"Swan!"
"What is it Jones, I don't have time for you right now."
"Will I be seeing you at Whale's party tonight?" He jogged to catch up with her quick walking pace as she made her way to her next lecture.
"Of course I'll be there, Ruby's my best friend and she basically put together the whole thing!" She said, not even giving him a second look. And it was true, she'd seen the way Ruby had all but slaved herself balancing a near perfect GPA while planning what would definitely be a party to remember.
She'd been there every step of the way, through tasting horrible homemade baked goods, to decoration shopping the second Halloween stores started popping up, and going from one to one in search of specific "spooky" lanterns because "No Emma orange is not spooky enough!" She'd be at that party, if it was the last thing she did.
"Thought so." Killian said, grinning "And what might I expect you in, love?" She stopped in her tracks, extreme annoyance, the one only he could bring up in her, written all over her face as she looked over to him
"Why should I even tell you? It's none of your business how I dress!" "Indeed," he replied, taking a step in her personal space "but you see I simply wanted a heads up in case you decided to show up in one of those outrageously revealing outfits so I could be prepared for the heavenly sight you would make"
She rolled her eyes at that, trying to ignore how close to each other they were standing and the heat she felt rushing although her, that pulsing need she felt to crush her lips onto him, before taking a step back.
"I guess you'll just have to wait and see, Jones" she called out as she walked away to her class, not daring to look at him, knowing, just knowing, he would be grinning like a madman if she dared look at him.
She slipped into her dress later that day, thanking God for finally making a princess without fancy hooped skirts and tight corsets, and was deciding whether or not to wear the wig that came with the costume, when Ruby came in, wearing what she assumed was a sexy red riding hood outfit, the skirt of her dress ending in the middle of her thighs, the longest part of her outfit probably the floor length red hood on her back. She held a small bag in her hand that she quickly discarded, letting it fall carelessly on Emma's desk.
"Ruby, you DO know these sexy outfits are part of the reason why women are sexualised so much right?" Emma said, placing her hands on her hips and raising her brows at her friend, who was now pouting at her.
"You're such a buzzkill and the party hasn't even started!" She said, throwing her hands in the air and rolling her eyes in desperation, before standing next to her friend in front of the mirror and fixing her lipstick (blood red of course).
"So Victor told me you and Killian had a moment today," Ruby mentioned, her mouth setting in a wolfish grin "what's that about?" Emma looked at her and huffed a laugh and shook her head slightly before answering.
"Jones thinks every time I talk to him is a moment" "Well, from the conversations I've witnessed, he isn't wrong" Ruby said, a wolfish smirk playing on her glimmering lips as Emma turned to look at her in disbelief, hands grabbing at the wig to smack at her friend's arm, who giggled in response.
"What?" She continued, smile still wide on her face "You two basically eye-fuck every time you're around each other I swear you're, like, tearing at each other's clothes with your eyes and shit!"
"We do not!" Emma exclaimed, her face twisted in disgust.
"Hey, don't worry about it!" Said the brunette, slinging an arm over her friend's shoulders "You're totally right to, he's a fine piece of ass, I would totally be all up on him if I weren't already in a committed relationship!"
"Okay Rubs that's enough thank you!" Laughed Emma, pushing to get away from her friend's embrace, before standing in front of the mirror again.
"So." She took a breath "Wig or no wig?" "Well," she went to the small bag she'd brought with her, pulling out insanely long blond extensions to match her friend's hair
"I would say neither." She dangled the hairpiece looking all smug at her thinking in advance "Now sit down so I can put these in."
Emma walked into the loft, relatively large for a college student, alone. Ruby had left right after finishing helping her with her immense braid, now hanging over her shoulder, to help Victor set up the final few touches to the place before the party, and, she had to say, the apartment looked incredible. Spiderwebs at every corner, carved pumpkins placed on nearly every surface, the few ones that were not covered by the giant vegetables littered by food and drinks, and those damned purple lanterns they'd looked everywhere for.
