Twining fishing hooks with lures has never been a particular skill of his, but Liam has just purchased the last three and he's fresh out. He has half a mind to think that his brother does it on purpose - intentionally buying him out of the one thing he has no desire to make.
But that would be too direct for Liam's tastes. Instead his brother prefers a more passive form of aggression. Liam stops by his shop weekly, but doesn't utter a word, doesn't even bother with a glance. He takes his wares and leaves money on the counter often before Killian can do as much as make his way to the front of the shop.
He supposes he is the only maritime supply store in town. It's not as if Liam has a choice.
He isn't sure if that makes him feel better or worse.
-/-
He sees them sometimes, on the weekends. The Jewel of the Realm is docked within view of the grand bay windows that line the front of his shop, and while he doesn't torture himself often with placing himself within view - the telescopes have developed a fine layer of dust that can no longer be ignored.
He hears their laughter and watches them as they board the modest ship, their footfalls heavy on the gangplank. He is reminded of days spent on the open water, salt on his tongue and the sun burning his skin long after it dropped below the horizon. If he closes his eyes, he can feel his father's hands guiding his as he taught him how to sail by the stars.
He watches them as the sail drops, his father and brother together on the ship he once thought of as home.
He watches them as the wind carries them off, the family he is no longer a part of.
-/-
The radio fills the silence at night, when the darkness casts shadows on the walls and he feels his loneliness like a living thing within him. Like an anvil upon his chest, pressing down until he can scarcely breathe.
He sips at his soup and flips the page of his book with his wrist, pressing the spine flat with his brace as he reads the same words he's read a thousand times before. It's an old story - one he knows well - and it typically brings him comfort. But there's a storm blowing in from the east and he always gets anxious when the wind begins to whistle through the cracks in the walls - old aches and pains rising in his arm and in his head and in his heart.
It ebbs and flows always, but it's always hardest at night.
-/-
"Hullo, Milah."
She jumps when he mumbles his greeting, ducking his head against the strong breeze as he crosses the street. This storm has lingered, and he feels as heavy as the clouds above. Especially when her lips tilt down in a frown and she takes a step away from him.
"Killian," she nods.
It's a far cry from the way she used to whisper his name, pressed against his neck in the dark stillness of his bedroom, his flannel sheets pooled low around her waist and the moonlight dancing across her skin.
But he'd ruined that as well.
As he does all things.
He wants to ask her if she's okay. If she's forgiven him yet for causing her ruin. If she sees her boy at all or just looks after the children she helps cross the street as penance.
He wants to say he's sorry.
Instead he drops his eyes back to the asphalt and keeps his steps deliberately measured as he walks the rest of the way to the grocery. He's out of potatoes and he's fond of stew when the rain seems to seep into his very bones.
He makes sure to get two dozen. He doesn't want to have to leave again any time soon.
(He doesn't want to see the sorrow in her eyes.)
-/-
The thing about living on the edge of town in a shop in which no one frequents, hated by his family and former lover, is that he is often the last to know of news.
It's how he doesn't know a small group of newcomers has arrived until he's practically run down by them.
A woman leads them. She glows with her sunshine hair and red jacket and flushed cheeks, especially beneath the torrential downpour that continues now day and night. The door to his meager shop opens so forcefully with her arrival, it bangs against the wall and dislodges a framed map of the shipping lanes between continents.
She stills when his gaze locks on hers, green eyes growing wide and a stuttered breath exhaled through her nose. She looks shattered - shoulders hunched and hand pressed to her chest - and he idly wonders what he's managed to do to this woman in a few short seconds to have her look so positively ruined.
"Can I help you?" He manages, his voice breaking around the edges. He coughs to clear his throat and lets his gaze flit over the people who have filed in behind the woman with hair like spun gold. They're all looking at him with thinly veiled astonishment and he scratches at the place behind his ear, fighting the urge to disappear up the stairs to his apartment. "I'm afraid - well, we don't have many lures left, if that's what you're after," he manages a smile, tremulous though it is. "It is rather dreadful fishing weather."
The woman blinks, a tear slipping from her eye and rolling down her cheek. She dashes it away with the back of her hand and gives him a smile so wide, he can't help but return it.
(Wavering at the edges and pulling at his cheeks so hard it hurts. It's been a long time since he's smiled.)
"That's alright," she says quietly, and he finds himself leaning over the counter to better hear her. "We've found what we've come for."
-/-
They buy a map - an old faded thing that's been in his shop for as long as he can remember.
It isn't until after they're gone that he notices it.
The rain has stopped.
-/-
He dreams that night of sunlight beneath his fingertips, cinnamon in his coffee, and a beanstalk so tall it touches the clouds. He wakes with a heaving gasp and a splitting headache, and stumbles to the bathroom for the painkillers he keeps beneath the sink in case of emergencies.
