Author's Note: And now, two-and-a-half years after the first chapter was posted - Some Sort of Neighborly is finally finished! I'm still in a little disbelief, to be honest. Writing this story has been such a valuable lesson on persistence, and although I do wish this had happened a long time ago (since it definitely reads like I'd written it back then, too, thanks to my original outline O O P), I'm still very proud of being able to push through to the end :)

Whether you've been here from the start (in which case, I'M STILL VERY SORRY), or you're picking up this fic for the first time just now, or you're anywhere in between: thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoy!


Some Sort of Neighborly

Chapter 11

He wakes to the scent of clean linen and crisp air on his nose, which he buries into his pillow with a groan.

For a long moment, it's all he can do to simply lie there, feeling the sheets tangled around his legs and the warm autumn sun, flickering gently through the curtains, on the bare skin of his back. Lazy mornings are both a welcome indulgence and a dangerous habit for someone with his sleep schedule, but the languid contentment that's burrowed its way into his bones refuses to let up – or, for that matter, let him think about much else – even as he stretches and feels every muscle in his body hum with a pleasant ache.

Especially for his muddled mind, then, it's difficult to pinpoint if he's only awoken because he missed his alarm and slept halfway through the day – until a muffled, distressed voice smashes his peaceful bliss into bits.

"It's just, sometimes – he can be such an asshole, you know?"

He frowns, has more trouble than he should with simply rolling over. The warm realization of waking up in Emma's bed – it's never quite faded, and the glow that spreads through him still tugs a grin at the edges of his lips with ridiculous ease. Not quite as heartening, however: the sight of the other side of the bed, distinctly empty. But he probably should have anticipated it, if he'd been more awake, and he knows now that it'd be cool from her absence if he reached over and ran his hand over the sheets, since that voice through the door definitely wasn't hers. He struggles to sit up (and it's very clear that his stiffness is not born from lethargy, but from another much for enjoyable reason to recall), and begins the painful process of groping around on the floor for the first pair of sweatpants he can find.

(In his defense, they'd spent the majority of the previous day lounging around her apartment, and, by this point, he's very aware of how she prefers her sweatpants so baggy they take entirely too long to remove.)

(He doesn't even bother with locating a shirt, or anything else. He's long past feigning modesty – and the afternoon Emma had come to his apartment for the first time, he'd taken that ring off his neck and never put it back on.)

When he pads out of the room barefoot, it takes a second to squint away the brightness streaming in through the windows and absorb the scene before him, much more distinct than the few scattered murmurs after that first outburst through the door.

Over in the kitchen, Emma doesn't notice him right away, her back turned as she works with something over the stove. As it is, it seems like her attention is being held by a very elaborately gesturing Ruby anyway, her legs swinging off her chair at the breakfast bar as she waves a fork in a way that might make him worried if he were anywhere near her.

"I mean, who does that?" Ruby demands, continuing what sounds like a long-standing tirade. "For all I knew, something could have happened to him. He could have been dead. He's going to wish he were dead, that— oh." She cuts off as, apparently, the creak of the old wooden floor announces his presence more effectively than the sound of the bedroom door, and both of them turn to face him at once. "Oh, good, you're here, Killian," she rushes on. "You agree with me, right? Victor's a huge dick."

It really is a vast improvement from the way she used to greet him in the mornings when she happened to stop by (her knowing wolf's smirk wouldn't have been half as bad had it not been on top of her unnerving refusal to speak a word of his presence – at least while he was still there), but she still rolls her eyes from his bare chest back up to his face, as if to say really? He can't find it in him to care very much, though, considering the way Emma's eyes light up the moment they meet his. Of all her smiles, it's her tiny ones – pink, subtle, needing no reason at all – he wishes he could bottle up and collect in a jar, could save them to count every time he simply can't imagine how he could have gotten so lucky.

She doesn't speak, though – merely gestures her head over to Ruby behind her back, and he trades it for a knowing look of his own.

"You're right," he agrees. As he nears the kitchen, the delicious smell permeating the entire space makes sense: omelettes, one on the stove, one on the plate in front of Ruby. "Victor is a huge dick. Is there any reason that fact bears particular repeating today?"

