Notes:Thank you soooo much for reading and even more for reviewing it 3
Summary Fireplace, bantering, Christmas lunch, Christmas tree and much more ;)
II: AKA My door's always open… in the literal sense!"Home, sweet home." Jessica sing-songs, as ironic as ever, as Killgrave turns the key in the lock, uselessly, it seems.
"I'd rather say 'Door, dead door'!" Kevin snaps. "I don't even know why I bothered to close it before, since it doesn't bloody work anymore!" He states the facts, moving the door back and forward, relentlessly.
"It's also true that, before we went out, you shut it really hard, in order to express your deep disappointment." Jessica points out with all the fake innocence she can munster.
"Don't you dare to even hint it's my fault, Miss door-cracker!" Killgrave retorts. "Did you really need to make it unserviceable? If you had texted me you were coming, I would have run downstairs to open the door for you, wearing my best smile." He adds with a artifact, smooth tone.
"And spoil the surprise effect? Naaah." She shakes her head. "What a fucking bore! All this fuss for a door… I'll send you a blacksmith in two days, happy now?" She rolls her eyes.
"Hell no, I'm not bloody happy, what about today? Who is going to look after me? You even deprived me of my staff!" He points out, disappointed. "By the way, would you please bother to tell me where did you take them?"
"I've put them all in your garage. All sleeping happily. Or maybe someone could be awake now, but still everyone in your garage, that should be soundproofed if I'm not wrong." She exclaims.
"A dozen of people crammed in my box … poor people, that's an awful Christmas!" Kevin says, in deep disapproval.
"Don't play the compassionate guy with me; you've been keeping them far from their families for months, to make them service you!" She accuses him.
She never misses the opportunity of blaming him for something.
"And that's where you're wrong, my dear. None of them has a family. I always chose people with no bonds. Alone. Like me." He explains with a bitter smile.
"They don't have a family?" She repeats, rather astonished, also for that smile of Killgrave's, so unusual.
His features most of the time display cheekiness, cockiness and derision.
"You heard it right. And before you even dare to think that, nope, they didn't lose their families due to my intervention, they were already alone when I found them." He clarifies. "I am their family, by now." He adds, after a short pondering suggested by his huge ego.
"Well, I guess they'll be happy if I made them orphan for one day!" Jessica strikes back, now as keen as usual, but only because Killgrave did the same. And she's silently thankful to him for that, because she doesn't know how to deal with his most vulnerable state.
"Ouch. Low blow, Missy, I can't forgive you for that." Killgrave pretends to be hurt.
"However, I have been having a broken door for months and I couldn't live better than this, you should know, counting all your incursions to my house…" The beautiful brunette retorts, her tone growing sourer.
"Counting all of them… big words. There was only a couple of incursions from me." He adds, smugly, while he scratches his cheekbone with his mouth open, as if he had to think about it.
"They are already way too many for me. In case you plan the third one, text me before, so I can open the door for you, maybe not wearing a smile, I'm more inclined to a punch that breaks your nose… after all, isn't it the same thing at the very end?" She smirks impudently.
"Geez, Jessica, isn't Christmas supposed to warm your heart, at least a tiny bit?" He tries to make her feel guilty.
"Christmas is only freezing my ass!" is the 'sensitive' answer he receives.
"Very nice ass!" Killgrave clearly shows his appreciation, turning to admire her tight and round glutes, wrapped in her light blue jeans.
"Shut up, pig!" She snaps, bringing him to heel. "Cracked door or not, can we please go inside?"
Since the door was already open, Jessica doesn't think twice and steps inside the house.
Killgrave follows her and once he crossed the threshold he does something he considers necessary.
After all, they're done with the Carol thing.
"Finally, I couldn't have stand this thing over me a second longer!" He growls, taking off the hideous Christmas jumper as fast as he can and throwing it on the sofa in a bad way.
"I was expecting you to throw it directly into the fireplace!" Jessica says, as she is really standing in front of the fireplace, turning her back to the flames.
She wasn't joking when she said her butt was freezing. No matter how warm and heavy her jumper could be, it's too short and barely reaches her tummy.
Jessica has solved the problem of freezing, but there's another, more worrying one.
