#cs fourth of july au

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

Fluffy Fridays--Chapter 176: The Intervention

Fluffy Fridays—Chapter 176: The Intervention

Summary:   A series of unrelated, fluffy one shots featuring Killian Jones and  Emma Swan and the relationship that makes us all swoon. Will contain  both canon and AU stories. My contribution to Operation Rainbow Kisses  and Unicorn Stickers (aka, my attempt to drown out the season 4 finale  angst with ridiculous levels of fluff.)

Other Chapters: (from the beginning) (previous chapter)

Tagging a few people who may be interested (Let me know if you want to be added or taken off the list): @sailormew4 @annaamell @flslp87 @emmateo26 @bethacaciakay 

@ultraluckycatnd @effulgent-mind @ilovemesomekillianjones @kat2609 @brooke-to-broch 

@missgymgirl @galadriel26 @the-lady-of-misthaven @charmingturkeysandwich @jennjenn615 

@laschatzi @kimmy46 @snowbellewells @iamanneenigma @daxx04 

@nickillian  @gillie  @britishguyslover @ginnyjinxedandhanshotritafirst @kmomof4

 @linda8084 @golfgirld @captain-swan-coffee @searchingwardrobes @hollyethecurious 

@laughswaytoomuch  @allyourdarlingswans  @winterbaby89 @facesiousbutton82 @therooksshiningknight 

@lfh1226-linda @tiganasummertree @jrob64  @anmylica @booksteaandtoomuchtv

 @i-will-sing-no-requiem @bluewildcatfanatic @laianely

(ao3) (ff.net)

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Notes:  A little over a year since my last installment of fluff?  Sorry about that!  All I can say is that the muse has been a fickle mistress.  Happy (belated) 4th of July to all that celebrate it.  Enjoy some holiday themed CS-enjoying-their-happy-beginning fluff!

Emma swiveled back and forth in her chair at the sheriff’s station before bringing her mug of hot cocoa with cinnamon to her smiling lips.  She couldn’t seem to stop smiling.  She was so happy it almost–but not quite–scared her.

Two months ago she’d won the final battle with the Black Fairy, and the next day, she and Killian had headed out on their honeymoon.  With the town finally at peace, she and her brand new husband decided to take a long overdue and much needed break for some of the steamiest and most romantic R & R she’d ever experienced.

They’d had no real destination in mind, no specific plans.  They’d simply boarded the Jolly Roger and set sail (after Emma had once again put a cloaking spell on the magnificent vessel.  After all, they might get some stares sailing an eighteenth century vessel around the Land Without Magic.)  They’d largely followed the East coast, Killian after all, being fascinated to learn of the journeys and stories of this realm’s pirates of old, and had ended up in the Caribbean.

Emma’s smile widened as she remembered the couple of days they’d spent in Savannah, and in particular, Killian's reaction to the famous Pirate’s House restaurant.  He’d been fascinated with the history and pirate memorabilia, of course, until he’d learned that the institution bragged of its connection to Captain Flint.

“That absolute ponce?” Killian had scoffed. “He’s the one they idolize?  He makes bloody Blackbeard look like a worthy opponent.”

He’d been so adorably flummoxed by the reaction to Flint, that she’d immediately taken him back to the Jolly and had her wicked way with him.  (Not that she really needed much of an excuse.  This was their honeymoon after all.)

They’d returned to Storybrooke last Friday, taken the weekend to settle back in and returned to normal life this morning.

Normal life.

They actually had a normal life.  They’d had a full two month honeymoon with no frantic calls from Storybrooke talking about a new villain in town.  They’d returned to a normal, sleepy little town that wasn’t under a curse, a memory spell or any other enchantment.  Life was just…normal.

In fact, it was so normal that Regina had instituted monthly town meetings, and in the last one, the town had made plans for Storybrooke’s first annual Independence Day celebration, as the Fourth of July was right around the corner.

“If we’re gonna be a part of the Land Without Magic now,” Granny had argued, “we best start doing normal Land Without Magic things.”

“Maybe start by not calling it the Land Without Magic, sister,” Leroy had grumbled.

There was to be a parade, a big town festival, fireworks.  The whole patriotic thing.

Emma had so much work to do in order to coordinate security for all of it, but she couldn’t be happier.

(Maybe a certain husband who she couldn’t seem to get enough of had something to do with that happiness, but who could blame her, really?)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Two days later, Emma was awoken by a sweet and rather passionate kiss from her husband.  Outside their window came the boom of a firework exploding.

“They’re still at it?” Emma asked, pulling slightly away and shaking her head.  “I don’t know who’s setting off those fireworks, but this is getting to be overkill.  The whole big display last night–and the night before–were kind of understandable given the time of year, but it seems like they never stop.”

“Aye,” Killian agreed.  “It would seem we have a veritable pyromaniac within our midst.”

“Well at least the 4th is tomorrow, so maybe they’ll knock it off after that.”

“Perhaps so,” Killian said with one final, lingering kiss, punctuated by another loud boom from outside. “At any rate, we’d best be up and at ‘em.”

Emma gave him a heavy lidded look.  “You sure about that?  I was kind of thinking we might need a little more….rest…this morning.  After all, last night was pretty….acrobatic.”

His grin turned wicked, before he leaned down and kissed her again. (Boom! from outside)  “Something tells me if I returned to our bed, we wouldn’t be leaving it until noon–but we wouldn’t be getting much rest.”

She shrugged and grinned.  “What’s wrong with that?”

He laughed.  “What’s wrong with that is that Regina will have our heads if we don’t attend the mandatory town meeting she called for nine a.m. sharp.”

Emma pushed herself up and tossed off the covers.  “I suppose you’re right,” she grumbled. “But I say, the minute we’re free, we pick up where we left off last night.”

“You’ll have no complaints from me, love.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The first thing Emma noticed when she and Killian arrived at Town Hall hand in hand, was that someone had strung a big sign over the raised podium that said “Intervention.”

Was it just her, or was this town getting even weirder?

The second thing she noticed was that when they sat down beside her parents, David and Mary Margaret wouldn’t even meet their eyes.

“Okay, you guys, what is going on?” she asked.

Her mom gave her a big–way too big–smile, and simply said “Guess you’ll…I mean we’ll…find out.”

Emma was on the point of asking for further clarification, when Regina walked briskly to the podium and banged the gavel.

“I think we all know why we’re here,” she said grimly.  “We have a problem, and something needs to be done about it.”

Emma and Killian gave each other a bewildered look.

“Are we missing something?” he asked.

“The fireworks,” Leroy said.  “We’re here about the constant, round the clock, fireworks.”

For some reason, the dwarf glared at them ferociously while saying it.

Yeah, this town was definitely getting weirder.

“We were just talking about that this morning,” Emma said.  “Please tell me we don’t have some new, patriotic villain in town.”

“Nothing quite so dramatic, Mrs. Swan-Jones,” Regina said.

“So you found the culprit?” Emma asked.  “Why not just confront him–or have me arrest him?  What’s with the whole big town meeting?  And what’s with the ‘intervention’ sign?”

“That’s why we’re here, honey,” Snow said, her voice far too sunny.  “We…um…we think we figured out what’s going on.”

For some odd reason, beside her, David groaned, loudly, and muttered something like “I don’t want to be talking about this!”

“Okay….” Emma said, drawing out the word.  “Anybody want to elaborate?”

“It’s quite simple,” Rumple said, from the far side of the room. “We’ve noticed that you and your pirate have been exhibiting nauseating levels of affection.  PDA, if you will.  We believe the results have been rather magical and explosive and, in short, have led to our dilemma today.”

“You believe we are to blame for the festive displays all day and night?” Killian asked.

“Wait, this is an intervention for us?” Emma asked at the same time.

“We first noticed the fireworks after you came home from your honeymoon,” Aurora said.  “Small things at first–sparklers when you kissed her cheek, escalating up to…well…”

“What precisely were the two of you doing last night at approximately 10:15 pm?” Regina asked crisply.

Emma’s face flamed while Killian’s grin turned positively sinful and David…well, David turned a sickly shade of green.

“We were… we were,” Emma spluttered.  “Come on, Regina! We’re newlyweds!  What do you think we were doing?”

“Would you like all the sordid details, Your Majesty, or would a summary suffice?” Killian asked cheekily.

Beside them, David put his head in his hands muttering “Make it stop!”

“That’s what we thought,” Regina stated matter-of-factly, ignoring Killian’s question altogether.  “And did you notice when the fireworks display started last night?  Did you notice how it grew in intensity about half an hour later?”

“Oh my gods,” Emma muttered, imitating her dad, and burying her face in her hands, wanting nothing more than for the floor to swallow her and her husband whole.

“We aren’t blaming you, honey,” Mary Margaret said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.  “We all remember what it was like to be newlyweds.  Your dad and I couldn’t get enough of each other.”

Surely this had to be in the most awkward town hall meeting in the history of the world.

“But,” Zelena said, “we need to find a way to put a stop to it.  If my toddler is awoken in the middle of the night, one more time, I might have to turn wicked again.”

“If I’m understanding correctly,” Killian said, “you believe that when my wife and I show each other physical signs of affection–when we’re intimate–we create magical fireworks?”

“Indeed,” Regina said.  “And thus the intervention.”

“Ridiculous!” he stated.  “Surely my wife would realize it if she were performing magic.”

“Maybe not,” Granny said, reaching into her bag for a fresh skein of yarn to continue her latest knitting project.  “You both seem so consumed with each other, you don’t notice anything else around you.”

“There is a way we could test the theory,” Belle suggested.  “An experiment, if you will.”

Killian’s eyebrows rose.  “Surely you aren’t suggesting we engage in…relations…right here in town hall?”

Belle’s face flamed.  “Of course not!  A simple peck on the lips would do.”

Leroy began tapping his water bottle with his pen in the way wedding guests do when they want the newlyweds to kiss at a wedding reception.

Killian gave her a glance, and she shrugged.  “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

He leaned down and gave her a quick, chaste kiss.  At the front of the hall, a sparkler materialized and began buzzing through the room.

“Whelp, I guess that gives us our answer,” Leroy said.  “The question is what are we gonna do about it?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Later that night, Emma lay in Killian’s arms, idly stroking his bare chest.  “Well that had to be one of the most embarrassing mornings of my life,” she said.

Killian nodded and then chuckled.  “Did you get a gander at your father’s face throughout the ‘intervention’?  I thought he would keel over from apoplexy.”

Emma laughed.  “Serves him right after my mom’s comment about their own activities as newlyweds.   So, do you think the town’s solution actually worked?”

Following Leroy’s question this morning, Killian had stated vociferously that under no circumstances would he stop making love to his wife, short of her refusing his advances.  Emma had then further traumatized her father by insisting–equally vociferously–that she didn’t see that happening any time soon–probably never.

Several rather ridiculous suggestions had been tossed out, including Zelena not-so-helpfully stating she’d have been more than willing to curse Killian’s lips again if only she still had her magic.  

Finally, a workable solution had been agreed upon.

Regina would put a magic dampening spell on both Emma’s and Killian’s lips until they had left the honeymoon period behind.

“Just their lips?” Leroy scoffed.  “I think you ought to curse their nether regions too, just to be sure.”

Fortunately, Regina had stated in no uncertain terms that she had no intention of getting anywhere near either of their “nether regions”.

And as soon as the spell was applied the town hall meeting had mercifully come to a close.

“Pardon, love?” Killian asked, bringing her back to the present.

“The magic dampening spell,” she said.  “Do you think it worked?

“There’s only one way to find out,” he said, swooping in with a kiss for the ages, the kind that made her knees weak and had her forgetting her own name.

When the kiss ended, he pulled away, and they both listened closely.

Silence.

“Looks like we’re in the clear,” Emma muttered, reaching up to bring him back to her.  “And now that we don’t have an entire town of voyeurs knowing exactly what we’re up to, I’d say it’s way past time we get back to the fun.”

[hookedonapirate]

A Date for the Holidays (and everyday too would be nice)

Summary: Tired of the constant backlash from her family about being single, Emma finds herself striking an arrangement with a roguishly handsome stranger at the mall the day after Christmas. Now she won’t have to be alone for the holidays. Emma and Killian agree to be each other’s dates, no strings attached, no commitment, no pressure. Just two friends getting together to appease her annoying family and get his brother off his back. It’s the perfect setup really...until sticking to the holidays isn’t enough. What happens when they both want more?

Holidate AU

A/N: So I watched the Holidate the other night and couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun it would be to turn this into a CS fic. So here we are. This probably won’t be too long, I’ll be getting back to my wips soon, just needed a break, but probably 4 or 5 chapters or so. Hope you enjoy! Thank you to the ladies on Discord for your encouragement and enabling ;-)

Thank you to the lovely @veryverynotgood for beta reading!

Catch up: Ch 1 // Ch 2 // Ch 3 // Ch 4 // Ch 5 // Ch 6 // Ch 7 // Ch 8 // Ch 9 // Ch 10 // Ch 11

Also available on: AO3 // FF.N

Chapter 7

Fourth of July

“See you guys in an hour!” Kristoff waves as he pulls out of the driveway, Anna in the passenger seat and their kids and Elsa's daughter strapped in the backseat.

“Drive safely!” Elsa calls out.

“You got it!”

“Love you, sweetheart!” Elsa waves to her daughter.

“Love you too, Mom!” Daisy waves back.

Her cousins call out, “Bye, Aunt Elsa!”

As the car disappears down the road, the ladies all throw their bags in the trunk of Emma's yellow bug. They could've taken Elsa's vehicle, but Emma insisted her trusty bug is reliable, even though it's old. Besides, Kristoff's parents' lake house is only an hour away.

Playing the part of the doting boyfriend they've made everyone believe, Killian comes up to Emma and wraps his arms around her, kissing her lips. "Bye, baby."

Emma blushes and grins at him as she winds her arms around the back of his neck. Ever since she knocked his socks off in the ladies' room on Mother's Day, their relationship has shifted a bit. And she can't deny that pretending to be Killian's girlfriend is fun. Almost too much fun, in fact.

Killian lowers his hands, giving her ass cheeks a firm squeeze as he dons a big grin. "Have I mentioned how much I love these shorts on you?" he whispers in her ear, obviously not complimenting her for show since no one else can hear him.

"Watch it, buddy. Hands off my sister!" Leo calls jokingly. He doesn't actually have a problem with them being together. In fact, he's happy for both of them. Which is saying something, considering he hated Neal.

"See you soon. Drive safe."

"You too."

Once they part, the ladies hop into the bug as the guys pile into Leo's truck, including Ruby's holidate for the day, Uncle Sam as she calls him.

"Alright, let's go," Elsa says, clapping her hands excitedly.

Emma turns her key in the ignition, and when it doesn't start right away, she tries again. "Don't panic, it always takes the old gal a few times to get moving."

But nothing happens.

"Dammit!" Emma hits the steering wheel in frustration.

Leo pulls up next to the bug, rolling down the passenger window and calling out to her through the open window of his truck. "Everything alright, sis?"

"Her car died," Elsa answers for her. “Can you take us to get mine?"

"Sure, hop in!"

Emma furrows her brows. "But there's no room."

"Relax, it's only a five-minute drive."

Emma’s still hesitant as all four ladies step out of the car and grab their bags, throwing them into the back of Leo's truck, which is already full of the boxes of fireworks he and Killian picked up.

As they make their way to the back seat, Emma's doing the math in her head. They can fit Audrey or Ruby up front between Leo and Sam, but that still leaves four people to sit in the backseat, which only fits three full-grown adults, so that means…

"Emma, you'll have to sit in Killian's lap. That okay with you?" Elsa asks, sliding in next to him.

Ruby climbs into the front seat next to her date because Audrey didn't like the idea of sitting next to a strange man who smells like marijuana. Leo made him store his weed in the glove compartment, but Emma can smell it from outside the truck.

“Hop on, love. I promise I don't bite,” he smirks, patting his lap invitingly.

Emma offers a small smile, gulping as she climbs into the truck and crams herself on his lap, moving around to find a comfortable position. She's not questioning the hospitality of his lap; she's worried about what's in between his lap. The beautiful cock hiding in his shorts—the cock she'd tasted in her mouth and sucked until she was rewarded with his salty, warm cum.

She tries not to think too much about their time in the restroom together, but when Killian stretches the seatbelt around them, strapping her to him and his beautiful cock, and wraps his arms around her stomach, her belly tightens with knots.

This will definitely be a long five minutes.

"Awe, you two are so cute," Elsa beams as she looks over at them. “Aunt Rubes, aren't they cute?"

Ruby cranes her neck to look at them, flashing a smirk. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Leo ignores the comments and takes off down the road.

When they reach Main Street, all of them scan up and down the road, groaning and grumbling. Traffic is basically at a standstill because everyone's either coming or going since it's the Fourth of July weekend, which is very unfortunate since Elsa's house is on the other side of Main Street.

"Hey, sis, you gonna be okay with sitting like that for the hour drive?

Emma glances around the truck, everyone looking at her expectantly. No one else seems to have a problem with it, but then again, none of them have to sit in someone's lap they're painfully drawn to.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Emma laughs it off with a wave and cranes her head to look at Killian. "You okay with that, babe?"

He pulls her into his chest, letting her know exactly how okay he is with her riding in his lap. "I think I'll be alright," he chuckles, finding the question humorous. Then he grabs the hem of her shorts and whispers in her ear, "I don't know, with you in these little shorts, I find it hard to keep my hands off you."

Heat surges through her core, and she has to clench her thighs together.

Fuck.

This is going to be the longest hour of her life.

"Okay, I'm taking the back roads then," Leo announces before doing a U-turn and heading in the other direction.

Emma's comfortable at first, but about twenty minutes later, her body starts feeling stiff, so she leans back a little and turns her head, seeing Killian with his eyes closed. Taking advantage of the situation, she makes her best attempt to stretch out her body, arching her back and sliding slightly down on Killian's lap.

A sharp intake of breath tickles her ear as she feels his hands wrap around her hips. Emma moves around, trying to find the best position when Leo goes over a bump that probably would've knocked Emma out of her seat, if not for the seatbelt.

Emma relaxes again, sinking into Killian's lap, but jerks when she feels something solid underneath her ass. “Did you leave your phone in your pocket?” she asks, lifting herself up a little bit and reaching underneath her, feeling for Killian's phone.

His grip on her hips tightens and he speaks in a hushed tone, his words low and husky. “No—Emma stop, that’s not—”

She chokes on air when she can feel the thick muscle between Killian's thighs that had been slightly prodding her. Heat pools in her belly as she snatches her hand away and tries to pretend everything's normal. If anyone in the truck noticed what happened, no one says a word or gives any indication.

She threads her hands together, placing them in her lap as she tries not to think about Killian's erection pressed to her ass and how much she wants to rock against him, but she wouldn't be able to explain that in front of her family.

Definitely not.

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Thankfully, everyone arrives at the lake house without a hitch and soon, the ladies are chatting on the deck, sipping on Mai Tais. Kristoff is cooking hamburgers on the grill and the other men guzzle down their beers and shoot the firecrackers across the lake. Emma nixes the alcohol and instead drinks a mocktail. She has a feeling she wouldn't be able to keep her hands off Killian by the end of the night with a little liquid courage in her system as she thinks about the drive here and how she had to sit in his lap. Their relationship is shifting, and she's afraid all the excitement from the fourth will cause her to throw caution to the wind. It's bad enough she gave him a blowjob in a public restroom on Mother's Day. She blames it on the mimosa, even though she only drank one.

Killian lights the fuse of an M-80, holding it in his hand. "Ready?"

"Yeah, throw it, man!" Leo encourages, clapping his hands.

Killian casts the firecracker out into the lake, creating an explosion on the water. The men cheer and laugh.

"Now that's how you blow shit up, mate!" Killian hollers like he's a pirate's captain, warding off a threatening ship.

"Yep!" Leo and Sam give him a high-five.

"God bless America!"

"Whooooooah!" Killian cheers, throwing a fist in the air.

Emma rolls her eyes as she watches the scene at the lake and walks across the deck, sinking down into a lounge chair. “What is it about men and explosives?”

“It’s all about the cock,” Aunt Ruby replies, shifting her gaze to her niece.

Audrey furrows her eyebrows as she munches on some chips and dip. “What do fireworks have to do with a man's…anatomy?”

“It’s like jacking off.” Ruby shrugs. “Men live for the orgasm.”

Emma, Anna and Elsa dissolve into laughter at their beloved aunt’s bluntness.

“If they’re not fucking, they’re dreaming about fucking...or blowing stuff up. Next best thing to fucking.”

“Wait…” Audrey scrunches up her nose. “So, they’re all down there right now, thinking about…”

Emma nods, finishing what her brother's fiancé seems to be too proper to say. “Fucking.”

Elsa giggles at Audrey’s wide-eyed expression.

Poor Audrey. Everyone seems to pick on her for being so innocent and stuffy. Her brother is quite the opposite; he's laid back and fun, just like their father. But opposites attract, she supposes.

Another boom disrupts the air, followed by more cheering that's soon drowned out by Killian's screams and a slew of obscenities that pour from his mouth. "Fuuuuuuuuck!"

🧨🧨🧨

Emma shoots up from her chair and darts over to the railing, her heart fluttering with panic as Leo sprints up the small hill and over to the deck, planting his hands on his hips as he catches his breath. “Hey, uh...do we have a first aid kit by any chance?”

Dread creeps into her stomach. “Maybe Band-Aids. Why?”

“Killian, uh…he, uh, just blew off his finger...just a little bit,” he adds casually as if it's no big deal.

“Oh my God!” Emma screeches in fear, running down the stairs as fast as her feet will take her, heart beating erratically.

Kristoff turns away from the grill, remaining cool and collected as if he's been in this situation hundreds of times. But he has three kids, so he's used to dealing with chaos and injuries. He raises his hands, which are donning festive oven mitts. “Alright, everybody, remain calm. Audrey, go get some ice and a baggie. Elsa, find something to make a tourniquet.” He turns toward the lake and calls out, “Do we have the finger?!”

🧨🧨🧨

Killian groans in pain as Emma secures a towel around his hand, and the rest of the adults dig through the sand with toy shovels, searching for his finger.

“Come on, a little hustle, everybody!” Kristoff claps his hands encouraging them to hurry. “We gotta find that finger.”

“Got it!” Leo exclaims, holding it up like a trophy. He runs over to where Audrey is holding out a Ziplock bag of ice and drops it inside.

Killian grimaces as he looks at the bag. “Are you sure that’s mine?”

“He’s in shock,” Kristoff states, because who else’s finger would it belong to? Moving to the other side of Killian, he helps Emma stand him up. “We need to get him to the hospital.”

“I’ll take him,” Leo offers, heading over to his friend.

“No!” Audrey pulls his fiancé back by the shirt. “You're drunk.”

“Kristoff's sober.” Anna points out. “You can drive him.”

Aunt Ruby raises her hand. “We’ll watch the kids!” she announces as her date cheers, dancing drunkenly.

"The kids can tread water, can't they?" Sam asks.

“Nope.” Kristoff shakes his head, letting Elsa take over so Killian doesn't fall over. “No way I’m leaving my kids with those two.”

Anna nods in agreement. “Good call.”

“I'll take him,” Emma announces. "I've only been drinking mocktails."

Leo tosses Emma his keys. "Take my truck."

