sunburned yesterday. Wonder how that could have happened?"

"I know it was you who did it," Daniel said, wincing as he pulled himself up to a sitting position. "What did you do to my sunscreen?"

"Me?" Max asked, feigning offense. "Daniel, I am surprised. I mean, anybody here could have combined baby oil and hand cream to make something that looks like sunblock, but would really end up burning your skin to a crisp and no one would know it until the next day when the damage was already done."

"I'm going to murder you for this," Daniel said, his voice low and dangerous. "You will not live to hit puberty, I can promise you that."

"Oh, I'm so scared," Max said, as he approached the bed. "But seriously, you aren't going to do a thing to me."

Daniel glared at him. "You really think this is a game, Max?"

"I absolutely do," Max said. "You want to know why?"

"Oh, enlighten me."

"Because I know that the more I push you, the more you're likely to slip up and try to kill me," Max said. "Which would normally be terrifying. However, I know that the second you lay a hand on me, David and Gwen will toss your ass back in jail before you can even blink. And say you aretougher than you look and you can deal with a few pranks for the summer. I still get to prank you in the first place and you can't do shit to stop me."

Max crossed his arms. "You can't do shit to me, but I can do whatever I want to you-"

Before Max could process what was happening, Daniel grabbed him by the front of his hoodie and lifted him so they were eye-to-eye, his sunburn momentarily forgotten while his anger returned in full force. Max's smugness had immediately melted into terror as Daniel stared him down.

"Aww, not so brave after I call your bluff, Max?" Daniel asked, his mouth curling into a wicked smile. "No rude little comments or quips?"

"Let go of me or I'll scream!" Max said, his voice shaking.

"David and Gwen are with the rest of the campers on the other side of camp," Daniel pointed out. "No one would get here in time."

"David will notice I'm missing eventually!" Max pointed out frantically. "It's one of the most irritating things about him, actually. He cares too much. And he'd come looking for me after too long! He'll immediately suspect you if I turn up dead!"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Calm down, Max. If I was going to actually cause you harm, I would have done it the moment I returned to camp," he said calmly. "Of course, I would love nothing more then to see your blood paint the walls of this cabin. Perhaps while David was watching. I know it would really mess him up to see his little golden boy slaughtered in such a gruesome fashion, which I would enjoy greatly."

Daniel shook his head. "But unfortunately, or I suppose in your case, fortunately, it's like you said: I cannot do much to retaliate to your pranks so long as I am still under house arrest, or serving time for my crimes. However, much like your pranks, your thought process is juvenile and that of a small-minded person. For you see, much like everything else in this world, the time I am forced to serve will eventually come to an end. If our justice system was broken enough to place me in the care of the people I previously tried to kill, it'll be broken enough to lift my sentence prematurely. And the day that happens is the day I will track you down and kill you as slowly and painfully as possible for everything you've put me through."

He felt his smile twitch at the sight of Max looking more horrified with every word. "You won't have David around to protect you forever, Max. And I highly doubt your own parents care enough about you to stop my plans. So you just keep pulling your silly little pranks and enjoy them while they last. Your pranks, your miserable little life...All will end with the passing of time. Or a knife. Honestly, I'm still not sure what I'll use to kill you, but I suppose that's a thought for another day-"

SMACK!

"MOTHERF-"

Once again, Daniel let out a loud cry as Max's tiny palm hit the reddest part his arm as hard as it could, and he instinctively dropped Max out of shock. With another slap for good measure (this time to his shoulder), Max jumped off the bed and raced for the door in a panicked fashion. Pain surged through Daniel's entire arm as he watched Max go, and he fell back against the pillow again with a groan, only to let out another cry of pain as his burned back hit the mattress too hard.

Great, now he was even more exhausted than before. Fucking Max.

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

"And how is the bedridden doing?"

"I'm going to kill Max," Daniel said, an arm over his eyes. "I'm going to kill him. He is so dead."

David shook his head as he approached Daniel's bedside. "Look, I really hate to be such a downer, but I must ask that you stop saying that. Unless you really want me to give the judge a call."

"Do you not see what that little demon did to me?!" Daniel asked furiously, removing his arm from his eyes. "Come on, David, just let me have my threats! I have nothing else!"

David picked up the bottle of Aloe Vera. "And that isn't Max's fault, now is it?"

"...Yes!" Daniel pointed out, and held out his arm. "It's entirely his fault! Well...his fault and yours. But honestly, I'm positive I would have definitely succeeded in my plans had Max not intervened. You were less of a threat and more of an annoying distraction than anything-ow, ow, OW! You're doing that on purpose!"

With a glare, Daniel rubbed the spot on his arm where David had 'accidentally' squeezed a little too hard. "I asked you nicely, Daniel," David said with a smile. "Now stop talking and let me reapply the Aloe Vera without all your negativity."

Blue eyes met green in a vicious silence, before Daniel huffed and looked away in defeat. "Between the arm pinching and the warning you gave me when I returned to camp, I'm starting to believe you have more of a dark side then you let on," he said.

"I wouldn't exactly call it that," David said, as he applied the medicine to Daniel's skin. "But I have my limits. And you've been pushing them ever since you got here."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "And Max doesn't?"

"Max is a young boy with a lot of issues that are not necessarily his fault," David said. "You are a grown man who not only made the choice to kill one group of campers, but attempted to do it again and tricked me in the process."

"It's not much of a trick if you're simply too dense to see what's right in front of you," Daniel pointed out. "I wasn't exactly hiding it. And again, a ten-year-old picked up on it pretty easily-OW, okay, okay, I get it. I'll stop."

"There's a lot of things I'm willing to forgive, Daniel," David said, once again loosening his grip on Daniel's arm. "And I really would like to forgive you, as difficult or impossible as it might be. I was serious when I said I considered you a friend, and I'd very much like for us to go back to that."

"I don't need your forgiveness or your friendship," Daniel said, making a face. "I don't care what you or anyone at this camp thinks of me."

"What about Space Kid?" David asked, his smile returning. "He did ask if you were okay when you didn't join in today's activities."

"Don't try and play therapist with me, David," Daniel said. "Save it for the campers."

David stared at him for a moment, before he set the bottle back in place on the nightstand. "Very well. I'll come and check on you again in a little bit. I'll be sure to grab an additional bottle of Aloe Vera from the mess hall, because you're probably going to need a lot more. The sun really did a number on you."

Daniel settled back down with a sigh. "Yes, thank you for stating the obvious. I mean, next you're going to tell me that you're wasting your life playing babysitter for a bunch of ungrateful children."

David froze in the doorway. "You know, you can insult me all you want. I'm more than used to it." He turned back around to face Daniel. "But I don't really see how me being able to do my dream job for a living is a bad thing. I'm here because I love this camp and everyone in it. You're here because you tried to destroy all that. So really, which of us is that supposed to insult?"

Daniel was silent, mouth slightly agape as David turned back to the door and left him alone again. He stared at the doorway for a few more minutes, before his scowl returned and he once again tried to get comfortable against the bed sheets.

He had a feeling that being bedridden for a week was not going to be as enjoyable as he originally planned.

#Camp Camp #Daniel's Descension AU #Warnings are on Ao3 #It's Daniel: expect a lot of him threatening to murder children #Anyway this was FUN to write

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cianmars · 7 years ago

Note

For the "if they had a kid" meme: If Red Snowing had another kid, after Emma&Neal.

(I’m totally doing this as though Emma was de-aged to being the youngest) I have no restraint so here’s all three kids in age order.

Oldest Child:

Name:

Neal Robert Charming (16)

Gender: Male

General appearance: He often wears jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoody - his favourite colour’s blue so he often wears those colours. But also can pull off wearing a suit pretty well. Normally wears a watch. In general just a really chill style like his personality. He has blue eyes like David’s and his brothers, and hair only a little lighter than Snow’s which curls when wet, he’s fairly tall and will end up around David’s height.

Personality: Neal’s really chill, he’s super intelligent and really into reading, he has a really good imagination and get’s along with Henry. Never without a book in his hand. Has a kind heart and would stick up for anyone if they’re in being picked on, which is the only reason he’s ever gotten in trouble at school. He also quite likes swimming, it’s one of the only sporting activities he does. He’s very mature and extremely close to his family and extended family. Apt at sword fighting. Once broke a kid’s nose for laughing at his brother’s dyslexia.

Special Talents: He’s a product of True Love, like Emma, so has magic like she does. He’s really good at it, he often uses it to entertain his siblings, or to clean up/ fix things they’d get in trouble for.

Who they like better: He loves all of his parents equally, there’s not really favourites, but he and Ruby have similar personalities and she’s the one who buys him the most books (as she and Belle are close friends and Belle’s always telling her about books)

Who they take after more: He’s very much like Snow in looks and personality, but also inherited David’s charm, and Ruby’s sense of humour.

Personal Headcanon: Neal’s gay and is very open about it, he’s obviously supported by his family, especially his parents because none of them are really straight. (They’re all bi, David is more interested in females he’s like a 1 or 2 on the Kinsey Scale) He also goes on to study literature at college outside of the town.

Face Claim: Young Logan Lerman

Middle child:

Name:

Tyler James Charming (14)

Gender: Male

General Appearance: It changes from day to day, it’s normally similar to his big brother’s with jeans and a graphic t-shirt, sometimes he wears shirts and jeans which looks pretty smart, sometimes it’s a football (soccer) shirt and jeans or shorts. He has hair only a shade darker than Neal, his eyes are also blue like his brother’s and father’s but a bit darker, his hair curls when wet, he is also like his brother in being rather tall for his age.

Personality: He’s really funny, he likes comics and comic book characters so. little nerdy, he gets along well with his big brother and little sister as well as their parents but also gets along really well with Henry (who got him into the comic book characters). Bit of a Captain America wanna be, he sticks up for what he believes is right which sometimes gets him in trouble at school but he believes it’s worth it. Very sporty - he’s on the soccer, baseball, and track teams. Quick temper over things that matter. Rather mischievous. Once broke a kids nose for laughing at his brother’s sexuality.

Special Talents: Ruby’s his biological mother, she passed on the werewolf gene so he started to turn when he turned 12, but she prepared him so he can handle it very well - he and Ruby go out running in the woods when its the time of the month. He can perform very weak magic when he’s in his human form (because the werewolf genes tend to overpower the magic ones) he mainly uses it to invent things or to fix things like his skateboard.

Who they like better: He and Ruby obviously have a connection as they’re both wolves together, and he admires his father’s knight/prince morals and humble roots, but he’s such a mommy’s boy it’s unbelievable - he’s often around Snow.

Who they take after more: Like the rest of his siblings, he’s the perfect mixture of all three of his parents, he looks very much like Ruby, and isa bit of a badass like Snow, but he’s very like David personality wise.

Personal Headcanon: Snow taught him archery which he picked up very quickly. He’s also smart like his brother, but has dyslexia so he has to work harder than Neal does (Neal helps him without making it a big thing which Tyler appreciates) He started to love musicals when they watched one in New York in one of the family’s trips out of the town (which happen very often) and joined the drama group at his school, he is very good and gets the main part, he was very shy to tell his family about it, his whole family (parents, sibling, his ‘uncle’ Henry, his Grandparents (Regina and Robin), Granny, and his ‘cousins’ all go to his shows)

Face Claim: David Mazouz

As a wolf:

Youngest Child:

Name: Emma Ruth Charming (3)

Gender: Female

General appearance: She’s the only of the three kids who has blonde hair like David, it’s normally really curly, she calls it her lion hair and objects to having it brushed but will put up with Snow braiding it for her (if Snow can get her to sit still for long enough). She’s the ultimate clothes thief which David and Ruby blame Snow for as she’s a little bandit, so she often has one of David’s plaid shirts which are so long they drag on the floor. She point blank refuses to wear pink like ever. She’s normal in jeans and t-shirts which have animals or Disney characters on them. She quite likes the colour yellow so wears a lot of that, would live in pyjamas and character/animal onesies if she could. Normally has her blanket and a lion plush toy/teddy with her. She’s very small, even for her young age, as she deaged to what she was like in her first childhood - so she was small from neglect and from being premature. She’s always cold.

Personality: The troublemaker of the three, somehow managed to inherited all of all three of her parent’s stubbornness so they have their work cut out, has good intentions but will often put herself in danger (’No Emma, you do not touch daddy’s sword, especially not to try and fight a mean witch.”) She is very loving and rather clingy, especially to David, she’s adored by all the waitresses at Granny’s where Ruby will take her with her to work sometimes if David’s working at the station and Snow’s teaching. She adores all of her family and extended family, but is a little shy around strangers. Very cheeky, gives Tyler a run for his money, and mischievous. She goes through the habit of trying to climb as high as she can up the cupboard and the many bookcases in the house, she’s also awesome at hiding cause she can fit in small spaces, luckily Ruby can always find her with her werewolf senses. She can remember the abuse from her first childhood which gives her nightmares so she often sleeps in her parents’ bed, so also will become scared suddenly when she remembers things, its something which will take a long time to heal. Otherwise she’s very happy and energetic, she’s extremely loving and loves spending time with her brothers and being read stories by Neal, and watching movies with Tyler (who claims he only watches the animated ones for Emma that he doesn’t like them at all.)

Special talents: She’s a product of true love so will be able to do magic, but she hasn’t grown into doing it just yet, she loves watching her brothers and Regina (whom she calls grandma) perform magic.

Who they like better: She loves all her parents equally but she’s such a daddy’s girl, she’s always following him around every where and wanting to play games with him or watch movies, or just cuddle - so much so she gains the nickname Koala from the way she clings onto him, not that he minds. Her mothers aren’t jealous or envious in the slightest, they think it’s adorable.

Who they take after more: She’s a perfect mixture of all of them, but is marginally more like David in personality. She looks like a little version of Snow but with blonde hair, her eyes are a shade of green between her two mothers’, but they have flecks of blue in them.

Personal head canon: She’s always hyper so her parents are very careful with what she eats, she also has to have special shakes to help her grow as she’s so small, she’s a little behind developmentally but they’re not too worried. When she’s a little older she gets (re)diagnosed with ADHD. She’s never been afraid of Ruby, or Tyler, in wolf form, sometimes the only way she’ll take a nap is if Ruby turns into a wolf and cuddles up with her. She loves going on the trips she and her brothers are taken on around the US (and a little later the world). She often can’t sleep at night, she will have nightmares and wake up or she’ll cry whenever they try to put her down, the only way she’s guaranteed to sleep is if David takes her on a drive, in which case she’ll fall asleep in her carseat.

Face Claim: Mia Talerico.

Send me a ship and I’ll tell you their child!

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distant-rose-archive-blog · 7 years ago

Note

I know this is scaling back your series like thirteen? (Christ Harrison is like thirteen now. Omfg) years but I really want to know how Emma and Killian found out about the first baby pirate Harrison (captain of the crew?)

Hi there! I’m so sorry that you waited so long for this. Unfortunately, I’m just a slow worker. With that being said, I don’t mind scaling back. I don’t write them chronologically. (I should perhaps write a timeline on when each story is taking place though.)

In regards to Harrison being the captain of the crew? He’s more the quartermaster than the captain. Beth is more the captain since she can manipulate people to do her bidding the best. Quartermasters were vessel navigators; pirate quartermasters were elected by the crew and ranked higher than any officer except captain. Harrison is more of a guider than a demander, so I see him as a navigational guy. (I put way too much thought into this. Ignore me.)

Anyway, getting all that out of the way. Killian finding out about Harrison is a very angsty story. If you wanted a happy pregnancy reveal story, you picked the wrong kid. Like Harrison’s origin story is kinda horrible. This takes place three months after the finale. Please note that this angst-ridden ridiculousness has a lot of disturbing themes including child death and abortion. However, I mean this is at the way beginning. Like arguably this is the beginning of the Little Pirates timeline, so as angsty as this is, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, this is 4,100+ words of Killian discovering Emma is pregnant with Harrison.

There were some days when the good guys won but not everyone got a happy ending. Those were the hardest for Emma, who had been prophesied since birth to be the Savior, and had been told it was her duty to save everyone and bring back the happy endings. Today was one of those days.

For once the tragedy of the day wasn’t because magic or anything fairytale related at all, but a tragic tale of a broken family where one unhinged father discovered he wasn’t a father at all and decided the best course of action was to hunt down his wife and her children.

Killian had shot the husband when he had turned his weapon on Emma, saving ten-year old Ana Maria and eight-year old Dante but they couldn’t save the wife nor her six-year old son Oscar. The wife had been found shot in the back of the head in the residence. He and Emma had arrived too late for Oscar who had been suffering from a gunshot wound to the stomach. Emma sat with the boy as they had called for an ambulance, holding her hand against the wound in hopes of stopping the flow despite the blood pouring out between her fingers and pooling onto her jeans. She had held him close, whispering how it was going to be okay despite the fact that both Killian and Emma knew it was far from okay. Oscar had died before the paramedics had arrived and Emma had cradled his body close to hers, running her hands through his dark hair and tears silently streaming down her cheeks.

Killian had known that there was nothing he could do or say to make it better. He had felt this in his bones. He had tried to comfort her in a physical way, reaching for her hand and trying to put an arm around her shoulders. She had shrugged off both attempts so Killian let her be. David, who helped answer the call with them since they were having dinner together at Emma’s parents’ place, hadn’t gotten the memo, trying to tell Emma it wasn’t her fault or how “no team bats a thousand” - whatever the bloody hell that meant. Emma had just nodded absently in response, blood still covering her hands and mascara leaving trails under her eyes; David’s words hadn’t even penetrated the surface. She was lost somewhere dark in her head, beyond their reach.

When they arrived home, Emma immediately went upstairs and straight into the bathroom. Killian tried to follow her but she locked the door behind her. The locked door between them felt to Killian almost like a physical punch. He understood why she did it, that she needed a moment to herself after such a trying day, but Killian could not help wondering if locked doors this early into their marriage was a bad omen. Through the door, Killian heard his wife turn on the shower. While he knew she was probably rubbing her skin raw to clean away Oscar’s blood, he wondered if she had decided on the shower to cover up the fact she was finally breaking down about Oscar’s death.

