AN: Hello, my lovely readers and welcome to my next piece for AU Week. Today's theme is modern tropes and I decided to go with a college AU, but I went art school with it. I really love art school AUs too much; this is my third one and counting.

There's a bit of technical talk in this, I'm sorry in advance. I just don't get many opportunities to use my welding knowledge when I'm not at school...

I don't own Once Upon a Time. If I did, I'd have my own sculpture studio.

Enjoy!

"Hello?" Emma called out as she walked into the large, warehouse-like sculpture studio. There was an ambient buzzing noise, mechanical humming interrupted with loud sparks, all of it coming from behind a small curtained off area on the north wall. Emma watched as sparks flew up above the curtain - someone must have been working back there.

"Hello?" she called again, louder this time. There was still no response.

"Hello?" she tried again, practically shouting. The humming and sparking stopped, and a guy walked out from behind the curtain, pushing a welding mask up and away from his face. And damn if it wasn't a nice face.

"Can-" he paused, his eyes settling on her and looking her over. Emma raised an eyebrow at him and when his gaze reached her face, he composed himself- realizing that he'd been staring. "Sorry - can I help you?"

"Yeah, um," god, this was embarrassing, "are you Killian Jones?" she asked. He nodded. "Because I'm in the beginning sculpture class and I'm having trouble with welding," Emma explained - and by trouble, she meant that she just flat-out couldn't do it. "Professor Amendola's busy so he said to ask you for help instead."

"Oh, alright," the guy sounded a bit surprised, but he looked willing enough to help her. "Yeah, I can help, why don't you grab a jacket and some gloves and we'll get started," he said, and while Emma followed his directions, he snatched up some scrap steel and cut a few small pieces for her to practice with.

Emma managed to find a heat jacket that she wasn't swimming in and that had long enough sleeves and shrugged it on over her t-shirt. It took a minute of digging through the glove bin for her to find a pair that both matched and fit, but she managed. When she looked back over at Killian, it was to see him using the beverly cutter, essentially a very sharp and heavy shearing mechanism that was operated with a big lever. Emma watched as Killian pulled down on the lever with his right arm, simultaneously guiding the metal with his left. Damn, this guy had great forearms. Shaking her head a bit to clear it, Emma crossed the room to stand over by Killian, waiting for him to finish whatever it was he was doing.

"Cutting some scraps for you to practice on," Killian answered when Emma voiced her curiosity. He cut his last little bit in half and then gathered up the pieces. "Shall we?" he asked, nodding towards the welding station. Emma nodded and led the way.

"Alright, turn on the tanks," Killian directed her, and Emma approached one of the sets of gas tanks. Fuck, she couldn't remember what to do.

"It doesn't matter which one you turn on first," Killian said from behind her. It's just gas, you can turn on a tank of gas, Emma told herself, and she twisted open the valve on top of the slightly smaller but still very big orange tank first, then turning to the pressure gauge.

"How much pressure for this one again?" she asked, turning to Killian. He cracked a little smile.

"Well first of all, tell me which gas you just turned on."

Emma looked back at the tank, the valve, and the tubing and-

"Oxygen," she answered, and Killian nodded.

"That is correct," he said, "so far so good, Swan. And the pressure on the oxygen needs to be at thirty on that gauge, or thereabouts," he told her. "Just tighten that valve there and- careful, you don't want to tighten it too much, and you've got it. Wonderful, now what's the other gas called?"

"Uh," Emma paused as she tried to remember. "Uhh-cetylene? Acetylene?"

"Absolutely correct. Now turn it on."

Emma did as she was told, though she did look over at him in question when she got to the pressure gauge.

"Seven," Killian answered her question before she could even ask it. Finally, she had successfully turned on the tanks. Now for the torch. Killian handed Emma one of the torches that stemmed from the tanks she had turned on as well as one of two welding masks (he had removed his heavier duty one, that one was really only necessary for migging). While Emma was fiddling with her mask, getting it to fit as comfortably as was possible, Killian was grabbing the other torch that was fed by the tanks Emma had turned on.

"Alright Emma, talk me through lighting the torch," he said, leaning back against the stone table-like structure in that little corner and looking over at her expectantly.

"You- you turn on the acetylene and you light that, then you turn on the oxygen and pray that you won't accidentally snuff out the flame."

