Make Your Choice for shaddicted. Rated M for some bad language and suchlike…

Prompt: How about them having just a fleeting moment completely unrelated to Valentine's Day? An accidental brush, a heated glance, maybe even an angry passionate almost kiss (or not almost)? No sadness, might be some anger but definitely passion involved. […] in the car away from Storybrooke.

Not even five miles out of Storybrooke, and Emma already knew that this had been a singularly shitty idea. She'd hesitated in driving the Bug over the town line, fearing that this would somehow cause Hook to lose his memories, and then she'd be carting a chatty motherfucker named Killian Jones the rest of the way to Boston, forced to explain to him both why she was exiling him in the first place and why he had a large, sharp object in place of a left hand. But even though Gold had probably been trying to fix something up as fast as he possibly could in order to cause this very thing to happen, it didn't. There wasn't even a blue ripple of energy. Just a faint thrum, a sensation like static electricity in Emma's fingertips, and they were on their way.

Of course, the downside was that her passenger was still a chatty motherfucker, and he retained full knowledge of where to press every single one of her buttons. He had never been in a car before, having developed a natural hostility toward the things after his close encounter of the third kind with Greg Mendel's, and every time she ginned up above 40 mph, he was prone to clutching his seat with his good hand and shooting her black looks as if anticipating her to carry out some kind of nefarious murder plot. The rest of the time, he was trying to touch the dials, blasting them frozen with the air conditioner or roasting them with the heat, twiddling all the stations on the radio and being dissuaded, with great difficulty on her part, from reaching for the gearshift or the windshield-wiper stick.

Then again, Emma knew that at least half his interference, if not all of it, was deliberately pre-meditated. He was furiously angry at her, and this little passive-aggressive act was his way, for now, of showing it. She'd volunteered to drive him since she didn't trust anyone else to actually deliver him to Boston, where he had said he'd stay rather than sailing the Jolly Roger back to the ruins of the Enchanted Forest. (And besides, no one else really could leave Storybrooke except Neal, and that was just too horrifying to think of.)

Nonetheless, her patience was far from inexhaustible in the best of times, and with her nerves already so rasped and raw, his dozenth attempt to blast the oldies station was finally enough. "Quit it!" she snapped, powering it off. "I'm doing you a favor, and you don't – "

"Oh yes, love. A favor, that's what you call it." The serpentine look he shot back at her, blue eyes half-veiled in sooty lashes, almost caused her to drive off the road. "I was at a loss to think of another word for what a lass does when she unceremoniously bundles a man out of her life, out of her heart, and out of her bed, and means to call it a service to him."

Emma flinched at the venom in his voice, even more so because she couldn't rebuff it. "I told you," she said weakly. "This is my only chance to get Henry back. He hasn't talked to me since he found out that I lied to him about… about Baelfire."

It was Hook's turn to flinch at the sound of the name. "So," he said after a moment. "You're going to get back together with the bastard, then? The belly-crawling, miserable, cowardly purulent sack of cock maggots who would be eating and shitting out of the same hole if you hadn't interrupted me?"

"I was trying not to get you arrested for assault! It had nothing to do with – "

He leered at her. "Oh, that was it, was it? You stopped me kicking the shite out of the sorry-arse ignoramus for my own good? The one who calling a halfwit would be a bloody compliment? Nothing to do with the fact that you're throwing me out of town and fleeing back into his arms? I'm bloody fucking disappointed in you, and I don't think it's out of place to say so, m'lady."

Emma's hands jerked on the wheel. "I am not getting back together with Neal," she said tightly. "But he's Gold's son, he's going to be in Storybrooke from now on, and I can't be babysitting you two every moment of the day. Besides, he's Milah's son too. I thought you'd have taken that into consideration before deciding to go beat the crap out of him."

"I didn't know that at the time I conceived my plan, no," Hook conceded stiffly. "I'm not going to kill the arselicker, just for that reason alone. But the man is as much a coward as his bloody father. He's not worthy of you, and every time I see him, my fingers remind me that there are five of them missing that I could more fruitfully have wrapped around his throat. Thanks, again, to his bloody father."

"I thought you weren't going to kill him." Emma downshifted around a hairpin curve.

Hook shrugged. "Maybe not. That doesn't exclude choking him until he squeals."

