Like Whiskey (We Just Can't Help Ourselves) - [Emma Swan/Killian Jones | Captain Hook]
Pairing: Emma Swan/Killian Jones | Captain Hook
Genre: AU
Word Count: 9,500
Summary: AU - Hook came along with the curse and has been living in Storybrooke all this time.
Part A | Part B
---
“You’re late.”
“You’re early,” Emma corrected, hopping onto the stool next to Henry. He already had a cup of cocoa at his elbow, but it looked untouched.
“How was school?”
“Don’t ‘how was school’ me,” Henry exclaimed, and Emma’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Henry, wha-“
“We need to talk,” he declared, and heaved his story book onto the diner counter with a heavy thump! “Your boyfriend is Captain Hook.”
“He’s not my--! What?!”
Henry hit the cover with his palm. “Captain Hook!” he repeated.
Emma held up her hands and then realized she had no response to that. She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. When she opened them, Henry was still staring at her - his round face done over with blatant concern.
“Henry,” she started, trying to speak as calmly as possible. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Operation Cobra is not ridiculous!”
“First Snow White, now Peter Pan?” Emma knew rejecting it out of hand would only make things worse; she tried to reason with him. “I know you think there’s this curse-“
“There IS a curse!”
“-and that I’m the only one who can break it. But-Peter Pan? It’s not the same thing as Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or fairytales.”
“Things are a lot more complicated than that,” Henry explained, looking disappointed with her. “I thought you believed.”
“I do,” she insisted. Her voice got quiet. “It’s just-this can’t be the answer for everything, Henry...”
“But he’s in the book!”
“Is this because of the hand thing?” Emma guessed, her forehead creasing. “Henry, you know you can’t say things like that-it’s not-“
“I’m saying he’s Hook because he IS Hook!” objected Henry. He threw open the book and started turning pages. “Lookit!”
“No. No. Give me that.” Emma pulled the book out from under his searching hands, nearly tearing an illustration of Cinderella dressing for the ball. “It’s time we got you home.”
“Emma! He’s dangerous!”
“Henry, even if he’s-even if.” She placed her hands on his shoulders. “That was there. This is...Maine.”
He screwed up his face. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you need to try believing,” she said as Henry’s head drooped. She tapped a finger under his chin, and he looked up to her kind smile. “You taught me that.”
At last Henry managed a small smile. “Okay.”
“Yeah? Good.”
Emma walked him home one cup of cocoa later, but she kept the story book. She thought it best if he kept to his own thoughts for one night, and the book remained a steady weight under her arm as she walked back to Mary Margaret’s apartment.
---
The brunette had beaten her home and Mary Margaret looked up from school assignments she was going over when Emma came in, keys jangling. She caught sight of Henry’s book and Emma sighed tiredly.
“Don’t ask.”
Mary Margaret smiled and said nothing, except to point out the freshly made pot of coffee sitting on the kitchen counter. Emma had spent most of her adult life alone, and as much of a transition as it had been living with a roommate-well, some days it was the best thing ever.
She kicked off her boots by the door and, sticking the story book on one of the counter stools, poured herself a full mug of piping hot coffee.
“Do fourth graders really have that much homework?” she asked, licking the rim of her dripping mug. It was one of Mary Margaret’s and had a large patchwork owl on its side.
“You’d be surprised,” the other woman answered.
She shuffled the papers together, tucking in bits of escaping construction paper and flaking glue, careful not to look directly at Emma-but that alone tipped the blonde off. Subtle. Emma rolled her eyes.
“Something on your mind?”
“Oh!” Mary Margaret blinked those big innocent eyes at her. “I was just wondering how things were going with Killian...?”
Emma groaned.
“Did you see him today?”
“This town really needs to find a hobby.”
“Oh come on,” pleaded Mary Margaret, bouncing in her chair. “It’s exciting. You’re seeing someone!”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Emma blustered. “We’re not...’seeing’ each other,” she insisted defensively, using air quotes as if the very idea was ridiculous.
Mary Margaret rested her chin in her palm and smiled. “Ruby and her play-by-play of your lunch date says differently.”
“Damnit, Ruby,” Emma muttered under her breath. She raked her hair back from her face, as though steeling herself- but held up a warning finger in Mary Margaret’s direction.
“Okay,” she started, backpedaling a little. “He is someone...that I...have seen...in a social way, yes.”
“Wooow...”
“Like, a few times.”
Mary Margaret stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Emma crossed her arms defensively. “What?”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Mary Margaret challenged, “Can you really not say it?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” exclaimed Emma for the second time that day-regretting it almost immediately as she watched a positively impish grin fill Mary Margaret’s face.
“I never said he was.”
“Shut up.”
Mary Margaret was positively beaming, her face now balanced between both palms; Snow White, indeed, Emma thought.
She went to take another drink of coffee - hoping inanely that coffee (in all its power and wisdom) would somehow fix this terribly awkward situation - but hesitated, the mug halfway to her mouth.
“You want to ask a lot of awkward questions don’t you…”
“Is it true he lives above the bar?” blurted Mary Margaret.
“Yeah.”
“Is that when you met? How long has this been going on?”
Emma put two fingers to her temple. “Yes. And I don’t know...like a month? It’s, uh, complicated.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” the brunette admonished, one little fist hitting the table to demonstrate the strength of her feeling on this. Emma continued to press at the headache she felt was surely oncoming.
“Yeah...I can’t imagine why I didn’t tell you,” she mumbled. She slugged back the rest of her coffee; something stronger was definitely needed. “You done?”
“What does he smell like?”
“Don’t make this weird.”
