can you feel it right now?by @cutieodonoghue |ff.net| |ao3| |tumblr| When Emma Swan agrees to let her annoying neighbor Killian Jones join her to go to the grocery store, the last thing she could have ever anticipated is becoming his wife over the course of a conversation with some people from his past. (based off of this prompt: you asked me to the store with you and your child, and now my distant relative we met thinks i’m married with a baby)
“Are you ready to go, Swan?” Killian asks.
Emma licks her lips and tilts her head at him in a challenge. “If you are.”
Killian hums. He digs into his jean pocket and pulls out two very familiar gold bands. Of course. It’s all part of looking the part.
She gives him a hard look, but he just smiles and falls onto his knee, in the snow, and says, “Emma Swan, will you be my fake wife for the week?”
Emma rolls her eyes so hard she thinks they might fall out of her head.
“Get out of the snow, you idiot.”
…
“I can’t believe I agreed to do this for you.”
“Think of the reward, Swan. An honest Christmas for Henry.” Killian says. “Well, not completely honest, but… a Christmas nonetheless.”
An aesthetic for one of cutiodonogue’s amazing fics. Your writing is beautiful and you never cease to amaze me with your talent. Merry Christmas Megan!!
Character A is pretending to be their friend’s lover for the sake of the friend’s family. Character B is said friend’s sibling.
(header by the incredibly sweet and talented @katie-dub)
It All Went Downhill From Here; ~ 2, 000 words; FF.NET || AO3
She watches
Killian Jones storm out of his own house and wonders when exactly this whole
weekend went so horribly wrong. A few instances come to mind.
Possible It-all-went-downhill-from-here moment
#1
She bumps
into him and almost covers his shirt in mulled wine. She has not been hanging around the kitchen’s
doorway, with its fake-as-can-be mistletoe, scotched-taped by someone, who, if
Emma has to guess, was operating with one hand. She is not that smitten, thank
you very much. But the fact remains that when she looks up and it is Killian
who almost got a first degree burn as a Christmas present, Emma doesn’t rush
off.
She
hesitates. She lingers. Probably seeming distracted to everyone else and
completely obvious to herself. She waits and waits and starts wondering if she
should storm off in a huff or just grab him by the lapels and snog him
senseless, as his brother would put it.
Killian’s
chuckle is only a little forced and he scratches behind his ear for just a
second and then makes the decision for her. He takes her hand and lifts it to
his lips. She barely feels the brush of his mouth but his breath is warm and
heavy on her skin and Emma swears a proper kiss would’ve been less sensual. She
certainly hasn’t had one she enjoyed as much as this.
///
No, as nice
as it is to relive that one, she should go further back.
Possible It-all-went-downhill-from-here moment
#2
She almost
missed it, busy as she is with staring at Killian Jones catching every popcorn
Robin’s kid throws at him. With his mouth.
There are
certain things that should not be attractive and acting like a 5-year-old, in
the company of an actual 5-year-old, should be one of them. But when Killian
catches her staring and grins proudly (he did catch every single one), she
quickly averts her eyes. And that’s when she sees it.
Elsa is
most definitely not gonna make the top of that tree, no matter how much she
frowns and huffs at it. Emma laughs quietly at her for using her people tactics
on a dead plant and is just about to go save said plant from being toppled over
when she sees Liam comes up behind her roommate. She sees Elsa jump when his
hands come to rest on her hips and almost hears her indignant yelp when he
lifts her up without much preamble.
Emma wants
to laugh again but then she catches Killian’s frown that melts into concern
when he meets her eyes and all she wants is to scream in frustration.
1840 words of meet-cute Christmas T-rated fluff. This damn fic took about four re-writes before I was satisfied.
“The PTA is full of a bunch of judgy bitches.”
“Emma!” The principal’s sharp gasp is the second thing Killian Jones hears when he enters the small dressing room off the auditorium, followed by a dismissive grunt from the first speaker. The short brunette, Mary Margaret Blanchard, gives him an awkward smile and darts around him to close the door behind him.
The other woman in the room has her back turned to him as she slips off her bright red sweater. Killian cannot keep himself from appreciating the line of her shoulder blades as they peek around either side of the tank top she wears beneath the wool. The shirt is white, but the brassiere beneath is the same red as her sweater. Killian swallows nervously against the sudden onslaught of arousal. Bloody hell, he hasn’t been turned on by bra straps since he was an adolescent.
