#cs january joy

[thebirdandhersong]

🌨

[piinfeathers]

Let's spread some love 😘. What are some of your top five favourite cs fics?

i love this oh gosh, also god i have too many ;;

ok in no particular order:

breathless by AcrobatElle - LINK

genuinely cannot emphasis enough how much EVERYONE needs to read this one. there is spice, but like the most heart wrenching, bring you to your knees, soul moving thing you've ever read. i won't spoil it but please, run don't walk to read this one

a uniquely portable magic by @wistfulcynic - LINK

listen, it actually pains to pick only one of saira's fics because i love them ALL. but if i HAD to, it would be this one. this is my desert island fic, the one i reread over and over. i can't even describe how beautifully she writes and how much every fic of hers feels like coming home, but they just do. cannot recommend highly enough just going through her archive <3

running home to your sweet nothings by @sotangledupinit - LINK

gonna be a little stinker and pick mary's most recent fic. i would have also said her run rogers run fic from christmas last year buuuuut, listen. i love her current fic. i am a sucker for EF lieutenant duckling AUs where Emma is actually given a sword and allowed to go buck wild (aka what should have actually happened in the wish realm episode SORRY) so this one really hits the spot so gooood

tactical magic by @iverna - LINK

my one true love in cs fics is witch!emma in a urban fantasy setting and i love, LOVE what svenja does in this fic. also i just love the way she writes emma and killian in all her fics, they always feel so true to the characters every single time, and she treats them both with such love and attention

iridescent blue by @pirateherokillian - LINK

listen only pip could write a werewolf story about a mauling for an event called january joy and still make it one of the sweetest things you've ever read ;; i love how she writes both emma and killian in all her fics, they always feel so real to me whenever i read her stuff

also massive shoutouts to the authors i first read when i got into the fandom and got me hooked @hollyethecurious , @the-darkdragonfly , @elizabeethan and @cosette141 please just go and raid their ao3's i'm so serious

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

Self-Promotion Thursday: The Surprise Party

CS genre: Canon divergence

Notes: hi everyone! This story was originally posted as part of my Fluffy Fridays collection, but I decided today, Colin's birthday, was the perfect time for a repost.

Emma got the idea while she and Killian were cleaning up after Henry’s 14th birthday party.

Killian reached up and pulled at a streamer they’d hung above their front door. He tugged gently and then peered down at the thin paper in his hand. Emma saw the wistful look in his eyes as his ringed fingers traced the cursive letters spelling out “Happy Birthday Henry!”.

“It would seem your party was a smashing success, love,” he said, smiling down at her as she threw a couple of paper plates into the large trash bag she was lugging around their living room.

“Yeah,” she said. “Henry certainly seemed to like it, although at this point he’d probably be happy with anything we did. He’s been so happy since we all got back from the Underworld, I doubt anything could bring him down.”

Killian, stepped up behind her, wrapped his arm around her waist, and nuzzled her neck, placing a small, chaste kiss on her shoulder. “I know precisely how he feels.”

She turned her head to meet his blue eyes. “So…you’re happy, now?”

He smiled tenderly. “I’m once again in the land of the living, I’ve married my true love, we live together in a magnificent house with a view of the sea, Storybrooke has been peaceful for well-nigh six months and our lad has opted to spend the night with his other mother, leaving us free to indulge uninterrupted in whatever enjoyable activities we wish. What’s not to be happy about?”

His smile turned to a mischievous grin as he raised one eyebrow suggestively.

Emma laughed and then thrust the trash bag at him. “I might be able to be persuaded about those enjoyable activities, but first we need to clean this place up. I am not waking up tomorrow to a trashed house.”

“As my lady wishes,” he said with a bow and another grin.

Emma watched her husband out of the corner of her eye as he slowly walked around the room, disposing of the accumulated mess produced by a big, boisterous family birthday party. He muttered under his breath, his tone awed, full of wonder, and suddenly it hit Emma.

She’d known him for several years now, but she didn’t remember him ever celebrating a birthday. She’d never even asked him when the big day was. The pain hit her then. This wonderful man who’d always been there for her still didn’t believe he mattered enough to celebrate.

“Killian,” she said, clearing her throat when she heard how wobbly her voice sounded.

“Aye, Swan?” he asked, looking up with concern at the obvious tears in her voice.

“When’s your birthday?”

His brow furrowed as he thought for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Sometime near the end of January. It’s been years—centuries even—since I thought of such things. I lived in such darkness for so many years that something as joyful as a birthday fell by the wayside.”

Emma felt the tears rush to her eyes, and felt one slip down her cheek. He looked up quickly, always so attuned to her and her emotions—even more so now that they shared a heart. He came to her then, catching the tear with his thumb, and smiling tenderly at her. Leaning down, he kissed her gently. “It’s no matter Swan,” he said softly. “My joy now is so great that those dark days feel like nothing but a nightmare, banished by the morning light.”

She smiled at him as she cupped his face in one hand, love filling her, overflowing once more. “Good,” she said. She took his hand and tugged. “How about we go get started on those enjoyable activities.”

His grin turned teasing. “What about not wanting to wake up to the mess in the morning?”

She shrugged. “A clean house is overrated. Besides, I can magic it all away later. Much, much later, if I have any say about it.”

Emma got no more complaints from her pirate husband—teasing or not—as she led him up to their luxurious king-sized bed.

~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~

The next morning Emma woke with a renewed purpose. She was going to throw Killian a birthday party spectacular enough to make up for all those missed years. She pushed aside the heavy comforter and sat up, running a hand through her messy hair.

Killian reached an arm around her waist, eyes remaining resolutely closed. “Come back to bed, love. Nice and warm here. Too early to rise,” he muttered.

She giggled, kissing him softly. “Sorry Killian. I’ve got way too much to do today. No time to laze around in bed.”

He cracked one eyelid and peered up at her. “Everything alright, Swan?”

She caressed his cheek. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ve just got to…do some investigating. You know, the work of a sheriff around here is never done.”

He hummed sleepily. She kissed him once more. “I love you.”

He mumbled a sleepy “love you too” in return, and then sailed back into dreamland.

Emma had a long and busy day of planning. First order of business was picking up Henry from Regina’s and recruiting him as she walked him to school. Unsurprisingly, her son was on board—and incredibly excited—from the moment he realized what she was planning.

“Yeah!” he’d said. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of this sooner! We should have a big surprise party for him. You know, get the whole town in on it. We should call it something he’d never suspect. Like ‘Operation Giraffe’.”

She laughed. “Why giraffe, kid?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It doesn’t sound anything like ‘surprise birthday party’. He’ll never know what hit him. Besides, he really liked the giraffes that one time we took Roland and Neal to the zoo.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said. “I’ll start setting things up. When you’re done with school we can start in on some serious Operation Giraffe planning!”

From there, she’d headed to the docks, found Smee and determined Killian’s actual birthday—January 26. (She’d freaked out for a minute or two, realizing they only had a few days to pull this off, but then she’d pulled it together. This town had gone to the freaking Underworld to save his life; planning a birthday party in two days was going to be child’s play.)

As the day went on, Emma met with nearly everyone in the town, and everyone eagerly offered their assistance as soon as they knew what she was planning. Her parents had set out to pick a location; Granny offered to cater the event; Belle headed to the books, researching typical birthday practices in the Enchanted Forest three centuries ago; Smee and the rest of Killian’s remaining crew offered whatever help she needed; and Leroy offered to spread the word stealthily. (She’d been a bit hesitant about that last one. Stealth wasn’t exactly Leroy’s strong suit when it came to telling the news, his preferred method being yelling at the top of his lungs. If they pulled this off without Killian figuring it out, it would be a minor miracle.)

By the time she and Henry got home later that night, decorations had been decided upon, food had been ordered, a venue had been chosen, gifts had been purchased, and the whole town had been invited.

Emma had to say; it had been quite the productive day.

~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~

Something was going on. Something was definitely going on.

Killian walked down the sidewalk of Storybrooke’s main street, only half aware of what Henry excitedly prattled on about at his side. He and the lad had taken advantage of the unusually temperate January weather for a sail on the Jolly, and now they planned to dine at Granny’s.

It had been a lovely day—the sun shining brightly, the salt breeze rifling through their hair, Henry’s excitement and enthusiasm contagious as he asked question after question about the ship. The lad was going to make quite the sailor one day.

Still…Killian frowned in concern as they continued their walk. Over the course of the past few days, Emma, Henry, the Charmings, the entire town, really had been acting quite peculiarly. Emma and the lad spent long hours secluded together, and when he asked what they’d been about, both had become resolutely mute. To make matters worse, more than once, Killian had come upon a gathering of townsfolk who had been talking animatedly—only to fall suddenly silent at his approach.

He’d heard murmurs about “the big event”, and “make sure not to tell him”, and what sounded like an odd dispute about “the color of the streamers”.

It was as though the entirety of Storybrooke was involved in something big and important that they resolutely wished to keep secret from him. Killian found the feeling of being excluded quite unpleasant indeed.

“Pardon lad?” he asked when he realized Henry was awaiting his response to a question he’d asked.

“I asked what you think of giraffes,” Henry said.

“Giraffes?” Killian asked, brow furrowing in confusion. “When did the conversation take that turn? I thought we were discussing our planned night sail to learn the winter constellations.”

Henry rolled his eyes. “Killian, have you been paying attention at all? We got done talking about that like ten minutes ago.”

“My apologies,” Killian muttered. “Must have been woolgathering.”

Henry looked at him closely. “What’s up with you lately?” he asked. “You’ve been, I don’t know, moody or something the last few days.”

Killian scratched behind his ear. “Nothing at all is the matter with me, mate. I might however, ask you the same question. It has seemed that something is a foot in this town, and no one has seen fit to make me privy to it. Have I…have I done something to offend? I’m well aware that I was a villain for many, many years, and it’s likely difficult for some to trust me, but…”

“What?!” Henry interrupted, stopping stalk still on the sidewalk. Killian came to an abrupt halt, only narrowly avoiding running into the lad. “It’s…it’s. Okay, I can’t tell you what it is, but you’ll find out really, really soon. But it’s nothing like that! Of course we trust you, Killian! The whole town trusts you! You may have done bad stuff before, but we all know you’re not a villain anymore. You died to save us all; what more could someone do to show they’re a real hero?”

Killian felt the relief flood him at Henry’s words—and particularly at his passion in speaking them. He’d tried so very, very hard to reform his life—to become a hero worthy of Swan, worthy of his brother, worthy of the man he, himself wished to be—and he believed he’d been successful. But there was always, always that niggling doubt that perhaps he’d been too far gone with his villainy, that he’d reached the point of no return. To hear the lad he thought of as a son reassure him so heartily—he had no words to describe how much it pleased him.

“That’s a relief to hear,” he finally murmured.

Henry smiled. “You’re going to like it; I promise.”

“I…I’m sure I shall,” Killian mumbled, having no idea how to respond.

“Come on!” Henry said after a moment. “Let’s get to Granny’s before the lunch crowd takes all the good booths.”

Killian hesitated for a moment. He trusted Henry, truly he did, but suddenly he was weary well-nigh to death of the whispers and the glances and the secrecy. “I don’t know lad,” he said after a moment. “I know we discussed dining together, but I’m suddenly quite fatigued. Perhaps…perhaps you might pick up an order to go and we could dine with your mother at home?”

Henry looked startled at the idea. “But…but Killian! That won’t work. We’ve planned this forever. Come on, you have to come to Granny’s with me.”

Startled by the lad’s insistence, Killian started walking again. “Very well,” he said, bemused, “if it’s of that much importance to you…”

“It is, Killian,” Henry insisted. “It really, really is.”

~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~

“He’s coming!” Leroy whisper shouted. “Everyone, HIDE!!”

Emma rolled her eyes as she crouched next to her parents behind the counter at Granny’s. “Is everything an emergency to that man?”

“Give him a break, Emma,” Mary Margaret said with a chuckle. “He’s excited. I don’t know if this town has ever come together to throw a surprise party before.”

Emma peered around the edge of the counter and watched the door. The doorknob turned, the bell above the door rang, and Killian and Henry stepped inside. She grinned as she saw the perplexed look on her husband’s face as he stepped into an apparently completely empty restaurant.

Suddenly Leroy popped up like a grumpy, bearded jack-in-the-box and shouted “Surprise!”

The rest of the town followed suit, and Emma grinned again as Killian jumped and instinctively pushed Henry behind him, his hook raised and ready to attack.

Slowly, Emma saw the truth dawn on her husband’s face, as he looked around at the streamers, the cake (with 35 rather than 335 candles) on the counter, the brightly wrapped gifts on a table in the corner, the banner proclaiming “Happy Birthday Killian!”, and the wide smiles of everyone around him.

The concern, fear, desire to protect faded to wonder and awe. As Emma made her way over to Killian, slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss, she saw the tears in his eyes.

“Happy birthday, Killian,” she whispered, just before her lips touched his.

~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~

Later that night, Emma lay in bed, happy and content within the shelter of Killian’s arms. She smiled into his chest as she felt him draw soft patterns against her back. Giving him a quick kiss, she raised up on one elbow and grinned down at him.

“Did you like your surprise party?”

He grinned. “Aye, although I fear you frightened a good ten years off of my life.”

She laughed. “You should have seen your face! Someone should have taken a picture. You looked like you were ready to jump out of your skin.”

He laughed with her, and then sobered. “Thank you, Emma,” he said seriously, “it was the greatest birthday party of my long life. To think everyone was there to celebrate me…it boggles the mind.”

Emma reached down and caressed his face. “Don’t you understand Killian?” she asked softly. “You’re an important part of this town. We all care about you. We all want to show you how much you mean to us.”

He looked unconvinced. “Truly?”

“Yes,” she said decisively. “You have no idea how quickly everyone jumped to help as soon as I told them I wanted to throw you a party. You have so many friends here, Killian. Henry adores you, and I love you so much I wouldn’t even be able to go on without you. It’s about time we did something to show you how much you mean to us.”

“What did I ever do to deserve a wife like you?” Killian smiled softly, his eyes suspiciously moist. He brought his hand to the back of her head and brought her down for a long, slow kiss.

When they finally broke apart, Emma rested her forehead against his. “How about you show me just how grateful you are, pirate?”

He grinned. “It will be my great pleasure.”

[kmomof4]

WIP Wednesday!!! Birthday fics!!!

My oldest and dearest fandom friends are celebrating their birthdays in the next week and a half and I am counting down the days!!! 

@hollyethecurious​ and @winterbaby89​ are both January babies and this year they are both getting a birthday fic from me!!! Shoutout to @motherkatereloyshipper​ for her manips of CS, and Snowing shown below in the artwork.

@winterbaby89​ is first, with her fic A Very Disney Proposal dropping one week from today!!

Twenty minutes later, Granny and Ruby were escorting him and David from the costuming area behind the scenes to the Princess Fairytale Hall in Fantasyland, where Emma and Mary Margaret were about an hour away from the end of their time greeting guests as Cinderella and Snow White. The ladies were on either side of the hall, so once the group got to the branch where they’d have to split to surprise their respective girlfriends, Granny took Killian left and Ruby took David right.

Granny cracked open the door to the hall and character greeting area to watch for the current guests to leave. The plan was to surprise ‘Cinderella’ before the next guests arrived.

~*~*~

Emma Swan waved goodbye to the family from Texas and turned towards the other side of the hall. She saw Mary Margaret bidding farewell to her guests, who were now heading her way. Suddenly the door to backstage opened and Cinderella’s Prince Charming stepped through. It took her a moment, but her eyes widened when she recognized her boyfriend, Killian. Her jaw dropped, but she quickly snapped it shut and schooled her features as he approached her, his gloved hand held out to her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Then, @hollyethecurious​ fic, A Mistress to No One, will be dropping a week from Sunday, on the 22nd. Her fic is inspired by An Offer From a Gentleman, Benedict’s story in the Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn. No artwork for this fic yet because I’m still furiously writing, but I will share pics of our favorite couple in their ball attire. Manips by @motherkatereloyshipper​. Thank you so much, babe!!!

  He began to approach her when he heard a wave of whispers behind him. The hair at the nape of his neck stood on end and a sense of anticipation gripped him. He knew he shouldn’t allow anything to distract him from his pledge, but his curiosity overwhelmed him and he turned toward the entrance of the ballroom.

It was as if time stood still. At the entrance of the room stood what he could only describe as a true princess come to life. She was dressed in a beautiful, shining blue gown whose skirt sparkled like diamonds. The bodice and sheer short sleeves were trimmed with silver detailing that flashed when it caught the light. Her mask was silver and had an exquisite swan detail around the right eye. Tendrils of blonde hair framed the other side of her face. But it was her gaze that captured his attention most. This was a woman filled with unadulterated joy. She looked around the room as if she’d never seen a more glorious sight than all the silly members of the ton dressed in their ridiculous costumes.

Her beauty was truly breathtaking, the way she held herself, the poise, the grace of her movements. She was radiant and he had to be close to her. Mary Margaret was completely forgotten as he strode purposefully across the room. Three other gentlemen had beaten him to the lady and stood around her showering her with praise and compliments.

She didn’t react as he would expect a lady of the ton to react. She didn’t lower her eyes demurely, she didn’t giggle, she didn’t act coy or as if their adulations were her due. She simply smiled at them. Or beamed rather. He held his hand out to her.

“Pardon me, gentlemen. But the lady has already promised this dance to me.” He gazed into her green eyes, which widened slightly at his bold pronouncement. He wondered if she would expose his lie for what it was.

She smiled and placed her hand in his. He drew her closer and then led her out to the dance floor.

~*~*~

Thank you for reading and sharing!!! Happy birthday in 7 and 10 days, @winterbaby89​ and @hollyethecurious​!!!

I am resetting my tag list for ‘23! If you’d like to be on it, please let me know either by DM, responding to this post, or contact me on discord. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll remove you, no worries!!

[blazregaliadream]

Thoughts on BBCTB?

【Rant Incoming】

... The last ArcSystemWorks FG I was hyped for and felt genuine joy playin' despite the things goin' against it.

Gameplay wise, it's a primarily 2 button, autocombo fighter with a 3rd for EX moves. Ironically, I generally steer towards playin' the autocombo style in FGs (if available) cause I have a hard-to-kill habit of button mashin', but when I started tryin' other FGs, includin' a return to UMvC3 (use to play vanilla with pals when I was younger), and found myself adjustin' somewhat to playin' the OG technical style, it really started to seep in that, even though I get why they went with the direction they did, Team Blue (the group who handled BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena) kinda hard kneecapped the gameplay potential by reducin' the buttons to 2. I feel the UNI cast especially got dealt a bad hand when transitionin' into BBTAG's system (I say this even though I main Yuzuriha and pocket Gordeau and Seth).

As like many others, I wasn't pleased with how the game started out in terms of the roster, but I also wasn't likin' how little there was in terms of stages as well, and even as of 2.0, the stage selection still feels too small in my opinion. The selection for the BlazBlue, P4A, and UNI parts of the roster are great, not perfect but great (I would've liked Enkidu over Mika, personally...). The other franchises feel horrifically underrepresented by comparison, though I do understand that those were a matter of drawing entirely new sprite sheets for most of the characters that did make it. And on a more personal gripe, I wish the Chronophantasma remixes of CT/CS character themes were available.

The story was about what I expected, with Episode 2 leanin' more into the comedy side. But it was good, I'll say that!

Sorry, as I'm typin' all this, talkin' about BlazBlue in general is remindin' me of the current state it's in, which depresses me, but I wanna save that talk for another post (or ask)

Overall, BBTAG has went down as an unfortunately notable case of wasted potential, and even as a filthy casual, it's hard to ignore what this game could have been under different circumstances.

But it's fun, and despite everything, people still play it, even after BlazBlue Central Fiction finally got rollback. (on Steam that is, RIP me who's stuck playin' Switch version cause the laptop I own is a 10 year old relic that barely runs PS2 games well and my financial situation ain't seein' me to a new PC anytime soon until I can find a job that would net me better pay)

Speakin' of BBTAG, maybe I should boot it up for old time's sake, I've been head deep in Splatoon 3 ever since I got it in January.

[caught-in-the-filter]

Emma Was Cold

A Neverland smut fic for @neverlandnewyear​ and @csjanuaryjoy​

Summary: Emma Swan finds that Neverland nights get surprisingly cold. Luckily, Captain Hook has some experience in keeping warm.

4006 Words; Rated: E; AO3

A/N: This is basically Neverland PWP. It was inspired by something I commented in the CS Movie Marathon Discord a while back, and I never expected to actually write the thing myself. This is the first full smut fic I’m publicly posting with one of my urls attached, so I’m both excited and scared to share it. First, I need to give a huge shoutout to all the lovely people on the CSMM, CSNLNY, and CSJJ Discords for all their encouragement and assistance while I struggled to write this fic. Special shoutouts to @teamhook​, @kmomof4​, @hollyethecurious​, and @donteattheappleshook​ for reviewing bits of the doc for me as I went along and being super supportive, and especially to Maddie for also giving it a last minute full review once I finished it and helping me with edits. Also a big thank you to the mods for running these amazing events and for working together to allow us to cross-post between the two.

Alright, here we go....

——

“Are you alright, Swan?” Hook asked as he turned toward Emma to find her shivering where she lay a few feet away from him, his question prompted by the fact that he could actually hear the clacking sound of her teeth chattering.

