Summary: "I find that old wounds tend to open up. Often at random. There's nothing we can do but…" "But smash shit we don't like?"
Warnings: Smut, language, angry smashing of inanimate objects
Notes: Inspired by the scene in S1 when Emma destroys the toaster in MM's apartment. Further inspired by screaming sessions with phiralovesloki and swankkat on tumblr. Set vaguely in S6, but no spoilers beyond 6x01.
The microwave started it.
Or so this is what Emma says to Killian when he walks through the front door, stopping so very quickly in his tracks that the door smacks him in the shoulder. He takes in the scene around him, expression unreadable. She wonders if, perhaps, his relative unfamiliarity with modern technology will confuse the situation. Then again, Killian Jones is an incredibly intelligent man, and no matter the era, there's nothing that can rightly explain the shattered glass and gnarled circuitry.
"What's this, then?" he says, tone just as unreadable as his face.
"The microwave started it."
Killian only hums. Hums and hums, circling the mess like a vulture, tighter and tighter until he's standing toe to toe with her, leaning until every breath that he draws pushes the upturned collar of his shirt against a loose bit of hair hanging over her shoulder. He licks his lips, and Emma wonders if he means to kiss her. But he only watches, still infuriatingly closed off. Like he's studying her. So she studies him in return, though she finds herself quickly distracted by the hair that curls just beneath his neck…
"Are you alright, Swan?"
Sure is the answer that comes to mind. But then, in the process of folding her arms over her chest, Emma leans back on her heels, the threaded edge of a bent screw digging into her tender flesh. She yelps, and grabs a hold of Killian's elbow. And there's something about it, just something about the way that his face falls, gentle suspicion melting into concern, that sets her bottom lip trembling.
"No," she answers, quietly.
Killian nods, and leans down, just far enough to wrap his arms around her waist, and lift her out of the radius of destruction.
"Radius of destruction," Killian repeats, shaking his head. "And just what is it that has your mind so uneasy?"
Emma sniffs, and tangles the hair by his ears around her fingers. At this height – the tips of her toes just barely grazing his ankles – she can watch as the light in the ceiling fan above washes warmly over his face. From here, his eyes look a little softer, his eyelashes casting soft and pliant shadows over the swell of his cheeks. For as long as he'll allow, anyway, Emma ignores him, the pleading expression on his face, and merely touches him, prodding first at a stray tuft of hair, the curl that seems always determined to escape from his sideburns. It's natural, then, to trace around the shell of his ear, lingering at the point before landing once more at the nape of his neck. She scratches down his spine, as far as she can reach, before pulling back to his face, poking at his jaw until he smiles, and dimples appear beneath the palms of her hands.
"You're determined to distract me, eh, Swan?"
"Honestly, I think I'm doing a better job of distracting myself."
Much to her dismay – although realistically, of course, he can't hold her forever – Killian sets her on her own two feet. Before she can muster up the indignation to huff, he falls haphazardly into the nearest chair, and pulls her down onto his lap.
"Tell, me, would you, love?" he asks, softly, when she's settled above him. Inevitably, her hands find their way back into his hair, tugging on the loose ends by his collar.
"We really ought to snip these off."
"Emma."
"Fine, fine. It's just…"
Killian, for all his usual restless energy, the sort that bubbles beneath the surface and erupts into anger when provoked, sits perfectly still beneath her. Then again, he's always been soft with her, sharp edges wrapped in leather and fluff.
"Just what?" he says, the high, gentle pitch in his voice settled warmly in her belly. Warmer still when his hook presses into her thigh.
"I just came in here, and honestly, Killian, I am so fucking tired of looking at this place the way that it is. All this stupid, overpriced crap that I would never have bought in my right mind. And that's the point! I wasn't in my right mind, neither of us were." Killian cringes at that, though he listens carefully as she goes on. "I mean, seriously, how many BTU's does one microwave need? I don't need to be able to forge steel or whatever."
"BTU's?"
Emma waves her hands dismissively, perhaps with more gusto that she should, very nearly knocking him in the nose. She looks sheepish at that, though he waves her off in return when tries to apologize for her behavior.