Emma helps Killian to her brother's vehicle, and once she has him buckled in, she gets in the driver's side.

Leo approaches the passenger door, reaches through the open window and hands Killian the Ziplock bag with the finger in it. He pats him on the shoulder. “You’re gonna be okay, buddy.”

Killian's still slightly drunk, his face pale as he gapes at the bag in shock. “It’s my fuck you finger!” He turns to Leo, starting to panic. “I can’t lose my fuck you finger!”

“Sis,” Leo looks at Emma, “drive safe. His fuck you finger is in your hands.”

“Thanks, no pressure,” Emma remarks sarcastically, trying not to freak out. Killian's bleeding into the towel, his finger's in a bag and it's up to her to find the hospital out here and get him there safely.

Nope. No pressure at all.

She starts the car and carefully but quickly backs the car out of the driveway, holding a conversation with Killian to try and keep her own nerves at bay. “Does it hurt real bad?”

Stupid question.

Of course it does.

Killian shrugs. “Not really, it's kind of like a paper cut.”

Emma tilts her head at him in shock. “Really?”

“No, not really!”

Emma flinches at his volume. “Don’t yell at me!” she screams, on the verge of tears as she tries to keep her cool. “I’m already anxious!” But why is she so anxious? She's not the one who blew off her finger.

“Oh, you’re anxious?!” Killian holds up the bag. “My finger's in a Ziploc bag full of ice!”

“I know and it's really freaking me out. Can you put it in the glove box or something?” she pleads, the sight of his finger making her squeamish.

Killian sinks his head back against the headrest. “Oh, we wouldn’t want you to be freaked out, now would we?” He opens the glove box to put his finger inside, pausing as he spots the small baggie of weed that Sam left in there.

“There’s a lighter in my purse,” Emma tells him when she sees it, thinking it will calm him a bit.

He shakes his head. “I don’t do drugs.”

Emma snort-laughs. “Oh, so you’ll set off explosives while drunk, but you won’t smoke a little marijuana?”

Killian glares at her. “What happened to our no judgments rule?”

Emma raises her hands briefly. "I'm not judging. I'm just trying to lighten the mood here, okay?"

🧨🧨🧨

Emma and Killian dissolve into laughter as they sit on his hospital bed, waiting for the doctor. After inhaling a few puffs from the weed she threw in her purse before helping Killian into the emergency room, Emma's mind is foggy, and she doesn't even care about the smoke billowing up past the curtains around the room.

“Just relax,” Emma says, taking another drag. “I’ve got it all under control.” She places the joint between Killian’s lips, letting him take a turn. He eagerly accepts the joint, taking a slow drag from it. “You don’t have to lift a finger.”

They dissolve into another fit of laughter that's promptly disrupted by a nurse throwing the curtains open.

“Seriously?” she scolds, shaking her head in disappointment.

Emma jumps off the bed, moving to stand to the side as the nurse checks Killian’s vitals.

“I’m too tired to report you.”

Killian sighs in relief. "Thank you, mate."

Emma apologizes, putting the joint out on the plastic chair.

Pointing at the nurse, Killian tilts his head. “I know you from somewhere.”

The nurse shakes her head, not knowing where he would have seen her before.

“Aye, I just can’t…” he looks at Emma and can't help but chuckle at his own joke, “I just can't put my finger on it.”

The nurse rolls her eyes as Emma bursts out laughing again, nearly falling onto the floor. “The doctor will be with you shortly. He’s reattaching a toe.”

“A toe?” Killian reverts his gaze to her. “Wait, a finger must take priority over a toe, right?”

“Sorry.” The nurse says in an unapologetic tone. “If only you’d been a jackass a little earlier in the day.” She flips his chart shut before leaving the room.

Emma's mouth opens in shock. “Wow…” She points at Killian. “You’ve really got her…" she giggles between words, "wrapped...around...your...finger!” She falls onto the bed and places her hand on his shoulder as they laugh once more, this time being interrupted by the doctor.

"Okay," he says, his voice sounding weary as he scans Killian's chart. He's wearing dark blue scrubs and looks awfully familiar. Or is she imagining things?

No, Emma may be a little high, but she's not that stoned.

“Graham?”

The doctor looks up, his eyes clouding over with concern. “Emma? Are you hurt?” He sets the chart on the bed and rushes over to Emma, checking her over.

“I’m fine,” Emma assures as she stands up from the bed, surprised to see him here. “I didn’t know you worked all the way out here.”

“I normally don’t,” Graham explains. “They called me in to reattach a pinky toe.”

Emma giggles, staring at Graham as if he’d hung the moon and the stars. “That’s so amazing.”

Graham shrugs. “It’s a crucial phalange.”

She bursts into laughter again, causing the doctor to chuckle along with her as she playfully shoves his chest. “You’re doing such great work.”

“I’m just doing my part.” Graham smiles, taking her hand in his. “I was a little disappointed I didn’t hear back from you.”

Killian clears his throat. “And I’m disappointed I don’t get to see my favorite bunny suit.”

Graham turns to look at him, releasing Emma's hand as though he's just been caught doing something he's not supposed to, and wags a finger at his patient. “Ah, yes, Killian. From Easter.” He walks over to inspect the bandaged hand. “Sparkler got away from you, did it?”

“It was an M-80, actually.”

Graham lifts the injured hand enough to inspect the severed area, Killian hissing at the pain while Emma avoids looking over at it. “Skin’s a little crispy, but it looks like the bone didn’t shatter,” he confirms after checking the x-ray.

"Thank gods." Killian sighs in relief.

“Hang tight. We’ll get you prepped for surgery.”

“You can fix it?” Emma asks him before looking at Killian. “He can fix it!”

“We’ll see.” Graham chuckles and raises his hand, crossing his index and middle finger. “Fingers crossed.” When Emma and Killian stare at him blankly, Graham lowers his hand. “Tough crowd.”

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Emma helps a drowsy Killian into his apartment and keeps him steady as he kicks off his sandals. “I’ve got your prescriptions right here.” She holds up the white paper sack with the pain medication Graham prescribed him and sets it on the coffee table. She places her hand on the arm wrapped around her shoulders as she looks around his apartment, noticing how absolutely spotless and clean it is. It looks like something out of a home magazine. “Granny's Diner will be delivering your soup."

"Mm mmm," he hums in approval.

"And…” she eases Killian onto the couch, “I called your brother.”

“Really?”

Emma lifts his legs onto the couch and grabs a blanket, covering him with it.

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t answer, so I just left a message. I told him you had a little accident and that he should probably give you a call.”

“Thanks,” Killian says gratefully as Emma tucks the blanket around him. “I’m really sorry I ruined your Fourth of July.”

She shakes her head and sits on the coffee table. “Holidate rule number three—leave no holidate behind…” She places her hand on Killian’s arm, which is in a sling. “Or their appendages.”

They share a soft laugh as he subconsciously places his hand on hers. Emma's breath catches as their eyes meet and all the air leaves her lungs as she realizes they're practically holding hands. And it's not for show or because they're trying to convince anyone they're a couple.

She laughs nervously, averting her eyes and pulling her hand away. “You should probably get some rest.”

Killian nods in agreement. “Aye, I should.”

Emma leans in to kiss his cheek, finding it extremely difficult to pull away, but forces herself somehow. “Unless you need anything else?”

“Uh…” He scratches behind his ear with his good hand and looks around his apartment as if trying to think of something before his eyes connect with hers again. “No, I think I’m good. I think I'm-" Emma bites her bottom lip and can't help but notice Killian staring at the movement and having to pause from what he was going to say. “I think I’m fine, I’m just really tired.”

“Okay.” Emma finally stands up, tilting her head toward the door. “I guess I’ll just go then.”

“Okay. Goodnight, love.” Killian waves a bit at her as she slowly and awkwardly makes her way out of the apartment, not really wanting to leave just yet, but not having a good reason to stay.

"Night, Killian." Just before reaching the door, Emma changes her mind about leaving and spins around to say something, but the words catch in her throat when she sees he has his head resting on the couch, his eyes closed.

Her heart sinks, but she imagines he's exhausted after the day he's had. She turns around again and opens the door to leave, shutting it quietly so as not to disturb him.

As she's leaving his building, she's surprised to see Liam walking toward her.

And he doesn't look too happy.

"What happened to my brother?" Liam demands curtly as he approaches her, not bothering with any pleasantries.

"Hello to you, too," she retorts snarkily.

He crosses his arms, waiting for her to answer.

Emma hangs her head, toying with her fingers, knowing he'll be even more pissed once he hears what happened. "He blew off his fuck you finger."

Liam's eyes widen, anger spiraling through him. "He what?!"

"We went to a family reunion, and he bought some fireworks with my brother and threw firecrackers out over the water."

"What the bloody hell?!" Liam buries his face in his hands and sighs. "How could he be so stupid?" He lifts his head, glaring at her as if this was all her fault. "How could you let him be so reckless?!"

Emma scoffs, her eyes widening. "Um, excuse me?! I'm not his mother—I'm not even his girlfriend, so why is it my responsibility to be his babysitter?"

He nods and points an accusatory finger at her. "Aye, that's right. You're not his girlfriend. If you were, then maybe you'd actually care about him." As Liam passes her, she gasps in complete and utter confusion, spinning around to glare at him.

"I do care about him!"

He chuckles almost mockingly as he turns around to face her once more. "Oh yeah? If you really cared about him, then you'd cut this holidate bullshit and set him free."

"What the fuck are you talking about? Set him free? I didn't make him do anything!"

"Maybe not, but you're confusing him. He's too much of a gentleman to tell you he wants a serious girlfriend, not someone he can only see on the fucking holidays. You're holding him back from that."

Emma scoffs, not believing he's blaming all of this on her. "Yeah, well, you don't have to worry because I'll never invite him to another holiday again!" She turns around and storms away, lifting both of her fuck you fingers over her head at him.

As soon as she makes it to her brother's truck and climbs inside, tears stream down her cheeks, a mixture of emotions overtaking her—sadness, anger, regret, shame, sorrow—and she sobs against the steering wheel.

As much as she hates Killian's jackass brother and wants to believe he's completely wrong, that she hasn't been holding him back from being in a meaningful relationship, maybe he is right.

Maybe this whole holidate idea has been a complete waste of time.

Maybe she should accept the fact that she's going to be alone and stuck sitting at the kids' table every year for the rest of her life.

[charmingturkeysandwich]

fireworks (that went off too soon)

Hey there! This is a CS one shot. An AU in which Killian is the lead singer and songwriter in a band that sounds suspiciously like Fall Out Boy...

Summary: Emma and Killian were friends in college, but haven’t spoken in 9 years. Killian’s band’s new single changes everything.

Words: 4400ish

Rating: Teen? (Swearing, References to Sex)

Also on AO3

Big thanks to @awkwardnessandbaseball​ for reading this over, correcting all my dumbass mistakes, and helping me polish this up pretty :) (The title comes from my favorite Fall Out Boy song, Fourth of July. It’s heavily featured in the story sung by Killian’s band.)

---

It was 3pm on Friday the 13th – also a Full Moon – when Emma Swan finally had the meltdown she’d pressed “pause” on about nine years earlier.

(Nine years, three months, more accurately, but who was counting?)

The work week was winding down. The get this done today or be fired tasks had been completed and all the emails had been answered and it was about time to start doing the bare minimum to run down the clock to 5:01 when she could, without regret, run screaming from the building and put her god forsaken job out of her mind for two days of rest, relaxation, and rum.

(Definitely the rum. Or maybe it had been upgraded to a tequila weekend.)

It was Pandora’s fault, really. (A fitting name for opening up an emotional box inside her soul that had been sealed for quite a long time and with very good fucking reason.)

Usually Emma listened to wordless music – movie scores, Vitamin String Quartet and the like – so as to keep the creative juices flowing without breaking her train of concentration. But having reached the procrastination part of the afternoon, she thought, what harm could there be in listening to a little regular music?

Emma had always had a soft spot for pop/punk/emo music. It brought her joy even when it wasn’t joyful, which is either a sentiment only shared by lonely foster girls or perhaps all emo kids, but did it matter? It was her kind of music. Long before she met Killian Jones.

But then she met him. He was an insufferable ass at least 2/3 of the time, but for the other third of his life, he was sweet, funny, and musically a goddamn genius. His voice was smooth and warm, he could play guitar like it was in his DNA, and his lyrics were both relatable and completely original. She was half in love from the start, so of course she pushed him as far away as possible.

(Love is patient; love is kind. Love is slowly losing my mind)

He was aloof. At best. They were college kids who shared a dorm building and not much else, not until their roommates fell in love with each other. That’s around the time they started spending an inordinate amount of time together. He was fucking anything with brown eyes and tits and she absolutely did not care and everything was fine. They were friends, kind of. She was a fan of his band, but not in the groupie way. She had no intention of being just a notch in his bedpost or a line in his song.

(As it turned out, she ended up becoming both. Eventually.)

When he wasn’t playing shows in dive bars (or fucking freshmen girls in a shower stall of their dorm hall’s shared bathroom), he spent a lot of time in Emma’s room. Mostly to avoid Mary Margaret and David in his room who were, as he called it, “the most sickly sweet love story this side of the Atlantic” and “a complete buzzkill to complex song-writing.” And she was OK with it. She loved when he would compose while she read. And they had the best conversations. They challenged each other on everything from politics to pie flavors and she’d never been so stimulated by someone of the opposite sex in her life.

Intellectually stimulated. In the brain.

By junior year, the two pairs of roommates had moved off-campus, opting to share a three bedroom house while they finished up school. Killian’s band was starting to actually make something of themselves, but he vowed to get his degree (this pretty face won’t last forever), and Emma played tutor for him when he skipped class for weeks on end so he could play some gigs on the west coast.

They were friends. They were equals. They meant so much more to each other than “just” friends or study buddies or housemates or anything, because the past three years had been the most stable years in either of their lives and it was all because of the support they received from each other in the darkest nights and the brightest days and seriously.

Fuck Pandora.

It had distracted her when she was in the middle of perfectly pleasant procrastinating. Now she was getting off track. Frazzled. Fucking pissed.

With her work mostly finished, she had decided to listen to Panic! At the Disco’s station. It was a safe zone – the best of two different genres: emo and pop. She bopped along to Blink 182 and “the Ballad of Mona Lisa.” She swayed and swooned a little when “Secrets” by One Republic played. And she got a good laugh at “I’m Not OK (I Promise),” remembering the days she’d scream “I’m not o-fucking kay! [trust me]” every time she got into a fight with the foster mother she now loved so very much.

But then there was a dramatic twist and a cinematic sweep and that voice and before she could switch the station, some warning popped up at her, removing all the buttons and controls and displaying the error message of SOMETHING WENT WRONG and all she could think was no shit, Sherlock.

Killian’s band got big when they were 21. And stayed big. The band broke up once, briefly, but they’d been dancing around the American Top 40 for at least 6 of the last 9 years and as much as it hurt her to hear his voice through a radio and not through a wall of their shared house, at least the lyrics of the songs never stung her before.

Because they’d never been about her before.

It was the summer before senior year, late that June, and Killian had just returned from a little pop-punk festival in Seattle. She’d picked him up at the airport in Portland (Maine) and had been chatting his ear off about how much better “our” Portland was from “theirs” (Oregon), but Killian had been largely silent.

Which was out of character to the extreme, his little creative writing/song composer mind always racing and his far too pleasing voice always spilling from his stupidly attractive lips.

“What is up with you, Jones? I just said that they have better lobster in Oregon and you didn’t even react.”

From the passenger seat, he played with the window controller, the air whooshing in and stopping to the rhythm of Seven Nation Army AKA the world’s most overplayed song that wasn’t sung by Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift.

“Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing, Swan. A problem for a different day, to be sure.”

His voice had been quiet, unsure. That wasn’t him either. This was the asshole who could start a trend with a typo and who claimed to have made a girl come with nothing but his voice. His level of confidence was infuriating, but unshakeable.

(He made forgetting the words to his own songs look attractive. And that was an eventual Buzzfeed headline, not Emma’s own assessment. Obviously.)

“Killian, what’s up? Did the festival not go as well as you wanted? From what I saw on YouTube, it seemed awfully successful.”

“Aye, love.” He perked up just a bit, finally turning toward her and smiling. “It was grand.”

“And you’re brooding because, what, you’re worried that feeling happy for too long will sap you of your emo energy or something?”

Her attempt to lighten the mood didn’t seem to take, though, and Killian turned back out the window like he was practicing for his very own music video.

When they got back to their house, Emma grabbed his clothes and Killian lugged the musical equipment and neither of them said a word.

Fog had rolled in, or maybe it was on its way out, and if it weren’t for the green leaves, it might have felt like October. But there was something about his expression that was a hell of a lot more December. Something ending.

They were lingering almost awkwardly in their kitchen, Emma trying to casually wrack her brain for how to pull Killian out of his little funk, when he interrupted her with an overdramatic clearing of his throat.

“Ahem! Fancy a drink, Swan?” Killian extended a shot glass to her, a dark liquid inside that couldn’t be anything but spiced rum.

“What’s the occasion?” she asked hesitantly.

“Perhaps… perhaps it’s a celebration.”

“…of?”

“Your business sense, of course!” He lifted his glass toward hers for a clink and then downed the shot faster than she could even raise hers to her lips.

“What kind of business are we talking here? I’m not sure if this is the setup for an idiot joke or a reference to lyrics you swear you told me you wrote but never actually did.”

“Ah, love, no. Not that, this time anyway. Actually – actually, it’s about the band. And ‘Grand Theft Autumn.’ They loved it like you said they would.”

“They being?”

“The record company. They loved it. And they want it. And us.”

Holy shit! She knew it. They were going to be famous. Killian deserved it so much and they were going to be huge and everyone was going to love him just like she did and –

Wait.

“When you say they want you… do you mean, like, deferred acceptance so you can finish college or…”

“No, love. The boys and I … we’re packing up and moving to LA.”

She was dumbfounded.

“LA?”

“Aye.”

“When?”

“Monday.”

That’s right about the time her stomach dropped to her heels and the rum threatened its way back up her throat and perhaps onto Killian’s perfectly rumpled white shirt.

She just – wasn’t ready to let him go.

She could hear his honey-smooth voice drift through her head, his own lyrics seeming oddly relevant to this dramatic turn in her life.

Maybe he won’t find out what I know; you were the last good thing about this part of town.

So they drank. And drank. And drank some more. They were more honest with each other than they’d been in three years. She told him how much she hated that he thought setting his clocks early would keep him from being late. And he told her that he didn’t truly think that… it just had fit as a song lyrics and he felt like he needed to “make it authentic by living it.”

She called him pretentious and he called her painfully adorable and neither were true and yet somehow they felt like the perfect identifiers for the characters they were trying to be when they weren’t with each other.

So of course she fell into bed with him that night. Her bed. The twinkly lights hung around her ceiling were flickering as he kissed a trail down her neck and she tugged off his way-too-tight jeans and dear fucking lord if she thought the only thing he could do with his tongue was sing, she was officially wrong.

But come morning she was officially gone. As the sun rose on a rainy June Sunday morning, she slipped out of her bed, slid into whatever clothes she could reach without making noise, and jogged all the way to David’s brother’s frat house to hide until Monday came and went and when exactly did her life turn into an emo song?

When I wake up I’m willing to take my chances on the hope I forget

September. Friday the 13th. Pandora malfunction. Her brain was reeling and her heart was shattering all over again, because the song pumping through her pathetic tinny Dell speakers was, on first blush, just another of his melodramatic fictions, a series of sentiments that sounded good together but that he’d never actually experienced (he’d admitted the best songs were much like Hey There Delilah… a lovely story and 0% real).  But she could hear something genuine in that still so attractive voice. And then… a few familiar thoughts.

I’ll be as honest as you let me

I miss your early morning company

If you get me

You are my favorite ‘what if’

You are my best ‘I’ll never know’

She’d turned off her phone the morning she’d left him in her bed. Kept it off until Tuesday. And blocked his number the minute she turned it back on.

Goodbyes were bad enough. To have been reduced to his very last college-one-night-stand? She couldn’t face it.

(Especially because she’d realized mid-fuck she’d kind of always wanted to be his forever, or whatever overly-romantic hyperbole he’d scoff at before writing it down in his notes.)

She hadn’t let herself think of him for longer than the span of one of his songs since that day. Even then, she’d usually change the channel. It was just too hard.

But could this one actually be about her? And if so, what the fuck was she supposed to do with that? Cry? Scream? Sue his sorry ass for slander?

(Not that one.)

She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life. He’d never been one of them, not until the end. Is it possible that didn’t need to be the end at all?

My 9 to 5 is cutting open old scars

Again and again til I’m stuck in your head

He’d probably had a lot of almosts. Maybe he’d just gotten better at faking genuine emotion in his songs. There’s no way he still thought about her. Even for lyrical dramatics.

I wish I’d known how much you loved me

I wish I’d cared enough to know

I’m sorry every song’s about you

The torture of small talk

With someone you used to love

Well there you had it. Small talk? They hadn’t talked in years. And she already knew every song was total bullshit, made up longing. Some of his best lovelorn pandering (that she admittedly loved) had been written when he claimed to be incapable of actual love. When he would only sleep with dark-haired, dark-eyed girls who didn’t want anything more than a good breakfast the next morning.

(I’m not looking for a soulmate, darling, just a beauty without a gag reflex, he’d repeated on many occasions. Sometimes literally to the women he was hitting on. And yes, they did usually blow him afterward and he would inexplicably tell her and she Did. Not. Care.)

(Until the day she realized she always had.)

A week after he’d moved to Los Angeles had been the 4th of July. It being summer and most of her friends working various jobs, she didn’t think there would be a huge party. James had insisted, though, that they needed to celebrate the fact that their friends were getting famous. David had pointed out the irony that the band – Killian, Will, Robin, and Graham – were all from outside of the USA. And yet they were being celebrated on America’s birthday.

“Stealing things from others is the American way. Now drink, little brother!” James had shouted just before his frat brothers lifted him into keg stand position and he chugged.

Emma wasn’t one for keg stands, so she’d opted for drinking straight liquor instead, and from what she could extrapolate from the massive headache the next morning (in addition to the vomit in her bedside garbage can), she had likely drank that bottle in its entirety.

After the opening of Pandora’s box that fateful Friday the 13th, Emma couldn’t think of much else but her almost-maybe-something Killian Jones. Suddenly his stupid band was everywhere and that stupid song was everywhere and she was feeling a deep longing to connect with that girl who had two whole albums by two different bands written about her to see how the fuck she coped with old wounds being opened every fucking visit to the grocery store.

(Then again, Brand New and Taking Back Sunday weren’t quite so mainstream. Maybe that’s how she survived.)

(Is that what you call a getaway? Tell me what you got away with, cause I’ve seen more spine in jellyfish; I’ve seen more guts in 11 year old kids.)

She’d taken to keeping the radio off at all times, and humming the Star Spangled Banner when she couldn’t escape Killian’s stupidly attractive and all-too-familiar voice gracing the airwaves.

Ruby asked her out for drinks, and alcohol was exactly the cure for her current tumult, so she agreed on the very specific request that they hit the country bar downtown instead of their usual Rabbit Hole escapades. Which worked out great for avoiding song-specific reminders, but sadly didn’t keep all Killian talk at bay.

