Hello lovelies! This is a story based completely on one hundred and thirty-six give or take prompts I have taken for the pairing Captain Hook/Red Riding Hood from the show 'Once Upon a Time'. Each prompt differs in length and time period in their relationship, so every one will be different. Hope you enjoy!

~D.o.t.B.

abandon

"Killian, get out."

"Red-."

"Do I have to say it again?" She hates the way her voice cracks in the chilled air, forcing the hatred of his heat of his eyes of his voice of his warmth of his everything she won't let herself have.

"Just listen to me for a second, Red-."

"Why should I? You left me just like everyone said you would, you broke my heart just like everyone said you would, and now you're coming back and begging for forgiveness just like everyone said you would. So why should I?" She doesn't like this, being mean to him, but it's not her fault it's his. He left, she didn't; hell, she even tried to follow until she realized what an idiot she was being. It wasn't until it dawned on her what a completely useless pathetic little girl he'd turned her into. It stabs her like that, the carved sadness nested inside, sudden and sharp as ice.

"You abandoned me. I don't know if I can ever let you come back, so get out. For the both of us, leave. Pull along some other girl and tell her how happy she makes you, how amazing she makes you feel inside, how her smile is the only reason your heart beats, and leave her like you did me and move on to someone else, again." There's nothing but a canyon of silence from him before words run from his lips, liquid blue and salty with weight.

"I don't want to be with some other girl. I want you, and that's what scares me, not the wolf in you, just you. That's why I-."

"Give me one good reason." There's a drought when he doesn't speak, cracking with dust and chapped lips as she waits.

"I can't say it." He wants to, and she wants him to, but the last person he said it to had their heart ripped out of their chest, those very words pulled on their last breath.

"I'm sorry."

"Get out."

allow

This just isn't very fair, the way she most definitely knows that he's looking and lets him; lets his eyes graze her hellish lips and the warm curve of her skin and flit to the speckled tension of her eyes when his own lips cannot, and his own skin cannot, and his eyes can barely meet hers without some expansion in lust.

But she lets him live in her family's bed and breakfast, lets him work in her family's diner, and lets him eat his worth there; so he has no room to risk anything. He won't let himself touch her, won't allow himself room to break her heart, because if he did he doesn't know what on Earth he'd do without her.

So he'll sit and itch and curse himself, even when it's all her fault.

God help him if he ever says something about it, let alone acts upon it.

anticipation

"Stop it."

"Excuse me?"

"Stop it."

"Stop… what?"

"You know."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do."

"Uh, no I don't. Why, what's the matter?" With a face made of unbroken stone he stares completely unaffected into her albeit stunning shards of an ocean's eyes, he speaks, voice steeled and level.

"Nothing." And then proceeds to walk with a completely undaunted swagger out of the diner heading towards his room, there he rests himself by lying in a nine hour comatose field filled with little sleep and an island's worth of self hatred.

He gets away with it for half a week before some thing like it happens again.

"How do you get away with walking around in that?"

"In what? You mean my uniform?"

"That might be a uniform but I wouldn't call it one for waitressing." There's teeth in his voice that he never meant to have, but they've already slipped in by defense, encouraging the anger in Red.

"Oh yeah? We'll I'd like to see you juggle this many plates and memorize this many orders and somehow live off a French fry of a tip, but oh wait, that's right. You're living off of us, we have given you food, shelter, and water in case you forgot, in exchange for work; which I remind you, we don't really need, so get back to the kitchen Killian." She stomps away, her platinum heels a war drum in the lobby as he starts in early on his self loathing, because apparently he didn't get enough to learn his lesion.

He avoids her after that; it's the best result of his idiocy that he can think of. Well, he avoids her after he leaves her a slice of someone else's order of cherry pie and a note that's has 'sorry' written on it. She deserves better, but this is the best he can do, for now at least.

Two days later of course she corners him in the back where he is trying to find the freshest bread they have, and most definitely not thinking about her, when she clears her throat with hands perched on her far too bare hips.

"How can I help you?" His tone is anything but helpful, only hopeful to satisfy her and get her away.

"Depends, did you get that stick out of your ass?" His lack of reply with a small pinched mouth and locked eyes is answer enough.

"Well then. Are you at least going to give me some sort of explanation about what's been going on with you lately?" He doesn't answer again but it doesn't work as well as it did last time, seeing as it's only met with her staring back, cracking his resolve bit by bit.

"… I just think that a woman such as yourself shouldn't wear outfits like that." He realizes how wrong it is that he just said, but she's already angry enough.

"Excuse me? I wear what I want thank you very much-."

"That's not what I meant, Red-."

"Then what did you mean?"

"I don't want you attracting unwanted attention. Men are weak and you are…" amazing, fantastic, brilliant, willful, stunning as the sea "Strong." Her voice's softness makes his heart beat in a lull it shouldn't, comforting in the way a lullaby should be.

"I can handle creeps y'know." Her words are tiny thorns but her voice remains smooth as a weathered stone.

"You shouldn't have to." An unspoken every man should be a gentle man to you falls along his words, but he captures them and hides them away.

"… Thanks." Only then does he realize his eyes have been stuck to the target of her lips, something he tries to pull away from. His eyes meet hers again as he speaks one last time.

"Goodnight Ruby."

He can't quite ignore her anymore, but that doesn't stop him from lying in his bed anticipating nine more hours of cursing himself out.

armor

Weeks after their big fight and she's kept her word, and has made no notion to see him and he's kept away on her wait so as not to hurt her. It hurts him like salt in a fresh wound and he tries to keep her with him, but she's falling like water through his fingers, falling away from him no matter how he tries to hold her. He's not leaving her, it was one small thing he'll regret 'til God knows when and he'll stop the world to make sure he never does it again.

So he stays, not in her room or even his room at the bed and breakfast and even without any friends, he stays. Even if it's in a wreaked old house, he stays. Even without much food or water, he stays. Even despite all the heated glares and spitted words from everyone who lives there, he stays.

She is beyond worth it, so he stays.

And when there is a moment where she sees him, ragged and rotten and rained upon, and there's a brim of concern and somewhere something caring in soft blues he can't help but count it as a small chink in her armor.

ash

"Killian, you're pretty much lighting all the food on fire and we can't just serve people ashes, so concentrate." She feels like she's being mean so afterwards she adds:

"Please."

"I'm on it."

This is just getting ridiculous. She's calling Emma tonight.