Killian sighed, rubbing his palm over his eyes for a moment before stepping away from the door and heading back downstairs. He was no use to anyone, especially Emma, just standing outside their bathroom. He immediately went into the kitchen, coming to the firm decision that making hot chocolate would be the best course of action. It wouldn’t change things and it wouldn’t bring Oscar back, but he hoped it would help somewhat calm her turbulent emotions.

To help pass the time, Killian had decided to make real hot chocolate instead of the powdered instant that Emma seemed to prefer. Not long after Killian had moved into the house, Henry had gone off on a tangent him about the merits of “real hot chocolate” made by saucer with “actual milk” rather than microwaved water and packet. In a fit of desperation to get Emma’s boy to like him more, Killian had asked Snow to teach him to create the confection. (Little had he known this had entirely been the boy’s aim all along. “Mom, doesn’t even bother to try because she actually legit burns water when she even attempts to make pasta. The only thing she knows how to make is pancakes. So you were kinda my only hope, Obi-Wan.”)

It took him an extraordinary amount of time to make the hot chocolate due to the temperamental tendencies of their kitchen stove, but once he had finished making the drink and had added all the necessary embellishments (he had learned long ago that hot chocolate without whipped cream and cinnamon was a sin in this house), he was able to make his way back up the stairs.

The bathroom door was open by the time he had finished his ascent and he found his wife dressed in her pajamas and his black bathrobe which she had long since commandeered as her own, laying on top of their bed. Her blonde hair, still wet, laid around her like some sort of wild halo on their pillows. She was staring up at the ceiling with eyes, still red, and her hands resting on top of her stomach.

Killian watched her for a moment, leaning against the doorway while cradling the mug of hot chocolate in his hand. He looked her with a mixture of concern and anxiousness, waiting for her to speak but when she didn’t acknowledge his presence, he sighed.

“Swan, love, I brought you something…” His voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

Emma didn’t respond. She continued stare up at the ceiling and this time Killian noticed that the hands resting on her abdomen were shaking. He placed the mug down on the dresser closest to the door and ran his hand through his hair, wondering if he should call for reinforcements in the form of his mother-in-law and his stepson.

“Emma…”

“I should have saved him…” Emma whispered, her voice hoarse. It confirmed what Killian had already known; she had spent a great deal of time crying in his absence.

“Emma, you can’t do that to yourself, love…” Killian said as gently he could.

Once again, Emma didn’t respond and Killian could see her lips now trembling. He watched as her bottom teeth appeared and bit into her top lip for a moment, perhaps in a desperation attempt to keep her emotions lynch-pinned away.

“My magic,” she said quietly as if that explained everything. “I should have healed him. If my magic had been working, I would have been able to save him. Oscar would be alive right now, if my magic wasn’t so fucked up.”

Killian frowned deeply. He had nearly forgotten about Emma’s magic; it hadn’t even been on the radar in the horror show that was the night. However, he wasn’t even aware she was having issues with it. He tried extremely hard not to be irritated with her lack of communication with him on this behalf. It just felt like another thing that his wife didn’t trust him with. She didn’t trust him to comfort her after a trying situation and she didn’t trust him to tell him she was having trouble with her magic. Some husband he was.

“What’s going on with your magic, love?” Killian asked, trying to keep his voice calm and neutral.

This time Emma was visibly shaking with her entire body as if she was wracked with silent sobs, but he saw no tears leave her eyes, though they looked rather misty.

“Killian…” The way her voice sounded broke him. “Killian, I’m pregnant.”

When she said the words, Killian felt as if he had been separated from his body. Emma was still speaking, he could see her lips moving but he couldn’t hear her. It was as if the entire world had faded away in that moment and he was left in some sort of purgatory state that had no sound, smell, feel or taste.

He and Emma had a five second conversation on children before they had gotten married. Killian had made it clear that he would follow Emma’s lead on whatever she had wanted in that department; being married to her was more than enough for him and anything else was just bonus. Emma had decided that she wasn’t willing to make a decision on the subject until after they were married for a few years. “I want you all to myself before I make any decision on whether I want to share you with anyone else,” she had said. Killian had always assumed this was code for Emma did not want any more children and was too afraid to say so in case Killian had any urgings on the subject.

Killian had accepted the idea that he would never be a father. He had always expected that the Jones line would end with him. His lifestyle up until recently had not been conducive to siring and raising children, though he had briefly entertained the idea of raising Baelfire when Milah had been alive, though Bae had been beyond his formative years by then. And sure, he now had a stepson in Henry, but the boy was nearly grown, almost a man in his own right, and there was very little parenting to be done on Killian’s end.

However, at the same time, it wasn’t as if Killian had imagined what parenthood would be like for him. Occasionally a blonde haired, blue eyed little girl had flittered across his mind’s eye and he had thought on what it would be like to pick her up and have her snuggle against his chest or what it would be like to teach her to tie knots. Some of his occasional thoughts danced with the idea of having a little one to sit on his hip while he sailed the Jolly that he could whisper sailing lessons to. These had been nothing more than flights of fancy though and he had often banished them from his mind as quickly as they had been formed in his head because he had been certain that Emma did not want any more kids and dwelling on something that could never be was something he knew could result in great unhappiness.

Yet, here they were; three months married and apparently pregnant.

“Killian, please say something.”

Emma’s voice seemed to act like some sort of tether to reality and he was suddenly snapped back into his body where he was faced with a maelstrom of emotions he was by no means prepared to deal with. It seemed like every emotion that he had ever felt in his entire life had been pushed inside of him and he was ready to explode.

“Killian…”

The one of the most prominent emotions, and it nearly scared him how prominent it was, was a crowing primitive sense of male satisfaction that somehow hadn’t been fulfilled before (and the fact that it hadn’t been disturbed him on a many level.) It was a possessive essence that was thrilled with the concept that something that was his was now growing inside his wife and really enjoyed the idea of using the term ‘his’ on multiple levels. This child, unborn as it was, would tie them together in a way that could not be broken. Emma could divorce him at any time, but this child would always bind them.

“Killian…please…”

Aside from this absurd masculine pleasure, he also felt an intense amount of fear. Pan had once called him a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem and never had there been a painfully more accurate description in his life. Killian was more than aware that he was being held together by duct tape (an absurdly useful item Killian was coming to realize), sheer stubborn determination and Emma’s unwavering support. He could barely keep himself afloat as it was, how was he supposed to care for a child? With one hand? His hook wasn’t necessarily child friendly either. One thing became abundantly clear the more he thought about it - he was not at all equipped nor ready to handle a child.

“Killian…you’re scaring me…”

The next most emotion that seemed to possess him at the moment was anger and it surprised him how angry he was. Emma had known she was pregnant when they had received the call that there had been a shooting at the Hoya residence. She had known and had decided to respond to the call anyway, endangering both herself and the unborn child inside of her. A gun had been pointed at her head. He could have lost them both and he wouldn’t have even understood the magnitude of his loss. His babe had barely begun to exist and its life had already been threatened.

“KILLIAN!” Emma barked sharply.

He blinked in surprise, glancing over at her with a slightly startled expression. She looked annoyed; more like his wife who had a spine made of steel rather than the trembling mess she had been since they had taken Oscar’s body away.

“I literally have been talking for five minutes and you’ve literally been in zombie mode or something. Did you even hear a word that I said?” she asked between clenched teeth.

Killian bypassed the question for one of his own.

“How long have you known? How?” It was the first question that popped into his head that he knew didn’t have the immediate possibility of starting a fight.

“Only a couple of days,” she responded, eyes focused on hands resting on top of her still flat stomach. “My magic has been on the fritz for a few weeks so I went to talk to Regina on Sunday when I dropped off Henry and she had this crazy theory that I was pregnant and that my magic has to fight with the baby’s magic since I’m technically the host of both at the moment. She was so insistent that I wanted to prove her wrong. So, we got a test and I took it and it was positive…”the rabbit died” in her words. Whatever that means.”

“You took a test with Regina?” Killian could not help but feel irritation at that. This was his child, not Regina’s. Regina had known about the babe before he did. He knew he was being irrational, but it rubbed him raw. She had no business being involved in this.

“Yeah…” Emma rose her eyebrows at him as if silently asking if he was touched in the head.

“You took a test with Regina and found out you were pregnant on Sunday and it’s now Thursday, no, excuse me, it’s Friday morning and I’m now just finding out. Why didn’t you tell me?” He tried extremely hard not to seem demanding, but his growing anger with her crept in.

“Killian, I wanted to wrap my head around it. I wanted to understand exactly how I felt about it before adding your feelings to the mix,” she responded defensively.

This time he didn’t even bother to hide his ire.

“Well, I think it’s pretty clear how you feel about the child considering that you went in guns blazing into a hostile situation tonight and endangered both yourself and the baby in the process.”

As words left his mouth, she looked at him like he crossed the room and slapped her. He watched a play of emotions dance across her face before she settled into what he could only describe as misguided indignation. She sat up on the bed, fingers twisted into the comforter as she stared him down.

“Killian Jones, don’t you dare use this pregnancy to take away my job from me. I will not be barefoot and pregnant the entirely of this marriage and if that’s what you’re looking for…then you need to leave.”

Killian’s jaw dropped and he sputtered angrily. Where the hell had that come from? He had been expressing his anger towards her careless endangerment of their unborn child and herself. No where in his line of question had he ever mentioned a determination to have Emma “barefoot and pregnant.”

“Gods above, where did you hear me say that nonsense? I never said you couldn’t do your job, Emma, and not once have I ever implied I was going to chain you to the house and fill your belly with babies. I didn’t even think you wanted any. I had agreed to anything you wanted, that bullshit waiting game. But waiting is over. Pardon the pun, but the ship has sailed. That child exists and it’s not just your life you’re being careless with anymore. I’m all for you being Sheriff, Emma, because it’s a part of who you are, but what about keeping the child safe?”

“Safe?” Emma let out a laugh that held no joy and made Killian’s insides cold. “Safe doesn’t exist. This kid will never be safe. The second some maniac gets a whiff of his existence, I guarantee you we will be up to our elbows in magical fairytale fucking nonsense and at least a dozen witches, three demigods and two evil scientists who will want to steal this kid to fulfill their plans of world domination. He might as well get used to it now. Fuck, I will be lucky if someone doesn’t speed up this pregnancy.”

“Maybe, but we will protect the chi”- “Like we protected Oscar today?” Emma asked him sharply, interrupting him. “Like my parents protected me growing up? Like they protected Neal from Zelena? Like we protected Gideon from the Black Fairy? The track record in protecting infants from evil is far from the best. This kid already has magic, Killian, and it’s fucking with mine. How long do you think we’ll have? Honestly?”

“That’s not fair, Emma,” Killian said softly, because it was the only thing he could say when his heart felt like breaking. He had always imagined that if Emma had ever told him she was with child, that it would be one of the best days of his life, and so far, it was shaping out to be one of the worst.

“No, it’s not, but that’s reality for us. We fucked up.”

She then turned away from him, grabbing a pillow and curling herself around it. Again, he felt the move like a physical blow.

Killian closed his eyes, clenching his fists and summoning up all of his inner strength. For the first time since they had been married, Killian felt the need to make a wall around himself, around his heart, because he couldn’t see way for this conversation to end without everything he was possibly crumbing to pieces. He prepared himself for the worse.

“Then, what do we do, love…?” he asked in a voice barely whisper. He could hear his own voice wavering in his ears.

“I don’t know,” she responded just as quietly. “I don’t know, Killian. The world is not a kind place. It’s scary, hurtful, dangerous and completely unfair whether it’s dealing with the Final Battle or some asshole who thinks it’s okay to shoot small children who can’t control who their parents are. I mean, look at us. I was in the foster care system. I was alone most of my life and I got the shit kicked out of me more than once in both literally and metaphorical ways. More times than I can count really. And you? You were enslaved, Killian, by your own father. You’ve been tortured more times than I care to know. You are covered in scars. The tattoos do a brilliant job hiding it, but babe, I can feel them. And that’s just our childhoods. The last few years? Pan? Hades? Hyde? The Black Fairy? They called it the Final Battle, but Killian, I’m waiting for the atom bomb to drop and this kid is going to be in the first in the line of fire. I don’t want that for my kid. Our kid. Some days, I’m amazed Henry is still even here…”

She was right. It hurt how much she was right. The logic behind her own words was undeniable and it all led to a conclusion that personally repulsed him and made him want to howl with rage, but seemed like the most rational thing to do.

“Do..we…Swan…do we…should we…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

She finished the question for him.

“Should we end it?”

Emma had always braver and stronger than him, so it didn’t surprise him that she was able to say what made everything inside of him scream; horrified by the concept. Killian didn’t have issue with abortion; he had encouraged more than a few of the female friends he had made over the years to consider the option. However, the idea of destroying something that was part his blood and part Emma’s made him want to die.

She looked at him over her shoulder and she looked nearly as heartbroken as he felt. She tilted her head, asking silently for clarification with her; making sure that was the question he had meant to ask. He gave a stiff nod, grimacing as he did so.

“I don’t know,” she said, closing her eyes against the flood of oncoming tears. “I mean, it’s rational. We’re so new. A lot of stuff has happened. A lot of stuff will most definitely happen. Neither of us are in the right state of mind to even think about being parents, but…I don’t think I can do it. I couldn’t with Henry and I hated Neal more than life itself when I found about about him. I really don’t want to, I’m already attached. I felt guilty about calling him an it so I’ve been calling him, well, him…”

“You think it’s a boy…?” Killian asked, swallowing.

“I think it’s a beautiful disaster that I’m already in love with but at the same time, I’m fucking terrified…of him…for him…just all around petrified to bring this child into this mess. He doesn’t deserve to be born in world like this,” she answered honestly.

Killian couldn’t stand the distance between them anymore. He shed his vest, his brace and his socks, placing them carelessly on the floor next to the dresser before joining Emma on the bed. He curled himself around her, untying the bathrobe that had once been his and placing his hand on top of hers on her abdomen.

“You’re right, the babe deserves better, but that doesn’t mean we can’t…that we can’t try…You said that we don’t have good record at defending children from harm, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t tip the scales, that we can’t try…and sure, it’s scary but…I would rather try than admit defeat. If anyone can succeed, I would like to think it would be us…We’ve beaten incredible odds before…” he murmured against her neck.

“You want it, huh?” she whispered. One of her hands moved and found his, weaving their fingers together. Her thumb brushed lovingly over his.

“I am the last man on earth who should be reproducing. Pan was a demon but he had been very adapt in his description of me - a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem. I’ve got more sins than virtues and I’m woefully unprepared to raise a child. And you’re right, there’s always something going on, our life is chaotic and unpredictable, and there seems to be more disasters than quiet moments, but yes, despite all the reasons that I shouldn’t, I want it. Well, him.”

“So you think it’s boy, huh?” Emma asked in a watery laugh.

Killian squeezed her hand impossibly hard in response. He didn’t know how else to express his feelings without exploding.

“Well, it’s your gut, Swan. If you think it’s a boy and you’re calling him a him, then you’re probably right. Your intuition is never wrong, love, and I’d be a fool to bet against you. That doesn’t mean I would be opposed to a girl with your blonde hair and freckles…”

“I can’t believe this is happening…”

“If it makes you feel better, love, I can’t either. It’s scary, but we’ll figured it out. We always do.”

“Yeah…” Her head fell back against his shoulder and she turned it so that her nose brushed against the hollow of his neck. “I’m so tired…”

“It’s been a day, love. A long, emotional day,” he said, placing a kiss on her temple. He wrinkled his nose a bit as he caught a few strands of hair in his mouth. “You should sleep.”

He moved them so that they were laying on their sides, tossing the bathrobe carelessly over the side of the bed. Begrudgingly, he maneuvered Emma so that she was laying under the covers before sliding beneath the sheets as well. He placed his hand back on her lower belly, his thumb running mindlessly circles over her soft flesh.

“You’re not going sneak downstairs and have a nip if I nod off, are you?” she asked sleepily, trying to fight off her dropping eyelids.

“No, love, I’m staying right here,” he responded, placing another kiss on her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” she murmured before allowing her eyes to shut.

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itstimeforspring · 8 years ago

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the saints we see are all made of gold

title from ‘demons’ by imagine dragons. finished in response to jen leaving (still crying tbh) and the promo video (you will see why in when you read this; no spoilers for the teaser, however, as this was written first). if you recognize where i got the basic plot from i will write you something and/or send hugs.

many thanks to @love-with-you-i-have-everything for reading over this and also @literatiruinedme for enthusiasm and love <3

“Emma? Can you hear me?”

The young woman shifted against the wall. Her blonde hair covered most of her face, only revealing one bloodshot green eye. Her voice shook slowly when she spoke. “Where… am I?”

“You’re in the hospital, Emma. The psychiatric ward. Do you remember?” The woman with short brown hair leaned down to her daughter’s level.

Her husband stands at her side. “Come on, Ems. It’s your mom and dad, sweetie.”

“Emma is in the midst of a dream state, Mr. and Mrs. Swan,” the doctor interjected. He checked off boxes on a clipboard as he stared down at the crouching girl. “She can respond to you, but she doesn’t know what’s going on around her.”

Mary stood up, nodded. “She was fine yesterday, Doctor. What happened?” Dean wrapped his arm around her and she leaned into his touch.

“I’m not sure,” he said apologetically. I’ll tell you more when we learn more about her current state. For now, I think it best that she rest.”

Emma’s parents left the room. After a few moments, the doctor crouched down at her side. “What’s going on, Emma? In that other world. Tell me about your dream.”