Emma took her eyes off the road, where they had been sedulously trained for the last half hour, to glance sidelong at him. She was troubled at the sheer blackness of the expression on his face, how close he seemed to the unscrupulous pirate captain who would say anything, remove anyone, in his way. Suddenly she wondered at the advisability of turning him loose on unsuspecting Boston, where even his eccentricities wouldn't be camouflaged forever. He'd probably try to hijack the Constitution from Navy Yard or something, and get thrown into the federal pokey. The thought that he might have been one of the criminals she had chased down in her old days almost made her want to laugh, but it hurt too much.

He was, as ever, too damned sensitive to her moods. He smirked. "Second thoughts? This is your last chance to have me knock out the sodding bastard for you, love."

"I don't want you to do anything to him," Emma said, even more stiffly than him. "Gold has been looking for him forever, and maybe now that he's found him, he'll tone it down. He's been without him a long time. I'm not happy about it, but I don't have the right to take it from him. I know something about how it feels to be separated from your son."

"If you think it will be that simple, you're bloody dreaming. From what I saw, relations between them weren't chummy to start, and don't make the crocodile into some sort of sainted martyr. He lost his son from his own doing, because he killed the boy's mother." With no warning, the pirate slammed his hook into the Bug's dash hard enough to leave a scar. "Because he had to tell himself he wasn't a coward, he made himself into a monster."

Emma tried to disguise how badly that had made her jump, and they drove in silence for some time. "Look," she said at last, pulling off into a roadside service station. "I need to get gas. If you really have to, we'll continue the conversation in a minute. Just sit tight and… just. Just." If she told him not to do anything, it would immediately become his cherished heart's desire.

He leered at her again, but said nothing as she pulled the Bug up next to the pump, got out, and flipped open the cap. The station was so old that she was going to have to pay inside, and she muttered and checked her wallet for cash. She was almost sure she'd put a few twenties in there for the road, but she must not, because she didn't have any. Therefore, she was going to have to put this on her credit card. And between the constant disruptions, trips, heartbreaks, shocks, and battles, she hadn't exactly had time to work and make money recently.

"Whatever," Emma muttered, giving the gas pump a final click to top it off and heading inside. The shop was cramped and woodsy, stocked with a shabby assortment of road maps, off-brand beer, about a thousand varieties of chewing tobacco and cigarettes, and staffed by a proprietor who was a hundred years old at the youngest. Two scruffy logger types were loitering by the magazine rack, ogling the pornos (which, aside from hunting, fishing, and car glossies, were all that was available) and one of them looked up and whistled. "Hey, cutie."

Emma rolled her eyes and strode up to the streaky glass counter, where the proprietor squinted at her like a mole rat. "I need to pay for the gas on pump 1," she informed him. "$39.02?"

He blinked at her as if no one had ever uttered this sentence to him before in his life. "Eh?"

"The. Gas." Emma pulled out her credit card and waved it. "Pay?"

He looked at it, looked at her, then back at it. His mouth worked. "Card reader's down."

"Oh come on. You have to be kidding."

He shook his head stubbornly, chin wattles jiggling like a turkey's. "Cash only."

"You don't have a sign up!" Emma said angrily, as if this was somehow going to alter the situation. "You have an ATM or something?"

"Nope. Vandalized again. Cash only."

"I don't have cash. I only have a card. Take the card."

He looked at it, looked at her, then back at it. His mouth worked. "Can't."

Emma started into an exasperated curse, then jumped when a hand touched her back. She turned to see one of the seedy logger types grinning down at her, with a mouthful of mostly missing yellow teeth. "You having problems, sweetie?"

"No, I'm… fine." She tried to sidle out from under his hand, and turned back to the proprietor. "Look, how about you tell me where the nearest ATM is, and I leave like, my driver's license here and go get cash? Or why don't I – "

"I'll pay for it, sweetie," the logger interrupted. "Get a real man to treat you right, so long as you treat me like a woman should." He grinned again. "You're awful pretty. Where you from?"

"None of your fucking business. And keep your hand off me if you're interested in it staying attached to your body." Emma slapped it away.

"Now that's not real nice of you, is it?" He turned to call to his buddy across the store. "Hey, Ed, was that real nice of her?"

"Nope," said Ed, who was apparently used to being asked questions like these.

