Title stolen from Evanescence, Bring Me To Life; this was written for my tumblr followers milestone project, based on this anonymous prompt:
"Season 2+ When they find Neal in New York and Emma locks Killian in the closet. They never showed what happened there. Smut please."
I wrote it as a missing scene - as much as I'd have loved to, I didn't see any smut happening here though.
After knocking Hook out and making sure he hadn't injured Gold severely, Emma had left Neal to take care of his father and dragged the still half-unconscious pirate down to the basement of the apartment building where she found an empty storage room. Before he fully came back to consciousness again, she'd handcuffed him to a pipe and removed his hook that was still stained with his arch-enemy's blood.
He was leaning against the dirty wall, still a little unsure on his feet, and she waited, hands on her hips, until he blinked several times and then finally focused his blue eyes on her. When he noticed the handcuffs, he glared at her and rattled them pointlessly.
"Really, now?" he growled through clenched teeth.
Emma was furious. "What the hell are you doing here?" she hissed.
He raised a mocking eyebrow. "And there I thought you were such a clever girl, Swan," he replied dryly, a smirk playing around his mouth that didn't reach his eyes. "I never left you in the dark about my intentions to exact revenge on the Crocodile."
She shook her head and couldn't believe she was actually slightly disappointed. She'd really thought him chastened after his assault on Belle. Well, what did you expect from a devious pirate? "And I thought you were such a clever boy and knew better than to start a fight you can't win," she threw at him.
He tilted his head in that infuriatingly arrogant way. "Oh, I think I just did."
She snorted. "Please. You barely scratched him. Your attack was pointless." She crossed her arms. "Tomorrow we'll be back in Storybrooke, and he'll heal himself faster than you can say Jolly Roger."
He responded with a smile, but again, it was more like a feral teeth baring. "We'll see about that, love," he replied nonchalantly.
"You're delusional, Hook." Emma didn't even know why she was so angry at him; but there was just something about him that riled her up every time.
"Perhaps," he said lightly. "Oh, by the way, I must apologize for being a little..." – he paused to run his tongue along his bottom lip in a quite lewd way and smirked – "...rough on you." In the next second, his eyes darkened and were as hard as polished blue steel, showing Emma a glimpse of the deadly pirate he could be. "But everyone who sides with the Crocodile does so at their own peril."
She was outraged. "I'm not siding with him!" she fired back.
Hook raised a challenging eyebrow. "You are here," he stated.
"I owed him a favor!" she snapped. "And I was trying to save your life!" The moments the words were out, she bit her lip. Fuck, she hadn't even wanted to say that, even if that might have been part of her motivation to accompany Gold, she admitted to herself; the dangerous wizard's words had been an unmistakable threat to Hook's life. Maybe he'd manipulated her, sensing that for some weird reason she didn't want to see the pirate dead. Still, Hook didn't need to know that. But of course, he'd noticed what she'd just let slip; his eyes narrowed a little, and the tiniest grin formed around his lips, this time even bringing a sardonic glint to his damn blue eyes. She went on hastily: "How long do you think you'd have survived? Injured, tied to a hospital bed in Storybrooke where he has magic?"
The ringed fingers of his cuffed hand fidgeted absentmindedly, and the sight of his fingertips rubbing together distracted her momentarily. "So, you care about my well-being?" he asked in an amused voice.
"I don't," she told him flatly and very quickly. "Unlike you, I'm just a decent human being."
He tilted his head again in an ironic nod. "I see," he replied pointedly. "Was it your decency then that made you leave me behind to die in shackles on that beanstalk?"
Damn him for putting her in defense! Emma averted her eyes for a moment, then looked back at him angrily. "I knew you were not going to die," she clarified. "I made a deal with the giant to make sure about that." For some odd reason, it was important to her that he believed her.
Hook smirked. "Out of sheer decency."
She snorted in disdain. "Of course you wouldn't understand. But then, I don't understand your concept either."
He furrowed his brows. "And which one's that?"
She shot angry daggers from her eyes at him. "You lived for three hundred years, just to risk your life like that?" her voice was coated in disbelief.
He shook his head. "I don't expect you to understand, Swan," he replied almost casually, "and I surely hope you'll never have to." He paused and pierced her eyes with his, and for a moment his words reminded her of a feeling she'd experienced once: a red, hot fury seeping through her veins, paired with a murderous desire to end the life of someone, not caring if it would cost her own. That someone had been Regina Mills, and the reason had been her son, Henry, lying unconsciously and on the verge of death in a hospital bed, poisoned by an apple pie made by Regina, intended to kill her, Emma. She knew, if Henry hadn't survived this, she would have hunted the other woman down until she'd have found a way to kill her. For the first time since she'd met him, Emma felt something like understanding, real understanding for Hook and his quest for revenge.
His voice shook her from her thoughts when he went on: "But the thing is... I don't care if I live or die." He tilted his head. "Not as long as I know that the Crocodile is about to take..." – he leaned a little forward to make sure he had her full attention, and uttered his next words with a deathly clarity in his voice: "...his last – rotting – breath."
Emma backed off a little and shook her head. "Is that all you life is worth to you?" she asked, her face aghast.
His grin was shallow. "Oh, believe me Swan, it's really not worth much."
She stared at him in disbelief. "How can you say that?"
