A/N: A little later than I meant to post today, but here's the next installment! Thanks to all of you for following, favoriting, or commenting. It means the world to me to have feedback in a fandom that's gone quiet in a lot of ways. Hugs to all!
Of course, Killian's not terrible at dancing. Not by a long shot. They spend the first day on basic steps, with Killian staring intently between the mirror and Emma as they work on form and movements. He's even better with his hips than she initially realized, which makes her job a little easier.
The biggest struggle is working on something much simpler than form or footwork. Killian is terrible at eye contact. And the longer he avoids actually looking at her, the harder it gets to teach him the easy stuff. It doesn't help that the air conditioning chooses this hour to fuck off, and Emma spends a minute stretching, going one more time to fiddle with the knobs in hopes of getting some cool air into the room, and then she switches the music.
Killian, still in front of the mirrors, doesn't even look over. His expression is one of determination and irritation, and she's curious as to why those two are mixing together. But first, she needs to get her partner to trust her. She watches him stare down his reflection, his feet moving repeatedly in the simple pattern she taught him to start, a furrow of concentration wrinkling his forehead.
"Hey, come over here for a minute." She waves him over as she spreads a couple yoga mats on the floor right under where the fans circulate so they have a nice breeze. She grabs a second water bottle and hands it to him, smiling as he drinks it as if he was stranded without for days, taking a singular moment to appreciate the way the sweat drips down his temples. Then she's back to business, sitting down on one of the mats and looking at him expectantly until he folds his legs and sits down across from her.
"Hold out your hands," she instructs, waiting until his hand and prosthetic are stretched in front of him, his elbows resting on his knees. She turns his hands palm up, placing her hands in his immediately after. He flinches, immediately trying to pull away from the touch, and Emma lets him.
"What is this?"
"A trust exercise. When you're ready, put your hands out again, and make eye contact with me."
She watches him, never wavering, keeping herself calm even as she feels the way her ponytail is sticking to her neck and a drop of sweat is traveling down her lower back. She knows that if she flinches, the whole thing will fall apart.
He exhales heavily, grabbing the towel she placed next to the mat for him and swiping it across his face. He takes another drink from his water before he shrugs his shoulders and settles back into the same position he started in. After a couple seconds he slowly, ever so slowly, holds out his hands again. Emma gently places her hands in his again, still steadily staring at him and waiting. After a few more deep breaths, Killian finally looks up and meets her eyes.
Three, four, five, six… She holds his gaze for ten seconds and then nods to let him know that it's okay to break the contact. He looks down, but doesn't move from her hold.
"Tell me more about this job," he prompts.
"So there's this old contact I have. She fits the Type A personality descriptions too well, but she's opening her own hotel. She wants to make it like old, upscale hotels used to be, with live entertainment in a lounge setting. The day I went into town to do my laundry after we uh, first met, there was the email basically inviting us to audition."
As she talks, Killian looks up and holds eye contact with her. "Why do you need me to dance with you?"
"With Ruby out for a month, that would leave maybe a couple days for her to get ready to dance. While she knows what she's doing, she's going to have to work her way back up to speed. I don't want her dancing that soon after being cleared for putting full weight on it, just for the sake of a job possibility." She waits a beat, figures she can push it and get him talking a little bit, and then asks a question of her own. "You can choose not to answer this, but why the rum?"
"I'll spare the details, but I will say the loss of my hand and my heart left me a little empty. Drinking has been a way to fill it and waste away the days."
His heart. The loss of someone close. And she doubts it's as tame as her shitty breakups. She doesn't ask him to clarify; besides, she doesn't have time to when he asks his next question.
"You got rather defensive when I said I wouldn't dare dance. Why that response?"
With a whoosh, Emma blows a lock of hair out of her eyes. Before she can answer, Killian squints his eyes and looks at her closely.
"An ex-lover, correct?"
"Two. Two ex-boyfriends. One is the big regret of my life and the other was just an ass."
He nods, following her lead and not asking for further explanation. "Tell me something else," Killian says, clearing his throat. He's managed to keep his eyes locked with hers the full time and she doesn't want to break the streak they have going. "Anything. Tell me anything."