The crowd was impressive as well. While there weren't that many people, probably just over 25, they'd all dressed up. Emma saw her friend Mary Margret talking to her boyfriend David, coincidentally dressed up as Snow White and Prince Charming, the nickname their group gave them for being the "perfect couple", Robin dressed as his namesake vigilante archer Robin Hood, ironically flirting with Regina, who's costume could only be described as the Evil Queen's.
Emma saw a few more interesting costumes while making her way to the kitchen isle, a group of dwarves, a Mad Hatter, and then the more generic "slutty" costumes, not so much unlike her friend's, whom she finally had sight upon, standing next to her Mad Scientist of a boyfriend, as they seemed to be discussing his choice of costume.
"Victor you can't be a Doctor I already told you!" She said, throwing her hands up in the air "You know it doesn't fit in the fairytale theme!"
"Does too!" He answered, fixing his lab coat "Frankenstein is a classic, plus I wasn't about to spend a fortune on some costume I would only ever wear once instead of wearing something I already own"
Emma laughed at their exchange, notifying them of her presence.
"Emma!" Ruby shrieked "You look so amazing!" She gave her sign to twirl so she could admire her. Emma laughed again, rolling her eyes but obliging
"I have you to thank I guess, I mean, you're the one that picked the costume" Emma noticed Victor looking from his girlfriend to her, a smirk on his face, before finally turning to Ruby
"Did you get her to dress as Rapunzel on purpose?"
"No why?" Asked the brunette, clearly confused.
"Oh no nothing!" He answered, looking even more smug than usual, confusing the two girls even more for a minute, before they went back to enjoying themselves.
The party was in full swing when she spotted him walking through the door, and her mind blanked for a second as she took his irritatingly attractive self in.
His blue vest over the white button down with the rolled up sleeves made his already captivating eyes stand out, and, she had to say, those beige pants hugged his ass in a most agreeable way (though she would never admit to blatantly staring at his behind and enjoying the view. Out loud, that is)
She realised she'd been caught red handed in the process of admiring him when she noticed the self-satisfied grin that adorned his face as he approached her.
"Well well, Swan" he started, flipping the fucking frying pan he'd brought with him, "It seems, as fate would have it, we've come dressed to match." He raised an eyebrow suggestively at her.
"Yeah I don't believe in coincidences, so speak Jones, who told you?" She asked, taking on a firm pose, crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive manner and raising her brows as well.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, love" he answered, attaching his pan to his belt and mirroring her posture.
"Don't play dumb with me, Jones" she said, squinting her eyes at him "There's no way you just decided to dress up as Flynn Rider."
"Perhaps," he answered, letting his tongue run along the inside of his teeth "but maybe it really was none but that, a coincidence."
His smirk was in full mode, clearly extremely pleased to have gotten to her, and she let out a huff in anger and threw her arms up in disbelief, turning around to walk away, muttering to herself curses of incredulity at the situation, only then noticing the many pairs of eyes set on them, most of them grinning, and Victor laughing his ass off in the back as he was getting all but scolded by a very amused Ruby, a sight at which Emma rolled her eyes.
In the end, the night didn't end so badly, if Emma had to be completely truthful, she even managed to enjoy conversing with Killian Jones, of all people, finally allowing her to see another, sweeter side of him, her thinking he might not be the annoyance she thought of him before, but instead a potential friend she could see herself hanging out with. (She surprised herself quite a bit with that last part)
As it turned out, they discovered they had, in reality, a few things in common , namely having both been abandoned in the past, when she learnt of his mother's passing and his father deserting him and his brother's passing, and she told him about her past in the foster system and how she finally ended up being adopted by the Nolans when she was 16, during a late movie night a few weeks later, after Ruby and Victor had none too graciously excused themselves and they'd been left alone after the movie had come to an end. Huh. Who would've known Emma Swan and Killian Jones would end up becoming best friends.