"So, Mr. Jones. This is quite a work you've got here. Care to share how this all came about?"

"Did you mean the story, or the book?"


Once upon a time, on a Friday morning:

Apartment 3b

It is 7:00 am. There's a tap clack tap clack across the wood flooring of the corridor, and it is loud and steady enough to use as a beat track for a remix. An interesting thought, certainly, except that it's seven-bloody-am.

Oh hell.

Killian counts twelve steps supposedly but he hears her burst into the living room in only nine and a half, her long strides telling the short story of his impending demise. He closes his eyes, pulls the laptop screen down, and mentally prepares himself for a shock of—

"Killian! KILLIAN! What the hell—"

She enters his small study area with all the fury of hades itself. Bloody hell indeed. Since she is his sister, he expects nothing less, of course.

"—is wrong with you?!"

He swivels rather slowly in his computer chair, his face contorted on an already preemptive wince.

"Is this a terrible time to say I love that skirt?"

"What the hell is this?!"

She holds up a piece of paper and shit, it is exactly what he was hoping it wasn't: a printed copy of her itinerary for today. She wasn't supposed to discover that until later, damn her anal tendencies.

"That, I believe, is the product of a lengthy processing of trees—"

"Don't play coy with me, Killian. You changed my schedule for a… a…" she looks at the fine print somewhere in the middle of her office schedule, "a dentist appointment." She pauses, looks at him, the definition of Are You Shitting Me brilliantly captured by her poker face. "A dentist appointment. Good god—"

"Well, I'm no dentist, but if you need a doctor," remarks Victor Whale, the walking dead that happens to be Killian's flatmate. He emerges from the shower with nothing but a towel and a look that is as lecherous as a sleep-deprived surgeon can be, eyebags paired with an attempt at a cheeky grin. Even without sleep, the man has a compulsive radar for opportune flirting, and this is why he is Killian's friend. Kindred spirit and all.

"Not now, Victor," she shushes him, eyes not even caring enough to flit to his form. Victor shrugs and proceeds to the kitchen, dripping all the way. Killian mentally notes to scold him later for this habit.

"Kindly explain this," she says as she flicks the page onto the desk in front of Killian, eyes positively glowering with something not 'kindly'. "And I'm not going to warn you a second time."

He sticks his tongue in his cheek. Ah, bloody hell.

"And what makes you think that was my doing in the first place?" he replies, a resolutely smartass smirk on his face, effective of his second motto in life: swagger is when all else fails. (His first motto is more a name than a motto, so it doesn't really help him right now.)

She looks at him. The intent in her eyes is one of murder. The kind wherein they don't find the body.

Irene Jones has never been known for her patience. Cunning, yes. Intellectual prowess and devilish ways, yes. Her nasty tendencies for powerplays and incredibly successful track record in the New York Investment Banking world, very much so. Not to mention her rather dominating personality; they say she's got more balls than the United States sports industry, and she's not even American. But her patience?

It is about as long as Killian's average relationship status. Which is to say, short enough to be virtually nonexistent.

Killian sighs, his fingers fly to the bridge of his nose, heavy with the weight of trying his best to care for the people he loves without them ever (ever, ever) knowing.

"I want an explanation," she demands. "Now."

He flashes the smile of a five-year-old little shit who does not regret his hand in the cookie jar one bit. This tactic is going to get him castrated, but he is nothing if not committed.

"Well, dear sis, I thought you could use a whitening regimen. I do believe your pearly whites would benefit from a regular upkeep of shade."

From murderous to positively psychotic is what she looks like.

She levels him a glare, but with a warning smirk (brother dearest, she seems to say…), a tick on her jaw (…I will be back for your bloody corpse), then she's turning on her heels, clearly not in the morning mood to deal with his little shittiness. "Liam will hear about this!" she calls out as she crashes the door closed so hard that the ceiling visibly shudders.

Killian winces even more. Ah, Liam.