He stares at his reflection as he swallows the pills and wonders why on earth he's thinking about the woman in cherry red leather with lips to match.
"Bloody hell," he mutters, fingertips pinching at the bridge of his nose.
Perhaps if he presses hard enough, his headache will just disappear.
Perhaps if he presses hard enough, he will disappear.
-/-
She comes in the next day and buys a coil of rope, her eyes shy when his fingertips brush the back of her knuckles as she hands over her money.
Her name's Emma and she's staying in town for a few days. Looking for someone, she says, when he very deliberately doesn't ask.
"What's your name?" She questions when he does nothing more than grunt in acknowledgment.
"Killian," he mutters in response, carefully keeping his gaze on her change instead of the way she's looking at him like she can see into his very soul. She's bright again today, too, with her
hair tucked back in a messy ponytail and her red leather shining in the string of lights pulled across his ceiling.
She brings the light with her - from the shining sun outside to the drab corners of his dim little shop.
"My name's Killian."
She smiles, fingering the charm around her neck, taking the coil of rope from his outstretched hand.
"It's nice to meet you, Killian."
-/-
She buys a buoy the next day.
A lifejacket and then a book on navigation and a compass the days following.
Each day she comes in and lingers in the shop while he pretends she's not there. While he pretends like he's not watching her from behind the counter.
It's what he's doing when Liam decides he is in need of more fishing lures, swinging through the front door and stilling abruptly when he realizes Killian is already in the front of the shop. No possible way for him to get his necessary equipment without acknowledgement, unfortunately.
Killian thinks for a moment that he just may turn around, but Liam steels his jaw - a familiar twitch that he recognizes as one of his own mannerisms.
The Jones' boys always were stubborn.
"Relax, brother," Killian sighs, reaching for the box of new lures just beneath the countertop. "You'll not have to - "
"I told you not to call me that," Liam snaps, slamming his money down and grabbing at the boxes of lures, blue eyes furious. He looks so much like their father in the moment, Killian takes a half-step back. "You don't get to call me that."
"Aye," Killian nods, swallows hard, and looks down at his feet. He keeps staring until the bell above the door sounds. Until pale hands press flat against the space in front of the cash register, a hesitant cough interrupting the silence.
He looks up and meets her gaze, surprised to find tears once again in her eyes.
"You okay?" She asks and he nods despite feeling very much not okay. It's not like him to slip up in regards to Liam, but the headaches and strange dreams have persisted and he's not been feeling much like himself.
He doubts very much Liam will be in for new lures any time soon.
She debates her words for a moment, gnawing at her bottom lip in a way that makes his stomach swoop down low. He blinks away, embarrassed to be wanting when he's just managed to further wreck his already fragile relationship with his brother.
"Things aren't always what they seem, you know," she tilts her head, the ends of her hair brushing his forearm. He pulls back and she smiles sadly. "I think - I think if you're willing to take a chance, you might be able to be a part of something."
He laughs. He can't help it. He laughs so hard tears spring to his eyes and he has to press his hand and brace to the countertop to keep himself upright.
"Lass, I've never been part of a bloody thing my whole life."
She smiles, fingers once again anchored to the ring she wears around her neck.
"Think about it."
-/-
That night he dreams of blonde hair against black wool, his arm outstretched and a bean in his palm.
"You can join us and be a part of something, or you can do what you can do best, and be alone."
He wakes. Stares at the ceiling. Counts his breaths in and out.
He's tired of being alone.
-/-
She keeps coming to his store, day after day, buying odds and ends here and there. He's not sure what use she has for all her purchases, but he doesn't much mind it if it means he gets to keep seeing her.
He learns what her laughter sounds like when he tells a particularly stupid joke. He learns what her favorite ice cream flavor is and when she prefers hot chocolate over coffee. He learns she reaches for the ring around her neck whenever he says something that makes her eyes sad.
"Where did you get that?" He asks one day when he's feeling brave, his fingers tripping over the twining for a lure. Liam had been in the day prior and once again bought him out. But he had waited for Killian to make his way to the register this time, even making eye contact and giving him a nod as he retreated. It was more than he had ever dared to hope for.
It was more than he deserved.
Things had been changing since Emma Swan and her family arrived in town.
She drops the rope she's been twisting into a variety of knots, hand immediately going to grasp the intricate braiding of metal.
"The man I love gave me this," she states quietly, eyes intense upon his own. He feels defeat weigh heavy in his gut, wondering just when he started to harbor hope for this Swan woman.
When she walked into his shop and stared at him like he meant something, probably.
But it had been foolish to hope.