“I’m f-fine,” Emma answered, curling further into herself as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms beneath the threadbare blanket that provided her with such little warmth. Who’d have thought Neverland would get so cold at night? She wished she’d worn more than a thin tank top, which served her well during the blazing heat of the day but offered no protection from the cool temperatures she faced now.

“Are you sure?” he prodded with a smirk, “If you’d like me to keep you warm, love, you need only ask. I’d be more than willing to—”

“I said I’m fine,” Emma snapped, “and I’m not your love.”

“Suit yourself.” Hook rolled back onto his side. ���Like everything else on this island, Neverland nights are not kind. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

——

Emma was cold, so cold that she couldn’t stop shaking despite her best efforts. Tensing only made it worse, but she just couldn’t relax either. She cursed herself under her breath, knowing she shouldn’t give in but desperate for the rest she knew she’d never find in such a state.

“Hook?” she whispered, padding over to where he lay apart from the rest, half hoping he would already be asleep.

“Hm?” He turned toward her once more, the smirk returning to his face and burning a hole right through her.

Emma wondered if the embarrassment that set fire to her cheeks would be enough to warm her, but she’d already gained his attention.

“Did you have a change of heart then, love?” Hook questioned. “Are you ready to warm up to me? Or with me, I should say.”

“Nevermind,” Emma rolled her eyes and stepped away from him in annoyance, hoping he couldn’t see her shivering.

“Swan—”

“No.”

“Swan, please look at me,” he pleaded, more softly than she’d have expected. She turned toward him impatiently, ready to go off on him if necessary, but found a gentle look in his eyes and let him continue.

“I may be a bit brash when it comes to making my interest known, Emma, but I assure you I am nothing if not a gentleman. Neverland is a cruel place and I would not wish to make it any more so. If we are to share warmth in a strictly practical manner, so be it.” He waved her over to him, his hooked arm outstretched in invitation to serve as her pillow. “You need rest, and I won’t let you freeze to death in your sleep before we rescue your boy.”

Emma approached him with caution, hesitating before she sat and turned her back to him as she rested her head on his arm. She wondered how he could sleep in that leather duster of his, but as he held her close, pressing his chest flush against her back but making a point to turn his hips away from her, and draped the thick material of the coat over her as well, she realized just how comfortable it actually was. She wouldn’t admit to the sudden and surprising sense of calm that washed over her as she settled next to him, but in the unexplainable safety, it didn’t take long before she was sound asleep.

——

Though it was still dark when she awoke, Emma felt as refreshed as if she’d had a full night’s sleep, a feeling and a feat she hadn’t achieved in a very long time. She huffed out a breath with a roll of her eyes when she realized she’d been pinned by Hook’s other arm which curled loosely around her middle. He must have turned in his sleep, somehow gently enough to not wake her. Her instincts said to shove him away, but he had been decent enough to respect her boundaries in his offer. And, after all, she was much warmer this way, which was the whole point of moving closer together.

He suddenly shifted in his sleep again, and Emma gasped when she felt his clothed warmth brush against her denim-clad ass. Wait, was he actually hard?! Before she could stop herself, Emma let out an involuntary moan when he rubbed against her again and she immediately froze, wide-eyed and praying he didn’t hear her as all the heat they’d shared travelled south, save for that which reddened her cheeks. After a moment had passed without a reaction from him, she allowed herself to relax again, only to be suddenly pulled closer to him.

“Sounds like you liked that, Swan?” Hook remarked and rolled his hips ever so slightly. She could sense the shit-eating grin returning to his smug face.

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment as he did it again before she responded, “Please, you couldn’t handle it,” and returned the motion, surprising him with the unexpected reciprocation.

“I do love a challenge. But tell me something, love,” he said, his hand traveling down towards her waistband, passing over the zipper and slipping between her thighs as his lips hovered over her neck and his hot breath seared her flesh, “can you handle staying quiet?” He lifted her leg and draped it over his own, giving himself the space to cup her through her jeans. “Everyone else is still asleep, and in any case it’s still too dark to journey on.” He placed a kiss just below her ear and continued, his voice a low growl just above a whisper, “Just say the word, I can help you ease your mind for a while.” The corner of his lips twitched upward as he teasingly flexed his fingers against her and added, “And the ache you might be feeling, if that moan were any indication.”

Emma silently cursed herself for letting that sound escape from her lips, and once more for what she knew she was about to give in to so quickly. He was right, she could use a distraction from her racing mind now that she was more awake again, and he was a damn tempting one. Her breath hitched when he caught her earlobe between his teeth and tugged, eliciting another soft moan from deep within her, and her decision was made.

“Yes.”

“Yes what, love?” he asked, nosing down her neck until his mouth latched onto the space between it and her shoulder, nipping and sucking her flesh and laving over it with his tongue.

“Yes, I can stay quiet.” Her hand reached up to find purchase in his hair, encouraging him to continue his claim of her collarbone. “Yes, I want you to ease my… well, everything.” He chuckled at that, the vibration of his laughter against her skin sending a chill down her spine.

“As you wish.” Hook wasted no time popping the button on Emma’s jeans, pulling down the zipper, and slipping his hand beneath the denim. “Oh?” He said, his eyebrow raised in wonder at the soft, thin material covering his goal. He rubbed his fingers over it, feeling her arousal soaking through it as he teased her. “You certainly do.” Hook pushed her panties aside and sank two fingers inside her.

“Ohh fuck,” Emma choked back another moan, the sinful sounds as he plunged them into her dripping core again and again filling the air instead. His rings bit into her skin with every thrust, the cool metal a jarring, yet welcome counter to the hot friction they were creating. She rocked her hips to meet him each time, and his breathing grew ragged as he rutted himself against the curve of her ass in synchrony. As Emma’s movements grew frantic, Hook’s slowed to a stop, and Emma groaned in protest when he removed his fingers from inside her, dragging them through her folds to brush her clit for just a moment.

“Not yet, Swan.” Hook carefully slipped his arm out from beneath her head and gently turned her towards himself so that she lay on her back. Getting to his knees and stripping off his duster, he knelt between her spread legs. “I’m a fan of every part of you, and I intend to show you just how much of a fan I am.” 

He slipped his hooked arm beneath her tank only to find his access to her breasts blocked by another bit of material. Lifting the top to reveal the offending garment, he looped his prosthetic beneath it, the tip of the hook scraping against her skin as he did, and tugged. He noted that the small scrap of fabric differed from the corsets he was used to removing from women he’d bedded in the past but assumed it would be no less easy to snap than the laces he’d encountered on them.

“Hey!” Emma caught his wrist before he could succeed in his efforts. “I need this! Let me just….” She sat up for a moment to take off her tank top and undo the clasps at her back so she could toss her bra aside. “There.”

“Apologies, love,” Hook said, “and thank you.” He guided her back down with his hand just beneath her now exposed breast, thumbing at her tightening nipple as his mouth tended to the other. “Bloody magnificent, these are,” he mumbled against her as he teased them to stiff peaks. Emma tried to relax as the throbbing between her legs became almost unbearable and she longed for more friction to soothe it.

When he was at last satisfied, Hook released her nipple from his mouth with a resounding pop, flicked it a few times with the curve of his hook for good measure, and gave the same treatment to the other, relishing the way she squirmed beneath him as he nibbled and sucked and kneaded.

Emma gasped when the cold air rushed over her wet skin as Hook finished with her breasts and slid his body lower between her legs, trailing sloppy kisses down her abdomen along the way until he reached the top of her jeans.

Glancing up at her, he kept his eyes on hers as he gently tucked his fingers and hook just under the edge of her waistband.

“May I?” he asked, waiting for her approval to proceed.

“Yes,” she answered, “god, yes.” He grinned at that and very slowly tugged her jeans down her legs, distracted by the view of the place where his hand had been, covered only by the thin strip of fabric that had grown damp beneath his touch, pausing for a moment to slip off her boots when he reached them before removing the denim completely.

“You,” Hook said as he took in the sight of her almost completely naked form, “are absolutely stunning, Swan.” He scanned her body a moment longer, watching the blush spread over her cheeks and across her chest as she flushed pink under his desirous scrutiny. He nosed along the creases of her thighs and up the material that hid his goal before taking the top hem between his teeth, pulling it down until it hung from his mouth and letting it fall beside her on the blanket beneath them.

Fuck, that was hot, Emma thought to herself as she watched him lower his head and raise his hungry gaze to hers. The smirk on his face made her wonder for a moment if she had actually said it out loud.

Any concern she had about her comment was swept away as he gently flattened his tongue against her slick flesh, never breaking eye contact as he slowly licked an inquisitive stripe along her folds, dipping it between them just enough to pass over her clit before departing. The shiver that passed through her whole body at the contact was enough to make him do it twice more before diving in as deep as he could and mapping her inner walls with his tongue. He mumbled soft praises as he worked her—“Delicious…. Exquisite…. Divine….”—without ever fully pulling away to say them, too lost in the taste of her, as if he couldn’t get enough and didn’t want to lose even a drop of her essence. Soon he found the spot that made her hips buck and her thighs pull together, pressing against the sides of his head, and he reintroduced his fingers inside her as he licked at the spot relentlessly, knowing she grew ever closer to her release.

His scruff raked against her skin as her legs locked around him, her heels digging into his back, and she knew the raw streaks of raised red would burn later as they continued through Neverland on foot. But with the way he was making her feel in that moment, she figured it would be worth it.

The shaking overtook her suddenly and her back arched as he gave a particularly strong suck on her clit, and she came as he continued to fuck her with his hand and mouth. He reached up to silence her by pressing the curve of his hook to her lips as an overwhelmed cry caught in her throat. Taking the prosthetic into her mouth, she gently bit down on it and laved over it with her tongue to distract herself from the way he tended to her dripping core in kind. He lapped at her entrance until her waves of pleasure receded and she relaxed against the blanket, their chests heaving in an attempt to catch their breaths. He crawled over her body, hovering above her looking absolutely wrecked before he’d even been touched, his chin glistening with her release and his eyes blown wide with insatiable desire.

Their mouths crashed together and he laced his fingers through her golden locks while her hands anchored in the hair at the nape of his neck. She tasted herself on him as she traced his lips with her tongue and opened hers in invitation for his further exploration.

“You, my wanton lass, are far from quiet.” Hook attacked Emma’s lips with his own, her false rebuttal lost before it could be voiced as his tongue dipped between them and pulled her bottom lip between his teeth upon its retreat.

Emma hadn’t seen him reach for the panties he’d discarded next to her earlier until he pulled away and sat back on his haunches as he replaced his tongue with the wet scrap of material.

“Any other time, I’d love nothing more than to hear how I make you feel, but given the circumstances…,” he trailed off with a glance in the direction of their slumbering company not too far away, before returning his gaze to Emma with a smirk. “Luckily, there are ways to assist you.” He leaned over her once more to whisper in her ear, “Perhaps another time we can meet on my ship, sail far from the shore, just the two of us, and I’ll make you produce all manner of sounds for only me to hear. Hm?”

If he were expecting an answer, Emma couldn’t give him one. She told herself this was a one-time thing, just a way to blow off some steam and clear her head before the next long stretch of their journey through this land of mysterious horrors she wished she’d never have had to encounter like this. She wished Neverland could have stayed a story, though she wouldn’t admit out loud that she did prefer this real version of the fearsome Captain Hook.

Well, that and she now had a mouthful of cotton.

Emma watched as he unlaced his trousers, and she found herself unable to look away when he took himself in hand and passed the tip of his cock along her folds, aligning himself with her entrance before he stopped.

“Swan?” Hook said, bringing her out of her distracted stupor and calling her attention to his searching eyes, all of his bravado gone and replaced with a serious, patient tone. “Emma, are you sure?”

She hadn’t expected him to ask again, and that consideration for her wishes she hadn’t often encountered, paired with his rare use of her first name, only increased her desire to say yes. Unable to actually speak it, she held his gaze, hoping hers looked just as soft, and gently brushed her fingers down his cheek before she trailed them down his arms and gripped his hips with an encouraging nod.

Emma bit down hard on her makeshift gag and her head lolled back as he slowly sheathed himself inside her, the stretch burning in the best way with every inch as her body responded to his entrance with slick heat until he was fully seated within her. The feel of her around him took his breath away, and Hook braced himself on his elbows at either side of her as his head fell forward next to hers and he panted over her shoulder.

“Gods, you’re fucking perfect,” Hook whispered in her ear through gritted teeth. He finally began to move, and she wrapped her arms around him, holding him close as he pulled back and slid home again and again. She pivoted her hips to meet him with each thrust, feeling a euphoric fullness every time she took him in deep that left her softly whimpering in protest upon his retreats.

It was too much and not enough and just right all at once. Emma’s hands slipped beneath Hook’s shirt and she raked her nails up and down his back before digging them into his flesh as she scrabbled for purchase to steady herself beneath him, and to draw him ever closer to her.

Her mouth grew dry as the material between her teeth absorbed what little moisture wasn’t being expelled from her body in arousal and sweat. She wanted to kiss him, but even if she could, his mouth was otherwise engaged, sucking a mark into the side of her neck before tonguing at the hollow of her throat on its way to brand her collarbone. She couldn’t be bothered to care if anyone would see the evidence of his claim, not while he was giving her nothing but pleasure as his hips snapped with purpose.

“Come for me, Emma.” Hook’s fingers returned to her clit to circle and tease it as they both neared their releases. “Let me feel you come on my cock.” He groaned louder than he meant to when her hands cupped his ass through his trousers. “I won’t last much longer, love.”

He almost lost it when she gripped him tighter and nodded with a downward glance before meeting and holding his gaze.

“Fuck, Emma,” he breathed, a lightheadedness overtaking him as everything inside him tensed and he slammed into her with abandon. Looping his hook under the edge of her panties that peeked out from between her lips, he tugged the material to remove it without wasting time to toss it aside, letting it drape over his prosthetic as he filled her mouth with his tongue instead in a hot slide.

“Killian,” she moaned in a whisper against his eager lips, finally able to speak to some extent as he ravished both her mouth and her aching core.

“What?” He said in breathless surprise, unsure of whether he’d heard her correctly or imagined it with his own pulse pounding in his head, his hungry and frantic eyes flitting from side to side as they searched hers. A soft smile spread across his face. That was the first word she’d spoken, not even his more colorful moniker she’d been accustomed to using, but—

“Killian,” she called him by his name again, feeling that same dizzy high he felt as she rocked forward into him. “Yes. Yes.”

Something inside him snapped, and he muffled his pleasured cries against her lips as he poured himself inside her, relentlessly thumbing at her clit to bring her to release. A rush of heat spread through her body as his cock pulsed inside her, and her walls fluttered around him as she rose and fell with him.

He pulled back for a moment and caught the thick whitish fluid that dripped from her core with the tip of his cock before pushing it deeper inside her with a desperate grunt until they both finally slowed their movements to a stop.

“That was—” Hook, the man full of innuendos, fell speechless as he carefully held himself above her, propped up on his elbows, and let his forehead drop to hers as he panted with hot breath over her lips.

A one-time thing, Emma wanted so badly to say, but she had trouble even believing herself then. The way he made her feel, the way she knew he felt, the way they felt together. None of it felt like a one-time thing. She knew what those were, but this right here with him, this could be so much more. And it both thrilled and terrified her.

“I know,” she said instead, trying desperately to process everything that had just happened, and everything she might have wished would happen in the future, if they’d have a future at all. Would they?

She subtly shook her head in an attempt to clear it and pulled him to her for another kiss before she lifted her panties off his hook and pressed her other hand to his chest where it was exposed by the low neckline of his shirt and vest, following his body with hers as she guided him back so she could sit upright. Flattening the material over her palm, she passed it between her folds and stared into the depths of his ocean blue eyes as she rubbed the damp cotton over his wet cock, making his jaw drop as his breath hitched in his throat.

“We can’t leave a mess, now can we?” Emma smirked. Pumping him with her covered hand, she took his cock into her mouth, and he hissed when she passed her tongue over the tip and groaned around him at the taste as it leaked a bit more of his release.

“Gods, Emma,” Hook stuttered as he leaned back on his hand for support before he stilled her by catching her wrist with his hook, and she released him with a soft pop and a mischievous smirk as she looked up at him. “Keep doing that, love, and there’s going to be a much more obvious tell.”

“Fine,” she conceded with a sigh, getting to her feet and slipping on her wrecked panties with a taunting wiggle of her hips as she pulled them up under the weight of his entranced gaze until he realized he’d been staring and cast his eyes toward the ground. She’d probably feel it later, the sweltering heat of the Neverland sun bound to leave her feeling stickier than its induced sweat already would, but knowing he’d know that his effects on her would be keeping her wet long after they’d finished their more enjoyable activities… well, her own potential discomfort would be a cross she’d be willing to bear without regret.

She continued to get dressed, and he gave her the decency of turning his back to her as she did and as he righted himself as well, an admittedly unnecessary gesture after the rather indecent act they’d just committed together, but oddly endearing nonetheless.

“Here, love,” Hook picked up his duster and held it open in offering for her to wear, but she waved him off with a smile.

“I’m okay now, thanks. It suits you better anyway. And besides,” Emma winked at him, “I think I prefer sharing it.”

Hook swirled it around himself with a dramatic flair to put it on, tucked his hand and hook in the pockets, and reached out to enwrap Emma in the heavy leather with him, eliciting a giggle as he held her close.

She certainly wasn’t cold anymore.

[shireness-says]

Coming Soon: Seeking Shelter, Seeking Solace

1895. Emma Swan answers an ad in the paper from a man looking for a wife in order to flee Boston - only to arrive in rural Storybrooke, Minnesota and discover that her intended husband is dead. Left with no other options, Emma takes a position at the local tavern alongside the sullen, dark-haired barkeep with demons of his own. But what will she do when the forces she’s worked so hard to escape reappear in the new life she’s building, forcing her to turn to this unlikely savior for aid?

Presenting my contribution to @csjanuaryjoy​! Which, true to form, has spiraled from an anticipated 15k for the whole fic to 10k for one chapter, and the other two unfinished. I promise some delicious marriage of convenience, pining, and even some action. This will begin posting in a few days, so let me know if you want to be tagged! In the meantime, enjoy this preview:

Emma can’t help but fidget in her seat as her train tears across the Midwestern landscape. Though this was her choice, she still can’t help but be nervous; after all, this is a very different world from Boston, the only home she’s ever known. She’s used to bustling streets and the lap of the waves against the docks at the harbor, not these miles after miles of plains and crop fields. It’s almost enough to make her second guess this whole thing.

It’s not a mistake though, she knows. She’d needed to get out of Boston, as quickly as possible, and this had been the best of a variety of bad options. Emma has never been particularly romantic, even as a little girl, but in the few imaginings she’d allowed herself of her future, answering a newspaper ad for a wife had never factored in. Then again, her fantasies had never anticipated the particular situation she’s trying to escape: a man who wouldn’t hear no, who was willing to pursue her relentlessly, from city to city, always a threat on her tail. The security of marriage, and of distance, had only made sense. And then again, she’s never been sentimental ; true love isn’t something she anticipated in a union, or even particularly believed in, for that matter. 

The man she’s travelling to meet seems kind, she consoles herself with knowing. Emma hadn’t been particularly picky in selecting a man from the handful of querants in the paper, but Graham Humbert seems to be a good one. He’s the sheriff of a small town in Minnesota, who found himself lonely and wanting companionship.

I can darn my own socks and cook my own dinner, though neither with any exemplary skill, he had written. I’m not looking for someone to look after me in that way, regardless of what my friends’ wives think; I’d hire a lady to do the cleaning if that was the issue. I’m searching for someone to speak with at the end of a long day, someone to listen and to laugh with. I don’t believe myself to be a sweeping romantic, but I will be happy to give and receive a kind of gentle affection. Maybe we can come to love each other in time; I would be happy with that too, though I am not counting on it. 

She’d liked that about him, that amiable practicality so evident even in his letters. It’s what had made her agree to travel to Minnesota with the intent to marry him, really - the feeling that they viewed a union in the same way. There will be a trial period, of course, a month during which to decide whether the two of them will suit each other before anything is formalized - but Emma is determined to make it work. What other choice does she have?

The train will be pulling into Storybrooke soon - a tiny dot on the map, where Emma doubts anyone else will be alighting. All of her belongings have been tightly packed into two measly carpetbags in order to, hopefully, start a new life. Maybe it’s foolish, but Emma had splurged on a new, sleek jacket before she’d left the city, a cheery blue to pair with her navy skirt and white blouse in an attempt to impress. Mostly, she wants to look neat more than anything else: a capable woman, one who won’t be afraid to adapt to a new life with a minimum of fuss, one who won’t make Sheriff Humbert’s life more difficult. Pretty is of secondary concern.

She sees the town coming long before the train pulls into the tiny station, roofs and chimneys rising above the flat landscape and copious corn fields. Somewhere in this state, she knows, are hundreds and thousands of lakes; however, they’re nowhere to be seen here. Storybrooke itself is a bare cluster of buildings seeming to group around a single main street, with homesteads and farm plots doubtlessly stretching out to the surrounding area. It’s a whole different world from what she’s used to, but that’s the entire point, really; no one will think to look for her here, in the rural midwest as the wife of a sheriff. 