“Wake up, Emma! Please, love, come back to me,” a voice whispered. Emma stirred. A rock dug into her back and she winced. Then she noticed the shredded agony that was her right arm.

She opened her eyes and stared into the bright blue eyes above her. “What happened and why does my arm hurt like hellfire?” she muttered.

“Emma,” Killian breathed. He kissed her forehead slowly, letting his lips linger. “It’s okay, love. We were afraid to fix your arm until you woke up, as we aren’t sure what the monster was or how much pain the healing spell would cause.”

Flashes of a few minutes ago came back to her. She and Killian and Regina were chasing a monster through the woods next to Storybrooke. The monster had been terrorizing a store on the outskirts of town over the past week and it’d left two adults in a comatose state due to blood-loss and something else that Whale couldn’t identify. In short, they’d found a magical monster with wicked sharp claws. It was not a pretty little monster.

“Right.” She twitched her arm, causing more blood to leak out of the dark red-rimmed claw marks and Killian to hiss. “Fix this.” She looked up at Regina, her tone not quite a request and not quite an order. She was in serious pain; a little bit of petulant demanding was allowed.

Regina didn’t bother to make a snarky remark back aside from rolling her eyes. She waved her hand over the limp arm and the bloody scratches closed up, leaving dark blue-glowing lines. “What’s that?” Killian asked as he helped Emma sit up.

“Magical remnant, I think,” Regina said. “Since we have someone who’s survived being attacked by the monster and left conscious, we can do research on the identity of the monster now.”

“Tell me about your dreams, Emma.” The doctor had gently helped her sit up and had brushed the hair out of her face.

Emma stared at him for a moment. His glasses were too round. She picked at a fingernail before answering. “I’m the saviour, in a town called Storybrooke, Maine.”

“That’s good. Tell me about who you spend time with in your dreams. Do you have friends in Storybrooke?” he asked as he scratched notes onto the paper on his clipboard.

“There’s David and Snow, and Regina, and Henry, and—”

The doctor paused in his writing. “Is there anyone else?”

“There’s Killian too.”

“Emma, love!” She opened her eyes to find herself still mostly on the forest floor. Killian was propping her up against his knee, looking down at her in absolute terror. “Regina, there’s something wrong with her.”

The former queen looked down at her. Her eyes were curious and somewhat cold. “I see that, pirate. Let’s get her to the loft. I’m fairly sure that she’s fine physically, but I’m worried about the magical aspect of those cuts.”

Emma could only blink at her true love. Something was terribly wrong, and she didn’t protest as he gathered her up in his arms to carry her home.

“What happened?” Snow shrieked as Killian maneuvered her through the door. The marks on her arm still glowed blue, but now it was a paler baby blue instead of the royal blue they were at first. “Emma, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. The monster got a bit of a bite out of me, then I almost fainted, so Killian freaked out,” she said, straightening herself on the couch. Her head itched.

“What do you mean the monster got a bite out of you?” David asked. He stepped to her side and carefully unwrapped the linen covering the scratches. He could only stare at the glow. Emma laughed.

“I think I’m okay, Dad. My head feels better now.”

“Describe Killian, Emma. In your dream world, what does he mean to you?”

Emma rolled over to look away from the doctor. “I love him,” she whispered. “He’s always there for me, and he’s never abandoned me.” She scratched her forearm.

“Would you say that Killian is your ideal man?”

Emma thought about it for a moment, her mind going in and out of fuzz and static. “Yes.”

The doctor nodded and clipped his pen onto the papers. “Would you like to see your parents? They’ve been waiting for you to wake up again.”

“Mom!” Henry shouted. “Mom!”

“Why has everyone gotten the opportunity to scream in my face today?” Emma muttered as she opened her eyes.

“Because you keep zoning out, love. It’s like you’re sleeping but your eyes are open and moving.” Killian took her hand and squeezed it, gently yet urgently. “Something is definitely wrong.”

“I agree,” Regina said grimly. “Henry, would you like to help with research while Killian and the Charmings look after Emma?”

“But—”

Emma nodded, first at Regina then Henry. “Go on, Henry. It’ll be okay.” Judging by the panic in his eyes that was even worse than Killian’s, it would be best if he weren’t around her while she was going in and out of it.

Regina and Henry left the loft with the assurance of a phone call if something went wrong. “I’ll make tea,” Snow decided with a forced cheer.

“I’ve brought some cookies,” Mary said. “They’re chocolate chip, Emma. You used to love chocolate chip. Do you remember?”

Emma stared at the cookie but didn’t take it. Dean sighed. “It’s okay. You don’t have to take them, but if you don’t, I’ll end up eating them all!”

“Is this real?” Emma asked. Tears immediately formed in Mary’s eyes.

“Oh, honey. This is real, yes. You’re our daughter, Emma Ruth Swan. You’re thirty-two years old, and we live in Boston. I’m Mary Swan, and your father is Dean Swan. Don’t you remember us?”

Emma shook her head and pulled the covers up tighter. She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember the difference.

Was there a difference?

“There is something wrong, David,” Snow said from a distance. Emma opened her eyes. Where was she? Who were these people? Where were the doctor and Dean and Mary?

“What do you see when you close your eyes, Swan?” Killian asked quietly. “I can tell you’re not here. You’re so deep into your mind I can’t see where you’ve gone.”

Emma looked up at the man she knew she loved. She looked over at the kitchen where her parents were talking over the counter. “I’m in a psychiatric ward, a mental hospital.” Killian still looks confused. “It’s for people who go crazy.” He nods and listens intently. “There’s a doctor with a clipboard and he asks me about this life. My parents are there too.”

“Dave and Snow?”

“No, Dean and Mary,” she said, picturing their concerned faces, knowing them as well as her own family. Killian’s face mirrored the concern she saw in her memory.

Just then, Regina appeared before her, her magic dissipating around her. “Emma, when you lose perception of this place, do you see another world?”

Snow and David stepped over to hear Regina. “What is she talking about, Emma?” Killian took her hand again and squeezed lightly.

Emma merely nodded. Regina didn’t need the details she’d just told Killian.

“I think I know what’s wrong with her,” Regina said. “There’s a monster that creates a new reality that’s as good as this one, the real one. It creates a reality and convinces whoever’s under the spell that it’s the real land. The magic makes them more vulnerable to Is that’s what happening, Emma?”

“It’s not real, Emma. Think about it for a minute. You’ve created a world in your head where you’re the saviour, a superhero in an enchanted town.” The doctor tried not to smile, but the faint tilt of his lips quickly faded. “Do you think that this is to compensate for your childhood? To create a world where you’re powerful and in charge?”

Emma remembered her childhood before Dean and Mary adopted her. Lonely, abandoned, unloved. How could she come up with such a life? How could such a life be real?”

“In this other world, you always had parents who loved you and missed you, even if they didn’t remember you. You have a son who adores you and who’s sweet and loving beyond realistic. You have a man straight from a fairy tale who loves you and would die for you—who has died for you. And yet he lives.”

The doctor knelt down to Emma’s level. “That’s not how the world works, Emma. People can’t die and come back to life, and there’s no such thing as magic. You knew this, and then you hit your head three years ago. While you were asleep, your parents read you stories about Snow White, Captain Hook, and Alice in Wonderland. When you woke up for the first time, you were muttering about magic and evil queens. This is a fairy tale, Emma. It isn’t reality.”

“But it feels so real,” Emma muttered.

“But it’s not real,” the doctor says calmly. “In order to forget the dreams, you have to destroy them, Emma. You have to tell them that they’re not real.”

“What happened?” Regina asked.

Emma looked up at Regina. She could feel her eyes glazed over. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. “Nothing,” she said.

“Emma, love,” Killian said. She turned to look at him. The love in his eyes—was it real?—it couldn’t be. She was just an orphan. No one could love her. Not like him. He was just imaginary. “I love you, Emma Swan.” He leaned forward and kissed her quickly, mindless of everyone around her.

It was Killian. How could she doubt him? She looked up at Regina. “Is there a cure to this?” she asked, her voice rasping.

Regina stared. “Yes, I think so.”

“Make it now.”

“But I—”

Killian stood, his hook rising unconsciously. “You need to go make the potion now.” Regina raised an eyebrow and Emma could see the grudging respect in her eyes.

“Killian!” Snow exclaimed.

“Snow,” Killian said, using her true name for the first time that Emma could remember, “your daughter will soon forget which world is real, this one or the other. I think it would be best if the Queen began the potion immediately.”

“Emma, do you think it would be good if you could rest alone for an hour or two?” David asked. “Just while Regina makes the potion.”

Killian glanced back and forth between them for a moment. Emma smiled as he decided whether it would be safe. Overprotective pirate. Finally he nodded and she stood. She rested her hand on his arm before stepping up the stairs. “It’ll be okay,” she said softly. “I’ll just take a nap, try to coax the dreams away for a while.”

“Emma, you’re awake,” Mary said with relief coloring every syllable. “How are you?”

“I’m better,” Emma said, picking at a fingernail again. “The doctor told me what’s happening to me.”

They were sitting at the doctor’s desk, each in a chair. The chair was hard, with a cushion that clearly used to be more ornate and cushy, but it simply wasn’t so anymore. “Do you want to stop the dreams? You can return home with your parents, and you don’t have to stay in the hospital anymore. You’ll be free.”

Emma stared at the bulletin board behind the doctor’s head. How could she have believed that the other world was real? She was just an orphan; no one had been waiting and longing for her, no one had sacrificed their ship for her, no one had found her in New York. There was no son looking for her to bring her to a magical land of wishes and true love and magic. There was no pirate to give up everything for her and kiss her in Neverland and follow her to different realms.

This was reality. Dean and Mary. Their earnest eyes and chocolate chip cookies. The love still pouring off them in waves from the moment thirteen years ago when they signed the adoption papers.

There was a flash of bright blue eyes as she spoke. “Yes. I want to be free of the dreams.”

Emma opened her eyes. “It’s not real.”

As the door opened, she thrust her hand out. “I have the potion—” White light poured from her palm. The cup fell to the ground and shattered.

She held a rope in her hand. “Mom, are you okay? What’s going on? Mwffl—”

“Emma, what is it? Regina and Henry didn’t come back downstairs—”

She magicked herself, Regina, Henry, and her parents to the forest. There, the monster waited.

The pang in her heart when she saw the monster flex its claws in Henry’s direction didn’t matter. He wasn’t real, the monster wasn’t real. None of this was real. It was just a dream. All of it.

“You’re doing so well, Emma,” the doctor said. She writhed in the corner.

“But Henry, he’s my son, he doesn’t deserve this,” she cried. “My parents either, they love me!”

“They��re not real, Emma. You have to remember it. You have to kill them to live in this world.” The doctor canted his head as Emma screamed. “What about Killian? Are all of them there?”

Killian ran over the hill. “Emma!” he shouted. “Don’t do this, love! We’re real! That other world isn’t real and they’re just trying to manipulate you!”

The monster ran toward him. He brandished his hook, not looking at the claws of the monster. He kept his eyes on Emma. “Emma, I love you. I love you so much. You have kept this town surviving throughout the years, and you love all of us. You can defeat this.”

“But they’re going to die,” Emma muttered, her hands pressed over her ears as she leaned against the corner. Her eyes were squeezed shut, only allowing a few tears to escape.

“That’s what you have to—”

“Killian loves me. He always has. I know that, I know it, I’ve never doubted it. Killian’s love has kept me going throughout the years. Killian’s and Henry’s. How can I live without that?”

“You’ll have our love,” Mary cried, taking Emma’s hand. “Isn’t that enough, Emma? If you give up this other world, you’ll have us.”

“Emma!” Killian screamed. “Please! We’re real, I promise you, love! Just trust me!” The monster swiped at him and he ducked, barely avoiding the beast’s claws. Emma could smell the fresh blood in the air. Dripping from the wounds that she had caused.

“It’s just an illusion, Emma. It’s not real,” the doctor soothed. “Turn away from them and look at your family. They’re real. We’re real.”

“You’ve got a world of strength in your heart, Emma!” Mary said. “I know you do. You just have to find it again. Believe in yourself.”

“Please, Swan! I love you! I believe in you, Emma, you can do it!” Leather ripped. His eyes fluttered shut under the force of the assault. The monster was overpowering him.

She loved him. If she knew nothing else, in the world, whichever reality was truly real, she knew that.

Emma looked up at her parents and the doctor. The doctor’s face reflected his alarm, but Dean and Mary were still smiling, tears beginning to streak down their faces. She stared at them one last time, memorized their faces again, and tried to smile. “Thank you. Thank you. Mom, Dad. I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes as her parents reached for her.

She whirled around and punched the monster. Her knuckles smarting, Emma jumped after it and kicked it into a tree. It snarled and pounced at her, no longer looking at Killian. She ducked its blows and grabbed its head and slammed it against the ground, once, twice, a third time. It drooped for a second, stunned, and she twisted her hand toward its neck, snapping the bones with her magic.

Killian gazed up at her, blood streaked down his face but a smile in his eyes. “I knew you could do it, Emma.” She stepped over to him and let him pull her into a hug, his lips grazing her cheek. Tears dripped from her cheeks to the back of his jacket as she rested her chin on his shoulder. She pulled away quickly and dropped down to Henry’s level. Emma gently pulled the gag from his mouth and cut the knots loose. Her son didn’t say anything but sighed in relief as she cradled the back of his head.

Once David and Snow were free, they all hugged Emma until she couldn’t breathe from both squeezing and tears. Finally Killian’s arm found its way back across her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“We always knew you’d find your way back,” David said. “You always do.” He grinned, and Snow’s eyes danced with a light of satisfaction and pride. Killian pulled her closer and kissed her hair. And Emma smiled. It was normal again.

In a white room, a doctor pries open the eyelids of a woman with blonde hair. Her parents stand above them, weeping and holding each other. He shines a flashlight into her eyes, and there is no response. “I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Swan. We’ve lost her.”

#offer of one-shot extended only to the first 3 if that many #because i already have so much to finish #captain swan #ouat #cs ff #ouat ff

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sylvesterelle · 8 years ago

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So this started out as emotional word vom about Stiles finding Derek in D.C. in @sterektrashbag‘s ask (peep it here) and somehow turned into 15k of Stiles moving to Washington, Derek working at a museum, and everyone actually working through their goddamn issues (+ David Bowie, glowy magic pack bonds, and a supernatural archive under the Smithsonian).

Could be read as a one-shot, but will probably end up writing two more parts because feelings™.

Read on Ao3.

Float Until You Learn to Swim

When you’re part of a pack, you’re never really alone. Even when Stiles was at his darkest, locked inside his own head, he knew this, could feel the faintest of threads tied somewhere around his ribcage, each one tugging lightly to remind him that his family and friends were still there, still alive, at least for one more day.

After the Nogitsune, when the world got to be too much and Stiles felt like he was choking on dead air, he took to closing his eyes and pressing the heel of this hand to the spot just under his breastbone, fingers splayed out over his chest until the steady thrumming of the threads drowned out his racing heart.

He never talked about it with Scott or his dad, never asked if anyone else experienced the pack bonds the same way. He told himself it was because it felt too personal, too private, but a voice in the back of his head wondered if it was more than that. If maybe he was afraid to find out what he was feeling wasn’t real - just another thing his brain conjured up to deal with a reality composed of more pain than any 19 year old boy could survive unbroken. That same voice whispered that even if it was real, it was one sided; after all, his packmates were the ones who forgot him. If he asks, it might just mean definitive proof that he needs them much more than they need him.

So he doesn’t ask, and whenever a member of the pack caught him absentmindedly rubbing at his chest he played it off as a bruise, or an itch, or, on one memorable occasion, heartburn.

“This is it Scotty, this is what’s going to get me – not a rogue werewolf or a shapeshifter or, god forbid, a selkie, but the diabolical clutches of acid reflux.” He had moaned, sprawled out on his friend’s bed.

Scott just threw a bottle of Tums at his head and turned back to his homework. Stiles made a mental note to research why Scott even had them around; did the same werewolf healing magic that could heal bullet wounds and fix severed arteries meet its match with common indigestion?

Stiles wasn’t sure if Scott and the other wolves just ignored his repeated excused and chalked it up to Stiles being Stiles, or if his pulse had become so unsteady it was impossible to recognize the tell-tale blip of a lie. That question was also firmly shelved in the ‘do not touch’ corner of his brain.

Real or not, shared or not, it was the bonds that allowed Stiles to even consider leaving Beacon Hills for Georgetown. He had tested them in the days after graduation, driven an hour to the coast to sit in the sand and take a second to just breathe, away from the memories that flooded every corner of Beacon Hills; a moment to let himself get lost in salt air and waves licking at the sand while the threads pulsed steadily in his chest.

On his second try, he drove south to San Francisco, ostensibly to visit the magic shops Deaton had recommended to resupply their wolfsbane stock and pick up the books he needed for summer Spark training. After the latest supernatural shit show, he figured it was time to stop ignoring whatever abilities Deaton said he had – if it was something he could use to protect his pack, then it was worth learning how to control, even if the thought of being something…more than human still left him a little uneasy. Just as at the ocean, the bonds remained strong, radiating warmth through his chest as the miles clicked past on the odometer.

For his final test, he packed up the Jeep with food and water and drove up to Washington. His mother had loved the mountains, the thickness of the forests, how the snow-capped peaks looked reflected in the calm waters of lakes carved by ancient glaciers. His family had a cabin they visited every summer when Stiles was young, a small wooden thing deep in the Cascades next to a crystal blue lake. The sheriff, still a deputy then, would wake him up just before dawn, tackle-box packed and ready, and teach him to fish in the clear waters. There’s a photo still hanging in the entryway of their house from one such morning, a seven-year-old Stiles proudly holding up a sunfish just a little bigger than his palm with his brown hair sticking up as if electrocuted and a gap-toothed grin showing off the two missing teeth he’d lost the week before.

