For lifeinahole27 . Happy birthday, dear Sarah! I'm so happy I stumbled on this fandom and on you. As I've already told you, I adore your writing and for your gift I decided to adopt a tradition from a couple of my past fandoms and remix one of your fics that has been sitting in my head since you posted it.
Link to Sarah's fic below, for those of you who haven't read it. Go enjoy it!
s/11285531/31/Always-You
It all started with a coffee mug.
It was his first day in his office in Boston and he was lost in a warren of office-lined halls, trying to determine the best way to navigate from the corner conference room to his office. Sidestepping to allow Ruby and her overstuffed filing box to pass, he grazed his hip along the desk of one of the assistants, sending a coffee mug teetering over the edge and shattering across the floor. He apologized profusely and tried to sop up the mess, but was shooed away from the mess before he could be much help.
It was only later Killian found out the desk belonged to Emma's assistant and the mug was Emma's prized one. At least that explained the scowl Emma kept shooting him those first few weeks.
Or so he hoped.
Still getting acclimated to town, he was wandering through some shops near Porter Square when he happened upon a matte black mug with a small swan etched in white along one side. He boxed it up, sealing it with a deep green ribbon, and left it on her desk for her to find on Monday morning.
The only acknowledgement between them was the nod she gave him a week later. She was sitting at the conference room table, swan mug raised to her lips when he entered and slid into the seat across from her.
The nod wasn't accompanied by a scowl or a frown, and Killian chose to consider it progress.
It was about three months in to his move to Boston when his neighbor, David, invited him out for drinks with a few of his friends. Killian's expression when Emma entered the bar and joined their table was probably best described as dumfounded.
"You two know each other?" David asked, eyebrows knitted together and grip tightening around his pint glass.
"He's the one who broke the mug you gave me." Emma turned her attention to the waitress with that, ordering herself a shot and a beer.
"Ah," David replied with a grin.
That night Killian learned the two of them met in university, had been assigned to the same residence hall floor their freshman year. Emma had refused to talk to David, or really anyone, until one night she got roped into a foosball match against him. Five rounds of play and six shots later, they'd been friends since.
All of them closed down the bar that night, awash in stories of escapades past and whiskey. As they said goodnight on the sidewalk, Emma gave him a small smile before they turned their separate ways.
It was three weeks and three more weekend outings with David's lot when Emma surprised him. She barreled into his office on a Monday, plopping into one of the chairs across from him and dumping a paper bag on his desk. She pulled out a large container of onion rings and two sandwiches, nudging one towards the hand he had hovering over his mouse. He accepted it and they talked of nothing of consequence as they ate, but it was the best lunch he'd had in ages.
The following morning, he made sure to arrive just before her, two coffee cups in hand. He left the one with two cream and one sugar – a tidbit weaseled from her assistant – along with a small post-it note with a smiley face on her desk.
And with that, their pattern was set. Mondays and Wednesdays she brought him lunch. Tuesdays and Thursdays he left coffee and a note for her in thanks.
David and Robin invited him to join the group for a camping trip one long weekend in early summer. He almost turned them down, too many memories of him and Liam coming to the fore, but changed his mind the minute Emma mentioned she was going as well.
"You don't seem the camping type, love."
She crumpled a sheet of paper from his desk and threw it at his head. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He eyed her silk blouse, crisp pencil skirt, and the three inch heel dangling from the foot of her crossed leg.
"I can handle myself, Jones," she snarked followed by a vicious bite of her sandwich.
He grinned. "Never thought you couldn't."
It was on their first night out, all of them settled around the campfire drinking and toasting marshmallows, that he learned she was frightened of ghosts. David was regaling them with a story of a cop in a small town across the Bay who was out patrolling one night to find a woman wailing on the side the road.
As the story continued, the woman inconsolable and pacing along the quiet one lane road, Emma inched closer to him until her thigh was plastered to his and her hand gripped to his forearm. Killian nearly forgot to breathe, the weight of her pressed to him and the scent of her shampoo an overwhelming combination. When she eased a bit, he took the chance to wrap his arm around her waist keeping her close as Robin took up the cause with the tale of a haunted house from the town where he grew up.
