If we go down, we go down together

It's the their last Halloween Dance at Storybrooke High and "Lieutenant" Jones has plans to make it special for his "Princess," but best friends or fuck buddies, no matter what they are, they aren't enough to outlast the night.

Best friends means you get what you deserve. (AKA the "Tell All Your Friends" AU)

→ so crush me baby, I'm all ears

Slow and steady wins the race, or at least it wins him her fingers on his bicep, bubblegum pink painted nails digging in. One of them is chipped. He can't see it, his eyes focused elsewhere, but one of them always is. She likes to bite on her lip or finger when she's stressed.

Emma's been stressed since the day began.

"I hate you," she groans, a little breathless. He jerks his gaze to her face.

There's a line of sweat running down her hairline. It is rather warm for it to be on the cusp of November, but the droplet falling to her collarbone isn't heat.

Not of the weather kind.

"You wanted this," he points out.

"No, my mother did."

Arguing semantics. Clearly she knows this isn't a fight she's going to win.

Killian grins. "And you wanted to please her, so toughen up, Emma."

Snappish, she says, "You toughen up. I can't breathe."

She shifts around in the tan and pink corset even though he is only halfway through lacing it up. Her breasts spill over the top and Killian could unlace the corset and let them loose for more enjoyable activities, but he's going to be good for once (as he always is when it comes to Emma; someone needs to be in their friendship) and get her to this Halloween party on time.

"Your discomfort is a price I'm willing to bear," he says.

Another droplet falls so he stills his fingers. "Wait, are you okay? Is it too tight?"

She lifts her hands, curling them around his arms instead of digging in. Killian follows her expression to the spot over his shoulder, twisting his head to look in the mirror behind them. She smiles at him through it.

"It's fine," she says.

Emma's too quiet and it bothers him until she says, "Are you going to stare at me in the mirror for the rest of the night because Killian, I have places to be."

"Of course you do," he says cheekily. He turns back to face her, but stares directly at the dip in her breasts. "I, however, have nowhere to be but here."

"Eyes up, Sailor. Didn't anyone ever teach you any manners?"

"I do apologize, Milady. I stepped out of bounds," he says, deliberately emphasizing his accented words.

She grins at the endearment. The princess to his lieutenant. An odd combination to be sure, but they aren't technically going to this Halloween dance together as they didn't technically go to every dance together.

Technically, Emma is going as "Ser" Ruby's date.

"I'm barely a lady yet. Hurry, you know how Ruby gets when she's waiting on someone."

Killian laughs and goes back to lacing her corset, making sure not to make it too tight. He wants her to be able to breathe throughout the night because Killian plans to spend at least half of it sweeping his princess off his feet. He smirks. Propriety be damned.

"Stop laughing at your own inside jokes, nerd," Emma says.

He laughs a little harder. Emma just wants to be privy to all his secrets.

It's a sobering thought. She hasn't been privy to all of those since the 9th grade – or, well, since he moved to this town in the 8th grade and she decided that the skinny "nerd" with the ridiculous comic book collection was going to be her new best friend.

Emma has a lot of best friends, but not all of them can claim to be in love with her, can they? He wins that title by a landslide, a crown of hearts in his eyes to match the braided crown of her golden hair.

"No, Emma, I'm not going to tell you no matter how much you beg." He draws his gaze to her lips. She hasn't painted them yet, but they're just as kissable this way. Her red lipstick just makes things a little messier. "Or how pretty you do."

"I'm going to murder you," she hisses.

He finishes tying the laces and steps back to admire his handiwork. She looks absolutely…lovely, but she always does. Clearing his throat, he says, "Well you're free to do so, but I thought you had places to be, Swan."

"Jones," She drawls his name all sugar sweet, the knives hidden underneath. "Don't you think I can do both at the same time?"

"I have the utmost faith in you, milady." He grins and watches her turn around to pick the pink dress up off the bed. She shifts from side to side, trying to get comfortable in the corset. "Do you need help getting into the dress?"

Emma tries to shrug but fails. "Now that I've crushed my ribcage? Nah, I'm good. Besides it's supposed to be a surprise."

"For your mom," he deadpans.

She twists around, shoos him away, and says, "Get out before my mom gets here, anyway."

"It's not like she can say anything since -"

Emma winces, not from the corset this time, and Killian chuckles.

Her looks is a warning. "Don't remind me. I don't want to think about that day ever again."

Killian winks, makes sure to be out of reach before he says, "At least you know the spark isn't gone."

He gets hit in the back of the head with her pillow but it's worth it for the laughter that follows and the shouted, "I hate you!"

Oh, the lies Emma Swan tells.

Emma makes the perfect princess and her mother agrees so much that she takes a whole photobook worth of pictures before Emma is able to escape with her pink and white skirts to Killian's side – the kind of escape that adds another book to the album collection.

"A princess and her trusted lieutenant. It's cute," Mary Margaret says as David walks into the living room, shaking his head at Emma and Killian.

They plead with their eyes for him to save them, but David mouths over Mary Margaret's shoulder, 'Let her have this.'

So, they do.

Ruby's the one that saves them, pulling up in her car and screaming at the top of her lungs for them to get their butts outside. Mary Margaret is more willing to let them leave, then. Ruby can be extremely grating when she wants to be.

"Well, now that that's over with," Killian says after helping Emma and all her ruffles into the backseat of the Ruby's Wolf. "Can we get to this dance? I'm eager for our Emma to outshine them all."

Emma punches him in the arm. "Quit it," she says.

"You're blushing!" Ruby says because she is always up for a game of "Tease Emma until she's ready to scream."

"Once I get out of this corset, you're both dead."

"Once I get out of this Leia costume, you're both dead," Killian and Ruby mimic Emma's words from last year's Halloween dance.