Being the middle child, Killian has always been the odd man out in their little family. While he does his best to take care of poor little sis and make sure she isn't causing too many international crises, the woman can obviously take care of herself. Even more their older brother, Liam, who is as straight-laced as the stick up his arse, as Killian had once put it. While Killian shares with Irene some sort of ancestral impulse for actively seeking out opportunities to be an ass—which lead to either 1) almost-wars with small countries (her) or 2) getting into hissy fights with the bloody British monarchy (him)—he also shares a love of good form with his brother Liam.

He's grateful for their support, despite the many times he has royally (no pun intended) fucked up his life. Still, between the three of them, Killian is the black sheep.

He's not exactly the brimming picture of bright success.

"Why'd you do that, anyway?" Victor comes back into the room with a soda, still dripping wet in his towel. "Dentist appointment? That's… " he takes a sip as he looks for the right words, "pretty lame. Even by my standards."

"I didn't like the look of the git she was scheduled for a date with. What the bloody kind of name is Walsh Oz anyway?" he replies, stoic as he turns back to his laptop. "Her company-mandated dentist appointment was long overdue. I merely pushed for the date."

"You check on her schedule?" Victor is thoroughly amused.

"I keep tabs," he brushes off.

Actually, it's more like Walsh was the guy who had proposed to and broken the heart of one Emma Swan and I've since decided that the man is not to be trusted and will be monitored closely by me to ensure that he will never again disrespect the woman I've hopeless fallen for, or any consecutive women thereafter, most especially not my sister, but he does not say this.

He also does not say that he has Walsh's social security number, for "safety purposes".

Victor nods. 'Walsh' does sound more like a brand of stove.

"Wait, how did you even—"

"Company systems, mate. If it can't keep me out, I'm not impressed. Then again," he says, typing, "hardly anything can keep me out these days."

"Oh, I forgot," Victor says with a shrug. "You're a pirate."

"That I am."

It's not that he's proud of his work as one of the best pirates in the digital era, it's that he's one of the best damn pirates in the digital era. After his brief stint with the Royal Navy (uncanny as it is), Killian Jones aka Captain Hook, so named after that worm (Hookworm) he had created several years ago, cooking up a storm and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage with the shittonne of copyrighted material he had "acquired". (Looting was the term they had used, at which point, Killian had looked very pleased and then had proceeded to commend the opposing council for owning a thesaurus. Liam couldn't help the facepalm, and in front of a discreet number of journalists, no less. The newspaper picture of him and his brother, facepalm and all, hangs framed above Killian's desk to this day.) Liam had near shit himself from all the trouble of having to keep Killian from a 20-year sentence, he was just short of calling in a favor from the bloody Queen of England; Irene had to change her name just so she wouldn't go down with the ship, so to speak. It was a modest talk of the town, the kind that died a few weeks after it was over.

But that was what seemed to be a lifetime ago, after the whole Milah debacle. Killian is a reformed man.

Perhaps a certain bail bondswoman neighbor has something to do with it.

(Actually, it's more like Killian is a man whose newfound purpose in life is to live for a certain blonde neighbor, who happens to be his best friend, in the hopes that someday she'll fall in love with him even though he's kind of shit at the whole thing since said neighbor is fucking his college best friend and so, all he can really do is a tentative list of ex-boyfriends and their social security numbers, current whereabouts, credit card purchases and federal records, no big deal.)

Nowadays, he's taken to singing quietly in pubs, writing songs (on occasion; there can only be so many words that rhyme with "green eyes", "golden hair" and "cinnamon"), and hacking scoundrel businesses that are run by scumbag directors. Nothing too big, though, since getting sniffed out by the feds can be a real pain.

Victor gives a shrug while Killian continues to browse through the transposed chords of a Taylor Swift song, because Robin is a dick who makes sure Killian makes good on his promises.

Apartment 4a-b-c-d

Regina Mills, CEO of Storybook Holdings, Ltd., is nothing but professional.

And her profession? Power.

She will never tire of the wonderful, wonderful fear that she sees in people's eyes when she would clack her way down the office, or up the elevator, or even to get a bagel outside. There's something divinely inspired about wielding power; it's terribly better than sex, if you would ask her, and that's saying quite a lot.

It certainly gives better returns.

