A/N: So there I was, trying to work on my other stories, when this prompt just kind of catapulted me into its own little verse. Each chapter will jump around a bit timeline wise.
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Prompt: Fate & Coincidence personified AU
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You Don't Know How Lucky You Are
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"You've got to be kidding me."
It was the loud clanging from the hallway that had done it, woken her from what could barely be described as sleep. She couldn't sleep, couldn't remember the last time her eyes had shut of their own weary accord or when her ears weren't so painfully pricked for outside noises that she'd settled enough into it.
She definitely hadn't been expecting this. For days on end it had been the same routine and that had almost been worse, as she sat within the same four walls, anxiety rising as each moment of nothing built upon the expectation that things would rapidly turn to chaos; that she was simply sitting in the eye of the storm.
It was something she'd come to expect – the quiet moments never lasted.
And in this place, in these dark, dank walls, everything seemed to echo and every tip-toe, every loud or quiet crash seemed to draw renewed anxiety to her nerves.
Tonight was a little different – tonight the rain outside was so loud, so petulant, that those noises that had resounded through the stone corridors were dulled, conceding to the weather. Lightning shot one after the other in quick succession, largely silent and flooding the room briefly with light; the latch on her window was somewhat broken and would not close properly, creaking and knocking with increasing fervour as though the wind was trying to tell her something. She had lain there listening to it for hours, tired and angry and just willing the stupid thing to stop banging.
Yet, through all that noise, Emma's nerves, her anger and all that that entailed, she still heard with perfect clarity the noise out in the hall.
While every noise was a cause for concern, they weren't necessarily cause for curiosity or immediate panic. Every now and then a guard would drag open the heavy wooden door that kept her from freedom, sliding a pathetic serving of food, before exiting with a sweep of black feathers, a sideways snark and the peal of metal armour.
But this? This was different, this was loud clangs followed by long periods of silence wherein she could hear nothing but the sound of rain and very distant thunder.
It was precisely this that had prompted her to sneak – her toes freezing on the flagstone beneath her – out of bed, across the room and right behind the door. The sound of metal in the lock was a new alarm to her system, panic and tension slipping around her neck like fingers and gripping ever more tightly with every pounding beat of her heart; with every chink of the person fumbling with the lock.
And she was tired and fraying round the edges and growing more and more irritable with her situation, that the fear of this stranger held onto her like a grip around her rib cage, each imaginary finger clawing her between rib bone.
But when a dark figure, shrouded in a long black cloak sauntered confidently into the room, instinct took over.
She barely registered her movements, accepting that it was adrenalin that pressed the knife in her clutches against the figure's throat, adrenalin that tripped him behind the knee and propelled him into the opposing wall.
The cloaked intruder gave a low grunt, half in what sounded like exasperation, before turning to remove the side of their face from the wall and face her, back leaning into cold stone instead. It wasn't until she yanked down the hood of his cloak, with a little too much force that it almost snagged on his ear and slid the knife back around his bearded throat, that she realised who it was.
A shock that seemed to mirror her own was lit on his own face, only lit with a curious eyebrow and a surprised satisfaction.
Emma repeated the words at him a second time.
"You have got to be kidding me?!"
"Hello, love – fancy seeing you here."
Of course, it was him. Of course, he was here. He always had this nasty habit of turning up out of the blue, etching his way into every part of her life without explanation.
But if there was one thing Emma didn't believe in, it was coincidence.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
He showed no urgency in answering her, far more content to let his eyes drift over what little of her face he could see in the gloom. It was so dark around them, and yet there was a little smirk playing along a corner of his mouth, sneering no doubt, at whatever forces at play had caused this.
She didn't bother to remove the knife, too mad that it was only him that had caused the tremulous feeling in her limbs and the rush of blood still clouding her brain. Too mad that, of course, he would just turn up randomly, that's all he ever seemed to do.
Even the few heavy breaths she took to calm herself did nothing to alleviate the battering of her heart. And batter it did, the feeling seemed to only worsen the longer she looked at him, the shock of being rudely jerked from almost-sleep slowly blending into something more like agitation – though it pounded just as loudly.
However, he didn't seem concerned that there was a sharp metal object digging into the skin of his neck, if anything he leaned closer to her, the blade deepening the mark on his neck without breaking skin.
She tried - really she did - to keep the scowl on her face, but his fingers had found the ends of her hair, twirling the tresses around and around. The gesture, innocent enough though it may have been, spread a cruel kind of feeling as it brushed her ears, setting off a prickle between and through hairs and over scalp.
Emma did not like it, she was panicked enough without him trying to pull this on her; pull this feeling from her.
(But she couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd seen him, and her skin seemed to know it.