When the train finally pulls into what passes for a station, a single cramped building with barely enough room for a ticket office and a luggage closet, a man is waiting on the platform, sheltered from the late-spring sun by an awning off the station roof. The star-shaped badge on his coat and the way he shifts nervously from foot to foot make Emma think this must be the anticipated Sheriff Humbert. His hair is rather more golden than the sandy blonde-brown color Mr. Humbert had tried to describe in his letters, but Emma supposes that’s to be expected. She likely didn’t give a perfect description of her appearance either. 

Quickly, she gathers her bags and alights to the station platform with the assistance of a young porter. The man waiting quickly doffs his hat, playing with the brim in another nervous gesture. “Miss Swan?”

Carefully, Emma arranges her face into something she hopes passes as an amiable smile. “Yes, that’s me. And you’ll be Sheriff Humbert, I presume?”

“I - well, no,” the man who isn’t Graham Humbert stutters out. “I’m David Nolan, actually. One of the deputies here.”

Unexpected - but there are countless excellent reasons that Deputy Nolan might be sent instead. Trouble can happen even in a small town, dozens of minor disputes that can somehow only be settled by the sheriff himself. “In that case, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nolan. I must admit, I was expecting Mr. Humbert. Pardon my mistake.”

“About that —” Deputy Nolan cuts himself off, looking curiously uncomfortable. It sets Emma a bit on edge, but there’s no way to dance around it - not when she doesn’t have all the information.

“Yes?”

Deputy Nolan swallows heavily, visibly, his fingers tightening around the brim of his hat again before he drags his eyes to meet hers. “I’m sorry to tell you, Miss Swan, but Graham - Sheriff Humbert - died two days ago.”

Of all the things she thought he might say, all the ways she imagined this might go, that certainly wasn’t one of them.

[csjanuaryjoy]

CSJJ 2021:  Final Roundup!

Week One!

 always feel like part of this was mine by @ohmightydevviepuu​​

 Beautiful by @thesschesthair

 good ships and wood ships and ships that sail the sea by @profdanglaisstuff

Home (there and back again - a Saviour’s tale) by @katie-dub and @anxioussquirrel

“Cuddles”, a painting by @svenjaliv

“Whatever the Weather (You Make Everything Better)” by @snowbellewells

“Could This Be Us?” by @killiansprincss​

Week Two!

A Quiet Moment by @onceratheart18​

Exactly Where I Was Meant to Be by @stahlop

Written in the Stars by @klynn-stormz

till the summer comes again by @demisexualemmaswan

the monsters turned out to be just trees by @spartanguard

Neverland artwork from @carpedzem

spots and splashes by @killianjones-twopointoh

Week Three!

Kittens for Quarantine by @delightfully-difficult-pirate

a new land of untold stories in artwork by @mariakov81

Sowing Seeds of Trust by @jrob64

if you carry the torch (i’ll follow the light) by @beyourlifeline

Puzzle Pieces picsets by @resident-of-storybrooke

love languages by @captain-emmajones

A New Game Plan by @onthecyberseas

home by @thisonesatellite

Week Four!

Emma Was Cold by @caught-in-the-filter

Papa’s Socks by @xhookswenchx​

Like Me For Me by @pirateherokillian

let’s rest for a while, ‘til our souls catch us up by @scientificapricot

Happy New Beginnings by @killianslefthook

Seeking Shelter, Seeking Solace by @shireness-says

Vulnerable by @ohmakemeahercules

A Few Nice Words by @reggieshamster

The Darkness by @carpedzem

A Happy Ending (well, that depends on where you start) by @lassluna​

Thank you so much to all of our authors and artists for your incredible work!  Thank you to our cheerleaders and beta readers and everyone who popped into the server to say hello!!  Thank you to our mod team, @katie-dub​, @pirateherokillian​, @lassluna​ and @ohmightydevviepuu​.  We hope that this amazing collection of art and fic helped bring you some January Joy.  🎉💖😘

[captain-emmajones]

love languages

Here is my contribution for CSJJ. Big thanks to @csjanuaryjoy​ for organizing this, to the CSJJ discourse server and its wonderful ladies, to @carpedzem​ for cheering me on always and to @profdanglaisstuff​ for beta'ing this <3

Post 4x11. During the six weeks of peace. It all starts with Mary Margaret reading a stupid article about love languages at breakfast, and before she knows it, Emma finds herself asking Hook his as they are stargazing by the docks.

Canon Compliant -- Fluff -- Banter -- Missing Scene -- Ao3 -- 1,5k words.

A veil of mist hangs low in this January night sky; it dances around a crescent moon wreathed in a halo of silver light. The moon is peering at the scene, down below, by Storybrooke’s harbour.

And what a scene, my dear...

Two figures dressed in warm clothes are sitting on a bench, wrapped up in one of those large checkered blankets that they share; the taller one seems resolute on examining the stars in the night sky, brows furrowed in a focused expression and fingers clenched around a spyglass.

That is quite unfortunate, thinks the moon, for the clouds are impish that night and stubbornly hide their secrets. His companion sits cross-legged at his side, one hand cupping her chin, eyes set on the man’s silhouette and the moon wonders what could possibly be so interesting on this man’s face for the woman not to look up at her.

There is a shift then, in the woman’s composure, and the moon sees one gentle hand grab the man’s arm as a cloud of white smoke escapes her lips.

The moon winces; she knows the silence is about to be shattered.

“Hey, what’s your love language?”

This stupid question has been on the tip of Emma’s tongue all day, tingling and burning, and Mary Margaret and the article she read aloud at breakfast are entirely to blame for it.

Emma is lucky that the rum they drank at dinner with her parents is still coloring their cheeks red, and that a flame seems to be licking up her throat, because it is a delicious burn and saves her the embarrassment.

“Sorry. Say that again, Swan?”

He does not turn around. As something mischievous stands up in Emma’s chest and pouts, Emma wants to groan that there will be no stars to be seen tonight. How dare he not pay attention to her when she let herself be lured by his talks of “star-gazing”?

Instead, she admires the hint of red coloring the apple of his cheeks and the wisps of breath he exhales calmly through his nose.

“I mean, what makes you feel loved?” she asks again, and she tries to sound more annoyed than she actually is.

Which is, actually, not at all, but he most absolutely does not need to know that.  

The expected result occurs as he swiftly shifts to gaze at her, his blue eyes flashing in the dimness, and that sinful tongue licks a pattern across his lips.

“Swan, are you drunk?” he teases, smirking a bit, but with a lot of tenderness.

She chuckles as he clicks his telescope shut without breaking their gaze.

Her legs do feel heavy as lead, and her head deceptively light as a cloud, but that she won’t tell him, not on any account.

“Am not.” And if Emma’s head lolls to his side, terribly tempted by his welcoming shoulders, it must be because of gravity or something.

But she does not cave in, and she raises her eyes to see his entire face crinkling up in a delightful, devilish way and Emma wishes she could kiss each little spot of skin the moon dabbles light on.

“Yes, you are. Should have watched you and Mary Margaret’s cocktails.”

While Emma does think there is something to be said about her mother’s cocktails, she still rolls her eyes and frowns, even as stubborn laughter keeps bubbling up inside her throat and is making it difficult to keep a straight face. “Just answer the question!” And her fist gently bumps against his shoulder for good measure.

He dramatically sighs next to her, one eyebrow quirking up in that peculiar way that makes her toes curl, and she hates him for it but she also wishes that he may never stop.

“...What was the question again?”

She exhales a groan of discontent. “Killian!”

“Emma?”

Another groan. He will be the death of hers. “Your love language! What is it?”

“My love language, you ask? Well, mmmh, let me think.” And as he pretends to ponder, tapping his fingers against his red, red lips, tap, tap, tap, Emma finds herself leaning towards him, against her will, magnetized.

But she catches herself and proceeds to frown harder, hand closing around the cold wooden bench instead of the lapel of his coat. They are trying to have a conversation, for fuck’s sake.

He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and Emma blinks because she cannot stop looking at his mouth.

“Ah. But Swan, we have a problem.”

“Do we?”

His lips, over hers, now. Forever, preferably. The delicate shadow dropped by his eyelashes onto his cheekbones is infuriating.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, although I am familiar with many languages, I’ve never heard of that love language theory of yours.”

It’s a miracle she hears anything he’s saying.

“It’s not my theory,” she mumbles right back, and she can tell by the lovely, lovely sparkles in his blue eyes that it is exactly the reaction he wanted out of her.

“Care to explain it either way?”

She thinks she shakes her head then. He is annoying. This is far more than she ever signed up for. She just wanted to tease him, and now she is the one being teased. Truly a terrible turn of events. That doesn’t mean she can control the smile that tickles her lips.

“Well,” she clears her throat, straightens her back, tries to appear very serious, “there are five traditional love languages.”

“Yes,” he encourages her, smiling widely, “I’m all ears, Swan.”

Her cheeks hurt from all of the smiling. It’s okay. He and his stupid big blue eyes are worth it.

“Well, first, there are words of affirmation, like a loved one telling you they are proud of you or that they lo--...you know what I’m saying.”

I’m a fan of every part of you, Swan.

And the thing is, she hears herself utter the words, and she does think that she does not sound like herself at all -- talking about love languages with Captain Hook -- but also Killian and she have been dating for the last couple of months now and this isn’t like anything she’s ever done before and maybe it isn’t so bad.

“Interesting. Do go on.”

In fact, it cannot even be remotely bad when he keeps staring at her like this, as if she is really precious and important and he cares or something.

“Then there’s quality time, like feeling loved when you’ve spent a precious and unique moment with a loved one.”

Right now, we have a quiet moment.

“Mmm, I see.”

“And then there are acts of service, and that goes without explanation.”

I knew Bae as a boy. Perhaps I could talk to the boy. It would help him come to terms with his father’s passing. And me.

“Fair enough.”

“Then there are gifts, of course --”

“Like the rose I offered you on our first date?”

“-- like the rose you offered me on our first date --,” she repeats. Before a bucket of cold water is spilled on top of her head as she realizes what he’s just said and what she’s just agreed with.

It’s a good thing the street light above their head is doing a poor flickering job because by the time Emma has pondered her own words and has reflected on how naturally Killian said that last line, well, she’s flushed a bright red.

He doesn’t mean that he, that they, that she...does he?

An alarm rings inside Emma’s head. Beware! Slippery slope of feelings ahead!

And instead of thinking one second more about this, Emma heaves a quiet breath, blinks, and exhales sharply: “-- yeah and the like.” As she looks up, she notices Killian’s smug grin.  

And something very soft, in his eyes, something very soft and terrifying.

“What’s the last one?” he asks in a husky whisper as swirls of white vapor escape his mouth to kiss Emma’s lips.

She gulps. Exhales. “Physical touch.”

By the time she says the words, he is hovering dangerously close to her, and his hand is slipping into her hair, curling around the base of her neck, and the tingles it diffuses all over her skin are simply illegal.

“Like that?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

She nods, lips tight, unable to breathe. What is he doing to her?

“Like that, yeah.” And if her voice is hoarse, the ocean breeze isn’t the only one to blame.

His fingers slowly abandon her hair to find her lips, and he presses them, gently, above her open mouth and Emma’s hands have found his arms without her consent.

And just as he dives towards her, heart pounding, courage roars inside of her and she dares ask once again: “So?”

It makes him stop, gaze seriously at her, eyes open wide. She swallows again.

“So, what?” he answers, and he almost sounds angry.

The lust she sees dancing in his eyes tightens each of her muscles.

“What’s your love language?” she repeats, bites her lower lip.

She isn’t flinching. She started this. She wants to win.

He smiles, fingers caressing down her neck to find her collarbone, and although she shudders she feels victory stretch her lips.

“I’m a pirate, love. I don’t choose between treasures. I take them all.”

As if to seal his words, his mouth hungrily finds hers, and he drinks her breath, and Emma lets herself be defeated in her heart only, but surely not aloud.

[everything-person]

CS January Joy Day 7: The Rescue

A/N: So this fic idea spawned from a Wander Over Yonder short called The Hero. Its really funny highly suggest you watch it. This has been an idea of mine for a while and has been in the draft graveyard for maybe 3 years. Point is its been a long time idea and I’m super excited about finally being able to post it especially for an amazing event such as @csjanuaryjoy​. Special thanks to @profdanglaisstuff​ who hoped on as my beta last minute. 

Summary: Princess Emma has gone missing and with the kings promise of a special reward for the one to bring her home safely her friends plan to be the ones to do just that.

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Once upon a time the princess turned bandit met the shepherd turned prince. They fell in love and together they defeated the Evil Queen. They became the rulers of a grand land best known as The Enchanted Forest. Under the rule of Queen Snow White and King James the Enchanted Forest came a time of peace and prosperity. 

One fortunate day Queen Snow White and King James announced the birth of a beautiful baby girl, a new princess for the kingdom, and she was given the name Emma. The princess was the product of True Love and would wield the most powerful light magic in all the realms. She would be known as the Savior. The kingdom rejoiced, days of celebration were held in honor of the princess. Nobility and Royalty from all over came to pay their respects and welcome the new princess.

Though the princess’s birth was a happy and welcome one, a great danger lay hidden. For with great light there must be great darkness. A prophecy told of a day when the Savior would be stolen away by darkness. Only to be rescued by one true hero, with the help of his sidekick-

“Whoa,” Pinocchio interrupted, “which one of us is the sidekick?”

Baelfire froze, looking at his friend. Even in the dim light of the tavern he could make out Pinocchio’s confused and slightly agitated glare.“Well I don't mean to be rude, my friend, but you're the sidekick.”

“Oh,” Pinocchio leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “And how do we know you're not the sidekick?” 

“It says that the hero is Emma's True Love.” Baelfire stated, gesturing to the book open in front of him. 

“That proves nothing.”

Baelfire let out a frustrated sigh, slamming the book closed. “Okay well I guess whoever saves her is the hero and her true love.”

Pinocchio’s eyebrows furrowed, “Allow me understand you. Are you suggesting when we go retrieve Her Royal Highness, Rightful Heir to Misthaven’s Throne, The Savior, most powerful light magic wielder in this and any known realm, that whoever gets to her first will be the one she marries? Am I understanding you correctly?”

Baelfire shrugged his shoulders. “Do you have a better idea?” 

Pinocchio stared at the man across from him. The buzz of the tavern surrounded them. 

The two men had grown up with Princess Emma. For a time she wasn’t Her Royal Highness Princess Emma, she was just Emma, their friend. They were all playmates but as they grew Baelfire and Pinocchio saw her as Princess Emma and perhaps a bit more. They both wished to court her but before they had a chance to make a request she was stolen away from her 21st birthday ball. She's been missing for months and in their Majesties’ desperation they decreed that ‘the one who saves Princess Emma and brings her home will be the one to take her hand in marriage.’ Many have already tried but no one has even caught a glimpse of the princess. After hearing the news, Baelfire and Pinocchio decided they would save the princess and they would have a better chance of that together. Baelfire was in charge of finding out information on where the princess might be, hence the tavern they’ve been sitting in for nearly two hours. Pinocchio was in charge of transportation both getting to where the princess was and their escape route.

“I'm taking your silence as a no. So whoever gets to Emma first is the one who marries her, agreed?” Baelfire stuck his hand across the table.

Pinocchio stared at the offensive hand for a moment. Baelfire was right, he didn't have a better idea and Emma's father did say whoever saved Emma had her hand. So technically whichever one of them got to her first is the one to save her. Pinocchio grabbed his friend's hand and gave it a firm shake, “Agreed.”

“Good, because I think our man just showed up.” Baelfire nodded towards the man entering the tavern as he stuffed the book holding the prophecy in his satchel.

The tricorn hat on his head, long hair draped over the shoulders of his long coat hiding the sword and pistol at his hip all gave him away. 

Pirate.

Pinocchio made to stand but a kick to the leg made him fall back in his chair. “Ow,” he exaggerated, glaring at his friend.

“What are you doing?” Baelfire questioned him.

“I'm going -”

Baelfire interrupted, “That's not how you deal with pirates. You make them” he holds up a purse of coins, “come to you.” He finalized his statement by slamming down the coins on the table.

Though Pinocchio doubted him at first once the pirate saw the gold he knew they had him. The man sauntered over to them. “That’s quite a bit of coin you have there mate.” He stood over their table with his thumb in his belt. He wore a smirk that was anything but friendly.

“More than a bit and I was hoping to win some more.” Baelfire leaned back in his seat meeting the man's gaze.

The man's smirk turned into a smile, “Well you're in luck, we were just about to set up a game. Perhaps you'd like to join us.”

=====================================

His father beckoned him over. “Pinocchio come meet the new princess.” 

The little boy cautiously walked to where his father was standing next to the King and Queen. They smiled kindly at the boy as he approached. Once he was at the side of the crib he stood on the tips of his toes in order to see. 

There laying in the crib was a small baby. She was wrapped in a white knitted blanket lined with a purple ribbon and in the corner read a name. “Pinocchio this is Emma.” the queen introduced him with a quiet voice.

“Hello Emma.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She looked back at him with big soft eyes, her mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape. He couldn’t help but reach into the crib and pet her head lightly . “She is so soft and so small.” 

The adults chuckled at his observation. “Yes she is.”

“Pinocchio,” His father's voice caught his attention. He turned to see his father had knelt down. “Princess Emma is going to need a friend. Someone to help her and teach her things. Someone she can rely on. Can you do that? Can you be Princess Emma's friend?”

Pinocchio smiled and nodded. “Yes father. I will try to be the best friend I can to Princess Emma.”

“Good boy.” His father said and gave him a pat on his head.

A small whine came from the crib. Emma was rubbing her face letting out more noise. Pinocchio looked over the side. “Oh no Emma don’t cry. Look.” He pulled on his ears, sticking his tongue out and made silly noises until the princess calmed down. “See it’s okay.”

“Thank you Pinocchio. You are sure to be a very good friend for the princess.” the king assured him.

====================================

Baelfire had the pirates in the palm of his hand. With each hand he would buy another round for the table. He had now gotten the table thoroughly drunk, with all the men laughing jovially and ready to spill their guts at the right question. This is why he's sure he is the hero the prophecy spoke of, only the hero would be clever enough to persuade pirates into giving him the information he required.

“So Captain I hear you’re quite the fearsome pirate,” Baelfire started.

“Aye the most fearsome on the seas. No one dares cross Blackbeard's sword.”

“Having that kind of reputation I’m sure you pass through many ports and hear many different tales.”

“Aye I keep my ear to the ground for the best treasure to pillage and plunder. Are you in the market for some jewels or magical trinket?”

“None actually. I was hoping to hear what the best gossip pirates have to offer. Who’s picked up what?”

“Sorry to disappoint mate but I can’t think of anything worth telling.” 

A drunken crew member piped up at this, “Capt’n what about that blonde woman? She was certainly interesting to look at.”

Baelfire's eyes darted from the crew member to his captain. Hoping he was right, he asked “What blonde woman?”

(A couple hours later)

“I know where Emma is!” Baelfire burst through the door of Pinocchio's workshop. Pinocchio jumped at the noise, dropping his tools. His glare at his intruder morphed into a curious gaze.

“Well where is she?”

Baelfire strode up to the workshop table pulling out a map. “The pirates said they came across a ship that held a beautiful blonde woman aboard.”

Pinocchio’s face pinched together as he stared at the man before him, “You do realize Emma isn't the only blonde woman in all the realms.”

“They said she wields a sword like a warrior, has the tongue of a sailor, fought like a man, backed down to no one all while looking as if she'd come down from heaven.” Baelfire cocked his head to the side, “You know as well as I do how fiery Emma can be.”

The former puppet nodded, “Alright where did he say she was?”

“Here.” Baelfire pointed to the map.

“So how are you getting us there?” Baelfire asked as Pinnochio looked to where they were going, plotting the fastest path they must take. Pinnochio smirked at the question, “Well what's a hero without a noble steed?”

===================================

Baelfire’s feet pounded against the earth beneath him as he weaved through the trees. His rage and frustrations fueling him forward. It'd been two days since Pan tricked him and sent him back to the realm he detested. Back to the father that chose power over him. 

He found his papa stood by his word and got a castle for him. The castle was filled with all kinds of magical items but that wasn't all. There was a woman there as well. His papa found a new love. He was making a new family. 

Baelfire rubbed at his eyes, fighting the tears that desperately wanted to fall. He didn't care about his papa or this new family he wanted to make. All he wanted was out of the realm and away from all things magical. 

The further he ran the more his vision blurred. He began bumping into trees, swatting away branches that crossed his path. The more obstacles in his path the more determined he was to run faster. A root caught his foot, causing him to tumble forward, landing face first into the dirt below. He rubbed his head as he took in his new surroundings. He was in a small clearing filled with tall grass and flowers swaying in the breeze. He pushed up onto his hands and knees, feeling the pressure mounting inside him. He felt as if he was going to burst. He clutched at the dirt beneath him, squeezing his eyes shut. Just as he was about to let it all out he heard something. 

Something that made him freeze. 

He heard laughter.

He lifted up his head to see a girl running into the clearing, looking behind her. Since she was looking behind and not where she was going she tripped, tumbling forward and landing face first a few feet away from him. She pushed up into the same position he was in, shaking her head before lifting it and noticing him for the first time. They looked at each other for a moment, neither sure what to say or make of the other. 

The girl cocked her head to the side before asking, “What are you doing?”