"Okay," he says, matter-of-fact. "We need something with less…BTU's. What else?"
She snorts. "Are you really going to indulge this? You come home, see me breaking stuff into bits, and you're just going to sit there and pretend it didn't happen?"
Easing her off his lap, Killian gets to his feet, and turns to survey the mess. When she considers how neatly he arranges their jackets and shoes, how everything is in its proper place by the end of the day, Emma feels even more shamefaced. Though, when she moves to clean up, Killian takes her by the elbow.
"You did indeed do quite a number on the poor microwave," he agrees. "But I'm not going to indulge it, as you say. You can do as you wish. In fact, I'll do you one better."
Emma laughs when he stops through the wreckage, glass and bent steel creaking beneath his shoes. It's subdued, weighed as it still is by the memories that this place evokes. But despite everything that's occurred, she can't bring herself to part with it. Just with the things that don't seem to fit. The couch, of course, she'll keep, as many times as she's fucked him on it, and the rug too, if only because those things are ridiculously overpriced…and she's fucked him on that too. She keeps an inventory, stepping around what appears to be the vent of the ruined appliance as she thinks of everything that needs to go, including the drab color on the walls.
"She was a good microwave," Killian says, solemnly, behind her. Emma doesn't turn to face him, only considers whether she hates the painting above the fireplace enough to take it down.
"Much-loved and little used, her days were cut short," he continues.
"Wait a second," Emma says, turning to watch him stand amongst the mess, head downturned, hand and hook held behind his back. "Are you eulogizing the microwave."
He smiles. "Everyone deserves a proper funeral, Swan."
"Ugh. Don't say funeral. Everything is terrible."
Killian looks sheepish, then, and steps gingerly into her space. Though she can tell it's exaggerated – shadows often rim his own eyes, these days, although they're fewer and farther between the longer the past stretches behind them – his eyebrows wiggle, and he flashes her a proper grin, bright and beautiful and shining down at her. She can't help but to smile in return, just as wide. Again, with the darkness falling outside, and the dim light hanging just behind him, the hairs by his neck catch her attention the longer he remains silent, for the moment seemingly content just to look at her.
"I told you I'd do you one better," he says.
Emma laughs. "You haven't done anything besides stand there and look pretty."
"Aside from that. Look here."
She looks down, and spots the blender. The base is caught in the curve of his hook, which is perhaps the most absurd thing she's ever seen. Hysteria builds in her chest, and so she says –
"That's the most absurd thing I've ever seen."
Killian hums, and brings the blender up to his face. So close, in fact, that his eyes cross when he gives it careful inspection. It's a fancier model, that's for sure. There are at least two dozen buttons on the base, as if On and Off aren't enough. The glass is thick and warbled, and the blades nestled down at the bottom mean serious business, judging by the way the waning light glints off the tapered metal.
"Pardon me, darling," he says, as though it's just occurring to him, "but what the bloody hell is this even for?"
"You've been here how long and you've not seen a blender?"
He sniffs. "I find I've spent the great majority of my time here in pursuit, being pursued, or being dead. I've seen them before but not had the chance to give them a try, as it were."
"Well, first off, I'm gonna go ahead and make a no more death jokes rule for tonight. Second, wait here."
Killian looks as though he's about to protest, though he keeps quiet as she skitters down the hall. As she recalls, down at the end, there's a nook of a closet, dusty and lit by a bare lightbulb. The sort of thing that would have scared her as a child. The sort of thing that, if she's being honest, still scares her now. She's quick, then, to grab what she wants and practically run back to him, tossing the hammer and screwdriver on the floor, where they land in a clatter amongst the shards already scattered across the gleaming, finished wood.
"Tools?" Killian says, wicked gleam in his eye.
Emma smiles, and nods. "Tools."
The microwave may have started it –
"The microwave didn't bloody start it, Swan, she was merely a young lady, cut down in her prime."
"Would you stop fake mourning the appliances?"
– but it's the blender that bears the brunt. Emma had considered making a milkshake or two in it before sending it to electronics hell. But she simply cannot be bothered. Especially when the damn thing turns out to be twice as stubborn as the microwave, resisting even the pounding of the hammer.