But she's is getting real tired of the terrible acoustics by her bathroom window, when the sidewalk singer four floors down starts his early morning—early morning, for christssakes—acoustic concert. It was a stroke of nasty luck (or maybe the unholy influence of Mr. Gold, the evil bastard) that her apartment renovations had put her bathroom window right by the alley that reproduces sound like a goddamn boombox.

She nicks herself on the shin, shaving in her bathtub, as the disembodied (but husky, and maybe hot… no Regina shut up) voice suddenly hits a vibrato high as he sings Bohemian Rhapsody and that. is. it. This is the last straw.

"Damnit," she mutters as a small drop of blood falls on the foam of the bathtub. In indignation upon realizing that she won't be able to wear her Versace to the gala later, not with a nick on her otherwise flawless legs, she stands up suddenly, the sudsy water sloshing in the bathtub. She opens her bathroom window and pops her showercapped head outside to scream "Hey! Some of us have actual lives to live! Stop singing or I'll cut your tongue out!"

The singing abruptly stops.

"Thank you," she says, not anymore a yell because she can't believe that she's been living with that terrible sound for weeks now, and all it took was a simple…

The disembodied voice comes back with a vengeance, singing "Bad Day".

She will end him.

Ground Floor

Robin is what you could call a free spirit, content with nothing but the six strings on his back, and his wonderful skills as a security consultant provided quite freely to those who need it. Of course, his felony record was never quite the handsomest list, but what he has in quantity is also quality, if he does say so himself.

So when the woman upstairs starts to yell at him, and he certainly doesn't know what for—he's gotten nothing but smiles and loose change from this lovely community since he got here—he replies with a song and a hope to put her back into a good mood.

Ah, well. The lady probably just hasn't gotten laid in a while.

Well, neither had he, but that's irrelevant. What is that, after all, when compared to music… a poor comparison, he knows, but he'll stand by his ground nonetheless; he doesn't need a woman (certainly not such an evil queen) to tell him what to do, no sir. Not what he can do with his voice, and certainly not what he can do with his tongue.

(He snickers because damn, if that voice didn't remind him of the pair of impeccable legs, hair like the night, and the gorgeous ass—etsthis is not good Robin stop…)

He's got his Merry Men, his Roland, and his guitar. Life is good.

"You had a bad day… thank you, Belle!" he calls out when the young brunette places a twenty in his open guitar case. The librarian had been one of his more friendly listeners since his stay around the area, and more than once, she's taken to babysitting Roland while he tended to his bar right across the street, the Merry Men (formerly the Jolly Roger).

"You're welcome. Hey, have you seen Ruby? I saw her panicking earlier."

"Ruby… oh, you mean the lass with the…" Robin, at a lack for descriptors, gestures towards the whole of his face, "…the red, sort of, situation?"

"Yeah," Belle replies. Ruby does so like red. (This is an understatement.)

"No, sorry. Haven't seen her."

"Oh, okay. It's just, I've never seen her up so early, so I was concerned. She was in such a hurry, I think she mentioned that she locked her other phone in the flat. And she mentioned something about some lunar eclipse, not sure… something about how today's going to be different or something…"

"Everyday is different, Belle. It's just up to you to determine how."

"Ah, there you are again." Belle rolls her eyes. "You sure you're not a poet?" Belle's smile is alluring and maybe a little cheeky, because maybe Robin isn't the subtlest of creatures. Maybe.

"No, Shakespeare I am not," Robin replies, a bit flustered because he has been working on more than the usual amount of songs lately. "Haven't found my muse yet," he lies. Well, kind of. Truth is, he has found his muse. He just hasn't mustered the manly parts necessary to actually talk to her yet.

If possible, Belle's smile grows even more ridiculous.

"Well, you know… lunar eclipse," Belle ends with a wink.

Apartment 3a

The faint ringing of the phone stuck between her head and shoulder is as infuriating as the way her stubborn leather boots refuse to cooperate with her feet today. Emma Swan huffs a lock of hair off her face… just in time as she falls sideways on the floor of her bedroom, trying to fit muscled calves inside what seems like the size of a toilet paper tube.

