The Man You Want To be
Sort of a missing scene, set after Dark Waters, this was triggered by a conversation with @ohmakemeahercules. It’s not exactly a sequel to Unhappy Beginnings, where Killian told Emma about his childhood, but it kind of refers to it.
title: The Man You Want To Be
summary: Killian tells Emma story how he found out that he had a little half-brother. Yeah, painful.
rating: G and SL for a bit of self-loathe
Fresh air seems like a good idea after the claustrophobic hours spent aboard the Nautilus, and so they leave Emma’s bug where it is, parked in front of the hospital, and walk home where Henry is waiting for them. They stop for a moment at the diner to pick up some of their favorite food and have a drink at the bar while they’re waiting for it. Killian smiles a little smile to himself when he recalls the lad’s words spoken to him before – See you at home – the message in them evident. It was their home, and he was as welcome there as he was in their family.
“Did you know you had a half-brother?” Emma’s voice startles him from his pleasant, peaceful thoughts, and his heart sinks a little. He hoped he could avoid this talk a little longer, even if he knew the moment would come when Emma would ask him about this.
He averts his eyes and hesitates for a moment, before he finally admits, “Aye.”
“How?” she simply asks, and again, like before when he told her about the Shears, there’s no reproach in her voice, no Why have you kept it a secret and never spoken about him? His Swan is making damn good on her promise to always see the best in him, but alas, not even she will be able to find anything good to see about him when it comes to that sad and shameful tale.
He scratches behind his ear and draws a deep breath. “Are you certain you want to know?” he ascertains, hoping she’s going to let it go, but she doesn’t.
Emma is determined to support him, whatever he may reveal; she’s aware it can’t be a really pleasant story, and judging by the shadows on his face, it’s just another proof of the long gone villainy he can never forget. All the more important, she knows, that he talks about it and shares his burden with her.
“Yeah, sure,” she replies firmly and puts a reassuring hand on his arm.
Killian nods and licks his lips nervously. “Remember what happened with my father, when Liam and I were boys?” he begins. “What he did?”
How could she ever forget that horrible story? “Of course! He…” She falls silent and swallows hard, can’t bring herself to say it out loud; too unimaginable the crime Killian’s father had committed against his sons when they were only children.
He nods again. “And how I told you I saw him one more time later, and that it wasn’t… pleasant?” He ends his sentence with a little sigh, dreading the inevitable. The last time he’d left it at that, but he knows that this time, he’ll have to lay all the cards on the table.
“Yeah,” Emma replies, “Was that when you learned about…” Again, she lets her voice trail off without finishing the sentence. It feels strange, almost wrong, to say the name of the young man they just left at the hospital; too weird is the thought that Killian’s younger half-brother carries the same name as his older, deceased brother.
“It was,” he confirms and sips at his rum while a long silence stretches between them. It’s not awkward or uncomfortable, but clearly painful, and Emma wishes she could take away something of it.
“Tell me what happened,” she finally encourages him softly.
He sighs and rubs his hand over his mouth, as if he’s trying to keep the words from spilling out, disgusted about the man he was all those years ago. “Before the curse,” he starts, “Regina… the Evil Queen… sent me to Wonderland to kill Cora, to have her out of the way.”
“Yes, I know,” Emma replies, “You told me that already.”
He tilts his head. “What I didn’t tell you is that before… entrusting me with that task, she wanted to… test me. To see if I had what it takes, if I was the right man for that murderous mission.” He finishes the rest of his drink and puts the glass on the bar very slowly, before he looks up at her again hesitantly. “She wanted me to kill someone.” Emma frowns, obviously not understanding, not drawing a connection yet, so Killian explains. “My father.”
Her eyes widen. “What?!” she gasps. “But how… how’s that even possible?” she shakes her head in disbelief. “He should have been long dead by then?”