"What, is this made of diamonds?" Emma huffs, tossing the hammer over her shoulder.
Killian hums, and ignores her outburst. "Honestly, Swan, what is it for?"
He shifts in place, where they sit on the floor. They've since turned on the lights in the kitchen. As he moves, they catch in his hook, pooling down in the tip. Emma chews on her bottom lip, rests her chin in her hands, and tries to look as charming as possible when she says –
"Do you trust me?"
He laughs. "You don't need to bribe me with that look on your face, Swan, I'm quite aware of how beautiful you are." Killian subdues, then, and reaches out to drag his fingers over her knee. "Of course I trust you. Must you even ask?"
Perhaps because of the expression on his voice, or the careful touch of his hand, or the way his voice stresses on the word course, Emma's reminded of the reason why she blew up at the appliances in the first place. Sometimes everything just sucks. It's unfair.
"What's not fair?" Killian says. She startles, and looks up at him. He's since, somehow, scooted closer to her. They're shoeless, now, and all of the sharper debris has been pushed to the side. His foot nudges against hers, and there's something heart achingly domestic about it. About the fact that one of his socks is black and the other navy, about how each of his socks' mates are on her feet, rolled down by her ankles, too big and just right, all at once.
"Everything," Emma answers, at length.
"Aye."
"You don't think I'm being dramatic?"
Killian sighs. "I find that old wounds tend to open up. Often at random. There's nothing we can do but…"
"But smash shit we don't like?"
He smiles. "Aye."
Emma looks up at him, and he down at her. For several long, comfortable minutes, they look at one another, her hands travelling up his chest only to lose themselves in his hair once more. Killian follows suit, tugging the band that holds her ponytail up until her hair spills freely down her back.
"Okay," she says, when his eyes grow darker, and she begins to imagine what Henry will say if he catches them going at it downstairs again. "Give me your hook."
"Pardon?"
"Your hook," she repeats, smiling. "That's what that whole trust conversation was about."
"Sorry, love, I was momentarily distracted."
Emma hums, and reaches down to click his hook out of place. She grabs the indestructible blender, then, and plugs it in a random outlet by the baseboards. When she drops the hook inside, Killian laughs, guffaws really, leans down, apparently to start smashing all the buttons.
"Wait, no," she says, and pulls him around behind a wall. "Just peek around the corner so we don't die."
Killian complies, and with a flick of her wrist, the stupid thing turns on. The clamp on the lid holds everything in its respective place, but that doesn't stop it from flopping around on the floor like a fish, making the most unholy grinding noise that she's ever heard. It doesn't take long for it to crack, the gnarled blades at the bottom turning and whining, a faint smell of burning plastic permeating the room.
"This is the by far the stupidest thing I've ever done," Emma says, ducking around the corner and yanking the cord out of the wall with her foot.
"You'll recall that you were once almost engaged to a flying monkey."
"Goddammit, Killian, can't we go one week without talking about that?"
He laughs. "I was merely trying to put this all in perspective."
"Okay, fine, but the toaster is next."
"As you wish."
The thing about taking her anger out on inanimate objects, Emma finds, is that it doesn't do much to quell it. As a matter of fact, in some ways, the frustration only builds. Although she does want to get rid of the things that she hates, the things that she feels makes this house feel unwelcoming and austere, breaking them isn't working. It never works. She gets the sense that Killian knows that, that he's had his fair share of outbursts. She can see it, often when they fight, when his teeth peek out from between his lips and his voice is more gravel than water. He'll clench his fist and flare his nostrils, raise his voice and seem to grow in stature, toss things over his shoulder like he can't stand the sight of them. In three hundred years, she wonders if it's ever helped him.
"It hasn't," he tells her, when she asks. Still, he stabs merrily away at some twisted bit of plastic. "And I imagine it won't in the future, either."
"Then why are you doing this with me?"
He drops the tool in his hand – a retractable knife he'd pulled out of some mysterious pocket of his jacket – and slides over to her. Slides, of course, because the floors are disconcertingly clean, and he's yet to discard his socks like he usually does.