"Damnit!" she huffs. What the hell happened to these boots? She just bought them yesterday!

"Hey, you need help with that?" she hears Neal groan on her bed, half-naked and quarter-awake.

"No, I—ugh—I got it," she replies. Though, between her and the boot, she is clearly losing. (What a metaphor for her sad life.) She rolls her eyes when she hears his noncommittal "k", and even then, she knows he's halfway back to sleep.

It's not like she planned for these kinds of things to happen; it's just that it's Neal, and he's like that Taco Bell obsession: get a craving at 1 am in the morning, but it's unhealthy, it's not good for you, it's not something you want. But damnit, he always shows up at her door and it's like he's purposefully shoving it in her face that this was originally his apartment, and that he didn't really want to break up with her, and did she miss him, and that he wants them to be together again and he's sorry, he really is and all that sappy bullshit.

And, well, it's like pizza. Even though it's not that good, it's still pretty good.

Better than nothing, at least.

God, when the hell did she become this person?

It's too early in the morning for this. So, very early, in fact, that magic (or something faintly similar) has wormed itself into her inner workings, compelling her to take that one step she has never dared to take before:

"Hey Neal?"

"Mhmm?" he groans, clearly still partially unconscious.

"Do you love me?"

"Mhmm?"

She sighs because he's not paying attention. If she were smarter than this, she should have taken it for the answer that it actually is.

The phone keeps ringing, and only she can hear.

"Neal?"

"Mhmm?"

"Answer me."

"Sorry, what was that?" he says, now half-awake rather than just a quarter.

"I asked you if you love me," Emma says, from where she is still lying on her side on the floor, fingers still poised over the zipper of her boots, head still awkwardly tucked into her shoulder, cradling a call that no one is answering. She has an up-close view of the leg of her side table. It's got a lot of hair stuck underneath. Gross.

She can hear him grow something like self-awareness, but she doesn't hold her breath.

"Water you talking about, of course I love you," he murmurs dismissively.

It's about the same time she hears him that the ringing on the phone on her shoulder stops.

"Hello, this is Ruby Lucas. I'm not really here right now, but if you wanna, leave a message after the beep!"

"Did you take my boots? Because I swear to god—"

"Whoa, whoa, Emma, I didn't take your boots…" Neal says, suddenly defensive. But she's not talking to him. She stands up and discards her fight with the red leather, smoothening her skirt as she continues to berate Ruby, on record, for accidentally switching up their footwear. Ruby probably mistook her new boots for her old ones.

It was a mistake. We all make mistakes.

And Neal just lied to her right now, but whatever, right?

Just then, Ruby picks up: "Emma? Hey Emma, sorry, but I have teency favor to ask…"

Emma listens to Ruby, and all thoughts of humanity making tolerable mistakes go flying out the window.

"….Ruby, I am late, but I am going to kill you," are the last words out of Emma before she shuts her phone and hurries out the door. Neal is still three-quarters-awake, but if he had been paying attention, he would have told Emma that the keys to her buggy are left on her side table.

Oh well. Fate works that way.

~.:.~

The apartment is scuttling with people at around this time of the morning. It's just shy of 7:30 am, and see, there are several issues that the people of this apartment have to deal with:

Issue #1: Teeny Tiny Elevator

Emma rushes out, shouting for someone to "Hold the elevator please! Hold…" because her room happens to be the farthest along in the corridor.

(It is worth to note that no one takes the stairs because Leroy and his band of brothers—like, the six lot of them, bless their mother's poor soul—usually camp out at the stairs and leave a right fucking mess of McDonald's burger wrappers, straws, food stuffs, etc. The last time someone had tried the stairs, poor Mother Superior, she had slipped and fallen terribly on a whole splotch of condiments. Such an unholy amount of ketchup was involved that Tink had been rendered unconscious at the sight. It was safe to say, then, that the stairs are not the preferred route during the daily morning rush.)

Dr. Hopper sticks his umbrella out to keep the doors from closing, so Emma can hurriedly squeeze herself somewhere within the tiny box.

