Title: Pillow Talk
Summary: Emma Swan talks in her sleep. Killian Jones is greatly amused.
Spoilers: Up through 5x11, "Swan Song."
Characters: Killian and Emma. Captain Swan silliness and sweetness, here we come!
Rating/Warning: K. This is fluff so sticky sweet that marshmallow is jealous.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in their toy box.
Author's Note: Here's a tiny little piece I wrote for Tumblr, because the plotbunny refused to hop away. As is typical of my little flashfics/writing exercises, there's been no editing. Feedback makes me happy! Enjoy. :)

Over the past few weeks, Killian Jones had learned a lot about Emma Swan's sleeping habits.

She had a tendency to hog the covers. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd woken in the night chilled only to find that she'd stolen the blankets and wrapped herself up in them.

She also had a tendency to hog prime mattress real estate. Nine times out of ten, he woke to find himself balanced precariously on the edge of the mattress while she snuggled into him, leaving her pillow and her half of the bed empty.

He found these little tendencies of hers utterly endearing. Even more endearing was the fact that she never believed him when he teased her about it in the morning.

But even more endearing than that was the talking.

Oh yes, Emma Swan talked in her sleep. Killian discovered this one morning as he lay with her while waiting for her to awaken. (What they each considered "morning" was a good couple of hours apart. Killian, who was used to waking with the sun, had come to really enjoy those quiet hours with his Swan cuddled up to him in sleep.)

At first, all had been quiet except for Emma's deep, heavy breathing. Then Emma had shifted slightly, stretching her legs and draping her arm across his stomach with a soft, "Killian."

"Aye, love," he'd murmured, thinking she was starting to awaken.

"You have to hit the green button."

That had brought him up short. What green button? It took a glance down at her for him to realize that she was still fast asleep and utterly unaware that she was speaking aloud. A grin had tugged at the corners of his lips.

"No, not the blue one," she'd mumbled insistently. "The green one. Hit the green button."

"Apologies, love," he'd murmured in response, smiling in amusement. "I'll hit the green one this time."

"Good." And that had been that; after stating her approval, she'd remained silent until she woke.

From then on, every time Emma mumbled something in her sleep, Killian would try to coax a (completely nonsensical) conversation out of her. There was a fine line between getting her to converse with him and accidentally rousing her. (On the occasions he did wake her up by mistake, it was still far enough away from her morning that she was able to drift right back to sleep.)

They had conversations about whether birds liked Pop-Tarts ("I should ask my mom to ask them") and whether kites liked being flown ("Maybe they're afraid of heights"). They had conversations about putting shoes in the dishwasher and about why the kitchen was covered in flour. They even had a conversation where Killian could tell by Emma's tone that in her dream, she was flirting with him but in reality, she'd said, "You should come over and we'll get our umbrellas and bake cookies."

He'd actually woken her up laughing at that one.

This morning, he was trying to decide whether to cook her breakfast when she woke or suggest going to Granny's when she mumbled, "Killian, it's raining."

It actually wasn't but apparently whatever dream she was having told her otherwise. "Aye, love. Is that a problem?"

"The kittens are going to get wet and they're all alone."

They didn't have kittens but Killian knew reminding her of that fact wouldn't matter. "We'll bring them inside before it gets really bad."

"Okay." She exhaled softly and then added, "We should get them raincoats."

He swallowed a chuckle. "Will do, love."

She went quiet after that but she didn't stay quiet. About an hour later, she shifted restlessly under her mountain of stolen blankets. Her brow was pinched and she scrunched her nose against whatever unpleasant image she was seeing in her mind's eye. "Killian," she mumbled, a pained edge in her voice that made Killian's heart clench in his chest, "no, no, no, don't leave me."

Killian winced; it had been a while since she'd had a Camelot- or Underworld-related nightmare. Back then, when they were first dealing with it, the only way he'd known to bring her out of the nightmare was to wake her. But now ...

He turned onto his side so he could face her and began rubbing his thumb along her forehead to comfort her. "I'm not going anywhere, love," he murmured, easily finding the tone of voice he used when trying to converse with her in her sleep. "I'm right here beside you."

Slowly, she began to calm. "There we go, love," he continued. "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."

The tension on her features vanished as she calmed completely. Killian let out a soft breath of relief. Her features completely serene now, she mumbled, "Killian."

"Aye, love."

"I love you."

A touched Killian Jones pressed a kiss to his sleeping Swan's forehead. "I love you, too."