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truthofherdreams · 7 years

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home, love, family

my darlings @emmabeauchamp and @nightspires are celebrating their birthdays tomorrow and the day after, and I love them very much. to the point of writing them smut about our current obsession :D (ao3)

“Where to?” he asks her once they have traded her gown and crown for something less ostentatious, his purse full of coins. She looks more like herself in a simple, brown dress and black coat, her hair braided, her face plain. She looks more like herself when she grins, and raises on her tiptoes to kiss him, and tells him she wants to see Rome.

They stop in Lyon first, after a journey in train that has nothing to do like the first one. Her French is perfect, coming back to her faster than the memories do, and she teaches him, one day at a time. She smiles at his harsh accent and laughs every time he forgets the articles in front of the nouns, and speaks for him in restaurants and hotels until his vocabulary is good enough for him to order some croissants in a small bakery.

They rent a room in the Vieux Lyon, the streets so tiny and the building so tall it makes Dmitry’s head spin. He doesn’t do well with staying indoors for too long, but there is something to be said about a hot bath and a comfortable bed. He could get used to it, which means he will soon have to find a good job to afford it. Soon, but not yet, enjoying this little adventure of theirs as long as it lasts.

It is one such day, Dmitry waking up when the sun is high in the sky after a night of fine dining and kissing and walking along the riverbank, when he finds Anya sitting on the window sill, silent and wrapped in a blanket. She barely reacts when he comes behind her to wrap his arms around her waist, doesn’t lean against him the way she usually does. Instead, she remains quiet and unmoving, even when he kisses the side of her head.

“What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer. Not at first, hugging herself more tightly, sighing a little when he holds her closer. He gives her time, knows better than to push her by now. She will either snap at him or retract further back into her mind, and neither of those options are good.

Outside the window, a woman is hanging her laundry on a rope between the building, the white sheets waving in the wind. A man loudly sells fruits and vegetables in a shop around the corner, and a dog barks after a laughing child. Such a sharp difference with the streets of Russia, with people walking fast and minding their own business, head in their shoulders every time a soldier passes by.

“Do you think I made the right choice?” Anya asks at last, her voice so small he wouldn’t hear it but for how close they are.

And, yes, here it is at last. He had been dreading this moment ever since she found him on the Pont Alexandre III, every since she kissed him and took his hand. How could she not regret her choice, when he’s but a lowlife criminal with no job, no future, nothing to offer? How could she agree to run away with him, when she could have chosen the lavishing life of a duchess, the fancy hotels and expensive operas and the time spent with her Grandmama? He’s been fearing this moment for a week now, but still the weight in his stomach, the tight hold around his heart, hurt more than he expected.

“It is not for me to decide,” he replies, his voice stiff, his words careful.

She tenses at his words, or tone, or both. Which, he realises, is exactly the reaction he expected of her. Especially with the way she turns around in his embrace -- now looser -- and stares at him, eyebrows shooting up in disbelief. Yes, let her be mad at him for it. It is so much easier that way, more familiar. Let her have her go at him, instead of that soft, broken act she has going on.

“Dima…” she starts, way too gentle for his liking. Her eyes are big, the compassion in them verging on the edge of pity, and that is what gets to him, ultimately. He doesn’t need her pity; he’s not her charity case, never has been, and the bitter taste on his mouth is enough to keep him going.

“That’s fine,” he replies in a voice that makes it obvious it is everything but. “I was waiting for it to happen.”

He lets go of her, ignores the hurt flashing in her eyes, before he turns around. Their room is so big and luxurious it has its own living room space to the side, and he walks toward it, stops a few feet away from the couch. This is all too much, the money and the expensive life and the everything. All too much, and he feels like his body isn’t fitting him anymore, not comfortable in his own skin. Like he’s been playing pretend for too long, and the second shoe finally decided to drop. Painfully.

She will break your heart, Vlad had warned him once, and Dmitry had been too naive to listen. How he wished he had, now.

“What do you mean?” Anya demands, in this ‘I don’t like to be contradicted’ spoiled princess voice of hers. Which, all things considered, might be the worse tone to use in such a situation, because everything in Dmitry screams for him to rebel against this voice. And he does.

“Don’t think me more stupid than I am, Nastya!” The nickname cracking in the air like a whip.

“Do not call me that!” She finally stands up, walking toward him with fury in her steps. No, not toward him, he realises. Toward the coffee table right next to him, so she can step on it and look down at him, hands on her hips. Her eyes are hard, her jaw set.

