I listened to a strange mix of things while writing this. I started with some early Jay-Z to get into an Emma sort of badass/angsty mood and ended up with Nick Jonas' new album for the sexual friction between Emma and Killian. I'm not a Jonas fan by any means but that 'Jealous' song is delicious!
*Just a thought on why people end up the way that they do, like Emma: Life kind of has to prove itself to you as a young human. Is the world a good or bad place? There isn't maturity or experience at a young age to help with any situation. Whatever life deals out, a child is at its mercy, especially if there isn't a safety net such as a caregiver and these experiences can shape who a person is and how they deal.
**I do not own OUAT, I am merely inspired by it. I seek to make no monetary gains from it just some heartwarming fun and maybe some smut. Let a girl dream!
Chapter 1
The Pirate Princess
"This is the slowest day ever."
The usual breakneck pace of the café was oddly non-existent on this rainy Saturday. The constant crowd of regular customers who loved to order strongly caffeinated concoction after concoction, on a dreary day such as this, were evidently fulfilling some other vice today. Fat, heavy drops of rain knocked against the windowed walls of the tiny coffee shop like knuckles wrapping against a door demanding entry. It was a soothing sight and sound and could easily induce a meditative state for Emma Swan, if she didn't try to avoid stopping and thinking like that at all costs. No, this open-ended boredom and time for reflection would not do.
"Ruby!" Emma snapped. To sit there any longer would surely let her mind wander to things she knew she was incapable of currently processing. Emma may bottle her emotions and her problems but she was very self-aware of her abilities and limitations. This seemingly benign day would surely send her into a depressing spiral if she didn't end it quick.
"Oh my God, Emma! What's wrong!?" Ruby clamored out from the cramped back room dressed in a boxy cook's apron and oversized plastic gloves covered in what looked and smelled to be tuna salad. Regardless of being covered in food and open-mouthed in panic at the sudden yelling of her name, Ruby was the most drop-dead gorgeous woman Emma had ever known. Her long brown wavy hair was always pulled into some sort of casually sexy bohemian braid and her face and body were that of a movie star or a lingerie model, but physical beauty aside, what Emma really thought made her truly lovely was her oversized, kind heart and her smile that lit up her face and whatever room Ruby happened to be in.
Maybe she had yelled a little too desperately for her friend.
"Rubes, I am bored as shit" Emma dead-panned, playing off her real panic for that of some playfulness born of workday boredom.
Ruby clutched her tuna smothered plastic hand over her heart like a cardiac arrest victim and sighed with relief. "Jesus, Em. I thought there was a fire or a fireman or something worth yelling about! You scared the muffins outta me!" It only took something as silly as losing your muffins to make Ruby go from nervousness to her genuine smile in a matter of seconds.
"I'm sorry Rubes" Emma said in a humble, please forgive me, tone "but please don't leave me out here like this. You know I have to have something to do or I go-"
"Crazy?"Ruby interrupted.
That made Emma bristle just a tinge. Why was it ok for Emma to say it but not someone else? Not that she thought Ruby found her to be genuinely crazy but it was as if Emma didn't want some sort of well-hidden secret of her mental state to get out into the world and the mere utterance of it from Ruby's lips was too close for comfort. Besides, she interrupted her!
"Lemme finish my own damn sentences will you? Ms. Owner of the wildly fabulous, albeit it doesn't look like it today, Red Café, please gift me with something to do because this place is super spotless and there isn't a person to inject with our delicious coffee for miles."
Ruby was recovering from the snippy Emma rant that always seemed to entertain her endlessly. Emma watched as Ruby tried to hide her sniggering behind her hand and compose herself for an answer.
"Oh, Em. I suppose you could pick up the promotional coupons I had printed at the copy shop? Even though I love you, I do find this frazzled Emma rather entertaining so I'm inclined to just leave you out here but… whoa look at me! I'm being a good friend and employer instead. Wow, I've really grown as a person-"
Ruby's chattering was cut short by Emma ducking out the front door of the café into the onslaught of rain without so much as a parting word or wave. Placing her leather jacket over her head like a shield, she headed straight for her little yellow Volkswagen Beetle, in the deserted parking lot, and sped off too quickly to be considered safe, in current weather, over to the copy shop across the street that Red's Café had an account with.
