A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed my last story!
It is a total coincidence that both the CS pieces I've written so far have sleep as a central focus xP In any case - I think there's a lot Emma and Hook need to work out between them before they could ever get together romantically. Nothing like being trapped in the fearsome wilds to bring two people closer together, right?
"Ah- damnit!"
It takes tripping over the same tree root three times before it fully sinks in that they have literally been walking in circles. Emma always thought that that was something that only happened in cartoons. Apparently not.
"I thought," she grinds out as she clambers to her feet and brushes dirt from the knees of her jeans - her hands are scraped and she winces as she flicks away a bit of gravel embedded in her skin, "that you knew your way around this place."
Hook pauses a few metres ahead, seemingly not having heard the thump as she face-planted onto the ground yet again. "I told you - the structure of the land has changed since I was last here."
"Yeah, blame global warming for the fact that we're completely and utterly lost-" she bites her tongue and tries to quell the rising anger. Okay, it's a shitty situation, but there's no need to let the stress go to her head. No need to get pissy, even as with every passing moment mental images of Tamara and Greg dragging Henry off God-knows-where play out at the back of her mind-
"We're not lost," Hook says sharply. Then, at her raised eyebrow, "Perhaps slightly misplaced, but I assure you we have not left the jungle by the shoreline. If we continue on in one direction, we are certain to emerge by the coast. From there we can make our way to the Roger."
"Or we could stay here and wait for the others to find us."
Hook shakes his head. "Staying in one spot out here is not advisable." He begins to walk again; when she doesn't move he back-pedals, takes her by the arm and starts pulling her along. Emma resists for a few paces, hesitant to move deeper into the jungle lest they end up in an even worse situation, but when he doesn't let up she starts moving again. After a few minutes he lets go of her and there's a rather awkward pause.
So.
It's not that Emma dislikes being stuck out here with Hook in particular, it's just… well, that she dislikes being stuck out here with Hook in particular. Since arriving in Neverland, just over two days ago, they haven't exactly sat down and hashed everything out, and Emma's still not sure where she stands with him… and if there's one thing she doesn't like, it's not knowing where she stands with people.
It's like that game Henry used to play with her - if you had to be stuck on a deserted island with one of the Avengers, who would you pick? And she always answered Thor because he seemed like the one she'd find least irritating, his godlike metabolism probably meant he wouldn't starve to death as quickly as the others, and also Chris Hemsworth's biceps much?
But the thing is, at least with Regina they're motivated by the same burning desire to save Henry as quickly as possible, and they've sort of buried the hatchet for the time being, and even Mr Gold is bearable in small doses and they're connected by the loss of Neal-who-Emma-is-trying-really-hard-not-to-think-a bout, plus he probably wouldn't even have gotten them lost in the first place.
Hook's different.
She still doesn't know exactly why he's here, why he's helping them. Since they arrived in Neverland he's done little more than bark orders at them, fiddle around on the ship and nurse his ribs; she tried to approach to talk to him a few times but he always seemed to be busy with rigging or sails or the helm. And she herself was always half-distracted, mad with worry over Henry, trying to focus, wondering if the faint buzzing in her veins she'd felt since the burst of magic she'd used to aid Regina was normal or if she should maybe tell someone about it. She'd noticed, vaguely, that Hook avoided being alone with or even looking at Gold, to the point where he'd turn his back if they were standing within a few metres of each other-
irrelevant. What she does know for certain is that the last meaningful interaction they'd had before the threat of Storybooke going boom was her knocking him out with an umbrella stand right when he'd been about to get his revenge - and she still doesn't get it, can't work out why he gave up just like that, how he can suddenly stand to be living in the same confined space as Gold-
"Swan."
She jerks out of her reverie; Hook's stopped walking, has a hand up to stop her.
"What is it?" she hisses, instantly on the alert, hand going to the gun she still has at her belt - though if her experience in the Enchanted Forest is anything to go by, it won't be much use. "Where are we?"
She realises, suddenly, that it's dark - the trees arch overhead into a thick canopy that blocks out the majority of the sunlight, the whole place smells like overripe fruit, and there seem to be more creepers and roots than there were before. It feels oppressive, as though the jungle is closing in on them, and she finds herself unconsciously inching towards Hook's side a little before she abruptly stops herself.
"We seem to have gotten a little waylaid," he replies, voice stiff.