- Goddammit, he's bare-chested, again!-
"No way, my darling, I could never throw it away. After all, it's still a gift from yours." He explains, reversing the sweater to the right side and folding it with great care. "As long as it keeps as far as possible from my skin!" He adds, making her laugh.
Jessica's problems increase when Kevin reaches her at the fireplace. Well, since he's half naked, he probably needs it more than her.
The crackling flames light his face up, now relaxed, with an innocent, genuine smile on his features.
Twisting her torso from her position, Jessica notices that and many other things, such as the short hair that veils his chest, his abs just outlined on his lean build that is so appealing anyway.
Stretching her neck a bit more, Jessica can see the leather brown belt that keep his trousers up, trying to figure out which hole he stopped the buckle in.
Kevin realises he has the girl's eyes on himself and turning abruptly he confirms his theory.
Jessica immediately glances somewhere else, feeling very awkward.
Kevin smiles to himself.
- Oh yeah, sure, you hate me, I'm a despicable person, I've ruined your life and everything, and yet you don't disdain to have a look. Oh, Jess, if only you admitted that, I could do so much more than simply making you look at me!-
"You'd rather cover yourself if you don't want to catch a disease… not that I would give a shit!" Jessica's cold tone keeps his sexual fantasies at bay.
The fascinating persuader doesn't let himself down anyway.
"You would, hell yeah you would!" He sing-songs, boastful, before going upstairs, coming back only when he wears the dark blue cashmere sweater, the one Jessica has seen on his armchair.
But Jessica is not at the fireplace anymore, nor in the living room.
He hates losing sight of her, although it doesn't make sense, since it's Jessica who decided they had to spend the whole day together.
"Jessicaaaa!" He calls her out, while he walks through the corridors.
"Why are you screaming? I'm here!" She pops out from the kitchen that she has already managed to find and make it hers.
She's holding a red bowl with all the ingredients for the stuffing that she is blending with a wooden spoon.
Reaching her, Killgrave can see on the table a turkey she managed to thaw, a couple of bowls with some preparations, a sort of pie with a not very reassuring look and several kitchen tools; but the thing that catches his attention the most is the black apron Jessica is wearing with a hot pink written on it.
"Super Cook?" Kevin reads out loud, between amused and sceptical.
"Yep, so what? It's a gift from Trish, to motivate me." She explains, telegraphic, placing the stuffing on the table to deal with the turkey, that she cleans with a wet sponge.
"That's not motivation. That's only a big, big lie." Killgrave says aseptic.
"You're such a asshole!" Jessica growls, showing him the middle finger.
"I remember very well whenever I allowed you to cook and it never proved to be a good idea." He insists.
"This time it will be!" She swears, inserting furiously a hand inside the turkey's cavity, ripping off its entrails.
Maybe she's daydreaming about doing the same to Killgrave and he must think the same thing, because he immediately changes attitude.
"Well, no doubt about it, that's remarkable!" He compliments her. "Have you already done it before?"
"Nope, but if you recall well, once I've ripped a head off a corpse with my bare hands. Compared to that, this is a piece of cake!" She shrugs, taking the bowl with the stuffing.
Kevin steps closer to her, leaning against the wall, with his arms crossed at his chest and a smile full of admiration.
"You never cease to amaze me, Jessica Jones!" He praises her, before pointing out a relevant fact. "A whole turkey just for two people? Isn't it a tad exaggerate?"
"It can't be Christmas without the turkey," she strikes back, inserting in the turkey's cavity the stuffing made of carrots, potatoes and sausage. "It's symbolic. It means that your staff will have to eat something different for the next days." She goes on, taking the bottle of oil and the spices.
"I see it more like an unfair punishment than an unexpected reward." Kevin can't hold his tongue.
Jessica throws the eggs beater against him, but he's quicker and ducks in time.
"We're susceptible, aren't we?" He chuckles, as he watches her spreading the oil all over the turkey.
She also spread the salt, the spices and she began massaging the turkey, sort of vigorously.
Killgrave is not chuckling anymore, too bewildered by what he's staring at.
Also Jessica notices that.
"What the…. fucking stop looking at me like that!" She grows nervous.
"I can't. It's just so erotic!" He murmurs with hoarse voice.