Dimitry had missed this, in some sick and twisted way. He’d missed how easily he can antagonise her, how fast it is for her to get upset. He’d missed this particular fire in her eyes, like she could strangle him this very minute and yell in frustration while she’s at it. There’s something to be said about looking death in the eye and living to tell the tale.

“Isn’t it your name?” he asks with a sneer. “Or would you like me to call you Your Highness, instead?”

“I would like you to stop being an idiot.”

“Why?” he challenges. Always challenges her, in everything she does, since the very beginning. “So you can let me down more gently? So I can make it easy for you?”

Her chest puffs, her cheeks turning crimson, and for a moment Dmitry wonders if she will slap him. It’s a miracle she doesn’t, maybe. “And why,” she replies, her voice colder than a Russian winter, “would I do that?”

The sarcastic chuckle falls out of his lips before Dmitry can even think of swallowing it down. One hand running through his hair, he turns his back to her, refusing to look in her eyes any longer. Refusing to see a new wave of pity while he lays it all out for her, throws his insecurities and fears at her. “Why wouldn’t you? You could live as a queen in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, have all the gentlemen swooning over you while you’re having tea with your Grandmama and have the perfect life any orphan dreams of. Get a pick of the best dresses, best museums and shows and fine dining. Be with the woman who loves you more than anything in the world. So tell me why, exactly, you’re following a lowlife thief all over Europe, if you regret your parisian life so much.”

“Because I love you, you big oaf!”

He stills.

Hand in his hair and breath in his throat, he stills.

Slowly, painfully, he turns around to face her again. She remains standing on the coffee table, hands on her hips and anger in her eyes as she keeps glaring down at him. Dmitry blinks at her, once, twice, the confusion written all over his face.

She sighs, and throws her arms up in the air. “Oh don’t act so surprise. It’s not like you didn’t know.”

For the first time in his life, Dmitry is speechless. Maybe if the situation were different, he would ponder on how uncomfortable that is but, as of right now, he can focus on little more than the way his heart is thundering against his ribcage. Royal mess, she had called herself once. Now more than ever, Dmitry understand the feeling.

Silence lingers just long enough for Anya to falter. “You didn’t know.”

He takes a hesitant step toward her, then another, until he’s standing right in front of her. She’s barely taller than he is, standing on this coffee table, but just enough for him to tilt his head up if he wants to meet her eyes. Just the perfect height for her to run her hands through his hair and lean into his personal space until their breaths mingle and he can see nothing but the grey of her eyes.

“Say that again,” he asks her, almost ashamed of the vulnerability he can hear in his own voice. She’s always been his weakness, from the moment they met. She will be his downfall too, someday.

“Dima… Of course I love you.”

She presses her forehead against his, and Dmitry closes his eyes. He forces himself to take a deep breath, if only to keep the tears at bay -- they are prickling behind his eyelids, but he refuses to shed them, and it turns into a shuddering sigh. It doesn’t help that he has to swallow around the knot in his throat, too.

“Princesses don’t fall in love with con men,” he says, and doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince.

“But orphans fall in love with each other all the time.”

One breath, one beat, before his lips crash against hers. Her gasp is muffled by his mouth as he grabs her hair, wraps one arm around her waist, and pulls her against him. She is still warm from the blanket she had put around her shoulders, soft and delicate in his arms. A sigh escapes her as she deepens the kiss, and all Dmitry thinks is she loves you, she loves you, she loves you.

He was a gone man long before he knew her real identity. Somewhere between Germany and France, after long hours of travelling that left them all sore and grumpy and starving, he’d looked at her and the initial bitterness was gone. And then there had been the opera, and the dress he had picked for her. Lily wanted something pink and frilly, but he knew Anya. He knew she would like the deep blue of a Russian night, the softness of the fabric around her legs. He knew her, and the realisation that he was losing her was too painful to cope.

But here she is now, loving him back and putting her hands on his shoulders to jump in his embrace. He laughs when her legs come to circle his hips, the sound amused and broken all at once when he remembers she wears nothing but her thin nightgown, the fabric of it bundled at her waist now.

“Take me back to bed,” she asks. Demands.

Although he’s always been one to say no to her -- a little too easily, perhaps -- this is one thing he can’t deny her. Not when her body melts against his, not when she dropping hot, searing kisses against his nose and cheek, not when his heart is so full it could burst. So he walks the short distance separating them to the bed, and unceremoniously drops her on the mattress. She bounces, and laughs, and opens her legs when he comes to lie on top her her.