"Why?" he echoes, as he comes to cage her in by the table. The harsh, overhead lighting does wonders for the definition of the bones in his face. After extracting the knife he's only just carefully discarded, he'd removed his jacket, soon followed by his vest and shirt, until only an undershirt remains, thin and black and stretching down over his shoulders and –
"Sorry, what?"
Killian smiles, leaning down until she can feel his belly against hers, warm through the thin material of his shirt. He brushes her loose hair over her shoulder. There's a terrible combination of lust and tenderness in the touch of his hand, flushing her cheeks further still. If the exertion of breaking a whole bunch of crap hadn't set a sweat gathering over her brow, Emma imagines that the way his breath washes over her neck would be a good start.
"I said," he starts, knowing smile on his face, "that I'd do anything with you, Emma. Anything for you. Haven't I proven that already?"
"You don't have to prove anything."
Killian frowns, and leans even further. With no shoes to bolster her height, leaning back against the table, she's much shorter than him, even more so than usual. So he has to arch his back and spread his legs to put his eyes level with hers. And when he does, his fingers slip beneath her sweater, lifting until he can splay his hand over her ribs.
"But I want to," he answers, quietly. And Emma just can't take it anymore. Not the shirt he's wearing, or his mismatched socks. And definitely not his hair, how wildly it's grown, unchecked in the wake of new crises and new villains. Like it's a sentient being just waiting for its opportunity to run out of control.
It's natural, then, that when she grabs his face, and pulls him down to kiss him, that she should grab handfuls of said hair. Just as natural that he should do the same, and break apart so that he can pull her sweater over her hand, and toss it on the floor.
"Just to be fair," he says, into her mouth, nearly bending her over the table. Though she's already substantially beneath him, with the force of his mouth on hers, he pushes her back and kicks her legs apart. She can feel him through the fabric of his jeans, there between her legs, where his hips begin to rock.
"Wait a second," Emma says, when she breaks away to get a good look at his face, to see the black burning out the blue in his eyes. "How did we get here? Weren't we just destroying a bunch of appliances?"
"Emma Swan," he says, sounding terribly serious. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are when you're angry and determined?"
"Do you?" he says, when she doesn't reply.
"Uh, no. Probably about as beautiful as you are when you're hitting stuff with a hammer."
Killian laughs, and even as he leans back down to kiss her, to resume the rhythm he'd set up between her legs, he fumbles around behind her until he's holding said hammer in his hand. He makes a ridiculous, triumphant noise into her mouth, and she pulls back to laugh, cut short when he throws the hammer at the nearest hunk of metal and plastic.
"That's not how hammers work, Killian!"
He rolls his eyes. "That was but a happy accident, my love, I just wanted to – "
To get her up on the counter, it seems, because that's exactly what he does, pushing away stray bits of debris so he can grind even harder against her, there on the table where they don't have to worry about slipper floors.
"Listen," Emma says. Though Killian pulls back, he pushes harder down against her, catching her clit and making her pant fiercely against his mouth, and pull roughly at his hair. She can't even remember what she was going to say, holding on to nothing other than the fact that she needs him. Needs his long, untamable hair and the way he'll do anything with her and the shirts that he wears and his deep voice and his ridiculous face.
"Pardon, Swan," Killian says, voice straining in the wake of his want. On a particularly hard thrust, he arches his back, hair falling into his eyes. He pauses, then, seemingly overcome by the sensations. Emma doesn't relent, though, squirming beneath him until her blood begins to warm, settling heavily in her fingertips.
"What about my face is ridiculous?" he says, when he catches his breath.
"Ugh," Emma answers, falling back against the table and giving up on release, dampened as it is by at least three layers of clothing. "Can't you just pretend I'm not saying anything when we're having sex?"
"Well first," he starts. He pauses to pull her off the table, to lead her back to the chair he'd collapsed in not an hour ago. Killian sits, though he doesn't bid her to follow, instead pulling her foot up onto his knee. "I'm not sure that counts as sex. Second, I will cherish every unbidden word that falls from your lips."