"What? You, shitty pervert!" She snaps, stopping her activity. "If it really turns you on to be smeared with oil, spices and then baked, let me know, I can please you!" She immediately turns his libido down, making fun of him in order to freeze the sexual tension between them, because truth is that she is also beginning to feel it and she needs to defend herself in every way she can.
"This is not what I was thinking about and you know it!" He retorts, while, after cleaning her hands, Jessica is ready to bake the turkey.
"Oh, I know very well what you were thinking about. Forget it, it's never going to happen. I'm not here for that!" The detective points put, grabbing him by his wrists, rudely.
"What are you doing?" He scoffs, getting free, only because she isn't using her super strength.
"We're done here. We… you did a fucking nothing! I've worked my ass off to cook!" She grumbles, taking off the apron and throwing it on the marble counter.
"Here's my Princess, directly from Oxford!" He rolls his eyes. "If you wanted help, you could have asked…"
"For what? I already thought about the turkey, I have prepared the pudding two days ago…"
"Wait a minute… that is supposed to be a pudding?" The charmer asks her, pointing at the deformed pie.
Jessica decides to ignore him.
"The shortcrust pastry for the mince pies is in the fridge, I've already prepared their stuffing at home…" she goes on with her recap.
"I don't know if I should be grateful to you for that… of just bloody terrified." He grumbles.
"If you don't quit it, I swear I'm going to shove your head under a stand mixer!" Jessica threatens him, pissed off.
For a moment Killgrave is almost tempted to reply with 'Why? Does it mean you even know what a stand mixer is?' but truth is that he loves living way too much.
"Okay, there's no need to do anything else here for now, let's go." She drags him downstairs.
They're back in the living room.
"I got you. You want us to relax a little on the sofa, don't you?" He purrs.
"The hell I want that! I want you to look behind the sofa." She instructs him and he obeys.
Finally the persuader notices something he hasn't seen before.
"What are all those boxes?" He wonders, curiously, starting to unwrap them.
In the smallest one he finds a tree-topper, in the others a pedestal, another part of the structure, lots of branches and leaves in synthetic material and tons of Christmas decorations.
"Oh no, you can't be serious about this…."
"Hell yeah I am. This time you're the one who is going to work hard.C'mon, build the Christmas tree, I saw a ladder behind that door." She instructs him, before laying down on the sofa, not lifting a finger anymore.
She's behaving as if she was at her home.
Kevin loves seeing her like that, because he wishes with all his heart that one day, maybe a day not so far, that could really become her home. Their home.
"I see you want me to follow all these stupid traditions, one by one!" He snorts, as he begins fitting the pieces.
"Yep, inexorably." She confirms, grabbing a magazine from the table and starting to flip through the pages. "We're going to decorate it together, once you're done." She promises, letting him work.
-
To build the Christmas tree doesn't shake Kevin much, it's a do-it-yourself activity like any other one, something he has few manual skill, that's true, but somewhat he manages to deal with that, without asking anyone for help.. which is a not irrelevant news to him.
Once Killgrave put the tree topper on that eight feet tall Christmas tree, even Jessica compliments him.
The hardest part comes when it's time to decorate it.
Not when they place the garlands. To make him happy, Jessica managed to find also purple ones.
It's when he starts to hang the Christmas balls, the stars, the pine cones, the angels and all the rest that he starts having some trouble.
A Christmas ball sleeps from his hand, fortunately there's a soft impact that keeps it whole.
The problem is that it's Kevin who is about to fall to pieces.
He goes to a catatonic state, staring at the tree, still lackin decorations for at least ¾ of it, in deep silence.
Even Jessica notices that.
She is decorating the other side and when she doesn't hear him talking anymore or rather complain about how kitch is a plastic Christmas tree and how stupid the decorations are - she grows suspicious.
She pops from the fake branches and leaves and sees him standing still, staring at the few decorations with teary eyes.
In a heartbeat she's behind him, her hand on his shoulder, not to hit him, but to pat him.
"Hey, what's wrong?" She murmurs in a sweet tone she probably never used, not even when she was under his mind control.
It's enough that light touch to shake him a little from his numbness.