Her hair is like a golden halo around her face, shining in the late morning sun, and Dmitry finds himself grinning like a fool at the glorious sight. She smiles too, and brushes a thumb against his cheek, where the stupid dimple is. He’s never had set feelings about this feature of his, but Anya seems to love it and so does he now.

He kisses her again, more purpose and determination in the gesture this time. Her cold fingers reach the hem of his undershirt, tugging at it and making him hiss when they brush against his stomach. Still he leans back just long enough for Anya to pull the piece of clothing above his head, then kisses her again. Her hands settle on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin until they leave half-crescent marks. His are feverish, willing to touch and caress every inch of her body. He pulls on her legs until they cage his hips, grabs her waist, brushes against her hair, explores her sides. Always eager to explore, always afraid to let go.

“Dima,” she moans when his lips close on the pulsing point on her neck, her voice begging and broken. It stirs something new in him, has his hips stuttering against her until she gasps loudly.

When he leans back on his forearms, it’s to look at her in the eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips reddened by kisses, but it is the softness in her gaze that gets to him. That and the way she caresses his cheek, so gentle, so caring.

“I never thought you would choose me. Not even in my wildest dreams,” he admits in a whisper, as if afraid saying it louder would make him even more vulnerable than he already feels. “You would stay with her and…”

“Dima,” she says again, and pulls on his hair, makes him hiss with pain. “I really don’t want to talk about Nana right now.”

Her other hand travels down his back, settles even lower, and Dmitry finds that he very much doesn’t want to have that kind of conversation right now, either. So instead he kisses her again, kisses the smile away from her lips until he leaves her breathless and panting. Then his mouth travels down, sucking at her jaw and neck, kissing and nibbling her collarbone. He will never get tired of marking her with bruises, of the rush of adrenaline when his eyes find the purple shade of her skin. Anya isn’t an animal to be tamed, will never belong to anyone, but there is something to be said about claiming her body as his. This part of her nobody, ever, will see but him. This part of her only for him to enjoy.

The nightgown soon becomes a pile of fabric on the floor, the flush on her face blossoming to her neck and chest. She arches her back, as if offering her body to him, and Dmitry isn’t one to deny such a gift. He grabs her hips and kisses her breasts, her stomach, her hip. She wriggles under his touch, curses him in a sigh. It makes him smirk, how impatient she can get.

So he takes his time. Grabs her leg and drops a kiss on her knee, laughs at her huff of frustration. He is slow in his ministrations, kissing and caressing her tight, ignoring her centre to do the same with the second leg. By the time he reaches her hip once more, the foul language is tumbling down her mouth, and she grabs his head once more, pulls him where she needs him the most.

“So demanding,” he comments with a roll of his eyes.

She is about to shoot back something, refusing to give him the last word, but then he’s licking his way up between her folds and her sarcasm turns into a loud moan. So he does it again, and again. He knows what she likes by now -- the three first days of their little escapade spent behind close doors until he knew her body as well as he knows his own, until he could unravel her with only one touch, one kiss. Dmitry doesn’t want to be smug about it, but. Yes, he is.

Her hand tightens its hold in his hair, keeping him in place as much as she guides him, while the other grabs the sheet for support. He adds one finger, then a second, and ignores the tightness in his trousers even as his hips rub against the mattress in rhythm with his tongue and fingers. She is begging and demanding and cursing, legs shaking against his shoulders, body quivering beneath him, until her words stop making sense, until only his name is on her tongue, until she unravels against his mouth.

Her head falls back against the pillow with one last sigh, her eyelids heavy from pleasure. A sight to behold, as he crawls up her body and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He lies on his side next to her, one hand on her waist. Bliss and content surge through his veins at how peaceful her features are, even more so when she opens one eye and offers him a dazzling smile. She may be a brat, and infuriating half of the time, but he wouldn’t trade her temper for anything in the world if it means having her next to him for the rest of his days.

(She’s turned him into a soppy mess, now…)

“I love you,” she sighs as she moves to snuggle against him.

“I shall never tire of hearing you say that,” he replies with his nose against her temple.

She laughs, a small giggle of a sound. “Look at you with your posh talking.”

“Someone’s rubbing on me,” he says with a frown, but the smile is obvious in his voice.

