This is kinda vaguely spoilery for what Killian is supposedly going to look like in the wish realm, but nothing else aside from that. Just a little CS ficlet with a dash of angst.
He’s not the man she knows.
(oh, but he is)
The lines on his face are a map of his travels, cut deeper
around the eyes and the lips from staring at untold sunrises and sunsets in
this world where they never met. She’d heard the tales of him though, like she
did back home, the stories of the pirate with a hook for a hand who sailed away
to Neverland….only here it was history instead of myth.
She was softer in this life, the soft princess dresses and
the soft hands that never had to lift a finger…and he was harder, she can see
it even though he’s put on some weight under the red vest and his salt and
pepper hair falls messily into his eyes. There’s an edge to this version of him
that reminds her of what he said during their trip to the past, “Swan, that man
sitting there, you don’t know him.”
But she does.
He’s lived too long, drank too much, loved too little….his
eyes are shadowed with suspicion and rimmed with red, but they’re still that
forget-me-not blue she even in the tavern’s dim light.
“Quite a tale you’ve spun there, love.”
“And you don’t believe a word of it,” Emma sighs, swiping
the rum neatly from his side of the table and taking a healthy, unprincess-like
swig, “S’okay. I didn’t expect you to. I just wanted you to hear it.”
The hand that lands on her wrist when she rises to her feet
shakes just a little bit, his thumb stroking her fluttering pulse in a manner
so familiar that she has to close her eyes and take a breath.
“Why?”
His voice is different, deeper, older, carrying all the
weight of a life that was both too much and never enough, too much drink, too
much time spent chasing vengeance, too much loss…never enough love or light or
laughter. He’s the man her Killian Jones could have been, almost was…just as
the princess gown and the fading memories of a life she didn’t live were almost
hers, could have been. Emma smooths back the hair that is more silver than
black from his brow and traces the faint scar on his cheek.
“Because I love you.”
Killian sucks in a breath of air between his teeth and his
eyes widen, but before he can respond she bends down and kisses him. His lips
are dry, chapped, unmoving under hers for a long moment. There’s no flash of
rainbow light, if anything she can feel the room growing dimmer. This world was
built on a careless wish and Emma can feel it collapsing around her more and more with
each hour that passes.
If wishes were horses….beggars would ride
There’s a soft exhale and then he’s kissing her, maybe only because
she’s still his type even if he doesn’t know her name, doesn’t know he loves
her just as much as she loves him, but it’s okay. She wishes things could have
been different for this Killian Jones, and she wishes just a little bit that
she could have really had that soft, princess life…but there’s a man that she loves in
the life that’s waiting for her on the other side, and it’s time to go home.
“Goodbye.”
She whispers it against his lips, feels his eyes follow her as she leaves him to his rum and solitude once more.
cshappybeginning 