"He's a lucky man," he manages, pricking his thumb on the edge of the hook and cursing beneath his breath at the blood he smears on the bright orange feather he's been trying to bind for the past seven minutes.
She chuckles - dark and husky and a secret little thing. A sound that licks along his spine and makes him stand straighter.
"He certainly is."
-/-
He's short potatoes again, and he stares at the barren insides of his pantry before sighing heavily and reaching for his coat. He has no desire to skirt his way along the ruined clock tower stuck on a time that's long since passed, but he can already feel the twinges of hunger.
He's content to avoid Milah as well, too tired to be confronted with his own shortcomings, but it seems her charge has changed today. She lingers at a different intersection - one closer to the abandoned library.
This time, she smiles when he approaches.
His heart almost stops in his chest.
"Killian," she breathes when he gets closer, his feet stumbling against the curb of the sidewalk. Her hands reach out to steady him, and a happy chuckle leaves her lips. Her eyes fill with tears, and her thumb brushes along the inside of his elbow.
"Milah? Are you quite alright?"
She smiles wider, curls brushing along her cheeks. "I'm just fine, you sodding fool," she shakes his shoulders and his eyebrows knit together in confusion as he jostles back and forth. "I've been fine. I've been lovely, actually."
"Well, that's - " he shakes his head. "That's grand?"
"It wasn't your fault, you know," she tilts her head to the side. "None of it. I was happy with you and I just - " she sighs, her breath a white cloud in the air between them. "You brought such light to my life. Thank you, Killian."
He feels as if he's missing something. Perhaps he's fallen on his way to the grocery and hit his head. Perhaps he's bleeding out in the middle of the street and this is a delirium.
"Now," she pushes him straight, eyebrow raise in haughty authority as she gives him a once over. "Stop being a prat and remember, would you? There's some people here who would like to take you home."
With that, she pushes him in the direction of the clock tower.
He follows her lead.
-/-
Liam finds him as he's gathering his usual sack of potatoes, blue eyes blown wide and tinged with red as he stares at Killian and waits for him to straighten from his crouch, reaching for the potatoes on the bottom shelf.
He grips the bag in his hand until his knuckles ache under the strain, watching as his brother's mouth opens and then closes.
"Little brother," Liam finally sighs, smile stretching his lips until dimples flash in his cheeks.
He's definitely fallen into delirium.
-/-
Emma - she's standing in front of the clock tower when he emerges.
Her eyes are shining and there's a sword in her hand and she's never looked more brilliant or beautiful. Lush green forests flash in his mind's eye, rum on his tongue, silken strands beneath his palm. Sweat beads at the hollow of his throat and he feels a flash of oppressive heat, a sly smirk that flirts with the corner of her lips coming and going so fast that he can hardly grasp it.
He's losing his mind.
(He doesn't bloody care when she looks at him like that.)
She bounces on her toes as he approaches, fingers fiddling (again) with that necklace.
"I feel as if I should thank you for something, love."
She bites at her bottom lip, another tear spilling over. This time, he allows himself to wipe it away.
"Pretty sure I'm the one who owes you thanks," she smiles, leaning into his hand. "But we can talk about that later."
The urge to kiss her has been pulling at him since she first stepped into his shop, but it's practically unbearable now, the way she's looking at him from beneath wet eyelashes. He takes a step closer and her eyes drift shut, chin tilted up, her breath warm against his chin.
When he kisses her, he tastes cinnamon and coffee - sees a beanstalk so tall it touches the clouds. He sees a pale pink dress that flows around her knees and black leather around her shoulders. He feels a knife pressed to his throat and her palm pressed to his. He sees her yelling in a street, her fingers clenched in his jacket, her lips moving beneath his. He sees blonde hair on the deck of a ship - whipping with the sails as she turns and smiles at him over her shoulder.
He sees - he sees Emma.
He pulls away with a gasping breath as it clicks into place before ducking his head back to hers, sinking his hand in her hair and sighing when her teeth pull at his bottom lip. She laughs into his mouth when his fingers press at the base of her skull, tilting her head further back, chasing her lips with his own, not letting her pull away.
They linger there, noses brushing, trading inhales and exhales as they sway together.
They have so much to discuss - things said and left unsaid and choices made and trust broken and wounds born of callous words and hasty decisions. But there's only one question burning on the tip of his tongue. One thing he needs to know above all else.
"Can we go home?"
She presses up on her tiptoes. Kisses him again, fresh tears spilling over his fingertips. The last time she cried, he tried to catch them on his thumb as pain blossomed in his stomach and he crumbled against her. This time, he finds himself kissing them away, standing taller with his brace pressed tight against the small of her back.
"Hell yeah," she sighs.