Her fingers dance against his body, feather-like touches on warm skin, muscles tensing when she reaches a particularly sensitive spot – ribs not that ticklish but his weakness lays behind his knees and in the crock of his elbows. Emma sits cross-legged next to him, sheet only pooling around her hips, leaving her bare-chested as she waits for the penny to drop, waits for awkwardness to fall on them. It doesn't, leaving only that blissful feeling Emma is so foreign with. Her brain finds the proper word for her – happiness.
"What about this one?" she asks softly, fingers trailing on a white line below his ribs.
Killian doesn't move, doesn't even need to open his eyes to know which one she is talking about, as the memories invade his mind and tumble out of his lips. "Ah, my first one. Apparently, teaching a ten year-old lad sword fighting on a ship when the wind is blowing strongly can only lead to a tragedy." His lips curl into a small grin, and Emma mirrors him almost instinctively. "Liam was an amazing captain, but a very reckless brother I'm afraid."
She scoffs at that, fingers travelling up his torso to brush his neck, tease his lip. He offers her a brief kiss before she dwells on the scar on his cheek, even if she already knows this one's story. She draws the bridge of his nose, follows the curve of his eyebrows, and she can almost feel his eye rolling behind closed lids at her antics. It is well into the night and they should probably be asleep by now, tired by their previous activities, but she simply can't stop touching him, exploring his body, unfolding his secrets. She's surprised by how comfortable, how natural, this intimacy settled between them – perhaps as it was always meant to be, and she welcomes the feeling where it would have scared her to no end only months ago. She welcomes him, body and soul, against her, tirelessly.
"This one?" A large gross-looking one close to his liver that looks like it was patched up hastily by someone who had never held a needle before – but then again, pirates.
Killian sighs, out of principle, but answers anyway, tells her of a looting gone wrong and the five men he lost that day. She watches as annoyance appears on his forehead at the memory, as if he still can't accept such a failure. But the tale ends in a surprising victory, even if the other captain managed to run him through with his sword. Killian spends more time talking about the money they made that day, diamonds and golden coins, than he does about the actual injury, and that is fine with her.
She knows better than to ask about the more gruesome scars – the several ones slashing his back she knows are from whipping, the missing hand, the ugly one on his calve. She instead asks about the small ones, asks for the pirate tales hidden behind them, for the adventures he likes to share. And he does, perfect storyteller that he is, drawing landscapes and terrible battles for her only with his words.
Her fingers comes to dance on a funny-looking scar above his hip, shaped as a Z, and she raises an eyebrow as Killian's whole body stills against her before he relaxes again – as if hoping she wouldn't notice, too bad for him she did. "What do we have here, captain?" she singsongs.
"Nothing." His reply is too harsh, too far, not fooling anyone and… is he blushing? A discrete shade of pink tints his cheeks, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip, eye stubbornly staying close. She isn't sure if it is embarrassment or nervousness, perhaps a mixture of both, but it is enough to know she found the most interesting scars of all.
"Come on, Killian. What happened?"
He only shakes his head, left forearm coming up to hide his eyes – yep, definitely embarrassment. Emma waits a few more seconds before he sighs, deep and loud, like a man about to be executed on the market place. "It wasn't long after we landed in Neverland. I was still adjusting to the hook, drunk more often than not, and…" He uses his good hand to mime his point, curling his index finger in a quick back and forth movement against his skin.
It takes Emma a few seconds to catch up.
She bursts into laughter. So hard it turns into small hiccups and she lets herself fall to her side, legs still crossed, laughs buried against the pillow. Killian cracks an eye open, annoyed at first that she's not so subtlety mocking him, but a smile settles on his lips simply looking at her.
"Oi!" he tries to say, unable to pour more than amusement in his voice. Both arms dart around her waist then, pulling her to him and raising up on his elbows to look down at her. "I'm glad my misfortunes bring you such happiness, darling, but there is so much a man can take before being offended."
She doesn't find it in herself to care about his ego, not when her main problem is to bring some air to her lungs between two laughs. Her body was already sore but her ribs now scream in sweet agony, and it's like the gateways opened and are impossible to close again. She just laughs and laughs, and it feels so good to let go after many months being the Saviour, being everyone's anchor.
"You're the worst pirate I know," she croaks, breathless, and feels more than see him rolling his eyes.
"Sorry to break it to you, lass, but I'm the only pirate you know." And then, because it seems like the only way to have her quiet down, he kisses her – successfully, may she add, swallowing her giggles, turning them into a moan when his tongue tease her upper lip and his hand roam her body. With reverence and love in his voice, he whispers, "I never heard you laugh before. It suits you."