The first time Emma drops lunch off for Killian on one of the Fridays he's at his internship, his smile to see her (and food) is so delighted that she can't help but beam back at him. He convinces her to stay and eat with him, and she makes a show of protesting, but how can she resist when he starts pouting?
It becomes a weekly thing without them having to discuss it. Emma's job isn't regular by any means, but she does have a work schedule, which blissfully gives her Fridays off, even if she's usually stuck in her apartment and bored out of her mind. She's more than happy for the reprieve visiting Killian gives her, but she always feels awkward walking past the cubicles and offices of other people at work, and the click of the heels on the boots she's chosen to wear today is more conspicuous than she'd like. It's worth it, though, when Killian catches sight of her and a grin spreads across his face.
"You're a sight for sore eyes." Killian barely waits for her to set the bag from Granny's down on his desk before he's pulling her down for a kiss. She had been acutely aware of the public display of affection the first few times, but she's come to realize that no one around them is paying enough attention to care.
"Busy today?" Emma asks, sitting down in the chair she knows Killian keeps around for her. She's pretty confident that she nabs a fry from Killian's side with enough stealth that he won't catch her, until he steals an onion ring in retaliation and chastises her for stealing.
"Busy enough. Regina's got me working on a criminal case, and she says it's best for me to be trained in all fields, but it's not my taste," Killian says around a mouthful of food. Emma wrinkles her nose, but his lunch break isn't long, so they've had to learn how to be efficient.
"We haven't seen her in a while," Emma observes, glancing around in hopes of spotting Regina. "Mary Margaret's worried she's offended her or something with all her talk about the wedding. She'd probably want me to check in and see if Regina's gonna make it to game night tonight."
Killian raises his eyebrows, shifting in his chair as he finishes his burger. "I'm sure she has a perfectly good explanation as to why she hasn't been at the apartment lately." His nonchalant tone may have been able to fool Mary Margaret, and even David, but Emma hones in on it right away.
"What do you know?" Emma presses, eyes narrowing as Killian continues to squirm. Try as he might to 'maintain a certain sense of intrigue' (his words, not hers), she can always see right through him. Not counting the years she spent oblivious to the fact that he's in love with her. (She doesn't like to acknowledge how long it took her to figure it out.)
"What are you willing to do to find out?" Killian's smirk is devious at best and downright sinful at worst, and Emma feels herself blushing against her will.
"I brought you lunch, Jones. Talk." The command is clear, and at the stubborn set to Emma's jaw, Killian sighs.
"I suppose client confidentiality doesn't apply in this particular scenario. If you must know, darling Swan, I'd say Regina has a suitor."
"Really," Emma breathes. She's seen Regina with her son enough times to know that the woman isn't the ice queen she portrays herself as, but it's still difficult for her to imagine Regina cuddling up to anyone other than Henry. "Any idea who?"
Killian grins and pointedly lets his gaze drift to Regina's office. "Aye. I'd say it's the man whose custody case she handed off to a colleague in order to avoid a conflict of interest."
Emma follows Killian's cue and blesses whoever decided to install clear glass walls for all of the offices, because she's given a good look at the profile of Regina's mystery man and the lion tattoo on his forearm.
"Good for Regina," Emma remarks, and her eyes must linger for a little longer than is appropriate because when she turns back around to face Killian, he's looking at her reproachfully.
"I'm sitting right here, Swan. It's bad form to stare at another man in your boyfriend's presence."
"I'm so sorry," Emma says, her tone not apologetic in the slightest. "Whatever can I do to make it up to you?"
It's a testament to his acting ability and a peek into his future as an attorney when Killian gives her an innocent smile, despite the mischief in his eyes. "I'm sure we can work something out."
Regina doesn't bring her new love interest to game night that week, but after Emma accidentally lets slip to Mary Margaret that Regina is seeing someone, the brunette eagerly asks the older woman so many questions that she eventually acquiesces to bringing Robin Locksley around the following Friday, and pretends to ignore the way the four twenty something year olds high five each other.