The Sound of Music plays in the background as the elevator groans slowly downwards, slowly, slowly…

"The hills are alive… with the sound of music… ah, ah-ah ah…"

Belle is in the corner, cramped in the 90-degree angle along with Dr. Hopper, who is carrying Pongo, whose tail is swishing happily by Sneezy's face, who is trying not to eject mucous all over Granny, who is carrying a rifle carefully pointed upwards, right next to a particularly stoic Mr. Gold, who is staring at Belle (of course) while sneaking glances at Cora, who refuses to acknowledge the other people in the small space. There's Victor, right beside Graham, and both their aftershaves are clashing horrifically against Irene's nostrils, but she's too preoccupied with looking fantastically lesbian to give either man a piece of her mind. There's Ariel, lovely Ariel, who manages to smile at one of the maintenance guys beside her. (Emma tries to recall what his name was, but she did associate it with the weather… or season or something.) All in all, the elevator is like a square can of sardines, nothing more than the usual.

When finally the elevator groans to a stop, after the usual prying open of its doors, it spills its contents onto the ground floor. Everyone in their own little stories and lives and places to be and things to do. Emma proceeds to the basement parking, but it's only once she's reaching towards the door handle of her "pee-yellow" buggy (as her son so fondly describes it) does she realize that she's an idiot.

God, I hate myself.

Sighing, she calls the one person she is close enough to ask a favor from, this early in the day.

~.:.~

Killian Jones, man of principle that he is, never picks up his phone before 10 AM. 11, if it's the weekend.

That is, unless it's ringing that ringtone.

The sound of his assigned tone for her cuts him short of "blew me to places I've never been". His heart short-circuits. (It usually does, when it comes to her.) He smiles when he realizes what time of the day it is, and picks up before the second ring.

"You do realize what time it is, love," he answers.

"I know, I'm sorry. It's just… I don't wanna go back upstairs."

There's a subtle tiredness in the stretch of her syllables, but he smiles anyway because it's her voice. He sets his guitar aside, stands up to go to her apartment before even asking: "Ah, forgot our keys again, didn't we?"

"You know me so well."

"Well, I did tell you, love. If you'd just live with me, I'd be able to remind you." He cuts it short before adding every morning that would I wake up next to you, if you'd let me.

"You and Victor every day? I think I'll pass, thanks."

He locks up his own apartment as he saunters next door to hers. (He wants to tell her that Victor was never part of the equation.) Alas, she hangs up with a brief "thank you", and he feels another jolt take hold of his heart.

Ah, love. Quite the nasty little condition he has.

He opens her apartment with the spare key she's given him, only to find out it's not locked. He walks on inside like he owns the place, proceeds to the bedroom where she always keeps her buggy's keys on the bedside table (and a damn miracle she doesn't actually have Alzheimer's, seeing as she forgets them even though she wakes up next to them every day). He stops short when he sees the man right inside her bedroom.

"Oh, hey, Killian," Neal says, shirtless and zipping up his pants just as Killian reaches the doorframe. And just like that, he's dosed with reality.

Ah, love. Truly is a bastard of a condition.

"Neal," sounds outstandingly neutral as neutral can be. Of course, he already knew Emma and Neal were a… thing, in the remotest of sense, but to see a visual reminder that these two people, his college best friend and the love of his pathetic life, have been sharing a bed together is like having a fork duck-taped to your hand, then plunging it inside a live electrical socket.

It's not bloody agony, not at all.

"Did Emma let you in?" Neal asks, looking around for his discarded shirt.

"No, she, ah…" he picks up the buggy's keys from her side table and holds it up to Neal as an explanation, flashing what he hopes is an acceptable smile.

"Ah, I see," Neal says. "She always forgets her car keys."

"Aye. That she does," Killian replies, but what he doesn't say is If you knew that all along, why didn't you remind her?

"Wait, so, she called you to bring her keys? Why didn't she call me?" Neal suddenly asks.

…Good question, mate.

"Must've not wanted to disturb you," Killian offers, giving the other man a pat on the shoulder.

