We start with wilderness/survival + I Didn't Mean To Turn You On. Set in dear old Neverland.
It is utterly ridiculous. He is utterly ridiculous.
But the more she looks at the little halo around him-
"Swan, are you, per chance, done staring now? It's just my bloody aura."
"Doesn't look bloody. Or like what I thought an aura would be. Looks like… a halo?"
"An angel's halo?"
His chuckle is deep and deeply mocking. She doesn't appreciate it.
"No. They put those on icons."
"Icons?"
"Saints."
This time it's a full on laugh – gruff and a little dark but somewhat, almost genuinely amused.
"Well, I can assure you that's not what this is. Or what I am."
"You don't say."
- glowing among the utter darkness of Neverland, the more ridiculous it seems. Not necessarily in a bad way.
Maybe not at all in a bad way.
Emma is convinced Tinkerbell did it at least partially to amuse herself. Surely there must have been another way for Hook to lead them through the jungle during the night without the Lost Boys seeing. He'd pointed it out himself. But the fairy had been adamant. The Lost Boys couldn't see a person's aura even when fairy magic made it visible to everybody else. And neither could Pan. Immaturity, she said.
Emma was genuinely surprised when the golden circle around Hook's head – it's a goddamn halo – became visible to her. She wasn't sure she'd make it into the mature list but lo and behold.
Ingenious as it is, a shimmering halo in the middle of a black jungle is no torch or sensible flashlight. Unless she wants to end up as the midnight snack of the flesh-eating plants Hook was very graphic in describing – the name is pretty self-explanatory really, the details were not necessary – she can't take her eyes off it for a second. Off him.
One of the things she hates the most about Neverland is the fucking weather. If you can call it that. She just sweated her way through the whole day but now that night has fallen and they are finally, supposedly, getting some rest, of course it's absolutely freezing. Even in her boots, jeans, tank and black turtleneck, and with a blanket over her, a shiver jerks her back into reality every time she is even close to falling asleep.
It sucks. It sucks even more because it seems like she is the only one either cold enough or not exhausted enough to fall asleep.
Her parents have it easy, sharing body warmth under their tent.
Regina has surrounded herself with a dozen fireballs, hovering in the air around her. She reluctantly consented to dimming their light – because isn't the whole damn point of not travelling during the night and adoring Hook with a freaking glowing aura to not be noticeable? – and merely sneered at David's mutters about "fire hazards".
Neal – the greedy asshole – is hogging two blankets and has the nerve to snore under them.
And Hook- She looks around, brows furrowing and eyes narrowing to see better in the almost complete darkness. Perhaps Tinkerbell shouldn't have put an "off switch" for when he falls asleep. It takes her some time to make out his shape against the nearest tree – half-lying, half-sitting at its roots. And shivering something fierce.
He looks worse than she feels, minus a blanket, and Emma has no clue how he can stay asleep when she can see his body shaking against the tree bark all the way from here.
She would have liked it if the thought of just ignoring him at least crossed her mind. Just for a second. As it is Emma groans in frustration – stupid pirates and stupid Saviour instincts or whatever – and gets to her feet, precious blanket in hand.
She doesn't mean to wake him, she doesn't really consider that anyone might wake up from simply being covered with a blanket when they've been sleeping through their entire flesh shaking around their skeleton just a second ago. But then again maybe she doesn't have enough experience with hundreds of years old pirates and their spidery – pirate-y? piraty spidery? – senses because, faster than Emma can even gasp, Hook's eyes are wide open, his hand closed around her wrist.
And his halo illuminating the darkness around them.
"Swan?"
His brows furrow in confusion but his eyes and voice are completely devoid of the sleepiness and disorientation that Emma would expect and a part of her mind is stuck on the usefulness of his constant and complete alertness. Another part of her mind is stuck on the sadness of it as well but she does a good job of ignoring that part. By focusing on the glowing aureole.
"I didn't mean to turn you on."
His eyebrows rise high as if in place of the sun that's still hours away, his grin is far too smug for this hour of the night and – ugh, never take pity on a stupid pirate – she sees the comment coming from a mile away.
"I assure you, darling, when you are around, that is hardly avoidable."
Being prepared for it doesn't stop her from rolling her eyes. She doesn't even deign to respond, merely points to his head with a deadpan expression.
