Prompt: Captain Swan + 'Cop and Someone in Frequent Trouble With The Law'. (Written with BlackDragon733)
The Persistent Litter Bug
It's the fifth time she's been taken to the sheriff station for littering, of all things, and she still hasn't managed to catch Sheriff Graham's attention. Instead, she's been sent to the same deputy, the one who seems permanently stuck doing paperwork, and once again, he's just inhaled the pins he keeps in a mug beside him instead of drinking his coffee.
At least this time, he doesn't need her to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
He coughs and splutters and then tries to act cool, as though he intended to perform such a stunt, which Emma has to admit she finds slightly endearing.
"Another littering fine, lass?" He asks, tapping out her name and details without even asking for them because apparently five trips to the station is enough for him to remember the answers she's given each time. "I might start to think you're trying to get my attention."
"Sorry but no." Emma tells him with an apologetic shrug, knocking his hand away as he reaches for the wrong mug yet again. "And you need to figure out a new storage system, because this is just going to end with you dying."
"Thanks, Swan." He says sheepishly, and with her hand still hovering warningly over the mug full of pins, he manages to pick up the correct mug and take a long drink from it. "It's lucky I have you watching over me."
"I'm not here that often." She points out, but he raises an eyebrow and okay, maybe in her quest to talk to Graham, she's been here slightly more often than the average civilian, but not enough for the handsome, bumbling, deputy to say that. "And you should really get someone who's always at the station to keep an eye on you. You're a disaster waiting to happen, Jones."
"But you're far better company." He states with a wink, which Emma only just sees as she peers into her bag and starts rifling through it for the crumpled notes she plans to use to pay the fine. "And that's a fine of-"
"I know." She says with a laugh, pressing the wrinkled money into his hand. "This isn't the first time, remember?"
When she leaves, she picks up the mug full of pins and places it pointedly out of his reach. In return, he gives her a cheery wave and a wide smile and she thinks that, even though she didn't even get to see Graham this time, she's glad she got brought in.
-.-.-.-
The next time she finds herself at the Sheriff station, after spotting a deputy and very purposefully dropping an empty chocolate bar wrapper in front of him, she's once again handed over to Deputy Jones. His head's down and he's scribbling something, probably working on the paper work he's always so busy with.
It turns out he's doodling. He tries to hide it under actual paperwork when she takes the seat at his desk, but he's just a second too slow and she sees what could only just pass as a child's drawing of the sun, a few seagulls and a boat and it's cute and far too busy to be something he's only just started on.
He's turning red though, so she doesn't mention it. "How are you?" she asks instead, pulling her chair slightly closer and wincing as it squeaks along the floor. "It's been a few days."
"Still alive." He answers, and she laughs, resting her elbows on the pile of paperwork balancing precariously on the corner of his desk and leaning in so he's just a bit nearer. "How about you? Trying to keep up your reputation as Storybrooke's beautiful and persistent litter bug?"
"I think 'The Persistent Litter Bug' is the worst superhero name ever." She tells him, and he chuckles and he's looking at her far too fondly considering they only ever meet when she's been brought to the station after one of her foolish attempts to see Graham.
"I also called you beautiful." As if she needs reminding.
She blushes and looks away, and as she does, she actually catches sight of Graham. He's in his office talking to a tall, ridiculously beautiful woman. The woman gives Graham a paper bag, probably his lunch, and then a kiss goodbye.
For only a moment, Emma feels like a total idiot, except she doesn't get a chance to dwell on it because Deputy Jones is wheezing and coughing behind her and when she looks back, the mug of pins is upturned on the table, his coffee mug unmoved, and he's done it again.
Emma jumps from her chair and crosses the short distance to him, thumping him on the back with her fist a few times because he's breathing but still coughing and when he settles down again, throwing a quick betrayed glance to the mug, he beams up at her.
"My saviour." He says earnestly, and Emma swallows, leaning over his shoulder to pick up his mug and put the pins back. She ignores his shaky breathing and how he's looking at her, and leans even closer in an attempt to reach the sellotape he has hidden behind a skull-and-crossbones pencil holder.
When she finally reaches it, she uses it to cover the top of his mug because if the pins can't fall out of the mug when he tries to drink from it, he's probably not going to choke to death any time soon.
She stays stubbornly silent after that, and he seems deflated as he files the report and asks for her fine, and Emma would talk to him if she wasn't preoccupied by the fact that she'd come to see Graham, discovered he most likely had a girlfriend, found out that she didn't particularly care and worked out that she found Deputy Jones unbearably adorable. And attractive.