Emma pouts for the rest of the drive to Storybrooke High, but she lets him lay his head on her sleeved shoulder, so he knows she's enjoying this as much as they are.

She even lets Killian thread his fingers through hers.

It's a good sign.

"Get the Princess out the car," Ruby orders when they pull up in front of the school. "I'll be back once I find parking."

"My 'trusted lieutenant,'" Emma teases as Killian helps lift her skirts so she can step over the wet puddle from the earlier rain.

He doesn't protest the comment. If he's to play the role tonight, he'll play it well. This is their last Halloween dance after all. He has to make it special.

Leading her by the elbow, they approach the entrance to the auditorium. There's a song playing very faintly, almost over. It sounds like the Monster Mash.

"I hope they didn't let Victor DJ again," Killian murmurs.

Emma hums. "It was a graveyard smash!"

When she sees him rolling his eyes, she nudges his shoulder, "Oh come on, Lieutenant. Loosen up a bit. Besides, it's Kristoff DJ'ing tonight. We'll be good."

True to her words, the next song is actually tolerable, and Emma may call his music tastes emo-grunge-lite but hers don't run so light either.

She's humming along to the song, almost swaying and she blinks once, her eyelids shining with that pale gold eyeshadow she put on.

"Will you dance with me?"

"Of course," she says. When he doesn't say anything, she turns to him. "You mean right now? Ruby will kill us if we go in without her."

Killian lifts an eyebrow. "We can dance right here."

As much as Emma shines, when the spotlight's put on her, the nervousness plays on her face, in her fiddling hands, in the bite of her bottom lip.

"It's okay. We'll wait," he says.

He reaches to pat her back in comfort but she catches his hand instead. With a wry grin, she says, "I just had the thought that I have no idea how I'm supposed to dance in this dress."

"We'll manage," he says.

There was no point in waiting for Ruby. They both groan with annoyance when she shows up with Belle on one arm, dragging Jefferson and Whale behind her. Sweet librarian Belle, dressed like Ruby on a normal day, in her tight black miniskirt and low cut blue blouse. She shivers when a cool breeze sweeps over them.

"The name's Lacey for the evening," she says. When Ruby turns away to yell at the Hatter and the Doctor she whispers, "Ruby saw the outfit online. I had to buy it."

"Of course," Emma agrees.

Killian nods because he's with her on that one. Emma had noted the Lieutenant outfit in his closet, a set from when Liam was much more Killian's size. Her eyes had widened, her lips quirking mischievously. In an instant, he'd known what he was wearing tonight.

"You look very dapper, Killian," Lacey says.

"Doesn't he?" Ruby says. "And it's all thanks to our Princess."

Emma groans again so Killian twines their elbows and leads her into the auditorium. It's the perfect time for their entrance. Emma's song is on.

It isn't that Killian hates this song. It isn't the song's fault that it hits particularly close to home, but bloody hell, it's like a particularly annoying bug bite that no matter how hard he scratches, the itch remains.

The itch to kiss her – kiss her unlike all their other kisses before because this time it ends with him whispering "I love you" against her lips – and in his fantasies, having her whisper it back.

Kristoff blasts "Hang with Me" so loud that Killian doesn't hear Emma over the dance instrumental until she leans into his ear and says, "I have an idea and I need your help."

Her voice is husky and by the fluttering of her eyelashes when she looks back, he knows it's not just from jumping around in all her skirts.

"I'm happy to oblige," he murmurs.

You can't really sneak away from a dance in a dress like hers, but none of the chaperones seem to care that Emma tugs Killian through the double doors into the rest of the school. Someone's spiked the coke – Victor or Anna, no doubt. Victor, intentionally. Anna, probably from knocking into Victor as he was attempting to spike it. So, they're too distracted with the drunken students to care about the escaping ones.

Emma and Killian take a path through the Science Hall down Lit Avenue to the Psych Parkway. The creative naming of this school is going to be the death of him if he has to hear Ruby complain about it one more time.

Emma drags him into one of the unlocked classrooms. "Emma, we're not," he protests when she uses both hands to hop up on to one of the desks and stares him down with that hunger he's (never) grown used to.

"You wouldn't have followed me if we weren't going to," Emma says and he's close enough that she uses the heels of her feet to pull him into her until he's crushing the layers of skirts.

She's right. He knew where this would end when she'd invited him to help with her corset.

Still, she's wrong too. He would follow Emma Swan to the ends of the world and time itself - and he doesn't need sex to pull him along.

"What are we going to do...Princess?" Killian chooses to say instead of acknowledging that uncomfortable truth.

She grins. "My favorite lieutenant is going to bow down to his Princess," she says. She chokes on a giggle and then bursts into body shaking laughter, clutching at her stomach and making her breasts heave even higher than the corset already did.

"I can't do this role-play thing. Come on, Killian. I'm horny," Emma says.

She may not be able to do this without laughing, but Killian's always been much better at acting than her. Emma, to borrow the phrase, wears her heart on her sleeve. Wears it in the little buttercup tattoo on her wrist and the purse of her lips when people say, "Remember the time Neal...?"

For such a perceptive person, Emma can't find an easy way to disguise herself.

And that just adds to the reason he drops to his knees (slowly; injury isn't how he'd like to end this evening) because she can't hide from him. Can't hide the flush in her cheeks when she told him to bow down.

"Aye, Princess. I shall see to your needs."

She makes a noise in the back of her throat when he pulls her a little closer to the edge. Killian pushes the dress' many skirts up her thighs. She'd opted against wearing the tights she had on when he'd laced her corset.

Killian traces her scarred knee wonderingly.

"It would be too hot," she says.

She can always read him.

"And this isn't, milady?" he asks, sliding a finger over the matching (bloody matching) pink underwear.

Her breathing hitches, thigh muscles drawing tight when he leads his forefinger back down and lingers over her center.