"I have never trimmed a Christmas tree anymore. The last one was when I was nine year old. Mom never bought the decorations wholesale, she preferred to create them on her own and she prepared some cookies to hang there, but they were as hard as marble, She was a total disaster in cooking, you remind me of her in that. And dad… he wanted to create a special polish, every year it had to be more and more efficient, because our tree had to be the greener, the brighter one. And he succeeded, every time. I hung my toys on it and stuck the trading cards of the Rugby players." He begins his tale, taking a short break. "Can you picture a scrappier Christmas tree than that? With sweets practically impossible to be eaten, sprinkled with a spray that surely might be toxic… and full of stuff that had nothing to do with Christmas… but it was our Christmas tree and we liked the way it was… with all its imperfections." He sighs. "I miss those imperfections so bloody much…" He barely adds, with a broken voice, due to all the emotions.
Here's the too human Kevin, again, that Kevin Jessica doesn't know how deal with.
She does something she would have never imagined, and even less would Kevin.
She hugs him from behind. She wraps her arms around his waist and holds him tight, without saying anything.
She is not hugging Killgrave, the responsible of Luise and Albert Thompson's death, the self-serving sociopath who always reaches his goal, no matter what.
She is hugging Kevin, who has lost his parents long before and, if for a short moment he believed he had found them again, feeling that stab he saw his fragile hope shattering, as crumbly as never were the cookies of the person who stabbed him.
"Thank you." Kevin murmurs, parting from her to look in her eyes.
"You know what? One year I trimmed the Christmas tree with the flasks of whisky and an embarrassing amount of miniature liquor bottles you can find on airplanes. Do you want to trim a tree like this? Maybe you need it." She tries to cheer him up.
And it works, because Kevin is smiling, again.
"No, no, traditional trimming is okay. I swear I won't have hurtful moments anymore."
And he keeps his word. After half an hour of work the Christmas tree is done and Kevin can watch it without feeling hurt anymore. Maybe it's because that's a different Christmas tree, a tree he really hopes he will see even next year: that's Kevin and Jessica's Christmas tree.
"Pretty darn good!" She approves the final result.
"Can we check my staff? Maybe they woke up, it's already Midday." The owner of the house suggests.
"Why? I'm not enough for you?" She teases him.
"Quite the contrary, my darling, I want just and only you," he murmurs. "But it's Christmas, so, if they are already awake, I can do much better than make them spend a whole day crowded in a garage."
"Such as?" She grows curios.
"What time is it now?"
"12:20 p.m."
"Watch this, baby."
Killgrave fumbles a little with his mobile, searching for number and then he dials it, activating the speakerphone, so Jessica can hear everything.
"It's Amarone, good morning and Merry Christmas!"
"If you're not the owner, hand the phone to him. If he's not there, find him somehow, but make me speak with him." Killgrave skips the small talk.
Probably the owner must be there, because a minute later someone else is speaking from the other side of the receiver.
"It's the owner speaking, please, Sir, tell me how I can help you."
- Geez, it doesn't get more handed to him on a silver platter than that.- Jessica facepalms.
She is not used yet to see Killgrave displaying his power at such a distance.
But Killgrave decided not to use immediately his power with the man.
"Would you have a table free for twelve people, today around 1:00 p.m.?"
The owner of the restaurant almost laughing at him.
"Excuse me, Sir, I hope you're aware you're asking me that on Christmas day! We're already booked out, it's obvious."
Jessica keeps silent, staring at Killgrave who winks at her, before speaking again.
"Oh, but I'm not asking you, I'm ordering you. Set a table for twelve people, they will be at your place around 1:00 p.m. and you'll offer them an exhibition of your best Italian cousin. It's on the house, obviously."
"Of course, Sir. It's on the house. We're going to prepare everything, we'll be waiting for your guests at 1:00 p.m." The owner replies, almost lobotomized.
Killgrave ends the call satisfied, staring at Jessica, as proud as a child who has just finished reciting a poem on the chair
"So you can do that even by the phone, can't you?" She frowns.
"It's astonishing, isn't it?" He sneers. "But it's only because that restaurant is within ninety meters from here, remember?" He explains, placing the mobile back in his pocket.
"Okay, time to see if your employees are awake, otherwise the Amarone will have a large, empty table."
They are awake. All of them. And it's almost paradoxical to Jessica see Killgrave giving them a day of freedom.
She observes them better. Saving the blows she gave them to knock them down, none of them seems emaciated or having any psychological or physical deficiency.
