#also i need to figure out a contraption to bike in a skirt

[ent-is-indecisive]

Way late to the party due to a series of mishaps but mostly forgetting to charge my phone

[hencethebravery]

#writersmth2020 • (12) meet cute

(12) meet cute [ouat, captain charming]

author’s note: about 2 yrs ago i started a captain charming enchanted au that i never finished (surprise, surprise). i had actually stopped writing right before the two first meet, and this seemed like a good opportunity to start working on it again. will i finish it now? no idea, but i enjoyed hopping back in because i was very excited about it initially and i kinda hate that it’s unfinished. you can read the first chapter on tumblr or the archive. oh also for @phiralovesloki​, who never gave up on me or this stupid story.

+ Killian’s adult life, his pre-Prince-from-another-land life, starts like this: With a handful of unfortunate “misunderstandings” with local law enforcement; a worrisome drinking habit that he often ignored; a nebulous, unexamined fear that he’s been left behind; and a large number of fleeting, meaningless relationships that had only become so due to his own infuriating habit of allowing them to be. So, yes, according to most, Killian Jones was living what some would refer to as a “sad life” (or perhaps a lonely life, at the very least).

He might respond that he in fact “liked it that way,” but any discerning sort of person would be able to suss out that lie rather quickly.

If his life were like one of his mother’s wretched storybooks, the otherwise mundane, rainy evening in October when he almost totaled his bike would be considered the “incendiary incident.” The moment when the story really begins—a suggestion that all of the blather leading up to this has been nothing more than literary window dressing. There is an argument to be made however, that the moment in question would indeed feel less like the “inciting action” had it lacked the proper and necessary context.

The real trouble with saturated, dark city roads at night is the fact that they become nothing more than garbled reflections of the circus of light that surrounds them. While they might be perfectly black and impermeable during the day, in darkness they become quite a bit more ominous. Despite the most logical parts of you screaming otherwise, there’s still a niggling concern that if you’re not careful you could take a wrong step and tumble into the odd, rippling echo of an inverted city you’ve never seen before.

Killian’s traversed these same streets on a number of previous evenings, and through worse weather than this, but for whatever reason, on this particular night, it seems to be unusually bad. The wind whips between the buildings creating paralyzing pockets of frigid air, as the drains clog with garbage and leaves, causing the puddles to become dangerously deep; those confounding, reflected surfaces becoming even more unknown and void-like.

He’s only a few blocks from home, on the cusp of admitting to himself the precariousness of current travel conditions when he sees it—a gleam out of the corner of his eye. City lights do not gleam. Soft, yellow light glowing from behind long, sheer curtains also hold no unique, eye-catching sheen. Speeding through city streets on the back of a motorbike requires a certain degree of concentration. If you’re the sort to become easily distracted by twinkling lights and the occasional odd bit of human movement, you’re not fit to be driving. It’s why he thinks of it as a “gleam,” rather than say… a light you might see emanating from a billboard or a traffic stop. Not to mention the fact that if this were any other normal kind of illumination, it wouldn’t have caused him to become distracted enough to completely miss the crater-like pothole on the road in front of him.

This strange new land is loud—loud enough that he would almost feel compelled to clap his hands over his ears… if not for the bright, flashing lights that look nothing like any open flame he’s ever seen. He would be tempted to shut his eyes… if not for the sight of the tall, tall, tall vertical structures that he would maybe call castles if he weren’t so terribly confident that he wasn’t in his kingdom any longer and they likely weren’t castles at all. If the sights and the sounds weren’t enough to convince him, the throngs of oddly dressed people staring at him as if he were the strange one certainly was. It takes him a few moments amidst the chaos of his new surroundings, but he remembers all the same—the sickeningly red, wet sheets; the sound of his newborn daughter’s cries, and that final glimpse of her in the arms of some nefarious, hooded figure, disappearing into a swirling vortex.

He breaks into a run, his cape flapping heavily behind him.

He has no earthly idea where he’s running to; only that he’s a father who’s lost his only daughter and he is entirely unmoored. Perhaps for the first time in his life. There’s no specific destination in mind but speed has to be a factor, right? After all, he jumped right in after them. Maybe they’re not so far ahead that he can’t catch up, so long as he runs. He’s finally stumbled on a somewhat quieter street when he witnesses the strange metal contraption only just manage to skirt a rather large hole in the ground before emitting an ear-piercing screech and collapsing onto its side. He’s stunned for a moment, and wonders if perhaps it’s some kind of animal, but when it fails to move and he notices the man who seems to have fallen underneath, he rushes over, his curiosity temporarily waylaid in favor of playing in a more familiar role.

It’s difficult to discern in the dark, but at a glance the man in question is dressed almost entirely in black (which doesn’t seem smart in any land), with short, unkempt hair that’s grown over his ears and across his forehead. For a few moments he’s worried that the man is dead, but he emits a small groan and David springs into action, pushing the “beast” away and pulling him off the street.

As he slowly regains awareness he curses himself for having gone on what feels like a historic bender. Because how could his head hurt this much otherwise? And it’s only when he starts to feel the numerous aches growing elsewhere, along with a distinct lack of dry, soft bed sheets that he starts to remember the painful, confusing reality of a few minutes previous—that bloody gleam, the pothole, the momentary sensation of dreadful weightlessness. Christ, his bike. 

“Hey,” he hears (along with a mild, worrisome ringing), as if from a distance, “Hang in there, okay? You’re gonna be okay.” And then, at a softer pitch, “...I think.”

“Ugh,” Killian manages, a nauseous feeling building in his stomach, “please tell me you didn’t call an ambulance.”

Even in his post-nearly-flattened-by-his-bike state, the thought of cumbersome medical bills on top of the repairs he was certain needed to be made on the bike was a whole other kind of headache he could happily do without.

“You’ll be pleased to know that I don’t know what that is,” replied the deep, noticeably pleasant voice floating somewhere above him. 

In any other circumstance there likely would’ve been a short chuckle after that, but Killian feared some for the state of his ribs at the moment, and merely grunted some more. “Bully for you then mate,” mumbling, “overpriced nonsense. I’ll be fine.”

This is one of my favorite parts of this story—no matter how many times I’ve heard it. The first time he laid eyes on him. Before all the mess that came after (myself included); before he started to realize the kind of story he was in, the only thing he could see (so he says) was dad’s eyes. Which, as a teenage girl, I am fully ready to believe. And dad does have pretty eyes.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the help,” Killian started, wincing from the streetlight overhead, “but is that a cape you’re wearing?”

Not just a cape (although really, who just wore a cape these days)—the man hovering over him, his rescuer, for all intents and purposes, who he was slowly beginning to realize might have actually been the cause of his current predicament, was draped in an absurd amount of Renaissance faire finery. From the fur-lined cape to the loose-fitting blouse, Killian began to suspect that the man in question had not been trying to be funny when he claimed to have no knowledge of ambulances. Or perhaps, Killian began to think worriedly, he had ridden in a fair number himself.