"Waylaid?" she demands. Continue in one direction, he said, we're certain to emerge by the coast, he said, she thinks sourly. "So we turn around and go back?"
"It's getting late," he glances up and she notices the sky, dappled between leaves and branches, is fading to tangerine and violet with dusk. "Best to seek shelter… Neverland is dangerous at night."
"I thought that was just out on the water?" He'd insisted on dropping anchor both nights.
He shakes his head again. "Worse on the land. I thought I saw a cave back there."
"A cave," she repeats, trudging after him. "Great. Convenient. Very… Man vs Wild."
He glances over his shoulder, looking confused and amused in equal part.
The 'cave', as it turns out, is little more than a hollow between two very large trees. It looks like the sort of place dark and dangerous things would lurk (ie poisonous spiders and deadly snakes and other such delightful creatures), but Emma is long past squeamish by now and plops down without a second thought. It isn't until she's sat that she realises how tired she is, her calf muscles protesting the movement and feet aching. She probably has blisters from all the walking.
Hook lets out a groan as he drops down next to her, hand moving to cradle his ribs. Emma shoots him a concerned glance and he responds with a - slightly strained - grin.
"So," Emma says, shifting to try and get comfortable. There seems to be a rock anywhere she tries to plant her backside. "We're just going to… sit here all night?"
"Ay, that seems to be the plan." He leans back, starts to fold his arms behind his head but winces again and quickly lowers them, folding them around his chest instead. "Much as I have anticipated a night spent in your company, I never thought it would be under such circumstances as these-"
"Ha ha ha." Truth be told, she's relieved he's fallen back into his flirting; the lack-of-banter was starting to become almost disconcerting. "Are you sure this is safe?"
"Probably not. We can keep watches; if anything approaches we'll make a hasty retreat deeper into the jungle. Or up a tree."
She glances dubiously about at the surrounding forestry; there are few low-hanging branches and she is struck by the comical mental image of the two of them desperately trying to shimmy up a trunk while they're attacked by wild dogs or something.
Hook notices her expression and scoffs out a laugh. "Worst come to worst I will be happy to give you a… boost up."
"In your dreams, Hook."
"Not just in mine but in yours too, darling." As if looking up at her from under his eyelashes isn't enough, he proceeds to do some sort of involuntary tongue flick that really should not be as endearing as it is; Emma forces her gaze away.
There follow a few moments of sitting in awkward silence. Emma wonders what Snow and David are doing - if they've noticed they're missing by now. They were meant to be back at least an hour ago, preferably with the location of the lagoon they had been searching for. Her friends - parents - will probably be starting to worry. Might come looking for them, despite the night - she hopes Gold will stop them, she doesn't want them walking into danger.
Hook shifts beside her. "I'll take first watch, you can sleep if you like."
The thing is, she's tired but not sleepy, and no amount of shifting around could possibly make the ground comfortable. After ten minutes of rolling around she sits up, frustrated. By now all semblance of sunlight has slipped away and they are sat in almost total darkness; a beam of moonlight (brighter than back home, she notices idly) shines down through a hole in the canopy, allowing her to make out the side of Hook's face beside her. She registers, vaguely, that his eyes are very blue.
"Unused to the rugged lifestyle, Swan?"
"I don't make a habit of sleeping in caves," she shoots back, a little irritated. The stress is getting to her; it's not even as though she doesn't want to sleep - she does. Would give anything to feel at least a little more rested, a little more able.
"Would you rather take second watch?" he offers, perhaps hearing the odd note in her voice; she nods, wordlessly, and he settles back against the ground. The space is small enough that each of his movements jostles her side and she tries not to react, shifting to adjust the way she's sitting so her legs don't go to sleep.
For a little while the quiet is almost peaceful. A cicada begins chirping somewhere out in the dark and in the distance she can hear the babble of a brook, the faint trill of a frog - a luna moth settles on a branch nearby and it's enough to bring a smile to her face. For the brief few moments she allows herself to take her mind off Henry, Neverland is beautiful.
Then, of course, the moon decides to venture behind a cloud, fading everything into darkness, and suddenly the trickling water seems menacing, the frog much louder than it should be, and she thinks she hears branches rustling and twigs snapping faintly, making her jump and shiver and what if something is out there in the dark-
No, you're being paranoid, Emma. She's never known herself to be particularly twitchy, but this is a whole other world - she cannot flick on a light or turn on her phone to call for help. Suddenly the dark seems very frightening.