"You're all children," Regina mutters, but she walks into David and Killian's apartment with Robin in tow the next week anyways.
Killian and Robin are thick as thieves before they've finished a full round of Cards Against Humanity, their go-to game when they're trying to get to know someone new. Despite being nearly ten years older, Robin's sense of humor is identical to Killian's and the two get along abnormally well, and Emma doesn't know who's more appalled by this development - Regina or David.
Emma's charmed by Robin's rough-around-the-edges easily enough, but Mary Margaret and David are a harder crowd to please. That doesn't stop Mary Margaret and Emma from laughing at how apprehensive David seems to be at the thought of losing his best friend to another man.
It's not until Robin pulls out his phone and shows them pictures of his four year old son, Roland, that Mary Margaret starts to thaw, dragging Regina to the side in an attempt to be covert and telling her that she's happy for her in hushed tones. Emma stifles a snort even as Robin turns a bright shade of red, hiding her amusement by burying her face in Killian's shoulder.
"Sorry, man. You'll learn that Mary Margaret's not very good at being discreet," David says, grinning as he claps Robin on the back.
"Or keeping secrets," Emma adds. "If you ever tell her anything, expect it to be shared with either me or David, or both of us."
David gapes at Emma. "Does that mean you know that she shares all the details about your relationship with Killian with me?" Emma merely offers him an innocent smile in response, and watches as his already exaggerated horror grows. "And you kept telling her about your sex life anyways? How could you do that to me?"
Emma gets up to put her coffee mug in the sink, patting David on the cheek as she goes. "Consider it my revenge for taco night."
"That was weeks ago!"
"If I never think about it again, it'll be too soon."
"I'd be happy to enact revenge for you for that particular instance, love," Killian pipes up, grinning first at Emma and then at David, who shudders at just the thought of his roommate talking to him about sleeping with his adoptive sister.
"Do me a favor and spare me."
Between her job, and his class and internship schedule, Emma and Killian's idea of a date night turns into him sitting on the floor doing his readings for the week and her laying down on the couch playing with his hair. Killian apologizes profusely every time, with promises that once he's on holiday, he's all hers, but Emma doesn't care in the slightest. She likes going out well enough, but this quiet kind of domesticity is all she really wants.
"Still, I am sorry, love," Killian says, running a hand through the hair Emma has been working to flatten for the past twenty minutes.
"For the last time, Killian, I'll take any excuse I can to not wear heels." Killian snorts and Emma takes that as an opportunity to get him to take a break from studying, wrapping her arms loosely around his neck and leaning forward to rest her chin on his shoulder. "School's important. It'll be worth it when you're a hotshot lawyer."
"It's just such a bloody time commitment," Killian groans, taking one of Emma's hands and pressing a kiss to her palm. "I could be doing much more enjoyable things on a Saturday night."
Emma doesn't take the bait, ignoring the innuendo in Killian's tone and kissing him on the cheek. "I'll make coffee."
Her latte art has improved over the past few weeks. She knows it, David knows it, and even Killian knows it, but that doesn't stop him from asking her what the blob in his coffee is. Her only response is to flick him on the forehead and tell him to get back to work.
Despite the caffeine boost, Emma finds herself drifting off to sleep to the sound of Killian muttering about law theory, because while she usually thinks his accent makes even the most mundane words sound interesting, she woke up early and doesn't have the mental capacity to try and follow along at ten at night. She's distantly aware of Killian chuckling to himself when he notices she's falling asleep, but he doesn't move her to her bed - not for lack of effort, of course, but he's heard Emma mumble that she wants to keep him company enough that he lets her be.
Killian doesn't finish reading until three hours later, tempted to move himself and Emma to a proper mattress more than once. At one in the morning, he shuts his textbook and decides to indulge in the luxury of sleep.