She doesn't know where the words come from but all of a sudden it's coming out in the open. "I was raised in the foster system until David's mother took me in. Uh, David Nolan. One of the owners of this place. Ruth adopted me and I finally had a family in her and David, and then after he got married I had a sister. And I've had Ruby by my side all this time, too."
She shrugs and smiles, fighting with herself to keep looking straight at him when she suddenly has the urge to look away. Open up about exes? Sure. Open up about her family? No, thanks.
"A lost boy always recognizes a lost girl," Killian says quietly. "My mum died when I was young, my father left not long after, and it's been me and Liam as long as I can remember."
"Why do you hate the camp so much?" Emma's not sure why she's even asking, but for some reason she feels the need to know.
Sadly, Killian finally breaks the eye contact that they've been holding but it's to chuckle. He shifts his arms, but doesn't let go of her hands. His fingers squeeze her hand and he sighs restlessly as he looks back to her. "I've not been in a good place for a long time, obviously," he says plainly. "Liam tricked me. Told me we'd be going home for the summer, but instead dragged me all the way to bloody Maine."
"That's the funny thing about Storybrooke and Camp Hope, they're the home you didn't know you needed," Emma tells him, not realizing how true the words are until her heart constricts. "That's the other reason I want this job so bad. It's down in Portland, and the trip is half as long. I want to move closer to home."
They're both quiet for a long time, and Emma smiles not just because she wants to keep Killian at ease but because he's already doing so much better at looking at her. From the hunched, grumpy man she pre-met at the grocery kiosk to this moment right here, there's already a marked difference.
"Well, then you better teach me how to look like a professional so I can help you get that job." His smile after this statement is genuine and brilliant, and Emma can't help her own from mimicking his.
Without further ado, she clambers up to her feet and holds out her hand to help him up. After he's standing again, she shakes his hand in agreement that it's time they get to work.
"I'll be here after dinner," she says, noting that she has a lesson starting in just twenty minutes and she needs to get food in her stomach before that time. "We can at least get some extra footwork in if you can spare the time."
"I look forward to it, Swan."
As the next week wears on, the lessons with Killian get better and worse. By all standards, it's not the worst experience Emma's ever had teaching, but yet…
"No," she says for at least the fifth time in a row. "No, no, no. You move on the two, not the one. Try it again."
Despite looking frustrated as hell, Killian resumes his hold, sucks in a deep breath, and exhales as they wait for the song to start. She catches a glimpse of them in the mirrors from her periphery. Her ideal aesthetics that she imagined before asking him to dance with her are purely figments of her imagination at present. They're both sweaty right now; his cheeks are pink from the exertion, her hair is falling out of the shitty bun she put it in earlier to get it off her neck, and they could both give a kid nicknamed "Pit-stains" a run for his or her money right now.
It wouldn't be nearly so bad if the humidity hadn't rolled in full-force the day before, blanketing the whole camp in a heavy haze of summer warmth. The meager air conditioning in the studio is struggling to keep them cool, but with how long they've been at this today, even the ancient unit is no match for their activity levels.
They start again, and though Emma just told him not to move on the one, he still flinches, his foot raising up, and she can feel the movement without looking down to see it. She glares at him in the split second it takes for the second beat to occur because now he's thrown off – now they have to start over. Again.
She doesn't even move from the hold, just angrily jams the button on the remote that will start the song at the top again. While the stereo system takes its sweet time to configure, Emma tries her best not to glower at him the whole time. "Do I need to start counting out loud again?"
His reply is something along the lines of "No, mistress," but the song starts again and she holds firm as the count begins. He does his best to hide his smile in a look of pure innocence, and suddenly, she has to fight her own smile. Despite her grumbling and bickering, he's still been injecting the whole lesson with quiet humor and thus, keeping her from tensing up too much. This time, he moves on the two.
The next day, they almost manage to get through the new section of the routine in one go. He messes up a bunch, but they don't stop, and Emma counts that as progress in her book. With the performance just three weeks away, she needs more runs like this, and faster.
Maybe that's why she snaps when he starts fidgeting around, but mostly it's because of the heat and the looming deadline, and the worry that someone is going to notice that whenever there are gaps in her dance lessons and class sessions, she's pretty much not leaving the studio. If David or Snow have noticed her skipping breakfasts and lunches, only relying on whatever Killian grabs from the dining hall, they haven't said anything yet. Maybe they just assume it's because she's picking up Ruby's lessons, now. Whatever the case, she needs them to stay oblivious for a little while longer.
