A/N: Blah blah excuses blah. Here's some more about these losers. Did you miss them? Only one left after this. Don't be sad.
Here's a little recap, because I might have not posted any on this for *cough* seven months *cough*. Alright, so this is how it all went down. Emma loses her job at the newspaper where she works. Despondency soon follows. She had been sharing an apartment with her chronically irresponsible kinda brother, August, but he took off for South East Asia after pissing off the wrong people, leaving her to cover the whole of the rent on her own. It's not long until she's forced from her apartment by lack of heat, light and hot water. Enter, Killian Jones. A mostly failing private detective who happens to be August's old roommate, and occasional best friend. In August's absence he's been sending some work her way, but it's a whole other thing when Emma shows up at his door, looking to bunk down in August's old room.
So there they are, sharing an apartment, just Emma, Killian, and his criminally adorable, besweatered miniature pinscher, Smee. Then Killian's assistant, Ariel, quits in spectacular fashion, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. Short on alternatives, Emma steps into her place, and helps get the business back on track. There's excitement. There's intrigue. For reals, you should go back and read some of their cases. Starsky and Hutch. Scully and Mulder. Turner and Hooch? Ain't got nothing on these guys. And true to all great mystery-solving duos, there's maybe a little bit of... frisson. Emma and Killian fall into a pattern of domesticity, of sorts. There's more excitement, more intrigue. Then, the inevitable occurs. In the aftermath of a spectacularly bad case, where Emma gets into an honest-to-god fistfight with a client, Emma and Killian consummate their relationship, and thus complicate their already rather complicated lives. The next morning, Emma, already freaked out by the gravity of what has occurred, is sent over the edge when she finds something in her closet that indicates that Killian's last relationship maybe had a more tragic end than he'd been letting on. She makes her escape, down the fire escape, back to her old apartment. Only the long lost August has shown up at last, and narrowly avoids being brained by a fire extinguisher after being mistaken by an intruder.
Yep, August is back, only he's not out of the woods just yet. Sure, the person he originally pissed off is dead, by mysterious drowning. But his son has taken over his dear ol' Dad's debts, and is eager to collect. And you'll never guess who he has pulling his strings. Why, it's only the world's worst secretary, Ariel, back to her old Machiavellian tricks. For his safety, August is stashed out in the 'burbs with David and Margaret, the token married couple of the piece. Emma and Killian admit that they maybe have some feelings for each other, but after a rather difficult conversation about Killian's past, they agree to put the brakes on whatever is burgeoning between them, for now. Instead they decide to focus on getting August's debts cleared away, and not getting themselves killed by Ariel's mafioso buddies. In the end they formulate a plan, trading all knowledge of Ariel's indiscretions for the balance of August's debt. With the help of two of Boston's best attorneys, the deal is struck.
Okay. Alright. All caught up now? Good. Excellent. On with the show.
21. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
It was not exactly the joyous return to the status quo that Emma had been envisioning. Sure, the day was won, the villain vanquished. Or at the very least, placated. She and Killian were free to go home and begin the messy business of learning how to be a little less screwed-up, without imminent threat of maiming or torture.
Except, of course, for one teensy, tiny detail.
August. What to do about August?
The awkward began to creep around the edges on the drive out to the suburbs, and by the time they'd gotten their new house guest safely bundled into the backseat on the drive back, it might as well have been a fourth passenger. It was the first time the three of them had all been in the same place, at the same time since August's less-than-auspicious return. And Emma felt the distance between who the three of them had been before, and who the three of them were now, growing with every passing mile.
It wasn't like how it was before August had left. Before, there had been a definite them, Killian and August, the boys as the perennial odd couple, occupying their usual booth at The Rabbit Hole some nights as they wound down from day after day of professional disappointment with darts and dark liquor. And there had been August and Emma, who flitted in and out of each others lives, relying on the apartment they shared to keep them anchored to one another. Sometimes Emma joined the two of them in their little friendship bubble, sometimes not, but there had always been a clear delineation between the two worlds.