He pursed his full lips into a bitter smile. "Because it's true, love. Over the last three centuries, no one has cared about what became of me," he stated in a matter-of-fact, heartbreakingly detached voice. Unnoticed by him, Emma flinched at his words; she knew that feeling all too well, because she'd shared it for a long, long time. Maybe not for three centuries, but basically for all her life. Before she'd found her son and her parents only a short time ago, basically no one had ever cared about what became of her. No one had given a fuck. She'd never voiced that to anyone – because no one had ever been there or taken the time to listen to her – but Emma Swan had always felt like a lost little girl who didn't matter and didn't think she ever would. She focused on Hook again, and he lowered his voice to a raucous whisper. "The truth is," he went on and shrugged, "you see, inside – I am already dead."
Emma felt like receiving a nasty blow to her heart when, all of a sudden, the scales fell from her eyes and she recognized herself in him: all that low self-esteem, the feeling of not mattering to anyone in the world, not being worth anything to anyone, of having no home and belonging to no one, that terrible loneliness – those bitter feelings had been her companions for as long as she remembered. She looked at him, really looked at him, and she saw he spoke the truth. He didn't care if he lived or died, and for some reason that was killing her, because she remembered a different look on his handsome face. That man she'd met in the Enchanted Forest, that man she'd climbed the beanstalk with – he had been driven by his quest for revenge then, too, but there had been also something else in his eyes, in his smile... a sparkle, a glint that had betrayed he was capable of an unbound lust for life, that it was still somewhere hidden inside him, underneath all that leather and bravado. But now she didn't see any of this; it was all gone.
Suddenly she got angry, and with two long steps she was right in front of him and punched him roughly in the chest; Hook cursed and flinched, because his damaged ribs still hurt.
"What the bloody hell..." he growled.
"Stop talking like that!" she almost yelled.
Their stares locked, and he fixed her with an unreadable expression; then, with a brisk move that made her gasp, he grabbed her around the waist with his left arm and whirled her around, dancing an 180°-turn and pinning her against the wall. She was trapped now by his right arm handcuffed to that pipe, the wall in her back and his left arm resting against the wall beside her head. Automatically, she put her hands against his chest, but didn't try to push him back. The seconds ticked away, and she stared at him, her pupils wide, the fury about his self-deprecating words still shimmering in her eyes. He brought his face close, very close to hers, so that she could feel his hot breath brush her cheek. His eyes had changed into a darker shade of blue and she swallowed, her gaze dropping to his lips for a moment before she looked into his eyes again. The air between them was buzzing with electricity.
When he spoke, his voice was a low growl that rumbled up from deep in his chest. "What's it to you if I live or die?" he demanded. "If I burn in hell?"
"Because I know there's more to you than that," she replied without hesitation, without thinking twice about it. Before her inner eye, she saw him bending back, almost falling into the vortex of a portal, when he saved Aurora's heart at Lake Nostos in a very risky move. "I've seen it."
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing. He was so close that their noses were almost touching, and for a brief moment she was wondering why she didn't feel the instinct to struggle against him, to push him away. "And yet," he said slowly, "you had no scruples leaving me behind atop of that beanstalk."
For a second, she averted her eyes before turning them back to him. "I was wrong," she admitted in a firm voice and added: "And I had scruples." She drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry."
The muscles in his jaw twitched, and his eyes were still burning into hers. She had the strangest impression she could feel them reach right down, deep down to the bottom of her very soul. She swallowed hard, and then suddenly, he lunged forward and captured her mouth with his. For the fraction of a second, her eyes widened in surprise before she closed them automatically, responding instinctively to his kiss instead of fighting the sudden invasion. And what a kiss it was – passionate, fierce, rough almost. She didn't know what was happening, but she definitely felt a red hot bolt of lightning shooting right into the pit of her stomach, and as if it had a will of its own, her body arched away from the wall, pressing into his.
When their lips finally parted, they were both breathing heavily, and Emma found her hands clenching the lapels of his leather coat. The fingers of his cuffed hand curled and brushed against her left hip. For a moment, they were leaning their foreheads against each other, both staring at the other one's mouth as if they couldn't believe what just had happened. Emma's lips were still tingling from the brisk, but sensual assault. She bit her bottom lip.
"You do care what becomes of me," Hook finally stated in a breathless, husky voice. "Admit it, and perhaps I shall find the motivation to change my attitude."
Slowly, almost with regret, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Hook," she replied, "but if you're looking for a reason to change anything about your life, you'll have to find it in yourself." She swallowed again – why was her throat so dry? – and added: "Like everyone else of us."
She let go of his lapels, surprised by her own reluctance to do so, and exacted only the slightest pressure with her hands against his chest, and he let her go without any objection or resistance. Unconsciously, she licked her lips as she slowly walked away from him backwards; his damn blue eyes followed her, his expression again unreadable. When she finally turned around and walked towards the exit with firm steps, he called after her.
"Swan." She stopped and turned around again slowly. "We're not done yet," he told her firmly, all the indifference from before gone from his voice now.
Emma hesitated for a moment. "No, we're not," she finally replied. Then she put her hand on the doorknob and threw one last look at him. "I'm going to have to leave you here now," she announced. "We need a head start." Hook rolled his eyes and huffed, although he'd known that this was going to happen – again. She couldn't help but smile. "You know where to find me."
She left the room, the door closing behind her with a soft, determined click; he looked at the stained metal door for a long time, before a slight smirk started to tug at the corners of his mouth. A fiery spark started to shimmer in his eyes suddenly, and he murmured his quiet response to the empty room:
"And I shall."