Another laugh escapes her as she moves closer to him still, her leg moving up until her thigh is pressed to his erection. When she kisses him, it’s with a tiny smirk, and only then does he understand the wordless pun. Vixen.

She pushes on his shoulders until he’s lying on his back, sits on his hips, and Dmitry forgets all will to laugh. His tongue darts out to lick his lips are his eyes travel up and down her bare body -- the hair tumbling around her shoulders, the creamy expense of her stomach, her bouncing breasts. He’s so busy admiring her he barely notices how she pulling the trousers down his hips and legs, barely notices anything at all until her hips move against his and a broken groan escapes his lips.

She will break your heart, Vlad had warned. He hadn’t said anything about how she would ruin him for life, too. Nothing can ever top that, not that Dmitry wants anything else. Those Petersburg girls are nothing but a memory long gone, nothing but smoke when Anya lines herself against him and steals a moan from him as she guides him inside her, inch by inch.

He loses track of anything and everything after that, only aware of her body around and above him, of his hands on her hips and her breath against his mouth, of her bruising kisses and wordless moans. Nothing but Anya, Anya, Anya, nothing but her and her body and her love, until he comes inside her with a groan and a silent prayer to the universe.

Dmitry doesn’t know how long it takes for him to start breathing properly against but, when he does, Anya is still lying on top of him. Her legs are caging his hips and her arms are folded on his chest, her chin resting on top of them, and there is no doubt she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

“I love you,” he says with such an ease it would have scared him only a month ago.

She smiles. “It’s the bliss talking.”

“No. I love you. I’ve loved you since I was ten. I’ll always love you.”

Her laugh is church bells to his ears, Kazan Cathedral on a cold afternoon. She moves until she’s flush against his side, one leg above his and one arm around his chest. Dmitry wonders how ridiculous it would be to spend the day naked in bed. Again.

“You’re so mawkish after sex.”

He frowns at her, just a little. “I feel like there is an insult hidden there somewhere in your big word.”

She doesn’t reply, but her smirk and how she kisses his nose speak volume. Ah. She can have this one. Dmitry is too content to care about her insults right now, pulling her closer and kissing the side of her face. She sighs, and he closes his eyes, fingers combing her hair. Silence settles comfortably between them and, were it not for his knowledge of her breathing patterns, he would believe her asleep again. As a matter of fact, he knows her too well, knows how deep in thoughts she is once more.

“Nobody ever asked you to choose,” he comments. Then, before she even has time to open her mouth, “She asked you to choose between life as a Duchess and a commoner. That’s what you chose, but… You didn’t have to choose between her and me. I think -- I would like to think we’re both your family now.”

She puts her chin in her hand, leaning above him, a frown on her brows. “You really are more clever than you look,” she quips, having Dmitry roll his eyes, but she seems to actually be thinking about it. How it hadn’t occurred to Anya before, he will never know, but he is glad that it is a step in the right direction. He couldn’t bear to witness her transformation into a miserable person simply because nobody ever told her that she was allowed to have the best of both worlds. “Would you mind? Going back to Paris?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but a moment of doubt and confusion has him frown. His heart does something strange and new in his chest at the realisation that his opinion actually matters. That someone will take his wishes into consideration. That what he wants is important, for the first time in his life.

Perhaps it should frighten him, how easy the answer comes to him after that. “I don’t care where we go, as long as we’re together. Rome, Berlin, Paris… It’s all the same to me. And if I have to live alongside aristocrats who look down at me all my life, then so be it.”

He wouldn’t mind going back to Vlad, truth be told. The man has been like a second father to him for years now, after all. He could even find a honest job, whatever that means, and save for a nice apartment in the capital. Perhaps even save for a pretty ring and… He’s getting ahead of himself.

“Tell you what,” he goes on, knuckles brushing against her cheek. “Let’s go to Rome, enjoy the sights. Write to her in the meanwhile, and then we’ll go back. How’s that for a plan?”

“It’s barely a plan,” she quips. “More like an idea.”

“How’s that for an idea, infuriating woman?”

She grins, god helps him. “Yes. It does sound lovely.”

“Paris it is, then.”

Paris it’ll always be, or so it seems.

Dmitry is fine with that.

#nightspires #emmabeauchamp #dimya #anastasia #anastasia the musical #fanfic #ff: anastasia

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truthofherdreams · 7 years

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spoiler alert

@emmabeauchamp bullied me into writing a Dreaming Prince/Captain Swan Soulmates AU with the tattoos thingy based on a tumblr post, which I did because I’m a good friend or something (ao3)

Gideon is a walking spoiler.

