Title: Paint Night
Summary: "We should do a little Paint Night right here!" Henry's suggestion was met with three blank stares from the former denizens of the Enchanted Forest. Emma, on the other hand, heaved a soft sigh. Just as she thought: cheese central. David was the one who managed to ask the question first. "What on earth is a Paint Night?"
Spoilers: Up through 4x11, "Heroes and Villains."
Characters: Emma, Snow, Charming, Henry, and Killian.
Rating/Warning: K+, mostly for Emma's mouth. Charming Family and Captain Swan bonding/ridiculousness. As per usual, please keep your toothbrush nearby.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox.
Author's Note: I have literally no clue where this plotbunny came from but it quickly became the latest in my series of "Things the Charming Family Never Got to Do So They're Doing Now ... With Bonus Captain Swan." Here be silliness and fun and bonding and don't worry, everyone will have a turn leading the class. I've also already had a really rough week so please do me a favor and leave some feedback because hearing from y'all really does boost my spirits. Enjoy! :)
"Are you comfortable, love?" Killian Jones softly asked Emma Swan as the two of them relaxed on the sofa in the apartment.
"Very," she replied, a content smile on her lips.
It had been three weeks – three glorious, peaceful weeks – since there had been a fairy-tale emergency in the surprisingly-not-at-all-sleepy seaside town of Storybrooke, Maine. There had still been little emergencies every now and again, of course. Even in a town Storybrooke's size, petty crime and fender benders still occurred. However, it had been a full twenty-one days since any of the citizenry had had to run from a fairy tale villain.
Emma could not have been more thrilled.
The first few days, she had been somewhat afraid to let her guard down. Life in Storybrooke had never been calm, after all, even before the Curse was broken and everyone remembered the truth. Emma hadn't trusted the newfound peace at first and had instead braced herself for the inevitable dropping of the other shoe.
But Gold's banishment from town had in fact ushered in peace, and now … well, Emma wanted nothing more than to revel in it.
She spent her days at the station with her father, both sheriffs catching up on the massive backlog of paperwork that the constant running after villains had left them. She spent her evenings either with Killian – going to dinner, walking hand-in-hand down by the harbor, sitting on a bench under the stars – or with her family at home, where Killian was quickly becoming a fixture.
He always stayed late into the evening at her request, much to her father's overprotective annoyance. (Not that he didn't like Killian; it was just that he very much thought like a dad. On the one hand, Emma got annoyed when he like, cleared his throat if he thought Killian was getting a little too close. On the other hand, her dad was trying in his own way to protect her and she found it kind of sweet. Frustrating, yes, but sweet.)
Killian would only take his leave on those evenings at the apartment when they both began doing more yawning than talking. And then in the mornings, he'd meet up with her, a waiting cup of cocoa or coffee for each of them at the ready. She'd walk with him as far as the library, where he and Belle worked feverishly to find a way to free the fairies from the hat, and then they'd both go their separate ways for the next eight or so hours.
This particular evening was a home evening. Snow and David were in their room, trying to settle a fussy Neal down for the night. For reasons unknown to everyone in the apartment, the little Prince of Crankiness was fighting his impending bedtime with everything in his little body.
Killian was seated on the sofa with Emma, who was stretched out across it with her back against the arm and her feet in Killian's lap as she fiddled with a game on her phone. Henry was lying on the floor on his stomach, and both he and Killian were doodling in sketchpads.
The sketchpads were new. Emma had bought them for her boys after the first week of peace. "Looks like the two of you should have some time to practice now," she'd said when she presented them with their little gifts. The identical way their eyes had lit up was both adorable and all the gratitude she'd needed.
Emma kept half her attention on her various family members and half on her game. From the sound of it, the little squirt was finally starting to lose his battle with the sleep monster; his whines were getting softer with more time in between them. Good, that meant her parents would be able to relax soon.
In the living room, there were only the sounds of the colored pencils rubbing against paper and the soft music from Emma's game.
