Maybe now I can refocus on my CSSNS (which has a deadline 😅)
.. sidenote. I just added a new fic, too, for all my WIPS I'll never complete.. aptly named Graveyard WIPS, on ao3
A virtual bookshelf of my Captain Swan fics! Links are for ao3. You will find:
Finished Works
Unfinished Words
Coming Soon
Some of these pics are.. bad. But I’ve grown in my art attempts, so I keep them to remind myself.. no matter where we start, we always have room to grow.
Finished Works:
Murphy’s Law - 28k words - 8 chapters
Emma dreams about the first 6 seasons of OUAT, and then wakes up to the real world. Except now, weird shit keeps happening.
Alternate Timeline - 143k words - 15 chapters
AKA Captain Swan Kitchen Sink. Enchanted forest, no curse. This was basically a practice document. Test myself, see what I was capable of writing. There are some moments I am so very proud of.. and some that are cringe.
Shipping Wars - 1620 words - OS
Rewrite of Emma arriving in SB in a modern AU. No EF, no magick, no curse, yet canon events stay pretty similar. I meant to continue this, but I can’t bring myself to write Emma with anyone other than Killian, so it’s staying as is. (Belongs in Graveyard WIPS, last on the list.)
Time after Time - 1230 words - OS
Another OS that I meant to turn into something bigger. This one is about 9/11 and nods to the real “man with the red bandana”. Never Forget. (Belongs in Graveyard WIPS, last on the list.)
Regina’s Revenge - 32k words - 8 chapters (part one)
A story about Regina dealing with Cora’s death, and what she could do to break Emma in revenge against Snow. Emma breaking is part two, and is in progress.
Collision - 367 words - OS
Me attempting to write sad emotions, SF breakup. CS ideas on the back burner. (extra chapters belong in Graveyard WIPS, last on the list.)
Pre-Wedding Scene - 569 words - OS
Just a little snippet of Emma and Killian not meeting before their wedding. This led me to write Irish Betrothal.
Heat & Ice - 6k words - OS
No curse AU, Emma finds herself in a frozen pickle, while Hook is struggling through the worst heatwave of his life. Opposites collide.
NYE One Shot - 1500 words - OS
Just a little meet-cute.
Unexpected Miracles - 558 words - OS
Teeny-Tiny OS to help grieve a lost friend.
Irish Betrothal
Two lonely souls separated by thousands of miles somehow find each other in the most unlikely of ways: a blind betrothal. With actual marriage. Getting them there is only half the battle - it's after the wedding where the fun begins.
Extras - Irish Betrothal
Bonus content for IB, currently marked as complete (but absolutely updatable if I find more deleted scenes or if I get inspired in the IB universe).
Unfinished Works: (less details until these are complete)
Chaos (the unplanned pregnancy one)
A one night stand. A coma. And two people who feel drawn to each other. What could possibly go wrong?
Connect the Prompts
The CS story YOU, the reader, directs. Chapter one was a whim from a conversation, and the rest is reader guided. (And this is so. much. fun. to write!)
Virginity for Sale
At 17, Emma decides she’ll sell her virginity as soon as she’s legal..
Lost Memory
Amnesia, witness protection, the fickle memory.. Emma doesn't even know her real name yet.
Smutcapades
Um. The smutty one.. for practice purposes lol (prompts and criticism are welcome)
Graveyard WIPS
I blame Muse for this. So, whenever I find a scrapped WIP, I'll post here.. because I have saves everywhere, and I can never bring myself to fully delete..
Threads of Destiny - Hurt/Comfort for Jrob64. So this starts with a bang and it just keeps going. Jrob64 gave me a bingo card of pain that I used to make a rough plot..
The Journal - My CSSNS ghost story fic for 2023! It all begins with a book lost to time.. A story unfinished, dying to be told
S1Cursed!Killian fic - Now I have to decide if I’m going ahead with the chapter in Graveyard (that got a lot more love than I was expecting), or the story idea that put it in the Graveyard. Or both?
Matty lowers his head into his hands and presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, hard enough that he sees sparks.