“Aye, he should have.” Killian draws a deep reluctant breath, bracing himself for the unpleasant story he’s about to tell. “Long story short, when I found him he told me he was put under a sleeping curse shortly after he’d… left us, and he was awakened by True Love’s kiss.” Emma is taken aback by that revelation; for the life of her she can’t imagine that someone like that would find True Love at all, could be deemed worthy of it by fate, the Gods or whoever makes these decisions. Killian sees the doubt on her face and tilts his head. “Swore he’d changed and that he’d always regretted what he’d done to us.” Emma snorts. “The woman who’d saved him had died,” Killian goes on. “I… I’d been determined to kill him,” he admits and shrugs, “but I… I changed my mind when I realized that we’d both lost so much already.” Her face softens. “Told him I’d procure a letter of transit for him and that he had to disappear, so the Queen would never know that I hadn’t done her bidding.” He pauses for a moment and swallows. “That’s when he told me he needed two.”
“For his son,” Emma assumes. When he nods, she asks softly, “What did you do?”
He looks down into his empty glass and is tempted for a moment to order another rum, but then he decides against it. Today, he’s sharing his pain for a change, not drowning it. It’s not something he’s very much used to, but it feels much more relieving.
“That same night,” he finally continues, “I came back to the tavern he was running, with two letters.” Emma’s eyes are fixed on his face as he’s telling her his story, even if he isn’t looking at her, anxious not to miss one single expression of his, to follow every frown and every narrowing of his weary eyes. “I saw him tuck the boy in, and that’s when I heard what he named him.” Killian lifts his gaze to Emma’s, his eyes red and weary. “Liam. As if my brother… his eldest son… had never existed.” He rubs his hand over his face and knits his brows together in the effort of recalling every detail of that fateful night, the soothing tone of his father’s deep voice being everything the worried little boy needed to fall asleep – like every little boy on the world, like the little boy on that ship centuries ago. “The boy… Liam… he was scared,” he tells Emma, and she frowns sympathetically. “And my father,” he goes on, “he soothed him when he tucked him in. And he used almost the exact same words like when he soothed me, that night on the ship, before he left.”
She reaches for his hand and curls her fingers around his. “Oh, Killian,” she sighs, not less sympathetically. “That must have been a shock.”
He tilts his head. “I asked him if my brother had really been that easy to replace. And I told him that he’d been lying to his boy, just as he’d been lying to me all those years ago.” He feels the bitterness well up again, can almost taste it in his mouth and grimaces in disgust. “He swore that wasn’t true, that he’d called his son Liam to honor my brother, to honor both of us.” He snorts. “And that he’d never leave his boy.” Killian’s gaze drifts into the void and waits for the anger, the cold fury, to wash over him again, but it never comes.
“But he’d left you,” Emma states gently, the sadness in her voice maybe best expressing what he’s feeling right now.
His eyes fly to her, half surprised and half relieved that she seems to understand what haunted him back then. But then, how could she not? They’re kindred spirits, after all. And many, many times during her restless, loveless childhood and youth she’d felt the same he’d felt back then: not being worthy of love, not good enough.
His voice is on the verge of breaking when he speaks again. “I was so outraged that I even hated that poor boy. Because he got what I never had.” He stops, staring into the void again for a moment, then he refocuses and draws a deep breath, his next words coming out almost matter-of-factly. “I drew my knife, and I stabbed my father. When he fell to the ground, he reached for me and told me that I, too, could change, that it wasn’t too late…” He pauses and swallows thickly, his eyes brimmed with tears now. “But it was.” Without noticing, his fingers close around Emma’s in an almost painful grasp, but she doesn’t mind, is grateful that he turns to her for support with that little gesture. “I stood there and watched him die,” he finally says. “And I took his bloody shirt as a proof for what I’d done and walked away, leaving that boy to his fate and not wasting a second thought on it.”
Even with the buzzing of voices and noises in the diner around them, the silence seems almost oppressive now. Emma has listened quietly, Killian’s tale not really shocking her, because she dreaded, almost expected, something like this. She can almost physically feel his pain and guilt, because the sentiments are not completely unknown to her. Even if what her parents did to her of course couldn’t be compared to what Killian’s father had done, even if she never had violent tendencies… she knows the feeling of resentment she had for her parents for a long time, because they put something else – some greater good – over her chance to grow up with them.
