Summary: On a warm evening on the back porch of their home, Killian and Emma catch fireflies for the first time. Post S5.
Notes: For nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable (on tumblr), who misses fireflies. CS with a side order of Captain Cobra Swan.
"It's Wednesday, right, love?"
Emma very nearly startles, captivated as she is by counting the stars as they peek out from behind the clouds. It had rained all morning, and had been cloudy all afternoon. It was the warm sort of rain that follows on the tail of early summer, haze creeping up off the blacktop, heat clinging stubbornly to the curtains, to the car, to damn near every surface in the house.
But now – well now it's clear, bright. The moon is hardly a sliver, settling low in the sky. It makes for good stargazing. That's what Killian had said, when he'd found her sprawled on the living room floor, bemoaning the heat wave and wearing little more than socks –
"Socks, Swan? Honestly, no wonder you're overheated."
"Leave my socks alone. Or your socks, technically."
– and shorts and a shirt that hardly qualified, all pilfered from one of his drawers. The heat tapers off with the last leg of the storm, leaving behind a chill that he'd chased away with one of his thick, cotton shirts set over her shoulders, buttons done up for a change, and the sleeves rolled just beneath her elbows.
"What did you say?" she says, sparing him only a glance before she turns back to the sky, and spots a meteor. She nearly rocks her chair backwards in a rare burst of excitement, loses her train of thought and smacks Killian on the arm with an audible thwap. He sighs, long suffering, before he reads aloud, slowly, as he types, phone tucked into the crook of his elbow –
"Sorry, lad," he says, the tick tick of the touch pad following the sound of his voice. "Your mother is too busy smacking me to answer."
Emma smiles, but still doesn't look at him, hoping for another meteor to follow. "You deserved it."
Killian's phone dings a moment later, and he laughs. "He says I likely deserved it. Good lad." He waits a moment longer and it dings again. "Also says, and I quote, you can't even serve as a bloody calendar, I'm going to bed."
"I want to see Regina's face when he says bloody in front of her."
He grimaces, and tucks the device back into his pocket. He reaches down for the ginger beer, yet half full at his side. He looks over at her, taps his hook along the arm of her chair. She catches hold of it, and turns it into the light, watches it wink and bites at her lip.
"Your boy's smarter than that, I think," he says.
She hums, and turns back to the yard. The last light of day has long since waned, but still the grass glows. It's overgrown, she's sure, especially compared to that of the neighbors – she swears they cut the damn yard to perfection with scissors. But over here, hidden away by bushes and an aging fence, the long, fine, gossamer blades sway easy in the breeze. The hedge is a bit wild, the trellis – once a pure, fine white, she's certain – is chipped, a bit crooked. Slate steps lead to the alley. Forget-me-nots, and a precious little yellow flowers grow up in-between them. Vines creep up the fence, and an ancient maple bends out and over towards the porch, branches scratching against the roof.
It's wild, a little reckless, unpredictable even. It reminds her of, well, her. Some of the places they've been, as well, drenched in shadows, strange plants dancing to a silent tune. And of the man that sits next to her, too, his hook wrapped in her hand and his ear turned towards the sea.
They rest in comfortable silence for quite a while, the restless legs of their rocking chairs squeaking in an uneven rhythm. She fiddles with the tip of his hook, and he gazes up and out, far and away.
"What are you thinking about?" she says.
He sighs, not heavily, just a simple outpouring of breath bookended with a genuine smile. He turns to her, shuffles his feet, the floorboards groaning beneath him. The moon's since climbed a bit higher, and though its light is faint, it casts his face in soft shadows, down under his eyes, up over the bridge of his nose.
"Nothing at all," he answers, truthfully, and she smiles. He turns back to watch the yard, and breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, the way that he does when he means to tell her that he loves her, that she's bloody brilliant, that she outshines a clear night and all sorts of saccharine stuff that never fails to make her laugh, joyously.