---
Sleep refused to come - hours after she finally cut Mary Margaret off from asking probing questions; hours after she made tacos for the both of them because she needed something to do; hours after she stood under the hot spray of the shower, trying and failing to think of nothing at all.
The sheets were cool around her shower-warmed body and she could see the moon through her window, blinds pulled high-but she could not sleep. Wet hair clung to her neck, dampening her pillow with the smell of silk and pomegranate. No matter how long she laid there with her eyes closed fast they inevitably opened again-and found Henry’s story book, tucked away on the top of her dresser beside her spare keys and discarded scarves. Minutes ticked by and still it would not let her sleep.
“Fine.”
Kicking back the covers, she clambered off the bed and grabbed the book. The obstacle to her sleep retrieved, she climbed back into bed, pushing back her pillow so she could sit cross-legged, the book’s edges heavy on the bend of her knees. Her fingers traced its edges, the embossed letters; only then did she realize that she’d never properly read Henry’s story book. She’d just taken his word for things, let him show her Snow White and Charming’s wedding, the Mad Hatter.
But now that she had it, she didn’t want to open it.
And she didn’t know why.
He’s in the book!
Emma shook her head stubbornly: Henry was wrong-he had to be-and the only way to prove that was to read the book. She forced herself to open the cover.
There was no table of contents, but she found the story easily enough - like she’d been meant to find it, pages turning quickly under her fingers - and then her thumb was pressed against the scrolling curls of Neverland and there was a boat with brilliant white sales on sea of aquamarine. She turned the page and immediately flattened her palm across it.
There was a dark haired woman standing at the prow of the ship; someone was reaching for her, someone covered almost entirely by Emma’s hand, pale in the dark of her room. She stared at it - her hand - but it remained, palm pressed into ink and paper.
The curse wasn’t real she had to remind herself; it wasn’t real for Mary Margaret, in love with someone else’s husband, it wasn’t real for Graham, who’d died in her arms-it wasn’t real.
So what the hell was wrong with her?
Emma set her jaw and forced her hand to pull away.
Young and arrogant, Henry’s book depicted a Captain Hook vastly different than the one she’d grown up with. Her Hook wore ridiculous hats and buckled shoes with stockings; he was foppish and inept - a poor excuse for a pirate, let alone a captain. But in this story...he was lithe and handsome, but dark too-with hooded eyes and a twist in his smirk that unsettled her even as it compelled her to look. Leather and silver and a sword in a worn scabbard - everything that made a pirate.
And his face bore a striking resemblance to Killian’s.
She had to force herself to turn back, to start at the beginning of this Captain Hook’s story. It started, as many stories do, with a woman...
It only took a quarter of an hour-the story of a life summed up in a dozen pages. She read all about Milah, and Hook’s “crocodile”; how he lost his left hand; the bean, the portal; Neverland...
She stared at the swirl of green and blue, the foolhardy Captain Hook steering his ship into the full of it-the final page; an end without an ending. This time, she had to force herself to close the book.
It just wasn’t possible-no matter what Henry and the story book said. She slid the book under her bed and out of sight, climbing back under the covers. Tomorrow, when she woke up, she’d feel silly for having even wondered at the possibility.
But Emma couldn’t shake the story - not when Killian texted her the next morning, or when she met him at the bar for lunch before the place started filling up - and when he asked her over whiskey what’d made her so quiet, she kissed him and in the burn of his desire learned how to forget.
---
“You’re late.” Emma announced before the door had even finished opening.
Killian grinned down at her, wrist braced on the frame. There was a bottle of dark liquor under his arm.
“For good reasons, I assure you,” he all but leered.
And that’s when Emma saw the bouquet in his hand; fresh cut flowers of daisies, mums and more she couldn’t place. Because she didn’t do flowers.
Like, ever.
“They’re...lovely,” she managed, succeeding in keeping her expression relatively neutral.
“They’re also not for you,” Killian assured, stepping inside. “Good lord woman-you have an atrocious poker face.”
“Bite me.”
“They’re for Mary Margaret,” he explained. “Who I’m pretty sure hates me,” he added, voice dropping as he peered around the apartment, suddenly wary.
“She’s not here. Obviously.” Emma informed him with equal dryness and closed the door behind him. “You big baby.”
Emma had already forgotten about the flowers-not that she knew the first thing about taking care of them-but when she followed Killian into the kitchen, he was already grabbing an empty vase from on top of the cupboards. He’d only been in her apartment a handful of times in the two months they’d known each other, but he moved around it like it was as familiar to him as his own.
It must have been a bartender thing.
She cleared her suddenly dry throat, but before she could think of an appropriate quip, Killian looked up at her through his lashes and she lost track of her syllables.
“Mind filling that, darling?”
He jerked his head in the direction of the sink, the vase he’d retrieved sitting prim and innocuously beside it. Emma looked back at Killian, but he’d turned his focus back to the flowers, stripping the protective plastic deftly away and moving a small selection to the cutting board he’d procured without her noticing.
She made some kind of noise in the affirmative and slipped behind him to the sink, turning on both taps. The rush of water drowned out the steady thunk! of Killian’s knife through stem into wood. By the time Emma set the half-full vase at his elbow he’d already trimmed the rough ends off of each stem, the fine bones of his wrist holding down the last bundle of daisies as his other hand brought the knife down in a measured slice.
Watching him made her smile, and she forgot her earlier anxiety in settling her chin on his shoulder. “Who says bartending doesn’t give you any life skills,” she teased lightly. Killian snorted.
“I certainly know my way around a knife,” he agreed. His voice dropped, eyes cutting to her face-something she felt rather than saw. “All those limes.”