He knows it’s not Thom fucking around with anything, because Thom walked out in a mood two minutes ago. Matty heard the front door slam. The odds that he has a change of heart and comes back with a greasy bag of McDonalds and an apology in the form of a McFlurry in roughly an hour’s time aren’t exactly zero, because it’s happened before—frequently in fact—but that was before Brendan, when he and Thom were fighting about stupid shit like who left the candles lit in the living room too long. Matty’s got a bad feeling this time.
And. You know. His feelings are usually correct. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.
He wasn’t specifically trying to shoot all of Thom’s ideas down, but—Matty just wanted to avoid acting rashly, is all. Consider the cases they have. He’s not trying to be a dick about it.
“Leave him,” Brendan says, sitting next to him at the table, rocking on the back legs of his chair. “You know what he’s like.” He shrugs and waves a hand. “Needs to cool off a little.”
Matty heaves a sigh. He’s starting to get a headache. The sheaf of papers they were supposed to be sorting through is sitting in a crooked pile in the middle of the table. Jacob wanders back over from the counter, where he’d retreated when the argument kicked off, and snags the sheet from the top, peering at it again.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with this one,” he says, squinting at it. Most of the papers are just the emails Matty’s printed off. It’s easier to try and sort through their requests this way. They probably need a better filing system. Matty’ll get round to it. Maybe.
Brendan snatches it out of his hand. “Ew, no. Truss, this is the guy who wants to fuck his brother’s fiancé.”
“Wait, what?” Jacob recoils and Brendan stabs at the bottom line of the email. “See? He’s asking for relationship manifestation shit, but half the email’s about how hot he thinks she is and how much he wants a girlfriend like her. If we grant him it based on this request, shit could get fucked up.”
Jacob looks genuinely shocked. He looks at Matty for confirmation. Matty winces. “Probably best not,” Matty agrees. “Could get dicey. Don’t want trouble, you know?”
“Pity,” Brendan shrugs. “Dude was promising major dollar and everything.”
“There must be something we can take on,” Jacob says.
“We need to all agree first,” Matty sighs. “Full coven council decision. You know that.”
Jacob looks troubled. He glances towards the door Thom flounced out of. “You know it’s hard for him at the moment.”
It’s typical for Jacob to try and stand up for Thom. And Matty gets it. Having a job where you magickly fix other people’s lives whilst your own falls apart probably isn’t, like, an “environment conducive to healing” as Jacob is always preaching. Plus Thom’s magick has been going haywire recently. He set the living room curtains on fire last week and he even fucked up the last client meeting they had. Not like, noticeably. But Matty knew there wasn’t a power cut while they were there. Those lights didn’t turn off by themselves. Took a while to calm the client back down after that. It was their first time contacting witches like them, and the guy didn’t exactly feel reassured by being plunged into darkness in the middle of things.
So, yeah, Thom needs to cut that shit out.
But, like, Matty’s not really in a place to tell him to calm down, on account of the whole “stealing his boyfriend” thing. Not that that is even what happened. But it’s certainly the way Thom sees it, apparently, at least when he’s feeling his most bitter. Matty tried really, really hard—he did. But Brendan was inevitable. Literally. Matty’s known since he arrived in Michigan and got the first premonition, tucked into the booth of Skeep’s, ugly wallpaper fading out and Brendan’s laughing face rushing in, that this was where he and Brendan were heading.
You can’t fight the universe. You can work with it. But you can’t fight it. Thom knows that as well as any of them.
He can feel Brendan poking at their connection, feeling out the edge with his mind. Matty opens up to let him in, although what Brendan can’t say in front of Jacob, he doesn’t know.
“Maybe we should pick up a few cases ourselves? Just us two?”
Matty feels his eyebrows shoot into his hairline. Beside him, Briss is still leaning back in his chair, face vacant. He points towards the stove, where the coffeemaker is sitting. WIth a wiggle of his fingers, the water begins to boil. Jacob pulls a face and turns around to pour out the mugs. He can tell when he and Brendan are talking through their connection, mostly because Matty’s never been good at controlling his face. Not so secret communication. He’s gotten better, but Thom gets pissed someties when he spots it too—even if Matty and Brendan are just talking dumb shit. He says it’s rude and isolating. He has a point, Matty knows, but he’s tried blocking Brendan out before and it’s a futile effort. Brendan finds the cracks.