"Of course" Emma said with a resigned sigh. Of course because this quiet, hard to find, copy shop was absolutely brimming with customers. Evidently coffee had been traded for killing trees today and now she was going to have to wait in line for her order with nothing to do except think. Emma sighed as she resigned herself to what the day seemed to have determined was her fate: excruciating time to herself.
...
Forty-five minutes and two phone calls from Ruby later, Emma had finally reached the counter of what she and Ruby called, 'The Copy Shop'. Really, it had a name but 'Pirate's Printing' was just too lame to even recognize, much less utter; they didn't have to have the best name when the prices were so awesome.
The three men behind the counter were as busy as bees in a hive, finishing work orders, filling out new work orders, receiving phone calls left and right and taking far too long to recognize her. Emma was beyond simple impatience at this point and what was about to happen really wasn't deserved by the overworked employees of this copy shop but the last forty-five minutes were a hell of old men whistling, unchecked toddlers running laps, and worst of all, her jumbled, broken thoughts of her past and her feelings. Things she had long since buried were now running unchecked through her reluctant mind as if boredom was the key to the Pandora's Box of Emma. Her heart was racing with the adrenaline that panic had released. Her fingertips were tingling and threatening to go numb; she was actually starting to visibly sweat. The panic controlled her as she slammed her hand down loudly on the countertop not once but three times, grabbing the attention of everyone in the building, even the unruly toddlers. The man on the phone hung up mid-conversation and strode over to the counter, his jaw was clenched and his brows showed signs of annoyance. Emma didn't care if this escalated into a shouting match, she desperately needed a distraction, she was in survival mode but when the supposedly angry man stopped at the counter to face her, he visibly deflated at the sight of her. Did she fail to look as angry as she was hoping to seem? Perhaps she just looked, well, crazy.
Never had more tranquil and kind eyes met hers. The bluest of blue irises looked straight into her and she never felt more calm or exposed. Her mind seemed to clear as her only concern became to assess the person before her, the copy clerk, who wiped away her seemingly insurmountable fear as if it were a bug on a windshield with his mere eye contact.
"Ma'am, why don't I help you at the side-counter so that my cohorts can deal with the remainder of the line?" As he spoke, she took him in, and he was breathtaking. Literally tall, dark and handsome but with a fourth invisible quality that made you want to give your everything to him. The mere presence of this man made her body react immediately, fear replaced with a need that made pink blush creep up her neck to the apple of her cheeks which had previously been left pale by the cold rain and her now forgotten panic.
With only a deer in the headlights stare and a simple nod, Emma followed this man to the small side counter of the shop that was covered in a display of cardboard boxes showing available sizes for purchase. Gently, he moved them to the floor so that he may use the space for their transaction. Again he made contact with her eyes, unflinchingly so, as if he was very familiar with her; as if they had known one another for all of their lives.
"How may I help you, Ma'am? And let me say, I am very sorry for the long wait you had to endure today." His words floated to her ears with a slightly lilting Irish accent that had obviously been watered down in America for some time seeing as it was quite easy to understand.
"I, uh…" Wow, she was being so smooth today. Emma rolled her eyes shyly to herself as she stumbled over her opening line to this handsome stranger. "I am here to pick up an order for Red's Café. It should look like coupons." She was looking down, away from him, at nowhere in particular. It was a habit she had of not making eye-contact and she really needed to keep him from boring into her soul with those gorgeous blue orbs any further. It was peaceful and unsettling all at the same time to lock eyes with him.
"I remember that order" she could hear the smile in his voice, even though she refused to let herself glance directly at him to see it. "Fulfilled it myself. Let me go fetch it for you, Ms?"
