The Prize of a Whisky Bottle

Emma's touch didn't feel the same.

The first thing Killian realized in the moment when fresh Dark One, who also used to be his girlfriend, pulled him towards her in the Rabbit's Hole toilet where the woman had suddenly appeared in her new, a bit creepy way. Last few days pirate had wallowed in the worry this particular woman had caused, and there wasn't a better cure to forget in his world than a bar desk and a rumshot. It seems even that didn't work now.

But even though Emma's chilly fingertips in his slightly redded cheek made a shudder to travel fast through his body and a hand squeezed around his wirst made his scruff to rise, he didn't pull away but let the woman continue her own exploration on his body. And when Emma slightly opened her scarlet lips as an invitation for a kiss, he practically threw himself into it because he truly hoped that it would delete the little, sore electric shocks that transmitted by her lips, and that the kiss would finally work. After dozens of tries the bloody kiss would eventually work. But the lips were still sharp, hollow and hard. He gobbled them more wildly, desperadly, feeling as a flashing waves first Emma and the other moment Dark One in his lap. Even if he tried to hang on in the most familiar feeling, he still lost it again and again.

Then he suddenly stopped the kiss and waved his head.

He pulled back against the wall, shivering. Emma's eyes slowly opened and she looked straight through him.

"You don't say your tolerance is dying down, don't you pirate?" she asked playfully but the joke died in the grayness of her voice.

Killian glanced her and bit his lip. "I suppose I'm going to need more drink to manage this."

An oblique smirk rose onto Emma's lips. "That's not a problem", she said, and in a one wave there was a whisky bottle appeared in her hand.

His other brow rose like itself. He stared at the bottle in the woman's hand and tried to fight back the little, long ago died whining of conscience inside him. He reached his hand towards the bottle but Emma pulled it away.

"A-aa, not so fast. You have to pay for this", she said and the smirk deepened.

Killian glanced her aghastedly. "Swan..."

"But don't worry, this is nothing too difficult. I just want you to come to my place for tonight. I want to prove you that we can still be together", she said.

Pirate stiffened.

And when the man didn't respond anything in her persuasion, she softly continued: "Well, do we have a deal?"

Killian closed his eyes briefly and sweared his own weakness. Then he opened them again just to face the same view as a moment before. A woman dressed in a black sheath dress, and from a thight bun in her nape there were a few platin tresses flowing in her face. She was leaning onto a sink in an attractively way and in her other hand was hanging a bottle that included yellow liquid. Suddenly, as staring her Killian wasn't even sure anymore if the woman was going to poison him.

Then, behind his back, from the door there was heard an irritated knock followed by an anxious voice belonged to a man:

"Hey, others have to get to shit, too!"

What comes to that unknown man his evening ended up poorly, because when the pirate finally grabbed the bottle and at the same time gave in both himself and the darkness, the toilet's door never opened. The gloomy grin in Emma's face only widened when she pressed herself towards her partner who had now drifted away into an open sea, and they disappeared together in a whirl of black smoke.

Emma's house was dark, and the lamps which were slowly lighting up by theirself didn't help it for some reason. The rooms surrounding them felt empty although they were full of expensive furnishing. Killian sighed. There was a bottle appeared in his good hand. And without knowing better what to do next he pulled away the cork with his hook. The drink tasted hot, hoarse and downright bitterly burning. At least he had got something real tonight.

Emma's dress fell into a floor too easily. His metal hook managed the bra too simply. Her skin felt too smooth. Bedsheets too silken. The night too soft.

Platin hair was too bright, he was used to natural blond.

"What's happened to you, Swan", he found himself asking.

Emma looked him as though she didn't understand the question, although she clearly understood. Not even his thoughts were safe anymore.

"I am like this now."

"Why?" he asked nearly painfully.

Emma pressed her nose against his bristle and made the man to tremble. "Why can't you just accept me?"

"You bloody are not like this, Swan."

"Yes I am", the woman said fastly and glanced deep in his brown eyes, "Don't you love me?"

Something felt to break inside him within the question. He stared at the grey eyes, which color he didn't recognize anymore. Then he silenced the flickering answer in his mind with pressing his lips on hers. He did it and hoped once again that something would change, just to realize that he was going to be disappointed again.

"Do you love me, Swan?"

He had to ask.

The question left to hang heavily in air, and for the fist time Emma's body stiffened. Rhythmes of the breathings were quick, and they mixed on each others. The night had long ago intertwined them in its embrace, and they couldn't see clearly one another. Killian didn't notice the difference between a night and a day anymore.

Emma gasped. "Everything comes with a prize."

"Why can't you just bloody talk straight?"

"Shhh... I will answer after you've answered to your own."

"Oh please don't, Emma."

"It's not me who has invented these rules."

Light fingers sinked into black hair, and the argument was silenced by a kiss which felt the easiest option for both of them at the moment. The pirate knew that he had never paid such a heavy prize for a one, miserable whisky bottle.

,,,,,,,,,,,,

Killian awoke from his thin sleep as the memories of the last night ripped him to a consciousness. There was a cold autumn morning wind blowing from the bedroom window. Silken sheets felt strange, and suddenly he regretted everything. He opened his eyes and saw a delicate woman laying in his side. Her essence seemed restful but he knew that Dark One didn't need sleep. In the background there was a whisky bottle in a night table as for a reminder for that the last night wasn't only an illusion. On the other hand Killian was grateful for the bottle. Nowadays it was so hard to recognize the reality from the delusion.

He switched his eyes from the bottle to the woman's glowing hair that was waving also in his shoulders. The small hours made the colour look more pale than before. That only indicated how painfully close the truth they were at the moment.

Killian didn't have to make another deal with the Dark One. He knew the answers to the both questions that were stated last night. The answers whose significance in that moment were taunted by a temptation of a sweet oblivion. He saw Emma's answer in her body's calmness, single-mindedness, in the way her breast slowly rose among breathing.

Dark One didn't need to breathe.

Why would she need to love?

And he also knew his own answer. Silken sheets were more pallid than ever when he slowly rubbed his arm along them close to her cheek, leaving his fingertips only millimetres away from touching. The spell could not been broken. He didn't want that the fuzz wouldn't feel the same.

Belle's recent words were twisting in his head.

It's far easier to hate Dark One than love one.