His mom preferred to watch the sunrise from land, cradling a fresh cup of coffee and waving at her boys from her favorite spot on the porch swing. Some afternoons, she would take Stiles out in the old rowboat, dropping anchor in the middle of the lake so they could stretch out and let the sun warm their upturned faces. Even at the deepest point, the water was so clear Stiles could see straight to the bottom and he spent hours swimming deeper and deeper, but never touching the lakebed.

His mother in water was a sight to behold, all crinkled eyes and laughter ringing out as she cannon-balled from the side of the boat, splashing Stiles and twisting gracefully away when he tried to retaliate. She loved to sneak up on John when his back was turned, winking at Stiles and putting a finger to her lips before leaping on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms over his shoulders to pull him under the surface. He would come back up sputtering, Claudia still clinging to his back until he pulled her around, cradling her in his arms and dropping a kiss to her wet forehead before tossing her soundly into the water.

Stiles’ most vivid memories of his mom were from the cabin - the way her dark hair billowed out underwater, how she curled up with his dad under the holey knitted blanket she had made him one Christmas, the sound of her off-key singing as she made waffles for breakfast (Always waffles, never pancakes. His mom claimed pancakes didn’t have personality, but his dad told him she just liked the way syrup pooled in the little waffle wells.).

The first summer after her death, Stiles and John didn’t go back to the cabin. The official excuse was that John couldn’t get the time off, having taken longer and longer shifts at the station to distract himself from the too-empty house and his too-cold bed. Stiles spent most of that first summer at the McCall’s, eating peanut butter sandwiches with Scott in a semi-permanent bed fort in the living room. He didn’t talk about his mom and wouldn’t even if Scott had asked – but Scott never did, just handed him the other half of his sandwich when Stiles finished his own and hugged him when he curled his sticky fingers in Scott’s t-shirt, silently asking for comfort beneath the canopy of sheets.

As the years went on, they stopped mentioning the cabin, stopped making excuses. It was a place inextricably tied up with the memory of Stiles’ mother, a memory that was still too painful, too present to confront head on. But the photo still hung in the entryway, and Stiles occasionally gave it a passing thought, fantasized about running away to the cabin where he could pretend that werewolves weren’t real, that evil was something that only existed in fiction, and that his own hands weren’t washed in blood.

Sometimes, when he thought about where Derek might have ended up (a pastime he pursued more often than he’d like to admit), Stiles imagined he found the cabin, dusty and untouched, and decided to stay. He could picture it so clearly: Derek stretched out on the couch (a lurid orange plaid monstrosity Stiles’ mom loved to pieces) with a book in his hand and a small fire burning in the hearth, a pile of split logs outside where he had spent the day chopping wood for winter. Those times, he could almost swear he felt a phantom spike of warmth in his chest, not quite the tug of pack bonds, but something that felt like it could be. And if the warmth burned a little brighter when Stiles imagined the way Derek would look with a red flannel shirt rolled up over his forearms and bunching around his strong shoulders as he swung an axe, thought a touch too hard about the way his hair would fall on his forehead, thick and soft without product and a little damp from sweat , well, that was no one’s business but his own.

Imaginings aside, Stiles had never thought seriously about going back to the cabin. Not until the day of his graduation party, which found him sat on the steps of the back porch while members of his pack mingled with kids from their class and members of Beacon Hills’ finest, the spot under his breastbone burning steady and warm. There was a half-eaten cake and a small stack of presents and cards on a folding table in the corner, and when the sheriff dropped down beside him a moment later, he held a beer in one hand a small brown box in the other.

“That beer for me?” Stiles asked, nudging his dad with an elbow.

The sheriff scoffed. “Keep dreaming, kid.”

He tipped the bottle back once before setting it at his feet, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“I had something I wanted to give you. I’m not sure if it’s the right time, if it will ever be the right time but…it’s yours. It should be yours.” He tapped the box on his knee a couple times before thrusting it at his son.

“I thought we were doing presents later, but I won’t tell if you…” Stiles’ voice petered out as he lifted the lid of the box and saw a braided leather keychain with two gold keys nestled in white tissue paper.

“Dad, what is this?”

The sheriff shifted in his seat. “It’s ah, it’s the key to the cabin. Your mom’s cabin. I know we haven’t been in a long time and that’s probably my fault, but I found it the other day when I was poking around in the attic and I thought, well, I thought you should have it. I remembered how much you loved that place how much your mother loved-”

The sheriff cut off, clearing his throat.

“Well, anyway, I, ah, I called in a favor from the ranger service up there – had one of the guys go check it out and hook up the water and electricity. He said everything looked good – nothing broken or anything.” He nodded towards the box. “The bigger key is for the front door and the little one is for the boat shed out back.”

He reached over and picked up the key ring, running a finger over the braided fob with a small, sad smile.

“Your mom made this. I don’t know if you remember, but she had this phase where she fancied herself a knitter. Made this really terrible blanket one year –scratchy as all hell and not what you’d call structurally sound, but I used it all the time just to see that proud little smile on her face.”

“I remember,” Stiles said quietly.

“After she moved on from knitting, she started messing around with things like this.” The sheriff lifted the keychain.

“She didn’t get very far with it before…well, before. But she finished this one. I forgot I even still had it.”

John laid them back in the box and rubbed a thumb over his forehead.

“So uh, I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s yours if you want it. You can take your friends up, or maybe I can get some time this summer…” He nodded once, decisive. “It’s been empty too long, I think. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Stiles looked down at the keys and gently touched one end of the braid.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

He looked over and smiled at his dad, eyes shining with what they both would deny as wetness.

“Thank you.”

The sheriff cleared his throat again. “You’re welcome. Happy graduation, son. I’m ah, I’m very proud of you, and I know she would be too.”

He reached out and pulled Stiles into a one-armed hug, patting him on the back before grabbing his beer and heading towards the food table, a Stilinski man through-and-through in his dislike of emotional confrontation.

“Only one piece of cake dad, don’t think you get a free pass because of emotional manipulation!” Stiles called after him.

The sheriff, as usual, paid no mind.

Stiles hadn’t known what to do with the keys. Part of him wanted to leave the party and drive up immediately, the other half shied away at the thought of seeing it again, his heart giving a painful squeeze thinking about his mother’s favorite mug (a lopsided thing Stiles made her) sitting unused in the cupboard or diving into the lake without her splashing in beside him.

So he kept them in the box, stashed in his bedside table as the summer stretched on and he went swimming with the pack, held video game tournaments with Scott, and attended Spark lessons with Deaton.

In the end, his desire to see the cabin again won out over his fear, and as the last few weeks of summer approach, he made the decision to go up. He rationalized that it would be the perfect opportunity to complete his last test of the bonds, but it was also something he knew he had to do for his mom. Claudia had lived too long as a ghost in the house, an invisible weight they refused to acknowledge but affected every part of their lives. His dad had understood when Stiles told him, and quietly agreed that maybe it was time to bring the boxes back down from the attic, stop letting the memory of her languish in the dark.

Though Stiles told Scott where he was going, he asked his friend to keep it quiet. It’s not that he wanted to keep it from the rest of the pack, necessarily, but it wasn’t something he thought he could explain. Scott had been there before; had known his mom and heard stories of the cabin, seen the photos and understood exactly how much it meant to Stiles. He had been there after, filled the glaring gap in his summers as best he could with his friendship and his loyalty and his ineffable Scott-ness, and Stiles knew he was the only other person other than his dad who could understand Stiles’ need to return to the cabin alone.

He kept both Scott and his dad in the dark about his the desire to test the pack bonds and make sure that, even a thousand miles away and surrounded by nothing but forest and stone, he would still feel his pack ties thrumming in his chest. Part of him, that quiet, black part that seemed to invade his mind and stop his heart like ice, whispered that if he couldn’t feel them that far away, he wasn’t really pack. That insidious voice told he needed to belong to them so much more than they needed his belonging and when they disappeared, he’d have to confront that he wasn’t pack, wasn’t anything at all - just a fragile, broken boy who believed he could run with wolves.

The thought made the spot under his chest ache, so he buried the feeling and turned up the volume on the Jeep’s radio as he continued on the winding road north. His mom loved music, used to make these mix tapes for them to listen to on the 12 hour drive up. The sheriff had told Stiles he found her tape collection in the same forgotten corner with the keys, but neither had felt ready to listen to them. But now, in his mom’s car on the familiar drive to her favorite place in the world, Stiles felt like it was time.

Claudia Stilinski had eclectic tastes - she liked classic rock and loved belting out “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” encouraging Stiles to join in from the back seat and poking John until he’d warble along with them. Some days were dedicated to funk, filled with Parliament and Earth, Wind, and Fire; other days, she’d spend hours playing nothing but The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits. Above all else, Stiles’ mom loved Fleetwood Mac. She loved the ballads and the break up songs and could never, ever sit still when she played them. Claudia listened with her whole body, letting Stiles stand on her toes as she spun him around the kitchen or dancing in her seat with her arm out the Jeep window to feel the breeze while she sang, eyes shut and face turned up in total bliss. John would joke that she would leave him for Stevie Nicks in heartbeat, and every time she’d respond by putting on “Everywhere” and serenading him, lifting their interlaced fingers to press kisses to the back of his hand until he stopped pouting and sang along.

It was Fleetwood Mac that Stiles chose to accompany his pilgrimage, running his fingers over the handwritten label before sliding the tape in and cranking the volume up. Loud enough that it covered even the trademark jangling of the Jeep’s engine; so loud that all he could think about was the words, and all he could do was tighten his grip on the steering wheel and sing along.

But listen carefully to the sound Of your loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of remembering what you had And what you lost…

And if Stiles’ sleeve was a little wet where he’d scrubbed it across his face, well, that was no one’s business but his own.

It’s easier than he expected. He pulls the Jeep over on the side of the road a few times on the way up, has to press his hand to his chest to reassure himself the bonds are still there and force air through his lungs to stave off the panic attack would overcome him, if he let it. But when he arrives, just before dusk, the bonds are still there and glowing warmly, a silent message of support to offset the nerves coiled in his stomach.

It looks just the same.

The wood is a little more worn than he remembers, the red paint of the deck curling up in small flakes. Tall grasses sway gently where there was once trim lawn and the stones of the path are loose where weeds have pushed up their edges. But the forest is still as tall and vital as Stiles remembers, and if he closes his eyes, listens to the birds calling and wind running through the leaves, he can almost believe himself six years old again, running through the trees with outstretched hands and spinning in circles until the branches blur over his head and he tips over, dizzyingly happy and so terribly alive.

He shoots his dad a text to let him know he’s arrived then steels himself before opening the front door, gripping the leather chain so tightly his knuckles bleed white.

If this was a movie, there’d be rain, he thinks. There’d be rain and that hazy half-light that always precedes a summer storm, rose-tinged air under a clouded sky.

But this isn’t a movie, and there is no rain. Instead, the air is warm and dry and the sunset paints the sky every color Stiles can name, swelling to a deep scarlet where the sun melts into the lake.

She would have liked that, Stiles thinks. How the colors bled into each other, the way they looked reflected in the calm surface of the lake. And that’s the thought that propels him to turn the key and open the door, stepping into the cabin for the first time in a decade.

It’s dark – the blinds drawn and the furniture still covered in the white sheets they’d draped over to ward off dust and dirt through the long winter. Everything not covered bears a thick layer of dust, and when Stiles runs a finger across the hall mirror, he leaves a stark line in the glass.

The cabin feels quiet, suspended. Like all these years, it has been in hibernation, just waiting for him to return. Like it’s been yearning to wake up.

Stiles pauses by the sofa, hovers his hand over the thick sheet. It hits him all at once that this is a place completely untouched by what his life has become. This place has never known werewolves, or magic, or bloodshed. A time capsule of his best memories – of loving, and being loved; of warmth, and freedom, and uninhibited play and joy and everything that has been too far gone from Stiles’ life in the past few years.

The spot beneath his breastbone glows at the thought. Life in Beacon Hills was undeniably settling down – Scott blossoming into his role as Alpha under the tutelage of his mom, the sheriff, and Deaton, and the biggest threat they’d had in months was a group of wayward fairies on a summer road trip to the coast. Maybe…maybe he can have this again. Maybe it’s time.

Stiles grips the sheet and tears it off, revealing the fabric of the couch – the same lumpy, radioactive orange that colored his childhood naps and always brought a smile to his mother’s face. He grins at it like an old friend and, like a spell has been broken, shatters the stillness of the cabin by dashing through the rest of the rooms, ripping off sheets and whooping at the clouds of dust that spin through the air as each new piece of his memory is brought back to full, Technicolor life.

He moves into the kitchen, throwing open the cupboards and running his fingers over the mismatched collection of dishes and mugs, stopping when he touches one mug in particular. He pulls it down and turns it over in his hands, examining the stars and planets painted by a young Stiles, sloppy in his enthusiasm. He smiles, remembering how his mother laughed when he presented it to her. She had crouched down and thanked him with a kiss on his freckled cheek.

“My little starman,” she said, and traced over his moles with a finger. “Look, you’ve even got your own constellations.”

Stiles had giggled as she peppered each spot with kisses and squirmed in her arms, but bobbed his head and grinned when she asked if he wanted to listen to his special song.

Stiles can’t recall the first time it happened, couldn’t say exactly when it became a tradition, but remembers the joy he felt every time his mom would pull out their well-loved copy of Ziggy Stardust. She’d turn on the baby blue record player she’d had since she was a freshman in college and let Stiles guide the tonearm across the grooves, grabbing his hands and spinning him around the room as the song began to play. She’d twirl him out and back in again and again until he was dizzy with it, then she’d pull him back against her chest to hug him tight and sing the chorus in his ear.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’d like to come and meet us

but he thinks he’d blow our minds.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’s told us not to blow it

cause he knows it’s all worthwhile.

Stiles smiles bittersweet at the memory, pauses, then places the mug back on the shelf and walks decisively into his parents’ old bedroom. He reaches up into closet, feeling around the top shelf until his fingers brush against a box he pulls down and carries into the living room. With reverent hands, he unpacks the record player and sets it on the kitchen table, plugging the cord in and checking for the glow of the red ‘on’ light. In the bottom of the box rests his mom’s record collection – even though she had everything on tapes at their house in Beacon Hills, she kept the LP’s around. “Think of it as your inheritance,” she had said, letting him flip through their bright covers.

Stiles now cards through them slowly, heart aching as he trails his fingers across the familiar images. He finds the one he’s looking for and pulls it out, sliding the record from the sleeve and setting the cover aside before gently blowing dust from the grooves. He fits it on the platter, places the stylus halfway towards the center and listens to the familiar crackle as the song begins.

Like the cabin, this memory was one almost too tender to touch, and it had been years since he’d last listened to their song. But here, now, as a fresh breeze chases the stale air out of the cabin and warm light falls on the uncovered furniture, it feels right. It feels necessary. And as Stiles roams around the cabin, pushing open the windows and shaking out the blankets on the front porch, he can’t help but sing along, letting his lingering nerves be chased away by the well-loved words.

Let the children lose it,

let the children use it,

let all the children boogie.

Stiles stays at the cabin for two weeks. He checks in with his dad once a day, and sends pictures of the projects he’d started around the house, but otherwise keeps his phone stashed in the Jeep. After that first night, falling asleep on the old couch listening to his mother’s records and wrapped up in the old knit blanket, he throws himself into fixing up the cabin.

He starts by digging out the ancient push lawnmower from the shed and clearing the tall grasses that had shot up in their absence, wiping dirt across his forehead as he digs out stubborn weeds from the stone path. He gets his supplies at the local hardware store, including a can of cardinal red paint to revive the porch, and works long hours in the late July heat, his skin browning in the sun as new flights of freckles appeared on his arms each day. The lean muscle he’d built up running with wolves comes in handy as he hauls the rowboat out to patch and repaint, nails new planks over the holes in the dock, and chops wood until there’s a sizable pile stacked next to the house.

When the heat gets to be too much, he strips to his briefs and dives into the lake, letting the cool water wash the sweat and dirt from his skin before sprawling out on the dock to dry in the sun. In the evenings, he sits on the porch swing, rocking back and forth as he watches the sunset and drinks lemonade from the same cracked pitcher he did when he was a child.

More often than not, he passes out early and sleeps soundly through the night in a way he didn’t believe he was capable of anymore; his tired body and aching muscles gentling him into a dreamless sleep from which he wakes refreshed and calm. On the nights he stays up, he pulls a book from his parents’ collection and sits by the firepit outside, surrounded by the chirping of crickets and the night sounds of the forest. He prefers the books with well-worn pages and cracked spines, like East of Eden and Dharma Bums. His mother had loved stories about America, the love letters to the land, and delighted in pointing out Kerouac’s Desolation Peak in the far ranges, just visible from her spot on the porch.

The longer he stays, the more his mind quiets. There are no intrusive thoughts, no insidious, creeping voices, almost as if the stillness of the cabin has bled into his mind. The excess energy that caused his hands to shake and his thoughts to race unchecked finds an outlet in the physicality of his work, the repetitive movements acting as a kind of meditation that leaves him clear and focused. He feels settled in his skin as his muscles flex and ache, entirely at home in his body and mind. For the first time in years, Stiles feels like himself again. Strong. Unbroken.

On his last night, Stiles sits in the kitchen with the book of runes Deaton lent him and ingredients he’d carefully gathered over the past few days – thistle and clover, blue vervain and St. Johnswort, powdered bark from the trees that ring the clearing and a small handful of mud from the bottom of the lake. He grinds them into a paste, and over every window and doorway, he paints the symbols for luck and protection – not just from living threats, but from wind, fire, rain, and dust. He pours his will into them, declares himself where they lay to ensure that not a breath of the pain that has plagued Beacon Hills can touch this place. Not just because it was a part of his mother, but because it is undoubtedly a piece of himself, too.