Emma hummed, letting herself have this fraction of a moment-then she was slipping away. “I hope you’re hungry.”
She could feel Killian’s eyes on her back.
“Depends-who did the cooking?”
He sounded as he always did and Emma tossed a laugh over her shoulder. “I’ll have you know, I can cook. I mean-three things. I can cook three things.”
“Please tell me this is one of them?”
“Funny,” she deadpanned. “And yes. It is.”
Arms encircled her waste from behind, but for all that he’d come up silently behind her, she didn’t startle. She kept stirring the large pot on the stove keeping the sauce from boiling up, and if she leaned back - just a little - well, no one had to know.
“Now who’s lacking in life skills,” he murmured in her ear. His hold tightened as she laughed.
“Touché,” she replied. “Asshole.”
“Smells good at least.”
“Best store-bought sauce money can buy.”
He pressed his mouth to the back of her neck.
“If you keep distracting me we’re gonna end up with burnt spaghetti. It’s possible-I’ve seen it happen.”
“Shh,” he breathed, mouth a rasp across her throat. “Leave it.”
She turned in his arms. It was part of the problem, this: how easy it was-to give in to him, to drop all the pretense, to think maybe, if just for a second, she might actually-
Killian kissed her, hold sliding to her hips, and it was perfect. She kissed him back, and it was like drowning-how easy it felt-to kiss in the kitchen with the practiced surety of two people who had kissed each other in kitchens a thousand times before. She’d felt this before, that terrifying sense of history repeating, a shade of destiny that was as addicting as it was confusing.
Emma’s hand pressed against his chest and they pulled apart, Killian stealing one last brief kiss before allowing the separation.
“I don’t know who I am when I’m with you,” she blurted out, almost immediately regretting it. But Killian just leaned over her and switched off the burners.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
He reached up and smoothed the crease in her brow, the gesture so simple and soothing that she closed her eyes. His thumb traced the fine fall of her lashes, and his voice went soft-like a secret. “I think about you-well, all the time really.”
She opened her eyes because she needed to see. “Why?” she asked.
And for the first time, Emma realized she was afraid.
“Because I’m someone else with you too,” he confessed; then added: “It’s absolutely maddening.”
Killian smiled ruefully.
“With you I’m the sort of man who eats spaghetti with a woman, like a gentleman,” he casually explained, “instead of bending her over the couch and ravishing her until her toes curl.”
A sudden rush of heat pooled low in Emma’s belly. “Oh.” she breathed faintly.
“Mm,” Killian hummed, his eyes trailing over her chin and down as he fingered the collar of her shirt.
Emma licked her lips. “You mean that couch over there?” She tilted her head, not once taking her eyes off his face.
The slow dawning of his grin would be the death of her.
Emma darted out of his arms and he lunged for her-both of them laughing to keep desire from boiling over. Killian caught her in the living room, his hand on her wrist spinning her into his chest in a sprawl that he took full advantage of. His mouth was on hers, nipping, sucking, undoing her so wildly she almost missed the misdirect; his fingers dipping with intent below the waistband of her jeans.
Then he did something with his tongue that actually made her toes curl, and before she lost control completely she shoved him back and he fell onto the couch with a stagger. Emma was on him before he could recover. She slid over him like smoke but her legs were solid and holding on either side of his hips as she straddled him; her hands grabbed the back of the couch, framing his face between the locked lines of her arms.
He surged up to kiss her, pupils dilated with lust, hand sliding up her thigh even as they battled through the kiss. He pressed with strength and the gasp she broke as his palm reached the seam of hip and thigh, but Emma had the advantage and she bore down on him, undulating, and bit until he surrendered.
His mouth was swollen and damp, his expression wrecked-and knowing she’d been the one to cause it was exhilarating. He made her into something she’d never known before.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Emma panted; her focus was slipping even as she pinned him to the couch. Killian’s hand was desperate and everywhere; tugging her shirt out of her jeans - and when she squeezed her knees tight on either side of him - he faltered, fingers skittering across the exposed jut of her hip. She got a grip on the back of his hair and tugged, his neck a long, alluring line-begging for her to taste.
She held him, and her impulses, in check. He swallowed tightly, no amount of strain or effort enough to let him see her face.
“I’ve been here.”
His voice rumbled out of his chest, her palm over his heart. Then his hand fell away, his arms outstretched and limp against the couch-her entire body was wire tight and thrumming even as Killian surrendered himself to her, head bent back in supplication. He gave his benediction to the ceiling:
“You just weren’t looking.”
Emma let go. Her heart was beating fit to burst and her hands were trembling in the air between them. Slowly, Killian lifted his head and met her gaze. She couldn’t breathe-but her heart began to steady the longer he looked at her, so intent and open and more than he’d ever been before.
“You’re shaking.”
His hand slid up her arm; only then did she realize he was right-it wasn’t just her hands but her entire body now that was vibrating with fine tremors she couldn’t control. His palm found her face and she turned her cheek into it, the curve of his touch a catalyst. Killian’s brow creased, concern etching lines she never wanted into his skin. But this wasn’t fear-this was the farthest thing from it.
She’d never been so sure of something in all her life.
She smiled-properly-maybe for the first time in her entire life-and ran her thumb carefully along the rough angle of his jaw. “Shh,” she whispered, and the sound was soft and so painfully fond.
Then she kissed him.