"Swan" she relinquished her name to him, secretly wishing she knew his even though she could see no way of casually asking for it.
"Ah, Swan. That is an elegant surname, if I may say. It suits you."
At this Emma's head snapped up to look at him as if she couldn't believe what he had just said. A compliment? From this hottie to her? Her mind couldn't believe it so her eyes just had to check but as she looked up, she saw only his back as he walked away to the endless wall of paper-filled cubbies behind the countertop. At first she was disappointed but then she realized that the back view of him was just as amazing as the front. Shoulder muscles flexed beneath his short sleeve polo shirt as he reached to the tippy-top of the wall where Red's Café's account cubby was located. Since he couldn't see her, she decided to let her eyes roam south from his back down to his khakis. Damn. This man was Godly and she was too emotionally raw today to be subjected to such hotness and still make good and demure decisions. Blushing, she pulled her eyes away from his fantastic backside back to the random spot of carpet she had been staring at, before he could turn around and see her admiring the view.
The sound of papers rustling let her know that he had found her print order and had returned to the counter. As he spoke the price of $35.59, Emma decided it might be alright just to steal one small glance at the copy clerk. All sights and sounds in the shop seemed to fade away as she laid her eyes upon the gorgeous man again and as if he could sense her every move, his eyes snapped back as well to lock onto hers. She wasn't sure how long they stayed there, staring at one another, as if the world had disappeared around them but the devilish curling of his lips and the words that eventually left his mouth seemed to bring their peacefully suspended state to a halt.
"Ms. Swan, $35.59 please, although, I'd gladly accept your first name as payment." At this he leaned onto the counter and closed the gap between them significantly.
Snapping out of her daydream, which he had obviously taken notice of to flirt with her so unabashedly, Emma decided to go with what she did best, pushing people away.
"The money it is then but if you noticed a pause between you asking for it and me paying it, it's because that price is ridiculous. I thought this 'Pirate Palace' or whatever it's called had good deals? You certainly are pirates if you think I should pay that." There, she thought. That was the equivalent of a strong-arm in football and would be sure to make him think twice about embarrassing her with such a public flirt. He probably wasn't even interested anyway, just being a guy who noticed her blush and saw an opportunity. Weren't they all the same anyway?
"Pirate Palace?" he said with an amused tinge to his voice. "Do we look like swashbuckling princesses to you, Madame?"
Emma successfully swallowed a laugh as she imagined the men of the copy shop, especially this sexy one before her, resuming their work in full princess finery. "I'd give you my card but then you'd have all the information about me you are so creepily asking for, so, here…" She wasn't avoiding his looks now, no, she was confidently staring right at him as she handed over a crisp fifty dollar bill. He seemed to be amused, looking like he was enjoying the path their conversation had taken; enjoying this game that they were playing.
She couldn't lie, she was enjoying it too.
The Pirate Princess was taking his sweet time checking out her bill, it was as if he was checking every last wrinkle on Grant's face; he even walked across his workspace to another register to grab a counterfeit pen and swipe it across the fifty. She played along by rolling her eyes and huffing but secretly happy to have such an entertaining distraction.
Finally, she caved when he held it up to the light to search for a watermark.
"Really, dude? Can I please get back to work now or are you going to need to ask the bill to turn its head and cough as well?"
At this he guffawed with laughter and she might have let a smiling chuckle escape as well. His laugh was far too infectious and vibrant to not give in to it, which meant she had to get out of there and quick or their game could teeter on turning into something real, if she could ever let it. She wasn't going to take the chance.
When he finally pulled her change from the drawer, Emma leaned over the counter and roughly snatched it from his hand. The move was so questionably aggressive that if anyone had just walked into the store they would have thought she was robbing the place.
"Thanks a bunch!" She sarcastically cheered at him as she tucked the loose bills and change into her jacket pocket and turned to make for the door, not looking back at him as he shouted after her. She could just make out his words behind her as the bells on the copy shop door started to jangle, signifying its close.
"Name's Killian! You rude little beauty."