When everything is locked up and the Jeep packed for the long drive home, Stiles spares one last look at the porch swing, takes in the fresh paint, lush grass, and clear windows, liberated from dust. The stillness remains, but it’s different now – a quiet born not of stasis, but of peace; the land has finally woken up, and Stiles right alongside it. He closes his eyes and focuses on remembering exactly how he feels in this moment, wanting to carry it with him when he goes.

With a smile on his face, Stiles opens his eyes and backs out the driveway. As he travels down the road towards home, he glances in the rearview mirror, watching as the cabin grows smaller and smaller until it’s swallowed by forest, and all he can see is green.

Even with his newfound calm, Stiles spent the entire five hour flight to Washington with his palm pressed against his sternum, eyes screwed up and body tensed as he waited for the inevitable moment when the gentle tugging of the threads would turn too harsh and snap, robbing him of the warmth in his chest.

But, like his earlier tests, it never came.

When the wheels touched down at Reagan National, the quiet thrumming beneath his breast remained. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, letting some of the tension finally drain out of his muscles. He wasn’t alone. He was nearly 3,000 miles from his home and his pack, but he wasn’t alone. He pressed down harder for a moment and was rewarded when the bonds seemed to grow warmer, more insistent, like they were chiding him for being silly enough to think that they’d just leave.

He broke out in a grin, letting his hand drop. He knew the next few months were still going to be hard – he’d still worry about his dad and his friends, still have to deal with the lingering guilt of leaving them, (though his pack had been nothing but supportive, promising to keep his dad on a diet and Skype so much he’d be sick of them), still have to adjust to a new city and living on his own. But the knowledge that he’d still have a physical connection to his pack, a constant reminder that he belonged to someone, somewhere, made the rest seem small in comparison.

Stiles stood up, grabbing his bag out of the overhead compartment and swinging it over his shoulder. His smile remained as he followed the line out of the plane and stepped into the cooler Washington air. Here, burning in his chest, was proof that he had walked through Hell and come out the other side with his pack beside him. Compared to what came before, college would be a cakewalk.

Two months in, Stiles was strongly reconsidering that statement. Sure, there was nothing actually wrong, but that didn’t mean things were right, either. His roommate was chill, an aspiring pre-med student who only showed up to shower and sleep, which suited Stiles fine. It was a little quiet, sure, but it gave him more time to work on his magic homework from Deaton or Skype his pack without worrying about fabricating excuses to obscure the more…extraordinary elements of his life.

He liked most of his classes and had been flirting with the idea of double majoring in history and folklore, had a group he regularly met up with for study sessions, and a spot in the local coffee shop he had more or less declared as his. From an outside perspective, things were totally, completely fine.

Which, in itself, was kind of his problem. Everything was just…okay. Stiles had kind of expected college to be, well, more. More wild parties and hook-ups with interesting people, more student protests and campus rivalries and dramatic self-realizations and yeah, maybe Stiles had seen too many coming-of-age movies but still, wasn’t college meant to be more than a daily routine of classes, coffee, and Call of Duty until he passed out and woke up to do it all again?

Maybe if he had been less preoccupied with the whole leaving-the-pack and honouring-his-mother’s-memory internal struggles, he would have had more time to think about what college would actually be like, outside of a vague notion of John Belushi in Animal House. Maybe, just maybe, he would have realized that after the whole supernatural/Hellmouth/death and destruction and possession continual crises that characterized his high school years, college couldn’t help but seem a little…tame, in comparison.

He had hit up the requisite frat parties and induction events with his floor-mates those first few weeks, but inevitably found himself zoning out after just a few minutes, staring into space as he thought about the lore books he had stacked next to his bed, mentally composed essays for his classes, and pondered if the jungle juice had been magically altered or if it was just really, really bad gin.

It was the classic catch-22: he had spent months dreaming of escaping Beacon Hills for a few years of the out-of-control parties and ill-advised hook-ups he imagined constituted the average American college experience, but after all he had been through, he just couldn’t convincingly stir up interest in drinking cheap beer in houses with sticky floors or painting his face to cheer on home football games. It all just seemed a bit…false; unreal in its blatant normality, and Stiles felt like the biggest phony of them all. Eat your heart out, Holden Caulfield.

Stiles’ hang-ups regarding hook-ups were much the same. It wasn’t that he was unsure about his sexuality - he had firmly come to grips with his bisexuality right around the time he started regularly hanging out with shirtless teen werewolves. It wasn’t lack of confidence or options, either; Stiles knew he had grown into himself over the past few years, and the lingering tan and lean, corded muscles from his summer activities didn’t hurt. He had been approached a number of times since arriving in D.C. and had even gone on a couple dates, but each time Stiles couldn’t help but be struck by the knowledge of just how deep the divide was between their life experience and his own. It also didn’t help that, try as he might, he couldn’t stop comparing potential suitors to a certain impossible standard. Warning kids: prolonged exposure to Derek Hale might be hazardous to your health, and ruin you for literally every other person on Earth.

Scott said he was being melodramatic (the same Scott, Stiles would like to point out, who wrote literal sonnets about how Allison’s hair looked in the moonlight), but even though he felt guilty about it, sometimes, late at night, Stiles almost wished for a supernatural crisis to liven things up a bit. Just a little one – mysterious runes carved in the woods maybe, or a small haunting in the library. God, he’d even settle for just someone to talk to, someone who understood. He had a sneaking suspicion his diminutive Anglo-Saxon Folklore professor was some variety of sprite, but he doubted point-blank asking her to discuss the D.C. ley lines over coffee would go over well.

With all the free time he had not attending parties or participating in wild orgies six nights a week, he was way ahead on his coursework and had practiced the defensive runes Deaton assigned him until he was positive he could do them unconscious, with his hands tied behind his back (less of a descriptive hyperbole than a actual precautionary necessity, considering). After the second week in a row of spending his nights bored and alone in his room, listening to Beirut and falling asleep with his hand pressed against his chest, Stiles decided something needed to be done. Everything around him was just so terribly normal, and yeah, Stiles was man enough to admit that it sucked. He was lonely, and worse - he was bored.

But he’d be damned if he was going to slink home with his tail between his legs (pun fully intended). He was a Stilinki, and he wasn’t about to shame his babcia’s good name by folding like a lawn chair during his first few weeks away from home. What he needed was a project, something to invest in, and an outlet for all that extra energy that, now it was no longer channelled into fighting baddies or keeping Scott out of trouble, was only exacerbating his frustration with the utter monotony of college life.

His answer came on an innocuous white flyer, tucked away behind an army of advertisements for student productions and tutoring gigs on the communal bulletin board in the student center. He had marched down early on his day off, determined to find something that would get him out of his funk. He had been combing through the multi-colored stacks for the better part of the last twenty minutes, discarding the many babysitting and au pair requests (he doubted anyone would take ‘playing pack mom to a bunch of out-of-control teenage werewolves as valid experience) and wrinkling his nose at the recruiting posters for the Hoya sports teams – he’d spent enough years alternately warming the bench and getting pummelled by Jackson to admit that maybe sports just weren’t his thing, thanks.

Just as he was about to give up hope, he found it. Plain black type on white paper, none of the nauseating neon colors or – god forbid – comic sans featured on other posters, half hidden behind a promo for a beach volleyball tournament (in October. On the East Coast. And people say Stiles is weird). There wasn’t much on it, just the words ‘internship available’ bolded at the top, with ‘Archives Center - National Museum of American History’, an address, and the Smithsonian logo underneath, but Stiles was intrigued. Granted, all he knew about the Smithsonian was what he’d seen in Night at the Museum 2 (and God, he really needed to stop relying on pop culture to guide his life choices), but the untameably nosy part of him squealed in glee at the thought of all the interesting things he could get his paws on working in the archives of one of the largest museums in the country. He pulled the flyer down and checked the address on his phone; if he caught the 33 bus on Wisconsin, he could be there in a half hour.

Stiles ran back to his dorm (still noticeably empty of his roommate. Stiles was half convinced he was dealing with a going ghost, Danny Phantom situation here) and dug through his closet for something interview worthy. He eventually settled on a pair of dark jeans and a white button up that only had one ketchup stain on the sleeve - barely noticable, if he rolled them up. He printed out a copy of his resume, ran a hand through his hair, and was back out the door in less than 20 minutes.

Stiles had been to the Smithsonian campus once before – his whole floor had gone as part of the RA’s self-proclaimed ‘bonding’ week, before the poor upperclassman had realized just how little the freshmen truly gave a shit and gave up the ghost. The visit had been on the shorter and more harried side; desperate to keep their attention, his RA had taken a Buzzfeed ‘Top 10’ approach and single-mindedly ferried them to and from the major attractions in the Natural History and Air and Space museums. Stiles had been meaning to return for a more thorough visit, but always seemed to get distracted by something (namely, World of Warcraft and the collected works of Bo Burnham).

Now though, he seriously regretted not returning earlier. Surrounded by sprawling buildings advertising for exhibitions like Apollo to the Moon and the Last American Dinosaurs and caught in the bustling crowds of people – tour groups in matching t-shirts, laughing children evading their anxious parents, art students sprawled out sketching architectural lines and marble sculptures – Stiles felt better than he had in weeks. All the people, all the excitement, all the action and history and emotion set his veins alight as he walked down the National Mall.

The Museum of American History was a long, stone building under the shadow of the Washington Monument and, as Stiles stood outside taking in the square lines and imposing structure, he couldn’t help but think it looked more like a Vogon battleship than a celebrated museum of history and culture.

Undaunted (though slightly distracted by thoughts of the third worst poetry in the world), he climbed the steps and entered the main hall, making a bee-line for an information desk manned by a woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a look of absolute, all-encompassing boredom while deftly spinning a pen between her fingers. Stiles thought he might be in love.

The woman heaved a sigh when she spotted Stiles striding up to her desk, cutting him off immediately. “What’s your teacher’s name? I can call them over the PA system.”

Stiles blinked at her. “Uh…what?”

“Your teacher’s name? Or your high school will work. I can’t get you back with your group if I don’t have a name to page.”

Stiles frowned at her. “Do I really look like a high school student to you?”

The woman paused, looking him up and down before raising an eyebrow. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

If Stiles had to classify it, he’d put her tone somewhere between ‘Sahara Desert’ and ‘fiery pits of Hell’ dry. Yeah, he was definitely in love.

Stiles flushed and rubbed a hand over his already messy hair, wisely deciding to move on. “Uh, my name’s Stiles Stilinski, and I’m actually here about an internship opportunity I saw.” He said, thrusting the flyer at her.

Her eyes widened as she read it. “They’ve actually resorted to flyers? Man, they must really be desperate.”

“Not much interest in dusty old archives, huh?” Stiles joked.

She laughed outright at that. “No, no, there’s plenty of interest. People just don’t tend to…last very long in Archives.”

“Like they only offer short-term internships?”

She shot him an indecipherable look.

“Sure, let’s go with that. Alright, kid –“

Stiles made a noise of protest, but quieted at her glare. He’d seen worse (and her eyebrows were far from the most judge-y he’d encountered), but figured it was best not to antagonize the staff before he’d barely set foot in the place.

“You’re going to head towards the East Wing and look for the bust of Martin Van Buren. Hard to miss – a lot of beard.”

Stiles nodded; he was well-acquainted with that most spectacular set of mutton chops.

“There’ll be a wooden door next to it – just press the intercom button and say your name. I’ll give Boris a heads up you’re coming.” She instructed, handing back the flyer.

“Boris?” Stiles questioned.

“Boris is…I’m not exactly sure what Boris does outside of hanging out in the Archives entrance, but he’s good people. The Archives staff sees a lot of turnover, but I’m fairly sure Boris has been here since the groundbreaking. There’s a pretty lucrative pool on if he’ll ever retire.” She shot him a smirk. “If you make it, come see me – I’ll deal you in.”

Stiles frowned. “Wait, what do you mean ‘if I make it’?”

The girl winked and spun in her chair, effectively ending the conversation.

“Hey, c’mon. That’s – that’s just overly dramatic. I can still see you, you know!” Stiles called, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

Without turning, the girl extended her pen in the direction of the East Wing. Stiles huffed and dropped his hands, muttering to himself as he obediently marched off in the direction she had indicated.

Halfway down the hall Stiles spotted the bust of Van Buren (as hirsute as promised) and paused in front of the door it bordered. It was made of fairly worn wood – an anomaly in the stone-bathed hall – but otherwise appeared normal. He pushed the call button on the intercom next to the door and bent down to say his name. The door buzzed open immediately and Stiles walked through to a small, red room with half-panelled walls. One corner was taken up by an iron staircase that spiralled in both directions, and in the middle sat a man with a shock of white hair and wire-rimmed glasses reading a magazine behind a desk. As Stiles approached, the man closed the magazine and laid it on his desk, allowing him to see it was the latest Halloween-themed edition of Country Living. Noticing his gaze, the man smiled and tapped the magazine with his finger.

“I like the antiques section – especially now that I’m old enough to be classified as one myself. I presume you’re Mr. Stilinski?” The man had disarmingly clear blue eyes, and Stiles couldn’t help fidgeting where he stood.

“Stiles is fine. Uh, are you Boris?”

The man nodded. “That I am. It’s wonderful you’ve come, Dr. Saint Cyprian was just speaking about wanting another intern. The last one regrettably left us a few weeks ago after an unfortunate…incident. We’ve had some difficulty finding a suitable replacement.”

Stiles let out a nervous laugh. “Well, I like to think I’m both suitable and good at replacing. A+ replacing, right here.” He mimed finger guns at the man and internally face-palmed. Real smooth, Stilinski. Much professional.

To his surprise, Boris beamed at him. “Oh, I do believe Dr. Saint Cyprian is going to like you. Just head down those stairs there, she should be in her office.”

Stiles thanked him and headed towards the staircase, eager to escape that slightly too-penetrating gaze.

He paused at the edge of the stair, leaning carefully over the railing to judge the distance between him and the ground. He wasn’t worried per se, but those steps were awfully narrow and he had somewhat of a…reputation when it came to grace. He’d be damned if he managed to survive a half-decade of California Hellmouth only to bite it on a staircase, though, so he hiked his bag up on his shoulder, shot a wave to Boris, and set off into the depths.

After what felt like ages of spiralling almost-doom, but was probably a solid thirty seconds, the staircase ended at another wooden door with ‘Archives’ printed in gold. He didn’t see an intercom, so he rapped twice and waited.

“It’s unlocked!” A muffled voice called from the other side.

Stiles took a second to run a hand over his hair and straighten his shirt before pulling open the door. His eyebrows immediately shot up as he took in the innumerable stacked shelves marching off into the distance, and, standing in front of them, what looked like a gray-haired woman wrestling a lurid purple feather boa into a box on the floor.

She spared him a look as she slammed the top down on the container. “Come on in, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Stiles let go of the handle and moved to step through the door frame. As he did, a shock ran through his body and he let out a yelp, stumbling the rest of the way into the room. He shot the door a suspicious glare, shaking out his arms to regain feeling.

He turned back to the woman, still hunched over the box but now completely focused on the young man, pinning him with a searching look.

Stiles stuttered out a laugh. “Heh, gotta watch out for that static electricity, huh?”

The woman continued to stare. “What are you?”

“Uh, I’m Stiles. I came about the internship ad?”

She frowned at him. “Not who are you – what are you?”

Stiles cleared his throat. “Uh, a college student? At Georgetown. I’m studying anthropology and folklore and I heard about an internship opportunity…”

The woman abruptly stood up, crossing her arms and glaring mulishly at Stiles. “Did Mona send you? I told her she’s not getting that tablecloth and she can send whatever snub-nosed little pixie she wants – I’m not handing it over.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped in outrage. “Snub-nosed, who you calling snub-nosed I- what are you even talking about? I don’t know anyone named Mona. And I don’t have the slightest interest in tablecloths or any other dining accoutrement, for that matter! I’m just here about the internship.” He waved the flyer around to emphasize his point.

The woman raised an eyebrow, but her frown lightened a fraction. “Well, you’ve got to be something. That door doesn’t react to just anyone.”

Stiles switched his tactic, sniffing imperiously. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

The woman snorted. “I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you. I warded that door myself. It wouldn’t have let you in if you meant any real harm, but you wouldn’t have reacted at all if you were just a human. So what are you? I’m still guessing pixie.”

Stiles eyeballed her suspiciously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, I was slightly more extra than ordinary – why pixie?”

“Button nose and boyband hair, ” she said without missing a beat.

Stiles scoffed. “Alright, ONE, I do not have boyband hair. Two, what is wrong with my nose?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. It’s just, you know, very…” She uncrossed one arm, gesturing in the general direction of his face. “Very.”

“Very very?”

“Verily, very very,” she nodded, resolute.

“So, if you’re not a pixie, what are you? I’m happy to talk about the internship, if that’s what you’re really here for, but I’ve got to know. Some of the artifacts can be…touchy, around the wrong energies.”

Stiles sucked on his bottom lip, deliberating. She looked relatively harmless, with long steel grey hair and enough wrinkles to put her somewhere around her early 60’s, though in Stiles’ experience that didn’t mean much - Gerard was pushing 70 when he met him. He could see what looked like tattooed runes on her knuckles and hands, disappearing into her sleeves. Appearance aside, she hadn’t smote him on sight, which was generally a positive sign, and she worked in a literal government institute dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. Above all, nothing in his instincts, human or otherwise, gave him a bad feeling about her, and he had long since learned to listen to his gut.

Decision made, he stuck out his hand. “Stiles Stilinski, Spark-in-training and member of the McCall Pack in Beacon Hills, California.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “I thought Beacon Hills was Hale land.”

Stiles flushed. “It uh, was. Still is, technically, though we haven’t heard from any of them in a while. My buddy Scott was bit by a Hale and he has been…caretaking, if you will.”

She hummed, considering this, before extending her arm to accept Stiles’ handshake.

“Spark, huh? I can work with that. My name is Dr. Olesya Saint Cyprian, but you can call me Rian. I’m the head archivist here.”