“By the way, how have you been holding up?” Ruby asked, probably in response to Emma’s downing two shots – one of which that had been intended for Ruby – in the first minute or so at the table.

“What do you mean, holding up?” She wasn’t that transparent, right?

“Well the song… the one Killian wrote about you. It’s, like… huge. Weird how he waited this long. Did he warn you first or anything?”

… what? It wasn’t about her. Sure, it kind of, a little bit, had some moments that seemed like they could be inspired by her. But it had been nine fucking years and she hadn’t seen him since the morning she slinked away from their house and it’s not like he’d ever reached out or anything (or at least he didn’t try very hard, because blocking a cell phone number wasn’t like blocking a whole-ass person),  hence her nine years of denial and shoving down her feelings like the very opposite of the emo kid she once was.

She probably looked like that stupid meme of the lady thinking about math and her heart was beating nearly out of her chest, but somehow the only sound that made it out of her mouth was, “huh?”

Ruby, bless her heart, was much better at dealing with, you know, life than Emma was. And sorting through feelings and coping with unprecedented situations that Emma had so far only seen odd iterations of in Hallmark movies or … emo music videos, probably.

“The song. Fourth of July. It’s been a while since he wrote a song about you and I mean usually they were about pining for you, which is a little more tolerable, probably. But this one… I don’t know. I just figured you probably didn’t appreciate it, and that’s why you were drinking my shots.”

Another lame, dumbfounded response: “What? Killian’s never written a song about me.”

Ruby’s eyebrow shot up to her hairline (the way Killian’s always had when she said something silly). “So all that shit in college was…?”

“Made up! Ruby, he was a creative writing major. He just made up characters and then wrote songs as if he were them. He never actually wanted to date anyone. Just fuck anything that resembled Megan Fox.”

Ruby didn’t say a word. She stood, walked to the bar, ordered two drinks, and sat back down with Emma a few minutes later.

“Sweetheart. You sure are dumb for a smart girl.”

And that’s how Emma’s Enlightenment began.

As it turns out, Killian’s creative writing skills were great, but not quite as great as his love for his best friend.

Yep, love. Apparently he’d loved her.

There was a reason he’d really only fucked girls that looked nothing like Emma.

There was a reason he had valued her input so much in his music.

There was a reason he’d hung out with her so often and it had nothing to do with Mary Margaret and David’s grossness.

Keep quiet; nothing comes as easy as you. Can I lay in your bed all day?

Fuck.

“Why didn’t he tell me?!”

Ruby laughed at her, which was totally uncalled for, but also kind of made a lot of sense if she had the ability to think of any of this objectively.

“Oh, honey. He told you every goddamn day in those songs. And how he acted. You’d have to be blind to not realize how much that boy loved you. So he assumed it was a ‘no’ from your side. And then after you slept with him and then he poured his heart out to you and still nothing? That was kinda it for him. But I mean, it’s been so long. I can’t believe he released a song about that now.”

At that, Emma’s jaw dropped. Hard. There was an audible pop and damnit, she was going to have to ice that later, probably.

“How do you know I slept with him?!”

“… because you had a fight about it literally in front of every person you knew?”

HUH?

The buzz of the alcohol was nothing compared to the stinging behind her eyes and the pain in her gut and seriously had the past decade actually been a very different reality from what she’d been living?

And how had Mary Margaret, AKA the Secret Spiller, never told her that A) Killian loved her or B) that Emma had apparently had a blacked-out fight with him in front of everyone?

Emma’s Enlightment continued.

Apparently no one spilled the secret because no one knew it was a secret to start. Much like Killian had, everyone thought that Emma knew his feelings, but that she just wanted to be friends.

And after the blow up on the Fourth of July, they just assumed she didn’t want to talk about it.

While David and James and a bunch of their friends were playing beer pong and Mary Margaret and Regina were trying to find another pair to play cornhole, Emma had been nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels from the roof of the frat house. She’d crawled out of Jefferson’s window, much to his annoyance (he worked in the morning and needed to sleep), and she just watched. Everyone was having a good time. The best days of their lives were now or even tomorrow.

But hers were yesterday.

So she drank and she drank and she drank until the boys were lighting off fireworks and Belle had started a chant of USA! USA! And out of nowhere she saw the floppy brown hair and scuffed-up leather jacket she’d been wishing for every minute of the last week.

“Swan! I need to speak with you!” he’d called up at her, perched on the Lion statue at the front entrance.

But, of course, he’d been pulled in a thousand different directions as soon as everyone else saw their about-to-be-famous friend. So Emma drank and drank and drank some more, not prepared to actually have to say goodbye this time.

Ruby wasn’t sure how long it took until Killian made it onto the roof with her. She did know they’d only been talking a few minutes when Emma started screaming at the top of her lungs about thanks for the memories, even though they weren’t so great. That seemed to have really upset him, because then he started screaming about why the bloody hell did you sleep with me then and Emma had cried but ultimately said she didn’t mean to and he needed to just leave because that’s what he was going to do anyway and there was no reason to feel sorry for her.

There had been more screaming that wasn’t quite intelligible (thank goodness), but when all was said and done, Killian had told Ruby that he laid it all down on the line, how much he loved her, how he wanted her to go with him to LA, how he really would burn down the whole city just to show her the light, but she’d said no. Emphatically.

Before crying so hard in Jefferson’s closet that he threatened to take her to the ER.  When Emma passed out, Killian had carried her to his car (the only sober one) and carried her into her room when they got to his now-former house, leaving her with a kiss on the cheek and his later assurance to Ruby that at least he had tried.

And Emma didn’t remember.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Emma muttered to Ruby.

Was there anything worse than finding out something that could have changed your life nine fucking years too late? She had never loved anyone like she’d loved Killian. It had been the easiest relationship of her existence. She’d never felt more safe, more valued, more… loved. But she’d thought it was friend-love.

(Even after the amazing sex.)

What a fucking dumbass she was.

Ruby left her to gather her thoughts/sulk in the corner for at least three line dances before she came back over to their table, bringing Emma a nice tall water as she cleared the un-drunk Long Island Iced Tea from next to Emma’s slumped head.

“I don’t think I can ever un-fuck this up,” Emma whined into her elbow before sitting up to chug the glass of water.

“I do have his number,” Ruby offered.

Hey um Ruby gave me your number and apparently I have a lot to apologize for

Congratulations on the fame also by the way I loved you every minute of every day

This is Emma, remember me? Apparently your song about me is doing really well

Hey Killian, I was wondering if you ever made it to this side of the country any more

I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry

After about 15 failed attempts to send him a message that would convey the depth of her regret, she nearly gave up. Hands shaking, legs bouncing, lunch threatening to make an encore appearance, she pulled up the lyrics to his new song, took a screenshot,

And all my thoughts of you

They could heat or cool the room

And now don’t tell me you’re fine

Oh, honey, you don’t have to lie

And added:

I’m not fine.

It was a very painful 26 hours before she received a response, a screenshot with an addition as well.

I said I’d never miss you, but I guess you’ll never know

Where the bridges I have burned never really led home

Can I come home?

They met outside the old frat house (now shut down) a week later, staying awake until sunrise just catching up on all that had happened since they last saw each other (and a little bit of what happened when they did). She brought sparklers and he brought nine years of unreleased song lyrics.

And when his band’s next single was called Opening Pandora’s Box on Friday the Thirteenth, well, everyone but Emma just thought they were being their usual melodramatic selves.

Yeah, songs about her weren’t all that awful after all.

[blessed-but-distressed]

#FindEmmaSwanAFriend

Feeling left behind by her more successful, settled friends, Emma Swan moves to Scotland on a whim. Sure, she’s winning at Instagram, but something is still missing from her new life. Fortunately, her friends back home are on it. #FindEmmaSwanAFriend goes viral. Enter Killian Jones, reluctant columnist, who is on the hunt for his newest subject, and may just have found her. CS AU

also on ff.net and ao3

Tagging: @katie-dub , @wholockgal , @kat2609 , @whovianlunatic, @optomisticgirl, @ladyciaramiggles, @the-lady-of-misthaven, @emmaswanchoosesyou, @ilovemesomekillianjones, @biancaros3, @cigarettes-and-scotch-whisky, @ms-babs-gordon  @ab-normality, @andiirivera, @fangirl-till-it-hurts, @onceuponaprincessworld , @natascha-remi-ronin and whoever else asks me.

A/N: Yep. It’s been forever. And to add insult to injury, this is only Part 1 of 2. But umm... yay content?

***

SOS. My boss is wearing a powdered wig, and a guy in US flag speedos and nothing else just spilled punch down my dress. ES

What's this? A damsel in distress? Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a certain bearded gentleman to swoop in. One with cocktail knowledge and combat experience. Where is dear Rambo tonight? KJ

Don't call him that. And he's in Belfast, doing research. You know, like academics are supposed to do? ES

Ah, yes. Research. I've heard of it. KJ

That's it? No daring rescue plan? We have a code T here. ES

Code T? KJ

T for Transparent. As in, my dress. From being soaked through with punch by that asshole. Am I painting a clear enough picture? ES

I assure you, the image is extremely vivid. You might've led with that. Where is this damnable affair taking place, again? KJ

***

Emma

It wasn't that Emma was ashamed of where she came from. Not exactly. Recent election results aside, she had to acknowledge she hadn't ended up teaching American History by accident. Even when her country frustrated her, you had to admit, it was never boring. It was just...

She'd never been a foreigner before. Not really. A week in Cabo. That time Mary Margaret had forced her to third-wheel on a couple's ski trip to the Laurentians. Because that wasn't awkward at all.

But if she'd thought her American-ness would be a novelty in Scotland, she'd been seriously deluding herself.

Between the onset of summer vacation, the Instagram-worthy architecture and the enduring appeal of Jamie Fraser, there had never been more Americans in Edinburgh than there were at that moment. The Outlander Effect, they were calling it.

And Emma couldn't exactly miss them. They were everywhere, and not just herding en masse down the Royal Mile. On the bus. Crowding into the Jinglin' Geordie on Open Mic Night. Talking group assignments in the Starbucks line. Hell, a lot of her own students came equipped with homegrown accents, her class allowing their studies to mesh seamlessly with the syllabus back home.

Most encounters were pretty jarring. Like listening to your own voice played back on a recording.

Do I really sound like that?

She hoped not.

Did it really take me that long to figure out it isn't pronounced Edin-burg?

No comment.

Do I really have trouble translating common anglicisms?

Only sometimes.

Usually when they came out of the mouth of someone like Will Scarlet, and she couldn't tell if he was using some highly localized Derbyshire dialect, or if he was just fucking with her.

Sure, Killian tried a little too hard to sound like some kind of dashing 17th-century buccaneer most of the time, but at least it was still recognizable as a form of English. With Will though, she could never really be sure.

Still, after nearly a year, she liked to think she had a handle on things. She could order a 'Laphroaig' without completely mangling it, and knew enough to keep an umbrella on her person at all times. And if and when her cravings for American snack foods struck, they were being plenty satisfied by her local Sainsbury's, who kept one shelf fully stocked with all of the Twinkies, Peanut Butter Cups, and Lucky Charms a girl could ever wish for.

So when her Head of Department was looking for volunteers for their annual Fourth of July barbecue, Emma had to admit she did try to get out of it.

It was her own fault, really. It was summer. She should've been sunning it up in the Algarve with the rest of her colleagues, day drinking, and returning her skin tone to a less deathly pallor. Instead, she was the sucker who'd been roped into teaching Summer School classes to a revolving door of international students, who were keen to let some of the school's reputation rub off on them, without the three or four year commitment. Every three weeks a new lot arrived, and Emma's life descended into Groundhog Day as she repeated her lectures anew, reliving the same debates and excuses on a constant loop.

So she only had herself to blame when the department head went looking for warm bodies, that hers was the only one still lingering in the corridors.

"Great!" her boss said, clapping her hands together. "Don't forget to wear something festive!"

Festive.

There was no way this wasn't going to be a disaster.

***

The damsel in distress line might've rankled her, but she had to hand it to the guy, he came through.

Fifteen minutes after she'd barricaded herself in the bathroom after The Fruit Punch Incident she was summoned curbside, arms still determinedly crossed over her chest, to where a black cab sat idling, an incorrigible Englishman leaning against it holding up a leather holdall.

"Does Elsa know you went through her closet?" she asked, eyeing the bag.

"Who do you think paid for the cab?" he grinned.

Emma really needed to send that woman a fruit basket or something. Did people still do that? Send fruit baskets? Elsa would know. She probably went to one of those fancy Swiss finishing schools, where you learned shit like that.

The bag even smelled expensive as Killian handed it over, his eyes dropping for the first time to properly take in her ruined outfit, and lingering.

"Don't even say it," she warned, as he fought to suppress a grin.

She was never wearing a white sundress again. Ever.

"If anyone could pull it off..." he began, but a warning finger cut him off.

The picture of innocence, he raised his hands and stepped away. Which was precisely the moment Emma realized they were not, in fact, alone.

"In a spot of bother, milady?" came the cheerful greeting from the figure still wedged into the backseat of the cab, waving at her.

Robin. Attractive single Dad Robin, with the Oxbridge accent, criminal mastermind father, and good sense to keep his eyes averted.

"What the hell?" Emma hissed under her breath, whacking Killian in the shoulder. "Are we charging admission for my humiliations now?"

"Easy, lass," he said, rubbing the spot where she'd hit him. "I was out with Robin when you texted. I was hardly going to leave him on his own, now was I? Not very good form."

She glanced back to where Robin sat, whistling to himself, then back to Killian. "Oh, so now you're the honorable one?"

"What's this?" he scoffed. "An attack on my character? And after I've orchestrated such a dashing rescue? A fair maiden in distress and I'm on the spot."

The indignation would've been a little easier to swallow if his grin hadn't been quite so… wolfish.

"Yeah, right," Emma said with a roll of her eyes. "Like this isn't making it into your column."

He didn't deny it. He didn't need to. Just offered her a clumsy wink, and motioned to the building before them.

"One good turn deserves another, don't you think?" he suggested, and Emma's stomach dropped. "How does one merit an invitation to an exclusive gathering of expatriates, exactly? Do they check passports at the door? Make you recite the Pledge of Allegiance?"

He held his prosthetic over his heart, and affixed a solemn expression.

"Wrong hand, asshole," she said, grabbing his wrist and tugging his hand back down by his side.

"Probably for the best," Killian shrugged. "I confess I don't actually know the words. Does the School of Rock version count?"

"You seriously want to go up there? You know they're celebrating their independence from the English, right?"

"I'm a journalist, Swan. An arbiter of truth. Would you really deny me the materials I need to make an honest living?"

"You're a hack," Emma grumbled, clutching the bag of clothes to her chest.

"Aye, that I am," Killian agreed, dropping his voice at least an octave. "But a rather dashing one, don't you think?"

So this is how Killian Jones got what he wanted. The ol' razzle dazzle.

It wasn't entirely ineffective. With a huff of annoyance, Emma walked over to lean by the window of the cab. "What do you say, Robin? Want to see my countrymen cut loose and fight about politics?"

He tilted his head, considering her offer. "Do you really put marshmallows in your sweet potatoes?"

"Different holiday. But yeah, we do."

"Alright then," he said, gathering up his belongings where they were strewn across the back seat. "I'll be there presently."

Rapping her knuckles against the side of the cab, she turned back to Killian, who was looking unbearably pleased with himself. Even more than usual.

"Lead the way, lass" he declared, with an exaggerated bow.

"It's a little too late to play at being the gentleman, don't you think?" Emma pointed out.

"Oh?" he asked, his gaze unnervingly direct. "And why is that, Swan?"

If he was trying for intimidation, then he really didn't know Emma well enough. Instead, she simply turned to lead the way back up the stairs to the front stoop, bag swinging by her side. "I'm just saying…" she replied in a sing-song voice. "A gentleman wouldn't have looked."

***

When Emma pictured a Fourth of July barbecue, she pictured hot dogs, hyperactive neighborhood kids with water pistols, and sunshine. The Edinburgh version was something very different.

For one thing, it was not a family affair. For another, she doubted you could even really call it a barbecue, when there was no grill in sight. And unfortunately, for Emma, the party was still in full swing when she returned after her costume change, all of her dreams for a quick getaway evaporating along with the last of the punch.

If anything, the numbers had swelled with a sea of Uncle Sams and Lady Liberties spilling out into the garden, wine glasses in hand. If Emma hadn't already realized the gross pay disparity between educators and administrators, the garden would've really sealed it.

You couldn't swing a Heriot Row townhouse on Emma's salary. Hell, you couldn't even swing a Heriot Row parking space on Emma's salary. Yet somehow, the university muckety-muck who'd been bullied into hosting this little soiree didn't seem to have that problem.

At least the booze was free.

Emma looked longingly over at the refreshments table, but gave it a wide berth. The last thing she needed to do was ruin her borrowed sweater. It was a little on the tight side, but she did appreciate its fuzzy warmth. Even as she wondered if Killian had purposefully picked out the preppiest sweater he could find, or if she was just cursed.

"Hey," came a call from her left. It was a guy in a Captain America outfit, with none of Chris Evan's dimensions. "Ivanka, right?"

Emma looked down at herself, wondering if that was the name of the designer. "I'm sorry?"

"You're dressed as Ivanka Trump, right? Nice."

He was gone before she could deny it, and she glanced back to the gilded mirror in the hallway in alarm. With her hair recently straightened, she had to admit to a passing resemblance. If you squinted.

Oh god.

She had to find the boys and get them out of here, before she was pilloried as a Republican infiltrator.

She scanned the crowd, but the only person in a leather jacket she saw was channeling Maverick from Top Gun. Frustrated, she headed out into the garden, where she spotted Robin, cornered amongst the shrubberies by a very determined looking woman in a Wonder Woman costume.

Was Wonder Woman even American, technically?

Whatever the debates on her true origin, Emma had to admit the woman pulled off the look, even if the cleavage spilling out from the neckline of the outfit was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. She was fully fixated on Robin, her fingers trailing up and down his arm, laughing at one of his anecdotes.

As she walked by she shot him a questioning look, in case he needed an assist, but he just gave a wink, and started in on a new story.

Hot Single Dad Robin still had it. And something told her he wouldn't be up for any plan that involved cutting out with her early.

Heaving a sigh, she liberated a Coors Light from an icebox and took another turn around the garden.

"Ivanka?" Another woman asked, her look practically accusatory.

"Elle Woods," Emma blurted out. The sweater was baby blue, not pink, but it was the best she could come up with on the fly.

Hurrying away from that interaction, she rounded a pillar and finally came upon her quarry, sitting alone on a bench beside a gurgling water feature.

"And here I thought you'd be the life of the party," Emma said, snagging the space beside him. She gestured towards where Robin was getting half his face mauled off by Wonder Woman. "Was every other member of the Justice League taken?"

She was rewarded with the ghost of a smile, but his gaze was still fixed ahead, not really seeing, as he rolled an unopened bottle of Budweiser between his fingers.

"You okay?" Emma asked, taking the bottle from his hand and removing the cap with a well-placed tap against the side of the bench.

"Where'd you learn that little trick?" he asked, ignoring her question as he accepted the open bottle.

"A bus shelter in Framingham, Massachusetts." It was more detail than he was expecting, and she nearly laughed at the sudden brightness in his eyes. "It was my first beer. You kind of remember stuff like that."

"You has your first beer in a bus shelter in Framingham Massachusetts?" He repeated it back, like there was something especially weird about that.

"Yeah. I was 14, and in between foster homes. Stole a six pack from the Stop and Shop after the clerk told me off for browsing the magazines. And then some old army vet at the bus shelter showed me how to take the cap off against the side of a trash can."

He furrowed his brows. "You're trying to get me to open up by revealing things about yourself. Which you never do."

"Maybe," Emma offered, taking a swig of her beer. "Is it working?"

He took a long sip on his own bottle, made a face, and then settled it back into his lap. "You mentioned a brush with the law, as a teenager. I'm assuming that wasn't for underage drinking at bus stops?"

Emma grimaced. "Not so much. Possession of stolen goods, with intent to sell. I got lucky. The watch I had on me was worth just shy of $500. They knocked it down to a misdemeanor and I got probation."

"You stole a watch?"

"No, my skeezy boyfriend stole a case of watches. I just happened to be wearing one when he called the cops to frame me while he took off to Canada with the rest."

"When he what?! Please tell me this wanker is dead in a ditch somewhere." Emma had to admit, she didn't mind his tone. Like he might go out and finish the job, if need be.

Emma shrugged, picking at the label on her bottle. "Probably. I never saw him again after that."

"So that explains it," Killian huffed.

"Explains what?" Emma asked, preparing to get defensive.

"Your Walsh fellow's appeal. I'm guessing he wasn't the larcenous type?"

Oh. Not even remotely.

"Yeah, he was the kind of guy who washed out his jars before he put them in the recycling. He was kind of the anti-Neal."

"That was his name? Neal?"

"Neal Cassidy," Emma sighed. "And yes, like the writer. He had it changed when he was 18 as a Fuck You to his Dad."

"Well, he sounds like a right tosser."

Emma snorted. "Yeah, pretty much."

"And not all that clever, if he thought losing you for a case of watches was an even trade."

That had Emma looking up, sarcastic retort on the tip of her tongue. But instead of making fun, Killian's expression was deadly serious, eyes meeting hers directly. Like he actually meant it. Emma's gaze flicked back to the label on her beer, nearly entirely peeled away by this stage, and fought to keep her face level.

"You think so?" she asked, her words coming out less jokingly than she intended.

"I do."

It was the answer that had her looking back up again, a frown forming. "Killian, I-"

"You're worth at least two cases," he added. "Maybe three. I mean, what are we talking here? Cartier? Rolex?" His eyebrow was raised again in that familiar roguish way.

Emma let out a breath, and extinguished the tiny flame that burned somewhere inside her stomach. Friends, she reminded herself. They were friends.

"You're hilarious," Emma replied deadpan. "And if we're going to continue sharing, I really need something stronger than this," she said, tipping back her head and draining the last of her bottle.

"When I was looking for extra chairs earlier, I think I saw a wet bar in the study. Fancy a dram?" Killian asked, rising to his feet.

"Oh, so you're journalistic snooping does come in handy sometimes?"

"More than sometimes," he said with a grin that would fell a lesser beast. And suddenly Emma wasn't so sure the flame was truly out.

Later, she still couldn't recall whether he'd held out a hand to take her empty bottle, or to help her up. All she knew, was as they moved from the garden back to the party proper, she had Killian's hand in hers.

***

Reasons Not To Push Killian Jones Up Against The Nearest Wall And Have Your Way With Him:

1. Hello, work event. Have some goddamn professionalism.

2. You're wearing Elsa's clothes. Don't make this weird.

3. You like him, and never talking to him again would suck.

4. He would definitely allude to it in his column, and you would have to emigrate. Again.

5. Graham. Oh, fuck. Graham.

***

The upstairs study was everything you'd expect from an overpaid university administrator. Soft red leather furnishings. Framed certificates covering an entire wall. A solid oak desk that could, hypothetically, bear the weight of two people at once.

And, oh yeah, the promised wet bar.

Emma was not, nor had she ever been, a cheater. And even if she and Graham were still only in the "getting to know you" phase of tentative texts and PG-13 cocktail hours, she knew betraying that would still be a shitty thing to do.

