Title: Single's Awareness Day (or, freedom on the night for lovers)
Author: andromeda3116/cupid-painted-blind
Rating: PG, because alcohol is consumed and Killian Jones speaks
Characters/Pairings: Emma, Killian, early cameo from Ruby because I'm not lying I need her in my life. Captain Swan because I have a problem.
Genre: Romance, full stop.
Summary: In which Killian has never heard of Valentine's Day and Emma wishes she had never heard of Valentine's Day. Also, bootleg rum is involved.

A/N: I usually don't write Valentine's Day fics, but hey, what the hell. Both of these characters feel roughly the same way I do regarding the holiday. (also: "it's fucking close to water.")

.

.

There seemed to be a worrisome abundance of pink in the diner when he walked in — it was everywhere, on every table, red roses in vases on beds of tiny pink hearts framed by candles, pink accents on white tablecloths (neither of which had existed yesterday), and entirely too many people with glasses of a pink liquid that might have been wine, in a form too horrific for Killian to contemplate.

Objectively, the effect of the candles and roses and dimmer-than-usual lights was very romantic; in his opinion, however, romance wasn't something that happened in quite so public a place, regardless of how appropriate the lighting. Romance required intimacy, and he couldn't imagine feeling particularly close to someone in a loud, crowded room with the elder Lady Lucas ten feet away, watching.

The barmaid, Ruby, laughed when she spotted him standing uncomfortably at the door. "It's Valentine's Day," she explained. "Holiday in this world special-ordered for lovers, or people who wanna be."

"That so?" he replied distastefully. "Why would anyone think this necessary?"

"I think it has something to do with celebrating some saint, got killed for… something to do with love," she said, waving a hand idly and shrugging, but before Killian could ask why they celebrated someone's death (and why that involved so much pink), she went on. "They're still doing it 'cause stores make a killing off the chocolates and flowers and gifts," she muttered, with an annoyed eye-roll.

"How romantic," he said flatly, and she smirked.

"Some people call it 'single's awareness day.' It's not much fun if you don't have anyone to be with," she said casually, realizing seconds after the words left her mouth what she'd said and who she'd said it to, and so froze, a wince already halfway to her face.

He was trying to be a somewhat decent person, or at least more like he was before Neverland (which was, he felt, a far more reasonable goal), so he made a sincere attempt not to take out on her the vicious anger that always came with the black depression words like hers caused.

"I can imagine," he replied, voice tight; Ruby opened her mouth to apologize, but didn't get the chance. Before she could speak, Emma walked through the door and stopped on the threshold like he had; unlike him, however, the expression on her face was severe irritation rather than confusion.

"Is there any place in this whole damn town I can get a drink without being assaulted by flowers and hormones?" she snapped and, without hesitating or even really thinking about it, he pulled a flask out of his coat and offered it to her. She blinked, looking from it to him for a second, before accepting it and taking a deep swig.

"Careful, love," he warned, "that isn't exactly love-in-a-canoe rum." He expected her to wince or cough when she stopped, but she surprised him by merely raising an eyebrow and inspecting the flask appreciatively.

"You're not kidding," she said, voice a little hoarse but otherwise unaffected. "How much more of this do you have, and what do I have to pay you to get it?"

"Hey, hey, hey," Ruby cut in, shaking a finger. "You don't sell alcohol right in front of someone else's bar. Also, can I try it?" she added in a low, tired voice, glancing around the room with a strained expression.

Emma glanced at him and he shrugged, uncaring; he had more where that came from and — out of sheer necessity — had long since learned how to craft a decent distillery out of objects readily available on a pirate ship. (The only flaw he hadn't been able to work out over the years in Neverland was a lack of complete control over the final alcohol content: sometimes it would kill a horse, sometimes it was… well, love-in-a-canoe rum.)

Ruby took it and, to his slight satisfaction, did wince and cough, albeit only a bit. "Wow, that's hard," she said as she handed it back to him.