“Emma,” Ms Blanchard says again, “I think-”
“Oh we both know what this is about,” the blonde woman continues without looking back. “Half of those women are divorced or their marriages are falling apart, but its me they decide to pick on.”
“But-”
“Leave it to a Catholic school to insult someone by casting them as the Mother Mary.” She reaches for the costume rack at her side and pulls a thick blue robe off of a hanger. The woman wriggles it over her head, tosses out her blonde curls, and slides off her pants as the robe falls down her legs. Killian catches only a glimpse of a bit of black fabric across her arse before she is covered in the tent of a costume. Finally, she turns around and her face turns from indignation to shock to something resembling annoyance.
“You must be the poor sap cast as Joseph,” she sighs. The hem of the costume trails the worn carpet as she crosses the room and holds out her hand. “Emma Swan, your wife.”
Emma’s head
shoots up and she lifts an eyebrow at the cute barista. Belle – if her nametag
is telling the truth and not just going with the whole fairytale-theme of the
coffee shop. The place is most certainly not Emma’s thing. She does not like
the big old-fashioned armchairs and the floor to ceiling bookshelves, filled
with what looks like every fairytale ever written, she does not stare in
appreciation at the large, framed posters of Disney concept artwork and admire
all the ridiculously creative names of the beverages on the board. She most
certainly doesn’t love the Swan Princess hot chocolate more than any other
drink she has ever held it her hand.
Nope. She
does not like it one bit. Not her fault the damn place is the closest source of
caffeine to her office.
Emma shakes
her head and gives Belle a questioning look. The brunette smiles sweetly and
points to the rolled up fortune she handed Emma along with her drink.
“We only
hand these out in December and you can’t imagine how many people come back in January
saying they did what their fortune said and were so grateful for it.”
Emma snorts
and feels like the biggest asshole as she watches Belle’s soft features crumble
a little at the harsh sound.
And the Grinch of the year award goes to…
“Just a
thought.”
Belle
shrugs sadly and turns her attention to the next person. And Emma… Emma feels
an inexplicable amount of rage at her own skepticism well up inside. So what if
she thinks life likes to sucker-punch you every day and twice on Sunday? It
doesn’t mean she has to go around spewing her pessimism on the world. On people
who work in places called The Storybook
Café and smile unfailingly and genuinely at every single person in line and wear fucking corsets while doing it.
So with a
pinched brow and clenched teeth and the amount of determination she feels only
when chasing a guy that ran out on his kids and is living it up in Vegas or
something, Emma looks down at the fortune in her hand and vows to do whatever
the stupid piece of paper says, be it help old people cross the street all day
or adopt a three-legged puppy.
“Look around. Pick a stranger. Be nice to them
for the rest of the week. You might make a friend.”
Summary: Killian Jones is the new Deputy of Storybrooke, where he wasn’t expecting to be working at such a small police station and he definitely wasn’t expecting the Sheriff’s daughter, who owns a bakery across the street. He’s quickly hoping to taste more than just the creme-filled pastries she’s offering him. Rated E for eventual smut.
Finally, the last chapter. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, but I’ve made this one extra long. I hope you’ve enjoyed the story. Thanks for following along and for all of the wonderful feedback!
And just a forewarning, I’ve included some kink and sweet-related smut after the page break.
Elsa and Emma emerge from the back room and take one final look around the bakery. After months of renovations and interviews and coming up with new recipes for different kinds of baked goods and drinks, including cakes, pies and cookies, an assortment of cheesecakes, smoothies and other frozen drinks, they’re finally ready for the big opening.
“Yeah, I know they will,” Elsa answers confidently as Emma goes to the front door and unlocks it. Her parents, Leo and Henry are the first to arrive.
“Come on in.”
Mary Margaret is holding a cake as she walks in with her husband, son and grandson by her side.
The four of them look around in awe. Each section of the wall is painted in a different color, light blue, purple, yellow and pink as opposed to the chocolate walls they had before. There were also more tables and booths, a couple of bar counters toward the front and had a ‘fifties diner’ feel to it.