Killian moaned. She sewed the sound of it to her breath-in and out-echoing it back with every exhale, every press of skin that sparked electric between them. They crashed into each other, Emma’s body a wave-curling into the shore his body made for her. And then his fingers were digging into her hip pulling her forward, pulling her down and Emma gasped. Nails scrapped scalp as she scrabbled for purchase and control, Killian thrusting up and pulling down once more before she fisted her hand in the collar of his shirt and pressed him back, fingers in his hair pulling their mouths apart.
He swallowed his curse, Emma’s teeth scrapping his throat. He fought for the zipper of her jeans, but she wrenched his arm back by his shirt, stitches snapping. A roll of her hips kept his goal frustratingly just out of reach.
Emma licked the growl from his mouth, raising up on her knees to kiss him over the back of the couch, hot and languid. His other arm, free from her control, curved around her back pinning her chest to his. When he breathed, she breathed.
“Emma.”
She nipped at his mouth, the shell of his ear-breathing out and making him shiver. Emma felt drunk, her head deliciously light, each hitch of his breathing, each bit-back moan only adding to her strange buzz.
“Emma.”
She pulled at his shirt, tearing more stitches, and sunk her teeth into the juncture of neck and shoulder. Killian jerked upwards, nearly unseating her, but Emma’s thighs tightened and she held on. Her mouth softened on his neck, soothing the dull ache with a kiss, tongue dipping into the impressions her teeth had left in his skin.
Killian strained against her hold, but there was nothing in him that truly wanted to be free. Distantly, Emma knew that, and her mouth continued to drag across his collarbone, the hand that had made a ruin of his shirt trailing in its wake. He grabbed for her-like she’d slip away again-and Emma rolled into it, sinking into his lap.
Palm pressed to the base of her spine, he splayed his fingers into her hot skin and Emma arched back, her golden hair a curtain swinging round. He kissed her throat, the space behind her ear, ruthless with desire until she moaned, her eyelids fluttering. Her nails raked his arms, but it only made his grip tighten and she laughed, delirious and faint. Her fingers closed around his wrist, his left wrist-and he would have faltered if not for the commanding surety with which she brought it to her mouth. Her teeth caught the jut of his wrist, a harshness matched by unparalleled softness-her lips pressed warm and chaste to the scarred stretch of skin.
Killian slowly pulled away, and she let him go-inclining her head in a way that let her follow the sink of his face, her hair falling loose to tumble over her eyes. Killian smoothed his good hand over her cheek, a tiny vee creasing his brow even as he stared at her-almost like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Her own brought knit together, mirroring what she could not understand, and-not knowing what else to do-she brought this hand too to her mouth, branding his lifeline with a kiss.
Then her hand uncurled from his wrist and she let his hand slip, fingers catching on her lips, and his eyes went dark and unfocused as her tongue darted out to taste them. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. “You’re perfect.”
Emma laughed, and pressed her forehead to his-heart racing again. “Bedroom?”
“Godyes.”
And with more restraint than even she knew she possessed, Emma slipped off his lap in a blink and ran off to the bedroom, discarding her torn blouse as she went. Killian recovered after a moment of shock and disbelief, and then he was after her-his longer legs closing the gap.
He grabbed for her just as she spun and they collided, falling back hard on Emma’s bed.
---
“I think you broke me, love” Killian panted after, too exhausted to do more than half-grin at Emma sprawled out next to him, her hand curling and uncurling beside her head.
“So you’re saying...” she licked her lips, eyelids drooping. “Morning sex is out?”
“Mm,” he murmured, eyes shut. “Maybe just hand stuff.”
Emma snorted. She mumbled something unintelligible (and more than likely insulting), but then she curled against Killian’s side and he turned his face into the sweet smell of her hair. Her even breathing pulled him into sleep.
---
Killian rocketed awake screaming.
“What’s wrong?” Emma was immediately beside him, her hands reaching for his face in a panic. “Killian, what’s wrong?”
He gripped his own head, dizzy and gasping for air. And then he said the last two words Emma ever wanted to hear again:
“I-I remember.”
It was too much-too much like Graham, too much like his insistence that he was the Huntsman, that Henry’s curse was real; too much, too much. So Emma slid into Killian’s lap and clung to him, her arm around his neck and the other crushed between their bodies, her hand clawed over his heart. Its beating was too wild, too dangerously fast beneath her palm for her to handle-to not be immediately back in that Sheriff’s station with Graham’s body.
The fear that Killian was about to die crashed into her-and it was so real that she buried her face in his neck and held on.
But he didn’t. He was there-alive and breathing, and when he kissed her trembling mouth he tasted of sweat and her. She didn’t know what was going on; she didn’t want to know. It was a nightmare, only a nightmare.
Killian’s hand was shaking in her hair.
“I’m Captain Hook.”
Emma reeled like she’d been shot. Her disbelief was so strong that he reached for her, catching her wrist in his hand as she threw up her arm like a physical defense against what he was telling her.
“I finally remember!”
Emma pulled away, and something like hurt flashed across his face before he covered it, jaw clenching slightly. She didn’t know why, or how, but there was only one thing she knew for sure: the man she’d gone to bed with was not the same man she’d woken up with.
“I’m so many people, Emma…”
There was time caught in his eyes, years of darkness her Killian had never known.
Her mouth opened and shut, unable to speak, before she finally shook her head-eyes terribly wide. “That’s not possible.”
It couldn’t be. The curse-all this time...?
“I can prove it.”
She stared at him, throat tightening around doubt that felt too much like fear.
He’s dangerous!
Killian held out his hand; the same hand that had tucked back her hair a hundred times, the hand that had traced desire and want into her skin like an enchantment. Last night felt like years ago.
“Emma?”
She started, her eyes jumping from the outstretched hand to his face, earnest and imploring.
