So I’ve always been wary about writing a Civil War AU for CS because I don’t think there’s anything glamorous about the Civil War, and people like to romanticize it, especially in the South (but that is another topic about remembrance that would be a whole post in and of itself). But I think that the yeoman farmers and mountain homesteaders and women and all of those people whose stories are hidden and who had no stake in the political gains of the war are the most interesting, and Killian and Emma would definitely be that. So there’s my soap-box rant. Thank you for reading, and thank you for commenting and reblogging.
There’s something about morning in the mountains that makes
Killian’s breath catch in his throat.
The mist spirals upwards through the trees and he can’t see
much from the front porch of their cabin, but what he does see is theirs: the
garden by the cabin that Emma tends; the tree-lined path to the brook where
cold, clear mountain water streams by their home; the barn with the horses and
the wagon; the pasture with their sheep and goat; the chicken coop (the guineas
run past the porch and he can’t help but laugh as they chase a dragonfly).
This is a life he never expected to have, and he loves
everything about it.
good news and bad news: good news–update! bad news–i fibbed. it’s gonna be four parts instead of three.
i do apologize for the delay in update; i’ve had some shit, man. but here ya go, the promised angst! i’ve appreciated all of the messages and encouragement and asking after updates, it really helps me writing. thank you for reading my stuff, and thank you for yelling at me (especially those of you who do it so prolifically and in great detail, i love waking up to like 35 messages of hollerin’). this is still for my bk, whom i love madly.
“Hmm?” Emma looked up at Ruby, who was sitting across from her at their coffee shop. They sometimes met in the morning before Ruby’s shifts at the diner when Emma had a light schedule, so when Ruby had texted post birthday latte?, Emma knew she couldn’t say no. Ruby would know something was up if Emma was refusing free coffee, or even coffee she had to pay for. So she texted back an okay and now there she was, desperately hoping Ruby wouldn’t just know what she’d been up to last night with their friend Killian the manwhore.
Wishful thinking.
“I don’t know, your eyes look….big and sparkly. Since you usually only wear mascara, I figured you went out to treat yourself to some lash-defying goodness?”
“Oh, uh. No.” Emma took a hurried sip from her coffee and tried not to look so…satisfied. But dammit, her mind kept drifting to the night before. Flashes of Killian from different angles doing different things. Like having his head between her legs. Or that thing with his fingers all wet with her and smearing on her breast and…yeah.
“New blush?”
Oh God.
Emma shook her head, trying to dispel the image of Killian above her, his eyes boring into hers, looking for all the world like it meant something to him.
“Well, whatever it is, I want in on it.”
You already had it once, Emma thought sourly, and then she started to laugh. Until she started to wonder.
Had it been the same for Ruby?
Had he done the same stuff, made her feel all wanted? Made her feel like maybe there was something more to it than two friends having good sex together?
Did she feel like it was something more than two friends having good sex together?
She
puts him to work, and she ain’t sorry about it, not when she can sit on
her porch and shuck peas and watch someone else do the heavy lifting
(and it doesn’t hurt that he cuts a fine figure as he wields the ax,
doesn’t help that it’s been a while since she felt the touch of a man).
This
land is all that was left when her parents died, and it was what Neal
left when he headed west to avoid the draft (joke’s on him, for if Grant
doesn’t get him the natives just might – can’t talk your way out of a
shifty situation when the two parties don’t speak the same) and neither
Sherman nor Lee is going to get her to give it up. But she can’t keep
it up on her own, no matter how hard she tries, and so she lets Jones
stay.
He’s a hard worker, and she wants to ask him why someone who works
like he does left the fighting, but she understands that it’s bad for
those in the army right now, has heard stories of mass desertion
whenever she goes to town, and so she doesn’t say a work. Instead, she
fixes them beans and cornbread, stretches the meager helping of butter
she’s churned from Betsey, the remaining cow, as far as it goes. She
feeds him as much as she can when she can barely feed herself, but he
fixes the coop so the fox doesn’t get the hen, and he makes sure they
have wood for winter.