Baelfire scrunched up his face and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Playing,” she answered simply.

Baelfire scoffed, “Little girls shouldn’t be playing in the forest.”

Before he knew it Baelfire was being knocked back in the dirt. He looked up to see the girl now standing over him.

“I’m not a little girl. I can take care of myself.” 

Baelfire looked up at this strange girl standing there with her arms crossed. “Who are you?”

She dropped her arms, looking him over before offering her hand to him, “I’m Emma.”

==============================

Baelfire thought fondly of when he met Emma in that clearing all those years ago. They continued to meet in that clearing a few more times, both curious about the other. She would allow him to air his grievances about his father, about magic, about all that's happened to him. He told her about his plan to leave this realm and he asked if she would want to join him. That was when he found out who she was and what she was. Her Royal Highness Emma, Crown Princess of Misthaven. When he found out who she was he was afraid that her parents wouldn’t let him see her anymore because of who his father was. So he made a deal with his father to make a deal with the King and Queen. 

Baelfire promised to forgive his father if his father went to the King and Queen with a deal. Rumplestiltskin promised to never harm anyone in their kingdom if his son could continue to be friends with the princess. But she wasn’t just a princess. She was also the Savior, product of True Love, wielder of the most powerful light magic. Though she had light magic he asked that she didn’t use it in front of him. He saw what magic did to his father and the magic of Neverland. No matter what kind of magic it was Baelfire didn’t trust it. 

“Hey! You awake back there?” Pinocchio called out to him from his seat at the front of the wagon. 

Blackbeard said the ship that held the blonde woman was heading south. Baelfire suspected that they would need to make port within the next couple days before they headed back onto open water, so they are heading to a port town known to harbor pirates. With any luck they’ll find the ship Emma is on.

“No one could fall asleep with the way you're steering,” Baelfire grumbled. “This uncomfortable wagon wasn't what I had in mind when you said ‘noble steed.’”

“Well what do you expect the sidekick to ride in? Besides, a wagon any bigger would slow us down. You might want to try getting some rest while you can. By the map you gave me, we will be there by sundown.”

“The hero doesn’t need rest and is always prepared to leap into action.”

Pinocchio was right. They arrived in the small seaside village by the time the sun had fallen past the horizon. They were able to find a place to rest their horse and hide their wagon until they can determine whether or not Emma is here. 

“So You head to the tavern and I’ll head to the docks-”

“No,” Baelfire cut off his friend.

“What? That was our plan. You go see if you can get any information from the tavern. While I go see if I can spot Emma on any of the ships in the dock.”

“There's no need for that plan anymore.”

Pinocchio pinched the bridge of his nose, getting annoyed with Baelfire’s know it all attitude. “And why the hell not?”

Baelfire rolled his eyes, grabbing his companion’s arm, turning him around. He stretched his arm out, pointing towards a porky little man wearing a red cap, “That is why.” Baelfire dropped his arm, “We’ll follow him.”

Pinocchio looked between the man they are now apparently following and his accomplice in this quest. “Okay I give up, who is he?”

“He is the first mate of the pirate that will lead us to Emma.”

“How could you possibly know that?” asked Pinocchio, exasperated.

“Look just trust me. If they don’t have Emma, they will know where she is.”

Pinocchio eyed Baelfire, not really believing him until he saw the look in his eye. It was a look of conviction. Baelfire fully believed that this man would lead them to Emma.

Pinocchio slowly began to nod. “Okay let's go.” 

The pair followed this man as he, along with three others, went from shop to shop. When the group of men seemed to be finished they carried three barrels, four sacks, and two crates between the four of them. The men walked down towards the docks.

“Where's their ship? I don’t see it,” Pinocchio inquired, looking up and down the pier. 

Baelfire watched as the men they were following walked down to a row boat. He then cast his eyes on the water. “The pier was too small for them to dock.”

Pinocchio followed Baelfire's gaze and saw the men in a row boat rowing towards a ship in the distance. Baelfire, frustrated, began to rub the back of his neck, trying to come up with a new plan. “Okay good news this allows us to sneak onto the ship easier. Charging up the gangplank wasn’t the best idea in hindsight. Bad news is you need to build a boat right now.”

“Just because I was wood once doesn’t make me a miracle worker.” Pinocchio looked up and down the docks until he saw something that could help them. “Look there.”

Pinocchio pointed to a small sailboat haphazardly tied to a post. They waited until the row boat was halfway to the vessel when they made their move. Baelfire threw the rope off its post, while Pinocchio pushed the boat in the water. They both jumped in before it got too far from the dock.

They laid low so as not to be seen. Pinocchio was able to steer which way their boat drifted with the rudder.

“Oi Smee look,” a crew man called out when they made it back to the ship, pointing back towards the docks. “Some poor bloke lost ‘is sail.”

The man laughed as they raised their boat, unaware of the floating vessel's intent. Because they were unable to use the available oars, over fear of being spotted, they simply drifted hoping the rudder would be enough to lead them close enough to climb aboard. After a while of just drifting Baelfire began lightly drumming his fingers against the wood beneath them. 

“Stop that.”

“Can’t you make this thing go faster?” Baelfire growled at his companion.

“Unless you think I can control the waves and wind we are at the mercy of both,” Pinocchio huffed.

“We wouldn’t be if we were able to row-”

“That’s a great idea if part of your plan is to get caught. With an idea like that you must be the hero from the prophecy,” Pinocchio drawled, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

“Listen. The possibility of being caught is better than aimlessly drifting.”

“You just have to be patient.”

“Translation: I’m a sidekick and wait for stuff to happen.” 

Pinocchio punched Baelfire's leg, tired of his arrogant attitude. Baelfire glared at him, thrusting his leg forward, kicking Pinocchio in the shoulder. Pinocchio grunted then grabbed hold of Baelfire's foot, twisting it in an unnatural way. Baelfire gasped, yanking his foot out of the other man's grip. Before Baelfire could retaliate they both were jostled as the boat bumped into something. They looked up to see that while they were busy arguing they had drifted right next to the ship. They both looked at each other before Pinocchio dropped anchor and they prepared to board the ship.

“Alright let's go.”

Pinocchio grabbed Baelfire's arm, pulling him back down in his seat. “Wait,” he aggressively whispered.

“What?”

“Do you hear that?”

Underneath the sound of the wind and the waves crashing against the hull of the ship, was the sound of cheers. They could just make out the sounds of cups clashing, laughter, and music floating down from the deck above. 

Baelfire's brows furrowed, “Why are they celebrating?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is they are drinking. We both know how pirates like their drink.”

“So?” Baelfire said through gritted teeth, wanting him to get to the point.

 “So we wait until they are too drunk to stand then board the ship, grab Emma, then row back to shore. By the time they gather themselves we will be headed for home.”

Baelfire turned his head back up, contemplating this new plan. “If we go now with half, if not all the crew on deck, we risk a better chance of being captured if not killed. Then who will save Emma?”

Baelfire closed his eyes and balled his fist, “Fine. We wait.” 

So they waited and waited. Though their plan was smart they did not count on the waves rocking their small boat, effectively putting them to sleep. The sun cresting over the horizon woke Baelfire. Once he was fully awake it dawned on him what had happened. He bolted upright, jostling the boat as he did. He turned to his side to see Pinocchio sprawled out asleep, and he gave him a quick kick to rouse him. 

“Wake up, we fell asleep.”

Pinocchio's head rolled as a groan escaped his mouth. Baelfire sighed before bending down, running his hand across the water's surface and flicking his wrist, causing the water to hit Pinocchio in the face. Pinocchio sputtered, now wide awake. He turned to shout at his attacker but his anger quickly vanished when he saw the sun. Both men jumped to action. Pinocchio attached his short sword to his hip as Baelfire threw his cutlass onto his back.

“They say you can truly measure a man by his sword,” Baelfire commented, eyeing his companion’s choice of weapon.

“The size of the sword doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to use it.”

As they prepared to board, Pinocchio turned to his friend, “Hey.”

Baelfire turned to see a sincere and serious look in his eye. 

“No matter what happens up there, Emma's safety and happiness comes first.”

Baelfire nodded, reaching out his hand. Pinocchio accepted it, giving it a firm shake.

“May the best man win,” Baelfire said as they both turned to the next part of their journey. They prepared themselves for a moment before grabbing hold and ascending the ship.

==========================================

“Come on. Let’s go,” Emma encouraged her friends as she entered the tavern.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Pinocchio warned warily.

“Yeah Ems we can get better drinks and food back at the castle.”

Emma turned facing her supposed friends, fixing them with a look. “You both promised me a drink so I suggest you stop your squawking and accept that we are here.”

Baelfire huffed as Pinocchio gestured for Emma to lead the way. The three of them settled on a table in the corner near the exit at Pinocchio's insistence. A bar maid came over and distributed three mugs of grog. Baelfire paid the wench and the three friends cheered their glasses together. Baelfire begrudgingly took a sip of his drink, grimacing as he swallowed the foul beverage. Pinocchio put his drink back on the table, wanting to have a clear mind in case any problems arose. Emma finished her drink in record time.

“Okay you've had your drink, can we leave now?”

“Come on Pinocchio lighten up.” Emma nudged his shoulder with her own, “This is supposed to be fun.”

“And what is so fun about spending a night in a dirty tavern, drinking gross grog, and being surrounded by drunkards?”

Emma glared at Baelfire. “It’s freeing. No one knows who we are, no guards, no one telling you what to do, being able to see how people really live.”

“Yes because who wouldn’t want to be a part of the adultery, lying, and thievery part of everyday people's lives.”

“Look, if you're going to act like this all night you can just leave.” 

There was an awkward pause as the two friends stared each other down. Without breaking eye contact, Baelfire rose out of his chair, turned and left the tavern without another word. Emma huffed, leaning her elbows on the table, looking into her glass. This wasn’t her first time sneaking out of the castle but it was the first time she asked her friends to join her. She was excited to spend the night with them without having to be the proper princess everyone expected her to be. But it seemed her friends didn’t understand that.

“Come on Emma. Let's go, I'll walk you back to the castle.”

“Pinocchio if you're so eager to leave why don't you just go too.”

“Emma-”

Emma slammed her hands on the table, fixing him with a look, “Look if you don’t want to have a drink then just go.” 

A burst of laughter turned her attention to the back of the bar. Emma smiled, “If you guys don’t want to have fun then I’ll go find my own.”

Emma pushed off the table, walking toward the table that caught her attention just moments before. Coming up to the group she placed her hands on their table, leaning forward addressing the man that seemed to be the center of attention. “So what are you boys playing?”

=========================================

The sound of swords clashing filled the air. The night's rest was all the pirates needed to sober up enough to fight the invaders. Pinocchio and Baelfire weren’t making it easy on them. 

“What the bloody hell is going on up here?!”

The outburst distracted Pinocchio and Baelfire just enough for the crew to disarm them of their weapons. They grabbed the men, forcing their arms behind their backs and them onto their knees. 

A man dressed in only leather pants descended the stairs onto the main deck. He wore chains around his neck, at the end of one arm was a brace holding a hook in place of a hand, and at the end of the other he clutched a sword in his grip, prepared for battle.

“Well?” The man paused, looking around waiting for someone to speak up, “Your Captain asked you a question, I expect an answer.”

“Cap’n these two snuck on board at day break.”

The captain looked over these two men, “Let me guess, more heroes come to take on the great Captain Hook.”

“There is nothing great about you. You filthy pirate,” Baelfire spat.

“You know I’ve grown rather tired of boys still wet behind their ears thinking they can come aboard my ship,” The captain spoke louder. “Why don’t we make an example out of these two? To remind everyone why they don’t cross Captain Hook and the crew of the Jolly Roger.”

The crew cheered as Baelfire and Pinocchio began to struggle out of their ropes, but two crew men firmly held them down.

“Now,” Hook raised his sword towards the men on their knees. “What shall we do with you?”

The crew erupted with suggestions but just as soon as the shouting started it stopped.

“What is with all the yelling this morning?” 

Everyone's attention turned to the stairs, where stood the woman they were looking for. She made her way down the stairs dressed only in a black shirt that came down mid thigh on her, her blonde tresses falling in gentle waves over her shoulders. Her face scrunched up, as if she were in pain, her hand rubbing circles onto her head. 

“Emma.” Hook dropped his sword, running over to meet her at the bottom of the stairs. He made it just in time as she tripped on the last step, falling into his arms. Hook opened his mouth to speak again but Emma held her hand to stop him.

“Caspian,” Emma pointed to the crewman, “what was that devil juice you gave me last night?”

“Tequila ma’am.”

Emma waved her hand, “Never. Never again is that allowed aboard this ship.”

“Love, what are you doing up?”

Emma snaked her hand that was resting on his bicep around his neck while the other began playing with the chain hanging from his neck. “Well, I got cold and had the unpleasant experience of waking up alone.” She paused, looking up at the captain through her lashes, “Then I got a splitting headache from all the shouting so I decided to find out what pulled my captain from my bed.”

“It wasn’t by choice, love. But it seems we have some unexpected visitors.” Hook nodded his head toward the middle of the deck.

Emma finally turned her head to see her two childhood friends being held on their knees, bound and gagged. “What the hell,” she whispered to herself. 

Disentangling herself from Hook she moved to stand in front of the two men. She waved her hand, removing their gags. “What are you guys doing here?” Emma crossed her arms waiting for an answer.

“We came to rescue you and bring you home.”

Emma brows furrowed in confusion, “What?”

“You were kidnapped-” Pinocchio was cut off by the crew bursting with laughter.

“I wasn’t kidnapped, I left willingly.”

“But the prophecy-”

“Prophecy?” 

A crew member came forward holding a book, “They had this with them ma’am.”

Emma took the book, offering a smile as thanks. She looked down and realized what she was holding in her hands, “You mean the storybook you made for me when I was ten?”

“But your father offered your hand to anyone who could bring you home safely,” Baelfire informed her.

“EXCUSE ME!? He did what?!”

“I thought you said you left your parents a note, lass,” Hook piped up from the railing he was leaning against. 

“I did, they either didn’t read it or didn't believe it. Fuck! We’ve been gone for months now. They must be worried sick.” Emma began pacing. While she never wanted to cause her parents and distress she just wanted some space. In the midst of her pacing a thought occurred to her and she stopped. 

“Wait,” she turned back to the men on their knees, “There are two of you. So if this was a “rescue mission” and the prize was my hand how was that going to work, huh?”

The men stayed silent.

“What? Was it whoever got to me first cause I know for damn sure neither of you are keen on sharing.”

Baelfire and Pinocchio hung their heads in shame.

“Really? I can’t believe you two.”

Hook approached her from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her back to his chest, resting his chin on her shoulder, “What do you wish to do, love?”

Emma relaxed in his embrace, her gaze still fixed on the men before her. “Take them to the brig for now.”

As the crew stood them up they struggled against their restraints, pleading with Emma to listen to them. Their pleas fell on deaf ears as Emma and Hook retreated to the captain's quarters. Hook closed the door behind them, looking wearily at Emma, who had her back to him, her hands placed on his desk with her head hanging down. 

“Emma? Love? Are you alright?”

Emma sighed, turning around, “I’m just in shock I guess. What were they thinking? What was my father thinking?”

“I would assume your father was desperate to have his daughter back safe at home. And as for your friends, they saw this as an opportunity for you to view them more than just your friends.”

Emma huffed, rolling her eyes.

“Did you ever have feelings for them as they do you?”

Emma turned to see him inspecting his hook. At the sight of his uncertainty her shoulders dropped and her face softened. She walked over to where he leaned against his bookcase, moving to stand before him. She gently cupped his face, making him look at her. “Never. I would be lying if I said I never thought about being with one of them but I never felt for them the way I do you.”

Killian smiled, turning his head to give her palm a tender kiss.

“I do care for them. Pinocchio has been there for me ever since I could remember, and he is great.”

“But..?”

“But he has it in his mind that he has to take care of me.”

“Ah and we both know you are a lass that can take care of herself.”

Emma hummed in agreement before continuing, “And Baelfire hates magic because of his father. So he would always hate a part of me. And I know he still plans to find a way out of this realm, never to return. I would love to explore other realms, hell it’s why I ran off with you, but the Enchanted Forest is my home.”

Emma looked up to see Hook's eyes had gone wide and his jaw set. “Killian, what’s wrong?”

“That man was Baelfire? The Dark One’s son?”

“Yeah why?”

A look of pain crossed his face as he moved away from Emma. 

“Killian what is it?”

“You remember the woman I told you about? The reason for my revenge against the Dark One?”

“Yes, Milah wh-” then it dawned on her, “Milah was Baelfire's mother.”

“Aye,” he tried to force a laugh, “The dark humor of the gods I suppose. I not only took his mother from him but the woman he’s in love with.”

“Hey stop that.” Emma placed a hand on his shoulder, “You didn’t take anyone. We both left on our own.”

Killian looked at Emma, still feeling the weight of guilt on his shoulders. 

“Do you regret meeting me?”

“Never. Meeting you was the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”

Killian leaned down, capturing her lips in a soft reassuring kiss. When the kiss ended they pressed their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry for what happened with Baelfire, Milah and you. But I refuse to feel bad about falling in love with you,” Emma whispered.

Killian sighed contentedly, “So what do we do now?”

========================================

A week later

King James sat on his throne in the council room with his head in his hands. His heart was heavy with grief. A gentle hand laid on his shoulder, he looked up to see his wife wearing a sad smile.

“I just want her home.”

“So do I. We just have to have hope-”

His wife was cut off by the sound of the doors bursting open, a dwarf running into the room.

“Grumpy what is it? What's wrong?”

The dwarf in question was out of breath, leaning forward on his knees. “It’s...It's Emma,” he panted.

The king stood with a force that sent his chair to the floor. “What? What about Emma? Has she been found?”

“She *inhale* She..*cough cough*”

“She’s what?” Charming demanded.

“She’s home.”

They heard a small voice coming from the entryway. Snow and Charming’s eyes both snapped to the door behind the dwarf to see their daughter standing there in a pair of black boots, brown trousers, and a white long sleeved shirt underneath a blue vest. 

“Emma!” The couple gasped before they made their way around the table, past the still out of breath dwarf, engulfing their daughter in an embrace.

After a couple minutes they pulled back slightly, looking over their daughter.

“Emma we were so worried about you,” Snow said.

“Are you alright? How did you get back?” Charming inquired. That's when he noticed there were three men standing in the room. All of them stood straight shoulder to shoulder, with their hands behind their backs. He recognized two of them as being Baelfire and Pinocchio, the third man he’s never seen before but by the sight of him dressed head to toe in leather he assumed this was the man that stole his daughter away.

“I see.” The King let go of his family, stepping towards the men. “So who was it? Which one of you brought my daughter home to me,” he asked, smiling brightly, overjoyed that his daughter was home.

He waited for Baelfire or Pinocchio to step forward. For one of them to take credit for the rescue. He was taken aback when the pirate stepped forward, revealing his arms weren’t in restraints.

“Actually, Your Majesty, it was I that captained the vessel that brought your daughter home.”

Charming’s brows furrowed, he approached Baelfire and Pinocchio, turning them to see their hands tied. Charming turned back to his daughter and saw her holding the pirate's hand.

“What's going on?” Charming asked.

“Emma?” Snow looked between her husband and their daughter.

“I wasn’t kidnapped, I left willingly. I love you both and this kingdom, but it’s suffocating being the Savior and Princess of Misthaven. I wanted to explore, have adventures, like the ones you used to tell me about.”

“So you ran away with this pirate?”

“Killian Jones, at your service Your Majesty.” Killian bowed, hoping the show of respect would give him some brownie points.

“I met Killian about a year ago-”

“And where exactly was that?” Charming now stood with his arms crossed.

“At a tavern in the village.”

“You’ve been sneaking out of the castle!”

“Charming,” Snow chided her husband. “We’re listening, Emma, go on.”

“We met about a year ago and he would tell me about all the places he’s gone and things he’s seen. Then he offered to take me with him. And we fell in love.”

“A simplified version of events but the truth.”

“Why did you come back now? After all these months?”

Emma gestured to the men next to them, “These two tried a dashing rescue, and informed me you offered my hand as a prize to whoever could get to me first.”

The frustration and confusion that once captured his features melted away and shame replaced them, “Emma you must understand. We didn’t know where you went, what happened to you, if you were even alive. We grew desperate.”

Emma sighed, “I know. That is why we are here.”

Confusion once again crossed the King and Queen’s face.

“Ahem. I suppose it’s my turn to speak. Your Majesties, as the one to bring the princess home, I humbly ask for your blessing to marry your daughter.”

====================================

“Captain on deck!”

Killian boarded the ship that he’d called home for over 300 years.

“How’d it go Captain?” Mr. Smee asked as he approached him.

“It went as expected.”

“So, Mistress Emma?”

Killian smiled, “She just saying her goodbyes.”

Emma stood on the docks with her friends who were now unbound. The king and queen had given them their blessing. So while the King and Queen were busy planning their wedding, that will take place a year from now, Emma and Killian were free to travel and have adventures. Emma said goodbye to her parents this time around now all there was left was the unfinished business between the three friends.

Emma shuffled from foot to foot, unsure what to say, “Guys I-”

“Are you happy?”

Emma looked at Pinocchio. “What?”

“Does this, traveling on a pirate ship, being with Hook, make you happy?”

