heretherebemuses | Open post

Somehow, he knows. Not everything, of course. It's not like he and Emma spend absolutely every second together. But he just knows, anyway, that there's something on her mind, because they're here and others are not and why would there not be something on her mind?

He's been giving her some space, because he knows that sometimes she wants it. Sometimes he wants it, so he understands her need for it. But he's also been figuring out lately that he's better when he's not alone, and he hopes that Emma won't say no to a little company.

It doesn't take him long to find her. She's predictable in ways she maybe doesn't even realize. Just like when his mind is in turmoil he turns to the sea, when hers is that way she turns to public spaces large enough where she can be alone and yet not at the same time. Such as parks like the one where he eventually finds her. He should have figured it out sooner. Henry's not here. Who else would be on her mind right now? Where else to look but somewhere known for families?

He approaches quietly, from the side. "Swan?"

It's just one of those afternoons where the absence of Henry and her parents and even Regina weighs too heavily on her mind for calmly sipping cocoa at a diner waiting for something interesting to do. So instead of sitting at the diner with her cocoa and cinnamon, she paid for a thermos of it and went looking for somewhere Henry would feel close.

She should probably have realized before she got there that she was in search of a playground. That damned castle slide Regina tore down, is forever tangled with her son in her mind. The swing she settles in when the families move on is less about Henry and more about time. About the gentle back and forth of moving without going anywhere, and the childhood she had but wasn't the one she wanted.

Her feet only lightly scrape the sand beneath them, and there's nowhere near enough noise to drown out the approach of footsteps she knows as well as her own. She doesn't turn though, because sometimes, just sometimes, it's easier to let him come before she looks into those ridiculously blue eyes.

"You're early. I wasn't expecting you for, oh--" Now she looks, feeds the concern in his eyes with a fragile half smile. "Fifteen minutes yet."

"I wasn't busy. I have absolutely nowhere better to be right now." Anytime, no matter what. If she needs him, he'll be there. Even if she doesn't know that she needs him, he'll be there.

And maybe he just wanted to see her.

He shoves his hand into the pocket of his pants as he stops next to her swing. "You miss him, don't you?"

Emma doesn't reach out for him. She doesn't hook her fingers in the lapel of his leather jacket.

This is a game she plays with herself. How long can she go without touching him? It's a game, but it's also not. What if one day he's not there to be touched? Better not to forget how to control the need to touch him, be touched, be held when things hurt.

"What gave me away? The Avengers thermos, the swings, or the fact he's my son?" Her old game, sarcasm and sass, she lost a long time ago. Even if she's being a smartass, her words hold nothing but warmth for him.

"I don't have any family left." He's mourned them, or not, a long time ago. And it's not entirely true. He's got the half-brother he barely knows. The rest of his family, the ones who helped make him who he is, they're all gone. "But if I did, and they weren't here, I would miss them. And I would go anywhere that I felt like I could be closer to them."

He still does that, with Liam. He kept the ship that his brother had once captained, has kept things that used to belong to him. He can't get to the places anymore, so he relies on the things.

He steps up behind Emma and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

Well, she won the game. She didn't reach for him. But somehow she lost ground on the reasons for it. Because her smile looked a little too sad or he knows her a little too well, or fate is setting her up for another kick in the ass, and he's touching her instead.

Sure, she could ignore it. If she had a heart of stone and a spine of steel.

His lips brush her hair and whatever steel there was melts like candle wax. She leans back until her shoulders brush his chest.

"It's not true, you know," she murmurs, the heartbreak of both their losses weighing on her voice. "That you don't have family left." Emma guesses she's done with her stupid self-protective games today, because her voice softens and the words spill right on out. "You have me, Killian."

He rests his head next to hers and his hand takes the chain of the swing, keeping her close to him. "Aye," he agrees. "And you have me. I know that's not the same as having Henry." He can't imagine what that feels like, to be separated from her son yet again.

"I know you'll see him again. It's what your family does." He might have found it annoying at first, at that undying optimism, but it's grown on hm. And he'll be there to help her find him in any way he can.

No, it isn't the same as having Henry, but in a way, it's better. The question is whether she can explain it without it making him think she's trying to protect him from her feelings or something.

She nods, which rubs her cheek against his, and then she turns just enough to brush her lips against his jaw. Did she ever not want to be touching him like this? She can barely remember.

"If I have to be stuck somewhere with just one of you, I'm glad it's you. Henry's safe with my parents and Regina. He knows I love him and that we'll find each other. But if I wasn't with you..." Emma frowns and lifts her hand to curl behind her and stroke his hair for a moment. "Then you'd be alone, too."

"I'm used to that, at least." He knows how it sounds, when he says it. But it's the truth, and he hadn't minded it so much at the time, at least until he'd met her. He also knows that she's been alone for a long time, and that's changing now.

He presses his cheek against her hand. "I'm glad you're not alone, too."

It's really not fair the way he sees through her. How he hears the careless 'too' at the end of her sentence and knows she's remembering how it feels to be alone. It's not fair, but it's also the best thing in her life that she finally has someone who knows her.

"I'm glad I'm with you."