It takes him a couple of seconds to catch up and remember his new nightly accessory and Emma would be a big fat liar if she said she wasn't shocked to notice the slight blush that he literally shines a light on himself.
"Ah, right, of course. Bloody fairy magic."
She wants to make a comment, she is not sure what kind of comment. Sarcastic? Not really. Light? Funny? Reassuring?
"Why did you… turn me on then?"
Right. That.
She gestures vaguely at his half-covered form, her movements awkward at best and flustered at worst. Flustered. She is not bloody flustered, she is quite cold as a matter of fact.
"Ah."
He looks her over – suspicious, calculating.
"I appreciate the gesture, Swan, but I'm not taking your blanket."
It's the mix of heartfelt sincerity in the first part and iron conviction in the second that makes her stubbornness rise up – trained and ready to roll.
"I'm not cold."
But she is Emma Swan and it is just her damn luck that her regularly scheduled shiver makes its appearance at that exact moment.
All he has to do is lift that eyebrow again.
She hates his ridiculous eyebrows. And she hates the ridiculous halo that is throwing his beautiful – ridiculous – face into such sharp relief.
"We can share."
If possible his eyebrow only goes higher but there's also a slight slackness to his jaw that her traitorous mind doesn't fail to pick on.
"I'm not sure-"
"Well, I think I know better," she says as haughtily as she can with her somewhat shaky voice. "In the land of knowledge and science, we've discovered that body heat is really the best way to fight the cold."
His mouth curves ever so slowly in the left corner.
"I assure you, Swan, exchange of body warmth is not something restricted to your realm of knowledge and science."
He is mocking her. Softly and with what appears to be a genuine grin on his face but he is mocking her nonetheless. So she grabs her blanket again.
"If you have any other brilliant ideas that don't end up with one of us having hypothermia in a few hours-"
Hook gives a sudden tug to the blanket and for some reason, instead of letting it go, she follows it, nearly toppling in his lap.
"I think I've made no secret of my belief that you are the one with the brilliant ideas, love."
"Well, then maybe you should listen to me more."
"Oh, I listen to you plenty."
They stare at each other, illuminated by the soft glow above them, and she swears they are close enough to smell each other's breath and that's disconcerting for all sorts of reasons. So Emma just huffs and picks herself up before promptly plopping back down.
And just like that arranging things so that she is not nearly on top of him but more like beside him, their sides pressed pretty damn close and covered by both his coat and the blanket, is surprisingly not all that awkward at all.
The light makes Emma a little self-conscious, a little apprehensive that they'll wake the others. But it is because she is so aware of it that she notices the slightly pink tinge that slides over the gold when she lies down next to him.
By the time she has talked herself into mentioning it, the light is dimming – a sure sign that Hook is falling asleep. With his knee pressed to her thigh and his head (and halo) just brushing her shoulder. It feels like it's radiating its own kind of warmth and Emma has to restrain herself from running her fingers over it.
She notices the flickers of blue in it two nights later when Neal snaps at him about getting them lost and not caring that Henry is somewhere out there all alone and a whole bunch of things that are totally out of line but that none of them contradict fast enough before Hook whirls around asking him if he wants to lead instead and after an almost full minute of tense silence mutters "didn't bloody think so" and continues on through the foreboding forest, his light moving so quickly and fading from sight so fast that Emma has to jog a little to keep her eyes on it.
When Regina is taking her turn smothering Henry with kisses and Emma is standing to the side and marveling at the fact that he is here, he is safe – her eyes can't help but note the way the gold burns to an almost orange, illuminating Hook's own satisfied smile.
And some time later, on the way to the Jolly, when Neal has one arm slung over Henry and uses the other one to wave her over – to complete a family that was never one to begin with – she can swear she catches a flash of green zipping through the golden light as Hook makes his way past them and ahead of the line to guide them through the last hour of night.
So it is just a theory and one she is not sure she wants to test – one she has more or less decided she is not gonna test. But then they're leaving and Tinkerbell is there and she is about to turn his aura off or whatever and she just… she has to know.
And sure enough, when she kisses him, there is a whole rainbow of colours dancing over his absolutely ridiculous – beautiful – halo.