He figures it out when he's nine, glasses too big for his face, hiding under the covers with a book and a flashlight. He's always felt kinda bad, as long as he can remember, to have a soulmate tattoo about someone dying. About someone he doesn't know dying. Is it a person he'll meet in the future? Someone he will learn to care about? Someone important?

But suddenly he's nine, and reading under the covers way past his bedtime, and the loud gasp escapes his lips. He struggles, getting tangled in the blankets in his haste to reach his tattoo, but there is it. The messy handwriting, the words he's known by heart since he was four.

Gideon is nine when he starts Harry Potter.

His tattoo read, “Dude, I can't believe Dumbledore dies!”

Thankfully for him, his tattoo is high on his ribcage, so hiding it from the world isn't that big of a problem. It's not like he goes to the beach or the swimming pool that often anyway, and he has very little reasons to take his shirt off in public. Keeping it a secret is less complicated than he would have thought at first.

Not so thankfully, though, his life becomes a nightmare from now on. He meets Melody on his first day in high school, and she's so proud of her tattoo she wants everyone else to be too. Which means she wants to know everything about Gideon’s mark. Which means he has to try twice as hard to hide it away from her. He's pretty sure she thinks he's one of the very rare people who doesn't have a soulmate, and she pities him a little. Even his story about having a boring “Hey!” on his ribs doesn't convince her, not that Gideon tries to be particularly convincing. But it's still better than telling her the truth, isn't it?

The truth he has to keep to himself. And, seriously, it's ruining all the Harry Potter fun for him. When everyone else around him gets excited which each new book in the series being released, Gideon only feels dread in his stomach when he turns the pages. Is it finally it? The book where poor Albus Dumbledore meets his macabre destiny?

Once, he even wonders what would happen if he were to write to the author about it. Perhaps he would be the one to give her the idea, because Dumbledore was never meant to die but now she has to kill him off if it means some random kid from Maine can meet his soulmate. Or maybe she would backtrack on it and Gideon would be left with a meaningless tattoo for a soulmate he would never meet. Butterflies and hurricanes, the thought scary enough to stop him from grabbing a pen and a piece of paper.

Eight year of torture, the eight longest years of his life, before the fifth book comes out and puts him out of his misery for good. It’s almost a relief, really -- he’s probably the only one on Earth relieved that Dumbledore dies, and the thought alone makes his head spin. He doesn’t want to resent his soulmate for it, because it isn’t fair on the guy, but, really. His soulmate ruined Harry Potter for him. He kinda resents him, just a little.

Still, Melody is sitting in front of him at lunch, head in her hands, like the word crumbled around her and she doesn’t know how to react. Gideon would say he knows how she feels, but -- it wasn’t exactly a plot twist for him now, was it?

“It’s just a book,” he tells her, even if he knows it won’t change anything.

And, indeed, she glares at him, black hair falling in front of her eyes even when she huffs to push it away. She glares, before she squints. “Why are you reacting like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re not reacting at all.”

He shrugs, the truth sticking to the back of his teeth, before he remembers. It isn’t a secret anymore. It’s out there in the open for everyone to read, and it isn’t a secret he has to keep any longer. The sigh escapes his lips, loud and heavy, his shoulders sagging a little. Melody quirks an eyebrow at him, but still follows him outside the cafeteria when he gestures for her to follow him, the wheels of her chair squeaking on the floor. He finds an empty corridor easily -- everyone either in the cafeteria or outside during that time of the day -- and lifts his shirt up for her to see the words etched into his skin.

Unsurprisingly, she bursts into laughter.

…

Nothing happens during the following week, or month.

Gideon can guess why.

…

His hand in on Melody’s back, helping her down the stairs while she struggles with her crutches -- not for the first time, he offered to carry her, but she’s too proud to look weak in public. Her wheelchair is down the stairs, just next to the big screen, and so Gideon helps her down once almost everyone in the cinema has left the room. It’s only them and a handful of people, as they make their way down slowly. A bead of sweat rolls down Melody’s forehead, his hand reaching for her elbow, when he hears it.

“Dude, I can’t believe Dumbledore dies!”

Both he and Melody stop in their track, turning around as one to face the guy behind them. Medium-height, blond hair curling around a baseball cap, hoodie too big for his frame. That’s about everything Gideon sees of him, before he snaps.