The proprietor looked vaguely alarmed, but made no move to intervene. Emma tried to dodge past her unwelcome suitor, but he'd braced both arms on either side of her, pinning her back against the counter. "You gonna drive off with a tank full of stolen gas, sweetie? Come on. Don't be all uppity. I'm a nice guy, I promise. You and that pretty mouth, why don't you – "

Emma looked around for something at hand, conveniently club or flashlight-sized, to drop him with. That was not going to be the best strategy for paying for her gas, true, but she wasn't about to let McCreepy slobber on her a second longer. But there was nothing at hand, and he was leaning in and puckering up as if his delusional ass actually thought he was going to get –

At that moment, the front door of the shop slammed open so hard that the bells fell to the floor in a clang. And from the look of horror on the proprietor's face, Emma knew exactly what he saw.

"Mate," said Killian Jones, in the world's most deathly quiet voice. "Get away from her."

Interrupted, the douchebag glanced around angrily, and he let out a loud guffaw when he saw the pirate in his long black leather jacket and eyeliner. "Fuck off, queer."

"That wasn't a smart thing to say." Hook grinned rakishly, took three steps, and whipped his left arm up, revealing the lethal metal appendage attached to it. "Care to come again?"

Ed's eyes bugged out. "What in the hell is that thing? Steve! He's got a – "

"Oh good," Hook said pleasantly. "One of you still has a clue in your brains, soon to be gone when it dies of loneliness. As the saying goes, I have a hook and I'm not afraid to use it, so unless you want to feel what it's like to be dissected inch by bloody inch, get away from her."

Steve, as Emma's attempted inamorato was apparently called, looked even more distempered. "What are you, some kind of fuckin' actor? What's even with that thing stuck on your wrist, who you trying to fool, are you – "

The pirate reached over with his hand, unsnapped the hook, and raised it. "You're right. It's much more convenient for burying between your eyes this way."

The proprietor cleared his throat with a sound like a dying carburetor. "Uh, fellas. I don't want no monkey business in the shop, you hear? Take it outside, take it outside."

"Don't worry. This will be done in just a moment. So, gents. What's it going to be? Hooks, fists, or swords?"

"I don't like this guy," Ed said. "He's nuts."

"He's just some kind of loser, shut up." Realizing, however, that the threat to his safety was going to have to be taken seriously, Steve let go of Emma and advanced on Hook. "I bet he's gonna shriek like a little pussy when I – "

Sadly for human erudition everywhere, that sentence was never completed. The pirate snapped his hook back into the brace and went, snake-quick, for the sword strapped to his hip. It flashed out with a hiss, clearly no kind of toy or joke, glimmering with a razor-sharp edge. "Where are my manners? We haven't been properly introduced."

Steve stopped in his tracks, eyes fixed on the blade. "The fuck is that?"

"Shortly about to be three feet out your arse unless you collect your dismal sidekick there, spare us all your so-called wit, and book it the bloody fuckery out of this shop, never to see her or speak to her again. If you do, I can promise you will wish you had never been born."

Steve visibly deflated, inching back from the blade when Hook slashed it under his nose. "I… Jesus Christ, buddy, take it easy, just take it easy, okay? Your girlfriend there was kind of in trouble since she didn't have any money, I was trying to do her a favor, all right? No need to go Zorro on my butt. Just – put that away and… chill the fuck out."

"So soon as you get out of our lives. Go on." Hook placed the tip of the sword delicately against Steve's beard. "Or I shave off that ugly dead rodent. Tuft. By. Tuft."

"Yeah, uh… I'm… yeah. You… have a nice day." Steve backed away, jerked his head at Ed, and beat feet for the door. The next sound was of a truck revving up and tires squealing as they shot away down the road.

Emma stared after them, fighting the urge to pinch herself. "Hoo – Killian," she croaked. "Just put the sword away, okay? It's all right."

He did so, sheathing it with one brief and violent thrust. Then while she was still about to say something, figure out just what she was going to do about the gas, he reached out, seized her by the arm, and almost carried her out the door. He hustled her around the side of the shop into the woods at the back, swung her up against the rear wall, and kissed her so hard that she saw stars.