But then, a dim, familiar flash lights up in the periphery, and he pauses. She mirrors, and the loss of the sound of the wood rocking and whining makes the night seem to contract around them. Another of the critters – perhaps the very same – flashes, and Killian leans forward. Of all the things she expects him to say, it's certainly not –
"Friend or foe?"
– and so she snorts.
"Foe," she answers, teasingly.
He somehow manages to make a sound somewhere between a sigh and a grunt, as if he were begrudgingly preparing for battle. She wonders, briefly, if it might not be like this ten, twenty, even thirty years from now.
She wonders when she began allowing herself to think in terms of years.
"Killian seriously," she says, and reaches out to stop him. He hasn't quite managed to rock himself out of the rocking chair just yet, downing the last of the ginger beer in one fell – likely painful – swoop. "They're just fireflies. Haven't you seen them before?"
He turns to her, sets the amber bottle on the porch beside him with a flourish. It twirls and twirls for a bit before it settles, warbling with deep tenor and sonorous rhythm, the way only lazy glass on a lazy night can do.
"No, not as such." He gestures vaguely, but she knows what he means.
Not when we're in little enough danger to wonder at what they are.
"They're little bug…things. I think they light up to find mates or whatever."
"Very comprehensive," he teases back. He watches them for a moment longer. Then, "Easy to vanquish, then, I imagine."
She laughs, she can't help it. Killian seems to decide whether or not he should be offended, but then a stray breeze picks up the wind chimes. It's a pleasant sound, she thinks, but Killian, for whatever reason, is enamored. It never fails to bring a –
"Smile," she says, and reaches out to pinch lightly at his shoulder. "There it is."
He grins wider, and leans back in his chair, a creak following in his wake. The fireflies pick back up, a second answering the first. Emma watches them, but then quickly finds herself watching him instead. He leans further and further, brow drawing up higher and higher the more bugs that join the dance, flashing on and off with gentle stops and starts. He rather gradually gets to his feet. It's subconscious, she's sure, but he holds out his hook, keeps it steady as she pulls herself out of his chair.
"Do these creatures…" He pauses when several more seem to join in, hovering by the trellis, weaving in and out of the crooked slats, up and over the climbing roses, then back down again. Their rhythm relaxes, the songs of the katydids grow louder, and Killian takes another step forward.
"Do they exist outside of Storybrooke?" he says, quietly.
"Uh, yeah," she answers. "They're everywhere. Some people call them lightning bugs."
"Lightning bugs," he whispers, to himself. He turns to look at her, then, wry smile on his face. He pulls her closer, until she can smell the ginger on his breath, feel the warmth radiating from his arm, his chest.
"It's a ceaseless wonder to me, Swan…" He stops for a moment, barely a hitch in his words when he says, with a rather dramatic flick of his wrist, "That this realm doesn't believe in magic."
At the word magic – and because he's her special brand of ridiculous – the fireflies light up the yard. She thinks for a moment, tries to imagine what it would be like, to see them for the first time. He's told her stories – long into the hours of night, her chin on his chest, resting on her hands, hair pooling down his sides and tickling at his arms – of all sort of unbelievable critters. Birds that seem to paint the sky with the lights on their tails, silver foxes with precious metals for claws and gemstones for teeth, fish with scales likes mirrors, whales that sang the mermaids to sleep. And yet –
"Yet you're waxing poetic about fireflies."
"Emma," he says, and he takes gentle hold of her hand, pulls her down the steps alongside him. She hops in place, pulls of her socks and throws them over her shoulder. The grass is already wet with dew, droplets that shimmer in the starlight. Another breeze blows by, the chimes sing, and his hair turns over his forehead.
"Emma, love," he repeats. "They're beautiful."
She expects him to elaborate. But he doesn't, and rather pointedly at that. She knows what he's saying – he's said as much before – but sometimes she still can't quite wrap her head around it. That he never tires of these things, that just the other day he was remarking fondly on the tenacity of the dandelions, of all things. They've had this conversation before, on other, less delightful subjects, when twilight turns to midnight and the ghosts pull at her bones, when lingering shadows tell her she's not enough.
