It may not have been Emma's ideal choice for her first apartment in Storybrooke, but it was within her budget and it served her longstanding need to find her own place. It wasn't horrible and in her mind she figured it would be much better once she actually moved her stuff from David and Mary Margaret's loft and picked up some furniture of her own. She signed the lease, picked up the keys and was now standing in the empty living room, surveying her new home.
The next day, David, Killian and Henry had helped her load the few boxes containing her small amount of possessions into the back of David's truck. They carried everything up the three flights of stairs and once the task was finished, Emma ordered pizza and they sat on the floor eating off paper plates.
Killian went with her to pick out a new sofa and new beds for her and Henry. She eyed a king size bed, mentally trying to calculate whether or not it would fit in the master bedroom. Killian seemed to be keener on something a bit smaller.
"I'm afraid you'll get lost in that giant thing," he had said in regards to the large bed. "What if I want to sleep close and can't find you in the night?"
"Well, what makes you think you get to share my bed?" she chided smiling a bit devilishly and leaving him pouting as she dropped a set of bath towels into the cart.
In the end, she chose the queen size bed, and it and the sofa were delivered to the apartment the next day. Over the course of the week things started to take shape. Boxes were unpacked and curtains were hung. It may have been the brain haze of moving that made Emma gloss over the fact that Killian was spending less and less time in his room at Granny's. Sometime during the second week, they were sitting in the diner when she pressed a key into his hand.
"What's this?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.
"It's a key to the apartment," Emma said, shifting nervously.
He rolled the item around in his hand and then finally looked up with a grin. It was as if a lightbulb had gone off and the significance of the moment finally clicked. "Are you asking me-"
"You practically live there anyways," Emma interrupted, trying to ease her nerves by passing it off as something mundane. "I figured we should just make it official."
Killian leaned over and pressed a kiss to Emma's temple, the goofy smile still plastered on his face.
They packed up the few items, mainly clothing, from Killian's room at Granny's and moved them to Emma's apartment. Their apartment. Over the next few weeks they navigated both living together, and discovering the quirks of their new living space. Some of these were just small inconveniences. Like the fact there was a street light that shone right through their bedroom window and into Emma's face.
"We can switch sides, love," Killian had said, after Emma had been tossing, turning, and trying to bury her face in a pillow for two hours.
"Mini blinds," she grumbled. "Need mini blinds."
And so they bought mini blinds. Somehow Emma had also apparently missed the apartment's proximity to The Rabbit Hole, Storybrooke's local bar. After the second night in a row of being woken by drunken laughing and hollering on the street below, Killian lost his temper and found himself standing on the fire escape in nothing but his skivvies, cursing into the night.
"It's 2 in the bloody morning you sodding idiots!" he hollered.
Emma couldn't help but giggle a bit as he stumbled back inside still muttering curses under his breath as he slid back into bed.
Some things were a bit more irritating. One of which was the size of the bathroom. It would have been fine if it was just she and Henry sharing the lone bathroom, as it could easily fit one person at a time. Most mornings found Killian having to sit on the toilet while he brushed his teeth as Emma occupied the space in front of the mirror to do her hair. The tub was on the small side as well, which posed a problem due to the fact Killian liked to sneak in on Emma's showers. There was a strong possibility of losing an eye if you weren't careful to maneuver around each other when the other person was washing their hair.
Then there was the stove.
"Fucking piece of shit," Emma cursed. She was bent over the gas range with a candle lighter in her hands.
"You've the mouth of a sailor, Swan," Killian raised an eyebrow as he wandered into the kitchen. "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to get this damn piece of shit stove to light," she grumbled. "There's something wrong with the starter I think. Sometimes it lights on its own, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have to light it myself." She huffed and tossed the lighter on the counter, crossing her arms over her chest. "I hate this damn apartment."
Killian chuckled a bit. "Now, now love, it's not without its charms."
"I was an idiot to sign the lease for this place," Emma sighed.
"Well, you have Henry and I both here," Killian smiled, crossing the room to slide his arms around her waist and pull her in for a hug. "It doesn't matter where we are love, as long as we're together."