“Do you trust me?”
---
Like Whiskey will return in... Like Whiskey (This Double Life)
Genre: AU
Word Count: 9,500
Summary: AU - Hook came along with the curse and has been living in Storybrooke all this time.
Part A | Part B
---
“You’re late.”
“You’re early,” Emma corrected, hopping onto the stool next to Henry. He already had a cup of cocoa at his elbow, but it looked untouched.
“How was school?”
“Don’t ‘how was school’ me,” Henry exclaimed, and Emma’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Henry, wha-“
“We need to talk,” he declared, and heaved his story book onto the diner counter with a heavy thump! “Your boyfriend is Captain Hook.”
“He’s not my--! What?!”
Henry hit the cover with his palm. “Captain Hook!” he repeated.
Emma held up her hands and then realized she had no response to that. She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. When she opened them, Henry was still staring at her - his round face done over with blatant concern.
“Henry,” she started, trying to speak as calmly as possible. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Operation Cobra is not ridiculous!”
“First Snow White, now Peter Pan?” Emma knew rejecting it out of hand would only make things worse; she tried to reason with him. “I know you think there’s this curse-“
“There IS a curse!”
“-and that I’m the only one who can break it. But-Peter Pan? It’s not the same thing as Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or fairytales.”
“Things are a lot more complicated than that,” Henry explained, looking disappointed with her. “I thought you believed.”
“I do,” she insisted. Her voice got quiet. “It’s just-this can’t be the answer for everything, Henry...”
“But he’s in the book!”
“Is this because of the hand thing?” Emma guessed, her forehead creasing. “Henry, you know you can’t say things like that-it’s not-“
“I’m saying he’s Hook because he IS Hook!” objected Henry. He threw open the book and started turning pages. “Lookit!”
“No. No. Give me that.” Emma pulled the book out from under his searching hands, nearly tearing an illustration of Cinderella dressing for the ball. “It’s time we got you home.”
“Emma! He’s dangerous!”
“Henry, even if he’s-even if.” She placed her hands on his shoulders. “That was there. This is...Maine.”
He screwed up his face. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you need to try believing,” she said as Henry’s head drooped. She tapped a finger under his chin, and he looked up to her kind smile. “You taught me that.”
At last Henry managed a small smile. “Okay.”
“Yeah? Good.”
Emma walked him home one cup of cocoa later, but she kept the story book. She thought it best if he kept to his own thoughts for one night, and the book remained a steady weight under her arm as she walked back to Mary Margaret’s apartment.
---
The brunette had beaten her home and Mary Margaret looked up from school assignments she was going over when Emma came in, keys jangling. She caught sight of Henry’s book and Emma sighed tiredly.
“Don’t ask.”
Mary Margaret smiled and said nothing, except to point out the freshly made pot of coffee sitting on the kitchen counter. Emma had spent most of her adult life alone, and as much of a transition as it had been living with a roommate-well, some days it was the best thing ever.
She kicked off her boots by the door and, sticking the story book on one of the counter stools, poured herself a full mug of piping hot coffee.
“Do fourth graders really have that much homework?” she asked, licking the rim of her dripping mug. It was one of Mary Margaret’s and had a large patchwork owl on its side.
“You’d be surprised,” the other woman answered.
She shuffled the papers together, tucking in bits of escaping construction paper and flaking glue, careful not to look directly at Emma-but that alone tipped the blonde off. Subtle. Emma rolled her eyes.
“Something on your mind?”
“Oh!” Mary Margaret blinked those big innocent eyes at her. “I was just wondering how things were going with Killian...?”
Emma groaned.
“Did you see him today?”
“This town really needs to find a hobby.”
“Oh come on,” pleaded Mary Margaret, bouncing in her chair. “It’s exciting. You’re seeing someone!”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Emma blustered. “We’re not...’seeing’ each other,” she insisted defensively, using air quotes as if the very idea was ridiculous.
Mary Margaret rested her chin in her palm and smiled. “Ruby and her play-by-play of your lunch date says differently.”
“Damnit, Ruby,” Emma muttered under her breath. She raked her hair back from her face, as though steeling herself- but held up a warning finger in Mary Margaret’s direction.
“Okay,” she started, backpedaling a little. “He is someone...that I...have seen...in a social way, yes.”
“Wooow...”
“Like, a few times.”
Mary Margaret stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Emma crossed her arms defensively. “What?”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Mary Margaret challenged, “Can you really not say it?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” exclaimed Emma for the second time that day-regretting it almost immediately as she watched a positively impish grin fill Mary Margaret’s face.
“I never said he was.”
“Shut up.”
Mary Margaret was positively beaming, her face now balanced between both palms; Snow White, indeed, Emma thought.
She went to take another drink of coffee - hoping inanely that coffee (in all its power and wisdom) would somehow fix this terribly awkward situation - but hesitated, the mug halfway to her mouth.
“You want to ask a lot of awkward questions don’t you…”
“Is it true he lives above the bar?” blurted Mary Margaret.
“Yeah.”
“Is that when you met? How long has this been going on?”
Emma put two fingers to her temple. “Yes. And I don’t know...like a month? It’s, uh, complicated.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” the brunette admonished, one little fist hitting the table to demonstrate the strength of her feeling on this. Emma continued to press at the headache she felt was surely oncoming.
“Yeah...I can’t imagine why I didn’t tell you,” she mumbled. She slugged back the rest of her coffee; something stronger was definitely needed. “You done?”
“What does he smell like?”
“Don’t make this weird.”