And through it all, he's just…
"You're just…" She considers him a moment, tilts her head. She catches the bit of hair that's tickling at his nose, stands on her toes so she can push it behind his ear. She smiles up at him, and he down at her, before she finishes, "Obsessive."
He looks up at the sky, and laughs.
"God, that came out wrong," she says, and rolls her eyes when he snorts, at herself more than anything else.
"I hear you, love." He reaches out, and sifts his fingers through her hair, situating it neatly along her shoulder. His eyes soften, his eyes too, and he says, quietly, "I always do."
She's lost in him for a moment. And she wants to kiss him, wants to feel him breathe, and taste the soda on his tongue, wants to hear the sound that he makes when she scratches gently at his collarbone. But she also wants to see his face when she tells him –
"You can catch them, you know."
He rocks back on his heels, tilts his head so fast she figures he's worked a crick into his neck.
"Really?" he says.
"Yep. You just sort of…" She gestures with her hands a moment before she huffs, turns to catch the one that hovers hardly a step away. She cups her hands, follows its lazy, winding path before it lands, a barely there, pleasant tickle on her finger tips. Its wings seem to breathe, its back –
"Thorax."
"Stop being a nerd for a second, and touch the bug."
– comes to life, lit from beneath with a rich yellow-green light pulsing on some sort of lag time with that of the others. She takes his hand, and presses it against hers, turns and turns until the little thing walks blithely from her to him. She looks up, and she imagines the smiles she sees, full and bright and beautiful, in a much younger face. It stays for a moment, pulsing slower before it flies away, leaving behind a wistful expression on his face.
"I imagine children enjoy this," he says, and he grows even more wistful, turns in a stilted circle before he comes to face her again.
"Oh, yeah, for sure. They catch them just like that, put them in jars – "
"Jars?" he says, and he frowns. A firefly flies between them, and he's momentarily distracted, catching it on his hook, before he looks back at her, the little thing held aloft between them.
"Yeah, jars," she says. "With little holes poked in the lids, you know, for air and stuff."
He hums, watches as this firefly flies away too. He shuffles where he stands, scratches beneath his ear, and looks down at her feet. He chews on his lips, top and bottom alike, and she knows he's caught, somewhere in a memory, can see it in the way his posture falls, the way he tries to make himself smaller, here in the dark.
She waits. For a minute or two, she simply waits, watches the trees – painted black against the sky, wave with the wind. She watches the bats, flying erratically overhead. And she watches the fireflies, winking along the picket.
"Seems a shame," he says, at length. He breathes in, catches another with an easy swipe of his hand. Then out, when it settles, seemingly happy in the palm of his hand.
"To cage them," he says.
"It is." She waits until this one flies away, not before it etches another smile into his face, it's delicate legs tickling along his hand. "I never did."
He looks at her, from beneath his lashes. He catches the wan light, in the glimmer of his teeth, in the squint of his eyes against his smile.
"Aye?" he says, softly.
"You don't put something that pretty in a jar."
"One can hope."
"Yeah, one can."
They're silent for several minutes more. She gradually comes to rest in the circle of his arms. They watch the fireflies blink. She wonders again at what he sees, wonders what it's like to harbor two hundred years of memories, how it can be that the sight of a little, bright bug can draw someone into melancholy.
Then again, she's been known to balk at the smell of gladioli. A drab, funeral flower, she thinks. Something depressing and oversweet. Even growing cheerfully along the edge of a garden, swaying beneath the sunlight or tucked beneath a sprawling oak, they're unbearable. Sometimes, it's only a color – a deep, somber red – or a sound – fire crackling by the hearth, the echo of a car door in the garage. That's all it takes, demons folding themselves in the cracks before the bleed out to play.
"Hey," she says, tilts her head back to nose at his chin. "The fireflies are making you sad. Why?"
He shrugs, turns into her caress. "'S not them, Swan."
"Then what is it?"
"Nothing in particular," he says. "Sometimes I just…remember all that's been lost."
"Yeah," she says, and she means to say more, to tell him that it's alright, that she does the same thing, in the quiet and in the night. But she's sure it's long after midnight, and the longer she rests against him, the further she falls in to sleep.
