#and neither of you two want to leave the rls... wow

[yuechicake]

it's the only way you know how to love--like a dog. like a knife. like the violence that lurks under your skin, waiting with bated breath and sharpened fang, never satiated.

(commissioned from aethellren)

[swanandapirate]

Tuesday (1/1)

It’s my blog’s second birthday today, yay! To honor that and because it’s Tuesday today, I decided to finally post this fic I have been working on for actual months. This fic is dedicated to @captainwiley because she let me use her parents’ epic romance to turn it into a fic prompt (she’s the rl Henry of this fic and just an amazing human being and beta-reader ♥ ) Also major thanks to @artandteaandstuff because she corrected and flailed too ♥

summary: Every Tuesday, she’s there, working late with her son and every Tuesday so is he. He offers to keep Henry busy so she can finish her tasks, but neither of them would have expected that Henry would grow to think ‘Mr.Killian’ is his dad.

This is as much a captain cobra fic as it is a captain swan one and it has a lot of Daddy!Killian feels (the three best things ever to write tbh, probs why this is so long. Also ‘cause it’s a modern AU and I always make those super long)

Rating: FF (Freaking Feelsy)

~17,700 words (so outrageously long wow)

ff.net and ao3

As head of the Books and Manuscripts Department in the New York division of Gold’s Auctioning House, Killian Jones understood the charm of ancient letters, the allure of rare books filled with secrets never spoken aloud. But dear god, the amount of money people were willing to spend for a scrap of Jane Austen prose was frankly absurd.

What would they even do with it, he often wondered. Would it be proudly displayed in their living room amongst other flauntings of their wealth, both intellectual and monetary? Would it be used to brag to their friends about the exclusiveness of the item? Or would it be appreciated as it should be, used as a reminder of days long gone, of a lifetime of an extraordinary woman and writer, of a pillar of English history and literature?

Being an English Literature major, Killian perfectly understood the latter. The former, however…

But this was Gold’s Auctioning House and his boss surely wanted the influx of money to be as big as it could get, wanted people to bid and fight in a direct battle against one another, transcending the actual estimated worth of the object and assuring the Auctioning House as much profit as possible.

It strayed far from Killian’s own ethics, the principles and good form brought to him by his older brother and ingrained in his being, but he was surrounded by literary treasures, was expected to keep them safe. Besides the rich, pompous atmosphere that clung to the walls and customers like a sharp perfume, he adored his job. This was what he was meant to do.

--/--

“Henry! No! Stop!” a female voice yelled.

A form, which Killian assumed was the Henry that needed to stop, flew along the archives and came to a halt right in front of him. It was a child with brown hair swept across his forehead and big brown eyes. His small chest slightly heaved with the running he had done and his eyes looked at him with something between wonder and fear.

“Hello,” Killian said, crouching down to turn himself from a scary giant into a friendly face, which seemed to work as the fear left the child’s expression, only leaving the wonder.

“Henry!” was yelled again and this time the woman to whom the voice belonged joined them as well. She ran, her blonde ponytail bouncing with the movement and her eyes scanning the rows frantically in search of the boy.

“I’m here, Mommy,” Henry said.

Her head snapped towards them and Killian could see her eyes widen in shock as she took in her son with the head of the department kneeling across him.

“Henry, you can't run off like that,” she reprimanded but her words lacked real authority. Killian would assume that was because he was there. The woman grabbed Henry and pulled him closer to her, as if she wanted to cover him, as if she felt the need to protect the lad from him. Henry’s little arms went around her white sweater as she picked him up and placed him on her hip.

Killian didn't recognize her. It wasn't unusual for him to not know everyone that worked in the department. They were one of the biggest of the company and Killian mainly had contact with the people who were directly below him on the hierarchical ladder. They were in charge of hiring the employees they needed and as long as it fit the budget, Killian would not interfere. He was certain that if he had seen her before, he would've remembered her; there was something alluring about her presence. It was a light against a dark canvas. Something that would leave a trace, that would still be visible eons after it had been there.

He stood up again—as there was no need for kneeling on the floor anymore—and left his thoughts about the impression she’d made on the cold granite. He looked her in the eye. An explanation of why Henry was running around here, and why she was still here while the rest of the employees had long left, was still owed to him.

“I'm so sorry, Mr. Jones,” she began, apparently recognizing the request in his eyes. “I couldn't find a babysitter and I wasn't finished here, yet. Henry normally knows that he can’t run off and that he needs to keep quiet but he decided to ignore that today.”

“Normally?”

Only then did she realize her words and what they betrayed. She flinched, closing her eyes and scrunching up her nose and it was quite an adorable sight, even more so with the toddler in her arms softly patting his mother's face.

“You do this often?” he asked.

“I wouldn't say often,” she attempted to worm her way out of the situation. “But finding a babysitter is hard sometimes.” Her shoulders moved in a shrug and it conveyed sympathy on Killian’s behalf.

“What's your name?”

“Emma Swan.” She bit her lip as she answered.

“And I'm Henry,” the boy introduced himself proudly.

Killian felt a chuckle come up with Henry's openness, with the innocence that beamed out of him.

“Well, Swan,” he addressed Henry’s mother. “It's alright. Just make sure the lad doesn't touch anything he's not allowed to. I don't know how I would explain to Mr. Gold that a four-hundred-year-old manuscript was destroyed by a two-year-old.”

“I am three!” Henry objected, his small brows pulled into a frown. “And almost four.”

“I am sorry, lad. By an almost four-year-old,” Killian corrected himself while playfully ruffling the boy’s hair. Swan eyed him with wariness. Either she did not trust him to be close to her child or she did not trust his words of reassurance: the words promising her there were no consequences for bringing Henry, the words that told her she could continue to do so.

The words asking her to trust him had already gathered on the tip of his tongue, only requiring one last push to be pronounced, but Killian held them back. She did not know him, he did not know her. They had far too little insight into each other’s characters for him to request such a favor. He supposed a certain wariness towards the man in charge was not unsmart; he certainly did not trust his own boss fully, but then again Gold was a furtive man and Killian was… well, Killian. Hopefully, Emma did not consider him furtive. He hoped none of his employees did.

Before he could let his worries about her opinion on him take over, Killian chose to part with Emma and Henry, to finally go home as he had intended in the first place.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening,” Killian said with a nod, announcing the decision he had made to his company.

Swan readjusted her grip on Henry, shifting the boy from her left hip to her right one.

“You too, sir.”

--/--

“Swan, Henry.”

It made him happier than it should have, seeing her nibbling on a pen as she stared at a row of documents while Henry sat at a small table, drawing chaotically on the white sheets that lay upon it, exactly a week since he had first met the pair.

“Mr. Jones.” She removed the pen from between her lips, stood a bit straighter and quickly checked on Henry to see if he was behaving. “I'm almost done here. We’ll be out of your hands in no time, I promise.”

Her white sweater from last week was replaced with a purple blouse but she still wore pants in that same shade of blue and the same high boots that almost came up to her knees. Her hair was loose today, no hair tie confining the wild curls flowing across her shoulders and with every small movement she made.

“Don't worry about it, Swan. I am done for the day,” he announced. An idea sprung in the back of his mind as he saw Henry peer up at him, some sort of yearning in the boy’s eyes. It had to be boring sitting here while your mother was focused on her work. “If you want—” Involuntarily, his hand went behind his ear to scratch, betraying his uncertainty, the hesitance with which he spoke and of which he hoped she had not noticed.”—I can watch Henry while you finish up.”

“Oh no, that's not necessary.” Her head shook, to decline or to get rid of the surprise that flashed across her features. “I don't want to be a burden.”

“You're not and I offered.” His eyebrow rose. “I have a feeling Henry has some interesting things to tell me.”

“Mommy, can I?” Henry asked with an unprecedented enthusiasm, sending his crayon flying over the smooth surface of the table and onto the floor. It seemed the fondness he felt for Henry was reciprocated by the boy.

She was overpowered by them, stood alone while they stood together and in the end, she had no choice but to accept. Killian knew that. It may have been a bit low to enlist a three-year-old but if it was what the three-year-old desired and if it was by his own volition, who was he to stop the boy from looking up at his mother with the most doey eyes Killian had ever seen? While he expected Emma to have acquired some sort of immunity against the adorableness of her own son, she did not have any resistance against his blue eyes copying the act.

“Alright,” she sighed and bent down to speak to her son. “But Henry, please behave yourself and we are going home when I say we are, okay?”

Well-behavedly, Henry nodded. Swan stood back up, it being Killian’s turn to be addressed.

“I’ll try to hurry,” she promised him and Killian smiled in response.

“There’s no need, Swan. The lad and I get on just fine. Take all the time you need.”

With that, they were off. At first, Killian attempted to lead Henry to his office by telling him where to go, but he would not listen, straying from the path he had outlined for them and Killian realized the boy had no idea what left or right was and had no desire to learn. Seeing no use in continuing with his previous strategy, Killian simply offered his hand to Henry, which he gladly accepted.

“Here we are.” Killian opened the door and Henry ran in, head turning from left to right, scanning the entire room.

“Wow, you have a boat?” he immediately noticed, commenting on the large ship that stood on top of one of his filing cabinets. It was one of Killian’s most prized possessions, the replica of Captain Hook’s Jolly Roger Liam had gotten him for his sixteenth birthday. Later, Killian had discovered that the “replica of Captain Hook’s Jolly Roger” part was a whole lotta quatsch but the boat’s emotional value remained. By having it in his office, a piece of Liam was there too.

“It’s a ship,” Killian helpfully corrected. “And yes I do. I even have a real one.”

Henry’s eyes grew and his mouth fell open. Killian laughed with the amazement the lad’s features screamed.

“Can I see it, can I see it, can I see it?” The excitement made him trip over his words and almost trip over his own feet as he ran back to Killian, who saved him just in time from landing face first on the hard ground.

“Perhaps another day. For now, let’s stick to drawing, shall we?”

In acquiescence, Henry calmed down and let Killian lead him to the big mahogany desk that stood in the middle of the room. Killian lifted him and placed him in the fancy chair that stood behind it, a king on his throne. For himself, he rolled the chair that stood on the other side of the desk, the chair that was meant for visitors, next to Henry and sat down. His bottom drawer contained scraps of paper that had already served their purpose but had another go in them, were still capable to be doodled on or have little reminders scribbled onto them. Out of another drawer, Killian took crayons and two markers, frowning at the fact he did not have anything better for the boy to draw with.

“Mr. Jones?”

Henry’s small voice gently pulled him out of his thoughts and Killian moved his gaze off of the drawers and back to the child sitting next to him.

“You can call me Killian, Henry.”

“Mr. Killian?”

The boy pronounced Killian more like Killun which did all kind of things to Killian’s heart. Maybe it would have been easier to let Henry continue calling him Mr. Jones but the words carried such formality, created such a distance between them that it felt unsettling to Killian. His employees—most of them, anyways—called him that but that was because it was expected of them, because it reminded them who called the shots, but Henry had nothing to do with that and Killian had no right to any authority over Henry.

“Aye, if that's what you prefer, that's fine by me,” he mumbled more to himself than to Henry.

“Mr. Killian, is that why you don’t have a hand?” Killian dreaded the words that were about to follow. “Because you are a pirate?” Henry whispered the words as if they were a secret, as if he was the only one that had figured out the mystery. The dread dissolved.

“No, Henry. I’m not a pirate, sadly enough. I wish I were,” he admitted, “That would mean I could sail around the whole world, across all of the seas and I would take you with me as my first mate.” Henry widened his mouth, revealing his little teeth while doing so, in a smile. “I don’t have a hand because I was in an accident and sometimes those can make people lose hands.”

“Okay,” he accepted. “Can you draw a boat for me?”

Killian had to suppress a sigh of relief. Henry seemed so unwavered by the lack of his left hand, so unscarred by the scarred tissue on his wrist. It was a refreshing feeling. Adults always seemed to struggle to look past it. They could not refrain their eyes from sympathetic glances, nor could they stop their mouths from asking the questions he had heard a million times before. Does it still hurt? How did it happen? Living without a hand must be such a struggle? Why don’t you wear a prosthetic?

“Aye, lad. I can surely try.”

There was knock on his office door after a while, a quiet, hesitant thing and both he and Henry looked up from the color-streaked paper on the desk. Emma’s face appeared between the door opening, her eyes unsure where to look until they landed on them.

“Mommy!” Henry yelled joyously, how only a child that has missed his mother would upon reunion, and jumped off the chair to run towards her. Killian leaned back and watched them.

“Hey, honey.” She smiled while opening her arms for him. “Did you have fun with Mr. Jones?”

“Mr. Killian.”

“Oh, you're on a first name basis already. Lucky you.” She kissed his forehead and stood back up with Henry in her arms. Emma looked at him. “I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”

“None at all, Swan.” He shook his head with a contented smile. “We drew pirate ships.”

“I asked Mr. Killian if he was a pirate but he is not,” Henry said, slightly disappointed.

“Well, this pirate better get home and into bed.” Emma’s pale hand brushed over the top of Henry's head, her fingers brushed through the brown hairs. A clear sign of affection that made Killian’s smile even more content.

“But Mommy.” Henry pursed his mouth and Killian saw the doey eyes return.

“No buts, Henry. You promised.” She was firm, strict, how a mother should be, but still, the words were soft and kind. Motherly. “Now, say goodnight to Mr. Jones and thank him for spending time with you.”

At the mention of him, Killian stood up, treating it like an invitation to interrupt the mother-son bonding that was taking place.

“Night, Mr. Killian. Thank you,” Henry obediently said to him.

He approached them and stopped when there was still a respectable distance between him and Swan, but was close enough to share a moment with Henry.

“You are very welcome, Henry.”

His eyes shifted to her.

“Umm… thanks for keeping an eye on him.”

She sounded anything but certain, but comfortable in his presence. Killian understood. It was a strange situation they had found themselves in. And yet, one he wanted to experience again.

“It was my pleasure. Goodnight.”

When he finally got home, hours later than he would on a normal day, it was with a content feeling. A feeling he had forgotten even still existed and deemed impossible to ever course through his body and mind again.

A feeling he wanted to experience again.

--/--

It became somewhat of a tradition, a thing to look forward to every Tuesday. He would walk out of his office after finishing the paperwork from auctions held over the weekend, make his way towards the archives and see her there, diligently stacking and retrieving and returning while Henry sat at that same small table. He would greet them, Emma softly smiling in return and Henry jumping up in utter glee.

Killian had to admit that the sudden appearance of toys in his office and a very secret stash of candy had everything to do with the little lad that would visit on Tuesdays. His interactions with Emma were limited to a simple hi when he came to fetch Henry and have a nice evening when she was done with her work and was ready to go home. He could not deny that there was an urge inside of him to know more about her but this was the only time their paths crossed and it would be a very strange sight for him to suddenly appear in the archives during work hours, a place he normally never set foot in. So a hello and a goodbye was all they had, all they got and everything Killian treasured.

“Rawtch.” Henry jumped up from behind his desk in a surprise attack, his small hand wrapped around a green Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Killian copied the sound and fought back with his own duplicate. The two toys collided in a head to head battle, more growls accompanying the fighting and eventually, Killian forfeited, dramatically falling down onto the ground with a shriek proclaiming his demise. Henry jumped up and down, giggling as he danced in victory.

“Henry is the winner! Mr. Killian losed because Henry is stronger than Mr. Killian.”

“Oi, lad,” Killian remonstrated, risen from the dead again. “I’ll have you know that I only lost because you had the bigger T-Rex.”

“No, you losed because I am better.”

“Oh, that will cost you.” Killian jumped up from the ground and swept Henry off the ground, the boy playfully hitting him and wriggling to attempt to escape from his grip.

“What is happening in here?” Emma suddenly stood in the door opening, and Killian and Henry looked at each other with wide eyes and let go of one another.

Thick as thieves, they replied, “Nothing” in chorus.

“Alright then,” Emma said, unconvinced after a small and amused chuckle. “Henry, I know you’re having fun with Mr. Killian, but it’s time to go home.”

Henry pouted while putting his T-Rex back into the drawer, the one that held all of the toys, the one whose insides only saw the light of day on Tuesdays.

“Mommy?” Henry asked.

His little feet took him to his mother, who stood with an outstretched hand for him to grab. Killian deposited his own dinosaur in the drawer and closed it until it would be opened again next week.

“Yes, Henry?”

“Is Mr. Killian my dad?”

Emma looked as if she was going to choke. Killian was pretty sure he looked like he was going to choke. All the while sweet, innocent Henry looked at them, not aware of the gravity of his words, only asking a question and now patiently waiting for the answer.

“No, Henry,” she answered, a sadness taking over her features, darkening them almost imperceptibly. He could see the struggle, the smile that seemed to painfully pull at the corners of her lips, the lines in her forehead that deepened, the gentle ache in her voice, her effort to prevent her emotions to be noticed by Henry. But Killian… well, he did. “He is not.”

And while he wanted nothing more than to ask if she was okay—question why Henry would think he was his father—all of the signs Henry was oblivious to and Killian not, prevented him to do so.

“Let’s go home, kid. I’m tired.”

--/--

“Swan,” he acknowledged her on the Tuesday that followed.

“Mr. Jones,” she did the same but kept her eyes trained on the big shelves and on her hands sliding the books back into their shelter for the night.

Killian searched around, trying to find his company for the evening but the small table was empty and there were absolutely no indications—no paper stacked, no crayons strewn, no backpack propped against the wall—that Henry was here or had been here.

“Is Henry not here tonight?” Killian questioned, hoping that his disappointment seemed less clear, more masked for her than the poor attempt it seemed in his eyes.

“No.” Emma had still not looked at him, back still turned towards him. “He’s sleeping over at a friend's house.”

And while that was a good explanation, one Killian could have accepted, he couldn't help but shake the feeling that his absence had something to do with what transpired between them a week ago. He was quite sure of it, actually. Because Emma Swan had never been this cold, this distant towards him, not even when they first met, and he’d like to think she’d warmed up to him over the weeks and hours spent with Henry. So, it had to be the Dad Incident (with capital D and I because it was such a capital moment in his life).

“The lad doesn’t have a father?”

He was aware of how prying it sounded, of how much she did not owe any explanation to him, but the answer felt like a pivotal piece of information, a revealing part of Emma Swan. That was why he expected her to ignore the question, to yell that he had no right to ask, to take off. And that was why when she did neither, Killian had to control his features from confessing his shock.

“He does not,” Emma replied.

Killian wanted to ask on but he could see how closed off Emma was, how rigid her shoulders were, how faltering her breath. She still hadn’t faced him.

“Henry is lucky with a mother like you.”

If he heard correctly, Emma let out a gasp in response, but it was late and he was tired and it was probably only his imagination conveying the sound, making him hear what he wanted to. There was nothing else, no answer, no looks, only silence, so Killian let it go. Let himself go home and her stay. It was for the best, probably.

He lay awake that night, the worry a constant source of activity in his brain. She seemed okay, so did Henry. He was a typical three-year-old with a vivid imagination. There was no trace of unhappiness, of some sort of deprivation in those dark eyes. They appeared perfectly content.

And yet.

Her job did not pay a lot and she spent so much time working. Emma Swan was a dedicated employee but Killian highly doubted her work would get prioritized over her son, her dedication as a mom even greater. It had to be a necessity, the working late, a thing to make ends meet, to keep their heads above water. Killian had hoped she had someone to support her, to share the task of raising Henry, but the fact that she took the boy there every Tuesday had already been a red flag.

A sliver of silver light intruded his otherwise dark bedroom. Killian rubbed his hand over his tired eyes and it eventually rested along his cheek, a steady breath warming his palm. He sighed and his hand fell next to his body again. He rolled his shoulders to find a better position in the large, empty bed, between the cold sheets. Time passed but he had no idea how much time exactly before he finally drifted off.

--/--

“Belle?”

“Yes, Killian?” The brunette spun on her chair and her blue eyes met Killian’s, the corner of her eyes slightly crinkled by the smile on her lips.

He sat down on an empty corner of her desk, one leg still connected to the floor and the other dangling over the edge. He ran his fingers through his dark locks while he sensed Belle’s expectant gaze on him.