---
Sleep refused to come - hours after she finally cut Mary Margaret off from asking probing questions; hours after she made tacos for the both of them because she needed something to do; hours after she stood under the hot spray of the shower, trying and failing to think of nothing at all.
The sheets were cool around her shower-warmed body and she could see the moon through her window, blinds pulled high-but she could not sleep. Wet hair clung to her neck, dampening her pillow with the smell of silk and pomegranate. No matter how long she laid there with her eyes closed fast they inevitably opened again-and found Henry’s story book, tucked away on the top of her dresser beside her spare keys and discarded scarves. Minutes ticked by and still it would not let her sleep.
“Fine.”
Kicking back the covers, she clambered off the bed and grabbed the book. The obstacle to her sleep retrieved, she climbed back into bed, pushing back her pillow so she could sit cross-legged, the book’s edges heavy on the bend of her knees. Her fingers traced its edges, the embossed letters; only then did she realize that she’d never properly read Henry’s story book. She’d just taken his word for things, let him show her Snow White and Charming’s wedding, the Mad Hatter.
But now that she had it, she didn’t want to open it.
And she didn’t know why.
He’s in the book!
Emma shook her head stubbornly: Henry was wrong-he had to be-and the only way to prove that was to read the book. She forced herself to open the cover.
There was no table of contents, but she found the story easily enough - like she’d been meant to find it, pages turning quickly under her fingers - and then her thumb was pressed against the scrolling curls of Neverland and there was a boat with brilliant white sales on sea of aquamarine. She turned the page and immediately flattened her palm across it.
There was a dark haired woman standing at the prow of the ship; someone was reaching for her, someone covered almost entirely by Emma’s hand, pale in the dark of her room. She stared at it - her hand - but it remained, palm pressed into ink and paper.
The curse wasn’t real she had to remind herself; it wasn’t real for Mary Margaret, in love with someone else’s husband, it wasn’t real for Graham, who’d died in her arms-it wasn’t real.
So what the hell was wrong with her?
Emma set her jaw and forced her hand to pull away.
Young and arrogant, Henry’s book depicted a Captain Hook vastly different than the one she’d grown up with. Her Hook wore ridiculous hats and buckled shoes with stockings; he was foppish and inept - a poor excuse for a pirate, let alone a captain. But in this story...he was lithe and handsome, but dark too-with hooded eyes and a twist in his smirk that unsettled her even as it compelled her to look. Leather and silver and a sword in a worn scabbard - everything that made a pirate.
And his face bore a striking resemblance to Killian’s.
She had to force herself to turn back, to start at the beginning of this Captain Hook’s story. It started, as many stories do, with a woman...
It only took a quarter of an hour-the story of a life summed up in a dozen pages. She read all about Milah, and Hook’s “crocodile”; how he lost his left hand; the bean, the portal; Neverland...
She stared at the swirl of green and blue, the foolhardy Captain Hook steering his ship into the full of it-the final page; an end without an ending. This time, she had to force herself to close the book.
It just wasn’t possible-no matter what Henry and the story book said. She slid the book under her bed and out of sight, climbing back under the covers. Tomorrow, when she woke up, she’d feel silly for having even wondered at the possibility.
But Emma couldn’t shake the story - not when Killian texted her the next morning, or when she met him at the bar for lunch before the place started filling up - and when he asked her over whiskey what’d made her so quiet, she kissed him and in the burn of his desire learned how to forget.
---
“You’re late.” Emma announced before the door had even finished opening.
Killian grinned down at her, wrist braced on the frame. There was a bottle of dark liquor under his arm.
“For good reasons, I assure you,” he all but leered.
And that’s when Emma saw the bouquet in his hand; fresh cut flowers of daisies, mums and more she couldn’t place. Because she didn’t do flowers.
Like, ever.
“They’re...lovely,” she managed, succeeding in keeping her expression relatively neutral.
“They’re also not for you,” Killian assured, stepping inside. “Good lord woman-you have an atrocious poker face.”
“Bite me.”
“They’re for Mary Margaret,” he explained. “Who I’m pretty sure hates me,” he added, voice dropping as he peered around the apartment, suddenly wary.
“She’s not here. Obviously.” Emma informed him with equal dryness and closed the door behind him. “You big baby.”
Emma had already forgotten about the flowers-not that she knew the first thing about taking care of them-but when she followed Killian into the kitchen, he was already grabbing an empty vase from on top of the cupboards. He’d only been in her apartment a handful of times in the two months they’d known each other, but he moved around it like it was as familiar to him as his own.
It must have been a bartender thing.
She cleared her suddenly dry throat, but before she could think of an appropriate quip, Killian looked up at her through his lashes and she lost track of her syllables.
“Mind filling that, darling?”
He jerked his head in the direction of the sink, the vase he’d retrieved sitting prim and innocuously beside it. Emma looked back at Killian, but he’d turned his focus back to the flowers, stripping the protective plastic deftly away and moving a small selection to the cutting board he’d procured without her noticing.
She made some kind of noise in the affirmative and slipped behind him to the sink, turning on both taps. The rush of water drowned out the steady thunk! of Killian’s knife through stem into wood. By the time Emma set the half-full vase at his elbow he’d already trimmed the rough ends off of each stem, the fine bones of his wrist holding down the last bundle of daisies as his other hand brought the knife down in a measured slice.
Watching him made her smile, and she forgot her earlier anxiety in settling her chin on his shoulder. “Who says bartending doesn’t give you any life skills,” she teased lightly. Killian snorted.
“I certainly know my way around a knife,” he agreed. His voice dropped, eyes cutting to her face-something she felt rather than saw. “All those limes.”