So when Killian offered her the glass of whisky, she didn't do what she wanted to do, which was down the lot and drag him towards her by the collar. Instead, she sat on the red leather couch as far from him as possible, and held the glass in front of her like a shield.

"Reminds me of your jacket," he said with a smile, letting his hand glide against the upholstery. Emma's skin still tingled from where his hand had gripped hers, so unused to foreign contact.

She took a gulp of her drink, and let it burn down her esophagus in penance for her crimes. Only once she'd regained sufficient control of her hormones did she speak.

"So, are you going to tell me what's been up with you?

"Up with me?" Killian replied, his oh-so-innocent look oh-so-unconvincing. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know," Emma said, rolling her eyes heavenward. "The sudden phone emergencies. The brooding. The black eye. You've been different lately. Kind of… subdued, for you."

In answer, Killian drained what was left of his glass, and turned to face her. "Perceptive, aren't you, Swan?" He didn't sound happy about the fact.

Emma shrugged, taking another sip. "You can't kid a kidder."

He considered that, finger tapping absently against the side of his glass. "Perhaps not. Very well then. The truth: The magazine is broke."

It wasn't what Emma had been expecting. What had she been expecting? A secret drug habit? Abusive new girlfriend? Fight Club?

"Broke?" she repeated.

"Utterly. But instead of accepting the inevitable, and bowing out gracefully, my brother, well-intentioned idiot that he is, decided to take what was left in the coffers and make a few wagers."

Emma's heart sank into her stomach. "He didn't."

"Oh, he did. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, apparently. Lost the lot. Bloody prat. Thought he'd come back a conquering hero. Instead he's having to dip into his own savings to keep the whole operation afloat until he can find a way to pay back his bookie."

That explained the black eye.

"And no one knows about this? Don't you have accountants or something?"

"There is a fellow, Tim, who's been covering for him. Let him take out the entire balance in the first place, didn't he? So now he feels equally culpable. So there's Liam. Tim. Me. And now you."

"Elsa doesn't know?"

"Not in so many words. She isn't bloody stupid though. He's been decidedly distracted on the homefront. Probably thinks he's having a mid-life crisis or an affair or something stupid. Would be easier to just tell her, but the problem is, he knows if she finds out about it she'll feel obligated to help."

"Well, that would be a good thing, right? No more, uhhh…" Emma waved a hand over her eye.

"Well, when Elsa's parents died, they left her a good deal of money. Most of it went towards the house, and setting up her sister in New York, but there's enough left to get Weaver off his back. Problem is, my brother's pride would never let him accept it. And then there's the matter of Elsa's aunt."

"Elsa's aunt?"

"She owns the magazine. And let's just say, she's not quite as err… understanding as Elsa can be. If she gets word of it, there'll be criminal charges."

"Fuck."

"Fuck,' he agreed, leaning forward in his chair to pour himself another whisky.

"And you've just been carrying this all around on your shoulders for what? Months?"

"But what magnificent shoulders, wouldn't you say, Swan?" The grin was almost leering, but not in a good way. More in a defense mechanism kind of way.

"Don't do that," Emma chided, leaning over to smooth the wrinkle above his brows with her fingers. "Just be you."

"And how is that?" He asked, with a look of such genuine curiosity that her hand paused somewhere in the region of his jaw.

"Same as me," Emma shrugged. "A little fucked up. A little scared."

She leaned forward then, and placed a kiss on that same spot above his brow.

Maybe it wasn't where she'd wanted to kiss him five minutes ago, but it felt right. She heard him inhale sharply underneath her, but she didn't immediately break contact. Not until his face relaxed, and his arms came up to wrap around her waist.

She let her head fall onto his shoulder, and his on hers, breathing each other in. Comfortable fucking silence.

Only when her phone started chirping in her pocket did she pull away at last, steadying herself on his shoulders. "You're going to be okay, Killian Jones. You and your fucked up family."

The grin was wry, but it was real.

"You going to get that?" he asked, ducking his chin down to where they were practically intertwined. Probably best not to add vibration to the mix.

She fished the phone out of her pocket, and checked the caller ID.

August.

He never called. He sent ten page letters typed up on his pretentious vintage typewriter, but he never called.

With a look of apology, she peeled herself off of Killian's lap, and hit accept.

"August? Is someone dead?"

"Em! Where are you?" Wherever he was, he sounded cheerful. And just a little bit drunk. Well, it was the Fourth of July.

"Where am I? I'm in Scotland, where I'm supposed to be. How much have you had to drink?"

"Nooo," he corrected, words slurring a little. "I mean, where right now? Someone in your department told me you were at this party. But no one remembers seeing you. Are you here?"

Emma's stomach lurched. "Party? You mean, in Edinburgh?"

"Of course, in Edinburgh! The party I'm at, it's at… hang on," his words muffled as he conferred with nearby partygoers, "17 Heriot Row?"

Oh. Fucking. Fuck. Fucking August and his fucking surprises.

"I'll be five minutes. Stay right where you are."

Feeling the color drain from her face, she ended the call, and tucked her phone back into the pocket of her borrowed jeans. "We need to get downstairs. I need to-" She looked around for a mirror, but there were none in the vicinity. Of course.

"Lass?" He had her by the elbow, holding her still. "What has you all a-flutter?"

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. "You remember I mentioned my friend August?"

"Knee still creaks when it rains, August?" The boy did have superior recall. "Novelist August?"

"Yeah. Anyway, he's downstairs."

[snowbellewells]

@thejollyroger-writer Aww, this really was priceless! Your Leo was beyond adorable, and I nearly cracked up when he mirrored his mom and dad with the crossed arms and wanting the whole story from Emma and Killian. Killian’s Brit pride and the way he set that tour guide’s record straight was also pretty awesome, as was Emma noticing and taking his hand to offer her assurance. It was good that the kid apologized to Killian later, and nice of Killian to accept it.

This part though was probably my favorite bit: “Sure, they've only been together for a few months, but he's been in love with her for years. He tried to bury it beneath bottles of rum, tried to hide from it by using other women, but every time when he woke up beside one of them, he would dream it was her, wake up hoping it wasn't just a dream, and regret when that was not the truth.” Truth be told, it really just made me melt inside. Thanks for sharing this fun holiday fic! 😍🎇🇬🇧

Historical Inaccuracies

a/n: Inspired by a chat in the discord, this story was born out of Killian’s love for history and America’s hatred for the British while on historical tours. Up until last night, this fic was lovingly referred to as “the history nerd fic,” and it is dedicated to @welllpthisishappening @profdanglaisstuff @kmomof4 and @shireness-saysIt is, of course, Fourth of July themed, like all of Mary Margaret’s outfits on this trip. 

Read it on AO3 if that’s more your jam

3k words // rated G

SUMMARY:  When David and Mary Margaret’s son wants to go on the Freedom Walk guided tour in Boston for his birthday, Emma and Killian tag along, still hiding their relatively-new relationship from their friends. But when the tour guide starts to berate a certain group of people from across the pond, both Killian’s anger and their relationship come out.

—–

Killian would do anything for his godson. Of course, he would do anything for his nephew, Charlie, too, but the hour-long car trip from Boston to Northbridge is far easier than the flight across the Atlantic to his brother and his wife in England. 

But this? This is a new level of Hell, right here in the middle of Boston. 

Not all of it is terrible. He gets to share an apartment with his girlfriend, their fairly-new relationship still a secret to their best friends. They both took off work for Leo’s birthday celebration, so they get to spend a few days together, without either of them having to worry about their jobs, since she could manage a few days without going after someone who skipped bail, and his university was off for the summer. And their best friends are back in town, their seven-year-old in tow. It really was a “stay-cation” that he was looking forward to, especially since the thing Leo wanted the most was to spend days on historical tours of Killian’s favorite city, some of them led by Killian himself, and others led by costumed tour guides in celebration of the Fourth of July week in Boston.  

But it’s one of these costumed tour guides that is putting Killian through hell. Ben. Ben, a twenty-something year old, probably a college student, with shaggy ginger hair and a freckle-covered face, wearing an American Revolutionary War uniform.

He got through the part of the tour where Ben referred to the British soldiers during the Revolutionary War as the “bloody Brits,” paired with a terrible fake accent. He got through the discussion of the Boston Tea Party where Ben instead referred to them only as the “Colonizers.” 

But now? 

“You know,” Ben says, turning around to look at their small group as he leads them down the last few blocks towards the Faneuil Market, the ending place for their tour. “We focus so much on the Brits of the past on this tour, but what about the Brits of the present?” 

Keep reading

[snowbellewells]

CS Fic Rec Monday #7: Author Recommendation @hollyethecurious

Ever since first discovering “What Lies Beneath the Mask” @hollyethecurious has become another one of my favorite CS fic writers.  She is a wonderful writer, and has also been just amazingly pleasant and fun to get to know a bit as a fellow CS shipmate.  I am currently always beyond excited whenever I see she has posted a new chapter of “We Make Our Own Fate”.  But you really ought to check out every one of her stories you can... :)

“What Lies Beneath the Mask”  Naturally, I had to start with this one.  This is the one which led me to find Hollye’s writing (and to discover that I might be a bit of a mild whump fan, but that’s neither here nor there... ;p)  This story does a very clever mixing of Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Man in the Iron Mask, Ouat characters, and its own lovely twists and developments as well.  I certainly don’t want to give all the great parts of this away in a simple little rec, but the plot is breathlessly engaging, the characters endearing (except for the ones you’re supposed to hate - who are truly horrible).  I love how folks like Nemo, Robin, Will, and yes, Liam! are made part of this story so flawlessly. And the love story and the action are equally riveting!

“Ballet (Mis)Steps” This lovely long one shot is another favorite.  I really love the no magic, modern AU world created with this one, making both Emma and Killian ballet dancers with a history together.  When the chance comes for a second chance at love as well as career success, what a story it makes!!

“Pyrate-Technics”  This one is a fun Fourth of July- themed one shot.  I love the chemistry and back-and-forth between Killian and Emma in this one, from their very first conversation right up to the end.  This one is steamy (and not just from the setting in the summer heat! ;)  and a joy to read.  It’s just the right season to revisit this modern AU again, or discover it for the first time!

“The Legend of Captain Killian Jones”  Ooh, this fic has a little bit of everything! It’s a two parter, but each part is really detailed and full of character development, great plot, some mystery, a dash of ghost story, and budding romance. There’s wonderfully well done Captain Cobra and Swan Believer in this along with the slow burn Captain Swan.  The way they come to meet in this one, the backstory and set up, all hold your attention from the word “go” -- you don’t want to missing all the feelings and intrigue with this one!

Huzzah!”  I just really get a kick out of the mischief and lightheartedness of this one.  We get to see a modern AU Emma letting loose and having a fun night out with her friends, and it’s just a nice change of pace to have her not weighed down with worries or all alone either.  The entry Killian Jones makes into this story though - WHEW! - it’s just perfect and completely sweeps Emma off her feet. :)

“Teacher’s Lounge”   Maybe it’s because I am a teacher that I find this one so intriguing and entertaining (Though, let’s be real, nothing like this ever happens in my teacher’s lounge! ;p )  I really like the steamy goodness in this one - seriously, you’ll be fanning yourself - but at the same time there’s a really sweet element to how long Math teacher Killian Jones has been watching English teacher Emma Swan from afar, wishing to make a connection. Another great read!

“Swan and Shadows”  I love this 4os film noir take on Captain Swan!! (That, and I will admit, I selfishly requested Hollye write this type of a story, and she kindly gave it a try.)  It has all the elements of a hard-boiled detective movie straight out of the black and white era.  This is a shorter one shot, but it packs a punch, and I love how it immediately captures the characters we know, but places them firmly and fittingly in this world. It’s just awesome!  

“We Make Our Own Fate”  Last for this rec list, but certainly not least!, I couldn’t leave out this work in progress.  I simply can’t get enough of this AU that stirs together elements of Colin’s What Still Remains movie, post-apocalyptic survival stories, adventure, alliances and double-crosses, some of OuaT’s season seven (particularly an irresistible take on KnightRook), and of course, what can’t help but eventually be real romance for Emma and Killian.  There’s nothing else I’m currently reading that is at all like this one.  I literally squeal and tell whoever I’m with: “Oh my goodness! She’s posted a new chapter!” whenever I get a notification that it’s updated.  It’s just that good!

[lifeinahole27]

CS ff: “On the Two” (Chapter 5/9) (au)

Summary: He’s one bad trip from ending up in AA, and she’s one performance away from a solid job and moving closer to home. Their paths were unlikely to cross until Camp Hope brought them together. How and why they meet and intertwine is against the odds, and definitely against the rules, but will that really stand in their way? A Dirty Dancing inspired modern au.

Rating: E

Content Warnings: Borderline alcoholism, very brief mentions of past relationships, mentions of the loss of a limb - this fic is primarily tame but I’ll do my best to tag anything that might need tags.

Chapter Specific Warnings: None! Sadly, back to business this chapter. Well... there’s the loss of something very specific. But I cannot spoil the surprise. Be warned, and don’t hate me!!

A/N: I’m supposed to be grading. And honestly, I’m not even sorry for editing and posting instead. This is another chapter I am extremely excited to share, since it’s getting closer to the actual dance. Also, it has one of my absolute favorite scenes that y’all are gonna throw shit at me because of. Onward!

Catch it on FFN & Ao3! Or find the previous chapters here on Tumblr!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | 

Emma doesn’t waste time when she gets back to her cabin, stripping and going directly to her shower, turning the knobs to cold, and stepping underneath as soon as she can. It’s a mistake, even though it feels like heaven, because the sound she makes when her breath hitches, the way the air backs up right into her lungs again, makes her think of the way Killian had looked at her while she was cleaning the mirror. His eyes had darkened in a way she can only think was arousal, and he had sighed something like want and regret at the same time and she imagines she pictured the same possibilities he did at that exact moment.

After only a brief second, she adjusts the temperature until it’s tepid. She diligently showers off the sweat and exertion, only staying in long enough to wash herself so her mind doesn’t stray to things less innocent and definitely not clean.

Slicking back her hair, she wrings out the extra water before wrapping it in a towel, drying herself with another one before slipping on her robe. Thankfully, her cabin’s AC is just fine and she’s surprised she hasn’t done something dumb like suggesting they practice in her cabin, in her bed… horizontally.

With another noise of irritation at herself, she storms out of the bathroom, and is immediately proud of herself for not screaming when Ruby greets her from the same bed she was just imagining defiling.

“What are you doing here?”

“Came to see my dance buddy. I was finally cleared for moving as long as I don’t overdo it,” Ruby responds brightly, pointing at the air cast around her ankle. “Now, what the hell are you up to?” It’s not just an inquiry; there’s accusation in the words, like she knows what Emma was thinking before she walked back into the room.

“What do you mean?” Emma’s voice is all nonchalant innocence, and she ducks into her closet to change into shorts and a tank top since her idea of lounging around in her robe is now out of the question. “I’m teaching – twice as many lessons and classes, I’d like to add – and trying to get ready for this performance.” She pokes her head out to give her friend a pointed look at this.

Ruby hums in response, shifting to lean back on Emma’s bed. “And how’s that going? You came to see me once right after I hurt my ankle to ask which dance was better and you’ve been shut up in the studio ever since.”

“I’m not a shut in,” she says, disappearing back into her closet.

“You haven’t gone to staff dances for the last two weekends.”

“So? I haven’t been in the mood.”

“Which is totally like you, and I would buy it, if it weren’t for Mulan saying the studio was lit up like the Fourth of July last Friday night with music. What are you hiding, Emma Swan?”

She takes her time coming back out, waffling between telling the truth and trying to lie through her teeth. This way, Ruby doesn’t see the war going across Emma’s face while she wrings her hands. Taking one last deep breath, she walks out and tries her best to not fidget as she starts to explain.

“Okay, so I did find a partner for the Mills Regency trial run thing.”

“Really? But that’s great news! Why wouldn’t that be…” She trails off, her head cocking to one side as she considers Emma again. “Who is it?”

“It’s a man named Killian.”

“And where did you meet Killian? Because I know for sure he’s not in any of our shared social circles.” When Emma still refuses to spit out the fact that he’s a guest at the camp, Ruby finally must surmise it on her own. “Emma Middle Name Swan!” Emma snorts, because she doesn’t have a middle name so this is how Ruby has always taken to yelling at her, but then she remembers that Ruby is yelling at her and she cringes as her friend continues. “Tell me he’s not a guest. Please, I am begging you, tell me this partner is not paying to be here.”

Emma groans by way of answer, dropping onto the bed dramatically, face down, continuing to groan as she does. “That’s not the worst of it,” she says, though it’s muffled by the mattress and blankets beneath her. She’s already gone this far; she might as well tell Ruby everything at this point. With a deep breath in as soon as she lifts her head, she continues. “I kissed him.”

Ruby’s screeching answer is totally deserved, and Emma listens to approximately thirty seconds of her friend berating her before she shifts again to sit up on the bed. “Okay, okay. I deserve all of that. But Red, wait ‘til you see him. You’ll understand everything after that, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh, now I’m gonna see him? After you’ve made bad decisions?”

“You have to. I’ve just decided that you need to sit in on our practices and help me coach him. It’s not like you’re doing anything else.”

“I’ve taken up pottery, thank you very much. But I’ll agree that you need a chaperone to be alone with this man if you’re going to jeopardize everything with dumb actions like kissing him.” Ruby emphasizes the last two words by smacking Emma’s arm with each syllable. “So you’re going with Mambo?”

“We’re going with Mambo,” Emma responds. With a noise, she pulls out her phone and opens her pictures. Internet and cell connections out at camp are spotty at best, but she made sure to save a bunch of pictures of her ideas for what Killian should wear for the performance. “You need to help me get some costumes for him.”

Ruby makes grabby hands at Emma’s phone, flicking through the choices with glee. “Do you have shoes for him yet?”

“I had Graham overnight a pair after we first started. He’s been breaking them in for about two days now.”

“When is the next time you’re practicing?”

“Tonight. He’s coming back after dinner and we’re gonna run through what he’s learned. You up for a visit later?”

The smile Ruby gives is one Emma knows well, full of power and teeth, and that special Ruby glint in her eyes. “I can’t wait.”

If Killian is bothered by Ruby being in the studio with them, he doesn’t show it. In fact, Emma might even say he looks a little calmer. Maybe the fact that they’re not alone is a good thing for his mind, too. Whatever the case, the two of them start working on getting Killian into better shape. With her friend’s directions, Killian is improving faster, which is also beneficial since they don’t have to run the same steps over and over again.

Ruby’s not always able to come to the practices, but she tries to be there as much as possible. When she starts some light physical therapy on her ankle to strengthen it, she mostly schedules her appointments for right before or after Emma’s lessons with Killian so she can stop on her way to and from the small medical building.

Killian adjusts quickly to the two of them instructing him. Ruby calls out tips and reminders as they move through the different sections of the routine, which builds his muscle memory stronger than it was developing before.

She stops them at one point, readjusting in her chair next to the stereo to fix them both with her gaze. “Okay, it’s good. But it needs to be better. Regina will expect this to set the room on fire. I want the audience to look at either one of you and be jealous of the other. So, while I know Emma is fine with turning up the heat, let’s focus on you, Killian.”

His eyebrows climb up his forehead at Ruby’s words and Emma has to stop herself from chuckling. She remembers this method, and Ruby is probably enjoying herself way too much. But she also wants to see how Killian handles this.

“What do you mean, lass?”

“To really sell a dance, I need to want to be up there dancing with you. So make me want you. Make me jealous that it’s Emma there in your arms instead of me. Sell it.” She emphasizes the last two words, turning them from a simple direction to a challenge, and Killian is the kind of guy that enjoys a challenge, if Emma were to guess.

His whole visage is blank, but he seems to be considering the words and how to go about following directions. When the music starts again, Killian’s hold feels different. It feels… incredible, and somewhere between tender and possessive. It’s somewhere in the second section of steps that Emma sees that uptick of his lips, the flirty little smile that sends a pang into her stomach and beyond that makes her want to stop the dance altogether and kiss him until she’s breathless.

She’s unable to stop the soft noise escaping her lips when they finish, their foreheads pressed tightly together and his lips so close it would take barely a movement to touch. Killian’s eyes widen a bit, his own breath sucking into his lungs as his hand tightens on her waist.

They’re both pulled from the moment by Ruby clapping her hands and a sound of glee calling to them. “Excellent! Yes! That is the kind of spirit you want to take with you.”

When her eyes meet Ruby’s again, there’s a knowing glint in them – the look says everything she’s feeling isn’t as hidden as she hoped it would be. She’s going to kill her roommate, of that she is certain. With an indulgent sigh, she walks over to Ruby and snatches the remote out of her hand. Instead of the comment Emma is expecting, though, Ruby tugs her close.

“You were right about all this. He’s damn good.”

Emma smiles then, a quiet “I know” her only response before she reaches for her towel and blots along her neck. “One more time,” she says to the room at large, catching the barest hint of a smug expression on Killian’s face that lets her know he heard the compliment. Good. Maybe he’s finally letting go of the insecurity they’ve been working to eradicate this whole time, then.

As far as the practices where they’re alone, the time is much better utilized and it’s all business. Because of that, she’s spending less time with him, even if the way he holds her is starting to feel more intimate than a lover’s tocuh, more so than the way they kissed each other, and so it’s definitely a case of one step forward, two steps back… pun not intended.

Whatever the case, Killian is the very image of professional when they’re together. He does his best to keep eye contact (which he’s passed with flying colors since their first trust exercise) and not look at his feet. It’s all vast improvement, but they’re still not quite to the level of quality that Emma wants to present at the Mills Regency.

The date of the performance is starting to loom in the near-distant future, and Emma realizes, quite startlingly, that she’s more nervous about this performance than she thought she would be.

A week before their performance date, she gets a text from Granny that a large parcel is waiting for her at the diner, and Emma immediately leaves to go pick it up. She knows the studio is empty the rest of the afternoon due to Tink moving her yoga class to the main lawn thanks to a break in the weather, so Emma takes time to hang all the costumes that Graham sent to her. Killian can run the whole number with minimal problems now, so she doesn’t mind taking an afternoon to play dress-up instead. It’ll certainly be an interesting change from their normal schedule.

-x-

When Killian shows up, Emma is all alone. This isn’t uncommon, as her friend Ruby isn’t always in attendance (and wasn’t that a surprise the first time she was there, sitting in a chair with her ankle propped up on the stereo casing with a slow, nearly-feral grin spreading across her lips as she beckoned him over to introduce herself), but then, Emma also seems to be nervously fussing with the partition screen that’s usually in the corner hiding all the yoga gear.

Today, it’s dragged to the opposite corner that doesn’t have any windows behind it, and Emma is just finishing hooking a hanger onto the top of it on the side facing the corner.

“So, Ruby has physical therapy and can’t be here, but since we’ve just about gotten the dance down, next comes making you look like a dancer in appearance. I’m very lucky to have a friend in the city willing to overnight male costumes to Granny’s, so we just need to find which one works best for you.” She turns as she finishes speaking, a smile on her face that looks half-predatory – much like a smile he’d expect on Ruby’s face instead of Emma’s.

“Excellent,” is all he can really respond, because Emma’s still giving him that look and he doesn’t know what else to say.

He doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary with the costumes, except that they look a little tighter than what he’d normally choose to wear. That is, however, until he slides on a pair of the trousers. He’s admiring the elastic waist and the satin band at the top of it when he turns to grab the shirt and stops in his tracks.

“Emma?”

“Yes?” She draws out the word, like she’s been waiting for his question since he walked behind the partition. He grabs the hanger with his prosthetic and moves around the screen.

“You seem to have forgotten to explain the order in which my clothing should go on.”

“Yeah, about that.” She reaches out and grabs the sides of the fabric, bringing the bottom portion of the costume into better view. “All of the shirts have these attached so your shirt doesn’t come untucked as you’re dancing. It’s really stretchy. You won’t even notice it!”

Skepticism is an understatement for how he feels. He still tries them on over his boxer-briefs, unsure of etiquette procedures when trying on things that will be intimately touching him if he’s not even going to be wearing some of them. And it’s just as well, since it takes until the third one for Emma to nod approvingly at the option. The first two, as she claimed, just didn’t match her vision.

While she likes the third one, she still urges him back to try on the last one so they’re sure. Before he’s even finished putting it on, he likes it better than the others. There’s a zipper down the front of it that ends at his sternum, and he has to be exceedingly careful while pulling it into place so as not to catch any of his chest hair in it.

He doesn’t feel exposed until Emma is walking around him in a circle, looking at the fit and humming in thought. The arms are made of solid material, but the fabric along his sides and down his back is blocked in a way that thin strips of his bare skin are visible from every angle through the nearly-mesh material. The big positive he can pull from this choice is the fact that the sleeves come down far enough on his wrists that it covers the hardware for his prosthetic. It definitely makes him feel slightly more confident than he was the day Emma kissed him.

“We have a problem,” Emma says suddenly, and Killian looks at her in alarm.

“Don’t tell me I have to lose the trousers or something because I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.”

“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just that,” she starts, pausing to move forward and touch the very hair he was afraid of getting caught in the zipper. “We’ve got a bit of a hairy situation going on here.”

He looks down at his chest, and back to Emma, and back down to where her index finger is still resting on his breastbone. “You don’t mean…”

The grim line her lips make answers the question for him.

“I have to…shave it?”

“It might be easier to go to the spa and have them wax it.”

“Pardon?” If his face was the picture of alarm before, he’s not sure what level his expression and his voice pitch would indicate now.

“There’s a great salon in Storybrooke. We can pop out around lunch time in a couple days when no one will notice and have them do it. For now, we practice!” She pushes the screen against the wall again, leaving everything else as is and handing him his shoes. “It’ll help to know how you feel wearing this, so we’ll just do one quick run-through with the costume.”

Emma is wearing the same leggings she normally does, but there’s a sheer skirt swishing around over top of them, and the shoes she’s wearing are in much better condition than the ones she’s been wearing as they’ve been training. He wonders if her nicer shoes are because he’s getting better.

“New shoes?” he asks as he ties his own.

“Nah, performance shoes. I figured now that you’re not stepping on my toes that we can put these ones into rotation.”

“And the skirt?”

“So you can get used to the way my dress will move the day we perform. Ready?”

She doesn’t really wait for his answer, instead grabbing the remote and moving into position as soon as she’s done talking. He’s not the only one that came to the studio extra caffeinated today, it seems.

He wanders around the campgrounds while Emma teaches classes during the late morning a few days later, waving to Liam without even hiding his bemusement as his brother follows a group, all of them carrying kayaks by the ones and twos as they go. They disappear down the beach while Killian wonders if there are any activities that Liam hasn’t tried since they got here, but it certainly seems like the summer away is more beneficial than Killian initially gave it credit for. That goes for both of them.

Checking his watch, he starts to make his way up towards the dance studio so he can meet up with Emma. She’s just coming around the side of the building, her keys in one hand as she slips on a pair of sunglasses.

The yellow car he leads her to gives him pause, however.

“Couldn’t drive anything less obvious?”

“It’s so common to see me around town during the summer that it would be more suspicious if I was driving anything else.”

“And this thing will get us there?”

“Are you insulting my car?” she asked, a raise of her eyebrow and a smile on her lips.

“I wouldn’t dare. This is quite the vessel you captain, Swan.”

“That’s what I thought,” she responded, her tone matter-of-fact as she released the emergency brake and shifted the car into reverse.

And it is quite the car, filled with quirks he’d expect from an old model Volkswagen, but it’s more the way Emma drives it, like she was born to drive nothing else. With the route in her capable hands, Killian leans back and enjoys the scenery, content to watch it pass by like he did on his initial drive in.

After so long of being at the camp, Killian had sort of forgotten that there was a world outside the wooded grounds. Sure, he’d found a new second home in the studio and discovered that there was life outside his rum and cabin, and he’d had the ultimate experience of going with Emma to the staff’s lodge after hours, but things like streetlights, on streets, and storefronts are damn near alien to him at this point. It’s been almost two months since they drove through Storybrooke on their way in, and already his life feels totally different than when they ate lunch at Granny’s.

Since he lost his hand, this is the biggest shift he’s had in his life, and he’s loathe to find any problems with it. As an apprentice in building boats, he dedicated his whole being to crafting the perfect vessel for the customer.

Similarly, learning to dance is just learning a new form of art. He’s aware of every bead of sweat that gathers along his forehead. He’s in tune with every guiding gesture Emma gives him, and the way her breathing always seems to stay even while they’re dancing. He reflects on all of this, trying to acclimate this idea of “new” to his mind and body before they actually arrive.

Currently, he notices the way his heartbeat races just a little bit faster when Emma parks her car along the main stretch of the small town that felt so comfortable and homey to him. She beams at him, instructing him out of the car as she swings open her door.

“I grew up here after David’s mom adopted me,” Emma offers up as she looks up and down the street. “If anyone asks, you’re new staff at the camp.”

He doesn’t mention that he’s already been here, but it hardly seems relevant as she’s leading him down a walkway in the opposite direction of the diner. Her arm loops easily through his, and Killian feels his heart turn over painfully in his chest with the realization of what he’s feeling. It’s attraction. He’s attracted to her. And it’s beyond the idea of physical gratification. The kiss was eye-opening, but this easy affection and compatibility is the real thing.

The kiss can be explained away as a heat-of-the-moment event where the humidity overwhelmed them, the long hours tricked them into an impulsive moment of passion. But as they’ve spent time together and he’s become so harmonious with her movements, he’s also noticed the itch to hold her in his arms. There was no thought behind the kiss, but he’s done plenty of thinking about doing it again.

Even with all the agitation his early foibles caused during her lessons, she would regroup and find patience, and in no time at all he had her laughing at his jokes and smiling at his own special blend of self-deprecation. She’d shake her head and roll her eyes and get them back on track. He also understands that it’s not because she agrees with whatever he claims about himself, but because she can see past whatever he sees in the mirror when he looks at himself. Plus, there’s no pity, even though she now knows much more of his sad backstory than he meant to let on.

She’s never treated him with kid-gloves.

The jingling of a bell over the door Emma opens brings him back to the present, and he relaxes when he discovers they’re just in an ice cream parlor.

“Hi Ingrid,” Emma greets, a wide smile crinkling her eyes as she greets the woman behind the counter. “One rocky road and one rum raisin, please.”

As the older woman scoops the requested flavors, they catch up in a series of quick back-and-forth statements, clearly a ritual honed with time and experience, with Killian’s introduction thrown in there somewhere. Ingrid spends plenty of time shifting her focus between the two of them, but if she has anything to comment about the way Emma is standing close to him, she doesn’t say so.

With cones in hand, Emma motions him back outside and calls out a farewell on her way.

“Let’s call this a preemptive apology for what’s about to happen. But no dancer, no professional one – which is what we’re trying to pass you off as – would have this much chest hair.”

“So this is bribery ice cream,” he clarifies as they stand outside of an innocent looking spa.

“Sure.”

“How’d you know I’d like rum raisin?”

“I had a hunch and hoped for the best,” she admits, smiling between bites of her cone.

With a warm breeze ruffling her hair and her sunglasses perched on her nose, Killian takes a moment to pretend that this isn’t what it is, that it’s something closer to a first date, where they’d take a walk to the docks he can just see in the distance and their fingers would link together. The swooping of his stomach lets him know exactly how he’d feel about such an event, so he releases it from his thoughts to dance away on the summer air. It’s just as well, as he takes the last few bites of his cone and accepts the napkin she hands him. Once they determine there’s no ice cream on either of their faces, she pulls open the door and gestures for him to enter.

“Emma! It’s been too long!” the blonde behind the counter greets Emma much like Ingrid did – with familiarity and years of encounters such as these. The girl, only introduced as Goldie, shakes his hand when they walk up to the counter. “Hot date?” she asks, wiggling her eyebrows at both of them in turn.

Emma laughs, accepting the form and pen that Goldie gives her and starts filling it out. “Yeah, because all good first dates include an appointment at a salon to have chest hair waxed off.”

“Sounds better than some dates I’ve been on,” he comments, raising his eyebrows and looking away again as he looks over the spa options. “Admit it Swan, it’s just further reason to have me shirtless in front of you.”

She squints hard at him, trying to suss out something from what he’s said. “You flirt harder when you’re nervous. You know that?”

He has no response to that, especially when Goldie comes back to the counter and directs them back to a room with a padded table. There’s a chair set up next to it, and a counter displaying a wide variety of products he has no knowledge of.

“Emma, why don’t we wait out in the hallway while Killian undresses?” Emma smirks and nods, heading back out the door while Goldie explains that he needs to get fully naked. “There’s a sheet over there. Just drape that over your waist and I’ll be back in a moment.”

Following directions, he folds his clothes and places them on the chair, hopping up onto the table and spreading the sheet over his waist and legs. He’s comfortable in the knowledge that at least there will be no wax below the belt. Lifting the sheet briefly, he purses his lips. No, no wax. But it could stand to see a set of trimmers. Just as he settles it back down, there’s a soft knock before Goldie edges the door open.

“All set in here?”

“Aye, as I’ll ever be.”

She starts to laugh, but when she enters and gets a look at him it abruptly cuts off. “You were not joking,” she says to Emma as the other woman enters.

“Told you so.” Emma moves his clothes to her lap as she takes a seat, scooting as close to the side of the table as she can. “I’m here for emotional support as long as you need me to be. I’m going to prop my elbow right here, so if you need to hold my hand, it’s there for you. Remember to relax as much as you can, and keep breathing.”

“You’re not helping, love.”

“Yeah,” she says, flashing him a wide grin. “I know. But it’s fun to watch you squirm.”

Goldie surprises him by taking a stick and swiping on a long stripe of what she explains is a hard wax. “We have to let this set up so I’m going to do a couple spaced out swatches and we’ll go from there. How are you at handling pain?”

Lifting his left arm, he raises an eyebrow at her. “I’ve lost a hand, lass. I think I’ll be fine.”

For the record, he’s not fine. It hurts. And even after the wax is ripped from his skin, the pain has him reaching out without realizing it and grabbing Emma’s hand. She’s trying so hard not to laugh that she’s almost turning as blue as the wax Goldie is applying to his skin again.

“So glad one of us is enjoying this,” he whimpers out, gritting his teeth as another section of wax is deemed dry enough and Goldie unsticks an edge to get a grip on it.

“You’re doing great,” Emma says, ruffling her free hand through his hair.

He doesn’t notice the next three strips come off because he and Emma have both realized exactly how close they are, how little distance there is between their faces. Her hand pauses in his hair and her other hand relaxes at the same time his does, moving from a gesture of support to one of… is this affection?

The moment is broken when Goldie announces she needs to grab a bottle of lotion from the front room and leaves them alone. He’s so tempted to pull her closer, to taste her lips once more. But he can tell by the rigidity her stance takes on that she’s not on the same page right now. And even if she is, she’s too scared or holding back or hiding from it.

“This alone should be repayment for throwing up on you the day we met,” he says to break the tension. When Emma laughs, he sort of melts on the table. He grins in response, turning to look down at his chest and he makes a noise of disbelief. It’s all gone. “Bloody hell.”

“Wow. Shit you’re pale. Oh god we’re gonna have to tan your chest. Why didn’t I think of that?” She stands, placing his clothes back on the chair to take her place. “I need to make another stop in town. You okay to finish up here? They’ll do clean-up services on your facial hair, too, if you’d like. Just tell Goldie what you want and she’ll take care of it.”

With barely another glance back at him, Emma nearly sprints from the room. He can hear her say something to Goldie and then her voice disappears from range and the door is pushed back open as Goldie enters. “Emma said she’d be back in about a half hour. Want anything else taken care of while you’re here?”

Thinking for a minute, Killian scrunches his nose. It’s not ideal. He’d rather be at home in the privacy of his own bathroom for such things, but he still nods. “I can think of a few things.” Reaching for his shorts, he grabs his wallet and hands over his credit card. “Put the total on there,” he says, grabbing the services sheet from Goldie when she hands it over and tallying up what he’d like.

It’s a while before he slides into his own clothes again, but even when he does he ends up in another chair to get his hair trimmed and his beard clipped. He didn’t realize quite how much all his hair had grown since they got to camp. By the time he’s all done, everything feels clean and crisp, and he’s just starting to get used to the way his shirt feels without the barrier of hair that usually comes between his skin and the fabric.

“Now, apply this lotion again later on. No sweating or swimming for the next twenty-four hours, and come back again in three to six weeks. Okay?”

As far as the “three to six weeks” portion goes, Killian scoffs. His skin is burning in so many places he can’t keep track anymore, but he feels neat and well-kempt and about a stone lighter than when he walked in. He keeps all of the swear words that want to escape to himself though, and just signs the charge slip that Goldie prints and hands to him.

He knocks his sunglasses back onto his nose as he exits the spa, calling out a farewell as he goes, only to nearly collide with Emma.

“Oh! All done?”

“Yep, all taken care of,” he tells her. If his voice is a little tighter than it was when they got to the spa, he’s sure she won’t take it personally. He did just rip off all his chest hair for her.

“I grabbed some food at Granny’s for the ride home. Goldie said you wouldn’t be able to run through the number again today, and I figured you deserve something more than camp food for once.”

“We had food from her on our way in. Best lunch I’ve had in ages.”

“I’m not surprised. Granny’s is basically a rite of passage on the way to camp, even if you’ve never heard of it. Probably has something to do with the fact that she’s the only casual dining place for miles.”

He takes the food from her, setting it on the floor by his feet for the drive back. When he goes to take the small shopping bag from her, however, she quickly throws it into the back seat.

“I’ll give you what you need from that when we get back,” is all she tells him.

They amble their way back through the grounds once they return, with Emma finishing the last of her onion rings and Killian still working through his French fries. She has two plastic bags looped over her wrist, and he waits patiently while she separates the items and hands him one after she’s finished her food.

“Will you need help with the self-tanner?”

“No, I should be able to manage all right,” he says, instilling himself with false-confidence over this matter. It’s not like he’s ever used tanning lotion before. But he’s just as stubborn as she is in many ways, so he decides he’ll figure it out on his own.

“Well, you can take the rest of the day off,” Emma says once they get to a point where she’ll go left for the studio and he’ll go right. She hesitates for a moment, shuffling her feet for just a second before she speaks up again. “My… my cabin is right behind the studio. It’s a little hidden by the trees but if you walk to the back and follow the stone path, you’ll find it. If you need anything and I’m not at the studio, that’s where I’ll usually be. Okay?”

“Aye. Thanks, love.” They stand there in silence for a minute more, not moving closer, not moving away, until voices on the path send them both turning and scurrying away.

The next day, there’s an undercurrent of stress running through both of them. He spends much less time trying to look at the mirror than he thought he would at this point, and looking at his feet is the furthest thought in his mind. He knows from muscle memory when he’s not doing something correctly, but now he doesn’t derail the whole number just because he did one small thing wrong. Instead, he makes a mental note to fix it on the next run-through.

“Stop looking like someone is going to beat you up if you don’t dance the right way,” Emma murmurs as they work through the steps.

“You mean you won’t?”

She snorts, fighting to keep moving with him after that comment if her suddenly jerky turn is anything to go by, but she saves it and they move into the next turn smoothly. “But seriously, just play off my facial expressions so you look like you’re enjoying yourself. Think of what Ruby said.”

The next time they run through, he does his best to smile when she does. He listens when she tells him to relax and have fun, to pretend they aren’t getting ready for a possibly life-altering dance, and he flirts with her through the number, through their movements. It earns him more than one delighted smile and laughter.

When the choreography ends this time, they’re both breathless and smiling.

“Good. You’re good. You got it. I’m not pushing any more today. But I need to ask, how’s the tanning going?”

Killian grimaces. He’s supposed to be putting the lotion on his chest, hand, wrist, neck, and face. Mostly everything is already tanned, so it doesn’t need much. His chest, on the other hand, where all the hair came off is so close to his horrifying winter white.

“It’s… It’s going poorly,” he admits. He purposely left his shirt on for the whole practice for this very reason.

“What? Why?”

He mumbles his response, turning away and probably making it harder for her to hear, but that’s kind of the problem. He doesn’t want her to hear how much he’s struggled with the self-tanning lotion.

“Killian?”

“I can’t apply it alone,” he finally spits out, staring hard at his prosthetic as his fingers pick at the flesh-colored attachment.

“Oh,” she responds, clearly putting the pieces together and then, “oh. Okay. Well, um. Bring it with you. Ruby will be here later on and she and I can help. Nothing we haven’t done before, you know.”

And it’s fine when it’s Ruby, even if she’s leering the whole time she’s buffing the lotion across his chest. He rolls his eyes, avoiding eye contact with her the whole time while Emma calls out commentary reminding her to get some of the other parts to even out the color.

When he’d shown up with the bottle of lotion, they had a whole area prepped for the tanning experience, including buffers and gloves, sponges and a sheet to spread on the ground just in case. It was more than he was expecting, and he’s not quite sure how Emma trusted when he said he would do it on his own if it took all of this for them to do it for him.

The next day, when it’s Emma applying the lotion, neither of them speak the whole time, nor make eye contact. She fixates on the work she’s doing while Killian stares at the ceiling, pretending that it’s Liam doing the work to stop his body from reacting.

He’s never been as relieved as when Emma declares on the third day that he’s as even as he’s going to get, and that if he wants to add a little more to his chest on his own, it should be much easier.

“Just apply it before you go to bed tonight, and you should be good,” she tells him, handing over a bag with the mitt and lotion inside. “Remember to blend it upwards into your neck, like we’ve been doing.”

“Aye, I think I’ve got it.” He raises an eyebrow and tries to reassure her the best he can with just that look because as the week has gone on, she’s gotten more and more outwardly nervous. He can relate. It’s a big deal, and it’s unlike anything he’s ever done before, but all he wants is to put her mind at ease that they’ve covered everything they possibly can.

“I can always even it out with makeup tomorrow when we get there,” she tells him, apparently still running through worst case scenarios.

“Emma, love, it’ll be fine. The least of our worries is my sad tan,” he says, smiling and flipping her ponytail back over her shoulder to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. Okay. I’ll see you in the morning for another run-through.”

Before he can understand that time has moved so quickly, it’s the day of the performance. Emma meets him after lunch to check that everything with his costume fits well and to do a final run through. She’s still in her practice skirt, and she tells him she’s waiting until they get to the Mills Regency to change into her dress so it doesn’t wrinkle on the drive over.

“You can wear this when we leave or you can change when we get there. Your choice.”

“I’ll leave the outfit in your capable hands and change there.”

He rolls his shoulders, marveling at how different the costume feels without his chest hair. The fabric is silky smooth, as everything has been recently, and he zips and unzips the shirt a few times without fear of injury, grinning as he does so.

“Oh, for the love of… You’re acting like you’ve never used a zipper until today.”

“Swan, I’ve not seen this much of my chest since puberty. Let a man have his fun.”

She mutters something, wandering over to the stereo to grab her remote before coming back to stand in front of him. “Okay, your fun has been had. Let’s run it once.”

It’s odd to run the dance in the costume as he’s meant to be wearing for it. Last time he still had on his boxers. Now, the fabric sticks close to his body, not moving like his t-shirts or button-downs do, not moving like his shorts do. There’s something sleek about it, making him feel like this is a real thing. When he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t see Killian Jones: lost and broken man with baggage dragging behind him as he moves. He sees a version of himself he thought he had lost. This is Killian Jones: determined and ready to pass as a professional dancer.

He’s almost loathe to take it off, but there’s still time until they even perform and he can’t exactly wear it around camp. He changes back into his clothes and helps Emma hang the dance outfit, slipping the garment bag over the whole thing with his shoes in the bottom so it’s all ready to go.

“I’ll see you back here right after dinner?” she asks.

“Aye. I’m sure Liam is so caught up in whatever he’s doing that he won’t even notice I’m gone.”

She nods, cleaning the space in what he now recognizes as a nervous gesture. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Ruby’s going to oversee a couple that’s been learning together. She’s not allowed to dance, but she can coach them from the sidelines just this once. They’ve taken enough classes by now.”

“Good, then I’ll see you later,” he says, giving her a reassuring smile and moving towards the door before he can do something affectionate again, like hug her to expel all her nerves and fears. He has no idea how he’ll handle his emotions when it’s all over, but he’s already dreading the end of this adventure.

Chapter 6

[kmomof4]

Happy birthday Kym!!!!!

I don’t know how you feel about cake or all that icing, but I thought it was pretty and so I wanted to share it with you. I love you to the moon and back again girl and I wanted to do something special for your birthday, but alas I don’t do anything in this fandom except flail. Then @hollyethecurious had a brilliant idea! I could post a fic rec list of all my favorite fics that you wrote! So here we go everybody! @kymbersmith-90 is an incredible author, wonderful person, and dear friend! I discovered her writing about a year ago, I think and have since read all her CS fics. They are all sooooooo good! I cannot say enough about them all. Beautiful stories, very little angst overall, and excellent love scenes. Here is a link to all of her work, while my personal favorites and why are under the cut.

The first fic of Kym’s that I read was Fairytales. I remember screaming at Hollye and Laura, @winterbaby89, that they HAD to read it because we had just made plans to attend the Orlando con in June (I think this was last June, maybe July). In this fic, Emma Swan meets her favorite actor, Killian Jones, from her favorite show, Fairytales, at a con she attends. It’s currently a WIP with 27chs so far. We’ve had a little bit of angst, maybe 2 or 3chs worth. The story is just excellent! The stuff that every fan girl’s dreams are made of! They have, of course, fallen in love, and the whole long distance relationship is just so heart rending but sweet and precious at the same time! And I have it from Kym herself that there is still a lot more story to tell, and I am just beside myself with excitement! I squeal like a little girl when ever I get a notification for Fairytales. So do yourself a favor, and go read it!

Next, I’d like to highlight Patience. This is a relatively new work for her, published last July. The epilogue will post today in honor of her birthday, and I absolutely CANNOT wait to read the whole thing over again from the beginning! Patience is a canon divergent from Tallahassee. She will tell you that she was very uncomfortable writing a canon divergent fic, she’s much more at home writing AU’s, but she hit the ball out of the park with this one! Snow makes it home from the EF, but Emma and Hook are captured by Cora. Watching their relationship develop over the chapters, the trust between them, and Killian’s belief in Emma and her magic is... sorry... magical! It really is. Breathtaking! So everyone, go read it!

