Inspired by a trip I took with my aunt where we arrived at the hotel only to find out the power would be out for most of the evening. This is all written already so expect frequent updates and only four chapters (three + an epilogue). All my thanks to joneskillian on tumblr for looking this over for me and offering invaluable advice while I wrote it!
Warnings for maybe horror in future chapters? I don't think it's that scary, but who knows.
One
Her bug could withstand the passage of time, the miles upon miles of unknown roads, and being broken into twice within its years of existence. What it couldn't stand? Hitting a pothole in the middle of nowhere while the rain decided that tonight of all nights was the night to release the pent up rage of Poseidon.
She swore, banging her palm against the wheel as her car spluttered and died, the windshield wipers swiping furiously against the glass, and pulled off to the side of the road.
Luckily, it wasn't a lonely stretch of highway. Raining during her time of distress was one cliché enough, thank you very much, but she also hadn't passed another vehicle in close to fifteen minutes that hadn't been a trucker. No, she wasn't quite desperate enough to trust one of them. So maybe that was rude, they were honest people doing a long day's work to bring all the things wasting away in her car to a place near her, but she knew the statistics...
Okay, she watched enough crime shows to know that truck drivers were a hive of potential killers. She had no wish to join the statistics.
She turned her key, biting her lip hard as the rain's downpour decided to worsen. Her windshield wipers froze halfway through the motion. The bug spluttered and hacked, but didn't make a move to regain power. Old Yeller wasn't quite up to the task of taking her all the way to Storybrooke, Maine to visit her son and his adoptive family, probably a sign of all the bad things that would come to letting herself be part of his life.
She leaned her forehead on the wheel, sucking in a ragged breath, forcing the negative thoughts away. It wasn't her first time visiting Storybrooke after all. She had been up there quite a few times since Henry had found her a year ago, so much so that she was contemplating packing up her dreary, lonely apartment in Boston and making the move there permanently just to be closer.
Reasonably, it would cut the costs on the gas she spent to come here. Emotionally, it was just because Storybrooke was more home than anywhere had ever been. Henry, of course, being the main reason for that, as the sole person to love her regardless of her faults, but with him had come a whole cast of characters that Emma hadn't anticipated.
Like the eternally optimistic and headstrong Mary Margaret Blanchard or the brave, kind David Nolan or the quiet, reserved Elsa Arendelle or the intelligent, determined Belle French. Or, though she loathed to admit this to his smug, attractive face, the so called dashing rapscallion Killian Jones too.
It was more people than she knew what to do with and it was frightening as much as it was exhilarating.
The fact that she couldn't make the drive to Storybrooke on the night she was finally going to look into a place to live meant that could only be intervention by the fates. She closed her eyes tightly because though Henry had brought more life into her life than she thought possible, he couldn't erase the twenty-eight years of nothingness before and after his birth. Nor should he, this was Emma's battle and Emma's demons and she wouldn't push that responsibility on her eleven-year-old son.
But she wished it wouldn't be so damn difficult to figure out by herself.
...
It wasn't a far walk. No, she had only locked her car and walked in the rain with her tattered, hole strewed umbrella for fifteen minutes before an older woman pulled off to the side and offered her a lift to a hotel just a few minutes away. Old women somewhat low on her mental list of killers, Emma had accepted, but by the time she crept up the steps to a hotel claiming itself to be Camelot, her legs were sore and her eyes were dangerously close to not opening on her next blink.
One from walking after a nasty fall three days prior trying to chase a skip, the second from listening to her travel companion talk proudly of her eleven kittens. In the back seat, she could hear a meow and the rattle as the feline shifted in its carrier, no doubt trying to support the cat lady.
She would be shaking cat hair out of her clothes for a good week no doubt.
After saying her thank you and have a goodnight obligation, she made her way up the gravel drive to the hotel. It wasn't majestic looking, nor did it appear to be recently remodeled, but it was a stone building, seven stories tall, the lights strung across the top proclaiming its name barely illuminating the dark brown roof. She thought it might have been a shade of yellow, but it was too dark to tell and she had no interest in soaking up the rain to figure it out.