“You! You’re the one!” The guy’s eyes widen, the pupils a deep green even in the darkness of the cinema, and Gideon barely has time to think, This is your soulmate, holy shit, before he goes on. “You ruined this for me! All of this! You ruined Harry Potter for me!”

The girl behind him -- she looks so much like him, only slightly older, that she can only be his sister -- loses it right here and then, laughing so loudly everyone else around them stops and stares. Not that Gideon cares all that much when, breaths laboured and heavy, he can only stare at the guy in front of him. Damn, but he’s pretty too, even if wildly confused.

“That’s not really how I imagined that being said,” he kind of half-mumbles.

His sister laughs louder. Melody huffs a snort too. Gideon only stares and stares and stares, unable to react, to answer, to do anything at all. And then the guy is smiling and he knows, truly, deeply, how fucked he is, because there are double dimples in his cheeks and sparkles in his eyes and this is your soulmate, goddammit, who cares about stupid Dumbledore.

From the corner of his eye, he sees that the blonde girl is now taking care of Melody, helping her down the stairs and, most likely, making sure to leave them some space. Gideon’s breath hitches in his throat at the thought, even more so when the other guy takes a step down and closer to him. He’s smaller than Gideon, not that it’s that difficult -- he’s been towering over everyone since he was about fourteen, too tall for his own good. And pretty. He’s so damn pretty Gideon has no idea where to go from there. He’s never been really good at the whole flirting thing, but everything happening right now makes it even worse.

“I’m Leo,” the boy says with the same mirthful grin.

I’m a mess, he wants to reply. But, instead and rather pitifully, “Gi--Gideon.”

“Nice to meet you,” Leo grins. “And sorry about the Dumbledore thing.”

“I will never forgive you,” Gideon deadpans. A little too much, maybe, because Leo’s smile drops for a moment, before he catches up with the poor attempt at humour and laughs softly. He has a beautiful laugh. The kind of laugh Gideon would very much like to hear all his life. Geez, five minutes and he’s so far gone it’s not even funny.

Leo puts his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and bites down on his bottom lip, drawing Gideon’s eyes to his mouth even as he moves closer still. Can you die of a heart attack so young? Maybe he’ll be the first one, a medical anomaly. “I can make it up to you, maybe?”

Call 911.

Help.

…

Emma sits on the hood of her car, eyes on her phone, when Leo gets out of the cinema. Even from afar and with his cap hiding half his face, she can see the smug grin on his face. Not that she blames him. Her little brother has always been more of a romantic fool than she ever was, has always believed his life could only be complete once he met his soulmate -- and why would he think otherwise anyway, with such a sweet tattoo on his bicep. She doesn’t blame him for the halo of happiness following him right now.

She doesn’t blame him, even if she tries her best to ignore the jealousy in the pit of her stomach. Sometimes, Emma wonders what her life would be like if she had never met Neal, if she had chosen another dark alley to come home faster, if she had left Ruby’s house just five minutes later. If she had never met Neal, and his stupid smiles and his stupid pickup line that matched the tattoo on her wrist. Neal and his lies, his deceits, his bullshit. Neal, who pretended to be her soulmate, just because.

“His name is Gideon,” Leo gloats once he’s close enough to the car.

“That’s a nerdy name if I’ve ever heard one,” Emma comments, just to be an asshole. Not that Leo cares, both because he’s used to their banter and because he’s too happy to care about anything right now. “But you’re into nerds so…”

“You’re into nerds,” he shoots back lamely.

She grins. “Got his number?”

Leo opens his mouth, before horror flashes through his eyes. It’s all Emma needs to lose her shit again, laughing out loud as she watches her baby brother stammer pitifully before he quickly says, “I’ll be back,” and runs back inside. Emma bites down on her lip, snickering to herself, before she shakes her head.

Romantic fool indeed.

When she checks her phone again, she has about three dozen Whatsapp notifications -- most of them from Anna on the girls’ group chat -- and she sighs loudly before opening the app. Knowing Leo, she has more than enough time to catch up on her friend’s shenanigans anyway. She’s scrolling through the conversation, mostly about Anna’s upcoming wedding, when she hears some kind of noise to her left.