She does ask where he’s from, and he tells her
Richmond, and she imagines that he’s well-to-do, from a house with more
than one fireplace and more than one bed (he sleeps on the floor, in her
spare quilt, even if she’s starting to think she’d rather have him in
her bed). He talks about Richmond, though, and never the army, and they
talk about the days before the war, before he came to the valley and
before Neal left (she tells him about Neal, because he listens, and he
tells her about his brother, killed at First Manassass. They talk,
because there’s nothing else to do in the dark, because they’re saving
the candles that they have and the firewood for when they need it most.
One day, when he’s out fixing the pasture fence, she comes to him, and
grabs his collar and presses a kiss against his lips, because she wants
to. And that night, she invites him into her bed, because she wants
to. And he shows her, in all the ways that he can, how a man can love a
woman, and she knows it’s because he wants to as well.
She’s been living alone on this farm long enough to know what sounds normal and what just ain’t right, so she’s out of bed the minute the chickens start to cause a ruckus, rifle and candle in hand (she doesn’t care if she’s in her shift, doesn’t care if General Lee himself is in her chicken coop, she’s got two hens left and she’ll be damned if she’ll let him have one of them).
It’s ten steps to the porch but her rifle’s already loaded and she can hear the click when she cocks it (and so does whoever is out there, because she can hear them too) and she shouts, “Leave my damn chickens alone, you savage” so loudly that it cuts through the night air like an ax through wood, cleaving everything in two.
“Sorry, miss,” she hears him say before she sees him in the low glow of the candle – scruffy jaw and shaggy hair, hands up in supplication, his sleeves tattered and definitely gray (a deserter she thinks but she would desert too if all the rumors about the army were true) “but I was hungry.”
“I’m hungry,“she says, “we’re all hungry, but that doesn’t mean it’s right or fair to take someone else’s food, not in the dead of night like a coward,” she spits out the last part, chin held up and gun steady and something changes in his face, something that makes her trigger finger less itchy.
“But if you promised not to rob me,” she adds, carefully, “I reckon I might share.”
(His name is Killian Jones, and he promises work for food, and he’s damn lucky she’s got near enough cornmeal still to feed his hungry self, but the chicken coop needs fixing and there are larger logs she can’t handle on her own, so she supposes she can share.)
“They
dragged one book out into three movies.
It was overkill.”
“They
were done with the book by the end of the second, Swan. The third delves into other parts of Tolkien
lore.”
Emma
grabbed a handful of popcorn and tossed a piece into her mouth, leaning into
Killian’s side and looking up at him with raised brows.
“Look at
you, learning all about the literature of the Land Without Magic” – she tried
to act serious, but ended up giving a snort and shaking her head – “Tolkien lore? Really, Killian?”
“There’s
a fair bit outside of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It’s not my fault that you decide to only
embrace popular culture.” He leaned back and took the kernel of popcorn that
Emma held between his teeth, grinning at her around it before he closed his
mouth and chewed on it.
“God,
you’re going to be one of those people,
aren’t you?”
“Those people?” Killian repeated with a
raised brow, after swallowing the popcorn.
“Yeah,
the ones that turn up their noses at Harlequin romances and sneer because I
find that one Taylor Swift song really catchy.
Basically, the assholes.”
“Rude,
Swan” – Killian grabbed a handful of popcorn shoved about a third of it into
Emma’s mouth when she opened it to reply.
Emma glared at him, but carefully chewed the food in her now full mouth –
“and I have no idea what Harlequin romances or Taylor Swift are. Perhaps they should be the theme of our next
educational weekend?”
Educational weekend meaning when Emma,
and sometimes Henry and David, set out to teach their pirate about the Land
Without Magic and all of the cultural phenomenon that included.
Last
weekend had been all about Star Wars, but last week Killian had read The Hobbit, and since Emma loved that
book, she had decided to claim this weekend for a private one, so they could
binge watch all three movies.