Her policy? If it had a door and somewhere to lay down, preferably in a vertical position, though there had been instances where she didn't have such a luxury. This? With its large, clean windows, the well-manicured lawn, and the somewhat ominous but otherwise friendly looking lights? This was more than good enough; as a child, she would have killed for something as nice as this.
Despite how much she told herself that, a part of her had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched and couldn't relax.
She sighed, pulling her hair out of the collar of her jacket, squeezing out the excess water as best she could and stamping her feet on the pavement before she came inside. It did nothing to minimize her resemblance to a drowned rat, but it was better than nothing.
She got no further than off the welcome rug, which looked more like the type of mat they placed on the ground in front of the doors in supermarkets, before someone clicked their tongue in disapproval. After shooting said snooty guest a dark look, she looked around the lobby for the front desk, somewhat annoyed that it wasn't right in front of her when she wanted nothing more than to step into her room and sleep till the tow truck came to get her car tomorrow.
Her original assessment of the building was true, the inside was no more glamorous than the outside, but instead painted a rather boring shade of beige. There wasn't a tile flooring like in most places, but a somewhat elaborate looking carpet made of browns, blues, and yellows that seemed to hide the wet stains her shoes made on the carpet rather well. That's one point for them, she wouldn't break her neck from slipping at least. She thought the blackout curtains were a bit over the top though.
"Swan?"
She broke from her thoughts, turning on her heel to face the worker passing by her. "Yes, I-" She paused because nobody in the building knew her name. Or at least nobody in the building was supposed to know her name, not unless the party that seemed to occupy the right corner happened to contain an old foe.
It took her an embarrassingly long time to realize that the person who called her name wasn't, in fact, the man who worked there that was continuing past her, oblivious to her confusion, but the man who fit the description tall, dark, and handsome slumped against the couch to the right.
Not that she would ever tell him that that was what she called him. Killian Jones had an ego the size of this hotel, perhaps even this town, and she had no wish to increase it.
Then the rest of her brain caught up.
"Killian? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Visiting my brother across the pond, of course. My flight got in later than my anticipated plans and I elected to stay the night rather than drive," he replied, pushing himself to his feet. "Better question, luv, what are you doing here?" He walked around the couch to face her.
The back of his hair was fluffier than the rest from the way he was sitting, doing nothing but make is sex hair all the better and she bit her lip hard. She longed to run her fingers through it, an urge that increased the closer he got, till she had to ball her fist at her sides to keep from doing just that when he stopped right in front of her.
His knowledge of personal space was rather minimal when it came to her.
Probably because she never made a move to push him away or to move away. A dangerous move, no doubt, but generally not something she thought about until after the fact.
Oh, right, he asked a question.
"My car broke down."
"That explains the look of death about you," he said with more gentleness than she expected, looking her from head to toe without a trace of his usual eye twinkle. "I half didn't recognize you when you walked in till I saw the jacket. Not many people are quite so bold."
"I can't tell if that's a compliment or not," she commented, shifting on her feet, painfully aware of the fact that beneath her red leather jacket was a white t-shirt. She didn't cross her arms, not wanting to draw attention to that fact. Though he probably already knew considering he had examined in her not even a few minutes ago.
He laughed, "It is, I assure you. Much as I would love to match wits with you though, I imagine you're in dire need of a place to stay for the night?"
"Isn't that what most people do in a hotel?" When his eyebrows began to raise, a smirk growing, she held a hand up to ward off the onslaught of words that she knew were coming. "Yes, I'm sure you can think of better ways to spend your time, but the general populace just wants to rest their weary heads."
"You know me so well, Swan. Alas, all the rooms are booked for the night, sorry, I barely got my own through sheer luck and the fact that I had to take an expensive one. You're welcome to share the room with me though."
She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing in a breath of patience. It wasn't like him to take advantage of her distress to make a move, but she also wasn't surprised by much anymore. "Are you serious? Killian, it's a hotel in the middle of nowhere, there's no way all these rooms are taken, you've got to come up with more clever lines."