“Is there a woman named Emma Swan that works in the archives for you?”

If Belle was surprised by his seemingly random and very specific inquiry, she hid it well. Much to the relief of Killian; he had no idea how he would go about explaining his sudden interest in her. Then again, he was Belle’s boss; he had no obligation to explain himself to her, but as her friend, he kind of did.

“Yes, I hired her about—” Belle pursed her lips in thought. “—seven months ago, I would say.”

“And how does she do her job?”

Killian already had an idea of what the answer to his question would be but he needed to be absolutely certain, to hear it from someone who saw her every day and not only on Tuesdays.

“Incredibly, to be honest,” Belle replied in her typical Aussie way of speaking. “She's always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. You would think putting and retrieving files into the archives has some greater meaning for the greater good the way she does her job. She has been my savior several times when the others failed me.”

Silently, Belle asked him if he needed to hear more, if she needed to tell him more.

“Hmm,” he hummed while softly shaking his head.

He knew enough.

Emma Swan had always been a good employee—working long hours, working until her body ached only to go home to care of a three-year-old. She worked faster than the others, more thoroughly and more immaculate. In the time it took the others to do one task, Emma would make sure she’d done two. If you were the best, the probability of getting fired, of ending up without any money, any food to feed your child, or the chances of getting kicked out of the closet their landlord dared to call an apartment were smaller. She had to be the best for Henry and a couple of hours of extra sleep were nothing compared to her kid’s happiness.

And still, one day when her boss—not Belle but her boss-boss, Mr. Jones or Mr. Killian as her kid had called him… Mr. Killian and something else—summoned her to his office, Emma was one hundred percent sure that it was all over for her.

She’d walked this path through the halls several times, but never had she done it on a Friday, never had she done it when there were other people around, when the sun had not yet set. Those never’s were the instigators of her fear, of her conviction that she was getting fired.

Emma had tried to forget what happened last Tuesday and more importantly, the Tuesday before that, but it had taken a lot of power to barricade those thoughts and sometimes a brick would fall down, giving leeway for the memory to slip in and catch her off-guard.

Mr. Jones didn’t seem to be a vindictive man, far from it actually; he seemed kind and gentle and Emma completely understood why Henry would want to know if her boss was his dad. At least that would explain his behavior, his caring about them. No, he was not a vindictive man, but why had he suddenly decided to fire her now?

Halting before the door, Emma stared at the silver plaque. Killian Jones. Head of the Books and Manuscripts Department. She let out a shuddering breath, closing her eyes while pushing her balled hand forward until it met the wooden door, creating a harsh knock in the process.

“Yes, come on in!” a muffled voice yelled. The door did not suppress the British lilt of the speaker, however.

“You sent for me, Mr. Jones?”

“Ah, yes, Miss Swan. Do sit down.” His hand gestured towards the chair across him.

He had never called her Miss Swan before. It was always just Swan. He was distancing himself, pretending all of those Tuesdays had never happened to make this less painful for him. Oh god. A chill ran up and down her arms. She was going to get fired.

“Please don’t fire me,” she begged before Jones could even begin speaking. “I have a son to take care of. I will work harder, work longer. Just… please don’t.” Her voice cracked on the last word and it felt like the dam holding back the tears in her eyes had too because a tear rolled down.

“Swan, I’m not going to fire you,” he replied, “On the contrary, I’m giving you a promotion for all of the splendid work you’ve done.”

But Emma still could not calm down, could not stop the tears from flowing regardless of how much she rubbed and how much she blinked. Through her blurry vision, she could see Mr. Jones stand up and walk around his desk. Her hands came up to cover her face, hiding her red eyes and running nose from him. Her chair slightly moved and as Emma peeked between her fingers to find out as to why, she detected him sitting before her, one knee on the floor and holding something in front of her.

"Stop crying, love. Breathe, Swan." His soft voice did seem to help a bit if she focused on it, if she didn’t think about where they were and who he was and what he had just told her but only listened to the sounds of his timbre, the cadence of his accent.

His hand was holding a navy blue handkerchief, offering it to her, and Emma accepted, pressing the piece of soft fabric against her eyes and nose.

Of course he was the kind of guy that carried a handkerchief with him wherever he went.

After having snotted all over the handkerchief and having calmed down to the point that the tears had stopped forming and she did not feel like dropping onto the floor and curling into a ball anymore, Emma hesitantly handed the used cloth back, grimacing in embarrassment.

"Sorry for ruining your handkerchief," she apologized.

Jones chuckled in reply and stuffed it back into his pocket before standing up again.

"No worries, love. Nothing a good wash can't solve.” He leaned against the desk, widening the distance between them while maintaining their proximity. “Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah. It's just—” Quickly, her hand tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I felt a bit overwhelmed. I really thought you were going to fire me.”

"Why would I fire you when you're one of my best employees?” His eyebrow went up as he questioned her fears. And when he pronounced them, a handsome smile on his lips, they seemed so irrational, so illogical for them to make sense. “Besides, I don't want Henry to be angry with Mr. Killian."

The affection in his voice, the affection for her kid, surprised her. Enough to make the words disappear out of her mouth and mind.

"How is the lad doing?" he asked, after some blinks of silence.

"Um… fine,” Emma replied, trying to restrict the shock in her voice. “He's being Henry which means a lot of questions and very little answers."

Mr. Jones laughed and Emma stared at him, the way a dimple appeared in his cheek and he slightly threw back his head.

This was her boss.

And she’d already had a mental breakdown and completely destroyed his handkerchief today She needed to leave. Right now.

“If you don't mind, I'm going to finish the thing I was doing.”

To make her words sound less vague, she pointed behind her but it didn't really help.

“Oh no, sure.” He seemed dazed for a moment, looking back at his desk in search of something and eventually giving up the search. “I'll tell Belle to fill you in about the new job, your tasks and what not. If you agree, she'll have your contract too and all you have to do is sign. You're free to go.”

Emma didn't even let him finish her sentence before she quickly replied thanks and dashed out of the office and more importantly, away from him.

--/--

Jones checked on her constantly, asked her to visit his office and every time, Emma got a flash of fear. She’d done something wrong. This was the end. Back to her crappy job and crappy pay and no more free time with Henry. She’d walk towards his office, bracing herself for the blow, and then he would just smile and welcome her. She would sit down and he’d asked how work was going, if she understood everything, if she had encountered any problems. And he would always finish with asking how Henry was.

It was always on a Tuesday.

--/--

Gold’s Auctioning House had a company holiday, two set weeks in July where every single one of them had time off. It had been part of the allure, part of why Emma eagerly responded to the rubric in the paper. Because no matter how shitty her job or boss could be, those two weeks were set in stone. Looking back, her boss had not been shitty and her job had only sucked because of the long hours and low pay. She never would've imagined that by the time July rolled by, she would’ve been promoted to an actual fun job with actual good hours. Either way, July meant two uninterrupted weeks spent with Henry and now that she’d received a higher pay, they would be able to go places, to do things.

Apparently, July also meant a Books and Manuscripts barbecue right before the holiday began. It was tradition, Belle had told her. Something that came into place when Jones had transferred from the London division right before the holiday and had wanted to get to know everyone before he officially became their boss.

Emma decided to ignore the event, decided to forego the fuss and simply stay home and watch a movie or two. She wasn’t really the socializing type and to be forced to converse with her colleagues, whom she barely knew, while eating hamburgers in some sort of team spirit before singing Kumbaya around the campfire, was something she could live without.

But she was careless and left the invitation lingering around her apartment and it ended up just in the right place for her best friend to find as she came to watch Henry. Mary Margaret Blanchard was her guardian angel—a mother even, had they not been only three years apart. She was kind and smart and was also a big supporter of Emma having a social life. So when she had cast her eyes on the sheet of paper, she had instantaneously offered to babysit, proposed a shopping trip and convinced Emma she should get to know the people she worked with.

All of which, Emma now regretted accepting.

Except for the shopping, because the red summer dress she was wearing was stunning and accentuated just the right places.

Her fingers toyed with the glass in her hand, with the condensation gathering on the outside, drawing little figures, writing her name in boredom. She truly knew no one here, no one of the overwhelming mass of people chatting and drinking and eating. She did not even realize this many people worked in the department. After another sweep of her company, she spotted Belle’s chestnut hair twisted into a braid. She was wearing a purple sundress and was engulfed in a conversation with a tall woman with bright red lips. They laughed and the sound was enough to chase away Emma’s idea to join them.

She took a sip of champagne and closed her eyes, letting the July sun warm her skin. The feeling made her lips curl in enjoyment.

“May I have your attention?” The voice broke her out of her summer delight and made her eyes pop open. She knew that voice.

Her suspicion was right because when her vision returned, Jones stood on a small stage, glass of champagne in his hand and all of the looks directed towards him.

“Thank you all for joining me in celebrating yet another successful year. This year has been the department’s most profitable year and that would not have been possible without all of your efforts. Mr. Gold has asked me to transfer his gratitude towards everyone and his hope that you will all participate to try and make next year even more successful. But let’s not think of that just yet. First, there are two weeks of well-deserved holiday that we all should enjoy to the fullest before returning to work. Heaven knows I will.” The crowd chuckled. “Enjoy the food and drinks and enjoy your holidays. It’s been a pleasure.” Jones lifted his glass and the others copied the movement before clapping with wide smiles.

Killian Jones was, besides Belle, the only one she had spoken with in the month following her promotion and he was the only one with whom the subjects of conversation were not solely dedicated to work. But surely he was busy at this event that he had organized and she did not want to bother him with her company. There was also the matter of her uncertainty when situations involved him. He was her boss but because of Henry and his curiosity, their lives were more intertwined than they should be.

Perhaps it had been a bad idea in the first place to have let him near Henry, to have let them bond because she now had her boss and her child constantly asking about one another. It was easy, though, to pretend Jones really was his father even if it only was on Tuesday; Henry gained a role model and she gained focus on her work. And god, if the sight of them playing pirate or dinosaur hadn’t attacked her heart enough already, her kid talking about his Mr. Killian as if he had hung the moon and lit the stars certainly would.

She grew sick of appearing lonely and fiddling around, having been on the receiving end of pitiful looks far too often, so she grabbed herself a new glass, placed a couple of onion rings—she owed the person who put them on the menu a profuse thank you—on one of the cardboard plates and removed herself from the party.

The park the gathering was held in was not particularly large but it was big enough to put a considerable distance between her and the people—person—she was avoiding while still being able to have a visual on them. There was a pond, an idyllic mass of water with water lilies on the edge and a pair of ducks occasionally traversing it, and it seemed like the perfect place to sit and relax and eat her onion rings. Her eyes fell on a bench, brown with green, mossy discolorations and with a view of the pond. Emma carefully picked a spot that was not tarnished by moss or bird poop that would not stain her new dress and sat down.

She was about to take a bite from her second onion ring when the sound of footsteps crackled along the branches lying on the cobblestone pathway, the connection between the party and the calm, the others and her. Emma looked up, fully expecting the intruder to be one of her colleagues out on a stroll or out for a smoke and preparing herself for a cordial nod before turning back to her food.  It wasn’t someone there to enjoy the scenery or inhale toxic fumes, it was him.

Mr. Jones. Mr. Killian, whatever. Him.

“Here you are, Swan.” He moved a branch out of the way to reach her. “I was afraid you had left."

The words made her frown. She didn’t matter. Why would he be afraid she had left? How did he even notice her absence?

He was nicely dressed but it had a casual air, as if he had just randomly picked something out of his dresser and put it on. The white shirt was tight around his body, emphasized every curve of his muscles and every sharp edge of his physique. He had one sleeve rolled up to his elbow and the other hung loosely over his left arm. Unlike other times she had seen him, he was now wearing a prosthetic, a near-to-life limb with curved fingers.

"Nope,” she said, her lips popping against each other. “Only wanted to isolate myself without really leaving."

Jones nodded towards the empty spot beside her, asking permission to join her and Emma agreed, seeing no direct reason to deny him. If he felt like sitting on a bench overlooking the pond with her, it was his right to do so. It was a free country after all.

"Ah, I get that."

"Isn't this your party?" Emma questioned the understanding he showed.

He had just made a speech to congratulate them all, had just been received with applause and smiles of his doting employees. There should be no reason he would want to leave them.

"I organized it but it's their—" Jones motioned his head to the others vividly babbling and drinking and eating. “—party.”

Quite a few things that she wanted to say appeared in her mind, but her gut told her they would all lead to risky waters, to too heavy conversations for the light and sunny day they were enjoying. And seeing that she forbade herself from uttering her thoughts, Emma chose not to reply, causing silence to dance around them.

It wasn't uncomfortable, perhaps a little unfamiliar, but not extremely so. They just had to adjust to being around each other without Henry babbling between them—without Henry in general and outside of work. Not that Emma was foreseeing a lot of situations where that would be necessary.

"So," Jones said, cautiously and metaphorically tapping the silence, creating a crack and a break. "—any fun plans for the holiday?"

The question was an ordinary one, one she would expect a lot of her colleagues would ask each other in curiosity or politeness, but Emma still hesitated to tell him her plans, to indulge him. It had been difficult enough to cut all—non-professional—ties with him and keep Henry away from him, wasn't telling him all about her two weeks off reverse all of the efforts she had made?

In the end, the soft blue of his eyes and the kind smile on his lips were enough to persuade her otherwise. She wiped her hands on a napkin, getting rid of the excess grease from the onion rings, and clasped her hands together before answering.

"Probably let my kid boss me around.” She shrugged. “It's been awhile since he’s had his mom for him all alone.”

Jones let out a sound that wasn't just a chuckle but also not only a hum; it was a mixture of both and Emma couldn't stop the desire to hear it more often from sneaking in.

"He's a lucky lad.”

She sensed the duality of his words, the underlying meaning of the statement and decided it was best to not reply. Too heavy conversations and all that.

"And you?" she eventually asked, "Any plans for the next two weeks?"

"Yes,” he replied, stretching the word out until it was nothing but a hiss. “I'm going on a cruise.”

Her brow slightly furrowed as she tilted her head in surprise.

"Huh.” Her eyebrows rose again and her expression became more neutral, or more positive, at least. “Cool. Didn't peg you as a cruise kinda guy, though.”

Jones lifted his shoulders, the white fabric of his shirt clinging to him like a second skin moving along.

“And yet, I am still going.”

He responded with a kind of defensiveness that made Emma look for a way to defer the conversation into a less dangerous territory and if the only way to do that was to talk about herself, so be it.

“I’ve never been on a boat.”

A sound of amusement left Jones’ mouth and it made Emma frown, retracing her steps and words to look for a clue as to what he considered so entertaining, especially so quickly after the shift in his mood.

“They’re called ships, not boats. There’s a difference,” he indulged her after noticing the crease between her eyebrows.

“I haven’t been on a ship either, so I did not know that.” Her words were creating her own defensive reaction; she didn’t want to seem uneducated, oblivious to ordinary things that he seemingly was an expert in. Emma didn’t want to stay that woman that didn’t belong with the crowd because he had brought her there.

“You really haven’t?”

Eyes focused on the calm and undisturbed water, Emma shook her head.  “Nor have I left the country.” She was supplying him with so much information and she couldn’t figure out why. She’d been so careful during their previous interactions, sticking to simple greetings and farewells. They entailed no risk but what she was doing right now did.

“Well, my accent kind of betrays that I have.” He was drawing the attention back to himself, which Emma appreciated greatly.

“It does.” Her movement slightly slowed down by her hesitance, Emma turned her head. Her teeth created a dent in her lower lip as she considered letting the conversation stop there and them part ways again, as she thought about staying in his company a bit longer. “Belle told me something about London?” The latter seemed far more tempting.

“Aye.” And if he was surprised that Belle and Emma had discussed him, he didn’t let it show, he simply told his story undeterred. “I was born south of London, moved there after I graduated from university, started working at Gold’s, became second-in-command and when Gold was searching for someone to temporarily take over the new New York division, until it was up and running, I took the chance.”

“You just up and left?”

“I did,” he said, making it sound so effortless to detach all connections and settle somewhere new. “Seemed a bit of an adventure. I don’t regret it.”

Emma hummed, letting him know she understood. “You were able to just start over. Can’t say how many times I’ve wanted that.”

His cyan eyes watched her carefully and Emma became too aware of her breathing and her movements and of every blink. He was trying to read her, to figure her out; she was no stranger to the feeling, the little alarm bells screaming that there was a trespasser over and over again. No one had ever actually managed—not without her full and complete consent—to figure her out, but it did not seem as if Jones required her to lower her defenses. His look was too understanding for that to be the case, too suffocatingly soft.

She cleared her throat, attempting to stop the obstruction preventing her from properly breathing, but it was in vain. It was all too much.

“I think I'm going to go home,” Emma broke the spell. “I don't want to bother my best friend with Henry for too long.”

“I'm certain the lad is being his stellar self.”

And again, Emma had no idea what to reply. Should she thank Jones? Pretend she didn't hear the compliment? Wave it off as if Henry wasn't the amazing child he was? Take credit for her kid being himself?

“I'm sure he is, but even Henry's stellar self can be a lot to handle sometimes.” Emma stood up and Killian followed the movement with his eyes. She reached for her empty plate of onion rings to dispose of it, but he put a halt to it.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

Emma’s hand hung awkwardly in the space between them, before she retracted it and clasped her hands together, the thumb of her right one nervously rubbing the palm of her left. “Thanks.”

He rose as well, his hand grabbing the greasy cardboard plate and towered over her as he approached. Emma had to tilt her head to be able to look him in the eyes and when she did, he simply smiled. It was an everyday gesture but somehow felt so rare. Like she had never seen a smile before, nor did she know dimples could appear and she wasn’t aware the skin around his eyes would crease.

Before she knew it, her own lips curled too. Across from each other, they stood, neither making any movements to leave. If Emma wasn’t too much in denial of it all, she would consider it a moment between them.

“I have to go get—” she reminded him and more importantly herself.

“—Henry. I know,” he finished her sentence while lifting a corner of his lips.

Emma blinked and quickly wetted her lips, her mind racing along roads filled with possible answers and responses, until it slowed down and settled for a kind and casual, “Have fun on your cruise.”

“I will, thank you. Have fun letting Henry boss you around.”

“I will too.”

“I’ll see you in two weeks, Swan.”

He nodded—and possibly winked but it happened so fast Emma wasn’t certain—before retracing his steps and leaving along the same path he had come, her little plate in his hand. Her gaze was glued to his backside as he exited and detected his now relaxed shoulders and the little spring in his step.

It was a good thing she had time to recover and clear her mind after today because she definitely needed it. Those two weeks would come in very handy.

--/--

Day two of Emma’s vacation and Henry had already made a schedule of what they would do on what day. Well, Henry had rambled things that were both manageable and quite frankly impossible—a trip to the moon was slightly over budget—and Emma had made a selection, planning them accordingly. Today, they were going to the zoo; tomorrow, spend the day with Mary Margaret and David; on Thursday, they would bake cupcakes, and so the list went on.

“I really wanna see the monkeys and the tigers and the giraffes and um… Mommy!” Henry pulled her arm. “Do you think they have cobras?”

“I don’t know, Henry,” Emma answered truthfully. “We’ll have to ask, but cobras are very dangerous animals.”

Emma scanned the street for oncoming traffic and tightened her grip on Henry’s small hand as they crossed the street, a couple of steps closer to where the fun would begin and all of her son’s questions would be answered.

It was silent again and Emma could already spot the bustle of people, the parents with their offspring in tow, making their way to the zoo. It was a perfect day, not too warm, not too cold, perfectly average, for a visit to the zoo and it was clear she hadn’t been the only parent to think so. They stood still while Emma was grabbing everything she required before entering.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

“What is it, Henry?” she said a bit annoyed, eyes and hands scouring the insides of her purse for their reservation and her wallet.

“It’s Mr. Killian.”

Emma shook her head while her eyes were still trained on the leather purse hanging on her shoulder.

“Honey, that's not possible. Mr. Killian is not—” Henry tugged on her shirt and she let out a frustrated sigh. “Henry, I’m trying to find our reservation. We can’t go inside if I don’t find them.” Her words appeared to work as the pressure on her waist disappeared. And finally, her fingers encountered the small, square of paper.