Looking up, she finds one guy from the cinema walking toward the large dumpsters by the other side of the parking lot, his arms full of folded boxes. She looks at him from the corner of her eye, and he must sense it because he stops in his track and looks back. He’s wearing all black, from his pants to his shirt to the stupid cap on his head, which makes him look like some cat burglar in a Nickelodeon show, or something.

“Nobody ever told you it’s dangerous to be alone at night?”

A cold shiver runs down her spine at the word, and she fights the urge to scratch the skin of her wrist. It’s just a line. Nothing but a line. “Fuck off,” she mumbles instead, before she focuses back on her phone. Or at least tries to, because she can’t focus on anything beside those fucking words, can’t focus on anything beside the guy in the corner of her eyes who looks rightfully chastised.

“Sorry,” he says, taking a step forward, then stopping. He scratches his ear, and goes on, “It’s just -- don’t want anything happening to you, love.”

His English accent makes his vowels rounder and his pet name less annoying. When she looks back at him -- properly looks back, taking in his black hair and beard and the blue of his eyes -- he is almost blushing, like he’s actually embarrassed that his line was taken as anything but concern for a stranger. Which. It’s nice, she guesses. Not that she needs anyone’s concern, but it’s nice to know there are still a couple of good people on this stupid Earth.

“I know how to handle myself,” she answers. Then, because she sounds too much like an asshole, “But thanks. Appreciated.”

He smiles at her, a tight-lipped and awkward smile, before he takes a few steps toward the back door of the cinema. Thinks better of it. Comes back to her. Emma’s breath catches in her throat, her fingers reaching for the keys in her pocket so she can turn them into a makeshift weapon. Just in case, you never know.

“Listen, love. I know it’s bad form to ask those kinds of things because of privacy and all that, but would you mind telling me what your soulmate tattoo says?”

Emma’s mouth opens, her mind racing, her heart screaming. Run, run, run, it tells her. Run and save yourself, run and save me from breaking again. But her feet are stuck to the ground and her tongue to the roof of her mouth, and her mind is screaming and screaming and screaming.

“That’s personal,” she finds herself replying numbly when he takes another step forward and into her space. Close enough that she can see the scar on his cheek and the hope in his eyes. “Only to be shared with…”

“Your soulmate, I know.” He’s smiling now, his fingers reaching for the collar of his shirt. “But I’ve always been about leaps of faith, you see.”

And then he’s pulling his collar down, offering quite the view on his collarbone and his chest hair and Emma’s writing carved in black ink into his skin. The “Fuck off” in her loopy handwriting has something almost comical to it, in a very frightening way. She licks her lips, forcing herself to breath, not to move. She wants to run; she needs to run. Away, far away from him and his tattoo and its meaning. Far away from his hopefully eyes and tentative smile and beautiful face.

Instead, she finds herself reaching for her wrist, pulling up her sleeve. The cursive words are so tiny you need to look close if you want to read them. Not that Emma needs to. She’s read them enough to know them by heart, heard them twice already. Once by Neal, who was lying. And a second time by him, who isn’t.

“I can’t,” she whispers softly, “I can’t take a chance that this thing is wrong about you.”

When he takes a step forward this time, he’s so close she can count the freckles on his nose and feel his breath on her mouth, smell the burnt popcorn in his hair and on his shirt. The gasp gets stuck at the back on her throat when he takes her hand, his thumb rubbing circles against her palm.

He’s about to reply something -- some platitude she doesn’t need, perhaps -- when Leo calls her name from afar. His fingers slip away from her, leaving nothing but a shiver and the cold of the night in their wake. Emma refuses to miss his touch, and instead focuses on her brother jogging his way toward her, grin on his lips.

“Got his number. And a date.” He notices the guy then, and frowns. “Making friends?”

“Not really. Let’s go home.”

The guy opens his mouth once, twice, the hope in his eyes leaving place to a sad puppy face. Emma has to close her own eyes to stop herself from doing something stupid. Like believing soulmates are actually something in the cards for her. “You know where to find me,” he says so softly only she can hear.

When she slams the car’s door, it sounds like finality. Leo is still staring at her, before he mumbles something about how she can never let him have his moment and how she’s always stealing his thunder and making everything about herself, or something. She just turns the volume of the radio up to drown his rambling, and her own thoughts.

…

It takes five weeks.

But when she goes back, it’s not for a movie.

#cs ff #captain swan #dreaming prince #gideon french #prince leo #emma swan #killian jones #beautiful duckling #captain sex #ouat #otl: as you wish #fanfic #ff: ouat

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