Chapter 7: True Things
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TRIGGER WARNING: brief discussion of physical and drug abuse in this chapter.
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It's late and it's quiet, but neither one of them is sleeping. It's a stark contrast to the frenzied flurry of activity that was Emma and Killian just a little while ago, crashing their way into his apartment, heated kisses pressed up against doors, discarded clothes flying from impatient hands, bruised shins on end tables as they stumbled blindly toward the bedroom.
But now there's just a candle burning on the nightstand and the steady sound of his breathing as she's stretched out on her side in bed next to him, head resting on his broad chest, fingers tracing patterns she finds there. One of his arms is loosely draped around her hips, the other is tucked behind his head as he stares up at the ceiling and contemplates true things.
Killian Jones is in love with Emma Swan.
It doesn't surprise him. He's always been fairly free with his heart, that's not his trouble.
His trouble is that the women he chooses to give it to rarely deserve that level of trust. He's fairly confident that Emma is different. That she's worthy, that he means something to her, that she isn't going anywhere, but he's perceptive enough to know she isn't all in yet. Something holds her back. Something she hasn't told him yet. He suspects it has something to do with a past life she hasn't yet shared with him where she was a very talented drummer. She's a fighter, his Swan, and he doesn't think she'll let it hold her back for long.
If he's honest with himself, this unspoken thing that holds her back is holding him back too. It's easy when they're just talking. When it's all banter and teasing and pushing and pulling. When it's all searing kisses and grasping hands and breathless oaths.
But when it's quiet like this, when she's soft and bare and wrapped up in him, he can feel it. He can see it trying to pull her back. He can see her fighting it too. Whatever dark things lurk in her past, she gives very little ground to them. She's so strong and he loves her for it.
In truth, he loves every facet of her. There's nothing she could say to change that. Even if that thing rips his heart right out of his chest when she finally does tell him- he knows it'll still beat just for her.
Killian Jones has never believed in soulmates. But if they did exist, then surely she was his.
He presses a kiss to her soft hair, long since freed from her ponytail and strewn across her shoulders in a tangle of golden waves.
She smiles against his skin and he feels the paths her fingertips are drawing become less random and more intentional, tracing the lines of the few tattoos that grace his torso.
"Tell me about this one," She says, her voice barely above a whisper as she circles the huge ship sailing rough seas on his ribs and stomach. He smiles, because it's an intimate thing and she doesn't always seem keen on this kind of intimacy.
"That's the Jolly Roger, Swan," He says like it's obvious. She rolls her eyes and smacks him.
"So I guessed from the pirate flag, but why is it on your skin? You have some kind of crush on Captain Hook or something?" He chuckles at that, drawing lazy patterns on her hip that make her shudder.
"Thought that was your bit." She hums her agreement and snuggles closer and he lets out a contented sigh, "A ship means freedom, love. At least to me. I guess I've always felt a bit drawn to Neverland."
She looks up at him and there's a slight flush in his cheeks and she smiles because it's the most adorable thing she's ever seen. She kisses his chest and drags her fingertips up his ribs to circle his nipple. His breath catches and she smiles, pleased with her work, and asks.
"So that explains these ones here and here," she places a kiss on two stars on his pectoral muscle, near his collarbone, and there's text just below it in a rough but artful script: To Live Will be An Awfully Big Adventure. Shadowed clouds surround them both and bleed into the stormy sky where the ship's sails are puffed full of wind. The whole thing stretches along the left side of his torso and it's beautiful, like the rest of him.
"Aye," He confirms. She sits up then, straddling his lap and running her hand through her hair. He grins, bringing his other arm up to cradle it behind his head, but she catches his hand in hers on its way there and extends his arm, her eyes inspecting the artwork on display for her.