“I got them!” Emma exclaimed in victory. “Now, we can go inside, Henry.” But there was no sign of her son. “Henry?” She felt the fear soar as she could not detect his brown locks or bright backpack anywhere. She was on the verge of turning frantic, of starting to scream his name at the top of her lungs until he reappeared in the mass of people.

That was when she saw him. Both of them actually.

He had Henry in his arms and determinedly walked her way once their gazes met. He had Henry. Everything was alright, Henry was alright. He had Henry.

Emma met them halfway with both relief and anger streaming through her veins.

“Henry Swan. Don’t you ever, ever run off like that again, okay?”

“Yes, Mommy.” He pursed his lips in regret. “Wanted to say hi to Mr. Killian.” The big, brown eyes quickly filled with tears and Emma took Henry out of Jones’ arms and held onto him tightly, closing her eyes while basking in the feeling.                                      

“I know, baby, but you gotta be careful, alright. What if it wasn’t really Mr. Killian? What if you couldn’t find me again? That would not be good, would it?” The liquid of Henry’s tears drenched through her shirt and Emma gently bounced up and down to calm him down a bit, cupping his head.

“Sorry,” he mumbled against her shoulder and instead of replying Emma chose to kiss the top of his head to reassure him, to tell him her anger mostly consisted of fear.

She breathed Henry’s smell in and let the air woosh back out in relief. Opening her eyes anew, she was reminded of his presence. Jones seemed perfectly content with just watching them, though.

Emma slightly frowned and claimed his attention with a soft voice, almost a whisper, “I thought you were on a cruise?”

“Ah,” was the first thing he said and it was followed by his hand disappearing into his hair. “I canceled it. Realized I wasn’t really a cruise kinda guy.” His lips moved into a smirk as he repeated her words from a couple of days ago.

It wasn’t really her place to question him about his whereabouts and he did just bring her son back to her. Something she hadn’t even thought about, hadn’t even thanked him for yet.

“Thank you.” Her head motioned toward the three-year-old in her arms.

In response, Jones’ shoulders went up in a minimizing shrug. “Don’t mention it, Swan.”

Of all the things she had noticed about Mr. Jones, the way he minimized his actions was one of the more surprising ones. Types like him often boasted about their accomplishments and acts of benevolence with a puffed out chest, but Jones always swept them aside to a point where one could think he was embarrassed by all the good he did, of all the fame he received in return. He had voluntarily spent hours with Henry to make her work easier and never once asked for something in return, insisting that he did not require anything. A thank you from Emma’s part had even been too much sometimes, his hand already waving it away before her lips could close around the word. Maybe Emma had miscategorized him, placed him in a group with people he did not belong with, with characteristics he did not have. But where did he belong? Who was Killian Jones?

Henry moved, leaving Emma’s shoulder that was functioning as a hiding place, and shyly looked up at her. The remnants of tears lingered on the edges of his eyes and Emma felt the sight tug on her heart, felt her motherly mode activate as she tenderly wiped them away and offered him some more consolation.

“You think you’re ready to see the monkeys and the tigers now?” she asked. Henry sniffed and nodded but the answer wasn’t enough to satisfy Emma. “But are you completely sure, because we could go home too, if that’s what you wanted.”

He leaned back, straightened his back and started shaking his head. First, slowly but as his conviction grew, the movement accelerated, shaking both Henry and her.

“No, no, no, no, no. Henry is ready. I wanna see all of the monkeys.”

Emma laughed, happy with the return of her kid, of how she knew him to be.

“Well, if that’s what you want, then we’ll go see all of the monkeys,” Emma confirmed before setting her son back on the ground. Holding him for longer periods of time was getting more difficult now that he was growing so fast. It all went by in a flash. She could still remember when small, little Henry was placed into her hands. It had changed everything and Emma would be the first to admit it had not all been a fairytale with rainbows and sunshine, but it had been real. Filled with pain and tantrums and wondering if their life would ever become better, but they had made it. Together.

Henry clasped his small hand around hers when her arms dropped him off on the ground and it seemed like he had momentarily forgotten about the presence of his beloved Mr. Killian too, because his eyes widened when he saw him.

“Mr—” His greeting was interrupted by a small hiccup, a side effect of the crying fit he had been afflicted with. “Mr. Killian,” he attempted again. “Mommy and Henry are going to the zoo. Will you come too?”

Emma should’ve seen this coming. Of course, Henry would want him to join them.

“Henry.” It was said in a mix of disapproval and regret she had perfected over the years. “I’m sure Mr. Killian has better things to do than to go to the zoo.”

It was a lie. She was anything but convinced, to be honest. Jones had been standing with them for a while, had patiently endured Henry’s meltdown, Emma’s soothing, their talking. If he had anything better to do, he probably would’ve excused himself, left right after he had reunited mother and son. None of that happened, instead, he stood across them with an expression Emma could not decipher.

“I don't actually,” Jones replied, confirming her suspicion. “If your mum’s alright with it, lad, I would love to come along.” His attention moved from Henry to her, and not for the first time, Emma found herself attacked by two sets of puppy eyes.

“Mommy, mommy. Please, please.”

To deny them their request, required willpower Emma did not possess. Or she did but it was not reserved for unforeseen situations like this where she would only make the owners of the puppy eyes sad by saying no. So, while she mentally prepared herself for a whole day in the presence of Jones, she nodded.

“Okay, fine. Mr… Killian—” She gestured towards him in surrender. “—can visit the zoo with us. But no shenanigans. From either of you.” She sent them both a warning look, one they both did not notice as they were happily smiling at each other. “Those are my terms,” Emma stipulated.

“Well, I have a condition too,” Jones said and Emma frowned. Surely, he must have realized he wasn't in the position of having conditions. She was the one granting him a day with them and he was the one gaining in this situation. He and Henry.

“My treat. The tickets,” he clarified. “I'll pay them.”

While it was a generous offer, Emma felt dismayed by it, almost offended.

“I don’t need you to be some kind of savior. I am perfectly able to pay for this myself.”

Jones’ hand came in front of him to calm her down, to reassure her that his motives were true.

“I know, Swan.” There was no irritation, no embarrassment, no smarty undertone. Just sincerity. He knew. “I simply wanted to thank you for letting me tag along.”

Oh.

The shame warmed her cheeks and turned her skin a rosy color. Her free hand brushed some hair behind her ear while attempting to cool off her face by subtly placing her palm on it.

“Sorry. Um… I had already reserved some tickets for Henry and me online but I'm sure you can just buy another one...”

An impatient pull snapped her out of the situation.

“Mommy. I wanna go to the zoo.”

“Yeah, kid. We're going right now.”

Jones was, though she shouldn't be surprised, a connoisseur of both sea animals and birds, providing all of them with elaborate background stories on the animals they saw, and was therefore, even more, Henry's hero. They walked and he pointed and by the time they had almost done the entire tour. Even Emma had learned new things and some interesting fun facts.

The zoo had a carousel, an old but well-maintained ride with horses, and Henry visibly lit up when he set eyes on it. As fast as his little legs could transport him, he ran until he stood before it.

He looked back at Emma and while he had not uttered a word, she knew he was asking for permission. In reply, Emma nodded, causing Henry to gleefully laugh at the prospect of getting a ride on the attraction.

A bench stood a bit further, far enough to avoid the bustle of excited children and hovering parents, but close enough to be able to keep an eye on Henry. Her feet were slightly hurting after the hours of walking they had done and the prospect of sitting down was far too alluring. She sat on one side and felt Jones covertly occupy the other one. With the utmost stealth, Emma risked a glance towards him. His eyes were on the carousel, focused enough for Emma to dare and turn her head completely, her stealth forgotten. She watched the curve of his jaw, the light stubble that adorned it, the way his eyelashes hit the apple of his cheek every time he blinked.

He must have sensed her watching him—not that she was that subtle—as he turned his head and met her eyes. His somewhat shy smile prompted Emma to ask something she'd been wanting to for a while.

“Did you actually cancel your cruise? Because I’m quite good at spotting a lie and I wasn’t kidding when I said you didn’t seem like a cruise kinda guy.”

“No.” His gaze flickered back to the carousel as he briefly shook his head. Emma couldn't say she was surprised by the answer but she did expect extracting it out of him would've been more difficult. “I did not cancel my cruise because I never booked it.”

It did not come as a shock to Emma, nor did the knowledge that he lied to her sting like it normally did. She abhorred liars, hated it when their words were badly received by the lie detector embedded in her brain. And once a liar, always a liar, especially if it involved such a small lie that could be avoided. If his first instinct was to lie, it always would be. But somehow, it was different with him.

The circumstances were the same; he had lied because he wanted to hide something and he'd told the lie twice. Emma's reaction to finding out, however, was not. She was calm and was ready to hear his story. Maybe it was her gut telling her that he was a good guy and his lie was not meant to hurt anyone, just to protect himself. How her gut had figured that out, she had no idea.

“Why did you lie?”

Jones wiped his hand on the jeans of his pants, rubbing and clenching, telltale signs of nervousness. Emma did not want to put him on the spot, force him to tell his tale to a virtual stranger when he was not ready.

“I don’t know if this makes it better or worse but as far as our colleagues know, I’ve gone on a cruise every single year since they’ve known me.”

“And you’ve never actually gone,” Emma concluded.

“No.” His eyes sought out hers only to break the connection again when they crossed. “I’ve spent every holiday in New York. To think of it, it’s a miracle I haven’t run into anyone sooner. It’s not like I’m in hiding or something.”

“Far from it, Henry was able to spot you from a mile away.” Emma softly smiled, simply turning the corners of her mouth upwards but keeping her lips glued to each other. “But why though? Isn’t it just easier to tell everyone you’re not going anywhere than lie?”

“I’m their boss.” Jones shrugged. “They all expect me to go on some extravagant trip around the world because that’s who they think I am, who they perceive me as. When I moved here, I wanted to start anew, not drag my past along, so I put on an act. And staying home all alone did not fit that act.”

Emma opened her mouth to react but was interrupted.

“Mommy!” They both changed their demeanor, pretended their topic of conversation was far lighter than it truly was and smiled when Henry came running. “It was so fun!”

Killian Jones was broken, Emma realized. It seemed like he genuinely enjoyed Henry’s company and that Henry acted as a distraction of his brokenness. She understood—the being broken, the solitude, the little sparkle of hope that Henry could be in a bleak existence. It would seem that they were a lot alike. Kindred spirits. That realization shifted the way she saw things. The way she saw him.

“Killian,” Emma addressed him for the first time, “I was wondering if you’d like to join Henry and me again tomorrow. We’re going to buy cupcakes and eat them in the park.”

Both Henry and Killian watched her with big eyes, the one in surprise and joy, the other in utter shock and confusion.

“Are you certain?” His dark brows furrowed. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Oh, you won’t,” Emma assured. Her lips were a smile, her voice kind. “I’m sure Henry would love to spend some more time with Mr. Killian, wouldn't you, Henry?”

“Yes!”

Emma looked from Henry to Killian, her eyebrow raised to ask him once again but without words and Killian nodded in acquiescence.

“Then it's settled.”

His hands were sweaty, a clear external sign of his internal nervousness. Or perhaps it was excitement; or a sweat-inducing mix of the two.

Emma had invited him to spend another day together with her and her son after their run-in yesterday. This was different though; yesterday was one hundred percent coincidental, only occurring because Henry had seen him while he and his mother were waiting before the entrance of the zoo and as Killian was making his way to the docks. It was a joyful reunion. They had not seen each other in weeks and while he couldn't assume anything about Henry, Killian surely had missed his Tuesday companion.

It had taken Killian about seventeen seconds of Henry's babbling to realize that he was missing a blonde mother, or his blonde mother was missing Henry. He grabbed ahold of Henry and scanned the crowd in search of her.

He had found her, they had found each other and they had spoken and walked and watched animals and it had been a long time since he had had such a diverting day. Which was why, when Swan proposed another one, he had to put a break on his excitement so his wholehearted ‘yes’ would not seem too eager.

Which was why he felt nervous as he waited on a bench by the entrance of the park Emma had told him to be at three p.m..

There were still four minutes left until the levers of his watch would signal it was time. Killian had been watching them constantly, keeping an eye on the time, letting the minutes tick by. He was a punctual man, always had been. There was a whole backstory to why he considered tardiness as most irksome, one that was filled with pain and heartbreak. Liam and he quickly learned in life that people who tended to be late were often of the unreliable sort and they were to be banished from their lives, avoided at all costs, in order to prevent history from repeating itself.

He rarely took risks just because of that reason, because taking risks had led to losing people and losing people had led to sorrow, sorrow had led to drinking and losing complete control and that had almost ruined his life. So he took back the reins, got his life in order, started anew, and was always on time.

That hadn’t changed but this definitely was a risk. Everything involving Swan and her boy had been, and still, he pursued, continued bonding with them, kept on meeting them and accepted their invitation. Because not taking risks could be very lonely at times.

It was forty-nine seconds to three p.m. when they appeared in his sight, walking hand in hand, engaged in a vivid conversation.

Stretching his legs, Killian stood up as they approached to greet them properly. There was nothing fraudulent about the happiness that he beamed, this was truly what their company did to him.

“Emma, Henry,” he acknowledged when they came close enough.

“Killian,” Emma politely retributed.

“Mr. Killian!” Henry almost yelled, his childish enthusiasm taking over. “Look, pirates!” Henry’s small index went to point at his bright shirt that was indeed decorated with pirates and ships.

“That’s incredible, lad. I’m very jealous of your T-shirt.”

“Mommy.” Henry pulled on Swan’s white blouse. “Mr. Killian likes my pirates.”

Emma laughed. “I know, honey. I heard. You clearly chose the best T-shirt to wear today.”

They began to walk in the direction of the playground, Henry filling the small promenade with words that were occasionally difficult to follow and seemed to skip from one topic to another but that were very entertaining nonetheless. The boy’s imagination kept on astounding him time and time again. He’d make a fine author or storyteller one day, of that Killian was sure.

The time flew by as Henry went up the slide and down, swung forwards and backwards on the swing, and built and destructed a castle made out of sand.

“Hey,” Emma addressed him, “do you think you can handle Henry alone for a while? That way I could go get the cupcakes.”

“Aye, love. No problem. I’ll keep a close eye on him.” Killian solemnly nodded while promising the safety of her son in his hands—well... hand. Emma smiled and brushed her palm along his shoulder in a thankful gesture.

“You’re a hero. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She turned her heads. “Henry, I’m going to get our cupcakes. Behave yourself with Killian, okay?”

Waving, Swan left them alone. She trusted him. Enough to leave her son with him. She had done that before, multiple times even but there was a difference. His office bore fewer risks than an open, public playground especially with a child like Henry. Emma Swan trusted him. The knowledge brought a smile to his lips as he let it sink in.

“Mr. Killian, look!”

A woman walked by. She was older—mid-sixties Killian would presume, her perfectly coiffed dark hair streaked with grey and her tanned skin wrinkled—and was taking her dog out for a walk. It had the cutest set of floppy ears and a grey tail and as soon as Henry saw the dog, he ran towards it in typical Henry-like fashion. There was no stopping this boy.

“Henry, wait!” he yelled, trying to prevent him from attacking the dog and possibly spooking it, but the woman waved her hand to show it was alright.

“You don’t have to worry. Alma is a good girl, she won’t hurt anyone,” she spoke, a different culture coloring and shaping her words.

“Alma?” Henry asked, hands scratching Alma’s back. “That’s pretty.”

“Well, thank you. And what is your name?” The woman slightly kneeled—which was impressive considering the height of her heels—to diminish the distance between her and Henry.

“Henry.” He watched the woman with big eyes, attempting to take everything—the hair, the jewelry, the clothes—before him in. Killian was accustomed to these kinds of people, they were his biggest customers—who else would spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on the books and manuscripts Gold’s Auctioning House had to offer—but he could see that Henry was not. His eyes darted from one place to another, not knowing where to stop.

“Nice to meet you, Henry.” The hand that wasn’t holding Alma’s leash kindly shook Henry’s. “I’m Isabel and this is Alma.”

Alma reacted to her name, enthusiastically barking and startling Henry out of his reverie. His little feet were trampling on the grass in anticipation or longing to run and play with Alma and it seemed like Killian wasn’t the only one that picked up on that, Isabel letting go of her connection with Alma and giving the dog her freedom back. Henry looked at Killian and with a nod, he received the same.

“Mind if I join you?” Isabel asked Killian as he settled on a bench.

“Be my guest,” he said with kindness.

Their heads moved synchronously from left to right as if they were watching a match of tennis instead of the game of fetch Alma and Henry were participating in, both of them running and jumping and making sounds of exhilaration.

“How wonderful children are.” Isabel shook her head in astonishment, her brown eyes sparkling in delightment.

“They truly are,” Killian agreed softly, the same sparkle most likely reflected in his own blue eyes as well.

By the time Swan joined them again, cupcakes stored in a box between her hands, she began laughing at the scene—Henry peppering Alma with butterfly kisses—in front of her and continued to do so when Henry almost tackled her while chanting “Mommy!”

“Hey, kid.”

“I’ll clear some space for you,” Isabel said when Henry and Emma reached them. Killian rushed to intercept her but it was too late as she called Alma, the animal faithfully followed her order and approached the bench. She stood up, smoothed the fabric of her skirt and smiled at the three of them.

“You have an adorable family,” Isabel complimented.

He blanked, not knowing how to respond to the statement. They weren’t a family, only… well, Killian did not really know what they were. He was her boss, she was his employee, she was Henry’s mom. Nothing more.

“Thanks.” Emma accepted the compliment and smiled back at the woman she had only just met.

“Bye Alma, bye Izzie!”

Killian couldn’t help but send Swan a quizzical look once Isabel had turned her back.

“It's easier just to say thanks than to explain everything to a stranger.” She shrugged.

The sky had begun to turn that orangey-pink, the one that was quintessential to the beginning and the end of a day, without which the feeling of a new start and a content completion would be lost.

After devouring all of the cupcakes, they had played some more and talked some more. Killian couldn’t make himself leave, couldn’t make himself face that content completion so he tagged along to extend the day as long as he could. They bought a light dinner, the cupcakes still very present in their stomachs, and ate it too. He would’ve left if he felt unwelcome but the signals Swan was giving him were far from that. She was warm, tried to include him in every conversation, laughed with everything he said. She was making an effort and he didn’t know whether he should be grateful or wondering what had warranted the change. After dinner, Henry had almost collapsed on the grass they were picnicking on, the events of today so exciting and exhausting and all of the running and jumping catching up on him.

Emma watched his little chest inflate and deflate. “I hate it when I have to wake him up when he’s so soundly asleep, but we have to walk all the way home.”

Killian followed the direction of her gaze to the closed eyes of the three-year-old. He looked so peaceful and Killian understood Emma’s hesitance to interrupt that peace.

That was the only reason he made the suggestion to carry him home for her.

“Oh no,” Swan objected. “I couldn’t make you do that.”

“I’m offering, Swan.”

“But…” Her sentence died when he raised his eyebrows, challenging the words that were going to come out of her mouth. “Alright.” Her hands went up “Go ahead.”

It proved to be more of a challenge than he expected, lifting him without waking him and with only one hand to gently maneuver him, but with the very brief assistance of Emma, Henry ended up on a comfortable spot on Killian’s shoulder with only one small sound of displeasure.

The walk was mostly calm, quiet and without any conversation, as they both did not want to wake the slumbering toddler on Killian’s shoulder, but there were moments when he silently watched her and her gaze left the stones of the street to look at them, their eyes meeting. He shyly smiled, directing his eyes to the ground as the tingles ran up and down his arms.

By the time they reached her apartment, the streets had turned dark, streetlights diligently working to provide some sort of light and Emma used that light to find her keys. She let out a triumphant sound as her hand revealed the set and opened the door to grant him access.

Their apartment was small, tiny even in comparison to his average flat, but he could see Swan’s attempts to turn it into a home for her and Henry; the toys that were stacked in a corner, the drawings that adorned the walls, the soft grey that colored the room. She had tried to reach the best result with what she had available. It made Killian think of when he was younger, when he and Liam had to fend for themselves and try to survive in a very big and unfair world. It had been such a struggle but they had managed. So had Swan.