She was just trying to figure out where the hell in the room she was trying to escape that she hadn't checked for a clue yet when Henry let out a frustrated huff. "What's the matter?" she asked, frowning down in frustration of her own in the form of a cellphone app.
"I can't get the hand right," Henry answered, his tone equal parts aggravated and dejected.
"May I take a look, lad?" Killian asked as he set aside his own pencil and paper.
Henry handed the sketchpad up to Killian with a sigh. Emma watched with a touched smile as Killian appraised the drawing, and she couldn't help but lean forward so she could see the sketch as well. Apparently her kid had been using nursery rhymes as inspiration because he'd drawn two young kids, a boy and a girl, standing at a well on the top of a hill.
The drawing was good. Emma flicked her gaze from the drawing and looked at Henry, a proud smile on her face. His father's talent and the occasional help from Killian were certainly combining to turn him into quite the not-so-little-anymore artist.
After a moment or two of careful consideration, Killian returned the sketchpad to Henry. "This is very good, Henry, but I see where you're having trouble. Try to keep your lines for the girl's hand a little more fluid. Her fingers should be a little rounder."
Henry nodded and got to work attempting to fix the piece. As far as Emma was concerned, it hadn't needed fixing at all but Henry clearly disagreed. After a little bit more sketching with the colored pencil, he grinned up at Killian. "That worked! Thanks!"
Killian smiled as well. "You're welcome, lad."
He happened to glance over at Emma before returning his attention to his own drawing, and she gave him a touched smile. He smiled back, nodding half-teasingly, half-reverently.
Emma set her phone down, content now to watch her two favorite boys concentrate on their artwork. Frankly, the simple fact that they could draw realistic people at all fascinated her. She hadn't done much painting outside of art classes in school but even then, she'd much preferred landscapes. She'd always found people and animals inordinately difficult.
As she watched, the baby whimpering from the other room finally came to a stop. Her little brother must have finally given up the fight. Sure enough, her mother and father emerged from the bedroom moments later with sighs of relief. Aside from keeping an ear out for the monitor, their parenting-a-baby duties were done for the time being and now they could relax with everyone else.
As they approached the armchairs, Snow looked down at Henry's drawing and gasped in surprise. "Henry, that's beautiful!"
"Thanks," Henry said, grinning up at his grandmother. "Killian helped."
"I merely gave the lad a suggestion as to line placement," Killian said, self-deprecatingly shrugging off Henry's compliment. "The work is all the lad's own."
"I still think you both have incredible talent," Emma spoke up as her parents sank down in the armchairs opposite the sofa, clearly grateful for the opportunity to relax. "I sure as hell can't do what you two are doing right now."
Henry's drawing was of Jack and Jill going up the hill. A glance at Killian's revealed his to be of two small figures – a woman with long blonde hair and a dark-haired pirate with a hook for a hand – climbing a giant beanstalk. Her heart did a little flip-flop in her chest when she realized he'd been drawing the beginning of their adventure together.
"You probably could with practice, love," Killian said softly. "I've seen artwork of yours before and it's clear that you have talent."
Emma frowned at him. When the hell had he seen her artwork? Unless he was counting the doodles on her desk blotter at the station.
"That's true, Emma," David said softly. He paused, clearly debating whether or not to give her the little reminder. Ultimately, he did. "There were paintings from your art class in Ingrid's file."
Oh, right. She gave her father a little smile to let him know that his bringing up Ingrid was all right. She was still a touchy subject, and Emma still wasn't sure how she felt about her. On the one hand, what Ingrid had done to her and Elsa and Anna was wrong – so very wrong. But on the other hand, Ingrid had loved her … and at one point in time, she'd loved Ingrid.
It was all so very confusing.
Despite her conflicting feelings for the woman, Emma had eventually shown her parents the file Ingrid had kept of her school work. They'd cried, of course … cried for the time they'd missed and the moments they'd never share. But they'd also adored the glimpse into their little girl's childhood, adored having some of those blank spaces filled in through tangible evidence like art projects and tests and essays.