He could feel each time she tensed, each moment her breath caught or stuttered. He tried to ignore the movement of her breast against his side each time she took a deep breath, but when her hand slammed to his thigh as Robin told of a boy waking to find a man sitting at the foot of his bed, staring down at him, his resolve crumbled. Killian moved to soothe her frayed nerves, running his thumb along the bare skin of her hip exposed by the low rise of her shorts and crooning words of comfort into her scalp.
She shot him a glare but didn't move from his embrace or shift from his touch, only begged for someone to tell them something that wasn't a ghost story.
They didn't talk about that night nor acknowledge how tightly they sat there wrapped around one another. But on Tuesday when they return to work, he left her coffee for her on her desk along with a hastily sketched ghost with a speech bubble inscribed with 'Boo' on his usual post-it. He came in the next day to find a white mug adorned with the silhouette of a headless man riding a rearing horse waiting for him next to his keyboard.
If Killian was distracted by Emma before, it was no match for his mental state now that he knew the feel of her skin and how well she fit curled to his side. Or that she had a quiet, mocking sense of humor.
He tried to keep himself from focusing on the shape of her calves as she walked away from him in her heels, or the teasing dip of her blouses and the cleavage they hinted at below. If he caught her staring once or twice at where his shirt lay unbuttoned or at his forearms when he was working out something on the whiteboard, he didn't say a word. Simply filed that away right next to way her lip curled up at the corner when she thought he wasn't looking at her.
And if he picked up a few books on Boston and New England ghost stories and haunted landmarks, they didn't need to talk about that either.
How he talked Emma into touring some of Boston's more famed cemeteries, starting with the Granary Burying Ground, he wasn't quite sure. He laid it on thick that he should get in some proper touristing now that he had been in Boston almost seven months and that it was her solemn duty to play his native guide. When she reminded him that Boston wasn't her native home either, he waved it off.
"Close enough, Swan. Shall I pick you up at eleven?"
"There better be a bear claw in your hand when you do, Jones."
He smiled and gave a mental fist pump at her acquiescence.
She was wearing a pair of tight skinny jeans and a frayed, faded Clash t-shirt cum cut-up tank top with a pair of ballet flats when he picked her up promptly at eleven, carrying both a large coffee and a bear claw for her. If he thought her pencil skirts were his favorite, they were quickly being trumped by this shirt. He had to work to keep his eye from lingering on the hints of the mesh and lace of her bra peeking from beneath, but of crosses to bear, it was one he'd happily accept.
They walked through Boston Common and he told her what he knew of the story of the Boston Massacre.
"You know American history?" she asked with a quirk to her brow.
"I may have been reading up," he said with a grin, despite the heat he could feel rising to his cheeks. He pointed in the direction of the burial ground. "Onwards."
She looped her arm in his as he started the tale of James Otis, Jr and pressed herself closer as the story continued. They remained like that through the rest of their walk, only separating when he bid her good night at her doorstep with a small bow.
The invitation to the company's annual retreat in Maine arrived in his inbox mid one of their Wednesday lunch sessions. Before Killian realized what he was saying, he asked if she wanted to drive up with him. He was about to slap his hand over his traitorous mouth when she agreed, flashing him his favorite of her small smiles.
He was mapping out their route when he noted they'd be passing a lodge he'd read about in one of his books. It took little arm twisting to get Emma to agree to go up a day early, though he kept all talk of the lodge out of it. When they passed a billboard with the lodge's name emblazoned across it, he pointed.
"We should go," he said, waggling his eyebrows at her as he turned off the highway. "We can't not stop, Swan. It'll be fun."
He heard her scoff next to him but she didn't protest – much – when he turned in the gravel drive that wound up to the columned entrance.
It ended up being better than he had anticipated. The place was empty except for them and the innkeeper, who told them they could have their pick of rooms. They climbed the creaking stairs, Killian taking them two at a time
"Why did I let you drag me here?" she grumbled as she stepped on the landing behind him.