Emma snorts as she turns back to the stove, but he makes sure to press a kiss into her temple as he passes by on his way to the refrigerator, wishing he could linger there with his nose buried in the scent of her skin and her sweet-smelling shampoo. He's learned his lesson, though. From that alone, or perhaps because she doesn't quite appreciate his nonchalant attitude, Ruby rolls her eyes.

"He took an extra shift at the hospital last night. And he didn't tell me, or answer his phone, or anything." She groans suddenly. "Oh, god. What if he wasn't even working?"

"Ruby, calm down," Emma says without looking. "If I already know too much about how crazy Victor is about you, then I'm pretty sure you know it, too."

Killian hides his grin in rummaging around for the milk; he's no stranger to her way of consoling Ruby (it reminds him a little too much of the bluntness he's used to getting from his own friend next door), and even if he wasn't, he's heard enough about her post-honeymoon relationship, both first and secondhand, that he's not very concerned, either. "He probably didn't get a chance to check his phone," he hedges helpfully. "You know how he gets at work."

"But then why the hell couldn't he have told me in the first place? I was worried."

"I know," Emma tells her with saint-like patience. "I know. But don't you think you should be telling him that?"

"He's asleep."

"When he wakes up."

"Why?" There's a soft thud as he assumes Ruby lets her head fall into her elbows, evidenced by her muted voice following: "He deserves the same silent treatment he gave me."

He glances over at Emma out of the corner of his gaze, and though she's occupied with sliding another completed omelette onto a plate, she still sends him a tiny half-shrug. "If you really think he did it to hurt you, then sure," she says, and then turns around to the other counter to face her friend. "But Rubes, look me in the eye and tell me you really think he wanted to make you upset."

It takes a few seconds, which gives him the chance to stop trying to hide his expression and reach for the coffee pot instead, but Ruby seems to have finally relented by the time he leans back with a fresh mug between his hands. She's still not looking at Emma, but at least he can see her face when she sighs a short, frustrated sigh.

"I can't."

"You love him, right?"

Ruby's hackles seem to melt. Her brightly painted lips, not to be neglected even over the weekend, press together into a thin line that's not quite a smile, but the look in her eyes tell a very different story: soft, faraway, the answer in them only too clear. He's seen that same look before, he thinks – sometimes, when Emma smiles at him and his stomach flips over like he's just a stranger blinking up at her from her couch again, but he won't put a word to it until it comes out of her mouth.

"Yeah," Ruby admits finally, as if she's saying it for the first time – though he knows full well it isn't. "Yeah, I do."

"Then you're going to have to find a way to forgive him," Emma says simply. His chest swells with a quiet sort of pride; he might still be trying to caffeinate himself awake, but her astuteness (even if, at times, she needs a little push to direct it inward) never fails to astound him. He watches silently as Emma rests her hands on the counter with impressive stubbornness, as though she might be able to stare Ruby into looking up.

It works.

"Fine," Ruby mutters. "I'll talk to him."

"What was that?"

"I know you heard me." She slides off her seat, abandoning her half-eaten omelette on the counter, and fixes Emma with an expression caught between begrudging and grateful. "I'll talk to him. But don't—" here, she directs ensuing her glare at him, as well "—tell him I was mad. Let me make sure he deserved it, first."

"You know he didn't," Emma sighs. That seems to be good enough of a promise for Ruby, which means the full brunt of her sternness transfers solely to him, instead.

Killian draws a cross over his chest with a finger. "I'm sure he'd have had a good reason, anyway," he adds, though she doesn't look as convinced from his attempts at consolation as from Emma's. "You truly can't come up with a single explanation for why he might want to go behind your back to make a little extra money?"

Without warning, Ruby's eyes widen so comedically, he might have laughed had Emma not turned to him with her mouth fallen open in equal shock. A brief silence engulfs her apartment. "No way."

"But we've—" Ruby begins haltingly, with ill-repressed mounting hysteria. "It's been over a year, I know, but—what the fuck, you don't think—?"