“Just trying to find a solution here,” Brendan huffs, through the connection. It’ll never stop amazing Matty; how strong it is. He can hear the annoyed little breath Brendan isn’t actually taking so clearly.
Jacob comes back with the mugs, which he sets down at the table, steam curling into all their faces. Matty wraps his fingers around the hot ceramic. It’s October and Ann Arbor is dipping into colder temperatures. The light in the kitchen is fading as the evening draws in, turning silvery and slow as it seeps through the kitchen window. Matty hopes Thom wore a coat, before he remembers Thom’s more than capable of keeping himself warm. All that righteous anger, Matty thinks wryly. And his element, obviously.
“Relax,” Brendan tells him. “You’re always wound up so tight, Bernie. Makes me not wanna visit.” Brendan’s telepathic laughter sounds just as bright as anything Matty’s heard out loud. He attempts to shove Brendan out of his head, but Brendan clings on. He can feel what Brendan’s trying to do—
“Isn’t there a sick kid I can cure?” Jacob asks, poking again at the papers.
Matty shakes his head. Jacob pouts about it. They haven’t had an easy case like that in a while.
If Thom doesn’t come back tonight, he’s going to miss their next client meeting in the morning.
Whatever relaxation shit Brendan’s trying to beam into his mind right now, he needs to try and project it harder. It’s not working.
-
Thom comes home after midnight with alcohol on his breath. He went over to Steve’s house, apparently, and had some beers. Matty meets him out on the landing by the bathroom. There’s no half-melted McFlurry in his hand, obviously. No peace-treaty. It’s not that Matty thinks he deserves one, but–
“You gonna be okay for the meeting tomorrow?” Matty asks.
Thom shifts, one foot to the other, and avoids Matty’s eye.
“Bordy.”
“I think I need to take a break for a bit, y’know?” he sighs. “My magicks all out of whack anyway. You should go without me.”
Matty stares at him. “Are you kidding right now.”
Thom shrugs, apologetic. “Sorry.”
There’s a horrible, empty pause.
“Yeah. Me too,” Matty echoes finally.
He watches Thom slip past Jacob’s cracked door and then turns back to his own room. Brendan pulls him into bed with sleepy, seeking hands; gets his mouth on the nape of Matty’s neck, right by his pendant clasp.
“Thom home?” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” Matty whispers.
Brendan hums and nuzzles in.
Matty tries to keep his annoyance and his growing anxiety under control. If Brendan were more awake, he’d be able to sense them, for sure. But Matty doesn’t want to disturb his rest—they’ll all need their strength tomorrow, especially if Thom’s bailing and they’re a witch short. He shuffles away a little, so they’re not touching. Brendan’s already back to snoring, slow and soft snuffles. Matty stops himself from reaching out, even though he so badly wants to. Wants the reassurance of Brendan’s hot skin and barrel chest pressed against his.
If he hadn’t had the visions, would he have had the courage to get involved with Brendan like this? It’s a question he finds himself asking a lot. Brendan and Thom’s breakup was mostly amicable, in the way that most slowly imploding relationships are, recognition on both sides, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t still a betrayal; of bro code at least, if not disturbing the sanctity of the coven. Thom has a right to be mad. Maybe if Matty hadn’t divined it, he would have fought his feelings harder. But even then Briss would have been able to read them, eventually. Inevitable. Whether Matty foresaw it or not.
He’d been a little high when he’d finally admitted it, out on the porch bench in the late summer, Brendan listing into Matty’s side as they watched the sun go down, warm, rusting rays of fading sunlight catching in both their hair. “Briss,” he’d said, voice urgent in a way that only the magicked weed Jacob had charmed for them would allow. “Briss, I think we’re supposed to be together. Also, I really fucking want to kiss you right now.”
Brendan had laughed. He grabbed Matty by the front of his shirt and reeled him in. Nothing ever felt better to Matty than the truth, and that first kiss tasted like the kernel of truth at the center of the universe; big and split-open and all-consuming. Like the first time Matty had been honest in months; the world clicking into place; the clarity that was in his nature to always search for, finally unspooling in a bright red thread in front of him.