He spun and put a hand on her waist. "Where's your sense of adventure?" he asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he took in the portraits lining the walls behind her.
Not waiting to hear her answer, he turned and made his way down the hall, taking in the furnishings and the tremendous amount of yellowed white lace covering most of the flat surfaces. He could hear her following on his heels, her hand grazing the back of his arm and he slowed a moment to allow her to cling to him as a clap of thunder rumbled in the distance.
He eventually settled on the room at the end of the floor, windows lining two of the walls with a rocking chair tucked in the corner between them. The bed was small, they all were, but the quilt that covered it felt thick and soft. He could see Emma in the room across the way, staring down a porcelain doll propped atop one of the dressers.
He stopped downstairs to have a brief conversation with the innkeeper before he retired for the night and then retrieved their bags from the car just as the rain came down in a deluge. Dropping her bag off, he found Emma had turned all of the dolls face down in her room. He bit back a laugh and asked if she might join him downstairs for some cards once he had a chance to towel off.
She sat close as they played a few rounds of Gin Rummy, the wool of her sweater grazing his forearm just below the roll of his sleeve each time she picked up new cards room the deck. He talked as they played, telling her some of the stories he had read about along with some of what the innkeeper had told him. Emma remained quiet, but hummed occasionally as she laid out her card melds.
He practically had to carry her up the stairs by the time he was ready for bed. When they were done with cards, he had pulled one of the books off the mantel of the parlor's fireplace, thumbing through its pages as she nodded off beside him. He'd encouraged her to go upstairs earlier, but she refused and sank down to lay her head in his lap as he read on.
It took everything he had not to wind his hand in her hair, or kiss her goodnight when he left her at her bedroom door.
"Nothing will happen, Emma. It's just an old, creaky building. I'll see you in the morning," he whispered instead, squeezing her hand before turning to his own door.
"Sure," she responded wryly and shut her door.
He wasn't sure what time it was when he woke, only that it was still dark and he could hear the steady drum of the rain falling on the roof. Oh, and that Emma had crawled into bed with him at some point and was trailing her hand along his side and to his stomach.
He took a moment, trying to keep his breathing even despite each crackle of electricity that followed the sweep of her fingertips along his skin. This should be weird, having her here with him, but it wasn't and he wondered if he were still sleeping. It was only the weight of her hand as her fingers traced the line of hair on his stomach that assured him that she was really there.
"Scared, love?" he murmured, nosing at the strands of her hair bunched between them on his pillow. He moved his hand between her shoulder blades, tightening his hold when she stiffened and then relaxed against him.
"No," she replied and slid in further against him.
He moved to clasp his hand over the one she had laid just below his breastbone.
"Just wanted to say hello, then?"
"Something like that," she whispered, resting her head against his chest.
He let the silence wash over them, conflicting hopes that she would drift off and that she would lean up and kiss him warring in his chest. He knew she was still awake as she tensed as another clap of thunder rolled over the sky above them, so before he could talk himself out of it he tilted his head and pressed his forehead to the top of her head.
"You know," he said, smoothing his thumb over her own. "I quite fancy you when you aren't irritated with me."
He felt her smile against his chest and her hand shift beneath his so that her fingers threaded in his chest hair. "Clearly," she teased, slipping her knee between his thighs with a roll of her hips, "I feel nothing in return."
He laughed as she angled her head and pulled him down into a kiss.
In the morning she was still there, naked, her back pressed to his chest. He slid his hand over her belly, continuing to relish in the fact he had permission to touch her.
She hummed and moved her hand over his, guiding him down to rest at the apex of her thighs.
"We should be going," he mumbled, but drew a finger down, parting her open to him.
"Uh huh," she replied with a pointed roll of her hips. "We will."
"Truly, Swan," he said, clearer this time but continuing to rub lazy circles into her skin. "I don't think this is at all what they had in mind for our day's team-building exercises."
"Probably not," she answered as she once more covered his hand with her own, pressing his fingers to slip inside. "But I think it will drastically improve my outlook if you gave it a try anyway."