Emma smiled. “Yeah. It makes me really happy.”

“Then go.” Pinocchio nodded towards the ship. “Be happy.”

Emma embraced her long time friend, before letting go, turning to Baelfire.

“I know one day you’ll find whatever it is you're looking for.”

Baelfire stayed silent as he embraced her. Once he let her go she made her way up the gangplank onto the ship. She approached the man that won her heart.

“You ready for that adventure I promised you, love?”

Emma wrapped her arms around Killian’s neck as his looped around her waist, “I believe we were headed to Agrabah before we were rudely interrupted.”

Killian chuckled, “You heard her lads. Set course to Agrabah.”

[thesschesthair]

Beautiful: A January Joy fic

This is my contribution to @csjanuaryjoy​. I mixed prompts 1 & 8 together. There was a lot more I wanted to do with this but planning apparently isn’t a strength of mine and real life struck once again lol so this is what I ended up with. I hope you like it!

Mid S4: CS ring in the new year together. 

    -----    

“There’s only five minutes to go!” 

Grumpy’s bellow reached the mass that had congregated on the sand. Townspeople, friends and family mingled as they enjoyed the party, ready to welcome the new year.

“If only this could have been someplace warmer.” Emma muttered as she wriggled further back into Killian’s chest, welcoming his arms tighter around her. His chuckle vibrated though her as he found amusement in her complaint, taking the opportunity to tease.

“I thought this was the safest place to let off fireworks? Your decision if I remember.” 

“Yeah, yeah.”

They sat embraced against the stone wall with Emma nestled in between his legs. A pile of finished food and drink lay beside them indicating they’d been well fed for the event at hand.

They watched the others as they partied; Henry and a surprisingly energetic Roland ran back and forth with Pongo, her father was laughing with Robin and Sneezy with her baby brother bundled up and fast asleep against his chest, her mother was talking quietly with Regina as they sat side by side at the picnic table, Granny, Belle and Ruby nursed steaming cups as they waited for the display to begin. 

Everyone looked happy for once. 

“What are you thinking, Swan?”

“Just how happy everyone seems.”

“It’s been quite a year, I'd say they’ve earned some time to be happy.”

“Yeah. Just the last few months alone have been crazy.” she emphasised.

Both went silent as they got lost in the memories of various incidents that had shaken the town. 

“Aye, but we won. There’ll always be something or someone, love, but we’ll always find a way to defeat them together.” 

Emma turned her head to look at him and smiled.

“That was quite the optimistic speech,” she teased, seeing him blush, “you sure my mom isn’t rubbing off on you?”

“I think you’ll find I'm more rubbing off on her.” he teased back.

Emma sobered for a moment to catch his eye.

“It meant a lot to you, didn’t it? What she did?”

It was his own fault. 

Jack had appeared intent on capturing Henry, surprising him as he was keeping the lad safe. They were cut off down an alley on their way to the station when Jack appeared, sword drawn and demanding Killian hand over the boy. Killian told the lad to run as he pulled his own sword and prepared to duel.

He should have known something was amiss when Jack didn’t seem phased that Henry had escaped. They’d barely duelled before the villain smiled and pulled out a fist full of dust, throwing it into the pirate’s face and knocking him out cold.

It was the oldest trick in the book and he’d fallen for it. 

It’s how he found himself bound tightly and propped up on an unsteady board that balanced over the town well. He had a noose around his neck that roped around the top of the pulley; ‘a death fit for pirate scum’ Jack had taunted him, fuelling his rage at the psychotic man. 

“Just tell me where your friends are keeping Jill and you might just live.” he taunted.

Killian rolled his eyes as he kept up his poker face and continued to feign disinterest.

“I don’t think you understand just how close you are to having your corpse dangle for everyone to find.” he continued, stepping closer to the unsteady weight keeping him from falling. Jack raised his foot and smiled as he emphasised that one kick would end Killian.

“I think you’ll find I just don’t care.” Killian drawled, “right now you need me alive, and if killing me keeps me from having to suffer your shipwreck of a face anymore, I say have at it.”

The fury in Jack’s face was visible right before the appearance of someone else caught both their attention.

“Step away from him, please.”

Snow stood strong at the mouth of the woods, bow and arrow drawn and aimed directly at Jack with a firm and determined grip.

His temper turned to humour as he edged closer to the Princess.

“This is the cavalry? Careful with that,” he patronised, “no one needs to get hurt. Just give me Jill and this’ll all be over.”

“Don’t do it, love.” Killian insisted.

“You’re not really in a position to give orders.” Jack snapped back, keeping his focus on Snow.

“Let him go, Jack.” Snow ordered, stance unwavered.

“Come on, Snow White.” he mocked, “We both know you’re too pure to hurt me, so put that down before you make me really ma-”

The twang of an arrow shooting through the air and embedding itself into the right breastbone of Jack hit Killian's ears. 

Jack fell to the floor with a cry as Snow moved closer. Just as she stood over the villain with another arrow drawn, the trees parted as Robin and his merry men arrived, racing to help pull Killian from the trap he’d been placed in. 

They tied Jack’s hands and hauled him up as they began to drag him away leaving Snow to approach Killian.

“You okay?”

“Aye,” he smiled, “i’m fine. Is Henry alright?”

“He’s safe, he found me and Charming right away.”

“Thank you, truly.”Killian felt somewhat exposed and vulnerable at showing his gratitude. He didn’t know Snow well and wasn’t even sure if she’d saved him out of obligation or not, “You didn’t have to-”

A hand on his shoulder stopped him as she beamed the warmest smile up at him- one that filled him with a warmth he hadn’t felt since his own mother.

“Don’t be silly, of course I did.” she assured him as her words chased away any insecurities he may have had about Emma’s mother.

Killian became unbelievably shy as he scratched his ear and observed the ground by his feet.

She turned to stand beside him and patted his back as a sign to start moving. 

“We better head back. Emma and David are no doubt tearing through town trying to find you as we speak.” 

They walked in tandem behind the merry men; a newfound respect and admiration built between bandit and pirate.

-

“It did disperse a few insecurities I may have had regarding your mother’s feelings towards me.” he admitted.

Emma squeezed his hand.

“I know they might give the wrong impression sometimes- I think it comes with being a parent- but they like you… I mean, I worry my dad likes you a little too much sometimes.”

Killian laughed knowing exactly what Emma was referring to.

David stood by the jukebox with Killian beside him. Emma couldn’t help sitting and observing them from where she sat with Henry, Robin and Regina. He looked smaller without his pirate coat. compared to her father’s frame, she never really noticed much of a height difference, but without his leather he looked smaller. 

She liked it. 

Her father was introducing him to the workings of modern music, going through the jukebox choices. A laugh erupted from their corner as a song started up and the two turned with a wobble and headed back to the table.

The drink had begun to take effect and they were merry. 

She liked that. 

Killian chose to lean against the doorframe of the diner, leaving the empty space beside her for her mother who was heading back with baby Neal, fresh from a diaper change. 

David scooped to her side before she could sit and swayed her with a smile, attempting half a dance. 

Emma found it wonderful that her parents still were in love and showed it. They took the moments to appreciate each other and enjoy their company.

“Now, now, Dave.” Killian suddenly spoke, “May I have a dance with the lady?”

“No.” David said, turning to face Killian with a glint in his eye.

He stepped closer and held out his hand.

“You can dance with me.”

Henry was a mix of cringing and laughing as Snow finally sat beside Emma, beaming with joy.

Killian took David’s hand as they got into position.

“No- i’m leading-” “I thought I was leading-”

“I am.” Once they found their footing they were off, waltzing around the small space on the linoleum and completely out of rhythm with the song playing on the jukebox. 

Henry recorded on his phone while everyone watched them and laughed. They turned and waltzed around and around.

“Get your hand off my arse.” Killian teased once David’s back was to the others.

“You wish, buddy.” David teased back as he shocked his dancing partner by dipping him.

Killian wasn’t prepared and lost his footing which in turn had David losing his balance and both men ended up crashing to the floor in a heap.

“I think that’s enough for tonight.” Robin advised through his laughter.

Both men agreed as they climbed to their unsteady feet, finally taking a seat beside their beloved’s. 

“That was fun.” David announced as he caught his breath.

No one dared say out of fear of cursing the moment, but it was a cherished memory of them being a family. 

They were happy, they were tipsy, they were basking in the night free of trouble, villains or monsters.

Emma turned to Killian as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead. She could see in his eyes that being a part of this meant more to him than he’d admit. 

She buried herself into his side and let the moment take her.

There was a new bond forming between pirate and prince, one she hoped would grow stronger. Both were vastly different yet held similar values and intentions at times. She knew her father felt some obligation to dislike any man she may bring home- especially a pirate, but she also knew deep down he wasn’t that kind of father. She also knew that Killian was growing on him and it meant a lot to her to finally see it shine through.

And Killian wouldn’t ever admit it but she knew he wanted approval. He wanted that assurance of being welcomed and wanted rather than just tolerated. 

It was a big stepping stone this night and with everyone around her, everyone getting along- everyone being like family…. It was this that truly solidified the meaning of home.

They lapsed into silence at the memory. Emma looked up at the sky and was amazed at how clear it was.

“Wow.”

Killian followed her line of vision and smiled.

“I don’t think i’ve ever seen the sky so clear.” she commented.

Killian spotted something and smirked before clueing Emma into what he’d seen.

“I have a feeling the weather has a little helping hand.”

She saw him nod his head slightly in Regina’s direction where the former evil queen was staring intently up at the sky and seemingly twitching her fingers unbeknownst to Robin who was sat beside her with a suddenly sleepy Roland on his knee.

Emma shook her head at the mayor’s magical fixings.

“She did promise Henry there’d be nothing that stops the fireworks.” she mused. 

“Don’t keel over but I think her majesty’s going soft.” 

“You think?”

“Most definitely.” he assured her, “but love often brings out the best in us.”

His words fell heavy over them as they fell into silence once more.

Emma kept rolling his words around in her head as she played absentmindedly with his hook on her lap. 

“What’re you thinking now, love?”

“We’re in a good place, right?”

“I’d say. Perfect view of the water and out of the dwarve’s range-”

Emma slapped his knee playfully.

“I’m serious.”

“Of course we are, why would you think any different?”

“I just know things haven’t exactly been perfect lately-”

“We’ve had good times.”

“We’ve also had a few bad times.” she added.

“She thinks we should just open some portal and throw him in it- that’s insane!”

Killian listened to Emma’s rant as she paced the station, letting her vent her frustrations the best he could. 

While he understood where she was coming from, he also couldn’t hold back adding his own opinion on the matter.

“I think she’s right, love.”

“What?”

Emma stopped in her tracks and stared at him in disbelief.

“Swan, think about it. What else are we to do? The man’s clearly dangerous, and you can’t exactly let him loose on the world-” he explained.

“I can’t kill him either” 

“You’re not killing him-”

“No, just throwing him through a portal to become someone else’s problem.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

His inability to understand her predicament was becoming too much for her. It hurt.

“I should have known you’d see it that way.” she sighed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Killian felt the meaning behind her words and couldn’t help feeling offended. 

“Just that- well, you and Regina both have a history in making wrong choices.”

“Villainous choices. Might as well say it, Emma”

“Alright, fine! Maybe you have a hard time seeing why this is morally wrong-”

“I see it perfectly fine. You’ve tried locking him up, he escaped. He’s dangerous. Sometimes doing the ‘villainous’ thing for the right reasons is needed.”

Both were becoming extremely upset and hurt by the other. Their discussion had fallen into an augment and it was spiralling out of control.

“I can’t talk about this with you.” she announced as she put her jacket on.

“That’s it, walk away. You know, Swan, you knew exactly who I was when you met me-”

“I know that! This isn’t about you!”

“No, it’s about you being unable to make a tough decision and disliking the fact that I can.” he stepped into her space, willing her to look him in the face.

Emma finally looked at him, her anger turning to hurt and disappointment.

“You’re so wrong right now it’s not even funny.”

“Look, love- I don’t want to fight but i’m not going to lie either. In this case I think Regina’s right.” 

“And I think she’s wrong! You’re both wrong.”

Emma pushed past him and made for the door, leaving him deflated and alone in the station.

They’d spent the evening cooling off and by morning Emma had a solution with Regina to magically seal one of the asylum cells. 

Once the deed was done and he couldn’t escape, the couple finally talked, airing a lot of issues they’d been keeping locked up.

It wasn’t about who was right or wrong, it was about understanding the other and coming to realise both- while stubborn in their ways- have different takes on situations, and sometimes compromise and learning to see things from another’s point of view was needed.

Needless to say they rather enjoyed the making up part of their falling out…

“Couples fight, Emma. It’s part of learning about us and making us stronger.”

“I know, I just- I guess I still worry sometimes that i’ll lose you.”

“Swan, have you had enough of me?”

“What?” sha asked in panic, turning to see him smirking at her.

“Have you had enough of me?” he repeated.

“Not just yet.” she sassed back.

“Then you’ve nothing to worry about. Unless you say so, i’m not going anywhere.” 

She took in his confidence and smiled up at his face, entwining her fingers with his.

“Good.”

He leaned forward and placed a kiss against her lips.

“TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN!” Grumpy began the chant as the others joined in.

“Hey, where are you going?” she protested as he pulled away. She tugged his collar back towards her, “we have to ring in the new year properly.” she teased.

Both leaned back in to do just that, enjoying a blissful yet tender kiss as the cry of ‘three, two, one! Happy new year!’ stretched across the sand.

Bursts of colour filled the sky as they finally parted and turned to appreciate the anticipated fireworks.

“If you could describe this moment in one word, what would it be?”

Killian thought about her question. He looked at the array of lights glistening against the ocean ripples like jewels, the flashes of beauty in the sky like falling stars, the joyful smiles surrounding him and the warmth of his love in his arms.

“Beautiful.” he replied, feeling her turn once again in his embrace.

He found her looking at him with surprise.

“What?”

“Nothing, just… not what I was expecting.”

“And what word would you use?”

“Beautiful seems perfect right about now.” 

Neither said the word but both felt it in that moment. They didn’t need to say it. Love was all around them, within them and between them. Why say something when you could feel it?

The start of singing slowly erupted ahead of them as the others could be seen making their way into a large circle.

“Come on, let’s go join in.”

Both stood and stretched their legs before walking hand in hand to join their family and friends in a Storybrooke rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

[jrob64]

Sowing Seeds of Trust (Sneak Peek)

Here’s a sneak peek from the first chapter of my new story. I have six chapters ready to post, which I plan to start doing by the end of January. 

Story Summary: Emma Swan is a young woman without a family, friends, a home, and now a boyfriend after he tries to pin his crime on her. When she goes looking for help from a local charity at a church, she ends up meeting a group of people, including a handsome blue-eyed man, who offer her friendship...and a whole lot more. 

Thank you to the moderators of CSJJ. I look forward to this event every year, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it for the first time!

Thanks also to my wonderful beta @hookedmom​; @xsajx​, who has been a second reader to make sure everything is consistent; @kmomof4​, for her feedback on the pic set; & the ladies on Discord for all the helpful work sprints. 

And here’s a sneak peek for the pic set I created for this story (which includes a picture of my own dog, Zeke!) You’ll see it at the top of every chapter.

*********

Emma Swan stuck her thumbs under the worn straps of her backpack and heaved a sigh, then murmured, “They’re not gonna help you, Emma. Why would they?” She had a habit of talking to herself, since she had no one else to whom she could talk. At nineteen years of age, she had no family, no home, no real friends and now, no boyfriend. 

When the possession of stolen property charges against her were dropped due to lack of evidence, the officer who had originally arrested her recommended a charity organization run by the church which was across the street from where she was currently standing. He had realized that she would be on her own since Neal was incarcerated for stealing a car, and told her that she’d be able to get a little food and some warmer clothing here. She couldn’t really risk shoplifting so soon after being released from jail, so she decided to take his advice. 

She was glad that witnesses had come forward to say she hadn’t been the one to actually break into the car and hot-wire it, which contradicted the statement Neal had made. The look on his face when he accused her of being the thief to try to clear himself, told her that he’d been lying when he said he loved her. She’d been stupid enough to believe him, and to fall in love with him too, and now she’d gotten her heart broken. 

She should have known better than to put her trust in him. All her life, she’d paid the price for trusting the wrong people. Now, as she rubbed her fingers over the swan key fob she wore on a chain around her neck - the one Neal had stolen for her - she strengthened her resolve to build the walls higher around her heart. 

She stood on the sidewalk for a few more minutes, watching the people outside the church bustling about. They were all dressed simply in jeans and hoodies, but she could still tell that she didn’t have much in common with any of them. 

She shivered and yanked the cuffs of her own worn and faded sweatshirt down over her knuckles. Even in North Carolina, it was chilly in early November. 

“Are you here to help?” a voice asked, causing Emma to jump. The person who had spoken was standing right beside her and took her by surprise. She was usually very aware of her surroundings and other people who happened to be in them.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!”

She turned to look at the owner of the deep, accented voice and found herself face-to-face with a very good-looking man who appeared to be just a few years older than herself.

He smiled kindly and offered his hand. “Killian Jones, at your service. I assume you’re here to volunteer?”

She eyed his hand warily, then finally reached forward to briefly shake it, barely touching it as she did. “I...I was just...w-watching,” she stuttered. Then an idea crossed her mind - maybe if I volunteer, they’d be more likely to help me. “Um, would it be okay if I did?”

His grin got wider. “Of course, we can always use more help! Let me show you around, Miss…”

Emma hesitated for a moment. She didn’t usually like people to know her name, but if she was going to be working with him, she’d have to give it sooner or later. “Uh, Emma. Emma...Swan.”

“Okay, Swan. Come with me.” He walked on ahead of her, and she fell into step behind him.

Killian strode up to a petite woman with short dark hair. “Hey, M’s! This is Emma Swan. She’s here to volunteer today.” He turned to Emma. “This is Mary Margaret Blanchard. She’s the organizer here and she’ll give you your assignment.”

“Hi Emma, it’s nice to meet you! I’m so happy you’re here!” Her smile was wide and genuine. 

“Uh, thanks,” she said uncertainly. 

“Where’s Dave?” Killian asked. 

“He’s on the other side of the building, helping set up the pet adoption area. I’m sure he could use some help.” 

“Right, then. I’d better go show him how to do it!” he chuckled. “See you at lunch, M's. You too, Swan.” He turned and headed around the side of the church. 

“Um, lunch?” Emma asked. “We get lunch?”

“Of course! We can’t let you work here all day without feeding you!” Mary Margaret assured her.

Emma subconsciously licked her lips. She hadn’t had much to eat since she was released from jail two days ago. Actually, she hadn’t really minded being incarcerated for eleven days. At least she’d had a cot to sleep on and three meals a day. 

“What made you decide to volunteer today?” Mary Margaret asked, tapping Emma’s name into an iPad. 

“Oh, uh, someone told me that you do good charity work here, and I just...I thought it would be nice to help,” Emma lied, not wanting them to know that she was the one who needed help.

*********

Please let me know your thoughts, and if you’d like to be tagged or taken off the tag list when I start posting. 

Tagging: @csjanuaryjoy​ @katie-dub​ @ohmightydevviepuu​ @lassluna​ @pirateherokillian​ @hookedmom​ @xsajx​ @kymbersmith-90​ @kmomof4​ @teamhook​ @stahlop​ @elizabeethan​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @therooksshiningknight​ @jennjenn615​ @lfh1226-linda​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​ @killianswannn​ @stories-enchanted​ @eleveneitherway​ @girl-in-a-tiny-box​ @withheartfulloflove​ @kday426​ @lyssapup27​ @swanlovato​ @kaoslikesstuff @djlbg​ @kristi555​ @laschatzi​ @xarandomdreamx​ @lkles08​ @wyntereyez​ @bubblegum1425​ @xhookswenchx​ @yasbio2015​ @tiganasummertree​ @winterbaby89​ @winterbythesea​ @wefoundloveunderthelight​ @hollyethecurious​ @let-it-raines​ @jonesfandomfanatic​ @searchingwardrobes​ @dreamingdreamsalways​ @oncechicagolove​ @andiirivera​ @vvbooklady1256​ @gingerchangeling​ @everything-person​ @klynn-stormz​ @qualitycoffeethings​ @vampcoffeegyrl23​ @enchanted-swans​ @cassy1511 @ohmakemeahercules​ @donteattheappleshook​ @bluewildcatfanatic​ @the-darkdragonfly​ @demisexualemmaswan​ @lavenderbudd​ @grimmswan​ @spartanguard​ @flslp87​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @sarahpaq08​ 

[mariakov81]

Hi everyone! Happy January! Hope you are all doing fine! Here is my entry for this year's CS January Joy! @csjanuaryjoy thank you very much for organising this event! ❤️

While watching OUAT I couldn't stop thinking what if our heros would have met the characters from the other fairytales? Maybe the ones I had read about when I was a kid?

Just imagine: Henry brings a new book written in Cyrillic, the book opens itself, and Emma and Killian are trapped in a completely different world. They have to figure out how to find the death of Koshchey Bessmertniy (Koshchey the Immortal), escape Baba Yaga's house on chicken legs, fight Zmey Gorynych - a three head dragon (sort of), help a Princess Frog to be a human again, and try not to be caught by a Vodyanoy (a Water God)!