"Feels a little hot to me."

He doesn't do anything but curl his finger to dip into her, but she whines softly.

They'd spent a lot of time discovering what she liked junior year. Killian was a good study. "Milady, do you need me to cool you off?"

"Killian, please," she says, voice high like one of those damnable birds Mary Margaret loves so much. Their songs sound so much sweeter from Emma's lips.

Killian crawls forward until his face is between her legs, her ruffled skirts hanging over his head. He had plans. Good plans. Dance the night away with his Princess, take her home before the strike of two. Fall asleep in her guest room knowing she was safely ensconced next door.

This wasn't a part of his plans, but it never is, really. It's just what they do - best friends with the benefit of being best...fuck buddies is how Emma termed it. Coming from her, it didn't sound as crude.

"Come on, buddy," she says, voice a whisper. "We don't have all night."

He doesn't answer because he drives forward instead, sliding her panties to the side enough so that he can capture her clit in his mouth.

She's right. They don't have a lot of time and as much as the sight and taste of her makes him want to take his time, tease out every sweet sound she has to offer, they're in public and he can't take the risk of anyone catching them.

Emma deserves better than to be the talk of every gossip in school.

He sucks hard, licking fast over and over again until her thighs begin to rock.

"Lieutenant," she says, trying too hard to be quiet.

He gives one last kiss to her clit before standing to attention.

"Milady," he says, his cock aching at the sight of her spread legs and half-lidded eyes.

Her makeup still looks perfect, her crown still exquisitely braided. His Princess spread for him.

"I'm not going to -" She blushes. "Can we just?"

"Emma," he says, answering her unspoken question.

She doesn't want to be his Princess when they're like this. It makes sense. Emma isn't his, after all. They're just best friends...with benefits.

It's an easy task, getting out of his pants and then he moves back in between her legs. "Condom?"

She laughs and of course, (his) ingenious, lovely, horny Emma produces one from the bodice of her dress.

He had plans, yes, but so did she.

"Hurry," she says.

He doesn't fumble the way he used to with the rubbers, nor does he struggle to line himself up with her entrance. The struggle is not to lean forward and kiss her when he does so because she leans up for it, hands reaching for his too tight, too hot jacket.

"Don't want to ruin your makeup, Emma," he says.

She turns her head away quickly. "Fuck me already."

Killian and Emma have made the perfect team for four years, nothing changes when they're screwing atop a school desk. He presses forward and keeps pressing until he's buried deep, pulls out only to slide back in. She pants so hard that it falters his rhythm, makes him speed up to match the sound.

When she arches off the table and wraps her legs around his waist, he leans down, braces himself on the flat of his hands, fingers crushing her skirts, and starts the slow stroking that always sends them both over the edge.

He goes first, spilling into the condom in jerky thrusts, but she follows right behind him. She grabs his wrist and squeezes so tight that it crushes the fabric of his jacket.

"That was great," she says afterwards, after he pulls out, panicking because where in the bloody hell is he supposed to put the used condom?

"It would be better if we hadn't done it in the psych lab."

Emma hops off the desk. Her stylishly practical tan flats click on the floor and help her keep her balance when she wobbles on her feet.

"We'll stop by the bathroom, dispose of that," She wrinkles her nose at the used condom, "and head back for some more party poppin', club hoppin' tunes."

He laughs, but his good humor only lasts as long as the high of having been with her. Killian stares at the back of her neck as they stumble back to the party. Emma's freckles can barely be seen beneath her hot blush, but he knows every single one.

He wants to kiss them.

Instead, he ends up being stolen away by Ruby the second they re-enter for a game of "Guess who came as the guy from Up? And other terrible costume choices."

And then Emma is gone from his side and he searches around for her wildly, just about to ask when he sees them.

If Killian's the Lieutenant to Emma's Princess, Graham's the Prince. Killian feels a tightness in his chest that has nothing to do with the way Graham spins Emma and makes her laugh so loud that heads turn to look at her. It has everything to do with the casual way she fixes a wrinkle in her skirts.

One that he put there.

He watches Emma and Graham dance and it's only after the third song that he realizes that they only had one dance, and it looks to be staying that way.

Emma's cheeks glow when Graham spins her again. She has a flush he's all too familiar with. The one she gives when he's made her laugh so hard that he has to hold her hand through it. It's nothing like the flush of her skin when he has his mouth on her, but there's nothing like that.

There's nothing like the way she smiles when she's genuinely happy, either.

It makes her shine and tonight Emma shines, a fairytale princess in the flesh.

"My fairytale princess at last," her mother had said as she'd snapped picture #1343590.

Killian agrees, but it hurts somewhere deep in his stomach, because fairytale princesses don't end up with lieutenants, and her Prince is right there, sweeping her off her feet.

Belatedly he thinks, while begging off the dance to "Dance, Dance" Ruby and Belle offer him, he'd planned to do that himself.

Emma leaves with Graham, and that's alright with him. Ruby's too buzzed off of the spiked coke to drive herself home and Emma never liked Killian's driving much anyway.

"Every time we go over a bump it feels like I'm being rocked in a boat," she'd said.

Emma just isn't made for the sea.

→ But I can't stop this anymore than you can

Killian is the one Graham comes to – not because he wants his permission, but because, as Graham says when he corners Killian in back of the humid locker room after Zelena's experiment explodes in Chem Lab and leaves the whole class covered in a green smoky film - because he wants to know whether Emma would even be amenable to him doing that.

Going the gentleman route. Making sure that Emma's feelings come first.

How can Killian fault him for that?

Easily.

He's a bit selfish. It's something he never grew out of really. Abandonment does that to you, or so he tells himself, that it's the reason he clings to Emma so tight because everyone's left him behind, but she pulls him along with her wherever she goes.

She knows what it's like to be left behind, too. Maybe that makes them both a little selfish.

