A Sprinkle of Fairy Dust
Part One
Rating: T
Summary: After a flawless track record spanning centuries, Green is one misstep away from reassignment.
Her current case should be simple: bring love to two lonely souls. The problem is that Emma Swan and Killian Jones keep missing each other - even when she practically drops them on top of one another.
Apparently, creating destiny is easier than convincing humans to be brave.
@anmylica , @deckerstarblanche , @elfiola , @jonesfandomfanatic , @jrob64 , @kmomof4 , @pirateswhore , @snowbellewells, @stahlop , @teamhook , @tiganasummertree , @undercaffinatednightmare , @xarandomdreamx , @zaharadessert
Chapter 1: Green
Being a fairy is a right pain in the ass these days.
Moments that should reshape your charges’ lives are missed while screens demand their attention and suspicion settles in where curiosity used to live. Strangers no longer become friends, and so friends never become lovers. Few even recognise our existence anymore, which makes interfering in their lives a tricky business.
Her birthday wish should have been heart breaking.
Nearly thirty years of life and she stood alone in her kitchen, lighting a candle she had bought for herself and hoping - however faintly - that the flame might carry away the loneliness for one night.
But what rushed through me when I felt the wish echo between us was not heartbreak.
It was exasperation.
And when, five minutes later, a drunken wish from across the city vibrated through the same air- vague, restless, full of that familiar sense that something was missing - my exasperation sharpened into proper annoyance.
These two were going to be the end of me.
For months now, I have been pulling them together through chance meetings and carefully engineered proximity.
And what do I have to show for it?
Two miserable souls yearning blindly for one another.
Just this morning, they sat next to one another for a twenty-minute commute. Twenty minutes of the train jostling them close enough that even a human might have recognised opportunity.
He noted how strikingly beautiful she was as he settled into the seat beside her. I saw the way his gaze lingered while she pretended to be absorbed in the thick novel in her hands. I thought we might finally gain traction when he leaned too far into her to avoid being struck by a man carrying a bag of golf clubs down the aisle and murmured an apology in that warm, soft-accented voice of his.
She smiled.
And then she buried herself in her book rather than risk being captured by the perfect gentleman — her forever, her capital T, capital L, True Love — sitting beside her.
When the train stopped at his station, he stood. He hesitated — I will grant him that — and then he left her there, the woman who would change everything, continuing on her journey as though nothing had shifted.
These bloody fools.
The first meeting was a work of art, if I do say so myself.
Hundreds of commuters flooded the platform at once, hurrying toward their separate obligations, and I nudged the current just enough to draw them into the same line. They reached the gate together, tickets in hand.
And then — somehow.
(Me. I am the how.)
His ticket slipped from his fingers.
She bent to retrieve it.
Their hands brushed.
Their eyes met.
It sparked. Not theatrically. Not with choirs of angels. But enough that I felt it from the bench where I sat, a few paces away. And then I blinked.
They were walking in opposite directions, continuing their days as if nothing of consequence had happened.
With their shared wish, however, fairy law permits escalation.
I debated my options. The tried and true co-worker route was tempting. Forced proximity. Shared deadlines. The slow erosion of emotional resistance over office coffee.
But a brief survey of their routines revealed that co-workers rarely brush shoulders these days. Offices are half-empty. Conversations are conducted through emails that carry more irritation than intimacy. There is very little room for romance to bloom in a space where everyone is already halfway out the door.
Of course, Blue does not accept such explanations.
She never has.
“External factors,” she said, folding her hands atop the file as though the phrase itself were something fragile, “are rarely the determining variable.”
Rarely.
I nearly laughed.
External factors are everything. Humans have constructed entire lives around avoiding the very circumstances that once made romance inevitable. They do not gather in ballrooms. They do not stroll through markets. They do not linger over meals unless it is scheduled weeks in advance and confirmed by a calendar invite.
But I did not laugh. I remained composed. I am a true professional, thank you.
“Green,” she continued - and I dislike it when she uses my name that way, like she sees into my soul and as found it wanting, “your intervention yield has declined by twelve per cent this quarter.”
Intervention yield.
As though love were as easily measured as a revenue stream.
She turned over a few pages in the heaping file. “And while we appreciate your historical consistency, the board has expressed concern.”
The board.
There is nothing so demoralising as being discussed by individuals who have not set foot on a commuter platform in two centuries.
“I have not violated regulation,” I said. I did not raise my voice. I did not bristle. I stated a fact. “No compulsion. No direct prompting. No emotional override.”
“Of course,” Blue replied. “That has never been in question.”
Which is worse. Because if it is not recklessness, then it must be inefficiency.
She leaned back slightly in her chair. “We would like you to evaluate your approach.”
Evaluate. Such a benign word.
I asked her — calmly — what precisely she would have me do. Force eye contact? Whisper coffee invitations into their ears? Stage a power outage in the carriage?
“Be creative,” she said.
As though I have not already demonstrated creativity of the highest order.
The pub grows louder as the evening thickens. A group squeezes past my table, coats damp from the rain. One of them apologises without looking at me. I stare at the condensation on my glass and consider the absurdity.