The picture turned out to be too big, I put two bigger parts of it below. 🙈🙈🙈

[kmomof4]

I posted 2,210 times in 2022

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#captain swan - 299 posts

#killian jones - 234 posts

#otp forever - 161 posts

#captain hook - 147 posts

#enchanted swans - 139 posts

#colin odonoghue - 130 posts

#cssns22 - 118 posts

#krystal writes - 91 posts

#kwistowee - 76 posts

Longest Tag: 100 characters

#yeah emma… cos the natural thing is to grab someone by the waist and pull them tight to your body 👀

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Dance With the Gypsy: A Red Hunter story in the Universe of A Family Affair

I wanted to get Ruby and Graham posted in January, and here I am slipping it in just under the wire!!! Yay, me!!!

As you can see, Dance With the Gypsy is dropping as its own fic instead of simply a chapter in Love Between the Pages. When I saw how long this fic was and how long the OQ and Snowing portions were shaping up to be, I thought it’d be much better to make it a series instead. The series is named A Family Affair and will include the love stories of all the siblings introduced in LBtP. I cannot BEGIN to express the joy y'all have given me with all the love shown this verse. It means more than I can ever say!! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!

And now to give credit where credit is due. DWtG wouldn’t be here without the love, care, and attention of @snowbellewells​, @jrob64​, and @hollyethecurious​. Both for the fic and for me. They were there to lend me their eyes, their ears, and their unending support. Thank you so so much, ladies!!

And to all of you readers. Thank you again for all the love you’ve already shown this verse. I hope you enjoy this new offering and let me know what you think!!

Summary: Graham Humbert swore off love long ago- determined never to fall in love, never to marry. And that worked great. Until he met Ruby Lucas. What's he supposed to do when she sets her eyes on him? Maybe falling in love isn't so bad after all...

Rating: M (smut)

Words: 11k

Tags: Inspired by Dance to the Piper of The O’Hurleys by Nora Roberts, Broadway, Smut

Fic on ao3

Series on ao3

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

From a young age, Ruby was a dancer. When she got her first pair of tap shoes at the age of four, she began dreaming of a time when she would be a star on Broadway in New York City. All these years later, she was finally here.

She had come to New York at the age of eighteen, not long after Emma had left the family to marry NASCAR darling Neal Cassidy. Ruby supported herself by waiting tables in the theater district, in between dance classes and auditions, falling into bed in the wee hours of the morning before getting up and doing it all over again. She survived on Starbucks and reduced or free meals at the restaurants where she worked. She finally got her first chorus line contract after being in New York for three years, and her first lead about four years after that, allowing her to finally quit her waitressing job for good. Now she was on her second leading role after being in the show Six for two and half years.

Secrets would be opening in Philadelphia on the 4th of July weekend, bankrolled by Humbert Records, the producer of the soundtracks for legacy Broadway shows like Cats and Phantom of the Opera, as well as more recent hits like The Lion King and Hamilton. Ruby was thrilled to be a part of a show with that kind of clout behind it. Of course, there was no guarantee a particular show would be a hit, but with the kind of track record Humbert Records had, and her own instincts as to the viability of the show, she was pretty confident it would have a very long, very successful run. And would only open more doors for her down the road.

~*~*~

Graham Humbert was a second generation recording mogul in New York City, having taken over after his father finally retired from the business seven years ago. His father, Maurice had founded Humbert Records as a young man in the early eighties, when Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to take a chance on a young unknown with his new musical Cats. Humbert Records had been a powerhouse in the business for decades when Graham stepped into his father’s role, and that status had been confirmed when he’d landed the soundtrack for Hamilton not long after taking the helm.

Graham loved and respected his father tremendously and wanted nothing more than to make him proud, so when his father had come to him late last year with a recommendation for a new musical and a prospective leading lady- I have a good feeling about this one, he’d said with a grin and a wink- Graham hadn’t hesitated to pursue the recording rights. Now the musical was cast and in rehearsals, so Graham had decided to drop in to watch a portion of the rehearsal with the principals of the musical.

As he sat in the darkened theater with the director and choreographer, he watched as Ruby Lucas spun across the stage in a series of small turns before leaping into the arms of her co-star, Peter Wolffe, who’d just appeared onstage for a beautiful pas de deux. Graham knew who she was, of course, he’d seen her in Six and had personally approached her to offer her the starring role after his father’s recommendation, but watching her now, her strength and beauty took his breath away.

Once the rehearsal was over, Graham was invited on stage to meet with the stars of the show. He tried to school his features as he approached them and could only hope his nerves weren’t as obvious to Ms. Lucas as they were to him.

“Graham Humbert,” the choreographer, Cora Hart, began, “I understand you’ve already met Ruby Lucas,” she said, nodding at the star before turning to her partner. “May I introduce Peter Wolffe?”

He shook hands with Peter, commending him on the scene they’d just been rehearsing before turning back to Ruby. “It’s nice to see you again, Ms. Lucas,” Graham said, extending his hand for her to take. She was gorgeous, and he hoped his palms weren’t sweating. She smiled broadly, Graham was sure he could see every one of her teeth, and took his hand. Her green eyes sparkled and he couldn’t help but return her smile.

“Call me Ruby,” she countered with a wink.

~*~*~

Over the next few weeks, Graham made several appearances at rehearsals, and every time he did, Ruby’s heart beat double time. But she was a professional and couldn’t let this little infatuation interfere with her work. It took a few times, but when Graham made his fourth appearance in the space of about a week and a half, Ruby was finally able to put him in the back of her mind and concentrate fully on her rehearsal instead of half on what was going on around her and the other half on the handsome producer sitting in the front row.

She wasn’t blind to the way he looked at her, though. Every time she snuck a glance at him, he was entirely focused on her, sending a shiver of feminine pride down her spine. And when she was dancing with Peter, his stare about drilled a hole in her head. Since it appeared her attraction was not one-sided, Ruby decided to do something about it.

When rehearsal was over, Ruby approached him.

“Checking up on your investment?” she asked him with a grin.

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40 notes - Posted January 31, 2022

#4

Hotel Neverland: A New Fic for CSSNS22

Hello everyone!!! I am so thrilled to share my entry for this years @cssns​!!!! I’ve had this in my head for a while, and I’m so excited to finally post it!!!! 

All the love and thanks to the mods for hosting another FANTASTIC event, @hollyethecurious​ who helped me get it plotted back in May when I visited, and to @profdanglaisstuff​ for her beta services and her expert advice on how to make this a little more unsettling, a little more creepy, just a little more all the way around... Thank you all so much, ladies!!!

And finally, to my artist @thesschesthair​. Mandy is an ACTUAL SAINT for her GORGEOUS artwork for this fic and I am absolutely BESIDE myself for ALL of it!!! Please go give her heaps and loads of love for her work!!! She did several banners for the fic that I had a hell of a time choosing between, so I decided, why not use them all? And then, at the eleventh hour, she did another piece of work that sent me into TOTAL SCREAMING FLAILING CONNIPTIONS. It’s a bit spoilery, so it’ll be at the end of the fic.

But now, without further ado, here we go!

Fic Summary: A CS story for the Captain Swan Supernatural Summer ‘22

Rating: M (smut)

Words: 6611

Tags: CSSNS22, Inspired by Hotel California, Ghost Story, Smut

On ao3

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

See the full post

41 notes - Posted August 19, 2022

#3

Filming start June 6!!!!!! I can’t WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!!!!

47 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

#2

Apologies, Dr. Jones- A New Fic by @kmomof4

Happy birthday @zaharadessert​!!!!! It’s not quite your birthday here yet, but I wanted this posted before you woke up on your special day, so here you go!! You are a dear friend and I’m so glad this fandom has brought you into my life!! I hope this fic makes your birthday even better! Love you, babe!!!

All the love and thanks to @hollyethecurious​ for encouraging me to write this in the first place and to @jrob64​ for an incredibly fast beta and for her help with the artwork! Thank you so much, ladies!!! Love y’all!!! 😘

From a post here on Tumblr by @lifeinahole27​ 

How do I explain to my professor that the reason I didn't show up to class is because in my dream I woke up and checked my email and saw that class was canceled and I believed it?

Rating: M (smut)

Words: 3865

Tags: Teacher-Student Relationship, No Power Dynamic Issues, Consensual Sex, Smut

On ao3

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

 “Where were you?” Ruby asked, sitting down across from Emma at their usual coffee and breakfast spot. They always came here after their 9am British Lit class for the food they never had time to eat before class. And more coffee. Much more coffee.

“What do you mean ‘where was I’?” she asked, taking a bite of her bear claw.

“You weren’t in class,” Ruby said, incredulously. “Where were you?”

“I went back to sleep for a little while after the alarm went off, then came here,” she informed her friend. “I figured since you weren’t home when I got up that you must have gone to the library or something.”

“Nooo,” Ruby drawled. “I was in class. Where you should have been.”

Emma’s eyes got wide, as understanding dawned. “Class wasn’t canceled?” She pulled out her phone and frantically searched through her email.

Ruby grinned. “Did you dream that class was canceled?”

Heat flooded Emma’s cheeks as she looked up at Ruby. “I could have sworn…”

Ruby clapped her hands and threw back her head, laughing loudly. “Oh, Emma,” she howled, wiping the tears from her eyes. “No, class wasn’t canceled. And Dr. Jones stopped me after class to ask where you were. He seemed quite concerned about not seeing your face this morning, or the rest of you, for that matter.” Ruby’s eyebrows wiggled salaciously. “Mm mm mmmmmm,” she hummed. “If I were you, girl, I’d get me some of that…”

More heat flooded Emma’s cheeks at Ruby’s comment. “He’s my professor, Rubes,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s not gonna happen.” Until the end of the semester anyway, she thought, trying to hide a smirk at the thought.

But Ruby wasn’t fooled. She knew Emma too well and wasn’t blind to the attraction between her best friend and their professor that’d been simmering all semester long.

Emma dropped her head into her folded arms on the table between them. “How am I supposed to explain this? It must have been a dream. I woke up, checked my email and saw class was canceled. So why wouldn’t I go back to sleep? Ugh!”

“Well,” her friend tried to console her, “at least you’re not gonna be penalized for missing class. And you can copy my notes.”

Emma looked back up at her. “Yeah, but I was so looking forward to today’s class. You know how much I love Tolkien.”

“And you can tell how much he loves Tolkien, too,” Ruby informed her. “I’ve never seen him so animated during a lecture. And you know, that’s saying a lot.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, thinking about her hot professor and how she’d never had another that kept her attention so easily, no matter what time of day the class was held, much less first thing on Monday mornings. He obviously knew and loved his subject and it translated into his lectures. But today was the introduction to several lectures on Tolkien himself, and Emma wanted to kick herself for missing it. “I’m gonna have to go and apologize to him,” she said standing and checking the time on her phone. “He’s in his office for another hour. I’ll see you later.”

Ruby smirked at her. “Uh huh,” she murmured, “an hour’s plenty of time.”

Emma rolled her eyes at her friend. “Shut up, Rubes.”

See the full post

72 notes - Posted February 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

A One Time Thing? A new fic for the CS Neverland New Year!

I am so excited to finally be sharing my new fic for @neverlandnewyear​!!!! This is a canon divergence from the kiss and was basically just an excuse to write Neverland smut. I hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think!! 

Thank you to the mods for hosting another great event this year!! I’m thrilled to have something new to contribute! Thank you to @hollyethecurious​ for outstanding beta services and all the ladies of the CSNLNY and CSMM discords for their support and encouragement!

Summary: A canon divergence from the Neverland kiss

Rating: M

Words: 2,220

Tags: Neverland, Smut, Canon Divergence

On ao3

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

A One Time Thing?

“Perhaps you’re the one who couldn’t handle it,” he said, a sultry smirk on his face and popping the T.

Emma inhaled sharply at the way his voice dropped into a sexy croon, wrapping itself around every syllable the way she wished he would wrap around her. He made no move toward her, however, other than to hold her gaze, always letting her lead, his own eyes hooded, his cheeks and lips flushed red.

It only took a moment for her to make her decision. Grabbing the collar of that damn coat he always wore- how he didn’t melt in the Neverland heat with that blasted thing on, she’d never know- she hauled him to her and captured his lips with her own.

His stunned surprise melted as she released one side of the collar to wrap her hand around his neck, holding him to her. Her fingers buried themselves into the softness of his hair as his own hand tentatively brushed her long golden strands. The moist heat of his mouth tasted of rum with notes of leather, the sea, and sweat as their tongues tangled.

Oh, god.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no, no, noooo.

Oh, yesss…

Killian’s own thoughts were barely coherent, simply losing himself in the moment. Oh, yesss… Oh, Swan… gods above, below, and all the realms between. Emma Swan, the gorgeous and bloody brilliant woman he’d follow to the ends of the earth, and had, was in his arms and she seemed determined to kill him with the way she fully possessed his mouth and held on to him as if she was drowning and he was her savior instead of the other way around. He pulled her closer into him, his hooked appendage wrapping around her waist and drawing her into where he was quickly hardening. She wasn’t relaxing her grip on his collar, her movements jerky and desperate, so he slowed his own movements down, determined to enjoy this brief interlude as much as possible in this hellscape.

Emma grabbed his collar again, her shoulders rising as she sucked in some desperately needed air before diving back in. His hook circled behind her and pushed her hips into his own, drawing a positively obscene moan from her mouth. His hard length was hitting her just right and it was all she could do to keep from grinding against him.

Her kiss grew more desperate, breathing him in as he tried to slow the pace down, his tongue caressing hers rather than dueling.

No, no, NO!!

This was not happening. She couldn’t allow it. He may be helping them find her son, he may have saved David’s life, but she would not fool herself into believing this meant anything. This was nothing more than a flirtation for him. She’d been burned before and she’d be damned if she let it happen again. But god, she really wanted him...

She grabbed his collar tighter as their lips barely parted. Killian couldn’t open his eyes yet, but their heavy breaths mingled in the space between them. Once he forced his eyes at least partially open, he couldn’t look away from her red swollen lips and heaving chest.

“That was…”

The words were barely a whisper against her lips. If she’d been any further away, she probably would have missed them. Their mouths were only millimeters apart, his nose brushing hers in the perfect position to dive back in, to hell with the consequences. But Emma couldn’t let that happen. She had to get away. She had to put some space between them.

“A one time thing,” she murmured into the moist air between them before releasing him and taking a small step back. In an instant, Killian’s gaze hardened.

“We’ll see about that, darling,” he all but growled, catching Emma off guard. He’d never been that forceful with her before, always letting her set the pace in their little dance. Sure, it didn’t stop him from flirting, but with her declaration, she would have expected him to back off, not assert himself like that.

See the full post

77 notes - Posted January 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

FINALLY!!!! Only took 2+hrs for the Post now button to light up...

But anyway, I'm pretty excited that most of my top posts were fics I wrote this year and that only 11 of my posts didn't have tags!

[willexxmercer]

COMING SOON

A Few Nice Words

A Captain Swan Modern AU fic for @csjanuaryjoy

After everything she’s been through in life and more, Emma Swan makes a living working in real estate in Hyperion Heights, an affluent neighbourhood. When she goes home at night, though, it’s to an empty apartment where she spends her time hoping she can find something to kickstart her life and give her more to look forward to.  When she receives a call from a potential new client, a Mr Killian Jones, she throws herself into the search for the perfect condo for him.

As a musician, Killian Jones has always been transient, never staying in one place for too long.  Hyperion Heights seemed to be the next place to be to try and work on his career, so he contacts Miss Emma Swan, local real estate agent, and gives her a very simple list: condo, price not an issue, not on the ground floor, and two bedrooms so he can convert the spare room into a soundproofed studio.

Emma likes when her clients have simple lists.   It’s easy to close the sale and move on to the next one.  But when Killian keeps turning down every option she shows him, she decides to dig deeper and find out what might be acting as a barrier to him finding a new home.  What she finds is a tangled mess, a dark past, and an angry client who just wants her to stay out of it.

Killian likes things to be simple, and his past is anything but.  So, when he finds his agent digging into his past, he decides he will stop at nothing to make sure his past stays in the past.

Obviously I wanted to be able to post a full fic for this event but it’s been a weird month and I found out a week ago that I have two weeks to pack up my life and move.  Hopefully, I can get this written within the next month but for now, enjoy this teaser!  Thank you to the mods for organizing this event and I am SO SORRY I wasn’t able to post this on time!

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged when I post the full fic!

[lassluna]

CS January Joy Day 31: A Happy Ending (well, that depends on where you stop the story)

Emma Swan was a criminal. A thief. A forger sentenced to four years for bond forgery. Killian Jones was the agent sent to catch her. And catch her he did, but after an escape attempt, an exploded PO Box and a deal an unusual partnership is formed, one that will give them both all that they ever wanted or lead to mutual destruction. White Collar AU

Ao3 FFN

AN:I am very thankful to @csjanuaryjoy​ for finally getting me to write this. It's been a wild year and hopefully this next one will bring a bit more joy. Thank you @teamhook​ and @ultraluckycatnd​ for beta reading for me. 

“How did it start?”

It started like most stories if she’s being honest, which she rarely is. 

 It started with a stolen car, stolen watches, so much stealing, so much theft, so many lies that she had forgotten where Emma, the lost orphan girl, ended and where ‘The Swan’, grifter, forger, liar, thief began. Her reputation grew, as did her steady collection of wealth.

It started with a boy and a girl, lost and alone and unwanted in the world and turned into some wannabe Bonnie and Clyde duo who just wanted to be seen, to be heard, and to take back what the world took for them.

They lied, cheated, and stole for the sake of it. And they were good at it. There’s something about being alone and unwanted that just made it easier to pretend. Sometimes a lawyer, other times a high profile gambler rubbing elbows with mobsters and politicians alike. One time she pretended to be Leila Lucas, princess of a far off land in order to get close to some crown jewels. They pretended that these lives, these rich, luxurious important lives were theirs. They pretended that they deserved these things because they could take them. 

And take them they did. The car, the watches, the bonds, the jewels, the paintings, they took them all. 

Emma loved the paintings, the art, the beauty. She loved looking at things that gave people feelings. It made her feel a little less alone.

Neal loved the money, the thrill, the ways the world bent to their will, the way it rushed through their veins. 

It started with young love. It started good, and they were happy.

//

“How did it end?”

It ended like most stories, or at least it seemed like that to him. 

He was a simple FBI agent, chasing her, tracking her, trying to prove to the world the crimes she commited. Part of him always thought that was what she’d wanted. She wanted her crimes to be seen, noticed. She wanted to be known, not disappear into the shadows.

He understood that, he was trying to prove himself too. Killian was a good FBI agent with a shitty childhood and an even worse family history. But he wanted to be great. He wanted to escape the shadows and prove that he was better than those who came before.

He just wanted to do his job. He wanted to catch her. He wanted to catch 'The Swan'. He spent years hunting her. He was supposed to be just one more FBI agent who tried to catch a break and then went on to the easier, flasher cases. 

But not Killian. He had no intention of giving up. Because The Swan was special. She was as elusive as they come, never staying in one place too long, always running, running, running.

There were two of them he knew, but it was always her. She was the one planning things out, making the big moves, making the forgeries, being seen. Never him. He knew that once they got her, his crime spree would end. She was the one that they had proof for. She was the brains and the brawns behind their every operation.  

But the problem was that as the years went by, as he got closer to catching her, he learned a lot about Swan. He learned how she likes her hot chocolate: with cinnamon. He learned she also had a shitty childhood; an orphan at birth, bounced around to one foster home after another. He learned she hated violence. Her jobs were smart and with little to no chance of anyone ever getting hurt. 

And she got to know him too, if the gifts and the birthday cards proved anything. ‘Know thy enemy’ as they say. But no one ever said to send your enemy flirty postcards, uber eat deliveries of your favorite take out places on stake outs, or gifts to your younger sister on her birthday.

He doesn’t remember when it happened, but they had an appreciation for each other. 

Smart, his little sister said once when he was home for a few days before he had to go back out to chase her. You always liked smart. 

It ended like most stories, a betrayal and a trap. He knew it was a trap and let her fall right into it. Neal Cassidy, her partner in crime traded away ‘The Swan’ like she was nothing. Honor among thieves seemed to have skipped him in that lesson.

The look on her face when she was caught, trapped, was painful to him. Her eyes were green fury as the truth became obvious to her. Her eyes looked at Neal who was leaving out the back, and then on him.

"It's about time we met properly," he told her as the uniform officer arrested her. “Agent Jones of the New York FBI White Collar division.” She didn't respond to him. He never expected her to. 

It ended with a defeated bird who flew too close to the sun. 

// 

“Then what happened?”

Then began nearly four years later with Killian Jones, being pulled away from his current case for a jailbreak. ‘The Swan’ had escaped 3 weeks short of her 4 year sentence. It had been years since he even heard her name. Her capture had been his shining moment, it had made his career.

 Her escape had been flawless. Her long hair, chopped off, a guard uniform ordered with the warden’s own credit card. 

She was in the wind with no hope of being found.

“Road blocks, wanted posters, people posted at the train stations and airports,” the marshals told him, but Killian knew her, knew Emma. 

They wouldn’t catch her with the traditional methods. 

She didn’t escape for the traditional reasons. 

She had been a model prisoner, kept her head down and out of trouble, so why leave now? It had taken months of planning. So he went back, when did she start planning her escape? When did things change? 