There are no sign of violence on them, nor a terrified look.
- So has he been really treating them like human beings during these six months? - Jessica can't help wondering, as she observes carefully the charmer.
Without resorting to any command, Killgrave informs them about the restaurant he booked his way.
He just adds a hint of order to make sure they all come back to him the day after and then he lets them go, stunned and joyful.
"This doesn't even sound like you…" Jessica says, really impressed.
"Jessica, you're making me discover that I enjoy using my power even when there's no benefit for me. Quite the contrary, I've just lost my cook!" He grumbles, disappointed in the last part.
"You don't need any cook, you have me!" Jessica brags, going back to the kitchen.
Not that the dough is sitting, she can prepare the mince pies.
Everything seems perfectly fine, but when she bakes the sweets in the second oven, the turkey inside the first oven starts to catch fire, quickly.
"Oh fucking shit, noo, noo noooooo!" The detective curses so out loud that Kevin rushes to her.
He had remained in the living room, leaving her alone.
"You see, Jess, my cook would have never done something like this." He retorts, but with a very calm tone, leaning against the doorpost, as he observes the flames inside the oven.
"What stupid powers you have! Can't you order this fucking turkey to fucking stop burning?" She snaps.
"Hey! Don't blame my powers! Blame your superpower of being a super disaster inside a kitchen!" He strikes back, slightly amused.
"Don't you stand still, without doing anything, help me!" She exhorts him, as the flames increase.
"No bloody way! Maybe if it happened before, when I was still wearing that awful jumper…"
Jessica knows which card she has to play with.
It's not about superpowers, it's simple feminine strategy
"Oh, if only Luke was here, he would dive into the flames with such bravery, to recover my poor turkey!"
- No shit, everyone would be able to do that with his bloody power!- Killgrave rolls his eyes, before feeling the sting of jealousy, no matter if it's already a closed chapter.
"Get away from there!" He growls, rolling up his sleeves.
He moves Jessica away from the oven and armed with wet washcloths he deals with the oven, recovering the almost fully burnt turkey, among some scalds on his fingers and some lucky moves.
"Oh, thank you so much, my hero!" Jessica sarcastically apostrophizes him, before sending him back to the living room.
She has a lunch to prepare.
Around 1:00 p.m she calls him out.
She tried to set the table in the best way possible, with a refined table-cloth, ceramic dishes, silver cutlery and crystal glasses.
Too bad everything is displayed in a messy way.
Kevin surely appreciates her efforts, reaching her as she services the unlucky turkey.
"I'm afraid your refined palate will have to grant me some clemency." Jessica recuses herself.
"How much clemency?" Killgrave glares at her.
"A lot of clemency!"
-
"To recap, you were right about the portions, since the not carbonized part of the turkey was enough only for two," Kevin says at the end of their lunch, if they can call that thing a proper lunch.
"I'd better not say anything about the pudding, about the mince pies, well… they taste only of Brandy, which is not a bdd thing at all!" he adds, taking another pastry.
"Maybe this is the only good thing I managed to cook!" She sighs, demoralized, grabbing the unpteenth stuffed sweet, appreciating its high alcohol content.
"I don't think so. The salad was exquisite!" He compliments.
"No shit, Kevin, it was prepared salad." She mopes even more.
"It means you can open an envelope, pour its content inside a bowl and dress it." He sinks his blow, before the final one.
"Jessica…"
"Yeah?"
"You know that compared to what I ate, or I'd better say I didn't eat today, that second-rate sandwich inside the soundproofed cage was a Gourmet dinner?"
TBC
This chapter had everything inside it: humor, some h/c (Hope you liked the Christmas part tree 3 ) , some UST (did you notice that? Between those two it's inevitable 3 ) some masterchef stuff, too, lol XD Hope you'll like it, but feel free to tell me everything. p.s. If you also love Good Omens, check the prologue of my crossover with JJ called 'Ineffably Inevitable', chapter I is on its way ;)
I guess that Jessica being a disastrous cook is something canon, I've read it in many fics , lol and probably saw that in season 2 too XD Probably Krysten can be next Masterchef USA, but surely can't Jessica, lol
Next chapter will be the last one, with more stupid traditions ;)