Emma lifted her head, flipped her pillow over, and punched it before flopping her head back onto it. She closed her eyes, counting to fifty. She rolled onto her back, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes hard enough to see spots, groaning in frustration.
There was just no possible way she was going to fall asleep.
Finally, she sat up with a determined frown and swung her feet down onto the cold floor. She reached for the extinguished candle on her bedside table, then thought better of it, leaving it where it was. Emma pulled on her robe and walked over and carefully opened her bedchamber door, listening for the footfalls of a night watchman. Hearing nothing, she slipped out into the passageway.
On the eve of their wedding, Killian had been put in a room in a different wing of the castle, far from Emma’s bedchamber. But after so many years of sneaking down to the kitchen for a midnight snack, it was an easy matter for Emma to avoid the watch’s patrol pattern and make her way to Killian’s bedroom, the location of which she’d made a point of memorizing. Ducking into an alcove and waiting until she was certain she wouldn’t be observed, Emma dashed to the door and carefully opened it, letting herself inside. She locked it behind her.
She heard a fumbling sound, and with her eyes straining in the dim moonlight, she saw Killian’s hand shoot out and knock his candle off the table.
“Who’s there?” he said, his voice raspy with sleep.
“It’s Emma,” she whispered, hurrying over to the bed. “Don’t… raise the alarm or whatever.”
Emma Swan, avid reader of romance novels, appreciates them for their vapid characters and incredibly unrealistic settings. She never imagined that she’d ever stumble into one—or that the man she’d find living alone in a mountain lodge would be the male lead in her own story. (Or how quickly it would escalate—and how okay with that she was.)
4.6k | AO3 | Rated M for Mountain Lodge Lovin’ | for @csjanuaryjoy
Though she was an avid reader, Emma wasn’t one for the literary classics. Those were far too stuffy and time-consuming for her and her life. But romance novels—the kind in the checkout line at the supermarket, covered with pictures of over-muscled hunks draped with busty maidens—those were her guilty pleasure, and she hated that she loved them.
Maybe it was the vapid characters that she never got attached to, or the fantastical love scenes that were physically impossible but still arousing, but there was just something so wonderfully fake and cheesy about them that made it the perfect escape from her simple, solitary life.
And she’d read more than enough of them to know that, like it or not, she’d somehow wandered right into one.
It was her own damn fault for getting lost in the woods, she supposed, but it had been a perfect, crisp fall day and the leaves were the most brilliant red-gold against the blue autumn sky.
Until it grew later, with the color of the sky increasingly matching the color of the leaves, and one wrong step had her twisting her ankle on a knobby root, and she was way too far off the trail to even begin finding it while limping.
The sound of chopping wood made her jump at first, but it wasn’t far away and she was willing to risk whatever lumberjack forest person she would find if it meant not having to spend a night in the elements. She knew how to handle herself, after all, and she just needed a ride to her car.
But when she hobbled to the edge of the clearing, she wasn’t at all prepared for the idyllic sight in front of her—not in reality, at least. There was a picturesque log cabin, a trail of smoke coming out of the chimney and light coming from clear windows giving it a homey character. An older but well-maintained pickup truck sat in the driveway. And next to the house, chopping wood, was who she assumed to be its owner.
He was a lumberjack alright, dressed in a plaid flannel, well-worn jeans, and work boots, but where she was expecting Paul Bunyan or the Brawny man, she got the cover of one of her boudoir fantasies.
Tousled, short-cropped, dark hair framed a face that could only be described as ridiculously pretty: large blue eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, and a sharp jaw covered in gingery scruff looked completely out of place in this setting.
The strain of his back muscles against that blue plaid when he hefted an axe said otherwise, though, and the flex of his bicep was visible even from where she was, yards away. The fit of those jeans only highlighted his assets, and when he stood to take a breather, resting his axe on his shoulder, she got a view of the dark hair dusting his chest via the fair amount of undone buttons on his top.
She’d hit her head when she fell, surely. This had to be a hallucination, because all this scene was missing was the scent of a Mountain Lodge candle.
Here is my extremely late gift to @cshappybeginning (okay, it’s not letting me tag you?! Wtf is that?!) for Captain Swan Secret Santa. Once again, I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to get your gift to you!! I really enjoyed chatting with you this past holiday season, and was really excited to work on a nice fluffy Christmas fic for you. I hope it lives up to your expectations, and I hope anybody else reading enjoys it too!
Special thanks to @joneskillian for doing a quick beta on this for me!
