a little snippet i wrote after tumblr user emmaofmisthaven made this and poked about killian and emma making a new video together and... well.
"This can't be happening again," she lamented sourly, crossing her arms over her chest as the names of the winners of the stupid online poll flashed before her eyes.
Best Music Band: The Lost Boys.
Dammit, she thought internally and immediately chastised herself. If there was a category for "Worst Girlfriend", she was bound to win that one - wasn't she supposed to be proud of him?
But then, when her insufferable boyfriend started an entire victory dance including air guns and whoops, her guilt evaporated into nothing. She shook her head as he pointed at her with a triumphant expression. "HA! In your face, Swan."
She rose an eyebrow. "Wanna rephrase that, buddy?"
"Nobody told you to accept that bet," he shrugged, plopping on the couch next to her.
She pointed an accusing finger at him, her voice getting higher alarmingly fast. "You goaded me into it!"
"And you fell straight into it," he pointed out. Her bottom lip caught in a pout almost as a reflex, and he laughed, enveloping her in his arms. He kissed her forehead tenderly. "Come on, you knew it was a possibility."
"My faith in the Directioners just isn't the same anymore."
His entire body shook beside hers, and she knew he was trying to suppress laughter. "We'll have fun."
"Your idea of fun can translate into my idea of a disaster," she groaned, hiding her face in his neck and relishing in the way he squirmed.
(What a ticklish nerd.)
"Really now? Because I thought that what I did the other night was fun, but if you think it was such a 'disaster' as you claim, then we won't be doing it again anytime soon…" he started, and she hit his arm, huffing as loudly as humanly possible.
"You're such a drama queen."
"You are the drama queen."
"I said I'll do it!"
"You actually didn't."
She threw her hands up in the air, a groan caught in her throat, she was that vexed. "Fine, okay? I'll do it."
"Yay, I'm so glad you're so excited about it," he drawled, looking as unimpressed as ever. She crossed her arms over her chest, because if he was going to act like a kid then she could give as good as it gets.
"That wasn't part of our bet, therefore I don't need to be excited about it."
He gave her an appraising look, and leaned forward until their noses brushed. "For me, though?"
Ugh.
"Fine. I'll be a 0.1% excited for you."
"Yayyyyy." He shook his fists in the air in the most ridiculous way she'd ever seen, and she had to suppress a giggle. She flopped down until her back hit the couch, and he followed her, hovering over her form until their faces were inches apart. "Kiss?"
She shook her head, now openly laughing. He was impossible.
"Kiss," she gave in, letting his lips brush hers briefly in a quiet peck. And another. And another. She laughed again when she turned her head to the side and he kept dropping kisses on her jaw, and she squirmed in his arms when his scruff scratched the skin of her neck. She howled as his fingers tickled her sides mercilessly, and the wrestling match that ensued that had them both falling from the couch to the carpeted floor of their living room could have been some serious real footage worthy of any action-packed movie.
"Idiot," she called from under his sprawled body on the floor, and his chuckle against her neck made her shake with laughter.
"Your idiot, love."
"So. What's the story?" she asked once they settled into bed that night. The music video talk had been forgotten after their tickle fight, and Henry had found them after he came home from school screaming at each other as they attempted to play Tic-Tac-Toe.
(They took their clapping games really seriously in that house.)
Her son hadn't even bothered to ask, he had just joined them on the carpet and taught them the updated 2015 version of the game as Nana and Berlioz judged them from their loveseat with that kind of condescension only animals could master.
Killian kissed her shoulder as she snuggled against his side. "You play a ghost."
"You're kidding."
"I'm really not." He stretched and picked up his phone from the bedside table, going through his e-mails as a way of answering her. He found the one he was looking for and held the screen for her to read, grinning like the cat that got the canary.
"Gimme that," she grumbled, and started reading.
She got into her 'reading script' mode, back resting against the headboard and clearing her mind in order to picture the story in her head in the best way she could. From what she read, the story went as followed:
Killian's character, aka the eye candy guy material in the video, drives up somewhere in the middle of fucking nowhere in the mountains and finds a hitchhiker in his way. Enter Emma, who'd been coincidentally driving to the same place he was but whose car had broken down. He takes pity on her - or is just plain bored during the lonely ride, if Emma had to give it some real perspective - and picks her up and, of course, sparks fly.
He's staying in a cabin in the woods, and coincidentally so is she. This all leads to them seeking each other's company in a gorgeous setting, with nights having dinner sitting together warming up in front of the fire, long days hiking, casually holding hands to help her not trip over a fallen log…
… and eventually falling in love. With the added bonus of kissing around the woods, carving their initials on a tree's bark and snuggling on an abandoned pier watching the course of a waterfall.
It's only when he finally says the three little words that they remember the truth: they used to be lovers, but he had died some time ago. It's only once she dies in the accident that she saw as her car breaking down that they re-meet in the afterlife, and only recognize each other once they fall in love again.
…fuck her life, she was crying reading this shit.
She wiped away a tear as discreetly as she could, but her sniffling gave her away. "For fuck's sake, this is such a tearjerker."
"Told you," he replied smugly. She burrowed her face in his shoulder, lowkey wiping her tear-stained face in his cotton pajamas.
"At least you're a ghost too," she croaked, and he chuckled, holding her closer to him.
"Of course. If you're a ghost, I'm a ghost too."