She turns around from taking a deep gulp of water from her bottle to see Killian with a storm cloud above his head, his expression lost and faraway. He may be keeping practices light, but she still catches these moments of his, and while she assumes what it must be about this time, she still asks.
"What's wrong?"
They've gotten extremely good at communicating since Emma's little trust experiment, so Killian doesn't really hesitate before he speaks. "They'll all be staring at my hand, or lack thereof," he says, his eyebrows furrowing and his lips drawing down into a frown. He's fixating on the fake flesh of his left hand, having switched over to this attachment after the first couple sessions instead of his hook. She doesn't care which he uses, as long as it's going to be where it needs to be while they're dancing.
"No, they won't," she tries to reassure him. She sets her water back down and wanders closer, trying to get him to center in the moment rather than whatever dark place he's gone off to. He barely even glances at her this time. While they've shared a lot in their time together already, there's still so much buried beneath his surface – there are demons waiting at every turn, much like she deals with when she's all alone at night.
"They will."
"They won't. They'll be so focused on your movements they won't even realize one of your hands isn't real. You hear me?"
In fact, Emma constantly forgets that he doesn't have two hands, not because she's insensitive to his lack of hand, but because they've managed to edit any movements that would make him uncomfortable with it. She forgets because it's part of him, and she accepts him exactly as he is. She just doesn't understand why he can't see that. She moves to stand in front of him, her hand reaching out to touch the prosthetic in a move of solidarity.
"Yeah," he responds, not even bothering to try and look at her this time.
"Hey," she stresses, stepping into that personal space they've worked so hard to establish between them. She makes sure she's got his full attention now, his eyes locked with hers, her hands gripping the open sides of the button down she can't believe he's wearing in this heat. "You hear me?" she repeats, her tone leaving no room for argument.
His eyes are wider than she's ever seen them, and his breath smells like the coffee he chugged down a minute ago. It whooshes out of him and brushes against her with the closeness of their proximity. "I hear you," he says softly, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.
The warning bells are all going off like crazy, but for once she doesn't listen to a single one of them. Instead, using the leverage she has on his shirt, she pulls him forward the rest of the way and kisses him. And oh, what a kiss it is. Where he's still this side of timid on the dance floor, there's no hesitation in the way his lips move against hers. Even less when he's the one to initiate some tongue into the action, just requesting entrance before mapping out the roof of her mouth. She feels his hand come up to tangle in her hair and she's hyper-aware of the way she's on the tips of her toes, damning herself for not being in heels at this moment. Her muscles scream their protest but all she can concentrate on is sucking in a deep breath before diving back in for more.
She's kissed before, and she's been kissed before, but this is the kind of kiss that songs are written about. This is the kind of kiss that would come with the swelling of instrumentals and a panning shot of the sunset or rainbow in the background of the sappy rom-com she and Ruby like to watch in their downtime.
Hours may have passed since this first began and she wouldn't even know it, but when she does stop, the reality of the situation slams back into her. He still looks a little dazed, like he's floating on a cloud, and when he starts to speak he only gets out, "That was…" before she cuts him off.
"A one-time thing," she says, forcing herself to release her grip on his shirt and step back. Lost in the after-effects, she can only turn in her own haze of emotions. "Don't follow me. Wait five minutes and then take the rest of the day until after dinner."
"As you wish," he says, his voice strained and longing in those three little words. She bends and picks up her shoes and water bottle on her way out and doesn't look back. It's only once she hits the door that she realizes she tasted nothing but the coffee, and wonders when he stopped sipping rum before their sessions.
-x-
Killian's had some bad ideas in his life. One was not tucking and rolling out of the car when Liam told him where they were going. The second was listening to Emma when she said he could do this. Judging by the way her face is pinched for the third day in a row, he's pretty sure she was overzealous. They haven't been able to move onto a new section of the routine since that kiss, but the day is still young and he's come to the dance studio with a new brand of determination.
And by "determination" he means that he's had way too much coffee and he's been practicing in his cabin all night.