“You can put him in the room on the left.” She pressed the light switch and brought light to the room. Her head motioned towards a closed door as she was taking off her jacket and purse. A bit hesitantly, he followed her instructions, moving Henry to his left arm and grabbing the handle to enter the room. He could make out the vague form of a bed and moved Henry into it. His small feet still had shoes on them—the easy ones with Velcro’s thank god—and Killian quickly removed them and set them next to the bed. Checking if the boy wasn’t waking, Killian let his gaze fall on the bed one last time. He turned and opened the door again, leaving Henry with a final “Goodnight, lad.”

Once he returned to the small living room, there was no sign of Emma, at least until he tread close enough to the couch to be able to peer over it. In it she lay, asleep. Bright yellow socks on her feet, bright yellow hair across her face.

“Swan.” He softly prodded her to try and wake her but it was to no avail.  “Emma,” he whispered, but still no movement. For a second, he remained next to the couch, fiddling with his fingers, before deciding what his next move was going to be. Waking her seemed too drastic, especially if she was tired enough to fall asleep on her couch after mere seconds.Sleeping on her couch, however, couldn't be very comfortable since it seemingly belonged to the lumpy category of couches. Killian was going to make Emma’s rest as pleasant as possible. He searched the tiny apartment and came across a stack of blankets. He removed one, one that had small ships on it, and laid it over Emma's unconscious form.

He checked his surroundings for anything else he could do but nothing came to mind so Killian decided to go home. Before doing so, he reached into his pocket, took out one of his business cards that bore his number and wrote something on the empty white space with the pen that resided in the opposite one.

Thank you for today. -K

--/--

He got a text the next morning from a number neither he, nor his phone, recognized saying: You are very welcome. Henry wants to go to a museum tomorrow, wanna come? -E and promptly saved the number as Swan before answering: I’d love to.

--/--

With Henry’s obsession with pirates, Killian could not not take him and his mother out to the docks for a sail on the small ship he had the honor to call his. She was old and well-used but sailed like she was great a many years younger and was an absolute beauty, in her own, esoteric way. Killian went to pick up Swan and Henry with his car and drove them to where she lay, the spot where he spent so many hours painting and tinkering, where he began and finished all of his trips into the silence and calm.

Thinking back to their very first meeting, he remembered that Henry was somewhat disappointed to hear he was not and had never been a real pirate, but Killian was hoping seeing the Roger would make up for that and if it didn’t, a sail definitely would. Henry was a sailor in his heart and soul, not to forget, even if he was too young to have actually sailed a boat on his own.

“Is this it?” The boy pointed at a random boat swaying in the water.

“No, Henry,” Killian refuted.

“This one?”

“No.”

Impatiently, Henry grunted only to receive a very stern look from Emma’s part ordering him to behave.

“Here we are,” Killian said when they had reached her. With a quick gesture, he introduced them to the location they would be spending the next couple of hours in. “Swan, Henry, this is the Jolly Roger.” He was wishing they would not be disappointed by his humble ship and it seemed his wish was granted as he let out a small gasp as they stood still before her.

“Can we go on it?”

“We can and we will,” Killian chuckled, the relief encompassing him in one swoop.

The weather was perfect, even more perfect than he could have hoped for. The sun was bright and hot in the sky, the wind offering some relief against the rays of light heating their skin. The water lapped slowly, an affable welcome for both Henry and Emma who had not been on the water before. In spite of the good weather, it was calm around the docks and on the water, the side effect of it being Tuesday, but Killian was not complaining, far from it even. If this sail did not turn out to be the best day of this holiday, he would be the sole one to blame and he was going out of his way to avoid that.

Holding out his hand, he led Henry aboard, Swan following on his heels. He could see their efforts to steady themselves on the tilting surface, see the concentration on their faces as they tried to accustom to the peculiar sensation.

“Ready to set sail?” His eyebrow went up with his question.

Swan inhaled, her shoulders rising and eventually dropping as she let the air back out in one go, before nodding and wrapping her arm around Henry. “We are.”

Using the hook prosthetic he always wore while sailing, Killian opened a crate and retrieved two life jackets. Safety above all.

“A life jacket for you, young man,” he said, pulling the bright red contraption over Henry’s head and securing it in the right places. “And one for you, Swan.” Her eyes did not waver from his as his hand touched her neck, her shoulders, her waist. His hand almost trembled with the urge to linger, to caress her pale cheek and her soft curves. It almost trembled as he fought the feeling, painfully aware of where they were and who they were. She wasn’t his to caress and that was where it ended.

“All right,” Killian said, shaking himself out of his haze of self-pity and melancholy, summoning every ounce of excitement he had felt in the previous week, “You two are my first and second mate for today so I’ll need you to follow every order you get from me, understood?”

Henry’s bobbed rapidly as he agreed while Swan replied with a quiet “Aye, aye, Captain.”

They were eager guests, wanting to help wherever and whenever they could. Killian had to tell Henry on numerous occasions that he was too small for some things and the boy had countered every time that he would be four in less than a month—not that it helped to change Killian’s initial and final decision. Emma was more of a quiet learner, taking in everything he had said and turning it into practice only moments later, a little smile following when she was successful.

After a while, the hard labor of leaving the harbor was over and the Roger was calmly floating in the water, granting them some respite after all of the work they had done. Killian had provided a basket with some food and drinks and went to fetch it below deck. When he returned, Henry was slathering a thick layer of sunscreen all over his mother’s face and arms, Swan giggling along with her son as she, in turn, treated him to a coat of protection against the sun, albeit less chaotic than how her son was rubbing and applying.

“I think Killian needs some sunscreen too, Henry.” Swan smirked as she was well aware what her words would ensue.

Henry approached Killian with greasy hands and plastered them on his face. He threw her a dirty look and she just laughed in response. After their beauty treatments, they all settled on deck and started nibbling on all of the goods Killian had brought. Henry leaned against his mother’s chest while Killian sat across them, the perfect place to watch them enjoy.

The sun hit her skin and she glowed. Her skin, her hair, the gold flecks in her mossy eyes. They all lit up as she smiled. It was in that moment that he realized that she owned his heart. He could not return to his empty existence, lonely and on his own. It was frankly impossible to after her.

She was not his but how he wanted her to be.

--/--

“You already know where he belongs,” Emma told him later that day.

Killian was carrying a sleeping Henry again, a replica of the situation that occurred over a week ago. This time, it was not crossing along the playground but the sail that had completely exhausted him.

“Aye, that I do.” Killian couldn’t stop the warmth from creeping into his voice. He knew where to put Henry because they had been here before, together and somehow he had been granted an opportunity to do it all again. To spend more days with them.

“Sleep well, Henry,” he whispered to the dark room, fully aware that the boy had been sleeping for over half an hour and would not hear him. It was the gesture that counted.

Like last time, Killian went back to the living room but different than that time, Swan was awake on the couch. A quip left his lips before he could think about it.

“I'm surprised you're still awake, Swan,” he teased. “Last time you, very unceremoniously, fell asleep.” His lips formed a smirk as he came closer.

“Haha,” she replied, the sound without any humor. “I have a kid that decided to wake me up at 5:30 am last time.” Swan grimaced. “Luckily, Henry has learned that vacation means sleeping until at least eight.”

She was settled on the couch, jacket and shoes off like last time and a blanket slightly thrown over her legs. Her locks, that she had let loose during the day, were now gathered in a hastily thrown together bun at the top of her head. She was the image of relaxation. And he was awkwardly lingering around her. It was time go home, she was clearly ready to unwind and he did not want to overstay his welcome. As usual, his hand went up to rub his neck as he gathered his courage.

“Well, I'm not going to bother you any further. Good night, Swan.”

Her forehead creased as she tilted her head and rearranged her bun.

“You can stay a bit longer if you want,” she casually proposed. “I was simply planning to watch some Netflix so you definitely wouldn’t bother.”

“Oh… um. Aye, if you’re certain I won’t be a hindrance, it would be my pleasure.”

Swan made room on the couch, inviting him to sit next to her and assuring that he would not be a hindrance. Killian began with taking off his own jacket and shoes, placing them next to hers by the door. After a calming and somewhat heartening inhale and exhale, he finally joined Emma. He chose to sit down as far from her as possible. Of course, he would not have minded to sit slightly closer but he was in her home, was invited by her to watch some television and he did not want to take advantage of that or cross any borders. So, the corner of the couch, it was.

“Any preference?” Her blonde eyebrow went up along with the remote control, explaining her words.

“As long as it isn't anything horror, not a big fan of the genre,” Killian explained, internally cringing after he uttered the words. Way to go.

“I wasn’t planning on anything horror tonight,” she reassured with a wink. “That’s reserved for Halloween and Halloween only .”

Eventually, Swan ended up choosing a light comedy that did not require a lot of paying attention, but was truly funny and entertaining to the both of them. They laughed together over the antics of the characters and, in a moment of distraction, Killian noticed how Emma threw her head back as she laughed freely. It only made his grin grow even more.

Netflix began to count down until the next episode and Swan removed the blanket from her lap and stood up. Killian followed her steps to the fridge and saw her pull two beers out of the cold storage. Swiftly, she removed the caps, the metal clinking against the stone of her counter. The rough material of the couch did not shift as she sat down again, handing him a beer while sipping from the second one. As the title song of the show blasted through the apartment again, Killian noticed how they were suddenly sitting way closer than how they had begun.

“I know I've told you this before—” Killian began as another episode had ended and they both had decided to put a stop to it here. “—but Henry truly is a magnificent lad.”

Their empty beer bottles stood on the floor, their feet were in the couch, sometimes touching and sometimes not.

“You really like him, don't you?” Emma turned to face him with a soft expression. He nodded. “Henry adores you, he cannot shut up about you, so I guess the feeling is mutual.”

Killian already knew this. Henry had been pretty straightforward and open about what he felt, like any other three-year-old. He had even been too open at times. It was his mother Killian was still unsure about. He could read her and could see that she liked their time together but doubt and fear loomed in his mind. Did she reciprocate the feelings he felt—the feelings that had surprised him by appearing but also had been there from the start?

He still didn’t know what they were and even though defining a relationship, a connection, wasn’t always necessary, Killian needed this. To not go mad, to have some sort of footing. And a man at the edge of sanity did bold things.

“What about you, Swan?” he dared to ask, locking his eyes with her green ones. “Do you fancy me?”

He had expected her to frown, to be repulsed by his question, to order him to leave her apartment, but of course Emma Swan surprised him yet again by holding his gaze and smiling.

“Occasionally,” she admitted. “What about you, Killian Jones. Do you like me?”

Words are overrated, he thought as he drifted closer to her. Words are overrated, he thought along with yes, yes, yes. I like you. So very much.

Emma caught on to what he was about to do and met him halfway the lumpy couch, her glance moving from his irises to his lips right before they took that leap of being more. It was the biggest cliché mankind had ever known but time stood still when their lips touched. It was weeks and months of build-up, of yearning looks and adoring gazes that lead up to the moment where clocks stopped ticking, the world stopped moving and he was kissing Emma Swan.

--/--

They spent an additional three days together, taking Henry places, doing things, and once Henry’ was asleep, truly enjoying each other’s company. They’d built their own little world, a bubble that was so lovely that he never wanted to leave, never wanted it to pop. But the more time they spent together, the closer the end of the two weeks of vacation got. And even though he only admitted it to himself, in the darkest hour of the night, he was afraid of what was going to happen when they did end. They were in a grey zone, somewhere where he wasn’t her boss, where they didn’t care about other people. They now were more than what they started as but less than stable. Less than stable would not work once they were forced to return to work, get back into the strenuous daily string of events.

He was desperate to hold onto this feeling, to them.

“What happens at the end of this week?” he attempted to keep the worry out of his voice, to uphold some sort of casual air and lightheartedness.

Swan’s feet were lying across his lap while she was scouring the Netflix menu. It was a picture of domesticity and they had gotten to it in under three days.

“We go back to work?” Emma answered innocently, apparently confused by his question.

“With us, Swan.” His attempts proved to fail as he suddenly sounded so very tired. It was the absolute dread that drenched his bones, the nights he spent mulling this over. She was unaware of those as he didn’t want her to know, but it was becoming more difficult to keep it all to himself

Killian felt Emma shift, sensed her feet pull back as she finally turned her head to him and moved into a position that acknowledged the earnestness of their conversation. Folding her legs beneath her, she sat upright with her hand in her lap.

“Oh.” Her eyes slightly widened, mouth forming a perfect ‘o’. The serenity left her face as she crinkled her forehead. Her tongue darted out to assuage the dent her teeth were creating.

The fear was taking over, he could see it in the way her breathing accelerated, the way her couch was suddenly not big enough for the both of them. She was preparing herself to lift her walls again, figuratively mixing the cement to glue the stones together. This was what he was afraid of. Killian needed to interfere, or her wall would be blocking his completely bare heart

“Look, Emma.” Without actually moving closer, he attempted to reduce the distance between them. “I really enjoy spending time with you two and I don't want that to stop. I can understand if you’re uncomfortable with me being your boss and the thing,” he said, not knowing what else he could call it, “between us. There are no obligations whatsoever and if you’re feeling queasy about it all, you can just tell me. We can go back to how things were before the holiday, if that’s what you prefer.”

It would be the most difficult thing, return to work as if he had not seen and experienced paradise but it would be something he’d be willing to do for her if it meant her wellbeing.

“Really?”

With a sad smile, he nodded.

Before he could realize, Emma’s lips were on his and her hands were on his jaw. It was a soft peck, over in an instant, over before he could properly kiss her back. She lingered close, foreheads connected and her breath hot against his skin. Her thumbs were simultaneously rubbing circles against the apple of his cheeks as silence fell. He did not want to ruin the moment by asking her anything and she did not feel the need to explain the sudden burst of affection.

“I don’t want to go back to how things were before,” she whispered, an admission into his skin that made his heart thump faster. “It’s going to be weird going back to work, but it would be weirder to not have this—” Her nose brushed against his cheek. “–—anymore. So, I’m completely okay with slowly figuring out what this thing exactly is.” It was a timid statement, a quiet, calculated one but it was all Killian needed. He wasn’t expecting her to make any promises that brought her into a state of panic or anywhere but her comfort zone. Reassurance that he would not have to leave them behind was enough.

Killian kissed her to substitute the words that had disappeared out of his mouth, his hand tangling in her light hair and arm snaking around her waist.  He gave and took, searched and found, was cherished and worshipped.

In the dimmed light of her apartment, they watched each other, their initial plans long forgotten. He could almost feel the veneration, it was almost tangible in the air around them; it lay heavy on his chest and yet, he would not want it gone.

“You have a scar here,” she noticed, drawing her own finger along her skin. It sounded like a report, as if he had not known the cut in his cheek had been there for over twenty-six years.

“I fell when I was two,” he explained, recalling the stories he had heard as his own memory failed to muster the image. “It was a nasty cut. Liam thought I was going to die because there was so much blood.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t.” Killian shook his head.

Silence began to surround them again, almost bringing them back to the place they were before but it did not manage to do so as Emma broke it with a question.

“Liam’s your brother?”

She didn’t know. Killian was on the verge of sighing, but held the whiff of air in. They had so much left to discover about each other, so much of their stories left untold. She had the right to know all of him, but he did not want to burden her.

“Aye, he was.” As usual, the words were accompanied with a sting, “He died a couple of years back.”

Emma crawled closer, burrowing her head under his chin, encircling his chest with her arms, until there was no space left between them, until their breaths and blinks and heartbeats occurred at the same time.

“I’m sorry.” Killian felt her hand brush across his jaw.

“It was a devastating night. Liam wasn’t the only one who died. Milah, my girlfriend back then, died as well.”

His world had been destroyed, he had ceased to exist. How could he exist without the two people whom he loved most, without the only people that loved him? It had been stupid, so stupid. Milah and he were young, went out to party but had both drunk too much and driving home was not an option. Why waste money on a cab when he had a big and worried brother at home who would not mind playing taxi? But that big and worried brother had also just gone to sleep after a double shift and had fallen asleep at the wheel as he was driving them home. Milah died. Liam died. Killian survived. It was a reversed world. How could he live and they not? How was that fair? He wanted to stop living, breathing, existing but in the end, he just stopped taking risks.

There were tears gathering at the rim of Emma’s eyes as she listened, the glitters making her eyes seem bigger, even more innocent.

The ache, the absence that used to be a throbbing all over his body, was now softer, easier to live with. It had taken moving across the globe, starting all over in a town that carried no memories of them, with people who had never known them. But, he was doing better and that was a start.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Killian.”

He was doing better and a lot of that was thanks to her.

“I never thought I'd be capable of letting go of my first love, my Milah. To believe that I could find someone else. That is until I met you.”

The tears on the edge of her eyes now fell, Killian instantly reaching out to wipe them away with the pad of his thumb. Emma leaned into his touch, closing her eyes while she basked in the feeling.

After a moment of calm, of letting the emotions steady again, she spoke, “So the Swans have finally conquered your heart?”

“You've had it for way longer than you realize.”

The fact that her boss was now also her boyfriend should be weird and awkward but it somehow wasn’t? Belle knew, including a handful of other people too but besides that, they had decided to keep it under wraps. While their relationship was very serious and came to be in a very proper and correct manner, people could think the contrary and start to trumpet false tales and gossip. And seeing that both their jobs were at risk if that were the case, as well as her child she needed to protect, a strictly business relationship on the work floor was as far as they went. And if they sometimes broke their own rules and succumbed under the tension by having a make-out session in his office after hours, Emma would attribute that to Killian’s divine looks.

But he was more than that.

Killian was sweet and funny and cheeky and just thinking of all of his characteristics made Emma break out in a grin and made her heart beat that tad faster; he was a catch and he was completely hers. Well, hers and Henry’s, but mostly hers. Ever since he’d come into her life, it had become so much better. From a better job and more free time, to helping with Henry and to feeling loved by a simple look and a small smile.

Emma couldn’t be more grateful for that one evening where Henry had run away and completely changed their future while doing so.

“Mommy.” Emma’s gaze left the dishes as she turned her head towards Henry, wiping her hands on a towel before walking towards her son. He was settled on the ground, face distorted in concentration as he attempted to build the puzzle Killian had given him for his birthday. “Is Killian my Dad?” he asked once she squatted next to him.

“What?” was Emma’s baffled reaction.

Last time she had heard this question was months ago, on that one night that made her freak out and tear Killian and Henry apart. She’d been so very wrong in doing so, she realized in hindsight, and eventually faith—or you could blame it on her curious child again—had made their paths and stories intertwine anew, this time into an inseparable mess that only became more interwoven.

“Is Killian my Dad?” Henry repeated impatiently. “He does all the things Avery does with his dad with me and he buys me puzzles and he is here all the time and I love him and Killian loves me. He should be my dad,” was his conclusion.

She wanted to freak out about what this meant and what she should reply but she couldn’t. Henry’s simple and matter-of-fact reasoning prevented her to do so. Yes, Killian did all of those things and yes, Killian loved Henry, of that Emma was sure. There had been no shortage of indications that he was all in, completely devoted to the both of them. And yes, the last couple of months Killian had been Henry’s dad, they just hadn’t used that specific term before.

So as the over-rationalizing swarm of thoughts left her brain and Emma could see clear again, Emma asked Henry a very simple question and the answer was going to determine the rest of their lives.

“Well, if that’s the case, you want to ask him if he wants to be your dad?”

There’s an angsty sequel of this fic coming at some point which will be called Trials so if you’re interested in that, keep your eyes open and if you’re not, you can easily pretend this is the actual end if angst is not your cup of tea ♥

[49scribes-a]

{--More stream quotes!--}

YEA BO- wait. What the fuck is this. OH MY GOD THAT MUSIC. I'M TRIGGERED. I FLASHING BACK SO HARD. GOODBYE.

Hige don't be dramatic you're fine

NO I'M NOT. I REMEMBER HAVING FF ON GBA. -SCREECHES-

Honestly I was playing The Evil Within 2 the other day it was a traumatic experience for me.

Fuck that, yolo it.

No I'm not gonna yolo it.

Assaless.

Speak my name when u arrive... say my name boi.