Killian chuckled at that.

"More or less," he agreed, pushing himself off of the table and turning back around. "You know what to do, give it a go."

It took a little finagling, a different striker that wasn't quite so finicky, and five tries overall to finally get her torch lit. And god love him, Killian had been patient with her the whole damn time. He demonstrated with his own torch, showing her how large the flame should be and what it should sound like, and finally, she got it.

"And now for the hard part," Emma grumbled to herself while Killian was fetching the steel scraps he had cut up.

"Oh, it's not so bad," Killian must have heard her. "You'll be fine, Swan," he assured her, handing her two little steel rectangles. "I've yet to see you fail."

Emma was suddenly very glad that she had put her welding mask back down over her face. It hid the blush that was rising in her cheeks quite nicely.

"Shut up," she said instead, though it was good-natured and she was glad that, judging by the smirk on his face, he hadn't taken the remark seriously.

"Line up your steel, get the edges flush with each other," he directed, and it was back to business. Emma watched as he welded his two pieces together - he hardly even used any welding rod - and after he dunked it in the water bucket, he passed it to Emma so she could take a good look at it.

"See the sort of round, rippling kind of pattern along the joint?" Killian pointed out, standing far closer to her than was strictly necessary, but Emma wasn't complaining. Jerking her brain away from the subject of Killian and the way he smelled - whatever cologne he used, it was incredible - she instead focused on what he was talking about. "That pattern is from waiting until the metal is bright and glowing yellow, until its flowing freely, and then moving the torch in tiny circles. It makes for a stronger weld and it'll be less likely to fall apart on you," he explained. Emma nodded.

No point in putting it off any longer.

"Alright let's do this shit," she said, putting her mask back down over her face and picking up her still-lit torch. Killian stood beside her, and she went at it, directing the flame at the steel. Once it started to heat up, Killian spoke again.

"You're going to want to move the torch a little bit," he said, "if you just keep it in one place you could melt a hole through it on accident." Emma nodded and tried to do like he said, but apparently she didn't get it quite right because all of a sudden, Killian was reaching around her from behind, his hands were on hers, he was showing her what he had meant and literal sparks were flying. Emma's nostrils were full of that damn cologne and fuck, not only did he have nice arms but were those his pecs that she felt against her shoulder blades? Dammit, pull yourself together, Emma, she scolded herself.

She somehow managed to get her mind off of the very attractive man whose arms were currently encircling her and focused on the task at hand. Killian asked her something, Emma was pretty sure that he'd asked if she understood, and when she nodded, he and his arms released her, letting her try for herself.

Half an hour later, Emma had successfully welded three scraps of steel together and she was ready to keep going, but an alarm on her phone alerted her and Killian to the fact that it was 1:40 and Emma had twenty minutes to get to printmaking.

Killian helped her turn everything off and put everything away and by 1:48, Emma was ready to go.

"Thanks so much for helping me today, Killian," she said from where they lingered by the door.

"My pleasure," he said, a hint of a grin upon his lips. "If you ever need any more help, just let me know," he offered sincerely.

"Well then, it only makes sense for you to give me your number, then," Emma said, smirking a little as she pulled out her phone. "How else am I supposed to get a hold of you?"

"I like the way you think, Swan," he said, stepping a little closer to her and taking her phone out of her hand, his fingers deliberately brushing against her own. He plugged his name and number into the new contact she had pulled up, and passed it back to Emma, who snapped a quick photo of him to add to said contact.

"And if I wanted to reach you about, oh, maybe coffee sometime, it might be easier if I had your number, too," Killian said, handing her his own phone, though Emma was a bit distracted by his bright blue eyes, his bright blue eyes that contrasted beautifully with his dark hair and stood out against his soot-stained face, and found herself having a hard time tearing her gaze away from them. Somehow, she managed it (and somehow she had drifted even closer to him) and plugged her own information into his phone.

"Coffee would be great," she told him, smiling, and before he could say anything in return (and before she could make a fool of herself), she was pushing the door open and striding out into the sun, a certain spring in her step.

"You better text me, Jones!" she called over her shoulder.

"You can count on it!" Killian called back, a stupid grin on his face that wouldn't fade for hours.

Thanks for reading! If you liked it, let me know in a comment!