And last but certainly not least, the Royal Realities series. We are in part 3 of the main story, with a fourth part of outtakes. Her Royal Highness Princess Emma Marie Victoria Ruth, Duchess of Kensington is the crown princess of England and the series tells the story of how she meets actor Killian Jones and enters into a relationship with him via Twitter. They eventually fall in love, and are married. We are now in the first few months after they are married and Killian is figuring out how to handle his acting career and his new royal duties as His Royal Highness Killian Aeden Jones, Duke of Kensington. These fics have everything! A real live princess who lives under a microscope and her love, a famous actor, who also lives under a microscope. All the pomp and circumstance of the royal house and all their duties, the entire Storybrooke gang, except David, which I am still salty about..., beautiful love scenes, just all the elements of a classic real life fairytale romance.

These 3, or 6 depending on how you count them, are my absolute favorites of Kym’s work. ALL of her work is absolutely wonderful and I squeal and flail over each and every one, but these are my ride or die, goto, #1, desert island, all time favorite fics with her name on them! She’s got several more fics in the wings beside what she’s working on now, including a Buffy inspired fic for the CSSNS that I wish I could go to sleep and wake up and it’s time for it to drop. So my dear, I hope you have the best birthday ever and I hope this contributes to it in some small way! I love you my friend! Happy birthday!

[onceuponaprincessworld]

CaptainSwan FF One-shots Recs p.5

Hello Beautiful Fandom, look I made another rec list! Thanks to CS AU Week we have some lovely new one shots featuring our favorite couple, but this list also includes some old one-shots that I believe you should check out, If you haven’t already. Hope you enjoy.

You can find here my other lists as well. 

Side note, I try to tag the authors by their tumblr name, but I couldn’t find some, if you know it, let me know. 

But Consider This...Aliens, @welllpthisishappening

Killian Jones is going to lose his mind. He's never going to sleep again. Because there is an alien living in the apartment above his. And maybe he's ok with it. Yeah, definitely losing his mind.

Prompt, @its-imperator-furiosa

Emma and Killian has been dating for a while but they haven't tell their friends yet, because they don't know how Emma's brother David will react, since he ones told Killian to not go near his sister, but he walks on them kissing or something and he yells Finally.

Past the Clouds, We’ll Find the Stars, @blowmiakisscolin

CS + Adoption and more: A dash of angst, a sprinkling of humor & a whole lotta fluff.

Prompt, @initiala

You buy your man a mug without looking inside... 

it’s a party in the usa, @jmosfreckles

A Fourth of July AU written for CS AU week day 1: Holiday AU. America vs. Great Britain antics ensue.

Old Habits Die Hard, Ok?, @jmosfreckles

I kissed you goodbye on accident - old habits die hard, ok?!

worth the risk, worth the guarantee, @piratesails

The rule is simple enough: don't fall for your best friend. No matter how loudly her laugh echoes in your head in the middle of the night, or how beautifully endearing the freckles that climb up her arms look under the afternoon sun. Every single movie and book and story he's come across has warned him of this in one way or another.

And yet, Killian finds it hard to run out of reasons why Emma Swan is the most perfect person he has and will ever meet.

Unhand the Carnations, @blowmiakisscolin

CS Flower Thief AU: I saw a prompt on Tumblr (see notes) and I did a thing. Emma catches Killian stealing flowers from her garden and assumes he's being a cheap date. She insists on coming with him to find out whether the girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft...and he doesn't know how to break it to her that he's taking the flowers to the graveyard.

Never Drinking Again, @its-like-a-story-of-love

Emma Swan wakes up on her 21st birthday with no recollection of what happened the night before. All she has to piece everything together are her Snapchat story and a handsome stranger. (Drunken Snapchat story AU) 

You Make Me Better, @ilovemesomekillianjones

CS Neighbors AU where Emma is a nurse and Killian is her definitely-faking-it hypochondriac neighbor who uses illnesses and injuries as an excuse to talk to her.

You Look Happier, @cutieodonoghue

Radio DJ David Nolan’s sister Emma moves to town to be close to him as he prepares for his upcoming wedding to Mary Margaret. Maybe he’s just a little bit crazy from wedding stress, but he kinda wants to set her up with his co-host and best friend Killian. 

i’m missing you like crazy, @cutieodonoghue

“Established long distance relationship, one of them surprises the other by showing up right before midnight [on New Years Eve].” with a side helping of vloggers au! (a mixture of angst and fluff beyond this point)  

already in love,   @icapturedkindness

For CS AU week beloved tropes - friends to lovers.

a dare and a truth..., @startswithhope

Bed sharing prompt: “Would you please get comfortable and go the fuck to sleep already?”

Body Say, @seriouslyhooked

AU where Emma and Killian are neighbors in Boston. Emma gets home from a girls night only to stumble upon Killian who she has been crushing on since he moved in. Sparks fly and it is basically just a mini smut fest if I’m honest, but we then get a flash forward to see what happens with Emma and Killian in the future. I’m sure I have done a oneshot or two like this before, but hey, we can always use more fluff right?

Frigging in the Rigging, @passing-fanciful

Friends do things for other friends' birthdays. No big deal, right?

Camped Out,  @always-a-slut-for-pirates

A reluctant Emma goes camping with David, Mary Margaret and Killian.

the love boat, @captainnagata

“How good is your mother with dealing with the unexpected?”

“Why?”

“Because ship captains have the power to officiate weddings and the idea of her own daughter entering a marriage in a matter of days, on a cruise, could sober her up enough to leave you alone for good.”

a (sort of) cinderella story, @jennifer-morrison

sure she sits with him for a while after he’s put henry to bed following a late stakeout and sure she invites him over to make dinner more often than she doesn’t but that’s their usual. it isn’t because she likes him, likes him. (no one tell henry he agreed to this silly masquerade because he likes, likes her, okay?)

something so magic about you, @mycaptainswanjones

Emma Swan just found the perfect gift for Mary Margaret's birthday. The only problem? A blue-eyed stranger with a ridiculously attractive face and accent just stole it from right under her nose. Modern AU. Captain Swan.

The Kinship Harvest, @thesschesthair

We’re going to pretend the portal at the end of S3 never opened and Zelena was defeated without any interruptions. We’re also going to pretend Emma couldn’t go through with leaving for New York much to everyone’s relief. We’re also going to pretend that I can make up a believable holiday for the Enchanted forest lol.

Untitled, @distant-rose

Emma Swan is a crusty twice divorced bailsbond person who is a lone wolf by nature, excluding the company of her seven-year old son, of course. Her occasional companion of choice is a Seattle detective who is also a divorcee and an ex-military guy who got his hand blown off on some super secret Black Op mission in Afghanistan. Killian Jones is nearly as crusty as Emma and a closet sci-fi nerd who never fails to help Emma with a difficult skip or babysit her son last minute. There’s always been an unspoken attraction between them that’s held back by their memory of their failed marriages.

The Worst/Best Christmas Ever,  @captainhookcaptainfreedom

When their flight home is cancelled, Emma is convinced that she and Henry are going to have the worst Christmas ever. However, their next store neighbor, Killian Jones, has different ideas. 

stranger to the ground, @evil–isnt–born

Test pilot Killian Jones and engineer Emma Swan spend their days making history as part of the Avro Arrow program. When the program is suddenly cancelled and the jets ordered destroyed, the choice becomes whether to let it become a thing of the past or save a piece of their shared history.

STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW (TO YOU),  @nightships 

The Avro Arrow program was a shining beacon for Canada - when it was cancelled, questions went unanswered, and reporter Emma Swan has no intentions of leaving them that way. Major Killian Jones couldn't agree less, especially given his own history with the program, but Emma wouldn't be Emma if she let that stop her.

Too Hot (Hot Damn), @this-too-too-sullied-flesh

Emma just doesn’t know what’s hotter--the weather and the fact that the air conditioning is out in her building, or her neighbor.

stop talking in codes,  cocoa-and-rum

Killian Jones has been in love with Emma Swan for as long as he can remember. He often told himself it wouldn't be wise to fall for his best friend, but his heart has a queer way of never listening to his brain, especially when a breathtakingly alluring woman with pretty green eyes and lovely blonde waves is involved.

1-2 Crush on You, @allrightfine

"We'll skip all this, go right to a place where you're more comfortable. We'll want to aim for that sweet spot between knowing all those little idiosyncrasies and them becoming annoying, I'd imagine." (vaguely Halloween-flavored AU smutty fluff!).

A Lifetime of Kissing, @justanotherwannabeclassic

There were many things that were becoming of a princess. The ability to carry on polite conversation, fluency in many languages, and an appreciation of both the arts and sciences were such things. What wasn’t becoming of a princess was drunkenly marrying a Naval lieutenant while on a diplomatic visit to a nearby kingdom. (Lieutenant Duckling).

[yeehawbisexualold]

It’s a Party in the USA

A Fourth of July AU written for CS AU week day 1: Holiday AU. America vs. Great Britain antics ensue.

The rivalry started when Killian first moved in three years ago. It was less than a week from the Fourth of July and he made an offhand comment about how he hoped she wasn’t as “into” the holiday as his buddy David.

Emma wasn’t. At least, not yet.

At the age of 15, it was the first holiday she celebrated with the Nolan family, her first taste of how all out the family went for holidays. Being the wholesome, all-American family they were and living in one of the thirteen original colonies no less, Independence Day was the holiday they did with the biggest bang. Mr. and Mrs. Nolan invited all of their close friends and the entire block to their patriotic, backyard BBQ extravaganza—red, white and blue decorations galore, meat from every American animal imaginable, all sorts of water activities, a bounce house and face paint for the youngsters, and fireworks, so many fireworks.

It was all a little overwhelming at first, the extravagance and grandeur, but it soon became something she looked forward to. For that reason, it became her favorite holiday. But she didn’t make a big deal about it. She didn’t put on as much fanfare as her adoptive family. She mostly just showed up and enjoyed the festivities.

“Actually, I am,” she told him, straight faced and with zero hesitation.

Her and Killian weren’t antagonistic with each other but they did enjoy a little it of conflict. They bantered well, argued better, and seemed to disagree with each other often enough to keep things… interesting.

She wasn’t about to let this little dig towards her country and her brother’s enthusiasm slide.

It escalated quickly after that.

The America vs. Britain argument was a constant debate. Emma would do a little extra for the holiday, dress a little more patriotic, hang up some streamers around the apartment. Killian would combat that by wearing a British flag shirt and humming God Save The Queen. It wasn’t just the holiday that brought tension though. No, that was a year long thing.

(“Why do you Americans put the month before the date? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s easier to say January 1st than the 1st of January.”

“Yet the holiday celebrating your country is the Fourth of July.”

“You mean the country celebrating our independence? The independence we gained from yours?”

He printed out a chart comparing the homicide levels and taped it to the fridge. The next day she printed out a chart comparing the number of Olympic gold medals.

 She poked fun at the stupidity of Brexit. He fired back when Trump was elected.) 

Most people would probably take prudence not to agitate a new relationship but she doesn’t intend to call a cease fire now that they’re together. If anything, she’s more determined than ever. She hopes he feels the same. Because this year, she has big plans. 

She gets up before Killian, a feat in of itself (slipping out of bed without alerting him and managing to wake before him.) She gives herself just enough time to decorate the apartment and set up her pranks before he joins her in the land of wakefulness. 

Sneaking back into their bedroom, she makes sure he’s still asleep and then places the portable speaker on the nightstand next to his head. Carefully, she drops one leg on either side of his hips, moving into the position of kneeling above him, hovering just enough to not make contact. 

Giddy off vindictiveness, she presses play on the remote and exceedingly enjoys the way he shoots up, eyes wild, startled awake by the sound of Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA. She blows into her party horn and smirks down at him.

His eyes narrow and his brows furrow, a mixture of annoyance and arousal, as he takes her in, sitting astride him I n a strapless corset, red and white striped with a square of blue with white stars over her right boob, and a pair of matching blue and white starred underwear. He looks to the speaker on the night stand, back to her, back at the speaker, and then back at her.

“Ok, you’ve had your fun. Will you please turn that off?” he asks, looking thoroughly put out.

“But it’s a Party in the USA,” she says, saccharine sweet, slowly moving her hips back and forth.

“This party would be a lot more fun with out the tunes.”

She pretends to consider it for a moment, running her hands up and down his bare chest, scratching her nails through his hair. “Mmm, no.”

“I’m sure I can figure out a way to convince you,” he growls before flipping her over so that she’s underneath him.

“You can try,” she giggles, pulling his mouth down to hers.

~

He shouts, completely horrified, from the bathroom. "Swan!“

“Yes?” She doesn’t really need an answer though. She’s sure he’s found the box of Twinnings tea dumped in the toilet.

“This is blasphemous! Sacrilegious!”

“I put tea in the toilet, Killian. I didn’t light a cross on fire then drop it on a pentagram.”

She calms him down enough to get in the shower, promising she’ll never waste perfectly good tea like that again, and then begins working on breakfast—white chocolate chip pancakes topped with strawberries and blueberries, with a side of iced tea.

“Something smells delicious,” he hums, coming up from behind and nuzzling her ear. He stops suddenly though when he realizes the additions she’s made to his favorite breakfast. “Really, Swan?”

“White chocolate for taste and the berries for healthiness.” She turns around and plants a kiss on his disgruntled mouth before stepping away to take a shower of her own.

“Why can’t the streamers be enough?” he grumbles to himself.

She sings cheerily along to Fifty Nifty United States as she scrubs herself with her apple pie body wash and smiles at the thought of him humming God Save The Queen or some other British anthem to himself in order to tune her out. Surely he can’t be feeling to joyous what with the way he’s scrubbed the words “England Sucks” off the bathroom mirror.

It’s Emma’s turn to be irked when she steps out of the bathroom to find him standing in a full British flag suit.

“No. Absolutely not,” she says clutching the towel to herself and shaking her head.

“Come on, love. You didn’t think you were the only one with a bit of naughtiness up your sleeve, now did you?” He’s smirking and his eyes are alight with mischief.

“I hope David kicks your ass.”

She dresses in a red and white stripped dress, blue flipflops, and little star earings—something she had thought would be patriotic enough but pales in comparison to Killian’s obnoxious suit. She ties a red and white polka dot bandana around her head and flexes her arm at him.

“Ready to go?” she asks and he simply kisses her bicep and nods.

When she steps back into the living room she finds images of famous British figures taped all over the walls—the queen, The Beatles, David Beckham, J.K. Rowling, Freddie Mercury, Princess Diana,  Jane Austen along with the cover of Emma, even One Direction. She clenches her fists and breathes in deeply in an effort to not rip the pictures off the wall and shove them in his mouth.

“I love watching you suppress your violent antics,” he whispers in her ear. She hadn’t realized he was so close behind her and she shivers. “But I think I’m even fonder of when you let them happen.”

“I’ll show you violence,” she grumbles, stomping out the front door.

He laughs aloud when he sees his car. With red and blue window paint, she wrote ‘Merica, football, independence, tea sucks, a U with a line through it, and drew a picture of an American flag.

“Just how early did you get up, love?”

“Early enough.”

He makes her listen to British patriotic songs on the way to her brother and his wife’s home but he gets his Karma when David pushes his fully clothed ass in the pool. She feels slightly bad for laughing when he presents her with a swan water float. The feeling doesn’t last very long though because she later overhears him bragging about all of the musical talents to originate in Britain.

“We have Beyonce, you dumbass,” she says before spraying him in the back of the head with a super soaker filled with red Kool-Aid.

The party goes on like that with the two of them bickering back and forth, most people content to just watch the entertainment they provide but David takes Emma’s side and Robin joins Killian in ragging America.

Everything calms once the fireworks begin. David and Mary Margaret’s house has a pretty good view of Boston’s Fourth of July firework show so everyone sits and watches from the backyard.

“How expensive do you think it would be to rent an orchestra to wake you up next year?” she asks, as she sits tucked into his side on a blanket in the grass.

“I don’t know but I’m sure we can budget for it if you promise you’ll be wearing that lovely outfit to wake me up again.”

“I’ll consider it.”

But who is she kidding? Of course, she’ll wear it again.

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

Fourth of July Reruns: The Fireworks

Happy 4th of July week to all who celebrate it! I have a couple of old 4th of July themed CS fics that I thought I'd share with all of you, and if all goes well, I'll have a new 4th of July fic to add to Fluffy Fridays this Friday!

Word Count: 2525

Tagging a few people who may be interested (Let me know if you want to be added or taken off the list): @sailormew4 @annaamell @flslp87 @emmateo26 @bethacaciakay 

@ultraluckycatnd @effulgent-mind @ilovemesomekillianjones @kat2609 @brooke-to-broch 

@missgymgirl @galadriel26 @the-lady-of-misthaven @charmingturkeysandwich @jennjenn615 

@laschatzi @kimmy46 @snowbellewells @iamanneenigma @daxx04 

@nickillian  @gillie  @britishguyslover @ginnyjinxedandhanshotritafirst @kmomof4

 @linda8084 @golfgirld @captain-swan-coffee @searchingwardrobes @hollyethecurious 

@laughswaytoomuch  @allyourdarlingswans  @winterbaby89 @facesiousbutton82 @therooksshiningknight 

@lfh1226-linda @tiganasummertree @jrob64  @anmylica @booksteaandtoomuchtv

 @i-will-sing-no-requiem @bluewildcatfanatic @laianely

Summary: Originally posted to my Fluffy Friday collection several years ago, Emma and Killian are neighbors who despise each other, but when their constant feuding lands them in jail together, they discover that maybe they don't despise each other quite as much as they thought. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Fireworks

CS Genre: Feuding Neighbors AU

         “Come on David, you can’t be serious!” Emma growled as her brother, the sheriff, eased her back with a gentle hand to the arm.

         “Yeah, Emma,” he said grimly, “I can.”

         As if to emphasize the point, he slammed the jail cell door closed behind her.

         Behind her and her jackass next door neighbor.

         “Now, mate,” said jackass drawled, stepping forward.  “Are you sure this is the best idea?  You know your sister and I don’t particularly see eye to eye.”

         David smiled humorlessly.  “Understatement of the year after what you two have done over the last few days, but you’ve been disturbing the peace and driving everyone around you crazy, so yeah.  I think a night in jail is definitely in order.  You two’ll either find a way to work things out or you’ll kill each other.  Either way the rest of us might get a little peace and quiet.”

~~36 Hours Before…~~

         Killian settled into his bed with a contented sigh, reveling in the soft pillow.  The hum of the ceiling fan lulled him until his eyes gently closed.  It had been a long day, and he was in for another one tomorrow.

         Storybrooke had big plans for its 4th of July celebration on Saturday.  There were plans to shoot fireworks from a boat out on the harbor and set the whole thing to patriotic music.  As the town’s harbormaster, Killian had a big role to play in getting everything set up.  It was exhausting, and he wanted nothing more than to get a good night’s sleep before he waded into the madness all over again—ridiculously early tomorrow morning.

            Boom!  Crackle!

         Killian jumped at the sudden noise, and then heard a frightened yelp and the click of paws against his wooden floor, as his 75 pound Rottweiler mix sprinted into his room, jumped on his bed and plopped squarely on his chest.

         As Killian removed the panting, shaking, terrified canine baby from his person, his eyes narrowed.  He’d bet his last paycheck he knew precisely the cause of the disturbance.

         “Shh, Smee,” he said, stroking his dog’s black and caramel colored coat.  “There’s nothing to worry about.  It’s just…”

         Another boom, this one loud enough to shake his house.  Smee scrambled down and tried to wedge himself under Killian’s bed.

         Killian pushed himself to his feet and strode purposely toward his door, not even bothering to put on a shirt.  There was only one person who could be responsible.

            Swan.

            She’d moved into the house next to him about eight months ago, all long blonde hair and prickly exterior.  Never had he met someone so exquisitely beautiful—or so maddeningly frustrating.  The day after she’d moved in, he’d knocked on her door, friendly smile and “welcome to the neighborhood” bottle of rum at the ready.

         He’d prepared a genial, friendly speech about how he was pleased to meet her and glad the house was finally occupied again and how she shouldn’t hesitate to ask if he could be of any assistance, but then she’d opened the door, and all rational thought had fled.  Nothing could have prepared him for the utter perfection that was Emma Swan.

         So, rather than his careful, well thought out neighborly speech, what came out of his mouth was something along the lines of “Hey beautiful.  I think you and I need to get to know each other much, much better.”

         Needless to say, she’d slammed the door in his face.  Then she’d opened it again, swiped the rum from his hand, gave him a glare that could curdle milk, and slammed the door for the second time that morning.

         Things had only gone downhill from there. 

         From that moment on, it would seem they were sworn enemies.  Oh he’d tried to apologize, explain, but approaching her had been like trying to approach a rabid porcupine.

         So he’d stopped trying to apologize and started to do his best to completely piss her off, flirting outrageously with her whenever they came in contact.  She was utterly glorious when she was angry.

         She’d returned the favor with various acts of bad neighborliness—raking her leaves straight into his yard (he’d retaliated by raking the whole lot up and putting it in a messy pile at her front door) or parking her yellow bug smack dab in front of his mailbox—earning him the ire of Leroy, their bad-tempered postman (he’d retaliated by parking his own car at the end of her driveway), and all manner of other, deliberate acts of aggression.

         And tonight, it would appear she’d decided to shoot off fireworks at 10:30 pm.  Well, he wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.  Enough was enough.

         Righteous indignation intact, he stormed from his front door and marched right up to the exasperating woman who was preparing to apply a lighter to another bottle rocket, a preteen boy looking on with excitement.

         “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he’d shouted.

         Emma jumped and then glared.  “What does it look like I’m doing?  I’m setting off fireworks.  There’s a little thing called Independence Day coming up, and Henry and I wanted to celebrate.”

         “Yeah?” he’d growled, “well can’t you celebrate at a reasonable hour?  Some of us are trying to get some bloody sleep, so how about you cease and desist immediately.”

         She rolled her eyes.  “Not happening, buddy,” she said in a hard voice.  “So how about you take your un-patriotic ass off my lawn and go get that sleep you’re so desperate for.”

         He’d opened his mouth, preparing for a stinging reply, but then thought better of it as a brilliant, devious plan came to mind.  She wanted to disturb his sleep and scare his dog half to death?  Fine.  Two could play at that game.  Miss patriotic over there was about to find out that payback was a bitch.

~~6 ½ hours later…~~

         Emma was happily fast asleep when it happened.  A canon boomed and suddenly classical music, at roughly the decibel level of a jet, filled her peaceful bedroom.  She shot up in bed, hand going immediately to her heart, and then her eyes narrowed.

         Killian.

         No one else would even think of pulling something like this. 

         She got to her feet, threw on some sweats and stormed from the house, prepared to give the son of a bitch a piece of her mind he would never forget.

         Killian Jones was the bane of her existence; had been ever since that first morning he’d knocked on her door and immediately set in to hitting on her.  Obviously thought he was God’s gift to women; that she should just swoon at his feet in ecstasy that he’d deigned to talk to her.

         Yeah, not happening. 

She didn’t care how ridiculously hot he was.  And yes, with his piercing blue eyes, messy black hair, and perpetual scruff…well, hot didn’t even begin to cover it.  And when he’d stormed over to her house last night, naked to the waist and she’d gotten her first glimpse of that ripped, hair smattered chest….well, maybe it did things to her.

