This was based on spoiler pictures of Hook on a horse. You can find those on my Tumblr if you search the tag "ouat spoilers", or I'm sure they can be found elsewhere easily enough.
"I've, uh - I've never ridden a horse before," Emma says slowly, staring up at Hook. She's never been the animal type, actually, and while she doesn't actively dislike horses, that doesn't mean she's exactly eager to ride one herself.
"Don't worry," Hook grins, and aims a wink her way. "You can hold on to me."
Emma snorts, mostly to hide just how appealing that sounds. She hasn't ever been the type of girl to swoon over period romances or movies with a dashing prince and noble steed, but the sight of Hook on a horse… well.
It's just the portal that's making her feel slightly weak at the knees. Nothing else.
He dismounts smoothly, in the process giving her a far better look at the seat of his leather pants than she really needs right now, then takes the reins in his hook as he leads the horse closer to her.
"Come on, darling," he grins, ducking his head to look into her eyes. "I trusted you to steer us in that yellow insect of yours; now it's my turn."
Emma swallows (he's too close) and glances down, away from his face. Her eyes fall instead on the red vest he's wearing, and - bad idea.
"I - wouldn't going on the Jolly Roger count for that?" she chokes out, after a moment, dragging her eyes back up. He's much too close and smiling, with the horse dropping its head over his shoulder and it really, really isn't any better.
Instead of answering, Hook reaches out and brushes her hair back out of her face. His fingers linger against her skin, and his smile softens. When he speaks, his voice is too quiet, too intimate, too genuinely happy for Emma to handle.
"It's good to see you, Emma. You've been sorely missed."
"I –" She wants to jolt back, to create some distance between them, but she can't move. His fingers are warm and his smile so gentle, but his eyes are greedy, have been ever since he arrived moments after the portal dropped her from the sky.
He'd sounded so nonchalant, ("Hey, beautiful,") and at first hadn't even gotten off his horse, just gestured at the back of his saddle to offer her a ride home ("Shall we?"). But he hasn't looked away from her once, hasn't stopped smiling with that silver edge of desperate relief to go along with the grin, now that he's touched her he isn't letting go, and she can't help but remember how tightly he held her before she drank that potion, how she couldn't help but close her eyes and breathe him in and he hadn't said a word, just fisted his hand into her hair and held her to him and she hadn't wanted to ever let go, either.
"Where's everyone else, if they're all missing me so much?" Emma deflects eventually, feeling like a coward. But it works, at least – a shadow passes over Hook's face, and he lets his hand drop. He still doesn't step away, but neither does he call Emma out on what they both know she's doing, and that's the best she can hope for now.
"Sadly, the situation hasn't changed much since we left this land," Hook shrugs. "The ogres… Your family is needed to defend their kingdom if they wish to keep it."
Emma tries to bite back her edge of worry at the news. It's nothing she hasn't already considered, but – "Is Henry…"
"Safe, well-guarded," Hook promises, then reaches up to pat the horse nonchalantly. It whuffs and tries to nibble on his collar until he pushes it away. It snorts then, and wanders off a few feet to graze on a patch of tall grass. "And we'll reach him much faster if we make use of the transportation I've so thoughtfully provided. It will likely be an overnight journey as it is; walking would take much longer."
"Overnight?" Emma arches a brow, trying not to dwell on the thought of spending the night alone with Hook. "Really. And David was just totally cool with that?"
"Dave and I have bonded," the pirate claims with a shit-eating grin. He looks so pleased with himself that Emma can't help but grin a little too, even as she shakes her head and slowly moves to approach the horse.
Damn, but it's big. Gorgeous, too – even Emma can tell that much, with its glossy dark coat and intelligent eyes. The… she thinks the word is tackle, is quite pretty too, really regal – which she supposes makes sense if it's one of her parents', but still, difficult to digest. Much like the idea of having to actually ride this thing.
She's so focused on the horse, that Emma only pays partial attention to her conversation with Hook. "Well as glad as I am that you two are best buds now," – she inches closer, reaching out a careful hand towards the horse's shoulder – "I'm pretty sick of camping after Neverland. Let's just get home as fast as possible."
"We may have to ride all night."
"Then we will." Emma's hand makes contact with the horse. It ignores her completely, chowing away, but she flattens her palm against its warm shoulder and can feel the strong muscles there. She lets her hand slide up to tangle in its mane.