"Pirate," he explained, although he didn't much look like it anymore, thanks in part to the bizarre standards of dress in this world, but more because of the number of young girls who had developed starry-eyed crushes on the dangerous, mysterious, dashing pirate.

(Ordinarily such attention, in as large a measure as possible, was what he strove for, but he had never before spent so much time in a place with so many children, and had found himself at a horrified loss when a nine-year-old girl had given him an uncomfortably detailed love letter. It was easy enough to play it off at first, even with Swan laughing hysterically (but silently, always considerate to the feelings of others) behind the girl, but his usual method of gallantly refusing propositions had backfired, and magnificently. It had left him with two options: either learn to ignore the affection of a gathering flock of young girls just on this side of puberty, or make a drastic change.

So the leather had been retired.)

Emma motioned for him to follow her out of the diner, but stopped right outside. "I wasn't joking," she said. "How much do you want for a flask of that?"

"Lamenting your status as a free woman on the night for lovers, are we?" he challenged, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms, quickly forming a possible path for the night to follow. She rolled her eyes.

"The opposite," she replied. "But someone else is," she said sourly, and for a second he thought she was referring to him, but she looked toward the inn instead, and he understood: the ex-lover, her boy's father (whose name he had, on principle, refused to learn).

"Ah," he breathed, and pretended to think about it for a moment. "Well, for you, my dear, I'll make an exception to my usual rules."

"Okay?"

He smiled, and wondered if she saw it coming; her expression was harried, but otherwise emotionless. "You have to drink it with me."

Killian had apparently severely underestimated either her level of attraction to him or her level of frustration with the night and the ex-lover, because the words weren't out of his mouth three seconds before she said, "Deal."

He raised an eyebrow, knowing it was the latter but choosing to believe the former. "Well, you gave into that far quicker than I expected," he said, pushing off from the wall and leading the way to the docks. "Knew you'd come around eventually," he added cheekily, glancing back at her as she shook her head in exasperation; but not, he noticed, without a little smile.

.

It was a cold, clear night, perfect for stargazing in really short bursts — but Emma had, without having to say anything or, indeed, Killian even having to ask, refused to drink with him in his cabin. The only other place with a fireplace of any sort was the galley, but it was a bit cramped in there and —

— and the galley was where he and Milah used to sit together and drink on nights like this.

(It had been centuries since he'd gone ten minutes without thinking about her, but he didn't when he was around Emma, something he'd realized when she'd read the name on his tattoo and it had rushed back. The whole climb up the beanstalk, he'd been focused on figuring her out, or trying to needle information out of her, or on the way her hair was being swept around by the wind, or…

Sometimes, he wondered if his fascination with her was genuine affection or the desperate need to stop seeing Milah in every face, if there was even a difference at all.)

So he was sitting against the railing and she was laying flat on her back with her knees dangling over the edge of the ship and arms stretched out over her head, and he couldn't stop noticing the way her hair looked almost silver in this light, fanned out against the wood. The only thing more distracting was when she smiled, really smiled, something she apparently did much more when she was drinking.

"Not to pry," he said, because he wasn't sure he liked the hollow beginning to open somewhere around his chest, "but what happened to cause such animosity between you and that man?"

"What?" she asked, but realized who he meant right after. "Oh, Neal?"

"If that's the one lamenting your status, yes."

She sat up so she was leaning on her elbows (and her face was flushed from the drink and the cold and her eyes were wide and bright and stop), tilting her head. "Wait, I swear you've met him," she said, and she wasn't wrong, but their first meeting hadn't been on particularly pleasant terms, and neither had any of the other times he'd met the man. "How do you not know his name?"

"I ignore things unworthy of my time," he replied simply, without apology. Her expression turned admonishing, but quickly fell into suppressed amusement.

"Okay," she said with a little laugh, shaking her head. "Fair enough."