If Brendan thinks the whole ‘pre-destined’ thing is weird, he’s never said so. He accepted Matty’s confessions of his visions like they were gifts just for him, and not something Matty had struggled with for months and months; with delight and a hint of smugness. “C’mon,” he’d said, grinning. “You get visions of the future and the stuff you see isn’t, like, clues to save the world, but, like, me and you all happy and shit? That’s pretty cute, Beniers.”
Matty doesn’t control his visions, Brendan knows that. But yeah. It’s not often he gets them regarding his own life. Maybe it means something deeper; something Matty hasn’t figured out yet. Or maybe the universe was doing him this one solid. Matty’s just the interpreter here. It’s not his place to say. But he’s not going to complain when Brendan kisses him so sweetly, that glint of laughter in his eyes each time.
-
“Right,” Matty says, handing the folder off to Jacob, who immediately clutches it to his chest. “Everybody ready to go?”
The space where Thom usually kicks off his shoes by the door is empty. The leather jacket he’s taken to wearing recently is gone from the hook. Jacob glances towards them.
“Truss,” Matty sighs. “He’s not coming.”
“No, I know,” Jacob says hurriedly. “He told me last night. I just—it feels wrong, you know?”
Brendan yanks the zip up on his blue puffer jacket. “If he wants a break, we should give it to him. We’ll be fine without him for one case, right?”
Jacob nods slowly. Matty grabs the car keys off the side. He’s not going to answer Brendan’s question because he’s not so sure. But, he’s guessing they’ll find out. Maybe the hard way. The bad feeling he’s got—this time he can’t tell if it’s just him worrying or an actual premonition. He really hates when there’s no difference.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Jacob and Brendan follow him out the door of 1201.
-
The drive to the client’s house is about an hour. Matty puts on the the radio and fixes it to a country station, which Brendan keeps trying to fuck with, just beause he can with his shotgun priviledges. In the backseat on his own, Jacob mostly stares out the window. Matty keeps on glancing up into the rearview and seeing him look all morose and pained. Jacob’s powers work best when he’s feeling good—all that strength, manifestation, healing stuff needs to come from a place with a positive center. So, yeah, Jacob with a face like an abandoned puppy left in the pound by his owner isn’t exactly a great start.
The client’s house is normal looking—a townhouse walk up with a nice stoop, split into apartments. But appearances can be deceiving. They don’t often run into problems with haunting and ghosts and poltergeists, but it’s definitely not completely out of the question. They’re not the only magickal beings knocking around, after all.
Matty parks the car on the sidewalk and clambers out. The noise of Brendan slamming the car door echoes loudly down the street. Dead, fallen leaves skitter by the curb, whipped up by the cold wind, tumbling over each other.
It’s a Saturday morning, on the run up to Halloween. Matty can see little pumpkins in windows and on doorsteps a few doors down, gaping mouths and crooked teeth. They’re cute, but this place feels too quiet. The wind tickles the hair at the nape of his neck. He wishes he’d worn a scarf.
“Briss?”
Brendan stands in front of the front door, hands shoved in his pockets, head tilted to the side.
“Anything?”
“Hard to say,” Brendan grunts. “Getting a lot of vibes.”
“I’m guessing they’re not good,” Matty says dryly.
Brendan turns around and flashes him a grin, chin still tucked into his puffer jacket. “Gee, how’d you know?”
Jacob comes up behind him. He’s got the folder open in his left arm, flicking through the pages with the other. “Female, 34 years old, run of bad luck, needs help figuring out the cause and how to fix it.” He purses his lips. “Well, that’s vague.”
“Yep,” Matty says. “But last month we really didn’t have a lot of choice of cases.”
Brendan reaches out and presses his palm to the wood of the front door. He grimaces and pulls away after maybe ten seconds. “God, I fucking hate when we come to apartments. Too many voices. Too much shit in the way.”
“But nothing obvious?” Matty asks.
“Nope, not yet.”
They ring the buzzer.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice answers, sharp and demanding. Matty coughs slightly.
“Uhm. Hi, Miss Clarke? We have an appointment with you. It’s uh—” Matty cringes. He always hates this bit, but they really couldn’t come up with a better name. “1201+1 Solutions.” They sound like a professional cleaning company. Matty hates it.