Another twig snaps. Her hand moves to her gun, the cold metal reassuring against her fingers, and she wonders if she ought to wake Hook. If he's even asleep yet or just pretending - she can hear him breathing next to her, shallow and fragmented - broken rib breaths - the noise comes again, startling her. She makes to brace herself against the ground but Hook's so close to her that she accidentally grabs his leg instead. She snatches her hand back right away but she feels the way he jumps in alarm, and he's already sitting up.
"What is it?" he demands. Naturally, the mysterious noises choose this moment to vanish entirely.
"False alarm," Emma replies, embarrassed. "That is - I thought I heard something, but I didn't - sorry."
He doesn't seem irritated… doesn't lie down again, either, which only adds to Emma's suspicions that he wasn't actually sleeping in the first place.
"Terrifying places, new worlds," he comments instead, settling into a sitting position next to her. His knee bumps against hers and in the near-total darkness Emma is suddenly acutely aware of the contact.
"Only at night," she replies curtly, unamused by the implication that she is afraid. She is not - well, perhaps a little, but that's spurred on by the stress and exhaustion more than anything.
"It is the aura of the place, here," he continues. "More than any immediate threat. Your world, on the other hand…" he scoffs. "Noisy. Lights everywhere. Those vicious metal contraptions... Your night time is perhaps even more active than the day."
"Did you find that terrifying?" she can't help but ask - she forgets, sometimes, how new he and Cora must have found Storybrooke. If the culture shock of her falling into a quasi-medieval society from the modern world was bad, it must have been even more intense the other way around.
She can't see his expression but there's a grin in his voice when he replies; "Of course not. What do you take me for? I'm an adventurer, Swan. I am a chameleon."
"Cold blooded and reptilian?" she asks drily, and he scoffs again, amused this time.
"Adaptable."
"Yeah, you worked out the gun pretty quickly."
"The…?" it takes him a moment to work out what she's talking about. "Ah! The projectile weapon."
"The… yeah, the projectile weapon- just call it a gun, okay?" The moon chooses that moment to emerge and she jumps involuntarily - she didn't realise just how close Hook was sitting to her. He notices her discomfort and shifts back a little; she awkwardly ducks her head and fiddles with the buttons of her coat.
"You should really sleep," he says after a few moments. "Although if you like the idea of collapsing from exhaustion and my carrying you heroically through miles of jungle-"
"It's my watch, remember?" she retorts. "You should be the one sleeping."
"I'faith, love, I doubt I will get any rest tonight, so I shall take over."
"That's very gallant of you, but-"
"But I know this world well enough to differentiate the sound of a potential threat from a bat or a possum," he points out drily, and Emma feels her cheeks burn but she can hardly argue with that. She shifts around some more, trying to get comfortable and failing, yet again. She feels another wave of frustration - the night seems to be dragging on and on and she can't help but feel like they're wasting so much time.
"Go to sleep, Swan," Hook murmurs. She glares at his dark silhouette.
"Unlike you my skull is not hard enough to feel comfortable using a rock as a pillow."
"Then feel free to lay your weary head upon my shoulder, or perhaps in my lap," he replies easily. Irritated, she rolls onto her back and folds her arms behind her head, staring up - there is a gap in the thick branches above them and she can see the starts, brilliant against the dark sky - she tries to pretend she is camping. It doesn't work.
"You're sure it's too dangerous to try and move on?" she asks. Hook harrumphs.
"Generally you have to stop talking to sleep; it's like the whole concept evades you..." he mutters. "Yes, I'm certain - we would only wind up more lost, possibly dead in a ravine somewhere-"
"Okay, okay."
Somehow - miraculously - she actually manages to drift off for a little while. But, as has happened the past few nights, the little rest she snatches is plagued by haunting memories - sounds and smells more than images; the roar of the portal Neal was sucked into, Henry's screams as he was dragged away from her, the sharp tang of blood, the heavy, nauseating stench of sardines.
She lurches back into wakefulness with a start, a cold sweat on her brow.
"Okay?" Hook's voice asks gently; it makes her jump. She takes a moment to orient herself, lost in a cave she remembers, and nods before realising he can't see her in the dark.
"Y-yeah. I'm fine. How long was I…?"
"An hour at most." He sounds tired, now. "You need… Swan, you need to sleep." There's a strange note in his voice, an uncertainty that doesn't suit him.
"I'm fine," she repeats sharply. He shifts next to her, arm pressing against her side.
