The noises from the party downstairs were hushed, like the faraway sound of the waves when you're sheltered in a boat cabin. Even the mediocre songs playing gained a somewhat lulling tone.
"Whose bedroom is this?" Emma wanted to know.
Regina was barely smiling now - had never looked more serious. "Ours."
The mattress was so soft beneath them, sinking under Regina's knees. Emma's head was tucked between velvety-black pillows.
"Do you think someone might -"
"No," her voice was dark chocolate sweetness, liquid night. Pressing kisses to the edges of her lips and jaw, wet and without any more gloss to smear.
"I'm a little drunk."
"It's okay."
"And I've never - okay. Okay."

Emma thought sunlight was what had woken her before taking a look around, and noticing the clock on the wall read a quarter to noon. Emma blinked, fresh from her dreams, her surroundings unfamiliar but not frightening. She was too sleepy for fright. It was a strange clock, it looked molten at the end, an imitation of that artist who'd done something so clever with them - an Italian. Emma had a brief flashback of a childhood trip to the museum. The clock look like it's melting. Isn't that wonderful, honey? The dream merging with the concrete.
What an appropriate sight for such a morning.
The sun beamed brightly out the window just by the bed. I should really get up, Emma thought. The house felt too quiet, somehow, and Emma couldn't remember exactly where she'd left her phone - her parents must have tried to call her by now. With an exhale, the young girl sat up and shook herself free of the duvet she'd slept in. Just as she looked down and realized she was naked - at least from the waist up, probably further down - the door swung open, and the good-looking Irish boy that had got so popular so quickly at school - Killian Jones - burst in the room.
"Well, fuck me." He chuckled with apparent surprise.
"Oh no."
Emma tugged a pillow against her breasts without thinking.
"No, it's okay, love. I like guests to feel comfortable in my house. 'Specially girls." He chuckled again. Laughter could be so cruel in high school, and though Emma didn't feel it was that sort of laughter, she was too young for her own nudity to feel amusing. "I'm sorry, what's your name again, love? I haven't seen that much of you in school yet. Hell, that's the most I've seen of you since I got to this town."
"Emma," she answered, tense, scared, possibly rude. "I'm sorry, Killian, if you don't mind -"
"Emma." He said the word with such delight Emma grew more cautious. Laughing may be a natural response when you find a naked girl in your bedroom, now he seemed to be enjoying her discomposure a little too much. "I'm really sorry about this. I should have thought of knocking, it's just I thought everybody had left, and I was looking to get some much needed rest. But hey, this is fortunate. I never got a chance to talk to you that much yesterday night. You and Regina quite hit it off, didn't you? Seen you dancing, love. You've got some moves. I'm not usually into clichés like girl-on-girl, but that was wild. You got me howling like everyone else."
"No offense, Killian, but I'd really appreciate it if you could wait outside until I got dressed. I'll be out of here in five minutes." She tried not to sound cold. Mischief lurking in the back of his eyes let on he'd enjoy this all the more if she acted embarrassed.
Emma hadn't really had an opinion about Killian before today, but a few minutes had been enough to decide she didn't like him at all. Didn't like how he was having fun with this, didn't like that he'd called her kissing Regina a girl-on-girl cliché.
"Ah, don't rush yourself love." He twinkled at her. "Take your time. I'll be right outside. You need anythin', you holler."
"Right."

For a few minutes after he'd disappeared, Emma remained frozen, the black pillow tight against her breasts, as if he might burst back in again without notice. Her clothes were in a rather neat pile at the foot of the bed. A white tank-top with lace-imitation in the collar - it was what Emma thought of as her sexiest top, she'd thought of wearing that but not her sexy underwear - and a pair of blue jeans, with her cell phone still in the back pocket, thank God. Amidst her own clothes, there was an unfamiliar necklace, a silver frame vaguely hear-shaped, and a small ruby at the core. Emma couldn't remember seeing Regina wear it, not even last night - it was probably tucked beneath the collar of her dress - but she sensed right away that it was hers.

Emma got dressed and put the necklace in the back pocket of her jeans, then wasted no time showing herself out of Killian's room. For whatever reason, she didn't feel embarrassed, at least not as embarrassed as she would have imagined, caught after making love in the bedroom of a boy she barely knew.