            Ugh!  What was she doing?  She wasn’t some teenager who couldn’t keep her hormones in check.  She was a full grown woman who was going to give a world-class jerk the verbal beating he so richly deserved!

         Killian Jones sat on his porch swing, cup of coffee in hand, smug grin in place.

         “Morning, Swan,” he said genially.  “Looks like it’s going to be a lovely day, aye?”

         She took his porch steps two at a time, walked over to the stereo system he’d moved to sit beside him—the stereo system whose speakers were turned conspicuously toward her house—and punched the “stop” button with a viciousness that would have made a fairy tale villain proud.  “Cut the crap, Jones.  What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

       His grin spread maddeningly further.  “Just enjoying the morning,” he drawled.  “After all, as patriotic as you are, I’d assumed you’d enjoy ‘The 1812 Overture’.  Quite a good rendition, this.  Did you know they used real canons in the finale?”

         Emma’s hand ached with the need to punch the smug bastard in the face.  “It’s freaking five o’clock in the morning!  I was asleep.”

         Suddenly a glint of temper entered his eyes.  “Aye?  Well darling, now you know how it feels.”

         And that was all it took.  Emma took a deep breath and started in on the long list of all the things she hated about Killian Jones.

~~Present Day~~

         Emma plopped down on one of the prison cell cots and turned resolutely from the man standing on the far side of the cell.  After the cataclysmic shouting match this morning, one of their other neighbors had evidently called the cops.  David had shown up, taken one, assessing look at the situation, and thrown both of their asses in jail.

         And now she was going to be stuck with Killian freaking Jones until tomorrow morning!

         Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!  This was going to be the longest night of her life.

         For long minutes they both sat there, each on their respective bunks, seething and glaring daggers in each other’s general direction.  Finally he let out a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and turned suddenly repentant eyes in her direction.

         “Look love,” he began.

         “Not your love, Jones,” she said automatically.

         He charged on, ignoring the interruption.  “Perhaps your brother is right.  Things might be…tumultuous…between us, but we are neighbors.  We need to find a way to live together in peace.  I apologize for blaring music at you at an ungodly hour this morning.  Bad form, that.”

         He was apologizing?  Actually apologizing?  Taking responsibility for something he’d done and wishing to make amends?  Of all the things she’d expected to come from his mouth that was not it.

         “Um,” she said in confusion, “thanks for that.”

         He reclined his head in acknowledgement.  “I let my temper get the better of me.  I’ve been under a bit of stress at work lately, and when you set off your fireworks late last night—disturbing my sleep and scaring my dog witless—well, I suppose I snapped.”

         Sudden guilt clawed at Emma.  She supposed if she was being completely honest…she hadn’t handled last night’s altercation as well as she might have.  And, okay, maybe if she was further being honest, he wasn’t a complete pain in the ass all the time.  There was that time last winter when he’d come over and shoveled her driveway after a particularly nasty blizzard….and there was that time she’d been sick and he’d run down to the local diner and bought her some chicken soup.

         And, well, okay, maybe he had some justification for being angry after all the crap she’d done to him.  Maybe he wasn’t the only one who needed to make an apology.

         “Yeah,” she said, picking at a loose string on her cot and refusing to look over at him.  “I guess I should apologize too.  For the fireworks.  I didn’t think about them bothering anyone, but, well, I didn’t exactly handle our conversation last night well.”

         She felt the cot sag beside her, and looked up into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen in her life.  Killian extended one hand, friendly smile firmly in place.  “Apology accepted.  Truce?”

         She hesitated for another moment, and then gripped his offered hand.  A jolt of electricity passed between them at the touch, and Emma gasped, dropped his hand like it was a live wire, and turned startled green eyes his direction.  What she saw in the depths of his eyes was something she’d never expected.  Kindness, understanding, friendship.

     Emma’d had a rough life; always abandoned, always forgotten, always passed over.  It wasn’t until David’s mom, Ruth, adopted her at the age of seventeen that she finally found someone she could really trust.  Still, trust came hard.  Her default position was to expect the worst.

     So it shocked her to her very core when she suddenly had the urge to confide in the man sitting beside her—the man she’d hated from the very beginning.

      “Look,” she said, once again glancing away from him.  “That boy that was with me last night...”

         He nodded, urging her to go on.  “That’s my…that’s my son.  Got knocked up really young; still a kid really, sixteen-and-a-half.  And when I told the father…well, he freaked out.  Walked out on us, and I’ve never seen him since.”

         Killian took her hand, and to her shock, she had no desire to pull away.

         “I gave Henry up when he was born, trying to give him his best chance, you know? What did I know about being a mother?  I’d never even had one to speak of.”

         “I can’t begin to imagine how difficult that must have been for you,” Killian whispered.  She looked up at him, nodded, and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

         “Yeah,” she admitted.  “Tore me apart.  I’ve been looking for him for years, and finally found him here in this town.  The adoptive mom didn’t want me to have anything to do with him; almost took out a restraining order on me, and well, last night was the first time she agreed to let me have contact with him.  Real contact.  Henry loves fireworks, so…”  Emma shrugged.

         Killian was silent for a long time, and finally she looked up at him.  The compassion in his eyes was almost her undoing.  “I’m sorry for overreacting, love.”

         She shrugged again.  “Not your fault; not really.  You couldn’t have known.  And...well, I guess my default is to be defensive.  My experience…people don’t stay.  They don’t do nice things for you, at least without expecting things in return.  They're all out to screw you over.”

         “Emma, you deserve far, far better than that.”

         Something about the sincerity of his voice, the emotion behind his simple statement, finally made her snap.  Surging forward, she weaved her hand through the soft hair at the nape of his neck and slammed her lips against his.

         He responded instantly, giving as good as he got, deepening the kiss, making small noises in the back of his throat that drove her wild.  In the history of kisses, she was sure there had never been one quite so potent, so all consuming.

         When they finally pulled apart, she rested her forehead against his and felt his deep chuckle against her hand, resting on his chest.  “Love, that was…”

         “Mind-blowing, explosive,” she finished.  She leaned back and grinned at him.  “Jones, I thought you were against fireworks, but that..”

         He laughed again.  “Well, there are fireworks and then there are fireworks.”

         She laughed with him, and couldn’t resist going in for round two, the kiss far softer and more gentle this time.

         “Killian,” she finally said, breathlessly.  “I think we kind of started out on the wrong foot.  How about we start over and this time try to not, you know, attempt to kill each other every other day?”

         Killian grinned.  “Sounds good to me, love.”  He extended his hand once more.  “Hi, I’m Killian Jones.  Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

[hollyethecurious]

CS AU: In the Company of Demons (10/12)

Summary: After being in the wrong place at the wrong time, bounty hunter Emma Swan finds herself conscripted into working for one of Storybrooke’s most notorious crime families. Tasked with finding a rat that has infiltrated the Jones family enterprise, Emma tries to keep things just business between herself and the all-too-tempting Killian Jones. If she can unmask the rodent, she’ll receive not just a reprieve from the family, but her freedom and a hundred grand to start a new life. But what kind of life? One that exists in black and white, where there is a right way to do things and one must overcome their demons? Or the kind Killian can offer her, where one can revel in the grey areas while enjoying the company of demons?

A/N: Here it is! The long awaited FIREWORKS chapter. Just in time for the Fourth of July ;o) Enjoy the chapter that earns this fic its E rating!

Shout out to @artistic-writer for creating the amazing cover art for this fic. Also major flails to @itsfabianadocarmo and @cocohook38 for also creating some incredible art inspired by this fic. You can check out Fabiana’s aesthetics here and here, and Jules’ mob Killian rendering here. Please go flail at all of them for their awesomeness!!

Much love to @kmomof4 and @artistic-writer for being my sounding boards and cheerleaders for this, as well as the fantastic @elizabeethan and @thejollyroger-writer for being my kick-ass betas!

Rated E (finally) / Available on ao3 and ff.net / add to tag list / buy me a coffee / Prologue / Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

They barely made it back to the room before Killian peeled the straps of Emma’s gown down her arms, letting the fabric fall to the floor in a puddle of black silk.

“Scantily clad enough for you?” Emma quipped. Pulling pins from her blonde tresses, she shook out the strands while his gaze raked over her body, which had been completely bare beneath her dress.

Killian dragged her to him, wrapping his arms around her and securing hers to her side. “Leave the heels,” he commanded roughly, relishing the soft expanse of her skin as his fingers trailed down her back, his hands squeezing her arse before they cupped the backs of her thighs and lifted her up into his arms.

“You’re still wearing…” Emma mumbled against his lips, greedily seeking hers. “...too many clothes.”

After walking them into the bedroom, Killian reluctantly set her back down on her feet, then proceeded to strip off his tuxedo with her assistance. Limbs tangled, tongues entwined, teeth clacked, and when Emma placed her hands on his chest and shoved him back into the leather chair in the corner of the room, a grunted oof whooshed from Killian’s lungs.

“What do you think you’re doing, love?”

Emma lowered herself onto her knees in front of him and yanked at his belt. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Being a very bad girl.” A broad grin stretched across his lips and he pulled her hair away from her face as he purred, “I approve.”

Freeing him from his trousers, her eyes widened and a hum caught in the back of her throat as her tongue slowly grazed along her upper lip. “So do I.”

Killian lifted his hips, allowing her to drag his tuxedo pants and boxer briefs down his legs. Once they were removed completely, along with his socks and shoes, Emma ran her hands over the tops of his thighs, spreading his legs wider so she could fill the space between them. Her eyes flitted between his gaze and his cock, eager and erect for her attentions, bobbing against his belly in anticipation as her fingers drew closer.

Her nails scratched through the hair at his groin, pulling a moan from deep within his chest, and his head fell back when she finally wrapped her hands around his sizable girth. When he felt the loss of one of her hands, he looked down in time to watch her spit into it before slathering the fresh lubricant up and down his length, then repeat the action with her other hand.

“Gods above,” Killian groaned, his breath catching at the feel of her tongue collecting the bead arousal seeping from the tip of his cock as her hands ran long, languid passes over his aching flesh. Each time her thumb brushed over his tip her mouth would follow, applying gentle sucking pressure to his head as her tongue fluttered over the sensitive area his now receded foreskin exposed.

A growl rumbled from his chest when the blessed torment of her mouth left his cock, but a new sound quickly followed when she set her sights further down. The pull of her mouth as she sucked one of his balls into its warm, wet depths - first one then the other - as she continued to stroke his length made Killian’s eyes roll back and his knuckles turn white as his fingers gripped the ends of the armrests. Her tongue swirled, saliva dripping past her lips and collected by her hands, allowing them to continue to glide effortlessly over his cock.

“Bloody fuck!” His hips bucked when she released his balls and ran her tongue along his underside, rimming the puckered muscle of arse before licking a long, broad stripe from his back to his front, tracing the veins of his shaft and circling the swollen tip of his cockhead while her gaze remained intently fixed upon his face.

Toes curling and breath held tight in anticipation of the hot, wet feel of her mouth finally enveloping him, a stuttered groan escaped him when, instead, it was the soft, supple sensation of her breasts, and not her lips, he slipped between. The cant of his hips moved in time with her ministrations, each thrust upwards through the valley of her breasts had the tip of his member earning him either a gentle kiss or taunting flick of her tongue along his slit, further lubricating his cock with the excess saliva she released from her mouth and let run down his cock.

By the time she finally took him into her mouth Killian was worked up into such a state it was a wonder he did not come undone from the first pass of her lips as she attempted to take in his fullness.

“Fuck! Your mouth is like heaven,” he panted, fighting against the temptation to take hold of her head and force himself further down her throat, knowing it was a feat no woman had been able to manage before, given his size. “But I can only imagine the paradise that awaits me between your legs, where you can take me in completely, Swan.”

He saw the acceptance of his challenge flash in her eyes, and Killian refrained from voicing his desire to finish while fucking her into the mattress rather than her fucking him with her exquisite mouth, enjoying her efforts too much to want to put a stop to them. However, the shock of being swallowed so far down her throat that the tip of her nose brushed through the thick thatch of hair at the base of his cock unexpectedly unmanned him. The tight coil of ecstasy that had collected in his groin snapped and his entire body shuddered as a guttural groan rumbled up his throat while his release slid down the back of hers.

Her hands and mouth worked him through his orgasm, prolonging his pleasure until every last drop of bliss was spent. Laboring to draw in a full breath, his chest heaved as he ran a hand over his face, his skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

“You naughty girl,” he exhaled, breathlessly. His eyes narrowed on her self-satisfied expression as he accused, “You made me come.”

Swiping her thumb over the corners of her mouth, Emma smirked deviously. “I thought you liked it when I was bad.”

“Oh, I do,” he assured her darkly, leaning forward as she began to scoot back on her knees. “Because that means I get to give you that promised spanking.”

Emma yelped when he surged forward. Hoisting her up and over his shoulder, he smacked her arse firmly and carried her over to the bed, depositing her across his lap after he settled on its edge.

“You like that, don’t you love?” Killian grit out, alternating between firm swats and soothing caresses while she was draped helplessly over his thighs, the imprint of his hand emblazoned on her backside standing out in stark contrast with her usual creamy complexion. “You don’t have to answer.” After one final solid spanking, he slid his hand between her legs, his fingers dipping into her drenched core. A thoroughly indecent moan escaped her lips, which were indented with the impression of her teeth, their bite having stifled her cries of pained ecstasy each time his palm had struck. “I can feel how much you enjoyed it even if you tried to keep the truth of your pleasure from me by trying to stay silent.”

His other hand wound through her hair and with an insistent tug, he pulled her off his lap and ordered her onto the bed.

“Spread those gorgeous legs for me, Swan. It’s my turn to taste you.”

Killian couldn’t help but lick his lips at the sight of her glistening sex, her flesh pink and plumped and desperate for his cock. His gaze trailed up her form, his eyes glazing over with lust as he watched her knead her breasts, her fingers rolling her nipples into taut, beckoning peaks he could not ignore. Climbing onto the bed, he crawled over her body, bracing his weight onto his hands while his mouth worked each rosy bud in turn. His tongue laved penance for the transgressions his teeth left behind, and brands were seared into her skin as he rut his recovering cock through her slick folds.

Emma’s back arched off the bed, her hands fisting the covers as her body writhed beneath his. “Fuck, Killian!” she panted, canting her hips in search of greater friction than his half-hard state could provide her in that moment. “Get a move on!”

“As you wish.”

Forcing her legs further apart, he wasted no time delving into the delectable pool of arousal that awaited him, lapping up her desire with broad strokes and teasing her clit with each finishing flick of his tongue. The decadent taste of her would have been enough to shorten his usual refractory time, but coupled with the sounds she made the closer she got to the edge, Killian found himself swelling to the point of aching in record time.

Pain ripped through his scalp when Emma’s fingers dug into the strands of his hair, her hips rocking and swiveling against his mouth as she held him against her sex, each flutter of his tongue bringing her closer to ruin. Her legs quivered on either side of his head, her pants becoming vocalized moans between the string of praises and profanities spilling from her lips. When she finally came, her release washed over his tongue like champagne pouring from a freshly uncorked bottle and he wasn’t about to let one drop of her essence go to waste, swallowing down her orgasm as she continued to convulse before falling limp.

“I’m not done with you yet, Swan.”

Kneeling, he grabbed her legs and flipped her over onto her stomach before hoisting her onto her knees by her hips. Her torso, arms, and head remained slack, a fresh round of whimpers and moans muffling into the mattress when he slid two fingers into her core, gauging the stretch of her to make sure she was adequately prepared for his size at this angle. Coating his cock with the moisture he’d collected from her center, he lined himself up with her entrance and slowly eased in the tip. A sound of discomfort hissed from Emma’s lips and her core clenched around him, stalling his actions.

“Too much?” he asked with concern lacing his strained tone, willing her to relax so he could slip further into her tight depths.

“No,” she rasped, wetting her lips and taking a deep breath in. “No, God! Keep going! Please!”

This time, when he thrust inside, she pushed back along his length, both of them working together until every inch of him was seated within her. Killian’s head fell back, his eyes clamped shut at the feel of her molding around his cock, as though she were made for him. His lips parted and a gasp left his lungs when she apparently became fed up with his lack of movement and began rocking her hips. The grip of her walls releasing and catching his length had his own hips thrusting in time with her rhythm until her arse, still imprinted with the palm of his hand, was bouncing off his thighs as he pounded into her.

“Look at you taking me so well, love,” he panted, his fingers digging into her hip as he watched his cock disappear into her depths again and again. “Fuck, you’re a marvel.”

Sweaty slaps of skin and filthy utterances filled the room as they both chased the desire that had been building between them since the moment they faced off in that alley. Feeling how close he was to potentially finishing before her, Killian grasped beneath her breast, wrapping his arm around her so he could pull her flush to his chest.

“Sweet Jesus!” Emma reached back and wound her arm around his neck, carding her fingers through his hair and holding on for dear life as this new angle assured she’d reach her breaking point before he did.

“Oh, God!” she cried out, again. The phrase became a litany as it continued to roll off her tongue while Killian’s hips rut into her, thrusting with abandon until her walls clamped down around him and she quaked in his arms.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

The force of her orgasm nearly expelled him from her as it gushed over his cock and began to trickle down his thighs. He showed her no mercy, pistoning into her as she convulsed from the waves of pleasure that he could feel tightening in his groin and building at the base of his spine. Keeping her upright in his arms with his hands clamped over her breasts, he buried his face into the crook of her neck, muffling his cries into the slick, salty taste of her skin when he finally reached his pinnacle and threw himself over the edge. His hips jerked, his thrusts sporadic while his cock throbbed and emptied into her depths, the excess of which mingled with her own release as it seeped out from where they were joined together, making an even greater mess that Killian quite frankly didn’t give a flying fuck about.

Sated and panting in equal rhythm, they collapsed together on the bed and Killian felt sure Emma could feel his heart pounding from where his chest was still pressed to her back, her own thumping wildly against the palm of his hand resting between her breasts.

“That was…”

“A one time thing?” he taunted her, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, there was definitely more than one.”

~/~

Emma wasn’t sure how long she’d lay sprawled out on the bed before finally feeling confident enough in her limbs’ abilities to support her. All she knew was Killian was already out of the shower - Are you sure I can’t tempt you to take one with me so we can get each other dirty again, love?, he’d quipped - and if she didn’t want to wake up sticky and covered in the by-product of their recent activities then she’d better take one as well.

He startled when she opened the door to the bathroom, steam billowing out and fogging the mirror he was standing in front of, a towel wrapped around his waist and his hands braced against the counter, knuckles growing white from the sudden tightened grip he was applying to its edge.

In an effort to alleviate the unexpected tension her presence had caused, Emma teased, “Sorry I didn’t join you sooner, I could have washed your back for you… among other things.”

Her playful expression and tone evaporated when her eyes fell to the scarred stripes criss-crossing his exposed back, and his guarded demeanor finally made sense. Flicking her eyes back up to meet the reflection of his, her chest tightened at the wary vulnerability the mirror revealed in his forget-me-not gaze.

He tensed again when she took a step forward, his muscles rigid and unyielding beneath her touch as she traced one of the more pronounced lines. When her lips pressed against the raised flesh of his scars, all apprehension melted away and a shuddering sigh expelled from his chest, lowering his shoulders as his head fell forward.

“I’m gonna get cleaned up,” she murmured into his skin. “It’s okay if you don’t wait up for me. I’ll be back in bed soon.”

She didn’t wait for any sort of response, making her way towards the shower and turning it on full force, allowing him the opportunity to leave the bathroom without having to answer any of the questions silently filling the space alongside the lingering steam. Emma stood under the hot spray for several minutes after the door clicked shut behind him, the image of his back practically projected on the marble wall in front of her as her mind ran rampant.

Who could have done such a thing to him? Who would have dared raise a hand to one of Brennan Jones’ sons?

Unless…

Emma shook her head and snatched her shampoo off the shelf in the corner, lathering the product in her hands before vigorously working it through her strands and massaging it into her scalp. Brennan could be a cruel and ruthless son of a bitch, based on all the stories she’d heard of him from his hay-day, but she didn’t believe for one moment he would raise a hand against his own flesh and blood to such a horrific degree. No. Someone else had abused Killian, beaten him numerous times by the look of it. But who?

While I might have my father and brother close to me now, it was not always the case. I know all too well how it feels to be left on your own for too long, to feel unwanted and of no particular use to anyone. To feel like you’re… nothing.

Killian’s words from the day before washed over her as she continued through the routine of her shower. Not wishing to make him feel as though he owed her an explanation - even if she did tease him on the yacht that she expected reciprocity at some point - Emma took her time cleaning up and drying off, fully expecting him to be asleep, or pretending to be, anyway, when she opened the bathroom door.

Imagine her surprise when she found him stretched out on his back, arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling and clearly awake when she emerged.

Pulling on nothing more than one of his undershirts, Emma slid beneath the sheets and cozied up next to his side, nestling her head in the space between his chest and shoulder. Despite the taut, stagnant atmosphere, she lazily wove her fingers through the hair at his chest, waiting for him to decide.

His chest rose higher than it had with the even breaths he’d been taking and his fortifying swallow was audible in the ear she had resting against his chest. “I was ten when my mother died,” he began in a hushed tone. Emma kept her touch light and even as he spoke, trailing her fingers over his chest and down his side, skimming over the ridges and dips of his ribs and abs before gliding them back up to start the trek over again.

“She was a warning. A message to my father from some of the people he’d crossed. He wasn’t an overly powerful man back then, just another criminal trying to carve out his own place among vipers and rats.”

Another deep breath and his hand came down to rest atop hers, stilling it over his heart.

“Worried for my brother and my safety, Father sent us to our uncle, my mother’s brother. A man by the name of Edward Teach.”

Killian’s contempt clipped around each syllable of the man’s name.

“We were only meant to stay with him until father could smooth things over, but things took a turn for the worse and he had to leave the country.”

“That’s when he came here? To America?”

“Aye.” His fingertips brushed back and forth over her knuckles then up her arm, gaining further purchase over her raised skin with each stroke until he was toying with the ends of her hair. “He said he would send for us once he had himself established, but as the weeks and months dragged on Liam and I began to lose faith. Then Teach told us he’d heard from our father, that he’d decided he was better off without us and we were Teach’s problem to deal with now.”

Emma laid there quietly and listened as Killian revealed the hell Teach put him and Liam through, trying her best to keep a tight rein on her anger and tears. The first thing the bastard had done was separate the two brothers, keeping Killian locked away in a filth-encrusted apartment while dragging Liam along with him to learn the business side of things.

“They’d be gone days, even weeks at a time,” Killian told her. “More than once I ran out of food before they got back, half-starved and too weak to keep up with the chores he expected of me, to earn my keep.” A mirthless chuckle rumbled through his chest. “You saw from my back how he responded to such disrespect and defiance.”

“Did he beat Liam, too?”

He stiffened beside her, sucking in a pained breath before replying, “No. His punishment was witnessing mine and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.”

Emma curled her fingers over his heart, scratching lightly through hair tickling her palm and leaned in to place a kiss at the base of his neck. “But it did stop eventually,” she reminded him. “Tell me about that.”

“As I got older, I became less afraid of venturing out whilst Teach and Liam were away. I was coming back from the grocer, having earned some money from some side hustles, when I came upon a gang of kids beating up a younger, smaller boy. I intervened, ran the brutes off and helped the kid up off the pavement, introducing myself to him.” A fond sounding huff left his lips before a rigidity set back in. “He ran off without telling me who he was, but I found out the next day.”

