ONCE UPON A TIME X READERS

HC: KILLIAN JONES WITH A BUBBLY S/O

- After he had met you in a tavern you owned about a year after Milah's death, he honestly thought you were annoying at first.

- Like he was there in dark waters, seeking revenge for the Crocodile... and you were just smiling there behind the bar counter and seemingly tried to cheer him up with telling jokes and being bubbly.

- You were known to successfully cheer people up who seemed sad or angry up with your smile and way how you talked, and seeing Killian practically clenching his jaw right when he first entered the tavern, you took him as your target.

- You, of course, didn't know what he had gone through - but if they had enough strength to come to your tavern, you would try to cheer them up except they asked you to stop.

- But Killian didn't ask you to stop. At first, he just glared at you whenever you talked to him but eventually you cracked a slight smile from him.

- And somehow, the darkness inside him met the tiniest bit of light because of you and your bubbly and cheery nature - it made him smile for the first time since forever. (Can you hear the Frozen song?)

- And as he got to know you a bit more, he soon came to be a regular in your tavern and his crew teased him for it - everyone saw that there was something warm in his gaze when he looked at you.

- And that something was something he never believed to experience again...

- Love. (Who wants cheese?)

- And one day on a very late night, he was a little bit drunk but not too much so you could talk sensibly.

- He told you about Milah and the Crocodile... and how you had, somehow with your happy nature, erased a big piece of the darkness in him which he had held for a whole year.

- And he didn't say it, but as he had developed feelings towards you, he had feared he's betraying Milah for not hunting down her ex-husband - the coward, the killer, the Crocodile.

- You took his hand on your own and smiled gently at him.

- "I want to help to make people feel better by chatting with them - I've always been like this. I'm glad it worked for you too."

- Neither of you spoke for a bit, but then...

- Killian leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on your lips.

- You were, of course, shocked at first, but then you grinned into the kiss before kissing back - it was something you had dreamed of for a long time but didn't expect it to actually happen.

- And when the pirate pulled away, he truly realized that this is what Milah would have wanted - she wouldn't have wanted him to hunt down the Crocodile, she would have wanted him to move on.

- And now he had.

—

Who wants more cheese?