As they warm up, he stays focused on the task at hand. From the corner of his eye, however, he can see Emma looking at him. They've never talked about the kiss, preferring instead to both pretend it never happened so that nothing has to be more complicated than it already is.
By the time they've made it through all of the routine that he's learned so far, he feels like things are finally on the right track. He doesn't shy away from the steps or the eye contact today. He pays attention to every little cue Emma gives him. He definitely does not think about how she felt when she clung to him during the best make out session he's ever had in his life.
He can't speak for her, but Killian is much more aware of everything that she's been trying to teach him. He's more attuned to her body's movements, and without realizing it, on the third run-through, he follows the muscle memory that she's been instilling in him this whole time. After just a half hour of working, Emma smiles at him – a genuine smile that he hasn't seen for days now – and claps her hands. This expression on her face is worth the fact that the entire front of his t-shirt is soaked through.
"Okay! On to the next part."
Hiding his activities from Liam has been both the easiest thing in the world and the hardest. It's simple because Liam is so lost in his own adventures that he doesn't notice Killian isn't drinking himself into oblivion anymore. It's difficult, though, because while Liam hasn't noticed he's not three sheets to the wind every day, he's definitely picked up on the fact that Killian isn't at the cabin for much of the day.
Most days that he leaves, he wanders out in the clothes he'd be wearing if he were going for a walk or down to the main lodge. As it is, he shows up at the studio having to damn near strip some days as he enters the space with the malfunctioning air conditioning.
Today, the whole spacious room is cool and breezy, and Emma quips that they've finally gotten a maintenance man to look at the AC. "It won't make it to next summer, but it'll do for the rest of this one," she remarks as they set up for a new section of the dance.
They get lost in their practicing, until Emma's phone beeps an alert from near the stereo. "Okay. Let's run the whole thing, best you can, and then I have to clean up and get the studio ready for a yoga class."
This has been the system for the last two weeks since they began this process. They practice in snatches between Emma's schedule and the studio's, having to scurry away and clear out before someone else needs the space.
He follows her lead, figuratively speaking. She doesn't invite him to her cabin to keep practicing, doesn't offer to come back to his. And so they stick to whatever time they can use the dance studio and then go their opposite ways for whatever length of time they don't have that space available.
After they make it through the choreography to Emma's satisfaction, she lets the music play a little longer as she continues her steps. When it comes to something he obviously would've been part of during the dance, she finally tapers off, her shoulders sagging as she finally relaxes.
"Good. Getting better. By next week we should have the whole thing together and it's just a matter of making sure you look perfect and professional up there." She makes a noise of surprise, and while Killian doesn't see anything amiss, there's obviously something that has just gone off in her mind at her own words and he wonders, but she doesn't share.
"What time later?" Killian asks, retrieving his t-shirt from the floor where he stripped it off earlier. It had taken a great deal of self-pep talks for him to take it off at all, but even with the air bringing relief, this is the most physical activity outside of a bedroom that he's had in ages. If his watch is to be trusted, he's also burning enough calories to allow him to eat for hours on end without making a dent in the progress. He's noticed, also, that some of his clothes are fitting looser than they were when he got here. It's all exhausting, though.
"Six. I have two more lessons today but I also have to run into town and get some things done," she says, grabbing a dry mop from the storage closet next to the stairs. He holds out his hand for it, knowing she still has other tasks to complete in order to leave the studio clean for the next instructor. She hands it over gratefully, going to stash her gear and clean up their discarded towels and water bottles while Killian pushes the dry mop over the polished floors.
"I should have shoes for you before next week so you can start to adjust to those," she says as if going down some mental checklist of things as she works. She takes a cloth and cleaner to the mirrors, finding all the spots they would've made by accidentally (or not so accidentally) leaning against the reflective wall over the last hour.
While Killian usually has no difficulty pushing down his attraction for Emma, as soon as he sees her facing that wall, seeing the way her image is reflected back with her sweaty hair and her pink cheeks, he works on finishing his task faster in order to escape. All he can think is how pretty she'd look, flushed for a whole different reason, with him behind her in that mirror, and he has no room for those kinds of filthy thoughts right now. Not when he's determined to hold up his end of the bargain and work as hard as possible to make Emma look good and get that job.