Emma hummed, letting herself have this fraction of a moment-then she was slipping away. “I hope you’re hungry.”
She could feel Killian’s eyes on her back.
“Depends-who did the cooking?”
He sounded as he always did and Emma tossed a laugh over her shoulder. “I’ll have you know, I can cook. I mean-three things. I can cook three things.”
“Please tell me this is one of them?”
“Funny,” she deadpanned. “And yes. It is.”
Arms encircled her waste from behind, but for all that he’d come up silently behind her, she didn’t startle. She kept stirring the large pot on the stove keeping the sauce from boiling up, and if she leaned back - just a little - well, no one had to know.
“Now who’s lacking in life skills,” he murmured in her ear. His hold tightened as she laughed.
“Touché,” she replied. “Asshole.”
“Smells good at least.”
“Best store-bought sauce money can buy.”
He pressed his mouth to the back of her neck.
“If you keep distracting me we’re gonna end up with burnt spaghetti. It’s possible-I’ve seen it happen.”
“Shh,” he breathed, mouth a rasp across her throat. “Leave it.”
She turned in his arms. It was part of the problem, this: how easy it was-to give in to him, to drop all the pretense, to think maybe, if just for a second, she might actually-
Killian kissed her, hold sliding to her hips, and it was perfect. She kissed him back, and it was like drowning-how easy it felt-to kiss in the kitchen with the practiced surety of two people who had kissed each other in kitchens a thousand times before. She’d felt this before, that terrifying sense of history repeating, a shade of destiny that was as addicting as it was confusing.
Emma’s hand pressed against his chest and they pulled apart, Killian stealing one last brief kiss before allowing the separation.
“I don’t know who I am when I’m with you,” she blurted out, almost immediately regretting it. But Killian just leaned over her and switched off the burners.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
He reached up and smoothed the crease in her brow, the gesture so simple and soothing that she closed her eyes. His thumb traced the fine fall of her lashes, and his voice went soft-like a secret. “I think about you-well, all the time really.”
She opened her eyes because she needed to see. “Why?” she asked.
And for the first time, Emma realized she was afraid.
“Because I’m someone else with you too,” he confessed; then added: “It’s absolutely maddening.”
Killian smiled ruefully.
“With you I’m the sort of man who eats spaghetti with a woman, like a gentleman,” he casually explained, “instead of bending her over the couch and ravishing her until her toes curl.”
A sudden rush of heat pooled low in Emma’s belly. “Oh.” she breathed faintly.
“Mm,” Killian hummed, his eyes trailing over her chin and down as he fingered the collar of her shirt.
Emma licked her lips. “You mean that couch over there?” She tilted her head, not once taking her eyes off his face.
The slow dawning of his grin would be the death of her.
Emma darted out of his arms and he lunged for her-both of them laughing to keep desire from boiling over. Killian caught her in the living room, his hand on her wrist spinning her into his chest in a sprawl that he took full advantage of. His mouth was on hers, nipping, sucking, undoing her so wildly she almost missed the misdirect; his fingers dipping with intent below the waistband of her jeans.
Then he did something with his tongue that actually made her toes curl, and before she lost control completely she shoved him back and he fell onto the couch with a stagger. Emma was on him before he could recover. She slid over him like smoke but her legs were solid and holding on either side of his hips as she straddled him; her hands grabbed the back of the couch, framing his face between the locked lines of her arms.
He surged up to kiss her, pupils dilated with lust, hand sliding up her thigh even as they battled through the kiss. He pressed with strength and the gasp she broke as his palm reached the seam of hip and thigh, but Emma had the advantage and she bore down on him, undulating, and bit until he surrendered.
His mouth was swollen and damp, his expression wrecked-and knowing she’d been the one to cause it was exhilarating. He made her into something she’d never known before.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Emma panted; her focus was slipping even as she pinned him to the couch. Killian’s hand was desperate and everywhere; tugging her shirt out of her jeans - and when she squeezed her knees tight on either side of him - he faltered, fingers skittering across the exposed jut of her hip. She got a grip on the back of his hair and tugged, his neck a long, alluring line-begging for her to taste.
She held him, and her impulses, in check. He swallowed tightly, no amount of strain or effort enough to let him see her face.
“I’ve been here.”
His voice rumbled out of his chest, her palm over his heart. Then his hand fell away, his arms outstretched and limp against the couch-her entire body was wire tight and thrumming even as Killian surrendered himself to her, head bent back in supplication. He gave his benediction to the ceiling:
“You just weren’t looking.”
Emma let go. Her heart was beating fit to burst and her hands were trembling in the air between them. Slowly, Killian lifted his head and met her gaze. She couldn’t breathe-but her heart began to steady the longer he looked at her, so intent and open and more than he’d ever been before.
“You’re shaking.”
His hand slid up her arm; only then did she realize he was right-it wasn’t just her hands but her entire body now that was vibrating with fine tremors she couldn’t control. His palm found her face and she turned her cheek into it, the curve of his touch a catalyst. Killian’s brow creased, concern etching lines she never wanted into his skin. But this wasn’t fear-this was the farthest thing from it.
She’d never been so sure of something in all her life.
She smiled-properly-maybe for the first time in her entire life-and ran her thumb carefully along the rough angle of his jaw. “Shh,” she whispered, and the sound was soft and so painfully fond.
Then she kissed him.
Killian moaned. She sewed the sound of it to her breath-in and out-echoing it back with every exhale, every press of skin that sparked electric between them. They crashed into each other, Emma’s body a wave-curling into the shore his body made for her. And then his fingers were digging into her hip pulling her forward, pulling her down and Emma gasped. Nails scrapped scalp as she scrabbled for purchase and control, Killian thrusting up and pulling down once more before she fisted her hand in the collar of his shirt and pressed him back, fingers in his hair pulling their mouths apart.