"None of my lines work on you, Swan. Well, they do bring a delightful look to your face, but they don't bring you swooning into my arms as I would prefer. So, yes, I'm being serious, use your superpower."
He waited patiently while she narrowed her eyes at him, eyes flicking over him. His clothes were a pair of comfortable looking black jeans and a plain button up shirt, half undone as was his usual style to show off his chest hair. His face had a look of amusement on it as he crossed his arms, waiting for her to pass judgment, but his fingers twitched as though he wanted to scratch behind his ear.
Not as arrogant as he liked to pretend, that was one of the things she liked about him and what made the rest of his obnoxious personality easier to handle.
He wasn't lying either.
Her eyes dropped from him, huffing under her breath. At least if he was lying, she would have somewhere to rest her head, but now it seemed she would be mooching off the hotel's couch until they kicked her out.
Killian gestured around the room, drawing her eyes to the number of people wandering around the lobby in various states of dress. It wasn't, as she thought earlier, because of a party at all. "Power company is doing work; they are shutting down electricity for the majority of the town in about an hour. The hotel is being spared so they've elected to have a discount and prey on the poor humans that are too afraid of the dark to stay home."
Emma didn't judge them, she would be somewhat frightened to stay home alone in the dark as well, but not so much that she would want to leave her home. With no power, that meant no alarm. With no power, that meant anybody could break inside while you were gone as she would have done if she was still a young, naive thief.
Actually, on second thought, maybe it was best for other people to stay away, to keep them away from any thief that was more violent than desperate.
He shifted his weight around, a mental battle going across his face briefly. When he faced her, his eyes were warm, a half-smile on his lips. "I wasn't joking or making a move, you're welcome to share the room with me. I doubt that good old Tom over there will be up for sharing the sofa." He tilted his head at an elderly man slumped over the couch that Killian had vacated, head slumped against one armrest and his legs slung over the other. If it wasn't for the rise and fall of his chest, his stillness would be chilling.
Close quarters with Killian Jones seemed like a bad idea.
Alternatively, she didn't want to hang around the lobby with a bunch of virtual strangers. She paced, but only moved briefly before her legs gave out on her, exhausted by the long walk and stiff from standing, and she caught onto his arm before she could become great friends with the floor.
He grunted, but stayed steady without offering her any help, perhaps knowing by the scowl on her face that she wouldn't have accepted it.
Accepting his offer to share a room was about the limit to good deeds Emma could handle without getting the urge to flee.
She sighed, releasing his sleeve after holding it a few moments too long. "Do you have two beds? I'll split the bill with you."
He frowned, wanting to argue, before shaking his head and offering his arm to lead her to the elevator.
...
The elevator took an achingly long time to get to his level, seeming to groan, grumble, and overall protest their presence as it took them from the lobby to the fifth floor. When they stepped off, she was relieved to not need it again till it was time to leave.
The hallway was long and thin, barely enough room for them to maneuver side-by-side, let alone with any luggage that neither thankfully had, and seemed to have a look of it better fitting the decade prior with its ugly, yellowing wallpaper. It had an alarming number of shadows that made her skin crawl, like every other hallway they passed was completely dark.
"What's that?" She questioned, pointing at a metal door at the end of the hallway, a contrast to the dark wood of all the bedroom doors.
"The staircase to the next floor."
"But… the stairs were that way?"
"Aye, I found it confusing as well. Seems like if you come up the stairs, you've got to walk across the entire bloody buildings to reach the next set. The architect must be a fan of exercise." He laughed, shaking his head.
She wrinkled her nose at the idea, grateful for the invention of elevators. Active though she may be, she had no intention of putting in that much effort.
They walked in silence for a long moment, each second passing more uncomfortable than the next. Not because they weren't speaking, but because Emma had the oddest feeling that she could hear whispering just out of range, too low to hear entirely yet too loud to ignore completely. Like white noise or static.