So without any further ado (god, I’m horrible for taking so long to post this), here’s some Captain Swan and little CS baby Christmas fluff (and some Captain Charming on the side because I couldn’t help myself!)…
—–
Killian stood against the wall near the stairs, sipping occasionally from the mug of rum-laced hot cocoa as he observed his wife’s frazzled grumbling from their living room floor. Her lap was awash in harsh, colorful lights, a jumbled spiderweb of cords creating a haphazard circle around her.
“You sure you don’t need a hand, love?” He questioned in an amused tone. It earned him a green-eyed glare, though the pout on her face made the menace of it practically non-existent. He took another sip from his warm drink.
“You’re not funny.”
Swallowing, Killian licked at his lips and pushed off the wall. “I’m quite the comedian, actually.” He nodded as he slowly stepped in her direction. “It’s not my fault,” He tiptoed over strands of mismatched lights, coming to a crouch at her side. “Your sense of humor isn’t exactly present at the moment.” At her continued glare, he held out his mug towards her. “Maybe this will help, hmm?”
Aaaah, omg thank you so much for this! I enjoyed talking to you as well during the holidays, and thank you so much for my gift! I’m off to read it right now ❤
Trying to get back into the swing of writing, so voila: 3500 words of mostly porn. It’s the post-4×02 canon divergent smut I’ve always wanted to write. I fiddled a little with canon to get Henry and Elsa out of the loft. Rated E.
Emma stirred into wakefulness and cracked an eye open. The heavy weight of several blankets pressed down on her, but she still felt a bone-deep chill that all the heat and blankets and cuddling from Killian hadn’t been able to touch.
“What’s this?” she heard Killian ask, and she turned her head and focused on him. He was frowning with confusion at a pile of clothes that Mary Margaret was holding out to him.
“Pajamas,” Mary Margaret said like it was perfectly self-explanatory that Emma’s mother would be handing him clothes to sleep in. When he continued to look confused, she huffed. “I’d rather there be someone to keep a close eye on Emma tonight, and I assume you wouldn’t be opposed? You can sleep in Henry’s bed.”
“Where is Henry going to sleep?” Emma asked, her voice coming out in a croak. “He can’t go to Regina’s – she won’t let anyone in the house right now, not even Henry.”
“Actually, he finally was able to speak to her on the phone a few minutes ago, and she wants him to stay over tonight. David’s taken him over there now, and then he’s going to get Elsa a room to rent at Granny’s.”
Emma struggled to sit up, one of the quilts falling to the floor. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” A lot of decisions seem to have been made while she was sleeping, and she was a little annoyed by it. Killian rushed over, prepared to bundle her up again, but she waved him away.
On Mother’s Day, Killian decides to spend the day with his half-brother while Emma receives a mysterious gift that devastates her. In Enchanted Forest flashbacks, teenagers Killian and Liam try to escape the wrath of Captain Ahab and Anne teams up with Davy Jones on an adventurous quest. (KILLIAN CENTRIC)
This chapter includes many flashbacks related to new characters. With this being a Captain Swan story, these flashbacks featuring other characters will ALWAYS be relevant/connected to Emma, Killian and their storylines so I advise readers to keep track of all the information the flashbacks provide.
The wedding had been nothing but a grim affair.
Anne had expected more pomp and grandeur, but the kingdom of Thevor was in
reconstruction after the Golems War and the royal family had been forced to
engage in sensible cost containment – why the Lesters had waited to reveal that
only hours before the wedding was a mystery to Anne, one that had left her even
more apprehensive. Her father, however, hadn’t thought much of it. He was so
focused on having her daughter marry a prince that he had even agreed to bear
the total cost of the wedding under the condition that he should become the
rightful owner of a considerable amount of royal lands in Thevor.
The ceremony itself had been the single worst
moment of her life, pain slashing her heart as tears pricked her eyes the
entire time. None of it was what she had once imagined: from her hideous dress
and all the irrelevant people in attendance to the pathetic groom she despised.
She tried to think about the many different ways in which all of their faces
would contort with shock and bewilderment the day they realized the princess of
Thevor had abandoned her precious husband and ran away on her own, never to be
seen again. That had helped her hold back her tears.
Summary: Killian and Emma have a rough night with their new baby. ~2500 words. Rated Teen.
Wow, I can’t remember the last time I was nervous to post a fic, but I am straight-up nervous to post this – it is intensely personal, this little fic. Thanks to @j-philly-b for giving it a read through, and to my older kid, I guess, for being a difficult infant. The title is from “She Moved Through the Fair,” because of course it is. Warning for moderately graphic descriptions of breastfeeding, which I found strangely intimate to write for someone who writes so much smut.