"I warn you Emma, this isn't like your cars, or sadly even my lady. It will be a long, hard ride."
She shrugs, scratching gently at the horse. It's so tall, so big and powerful. "I can handle it."
"Oh, I've no doubt you can," Hook practically purrs behind her, and when Emma turns to blink at him confusedly, he's doing something with his tongue that ought to be illegal in every realm. "You may find yourself quite sore afterwards, but that's part of the fun, isn't it?"
It takes a moment for Emma to catch up, but when she does her lips quirk up without her consent. She turns to face him fully, crossing her arms over her chest.
"I do seem to remember you promising me fun," she muses, biting her lip. Emma knows she probably shouldn't be playing along – she doesn't want to give Hook any ideas, any expectations she just isn't ready to fulfill (isn't sure she'll ever be ready to fulfill). But it's just like New York; she can't seem to help herself. He's just there, whenever she needs him, helping however he can, grinning at her, staring at her with wide amazed eyes, taking the fall for her, trusting her, supporting her, believing in her so strongly that she can't help but start to believe as well. Hugging her close and promising that she will succeed, she will find them and he will be waiting for her on the other end – and then actually being there, with a grin and a stunning red vest and a freaking noble steed and then making dirty jokes about riding all night, and, fuck, Emma just feels so happy to be here now, with him, she can't stop herself.
His reaction is beautiful.
"I – er, I, yes," he actually stutters, eyes going wide with shock. But he regains his composure a moment later: his grin curves up even wider, his face just lights up with delight as he takes a step forward and lets his voice rasp low and intimate. "Yes, I did, didn't I?"
Emma smiles at him. "You did…" she says quietly, leaning in just a bit, and she can hear his breath hitch. "So let's have some fun. Some good, hard fun, all. Night. Long."
She lifts the dangling reins and presses them into his hand.
Hook blinks several times, then curls his fist around the leather in his palm, laughing bitterly. "Oh, lass, you play dirty."
"Huh, I would've thought you liked dirty," Emma comments, and he groans dramatically as he tugs on the reins, slipping them back over the horse's neck. But he's smiling, still, as he places his hook and hand on the saddle and neatly levers himself up onto the horse's back as though the thing isn't almost as tall as he is.
He leans down, reaching his hook out to her, and winks. "Well then Swan, let's ride."
Emma stares up at him for a moment, can't help it because he's stunning, making her mouth water in his red vest and black coat, sitting astride the prettiest horse she's ever seen (not that she's seen many) and reaching for her to join him.
She reaches out and grabs onto his hook, then grabs the back of the saddle and attempts to jump up behind him. It's a lot less graceful than he was – she would've fallen back to the ground if it weren't for him pulling her further up, and even so she ends up leaning half-into his lap as she scrambles to get her leg over the horse without falling off. Eventually she manages, sitting up in the saddle behind him with an indignant huff, brushing the hair out of her face.
"Not a word," she warns, and Hook chuckles.
"I'm certainly not complaining, love."
Emma snorts at the same time as the horse does, which only makes Hook snicker more, but before she can smack his shoulder and tell him to shut up, he clicks his tongue and squeezes his legs and suddenly they're moving.
Her arms latch around his stomach automatically as they speed up, and Emma can almost hear his smug grin, but she's too concerned with not actually falling off to care. This is a lot bumpier than she prefers, especially since she's sitting as far back on the saddle as possible so as not to touch Hook too much. That doesn't last long; it's just too difficult to keep her balance like that as they speed up, not to mention uncomfortable.
Five minutes in to the ride, Emma lets herself slip forward, hips lining up behind his, legs dangling against his own. She readjusts her grip around his stomach and leans back as much as possible, which isn't much. Luckily, Hook doesn't try to make any smart comments, perhaps because he knows that if he did she'd endure any amount of soreness associated with not touching him at all for the remainder of the journey.
In fact, he doesn't comment on anything at all for a long time. Emma is all too glad to let the silence continue at first, too distracted by the heat of his body against her own, the rock of the horse's gait continually pressing them together and apart, his vest smooth and soft under her fingers. She likes the way it feels, the rough threads of embroidered pattern a pleasant contrast to the smoothness of the rest of it. A button presses against the side of her hand; she can feel it dig in deeper every time Hook takes a deep breath.