Killian was waiting dutifully outside the door, a shimmer of excitement in his blue eyes.

"I'm really sorry about this," Emma said, because it was the thing to say and she'd been taught to be polite.

The smile on his lips let on he knew that was the reason. "Nothing to be sorry about."

"Earlier, you said everyone had left?"

"Uh-huh."

"Regina left?"

"Oh, yeah. Her parents picked her up a couple of hours ago."

"Okay." She didn't sound disappointed and wondered if that was because she didn't want Killian to think she was. "Well, I'm going to go outside and call my folks." They'd probably be pissed off as hell, but Emma felt getting lectured for half-an-hour drive wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, so long as she was going home. After waking up in a strange room and having her nudity so brutally exposed, it might actually feel like heaven.

"I can drive you, if you like." That was saying the nice thing but he didn't sound nice. "I'm going into town, anyway."

"You don't know where I live," and she had no intention of telling him.

He shrugged, eyes wandering to the tiny straps of her sexy top. Were her neck and shoulders covered in hickeys, bite marks, telltale smears of lipstick? Emma actually felt she looked different than she had for the past seventeen years, as if sex had an aura and it radiated from her in a magnetic blend of heat and hormones. She'd have to give herself a clean up before her parents arrived, she could just imagine how she looked, with tousled hair and overnight makeup - another cliché, probably.

Fuck clichés, Emma thought. She never used to say the F-word, even in her own head.

"Well," Killian resumed, "it can't be much of a detour. Come on, let's not give your parents the chance to yell at you so early in the morning."

A few minutes of cautious silence settled. "No offense," Emma said after clearing her throat, "I don't think you're quite sober enough to drive yet."

He chuckled. Emma didn't care that he knew it was an excuse. It was a good excuse. "Suit yourself, love."

"I'll be outside, okay?"

"Sure."

"Do you mind if I use the bathroom?"

"Course not." He winked. "You scrub yourself clean of last night, sweetheart. I'm going to go get some sleep. And don't worry about borrowing my bed, all right? Let's just say you'll owe me one."

"I'll owe you what?"

The smile on his lips was objectively handsome, yet Emma's stomach tingled with disgust and maybe only a little bit of want. She was too confused to be sure. That morning, her brain was chaos, her body was its own boss.

"We can discuss the details later," he said, brushing her on his way to the bedroom.

Emma shook her head, inhaled a deep breath of air, and mustered the strength to look down at her phone.

The ride was thirty minutes of her father awkwardly clearing his throat and occasionally popping a question that tried to look innocent - how about that party then? Meet any nice boys? - it was good he framed it that way, so Emma didn't have to lie, No dad, no nice boys. Just an astonishing, maddening woman with who smiled like the devil and danced like an angel.

It was lucky her dad had been the one to pick her up, her mom being already off at work, she started early even on Saturdays. Embarrassing silence was about all Emma could take right now, before she'd gotten a few hours of rest in her own bed.

"So, um," he said, after he'd parked in the driveway. "Your mom's not going to be home for lunch."

"Okay. Do you mind if I sleep it off?"

"No, not at all. Emma?" He called her when she opened the car door. "I just - I know you'll hear it from your mother tonight, but I just want to say... you can always come to me with the truth. No matter what the truth is. I won't be mad at you. If you're in trouble, you can always tell me."

"Dad -"

"I know you're not. I know you're a good girl, a good student, and it was just a party. But be careful, honey. Boys can be -"

"Dad, I promise. It wasn't a boy thing."

The cringes around his eyes smoothened a bit. "All right."

"I love you."

They both got out of the car and didn't exchange one more word before Emma climbed up to her room and slumped on her bed. Kicking off her shoes, without bothering to undress. She was sure she was going to fall asleep immediately but, for some reason, she reached for her jean pocket, not remembering what she was looking for until the ruby and silver necklace was dangling in front of her.

It was amusing, probably, that Regina had left it so Emma would give it back to her, Cinderella-style.

But it crossed Emma's mind just then that if there were a fairytale character for Regina, Cinderella wouldn't be it.

Notes: Had a great time writing this. Please let me know your thoughts and ideas for the next chapters! Comments are always welcome.