“Wow, this place looks great, you too. Definitely worth the celebration.”
“I agree with your mother,” David says as he places a kiss in Emma’s forehead.
“Thanks, guys.” Emma kisses her parents on their cheeks and takes the cake from Mary Margaret, setting it on the front counter.
“You’re welcome, sweetie.”
“I hope you like it. It’s an ice cream flavored cake.”
“Thank you,” Elsa says as she eyes it appreciatively. “My favorite.”
The cake has writing on it that says, ‘Congratulations, Elsa’. Emma had made it herself, although cakes weren’t really her specialty but she wanted this day to be special for Elsa as the new co-owner of Emma and Elsa’s Bakery and Cafe.
Soon enough, other people start arriving and Elsa and Emma have their new employees carrying platters with samples of their new desserts.
August and Ruby show up and Elsa’s parents and sister arrive, all of them greeting them with hugs.
A half an hour into the opening, Emma looks at her watch. “Where do you think the boys are?”
“Late as usual,” Elsa sighs, shaking her head with a smile as she cuts the cake, serving it on small plates. “Those two couldn’t be on time to save their lives.”
Emma laughs as she grabs some of the plates, both of them at the counter with their backs to the door. “Agreed.”
“Is that any way to talk about your husbands-to-be, loves?”
AU/potentially canon-compliant ghost story set during the missing year, in which Killian hears stories of a ghostly lady in white who roams the seas in search of her lost love. But she isn’t real. She can’t be. (Based on this edit I made which I always meant to follow with a fic, it just took me a while!)
Sailors are a superstitious lot, no matter which side of the
law they fall on. It’s a little more pronounced among pirates, he thinks, the
fear fuelled by a guilty conscience and giving wings to imagination.
And it’s lonely out here, on the open sea. The stories give
it a little character, make it feel like a living entity, populate it with
mermaids and sea devils and broken hearts.
Killian has not needed stories for that for a long time.
When he first hears about the lady in white, he scoffs.
“It appears the fishwives have been quite productive in our
absence,” he remarks with a sneer, cutting Smee off before the man can really
get going. “I’ve not heard that one before.”
“That’s because no one’s seen her before.” Smee is earnest
as always. For all his tendency to fear everything and everyone, Killian
considers, the fellow does love his ghost stories. “They say it’s the ghost of
a dead woman. She’s haunting the seas, looking for her lost love, and she lures
sailors to their deaths with her beauty.”
His first thought is of red hair and pleading eyes, and his
heart, ever traitorous, gives a little lurch in his chest. It’s only a story,
he reminds himself, but that doesn’t help, because in another realm, he is just a story.
Not for the first time, he wonders if Emma knows his story,
in the new life that Regina has invented for her and the boy. Does she read it
sometimes, or watch it in that strange vision box? Does some part of her
recognise him?
AU set shortly after Neverland, in which the gang
find themselves in the Enchanted Forest trying to defeat the Wicked
Witch – and, in Emma’s case, trying not to admit her feelings for the pirate,
until circumstances conspire to admit it for her. Based on this post.
She doesn’t meet his eyes after the ogre attack that nearly
kills her. She lets her mother hug her, reassures everyone loudly that she’s
okay, she’s fine, but she doesn’t look at him.
She doesn’t run to him when they rescue him from the Wicked
Witch’s minions, his shirt ripped and his cheek bloodied. His eyes do meet
hers, though, and she remembers thinking she’d never see him again. She
remembers how she fought, with quiet, deadly determination and flat-out refusal
to accept any other outcome than this.
She leaves the room once she’s healed his wounds after the
skirmish with the flying monkeys, the claw marks and the blood imprinted on her
memory. She doesn’t want to be there when he wakes up, and she leaves it to her
mother to check on him. She knows he’s healed. And she knows that she doesn’t
want to see him with his shirt off when he’s not hurt—or rather, she does, which is exactly why she
shouldn’t.
He follows her lead and does not reach out to her, does not
take her hand or hug her the way she sometimes thinks he wants to.
But they are still on the same team, and he does not hold
back with his opinions.
And that’s how they end up here.
“Swan, I really don’t think that you want to do this.”