Truth be told, she wanted to chase that feeling.)
And she tried to scowl, but the tickle travelled across over her temples and eased her brow into a vulnerability she quickly blinked away and replaced it with exasperation, her head turning to check the hallway for any other signs of intruders.
"You tell me, Swan."
"Don't start this with me again, there must be a reason why you're here?"
"I assure you, darling, I had no idea the Queen had you locked in here – I was after a jewel. Call it luck, or good fortune, or coincid-"
"Killian, don't."
He chuckles quietly at her, mumbling something about being doomed to disagree, fingers still turning over slowly in her hair, the movements on an off-beat with the rain - and somehow the action becomes less of a taunt, and less of his own fascination, and more about a soothing gesture.
He has always done this, she thinks - distracted her, charmed her (well at least, he tried) into another line of conversation. It was a bone of contention, these random instances (his words) and these imminent encounters (her words).
Because nothing in Emma's life was just crazy random happenstance.
Every moment of her life seemed to be written somewhere, organised in advance by hands other than her own. She was a saviour; a key; a curse-breaker; a pawn in other peoples destinies, in their happy endings. Even her past relationships seemed to hold a greater purpose.
(It was, after all, why she'd been locked in this room in the first place.)
She had fought it as best she could. Fought the responsibility, fought the stress, fought the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her there was a reason for all the dreadful things that had happened to her. But it seemed to be a part of who she was, to see the patterns, understand the connection between one thing and another and to recognise just how she fit into it.
It all made sense to her – except him.
Killian seemed to just show up whenever he pleased, never making rhyme nor reason, and claiming it was "sheer dumb luck".
And she hated it. Hated the way he threw everything she understood back in her face, unintentionally or otherwise; hated just how little sense he made to the universe.
(Except that he didn't, of course. He made perfect sense, it was just that Emma hadn't noticed – too blinded, too distracted. If she'd noticed the clues, gathering in the corners of her life, she'd have seen the latch on her window banging in the breeze and noticed the curve of its over-the-top and uniquely shaped hook shimmering in silver as a kind of premonition. She wouldn't have thought of it at the time, but she could have remembered it later.
But she didn't. And so, she was determined to see how maybe he was right, that maybe it didn't have to make sense – but by the same token, she couldn't possibly allow him to be right; to have the upper hand and strip her of her understanding.
And he fought her on it constantly, never failing to remind her that he makes his own fortune, fighting for what he wants rather than being left docile in the cosmic plans of others.)
And still she held the blade to his neck, all the while his fingers drifting further towards her face and up her neck, the feeling of them grazing and mapping nonsense behind her ear doing nothing to calm her, and everything to stoke her. The fear and adrenalin had only increased, the sudden realisation that now was the time to act, to escape, not to bicker with one another putting a million thoughts into her head. It tried to fade, but each time she looked up at his face there was something in her heart that made it worse.
God, her body was overrun with the noise that leapt into her heart, she could hardly pause to focus on one immediate thing over the other; to focus on him or her escape.
(To appreciate that he was here, again.)
Emma took a deep breath, trying in vain to understand how he was just there, breaking into her room. Staunchly believing it was some kismet thing that put him here and straight into the clutches of her danger.
"Killian, you can't just be here, what the hell is going on?"
This time it doesn't take a beat until he's responding.
"I didn't even know you were gone, how could I not have known you were gone?"
The broken whisper of his voice was the last thing she had been expecting, expected him to fight her as he always did with his cockiness and quiet hands, and it causes her gaze to flicker to his – a mistake.
Even without the string of lightning that still silently lights the room, the emotion is written everywhere in the night-influenced grey of his eyes. It pulls at her, the look causing her to abandon her anger with him and his claims of fluke, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with the need to allay his concerns, his guilt.
And her eyes flicker, breathing becoming unsteady, but really all that registers is the gentle hand on her head that pulls her lips to his.
She drops the knife.
The mad pounding in her chest nearly stops, nearly breaks for a moment to lodge in her throat and choke her – and she doesn't care. He is cold and rough against her face, and when he parts from her lips only to recapture them, she tastes the rain and the warmth within him, and can practically taste the emotion flooding through her system out onto his tongue.
It is bittersweet.
She is still tense, her unease still drilling little shocks from her chest to the ends of her fingers, and she curls those fingers round the collars of his shirts, trying to force the feeling out; trying to steady herself in his hold.
Somewhere in the back of her mind as he pulls her closer with his lips, she is wondering about just how passed out are the guards, she is wondering about the Evil Queen, and how they are going to get out of here; aware of the fact they need to use this opportunity.