“Be creative.”
I have been creative. The ticket drop was creative. The carefully misaligned train schedules were creative. The near-collision at the café door in November — brilliant, frankly.
And still they circle one another like magnets held just far enough apart to resist the pull.
Blue suggested “a performance improvement plan.”
Which is the sort of phrase that sounds supportive until you realise it means supervision. Shadowing. Metrics. A case review committee.
I have not required oversight in three hundred and twelve years.
And yet here we are.
Perhaps I should have chosen the co-worker route. Forced proximity can wear down even the most stubborn resistance. But she works remotely three days a week. He travels unpredictably. Their industries are adjacent but never intersecting.
I ran the permutations.
Every path relied, eventually, on courage.
And that is not something I am permitted to supply.
I can tilt probability until coincidence borders on absurdity.
I cannot make a human risk humiliation.
I cannot make her believe she is worth choosing.
I cannot make him believe rejection will not undo him.
Blue would say that is not my role. Blue would say that if the connection is strong enough, they will act.
Blue has not watched them hesitate.
I have.
The first time, I told myself it was timing.
The second time, nerves.
By the fourth month, it began to feel personal.
Twelve per cent.
I rest my forehead briefly against the cool glass of the window beside the table, watching the rain distort the streetlights outside.
I am not incompetent. I am not careless.
I am operating in an environment increasingly hostile to vulnerability.
And apparently, that is my problem. Sighing, I abandon the empty pint glass in pursuit of another.
There was not enough alcohol in London to close this case.
Chapter 2: Emma
For the record, my life is not pathetic.
It is perfectly normal - and not at all sad - at twenty-nine to forget your birthday.
Birthdays are the height of excitement as a kid. Parents buy extravagant gifts, organise large birthday celebrations, and mark the day their highly anticipated child entered the world. My parents were less inclined to deliver such joy. To be fair, they kindly refrained from causing much pain, punishing missed curfews, and laying on impossible-to-meet expectations.
Absentee parents have their benefits.
And my dead parents were the king and queen of absenteeism.
So, when my phone buzzed with an alert: All day: Emma Swan Birthday.
The squeeze in my chest was not shocked sadness; rather, a momentary panic that I’d forgotten something important.
The cupcakes looking at me sadly from their plastic packaging on the counter were a nod that I did, in fact, consider myself important, Dr Hopper. Not some tragic attempt to acknowledge the day.
Whispering "Make a wish, Emma" before wishing for this ache in my heart to subside and blowing out the single candle that had somehow found its way onto one of the cupcakes was not a bleak ending to a long Thursday.
It was absolutely, completely, totally normal.
Fortunately, the sweet red wine pairing prevented the scene from being pathetic.
This is prime adulthood. Healthy coping, even.
Few things pair as well as judgmental chocolate cupcakes and red wine.
Scooping up the harbinger of unnecessary notifications and the wine bottle (being alone means no sharing - zero evidence of a sad life here, thank you), I took this impromptu party to the couch, where Netflix could happily join the festivities.
Whether the half-empty bottle of wine or the beautiful fantasies of romance I subjected myself to by turning on the newest season of Bridgerton were more to blame is unclear. A debate for scholars to carry out for ages to come, surely.
Either way, the wine or the lies, soft blue eyes of a specific hue I would know anywhere slid into my thoughts - Train Guy.
It wasn't the colour (cerulean with the endless depth of a cloudless summer sky) that held my thoughts tonight. (Although it often was.)
It was the way they sparked whenever our gazes did happen to meet.
Always the same. I look up - an innocent scan of the coach while I skip to the next song, before returning to my book. Not to look for him. For Train Guy. No, never to find him, of course, but among the other dozing or zoned passengers, his sharp, aware gaze would catch anyone’s attention.
Our eyes meet - snagged and sudden, like a pocket caught on a door handle. And for a moment, everything stills. Then, a tingling sensation travels through my body - embarrassment? - and I turn my attention back to reading.
Only, the handsome duke in need of a difficult-to-reach, strong woman to break him of his roguish ways starts to look suspiciously like Train Guy. The wanton things he does to her are suddenly more enticing than ever before. The words disappear into fantasies that even the most brazen authors would never put to paper.
Whenever our eyes inevitably meet again, after the loudspeaker announces his station, my face will be too hot and my stomach clenched so tight that I am certain he knows exactly what thoughts he has just starred in.
He steps off the train and disappears with the morning fog, a distant memory.
I continue staring at the page a bit longer before I put away the book in a huff. I read emails and work chats in preparation for the day. His eyes, the tingling, my daydreams, all a part of my daily commute.
Maybe tomorrow could be different. The thought came to me as if whispered by someone else. I was now a year older. I could greet a stranger on the train.
He was hardly a stranger, after all. What, with the multiple eye-contact episodes and such. I would just nod, say “Morning”, and move along.
That was a perfectly reasonable interaction with another commuter. Not strange at all.
So why was my stomach suddenly feeling very strange?
- - - - - - - -
The pounding headache accompanying me for my morning commute was cruel retribution for merely recognising the date of my birth. Maybe I’ll delete the event from next year’s calendar. Do Future Emma a favour.