It wasn't until a few days later though that Kilian discovered another drawback to apartment living. Emma had already left for work and he was about to shower, only to discover he was out of clean underwear. It had taken him some time to become accustomed to this realm's under garments, but now the prospect of going 'commando' as Emma called it seemed a bit unsettling. He would need to make doing laundry a priority today.
When he had first moved in, Killian had told Emma he wanted to pull his weight and offered to take on the task of doing laundry. Emma was hesitant at first, fearing for the life of her whites. She knew he wanted to help and so she took him down to the laundry room, showed him how to work the machines and how much soap to put in.
"Don't leave the laundry in the machines too long," she had informed him. "There are not enough machines for how many people are in the building, and hogging the machines is, as you would say…bad form."
After a quick sorting of everything in the hamper, he tossed the first load into the basket and set out for his trek down the four flights of stairs to the basement laundry room. Dropping the basket down next to an empty machine, he fiddled with the knobs and poured in the amount of soap Emma had showed him then tossed in the garments. Glancing at the clock he figured maybe he could save some time in his day by showering while the first load was in the machine and bring the next load down when he was done. He gathered up his basket and laundry soap and headed back upstairs. Thirty minutes later he returned to the laundry room and opened the lid of the machine, only to find someone else's clothes inside.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, glancing around, opening other machines around him to see if he had simply forgotten what machine was his. Apparently others in the building had not been schooled on proper laundry room etiquette. His clothes had been pulled from the machine and tossed, sopping wet, on one of the nearby tables. He stood there clenching his fist for a few moments before stepping over the puddle on the floor, cursing and grumbling, only to find that every single dryer was full. Dropping down into a nearby chair, he waited, fully intending to give the ass that had now ruined his day a piece of his mind. Thoroughly irritated, Killian got up and started yanking clothing from one of the drying machines, replacing them with his own. He slammed the door roughly and stomped back up the stairs.
"I'm sorry you had a rough day," Emma said sympathetically later that night as he told her his tale of laundry woe. She had to try hard to suppress a laugh.
"I'm glad you find the situation so humorous," he grumbled sarcastically, a scowl crossing his face. "Are people in this world always so bloody inconsiderate?"
"Not all, but, yeah…people can be assholes," she hummed. "I should have looked for a place with hookups in the apartment. Then we could just get our own machines."
"You can do that?" he asked, eyes wide.
Emma nodded. "Most houses have them."
"Maybe someday we should look for a house then," Killian replied, dropping down on the sofa next to Emma.
Smiling, Emma leaned into his side, resting her head on his shoulder. "I think someday maybe we should."
One of the biggest issues, and potentially a serious one, was the finicky water temperature. Adjusting the taps was a bit of a game of chance, and if you weren't careful you risked either scalding or freezing yourself. It was even more of a gamble if you happened to try and shower while the dishwasher was running or if someone tried to wash their hands in the kitchen.
Killian was in the shower the next morning when Emma, still half asleep, ambled into the bathroom to pee. Before she even had a chance to register what she was doing, she flushed the toilet.
"BLOODY BUGGERING FUCK!" Killian hollered, as the scalding water hit his back and he slipped in the soapy water at his feet. Shampoo had rolled down into his eyes and he blindly reached out for something to catch himself as he fell. His hand managed to find the rod that held the washcloths, only to have it snap off the wall. He pitched forward, wrenching his shoulder painfully.
"Oh my God, Killian, I am so so sorry!" Emma cried, now fully awake and realizing what she'd done. She yanked back the curtain to find him huddled in the corner, holding his shoulder and cursing. Quickly, she stripped off her pajamas and hopped in next to him, trying to guide him back toward the water and helped to rinse out his eyes. "Are you alright?" she asked a few minutes later.
Killian blinked painfully, his eyes still stinging and his shoulder throbbing. "Emma, love," he sighed. "I hate this bloody apartment."
Emma chuckled a bit, resting her head against his chest. "So much for charms, huh?"
But they carried on. They side stepped around each other in the too small bathroom, cursed at the broken stove, and hollered at drunkards in the early morning hours. In the grand scheme of things, Killian had been right when he had said all that mattered was that they had each other. As they lay in bed with their legs entwined and Killian traced lazy circles on Emma's shoulder, she realized that there was no place she would rather be than right here, with him, in their crappy little apartment.