She turns her hand so that her knuckles brush against his cheek and her eyes are full of soft, true love. Not the capital letter magic kind, although that's always there between them, just the human kind (more special, she thinks sometimes, because they chose it). But it makes her feel shy (something else only Killian knows about her, how shy she can be sometimes), and her head dips forward, hair slipping over her shoulder to bare her neck but hide her face.

He's been able to read her like a book almost from the moment they met, although at the time he couldn't have explained why. He just seemed to know things about her, even if she didn't see it, or want to admit it, at the time. He knows now that it's because they're two halves of the same whole.

He leans forward to press a kiss against the back of her neck, breathing in the smell of her. "Emma." It's quiet and simple, but that one name is enough to convey how much he loves her without him saying it in so many words.

A soft shudder races through her, less from the kiss than from the incredible intimacy of him breathing her like that. It's so sexual, and so sweet at the same time, she almost can't stand it.

She reaches back to pull his arm around her waist, while exhaling a low, sensual sigh. "Killian," she murmurs and there's a warning in it. Don't start something you're not going to finish. Because since the first time they kissed back in Neverland, even when she wouldn't admit it, she's always been ridiculously hot for him.

He'll finish it, for sure. Not here, of course, because this is hardly the place for that. But she can tell how interested he is in finishing this when he leans forward again, to kiss her again. It has all of the heat of their first kiss in Neverland, with plenty of the tenderness that they've shared since.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" Like maybe back home, to a place where they can finish this.

"In a hurry, Hook?" Emma teases breathlessly in the wake of the kiss. He's so good at that, god. She leans close to catch his bottom lip in her teeth the release it slowly through them.

"I was thinking, these chains are strong enough to support two." And they can spend ten or fifteen minutes winding each other up before they take that walk home and unwind.

"Are they?" He's not quite sure what to do with a contraption like this, but he'll try just about anything once. Especially when Emma's asking him to.

"I suppose this means I have to let go of you, don't I."

"Only for long enough for us to trade places." Or at least for him to take her place. She grins almost wickedly. "Trust me. It'll be worth it."

Not giving him a chance to protest, she slides off the seat of the swing and steals another kiss as she moves to the side to let him sit down.

Well then. It seems she's got something on her mind, if that look on her face is anything to go by. He does like it when she gets a look like that.

He sits on the swing, carefully, like he's afraid he'll tip back out the other side. "Are you sure about this?" He's never used one of these before and isn't sure what he's doing.

"You're cute when you're nervous."

Emma's tempted to boop him on the nose for about half a second, but what she really wants is cute in an entirely different way. So she takes him by the hook and the hand and raises them to a good height around the chains. "Just hold on and keep your feet on the ground for a minute."

That's all the direction she gives before she grips the chains over his head, pulls herself up until her hips are level with his head (which is a lot higher than they need to be for this, but a girl can tease), then hauls her legs up and slips her feet through to the other side of him. Although she's careful not to hurt him, there's nothing tentative about the way she lowers herself into his lap.

There's nothing fast about it either, and her stomach and breasts pass within in a whisper of his mouth before she settles astride him. "Hi."

He is definitely enjoying the show, which he's sure is the point, and he'll get her back for that teasing later. He doesn't know how yet, but he'll come up with something.

"Have you been practicing that?" Not that he wants to know if she has, because that means that someone else has been getting the benefit of it.

"Hello."

"The pull-ups, maybe." She's not a gym-rat but she does try to stay toned. "But the rest of it was invented on the spot."

Now that she's settled, it's so easy to lean close and roll her hips for the friction of him nestled right between her thighs. "Just for you."

She's giving him a minute to figure out that if he stops bracing with his feet, things are going to get interesting, and fast.

"Lucky me." He could probably find a way to put skills like that to use. He files that away for future reference.

It's a bit awkward sitting like this, and his feet slip from their position on the ground, leaving the two of them dangling on their swing. "Now what?" She had a reason to want to do this, after all.

"Now, Killian--" Her lips wrap around his name and let it out a heated caress against his mouth. She chases one quick kiss and then another, before she leans away again. Back as far as she can without maiming him, and then she pulls the chains with the strength of her arms and pushes forward with her hips (into him) at the same time.

The swing starts to move, and so she does it again. It's not much motion yet, but it's enough for the swing to give their bodies a rhythm. If they sat with their hips farther apart, they could get more leverage from the swing, but she wants connection, not momentum, which is why she takes the moment of the upswing of him into her, to say again, "Now Killian, this."

He definitely is enjoying this, which was obviously her plan. It's working out well for her. He's going to remember this for future reference, too.

"Are you sure you haven't practiced this?" Because she seems pretty sure of what she's doing.

She releases the chain with one hand and rests it against his chest. "I haven't. I promise. I just have a very quick and very vivid imagination."

Especially when it comes to him. She's also already regretting they didn't just head home. Anticipation is one thing. Deliberately delaying her own gratification...that's another. Not a bad thing, but...damn, Killian.

He bites his lower lip while running his eyes down what he can see of her from this vantage point (which isn't much, but that's enough). "Do you?"

Two can play at this.

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