"I know you're worried about-"
"We're all worried about Henry," she cuts in. "I'm fine, Hook, I'm not about to drop dead and leave you trying to explain the body to David-"
"That's not what I-"
"Can we just not talk about this." And she isn't sure why she's so frustrated suddenly, it's just… she knows. She knows she's too wound up, needs to relax before everything comes to a boiling point and she just breaks down - Snow's waiting for it, watches her worriedly every minute on the ship and it's just oppressive, somehow. Because she hasn't had time, above anything else - time to cope with what happened to Neal, time to rationalise what happened to Henry and work out a logical progression towards getting him back - she hasn't had time to deal.
But five pairs of concerned eyes hanging over her shoulder anticipating a mental breakdown really is not helping.
To his credit, Hook doesn't push it, just turns away, and she feels bad for snapping, suddenly. Because he sounded genuinely concerned - which only feeds into the other questions plaguing her. Why.
"If I need to sleep you need to sleep too," is what bursts out of her when she can't stand the silence any longer; it's childish and somewhat irrelevant to the conversation at hand. Hook, though, stiffens so abruptly that she can actually feel his muscles tensing where his side brushes against hers.
"I'm fine." He mimics her tone from earlier, which only serves to make her more irritated.
"Shouldn't you be used to sleeping anywhere and everywhere?" The moon emerges again, stronger than before, spilling spots of light into their cave and turning their skin an eerie, dappled blue.
"Are you having nightmares, Swan?" he's looking at her, head tilted to one side, she meets his eyes and doesn't flinch.
"We're not talking about me, we're talking about you. Why'd you say you weren't going to get any rest tonight?"
"We're trapped in a reasonably exposed space in the middle of a highly dangerous jungle, forgive me for being a little preoccupied-"
"Bullshit."
His eyes flash with something she can't quite identify - not anger, but something close to it.
"Why do you care?" he asks then, in a low tone.
The question stuns her into silence for a moment. Hook stiffens again, as though he's gone too far, revealed too much, and shifts his body around so that he's looking at the floor.
Her move. She doesn't know what to say. The longer she waits, the more tense the silence between them becomes, building, building...
"Did you mean it?" she blurts out. He turns his head back towards her a little. "When you said..." she falters, pushes on, "You were done with revenge against Gold. Did you mean it?"
Critical strike. Hook's gaze drops to the ground again; Emma leans forward, tries to make eye contact- needs to read him. Needs to know.
"Does it really matter, Swan?" his voice is soft but somehow dangerous, it brings her back to Rumpelstiltskin's cell and a withered, dried up, apparently highly symbolic bean – lost hope, betrayal.
"Yes," she replies, keeping her voice steady. "It matters."
"Why?"
"Because," and she's frustrated now, exhaustion building to a pounding headache behind her dry eyes, limbs beginning to tremble with stress, "we're all on that boat- fine, ship, together, and if you two are about to go all Lord of the Flies on each other it affects us all. If something's going to jeopardise my son- my son, he's Henry's grandfather, I can't... I need to know. If I can trust you."
"You don't trust me." She can't tell if it's a question or a statement or why it should even be a question. Of course she doesn't trust him... how can she, with so little to go on? Because yes, he came back, and he's helping them, but she doesn't even trust her family yet, not completely, not even as much as she wants to - she knows they'll do anything for her but she doesn't know them, not yet.
"I… no."
The words settle heavily around them and she feels, suddenly, as though she's failed some sort of test. Hook meets her eyes then, but says nothing, and she feels like she's fallen into some void because she can't read him. Doesn't know what he's thinking.
"Naturally," he says finally, voice tight, and then lies back, shifts onto his side so that his back is to her, and falls into silence.
At least, she thinks, distantly, he respects her intelligence enough to not pretend to snore.
She feels abruptly sunken, as though the wind was knocked out of her, and drained, and very, very tired, her arms heavy by her sides. Leaning her head back against the hard trunk of the tree beside her, uncaring about what sort of termites or critters are probably crawling around in there, she lets out a long stream of breath and waits for the dawn.
A/N: Reviews and con-crit are greatly appreciated! Still not overly happy with my characterisation of them (I seem to be trapped in the stream-of-consciousness style xP).
This will be a two-shot (maybe three-shot), debating whether I should switch to Hook's POV next chapter? IDK
Thanks for reading! :) Hope you enjoyed~