Still, he towels off his hair and says, "Emma doesn't go for things like this. You should just ask her yourself."

If he comes off a bit bitter and angry when he slams the towel atop his locker, he doesn't mean to. Not towards Graham, at least.

You should just ask her yourself.

Yeah, well, Killian should do a lot of things, and chem homework is front and center.

Getting "broken up with" underneath the bleachers has some kind of poetic device about it…metaphor? Irony? Cliché?

Killian should know this. He's the writer, after all.

They meet under the bleachers because it's their favorite place to stain their knees and elbows with grass while kissing each other's breath away.

They don't even bother to sit. Emma has that stiffness to her body that he recognizes. A protective stance. It makes the words he might say wilt and die a timely death in his throat. That she thinks she needs protecting from him of all people.

It stings worse than anything has in a long time.

"Graham wants to...date me," Emma says, the words stilted. She winces when she says them like Killian's going to get angry.

Like he's going to do anything but what he always does: follow wherever she goes. "And what do you want, sweetheart?"

He doesn't mean the endearment. Well, he does, but he doesn't mean for it to leave his mouth like the worst kind of plea. Sweetheart, be mine.

"Killian…"

Emma has this way of standing sometimes that makes him want to pull her to him because he knows she'll just lean her head on his shoulder and "smile like an idiot," as Ruby likes to say.

She stands like that now, but he has no doubt that if he moved to her, she wouldn't smile, and (selfishly) Killian always wants her to smile.

"I like him," she says, and she should have no reason to sound so scared by this.

Quickly, Killian says, "That's great. Say yes."

Her eyes fly wide and her bottom lip starts to tremble and Killian steps forward to hug her but she jerks away, wrapping her arms around her sides.

"I'm sorry," she says in that small voice she's used since the 10th grade, and he remembers Neal and wishes he could punch the asshole out again and again instead of leaving Emma to fight that battle on her own as she had to that summer he spent out at sea and she spent crying her eyes out over that worthless coward.

Her eyes flicker towards him and she tries to rally her defenses again, standing a bit straighter, letting her arms fall back down. Killian gives her what she asks for with her tilted chin and bypasses the mention of Neal's name.

With a deep breath, he says, "If you like him, say yes."

"Is that what you really think I should do? What about…"

She throws her hand up at the both of them.

What about us?

"We'll be good," he says.

He means it too, as sincerely as he means all his unspoken 'I love yous' and the spoken ones, his "Hello, beautiful," "I'm always a gentleman", and "If you leave me to Ruby's machinations again I will surely perish and then what would you do?" He means it as much as he means it when he whispers the words into her ears as she quietly studies in the library with him instead of spending the sunny day outside with all the rest of their friends.

"We'll be good," he repeats because he is nothing if not sincere.

(He is nothing if not in love with Emma Swan.)

→ A thousand clever lines unread on clever napkins

There's something to be said for the look Mary Margaret gives him when he trots up the stairs as she's returning from the elementary school.

"Emma's not home," she says quickly.

Killian knows that tone. Perceptiveness is their family trait. Emma and Killian learned this the hard way after Mary Margaret and David took one look at their faces and knew they'd walked in on them going at it on the kitchen table.

The one Emma still refuses to eat at. Killian doesn't blame her - at least not for that.

He blames her for this though.

The least she could've done was let him know that they were anything but good when she left him beneath those bleachers, his hands in his jacket pockets, his eyes on her raised shoulders as she half-jogged away like he'd chase after her.

He always did before then.

Killian blames her for the way Mary Margaret sighs heavily and gives him that look. It's the one she gave him at his brother's funeral, the sympathy so deep that it had brought tears back to his eyes when he thought he couldn't cry anymore. Emma had wiped away those tears. He'd been the one to lay his head on her shoulder, then, accepting her touch as a given.

At least he would always have her.

There's no sharing the blame for this, for Mary Margaret's "She's out with Graham Humbert."

"I know," Killian says.

He knows it in the way she smiles at him, and says, "I'm sure she'll call you after. You know Emma."

Killian does, and the blame isn't hers. It's all his. The least he could've done was recognize that it was over the moment she walked away from him without even bothering to look back.

"I know."

She isn't going to call him, and he won't expect it. But as to hope? Well, if there's one thing he's learned from this family is that there's always hope.

(Even when there is none at all.)

→ everything I know about broken hearts, I learned from you it's true

Milah Vidar bangs up against his open locker door and the rest is history.

That's how the movie version of their romance would go down, but in reality, Killian doesn't even consider it one. Where Ruby doesn't have the heart to keep trying to get him to open his, Milah just doesn't care about that at all.

Milah Vidar bangs up against his locker purposely. Her dark and wavy hair hangs heavy on her shoulders so she flicks it away and lays her blue eyes on him, makes sure she has his full attention.

She does and she doesn't. His mind is always elsewhere nowadays, but it mostly returns in confusion of her antics.

"I read your story in the lit mag," she says and Killian feels the tips of his ears burn.

He'd used a fake name for that one, even.

She's clever; he shouldn't have added that reference to Emma's three person CompSci class and their shared chem lab. It makes the identification easy. Emma and Killian, together still, if only in Times New Roman 12pt font print.

Milah is bright. Her smile is even brighter when she throws back her jean-jacketed shoulders and says, "We should get drinks."

"I don't drink," Killian says.

It's a lie. They both know it.

Her laughter is just a bright as her smile.

"I know a place," he offers.

It isn't a date. Not in his opinion. But he picks her up in his car and he lets her choose the music, fem punk that makes him want to scream at the top of his lungs and break something.

Killian has been feeling that a lot lately - gone through with it on more than one occasion, on the days that he would normally spend wrapped around Emma while they were supposed to be studying for art history and not each other's bodies.

He misses Emma.