The words which is why I wonder why you ever cared about him at all almost came out of his mouth, but he thought the better of it at the last moment. Regardless of his emotions toward the man, and whatever had transpired between the two of them in the past, Emma would defend his virtues: he was, after all, Henry's father, and she had loved him once.

And Killian wasn't sure what he'd do if he had to hear Emma say anything good about him.

"Well?" he prompted, and she sighed, motioning for him to hand the flask over to her; she took a drink, paused, and then took a longer drink, giving him the feeling that this was a worse answer than he'd expected.

"He…" she started, staring hard at the flask for most of a full minute, before sighing again and looking up at the stars. "I grew up in the foster system," she said, and he had to consciously keep the confusion off his face at what that had to do with anything, "got shuffled around from family to family. A lot. Eventually, they just let me stay at the orphanage… but you age out of the system at sixteen and… well… there's only two things you can be when you're a sixteen-year-old girl alone in a big city," she explained, her emotionless voice making her sound bitter. "I went with the other one.

"He was a thief too, I met him when I stole his — also stolen — car," she said, with a tiny, fond smile that made him a little nauseous. "We ended up partners in crime. I was with him for about a year, when…" she trailed off for a moment, opened her mouth to speak but then changed her mind and stayed quiet a bit longer. Finally, she took a deep breath and went on. "Long story short, he sold me out to the police so he could keep all the money off a really good haul. Twenty grand. I almost couldn't blame him," she lied, shrugging and feigning carelessness, but it fell away when she turned back to the flask for a deep drink, and said, so quietly that he almost missed it:

"I thought he was the first person to ever love me."

Suddenly, urgently, viciously, he wanted to kill that man, and really didn't like the fact that he did. Killian wasn't supposed to feel so strongly about someone else's pain — empathy just wasn't something he did. The last time he had cared so much — fuck.

"Then I suppose the question should have been, 'why are you so civil toward him'?" he asked, with forced neutrality.

"It turns out…" she said hesitantly, like she had accepted it but hated to do so, "I was wrong about why he did it. Apparently, someone else had convinced him that he had to do it, he'd be… getting in the way of my destiny and ultimately ruining my life if he didn't." She didn't sound especially convinced, but he found himself not caring whether or not it was true.

He would never have abandoned Milah, let alone to the lawmen — and absolutely nothing, no amount of money, no 'good intentions', no destiny could have convinced him to. Nothing. Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was short-sighted, but he believed the whole point of loving someone was that you never abandoned them, you always went back for them, found them, fought for them, even if you died in the attempt — you tried. You always tried.

And then to…

"Did he know?" he asked quietly, and couldn't mask the undercurrent of fury on the brink of snapping; if the answer was yes, he was quite sure the man wouldn't be alive in twenty-four hours' time.

But, to his slight disappointment, the answer was, "No. I didn't even know," she replied, inspecting the sky like it could make the past go away. "I've always wondered if he would've gone if he had."

He couldn't imagine how anyone could. Finding himself in the role of father was one of his deepest fears, but if it had been Milah, he would've — it struck him, suddenly and uncomfortably, that he was starting to think of Milah in terms of Emma, and he couldn't tell if he thought she would be angry or happy if she could see him right now.

(Was it betraying her memory, he wondered, or honoring it?

It didn't matter; he'd already handed Emma the flask at the diner and missed his last chance to escape it.)

"I can't feel my toes anymore," she said abruptly, drawing him back out of himself, and sat up. "That probably means I should go."

"Or it means we should relocate," he countered cheekily, making a distinct effort to lace the sentence with as much innuendo as humanly possible. She actually laughed a bit, albeit with slight exasperation and an eye-roll.

"Thanks for the offer," she drawled, dripping light-hearted sarcasm, "but I think I'd like to sleep in my own bed."

"I've no problem with that," he replied, without missing a beat. "Although it is a less private venue."

She laughed a little more, and a little more honestly. "I should've seen that coming."

"If you didn't, you've learned nothing about me at all."