She got visits from him, from Neal. The vile excuse of a man who got her caught in the first place. He knew better than to judge someone for going back to familiar patterns. Especially trapped in prison. 

But his visits stopped nearly a month ago. The man went from visiting weekly with a smile and a magazine to nothing.

So Killian looked at that tape, the final visit from the conman who got away with it. He wasn't surprised by what he saw. His last visit was final. He had all the body language of it. A pained smile, looking shifty and nervous. Emma had stood, slamming her fist on the glass; he'd seen tears on her cheeks when the guards dragged her back, back towards her cell. She’d screamed and pleaded.

But Neal left anyway.

“Ariel,” he said to the younger agent. She was a bright new recruit, his favorite of the probies. “Get me anything you have on Neal Cassidy and all his known aliases.” Ariel was very good at finding exactly what he needed in moments like this. A cold blooded shark in a sea of misinformation.  

 They find her in an empty apartment, cradling a dreamcatcher in her hand. She looks the same as the last time he’d seen her. Heartbroken. They were in Neal's apartment. The one he rented a few weeks after her trial. 

(Killian remembered seeing him there, full of sorries and excuses. Word on the street was that no one wanted to work with him after that. Honor among thieves was apparently much more important than the man thought.)

“How many are here?” she asks as he enters. Her back towards a pillar in the middle of the room.

“Between the FBI, the Marshals, NYPD...everyone,” he chuckled. He’d told them they hadn’t needed to corner off the streets like this. Emma had never been violent. “They’re going to give you another four years for this, you know that right?”

Emma laughed a humorless laugh. “I was two days late,” she admits, obviously not caring one bit about what he said.

“And that’s all he left you?”

“It means goodbye,” Emma admitted. He gave her a small smile, knowing nothing he can say will help. “I can’t believe they dragged you here for this after all this time.” He wasn’t that surprised. Catching her the first time had been his defining moment; if he failed the second time, they could write it off as a fluke. 

“It’s been a long time, Swan.” She smirked at the name. “But can’t blame them. I was the only one who caught you, none of the others even got close.” She looked at him quizzically. 

He was dusty, fresh from an exploded PO box that his latest case--nicknamed The Dutchman-- had left specifically for him. There were strange threads left on his clothing that none of the Harvard grad FBI agents could tell him anything about. It was something that had agitated him greatly before he’d been pulled here, to find her. 

“This guy’s good,” he told her, watching her look him over. “Maybe even better than you. I’ve been hunting him for a few months now and-” She moved quickly, standing and plucking one of the threads off his jacket blazer. It shined strangely as it caught the light. Killian could hear the marshals, or maybe S.W.A.T. pounding through the doors a few floors beneath them.

“What’s it worth if I can tell you what this is?” she asked, handing it to him. 

“What-”

“I can tell you what these are right now in exchange,” she said quickly. He could practically see the thoughts and plans race in her mind. Time was running out.  “In exchange for a meeting,” she concluded.

“A meeting?” he asked.

“A meeting in one week. Deal?” she asked. They were coming. Killian nodded. Despite his misgivings, it was only a meeting.

“That’s the new security fiber to the Canadian $100 bill,” she said, just in time for the other agents to drag her away. Her smile is bright and mischievous as she refuses to break their gaze until the last possible moment. “I’ll see you in a week!” 

//

“And I was right. It was. According to Agent Jones, it nearly created an international incident.” 

“Did you catch him?”

“We did.” 

It hadn’t been easy, not for Emma now wearing an ankle monitor to keep her in check--a fact that made her insides squirm at the thought of being tethered-- where anything going bad meant she had to go back to prison with no hope of finding Neal.

It made her heart race in that familiar way of when she was a child and got placed. When one wrong move meant they'd send her back. 

“He did a good job disappearing,” Ruby told her in the shadows of Granny’s guest house. Because her friend knew that her first priority was finding Neal.

(She’d run into the old woman at a thrift store looking for some new clothes to wear after seeing the seedy motel Killian had tried to put her in. 

She’d met a kindred spirit in the older woman, a thief after her own heart so to speak. Emma would never forget the look on Killian’s face when he saw her new view. He’d turned to the older woman, “You know she has a criminal record right?” he’d asked her.

Granny had taken it in stride, leaning forward with a smirk. “So did my wife.” she said with a wink.)

"Keep looking, Ruby. I need to find him," she told her friend, her oldest friend. She’d been her partner in crime once, when working with Neal had come with extra stress and baggage. With Ruby things were simpler, easier. Ruby was in the information business. She knew what was being run and where. She knew all the local fences, all the local forgers. If Neal was in the city, Ruby would be able to find him. 

Ruby nodded, but she looked worried. She glanced at the anklet in apprehension. Then back at her. All the tell tale signs that Ruby wanted to say something but worried for her reaction. 

“You know you don’t need him right?” she blurted out. “You’re so much better than him Emma, more talent for this stuff in your pinky then he has in his whole body. He was nothing without you and everyone knew it,” she said, practically bristling with every word. “He betrayed you, why go through so much to find him?” Emma felt her fists clench, along with anger, fury, loss. 

Neal Cassidy was a loaded question where she didn’t have an answer. 

But she pushed it down. She pushed it down deep. A smile appeared on her face. There was so much. So much she didn’t know, so much no one knew. 

Emma couldn’t risk it.

“It’s complicated Ruby,” she said finally. “But in the meantime, what do you know about The Dutchman?”

It had been difficult, Emma had noticed a particular signature in some forged Canadian bond. It was one that Emma recognized. Lilly Prescott. She was a well known forger that was very good at staying well under the radar. The FBI had never even heard of her which was a testament to her ability. 

Emma had tried to work with her once. Her work was good and her planning was even better. But the woman couldn’t help but take things that didn’t belong to her, couldn’t help but press Emma’s buttons in all the worse ways.

It had taken seeing her tongue down Neal’s throat to learn two things: that they couldn’t work together and that it was time to grow up.

And grow up she did when they walked into a church Lilly had been restoring. The little wench had leered at her and Killian. “Emma Swan,” she’d said with a cheeky grin when she caught them comparing her work with that of the signature. “I don’t exactly feel comfortable having a known art thief around my work.” 

“Allegedly,” Emma corrected her. She’d never been caught for her art theft. A point of pride if she’s being honest. Just a few forged bonds.

She says glancing at Killian. “Who’s your friend.”

“Just a friend,” Killian assured Lilly as they shook hands.

“Emma doesn’t have any friends,” Lilly pointed out. “Unless you count Neal of course. But with friends like that, who needs enemies?” she laughed.

The name turned in her stomach, like something good that turned rotten, like a vice grip on her that she still couldn’t shake.

Not until she found him.

“Of course,” Killian agreed, glancing her way. I know she’s trying to get under your skin, his gaze told her as she pushed her walls firmer in place. If Killian could see that this woman could affect her, it worried her what else he could see.

“You wouldn’t know anything about a thief known as The Dutchman would you?” Emma asked innocently. Because if there was one thing Emma knew, it was that Lilly hated being outdone. “I hear his work is second only to...oh you know.” She smirked at her. “Allegedly of course.” 

“Of course,” Lilly said, an edge to her words. It’s all Emma needed to hear. Because she knows she did it. That’s what she tells Killian after they’re asked to leave the church.

“I know she did it Killian.” his hand on her arm halted her pacing. “Did you see the look on her face?”

He did, she knew he did. “I believe you Swan, but we need proof,” Killian insisted. “That’s how this works.”

Proof came with Emma breaking into Lily’s warehouse and Killian coming and arresting them both. She’d cut her anklet after all, seizing all Lily’s things that were in plain sight.

It turned out reading all those law books in prison counted for something. 

//

“And then your partnership was born.”

And it was good, if Killian was honest, it was better than he ever expected when Emma had proposed this deal. She showed up every day for work. She often showed up in ridiculously expensive suits with a fedora on her head. He’d groaned when he first saw it, earning an elbow in his side and a “You just don’t understand fashion.”

(Trouble, like the woman who occasionally gave Emma tips about the criminals they were hunting, the woman who introduced herself rather reluctantly as a Missy Wolfe when Killian had showed up unannounced, who looked him over with a predatory glare and called him a ‘suit’. 

“She doesn’t trust cops.” Emma had explained later. “She’s harmless, I promise.”

But she sure did know how to drink all Killian’s beer that’s for sure.)

Every day they would use her knowledge of the criminal underworld to find white collar criminals. After several weeks, they had a 92% closure rate and an even higher recovery rate.

But there was still this thing hanging above them. Between them. A secret they both knew about but refused to talk about.  

And his name was Neal Cassidy. 

Killian could tell she was looking for him no matter how many times he told her not to. Neal was her weakness, the one thing that caused the normally level headed woman to lose her bloody mind. This was a good thing for her. Emma Swan would rot behind bars and this way at least she was doing good. 

Emma Swan liked doing good. He could tell, even when she refused to admit it.

She brought him his picture one day while they’re on their way to speak to a witness, the picture was from an atm in Tallahassee. “Please.” She begged. “I need to find him, to see him. Come with me please, send an agent, the marshals, send me in full shackles and prison oranges I don’t care.” 

He had never seen her so desperate, not when he caught her, not when she asked him for this...arrangement. “Swan...what we have here...it’s good. It’s a second chance for you, why risk it for him? He put you here. Why risk it all for him?”

She didn’t respond, hands tightened into fists as she looked down. Killian swore he saw something in her expression something that would explain how this intelligent woman being so infatuated with-

“You’re right.” She says, her voice level. Eyes hard like steel. “There is no reason for me to be chasing Neal Cassidy.” She hissed the words.

Killian doesn’t have her super power, but he knows there’s more to the story than she’s letting on. “If there’s something you’re not telling me-” But she shook her head. 

“You said it’s not happening, and what does it matter what I want.” She says shifting on her feet, shifting the anklet like she always does when she feels particularly trapped. “I’m just your CI. A convict without a choice in any of this.” 

He stops her right there. “Swan, when have I ever treated you like you don’t have a choice in this? If you don’t like what we ask of you, if you think it’s too riky all you have to do is say the word and-”

“-And I go to prison.” She snapped. “I go back there and rot.” Her temper was flaring and Killian stepped back, fearing getting burned. 

“When have I ever threatened you with that?” He asked sincerely. “When have I ever told you that unless you go undercover with this mobster, or that corporate trader that you’d be shipped back?” He says. 

Emma doesn’t respond, head dipping slightly. “What about the other agents? That’s what they said would happen.” She admitted in a small voice. “And really, the jobs we do, they’re fine. I don’t feel endangered.” She assured him simply. 

“Emma, I swear to you, your safety and happiness is just as important as these jobs. You are not just a criminal.” He says sternly. He steps closer to her, wanting her to look at him and hear him. Seeing her cowed and unnerved unsettled him. “Try something new darling, it’s called trust.”

“Trust doesn’t exactly come easy to me.” Emma admitted. “There’s really no way I can get to Tallahassee?” She asked once more.

Killian sighed.

The moment they finished the job, he sent a message to Ariel. 

 “Get me anything you can on Neal Cassidy’s recent activity and do it discreetly.” He says. 

“Why?” She asked. It was why he valued the younger agent as much as he does, she knows when to put her head down and do as he asks, but she also knows when to press him for details.

“Emma’s not going to stop pursuing Neal.” He told her. “I want to know what she finds out, finding Neal ourselves is the best way to know what she’s up to.”  

She handed him a file on the man the next morning, a file Killian took back home with him at the end of the night. He couldn’t risk Emma catching him snooping on her ex. He felt silly hiding it, but the thought of her knowing he was doing so filled him with dread.

“Maybe you should tell her you’re jealous.” Belle informed him as she came home from class, seeing him consumed with the file at their kitchen table. His little sister always seemed to come home from her classes at just the right moment to see him when he’s consumed with a case. 

“I’m not jealous Belle.” He says quickly, closing the file. “I’m being thorough.”

He is. There was something there, his gut feels it. There’s something about this man that Emma was hiding from him. 

“After all the cat and mouse you’ve done with her, I bet she’d tell you if you asked.” Belle informs him. But Killian disagreed, he knows she won't be truthful with him if he asked. It’ll be an evasive answer framed to have him pointed in the opposite direction. It was how she worked while on the run. This is the only way. 

“How do you know?” Killian asked. “You’ve never even met her.” He reminded her. 

“And who’s fault is that?”

//

“Then the Diamond heist.”

“Then the Diamond heist”

It had happened quickly. A diamond heist that had been done with such perfection Emma was generally impressed. They had video surveillance in the vault and nowhere else. It was as if they just vanished, and considering that New York had extensive video surveillance it was impressive. 

It was a job she would do once upon a time. Just the kind of take that was exciting enough to catch her attention. But that was in the past. 

Emma was determined to keep her head down when it came to jobs. She had a bigger problem on her hands. Someone had Neal, or at least was putting pressure on him. He’d signaled her from an ATM camera in Tallahassee. 

Their plan had always been Tallahassee, a city in the middle of Florida of all places. No one would expect anyone who had stolen millions of dollars of artifacts to retire there of all places. It was perfect. They were going to have the life they always wanted growing up.

(It just so happened that Emma had told him that’s where she had her stash at. 

A lie. A trap. Bait he had fallen for now after all this time. Never once did he leave his apartment in New York, only now did that stone come loose. It had to mean something.)

But not everyone knew that Emma was done with that life. Not even her most trusted confidant --and partner in more than one crime--Ruby believed her.

“Of course I didn’t do it.” She’d hissed into the phone when the brunette asked her excitedly. “But do you know who did?”

“None of my contacts know anything, sorry Em. I’ll keep an ear out.” She answered. Emma can hear the sounds of birds on the other end. She knew better than to ask. “That’s why I thought it was you.”

It wasn’t long after that that the forged diamond is shown to have a small swan etched into it. One that matched the ones she left in her forged bonds. It became very clear very fast that she was being framed. 

“Killian, you need to know I didn’t do this.” She insisted, backing away from them in the parking lot after having been confronted. “You have to believe me.” Her eyes looked for him. She needed to know he believed her. 

It didn’t matter who else did, just him. Because if Killian didn’t have her back then who would?

“Killian?” She asked when he didn't meet her gaze. He did eventually. He looked saddened. “You know I was set up right?” 

Killian didn’t respond. It made her furious. It reminded her of the real situation here. She was just the criminal and he was just her handler. Any semblance of a partnership was just a figment of her imagination.

“Swan...” He said softly. “If what you’re saying is true, I swear to you I will get to the bottom of it.” I believe you. “But until then...Emma Swan you are under arrest...”

Back to prison. Back to the cell. Back to being helpless while Neal is off with-

She couldn’t go back. Not yet. Not when someone was trying to frame her. The same person who was holding Neal, she was sure of it.

So Emma did what she did best. She ran. 

She ran and ran and ran. She’d spent every day on her walks to the office coming up with escape routes through a city she knows too well. The agents depend too much on the anklet to catch her. 

The tracker is tamper proof but no one ever said it was foolproof. All it takes is a sharp knife and a toss over the edge of one of the many footbridges in Manhattan for it to be a useless blinking distraction. 

Every bone in her body tells her to run as fast and as far as she can. It wouldn’t take much to get out of the city, some cash from one of Ruby’s stashes and a visit to some supplies for a new ID. All she would have to do is say the word and Ruby would run with her. She was good like that, always ready to get into all sorts of trouble for her. 

But if she did, if she ran then she would be as good as guilty of this crime. She would never get a chance to prove her innocence. She would never get her chance to find Neal.

She had to find Neal. 

I believe you. Killian had tried to tell her that. Maybe it was time to try that thing called trust...

It’s how she meets Belle because while Killian is off coordinating with the Marshals, she’s drinking tea with the sweet brunette she had sent an 18th birthday gift to a few years back. 

Killian Jones’s little sister was as fierce as her brother. Belle asked her if she’d done the crime she’d been accused of.

No.

And she had leveled her with a steel glare. “Then Killian will prove it.” She’d said with such certainty, such conviction that she understood a bit about Killian’s stubbornness. It was genetic. “You just need to trust him.”

Emma did. Emma really did, more than she trusted anyone. He was honest, a good man. He was fierce keeping her out of the line of danger when at all possible and he cared for her. Moments like this reminded Emma of why everything had gone so wrong.

I’m tired of running.

“I’m going to call him.” Belle says, not a question. “If you don’t think you can, if you really think Killian won’t have your back after everything, you have until then to leave.” Emma doesn’t move. Not when Belle is talking to Killian about her classes, about having found a stray bird in their patio. (Code for her she assumes)

That’s when she sees the blinking in the cable box and she knows. She knows that this is all a lot bigger than the two of them.

Killian was positively furious when he arrived, all red faced and fuming. “Bloody hell Swan!” Killian hisses when he storms in. “Why did you come here?” Emma didn’t know, not really. Just an instinct and her instinct was telling her to come here. That he would know what to do. “If you were going to run, why come here?! You involved my sister!”

Emma swallows back her words, fear taking a hold in her chest.

“Killian. Give her a chance.” Belle said, taking a place inbetween. “Just listen.” He did.

“I’ve been tracking Neal.” Emma admitted. “Someone...someone has him.“ she takes out the photo she’d shown him. The whole photo, she had been too afraid to show it to him earlier, the hand on his arm, the shine of something pressed against his ribs. Something that looked very similar to a revolver. “They want something I stole but I can’t-I don’t know what it is. I had a friend of mine poke around and I think I got too close.” She explains. “Because they framed me. It has to be connected, Killian.” 

There was no other explanation, stirring this fight or flight instinct in her bones. But she has to hold firm, she has to trust in Killian. Because here she was, all her cards on the table. 

“Maybe, but this is not how to do things.” He says sternly. “Running isn’t going to get you anywhere but caught or-” Killian swallows back his words. “That marshal really has it in for you Swan.”

(The marshall in question was one Walshe Greene, appearing the moment they returned to the office wanting to speak to her about the fact that some of her anklet’s tracking data had gotten corrupted. 

Data that just so happened to coincide with the robbery. He’d been dickish and entitled, coming into her space when she didn’t crumble under his thinly veiled threats.

Threats she didn’t tell Killian about.) 

She pointed over to his deconstructed cable box. “Not just me.” She hissed his way. A bug was in his house, in his home. The home he shared with his sister. “Both of us.”

  She sees his barely concealed furry, the shock and fear on Belle’s face. “Whatever is coming, it’s coming for both of us.”

//

“She was cleared of that.”

“She was. Then you seemed to find her rather quickly, despite telling Marshal Greene that he would catch her with wanted posters and roadblocks.”

“I have exceptional luck.”

Things shifted from there. Instead of working this case on one end and Emma from another, Killian felt her walls fracture ever so slightly, and perhaps the guard he put up around her also came down ever so slightly. Perhaps too much. 

(Once they found one bug in his home, Belle was insistent that someone come over and deep clean their place of any form of listening devices. It wasn’t long after the case got wrapped up that Emma called over an ‘exterminator’. 

“Missy Wolfe.” She introduced herself to Belle, a smirk on her face. “But you sweetie can call me Red.” Belle had raised an eyebrow at her. 

“When Emma mentioned she knew someone, I expected you to be...”

“Less gorgeous?” She’d said with a grin. “And when our mutual friend had said the suit had a cute sister I definitely imagined someone like you.” A surge of protectiveness surged within him at the way that Red was looking at his sister.

“I think you’re here to do a job” He reminded her. 

“I am quite a skilled multitasker.” )

 She showed him her lead to whoever was after them. A message in the video surveillance, of their breakup and Neal messaging her in morse code by tapping at his side. Dream It meant the dream catcher which led her to a meeting in Grand Central Terminal at the end of the week.

Killian had been there when he called her. Seen her panicked face when she heard his voice. “Give him what he wants.” Neal had said. 

“What is it he wants?” She’d asked.

“Give him everything. It’s the only way I can come home, the only way for us to be together.” He said. Killian could feel her heart break when she said the words.

“I can’t Neal. It’s the only leverage I have.”  She looked up and Emma ran. She ran because she saw him. She saw her lover that she can’t reach, can’t catch, can’t have. Killian makes him out for a moment but he’s gone. He’s gone by the time they get to where he was, a roof of a building looking down at them. 

Emma collapsed in a sob and he was barely in time to catch her. Barely in time for him to hold her. She cried into his chest, something rare and primal and aching. 

“I just want him back.” she sobbed and his heart ached for her. He understood the feeling of losing someone you love, of not being able to be with them. He holds her, hand running through her hair, her blonde locks that are growing in from the cut she’d done months before. His head finds a place on the top of her head as he tries his best to comfort her. 

Emma came back to herself after a moment, pulling away, rubbing her sadness from her face as easily as putting on a mask.

“We are late for a case aren’t we?”

They are. But there’s something about the vulnerability of Emma in that moment that conflicted with the flirty beautiful woman in front of him that distressed him. Perhaps it’s the ease that her walls come back up. 

Or maybe, they aren’t walls, maybe it’s a loosely fitted cork, because their next case involves a kidnapped child and a pair of parents so obsessed with the reading of their dead aunt’s will to even know when the little girl had been taken. 

Questions like if the will had been forged, or if the inheritance was filled with counterfeits had become meaningless without the child. A fact that exploded out of Emma at the father who was planning on leaving the country with ‘his’ inheritance before the FBI could interfere. The man had crumbled before her blunt display of emotions, her fury and her grief.