And yet…
It is her fingers that reach first, fumbling for the cord that keeps the very sodden cloak about his shoulders, her eyes still closed as she sways with the kiss, with his nose bumping with hers. But she hears the dull thud the drenched material makes on the floor and continues her objective, fingers skimming, pulling and grasping his leather vest, his coat; fumbling through layers of his heavy material.
He barely moves, his hand still holding the back of her head as though letting go was nowhere near an option. She has no idea what his left hand is doing, but she cannot feel it on her, cannot understand why it is only his mouth that moves with her, that bites and claws in time with her anxiety.
But he voices her own concerns and suddenly she understands.
"Swan, we should use this opportune moment to escape, get out of here while we have the chance."
("What if the universe has other plans?" "You mean what if you have other plans.")
It is not entirely a protest, not exactly a refusal, can tell by the tone of his voice that he's trying to convince himself more than anyone else, and she leans back to read his face. His eyes are already trained on her - desperate and angry and reverent. It flusters her, does nothing but encourage the clanging in her system – part adrenalin, part sentiment, part something else.
She should want to escape, and being reunited with him like this, while high on her list of priorities, should be an afterthought she has once they are actually safe.
"What did you come to steal from Regina?"
For some reason unbeknownst to Emma, her banal question is what breaks him.
She can almost hear in the echo of the room how his restraint palpably snaps – and there is his left hand, it meets the cool skin of her back the moment his lips do, ringed fingers crawling underneath the waist of the pants she is wearing, ringed fingers crawling over her jaw with less trepidation, less hesitation.
Somehow his touches create a buzzing, a somehow spellbinding tether somewhere through her middle, reaching from one of his hands to the other, daggering through her heart, pulling and tightening her entire system – she is taut and she hates the feeling. It makes her restless, makes her itch even more than the worry and the lack of sleep, and she pulls at him (and his layers, and his hair) more and more in a mindless attempt to ease it.
He's listening somehow in amidst his own thoughts, dragging his tongue and his teeth down the length of her neck, trying to ease the build up of pressure.
(It doesn't work, it only makes it worse, drawing more and more inner webs with each part of her he touches.)
With a few ill-measured and overestimated steps, they both manage to stumble away from the wall, his hand curving around her behind and into him so fiercely that she finds herself following his legs rather than her own. There is the careful shutting of the door, mindful of not allowing it to slam and alert anyone else in the tower – but after that there is little to no restraint.
Her shirt, the light linen bodice that she'd been thrown reluctantly to sleep in, takes far less time that his layers, but they are eventually all left on the floor, carpeting a path from door to bed; a trail of their indulgence. It would be hard to say they noticed, suddenly very physically wrapped up in one another, all thoughts of guards and jewellery and predicaments discarded much like their clothes and his shoes.
The only evidence of their misgivings is the way their hearts race dually with want and with tension (and with that something else Emma still can't place).
Emma is sure he is as lost as she is, lips barely ever refusing to part from hers, sometimes lacking in precision, but they are both far too consumed with ardour and intensity to care. Her own heart ripples so inelegantly around her body that she can hardly tell if the heart beneath her fingers, buried beneath dark chest hair and weary muscles, is his heart beating at all or simply the fluttering of her own fingers itching for something intangible.
(Intangible, perhaps, but she tried to reach for it all the same.)
And she tries to satisfy that itch with the languorous kiss she places barely under his jawline, and she tries to satisfy it by unlacing his leathers, by slipping her hand between to touch him hardening. His hands, apparently as restless as hers, have suddenly no clue as to where to linger as she curls and moves her palm around him. They – his own hands - move with heedlessness, from her arms, down her ribs, curling and tracing round her breasts, all the while breathing heavily with his nose buried behind her ear – but he loses patience altogether, and with a low, near-moaning sigh, settles his hands beneath each of her legs, throwing her onto the bed.
Then suddenly they lose all memory of where they are. The only reminder seems to be the way her nerves fight and clangour with her emotions and that other thing that rattles and rakes through her body, hitting nerve endings and spun web as they do. But they lose the rest of their clothing, two pairs of pants now littering the floor, and as her legs find themselves up around his hips, his kisses become heavier, washing and drowning her in a kind of dance they've definitely danced before.
Perhaps they do remember with some clarity where they are, because there is little preamble - roaming hands here, aching friction there. She shivers when he enters her in an easy yet tearing slide, biting her lip or his, she's not sure whose it is, gripping his arms, holding onto him and using her nails to mollify that guilt still crinkling on his face.
However, it seems he is still as restless as she is, because he has barely begun to thrust, barely begun to drag inside her, when she finds the pair of them sitting up, his arms and fingers once more chasing invisible things along her sides, lips and tongue moving down torturously between the swell of her breasts.