He must be duller than usual this morning for it to take him so long to understand her meaning, and the context behind Emma's reaction in equal measure. Either way, he realizes in a flash, he's a fool for opening his mouth in the first place. "No, wait," he says quickly, "I don't know anything for sure. I was merely suggesting—"

"Oh god, should I ask him?" Ruby appears as though she's wont to start pacing with anxiety. "I shouldn't ask him. I'd ruin the surprise, but what if he's not actually buying a ring? What if—"

"Don't ask him," Killian tells her firmly. "He hasn't said anything. I didn't say anything."

Ruby hesitates, rocking back and forth on her heels in a manner that gives him the impression of a sprinter, ready to bolt. And, sure enough, his fears are realized when, at last, she speaks again. "I—I have to go. Thanks, guys."

"Wait, Rubes—"

"Lass, don't—"

But it's too late. "I'll let you know what happens," Ruby promises them, and then she's snatching her purse off the counter and out the door before he can blink.

He certainly spends a good moment afterwards making up for it, though, staring blankly at where she'd disappeared, a sinking feeling in his gut he knows has nothing to do with a lack of breakfast.

"Bloody hell. I didn't just destroy their relationship, did I?"

The sound of Emma's chuckle is, as always, a welcome relief, but it doesn't quite sink in until she taps his wrist, nudges him out of the way of the coffee maker. "Don't worry," she reassures him. "They bounce back from a lot worse pretty much on a weekly basis."

True as that may be, it's with more than a little healthy skepticism that he twists to frown at her. "Does recovering from a faux pas of this nature not qualify as a little more than simply bouncing back?"

"No more than the usual. I mean," she allows, "you did catch me a little off guard, but I don't think it'll come as much of a surprise to Victor, if she does ask him.

He snorts. "And just when did you become such a relationship guru?"

"Since I woke up at, like, eight-thirty to about fifty text messages in my inbox," she says with a shake of her head. And then, without warning, she leans in on her toes and presses a kiss to his cheek. "Good morning, by the way."

The feeling of her lips on his skin – it dissolves the remnants of his consternation quicker than he can grasp, and he can't help that same ridiculous smile from earlier from making an unwarranted reappearance. Really, he should be used to this by now: since the onset of their relationship, he's had more good mornings than he can count, indeed. Plenty of good nights, too, and good afternoons, and every second in between – and yet, it's the mornings he finds himself appreciating the most. There's just something about starting the day at her side that fills him up, from waking up next to her to tallying traded bacon steals around the edge of the kitchen table, and he knows he'll be swept up in the feeling for a long time to come.

"It's much better than that, I'd wager," he says lightly, grinning wider when she only glances up at him, confused. "A much better morning, I mean," he clarifies. "It's a much better morning than to have warranted just that."

He spots the exact moment realization flickers through her mind, recognizes the familiar way she raises her eyebrows, her mouth curling at the edges. "I woke up at eight-thirty," she reminds him. "It hasn't been a very good morning for me."

The small of his back pressed against the countertop, he ducks his head into her space so that she barely needs to twist to return his gaze at all. "Perhaps we might be able to remedy that." She fixes him with a blatantly expectant stare, refuses to budge an inch even as she struggles to keep from smiling – so it's only by leaning in closer that he finally manages to press his lips to hers.

It's meant to be a chaste kiss, and he shouldn't be so proud that it only barely misses that mark. He tastes toothpaste and brief bliss as her mouth moves against his, just once, but then he's breaking away, lingering close enough to still feel the brush of her lips, of her breath, tingling across his skin.

"Good morning," he murmurs. She makes a small noise he thinks might be one of agreement, and then she's pressing forward to kiss him again. The clink of her mug on the counter reminds him, just in time, that he should probably also be taking precautions to avoid any pre-breakfast disasters, but the better reason for emptying his hands is that he has a much better use for them before he knows it. He slips his tongue into her mouth, feels the vibrations of her pleased hum as she shifts into his arms and between his legs, pushing him right up against the counter. He's still following her gentle lead, despite the contrast between the kiss and her hands sliding up his bare chest, the soft press of her breasts, his own grip wandering backwards from her hips – and, sure enough, the heat doesn't take long to go from a mild simmer to a full-on, hungry boil.