"Come on, sweetheart, off to bed." Emma's hand smacks him in the face a couple times with no real force, and he has to keep himself from laughing. While Mary Margaret is ferociously grumpy when woken up, Emma is casually violent, and that's decidedly worse.
"Don't wanna move," Emma mumbles, her face buried in the couch cushion in a way that has Killian wondering how she's breathing.
A sleeping Emma is pure deadweight, all flopping limbs and a heavy head, and Killian struggles to scoop her up the way the dashing prince does in every fairy tale movie they've ever watched. He's not sure how they make it look so bloody easy when the princess is sound asleep, and mutters to himself about unrealistic portrayal in the media as he carries Emma to her bedroom.
"Why are you mumbling about Prince Charming?" Emma asks, her voice quiet and sleepy and more than worth the minutes he spent awkwardly trying to figure out how to pick her up from the couch without disturbing her slumber.
"I just have a newfound resentment of him, is all." Emma opens her eyes long enough to give him a puzzled look, and he manipulates his expression into the picture of innocence as he carefully sets her down on her bed. He ignores the way she rolls her eyes, tossing her his faded Storybrooke Knights t-shirt and deciding to wear pajama bottoms to bed, at least, lest they have unannounced visitors again and he risk ruining his friendship with Mary Margaret.
There's panic clawing at his throat when Killian gets a text from a classmate, warning him that their professor hinted at a practice exam in an email he received. He's always been a good student, worked hard to get top marks, but he's never been able to get over the anxiety that comes before every test. In high school, Emma had distracted him by dragging him out of the house and taking him to get ice cream, which isn't necessarily a tactic that works late at night in Boston.
Emma is happily snuggling into her pillow, tucked into bed wearing his shirt, when he presses a quick kiss to her forehead and ducks back into the living room for more studying. He thinks he's gotten off scotch free until she comes stumbling out of her room, yawning as she leans her hip against the door frame and stares at him.
"Killian? Come to bed."
"I'd love to, Swan, but there's a rumored exam this week." He tries to say it casually, but his knee is bouncing up and down controllably and he knows his hair is a mess.
Emma's curious gaze disappears as she crosses the room to sit next to him on the couch, softening as Killian reaches for his notebook and flips through it until he finds the page he's looking for. She's learned from experience not to interfere once he's dived into the void of test-induced anxiety and nudges him forward so she can sit behind him, curling herself around him and resting her cheek against his back, her legs wrapped around his hips. The amount of tension that eases out of Killian is miniscule at best, but Emma will take what she can get, squeezing him tight for a moment before relaxing her grip on him. She knows that for Killian, ever the snuggler (isn't there a more masculine version of that particular endearment, Swan?), constant physical affection is the most effective way to get him to overcome his anxiety.
"Have you turned into a koala without my noticing?" Killian asks, never looking up from the text in front of him.
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Sorry to keep you awake, sweetheart. You should go to bed; one of us should get some sleep." He's all too aware that prompting Emma to leave his side is a lost cause, but making a bit of an effort helps alleviate a little of his guilt.
Killian can feel Emma shaking her head - at least, he thinks that's what she's doing, although her cheek never leaves his back. "I'm good here."
He manages to abandon his notes for a second to twist himself around to kiss the sleepy woman behind him, her small smile helping to ease the twist of anxiety in his stomach until he's satisfied that he's prepared for any upcoming exam (with an additional day to quiz himself on the material, of course).
"You're a nerd," Emma whispers when he finally slides into bed next to her, tucking her into his chest with a content sigh of his own.
"Mm, you can poke fun at me all you want once we've both gotten a night's rest."
"You don't have to tell me twice."
A/N: This chapter is pure fluff; expect pretty much the same thing until the story wraps up. I think these two deserve it. First official chapter of my Captain Swan Percy Jackson AU is up, introducing Killian to the mix. Do me a favor and check it out!
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