He swallowed his curse, Emma’s teeth scrapping his throat. He fought for the zipper of her jeans, but she wrenched his arm back by his shirt, stitches snapping. A roll of her hips kept his goal frustratingly just out of reach.
Emma licked the growl from his mouth, raising up on her knees to kiss him over the back of the couch, hot and languid. His other arm, free from her control, curved around her back pinning her chest to his. When he breathed, she breathed.
“Emma.”
She nipped at his mouth, the shell of his ear-breathing out and making him shiver. Emma felt drunk, her head deliciously light, each hitch of his breathing, each bit-back moan only adding to her strange buzz.
“Emma.”
She pulled at his shirt, tearing more stitches, and sunk her teeth into the juncture of neck and shoulder. Killian jerked upwards, nearly unseating her, but Emma’s thighs tightened and she held on. Her mouth softened on his neck, soothing the dull ache with a kiss, tongue dipping into the impressions her teeth had left in his skin.
Killian strained against her hold, but there was nothing in him that truly wanted to be free. Distantly, Emma knew that, and her mouth continued to drag across his collarbone, the hand that had made a ruin of his shirt trailing in its wake. He grabbed for her-like she’d slip away again-and Emma rolled into it, sinking into his lap.
Palm pressed to the base of her spine, he splayed his fingers into her hot skin and Emma arched back, her golden hair a curtain swinging round. He kissed her throat, the space behind her ear, ruthless with desire until she moaned, her eyelids fluttering. Her nails raked his arms, but it only made his grip tighten and she laughed, delirious and faint. Her fingers closed around his wrist, his left wrist-and he would have faltered if not for the commanding surety with which she brought it to her mouth. Her teeth caught the jut of his wrist, a harshness matched by unparalleled softness-her lips pressed warm and chaste to the scarred stretch of skin.
Killian slowly pulled away, and she let him go-inclining her head in a way that let her follow the sink of his face, her hair falling loose to tumble over her eyes. Killian smoothed his good hand over her cheek, a tiny vee creasing his brow even as he stared at her-almost like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Her own brought knit together, mirroring what she could not understand, and-not knowing what else to do-she brought this hand too to her mouth, branding his lifeline with a kiss.
Then her hand uncurled from his wrist and she let his hand slip, fingers catching on her lips, and his eyes went dark and unfocused as her tongue darted out to taste them. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. “You’re perfect.”
Emma laughed, and pressed her forehead to his-heart racing again. “Bedroom?”
“Godyes.”
And with more restraint than even she knew she possessed, Emma slipped off his lap in a blink and ran off to the bedroom, discarding her torn blouse as she went. Killian recovered after a moment of shock and disbelief, and then he was after her-his longer legs closing the gap.
He grabbed for her just as she spun and they collided, falling back hard on Emma’s bed.
---
“I think you broke me, love” Killian panted after, too exhausted to do more than half-grin at Emma sprawled out next to him, her hand curling and uncurling beside her head.
“So you’re saying...” she licked her lips, eyelids drooping. “Morning sex is out?”
“Mm,” he murmured, eyes shut. “Maybe just hand stuff.”
Emma snorted. She mumbled something unintelligible (and more than likely insulting), but then she curled against Killian’s side and he turned his face into the sweet smell of her hair. Her even breathing pulled him into sleep.
---
Killian rocketed awake screaming.
“What’s wrong?” Emma was immediately beside him, her hands reaching for his face in a panic. “Killian, what’s wrong?”
He gripped his own head, dizzy and gasping for air. And then he said the last two words Emma ever wanted to hear again:
“I-I remember.”
It was too much-too much like Graham, too much like his insistence that he was the Huntsman, that Henry’s curse was real; too much, too much. So Emma slid into Killian’s lap and clung to him, her arm around his neck and the other crushed between their bodies, her hand clawed over his heart. Its beating was too wild, too dangerously fast beneath her palm for her to handle-to not be immediately back in that Sheriff’s station with Graham’s body.
The fear that Killian was about to die crashed into her-and it was so real that she buried her face in his neck and held on.
But he didn’t. He was there-alive and breathing, and when he kissed her trembling mouth he tasted of sweat and her. She didn’t know what was going on; she didn’t want to know. It was a nightmare, only a nightmare.
Killian’s hand was shaking in her hair.
“I’m Captain Hook.”
Emma reeled like she’d been shot. Her disbelief was so strong that he reached for her, catching her wrist in his hand as she threw up her arm like a physical defense against what he was telling her.
“I finally remember!”
Emma pulled away, and something like hurt flashed across his face before he covered it, jaw clenching slightly. She didn’t know why, or how, but there was only one thing she knew for sure: the man she’d gone to bed with was not the same man she’d woken up with.
“I’m so many people, Emma…”
There was time caught in his eyes, years of darkness her Killian had never known.
Her mouth opened and shut, unable to speak, before she finally shook her head-eyes terribly wide. “That’s not possible.”
It couldn’t be. The curse-all this time...?
“I can prove it.”
She stared at him, throat tightening around doubt that felt too much like fear.
He’s dangerous!
Killian held out his hand; the same hand that had tucked back her hair a hundred times, the hand that had traced desire and want into her skin like an enchantment. Last night felt like years ago.
“Emma?”
She started, her eyes jumping from the outstretched hand to his face, earnest and imploring.
“Do you trust me?”
---
Like Whiskey will return in... Like Whiskey (This Double Life)