Yeah, that sounded right, more like a buzz than a whisper.
He paused outside one of the doors, looking confused. "Is this it?" She asked as he frowned, the hand in his pocket lifting as though to knock on the door, the other staying firmly in her grasp. She hadn't quite realized the grip she had on him till then, too comfortable to be friendly, and released him.
That jostled him out of his thoughts. He dropped his hand, shaking his head. "No, sorry, I just thought I heard something. Guess the idea of being in a town plunged in darkness and most likely facing an increase in petty theft was more than even I could handle?"
Her lips twitched. "I'll protect you, don't worry."
"How kind," he replied, grinning, resuming to walk and rubbing the arm she had been holding with a wince. She didn't comment about it, noticing that his movements lingered near his wrist and prosthetic more than the elbow that she held. "I'm more frightened of any ghosts that decide tonight's the night to make an appearance though."
"There's no such things as ghosts."
"You know, the one who says that is generally the first to die."
"Generally the first to be afraid is the one who gets to live in the tension and fear the longest only to die brutally, alone, while everyone else thinks that they were the killer."
"This is more like a horror movie, not a crime show! The only killers are ghosts," he argued, seemingly unfazed by the idea. She snorted, shaking her head at him as they stopped in front of another door.
The first time he tried to unlock the door, it didn't work, the light flashing green, but the handle refusing to budge. He tried again with the same results, but on the third time, he finally got it open with an exasperated sigh. He held it for her, grinning as she brushed close by him to enter the room. "Make yourself at home, Swan."
"I'll do my best," she said dryly, sliding her jacket off, wincing as her hair caught on the slipper and pausing to untangle it. She tossed it over a chair, a trickle of water slipping down her collar and she lifted her hair before it could do anymore damage to her shirt. "I'm going to shower."
He nodded, tossing his suitcase onto the bed near the wall. The bed was, perhaps, a queen with a pale blue-yellow comforter and plain white pillows, quite out of place when paired with the light green walls. Whatever the theme was, it was lost on her.
"Aye, probably best. You'll catch a cold otherwise and somehow I think Davey will blame me. Here, take these," he said, digging out a pair of folded, faded grey sweats and a plain, white long sleeved shirt.
She caught the clothes, holding them away from her wet clothes. Confused, she asked, "What, why?"
He tossed a pair of sleeping clothes for himself onto the bed next to his suitcase and then threw the whole thing into the closet, settling back on the bed, raising his eyebrow at her. "Are you proposing that you sleep in the nude, luv? I won't object if that's your wish…" He trailed off, his lips quirking up into a leering grin as he looked her over.
His eyes lingered briefly on her breasts, the white t-shirt having gone seen through, the short journey to the room doing nothing to dry it. He looked up at her again quickly, his grin faltering only a little bit, his ears turning the slightest bit red.
A laugh bubbled up against her will at his embarrassment. "In your dreams," she shot back, turning on her heel and heading into the bathroom.
She barely closed the door before she heard his response: "Always, Swan."
...
When she got out, he was flicking through channels on the television, one arm tucked behind his head. From the look of his hair, he had spent a while running his hands through it, tugging on the ends, leaving it as an almost comical mess. She thought this was perhaps what his hair would look like the morning after, but pushed the thought away quickly, looking away from him and wrapping her hair up again.
"Better now?" He didn't look up from the television, his brow furrowing at an infomercial.
"Yeah…" She shifted on her feet, biting her lip. He made a rather attractive picture just lounging on the bed, not a care in the world, far more gorgeous than he would be normally. Perhaps because his attractiveness before was something almost unreal, expected now after months of knowing him, but unreal nonetheless.
This was different – it was messy hair, untrimmed scruff, tired eyes, wrinkled clothes, and the unmistakable look of someone who had spent a while in the car or, in his case, on an airplane.
It was human, it was real, and it made Emma very uncomfortable. More because it brought something warm and foreign rising in her chest, not quite attraction, but with the same type of zing to it.
She cleared her throat. "Um, thank you, by the way. For letting me bum off you for the night."
