Domestic Killian and Emma fluff set sometime vaguely in the future. Plot? What plot?
It's Saturday morning.
The sun is still low in the sky, not yet strong enough to melt the last vestiges of snow on the ground (from a regular winter this time, not a snow queen induced one, thank god), when Emma Swan makes her way to the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Emma is in her rattiest sweatpants (the pair with the hole in the side that Killian likes to slide his fingers through when they're sitting on the couch; fingers gently brushing her thigh) and a soft cotton t-shirt that she had purchased for Killian, then promptly stolen for herself.
("It's all right, Swan," he had whispered one night, after embarrassed apologies fell from her lips when he mentioned the missing shirt. He had grinned against her neck, pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat. "I've already given you my heart. What's the occasional shirt as well?")
It's Saturday morning. She's in her rattiest sweatpants and the t-shirt she stole, perched on the edge of the island in her kitchen, watching him make her coffee with the brand new machine Mary Margaret and David had gifted them when they had first moved in to their little cottage by the sea.
("Any particular reason you want to live by the sea?" Emma had asked Henry, after looking at a particularly cozy place that, admittedly, she had also been quite fond of.
"I thought Killian might like it," he had said with a shrug. "Plus, then we're closer to his boat, which means we can go sailing more easily."
"You want Killian to move in with us?" Emma had asked.
"Well yeah," Henry had said with his trademarked god-you're-an-idiot look which he had so not learned from her. "Don't you?"
She had signed the lease the next day.)
Muffled cursing drags Emma from her thoughts, glancing over to see Killian struggling to open a fresh bag of coffee grounds before giving up and simply ripping the top off with his hook.
"Any excuse," she mutters to herself. He's now staring intently at the array of buttons (her parents didn't do anything halfway, and apparently that includes choosing overly complicated coffee machines), biting his lower lip in concentration, which distracts her for a moment and by the time she reigns in her thoughts she notices he has apparently decided to just push buttons at random.
"Need a hand?" Emma asks, moving to jump down from the counter but is stopped by a vague wave of his hook. She's slightly disappointed he didn't seem to notice her hand joke, (although admittedly she made that joke a lot so perhaps at this point he's just decided to ignore it).
"I've got it, love," Killian replies, tongue poking out in concentration from the corner of his mouth as he returns his attention to the machine. Soon, the smell of coffee fills her kitchen and a mug is slid across the counter. She reaches for it gratefully and sips, almost moaning as the caffeine enters her system - it's then she realizes she hadn't added any cream or sugar, and yet it tastes exactly how she likes it.
"You remembered how I like my coffee," says Emma, surprised (although she really shouldn't be, because this is Killian and, well, open book and all that, but they haven't been living together all that long yet and it still feels so new, this thing they have).
"I'm a fast learner," he says, tongue sliding across his lips, looking positively obscene and her mind jumps to soft sighs and "tell me what you need, darling" and she takes another sip of her coffee, not responding to the tone in his voice even though she kind-of-sort-of wants to.
"Henry texted me," Killian says as he turns to the stove. "He should be back from Regina's soon." It's then that she realizes that there's a bowl of pancake batter sitting off to the side and a pan on the stove. She watches with interest as Killian pours some batter in the pan, allowing it to brown before flipping it carefully.
"We're out of milk, by the way," says Killian and Emma nods and mentally adds grocery shopping to her to-do list (that currently includes paying her electric bill, dropping off her jacket at the dry cleaners, and convincing Mary Margaret that, no, they don't need or want a garden in their front yard).
She doesn't remember when she became so domestic.
(And it should scare her how easy this is, but it doesn't. And it should scare her that it doesn't scare her, but that doesn't either.
It scares her that it doesn't scare her that she isn't scared.
God, she's all kinds of complicated, isn't she?)
She's interrupted from her thoughts by the ringing of her cell phone, placing her coffee mug on the counter with slightly more force than necessary when she sees the call has been routed from the sheriff's station.
She huffs as she reaches for the phone, because this is her day off and surely the town can survive without their sheriff for one day.
"It's Saturday," she whines aloud before accepting the call, and she quickly flushes red when Killian raises an eyebrow and smiles at her, wide enough that the dimples have appeared in his cheeks.
It's Grumpy, of course, because when is it not? There's been a minor dispute between the three little pigs (who aren't actually pigs, but do have a penchant for strange building materials) and the big bad wolf (who isn't actually a wolf, just a very ornery man with very bad allergies and a very big lung capacity).
"Nothing serious," she reassures Killian once she hangs up. She jumps down from the counter and places her mug in the sink, wandering back to her room to change into jeans and a sweater. When she returns, she's greeted by Killian, a fresh cup of coffee in a to-go mug in his hand. She reaches for the cup with one hand, using the other to grab the back of his neck and pull him down for a kiss.
"I love you," she whispers against his lips. She's said the words before, but his face lights up just as brightly as it did the first time she told him.
(There's magic whizzing through the air, three Queens of Darkness and one very pissed Dark One against one savior, one pirate, and one Prince Charming, making for one very unfair fight. It's Belle who saved them again, although not before the Dark One sent one final blast of magic that had hit Killian square in the gut.
She had screamed as he fell, but she didn't say it then. She said it later, when they were finally back at the loft, whispered into the knuckles of his hand, clenched tightly in her own.)
"And I you, Swan," he says in reply, fingers drifting up to brush through her hair.
She presses one more kiss to his lips before making her way to the door, shrugging on her leather jacket and boots.
"See you tonight?" she asks, halfway out the door.
"Of course, love," he says simply. Henry chooses that moment to barrel through the front door, eyes bright with excitement at the prospect of sailing. He gives her a quick hug before sitting at the table and starting to demolish the pile of pancakes Killian had cooked.
It's Saturday morning.
The sun is rising in the sky, the snow is receding from the ground, Killian and Henry are discussing their sailing, and her parents are coming for dinner that night.
There's no villain to defeat, no curse to break, no major crisis to resolve.
There will be other villains, other curses, other crises, but her Dad had always told her to look for the good moments.
(It's just Saturday morning, but it's a moment. And it's hers.)