There's a stunning piece that starts on his forearm and then wraps and stretches its way around his entire arm. The background is an incredibly detailed and antiquated looking map. A length of rope, some in complex knots and some in coils, trails along the length of his arm. A huge compass lying open, a spyglass, and some other nautical-looking tools look as though they've been scattered on top of the map. Dark shadows and highlights on full display, adding incredible depth and dimension. It looks real. She's sure it's the most incredible black and grey work she's ever seen.
His other arm is only sparsely covered with things that seem more commonplace for a punk rock tattoo shop owner- skulls, a microphone, a pair of flags from Ireland and the UK crossed at the poles. The flags look tattered and wind blown, and all of them are skillfully done, but they draw her interest far less. This- this is beautiful. And she's sure it tells a story she hasn't heard.
"What's this?" She asks, pointing to one of the larger tools casting shadows on the map on his arm.
"That's a sextant," He says. Her eyes drift to his, a gleam of mischief in them.
"Sounds dirty." He laughs at that.
"It's a navigational tool, Swan. For sailing." She shrugs and gently turns his arm so she can see the rest of the map. She doesn't see anything terribly familiar looking, but it's hard to make out by candlelight. "I used to sail with my brother, before he died."
It's the most serious thing that's ever passed between them and Emma doesn't miss the way his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard. She lays down on top of him and lets go of his hand. His arms come automatically around her. She buries her face in the curve of his neck and continues tracing lazy patterns along his collarbone, fixating on the two stars that mark the way to Neverland.
"What happened?" She asks, her voice low.
"An accident. Bloody pointless waste of life. He was a good man."
"I'm sorry," She says, knowing there are no words to actually soothe a grief this deep. He doesn't say anything, just kisses the top of her head and twirls his fingers in her hair. He's grateful she doesn't ask for more. Doesn't ask him to drag it all out for her. It's been 10 years and the pain isn't raw, but it doesn't take much to crack it wide open. She's shown she cares and that's enough for him.
From where she's resting, her eyes are level with a tattoo on the inside of his bicep she decidedly hasn't asked about. She wonders if he's noticed. It's terribly faded. It's a red heart, one of the only colors on him, and there's a woman's name printed on a scroll wrapped around it and a curvy dagger stabbing directly through it.
There's a pleasant silence between them and she's loath to break it. His fingers in her hair and the scruff on his neck feel like heaven, but it seems he's in a truth telling mood, so why not now?
"Who's Milah?"
She doesn't know what she expects from him when she asks it, but his peal of laughter isn't it and it startles her a bit.
"A mistake," He says. She furrows her brow at that and he can feel it. He drags his hand up her arm, along the column of her throat, and lifts her chin gently to draw her gaze. "My ex. I was crazy about her. Made the foolish bloody mistake of getting this tattoo to prove it. Found out a week later she was married. That was the end of that." He punctuates the story with a quick kiss on her lips.
"It's the curse," She says with a sigh.
"Of dooming a relationship with a tattoo?" She nods in reply and he laughs. "I'm not much for superstitions, love."
"Come on, you're a tattooist. You can't tell me you haven't seen it a million times. Most of the artists I've worked with won't even do them anymore. Never get a person's name inked on you unless you want to ruin the relationship. It's like a rule." He chuckles at that.
"Or at least make sure the woman in question isn't a vile, narcissistic whore first."
She shakes her head at this, pressing herself closer to him, loving the friction of the soft hair on his chest against her bare skin. She places a slow, languid kiss on his throat and drags her nails along his ink covered flesh, enjoying the way his muscles tense and his breath hitches ever so slightly at her touch
"Her loss."
He smiles and seizes her waist, flipping her on her back and she gasps as he trails kisses along her neck and rolls his hips slowly, tantalizingly into hers. She hums appreciatively and he shifts his weight onto the bed beside her, propping himself up on his elbow, using his free hand to play with her hair again, their legs tangled together beneath the sheets. She rolls onto her side to face him and he pulls the covers up over them both.
"What about you, Swan?" He asks, brushing the hair out of her face.