Emma gave a muffled squawk, trying to push him away, but he wouldn't let go. His body pressed up against her at full length, his mouth hot and wet and bruising, his lips open, their tongues and teeth meeting and tasting and scraping. Finally she had nothing to do but to clutch him back, making out like teenagers at midnight on the porch, holding onto him and knotting her fingers in his hair, a small voice screaming that this was the exact wrong way to tell him not to go, and the rest of her ever more horrifyingly aware that she had never wanted him to. That she may not have let him get out of the car in Boston, that it was doubtful he even would have, and –

She finally had to stop it when he began to try to get his hand under her shirt. She trapped it with hers, feeling his fingers burning against the bare skin of her side. "No… in public, not going…"

"Then you'd better find us somewhere private, love," he growled, the deep timbre of his voice sending shockwaves through her stomach. "Because you're not about to make me stop now."

"Yes… I am." She pushed his face away when he leaned back in. "I still have a tank of gas that I have to figure out some damn way to pay for, and – "

She stopped at the shit-eating smirk on his face. Still keeping his left arm against her stomach, he reached into his breast pocket with his good hand and twiddled her missing twenties at her. "Looking for these?"

Emma made a grab for them, and missed as he jerked them away. "You son of a bitch!"

"Pirate, love," he reminded her, tucking them back into his pocket and patting them. "So, you have a choice. Go back in there and try to get the geezer to accept that magical money card of yours, or let me pay for it, get back in the bloody automobile, and drive me home with you."

"You're despicable."

He quirked a dark eyebrow at her. "And you, my darling, have no money. Make your choice."

Emma hesitated, aware of what she was going to commit herself to if she said yes. Take him, and everything which that entailed. The confrontations with Gold, the possibility of Henry staying away from her for months, even years… more fights with Neal, more drama, never a quiet moment in Storybrooke again… even her own parents hadn't been sad to think they were seeing the last of the pirate. Snow had tolerated him, but her father would have personally driven Hook to Boston even at the cost of his own memory, if Emma hadn't put her foot down. But Killian's eyes locked on hers, her legs weak…

"I told you, love," he said, utterly seriously. "I will always follow you. And I will always fight for you, even if it's just two idiots such as previous company. You knew it, too. Knew you had to tie me down and chain me up and stab me in the back and break my heart and try everything you possibly could, but you'll still never be rid of me. I bloody need you, Emma Swan. Need you like bloody air, and I will cut down anyone who tries to take you from me."

The look he gave her made her shiver again. "Hook…"

"Emma," he breathed, closing in on her again. "We could, you know. Right here. That old bastard must be a hundred at least, he's not hobbling out to interrupt us." His hand was sliding up her shirt again, his hook firmly anchored in her belt loops. "Come to me, darling. I beg you."

"Not here. Seriously. I'm not getting splinters in my back – or anywhere," she added, as dignifiedly as one possibly could in this situation. "All… all right. Give me my money back, I'll go in and pay for the gas before Grandpa calls the cops, and we can find.. . somewhere else."

His face split in a dazzling, heart-stopping smile. "Was that a promise?"

"More like a threat, buddy boy." Emma thrust her hips against his, causing him to emit an audible gasp, and seductively stroked his cheek, while darting her other hand into his pocket and seizing the twenties before he could get his hook dislodged. "Two can play at this game."

"Oh," he purred. "I would despair if you didn't, darling."

"I hate you." Emma reached down and unhooked herself. "Go wait in the car."

He gave her another one of those X-rated looks, then slowly sauntered away, around the corner, just as the proprietor apparently stepped out to shout for them (no doubt having only just then noticed that they were gone). Emma sighed and hurried to settle the bill, shoving two twenties into his arthritic claw and telling him to keep the change. Then she hotfooted it across the asphalt and dove into the Bug, just in case Hook took it in mind to start stripping in the passenger seat.

She didn't look at him as she buckled up, reversed out, and pulled out onto the road. There wasn't anyone coming, probably wasn't anyone else on it for forty miles (Ed and Steve were no doubt frantically increasing that distance). She could feel Hook looking at her, looking at her as if he could never stop, and finally, shyly, she looked back at him.

He reached out to slowly, gently stroke her tousled hair out of her face. "Well, love?" he whispered. "Where are we going? Home?"

For the longest moment, she hesitated. Then she reached up, and covered her hand with his.

"Yes," she whispered. "Home."