"All done," he says shortly after, stashing the mop and pulling deeply from his bottled water before throwing the empty container in the recycle bin by the floor. "Need anything else?"
She looks at him, not turning from the mirror, her eyes meeting his in her ditto image with a familiar flash of heat in them. "No," she says at length. Finally turning away from her cleaning and moving to put away the solution. She gathers the towels and rag and turns to him with a distracted smile. "No, that's it for now. See you later."
He waves on his way down the stairs, and he's just opened the door when he nearly runs head first into someone else.
"Killian?"
"What are you doing here?" Killian asks, trying to hide his nervous surprise at seeing Liam at the studio.
"I could ask the same, little brother. Taken an interest in dancing?"
"Thought a lesson or two might be fun," he says, managing the lie easily enough. He's positively matted down with sweat, but either Liam doesn't notice or he thinks Killian really is that badly out of shape.
"Good on you," he says, a smile lighting up his whole face.
"Killian, I forgot to ask… Oh. Hi."
It's difficult to not lock up at the sound of Emma's voice yelling out behind him, especially when she was clearly not expecting him to be so close with another pair of ears in attendance.
"What did you forget to ask?" It's Liam that asks for the clarification, since Killian's throat seems to have closed up entirely in the shock of the moment.
"Ah, just if he still wanted to learn the Waltz, too." While her voice stutters just a bit, Emma is clearly better at getting through this situation than Killian is. "I'm Emma, one of the – well, the only dance instructor right now. You must be Liam."
She reaches past Killian to hold out her hand, her body heat nearly pressed against his back when she moves to get closer. Her hand rests on his lower back to hold her steady as she leans forward, and Killian wonders if Emma's heartbeat has sped up at the contact like his has. Liam shakes her hand, an almost wary look entering his eyes as he does. It probably doesn't help that Emma looks just as sweaty and disheveled as Killian does, and his eyes widen at the picture they must make and what assumptions Liam is probably jumping to right now.
"That I am. Nice to meet you, lass. My brother's being a gentleman, isn't he?" That tone, of course Liam thinks he's shagging Emma.
"This one? Meek as a mouse sometimes," Emma says with a hint of a laugh in her voice. He wants to remind her of the night at the staff lodge and that kiss she started and see if either of those moments were "meek" but he has to settle himself with an aggravated noise and a forced smile. Her hand twitches where it still rests on his back.
"Wonderful. Well, if that's all, I'd like to escape this bloody humidity," Killian says, turning to give her a look that says everything he can't right now. With the grin she gives back to him, he's pretty sure she knows. "Until next time, Swan."
He starts to wander in the direction of his cabin, but before he walks two steps, the small blonde that runs the yoga sessions is bounding up the path and exuberantly greeting Liam. The words die in her throat when she sees Emma at the entrance of the studio and Killian just in front of them all.
"Oh, hi. Am I early? I know you said you'd be here at ten til, but I'm not double booked, am I?" She's breathless and smiling, even if she looks puzzled beyond reason.
"No," Emma says quickly. "I slipped an extra lesson in during my lunch break. We were just heading out. Studio is all yours." He looks at her while she says it, really looks, and so that's the only reason he sees the expression that crosses over her features. It's something like suspicion, with her own hint of guilt. He wonders what's just gone through her mind, but he decides he'll ask later when he comes back.
With a vague wave, she's moving around the back of the studio and off towards wherever her cabin is located behind. He watches her go until Liam clears his throat, but before he can say whatever he clearly wants to say, they're interrupted again. More voices on the path announces the arrival of the rest of the class, and he notices again the bashful look on Liam's face and the light flush to Tink's cheeks.
As the younger of them, Killian wants to beat Liam at giving him the Look, the one passed down through generations of Jones men that means there's clearly need for them to talk in private, but he's met with the same expression on Liam's face.
"I'll see you for a late lunch in an hour?" Killian inquires as he starts moving down the path.
"I'll see you then," Liam affirms, turning to follow Tink into the studio with the rest of the class walking in behind them.
While he wants to poke around and find Emma, he also knows his boundaries. He also needs a shower, and fresh clothes. With that thought, he pulls out his phone and finds Henry in his contacts, already working on figuring out how to handle laundry as he makes his way back to his side of the camp.