Now there was some... overlap.
On the surface, they didn't seem so different. August still griped about Killian's music selection from the backseat. Killian griped back. It was their way. But when Emma went to adjust the heat and Killian went to up the volume on the stereo at the same time, and their hands collided somewhere in the middle in a tangle of sparks, followed by hurried apologies, and much throat-clearing, well, there were no denying the facts.
"Is it just me, or did you two just re-enact a scene from some god-awful teenage vampire movie?" August asked with interest, leaning into the space between their seats, taking in reddened cheeks and shifting glances. "Something you'd like to share with the class?"
"I'm a vampire?" Killian offered, pasting on a sarcastic grin, though Emma could see the whites of his knuckles as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
"No..." August said languidly, gaze traveling over the both of them with more scrutiny than Emma would like. She resisted the urge to shift in her seat. "That's not it. Something is different here." He tapped his chin thoughtfully.
"You watch teenage vampire movies now?" Emma asked, an attempt to derail his train of thought.
"What? Like you don't have it on DVD?" August retorted. Her shot at the moral high ground busted, she settled for avoiding Killian's eye as he glanced across delightedly, a veritable windfall of teasing ammunition having fallen unexpectedly into his lap. August shrugged. "One of the magazines I worked for had a bunch of free tickets. I wrote a review. Somehow I don't think you can claim a similar excuse, hmm?"
"The soundtrack is really good," Emma mumbled, turning to look out the window.
"Nice deflection, by the way," August said, gripping Emma's headrest to lean even further forward. "But I'm on to you. Both of you," he clarified with a significant raise of his eyebrows in Emma's direction. And then he turned his attention to Killian. "And don't think I've forgotten that right hook I got as a welcome home present, either," he muttered, slumping back into his head to rub his jaw.
"Nor should you," Killian grumbled from the driver's seat, glaring back at August in the rear-view mirror. "Justly deserved, that one. And you'd best remember that."
"I'm sorry, what right hook?" Emma cut in, looking from one to the other. Now it was her turn to be ignored. She rounded on Killian, with his oh-so-innocent face on, figuring him for the easier target. "You hit him? You promised you wouldn't hit him!"
"Nooo," he corrected, keeping his eyes on the road. "I merely promised you'd get first crack at him. Which you did. I'm assuming that business with the fire extinguisher counts?"
"Yeah, but I didn't mean it!"
"That was your first mistake, love," he said, giving her a sideways grin. "Don't worry, I went easy on him. Does he look grievously injured to you?"
Which was precisely the moment August chose to lean forward again, giving the two of them a wary glance that brought the banter to a shuddering halt. "Whatever this is," he said with a foreboding tone, indicating between them, "I don't like it."
The rest of the drive had been a silent one.
August took the couch in Killian's apartment, evidently preferring eau de cat pee over the prospect of Smee as a potential bedmate. And while he looked for where his next paycheck was coming from, that's where he would stay.
And Emma?
She spent a lot more time in the office.
"You know, love," Killian called over from his own desk, where he sat tossing his stapler in the air and catching it again with a kind of affected boredom, "If I were some kind of detective, I might think you're somewhat less than pleased to have August back."
"Some kind of detective?" she repeated, with a raised eyebrow.
"Aye," he responded with a grin. "Like when he invited you to the Rabbit Hole after work yesterday, and you said you felt unwell?"
"So?"
"Darling, I found an entire stash of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrappers in the bin this morning. No way were you actually ill. And then earlier today? When he stopped by to have lunch with you, and you fobbed him off saying you had work to do?"
Emma crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes?"
"Emma." He stood then, replacing his stapler, and coming over to perch on the edge of Emma's desk, like some kind of irritating paperweight. "It's nearly Christmas, and the only open case we have is currently holidaying in Gran Canaria, with the very wife who hired us to tail him. We aren't busy. In fact, we're so far from busy I'm taking the day off tomorrow to find us a tree."