He stood and reached out to help her stand, and although she raised an eyebrow, she took it, wavering only a little when she got to her feet; she must have had a pirate's alcohol tolerance or else it hadn't all kicked in yet, because he almost thought she was more sober than he was.

She paused at the gangplank when he went ahead of her. "You're coming with me?" she asked, and he glanced back, genuinely confused.

"It's bad form to let a drunken woman walk home alone in the middle of the night," he explained, like it was obvious (because, as far as he was concerned, it was).

"One, I'm just tipsy," she said, but her nerve-wrackingly unbalanced walk to the dock disagreed, "and two, you of all people should know I can take care of myself."

"And you of all people should know, darling," he said quietly, leaning close to her ear and taking her arm, "that I'm always a gentleman. And a gentleman always takes care of a lady."

"Always," she deadpanned, disbelieving, and he knew exactly why but chose to conveniently forget. "Really."

"Yes," he denied.

"So all that about jabbing with swords was — "

"Gentlemanly repartee," he declared quickly, as she looked at him with encouraging amusement. "It's as much a battle of words as it is swords. And anyway," he added, in a lower, more serious voice, "you won, didn't you?"

"So now you're trying to claim you let me win?" she challenged, and he replied with a grin, but she just looked at him sideways, raising an eyebrow. "Not that you just… got really cocky and underestimated how dirty I'll fight if I have to?"

(Actually, the truth was closer to "he was never trying to kill her in the first place, just sort of keep her distracted until Cora got the compass and inevitably left without him, at which point he could heroically save the day for them with the magic bean and also he got really cocky.")

"I would never underestimate you, my dear," he replied, and it came out a little more honest than he'd like.

"Anymore," she added for him.

"Anymore," he agreed, a bit reluctantly.

The way she smiled as she shook her head was much more fond than the way she'd smiled when she'd spoken of how she met her ex-lover.

The hollow in his chest opened wider, enough to swallow him whole.

.

She was leaning heavily on his shoulder by the time they reached her apartment, but glared at him when he tried to take her keys to unlock the door himself, even though he'd watched her miss the lock in three different directions.

"I'm fine," she slurred, and went on when he raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I mean, I can't run a, a marathon or anything, but I can get into my apartment."

"I'm starting to wonder about that, love," he said, and she glared again, but finally managed to get the door unlocked and slip in quietly, glancing around the room. He hoped, fervently, that no one else was awake; her family (barring Henry, for some reason) hadn't exactly warmed up to him, and clearly didn't understand why she had.

Apparently, the gods had finally seen fit to smile upon him, because the apartment was dark and she relaxed, leaning against the doorframe with her eyes closed.

"Emma?" he said sharply, worried she was passing out, and she turned her head to him, trying to give him a 'stop worrying about me' look but failing because she couldn't seem to keep her eyes open. "Do you need help?" he asked seriously, hand hovering just off her shoulder in case she slipped.

She shook her head but didn't move for a long moment. Finally, she straightened up and smiled at him, really smiled. "Thank you," she said, and went on before he could ask what for, or claim it was nothing. "This is the first Valentine's Day I've had in a long time that didn't completely suck, so… thanks."

He swept into a bow and winked at her when he came up. "It could've been better, you know," he said wistfully, and she rolled her eyes.

"Goodnight, Killian."

He almost kissed her, but caught himself at the last moment. He couldn't — she would — she wouldn't remember, or she wouldn't take it well if she did, and, for the moment, he'd rather not know than be sure; he wasn't used to feeling happy like this anymore… he didn't want to ruin it.

"Goodnight, Emma," he said softly, kissing her hand and never taking his eyes off her face, drinking this moment in, drinking that smile in.

(He couldn't remember the last time someone had smiled at him like that.)

Then the door closed and he walked away and when the longing finally came back hours later, it wasn't Milah he wanted in his arms.

.

(coda—

Her only clear memory of the night before, after he'd said Neal wasn't worth his time, was standing at the door with his lips on her hand and his eyes on her face, wondering why it was her hand he'd chosen to kiss.)