She likes it like this, the two of them desperate, edgy and gentle at the same time, sitting and cradling and rocking, the hair on his chest a strange sort of soothing scratch against her.
The only measurement of time is the muted clattering of light from the storm outside, but neither of them are counting to know how long they are there.
Emma's inner tension rises, twining and twisting within her as she rides him in an unhurried back and forth, the webs he created vibrating each time she kisses him harder to try to release the pressure within her, piercing through her – and suddenly she remembers what's different, why like the other times it seems worse and more potent.
And why she just can't breathe.
It's not simply the feel of Killian, the careful hands, the roll and sharp grind of their hips and him, hard and sturdy, drawing stuttered breathes from within her. It is not simply the shock, the fear and the concern for what could at any moment be a broken moment. But that growing furling feeling that chases her ill-ease and her feelings, trapping all three things inside her is the leather cuff around her wrist that is trapping and restraining her magic.
It is almost as though Killian hadn't noticed it until she remembers, eyeing it distastefully and catching it in his hand. He bites the soft skin below her wrist and below the cuff with an anguished look upon his face, no doubt tasting the race of her blood, teeth grazing the sensitive surface in a gesture muddled with both anger and compassion (and guilt, there is still so much guilt on his face), stubble and teeth edge sending little buzzes along her arm.
She nearly loses it, nearly feels too much all at once as his hips shift and rut at an only slightly different angle to hit her deeper – and he kisses her once again, lips lingering against her own when actually kissing becomes too much effort. She doesn't blame him, she is also weary and also unable to stop, and breathing becomes even more difficult and harsh, though necessary, neither of them speaking for fear it echoes down the corridor and forgetting that the rain has got them covered.
Killian's fingers move with both force and a taunting scrape down her sides again, brushing the edges of her breasts until one of them changes direction, losing itself in her hair, the other losing itself to where they both meet, thumb rubbing nerves. And she shudders at the touch, keening and subconsciously arching into him, cursing the precision, cursing the timing, cursing how he always just shows up out of nowhere and does this to her (makes her feel this way).
(Is it serendipitous? Or is it random?)
The air in her lungs, that cold, frigid thing around them is a stark contrast to the rest of her body. She heaves it in and out against his shoulder, its intake in time with the increased speed of her movements – but it is this pounding, this heart, this torturous way it meets magic and anxiety that has her absolutely shaking. Her palms find his face, holding it to her own by their foreheads, silently trying to convey further what their bodies also attempt – but her hands are also shaking, everything trying to obliterate her and wipe her out all at once and –
It rips through her almost oppressively, weighing heavily through her and dragging and pulling her with everything she's got until it is gone with the cry uttered in his ear, leaving a weightlessness and a scorching heat in its wake; a tingle and a daze overtaking everything else.
It is also apparently his undoing – the cry and the last tightening of her body – as with a few more pulls and pushes from both of them his limbs ease beneath her with a low cry of his own, face nudging into the juncture of her neck, panting and slowing in a trance of his own.
And despite the looming threat, despite their prior urgency – they do not move. Suddenly, rather than escape, it becomes far more important that they sit there unmoving to wait until they are forced to do so.
(Neither want to be the one to do it.)
(It has been so long.)
Emma for the life of her, for as much as she has waited and planned to be rid of this room, can suddenly think of no where else she'd rather be, with a hand tracing beaded sweat and nonsense on her back. Because she cannot feel it anymore, cannot feel the corked up magic burning angrily through her, cannot feel the anxiety driving her.
(Only one pounding feeling remains, and even it is resigned to do so softly.)
The thunder breaks their silence first, a loud whip-crack making them jump as it splinters through the room, drawing their attention back from the haze and the bubble.
He breaks it second.
(Reluctantly.)
"Want to know something, love?" His voice is hoarse, and once again he traces her face with only his gaze, seeking to understand something not written on its surface. "Of all the times I think that perhaps destiny exists, with you and I like this I think it most."
"With us naked and climbing all over each other? Why am I not surprised."
There is a graceful kind of joy that creases into the edge of his kohl blurred eyes as he laughs at her. As frustrated and angry as she was to see him walk in that door there is no denying, as she thumbs and traces his dimples, that she's glad to see him. There is a feeling there she lets speak, allowing it to whisper a calm into her.
"No, Emma. Just – us."
She nods, agreeing, but averting (avoiding) his eyes and the conversation that they're suddenly teetering on the edge of. The haze of their bubble slowly dwindles further as thunder rumbles in once more from the open clanging window, as though warning them of impending bad weather; warning them that the eye of the storm has almost passed.
"Maybe it's sheer dumb luck."