"A tree? Like a Christmas tree?"
"Aye, Swan. A Christmas tree. You know, like normal people have in their houses this time of year?" he cajoled, knocking his shoulder against hers.
"I uh... I guess I figured we weren't doing that this year," Emma mumbled.
Thanksgiving had certainly not been anything to write home about, though the peace and quiet had been welcome at the time. She somehow doubted they could replicate that, what with August crowding the place. Not to mention that feeling Emma now got sometimes in the apartment, where the hallway between his bedroom and hers seemed both unbearably wide, and also, nowhere near wide enough.
Shaking herself from that thought, she glanced up to see Killian looking positively aghast. "What? And skip the best part of the whole Yuletide ordeal? Not bloody likely."
"You're serious?"
"As a heart attack. I'm getting a bloody tree. And if you're so set on avoiding August, you can come."
"I'm not-"
"Spare me. You can lie to yourself, love, but you can't lie to me. I'm not saying you have to forgive him right away. God knows, he doesn't deserve it. But he is your brother, and sooner or later you will have to clear the air."
Emma had rather been planning on later.
"Says the man who won't go to London to visit his own brother?"
"Argh," he said, clutching dramatically at his chest. "A defensive strike. But you know a trip across the Atlantic is out of the question, finances being what they are. Besides, the tosser is off to Sweden anyway to visit the in-laws. So check and mate."
"Fine!" Emma conceded, hands raised in the air. "I'm mad at August. Sometimes I'm so mad I want to wring his scrawny neck while he sleeps. Happy?"
"The truth will set you free, Swan."
"Oh, fuck off. So where's this tree place, anyway?"
Emma had suffered several shocks over the past few months, but the discovery that Killian seemed to view the onslaught of the holiday season with all of the enthusiasm of Buddy the Elf come December 22nd had been the real kicker.
Emma herself was not a Christmas kind of person.
The way she'd grown up… well let's just say her upbringing had been no Norman Rockwell painting.
Sure, there had been presents sometimes, turkey even. Midnight mass and snowball fights in the playground. All delivered by self-congratulatory social workers and foster families, wrapped in tacky holiday sweaters.
Mostly she remembered the dolls. There had been ten of them, all up. And every year, the very same one somehow, like they had a warehouse somewhere just stacked to the ceiling with them, the perfect generic gift for any poor orphan girl aged 3-13.
Emma had always hated dolls.
She'd asked Santa for a bike one year, like her foster sister's. Shiny and yellow, with a sunflower stenciled onto the basket. The next year she'd tempered her expectations and revised that down to roller blades. No roller blades were forthcoming.
Even then, Emma had her suspicions. Her worst fears were confirmed the year after, when she found a whole stack of painstakingly addressed Letters to Santa tossed carelessly into the dumpster when she went to take out the trash. The envelopes had still been sealed. She was 7.
And still, the dolls arrived. Year after year, the same fucking doll. Taunting her. Teasing her. A constant reminder of how fake all of it was. The cheer. The camaraderie. All of it just a cheesy photo op, swallowed down with cold leftovers and watered down gravy.
Killian Jones, on the other hand, did not prescribe to this view.
Which was how Emma somehow found herself riding shotgun on the I-93 North, on her way to pick out her first actual Christmas tree.
"I still can't believe you dressed your own dog in a Christmas sweater."
"You say that," Killian said, letting his arm rest against his door just so as he shot her a glance. "But you forget, I follow you on Instagram. There's no taking the moral high ground here, love. By my last count, 12 of your last 15 posts were of that bloody dog."
"Yeah, because I'm boring. Not because I have an Etsy addiction and need to be stopped!"
But instead of the laugh she was going for, instead Killian's jaw seemed to clench, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel.
"Umm... you okay?"
"Aye. Fine." He didn't sound fine.
"You... sure about that?"