"What about me?" She replies, looking up into his beautiful blue eyes and seeing that openness there again that she'd normally find terrifying, but somehow, with him, it's different. Everything is different with him.
"Are you going to tell me why you never said anything about being a bloody amazing drummer?" She smiles and buries her face in his chest.
"Because I'm not," She says. He scoffs at that and swats her bare backside and she yelps in reply.
"Bad form to tell lies, lass." She jabs her fingers into his hip bone and he flinches and laughs in reply. He raises his hand in mock surrender and she settles back down on the pillow. He strokes her lower back affectionately, tracing the ridges of her spine as he waits.
It takes a few minutes for her to respond. When she does, her voice is the quietest he's ever heard it and he has to strain to hear her properly.
"I was in a band before... in Portland. With my ex." He doesn't say anything, just continues stroking her calmly and watching her with that gentle, open expression on his face. "It… didn't end well." Now it's her turn to swallow hard and struggle with words. "It kind of ruined music for me. Ruined Portland…" she trails off, her mind flooded with an onslaught of images of fierce kisses and nasty fights, words that cut her down to size and then soothed her wounds, leveled threats she knew better than to doubt, little piles of white powder and rolled up dollar bills, and the black eye and fat lip that finally sent her packing. "It ruined a lot of things."
There's a haunted look in her eyes and a tremor in her voice. And there's a growing tightness in his chest that nearly breaks him because it all makes sense now.
Emma Swan wasn't born this strong- she made herself that way. She grew that steely backbone and smelted iron in her blood because she had to.
"He hurt you."
It's not a question.
He knows. He sees. Of course he does.
She nods in reply.
"It's the only thing he was ever any good at," She says with a shaky sigh and a tight lipped smile, "Well, that and writing really loud, fast, angry music."
Killian kisses her then. It's a slow, languid thing and it feels like everything else with him- effortless and natural and just right. When it finally breaks, it's only so he can draw her closer and she buries her face in the soft curve of his neck once more. It's becoming her favorite place in the whole world. It's warm and it smells like him and the stubble she finds there seems to ground her somehow.
"I'm sorry."
That's all he says. He doesn't try to fix it. He doesn't ask for more. He doesn't threaten the ghost of a man that has no place in her world anymore. He doesn't need to. Most importantly, he doesn't treat her like she's still broken by the man who tried (and failed) to ruin her ten years ago.
She's not broken. There was a time for that, yes, and God knows she went through it, but it's over now and she's come out of it stronger.
She smiles because once again, Killian Jones is exactly what she needs at exactly the right time. And she knows it won't always be this way, because that kind of perfection doesn't exist in the real world, but it is right now and for that, she's grateful.
Her eyes meet his in the failing candlelight. She takes a deep breath.
"I'm glad I found you. I'm glad we're here..."
She trails off again and he smiles, humming in agreement, brushing his lips against her hair, loving the lingering scent of her shampoo- sweet vanilla and spicy cardamom. It suits her so well. Alluring sweetness with a bit of an edge. They aren't the words he wants to hear, but his patience with Emma has always been rewarded in due time.
"I'm glad I'm your girlfriend." She says it with conviction. He can feel her smiling as she nuzzles herself closer, peppering kisses along his bare skin before she looks up at him. The smile that spreads across his face at this is brilliant and the corners of his eyes crinkle and she bites her lip because it's impossible not to when he's looking at her like that.
"You caught that, did you?" He says, running a hand through his hopelessly messy hair.
"Mmm hmm," She replies, grinning.
"And that's alright with you? Think I'm boyfriend material?" There's a teasing note in his voice that doesn't quite match the anxious way his fingers twist and tug on his dark hair. Emma longs to shove them out of the way and replace them with her own. She kisses him then, her tongue teasing, teeth nipping at his bottom lip and she can feel the heat rising between them once more.
"You'll do," She says with a smile between kisses. He grins and she's on her back again as the candle gutters out.
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A/N: Well if this doesn't wreck y'all, I don't know what will.