Emma laughs. "Even if it's how stupid I think your hair is?"
"Nonsense, you love the little flips, as you call them. This being one of the many things you've confessed while I'm inside you."
She concedes, if only because of the way his fingers trail down her leg, the tickling sensation while he tugs off her sock.
"You know Henry gets home in like an hour, right?" she says, though she helps him when he tugs similarly at her pants and underwear, until they lie forgotten at her feet.
"Aye, love, we'll be quick." He pauses, even as she opens his belt and tugs down his jeans, just far enough to expose him. "Unless you'd rather not?"
"Unless you'd rather not," she echoes, smiling gleefully while she maneuvers onto his lap. "My pants are gone and yours are down to your knees, I think we know where this is going."
Killian nods, and though he groans when her bare flesh brushes against his own, he stops her before she can continue, looking up at her with a sudden tenderness, the sort of gentleness that always catches in her throat. It's completely ridiculous, as she's said. She's angrily dismantled just about every small appliance in the house. There are bits and pieces of them all over the place. His hook is still lying on the floor somewhere, his brace long since discarded on the kitchen counter. Despite all this, she's about to fuck him on the chair, and yet he looks at her like it's normal, like he wouldn't be anywhere else, like smash the cabinets with a baseball bat if she asked. It's all too much, the way he looks at her, the way his fingers dance over her wetness, and it puts the words into her mouth –
"Why do you love me as much as you do?"
Killian smiles, his fingers gentling between her legs. He tilts his head, shakes it when another tuft of hair falls into his eyes.
"I just do, Swan," he answers. "To articulate it would be to do it a disservice. I love everything about you. I'd do anything for you, certainly more than destroy a few pieces of technology to make you smile." He leans back, then, and catches her eyes with his, looking earnest and vulnerable when he says, "My demons haunt me from time to time too, Swan, for no other reason than to make themselves known, seems like. You walk alongside the water with me for hours on end, and don't make a single complaint, despite how cold your fingers always are when we return home. Don't you think I'd do the same for you?"
Emma nods, but she can't find it within herself to reply, at least not right away. And despite their intimate position, despite the slide of flesh against flesh when she finally sinks down onto him, the wet sound their lips make when she kisses him, she still blushes at his explanation. She imagined he might list it all out when she asked him why he loved her, might draw it into her skin with his tongue. But she replays his answer over and over in her mind – I just do, I just do – and feels weightless, overwhelmed, unconditionally loved beyond her wildest dreams. And so, when she comes, and when he follows, she tells him in kind.
"I love everything about you too."
He smiles. "Even my hair?"
"Especially your hair."
"I knew it."
Not an hour later, Henry walks through the door, and finds them sweeping up the mess. Screws and panels and bits of glass, filling up and entire trash bag set into the foyer, doubled up to avoid inevitable spillage. Killian greets her son brightly, humming as he tosses half the microwave door into the bags. Emma, on the other hand, looks terribly sheepish.
"Hey, kid."
Henry narrows his eyes.
"Hey," he answers her, slowly. He peers around her, and into the kitchen. Then into the living room, before looking back at her. She expects a litany of questions, figures she deserves it for losing her cool. But then –
"Hey, Killian," Henry says, tossing his things onto the couch before roaming into the kitchen to mow down another box of cereal. "Have you ever been to the mall?"
Killian quirks a brow. "Can't say that I have."
"Well, you need more than literally one jacket. Like seriously. And apparently we need…a bunch of other stuff now. Let's go this weekend?"
Killian looks to Emma, then, to which she nods. Her heart swells, and with the last of the bits and pieces thrown away, Henry wordlessly hauling them out the front door with a mouth full of frosted flakes, she feels the shadows slip from her mind. They're sure to return, she knows, but certainly not tonight, not with the way the fire crackles to life, and the way her family settles around her.
"You okay, Mom?" Henry says, trying to look nonchalant.
"Yeah," she answers, truthfully. "Yeah, I'm great."
Henry nods, chewing slowly before he says, "Good."
"Aye," Killian echoes. "Good."
And it is.