I received the Sword of the Order.

Kinky.

Do you seriously remember that?

Jesus christ that was so long ago.

Was it? I have no concept of time. I literally don't. Like none. The bashtard.

Basch. Baschtard. Vaangina.

*Gets out the hose. Pressure washes Hige with holy water*

I smell. Something weird. Like hot glue.

*turns into swiss cheese*

RIP swissed Hige.

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK. IS BURNING. IN RL. I SMELL HOT GLUE. AM I DYING RN. THEY SAY YOU SMELL HOT GLUE WHEN YOU'RE HAVING A SIEZURE.

Where's the spy pirate I wonder.

I've heard of smelling brussel sprouts...

It varies. Some say copper pennies. Some say hot glue. Some say burning stuff.

Dead raccoons smell a lot like melting brussel sprouts. Pro tip.

Hige I-- I don't... wanna know how you know that.

Cuz of their hobby.

Vaugn the oversharing fuckwit. Relatable.

I genuinely forgot how to spell his name, and just don't care at this point.

Jar jar binks!!!

Its Vaan. Two a's.

Van. Vaan. Yawn.

Wtf was that noise Vaan.

Sell shit, be rich for about 5 seconds, then be poor.

He's just a teenage boy.

OH. I KNOW WHAT I'M SMELLING. FUKING FI R E WOR KS.

Sky pervert u say.

Everyone in this house but me is like 'OH MY GOD ITS GUNSHOTS. 100 PERCENT GUNSHOTS. THE WORLD SO DANGEROUS.' And I'm like... bitch... its fireworks... 'NO -- ITS NOT -- I WAS IN THE ARMY I WOULD KNOW WHAT A GUNSHOT IS. PLUS, I JUST SAW THE FLASH FROM THE BARREL'. Excuse me... guns don't... guns don't flash.

flash from the bARREL. I'M LAUGHING.

That's not... how guns work.

Oh what I don't have my party with me.

I was waiting to see how long before you noticed lmao.

Wow you guys are so mean. Not telling me I forgot my party.

I'm gonna summon them like beatle juice.

Oh man it didn't work.

Oh there you are. I tried to summon you like beatle juice but it didn't work.

Well you shoulda said that chant over a dead possum. Then I woulda heard you.

Confession. I'm still hella weak for bunny tatas.

I DON'T REMEMBER ALL THE FAKE NAMES OKAY.

Clearly neither does Vaan.

Am I ready for the mines? Am I? Aaam I? I am let's go.

Ah, so polite. You're also like. My well of never-ending potions.

Oooooo. Whip him. Whip him daddy.

Jfc.

I want to see him broken and bleeding and crying for more.

*gets the holy water hose again*

THATS NOT HOLY WATER. THERE'S NOTHING HOLY ABOUT IT. EXCEPT THAT IT FILLS ME WITH HOLES.

Exactly.

What big teef u have.

Every city looks pretty at night. They look better on FIRE at NIGHT.

We're not lighting Bhujerba on fire.

WHY THE FUCK NOT. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THIS GASOLINE NOW.

Okay, Hige? You can set that airship right there on fire.

=DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD MAKE IT A FUCKING PHOENIX.

Hello sexy.

Nevermind. He looked better through the blurry window. Fucking frizied hair.

Everyone looks the god damn same to me.

Assless.

[spongebob voice] Iiiiiii'm ready. Iiiiii'm ready.

Idk where they are ho.

I don't know if this is weird but, does catnip... smell like tea? Cuz I think it kinda smells like tea.

Wouldn't know, I've never smelled catnip that I can remember.

I missed my chance to be Cool and say 'I've never snorted catnip'. I disappoint myself.

Awwww, but I want to take out half your kingdom army with this.

Dang you only had 8 gil? You're a poor ass soldier, what the fuck.

I guess I will just. Sound the alarm.

sOUND THE ALARM. BEE BU DEE BU DAH DEE DEE DEE.

Now I'm gonna have to look that song up. gdi.

You gonna slap her again? ...I mean him, not her.

What FUCKING level are you? Oh my gooood.

God-- Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

DON'T STOP. BELIEVIN.

n y o o m.

SUPER SAIYAN.

R i p t h a t du d e.

aAWWWWWWWWW WHAT ARE TH O SE. THEY'RE ADORABLE.

KNIGHTKNIGHTKNIGHTKNIGHT.

KNIGHTTTTT.

I can't find the gd song.

lOOK AT THAT ARMOR.

Found ya bitch.

I ALWAYS FORGET ABOUT THE GD FILTER.

THEY'RE ADORABLE. I WANT 10.

Okay but u know what else is fucking adorable. The. Sheep. In Nautilus Park in FFXIII. ...Wow it  didn't censor me that time.

THE SHEEP LOOK LIKE MUPPETS WTF. THEY'RE SO CUTE.

Lavi was honestly just. "I'm living in this park now. I'm never leaving these sheep."

Doug wants a moogle.

I PLAYED A MOOGLE ONCE. AND THEIR HUMAN FC WAS KOMUI.

Chocobos are better.

THERE. Fuk u chat.

But also omg. Komui as a M O O G L E.

Chocobos are blessings.

I need to find that blog I had now.

FOUND IT.

I did so many fucking laps around this airship. Eventually I ran out of spawns. It was just. 'Damn'.

Jeez Vossler, god damn, put some eye drops in your eyes.

'You won't be able to leave this area easily, you should think about saving in a different file' NAAAAAAAAAH.

Wait, you mean you weren't. Fighting anything all this time? God damn it Ashe. Didn't have your gambits on, *growls* /PRINCESS/.

I mean. Its an honest mistake. At least you didn't go out into a sandstorm without your party to fight a Mark kek.

FIX YOURSELF.

fIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.

Okay. Let's just go with this. Too many. I don't like it.

*sips cola*

(elis voice) i gOT THE COLA.

[coach voice] COLA.

Honestly my favorite is. 'Ah now Coach you look like you done this before.'

SOMETHING ABOUT THAT LINE JUST. ISN'T RIGHT.

Exactly.

I hate being blinded too tbh. I say as I never wear glasses I need to wear.

GDI BASCH

fuk u, alarm

*long gasp* God damn it shE'S ALSO LEVEL 14 I'm fucking screeching.

Yaaaaaaay my favorite one. Tides of Fate.

HEAVEN'S WRATH SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY COOL INNOCENCE NAME NGL.

It sounds like it'd be a cool af staff.

Hi, Doug's possible ancestor.

O this fight was "fun"

oHO DAM N SHE ANGERY

I read aero as lero

*to the tune of shots* BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS

I'll see myself out

Here comes butts.

bUTT

BUTT

Bun Butt.

U know. Bunny tailed Lavi is one of my favorite things in RWBY and FFXII verses. /Especially when he's agitated/.

ANGERY BUNNY BUTT.

I'm st ill l aug hin g. When Weiss worked him into a tizzy about if she was complimenting or insulting him and he couldn't figure it out. Bunny tail going a mile a minute.

Oh my god I remember that ask. That was my favorite ask, just cuz it worked him into a tizzy. She wasn't gonna answer him either, he would've been like "are you complimenting or insulting me?" and she would've just been like "Yes."

t h e f u c k w a s t h a t. That thing looked like something out of a nightmare.

THAT THING. NO. THE ALIGATOR LOOKING BITCH.

I'm here and AM queer.

THAT.

THOT.

SCARY BITCH.

Hello queer. I'm ace.

Changing my name to Hiqueerge.

THE BACON PEPPERONI WOLF. BACON PEPPERONI. I'D EAT THAT.

j FC WHY.

I don't know why they did this but. God. Horrible clashing colors.

You wouldn't eat that Hige.

I WOULD. BET IT TASTES LIKE CYANIDE AND HEARTBURN.

Oh my god, Hige. Why am I friends with you?

Its like a um... chimera. I think chimera is the right word.

The fast forward run is fucking killing me. They need chipmunk voices.

Ashe is problematic. Her skirt is not functional. This... is both problem and not a problem at all. Its a problem because why bother wearing anything at all at that point. Its not a problem because at least it keeps the perverts happy.

Ashe is problematic... although right now its currently basch. Because he hasn't reACHED LEVEL FUCKING 14 YET.

I hate her boots though. I hate those boots. I wish they'd just given her actual pants.

Fight her boots.

Her dysfunctional wardrobe is the final boss.

Jar jar binks got big.

Stronk stronk bigs.

THERE BE ANOTHER ONE.

AAAAARRRRR. YE BE AFTER ME TREASURE?

I can't be a pirate anymore tho so. w e e p s.

KILL IT WITH FIRE

FIIIIIIIIRE

FIIIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Cure me, bitch.

You know I haven't been paying attention-- *gasps* OH MY GOD I FINALLY LEVELED UP, REALLY?

LOOK AT THAT. ALL LEVEL 14 YAAAY.

*HEAVENLY CHORUS IN THE BACKGROUND*

HAAAAALLEJULAHHHH

I... all I can imagine is that skyrim video. With the crier. Flying away into the horizon as he’s giving a sermon.

HE ASCENDED.

tfw you kick the power strip and knock the internet out.

k it n o. don't kick power strips. Power strips are friends.

This is what happens when I never sit at a desk.

R e l a t a b l e.

Why do I do this to me.

S C R E A M S. p oor r ox as. P oor stupid axel.

ROXAS DESERVED BETTER.

I love axel. He's a good. But not really. He's an asshole, but. We love him anyway. He tried to be a dad. I'm proud of him.

All fictional redheads are Goods But Not Really lmfao *side eyes Lavi*

Okay well. Maybe not /all/. *side eyes Cross harder*

Judge Cross all u want. Stupid fuck.

Hinata's the only ginger who'se excused.

Ok abut also Reno. Fucking Reno. RENO'S A BITCH.

Okay but I really wanna get fucking. VII remake just so I can see Reno even though Reno is the stupid fuck who takes a whole sector of a city and just. Drops it on another fucking sector oF A CITY.

I feel like Reno wears that title proudly. I almost typed tittie.

he does- S TU. IS JUTN. FUC KF.

bye isa.

IMD VHC. HE ELP.

Sometimes I can still hear his voice.

V IOLENT CO UGHING.

Wind sure is loud today.

w o w.

I WANT TO ADOPT ALL OF THE MOOGLES.

I wanna be a sky pirate.

Lavi, I can't believe you're calling Reno out.

Let Reno have the tittie of bitch.

The tittie of bitch? Really?

I CHOKED ON MY FUCKING CHILI.

NOW YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS.

TRAITOR.

Vayne's a dick and he can go choke on it.

Larsa <3

Larsagna

*chants* SANDSEA SANDSEA SANDSEA

*chants louder* SANDSEA SANDSEA SANDSEA SANDSEA

RIP Bianca. I... almost typed Pianca. Today is a weird day for me. Fingers having a bad day. I ALMOST TYPED FINDERS. I give up.

Finders do have bad days.

My fingers are dyslexic pass it on. Calling u stupid bone sausages out.

Doug is a prime example of finders with bad days-- especially when he makes deals with the D.Gray-Devil.

DID YOU ACTUALLY ALMOST MISPELL MY /NAME/, KIT? AND did you actually mispell my name on purpose Isa, how dare.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. TOOOOOOOOOTTALLLYYYY not.

Yes.

NO. I'M SORRY. FORGIVE ME. HAVE MERCY.

No mercy.

I dunno, Isa, should I forgive you? Should I? Should I...?

Y e s. You should forgive me.

Nah.

I'm an angel, remember?

Nop.

Ye.

Angels don't talk about eiffel tower dic

besides the eiffel tower incident-- I. I came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now.

Also where tf is Hige.

Dead. I died.

u creepin u creepe-- oh there u are.

Yesterday I died~

n o p e.

Tomorrow's bleedin~

GET OUT.

And take ur pain with u >: (

t a k e s m y p a i n w i t h m e.

kIT KICKED ME OUTTTT. HE'S A MEANIEEEE.

nYEH @ KIT.

tfw you have too many muses. Shoves sheryl and the millenium b i tch out.

SANDSEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

#AESTHETIC

There's this one rare game you get by chaining 100 urutan yensa. I'm not doing that.

That's a lotta yensa.

Bye Vaan. Have a nice sleep out in the middle of the desert.

Yeah, I ditched him. I don't even care if he's asleep. I ditched him.

[dee-brief]

How to be a terrible friend in a few easy steps: 1) Plan an angst-riddled fic for your friend’s birthday. 2) Get so flipping busy in life that said fic remains only 30% done and chilling on your computer as it slowly but surely becomes months after said friend’s actual birthday. 3) Ignore the really, really, really cool prompt fic you got graciously handed because you know you need to finish the birthday fic first before you can start on abovementioned really, really, really cool prompt fic. 4) Finally decide to take your own birthday as an excuse to ignore some RL things to finish said birthday fic. 5) Don’t actually even finish the fic on your birthday but take almost three weeks after it to ignore RL things to write. [5.5) Take so long the person you’re writing fic for actually writes YOU fic in the interim >__<]) Don’t write the birthday fic. Or the prompt fic. Instead, write snippets of an AU nobody but you knows about and that nobody cares about or wants to see.

[blows a streamer] Happy birthday, Sarah! At this point, it’s more an early-ish birthday present for next year than a very belated birthday present for this year. I swear, your actual birthday fic will be written. Someday.

Honestly, even if Camille hadn’t been around the moment Kirsten’s buzzer went off – obnoxious orange with a huge Feed Me! sticker on it, because ‘why not?’ was Camille’s motto – she would have known it was one of those days Kirsten was in an exceptionally bad mood, doing all in her power to contradict all the literature that stated her people were kind, empathetic beings. Whoever had written that literature obviously had one hell of a marketing degree: they knew to leave out the part that her people also embodied the term “hangry” like nobody else in the known universe.

“Are you seriously not going to talk to me because I took out the book you wanted from the library?” Kirsten shoved the buzzer back into her bag and whirled around, a wall of blonde hair and icy silence. “You know we’re roommates, right? You know the book will therefore be in your room for the next two weeks, right? Does it really matter whose name it’s under?” Kirsten continued to march. Camille continued to stride behind her, trying to resist rolling her eyes and throwing her hands up in exasperation so she didn’t walk into anything or anybody as they ploughed down the hallways. “Kirsten…” Would strangling her roommate really be such a bad thing? There was certainly no shortage of replacement babysitting jobs. Too bad Camille was attached to this irritating, slightly wonky one. “I didn’t do it on purpose! Our PhDs are so similar it was bound to – Oh, sure, let the swing door close in my face. What is this – high school?” She sighed. “Look, I’ll even let you keep it late on my name. I’ll pay the damn fine. Or whatever will make you feel better for me ‘stealing’ the book you need for your literature review.”

This earned her a little glance over the shoulder, but nothing much more. For the love of Dracula rolled in a doormat – why did she like this insufferable blonde, again?

“Afternoon, Kirsten. Camille.” Ayo smiled up from the forms she was filling in, completely oblivious to the fact that Kirsten was acting like a child instead of a mature, put-together twenty-something who just happened to need some food. Camille almost wished she was allowed to act this irrational and moody from skipping a meal. Her childhood would have been damn interesting, if that had been the case. “Feeding time, Kirsten?”

“Yes,” Camille answered empathetically. “Holy hell, yes.”

“Don’t say that rather delightful oxymoron be heard by too many,” Ayo chuckled, flipping through her papers. “You’re in luck; one of yours is open right at this very second.” She scrawled something down. “Bed four.”

Kirsten thanked her shortly and started down the hallway of curtained-off beds. Camille sighed and sank into a waiting chair, pulling out her phone in anticipation of the boredom. But she hadn’t even loaded any of her new emails when Kirsten came striding back. One look at her friend’s face, and Camille straightened from her slouch – she didn’t need to have seen through Kirsten’s eyes to know who was waiting behind the curtain.

“Where’s Ayo? I want somebody else.”

“She walked off. Looked important.” Camille stood hesitantly and put a hand on Kirsten’s arm. “Hey. Talk to me. You seemed fine with him on Monday.”

“That wasn’t this,” Kirsten said, eyebrows furrowed and shoulders tense. “You know what happens when…” She twisted her hands. “I’m with Liam!” she snapped hotly.

Camille took a deep breath so her usual views on Kirsten’s boyfriend would not leave her mouth and make the situation tenser than it actually was. “Last time I checked, feeding off of somebody doesn’t count as cheating.” Kirsten looked at her with big, conflicted eyes, her expression saying what her words could not. “He’s a good guy,” Camille defended. “He would never do – ”

“Of course not. But I… but…”

“I can come with?”

Kirsten pulled a face. “It squicks you out, watching.”

“It’s not the best entertainment ever, no, but if you need me there to… mediate then… Hey, who knows; I might get a front-row seat even if I don’t come. You know flashes tend to happen when you’re stressed.”

“Yeah.” Kirsten cleared her throat, suddenly looking shy. “Yeah. Would you…? I mean…?”

“I’m the best wingwoman ever. And don’t you forget it. Go on. Pale And Ready To Bale is not a good look on you.”

Kirsten gave her a small smile and squeezed her hand, and Camille couldn’t bring herself to feel any irritation or exasperation at having to follow her friend to the fourth curtained-off bed. There was a gap in the curtains, and through it Camille saw the familiar unruly mop of brown curls. The rest of his face was, predictably, buried in his tablet, fingers swiping furiously as he held the screen too close to his face.

“Hell, Goodkin. Hasn’t anybody told the human world about bifocal contact lenses, yet?” Camille said, breezing her way into the cubical.

She laughed, then; not at his flailing jump of surprise, but at the way his face lit up with delight when he saw Camille and Kirsten. She’d thought, in the beginning, that it was just because one had to be somebody who found a very particular genre of things exciting and exhilarating in order to willingly volunteer to be a walking, talking buffet. She still mentally apologised, on occasion, for pegging him as somebody who was joyous to see them just because of what they could give him.

“Ah, hark, the arrival of sweet Melétē  and Mnḗmē.”

The dork probably even pronounced the names of the two muses in the correct Latin. “Does that make you the muse of song? You gonna sing our praises?” she teased back.

“Not after that I’m not: now I’m not amused,” Cameron grinned and then held up his hand for a high five.

Camille glared. “No. That was terrible. You deserve nothing for that crack.”

Cameron’s face fell into a puppydog pout for a moment before he focused on Kirsten. The expression turned so warm, Camille had to glance at the blonde to see what affect it was having on her.

“Evening, Stretch.”

“Technically, for us it’s mid-morning,” she deadpanned.

But Camille could see her resolve to be aloof and cool already cracking under his warmth. Neither Kirsten nor her, already pegged as ice queens by their peers since high school and earning more of said reputation as they mowed through college together, had been able to stand up to the passionate, nerdy genuineness that was Cameron Goodkin. The plan had been to go to the lab the Academy had set up for him and his other human scientists and only do the bare minimum for the study so that Maggie and Turner wouldn’t make their lives hell, making the lives of the humans hell in the process. They had, after all, enough problems to wade through without being the sudden labrats of a feeder who had gone in to have his memories wiped at the end of his year of service and had ended up producing enough notes and theories that they set him up, memories intact, in the unused sub-sub-sub-basement of the Academy.

They hadn’t expected to be wowed by his ‘little human science toys’, or by the theories he was slowly refining about Spirit magic. But the more they listened and watched and let themselves be part of the discoveries he was pioneering, the more they understood why people as ruthless and as dogged as Maggie and Turner had been won over by one scrawny, stubborn human in his mid-twenties.

A scrawny, stubborn human who wore geek Tshirts under his multitude of plaid shirts, Camille was reminded as he removed the plaid monstrosity from one arm. She narrowed her eyes, wondering if she could convince him to take it off all the way so she could bin it – he had a hundred others to replace it with, anyway – but then caught Kirsten’s eye, saw the unspoken message in the gaze, and dutifully turned to face the other way, pretending to be very busy on her phone. She could almost feel Cameron shooting her a curious look; she wasn’t actually allowed to be around when the feeding took place and had therefore never shown up with Kirsten before. But his attention only focused on her for a few moments.

Not that she could blame him – there were all sorts of reasons  a woman with razor-sharp fangs biting you on the arm was a lot more attention-grabbing than the back of somebody seemingly scrolling through Facebook.

