Gonna break the rules (because i suck at them) and beg for a twofer: Murphy's Law, and if you're feeling generous Hydroplaning
I’m all good with rule breaking. :)
So, Murphy’s Law is based on the other prompt @lala-kate sent me so long ago (I am SO sorry). The prompt was: I invited you here to get my parents to hate you, not to get them to invite you back for future dinner parties.
Here’s a snippet:
As much as it pained Emma, she was going to have to deceive her mother. If Emma had learned one thing about Mary Margaret, it was that she could be persistent in matters of the heart. It was probably the reason she was eventually reunited with her parents, and she was grateful for that, but in this case, she didn’t want to talk about it. Ever. Sure, the whole fake-dating thing could work for a day, but then she’d just have to lie again about a fake break up. What could be more final and explicit about Emma and relationships than breaking up in front of her mother in an epic fight? And then maybe Mary Margaret would finally be too horrified to ever bring up the topic again.
Emma had no intention of bringing someone along she actually liked, not that there was such a person in her life at the moment. She’d rather not have to act too much, so bringing someone annoying who incessantly provoked her was obviously the way to go. Someone she could easily pick a fight with, ending in a final, relationship-destroying argument. Someone she wouldn’t have to worry she’d really hurt.
The solution to her dilemma was obvious. Killian Jones. Just the image of him in her head made her blood pressure rise.
Killian was a colleague of sorts. Emma, as a bail bonds person, was always dealing with the dregs of society—cowards, cheats, and liars. Killian was a public defender and a few of his clients were among the bail skips Emma tracked down, caught, and brought back to court. She had mixed feelings about public defenders. On the one hand, they were needed, and in some cases, they were better than no representation at all. On the other hand, they could be ineffectual. And in her experience, detrimental.
Jones’ reputation as a womanizer eclipsed that of his skill as a lawyer, which was saying something—he was one of the better public defenders. Still, she wasn’t surprised at the rumors that swirled around him in and out of the courtroom. He was suave, smart, handsome, and more than a bit cocky. And she couldn’t stand him.
He was perfect.
And “Hydroplaning” is my season 6 canon divergent way of separating Killian and Emma rather than the stupid way it went. I still want to write this because I made Killian part of Nemo’s crew and I want all the Hook & Nemo bonding. Here’s a taste of Hydroplaning:
Killian careened into the wooden floor, shoulder first, as he was tossed, still sleeping, from his bunk. Pain radiated down his arm, ended abruptly at his stump and then coursed back up to his head, which was going to have a nasty knot after having made the floor’s acquaintance as well. The book he’d been reading followed along, the spine of it hitting him in the temple, punctuating the ache blooming behind his eyes. He blinked, grimacing, and with a groan, tossed the book aside. I’ve got to get home, he thought, groggy and out-of-sorts, but his heart racing with an urgency he was sure had nothing to do with his current predicament. He tried to right himself, but the room tipped and rolled again, sending him and the book sliding toward the hatch end of the cabin.
A red light began to flash and the dive alarm blared—a little late as far as Killian was concerned—reverberating throughout the small room and his head, driving away all out-of-place notions of an unfamiliar home from troubled dreams.
“Bloody hell!” he muttered, grabbing onto the leg of the bottom bunk before he completely slid past it. He could see his hook and brace hanging from where he stowed it, completely useless to him. He braced his forearm against the floor and tried to pull closer in an attempt to retrieve it, but the ship lurched, and it was all Killian could do not to pitch about the room himself.
The Nautilus was in a steep dive through a portal to who knew where. This wasn’t the Nautilus heading toward the bottom of the sea in a hurry to avoid other ships or sea creatures; Killian could tell by the bright-blue, pulsating glow coming from the porthole near his bunk. They hadn’t discussed going to any new realms, and even if he were sleeping, as co-Captain, he would have been notified. He knew he needed to get to the engine room to help Nemo and his brother, who were currently on duty. If something happened to Nemo they were going to need Killian to take command. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the hatch was still sealed. That was good. Tumbling through the door and down the hall would be more unpleasant than what he was about to do and he hardly looked forward to that either. Bracing himself, he let go of the leg of his bunk and slid the rest of the way down the floor until he slammed into the metal door separating him from the rest of the submersible.
Thanks for playing my WIP game! Maybe one day some of these won’t be WIPs. I still like so many of the ideas. Sigh...