“You’re late,” the woman says. Matty checks his watch. Barely. They got redirected due to roadworks. It’s not their fault.
“We’re very sorry,” he says quickly, trying to sound charming. “Can we come up?”
The buzzer sounds again and the door unlocks with a heavy click. Brendan pushes it open. He gets a foot over the door before he freezes.
“Oh shit. There’s some bad energy in here, dude.”
“Spirits?”
“Maybe. If it is, they don’t wanna be found.”
Great. Matty loves it when things are difficult.
Jacob comes up behind him. “This place reeks of sickness,” he says quietly, right by Matty’s ear. “I don’t like it, Matty.”
Matty squares his shoulders. The prognosis so far isn’t great but they can’t turn around now. It’d be rude and they need the money, not a bad review on their website.
Matty doesn’t have powers like Brendan and Jacob—-he can’t sense things like they do, especially Brendan and his powers as a Medium, but he has intuition, and his intuition is enough to tell him this place is no good.
They tramp up the stairs together. Brendan’s face looks grim.
When they knock on the apartment door, the woman throws it open quickly. Matty’s been brought up to never comment on a woman’s appearance, but she looks….rough. Deep, purple eyebags pressed into her skin, greasy hair, sweatpants with a stain on them, a pinched, harried look on her face.
“Hi Miss Clarke,” Matty says again, “it’s nice to officially meet you–”
“Get in here,” the woman snaps. Matty cuts off. Alright then.
He, Brendan and Jacob file inside. The woman looks them over.
“I thought there were supposed to be four of you,” she says.
“Our colleague is ill today,” Matty lies, trying to sound relaxed about it. “But we’re certain we can still be of help. Can you talk us through your issue again?”
The woman glowers. “Didn’t I already say in my email?”
“It helps to go back through it,” Matty says gently. It’s also always interesting to see if the story changes in any way. Sometimes there’s a clue right there. “If you wouldn't mind.”
She huffs and crosses her arms. “Well. The universe hates me,” she says bitterly. As opening statements go, it’s a strong one. Matty usually thinks of the universe as apathetic at best. It doesn’t, as far as he knows, have personal vendettas. There’s usually something else going on.
“How so?” Matty asks carefully.
“Well, let me count,” the woman sighs. She holds up her fingers, spaced out and starts to count them off. “I got fired from my dream job for literally no reason; my boyfriend dumped me—again, totally out of the blue; I’ve been feeling sick for months but no doctor can tell me what’s wrong with me, and lastly I’ve been served an eviction notice by my landlord. So like yeah—I think I can say the universe hates me.”
Matty catches on the last one. Honestly, all of this could be just a run of incredibly unfortunate coincidences, in which case it’d be a job of some good luck charms, some healing routines and Brendan finishing up by projecting a relaxation aura, like usual.
But the eviction notice makes him pause.
“Can I see the notice?” he asks.
The woman looks at him weird but hands over a sheet of paper from her kitchen counter. It looks pretty official, but despite Matty’s mom telling him he shouldn’t rely on his powers for a living, he didn’t ever go to law school. So, it’s not like he can actually tell whether this thing is counterfeit or not.
He hands the sheet to Brendan, eyebrow raised. Brendan doesn’t need the connection to know what he’s asking. He takes the piece of paper gingerly. The answering flinch is instantaneous and Matty grabs it back before Brendan can fumble and drop it to the ground.
“Bad?”
“Bad,” Brendan confirms, through gritted teeth. Immediately, he’s in Matty’s head.
“Vengeful spirit,” he’s saying, “got an ax to grind. Not good, Bernie.”
It’s not that they’re unprepared for this kind of stuff, but generally, Matty tries to avoid cases like this. They drain a lot of energy, take more time—-and run along the edge of dark magick Matty tries to keep his hands clean from. Plus, Brendan hates using his powers as a medium. It creeps him out, he says, and Matty hates witnessing the aftermath; Brendan’s clammy, gray skin, summer tan faded out of view, how quiet and unnaturally still he is hours later.
“Any more info?”
Brendan sighs. Matty watches him roll his shoulders.