And far too many other things that were making her feel more anxious than she should feel in front of the man who kept drinking his pins.
She hands him the exact change and his fingers brush against hers. She panics, stumbles back and knocks his paperwork right off the edge of the desk, paper floating all around them, his doodle the only piece of paper left on the desk.
He scrambles for the picture instead of the files, folding it up and tucking inside his leather jacket, and Emma can't stop apologising even when he insists it's fine.
When she finally leaves, she feels so completely flustered and unsure that she decides she's never going back.
-.-.-.-
She acts like a good, upstanding citizen for a few weeks. She was only going to the station to see Graham, and that backfired horribly because now, instead of thinking about the good-looking man in uniform who strode around town and helped old ladies cross the street, she's always thinking of the handsome man who spends his days sat behind a desk drawing bad pictures of boats and drinking metal pins instead of coffee.
When her long-time friend David and his wife meet her for coffee, David orders her the wrong thing. And the only thing that springs to mind is that she had met with Deputy Jones only five times, for barely ten minutes each time, when he remembered everything she'd told him.
And when she leaves the coffee shop, she takes with her an empty cardboard cup, finds a deputy and drops it purposely in front of him.
Deputy Jones brightens when he sees her, his eyes impossibly blue and his smile brilliant, and he stands from his chair until she's taken her usual seat in a surprising, adorable display of chivalry.
The first thing she notices, after him of course, is the mug of pins. The sellotape she'd placed over the top of it has been pierced and ripped so that he can access the pins, but there are still remnants stuck to the rim and it's been three weeks and he hasn't taken them off yet and she really, really hopes that means something.
She takes the mug and cradles it in her hands, because if she's holding it, he's not going to drink from it. He notices and smiles impossibly wider, filling in the form on his computer and glancing frequently between the screen and her. Every time he looks at her, she grins and soon his smile is softening and there's a new, unfamiliar warmth in his eyes and Emma suddenly can't remember why she waited three weeks to return.
It turns out that holding a mug in her hands instinctively leads to her attempting to take a drink, and it's at the moment where Deputy Jones seems to gain confidence and sends her a shiver-inducing look that makes it very clear that, if nothing else, he wants her, where she opens her mouth and takes a deep drink.
And then there are pins in her mouth and it's Emma who is spluttering and spitting out metal. Deputy Jones is laughing, but he's pulled her out her seat and his arms are strong around her waist even though she's not choking, the pins strewn across his desk.
"Alright there, Swan?" he asks when she's breathing normally again, but he doesn't let go, not until a shorter man in a bright red hat walks past and gives him a thumbs up. "It's easier to do than you'd think, isn't it?"
Emma forces a few notes into his hand and runs, because maybe she got picked up for littering just to see him, but she's literally tried to drink pins in front of him and she's not sure that's something either of them will ever forget.
-.-.-.-
She remembers a couple of hours later that she's seen him choking on pins more times than she ever should have and it's hardly put her off. And maybe, she should stop littering and paying fines when she could just walk to the station but it's become pretty ingrained in her that a visit to the station must be accompanied by some sort of crime.
So she buys a chocolate bar, a white mug and a sharpie, drops the empty chocolate bar wrapped on the ground in front of Sheriff Graham and then busies herself on the short ride back to the station by writing a quick message onto the plain mug.
"Twice in one day?" Deputy Jones asks when she takes a seat next to him and just grins at him. "Are you going for a record, love?"
"It's not a record I want." She flirts and he gapes at her for a moment. "I actually came here to give you something."
He frowns slightly, but bursts into laughter when she hands him the white mug, the words 'Don't drink from this' written on it in thick black capitals.
He thanks her with a few grateful words and a teasing nudge to her shoulder and then he pours the pins from his old mug into the one she just gave him and stares at it for a moment, putting it proudly in the centre of his desk as though it was a work of art or something.
And then he fills in the form and she pays the fine and before she leaves, one of his hands closes gently around her wrist and she turns to see him looking up at her from his chair. "If it isn't a record you want, Swan, how about dinner?"
Emma nods, Deputy Jones looks very pleased and then she walks away.
She realises just outside the station that they haven't exchanged numbers and Emma is not going to miss out on a date with Deputy Jones just because they're both too nervous around each other to function properly.
The look on his face when she's brought in mere minutes after she left is enough to make everything worthwhile, but it hardly compares to the awe that crosses his face when he meets her at her door two days later, half an hour late because he got lost, and she kisses him in greeting.