He slips underneath her (or perhaps his) t-shirt, his fingers digging below the waistband of her scarcely-used pajama shorts. The warmth of her body a testament to pure temptation, she smiles against his lips.

"Yeah," she whispers. "I'd say it's definitely getting there, after all."


Maybe she shouldn't have goaded him.

Fuck, she thinks, her head falling back against the cabinets as he does that thing again, the one with his tongue in that spot, just right. She definitely should have goaded him.

Beneath the weight of her knees over his shoulders, he shifts and presses his mouth more firmly into the space between her legs, drinking her up like he knows nothing but the taste of her aching heat. It's not the most comfortable place they could have chosen (the goddamn couches are literally feet away), and it's just about the least sanitary option at that, but she'll worry about cleaning up for the prospect of breakfast later, when the coolness of the hard countertop is nothing compared to the flames licking their outward from her core to fill every tiny crevice of her body with a pulsing, white-hot glow. She arches against his lips, pushing him closer with a hand twisted into his hair, though the other is much needed to keep her balance as she lets her knees, caged around his head, fall open wider.

She'd think he was helping to keep her steady, securing her where she's become as bare at the waist as he still is from the waist up – if he weren't driving her to the brink of madness with every kiss, with every teasing drag of his clever tongue through her folds.

"Killian," she sighs. He only responds by taking her swollen flesh between his lips, sucking until everything clenches and she sees the throb of stars. Her gasp comes out ragged, but his hum of satisfaction is smooth bliss against her, drives her even higher to the point that she thinks she might be hurting him, what with how solidly she's pressed her heels into his back.

"Come on, love," he urges her, the brief tremble of his breath spreading goosebumps across the insides of her thighs. And then he's delving back in with a newly determined fervor, his clever tongue coaxing the pleasure out of her in a slick, tight burst of heat as every muscle in her body clenches outward and she falls – down, down, shaking with his name caught in her throat like a curse or a prayer.

(Probably both.)

(He's way too good at this.)

When she finally comes back to her senses, breathless, her bones feeling as though they've liquefied in the best possible way, the crooked set of his mouth is something dangerous between her thighs. It takes her a second to extricate her legs from where they're draped over his shoulders and her fingers from his now worse-than-usual bedhead, and a second longer still to speak, her voice a thin quiver.

"Good morning," she concedes, returning his smile with feigned reluctance, and as soon as he's back on his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, she's wiggling to the edge of the counter and pulling him back in for another kiss. He sighs into it – the kiss feels like one long sigh of lazy contentment, soft and searching and unspeakably wonderful. Her mind still wrought with incoherence, she doesn't even notice she's hooked her ankles around the backs of his knees, pressing herself flush against him once more, until she shifts to wraps her arms full around his shoulders and feels him, the thick ridge of his erection through his pants, between her thighs where she's still tender and sensitive.

He grunts out an obscene sound as she rolls her hips, nips at her bottom lip in a way that stirs the beginnings of renewed desire in the pit of her belly. His hands start to travel upward beneath her shirt, forcing her to suck in a quick breath when his palm slips between them to test the weight of her breast, and she has just enough mental coherency to think that she's perfectly justified in ignoring the way the side of his pants vibrate against her knee – until it happens again.

And again.

"Ignore it," he murmurs against her lips before diving back in, but then his pants vibrate about ten more times (not that she could count them, exactly, though any number would have been ridiculous for sure), and he finally pulls away with a rough, frustrated groan. "What in blazes—"

She watches blearily as he yanks his phone out of his pocket (she's pretty sure those sweatpants used to reside at the bottom of her closet, come to think of it), glares at the screen with dark blue eyes that seem to have trouble focusing.

"Bloody Dave."

"What's going on?" she asks, propping herself up with her hands against the countertop behind her, just to keep from slipping off entirely while his hands are otherwise preoccupied.

Killian shakes his head. "He wants to know whether we're still willing to come help him and Mary Margaret set up for their sip and see in an hour."

Shit. She wrinkles her nose, for more reasons than one. "Please don't call it that. How the hell is anyone supposed to know what that actually means?"