They’re both rather good at this self-sabotaging thing, neither able to muster up even the pretense of caring about the dates they set each other on. They can’t manage the energy for it. It’s difficult to care about your date when all you care about is the person that set you up with them. Too difficult to fall in love when you already are.
notes: @blondecrowns requested Emma & Killian setting each other up on dates while pining for the other, and so this (too long) pining modern roommates au was born.
It feels a tad pointed that when he
collapses on the couch, sinking into the well-worn groove born from his and
Emma’s slumping, and flicks their brand new 4K UltraHD on, he comes into that scene in Star Trek: Beyond.
It’s telling that he truly feels that
the movie is speaking to his soul.
For one, it means that this day has
really pushed him past his limits. Things don’t tend to speak to him when he’s in a healthy frame of mind. Perhaps
his bottle of rum whispers to him, but that’s as far as it goes. Two, it means
that he’s already brooding, which usually doesn’t start until an hour or so
after a failed date. Sabotage, yes,
he’s aware that he’s doing that to himself. “Is that classical?” Yes, he
believes it is, a classic he’s been pulling ever since Emma flopped into that
leather couch in his office – not nearly as used as this one – and asked him if
he needed a roommate because living with the thin walls of her single wasn’t
working anymore.
“Oh, my
apologies. This is Killian. Killian Jones. David’s friend? We met at Robin and
Regina’s Halloween party a couple of months ago?”
Emma
could’ve stopped him after his name. Honestly she could’ve stopped him after
the ‘apologies’. She doesn’t know that many people who talk like that. Meaning
she knows one. David’s friend. David’s very attractive, very suave, very
good-looking-in-leather-pants, friend. Killian. Killian Jones.
But she
lets him ramble on for two reasons.
First, from
what she gathered at said Halloween party, Killian Jones’s ego could benefit
from thinking there existed a woman who crossed his path, shook hands with him,
did rum shots with him and was not, for weeks after, plagued by his stupid blue
eyes and his even stupider smirk and the ghost of his warm hand at the small of
her back and his hot whisper in her ear, running a hilarious commentary with
the true (or so he said) facts of the stories David was telling about his year
abroad.
Second,
Emma is not that woman. But he doesn’t need to know that.
“Oh,
Killian,” she says finally and tries not to let her grin at his sigh of relief
slip into her voice. “Hey. Don’t remember giving you my number.”
“That would
be because you didn’t. I swiped it from David’s phone,” he says with very
little guilt in his tone.
“Oookay.
And why did you go to all that trouble?”
“Because I
need you to help me save Christmas.”
Emma
laughs. And then laughs some more. And then snorts and wipes at the moisture in
her eyes. And then she plops down on the couch with another little laugh for
good measure.
“I’m sorry,
I thought you said you need help saving Christmas.”
“I did.”
He doesn’t
sound annoyed with her per say but he sure sounds impatient and ready to get
down to business. The Christmas saving business. The business Emma is sorely
unqualified for.
“Listen, Jones.
I don’t know what you’re talking about but you’ve definitely come to the wrong
person.”
Written for @cutieodonoghue back in February for the CSSV exchange to the prompt of: “I just came out of surgery and I’m convinced you’re my partner but you’re the just the long suffering (and super hot) trainee nurse” AU.
Pairing: Captain Swan AU (also features Snowing, Ruby, Liam Jones, Mulan, Sneezy/Tom, mention of Mulan Rouge, mention of Milah, mention of Walsh)
Rating: PG-15 (angst, UST and mutual pining)
Summary: It should have been the simplest of skip grabs, but clearly her life wasn’t meant to be simple. Now she’s banged up and stuck in a hospital bed in the care of a disturbingly attractive male nurse who sees her as a captive audience for his terrible puns. Like she said, her life clearly wasn’t meant to be simple. (mention of minor injuries, mention of supporting character death)
Author’s Note: How do you know when a story has officially gotten away from you? When the first two chapters are 5,000 words each and the third (and final) chapter is 12 words short of 13,000, that’s how. Ah, oops? Thank you so much to @cutieodonoghue who has been waiting since February for me to finish this story – I hope this last instalment makes you smile! Thanks to @scribblecat27 and @i-know-how-you-kiss for casting their eagle eyes over this chapter for me. Any mistakes that remain are all mine!
It All Starts With a Dance 