“That’s…quite a name.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Glass houses, Mr. Stilinski.”

“…point.”

Introductions made, the woman – Rian – gestured for Stiles to follow her into her office and take a seat across from a desk spilling over with books, papers, and what Stiles was fairly certain was a human skull.

“Polish, I presume?” Rian inquired, settling into her chair.

“Got it in one. What’s St. Cyprian?”

“An inside joke – my grandparents selected it when they emigrated from Russia.”

“Oh?”

“St. Cyprian is the patron saint of occultists.”

Stiles barked out a laugh.

“A sense of humour runs in my family, among other things.”

“Things like magic?”

Her smile reminded Stiles of Deaton’s more enigmatic moments.

“Something like that. Perhaps I will tell you later. Now though, we have other things to discuss.” She folded her hands on the desk and leaned towards him. “So you’re truly just here for the internship? No nefarious plans to pillage my artifacts? I can promise you wouldn’t like the consequences, if you tried.”

“Nope,” Stiles said, popping the ‘p’. “Just plain old college credit desired. But if it’s on the table…I’ve finished the books my emissary gave me when I left home and have somewhat been at loose ends. I could use a project.”

He dug his resume out of his bag and handed it to her. “This covers my academic and work history, but in terms of supernatural experience I’ve spent the summer studying basic runes and spells with a local emissary, and have spent the better part of the last few years dealing with everything from kanimas to chimeras.”

He smiled crookedly. “I thought I’d finally enjoy a break with college, but turns out retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not saying I’m particularly interested in marauding Alpha packs turning up on campus anytime soon, but maybe being around people who understand, getting back into it, just a little, might be…good. For me.”

Rian skimmed his resume then looked at him, considering. She put the paper down and leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to level with you. It’s a bitch trying to keep a non-supernatural initiated intern around - if you’re not in the know, some of the items can be a bit…unsettling. Hell, I’ve been working here for 40 years and sometimes they still give me the willies. Our last intern only lasted two weeks, and I’m sick of training newbies only for them to disappear before they can be of any actual use. Coincidentally, I’ve been needing someone to touch up some of the wards. Old body – can’t do so much of the physical work anymore.”

Stiles raised a skeptical eyebrow. From what he’d seen when he walked in, she had more strength than she owned to.

“If you’d agree to take over the wards, along with the standard archive work – returning borrowed items, cataloguing new arrivals, and researching the unknowns – I’d be happy to give you instruction on some of the more…unique objects in the Archives. Officially, we store any items pertaining to the culture and history of America, but unofficially, we have the largest collection of objects and documents relating to the supernatural world this side of the Atlantic – everything from Appalachian yeti clippings to the Salem grimoires.”

Stiles let out a meep at that, eyes going wide.

“We pay minimum wage, and I’d ideally like you here three days a week. You’d get an hour lunch and no benefits, I’m afraid, but I’m happy to sign whatever college credit forms you want and your employee pass will get you special access to all the Smithsonian museums and research centers, if that’s something you’re interested in.”

Stiles perked up. “Even the zoo?”

“Full zoo privileges included.”

His resulting fist pump triggered a look on Rian’s face that was remarkably long-suffering, considering the short duration of their acquaintance.

“So, what do you say – still want to work here? It’s not the easiest job in the world, but I can promise you it won’t be boring.”

Stiles grinned - this was exactly the kind of thing he’d been looking for.

“Sign me up, Doc. I’m in.”

After filling in all the necessary forms and promising to return the following week to begin, Stiles paused at the door to the stairs. “Before I go, can I ask two questions?”

“Within reason,” Rian said, rolling her eyes in an exasperated look that was rapidly becoming familiar. Stiles guessed it might be her default state. Or just her default Stiles state. Either or.

“What table cloth is so important that your first thought would be that I was here to steal it? Can it fly like the rug from Aladdin? If so – dibs on riding it!”

Rian snorted. “Nice try. No levitation abilities, I’m afraid, but something even better – it never gets dirty, changes color to suit the dinnerware, and magically ensures that dinner conversation never includes politics, religion, or invasive personal questions.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “You’ve really got people chomping at the bit for that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Clearly you’ve never been to a dinner party before.”

Stiles wisely moved on.

“Alright, second question: is there a sentient feather boa in that box?” He gestured to the item in question, still lying on the floor where she left it and occasionally shuddering with violent movement.

“Sentient, no; enchanted, yes. It’s from the personal collection of an early 20th century siren who, as I understand it, was particularly popular on the vaudeville circuit. It’s meant to entice the beholder into coming close enough to kiss – or strangle, as sirens have occasionally been known to do. One of your duties will be to catalogue new items like this and store them in the stacks.” She pointed to the labyrinthine shelves behind her.

She laughed at Stiles’ panicked look. “Don’t worry – it’s not dangerous, usually.”

Stiles pulled a face, silently mouthing ‘usually’.

“ I’ll give you a full run down on Monday. In the meantime,” she said digging through the mess on her desk and unearthing a small red leather book, “This contains all the protection runes currently in the archive – water, fire, mold, basic defensive wards, etc etc. Take a look at them over the weekend and we can talk on Monday if you have any questions or are interested in putting your own spin on them. It’s been years since I’ve thought about updating them – perhaps they could benefit from a little modernization.”

She handed Stiles the volume and bid him goodbye. He ascended the staircase and left the museum in something of a daze, mind spinning with the unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome, change in circumstance. His phone buzzed, pulling him out of his stupor. He glanced at the name on the screen and grinned, overflowing with glee. There was an honest-to-god supernatural archive under the Smithsonian and he had a job there – Scott was going to flip his SHIT.

In a couple weeks’ time, Stiles had settled into a comfortable pattern. Officially, he worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 to 6, leaving in time to make his evening classes. Unofficially, he’d started coming in every free afternoon, staying late into the night researching the more fantastic objects.

It’d taken him a while to decipher Dr. Saint Cyprian’s (“For God’s sake, call me Rian.”) system, but he felt pretty comfortable with it now. Rows were numbered, shelves were lettered (Latin for normal items, Cyrillic for magical), with like items placed together and sorted by year. The hardest part was figuring out what was safe to touch, and which items would react…unfavorably to his Spark. Nothing too terrible ever happened, but after he brushed up against an enchanted punch bowl and spent the next several hours uncontrollably sneezing, Rian taught him how to work runes that would hide his Spark into a pair of archival-standard gloves.

“There, you’re hypoallergenic now,” she said, patting him on the head before walking away. Stiles sneezed in her general direction.

Like he had in the cabin, Stiles found a comfort in the routine of work. He would start his shifts sorting through the returns, deftly weaving through the maze of stacks to restore every item to its rightful places. The museum used a series of glorified dumbwaiters to transport artifacts to and from visiting academics and historians, while members of the supernatural community had to request a personal visit to examine items. The mess on Rian’s desk was largely composed of such letters, from covens interested in recovering ancestral spells to vampires tracking down old possessions and everything in-between. These visits were always of particular interest to Stiles, eager to interact with magic users and supernatural creatures refreshingly free of any agenda to kill or maim him. In the short time he’d worked there, he’d already met a shapeshifter who worked in b-horror films, a group of dryads studying at Towson he’d made coffee plans with, and a banshee who’d given Stiles her contact information to pass to Lydia. Best of all, though, was finding out that his Folklore professor was not only magic (an actual muse - Stiles felt bad for guessing sprite), but apparently dating his boss. Stiles isn’t sure who was more shocked the first time she came to pick up Rian for lunch and saw Stiles standing there, arms half buried in a magically expanding handbag. His boss had burst out laughing at the twin looks of disbelief on their faces.

“Honestly, how could you not tell the second he walked in to your classroom? The kid leaks power. You’re losing your touch, babe,” she had teased, linking their arms together before whisking her up the stairs.

After all the return items had been set to rights and the day’s requests pulled from the stacks, Stiles started in on the new arrivals. The archives were constantly expanding, new additions appearing daily from estates willed to the museum and items recovered from Smithsonian-funded fieldwork. Before adding them to the stacks, he photographed each piece and created meticulous notes, plugging the information into the newly digitized system he talked Rian into letting him implement (the former archive ‘system’ had been a paper card catalogue. Stiles questioned how they ever endured without him).

But the thing he loved best was when he finished all his other work and he was free to dive in to what he had started thinking of as his pet project – the Land of Misfit Toys. The LMT (“I’m not calling it that, Stiles, and no, you can’t make a sign for it.”) was a massive storage room to the west of the stacks stuffed with unmarked boxes, artifacts long missing documentation, pallets filled with objects originally meant for unknown destinations, and rows of bookshelves bursting with dusty tomes (some of which were bound in…dubious materials. Stiles became more grateful for those gloves with every passing day.). Stiles thought the overall effect was something akin to Gort’s house in the cinematic classic Halloweentown 2, and was obsessed from the moment he saw it.

While he got to handle some interesting items re-shelving and cataloguing – highlights included a stack of racy love letters from a New York senator to his mistress(es) and an honest-to-god sentient chunk of Route 66 – the LMT (“It’s catchy, Rian! And you can pry this label maker from my cold, dead hands IT NEEDS TO BE RECOGNIZED.”) felt exciting, untouched. Stiles had shelved his childhood dreams of being a professional discoverer in the third grade after the sad realization that most things had, unfortunately, been discovered, but looking out at the sea of lost and forgotten objects, he felt the part of him that longed to explore new worlds and unravel the secrets of the universe, the same part that happily spent hours reading about unsolved mysteries and UFO sightings on Wikipedia, buzz with happiness.

It was the best kind of meditation, slipping in his headphones and moving methodically through each box. He’d carefully lift each piece, examining it from all angles, running his fingers over the edges and prying at locks, before tagging and photographing it, taking detailed notes on his laptop so later he could combine the Smithsonian libraries with the power of Google-Fu to recover its history. Stiles spent hours in the LMT, feeling like the love child of Indiana Jones and Sherlock Holmes he always dreamed he would be and feeling a rush of emotion whenever he stumbled upon the identity of a once-forgotten thing. He knew a bit about that – being lost, being forgotten. Maybe that’s why it meant so much to him, why he was so determined to identify every one and give them a place in the stacks, far away from the abandoned room full of forgotten things.

More than once, he’d been jolted out of his Adderall fueled research fugue when Rian turned the lights off on him, closing up for the night. He’d have to scramble to get home and finish his actual coursework, unwilling to let his grades slip even as he spent more and more time at the archives, but Stiles was the happiest he had been since he moved to D.C., and he couldn’t bring himself to regret a second of it.

A big part of this happiness was a result of Stiles’ attempts at befriending the other employees. His first day of work, he came armed with a box of cupcakes (bought, not made – through trial and very messy error, Stiles concluded that dorm hot plates did not lend themselves to confectionary creation). His first target was Jules, formerly known as Information Desk Girl. From years bugging his dad down at the station, Stiles knew the front desk person was always the one to befriend. Officer Shelley was the first to know every piece of gossip in Beacon Hills and had dirt on all the officers, including the sheriff, and Stiles suspected Jules was no different. In exchange for the pastry and the promise for more in the future, she had started giving him hints on which security guards were cool and which to avoid (Benny and Barry, respectively), which routes to take to avoid the tourists (“Stay away from the Star-Spangled Banner at all costs.”), and what foods in the staff canteen were actually edible (none of them).

Over a series of lunches, with mutually agreed alternating dessert duties, Stiles found out she was working to fund an MA in American history and that her parents were academics (“Seriously, what kind of people name their newborn daughter Jules Verne? The answer is mine, my parents did that. I am not proud of this.” Stiles had nodded solemnly. “Solidarity, my friend.”).

He was fairly sure she was human; since that first day she hadn’t done more than joke about the weirdness of the archives like it was accepted fact, and never brought up anything more magical than whatever new docent she had her eye on (Jules was more than happy to appreciate attractive people of all genders – loudly, and at length). She liked pop culture and snarked like she breathed, and sometimes she reminded Stiles so much of Erica he felt a phantom pain in his chest. Though they were never officially pack, Erica had such an impact on his life (and his skull, if he was counting that one time with his carburettor) that he knew, on some level, they had been tied together, even if he wasn’t aware of it at the time. Painful memories aside, Jules was funny, Lydia-levels of intelligent, able to match Stiles barb for barb, and probably the first real friend he had made in D.C.

It was on Jules’ recommendation that he found himself wandering the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn art museum during his lunch break one day. Stiles doubted he was sophisticated enough to appreciate modern art – he still giggled at anything remotely phallic, Snapchatting the best pieces to Scott with appropriately suggestive stick figures– but when he had gone to meet Jules for their usual Friday pizza and shit-talk, she had waved him off, muttering something about a renegade tour group on the loose in the Power Machinery hall. Stiles shrugged and started to walk away, already mentally planning where he could find a quiet area to eat and maybe grab a nap, but she called him back to suggest he check out the Hirshhorn.

“It’s a big-ass donut looking building, really, you can’t miss it.” She had the glint in her eye Stiles had already learned to be wary of as she leaned forward. “It’s one of the main modern galleries– most of it crap, but there’s one serious work of art you might be able to catch, if you leave now.”

“Even more beautiful than you?” Stiles said, batting his eyes at her.

Jules snorted loudly, startling a passing elderly couple.

“Oh honey, I don’t even come close. Just get yourself to the sculpture garden – we can compare notes later.” She winked at him and smacked his ass, making Stiles yelp as she walked away cackling.

Stiles rubbed his backside – Jules had some serious untapped strength – and headed out towards the Mall. He’d admit it - he was intrigued. He’d found that Jules’ interests more or less aligned with his own, so if she was so adamant he’d like it, to the Hirshhorn he’d go. Plus, it wasn’t like he actually had anything better to do now that his lunch buddy had been detained for the afternoon.

He stopped at the hot dog cart parked outside of the museum and couldn’t stifle a grin when Saul, the owner, asked him if he wanted his usual. He was the kind of cool, adult type person who had a usual. Granted, his usual was two chilli cheese dogs and a Redbull, but he’d take what he could get.

Snacks in hand, Stiles made his way to the garden. He’d noticed the Hirshhorn before – kind of hard to ignore what was essentially a concrete toilet roll in the middle of the National Mall – but had never actually visited. The day was on the cooler side, D.C. a far cry from the paradisal clime of California, but the sun was shining and Stiles had invested in a good wool peacoat with a collar he could turn up against the wind (Lydia had told him he looked like a crap Hemingway. Stiles told her she could fuck off.).

Entering the gardens, he stopped in front of a particularly arresting statue of what appeared to be a car crushed by a gigantic rock painted with a smiley face. He tilted his head and contemplated it for a few moments, then shoved half a hot dog in his mouth and moved on. He wandered around the sculptures as he finished his food, stopping to make a face at a kid who was sticking his tongue out at him from behind his mother’s legs. There were quite a few people milling around the garden, which wasn’t unusual in-and-of-itself, but given that it was the middle of the workday in November, long past the end of tourist season, and the crowd almost entirely composed of mothers and women dressed a touch better than the average museum patron, Stiles’ curiosity was sufficiently piqued.

He paused next to the mother of the kid from before, who was fruitlessly trying to corral the young boy in front of a statue Stiles immediately dubbed ‘Junkyard Tetris’.

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if there was a special event going on? A friend suggested I come down here at this time, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for,” he asked, politely ignoring the struggle in front of him.

The woman grabbed the back of her son’s shirt, holding him in place as he wiggled to get away, arms outstretched and eyes manic. Stiles got a sudden flashback of the sheriff trying to do the same every time he ventured to take Stiles to a museum, and shuddered at the reminder of the short lived period dubbed the Child Leash of Which We Do Not Speak.

Her son temporarily restrained, the woman looked up and shot Stiles a weak smile, panting lightly from exertion. “I don’t know if it counts as a special event, but there’s a pretty popular tour of the major garden highlights about to begin.”

She leaned towards him with a conspiratorial look, maintaining her grip on her son.“I’m not much for sculpture, but the tour guide…well, he really makes you appreciate the art, if you know what I mean.”

At that, her son shook loose, shouting “Mom likes his butt!” before running and hiding behind Stiles, utilizing him as a human shield against his now beet-red mother.

“Michael Joseph, you get back here right now!” she demanded.

Stiles laughed as he turned and picked the kid up under his armpits, handing him back to his mother. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said, smiling at the woman.

She flushed further and accepted her son back gratefully. “Sorry about that. If you’re still interested, the tour starts in about 10 minutes in front of the Rodin sculptures. There’s usually a crowd – you can’t miss it.”

She smiled back at him before gently pushing Michael towards a picnic table nestled between statues. “Enjoy!”

Stiles thanked her and walked away, spying an empty bench in the sun. From what the woman said and her son pretty much confirmed, the tour guide was probably what Jules had been alluding to. As he settled into the bench and turned his face to the sun, he thought idly that perhaps if the guide really was that attractive, he’d consider getting his number for Jules, or maybe even himself. After all, he had to start getting over Derek sometime, and what better time than the present. With that decided, Stiles reasoned he had a few minutes to relax before the tour began, and let his eyes slip close against the bright sunshine.

Twenty minutes later, he awoke with a start to something cold and wet wiggling in his ear. He flailed off the bench, landing on the ground with a thump. He looked up to see Michael, the kid from before, holding his stomach and giggling on the bench.

“I got you!” He cried. “Wet willy! Wet willy!”

Stiles grimaced and stuck a finger in his ear, trying to clean it out. He hated wet willies, and he and Scott had put a mutual ban on them years ago. Still, he had to admit the kid had chutzpah, and he nodded to acknowledge the successful willy as he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

“Alright kid, you got me. Now, where’s your mom? She’s probably freaking out right now.”

The kid sat upright on the bench and rolled his eyes. “Nah, she’s too busy staring at the tour man. She probably hasn’t even noticed.”