She was glad, not for the first time, that slipping into Kirsten’s head naturally meant only that she saw what the blonde was seeing, but didn’t necessarily feel what Kirsten was feeling. It was weird enough having her view suddenly distorted – to suddenly be herself but looking through somebody else’s brain – without having emotions that weren’t hers shoved into her chest. Unfortunately, Cameron’s little machines sometimes had the latter effect. He was getting better at controlling it, but Camille could still remember very, very clearly the first time Kirsten went under and Camille was suddenly not only feeling weakened by Kirsten’s use of Spirit but was also feeling emotions that weren’t hers. They weren’t Kirsten’s, either, and being forced to feel a double whammy of fake emotions still invaded her dreams, sometimes. It had been intense; the foreign emotions had been stronger than her own, drowning out her panic and fear and dislike and making her almost react the same way Kirsten had when Cameron had pulled her out, gasping and disorientated.

It was a good thing weakness had kept her slumped in her chair; she wasn’t sure what anybody would have done if both her and Kirsten had grabbed Cameron roughly and kissed him passionately.

He had dismissed it as magic-science residue the one whole time he’d spoken about it, gently trying to hand Kirsten some of her pride and control back. But one didn’t simply forget. Especially not when the same not-boyfriend person you’d kissed was also under your mouth giving you the blood your entire body craved while he gasped in automatic reaction to the euphoria from your saliva. And, no, Camille couldn’t fault him for that little gasp; she’d been there. She understood.

So, as soon as Kirsten let go, Camille jumped in to be the diversion Kirsten had brought her along to be, calling his attention back to her by whatever means necessary so Kirsten could put her walls back together and pretend it was just another feeding with just another human, and that those not-hers emotions that Camille had also been forced to feel were the only reasons she’d kissed Cameron Goodkin. She diverted even as they both beat a hasty retreat, too fast for him to even get a word in edgeways until they were already closing the curtain.

“See you tomorrow morning! Err… evening?”

Kirsten took a deep breath and shut her eyes. Camille patted her on the shoulder in consolation.

***

Camille missed what happened to start the argument, as her entire concentration was being taken up by Linus excitedly babbling about the new toys they’d installed into the lab and were about to use. It seemed it didn’t matter how many times Camille told him that despite her brief upbringing in the human world, their worlds were now enough apart he was speaking a foreign language to her; Linus would insist on trying to impress her or engage her in the things that were exciting him every time he had a spare moment. Camille didn’t actually mind it, either; Linus was naïve in ways that were dear and amusing, and there was a genuineness and steadfastness to him that Camille felt drawn to. So much so that she’d wondered a few times whether the fact that Linus had made Cameron’s lieutenant even in the deepest dungeon of a vampire college was more telling of the likeness that connected the two scientists than of Linus’ curiosity, passion to pioneer the unknown and geek-streak that ran as wide as the Grand Canyon.

It was, unfortunately, that naivety and that grand chasm that also made him incredibly prone to putting his foot in it. And as much as he was a great guy most of the time, there were also times Camille had to remind herself that a dhampir blow could easily kill a human, so slapping him was not quite the way to go despite what her irritation was telling her.

“Linus,” she tried to interrupt, gritting her teeth to hold in the caustic, acid words she didn’t want to burn him with. “Look, I appreciate the grand tour of the nerd-dom but I – ”

His face disappeared as the now-familiar slight swooping sensation grabbed Camille behind her eyes and pulled. One blink later, and she was staring at Cameron’s face, level with hers for once. And that wasn’t the only difference; the usual spark and excitement were gone from his eyes and face, and he looked tense and wary and a little upset. Camille shook her head in an attempt to break away from Kirsten’s mind, succeeding a split second before Kirsten started yelling, filling Camille in on erupting argument anyway.

“What are you actually doing here?” Kirsten snapped, furiously. “And don’t give me the same old crap you spun Maggie. Why are you here doing this? What’s the outcome, Cameron? What’s the game plan? Or did you really just not outgrow fantasy so much you have to self-insert yourself into escapism like this?”

Linus whispered ouch behind Camille, but Cameron only flinched a little. “My intentions? They’re to make sure you don’t end up like virtually everybody else with your element, Kirsten. They’re to find a way – some way – to stop Spirit turning you insane. A way that doesn’t include dumping all of that darkness and insanity and negative life-force drainage on your bond-mate.”

“Hey, thanks for that bit, by the way,” Camille chirped loudly, hoping to break the intense stare-off. But neither of them looked at her. “The whole Mad Hatter vibe isn’t really my thing, you know? I have no idea about ravens or writing desks.”

“My job is to make sure you and Camille are safe,” Cameron continued, fingers flexing in and out of fists as he stared at Kirsten.

“By ‘keeping me safe’ you mean blocking my magic,” Kirsten accused.

“What? No, I – ”

“That’s what everybody else wanted. One little pill, and I can stop everything from happening to me. I can no longer be a danger to anybody. But I’ll have this thing inside me, forced back, that’s there but that isn’t allowed to breathe. That’s what you want to do to me.”

“Kirsten.” Cameron took a step forward and put his hands on her shoulders. She startled, but, to Camille’s surprise, did not fight her way out of his hold. Not that she would need to fight very hard; at her flinch, Cameron loosened his hold so much his fingers barely brushed against her. “I don’t want to supress your powers, okay? I’m not letting that pill anywhere near you unless it is literally that or your life. And I won’t let that scenario happen.” Kirsten stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before her mouth twisted.

“You do want to take away some of my ability, though. I heard you. You want to make sure I can no longer see ghosts.”

Cameron sighed and scrubbed at his face with one hand. “Cupcake, I…” His eyes searched hers for a long moment. “There’s no evidence the ghosts are real. Only you can see them. It could just be that what you think are real spirits back from the dead are actually just…”

“The start of insanity.” Her voice was cool, brittle and dangerous. “Just because you can’t see them –”

“I know,” Cameron interjected quickly. “I know, Stretch. Maybe it’s because I don’t have your magic. But… I’m not going to take that chance. I’m not going to ignore the possibility that the ghosts aren’t magic but are some sort of way the magic is trying to hurt you.” He was quiet for a long beat. “Even if that means working toward a world where you won’t be able to see your mom again.” She stepped back from his remaining hand on her shoulder, and Cameron let it fall limply to his side. Camille watched them watch each other for a long moment, noting how the whole lab was quiet and waiting. “Are we going to do this?”

Kirsten glanced at Camille, and the brunette gave her her best winning, confident, affectionate smile. “We’re going to do this. But.” She turned and half-glared at Cameron, fierce and unrelenting. “Promise me you will give as much weighting to the theory that the ghosts are real. Promise me you’ll let me try and see the dead instead of erring on the side of caution; promise you’ll take risks where my mom is concerned.”

“Yeah,” Cameron said, and his tone of voice alerted Camille at once to what had happened. “I promise. Of course.”

Kirsten turned and marched briskly toward Camille, pulling up her hair so it wouldn’t get in the way as she walked. Linus slunk off as she approached, and Camille crossed her arms and raised an accusing eyebrow at her best friend.

“What?” Kirsten asked.

“It holds a lot more weight when you’re not compelling the man to make the promise you want him to make,” Camille pointed out. “I mean, are you not usually the one going on at me about trust and shit?”

“I had to be sure,” Kirsten shrugged, but she wasn’t looking at Camille as she said it.

“One day he’ll realise you’re manipulating him. And somehow I don’t think he’ll like it very much.”

“He’ll have to learn to deal,” Kirsten said, stubbornly unrepentant.

Camille rolled her eyes but let it go, flopping in her usual seat for the experiment. To her joy she found the boys had finally listened to her suggestions and bought the good chocolate, and she started on it before Cameron had finished making all the necessary checks.

“That’s for stabilising your blood sugar afterwards,” Cameron said when he caught sight of her. His grin was pure exasperated fondness, and Camille saluted him with the chocolate bar.

“Giving it a head start,” she said around a full mouth, and he rolled his eyes.

“Alright, team, let’s glue her in and see – ”

“Glue her in?” Camille interrupted, incredulous eyebrow raised.

“Well, somebody objected rather loudly to the ‘welding’ metaphor last time,” he said, his gaze on Camille pointed.

“Yeah, well ‘gluing’ sounds just as stupid.”

“Knitting her in?” Linus suggested from his seat.

“What, am I being transformed into an old woman’s blanket?” Kirsten scoffed.

“Pinning her in,” somebody else called from the side of the lab.

“We’ve been over why that one will not happen,” Cameron shot back. “Guys, we’re wasting time arguing about something that doesn’t even – ”

“Folding her in?”

“That one’s not bad. Baking metaphor. What do you think, Cupcake?” A grin twitched at his mouth.

“I will end you,” Kirsten said, very calmly.

“Yeah, she’s still cookie dough. Not done baking yet.” It slipped out before Camille could think; before she could remember that perhaps other people in the room had watched enough vampire cult classics to get the reference. Cameron gave her the oddest look; a mixture of pride at her taking up the referencing torch, confusion about whether it was a relevant reference or just one made because of baking, and a surprised-aching-hope that it did apply to Kirsten; that she wasn’t as eternally unreachable as he thought. “Ugh.” She had to say something to cover up her slip. “Just use the comparatively not-awful one from last week.”

It worked; his face scrunched up as he thought back. “Stitch her in?”

“We’ll use the least gag-worthy while we find something better,” Camille agreed.

Cameron shrugged. “Stitching it is. Alright, everybody. Get ready – on my mark – ”

They’d run the simulation to map Kirsten’s powers and their effects enough times for Camille to no longer be caught off guard by the second-hand emotions and visions. So it didn’t take her long to realise that something was different, this time; something was wrong. It was like each of her eyes was pressed to a different peephole, and she was seeing two separate scenes unfolding while her brain struggled to keep up. On the one hand, there was the usual montage straight from Kirsten’s head into hers – flashes of Kirsten’s life, her father, the sister who had disappeared years ago. But she was also seeing faces that were jarringly familiar to her that Kirsten would never recognise. Kirsten had, after all, come after Camille’s parents had left without a word.

The pain of reliving her abandonment increased and decreased as her mind struggled to deal with two completely different flashbacks at the same time, dialling back enough that it was a distant sort of hurt and then slamming into her as fresh and gutting as it had been on the day they’d left her.

“Camille?”

Kirsten’s memories disappeared abruptly, and suddenly her own were given the spotlight. They slammed into her with such a force she lost whatever small grip on the reality of the lab around her she’d held on to. There were the Moroi, all looking at her scornfully like a piece of trash under a microscope, discussing in loud voices whether she was too tainted to be reformed into a proper guardian, given the way she’d been brought up in the human world. The feeling of being let in only because they were so desperate for dhampir clung to her like a scar that would twinge whenever somebody brushed up against it. There was Theo, pushing her harder and harder despite fatigue and injuries, all under the guise of making her better and stronger and worth something.

“What’s happening to - ?”

“Is that really all you’ve got, Millie? And yet they let you join the fancy place and not me. Maybe it’s cause most of the higher ups are dirty old men. Is that how you – “

“Cami-!”

“Millie, Millie, Millie! Get up!”

There was smoke and fire of younger years; her home was on fire, and she couldn’t get out. And that transformed to her lying on an expanse of nothing, staring at blurry stars, hearing Kirsten screaming for her as she felt herself dying. Kirsten had saved her, hadn’t she? But nobody was coming now. She was dying. She couldn’t breathe.

“What’s wrong with her? What’s happening?”

“Dude, she’s totally not breathing at all. Her heartra – ”

“Don’t! Kirsten, hey! You can’t heal her! You’ll only make it worse when the backlash of using your powers falls on her! Just… let me… Camille. Hey, Pumpkin, hey.”

She hadn’t made everything right. She hadn’t proven herself. And who was going to look after Kirsten, now? Stinger was still out there. The Strigoi were amassing an army. Kirsten hadn’t even declared a magic yet. Damn, everything was fading so fast. What a shitty way to die. What a –

The scene around her jolted and scattered, confused and suddenly not as real as she’d first thought. Something was moving her arms; she could feel them being dragged forward and positioned. But her arms were limp at her sides… weren’t they? Sensation flared into her fingers; a drumming. A steady beat she didn’t really want to focus on, but that was there and attention-grabbing anyway. And then, beneath her other hand, the whoosh of air. Like a breeze passing over the earth, only more deliberate. More like –

Breath. Something was breathing right under her hand.

“Camille, sweetheart, I need you to focus on me, right now. Whatever’s going on in your head isn’t the most important thing right at this moment, okay? You’re not breathing properly and your body’s freaking out and that’s probably making everything feel very, very shitty.”

Yeah. Yeah, it was. She was dying.

“I need you to focus on what’s under your hands, okay? Use those enhanced senses, Supergirl. And then make your breathing and your heart match what you feel. You can do it. Just focus.”

Cameron. The voice was Cameron’s. She knew him. And she’d met him after the night she’d died. Which meant…

A deep inhalation rumbled under her fingers, and she followed its example, gasping in air. It felt magnificent. Cameron continued to murmur things to her – encouragement, instructions, nonsense pet names so she wouldn’t get lost again – and she clung to his wrist with one hand, letting his pulse thrum through her as a metronome for the galloping that was going on inside her chest. Her other hand scrambled for purchase against his chest, slipping up and down the weird-feeling bumps that the buttons on his flannel made.

Eventually, she was able to breathe properly again. Eventually, her heart slowed to just-above-normal; enough to make her head clear. Enough for her to open her eyes. She was on the floor of the lab, and Kirsten and Cameron were both crouched in front of her, looking worried. Kirsten didn’t hug, much, but Camille received an armful of blonde almost as soon as she’d proven she was all there and not dying, and Camille let go of Cameron to hug her back. She had to work incredibly hard to keep the tears from breaking free.

“I’m going to go and call Ayo,” Cameron said, and she saw him stand out of the corner of her eye. “Just relax until she’s here to take a look, okay?”

Camille shut her eyes, tightly, and wished she could shake off the remaining ghosts that clung to her. Something else was niggling at her, though; some inconsistency her over-stimulated brain needed to pick apart and make sense of. There was something off about what had just happened, and she needed to reconcile the truth with the lie her brain had been telling her. But what was the lie?

Cameron returned, and Camille realised at once that he was wearing only a plain Tshirt. His flannel, she realised, had been taken off and thrown over his chair when they’d first come in. So then… why the hell had she been feeling button bumps under her fingers?

“You okay?” Kirsten asked her as she frowned.

“Yeah, I… yeah. Just something I’ll need to figure out, later.”

But later was manic. And then the days wore on, and she forgot, for a long time, about the mystery her adrenalin-fuelled brain had insisted was so important back then.

***

They’d learned how to delay Camille being pulled under into Kirsten’s mind, and she was happily munching on chocolate as she waited and the scientists mapped Kirsten’s brain activity when the noise started and made her instantly alert.

“What is that?” she asked, already getting to her feet.

“What?” Cameron said, distracted.

“That sound. It’s like – ”

Strigoi, Camille thought a moment later, really had to stop trying to emulate bad movies. The three who barrelled their way into the lab did so with a Hollywood flair, and they did so snarling like animals, brandishing crude weapons and – honest to gosh – chuckling evilly. It was so over-the-top that everybody else in the lab stopped to stare for a good few seconds, nonplussed and not yet as afraid as they should be.

And then the battle started.

“Get Kirsten out!” Cameron yelled at Camille, and she didn’t have enough breath to spare to shoot a no duh, genius his way.

She knew she had to pull the Moroi from the experiment and hustle her to safety – but knowing she had to do it and being able to fend off three Strigoi who had weapons when she only had her fists and her feet was an entirely different ballgame. Her training and her desperation and her knowledge of the lab’s layout meant Camille managed to kill one who was just about to turn Kirsten into dinner. But snapping his was mostly a fluke, and Camille knew it. She was no match for two oldish seeming Strigoi, and the best plan was to run the hell out of there. The other two, who had been mostly hanging back, now advanced as a team.

Cameron yelling and throwing something on fire at them was only a momentary distraction; the one nearest him snarled, easily dodged the fireball and then leapt forward in a streak of speed Camille barely followed and Cameron had no chance of tracking. Said Strigoi flipped Cameron’s desk at the human, knocking him clear across the floor and then pinning him beneath the metal.

“Cameron! Cam!” No answer; no movement. Camille’s heart constricted in pain and worry.

At the very least, the loss of Cameron’s computers made Kirsten start to rouse. But it was too little, too late: the most it would do was allow Kirsten to wake up to her best friend being murdered – or worse, turned – just before she got her own blood drained from her body. But to hell with them if they thought they could take Camille down without a damn good fight. They laughed at her as they advanced, deliberately slowly and completely at ease.

She slammed one in the face, breaking her nose, but her partner caught Camille around the throat and squeezed and –

The lab lit up in bright, glaring light. Camille flinched at the sudden brightness, confused brain skittering for the source. Kirsten, mostly awake, hissed and tried to get under cover. The Strigoi burst into flames. With a yelp of surprise, Camille freed herself from the burning, horrifically-shrieking attackers, grabbed Kirsten’s hand, and pulled her out of the wide circle of sunlight. Sunlight. In the lab. Camille looked wildly up and saw a trapdoor in the ceiling had been rolled back to reveal what looked to be a mirror of some sort that was reflecting the sunrise down into the lab. Another look around and she found Cameron, pale and shaky, clinging to a lever in the wall. He was watching the burning Strigoi with wide, horrified eyes, and as Camille watched he slid weakly down the wall and landed in a heap on the floor.

“What the hell?” Kirsten breathed shakily.

It was a sentiment taken up by Maggie and the senior dhampir trainer, Fisher, when they barrelled into the lab a few moments later. Linus babbled a slightly-coherent explanation, and Maggie took charge. Her first point of call was getting Fisher to escort Kirsten far away. Kirsten, however, resisted, eying a still-crumpled, very obviously in pain Cameron on the floor.

“Go, go – I got him,” Camille assured.

Kirsten squeezed her shoulder, once, and then allowed herself to be led off. Camille scampered to Cameron’s side, relieved when she didn’t see or smell much blood.

“Now was not the greatest time to try we wrestling,” Camille joked, hands trying to figure out what was wrong.

Cameron blinked at her, eyes glazed and face uncomprehending. “What wrestling?”

“We? The… the famous wrestling crap on TV where they hit each other with chairs?”

That startled an almost-laugh from Cameron, which led to a groan. “WWE. It’s just my leg, I think,” he added in response to Camille’s prodding.

She made her touch to said leg as gentle as possible, but he still cried out. “Okay, shit, sorry.” He tried to wave her off, still panting in pain. She glanced back to his overturned desk, and then measured the distance from it to where they currently were sitting under the lever. “And yet, you still came all the way over here.”

“Crawled, mostly,” he explained through gritted teeth. “Had to get to the…”

“That was a really nifty thing to put in this lab,” she said, glancing again at the sunlight still streaming in. “Was that your idea?”

“Was inspired by a recent Mummy rewatch.” Camille gave him a blank look. “The Mummy? Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz? ‘No harm ever came from reading a book’?” He shook his head. “Add that to the list of things I have to… introduce… you… to.” He panted the last few words, face now looking a little green.

“Right. Ayo time. Don’t look at me like that; I’m strong af. I can carry your skinny butt up there. I’ll even do it bridal style if it wouldn’t hurt you more.”

He tried to smile for her, but it just came out a grimace. And the facial expressions only got worse from then on – even though Camille tried to be careful as she lifted him to his feet, the movement still jarred him. And as much as most of his weight was on her, hopping about was not a viable option. Luckily, Linus zoomed to their side and took Cameron’s other arm around his shoulders. They had to adjust their positions a few times before they got the right balance that meant Linus wasn’t banging into Cameron’s injured leg as they walked, but eventually they were able to make their slow ascent to Ayo’s capable hands.

Camille was looked over by another medical assistant and then sent to sit with Kirsten, who was actually one of the least badly hurt or drained by the whole fiasco. They were sent back to their dorm early, with Fisher posted outside the door just in case, and so Camille only got one more glance at Cameron that day. Ayo had fitted him with a leg brace and was busy explaining the correct use of crutches to him as Camille passed.