"Huh. Yeah. She's nice like that," Neal says, clearly placated by the thought, and he continues to rummage around for his missing shirt. Killian starts towards the door, but the insufficiency of the word "nice" to describe Emma Swan has him turning on his heel, midstride.

"Neal?"

"Yeah?"

"I've got a question for you, and please, don't take this the wrong way, mate, but…" he hesitates, but not long enough for his common sense to catch up to him:

"Do you love her?"

Neal is, understandably, choked by the query. "Sorry, what?"

They are close enough that Neal would know he's not being an ass, as he usually is. They're practically brothers; forged by their fathers' very apparent lack of parenting skills, and lack of presence in the general sense. College studs with deep, familial emotional scars must stick together, after all. So it's just a question. A non-threatening—almost gentle—question from one friend to another. That is all.

"Emma. Do you love her?"

"You know, it's funny, 'cause that's the exact same thing that she asked me this morning," Neal replies, going the safe route and avoiding the question when he finds his shirt and throws it over his head.

Killian manages a tight smile before going on his way to give Emma her keys.

~.:.~

He gets to the basement and sees her there, arms crossed, leaning on her "piss-yellow" buggy (a term he had accidentally dropped around her son, and it had been an enduring inside joke between him and the lad ever since). She smiles when she sees him approaching, a small upward quirk of her lips that he has come to know as the smile she reserves for him. It says I don't want to seem too grateful but I appreciate you anyway.

(It's not exactly I bloody love you, but when it comes to Emma, he will take what he can get.)

"Thanks—" she reaches out for the keys he's dangling, but he quickly pulls them out of her reach.

"You know the rules, Swan," he taunts, and he thinks that her succeeding change of expression is utterly adorable.

"Um, no I don't? What rules?" She reaches for the keys and misses again, her expression sour. He does so love that he's that much taller than her.

"Aye, well, you disturbed me during a particularly productive period of artistic expression. Also, I'm not your cabin boy. So I've taken it upon myself to"—she makes another go at it; he smiles brightly at her attack on his personal space—"make sure there's something in it for me this time," he jests, but she crosses her arms.

"What do you want, Hook?" sounds tired all over again, sharpening a dull ache he didn't realize he was feeling. At once, all thoughts of joking run away with the wind.

Years of knowing her has gotten him in touch with the fickle ecosystem of her emotional walls, and something has her off balance today.

From the moment she had caught him when he "skipped" bail so many years ago, and every succeeding moment since, he's grown to love every part of her. Even the parts that require careful navigating. Especially the parts that require careful navigating. He's ex-navy after all, and she is his sea. So he steps into her personal space, a privilege he has earned as her best friend, to be used only in emergencies.

He feels this to be an emergency.

"What's the matter, Emma?" he all but whispers, gently placing the keys in her palm without once breaking gaze. He hopes—he knows—she can see his concern. But what he hopes she doesn't see is the longing, the pain, and the tiny, scribbled footnote on his heart, declaring him to be hers for all eternity.

(Or maybe he hopes she does see, for once, the rather large, Emma-shaped hole he carries.)

She doesn't answer, but her expression shifts just a little.

Please, tell me. I don't like seeing you like this.

He can smell the coconut scent of her favorite shampoo, can see the slight dilation of her pupils even in the dim lighting, and he'd give his left hand to be able to move just a little bit closer.

She looks away, and he knows she wants to tell him.

"Is it about Neal?" he ventures, as careful as he can be.

Alas, the sudden smile she graces him tells him he's hit a nerve, and she's suddenly hastily thanking him and going inside her little car and zooming off, and it's not until she's completely out of sight does he realize he was holding his breath.

He should write a book. He'll call it "How to Stay Sane After Years of Pining for Emma Swan." He'll preface it with a spoiler:

You bloody can't.


AN: Posted this a while back, but accidentally deleted it, but now posting it again and next chapter to come. Dipping my toe into CS because I miss writing haha. :) Reviews much appreciated! Bonus points to who can guess the chapter title references. :) Bonus points too to whoever can guess what other show I'm picking characters from haha!

ps. Working still on my others fics which will NEVER BE ABANDONED. :D