But Milah asks him to tell her a story while they wait for their drinks, and she doesn't laugh at his fake ID, just asks him if it was his idea to grow the beard.

"My best friend's," he replies, the words all wrong.

He hasn't seen Emma since she started dating Graham, and he misses his best friend. Misses Emma more than he can say, and he's not allowed to say much about that at all.

Ruby would give him looks if she knew, not that she doesn't give them to him already. Ruby's all heart, so she can read everyone else's like a book, lines of words unspoken, pictures of happy endings and broken hearts.

"They have good taste," Milah says. "You should grow it back."

He sips at his beer. "Moustache, too?"

She's absolutely sincere when she says, "Moustache, too."

Milah's smile shines so bright. He wants to kiss it away until it stops blinding. Killian wonders if this is how Emma feels about Graham. Wondering has been getting him nowhere but at the bottom of bottles that they used to share sips from when they were feeling particularly adventurous.

He doesn't miss the hangovers. He tells himself he doesn't miss her either, and for a second he believes it.

Killian Jones does not miss Emma Swan.

"Maybe I will if you think it looks good. You have good taste," he says. He smiles genuinely. "I've seen the art mag."

She twinkles like a star, but her grin comes from far lower than the skies. Devious doesn't even cover it. "Have you? So you've seen my pieces?"

Killian's used to hiding his blush now. "I'm surprised they let them in the mag. I didn't know Storybrooke had it in them to be that progressive."

She slides his beer to her and takes a long swig from it. When she sets it back down, she says, "You could pose for me, if you want."

"Now I know I don't have it in me to be that progressive," Killian says, tries to take a sip from his now half empty bottle and ends up choking.

Blushing.

By the end of his second beer, he is more than blushing. He's starry eyed.

It isn't a date but she invites him out to a concert with her three days later, some underground fem-punk band, and that is a date.

It doesn't feel wrong exactly, standing next to Milah while she screams along to the lyrics, her spiked-gloved fist raised to the air when the words become more anthemic. It doesn't feel wrong because Milah doesn't care. Wrong or right, she seems to like him just fine.

Obviously, so obviously broken-hearted that she ends up buying him two drinks to get him through the sad songs, she likes him just fine, teasing him about the stubble around his mouth with a punch to the arm and a shouted whisper in his ear of "I see you've taken my advice."

It doesn't exactly feel right, holding Milah's waist when the band calls for a wall of death and the crowd splits only to come crashing back together.

But it feels somewhere in between when his phone vibrates in his pocket and he sees Emma's name flitting across the screen.

It feels wrong when he lets it go to voicemail.

It feels right when Milah asks, "The best friend?" and he says, "I'm not sure."

→ I never said I'd take this lying down

When he listens to her voicemail, she is quiet like someone is listening in on the other line and nervous while she asks him if he wants to come over for a movie night.

A movie night.

Before Halloween, this would either mean a movie marathon of whatever they could find on Netflix or in her collection of old VHS' or it would mean, "My parents aren't home and I want you on your back so I can attempt to watch the movie at the same time."

She's with Graham. It can't possibly be the latter.

He isn't stupidly hopeful for it either, but for a movie marathon, with Emma pressed against his side, tossing chocolate covered popcorn in her mouth and flicking sour patch kids at him? Hope's wings beat so wildly in his chest, he's afraid it'll come flying out of him before he can even type his text.

Sure. What time?

Her reply is swift. Hope flutters again, this time in head, trying to knock his brains out with her smiley faced: Tomorrow. 6. Bring the sour patch kids.

I always do, he types back.

That's the end of their conversation but he feels lighter than he has in weeks.

Weeks. He checks the date of their last conversation. November 1st was nearly a month ago and Thanksgiving's in two days.

Oh.

Killian feels even heavier than he has in weeks, but hell, he's survived his mother, his father, his brother, he can survive Emma's pity.

So, he shows up as he always does, in his favorite leather jacket (the one Emma chose for him), in his boots and black jeans that have pockets wide enough to house the large bag of sour patch kids and his cell phone, and he knocks on her door.

It takes a while for an answer but then Emma is there in all her golden glory.

Even with her bottom lip tugged between her teeth in a half smile and her hands cradled together, it isn't enough to dim her in his eyes.

Emma shines brighter than any star.

He steps inside and stands in the foyer, waiting for Emma to lock the door behind her.

"It's been a while," he says because there are several elephants in the room, might as well bring one of them front and center - perhaps its size will hide the others, the ones that fill his heart with lead and make every swallow of air taste like poison.

He should write that in his next submission to the lit mag. Under a different name this time. Maybe Milah will guess correctly again.

But maybe she won't want to.

"Yeah, I know. I've been busy, but so have you."

Busy enough to avoid her at all hours of the day except in chem lab and art history where the only thing he can do is sit next to Milah and pretend Emma hasn't scooted her chair closer to Graham's.

"Yeah," he says.

"Nice beard," she says easily enough.

Killian shrugs, earlier conversations playing in his head when he says, "It was Milah's idea."

"Milah...she has good taste."

The replayed conversation throws him for a loop, but his silence is unnoticeable when Emma leads him to the living room and drops down onto her couch like she used to. No care for making him comfortable because she knows he'll do it himself.

Her expectation is uncomfortable.

Killian takes off his jacket and lays it on the back of the couch with slow, unsteady hands.

"I thought we'd watch Lord of the Rings. I've been in a hobbit-y mood lately."

He wouldn't know. He hasn't seen her lately.

"That's fine," he says. Scrambling for something to say before the silence can settle into his bones, he asks, "Extended editions?"

"Of course."

So, she expects him to be here all night.

When he sits down next to her on the couch, he places at least three inches of space between them. She looks at him from where she leans on her body pillow - bare legs folded beneath her and he only notices for a second the still so familiar freckles of her right thigh. Killian smiles.