He looked at her then, tilting his head. "Aye, lass, anytime. You know I can't get enough of your company."
"You don't know how to be serious, do you?"
"Who said I was joking?" He said, offended, sitting up in the bed. "Contrary to what you believe, we are friends. It's not unusual for them to do acts of kindness for each other, yes?"
"We're not friends," she said stubbornly, continuing the argument they had been having for months. Mary Margaret called it the will they, won't they syndrome. Emma said she was full of it. "We just happen to be acquaintances."
His eyes dimmed slightly, but in true Killian fashion, he covered it with a cheeky wink and argued with his typical answer: "We're alone, it's alright, you don't have to keep pretending."
She walked to her bed, slumping down on the sheets. "I'm not pretending," she retorted, the usual ending to their argument. Generally, someone else would cut in, or Henry would arrive, or his brother would call and they would end in a stalemate where neither won yet neither lost.
Here though, with nobody in the room except for them, there was nothing to keep him from replying.
"Aye, you are. You don't want to admit that we're friends because you're afraid of what will happen if things change, that things could be more than just this and more than just that, and thus it's easier to pretend we're nothing at all. Less of a risk that way, nobody gets their heartbroken if we're nothing, right?"
He stopped suddenly, his face paling and his mouth closing as though he hadn't expected all the words to come tumbling out until it was too late to stop them and the bitter longing laced in them.
She stared, wide eyed and stunned, as he got to his feet, muttering an apology and disappearing into the bathroom. A moment later, the shower started and she settled back against the headboard for a long moment, feeling as though she had missed a few very important pages.
Once the water shut off, Emma crawled beneath the covers of her bed and feigned sleep, unable to confront him and his words when her own thoughts were confused. She felt guilty about it, especially when he sighed and crawled into his own bed, a peek at him showing her a glimpse of the conflict that played across his face, but then she began to think maybe he was right, maybe—
And then she would be sucked right back into a vicious cycle of a voice screaming no while another whispered yes, an answer to a question that Emma hadn't yet voiced, inwardly or out.
When his eyes finally closed, his breathing even, she murmured, "Goodnight, Killian." Even in his sleep, he smiled sleepily at the ceiling as though it were her.
While he lapsed into an easy slumber, Emma found that she couldn't do the same, caught by his every movement. He snored some, little puffs that startled her occasionally, his brows furrowing every few seconds, but other than that, he was perfectly still. His relaxed smile though, that was the thing that caught her attention. He didn't look like that when he was awake, not quite so unguarded.
There was something strangely intimate about watching him sleep though and she sat up to flip her pillow over, settling back down with her back to him. If she couldn't see his face then she couldn't stare at it, she couldn't linger on it. She wasn't even sure why she bothered thinking about him either, she had spent much more time with him than this, in much closer quarters too whenever he dropped into the booth beside her at Granny's.
Sharing a hotel room wasn't that different.
So, okay, maybe she was wearing his clothes while hers dried in the bathroom and maybe she had been transfixed by his voice when he spoke, but none of that wasn't out of the realm of normal. Friend shared clothes all the time. Friends shared stories, too. Such was the way of life.
Friends don't deny being friends though. Not after so long of knowing each other, but Emma could and would have gone on, her denial so strong that she didn't even think there was another reason for her reluctance. Attraction crackled between them, always had, but there was a certain amount of fondness now that Emma had either pointedly ignored or never noticed.
Killian had seen it though. Not recently either, his words less of a genuine shock for him to hear and more of an unwelcome surprise, like a buried emotion pushed to the surface in a moment of weakness. It would be easy to blame the tiredness, she knew, but a part of her couldn't accept it now that he had put it into words.
Was she afraid?
Maybe.
Of what?
She shifted onto her back, looking at the ceiling for answers, her toes wiggling in the warm blankets for a cold spot amongst the stifling heat, unwilling to admit that she knew the question and the answer.
As she started to slip into sleep, she missed the way the television flickered to static and then shut off entirely.
