an important date
it's Friday and it's Colin's birthday....I had to do something!! Just a bit of a post-canon Captain Charming scene, inspired by this prompt: "We both meet at the bar at a birthday party but we don’t even know who’s birthday it is. I think it’s yours, you think it’s mine." 1.1k, rated T | AO3
The Rabbit Hole was…well, the Rabbit Hole—its usual divy self. It wasn’t where Killian would typically expect to find David, least of all on the prince’s birthday.
At least—he thought that’s what Emma had said? She’d all but shoved him out of the station that evening, with the direction to meet her father here for a “birthday drink”. Of the birth dates he’d memorized (and would never forget—Emma’s, Henry’s, Hope’s), he realized he was severely lacking when it came to his in-laws.
But perhaps David’s would be easier to remember, given its proximity to his own. Or, rather, when he thought his own was; the actual date was long since lost to time, realm travel, and changing calendars, and it had been centuries since he’d actually done anything to mark the date, but he remembered it being in spring.
Really the only fond memory he had of the day was picking fresh wildflowers with his mother, the light scent filling their small house, and the sweet taste of the modest cake she’d baked. When the hyacinth began to bloom in Storybrooke, he was always taken back to that day, and generally used that milestone to mark the passing of his years—but he’d lived enough of them that he needed no extra celebration or recognition.
As it was, the first shoots of spring had only just begun to emerge, so by his math, that put David’s birthday—or whatever today was—a few weeks ahead of his own. Good to know.
He scanned the bar for his mate—squinting a bit harder than he’d like to admit in the dim light (further evidence of the passage of time, he presumed)—almost missing him at the far end of the counter, until David waved at him.
“Evening, mate,” he greeted as he slid onto the barstool next to his father-in-law. “Not your typical scene, eh?” he added, nodding towards the rest of the bar, where all manner of seedy goings-on (well, as much as ever happened in Storybrooke) were happening—things the deputy sheriff should probably be concerned with, but he was off the clock (and had no room to talk).
David shrugged. “I’ve been known to pass the occasional night here—cursed and not cursed. Having royalty around seems to keep things calm.”
“Aye, but you’ve never been here with a pirate,” he winked back, even if it had been ages since he’d anything resembling a rowdy night. The most exciting his had been lately were the times that they managed to get a teething Hope down early enough to squeeze in some intimacy, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Emma’s father.
“No,” David agreed. “But I figured I could manage for one night. To mark the occasion and all.”
“Aye; it does warrant that. My apologies for not knowing the date sooner—happy birthday, Dave.”
But instead of the customary thanks, David just tilted his head at him, brow furrowed in confusion. “Huh?”
Bloody hell—had he misheard Emma? “We’re here to celebrate your day of birth, are we not?”
“No; my birthday is in July—so now I kind of am offended,” David replied, though his tone was light. “Wait—did Emma not tell you?”
“She told me to meet you here for a birthday drink—I assumed that meant it was yours.”
“No, man—it’s yours.”
“Come again?” He’d never so much as commented to anyone, including Emma, the whereabouts of birth date; so how would either of them, least of all David, have known?
David explained, “Remember near the end of her pregnancy, when her magic was kind of overpowered and she was trying to release it?” How could Killian forget? He spent a whole week with blue hair, and trying to keep Pop-Tarts from flying around the house. “Apparently during that, she was trying out a bunch of easy, informational spells; there was one about revealing birthdates. Turned out mine was off by a couple of days. But yeah, she did yours, too; she never mentioned it?”
Killian was momentarily speechless. Not out of betrayal or anything—things were rather chaotic leading up to Hope’s birth, so he didn’t blame Emma for letting it slip her mind—but moreso that it had been able to be determined.
And, despite the last several years being filled with things such as True Love, marriages, and more family than he’d ever imagined having, he was still touched by the idea that anyone cared enough about him to know the date he’d entered this world (or whichever world it was)—and even more that they wanted to acknowledge it.
“Uh, no,” he said, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. “I seem to recall her pregnancy brain was pretty bad then,” he quipped, hoping to lighten the moment. “So—really? Today?”
“Today,” David confirmed. Killian thought back to the wildflowers—then recalled that he grew up in a far warmer climate than Maine’s, perhaps the reason for his miscalculation.
(Also: he now understood why Emma had woken him with morning sex that day. That was never something he’d question, though—and also something he wouldn’t dare mention in present company.)
The barkeep then set two glasses of amber liquid in front of David. He slid one across the worn wood to Killian, then raised his own. “Happy birthday, Killian. To the best son-in-law—best friend—a man could ask for.”
Killian clinked his glass against David’s and quickly took a sip, hoping it might wash down the lump that had formed in his throat. Alas, it didn’t—but at least it was there with good reason. “Thank you, mate; and, uh, the feeling is mutual.” It wasn’t often words escaped him, so hopefully his father-in-law picked up on the weight of the emotion in his voice; he tried to find David’s eyes, but was overcome with an odd bashfulness he hadn’t felt since youth.
David just gave a gentle chuckle and a solid, brotherly thump on the shoulder, before attempting to down his own shot of rum—which brought on laughter of a different kind, but it broke the bit of tension.
They shared another drink after (whiskey; far more palatable to the prince), before leaving to their respective princesses—and sharing perhaps a stronger embrace than Killian had originally intended, but it was certainly called for.
As sweet as his memories from childhood were, it was nice to add this one to the collection of birthday remembrances—the first in so long. (And, as he eventually found, not the last—not by a long shot—in the many years to come.)
(However, he still refused, in all those celebrations, to tell David the way Emma preferred to mark the occasion.)
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[thanks for reading, and happy Captain Charming Friday! tags below cut]