The look she gives him is unreadable. For once, he has no idea what's on Emma's mind.

"Here's your kids," he teases with as much lightness as he can muster.

"You crushed them," she says when he pulls them out from under him. She makes this moaning, sad sound in the back of her throat. He would rather beat himself senseless than hear that again.

"Sorry," he says quickly and leaves it at that.

If she had been content with that, he's sure the movie night would've been okay. Stilted conversation aside - "How's Graham?" "Good. And Milah?" "Good." "Did you do the chem homework?" "Yeah." "Oh." - it would've been okay to have those three inches between them and pretend that it was nothing more than that.

But - Arwen's halfway through raising the river when Emma scooches close enough that he has to look at her. He doesn't catch any of her expression before it happens, before she leans forward and brushes her lips against his and starts to kiss him.

Killian flounders. Muscle memory makes the kiss easy, but the hope that's been beating in his chest breaks free and flies up through his mouth.

He breaks the kiss.

"Emma, what are you doing?" he asks.

It's a question. It's an accusation. It's his heart held in her fisted hands, begging to be set free.

"I don't know. I'm sorry," she says.

Emma doesn't look away from him and Killian could have survived anything she threw at him but this. The yearning in her eyes looks all too real, but he knows it isn't for him.

"I suppose this is my fault, to be honest. I shouldn't have…"

Kissed you back. Come at all.

"I think I'm going to go," he says shortly. He jumps to his feet, puts a distance between him and her hurt expression.

Grabbing his jacket off the back of the couch, he slips into it more nimbly than he got out of it. A survival mechanism to be sure.

He's halfway to the door when Emma's voice stops him in his tracks. Killian shouldn't look back but he does anyway.

"It's Thanksgiving tomorrow," she says. It almost sounds like a plea and the look in her eyes...he'd much rather not see. "You're always welcome."

No, he isn't, but the offer is...well, it isn't nice, but it's an offer.

"I'll see you later, Emma."

→ it's a campaign of distraction and revisionist history

He doesn't see Emma later.

In fact, they don't see each other at all.

Killian doesn't tell himself a damn thing about that - he doesn't need the lie anymore. What he needs is space, and Emma gives it, so he takes and takes and takes because he's always been selfish. Always so damn selfish, because it's easier to cling to the memory of what they once had when he can't see what they have now staring him in the face with wide green eyes and a happy smile that isn't directed at him.

Selfishly, he'll call Milah over to his too empty house and they'll talk about nothing for hours until those hours turn into drinks spilled on the floor and limbs tangled in his sheets.

Milah convinces him to let her paint him in thick black lines and soft blues. Killian decides to paint her instead, in kisses over her collarbone and up her neck, to her hard cheeks and soft lips.

He writes and sometimes he lets her read it, but more often, she writes her name across his skin.

"You should get a tattoo of my name," Milah suggests one day.

Killian laughs into her, pokes her flat belly and says, "Better idea. I don't do that, and maybe get a tattoo of something else instead."

Scoffing loudly, she says, "Like what. What could possibly be better than my name?"

He tries not to think of buttercups and sour patch kids and mugs of hot cocoa spilled across his rug.

"I'll think of something," he says.

He hears Emma spends a lot of the time at the animal shelter with Graham. Ruby elbows him in the side, "You could spend a lot of time there too if you wanted."

Killian doesn't appreciate the hint. "I've never been a fan of small furry creatures."

Milah cackles at this, banging her hands on the table and Killian laughs at the way her rings clack against the plastic top.

Ruby frowns.

He doesn't speak to her after that either.

→ Remind me not to ever think of you again

Love.

He can't stop thinking about it. Killian's absolutely certain that if he could it wouldn't be so hard to walk past Emma in the hallway and not feel her hand on his arm, dragging him towards her.

Killian could...he could stop loving her, he's sure, if he could stop thinking about love. Yet, every time he's with Milah, that's all he thinks about.

He could love this girl. He really could - or he does. Killian loves Milah Vidar but it's different, loving the way her hands hold her drawing pens and her frown as she smacks him with his own notebook. It's the kind of love that he could write stories about, only, when he sets his pen to paper all he seems to do is write about her.

Killian starts a short story, something vaguely fantastical and there are dragons as metaphors for emotional guards and evil queens - but of course, there has to be a princess as well.

And well.

He scraps that story, and starts another. Scraps that one too. Scraps them all and practically tears his notebook to pieces as small as the shreds of his heart.

Milah watches him from his desk, stretches her arms out over her head and her necklaces jingle loudly. He bought her the costume jewelry for her birthday and she has worn it ever since. "It's been awhile since someone bought me a gift," she'd said to his question about it. "I want to show my appreciation."

He could love her, he loves her, he could love her.

But -

"Come on. The lit mag deadline isn't until February. You've got until Valentine's Day, dude. Don't beat yourself up over that just yet. But you should beat yourself up over what you're going to get me for Christmas."

Killian masks his expression and says blankly, "I don't celebrate that holiday."

"You will starting now," Milah hums and turns back to her drawing.

Killian could truly love her.

(He loves Emma Swan.)

→ Regardless you know that I'll still wait for your call

"The cold flush suits you," Milah says.

"Is that why we're spending my birthday frozen at the park?" Killian frowns loudly. He's sure he does because Milah rolls her eyes so long that he gets a little worried that they'll get stuck.

Milah sweeps the snow off the swing and then sweeps it off the other, a hint that he takes. The seat is cold but she leans over to thumb his cheek so he feels a little warmer.

"We're spending it here because it's the middle of winter and we should celebrate it in the best way possible."

Killian raises an eyebrow. "And how's that?"

"Drinking eggnog and watching the snow fall."