“She deserves better than to be just another pawn in whatever game the two of you are playing.” She hissed. “It’s not about money, take it for someone who’s had a hell of a lot. There’s more to life than numbers on a check and if anything happens to that kid you’re going to learn that the hard way too.”

He understood. He understood then, and he understood later. 

“Case hit home for you didn’t it?” He asked afterwards over a beer once the child was reunited with  parents that may have learned a thing about family from Emma. An old bookie of the husband had tried to pressure him into complying. 

“Little kids are cute, what can I say.” She said evasively while taking the offered beer. That was another sign Emma was still hurting, she hated beer. “She deserves better.” That she did. “You did too.” He smirks, knowing that she knew him better than most. Yet he wondered exactly how much she did know.

“And how much exactly do you know about my childhood?”

“I know that you loved your father, you idolized him. You had his knack for numbers.” She said. “I know he used you as a diversion when the feds came in and busted down your door. He left you and your mom with nothing.” She swallowed and he could see her picking her words carefully. That meant she knew more than most. “I know you learned that he had at least two other families, an elder brother in DC. and a younger sister in Georgia who appeared at your door when you had just lost your mom. You took her in no questions asked.” Killian remembers the day he met his elder brother. The man had been older and took one look at him and wanted nothing to do with him. Killian was just another reminder of what Brennan Jones had done. He also remembers the day several years later when a teenaged Belle had knocked on his door. He took one look at her and remembered what Brennan had done, but he swore to accept her no matter how much the reminder hurt. 

“So you know quite a bit, Swan.” He responded. “I also know a bit myself.” He countered. 

“Of course you do.” She laughed, “I bet you even know my shoe size.”

“8.5 or sometimes 9 if the shoe runs small.” He said with a smirk. “You left a pair in that hotel in Rio.” A pair of bright red pumps that matched a bright red dress. “Why do you care so much?” Or maybe it’s the beer talking, talking too much if he’s honest. “Neal betrayed you, he left you, why do you care so much about saving him?”

The laughter dies from her face, something heavy takes its place. “Seeing my position a little too similar to your own?” She deflected. “Someone who got left behind just like you?”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you deserve so much better Swan.”

“What exactly do I deserve Agent Jones.” She said, leaning forward. “I’m a criminal.” That she is. But he doesn’t think about that when he leans forward and cups her cheek. He doesn’t think about that when he brushes strands of blonde hair out of her face, nor when he smiles and-

//

"Has Agent Jones ever behaved unprofessionally?"

Killian Jones was the embodiment of professional. 

He had to be, with a family history like his. Even Emma’s heard of it through her underground contacts. She’s heard of the legendary Brennan Jones who masterminded a theft like no other, millions of dollars gone in a blink of an eye.

She’d heard through the office gossip about him. About how no one trusted him when he was recruited right out of college, his superiors always made things difficult. Never trusting that he wasn’t just like his father. 

Killian Jones was the embodiment of professional, that’s what made Emma enjoy the chase so much. Because she knew it was a true battle of wits, not like the muscle head marshals. Killian was smart and honorable. If he was going to catch her, it would be done the right way.He was just like her.

 But the way he looks at her sometimes is so not professional in all of the best ways. 

Sometimes he looks fuming, mostly when she’s pushed the limits a bit too far, gets in over her head, and just makes it out by the skin of her teeth. But always looks relieved when she makes it out.

Sometimes he looks like she holds the sun and the moon because she’s figured out some con or trick someone pulls. It always comes with a “You’re brilliant Swan.” when no one else is listening. She always shoots back a knowing smirk, tucks a loose strand of blonde behind her ear and replies with “I know.” It always makes him roll his eyes but his expression never wavers. 

And that one time, after a particularly draining case, after that little girl with parents who didn’t give a damn about her had been rescued and she thought...she thought he was going to kiss her and...

And Emma may have to admit to herself that she wanted him to. 

But with Neal, and the FBI frowning upon CI handler relationships, not that a kiss meant a relationship...God Emma was confused. They hadn’t kissed and perhaps she had misread the situation completely. Because he’d practically scrambled away when it happened.

He’d ran out the door with some made up excuse on his lips, a deep blush on his face. 

Maybe it was all in her head, maybe she was the one being unprofessional. But she can’t help the way he makes her feel more than her past, more than what she can do. 

With Neal it had always felt like it was them against the world.

With Killian she thinks maybe they can just exist in the world, maye make it a little better in the process.

What makes it worse was a conversation she hears between Ariel and Killian days after their almost kiss. Days after she spends a night dreaming of what could be. 

Emma hadn’t meant to be eavesdropping, but she had a lead on their new case and was heading into his open office when she heard them talking in tense low voices.

“What was your talk with Neal like?” The younger agent asked him. It makes her stop in her tracks, makes her heartbeat wildly.

He shot Ariel a glare and told her to keep her voice down. But he hadn’t refuted her claim. 

He doesn’t tell her about it later when she finds a more convenient time to talk to her about the case. 

“Why wouldn’t he tell me?” Emma asked Ruby later in her apartment over a tall glass of wine. Because she desperately needs the alcohol to calm down her racing thoughts.

“Emma...Does it ever occur to you that maybe...maybe Killian is involved?” She contemplated, sitting across from Emma with her own equally tall glass of wine.

“Involved?” 

“Killian is in the prime position if you think about it.” She muses. “You under his thumb, maybe Neal in his back pocket. Maybe it was him all along.” Emma shook her head because no. It couldn’t be.

Killian Jones was the embodiment of professional.

“Then why is he keeping his meeting with Neal a secret when you’ve been upfront with him? After all, his own father is a master of crime, maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?”

//

“So she trusted you?”

“Yes.”

Emma Swan does trust him. 

Killian remembered that case they had a few months back, Emma had gone and broken into a shady hospital without backup or a warrant. The case had involved Granny’s granddaughter not getting a kidney and she’d gone rouge. 

Something he warned her against a half dozen times by this point. 

She’d broken in and gotten caught and drugged up to the gills. Killian had had to get in and break her out without anyone realizing. He’d even stolen the security tapes.

“I trust you Killian...out of everyone in my life, Neal, Ruby...you are the only one I truly trust.”

Emma did trust him. She trusted him with her free smile when she was feeling particularly excited out on a job. She trusted him with her fury when things were hard and she felt truly trapped by their arrangement. She trusted him with her tears when she thought about Neal. She didn’t often say much but he just knows. 

He knows her.

Emma trusted him to know her and Killian knew it’s not something freely given. 

But then out of nowhere that guarded expression on her face returns. Any move he made seems to be met with passive aggressive responses and half truths. She had her barely contained fury back beneath her eyes. 

It reminded him of a young agent who was furious when he learned that all the older agents were laughing behind his back. When he learned that they would never take him seriously because he was damaged. He was a joke. 

Emma Swan was no joke.

It unsettled him, he can’t figure out what changed. 

Or perhaps he was reading too much into her responses, after all, he was keeping a rather large secret from her. Because despite not wanting to hurt her, not wanting to break her trust, he feared this new information would be too much for her. Too much temptation. 

Because there was nothing more tempting to Emma than information about Neal Cassidy. 

It had taken some favors and a considerable amount of FBI weight throwing to secure the meeting, but he’d had it. Killian had had a meeting with Neal Cassidy. 

He knew what they wanted from Emma.  

(“A music box, she stole it in Germany just before...about a year before you caught her. They won’t let me go...they won’t let us be together without it.” He’d assured him.

“How do we know any of this is real?” He asked him. “How do we know this isn’t some game to get in her head?”

Neal gave him a disbelieving smirk. “I guess you don’t know. But considering you don’t know the whole story, I have to say that I have the advantage.”

“I find that whenever the supposed hostage talks about having the advantage they are rarely telling the truth.” He replies firmly.

“Ask Emma about the job we ran in October. If she tells you the truth then you’ll know exactly why Emma has to hand over the music box”)

He knew what they wanted from Emma, but he wasn’t sure if telling her would be smart. He honestly wasn’t sure if she could handle it.

That is, until in the middle of a job, a sting operation Emma had snapped. She’d nearly turned him in, her eyes had turned steely and she hissed that she knew. 

“I know you have Neal, that this whole thing is a game, a trap, a trick.” she seethed. It had completely caught him off guard. 

“What?!” He’d demanded, but the mark was listening, hell all his agents were listening. They couldn’t do this here. “If you have ever trusted me, you’ll give me a chance to explain myself otherwise get back to the case.” He’d said sharply. He met her steely glare with her own and nodded once.

I trust you.

She’d proven it later that day when their mark had locked in an airlock and they only had one canister of air. She’d shoved it into his grasp. “I trust you.” She’d whispered out loud this time. Please don’t play me for a fool.

He hadn’t, of course. They’d found their way out and sitting there in front of a multimillion dollar mansion swarmed with agents and bundled in shock blankets, he’d told her.

“I met Neal.” He admitted her. Her eyes are wide, but she’s not surprised. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think you could handle it.” But he was wrong, so wrong. 

“You had no right to keep that from me.” She replied sharply. “But I understand why you did.” her expression softened. “I know how I must look to you: a love sick fool chasing after a man who hurt me. Risking everything for him...”She trailed off before fixing him a firm gaze. “What did he tell you?”

“He told me what he wanted. A music box.”

“A music box.” Emma repeated. She laughed at her words. Laughed like he’d told her the most ridiculous joke in the world. “Then let’s go get the music box.”

//

“And where was the music box?” 

“Under our noses the whole time.”

 “Bloody hell Swan!” He’d cursed. “How?” 

It had been one of her most daring moves. She’s not sure why she decided to do it, but after she thought of it...the idea was just too intoxicating. It was a challenge, a dare and perfect. So perfect.

Getting the music box had been difficult, a job that didn’t really interest Neal. It was a little too flashy without enough reward. Thankfully a fence of hers had been able to take his place on the job.

 (A fact that Neal was not happy about.) 

Graham had been good, and it had gone off nearly flawlessly. She’d given him a cut of the profit she would make when she sold the music box--and a slap for a stolen kiss that Neal still doesn’t know about--except she never did get around to selling the damn thing.

She’d meant to, really. But this was right in the beginning of Agent Jones pursuit of her and she’d thought he was cute and enjoyed teasing him with her gifts. 

So Emma had set to work. A good forger can make something worthless look real, but only a great forger could make a priceless artifact seem like a fake knock off.

So that’s what she did. No one ever knew, they didn’t even suspect it. 

“My sister!” Killian exclaims again. “What did I tell you about involving her?” Emma shrugs. 

“To be fair I had already long sent it to her by the time you gave me that warning.” She told him simply, picking up the item. “I assume it came back clean when you sent it to the lab?” It was smaller than she remembered, a fake gloss painted on to mask it’s trace components.

“They traced it to a manufacturer in China and Belle liked how it sounded. Bloody hell, what would we have done if she had tossed it like I wanted to do?” She’d found a similar looking one and stole the packaging. Emma shrugged. 

“I didn’t exactly anticipate for some rogue agent to kidnap Neal for this thing. I didn’t even steal it for anything other than morbid curiosity.” She admitted. “Now that we have it, when can we get the meeting?” She asks.

Killian sighs. “I’ve put word out, hopefully Neal will contact me and we can set a time.”

“Or.” Emma adds. “We can contact the person pulling the strings behind this, behind everything.” She snaps. 

“We don’t know for sure.” Killian says with a calming gesture.

“You really think Walshe has nothing to do with this?” Emma snaps. “After coming into town just in time to frame me for the diamond heist?”

Killian doesn’t respond. Emma takes the music box tightly in her hands. “This has to end. It has to end now.” 

“Swan-” But she steps out of his grip. “We need to do this the right way, catch him red handed, not just hand him what he wants, when will it end?”

Oh it’ll end. The stakes were too high for Emma not to see to it that this cat and mouse game end now.

Plans circulated in her head, how to get out with the music box, how to make the exchange before Killian could talk her into a more by the book plan. Sometimes things couldn’t go by the book. Sometimes the ugly gritty way was the only way.

Killian’s phone rang loudly at his side. He picks it up, giving Emma a look. We’ll figure this out, you just need to trust me.

But something on the other end was clearly very wrong. His eyes narrowed and she could see something darker and fiercer just below the surface. “Stay there Belle.”

He could hear the younger girl talking quickly on the phone, Killian’s hand clenched. She was clearly very upset.“I’ll be right there. Do not say a single word until I get there.” He glanced at her. “We need to go now. Belle’s just been arrested.”

//

“She was arrested because the Marshalls believed a phone call she received from an unfamiliar number was our father.”

“Was it?”

“Just a spam caller”

The marshalls had wanted him out of the way, and they got it. It hadn’t taken much. They had Belle in handcuffs, her eyes were red as her classmates looked on, Walshe’s grip on her was rough and his words had been rude and vial and then he’d had the balls to mention Emma. So he’d swung and decked Walshe Green in the face. 

It felt good. But it ended with him in cuffs besides Belle. He’d watched a wide eyed Emma leave with Ariel, considering her handler was about to be put on suspension he was glad she wasn’t being taken into custody next. She’d been strangely silent through the whole ordeal.

 Emma had tried to deescalate the situation at first, but a comment Walshe had made left her frozen. Emma Swan never froze up.

“You never know, a parent’s greatest desire is to see their kid, wouldn’t you agree Emma?”

It wasn’t until afterwards. After he was back home missing his badge and gun, he realized two things. 

The Music box was gone.

This had never been about Neal.

//

“When we were originally tackling The Swan, Emma took a year gap where we couldn’t find a single hint of a job she was running. The working theory was that she was waiting for the heat of her last job to die down.”

“And now?”

“Now I realize that she went underground for a different reason.”

They met at the drop point. 

Emma felt bad for having Ruby steal the music box from Killian’s house, but it was the only way. No one was supposed to know about him. No one was ever supposed to connect her to the little boy that was born in New York Hospital in October of that year.

They were supposed to disappear and start a new life together, Tallahassee. 

Neal and her called it Tallahassee. It was the end game plan, retire and move to Florida or some island in the tropics. But Neal had never wanted to go clean, so Emma took her son and ran. 

So Neal set a trap for her. She set a trap so she couldn’t disappear with their kid. 

“When you get out.” He said, holding one of his toys, one of her son’s toys “We can be a family. It was only four years.”

Emma had hated him for four years, for robbing her of that time together, of wanting to be a father and changing his mind and then changing his mind again. 

It wasn’t until now, until Neal was faced with losing their kid, of him being abducted and held above their heads that he truly cared. Maybe, maybe it’s not too late for them.  

They met at the drop point, except there was no Neal, only Walshe. But she doesn't let that shake her resolve.

“Where is he?” She demanded. 

“Neal is around.” Walshe said cryptically. “I hear you have my box.” She didn’t deny it. 

“I’m not talking about Neal.” She said. “You’re not getting a damn thing unless I can see my son.” The man smirked wider than he had any reason to. 

“Don’t trust me?”

Emma didn’t dignify his words with a response. He gave a large sigh and opened his car door. There in the backseat, passed out in his car seat is Henry. She hadn’t seen him since he was an infant, but she knew. It was her son. Her four year old little boy looked positively exhausted but in good health. It made her gasp in relief, tears gathering in her eyes. 

He’s gotten so big.

“Where’s my music box?”

She gave it to him without a moment’s hesitation. Her only focus was pulling that boy into her arms and never letting go. She was never letting him go again. “Neal said to give you these.” Walshe added after the box is placed securely in his car. It was an envelope. She takes it with the hand not around the boy. 

Papers...She realized a whole new identity and not just for her. Neal, Emma and Henry Nolan. A normal happy little family. It was good, extensive. 

A happy ending after all. Four years ago this is all she’d ever wanted. 

“There’s a jet waiting for you, it’ll take you wherever you want. The three of you can disappear.” Walshe explained. 

“Why?” Emma asks. “Why go through all of this? Kidnapping my son, using him to get to Neal to get to me? Just for that.” Because it wasn’t worth that much, not enough for all this.

“Because my employer wants it.” Walshe said cryptically. But he doesn’t elaborate, he doesn’t need to. It says all she needs to know.

There’s someone behind the curtain. 

“You better get going. Neal is waiting for you.” The address was written in the envelope, so she settled Henry in his car seat in her car and then she headed out. 

But not before she sent Belle the most expensive collection of sketch books and paints money can buy, art school wasn’t cheap and she had talent. Real talent.

Not before she called Granny and thanked her for everything.  

Not before she called Ruby and told her about Henry. The papers...

(“I don’t know why you didn’t trust me to tell me the truth Emma.” She’d said. “But for what it’s worth I’m glad you are finally getting the life that you want. But you know what I always say-”

“A happy ending.” Emma breathed. “Is all about where you stop the story.”

She could feel Ruby’s grin through the phone. “From the moment we met, I knew your story was going to be exciting, but my question is, is this where you want to stop the story?” ) 

But Emma didn’t have time to contemplate her words. She needed to go. They had to get out, they needed to run. This is what she always wanted.

She was 50 feet from the plane when she heard her name being called out in the terminal. 

“Swan!” It makes her stop in her tracks. She can’t help but feel her chest tighten at the sound of her name. She turned to see him. His suit is rumpled, tie missing. He looks like he ran all the way here. “Swan wait.” She did. She had to.  

“You can’t stop me Killian.” She said. “You can’t.”

He nodded. “I know, all of this was sanctioned. It’s all an op as far as anyone can tell.” He agreed. “Legally I can’t interfere.” 

Legally.

“Why are you here Killian?” Sha asked. 

“I’m here to remind you of what you’re walking away from if you get on that plane. I know what you want Swan, I’ve always known. You want to be a part of something. You are here.” She bit her lip, he was smiling at her, something delicate and desperate. He wanted her to stay so badly. 

“Neal once said that we run. We run until when we run from something we just miss it.” She recalled. 

“You don’t need to run anymore Emma. You can stay. You and your son. You can stay.” He promised. “You don’t have to look over your shoulder anymore.” 

“Why are you here Killian?” She asked again. Because it can’t be for her. It didn’t make sense. She’s a criminal, a convict, a fraud. She didn’t deserve for him to look at her like that.

“Because you sent Belle art supplies. You called Ruby and Granny. You said goodbye to everyone except for me.” He reminded her “Why?”

Why hadn’t she? 

“Because...” she trailed off. “You’re the only person who could change my mind.”

He smiled at her, close enough to cup her cheek. “Did I?” She doesn't speak. She can’t. She leans in and kisses him. Something she never dared to want. Never dared to even consider. 

It was better than she ever imagined. It was something that she would surely miss if she got on that plane. 

But is it enough? Is it enough to turn away from a definite happy ending? Or is she walking away from it?  “Killian...

Emma didn’t get a chance to contemplate the issue further.

 Because when she looks back at the plane, at Neal’s face in the window of the plane, before she has a chance the plane explodes.

//

“And you know the rest.” Killian says. “They immediately took Emma into custody. Investigators descended on the terminal, Walshe went underground and you’re here to determine if my actions warrant you taking my badge.” 

The investigators glare at him, clearly not believing some of what he’s saying. But they’ve been glaring at him since he stepped into the room. It was probably a side effect of having just interviewed Emma. 

But it doesn’t matter what they believe. All that matters is what they choose to do. They can choose to give him back his badge and gun and let him do his job. Or they won’t.

“Do you believe Ms.Swan set the bomb that killed Mr. Cassidy?”

He looks them dead in the eye. “No.” He says pointedly. “She would never do that.” Not just because she was supposed to be on that plane, not just because her son was supposed to be on that plane but because Emma wasn’t a killer.

They don’t ask him any more questions. 

He walks out the door with his badge, his gun and a warning. But there’s time to worry about that later. Right now all Killian wants to do is see her. He wants to see if she’s there. If she had left before he was done or if she was waiting for him.

And she is. She’s leaning against his door of his car a smile on her face and a-

“Another hat Swan?” He asks. Emma smirks, removing the hat and placing it on his head. 

“I think it looks pretty good.” Emma says with a smirk and a subtle bite of her lip. “What do you think?” Now it’s Killian’s turn to smirk. She looks brilliant with that hat, so he places it back on her blonde head of hair. It does little to distract from the brand new tracker on her ankle, but he appreciated the attempt. Its slimmer chases less according to the memo Emma had emailed him..

“How’s Henry?” He asks. It had been a few weeks since she met the boy, since he’d caught him and his mother from the explosive blast of the plane that killed his father.

“Adjusting.” She says, her grin fading. 

Emma wasn’t allowed to keep him, social workers didn’t feel comfortable given that she was a current convict with an unusual situation. Thankfully Ariel was a registered foster parent with a spare bedroom. Henry had immediately taken a shine to Ariel and her husband and their current foster, a six year old girl named Melody. 

It wasn’t perfect, but Emma could see him as often as she wanted while she applied to earn back rights she never should have lost. 

“What now?” Emma asks. Her hand drifts to his. Her hands are softer than he’d thought. He leans in close, not too close but closer than he should. Closer than a handler should be with his charge. But he was close enough to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She’s smiling. 

“Now? We have another case.” He tells her. 

“And later?” She adds. “What do you plan to do about Walshe, and Neal and-”

“I don’t know.” He says honestly. “But whatever we do, know that we’ll figure it out together.”