“Well,” Emma pressed, the dramatic pause stretching on too long for her liking. “Who was he?”

Sighing, he revealed, “Neal. The boy was Neal Gold. His Grandfather, Malcolm, paid me a visit the next day.”

Emma was stupefied. Killian had once saved Neal from a beating? One that had earned him gratitude and a promised favor from none other than Malcolm Gold. Killian went on to tell her how he had considered asking for Malcolm’s help with Teach, but knew favors from men such as Gold, even if it was one they owed you, always came with a price. He’d planned to wait until Liam came back so they could decide together.

“But Teach came back first and decided for me,” Killian said tightly, through clenched teeth.

“How so?”

“He’d found out about my hustles, that I’d been earning money. He demanded a cut and when I said no, he proceeded to take off his belt, his weapon of choice in administering his beatings. But he was drunk and unstable. I was older now, bigger, stronger, perhaps not enough to take him on if he’d had all his faculties, but it was enough of an edge, all I needed to…”

“You killed him, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Emma had already deduced that one of the Jones must have done away with Teach, his crimes were too numerous, too abhorrent to let stand. She took his continued silence as confirmation and placed another kiss along his collarbone, murmuring into his skin. “Good.”

A shuddering breath she hadn’t even been aware he was holding left his lungs and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her firmly against him as he told her the rest of the tale. How, when Liam had learned what Killian had done, he’d offered to take the blame on Killian’s behalf with the police, but Killian had already made other arrangements. He’d called in the favor with Malcolm. In exchange for Gold cleaning up the mess and covering up Teach’s death, Killian agreed to work for him, to become a part of the Gold family as one of their made men. When Malcolm arrived to collect, Liam refused to let Killian go without him, despite Killian’s arguments, and the two of them were drafted into Gold’s service.

“Liam never wanted this life,” he confessed to her. “He often spoke of the day we’d both be free of thugs and thieves, of the criminal element, making our way in the world, seeking glory with honor. Glory for the Jones brothers.” A wistful smile tugged at his lips, brushing against her temple. “But he wouldn’t abandon me to the Gold’s anymore than he would Teach. Anymore than he would to my demons.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not long after we began working for Gold, truths about our father came to light,” he told her. “Malcolm showed us letters his men found when they’d cleaned out Teach’s flat. Letters our father had sent, none of which implied his wish to be rid of us. Later, we learned Teach had hired some local boys to write to our father, posing as Liam and I, telling him we blamed him for mother and had no wish to see or speak with him again. He never actually abandoned us to Teach. Upon hearing this news, Liam reached out and got in touch with our father, told him everything. He got on the first plane over and immediately struck a deal with Malcolm to secure our freedom.”

“The treaty?”

“Aye. He offered Malcolm, who was losing a long-standing turf war with another family in the UK, half of the territory he’d managed to claim for himself here in Storybrooke and use of the docks, under Jones' supervision, of course, to keep his export business running.”

“And you all settled back here after that?”

“Not quite,” he whispered, so soft and low she almost missed the utterance. “Though he forgave our father for putting us in Teach’s hands, knowing he wouldn’t have if he’d known how big of a bastard the man was, Liam didn’t want anything to do with the organization father had built here. He wanted out of the life completely, and my father, feeling he owed it to Liam, let him go.”

“What did Liam do?”

A snort left Killian’s chest, “Joined the navy, if you can believe that.”

“Really?” Emma replied with a chortle of her own. “For how long?”

His amusement evaporated, a heavy weight of contrition coming over him as he imparted, “Until father begged him to come back, worried about me and fearing where my recklessness might lead.”

“You? Reckless?” Emma teased, hoping to alleviate some of the self-loathing she could feel seeping from his pores, but it didn’t really work.

“When we got to Storybrooke, I reveled in the freedom and prestige being a Jones afforded me. In my defense, I was all of sixteen at the time, but I already knew. Was already drawn to it all. The blood, the violence, the women, the power. I made friends with others like me, blokes with their own demons they’d chosen to befriend rather than hide away. Robin and Will have been my best mates for over a decade, and Arthur used to run with us until his father started keeping him closer to the Pendragon fold… and far away from the rash and volatile Jones boy.”

“You became too much for your father to handle, huh?”

“I suppose,” he sighed, “And once he learned about his disease and the uncertain future it meant for him and the organization, he felt he needed a more… stable person to act as his second.”

Wetting her lips, Emma hesitated for a moment before inquiring, “So, Liam is the way he is because he… resents having to come back and run things? Why don’t you just offer to take over so he can go back to the life he wants? You aren’t that reckless, hot-headed teenager anymore.”

“I have,” Killian said. “But Liam is ever the dutiful son and big brother. He thinks if he’d come over with us in the first place, I might not have fallen so far into darkness so fast. He blames himself for being selfish and not insisting he take care of me rather than agreeing I go with our father whilst he pursued his own path.” Another sigh heaved from his chest. “I don’t think it’s resentment that makes my brother act the way he does. It’s his inability to control things. He can’t control my father’s illness, or how things will fall to him once he passes. He can’t control our enemies, or who might come gunning for us next.”

“He can’t control his brother or the woman he had conscripted into the family business,” she added knowingly, finally understanding Liam Jones a bit more and his order to have her dealt with.

It wasn’t the business he feared she was a threat to, it was his little brother. Liam spent his whole life desperate to protect Killian and failing to do so in those moments Killian truly needed him. From Teach’s beatings, to being left alone, fending for himself with an empty belly and even emptier spirit until he was left with no other recourse than to end the abuse the only way he knew how. Emma had no doubt Liam would have killed the bastard himself, or would have been good to his word, taking the fall on Killian’s behalf, but once again, his little brother had shouldered the responsibility Liam felt ought to have been his and took matters into his own blood stained hands. Time and again, Liam fell short of being the big brother Killian needed - at least in his own reckoning, she very much doubted Killian ever saw it that way - so it made sense he would be wary of anyone or anything that might be a potential danger to his brother, even to the point of lashing out against the very person he was trying to protect.

“You know,” Killian mused, drawing her back to the warmth of his embrace and the solace they were both enjoying, unburdened and nestled together. “I think our brothers would get along rather well, despite the whole mob boss, FBI quarrel,” he cheeked. “They are rather alike in their own damnable and stubborn ways, don’t you think?”

Emma hummed sleepily. “You may be right, but… let’s not test that theory any time soon.”

Killian chuckled and buried his face in her hair, licking and kissing up her neck towards her ear, “As you wish, love.” The gravel of his voice made her toes curl and her leg brushed against his, wrapping over his bare hip in an effort to draw closer to him. His hand toyed with the hem of the shirt - his shirt - she was wearing, and began pushing it up her torso. Palming her breast, a soft sigh escaped her lips and he bent his head down taking her nipple into his mouth as his hand slid downward, his fingers slipping between her damp folds.

“Killian,” she keened, her back bowing and breath hitching as his tongue continued to lave between her breasts.

“I want you,” he murmured into her skin, rolling them so she was on her back beneath him.

Pulling the shirt up and over her head, a teasing smirk matched her tone as she quipped, “Again?”

“Always,” he stated, emphatically, dragging the tip of his cock through her folds. “Since the moment we met.”

A collective groan filled the room as he pushed inside. Emma’s eyes slammed shut and her legs widened. “Fuck! You’re so big,” she panted, relishing the delicious burn of his massive cock against her walls, stretching her to the brink with exquisite torment.

“And you,” he replied, his voice gruff and breathless, each word punctuated with the roll of his hips as he attempted to sink deeper. “So wet. So tight. So… God. Damn. Perfect.”

His chest heaved, his coarse hair scratching wondrously against her nipples when he was finally sheathed to the hilt, balls deep inside her.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he murmured into her neck. Emma opened her eyes as he lifted his head, fixing his gaze to her as he began to move inside her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you… ever.”

Words caught in the back of Emma’s throat, cut off by both the sensations tugging at her heart in response to his words as well as the ones building at the base of her spine as his hips swiveled and rocked, his cock hitting her perfectly with each thrust.

“Gods above, I don’t know how I’ll ever let you go after this.”

“Killian, I--”

“I know,” he grit out, clamping his eyes shut and momentarily losing himself in the feel of her. “A deal’s a deal, but still…”

Emma gasped when he hitched her legs up higher on his hips, practically bringing her knees to her chest as his thrusts picked up speed and intensity, each pounding action making stars appear behind her eyelids as her release grew ever closer to its breaking point.

“I’m a selfish bastard and I want you to stay,” he grunted. “Say you’ll stay, Swan. When this is all over, stay. Stay with me, Emma. Stay!”

Opening her mouth to respond, all that came out was a scream of ecstasy as she surrendered to the flood of her release, bathed in a pleasure so intense she thought she might drown in it.

“Fuck, Emma!” Killian roared, his movements erratic as his cock twitched and throbbed within her, spilling himself with his eyes tightly shut and mouth hanging slack as his hair fell over his forehead.

God, was he gorgeous.

For the second time, they collapsed together in each other’s arms, their breaths and heart rates working in tandem to normalize as exhaustion seeped in. Emma stiffened when Killian placed a kiss on her forehead and moved to rearrange the sheets, covering them both. She waited for him to ask her again, to tell her how he wanted her to stay and await her response. Instead, he murmured for her to get some sleep, then soon drifted off himself, his arm around her loosening as his breathing evened out.

Emma laid there for what felt like hours before succumbing to the siren call of slumber herself, warring with how she would have responded if he’d pressed the issue. Would she stay? Could she bind herself to the Jones, serve the family as one of their made men… er, women, a lifetime commitment with no possibility of leaving except feet first? Forget the family. Could she bind herself to Killian? Stay by his side, fully embracing her demons and the life she’d always craved but hesitated to completely fall into?

Emma woke the next morning to cool sheets beside her, remembering after a moment’s panic that Killian had an early meeting with Arthur. The faint memory of him kissing her with a murmured, I’ll be back soon, love whispered into her ear flit through her mind as she threw the covers back and made her way to the shower.

The hot spray provided no answers to the questions she’d fallen asleep with. Neither did the coffee and fresh plate of hot breakfast waiting for her on the dining table. In fact, she was no closer to any sort of answer when Killian came back to the room later that morning. But it didn’t matter. His arrival brought with it a whole host of new questions; ones more pressing than those he’d whispered into her skin while plunging into her depths the night before.

“Get packed, Swan. We’re leaving.”

“What? Why?”

“We have to get back to Storybrooke. I have to tell Liam and my father everything.”

“What, now? But… we don’t know who the rat is yet.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, pulling her from the table and ushering her into their room so she could get dressed. “Our rat is only the tip of a much bigger problem. One I cannot keep from my father and brother any longer.”

“What problem?”

She could practically feel the air leaving the room from the look in Killian’s eyes when he fixed her with his cold, hardened stare.

“War,” he growled darkly. “A war is coming.”

Chapter Ten ​

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

The Fireworks

This story was originally written and posted for my Fluffy Fridays Collection, but I thought I’d bring it back for the holiday.  Enjoy!

Rating: T

Words:  ~2500

CS Genre: Feuding Neighbors AU

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

           “Come on David, you can’t be serious!” Emma growled as her brother, the sheriff, eased her back with a gentle hand to the arm.

           “Yeah, Emma,” he said grimly, “I can.”

           As if to emphasize the point, he slammed the jail cell door closed behind her.

           Behind her and her jackass next door neighbor.

           “Now, mate,” said jackass drawled, stepping forward.  “Are you sure this is the best idea.  You know your sister and I don’t particularly see eye to eye.”

           David smiled humorlessly.  “Understatement of the year after what you two have done over the last few days.  But you’ve been disturbing the peace and driving everyone around you crazy, so yeah.  I think a night in jail is definitely in order.  You two’ll either find a way to work things out or you’ll kill each other.  Either way the rest of us might get a little peace and quiet.”

~~36 Hours Before…~~

           Killian settled into his bed with a contented sigh, reveling in the soft pillow.  The hum of the ceiling fan lulled him until his eyes gently closed.  It had been a long day, and he was in for another one tomorrow.

           Storybrooke had big plans for its 4th of July celebration on Saturday.  There were plans to shoot fireworks from a boat out on the harbor and set the whole thing to patriotic music.  As the town’s harbormaster, Killian had a big role to play in getting everything set up.  It was exhausting, and he wanted nothing more than to get a good night’s sleep before he waded into the madness all over again—ridiculously early tomorrow morning.

           Boom!  Crackle!

           Killian jumped at the sudden noise, and then heard a frightened yelp and the click of paws against his wooden floor, as his 75 pound Rottweiler mix sprinted into his room, jumped on his bed and plopped square on his chest.

           As Killian removed the panting, shaking, terrified canine baby from his person, his eyes narrowed.  He’d bet his last paycheck he knew precisely the cause of the disturbance.

           “Sh, Smee,” he said, stroking his dog’s black and caramel colored coat.  “There’s nothing to worry about.  It’s just…”

           Another boom, this one loud enough to shake his house.  Smee scrambled down and tried to wedge himself under Killian’s bed.

           Killian pushed himself to his feet and strode purposely toward his door, not even bothering to put on a shirt.  There was only one person who could be responsible.

           Swan.

           She’d moved into the house next to him about eight months ago, all long blonde hair and prickly exterior.  Never had he met someone so exquisitely beautiful—or so maddeningly frustrating.  The day after she’d moved in, he’d knocked on her door, friendly smile and “welcome to the neighborhood” bottle of rum at the ready.

           He’d prepared a genial, friendly speech about how he was pleased to meet her and glad the house was finally occupied again and how she shouldn’t hesitate to ask if he could be of any assistance, but then she’d opened the door, and all rational thought had fled.  Nothing could have prepared him for the utter perfection that was Emma Swan.

           So, rather than his careful, well thought out neighborly speech, what came out of his mouth was something along the lines of “Hey beautiful.  I think you and I need to get to know each other much, much better.”

           Needless to say, she’d slammed the door in his face.  Then she’d opened it again, swiped the rum from his hand, gave him a glare that could curdle milk, and slammed the door for the second time that morning.

           Things had only gone downhill from there.

           From that moment on, it would seem they were sworn enemies.  Oh he’d tried to apologize, explain, but approaching her had been like trying to approach a rabid porcupine.

           So he’d stopped trying to apologize and started in to do his best to completely piss her off, flirting outrageously with her whenever they came in contact.  She was utterly glorious when she was angry.

           She’d returned the favor with various acts of bad neighborliness—raking her leaves straight into his yard (he’d retaliated by raking the whole lot up and putting it in a messy pile at her front door) or parking her yellow bug smack dab in front of his mailbox—earning him the ire of Leroy, their bad-tempered postman (he’d retaliated by parking his own car at the end of her driveway), and all manner of other, deliberate acts of aggression.

           And tonight, it would appear she’d decided to shoot off fireworks at 10:30 pm.  Well, he wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.  Enough was enough.

           Righteous indignation intact, he stormed from his front door and marched right up to the exasperating woman who was preparing to apply a lighter to another bottle rocket, a preteen boy looking on with excitement.

           “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he’d shouted.

           Emma jumped and then glared.  “What does it look like I’m doing?  I’m setting off fireworks.  There’s a little thing called Independence Day coming up, and Henry and I wanted to celebrate.”

           “Yeah?” he’d growled, “well can’t you celebrate at a reasonable hour?  Some of us are trying to get some bloody sleep, so how about you cease and desist immediately.”

           She rolled her eyes.  “Not happening, buddy,” she said in a hard voice.  “So how about you take your un-patriotic ass off my lawn and go get that sleep you’re so desperate for.”

           He’d opened his mouth, preparing for a stinging reply, but then thought better of it as a brilliant, devious plan came to mind.  She wanted to disturb his sleep and scare his dog half to death?  Fine.  Two could play at that game.  Miss patriotic over there was about to find out that payback was a bitch.

~~6 ½ hours later…~~

           Emma was happily fast asleep when it happened.  A canon boomed and suddenly classical music, at roughly the decibel level of a jet, filled her peaceful bedroom.  She shot up in bed, hand going immediately to her heart, and then her eyes narrowed.

           Killian.

           No one else would even think of pulling something like this.

           She got to her feet, threw on some sweats and stormed from the house, prepared to give the son of a bitch a piece of her mind he would never forget.

           Killian Jones was the bane of her existence; had been ever since that first morning he’d knocked on her door and immediately set in to hitting on her.  Obviously thought he was God’s gift to women; that she should just swoon at his feet in ecstasy that he’d deigned to talk to her.

           Yeah, not happening.

She didn’t care how ridiculously hot he was.  And yes, with his piercing blue eyes, messy black hair, and perpetual scruff…well, hot didn’t even begin to cover it.  And when he’d stormed over to her house last night, naked to the waist and she’d gotten her first glimpse of that ripped, hair smattered chest….well, maybe it did things to her.

           Ugh!  What was she doing?  She wasn’t some teenager who couldn’t keep her hormones in check.  She was a full grown woman who was going to give a world-class jerk the verbal beating he so richly deserved!

           Killian Jones sat on his porch swing, cup of coffee in hand, smug grin in place.

           “Morning, Swan,” he said genially.  “Looks like it’s going to be a lovely day, aye?”

           She took his porch steps two at a time, walked over to the stereo system he’d moved to sit beside him—the stereo system who’s speakers were turned conspicuously toward her house—and punched the “stop” button with a viciousness that would have made a fairy tale villain proud.  “Cut the crap, Jones.  What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

           His grin spread maddeningly further. ��“Just enjoying the morning,” he drawled.  “After all, as patriotic as you are, I’d assumed you’d enjoy ‘The 1812 Overture’.  Quite a good rendition this.  Did you know they used real canons in the finale?”

           Emma’s hand ached with the need to punch the smug bastard in the face.  “It’s freaking five o’clock in the morning!  I was asleep.”

           Suddenly a glint of temper entered his eyes.  “Aye?  Well darling, now you know how it feels.”

           And that was all it took.  Emma took a deep breath and started in on the long list of all the things she hated about Killian Jones.

~~Present Day~~

           Emma plopped down on one of the prison cell cots and turned resolutely from the man standing on the far side of the cell.  After the cataclysmic shouting match this morning, one of their other neighbors had evidently called the cops.  David had shown up, taken one, assessing look at the situation, and thrown both of their asses in jail.

           And now she was going to be stuck with Killian freaking Jones until tomorrow morning!

           Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!  This was going to be the longest night of her life.

           For long minutes they both sat there, each on their respective bunks, seething and glaring daggers in each other’s general direction.  Finally he let out a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and turned suddenly repentant eyes in her direction.

           “Look love,” he began.

           “Not your love, Jones,” she said automatically.

           He charged on, ignoring the interruption.  “Perhaps your brother is right.  Things might be…tumultuous between us, but we are neighbors.  We need to find a way to live together in peace.  I apologize for blaring music at you at an ungodly hour this morning.  Bad form, that.”

           He was apologizing?  Actually apologizing?  Taking responsibility for something he’d done and wishing to make amends?  Of all the things she’d expected to come from his mouth that was not it.

           “Um,” she said in confusion, “thanks for that.”

           He reclined his head in acknowledgement.  “I let my temper get the better of me.  I’ve been under a bit of stress at work lately, and when you set off your fireworks late last night—disturbing my sleep and scaring my dog witless—well, I suppose I snapped.”

           Sudden guilt clawed at Emma.  She supposed if she was being completely honest…she hadn’t handled last night’s altercation as well as she might have.  And, okay, maybe if she was further being honest, he wasn’t a complete pain in the ass all the time.  There was that time last winter when he’d come over and shoveled her driveway after a particularly nasty blizzard….and there was that time she’d been sick and he’d run down to the local diner and bought her some chicken soup.

           And, well, okay, maybe he had some justification for being angry after all the crap she’d done to him.  Maybe he wasn’t the only one who needed to make an apology.

           “Yeah,” she said, picking at a loose string on her cot and refusing to look over at him.  “I guess I should apologize too.  For the fireworks.  I didn’t think about them bothering anyone, but, well, I didn’t exactly handle our conversation last night well.”

           She felt the cot sag beside her, and looked up into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen in her life.  Killian extended one hand, friendly smile firmly in place.  “Apology accepted.  Truce?”

           She hesitated for another moment, and then gripped his offered hand.  A jolt of electricity passed between them at the touch, and Emma gasped, dropped his hand like it was a live wire, and turned startled green eyes his direction.  What she saw in the depths of his eyes was something she’d never expected.  Kindness, understanding, friendship.

           Emma’d had a rough life; always abandoned, always forgotten, always passed over.  It wasn’t until David’s mom, Ruth, adopted her at the age of seventeen that she finally found someone she could really trust.  Still, trust came hard.  Her default position was still to expect the worst.

           So it shocked her to her very core when she suddenly had the urge to confide in the man sitting beside her—the man she’d hated from the very beginning.

           “Look,” she said, once again glancing away from him.  “That boy that was with me last night...”

           He nodded, urging her to go on.  “That’s my…that’s my son.  Got knocked up really young; still a kid really, sixteen-and-a-half.  And when I told the father…well, he freaked out.  Walked out on us, and I’ve never seen him since.”

           Killian took her hand, and to her shock, she had no desire to pull away.

           “I gave Henry up when he was born, trying to give him his best chance, you know? What did I know about being a mother?  I’d never even had one to speak of.”

           “I can’t begin to imagine how difficult that must have been for you,” Killian whispered.  She looked up at him, nodded, and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

           “Yeah,” she admitted.  “Tore me apart.  I’ve been looking for him for years, and finally found him; here in this town.  The adoptive mom didn’t want me to have anything to do with him; almost took out a restraining order on me, and well, last night was the first time she agreed to let me have contact with him.  Real contact.  Henry loves fireworks, so…”  Emma shrugged.

           Killian was silent for a long time, and finally she looked up at him.  The compassion in his eyes was almost her undoing.  “I’m sorry for overreacting, love.”

           She shrugged again.  “Not your fault; not really.  You couldn’t have known.  And...well, I guess my default is to be defensive.  My experience…people don’t stay.  They don’t do nice things for you, at least without expecting things in return.  Their all out to screw you over.”

           “Emma, you deserve far, far better than that.”

           Something about the sincerity of his voice, the emotion behind his simple statement, finally made her snap.  Surging forward, she weaved her hand through the soft hair at the nape of his neck and slammed her lips against his.

           He responded instantly, giving as good as he got, deepening the kiss, making small noises in the back of his throat that drove her wild.  In the history of kisses, she was sure there had never been one quite so potent, so all consuming.

           When they finally pulled apart, she rested her forehead against his and felt his deep chuckle against her hand, resting on his chest.  “Love, that was…”

           “Mind-blowing, explosive,” she finished.  She leaned back and grinned at him.  “Jones, I thought you were against fireworks, but that..”

           He laughed again.  “Well, there are fireworks and then there are fireworks.”

           She laughed with him, and couldn’t resist going in for round two—the kiss far softer and more gentle this time.

           “Killian,” she finally said, breathlessly.  “I think we kind of started out on the wrong foot.  How about we start over and this time try to not, you know, attempt to kill each other every other day?”

           Killian grinned.  “Sounds good to me, love.”  He extended his hand once more.  “Hi, I’m Killian Jones.  Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”