She digs in her bag for two thermoses and Killian takes his with a half-smile. Killian doesn't like eggnog, and he'd much rather spend his birthday curled up in the warmth of his bed with a hot cocoa by his side and -

Actually, he'd much rather feel a hook through his heart than do any of that.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. He fumbles with removing his glove with his teeth while holding his thermos so he can read the text. It's a "Happy Birthday" from Ruby.

Pushing the phone back in his pocket, he tries not to let the hope rise in his chest. Killian wishes he could bury that feeling beneath the piles of snow surrounding the park, topped up on the slides, and rusting the links of the swing.

Instead, he sips at his eggnog - it's only tolerable for generous helpings of bourbon - and stares at the snowflakes dotting Milah's nose.

"Thanks for this," he says after a long silence. His toes are icing over, but Milah doesn't even seem to notice in her leather lined winter coat. She'd probably line her underwear with leather, too, if it wasn't so sweaty.

"I'm glad I get to spend it with you," she says brightly. "You're better than I thought you'd be."

He blushes.

"Not like that. I mean, you're just kinder. Softer. Emma Swan turned you into a real badass, they say, but I think she just made you -"

"Don't think," Killian says quickly.

"Sorry," Milah says, looking back down into her thermos. She shrugs her shoulders and takes another swig. Wiping her mouth on the back of her sleeve, she adds, "Yeah, birthdays aren't made for thinking. They're made for doing. Fuck what anyone else says, you don't need to contemplate anything on your birthday. It's not a day of reflection. It's a day for enjoying yourself as much as you can."

As much as you can.

He knows he'll get a few more texts. Maybe even a drunken voicemail or two from Victor or Anna or Kristoff. But Emma, she won't send one at all.

She told him once that birthdays are meant to be spent with other people, not with their cellphones. "There's nothing lonelier than spending your birthday alone."

Emma was right. Birthdays are meant to be spent with other people, and he's so glad he has Milah here, kicking her feet off the ground and riding the swing back and forth, her giggle ringing through the air.

Emma was wrong, too. There is something lonelier than spending your birthday alone. It's spending it watching your girlfriend have the time of your life, and wishing for a simple text.

Just a text.

→ If I'm just bad news, then you're a liar

It's January when Emma and Graham break up.

Killian doesn't expect to be the first to know, but he's the one that finds her in their hallway. It's the one that no one goes down for fear of the ceiling falling in on them, a very real fear with the way the ceiling tiles wobble every time someone walks across the floor. They're not actually supposed to walk across it - it's a liability for the school and for their health, but he and Emma risked it all the time. It was shorter than walking around to get to Art History, and Killian always covered her when they walked there anyway. If anyone was going to get injured, at least it'd be him. It wasn't like he'd have anyone to worry over him.

Well, except Emma, but Emma was...

He's headed to Art History when he finds her.

She isn't crying. Emma doesn't cry in public, but Killian can always tell when she wants to. Her shoulders are far too hunched and her eyes are far too dim. She blinks a little too much, trying to catch the tears.

"Are you okay?" he asks her.

It's the first thing he's said to her in months. His voice doesn't feel hoarse with disuse, but with other emotions. Killian can feel her hurt squeezing at him.

"Graham and I broke up. It's no big deal," she says without looking at him.

That point over his shoulder must be terribly interesting.

"Why?" he asks.

"It didn't work out," she replies, words clipped.

He makes a step towards her. "But why? Did he do something?"

Emma laughs. It's a terrible sound, awful and utterly without humor. "We haven't been friends for months, Killian. Why start it again now?" she snaps.

He snaps too. His spine straightens and his shoulders fall back almost automatically. Muscle memory of all the other fights they've had in the past. The ones they've solved with a stupid joke made by him and a whispered apology made by her, kissed away by him whether it was just a friendly kiss to her forehead or the ones that led them beneath her sheets.

"You're right," he says.

She's wrong. He's wrong. But that's just the way it is.

→ I can't say I blame you, but I wish that I could

That isn't the way that it is because deadlines are up, it's almost Valentine's Day and he finds himself with his notebook in his hand.

It's a moleskin notebook that Emma bought him for his birthday last year. On the cover she'd carved his initials into the soft leather because "You like my handwriting." He loved her handwriting actually, and she'd known that but hadn't said it, just took his pen and kept looping KJ until it couldn't be smoothed away.

He stares at it and he should just be typing up literally anything so he has something in before the midnight deadline, but he opens the notebook instead.

It's practically an ode to Emma written on those pages.

He's not thinking rationally as he flips through the pages and finds phrases here and there that sound like actual art and not just painful yearning. If he was, it would be easy to set the notebook down back where it's been gathering dust underneath his bed for all these long months. Let it gather some more in the box with Liam's navigating equipment, his mother's hats and perfumes.

Instead, Killian pulls out those as well. They're not as dusty as they should be. He can see Emma's thumbprint on the sextant, so much smaller than his beside it. "Liam's navigating thingy," she'd called it before he took her out on the sailboat he and Liam had inherited from their mother and showed her exactly how to use it.

On the top of the perfume is half a fingerprint. His. He'd sprayed her with it to try and get her to stop touching his things but she'd only said, "It smells nice," in that unbarred, nothing held back tone. He ended up telling her all about his mother's love of perfumes and hats and the way the disease had ate away at her so he and Liam had spent half their working money buying her as much expensive perfume as they could.

"She must've smelled great," Emma had said until she'd tried out the other perfume and ended up choking on the scent. "Oh my god, did you guys even smell this stuff?"

Killian had laughed so hard she'd hit him on the back to stop him from choking too.

He smiles at the other fingerprints on all the other knickknacks, finds the scarf she used to wrap up his bleeding hand after he'd fallen down the stairs carrying way too many boxes.

"Don't use my bloody scarf for this," he'd cursed and then flinched, waiting for Liam to tell him to watch his language. Liam had still been outside and it was just Emma, laughing as she wrapped it tight enough to cut off his circulation.