It took her a long time to get over that feeling, she could admit to that now, and when she finally started to feel like a daughter… they suddenly had the desire to have another baby, so they could make up for what they’d missed with her… only that she could never have that chance; nothing would ever take away the pain of having had to grow up as an orphan. Instead, her baby brother got everything she’d been robbed of. She loves her brother, and yet… even if it was just for a fleeting moment, that resentment – she felt it.
Of course, she never had the wish for vengeance when it came to her parents, but Killian… he had been through worse, in a much darker place than she could ever think of. So yes, she understands, and she can’t even judge him. A tear is rolling down her cheek, shed for him and both his brothers, shed for herself and her parents, and even for Killian’s father who had received the worst punishment – being forced to abandon yet another son, one who he wanted to do right by this time.
“No, it wasn’t too late,” she says in a tear-choked voice, “it was too early. You weren’t ready to forgive your father.”
He tilts his head. “No, I wasn’t,” he agrees, “ but Liam… he was an innocent child, and I took away everything he had. He’s so lucky that Nemo found him and saved him.” For a moment, his gaze gets lost again, but then he looks back at her and draws a deep breath, the surprising ghost of a smile, a proud one, gleaming in his eyes. “And my little brother,” he starts, affection clear in his voice, “he found it in him to end the spiral of hate and vengeance our father had set in motion. He had a knife at my throat and could’ve easily killed me, and he was about to.” Without being aware of it, Emma squeezes his fingers that are still laced with hers, the thought of losing Killian again almost unbearable. “But when he saw that your boy came back for me,” he continues, “and that he cared about me… he stopped. He said he couldn’t plant the seed of hate and vengeance in another boy’s heart.”
Despite the circumstances, Emma is blown away by the sense of family that binds two of the three most important men in her life – she has heard the story from Henry and knows that Killian was ready to sacrifice his life for the sake of getting her son back to her, but what she didn’t know yet was that Henry went back to save Killian’s life in return.
Then her thoughts drift back to Killian’s half brother, and she smiles tentatively. “So, you made peace?”
He swallows and nods. “Sort of. We still have a long way to go, obviously,” he muses and adds, “I’m so glad he has Nemo by his side again, he can help him find himself again. He’s a father figure to him.” A shadow of guilt flies over his face again, and Emma reaches out with her other hand to cup his cheek.
“That’s great,” she replies, “I’m happy you found each other.”
And there it is, at least briefly, Killian’s smile. “Aye, me too.” He shakes his head and snorts a little incredulous sound. “I have family.”
Emma raises her eyebrows at him. “I know what you mean,” she concedes, “but… you know you already do have a family, right? One that would literally go to hell and back for you.”
He averts his eyes and scratches behind his ear. “I know how lucky I am, Swan.”
She knows that he adds in his mind, even if I don’t deserve it, and she vows to herself to make him understand that he does deserve it, that he deserves all the love and loyalty her family – their family – has to offer. Before she can think of anything to say, Granny puts a big paper bag with their order on the counter in front of them.
Emma thanks her and slips from her stool. When she grabs the bag, she doesn’t let go of his hand. “Let’s go home?” she suggests softly.
Killian snaps out of his musings, it takes him some effort to shake off the sadness and the guilt when he thinks of his half brother, feelings that will probably never vanish entirely. But he knows, just like his own father learned – he understands that now – that it’s a vain toil to wallow in self-loathe and guilt about the past one cannot change anyway; all one can do is try and make amends by not repeating past mistakes, try and make one’s future better than the past. If he’s lucky enough to get the chance, he shall try and do right by his younger brother – and if he doesn’t get that chance, he knows there will be other ways to prove himself; it’s like he told Liam back in the hospital: he has something to live for now.
See you at home, the lad had said.
Killian smiles and brushes a kiss on Emma’s temple. “Aye, let’s.”