"Tired," she says, after a moment, and she reaches around to grip at the base of his spine, to rub back and forth until he sighs, long and heavy, like she's pressing the nightmares right out of him.
"Aye, love," he says, and shuffles her back towards the porch, lifts her off her feet the last few paces when she grumbles about the chilly water on her feet. The back door – another ancient thing, ever so slightly lopsided, pale blue paint set with a thin wire screen – cries out when he pulls, and he turns to look over his shoulder. She looks, too, and watches at least a hundred fireflies dance merrily through the garden.
"Lightning bugs. Fireflies," he says, whispers it into her ear, cheek rubbing rough against hers. "Fire that flies."
"That's the idea."
He laughs, breathy and short, before he lifts her again.
"Sleep, love."
She does, before he even reaches the stairs.
It's Tuesday next when they find themselves, with Henry as well, sitting on the porch once more. Killian's sitting on the step, watching the fireflies flash. Henry's rocking an almost violent rhythm in his chair, about ready to bounce off the walls, Emma's sure, with the sheer amount of sugar the lot of them had consumed during and after dinner.
"Hey kid, don't tell anyone that we ate two tubs of ice cream."
Henry gives her a look, and then smiles. "What ice cream?"
Killian cranes his neck to look up at them, leans heavily against the wooden railing, his hair tangling around the little spindles.
"You'll make a fine pirate yet," he says, and taps his hook against his nose, in a familiar gesture, just one of many that he and Henry had perfected during their time spent holed away on the Jolly Roger. She rolls her eyes, fondly, when Killian turns his eyes on her, his brow wriggling ridiculously up towards his hairline. He turns back to watch the last of the light disappear over the horizon. Like the week before, the stars wink to life, even brighter in the wake of the new moon. The grass has been cut, but the little weedy flowers still grow in tufts along the fence, vines still winding their stubborn way under the bushes and along the trees.
Killian's waiting. She can tell. His hand is propped in his chin, and he's humming a dulcet tune, swaying just off the beat. She looks over at Henry, and they share a silent conversation. It's another ten minutes, at least, before darkness truly falls, and the first soft, yellow light blinks lazily on the trellis.
"Ah," Killian says, and he smacks his knee, as if he's discovered some secret. He throws a look over his shoulder, eyeing the both of them with a carefree expression on his face. Emma tries not to dwell on how different he looks like this, how sometimes she hardly recognizes him, for the easy tilt to his shoulder, for the lack of worry cinching at his neck. He casts a look her way, and his eyes soften, as if he knows, because of course he does. She imagines he thinks the same thing about her.
"I wonder," Killian says, as he gets to his feet, and Emma can tell by the tone of his voice that he doesn't wonder anything, that he's half a second away from baiting one or the both of them. He looks up at Henry, and grins. "Between you and I, who could catch the most?"
Henry groans. "If I move, I think I might throw up."
Killian considers this a moment, before he turns his collar up against an errant breeze, and says, "Aye, but would you risk it for a chance at not washing the dishes?"
Henry would, of course, but Emma watches with a smile as he pretends to think on it for a moment before he jumps to his feet, with all his teenaged grace.
"You're on," he says, and the two of them shake hands, like some sort of gentleman's accord.
Emma laughs, sinks further down into her chair. She's another one of Killian's shirts, sleeves hanging far over her hands, arms tucked over her in a bid against the chill.
"Seriously?" she says, and shakes her head when Killian throws over his shoulder –
"Keep time, eh, Swan?"
She grumbles good-naturedly, and proceeds to referee a firefly catching contest between her son and Captain Hook. Emma watches them for what seems like many long, lazy hours. They're subdued, speaking in low, gentling tones to the bugs crawling around on their hands, on his hook. There are so many, they set the yard aglow, in some measure of synchronicity.
Quiet moments, she thinks, in her father's voice, when they tire, when Killian collapses dramatically into the grass, Henry soon to follow, laughing up into the sky, up towards the stars.
Henry wins. He helps Killian wash up anyways.