"Yes sir, Mr. Jones?"
"Henry, it's Killian," he says, extraneously, as the lad will never loosen up on the title. "I was wondering if you could tell me where to take my laundry so I can have some fresh clothes. I seem to have gone through my supply of certain items and Liam is the one that's been handling all of that."
"Of course, Mr. Jones. I'll meet you at your cabin with my cart and I'll take you over to our laundromat. All free of course, for guest use."
"Excellent. Just give me twenty minutes and I'll be ready for you," he says, picking up his pace and actually jogging across the campgrounds towards his cabin.
He showers as fast as he possibly can, grabbing whole armloads of all the clothes he's soaked through and shoving it in the laundry bag he finds at the back of his closet. He's just barely ready when Henry knocks on the door, and he greets the young man more enthusiastically than he did the first time he met him. That Killian feels like someone he forgot about, quite frankly.
He's thankful for the ride to and from the laundromat, and Killian assures Henry that he'll be fine on his own to go switch and retrieve it later on. He makes sure to press a ten dollar bill into Henry's hand, giving the young man another genuine smile as he checks the time. Liam is due back at any minute, and he knows that whatever they talk about will shift how the rest of this vacation goes for them.
Having slacked on the grocery kiosk order for a week, Killian hobbles together a quick lunch consisting of nothing more than peanut butter sandwiches, thankful for the very last of the bread and jam. He's refilling his own water glass and setting another for Liam when the screen door opens and his brother walks in.
"So tell me about your sudden interest in dance. Or should I say a sudden interest in dance instructors?"
"If you're insinuating what I think you are…"
"You know I am. You know they can kick us out if you're sleeping with the bloody instructor, right?"
"Aye, which is why I would never think to jeopardize our time here by doing so," Killian says. He's surprised by this sudden turn in the conversation, but he's not sure why. He should've known Liam would automatically assume he's doing his best to muck up a good thing. He's becoming more and more aware of the fact that Emma is that off limits to him, so he doesn't need the reminder that he's falling for her shoved back in his face.
It takes a moment, but he realizes they're both standing behind their chairs, glaring daggers and breathing heavily as if setting up for a brawl.
"I'm not fucking her," Killian says, making sure to speak the words calmly.
Liam stares at him for a solid ten seconds before his shoulders relax. "I believe you. Can you tell me why you're suddenly so keen on lessons?"
"No. Because it probably is against the rules, but it's nothing to do with romantic entanglements. I promised Emma I would help her with a predicament, and that's why I'm spending so much time with her."
Liam looks at him for another long moment before dropping his chin to his chest and exhaling loudly. "Fine, fine. You keep your secrets. Just as long as you're not breaking any laws, I can't really complain about the fact that you look like you've lost nearly a stone since we arrived."
Killian makes a loud noise at that. "It's not been that much, you arse."
Instead of answering, Liam finally seats himself at the table and motions for Killian to sit, as well. The rest of lunch is passed by Liam talking about what he's found to be his favorite activities, including the yoga sessions that Tink runs in the afternoons.
"Before you jump to your own conclusions, she's easy to talk to. I'd agreed to help set up the studio with her today which is why I was there early. Had I known the studio was already occupied, and by you no less, I would've barged in to say hello."
"Well, don't start skulking about hoping to catch us up to anything, unless you want to see some terribly dreadful rhythm."
"I doubt that, brother. You were always good with learning new things, and you were born with mum's rhythm in your blood."
The words help, somehow, knowing that even though Liam doesn't fully know what he's up to, he still believes in him.
"Perhaps we should start up lunches together after your yoga sessions," Killian offers when their sandwiches are gone and they work together to clean up their mostly-tidy kitchenette.
And while the afternoon didn't start exactly how he imagined it would, when Liam agrees that would be a great idea for them to start connecting again in their own way, it turns out better than he could've hoped. Liam even joins him to take his own clothes that need laundered and they spend the rest of the afternoon before he's set to meet Emma again talking of everything and nothing. Despite having been together all this time, it's as if the brothers had spent years apart, and Killian wonders how long it's been since they truly talked like this.
Too long, Killian decides as he dresses in clean shorts and a t-shirt, sliding into socks and shoes before he bids farewell to his brother on his way out the door. Far too long, indeed.