Stiles snorted and held out a hand. “I seriously doubt anyone’s that pretty. Come on, let’s go find her, and you can show me this fantastic tour man.”

Michael hopped down from the bench and slotted his fingers between Stiles’. “Hurry up slow poke,” he said, jerking Stiles forward. “Old people take forever to get anywhere.”

Stiles scoffed, outraged. But before he could respond, he felt an odd sensation bloom in his chest. He raised his free hand to rub against it, frowning. He hadn’t worried about his bonds in a long time – they had remained just as steady and warm in his chest as they had in Beacon Hills, only changing to glow particularly brightly when something good happened, covertly confirmed through his weekly Skype calls with the pack. But this felt different, almost…fluttering. Anticipatory. Like sparks rising from his stomach and pooling beneath his breastbone, resolving into a current that flooded down to his feet and the tips of his fingers.

Stiles frowned and let his hand drop. It was probably just heartburn; he did wolf down (heh) a truly impressive amount of carbs and caffeine. Maybe Michael’s got it right; he’s old now, his body no longer the chilli-dog destroying machine it once was.

He let the thought go as they rounded a corner and spotted a large group of women and a few men circling a melting iron tree with rapt faces. He couldn’t quite see who giving the tour, but he quickly found Michael’s mother looking around frantically near the back. He walked back over to her and smiled at her sigh of relief when she saw her son with him.

“Hey, found this guy wandering around back there.” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. A member of the crowd shot him a dirty look and he lowered his voice with a sheepish grin. “Figured you’d want him back.”

His mother shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you – again. Michael’s a bit of a handful, but he’s a really great kid, I swear.”

“Really, it’s no problem. I was pretty much the same when I was his age. I think my dad would call it payback,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. He crouched down in front of the kid in question.

“Hey little dude, I know this place is awesome and there’s a ton of cool stuff to explore, but try and take your mom with you next time you want to motor, alright? She’ll be excited too, I promise, and I bet if you ask really nicely, she’ll take you to see the woolly mammoths in the Natural History Museum. Deal?”

Michael nodded, and grinned a gap-toothed smile as he reached out to bump Stiles’ outstretched fist with his own.

Stiles stood back up and smiled at the boy’s mother. “Are you going to stick around for the rest of the tour?”

The woman smiled back at him but shook her head. “No, I think it’s best I get this munchkin moving. You should stay though – you haven’t missed much, and it really is pretty interesting. Have a good day, and thank you again.”

Stiles waved goodbye, and turned back to see the crowd had started to move to the next attraction. He didn’t have a clear view through all the bodies, but caught a flash of dark hair leading the group he guessed might belong to the infamous tour guide. He slipped into the back as they crowded around a tall plinth supporting a male figure carved in bronze, striding forward with clenched abs and powerful thighs, but curiously unfinished, missing a head and both arms. Stiles let his eyes drag across the statue as he focused in on the lilting voice carrying over the crowd.

“The Walking Man is an impressionist portrayal of Saint John the Baptist created between 1877 and ’78 by Auguste Rodin, the French artist most famous for The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Burghers of Calais, which you can also see in this garden. The work has been called “profoundly unclassical,” a rough sketch less concerned with the aesthetic beauty of his body than emphasizing the strength and forward movement of the figure, powerfully striding into the unknown.”

A small furrow appears between Stiles’ brows. The voice is relatively high for a man, but not weak; clear and engaging and intelligent, confident in his words. It tickles something in the back of Stiles’ head, a memory he can almost grasp, but slips out of his hands. You need me to survive.

“Saint John the Baptist is introduced in the Gospel of Mark as ‘a voice crying out in the wilderness’ and is sometimes seen as a precursor to the Prodigal Son. The headless state alludes to his martyrdom, orchestrated by the daughter of King Herod who requested his head brought to her on a platter.”

The sensation in Stiles’ chest flares up again, and he rubs the heel of his hand against it as he pushes himself up on his toes, straining to match a face to the voice that won’t stop itching at his memory. He can’t see anything – too many people, too many bodies, like the space is closing in around him.

He looks at his watch and sees he still has 20 minutes left. Enough time to stay and see this through, if he wants. And he wants; there’s something niggling at him, begging to be resolved, and he has never been one to let things alone – has never been able to stop poking his bruises, even when it hurt.

“The statue famously inspired a poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg in 1916, but I’m particularly fond of another, slightly more obscure poem, penned by Peter Cooley in 2014.”

His mind made up, Stiles begins pushing his way forward, elbowing his way through the crowded bodies, the coltish limbs that had been the bane of his high school existence allowing him to alternately slip and shove his way through the ranks while the voice begins to recite.

“But when the body stands here, one foot back,

one forward, the flesh flexed in motion,

there is no movement that is not your own.”

Stiles advances ever closer to the front, chased by a series of dirty looks and muffled “oofs.” He can see more clearly now; can glimpse strong, veined hands carving shapes into the air, illustrating the words.

“You forget your equivocating past

only to recall it the next second.”

Stiles traces up the hands to tanned forearms covered in a dusting of dark hair and broad shoulders filling out a sweater the color of forest moss. His gaze travels higher as his feet carry him to the front and the spot in his chest burns brightly, driving him onward.

“It is essential that he is headless.

Admit it: you’d be staring at his face.”

And suddenly he’s there, he’s made it, and he can hear his voice and see his face, more beautiful than any sculpture he’d ever seen, eyes so clear it feels like gazing into the sky.

“This is our walk between eternities,

The one we think we know, the one we can’t.”

Stiles blinks, and he’s 16 again, all jittery limbs and so much innocence stunned silent by a thousand yard glare and a jawline like a chorus of angels.

He blinks again, and he sees the wide smile, dimpling into something not quite a beard, thicker and more lush than the stubble he remembers.

Stiles blinks, and his gaze lingers on the hint of crow’s feet, the hair curling gently under his ears instead of short and gelled, as tightly controlled as the rest of him.

Stiles blinks, and he sees the moment of recognition when his nostrils flare and his voice falters, when his eyes search frantically through the crowd before they land on Stiles’ face, and then he doesn’t blink, because for the first time in years, he’s looking directly at Derek and Derek is looking back.

The ball of warmth in his chest bursts and floods into his body, shooting electricity through his veins and igniting every cell until he thinks he can hear them singing as the heat rages and maybe that’s crazy to think but he can’t think, not when he’s standing right there, Derek is standing right there and he is alive and healthy and existing where Stiles is existing and he feels like he’s on fire but God, he’s never been so happy to burn.

Derek clears his throat, breaking eye contact and resuming his speech even as his cheeks flush and he stumbles over his words. Stiles is still staring, not comprehending, too caught up in cataloguing the ways he is so different, yet so much the same. He spends the most time on his hands, counting methodically over and over to prove that he’s not dreaming, this isn’t a dream, this is Derek, a thousand miles from home and shining more brightly than he’s ever seen him.

Stiles tunes back in to hear him dismiss the tour, apologizing for the short run time and promising to return to regular scheduling the following day. Then people are leaving, and Stiles barely notices, doesn’t stop looking as Derek doesn’t stop looking at him until everyone has wandered away and it’s just him and Stiles and Saint John the Baptist, each equally unsure of what to say.

As always, Stiles is the one to break the silence.

“Going to tell me this is private property?” He asks, shooting Derek a nervous smile.

He smiles back, strong and steady. “I think we’re long past that, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out, a little stunned by the breadth of his smile, all that pretty directed his way.

It’s quiet again, for a moment.

“Can I hug you?” Stiles blurts out, unsure of his welcome but desperate to ask. “It’s just…it’s been a long time.”

Derek ducks his head, the tips of his ears turning faintly pink. “Yeah, it has. I’m okay with – if you want.” He lifts his arms a fraction, palms turned out, and Stiles accepts the invitation for what it is, stepping into his warmth and wrapping his arms solidly around him.

Derek’s arms come up, gripping him tightly, tethering him, and Stiles feels that spot in his chest burn so brightly his breath stutters with it. Derek keeps him in the circle of his arms but leans back so his eyes can search over Stiles’ face. “Are you alright? I heard your heart-”

Stiles flushes, and ducks back in. “I’m fine,” he answers, voice muffled from where it’s buried in Derek’s shoulder. “Just, um, warm. I’m very warm. You’re very warm. Werewolf thing. Bet you don’t even need a coat, right? Just go a bit furry and you’re set.”

Derek lets out an amused huff over his shoulder, but doesn’t call him out on the blatant lie. He lets go and steps back, though he remains closer than any normal human might stand in the situation. Werewolves have always had smaller personal bubbles, Stiles noticed. He doubted that had changed for Derek in the few years he’s been gone, and suppresses a pang in his chest thinking about when the last time he’d had a hug was; if he was all alone in the city, too.

Heedless of Stiles’ internal meltdown, Derek begins to speak. “It’s reassuring to know you haven’t lost your particular talent for babble.”

“I’d prefer to think of it as a prolonged opportunity for charm and wit, thanks.”

“It’s an opportunity for something, alright.”

“Hey,” Stiles squawks, mildly affronted.

“I never said something bad.” Derek shoots him a small smile, just as devastating as the grin he bore a few minutes ago.

“What are you doing here?” He asks hesitantly. “Were you…were you looking for me?”

Stiles flushes again. “No, no, I didn’t – I didn’t know you were here. I’ve been interning at the Museum of American History, in the archives. Just a couple days a week – I’m a student at Georgetown now.”

“Yeah?” Derek smiles. “That’s good to hear. Georgetown’s a good school. Your dad must be proud.”

Stiles snorts. “Understatement of the year. I’m pretty sure he’s bought every piece of merchandise they make – we ate off of Hoya branded plates for a week before I put my foot down and rescued the normal ones from the back of the cupboard.”

Derek laughs softly, and Stiles is entranced by the sound. He tries to think of the last time he heard Derek laugh; he’s not sure he ever has. He’s so distracted by the thought, he misses what Derek says next.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I asked how things were at home. If Scott and everyone…if things were okay.” He looks unsure, and a little guilty. Like he might still feel bad for leaving, even though Stiles knows no one blames him. He needed to, probably should have a long before. They understood that.

“They’re good. They’re safe. Scott is doing his generals at the community college and still planning on going to vet school. Most of his pack is still at Beacon High, so he wanted to stay close.”

“His pack?” Derek questions softly.

“My pack, too.” Stiles hesitates before continuing. “It all just feels so far away sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes gentle and free of judgement.

Stiles continues. “Lydia’s at MIT, no surprise, but she mentioned that Jackson’s staying in London and studying at Imperial, which was a bit of a shocker. Never knew he had it in him. Kira’s taking a gap year and, last we heard, Isaac was still somewhere in France with Chris, probably in his element surrounded by all the other pretentious scarf-wearers.”

Derek lets out a quiet laugh, then reaches out to brush Stiles’ arm, nodding towards the path. They walk slowly through the garden, side by side, the sky still clear blue overhead.

Derek looks over at Stiles a little hesitantly. “And Lydia, are you guys…Did you ever? I know you always -“

Stiles can feel the blush creeping up his cheeks. “No. I mean – no. We talked about it and tried, briefly, just because we’d always wonder what it’d be like if we haven’t, but we both knew we make far better friends than we ever would lovers. All those years I thought I was in love with her, I had been obsessed with this impossible, untouchable thing that I had created in my head; an idolized image of everything I thought she’d be and who I thought I’d be if I was with her. I know what she is now - strong, loyal, tenacious, brilliant, and fallible. Human.” He smiles. “She’ s one of the best people I know, and I think I’ll always love her – just not in the same way I originally thought.”

Derek makes a small noise of assent. “I know something about that – building a person up to something they could never actually be. Building yourself up the same way. It’s taken me a long time to see past that. I’m glad you figured it out earlier than I ever did.”

Stiles smiles up at him. “But figure it out, you did.”

Derek laughs, loud and throaty, nudging him with his shoulder. “You don’t automatically sound wiser if you speak like Yoda, Stiles. That’s not how it works.”

“Yeah, then how does it work? Because I don’t foresee myself turning green and running around a swamp in my bathrobe anytime soon.”

“I mean, you’ve always sounded pretty wise to me, maybe you don’t have to do anything at all.”

Stiles flushes. “Flattery will get you everywhere, big guy,” he jokes, trying to hide his reaction.

Derek abruptly stops walking, turns so he can grab Stiles’ elbow and look him directly in the eye with his considerable brows furrowed. “It’s not flattery, Stiles. You got me through so much in Beacon Hills, even though I wasn’t able to appreciate it at the time. Wasn’t able to thank you the way I should have. You saw so much, knew so much, just instinctively understood the things I could barely face, and I don’t think I’d be here now if it wasn’t for you. I didn’t say it then, so I’m saying it now: thank you, Stiles.”

He drops his arm and resumes walking, leaving Stiles shell-shocked in his wake.

He stutters back to life, arms flailing. “You can’t just – you can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away! What was that?!”

Stiles hurries to follow, catching up in time to see the small smile on Derek’s face.

“A lot’s changed since I’ve last seen you. I’ve changed.”

Stiles snorts, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, understatement. I –“

He opens his mouth to say more, but is cut off by the buzz of his phone. He pulls it out and swears when he sees the time. “Shit, Derek, I have to go. My lunch break ended 10 minutes ago and I really, really don’t want to get fired from this job.” Stiles shifts on his feet, deliberating for a moment.

“Do you – would you want to exchange numbers? I feel like there’s so much to catch up on and I’m still not quite over just seeing you and if I had time we could do it right now, I’d buy you lunch like a proper adult and everything, but I really do have to go.” He grimaces and looks up at Derek, unsure.

Derek just laughs and gently takes Stiles’ phone from his hands. “Of course you can have my number, and I’d love to do lunch, sometime.” He hands Stiles’ phone back. “Text me with yours.”

Stiles beams at him before remembering the time, swearing again as he jogs away.

Before he can make it out of the garden, Derek calls out to him. “Hey, Stiles, wait up a second!”

He turns to see Derek running up behind him, smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry, I don’t want to get you in trouble but I thought, maybe…what time do you get off? I could come meet you? I know a great diner just down the road - they make a curly fry I’ve been reliable informed will change your life.”

Stiles grins at him, heart glowing in his chest. “Now you’re speaking my language, big guy. I get off at 6. Meet me under the Monument?”

Derek smiles, dimples out in full show. “I’ll be there.”

Stiles waves his goodbye and runs full-tilt back to the archives, shouting an apology at Rian as he comes shooting through the door. And if he spends the rest of the day working with a dopey grin on his face and a new warmth burning in his chest, well, that’s no one’s business but his own.

#sterek #post-canon #fix it #my first fic ever so be gentle #long time caller first time listener #i just have a lot of feelings #ok thanks pals enjoy #my fic

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joylikelemons · 8 years ago

Text

Float Until You Learn to Swim

So this started out as my emotional word vom about Stiles finding Derek in D.C. in ask (peep it here) and somehow turned into 15k of Stiles moving to Washington, Derek working at a museum, and everyone actually confronting their issues (+ David Bowie, glowy magic pack bonds, and a supernatural archive under the Smithsonian).

Could be read as a one-shot, but will probably end up writing two more parts because feelings™.

Read on Ao3.

So he doesn’t ask, and whenever a member of the pack caught him absentmindedly rubbing at his chest he played it off as a bruise, or an itch, or, on one memorable occasion, heartburn.

On his second try, he drove south to San Francisco, ostensibly to visit the magic shops Deaton had recommended to resupply their wolfsbane stock and pick up the books he needed for summer Spark training. After the latest supernatural shit show, he figured it was time to stop ignoring whatever abilities Deaton said he had – if it was something he could use to protect his pack, then it was worth learning how to control, even if the thought of being something...more than human still left him a little uneasy. Just as at the ocean, the bonds remained strong, radiating warmth through his chest as the miles clicked past on the odometer.

“That beer for me?” Stiles asked, nudging his dad with an elbow.

The sheriff scoffed. “Keep dreaming, kid.”

He tipped the bottle back once before setting it at his feet, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“I had something I wanted to give you. I’m not sure if it’s the right time, if it will ever be the right time but...it’s yours. It should be yours.” He tapped the box on his knee a couple times before thrusting it at his son.

“I thought we were doing presents later, but I won’t tell if you...” Stiles’ voice petered out as he lifted the lid of the box and saw a braided leather keychain with two gold keys nestled in white tissue paper.

“Dad, what is this?”

The sheriff cut off, clearing his throat.

“Dad,” Stiles whispered, voice breaking on the word.

He reached over and picked up the key ring, running a finger over the braided fob with a small, sad smile.

“I remember,” Stiles said quietly.

“After she moved on from knitting, she started messing around with things like this.” The sheriff lifted the keychain.

“She didn’t get very far with it before...well, before. But she finished this one. I forgot I even still had it.”

John laid them back in the box and rubbed a thumb over his forehead.

“So uh, I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s yours if you want it. You can take your friends up, or maybe I can get some time this summer...” He nodded once, decisive. “It’s been empty too long, I think. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Stiles looked down at the keys and gently touched one end of the braid.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

He looked over and smiled at his dad, eyes shining with what they both would deny as wetness.

“Thank you.”

The sheriff cleared his throat again. “You’re welcome. Happy graduation, son. I’m ah, I’m very proud of you, and I know she would be too.”

“Only one piece of cake dad, don’t think you get a free pass because of emotional manipulation!” Stiles called after him.

The sheriff, as usual, paid no mind.

So he kept them in the box, stashed in his bedside table as the summer stretched on and he went swimming with the pack, held video game tournaments with Scott, and attended Spark lessons with Deaton.

But listen carefully to the sound Of your loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of remembering what you had And what you lost...

And if Stiles’ sleeve was a little wet where he’d scrubbed it across his face, well, that was no one’s business but his own.

It looks just the same.

He shoots his dad a text to let him know he’s arrived then steels himself before opening the front door, gripping the leather chain so tightly his knuckles bleed white.

