To Touch, To Hold
So, for years, YEARS, I've had this headcanon that Emma has this thing with touch. I mean we all know touch is Emma’s love language, and I've always found it interesting that after they kissed in Neverland, it seemed like Emma went out of her way to avoid touching Killian. And I always thought that it was pretty clear that her dam broke after the ice wall, so I’ve always had this exact scenario in my head, so much that sometimes I forget it didn’t actually happen. So now, years later, I’ve finally found the time to write it out. I hope you enjoy it. The pacing is a little different than my usual style, but I feel like it fits. It begins immediately after the 4x03 kiss, so watch that to get yourself in the mood. Let me know what you think!!
The kiss leaves her more than breathless, head cloudy with a kind of relief she didn’t expect. His fingers are still tangled in her tresses, his rings catching tendrils of the soft gold as he moves his hand to thumb at a tear that’s slipped down her cheek. She smiles, trying to convey with her eyes all she’s still not ready to say to him. A cool breeze flutters along the dark street, gently cooling their flushed cheeks.
Killian is gazing into her face, seems to sense she wants to say something. But he’s surprised when all at once the scent of her floods him, her arms having wound tight and fast about his chest, head settling against his shoulder. He wraps his own arms around her, too, hand pressing strong and flat between her shoulder blades. He’s not used to this yet, even after her scramble for purchase against him once freed from the confines of the ice. Oh, but he will get used to it. There’s naught he loves more than his Swan like this, the simple touch of her body flush to his, allowing him to just hold her. He’s waited endless months to be honoured with this pleasure, and it’s not something he takes lightly.
Emma sighs into his neck, trying to memorize this feeling of safety with each separate sense. The smell of brine on his collarbone, the way she can see his pulse jumping at his neck, the taste of his lips still fresh on her tongue. But most of all it’s his arms around her, his thumb rubbing a circle at the base of her neck, the muscles of his abdomen hard against her own, despite his many leather layers. She smiles ruefully to herself in the quiet sway of his embrace, contemplating how she lasted so long, resisting his every touch. It had truly been a conscious effort, for Emma knows herself. Touch has always been her way of communicating love, and after the overwhelming heat of that kiss in the brambles of Neverland, she knew she must hold this man at arm’s length, or she’d be fucked for him too far, too fast. She wasn’t ready to be so tethered to another, especially someone she could already tell came from an achingly similar past. So she had resisted. On countless occasions throughout their shared time these past months, her hand had twitched for his, heart aching for the contact. Both when she left him at the town line and when he found her in New York and made her remember, her body had screamed at her to touch, to hold. But each time she gritted her teeth, hard, and told herself not to make that irreversible dive, not yet. Not yet.
All of her resolve had crumbled upon seeing his face through that little hole in the ice. She’d been nearly unconscious, her shivering long ceased, but somehow hearing him screech her name in anguish and seeing his face contorted in boundless worry for her had chilled her even more. And in a blur of flurried motion, resistance was forgotten as she sought warmth and refuge and safety in his arms. The weight of it robbed her of any ability to speak, and she was grateful knowing he’d simply blame the cold for her silence.
Now, only a few days later, and she knows she’s addicted. Knows every fibre of her soul aches to touch him always, which is why she’d been so upset by his recent brush with disaster. Which is why, in the middle of the street this evening, she had mustered the courage to tell him she couldn’t bear to lose him. And now, in his arms, she’s loathe to let go at all.