They're moving fast now, and more smoothly – Emma isn't sure if this is a canter or a gallop, but either way she definitely prefers it to the bumpiness of trotting. She probably doesn't even need to hold on to Hook so tightly anymore, but she doesn't let go. She doesn't want to let go, and that's not a good thought to have. That's not something she's ready for, it really isn't, no matter how good he feels pressed against her, how dirty his jokes, how blue his eyes, how many deep breaths he's taking (far too many for a man as experienced with horseback riding as he), how happy his smile when she flirted back, how much he cares, how he's always there, always, how despite his promise in Neverland he's never pushed her even once, always letting her set the pace.
There can't be a pace, there can't be anything right now. Emma's just been separated from all her friends and family, and the only way to join them was to end up living in the Enchanted Forest which means she's now going to have to fight in a war against ogres, and live in a castle and be a goddamn princess – that's enough to deal with. Trying to keep Henry safe and happy after his time in Neverland, learning to share him with Regina and Neal – that's enough to deal with. Forcing herself to accept the idea that Mary-Margaret and David are going to have another kid, but it isn't because they don't love her, is not because she isn't good enough, making herself remember that and be happy for them no matter how much it tears at her – that's enough to deal with. Emma can't handle Hook on top of everything else. She just can't do it.
But somehow it keeps happening anyway, she keeps letting him past her walls over and over again. She keeps accepting the comfort he offers, looking to him for reassurance, expecting him to help her, flirting back when she doesn't have to, when she knows he'd let it go. She can see it in his eyes every time: she's giving him hope, hope for something she's frankly too scared to think about, and Emma has been there herself. She knows how much it can crush a person when their hope turns out to have been false all along, and she doesn't want to do that to Hook. Maybe once, she wouldn't have cared, but… he's proven himself by now. He's trustworthy, a good man despite his past (and does she ever know about that), and Emma knows how deeply he feels for her, even if she can't bear to think the word. She has power over him, the worst sort of power, and if his heart were literally in her hands it still couldn't ever compare to this.
That scares Emma too. But at the same time… it's a strange sort of comfort, to know that she can hurt him just as deeply as he could hurt her. Being around Hook makes Emma feel raw, exposed and delicate in a way that hurts just as much as it heals, and she knows full well how dangerous this is. She knows that she can't make any promises or commitments now, not with so much else going on, that whatever she can offer is going to be meager and far less than he deserves, but she can't bear to give any more. It would be better to give nothing at all, to keep her distance and stop letting him close it, it would be so much safer for both of them –
But he doesn't want safe; Hook's made that abundantly clear by now. He has no interest in closing himself off, and the more Emma recognizes the courage it takes him to keep climbing her walls, the more she finds herself inclined to let him. Much as she tries, she doesn't want to give these moments up, doesn't want to stop his smile, give up the stupid riding jokes, hold herself at a distance when he's so warm and close and smells so nice and the embroidery on his fucking red vest is scratching against her fingers.
And in a flash of stubborn selfishness, Emma decides that she won't give any of this up, she won't deny herself these small things. Maybe she can't commit to anything more yet but just this is good, just this makes her feel happier and she wants it and Hook wants it and why not take it?
It's so easy to give in.
Emma lets herself melt forward, onto Hook, hands unclenching from their tight grip on each other to flatten against his stomach instead. She can feel him stiffen, as her knees nudge forward to line up better with his, as her thumb hooks inside the top of his vest, brushing against warm skin and rough hair. She doesn't think he's breathing at all, as she rests her head on his shoulder and sighs slowly, relaxing to the feel of cool leather under her cheek.
"Emma," he says finally, in a choked whisper, and she can feel her shoulders loosening further, squirms a little closer because he's so warm and her heart is beating much too fast.
"Thank you, Hook," Emma whispers back, and for a moment she can't find the rest of the words. There's too much to thank him for, this moment alone is worth more words than she could ever say, and the thought sticks in her throat. Eventually she swallows it down and is able to finish: "for coming to get me."
She can see him swallow, his jaw working, can feel his heart hammering, can feel every second how brittle he is and how easy for her to break – but his voice, when he speaks, is rough with awe, hope and joy and emotions far too dangerous to name.
"Aye," he promises – and it is a promise, the most delicate and unbreakable sort of promise, "always."
The sun is setting in front of them and Emma smiles because of course it is, smiles because she can't do anything else, smiles and closes her eyes and holds Captain Hook closer as they ride on, heading home.