"What's with the Nickelback vibe?"
"Come again?"
"You know, the whole 'making everybody cry' and 'someone is already dead' thing. Like 90% of Nickelback's videos," she protested. He shrugged.
"It wasn't my idea."
"Whatever," she dismissed, and hovered over him until she could turn off the lamp on the bedside table. He murmured a quiet good night in her ear, and she grumbled a comeback under her breath, still upset thinking about those poor ghosts lost without their memories, probably haunting those woods until the end of time.
Jesus.
"So you'll do it?" he insisted in a low voice, and she groaned.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really."
"Then I'll do it." She paused, and all of a sudden a new thought caught her attention, and she turned on the light again, glaring at him. "Do I have to wear something awful?"
His laugh echoed so loudly that Henry had to text them to ask them to please keep it down there are tiny ones in here
"When I asked about wearing something awful, I should probably have added that having to wear a dress in this cold wasn't in the cards," she complained, tugging at the hem of the little black number she had been commanded to don for the video. It wasn't like she didn't like it - hello, she had nice legs and she knew it - but Vancouver wasn't Los Angeles, not by a long shot, and she was afraid the camera would somehow catch the goosebumps rising on her skin .
"You look beautiful," he declared, kissing the top of her frozen nose.
She coughed miserably. "More like useless - I can barely move."
"You can't move because you're wrapped in a five pound coat," he signaled, tugging on the sleeve of the thermal coat she'd been given in order to keep her warm in-between takes. She was nothing but a professional, but good lord, at what price? She didn't recall signing anything about losing any limbs or toes in this job.
"Because I'm cold," she protested weakly, hiding her nose inside the coat and tugging the hood as far as it'd go over her head.
"You look like a burrito."
She was so cold she couldn't even muster the energy to sound annoyed. "I like burritos."
"I like burritos too," he said, and leaned in, biting her cheek and neck as carefully as he could but managing to be as aggravating as humanly possible to the point that she snapped out of her semi-frozen state and started hitting him in the arm until he stopped.
When he was offered a coat of his own, he just wore it so the crew could snap a picture of the both of them and post it online, tagging it as "here we go again… #burritosinwork are #burritosinlove"
During their first music video filming she had found out that Killian could be perfectly professional, serious and hard-working when the time came to stand in front of the camera.
But then, during that time, they had been walking on eggshells around each other and hadn't been his insufferable self. Nor had they been in a relationship, which they were in as of right now. And that, somehow, changed everything for the process.
Which translated as "Emma tries to stay professional during the filming of his band's music video, asking for pointers to the director, checking out the final product on the camera and all that jazz while Killian keeps distracting her and dragging her behind trees to make out." It didn't help matters that the crew laughed it off and found it adorable instead of exasperating. Emma wouldn't put it past him that he had somehow bribed them to let them off the hook whenever it happened, and she protested as much as she could, but then, well.
His kisses were something else, and it was cold, and he was warm. So.
She could only look sheepishly at the makeup artist whenever she had to retouch her lipstick before they started a new take or scene after one of their escapades.
The last straw was her idiotic boyfriend trying to feel a cop while they were sitting on a log in front of the fire during a scene, when she just had to slap his hand from her ass as he kneaded her thigh with the other. One wouldn't know watching the scene, as she fake-laughed in-between open-mouthed kisses, that they were actually fighting in whispers. The director ignored it and gave it green light, though, so who was she to complain.
(The actual conversation during the scene went something like:
"Stop it!"
"Isn't this in character?"
"That's gonna be PG."
"Not in England."
"We're in Canada."
"Who cares.")
("How do actors cry for real when you need to for a scene?"
"We think about horrible stuff. Very sad stuff, I guess. Or try to think about it from the character's mindset. There are also these really good eyedrops that are like, huge in the business."
"…Your job is weird."
"Look who's talking.")
A couple of months later, the entire band gets together in the studio along with the kids, girls and pets to watch the video. Henry and Grace sit together, feeding Nana popcorn even if her dog is clearly eyeing the chicken wings on August's lap, and every couch and chair is occupied until some of them have to sit on the floor. Philip had managed to dissuade Gold to buy a screen where to project the video - and any other match, TV show or movie they wished to Netflix and chill they wished - and the occasion asked for one of their reunions to celebrate.
"It's starting!" Ruby squealed seconds before the video player got stuck and buffered. Everybody groaned and then prompted into applause once it kept streaming without a hitch, and there they were. As the rest of the party gorged themselves with popcorn and made idle comments about Killian's driving ("You can tell when his Irish driving-self kicks in - his jaw ticks whenever he has to do a turn!") or his attire for the video, Emma slouched against Killian's chest, twisting her neck to leave a kiss on his jaw as they all watched.
Needless to say, three minutes and forty-five seconds later all that could be heard in the room were Ruby, Mary Margaret and Aurora's hiccups.
Killian elbowed her and jerked his chin in Victor's direction, and she let out a peal of laughter as she found him trying to muffle a sniffle against his fist, muttering to Philip "That was so mean, you guys."
for this one, you should probably listen to the songs in the wild wild horses' short film that jen directed and cameo'd in with rose mciver :))) the music is super good (i'm especially inclined towards 'youth', from where the title is inspired) and it is so gorgeously directed i'm just even more in awe of jen, sth i didn't think was possible.
see ya fellas 3