"Apologies, lass. A newborn baby party, was it?" His imitation of her accent is so awful, she shoves him with her knee and a weak laugh.

"Mary Margaret's newfound maternity vocabulary is rubbing off on you."

He shrugs, unabashed, then throws her an impish look. "Shall I tell him we're running a bit late, then?"

"Just a little late," she agrees with a grin. The fingers of one of her hands hand wind themselves back into the hair at the back of his head, urging him to move faster as he types out a quick response.

"I'm going to have to meet you there, so I'll actually have to be a tad later than that," he tells her when he slips his phone back into his pocket. At the way she tilts her head, he explains, "I'll need to stop by my place to pick up something clean to wear, surely. Unless your closet harbors more than just comfortable clothing in a size that won't have me traumatizing poor Leo?"

"And Roland," she adds. "And David, probably. But – don't you have any more clean clothes here?"

She knows he's commandeered at least a shelf in her closet (along with half the bathroom vanity, and her coffee trove seems to have suddenly found itself inundated with tea for when he's feeling particularly British), so the pointed twist of his mouth isn't particularly helpful. At least, until he says, "Somehow, it seems like I never quite get around to doing laundry whenever I'm here."

And, well, she realizes with faint chagrin: it's true. It's only rarely that they're ever hard-pressed for time together, and yet that time always feels far too short to be wasting on mundane things like chores – even if, she's thoroughly unsurprised to find, she'd be perfectly content with spending any amount of time with him basking in the delights of ordinary life. He did teach her how to cook, after all, and it's the quiet moments in between all the quips and teasing (often in the worst possible ways) she looks back on most fondly from all the months she's spent relearning how to use her heart.

In the end, she might be able to chalk it up to all that talk of relationships, particularly of moving forwards and next steps, from earlier. She could blame the fact that she's still a little light-headed and tremulous, and that the parts of her that haven't stopped wanting him, from the waist down and everywhere – they can't mask how much she wants him in other capacities, in every capacity, too. But she knows her reasons are so much more than anything she can ascribe to a single feeling or word (or even unromantic spontaneity) when she says, finally: "Maybe you should bring the rest of your clothes here."

He fixes her with a strange expression. "But then what would I wear if I had to change at home?"

"You should move the rest of your things here, too," she says in a rush. "You should— you should move here. You should move in here, with me."

His brow furrows, and she very nearly begins to worry for it – except she knows there's never really anything to worry about at all, not when it comes to him. Sure enough, it doesn't take long for his gaze to soften, from confusion to disbelief, in a way she'd have to be blind not to see, and to not have seen coming from miles and miles away.

"You really mean it, love?"

She huffs out a breath. "Is that a yes or—" The rest is cut off by his lips, surging forward to kiss her without restraint. She melts into it as quickly as her fake annoyance fades, tasting the brightness of his smile to the extent that, when they finally break apart several blissful moments later, she's fairly certain she's glowing for it.

"That," he breathes, a wisp of sweet warmth on her skin, "is a resounding yes. I'd be honored to share your home, Swan."

Despite everything, that still has her heart beating full and thick in her throat. She's in the middle of trying to formulate a reply when, suddenly, he reaches somewhere behind her, and she jumps as he raps his knuckles against the wall under the kitchen cabinets.

"Hear that, Robin?" he says loudly, the white of his teeth gleaming. "We're going to be neighbors."

There's a short second of silence, and then, a muffled grunt through the wall: "I'm moving."

She laughs as Killian shakes his head. "He's joking. Probably."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he was planning to move back in with Regina anyway," she says.

"That traitor. Honestly," he tells her, "now that I no longer need an excuse to break into the wrong apartment, he's free to leave."

She tries, in vain, to put on the best pointed look she can muster at the memory – softened at the edges as it is. "You were always pretty good at making a home for yourself here, weren't you?"

His wide grin really is something to behold, and it forces her to bite her lip out of the smile she feels at the corners of her mouth.

"Aye, love." He leans in, his blue eyes glinting with the kind of mischief she's loved now for a long, long time. "I suppose," he says cheerfully, "I always was."