"It's definitely a bloody scarf now," she'd said. "We can disinfect it later so you don't catch like...typhoid or something. Let's finish these boxes."

Killian isn't thinking rationally.

He grabs his laptop, keeps the mementos strewn across his bed and his notebook open and starts to write.

Milah Vidar bangs up against his open locker door and the rest is history.

"I read your story in the lit mag," Milah says.

Killian widens his stance. He has to give her that. After everything, he has to give her what he hasn't given her in all the months they've been together. Himself, all of himself, even the parts he'd spent so much time trying to hide.

"You're in love with her. Figures," Milah says with a toss of her hair. "You two were the worst kept secret here. Too bad you spent so much time keeping secrets from yourselves."

Killian frowns. "From ourselves?"

"You should talk to your best friend more, you know. She has good taste," Milah says. She leans into his space but instead of the kiss on the lips he's come to expect, she lays it on his cheek instead.

Friendly.

It's more than he could've hoped for after everything.

"There's no getting out of it now, you know. I'm getting that portrait for the last art mag publication."

There's no getting out of it now. Milah is right, and she knows it. She's as bright as all the stars in the sky, but Emma shines brighter than any star and well, Milah knows it.

→ a long night with your most obvious weakness (how close is close enough?)

He tries out so many witty one-liners and casual openers before he gets home, but all those words get caught in his throat when he finds Emma sitting on his front porch, looking out at the Storybrooke Harbor.

It is too cold for what she's wearing - a long-sleeved shirt that's more air than fabric and her favorite torn jeans. She shivers. It doesn't matter what's happened between them. Killian slips out of his jacket easily and drapes it over her shoulders before sitting down beside her.

"You know, I talk to Milah more than I talk to you," Emma says.

Killian scratches at the itch in his side. Pausing to take a breath, he folds his hands in his lap. "I figured that out today actually."

"Did you?"

Sarcasm. It's Emma at her finest - at her most princess.

"So the Princess and the Lieutenant," Emma starts, reading his mind with the ease he's used to. "Whatever happened to the Prince?"

Killian sighs and looks at her. She's staring at him.

"You tell me."

She smiles and lifts up the sleeve of his jacket to pull him under it as well. She's so hot that he warms instantly.

"The Prince and the Princess had different plans. The Princess wanted more - okay, wait, can we not do this?" She bites at her bottom lip and he's reminded of that Halloween so long ago, where she didn't want to be his Princess.

Still doesn't, apparently. He can (try to) live with that.

"Graham and I are good friends, you know. Just not good boyfriend/girlfriend. He wants things I can't give him."

Killian intakes a sharp breath of air. "You were crying because he wanted something more? Emma, sweetheart."

"Killian, it isn't like that. It isn't about Neal."

He staggers. Catching himself, he pushes past the Princess and Lieutenant metaphors and stupid fantastical stories about hero's journeys and evil queens and asks the question plaguing his mind. "Can we be friends again?"

He doesn't expect for her to move away and mumble, "I'd rather not...I can't do that to myself again."

He should've expected it, but he doesn't.

"Do what?" he snaps.

"I don't want to be with you without being with you. It isn't fair to either of us."

Killian might be an idiot because he has no idea what any of those words mean strung together. Whoever gave him that spot on the lit mag's Top Stories page must have been kidding themselves about his talent with the English language because he understands not a word of hers, even when she repeats them, desperate and pleading.

"Emma, I don't…"

"You're an idiot," she says and leans in very slowly.

Idiocy confirmed, he leans in too.

Their foreheads touch, noses pressing together.

"I get that you're trying to tell me something, but ah, I'm not getting it," he says because there's too much hope in his heart now for him to think clearly.

"If I kiss you, will you get it?" Emma asks.

His answer is a resounding "yes," but he doesn't say it in words, just kisses her like they've always done before, things clicking into place with the fit of their lips.

Emma breaks the kiss after too short of a moment. He blinks at her stupidly, worry marring the happiness spinning his head.

"You do get it, though?" she asks. "I'm asking you to go steady, Jones."

He tries to kiss her again and ends up banging their heads together, but he counts that as a win when it earns him her palm across his forehead. Her fingers are cold. Killian tugs them down to his lips and kisses them.

"Aye, Princess. Anything for you, Your Majesty."

Before, he'd have said Emma was the worst actress he's ever seen, but with her fingers on his mouth and her cheeks dusted with cold, he's amazed at how readily she says, "Good," with the regality of a Queen relaying orders to her subjects.

"Now can we go the hell inside? There's a Harry Potter marathon on ABC and -"

He drops her hand and this time when he kisses her, it's perfect, the perfect kiss and he can't help it, he's as selfish as they come because he pulls back, whispers, "I love you," and keeps kissing her until she forces him to come up for air by grabbing a tuft of his hair.

"One, you're going to give me beard burn in this cold. Two, it's cold." She pauses. There's nothing like the smile Emma gives when she's genuinely happy, but this one doesn't shine, it feels like the warm glow of the sun wrapping its arms around him and drawing him in.

"I love you," she says. "Now, Harry Potter."

He laughs for hours afterwards, through Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban and it's the best he's felt in months. She tells him the same, even when she's crying over Cedric Diggory and cursing Snape to hell.

"Can we be friends again?" she asks at the end of the night, when she's falling asleep on the pillow beside him.

"Aye, Princess, we can."

"I'm going to need you to stop calling me that one day," she yawns and if that was the last thing she said to him that evening, he wouldn't have minded. But she turns into him and, with half-closed eyes and (not nearly) kissed (enough) lips, says, "I love you," so he falls asleep vowing that "one day" will never come.

Not if he has anything to say about it, and he has a lot to say. There are so many ways to "I love you," after all.