The usual screaming between stations was bearable with earphones. Today, however, the high-pitched shrieks rattled in my skull. I clutched at the support bar, despite sitting down. It did nothing to ease my suffering.
Would it be better just to have a quick, painless aneurysm? It would have to be, right?
The train stopped- not that I was paying attention enough to hear where, and people filed in, more than usual. Was there an event on? There had been an email about a marathon a few weeks ago, hadn’t there?
A shoulder bumped into me, jarring my throbbing head. I ought to shove my shoulder right back into their side. Spread this morning’s misery.
“Oh, sorry, lass,” the gently accented words sent goosebumps down my back and arms even as they spread warmth through my chest. I loosened my grip on the support bar to further bask in…whatever this was.
“No worries,” I answered automatically. The turn and half-smile were a bonus - little prizes for being kind when most people would act like the bump never happened. This smile didn’t even land in grimace territory, which was a feat considering this morning’s, well, everything.
This gentleman had better appreciate the effort I’m…
When I faced him, I realised he was already looking at me - not at his phone, the newspaper, or into space.
His eyes were locked on mine.
What happened to all the air? I fought to breathe in a normal-ish way.
Cerulean eyes.
And rather than the calm, collected “Morning” of a self-possessed woman greeting a man on a train, my dry throat produced a cracked “Oh, fuck me.”
Chapter 3: Killian
Fuck it, what was another pint? Or two?
A terrible idea.
Naturally, I ordered anyway.
After five, erm, six pints, I staggered home, glared at my monitor - overflowing inbox, open report, chats with angry red bubbles - and fell into the desk chair.
Such was life.
Work until it shattered you. Drink until the edges were dulled. Return and repeat.
It was not a glorious life, but it was the one I was living. And as such, it was mine.
Bloody hell. There was meant to be more. Life cannot be…this.
Must have been six pints. A master of poor decisions, was I.
The boredom was less brutal at five pints.
The room spun less at five pints.
Six was the killer.
I held my head in my hand. The room spun anyway. The text on the screen was impossible. It was time for bed.
Alone.
Again.
“I’d give up drinking altogether to have someone occupy the other side.”
The empty room did not respond. The blanket was cool as I pulled it around me.
Mercifully, sleep claimed me.
- - - - - - - -
The edge of the platform was tempting. It would certainly put an end to this infernal headache.
Hangovers were a young man’s punishment for foolishness. I was no longer young. Clearly, I remained a fool.
A train banged into the station, and a push of people carried me through the doors. The third set of doors from the arch. I allowed the crowd to shove me along, landing in the centre of the carriage.
Bloody marathoners.
Normally, I would have claimed my usual standing place near the doors, running through reports and to-do lists as I journeyed.
If fortune felt particularly generous, I might catch sight of a familiar head of blonde hair bent over a novel somewhere further down the carriage. The Green-eyed Lass.
The space around her was always different - a calm sea in the midst of the storm of commuters. I was drawn to her as she devoured book after book each week, the steady rhythm of it becoming as familiar as the commute itself. I could never decipher the title. Asking was obviously out of the question.
She would look up at me before I disembarked from the train. I might linger a moment longer than other passengers, just in case. Our eyes would meet.
My workday static would quiet, and my shoulders would relax. I’d exhale - long and steady.
I’d lick my lips to say…something. The words never came.
So I would step into the busy world. Noisy and full of demanding clients, once more.
Today, however, there was no elegant routine to settle into.
The carriage lurched forward as the crowd shifted again. I was jostled further inside by a wave of overly enthusiastic runners and their supporters.
Bloody. Marathoners.
I landed heavily on the passenger already sitting there. A sharp complaint from my shoulder suggested that I’d left quite a mark of my own.
When I turned to apologise, my stomach dropped.
Her blonde waves usually half-hid her face while she was tucked into a novel. Today, her face was completely obscured. She seemed to be clinging to the safety bar for dear life.
An unbidden smile tugged at my lips. If I didn’t know better, I would guess my dear Train Lass was battling against her own hangover this morning.
…and I had just crashed fairly hard into her side.
Turns out, there was lower still to fall.
“Oh, sorry, lass.”
For the collision. For her hangover.
A twinge in my chest formed as she tensed and turned to face me.
She would be angry. Hell, I would be pissed if someone knocked into me without a hangover. I would declare vengeance to be served for the wrong. Or at least note the perpetrator and make sure to walk slowly in front of them whenever our paths crossed again.
She smiled at me; it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Those striking green eyes locked on mine.
The first time she’d looked at me like that was months ago - when she’d stepped off at my station to return the ticket I’d dropped.
I hadn’t dropped a ticket.
Our hands brushed as I accepted it anyway.
She disappeared before I could thank her. I expected her to say something.
Shit, I was meant to say something, wasn’t I?
Today, however, they widened in… horror?
Surely I wasn’t such a villain? That the very sight of me made her cringe.
“Oh, fuck me,” she huffed out, annoyed.
Well, fuck.
Maybe I was.