Surprisingly, the villain of the week had decided to give them the time
to do so. Of course, for some reason
Killian’s taste in this case was horrible, and he actually preferred the
movies.
“Turn on
any radio and you’ll hear Taylor Swift.
And we’re not going to read Harl-” Emma cut off suddenly and turned
suddenly thoughtful. Killian was already
rather creative… but every now and then those Harlequins could get really steamy. And maybe reading them
would be… illuminating. “Scratch that. I’ll check out this month’s offerings. Maybe there’s something good.”
“I look
forward to it.” Killian leaned down and kissed her, the way his tongue teased
hers making Emma melt against him. When
he pulled back, he wore a pleased smirk on his lips. “I still think the movies are better. Because of the extra lore they explore.”
Emma
huffed in mock anger and snuggled closer into him, nestling her head under her
chin.
“You’re
free to have your own opinion – just realize that in this case, it is wrong.”
Thanks to @stunningswan. Because you’re really the love of my life at this point.
3k, M – definitely.
The ball was just like all of the others, boring beyond belief and just another reason to be forced into dress clothes, except for the blonde Killian ran into half way through the night. She was breathtaking, her blonde hair pulled up into an intricate mess of curls but a few strands of hair fell out, framing her face beautifully. The red dress she wore drew all eyes to her the moment she stepped into the room, yet she only had eyes for him. He’d nearly tripped when she walked over, a certain charm he had never seen on a woman before. She’d pulled him aside after their dance-
“I have two left feet, I apologise.”
“The only trick to dancing is finding a partner who knows what they’re doing.”
-her lips finding his an empty hallway, the sound of the orchestra setting him up for the fall. “I never caught your name,” he blushed, taking her hand in his.
She sighed, letting go of his hand before reaching up to wrap her fingers around his collar. “Emma,” she breathed. “Thought you may know me as Emmett,” she smirked, recoiling her arm and punching him square in the jaw before he could realise what she’d said. The punch she delivered was firmer than that of any other he’d received, though it would have been more shocking if he’d stayed conscious.
Emma wonders what the darkest side of her, now, would be. If she were to use that device to parse out all the facets that make up the darkness within her, what form would it take? She already killed her darkness once (and she never wants to think about that moment again, in the clearing, Killian falling to the ground.)
Killian tells her not to worry about these things, not with an evil queen on the loose. Not with Hyde hiding somewhere.
(She wants to laugh. Hyde-hiding. But laughter comes less easily these days.)
Emma Swan is Storybrooke’s local vampire slayer. The last thing she needs is Killian Jones making a mess out of her job with a quest for revenge against a demon that can’t be defeated. // BTVS-inspired AU for crossover day of CS AU Week.
Emma stops by the station before she goes out for the night, taking care of some last minute paperwork so David doesn’t have to. He’s been taking extra shifts lately, trying to make up for all she has to miss to do other things, and Emma has to admit she feels guilty about it. Her finishing the latest filings on noise complaints are just a small favor. Hopefully, it balances the scales a little.
When she walks into the station, though, someone is already there. A man about her age, late twenties or early thirties, is seated in one of the chairs they usually reserve for visitors. He must have gotten in just as David left. With a leather jacket, an earring, and what appears to be eyeliner on, he looks every bit the role of someone up to no good.
“Can I help you?” Emma asks, her voice showing her suspicion. She doesn’t know whether or not to go for her gun or her stake, but the guy is setting off alarm bells. “You know, you could have just called instead of lurked here. We answer our phones.”
“So,” the man prompts instead of answering, eyes flitting up to meet hers. His fingers are tapping a restless rhythm against the arm of his chair, but his other hand is gloved and stiff. A prosthetic, she assumes. “You’re the S-”
“Sheriff,” Emma finishes abruptly, tilting her hip to show the gold star pinned on her jeans. “That’s why I have the badge. And you’re sitting in my station.”
His eyebrows raise. “I figured that much, but I was going to say Slayer.”
It All Starts With a Dance 