I Could Use a Love Song Ch. 3: don’t need no reason or happy hour

Chapter 3 of my Country Singer!Emma AU is here. I added a tag on AO3 for alcohol abuse, because while I don’t think we have true alcoholism here... Emma’s coping mechanisms are shit and the heavy drinking isn’t the healthiest. I wanted to make sure that I added that warning here as well. Please don’t use alcohol like Emma does here. I know from experience it’s hella bad news. Find a therapist! This is actual advice, not a joke. For reals. Emma should have just gone to a counselor instead of making appointments with Jose Cuervo and Jack Daniels. If anyone has treated you the way this iteration of Neal treated Emma, talk to someone. If you can’t afford a therapist, talk to me. Seriously, no lie, no joke, I’m only alive today because I eventually adopted a dog and sought counseling to cope with life’s many traumas.

Mmmmkkay enough babbling. 

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Their next few gigs were some of the best in Emma’s (admittedly tequila-hazed) memory, and for once that glimmer of hope for that future of fame and fortune… well, it felt like a hell of a lot more than a glimmer.

The crowds had been rowdy, raucous, and ready to sing along to every song on their whole set. A few people even more some of the merch Killian had started selling at the door, nothing fancy of course, but it made her heart burst with pride nonetheless.

It had all gotten so real, so achievable, so close to everything she’s been dreaming about before she ever really knew that dreams were a thing that could come true.

So of course something was about to bring back the quasi-comfort of her life always reverting to being a waking nightmare.

That was a deeply melodramatic way of putting it – it’s not like she was being beaten or shamed or any of the daily torments her tiny town had ensured were burned into her brain. But that was the problem with the past, wasn’t it? It wasn’t over, even when it was. Those days were past but they would always somehow be present, replaying in her brain and aching in her heart no matter how far from Pennsylvania their little van puttered.

(Whoever said you can’t go home again neglected to mention how hard it was to leave it, even after you’d physically gone.)

I Could Use a Love Song (2/22): where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases

Pairing: Emma Swan/Killian Jones (AU) Words: 3k(ish) Rating: T for this chapter, I’d say. (M overall) Chapter Summary: The band’s first day with their new roadie gets off to a shaky start.

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Having grown used to shitty sleeping situations through foster homes, homelessness, couch surfing, and now touring, Emma awoke the next morning refreshed and ready to fight.

Yep, fight. Because the prior evening she’d been exhausted and hovering in that weird stage of drunk where you’re basically pre-hungover, and life had thrown a hot roadie at her. Except it wasn’t life that had done that. It was David. David who in the year of our lord 2019 most fucking certainly had a cell phone and could have shot her a text that a stranger was going to crash her quiet night alone.

Not that Killian crashed in any sense beyond sleep. They were seemingly both out before even the first song had finished playing through her speakers and he was still eyes-closed and breathing steady now that Emma was crawling over the seat and out the door, dead set on properly raging about the ridiculousness of this decision in addition to the lack of communication that shouldn’t exist among people who literally write words for a fucking living.

Seriously. How hard is it to send a text? Don’t wanna do your dirty work yourself, you can just tell Siri to piss of your bandmate on your behalf.