Oh and P.S., I’m sticking with the name Maureen. It’s my CS kid name for good or ill.
“Little one, why won’t you sleep? Or eat? Or fucking anything but fucking cry?” Emma whispered, her soothing tone of voice belying the content of her words. She paced the same circle in the nursery for at least the hundredth time, and in her sleep-deprived state, she imagined herself wearing a hole through the wood and the two of them plummeting down, landing in a shower of plaster onto the living room rug on the floor below.
Turning back toward the door, she saw Killian standing in the hallway in his pajamas, squinting against the the lamplight of the room, one side of his hair sticking straight up from the way he’d been sleeping on it. “Do you need help, love?”
She didn’t want to need help. Killian was working at the sheriff’s station tomorrow; he had taken over all of her duties for the next several weeks, and he needed to sleep. She had to handle this herself.
“She won’t stop crying,” Emma said, her voice pitiful to her own ears. “I can’t get her to nurse. She just…” As if to punctuate that point, the five-week-old took a breath and let out an extra loud wail. Emma continued to bounce the baby in her arms, not that it was doing any good.
As requested, here is the first-sex-after-the-baby-is-born Captain Swan smut. Rated Explicit, obvi.
Warning the first: this got long, and clocks in at ~7500 words.
Warning the second: this is what you guys asked me for, so there are some less than sexy, perhaps even unpleasant, things in here of a biological/sexual nature. I think on balance it’s sexy, but I wrote it, and YMMV. Read at your own risk. (Also, this is based as much as memory allowed on my own experiences, not on a thorough, scientific survey of postpartum women, so again, your mileage likely varied. Which is fine.)
Thanks to @j-philly-b for the beta. Probably not her favorite thing that I’ve written, but she read it enthusiastically nonetheless!
Killian stood at the front window, swaying back and forth and patting the baby on the back. It made a satisfying thumping noise, the way his pats resonated in her tiny chest. Sunlight streamed in through the window, warming his face and contributing to the sense of well-being he was filled with, here in his home with his daughter. Maureen nosed against his clavicle through the burping cloth, uttering soft baby grunts as she fidgeted.
A bright yellow car pulled up and stopped in front of the house. “Mama’s home,” he murmured, kissing the top of the baby’s head.
His eyes followed Emma as she let herself through the front gate and trotted up the walk. Her long hair hung loose, cascading over the shoulders of the red plaid wool coat she wore. Her leather jackets were buried in the hall closet (I can’t even zip this one up, she’d moaned of her favorite jacket part of the way through her pregnancy, and he hadn’t seen it since). As the door opened, he turned to greet his wife.
Summary: Modern AU. Emma arrives in Storybrooke to start anew with her life. What she didn’t expect is to find someone there who she met ten years before, in completely different circumstances.
Ratings: General.
Disclaimer: I don’t own either Once Upon A Time, or its characters (I’d like to, at least some of them, but I don’t).
OK guys, this is the end of this journey. I still can’t believe it’s done. And I can’t take all the credits. This story is out here also thanks to my wonderful beta reader @laschatzi. Sandra, thank you again for the patience and for all the time you spent helping me, and thank you for being this amazing person that you are. You deserves all the best, sweetheart!
Yeah, I know, writers write for themselves and not for the public, which is in part true. This story had been talking to me for months before I decided to put it into words (and pictures), and I felt the need to externalize it. But without all of you who enjoyed reading it, it wouldn’t have been the same. Through this fic I had the possibility to make new frendships, to get to know and chat with some lovely shipmates, and I think this is the best reward ever! Thank you so much to all of you!
Summary: Modern AU. Emma arrives in Storybrooke to start anew with her life. What she didn’t expect is to find someone there who she met ten years before, in completely different circumstances.
Ratings: General.
Disclaimer: I don’t own either Once Upon A Time, or its characters (I’d like to, at least some of them, but I don’t).
As always lots of thanks to my lovely beta @laschatzi
Thank you so much to all of you reading this story. I can’t believe we are approaching the end of this journey. Enjoy this new chapter, and I’m going to post the last one in two weeks.
Summary: Modern AU. Emma arrives in Storybrooke to start anew with her life. What she didn’t expect is to find someone there who she met ten years before, in completely different circumstances.
Ratings: General.
Disclaimer: I don’t own either Once Upon A Time, or its characters (I’d like to, at least some of them, but I don’t).
And thanks a lot to all of you reading, commenting and liking this story. I read every nice word, every tag, every sweet comment you left; I don’t always have time to answer personally, I’m sorry about that, but I really do appreciate it. Another chapter’s here. Next one will be in two weeks.
cshappybeginning 