(The only thing Emma had removed before handing the file over was the greeting card thanking Ingrid for being the family she'd never had. Going through that folder was going to be hard enough for her parents; she'd had no desire to make it any harder than it had to be.)
"Ooh, you know what we should do?" Henry asked, sitting up straight. His eyes were sparkling in just the right way to make Emma swallow a groan. He'd come up with an idea. In just a moment, he was going to put forth one of his family bonding ideas that simultaneously made Emma groan from the cheese and want to hug him for thinking of it.
He'd done it with board games. He'd done it with backyard camping. He'd done with meteor showers and weapons lessons and movie marathons. What the hell was he going to suggest now?
From the grin on Snow's face, it seemed that she, too, knew at least the broad strokes of what Henry had in mind. "What's that?"
"We should do a little Paint Night right here!"
His suggestion was met with three blank stares from the former denizens of the Enchanted Forest. Emma, on the other hand, heaved a soft sigh. Just as she thought: cheese central.
David was the one who managed to ask the question first. "What on earth is a Paint Night?"
"Henry and I did them a few times in New York," Emma explained since Henry was too busy boggling at how someone could not know what a Paint Night was. "It's pretty much like a one-off art class. There's an instructor who teaches you brushstroke by brushstroke how to paint a picture. Because of the way the class is taught, you don't even really need any kind of artistic talent to do it."
Henry must have finally gotten over his shock because he added, "Yeah, and we can do one here! Killian can teach it!"
It just so happened that Killian had put his flask to his lips when Henry dropped that little bombshell. He spluttered on his sip of rum, leading an amused Snow to tell him, "Arms up."
"What the hell does raising your arms do for choking?" Emma asked. Not that Killian was actually choking but that wasn't the point.
"It's a grandmother thing," Snow shrugged.
Still somewhat in shock, Killian quickly raised his arms over his head to satisfy Snow's grandmotherly instruction. The stunned look on his face struck Emma as extremely comical. "I don't know, lad–" he started.
"Oh, Killian, please? You're a great teacher! And it's just for fun anyway. Please?"
"Okay, before Killian gets us all to recite 'O Captain! My Captain!'" Emma spoke up, "do we even have art supplies?"
Nobody understood her joke, making her sigh. Someday she really needed to show her family Dead Poets Society.
Snow arched an eyebrow at her. "You're forgetting, darling daughter, that I have a plastic tub filled with twenty-eight years' worth of art supplies purchased for an elementary school classroom. I'm sure we can find some paper and paints."
"I'm game," David said. He was of course interested in the activity but he couldn't quite hide his smirk at Killian's discomfort.
"So am I," Snow added a bit unnecessarily. Since she was offering up her art supplies, it was a safe bet that she was interested in a family Paint Night. Unlike her husband, though, her excitement seemed to be stemming solely from the idea of painting with her family.
"That's two votes," Henry recapped, "and I make three. What about you, Mom?"
She glanced from Henry's pleading face – he wasn't quite at Puppy Dog Eyes level but he could get there fast – to Killian's still somewhat panicked one. She'd enjoyed Paint Nights with Henry in New York and frankly, the idea of Killian leading her family in one made her heart race. He was a good teacher – she'd picked up a lot working with him on her technique with the sword – and something about the idea of him teaching her family how to paint a picture was hitting her right in the emotional sweet spot.
"So, pirate," she said by way of an answer to Henry's question, giving Killian her best pleadingly flirting glance, "do you do landscapes?"
In an instant, Killian's expression changed from one of surprised nervousness to amused confidence. Oh, there was no way he was turning this down, not with Emma giving him the I'll-make-it-worth-your-while eyes. "Aye, lass. As a matter of fact, I think I know the exact painting to start us off. Who wants to learn to paint a wooded island as it appears from a ship's deck?"
Henry grinned in delight. Snow and David shared a touched smile. Emma leaned forward and kissed Killian's cheek. "There's more where that came from later," she whispered so no one else could hear, smiling when a blush colored her pirate's cheeks.
"I'll go get the supply tote," Snow said, grinning as she pushed herself to her feet.
Charming Family Paint Night was officially about to begin.