They both made a beeline for the lab as soon as possible the next day, and found that it mostly looked normal, except for some scorch marks on the floor that made an odd shudder run through Camille’s insides. Cameron’s workspace was also visibly stuck back together, with cobbled parts of other computer and technologies to replace bits of his that had obviously not made it out of the battle. Cameron himself looked a little cobbled together, as though held in place only by tenuous sticky tape. He was shockingly pale, and looked smaller than usual with the crutch and the leg brace.

“Didn’t Ayo give you two of those?” Camille frowned, watching him painfully limp around his table, putting too much weight on the injured leg for her liking.

Cameron waved a vague hand. “I can’t have both my hands occupied,” he said, firmly. “I need to get this up and running again.”

Camille and Kirsten shared a glance. “Cameron,” Kirsten started, doubtfully.

“I’m fine,” he snapped, still not looking at them. “Just… I’m fine. I can still do this.”

“Nobody said you couldn’t,” Kirsten tried, gently. “But we just…”

“Hand me that wrench, please?” Cameron said, voice like steel, and the women shared another glance and a sigh.

“Okay,” Camille said, dubiously. “But I’m going to laugh if you fall on your ass in front of me.”

She didn’t get to show that the statement had been all talk; Cameron didn’t fall. But he did get increasingly paler as the morning wore on, and before long his hands were trembling in pain and his leg was barely supporting him even with the help of the crutch. Kirsten and Camille had both retired to a corner of a lab with their library books, content to just be around the people they now considered as friends as they put their lab back together, helping where they could. But when Cameron had to suddenly grip the table to keep from collapsing, Kirsten shut her book with a snap and marched toward him, Camille hot on her heels.

“Okay, you’re done doing this.” She took him by both of the shoulders and supported him upwards while Camille positioned the chair behind him. “Sit.”

“I don’t need to -!”

“Cameron. Please sit.” Kirsten’s voice and demeanour changed, but for once Camille couldn’t find it in herself to call her friend out for using compulsion. “Please, just take a break, okay? And, look; this chair has wheels. You can use it to wheel around the lab.”

“I…” Cameron said, blinking at her.

“It’s more convenient,” Kirsten promised, lowering him into the chair. “You’ll get a lot more done this way.”

“Yeah, okay,” Cameron agreed.

“Or,” Kirsten said, suddenly eager and kneeling before him. “Or – I could heal that for you. I could make it better right now.”

“Wh-? No! No, no, Kirsten!” He yelped a little, involuntarily, as he twisted away from her in alarm. “Stretch!”

“What?” Kirsten folded her arms, face steely. “That’s what I was meant to do with this element, Cameron. That’s what I’m good at.”

“Animals – no mammals yet, I’ll add. And one or two dhampir and Moroi. No humans. There are no records of human healing anywhere. We have no idea what that would do to you or Camille.”

“Oh, man, that’s flimsy bs,” Camille argued. “If she can heal animals, she can do a human.”

“There’s no scientific proof,” Cameron stressed, glaring at both of them.

“Isn’t that what an experiment is meant to bring to light?” Kirsten argued back.

Cameron shook his head, mouth in a tight line. “I’m not leaping that far into the unknown. I will not risk you! Either of you!”

“It’s not a risk – ”

“Everything we do in here is a risk! Everything! Just because we’ve spent hours running all the variables doesn’t mean we’re not wrong,” Cameron snapped. “That’s why we take it further and further by tiny, calculated, acceptable steps. We do not jump all the way to unknown species healing when most of the lab isn’t even paying attention to stats!”

“Cameron,” Kirsten soothed, placing a hand on his arm and leaning a little closer. “I just want – ”

He clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes, tight. “You’re not going to compel me to do this!” Camille and Kirsten both drew back a little, surprised that he knew what compulsion looked like. Now that made a few past interactions very interesting. “You don’t…” He sighed, used his hands to scrub through his hair wildly, and then ran them both down his face. “You’re not the first Moroi down here, Kirsten.”

“What?”

“You’re not our first experimentation. Maggie… she always had her eye on you, but her and Turner wanted to advance on you slowly so you didn’t run off. In the meantime, there was a Spirit wielder who was… already in deep. Her name was Marta. She was… the hallucinations had already started and we… we were reckless and went too fast and…”

“And what?” Kirsten asked, very quietly. Camille kneeled before them, her hand on Cameron’s good knee, her heart pounding uncomfortably. She thought she knew where his story was going, and empathy ached through her as old wounds threatened to reopen.

“She turned herself Strigoi,” Cameron said, flatly. “Before we had the failsafe in the lab” – he motioned to the lever – “and before we knew… Turner killed her. Burned her alive.” He stared at them in turn, eyes haunted but shoulders determined. “We don’t take risks that big,” he stressed, but his voice was cracked instead of authoritative.

They let him get back to fixing his lab, after that, but both of them stayed close. Camille, in particular, abandoned the pretence that she was doing work very early and went to help him so he didn’t have to rise from the chair when his attempts to do so ended in him in pain and humiliation, unable to rise. Kirsten eventually had to go to a class, but Camille bunked hers after a silent conversation with her best friend; gazes that promised she’d look out for the human that had inexplicably become special to them.

She brought him coffee, eventually, and then reclined in a non-wheelie seat beside him, bouncing his crutch up and down while he watched.

“If I had stayed in the human world,” she said, suddenly, “If they hadn’t come to find me, I mean. I probably would have studied something to do with brains in a human university.” Where she would have found the money, she didn’t know. But this was a pipe dream; she could forget how much of nothing she’d always had.

“Yeah? Any field you like in particular?”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t old enough to extensively research. I just… what you’re doing here; trying to help by understanding the brain…” She nodded, unable to put it into words. His hand squeezed hers. “What about you, Goodkin? Were brains your first love?”

“Yes and no,” he said, making a hand wobble in the air. “I mean, except for the months I was convinced I was going to build the world’s first time machine, neuro-something has always been my path. My mom’s a neurosurgeon. Brain doctor.”

“But you went for PhD instead of MD,” Camille said.

Cameron sighed, a little. “Medical doctors… Look, I’ve known a lot of them throughout my life. All sorts of specialisations, all sorts of temperaments. And they… They’re great. They do great things. But they’re always looking at problems. They’re always trying to find solutions; the body is just a means to an end, really. I don’t… I didn’t want to see humans like that; to look at what was wrong and try and be the godlike one who fixes it. I just want to… to… wonder at it.”

“You’re such a nerd,” Camille said, fondly, her chest warm.

“No, no, but like…” Cameron leaned forward as much as he could, eyes alight and hands gesturing. “You and Kirsten – you’re not human, but there’s the same wonder in how you work. How your brains work. How your minds by themselves are… beautiful. Camille, I know you didn’t really look at your brain scans but… oh, man, Sweetheart, your mind is magnificent. And then you factor in how it links to Kirsten’s! And on top of all of that is the fact that you are behind all those neurons and that amazingness.” He was grinning at her; still too pale, but suddenly alight from the inside in a way she’d never seen him. “Not just a scientifically beautiful working organ; not just scientifically fascinating but also… there’s a person behind it all. And that person is amazing. You and Kirsten… you’re both so…” He gestured, big, like he had no words.

And Camille stared at that gesture, watching as it made something big and warm start in her chest. Something fragile she didn’t want to be there, because she knew how much it hurt when it was broken and proved untrue. But as much as she tried to stay realistic – as much as she reminded herself that nobody saw her as worth anything more than what she could do for them and be used for – the delight and warmth in Cameron’s eyes demolished her walls. The warmth and aching pleasure of being loved filled her veins and lay there, singing, while she sat silent and gaping and unable to breathe properly in a good way.

“I’m so glad you two were the ones who became part of this,” Cameron said, firmly, and Camille couldn’t give in to the desire to reach across and hug him close.

***

There was something off about the way Cameron was leaning on his crutch when they arrived that day, but he made sure there was no opportunity to ask more than once if he was okay. His leg had been slowly healing – mostly because, Camille was sure, she and Kirsten had been forcing him to take it easy – and he’d even been medically cleared to use only one crutch a few days ago. So the first explanation Camille jumped to was that he’d done too much and injured it more; she and Kirsten shared a few rolled eyes and raised eyebrows, and then they went to work on the pre-testing.

Linus had just finished walking them through the new simulation when Cameron, on view behind them, suddenly staggered and half-fell into his chair. The women exchanged a look, let an oblivious Linus finish, and then marched up to Cameron to find out how they could help.

“We’re going to round up the others and get coffee,” Linus called from the doorway. “Orders?”

Cameron shook his head, and the other two also declined, watching while Linus led the only other occupant of the lab out. Alone with just Cameron and determined to use that to their advantage, they rounded on him.

“You guys should get the caffeine,” Cameron said, not meeting their eyes.

“You should tell us what’s wrong,” Camille countered. “What did you do to your leg?”

“Nothing. It’s not the leg. I’m fine.”

Kirsten gently lifted his hand by the wrist, displaying his shaking hand as evidence. “Cameron.” Her voice was worried but incredibly firm. “What is going-?” Camille saw her suddenly jerk in surprise, saw her eyes widen, and saw her grip on his wrist tighten.

“Kirsten?”

“What – His heart is going crazy,” she gasped, staring at Cameron’s wrist in horror before looking at him in the eyes. “Cameron. Holy crap. Camille, call – ”

“Don’t, don’t. It’s okay.” Camille didn’t bother with his hand; she pressed her palm right above his heart. The organ was beating erratically beneath her palm; too fast with jerks like it was being kicked. One particularly vicious kick had Cameron exhaling shakily, obviously hiding a groan. “It’s fine. I just forgot. I just need a moment.”

“You forgot?” Camille said, incredulous. “What? You forgot to tell your heart how to beat properly? That’s bullshit, Cam. You’re basically dying.”

“I’m not dying,” Cameron sighed. “It’s just heart palpitations. It’s really not as – ” He broke off and flinched, hard, automatically curling in around himself. Camille felt the way his heart had squeezed all wrong, and her own heart started thudding in fear.

“Explain, or we’re hauling you off to Ayo right this very second,” Camille insisted.

“We should be doing that anyway,” Kirsten countered, looking grim.

Cameron sighed, again, and slumped a little in his chair. He looked everywhere but at their faces. “I was born with a bum heart. Took the doctors a few years to figure it out, and when they did it was… bad. Had surgery when I was ten. It fixed most of it, but not all of it. The rest can’t really be fixed by the technology we have right at this point in history, so I instead deal with what I can in ways I can. But the medication is… it has a few crappy side-effects, sometimes. So I…” He paused, struggling for words. “Moroi bites… they don’t only release endorphins.”

He finally glanced at both of them, and then settled on Kirsten. “Your race has evolved to be the very best at extracting blood from a willing donor. That means making it pleasurable for the donor, for starters, but it also means making sure you get the best and easiest… meal.” He pulled a slight face. “So you also release agents and chemicals into blood that regulates your blood donor’s systems; fixes small problems to make the process better. If a Moroi bites a human with cholesterol, for instance, the venom starts to break that blockage down. Because cholesterol interferes with the blood sucking process. Some of those chemicals also regulate heartbeat; do, in a much better way, what heart pills do. The condition, of course, is that when you’re being fed from you can’t have any medication in your system, because it tastes hella nasty, apparently, and we still aren’t sure what human meds do to Moroi.

“Long story short – I wasn’t selected as randomly to be a feeder as people are led to believe. I was the experiment before I was the experimenter. And I’ve gotten into the habit of not taking pills on the days I’m being fed from. But I can’t be in the programme right now because of the stupid leg and this morning was manic and I just… forgot that it wasn’t a feeding day. Forgot to take the pills. And my body’s a little freaked out. That’s all. I’m fine.”

Camille and Kirsten stared at him. Camille’s stomach had dropped somewhere to her knees. “’My heart is going wonky because I didn’t take the medication I need to to keep it okay’ and then in the same breath ‘I’m fine’?” she said, incredulous.

“They’re mild palpitations,” Cameron countered, his expression long-suffering. “It’s…”

His heart kicked again, and he winced, and Camille automatically began rubbing at his chest. Her fingers slid over something bumpy underneath his skin – something metal, from the feel of it – and abruptly she remembered the day months ago when she’d been bewildered by the mystery of the missing buttons on his shirt.

“Does Ayo have meds?”

He shook his head. “She wouldn’t have those.”

“So, what, we’re just supposed to sit around and watch you -?” Kirsten was upset, and Camille couldn’t blame her for being so.

Cameron forced a smile. “It should be over soon.”

“Should,” Camille parroted, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Kirsten’s expression hardened, and she suddenly lifted the wrist she was still holding to her mouth.

“Whoah -! Kirsten!” Cameron tried to jerk his hand away.

“I’m not going to heal you,” she countered.

“You – I’m going to taste like crap.”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself – like you usually taste delicious,” Camille snorted.

It worked; he was surprised enough he glanced at her, and in his distraction, Kirsten bit down. Cameron’s heart sped up even more under Camille’s hand, and for a long moment she was terrified they’d made it worse. But then the quiet groan he released was familiar, and with one more jerky beat his heart slipped back into rhythm, calmly, as though there had never been anything wrong. Cameron sagged in the seat, eyes closed as he got his breathing under control, and Camille looked to Kirsten. The blonde’s face was screwed up in disgust, and Camille indicated the door that led to the bathrooms. Kirsten nodded, trying not to gag, and made a beeline.

Camille turned back to watch Cameron watching her go, his face ashamed and miserable. She should get an honorary PhD in distraction, she really should, she thought with a sigh.

“So, hey… I’m feeling bumpy things…?”

He looked at her, thrown, and blinked a few times. “The sternum doesn’t ever heal properly,” he finally said. “So they have to… staple you back together.” She ran another hand over the bumps after wordlessly asking for permission. “Those are the staples.”

“How bad was it?” she whispered, not quite able to meet his eyes. His silence was telling. She laughed shakily, suddenly feeling light-headed in her relief that he was there and breathing and okay. “So… I’m thinking I should start an I Died Once club. You’re my first official member besides myself.”

Cameron grinned slightly at her, and touched his forehead to hers. “How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist,” he said, quietly.

Kirsten was still gone, and Camille was still shaken, and Cameron was a grounding anchor she’d always insisted she didn’t need but apparently really did. So she unlocked the doors sleep sometimes wrenched open, and looked at him and asked, “Was there anything for you? I mean… did you see…? For me, there was only blackness.”

He cupped her cheek, gently. “You have four minutes after your heart stops to be resuscitated,” he said, quietly. “I think you didn’t see anything because you weren’t gone, yet. Kirsten was already working on bringing you back.” He smiled, gently. “But that’s not the sort of thing you want to waste your whole life worrying about. It defeats the purpose of living.”

“Ha. What is this purpose you speak of?” She was being flippant and purposefully argumentative, but he looked at her seriously and answered, anyway.

“I, for one, am not going anywhere until you and Kirsten are safe.”

***

The world was spinning out of control around them. Camille and Kirsten were gripping hands, tightly, but even that didn’t anchor either of them. Not when Maggie and Turner were a second from ripping into each other physically. Not when Cameron was standing in front of them like a guard with huge eyes.

“It’s just a theory,” Cameron insisted, again, as though Turner would listen this time.

“We cannot just get another dhampir and make them bond-mates with Kirsten,” Maggie snapped. “She’s not the only Moroi we need to protect! This afternoon’s attack proved that! We lost good people, Turner. This is supposed to be a place to keep them safe!”

“We need Spirit to turn Striogi back to Moroi,” Turner argued, smoothly. “If we get their best and make them our best, again…”

“That’s just a theory,” Cameron said, again.

“And I’m ordering us to test it, Goodkin,” Turner said, turning a dangerous look on Cameron. “Either you help me – use your scientific whatever to make it as safe as possible – or I do it myself.”

“Over my dead body are you going to force Kirsten Clark to bring another person back to life,” Maggie snarled.

“Careful, Baptiste. I can make that happen,” Turner warned. “Just grab a random human off the street – somebody nobody will miss. Bring them here. She gets another bond-mate; somebody to share her negative effects with so that she can become stronger. Then we work on turning Strigoi; on a real weapon against the bastards.”

“We don’t know what healing a human will do to her,” Cameron insisted, not backing down from Turner’s advance.

“It’s not a request.”

“That person is going to be in her head,” Cameron argued, actually taking a few steps forward, his anger rising. “In both of their heads! That’s not even mentioning the fact that bringing – ”

Turner’s hand closed over Cameron’s throat. Camille and Kirsten both shouted and started forward, but Turner released Cameron casually and he staggered back, barely-healed leg folding a little underneath him.

“Find a human, or I’ll send people to find one. Help me do this, or I’ll make her do it without your expertise. This is not a negotiation.” And then a sudden gleam entered his eyes. He took out a stake and pointed it very solidly in Camille’s direction. “Or perhaps we don’t need a second bond-mate? Perhaps we just need to strengthen the bond.”

Kirsten and Camille both tried to fight. Maggie was able to wrench Camille out of Turner’s hands. Everybody was yelling and panicked and angry, and it was therefore a moment before Linus yelling Cameron’s name got people’s attention.

Cameron sat on Kirsten’s usual recliner chair, his face pinched. There was a syringe in his arm that clattered to the floor as his fist went numb. Horror nearly sent Camille to her knees.

“If it has to be somebody…” He was panting already as Kirsten reached him.

“What did you do?” she cried.

“Will st…stop my heart.”

“No,” Camille groaned, making her way forward on shaky legs.

“This way… if it works I’ll f…find a way to make it b…better for you two. And if…if it doesn’t…”

He shuddered and groaned and slipped sideways. Camille and Kirsten both caught him. “Don’t let me be one of them,” Cameron whispered. “And don’t… don’t make this your fault. If you see my ghost, k…kick…”

They laid him on his back out of automatic habit more than anything else.

“Cameron? Cameron!”

“Cam? Cammy Cam?” Camille felt herself starting to cry. “No… Cam…”

Kirsten caught her hand in a vice-like grip and met her eyes. “This is going to kick you in the ass,” she whispered.

“I don’t care,” Camille snarled, dashing at her tears and then at Kirsten’s. “You save him.”

Kirsten took their joined hands and put them, Camille’s on the bottom and hers on top, on Cameron’s chest. She took a deep breath, and Camille felt a sensation she’d never experienced before kick to life in her gut.

[quietthickwaterproof]

💗- who do you miss?

I’m assuming this is my therapist reminding me I’m supposed to be using this.  Unless these followers actually want to know about me.

Um....I knew this guy when I was younger.  He came into my life right when I was probably going to end up dying.  Mostly neglect.  I suffered a lot of mania and terrible insomnia.  I was running on “resting” a few hours, tops.  I had my computer’s volume set pretty loud and hooked to speakers so if I ever got messaged, and this was the days of messaging clients like YIM, AIM, MSN, etc.  So even if I was “sleeping” I’d still roll over and answer.  I craved human interaction but I was afraid of humans.

Yeah...classic.  I worked, but I could do a lot of work at home.  I had plenty of good reasons to avoid leaving my apartment.  Not going to defend it.  Since I’m in a similar place right now, I’m not going to defend it.  I know why I was/am the way I was/am.  Not even the point.

But it was the 2000s, it was the south, and I wasn’t straight or white.

But neither was my new neighbor.

And he was sultry.  He was nosy.  And he started spending a lot of time over because I was paying for broadband when EVERYONE was on dial-up.  He gamed and I didn’t, so other than the downloads I always had running, I didn’t mind sparing some bandwidth.

He was mixed, basically black and Asian, but some more thrown in.  He had a quiet energy.  I won’t say he was the calm to my hyper.  More like he matched me in his own way.  He had no problem driving 40 miles to Wal-Mart because I had to have a florescent place to walk around with low people at midnight.  He’d bring by extra food because it was hard to use stuff up when you live single.  He liked to buy keychains and was always taking and replacing the ones he’d already slipped on my keys for me to discover later.

He really like to be in my way.  But more at my elbow than stumbling into.