If this was a movie, there’d be rain, he thinks. There’d be rain and that hazy half-light that always precedes a summer storm, rose-tinged air under a clouded sky.

The cabin feels quiet, suspended. Like all these years, it has been in hibernation, just waiting for him to return. Like it’s been yearning to wake up.

“My little starman,” she said, and traced over his moles with a finger. “Look, you’ve even got your own constellations.”

Stiles had giggled as she peppered each spot with kisses and squirmed in her arms, but bobbed his head and grinned when she asked if he wanted to listen to his special song.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’d like to come and meet us

but he thinks he’d blow our minds.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’s told us not to blow it

cause he knows it’s all worthwhile.

Let the children lose it,

let the children use it,

let all the children boogie.

With a smile on his face, Stiles opens his eyes and backs out the driveway. As he travels down the road towards home, he glances in the rearview mirror, watching as the cabin grows smaller and smaller until it's swallowed by forest, and all he can see is green.

But, like his earlier tests, it never came.

Which, in itself, was kind of his problem. Everything was just...okay. Stiles had kind of expected college to be, well, more. More wild parties and hook-ups with interesting people, more student protests and campus rivalries and dramatic self-realizations and yeah, maybe Stiles had seen too many coming-of-age movies but still, wasn’t college meant to be more than a daily routine of classes, coffee, and Call of Duty until he passed out and woke up to do it all again?

It was the classic catch-22: he had spent months dreaming of escaping Beacon Hills for a few years of the out-of-control parties and ill-advised hook-ups he imagined constituted the average American college experience, but after all he had been through, he just couldn’t convincingly stir up interest in drinking cheap beer in houses with sticky floors or painting his face to cheer on home football games. It all just seemed a bit...false; unreal in its blatant normality, and Stiles felt like the biggest phony of them all. Eat your heart out, Holden Caulfield.

The woman heaved a sigh when she spotted Stiles striding up to her desk, cutting him off immediately. “What’s your teacher’s name? I can call them over the PA system.”

Stiles blinked at her. “Uh...what?”

“Your teacher’s name? Or your high school will work. I can’t get you back with your group if I don’t have a name to page.”

Stiles frowned at her. “Do I really look like a high school student to you?”

The woman paused, looking him up and down before raising an eyebrow. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

If Stiles had to classify it, he’d put her tone somewhere between ‘Sahara Desert’ and ‘fiery pits of Hell’ dry. Yeah, he was definitely in love.

Her eyes widened as she read it. “They’ve actually resorted to flyers? Man, they must really be desperate.”

“Not much interest in dusty old archives, huh?” Stiles joked.

She laughed outright at that. “No, no, there’s plenty of interest. People just don’t tend to...last very long in Archives.”

“Like they only offer short-term internships?”

She shot him an indecipherable look.

“Sure, let’s go with that. Alright, kid –“

“You’re going to head towards the East Wing and look for the bust of Martin Van Buren. Hard to miss – a lot of beard.”

Stiles nodded; he was well-acquainted with that most spectacular set of mutton chops.

“There’ll be a wooden door next to it – just press the intercom button and say your name. I’ll give Boris a heads up you’re coming.” She instructed, handing back the flyer.

“Boris?” Stiles questioned.

“Boris is...I’m not exactly sure what Boris does outside of hanging out in the Archives entrance, but he’s good people. The Archives staff sees a lot of turnover, but I’m fairly sure Boris has been here since the groundbreaking. There’s a pretty lucrative pool on if he’ll ever retire.” She shot him a smirk. “If you make it, come see me – I’ll deal you in.”

Stiles frowned. “Wait, what do you mean ‘if I make it’?”

The girl winked and spun in her chair, effectively ending the conversation.

“Hey, c’mon. That’s – that’s just overly dramatic. I can still see you, you know!” Stiles called, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Stiles is fine. Uh, are you Boris?”

The man nodded. “That I am. It’s wonderful you’ve come, Dr. Saint Cyprian was just speaking about wanting another intern. The last one regrettably left us a few weeks ago after an unfortunate...incident. We’ve had some difficulty finding a suitable replacement.”

To his surprise, Boris beamed at him. “Oh, I do believe Dr. Saint Cyprian is going to like you. Just head down those stairs there, she should be in her office.”

Stiles thanked him and headed towards the staircase, eager to escape that slightly too-penetrating gaze.

He paused at the edge of the stair, leaning carefully over the railing to judge the distance between him and the ground. He wasn’t worried per se, but those steps were awfully narrow and he had somewhat of a...reputation when it came to grace. He’d be damned if he managed to survive a half-decade of California Hellmouth only to bite it on a staircase, though, so he hiked his bag up on his shoulder, shot a wave to Boris, and set off into the depths.

“It’s unlocked!” A muffled voice called from the other side.

She spared him a look as she slammed the top down on the container. “Come on in, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

He turned back to the woman, still hunched over the box but now completely focused on the young man, pinning him with a searching look.

Stiles stuttered out a laugh. “Heh, gotta watch out for that static electricity, huh?”

The woman continued to stare. “What are you?”

“Uh, I’m Stiles. I came about the internship ad?”

She frowned at him. “Not who are you – what are you?”

Stiles cleared his throat. “Uh, a college student? At Georgetown. I’m studying anthropology and folklore and I heard about an internship opportunity...”

The woman raised an eyebrow, but her frown lightened a fraction. “Well, you’ve got to be something. That door doesn’t react to just anyone.”

Stiles switched his tactic, sniffing imperiously. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

Stiles eyeballed her suspiciously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, I was slightly more extra than ordinary – why pixie?”

“Button nose and boyband hair, ” she said without missing a beat.

Stiles scoffed. “Alright, ONE, I do not have boyband hair. Two, what is wrong with my nose?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. It’s just, you know, very...” She uncrossed one arm, gesturing in the general direction of his face. “Very.”

“Very very?”

“Verily, very very,” she nodded, resolute.

“So, if you’re not a pixie, what are you? I’m happy to talk about the internship, if that’s what you’re really here for, but I’ve got to know. Some of the artifacts can be...touchy, around the wrong energies.”

Decision made, he stuck out his hand. “Stiles Stilinski, Spark-in-training and member of the McCall Pack in Beacon Hills, California.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “I thought Beacon Hills was Hale land.”

Stiles flushed. “It uh, was. Still is, technically, though we haven’t heard from any of them in a while. My buddy Scott was bit by a Hale and he has been...caretaking, if you will.”

She hummed, considering this, before extending her arm to accept Stiles’ handshake.

“Spark, huh? I can work with that. My name is Dr. Olesya Saint Cyprian, but you can call me Rian. I’m the head archivist here.”

“That’s...quite a name.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Glass houses, Mr. Stilinski.”

“...point.”

“Polish, I presume?” Rian inquired, settling into her chair.

“Got it in one. What’s St. Cyprian?”

“An inside joke – my grandparents selected it when they emigrated from Russia.”

“Oh?”

“St. Cyprian is the patron saint of occultists.”

Stiles barked out a laugh.

“A sense of humour runs in my family, among other things.”

“Things like magic?”

Her smile reminded Stiles of Deaton’s more enigmatic moments.

“Nope,” Stiles said, popping the ‘p’. “Just plain old college credit desired. But if it’s on the table...I’ve finished the books my emissary gave me when I left home and have somewhat been at loose ends. I could use a project.”

Rian skimmed his resume then looked at him, considering. She put the paper down and leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to level with you. It’s a bitch trying to keep a non-supernatural initiated intern around - if you’re not in the know, some of the items can be a bit...unsettling. Hell, I’ve been working here for 40 years and sometimes they still give me the willies. Our last intern only lasted two weeks, and I’m sick of training newbies only for them to disappear before they can be of any actual use. Coincidentally, I’ve been needing someone to touch up some of the wards. Old body – can’t do so much of the physical work anymore.”

Stiles raised a skeptical eyebrow. From what he’d seen when he walked in, she had more strength than she owned to.

“If you’d agree to take over the wards, along with the standard archive work – returning borrowed items, cataloguing new arrivals, and researching the unknowns – I’d be happy to give you instruction on some of the more...unique objects in the Archives. Officially, we store any items pertaining to the culture and history of America, but unofficially, we have the largest collection of objects and documents relating to the supernatural world this side of the Atlantic – everything from Appalachian yeti clippings to the Salem grimoires.”

Stiles let out a meep at that, eyes going wide.

Stiles perked up. “Even the zoo?”

“Full zoo privileges included.”

His resulting fist pump triggered a look on Rian’s face that was remarkably long-suffering, considering the short duration of their acquaintance.

“So, what do you say – still want to work here? It’s not the easiest job in the world, but I can promise you it won’t be boring.”

Stiles grinned - this was exactly the kind of thing he’d been looking for.

“Sign me up, Doc. I’m in.”

After filling in all the necessary forms and promising to return the following week to begin, Stiles paused at the door to the stairs. “Before I go, can I ask two questions?”

“Within reason,” Rian said, rolling her eyes in an exasperated look that was rapidly becoming familiar. Stiles guessed it might be her default state. Or just her default Stiles state. Either or.

“What table cloth is so important that your first thought would be that I was here to steal it? Can it fly like the rug from Aladdin? If so – dibs on riding it!”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “You’ve really got people chomping at the bit for that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Clearly you’ve never been to a dinner party before.”

Stiles wisely moved on.

She laughed at Stiles’ panicked look. “Don’t worry – it’s not dangerous, usually.”

Stiles pulled a face, silently mouthing ‘usually’.

It’d taken him a while to decipher Dr. Saint Cyprian’s (“For God’s sake, call me Rian.”) system, but he felt pretty comfortable with it now. Rows were numbered, shelves were lettered (Latin for normal items, Cyrillic for magical), with like items placed together and sorted by year. The hardest part was figuring out what was safe to touch, and which items would react...unfavorably to his Spark. Nothing too terrible ever happened, but after he brushed up against an enchanted punch bowl and spent the next several hours uncontrollably sneezing, Rian taught him how to work runes that would hide his Spark into a pair of archival-standard gloves.

“There, you’re hypoallergenic now,” she said, patting him on the head before walking away. Stiles sneezed in her general direction.

But the thing he loved best was when he finished all his other work and he was free to dive in to what he had started thinking of as his pet project – the Land of Misfit Toys. The LMT (“I’m not calling it that, Stiles, and no, you can’t make a sign for it.”) was a massive storage room to the west of the stacks stuffed with unmarked boxes, artifacts long missing documentation, pallets filled with objects originally meant for unknown destinations, and rows of bookshelves bursting with dusty tomes (some of which were bound in...dubious materials. Stiles became more grateful for those gloves with every passing day.). Stiles thought the overall effect was something akin to Gort’s house in the cinematic classic Halloweentown 2, and was obsessed from the moment he saw it.

“Even more beautiful than you?” Stiles said, batting his eyes at her.

Jules snorted loudly, startling a passing elderly couple.

He paused next to the mother of the kid from before, who was fruitlessly trying to corral the young boy in front of a statue Stiles immediately dubbed ‘Junkyard Tetris’.

She leaned towards him with a conspiratorial look, maintaining her grip on her son.“I’m not much for sculpture, but the tour guide...well, he really makes you appreciate the art, if you know what I mean.”

At that, her son shook loose, shouting “Mom likes his butt!” before running and hiding behind Stiles, utilizing him as a human shield against his now beet-red mother.

“Michael Joseph, you get back here right now!” she demanded.

Stiles laughed as he turned and picked the kid up under his armpits, handing him back to his mother. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said, smiling at the woman.

She smiled back at him before gently pushing Michael towards a picnic table nestled between statues. “Enjoy!”

“I got you!” He cried. “Wet willy! Wet willy!”

“Alright kid, you got me. Now, where’s your mom? She’s probably freaking out right now.”

The kid sat upright on the bench and rolled his eyes. “Nah, she’s too busy staring at the tour man. She probably hasn’t even noticed.”

Stiles snorted and held out a hand. “I seriously doubt anyone’s that pretty. Come on, let’s go find her, and you can show me this fantastic tour man.”

Michael hopped down from the bench and slotted his fingers between Stiles’. “Hurry up slow poke,” he said, jerking Stiles forward. “Old people take forever to get anywhere.”

Stiles scoffed, outraged. But before he could respond, he felt an odd sensation bloom in his chest. He raised his free hand to rub against it, frowning. He hadn’t worried about his bonds in a long time – they had remained just as steady and warm in his chest as they had in Beacon Hills, only changing to glow particularly brightly when something good happened, covertly confirmed through his weekly Skype calls with the pack. But this felt different, almost...fluttering. Anticipatory. Like sparks rising from his stomach and pooling beneath his breastbone, resolving into a current that flooded down to his feet and the tips of his fingers.

His mother shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you – again. Michael’s a bit of a handful, but he’s a really great kid, I swear.”

“Really, it’s no problem. I was pretty much the same when I was his age. I think my dad would call it payback,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. He crouched down in front of the kid in question.

Michael nodded, and grinned a gap-toothed smile as he reached out to bump Stiles’ outstretched fist with his own.

Stiles stood back up and smiled at the boy’s mother. “Are you going to stick around for the rest of the tour?”

“Saint John the Baptist is introduced in the Gospel of Mark as 'a voice crying out in the wilderness' and is sometimes seen as a precursor to the Prodigal Son. The headless state alludes to his martyrdom, orchestrated by the daughter of King Herod who requested his head brought to her on a platter.”

“The statue famously inspired a poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg in 1916, but I’m particularly fond of another, slightly more obscure poem, penned by Peter Cooley in 2014.”

“But when the body stands here, one foot back,

one forward, the flesh flexed in motion,

there is no movement that is not your own.”

“You forget your equivocating past

only to recall it the next second.”

“It is essential that he is headless.

Admit it: you’d be staring at his face.”

And suddenly he’s there, he’s made it, and he can hear his voice and see his face, more beautiful than any sculpture he’d ever seen, eyes so clear it feels like gazing into the sky.

“This is our walk between eternities,

The one we think we know, the one we can’t.”

Stiles blinks, and he’s 16 again, all jittery limbs and so much innocence stunned silent by a thousand yard glare and a jawline like a chorus of angels.

He blinks again, and he sees the wide smile, dimpling into something not quite a beard, thicker and more lush than the stubble he remembers.

Stiles blinks, and his gaze lingers on the hint of crow’s feet, the hair curling gently under his ears instead of short and gelled, as tightly controlled as the rest of him.

As always, Stiles is the one to break the silence.

“Going to tell me this is private property?” He asks, shooting Derek a nervous smile.

He smiles back, strong and steady. “I think we’re long past that, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out, a little stunned by the breadth of his smile, all that pretty directed his way.

It’s quiet again, for a moment.

“Can I hug you?” Stiles blurts out, unsure of his welcome but desperate to ask. “It’s just...it’s been a long time.”

Derek lets out an amused huff over his shoulder, but doesn’t call him out on the blatant lie. He lets go and steps back, though he remains closer than any normal human might stand in the situation. Werewolves have always had smaller personal bubbles, Stiles noticed. He doubted that had changed for Derek in the few years he’s been gone, and suppressed a pang in his chest thinking about when the last time he’d had a hug was; if he was all alone in the city, too.

Heedless of Stiles’ internal meltdown, Derek begins to speak. “It’s reassuring to know you haven’t lost your particular talent for babble.”

“I’d prefer to think of it as a prolonged opportunity for charm and wit, thanks.”

“It’s an opportunity for something, alright.”

“Hey,” Stiles squawks, mildly affronted.

“I never said something bad.” Derek shoots him a small smile, just as devastating as the grin he bore a few minutes ago.

“What are you doing here?” He asks hesitantly. “Were you...were you looking for me?”

“Yeah?” Derek smiles. “That’s good to hear. Georgetown’s a good school. Your dad must be proud.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I asked how things were at home. If Scott and everyone...if things were okay.” He looks unsure, and a little guilty. Like he might still feel bad for leaving, even though Stiles knows no one blames him. He needed to, probably should have a long before. They understood that.

“His pack?” Derek questions softly.

“My pack, too.” Stiles hesitates before continuing. “It all just feels so far away sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes gentle and free of judgement.

Derek lets out a quiet laugh, then reaches out to brush Stiles’ arm, nodding towards the path. They walk slowly through the garden, side by side, the sky still clear blue overhead.

Derek looks over at Stiles a little hesitantly. “And Lydia, are you guys...Did you ever? I know you always -“

Stiles smiles up at him. “But figure it out, you did.”

Derek laughs, loud and throaty, nudging him with his shoulder. “You don’t automatically sound wiser if you speak like Yoda, Stiles. That’s not how it works.”

“Yeah, then how does it work? Because I don’t foresee myself turning green and running around a swamp in my bathrobe anytime soon.”

“I mean, you’ve always sounded pretty wise to me, maybe you don’t have to do anything at all.”

Stiles flushes. “Flattery will get you everywhere, big guy,” he jokes, trying to hide his reaction.

He drops his arm and resumes walking, leaving Stiles shell-shocked in his wake.

He stutters back to life, arms flailing. “You can’t just – you can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away! What was that?!”

Stiles hurries to follow, catching up in time to see the small smile on Derek’s face.

“A lot’s changed since I’ve last seen you. I’ve changed.”

Stiles snorts, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, understatement. I –“

Stiles beams at him before remembering the time, swearing again as he jogs away.

Before he can make it out of the garden, Derek calls out to him. “Hey, Stiles, wait up a second!”

He turns to see Derek running up behind him, smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry, I don’t want to get you in trouble but I thought, maybe...what time do you get off? I could come meet you? I know a great diner just down the road - they make a curly fry I’ve been reliable informed will change your life.”

Stiles grins at him, heart glowing in his chest. “Now you’re speaking my language, big guy. I get off at 6. Meet me under the Monument?”

Derek smiles, dimples out in full show. “I’ll be there.”

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