He had a cat.  It’s how I met him.  The cat was a jailbird.  Ran right into my apartment.  I was running late for work, the cat slipped in without me noticing him (I saw a lot of shadowy things in my vision, I learned to ignore them), and it wasn’t until I came home hours later with a note on my door saying I stole his cat and to kindly fuck off that I was like “????”  I can hear a cat meowing inside, though, so okay.  I am welcomed to a cat laying on top on my TV (they were still massive and it was one of the few cleared spaces) that had gotten hungry at some point and helped themselves to the embarrassing amount of half eaten food since again, I sucked at taking care of myself and I never finished eating anything I had to energy to make.  This cat also seemed to be polite enough not to crap anywhere, but I think I finally cleaned my apartment trying to make sure.

I’d always wanted a pet but I kept telling myself it wasn’t allowed.  I can’t take care of myself, why add an animal to it?  I had this cat though and it wasn’t mine and I didn’t mean to steal it.  So I had no other choice but to push the cat out of the door and hope the owner would come back and leave me alone.

But mister cat decided this was unacceptable and started meowing to get back in.  Loud, scratchy, mourning meows.  Owner must have heard it though (since we were across the hall and a few doors down from each other) and went and got him.  But then I was invited to a bitchfest through the door about having some decency and who steals a cat.  Who kicks a cat out.

I had my panic attack while on the computer with a friend and finally took their advice and pushed a note out that said SORRY and PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE.

The bitching stopped.  Started again.  Then my door got all noisy.  Oh look.  A note back.

COME OUT AND APOLOGIZE!My new scribbled response: I’m really sorry.  So sorry.  It was an accident.Outside my door: Seriously, man?New scribbled response: I’m not going to hurt you.Me, out loud: Please just go.

And that was that for a few days.  Finally, though, he caught me at my mailbox.  He gave me a look like he was trying to figure out if I was the guy slinking in and out of his apartment at odd hours.  I wouldn’t say he flirted, but he definitely tried the charm.  I apparently made him feel like an ass and he was trying to figure out if I was racist.  I’m not pale, not by a long shot, but racism is weird.  If you grow up with it, you see it sometimes where it isn’t and you don’t have the luxury of assuming “not this person” because they’re a NBPOC.

The south is a weird place to be when you’re not white.

He talked at me and I stared and I dropped my mail and I ran.  Because I am secretly an anime character.

Later on, hours later, there was something at my door.  His cat’s LOUD meows.  I was like “seriously?”  And I go over, trying to look through the spyglass without my shadow being seen and he’s got the cat’s face held up and I was startled so I laughed nervously.  He reminded me I dropped my mail and so I opened my door (chain intact) and hid behind it and held my hand out for it.  He sighed, placing it in my hand and tried to say something.

I closed the door and went and cried in my bathroom.  I was seriously not an anime character.  I was a romcom idiot.

But yeah, he and his cat would come by and they wore me down.

We never officially dated, but I liked having him around.  He was the first RL friend I’d let into my life in years.  We touched.  We hugged.  We petted and cuddled.  He’d hang out and watch hours of TV with me or lay his head in my lap while I worked.  He and I made out a lot by the end of it.  Got handsy.  I mean, maybe we did date.  We never used a name for it.  It was less than a year.  Not having the words for it back then, I think he was pan, but I used to call him “bi when drunk” to my online friends.  It was never really much drinking involved, but gay was synonymous with hooking up.  We never went that far, so how gay was he?  I think we were dating and I’m an idiot.  I don’t know.  I really liked him.  I cared about him.  But I didn’t think he’d be fulfilled with my stupid antics and I was really gun shy about introducing sex to any relationship.  Hookups?  Be safe.  Guy you have amazing compatibility with?  Nope, never.  Hookup that wanted more?  Run.  Run far.

I wonder what would have happened if life hadn’t changed.  He ended up leaving and leaving me that cat.  I had that cat for years.  I had to put her down a few years back and it felt really weird.  I was sad but I was more sad because I always stupidly thought I was holding onto him for him.  I thought I’d see him again and maybe he’d be there with a new keychain and a half eaten jar of peanut butter for me.  And when I was “better” I thought “wow, how much of this is because of him and that cat?  I’d love for him to see me now.” And when I wasn’t better?  I thought “please, please come back.  I am the best with you.”

He didn’t really online much.  No forums, no blogs, no friendster.  No real way to keep in touch.  We used to talk sometimes but one time his number was disconnected.  I tried a couple more times until the number was assigned to someone else.

Tried light internet stalking in the past.  I think I’ll actually do it again after I post this.  I mean, in this day and age, I gotta be the only one without a facebook, right?

I don’t even think I’d reach out.  I’m not who I used to be and in some ways that’s a good thing along with all the bad.  It’s been years.  A decade.  Two.  I guess I want to know he still exists.  Ever existed.  Fight Club, much?  Not the point.  I miss him.  But I really miss who I was because of him.  I’m sorry he never got to see the results.

[authenticaussie]

MAS

who’s the werewolf and who’s the hunter

Okay so I have part of this au written out and most of it is super super fluffy but!! alive!rouge and alive!roger and werewolf!Ace who grew up with this ridiculously extended pack and so so so many family members, from rouge’s pack and roger’s ridiculous collection of people, and like ?? When he’s younger and small and he’s a runt, he almost died, so Rouge and Roger and overprotective and Ace doesn’t mind, persay, but he like?? He gets angry?? Because he gets frustrated w/ himself a lot??? And he loves the pack, her really really does!! But they’re afraid that he’ll lose control of his shift and hurt someone. And they’re not afraid of him hurting someone because that other person may be hurt (they are kind, truly, but kindness only extends so far, and the world has hurt them far more than they have hurt the world). They are afraid ace will blame himself for whoever he hurts. They are afraid that Ace will grow up terrified of the wolf inside him and they don’t want that for him, right??

Despite their best efforts, though, Ace does scar a child; his best friend, and a hunter’s child, to make matters worse. Sabo calls them battle wounds, but Ace doesn’t know that until years after the fact, because Sabo was taken away by his parents after he was scratched. Just in case their child, their heir, turned into a-

one of them.

((Sabo’s scars are covered up with burns soon after that, though. What better way to out a monster than to terrify it with fire?))

So leaving off from that angst, lol, Sabo and Marco are hunters!! But whereas the Outlook fam is very much “all werewolves are evil monsters and need to be killed”, the Whitebeard fam is very much “things are taken on a case by case situation and also hey have you met my brother the kitsune??” 

So Sabo deals with trauma (badly) and learns magic and hunts but eventually escapes from his parents because he just…the way they do things just- can’t be right. It doesn’t feel right, and he doesn’t know why. And like?? He runs into Marco?? And neither of them know the other is a hunter at first but like, Sabo finds out first bc well, Marco’s not subtle abt the family he belongs to, and Sabo likes research and knowledge because that shit will protect him, and he’s really curious about Marco’s fam’s way of hunting ad like ?? I had more plot but I can’t remember it atm and this is already Super long pf FFFT

There’s technically two versions of the au lol, one is called Perks of a Pack ||| i will run to you till I die ||| to have and to hold (to give and to gain) and the other is you’re ripped and worn (but then again so am i)

ripped and worn has ace’s fam dying after Ace scratches Sabo tho sO likeeeeeee. I only write it when i want to write Angst TM

who’s the mermaid and who’s the fisherman

Ace and Sabo would make………….Cool fishermen, you know??? just imagine them laughing and teasing each other and fishing and ofc making bets about who can catch the most fish / the largest fish and then Ace winds up catching a mermaid and he’s like uhhhh does this mean I win???

who’s the witch and who’s the familiar

Ace and Sabo are witches and Marco is their long harried familiar!! He’s trying his best…Like you know the mar/sab mar/ace ones I did?? Basically imagine that but ten times worse bc like look the thing abt Ace and Sabo is that by THEMSELVES they do stupid shit, but TOGETHER?? Oh god, it totally gets compounded, like Sabo would be like “What if I threw this thing off the roof?” And Ace would be “What if it was on fire?” And then it just. It just escalates. To a ridiculous degree. Also like….I love birb!marco my guys….and birb marco just perched everywhere, glaring at people who flirt or threaten sabo/ace bc they’re Bad at noticing that shit and just like Everyone leaves the witches feeling vaguely off-put and confused about the Bird and not knowing why. 

Also also also I feel like Ace would have a lot of innate magic, whereas Sabo would be all memorising spells and potions and shit so just!! Imagine Sabo working in the garden or smth and Marco comes and just. Lands on his back. Sabo’s like jfc why. Every time, Marco, every time. Why this, c’mon. Also Marco has a bad habit of, like, when they’re younger, forgetting if he’s in birb form or human form???????????? And he Still forgets when he’s older, just not to the same (embarrassing) degree. So like, sometimes just sitting on them when he’s in human form and they’re like #dying bc jfc Marco could have you have found a worse position????

who’s the barista and who’s the coffee addict

Ace is the barista and Mar/Sab are coffee addicts. He makes lots of jokes about their blood being more coffee than blood at any one point in time and Marco just looked at him like, “Yes???????????? Your point?????????? Obviously we are more coffee than blood??”  

who’s the professor and who’s the TA

This one was so haaaaaaaaaaaaard wtffff (I’m Running out of modern school aus, pffft. Fantasy is easy. RL??? not so much)  So uhhhhhhhh I guess we’ll go w/ Professor Marco and Ace/Sabo TA? 

OH OH OH OKAY REMEMBER THAT POST “MY PROFESSOR’S A SUPERVILLAIN AND I WANT EXTRA CREDIT SO I’M WORKING AS A HENCHMAN”??? Imagine like!!!!! Hero/villain ace/sabo. Or more like?? Accidental anti-heroes Ace/Sabo who both think the other is a Bad Guy bc they don’t know the secret ID and like TR YING TO EXPLAIN TO MARCO WITH REALLY DUMB EXCUSES WHY THEY’RE LATE, OR BRUISED, OR HAVE MESSY HAIR and Marco’s like “They’re Totally Sleeping Together” and Ace and Sabo are like “wow we’re so glad that Marco/the other suspects nothing at all about us or our superpowers”. anD LIKE ALSO IMAGINE ACE/SABO HAVING A CONTEST TO SEE HOW MANY TIMES THEY CAN RESCUE MARCO. LIKE. ANGRILY FLIPPING THE OTHER OFF/TAUNTING THEM and Marco’s just being carried bridal style in this constant state of “??????”

“Hey uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I have exams to mark??? And I need to meet my TAs????”

“Oh shit” ace and sabo go and Sab bolts for it but ace is like n OOOOOO I CAN’T BE LATE BUT I HAVE TO GET MARCO DOWN SAFE FUCK MY LIFE And Marco’s like hey can you drop me off at the library??

“NO SORRY GOTTA GO” (poofs)

who’s the knight and who’s the prince(ss)

Can I just do Skies, lol??

Nah nah, okay so like, please, for a moment, imagine knight!sabo and prince!ace just. Switching places when they were kids???????????? Sabo would pretend to be ace and ace would pretend to be sabo and no-one would call them out on it bc they thought it was cute?? Like, they look so different. How did Ace/Sabo expect this to work?? And like, when they get older, they totally know that everyone’s just playing along but like…they just keep doing it, they think it’s fun, and Ace likes being treated normally by the guards and Sabo likes doing some of Ace’s lessons (the ones that interest him, at least, lol, if he gets bored he just sneaks off to the library or out to the guards again and mucks around w/ Ace and the other knights). And like, bc they’ve been switching for so long, they’re used to covering for each other, and teaching each other what they missed, and that’s why they were also allowed to get away w/ it, because they never fell behind in training or lessons??

ANYWAY NOW IMAGINE EVERYONE UTTERLY SLIPPING UP WHEN MARCO COMES TO VISIT. Like!? Ace/Sabo have switched for the day and someone calls Sabo “your highness” (or whatever you use, I’m sure there’s a sheet somewhere) and Marco’s like oh okay so this is Rouge and roger’s only son, the guy I’m meant to be marrying, I expected him to?? Look more like Roger I guess, but whatever?? And so he’s cordial and polite and flirtatious w/ Sabo bc ?? You know, might as well make the best of this, and it’s better to start on a good note w/ his new fiance.

But also he’s not used to going without training so later on he finds where the knights and the guards are and asks to train w/ them and there he meets the “knight” ace and gets really confused because Ace looks so much like Rouge and Roger, way more so than Sabo, but he’s a knight, right?? He can’t be the prince, Marco’s just met the prince. But tthey have a good, fun spar, and are dorks and flirt and Ace is Delighted with Marco and is kinda like oh so are you one of the prince’s guards?? But before Marco can answer another servant runs out and starts yelling at Ace and being like sir, sir, for god’s sake, why did you and Sabo switch today, your fiance is coming today and Ace is like ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I didn’t want tooooooooooooooooooooo, I’m a knight today, and Marco’s like what Ace has a fiance too?? And what does he mean by ‘today’??? And bc he’s standing at the back of the crowd he doesn’t get spotted and like all in all Marco’s so confused. AND THEN THE DAY AFTER FOR BREAKFAST, HE GETS INTRODUCED TO ACE AS THE PRINCE AND HE’S LIKE (clutches head and lies down) please someone tell me what the fuck is going on here 

who’s the teacher and who’s the single parent

Marco’s the teacher and Ace/Sabo are trying so so so very hard not to fuck up raising Luffy, they only have like?? five years on him, that’s not much at all in the grand scheme of things, and they totally got shoved into this role and like, they were preparing beforehand but no amount of preparation really accounts for “hey look at all of these stressful, shitty things that happen constantly”. Anyway Marco’s science/english teacher and offers to help tutor luffy/give Ace and Sabo a hand bc he has his own sibling and understands how stressful organising schedules can be and he totally has no ulterior motives whatsoever, absolutely none, he just wants to help Luffy and being around Ace/Sabo more freuqently is just………….a totally unforeseen side effect.       

who’s the writer and who’s the editor

Ace writes!! Or, I mean, like?? artist!ace is my baby honestly, so it’s more so when he and sabo were kids they started making comic books????????? And Ace loves coming up with the most random stories, but Sabo’s the one who develops them and does characters and plot points and spins it all together. Marco’s the editor, ‘cause like, Sabo’s okay with grammer, but also it’s borrringgg. It just!! It’s interesting but!!! Not interesting enough for him to dedicate so much time to the nuances of it all. Meanwhile Marco, who like, has his entire day planned to the second to deal with his fam is like “what, nuances?? no, I’m totally lax about w HY DID YOU PUT A HYPHEN IN ONE SPELLING OF THIS WORD AND NOT THE OTHER”

[scarlet-soldier-in-an-impala]

Weekly Reading List #16

Hey y'all… it’s time for my weekly reading list. Hope you enjoy these fics as much as I did. If you do, please let the writers know and leave feedback on their fics. You can catch up on my previous reading lists here.

About Dean's Dreams by @fanforfanatic **flangst** (Dean x Reader) Summary: Dean writes letters to the woman of his dreams. As in, the woman he’s with when he’s asleep. Rating: Brief smut Warnings: Mentions of canon events THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!! Although I kinda felt where you were going with this story, it was great. I enjoyed every second of it... I loved how you threaded your story through the canon events. Stunning work!

(Gif by @jessica-bones-winchester​)

Kill Zone (Part 6) (Masterlist) series in progress by @thing-you-do-with-that-thing **smut** (AU!Dean x Reader) Preview: FBI agent Y/N Singer and her partner Castiel Novak find themselves working on a string of gruesome and cold blooded murders. The angle and precession of the kill shots leads them to enlist the help of an expert in the field - former Us military Captain and elite-sniper , Dean Winchester. However, when tables turn and evidence points fingers at the last person she expected, how does Y/N deal with it? Warnings: minor character death, mention of past character deaths, hinted ptsd, couch sex is complicated, oral sex (female and male receiving), unsafe sex (because I was to lazy to work in a condom - let’s asume she is on the pill but wear them always!) I love this series so much and I really like how the story went on, Dean's so beautifully written and it's so freaking thrilling ... though I've got a feeling, that something's fishy. Kari, you're not planning a major plot twist, do you???!!

Perfect (Part 12) (Masterlist, series complete) by @supernatural-jackles **smut** (Jensen x Reader) You and Jensen have been friends for as long as you both can remember. You have stuck together through thick and thin, good times and bad; everything. What happens when Jensen accidentally blurts out that he has a girlfriend when he doesn’t? How will your friendship be effected when he asks you to be his fake girlfriend? Warnings: Smut, Fluff, Angst  Damn, the ending was perfect. This whole series was amazing. All the fluff and angst had me constantly on the edge. The relationship between the two was heartbreakingly beautiful and it was indeed 'perfect'. Thank you so much for this series!!!

(Gif by @electricmonk333)

Knight In Dark Flannel by @manawhaat **smut** (Dean x Claire) Summary: Dean can't shake the anxiety, the thoughts of how this all could habe been so much worse. Claire is in the same boat, and the two of them turn to each other for relief. Warnings: Spn s12 spoilers, slightly angsty feels, slight anxiety, smut of all kinds (Including unprotected. Don't follow my bad example, wrap it up kids.), virgin!Claire (mostly virgin), Sam hoarding stealing free food for Dean because they're fucking adorable little vulture babies. Ok, first I wanna say, you're a freaking wizard. Neither I'm a fan of Claire  (and therefore I was not particular fond of s12e16) nor of virgin!fics... but thanks to @mrswhozeewhatsis I stumbled over this fic and her comment intrigued me so I gave it a try... and WOW... this was stunningly beautiful!!! Dean's feelings took my breath away and the chemistry between them was amazing. This was such a delicate and amazing fic, I loved it!!

Long, Lean And Lethal by @winchestersnco **smut** (Dean x Reader) Summary: The Reader finally takes things into her own hands when it comes to her feelings for Dean.  Warnings: Consensual voyeurism, mutual masturbation, Reader being sneaky, Dean being cheeky. Good God... woman, are you trying to kill me?! This was incredibly hot and I really needed a minute after that to calm down.

How One Day Changed Everything by @atwistoffate **fluff** (AU!Dean x Reader) Summary: Dean has been your best friend since when you were four. But is he just that? (Best friends to lovers - College AU) Warnings: None, just fluffy fluff Oh gosh, this was so sweet and funny. Dean sneaking his way into the readers heart was freaking cute.

Mark Me Up @winchester-smut **smut** (Dean x Reader) Imagine Dean being turned on by the idea of being marked up and showed off… Warnings: Semi-Smut, Oral (Male Receiving) Reading how Dean is turned on by specific things, does things to me. I read this one in the waiting room at my doctor's office and I could barely hold it together. This was hot af... and I want this. All of it.

Rhythm Of The Beat (Part 3) (Part 2) (Part 1) by @ilostmyshoe-79​ **smut** (Dean x Sam) Summary: Sam and Dean get trapped in a vault after being turned into women by an ancient Egyptian god. Because of course they did. There’s only one way to get free. Because of course there is. Warning: Wincest, gender swapping, smut This was freakingly hot and the gender swap was beautifully written. You write the gender swap so good, I'm a big fan of Trading Spaces as well and I was very excited for this one. Your Wincest feels are heartbreakingly beautiful, great work, as usual.

Research by @wheresthekillswitch **smut** (Sam x Reader) Gif inspired Fic (s12e18), Sam's POV Warnings: So much unprotected sex. Language. A little bit of angsty longing. Wow. Just wow. This was such an amazing read. I loved that side of Sam and it left me kinda sad. He deserves to be happy and I can see him there, with the reader.

Doin' It Like Sam Winchester by @mysaintsasinner **smut** (Sam x Reader) Warnings:  Smut, of course, Dom!Sam if you squint, oral (female receiving), fingering, dirty talk, Sam saying ‘gotta get you ready for me’ because I swear to Chuck that would be the hottest thing ever to hear in RL. Possible angst at the end but it doesnt last long. Sam being Sam. Well, this is what I call a lucky mistake... like very lucky. I guess I'm not the only one, who wants to be woken up like this from Sam. Beautifully written, love it!

 Sexy Bastard by @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba **fluff** (Sam x Reader) Warnings:  fluff–ish, a smudge of angst if you squint Damn, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been so restrained. Gosh, all the sexual tension would've killed me. I loved seeing Sam being such a tease.