"Aye. Only sometimes the urge to pull over and kiss you doesn't quite mesh with our agreement to cool things off. But it'll pass. Tell me something terrible about yourself. Your singing voice is particularly awful, is it not?"
Of all the things Emma might have suspected might be wrong, that was not it. And sure, it was awkward, trapped in the car as they were, but it was also flattering as hell.
"Uh, yeah," she agreed. "Like a bag of drowning cats. Would you like a demonstration?"
"Please."
So she turned up the radio and sang along with Bruce Springsteen about Santa Claus coming to town. After a while, Killian's death grip on the wheel loosened, and he joined in for the chorus of Last Christmas, his singing voice putting Emma's to shame.
"Were you ever in a band?" Emma asked as the song ended, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"For a bit," Killian admitted. "I thought it might help me get a girlfriend."
"It worked, didn't it?"
A sly grin crossed his face. "For one glorious summer, until she left me for the drummer."
"Fucking drummers, man."
"Slimy bastards," he agreed.
She caught his eye as he glanced across towards her side of the car. "I'm having a really good time."
A flash of surprise, as if that was the last thing he expected her to say. "Aye. Me too."
"Do you think-" She hesitated.
"Emma?"
"Do you think maybe we could... uncool things? If we took it slow?" She felt like a dick for asking. It had been her idea, after all. And here she was, all of three days later, practically salivating over the man all over his nice upholstery, just because he'd sung along to a Wham! song.
"How slow?" Killian asked at last, his words careful.
"There's a rest stop coming up in 5 miles. We could see how far ten minutes gets us?"
To her surprise, the Charger lurched forward, Emma clutching her seat for dear life as Killian pressed down hard on the accelerator.
"I'm taking that as a yes?" she called, over the roar of the engine.
He looked back in her direction and smiled a broad smile. "That's a 'fuck yes', Swan."
Alright, so it had been twenty minutes.
There was just something about making out with someone in the front seat of a car, gear shift pressed awkwardly between you, that was just so tragically high school. There would definitely be a bruise. But as she spied the goofy grin painting Killian's face as he turned down the gravel road to the Christmas tree farm, a grin which matched the own ridiculous one she was sporting in the rear view, she couldn't much find the energy to care.
The pickings were slim, so close to Christmas, but Killian, determined to knock a couple of bucks off the asking price, had insisting on cutting down his own tree.
"Haven't you ever wanted to shout 'Timber'?" he asked, as they wended their way past row after row of reject trees.
"You mean, have I ever aspired to be a lumberjack? No, funnily enough, I haven't. Have I ever wanted to sleep with a lumberjack, though... You really should have worn plaid for this. I could have used that image." She was rewarded for that comment by a quick kiss, and a wicked grin.
"Maybe next year, if you're good."
Next year. Christ. And yet, warm with homemade apple cider and the idea of Killian as a lumbersexual, Emma found she didn't hate the idea.
A few more feet and Killian stopped abruptly, causing Emma to run into the back of him.
"This is it, Swan," he said, hands gesturing in front of him. "This is the one."
It was by far the crummiest Christmas tree Emma had ever seen. Misshapen. Discolored. Destined forever to be unchosen.
"Really? Of all the Christmas trees, in all the world, you've got to have this one?"
"Now, now," Killian chided, kneeling at its gnarled base, saw in hand. "I know you're a sucker for a pretty face, but try to imagine you're this tree. You're not quite as tall as your friends. Not quite as good at sports. But what you lack in looks, you more than make up for with heart."
"It's a tree," Emma reminded him.
"Aye, and it's the ugliest tree in the lot, and thus it shall be mine," he declared, taking his first experimental cuts. "Only underdogs are welcome at a Jones family Christmas."
"Or a Jones Booth Swan family Christmas?"
"Or that," he replied between gritted teeth, increasing the tempo of his cuts. "Besides," he said, cutting through the trunk like a knife through butter. "You know Smee is going to wreak havoc on it either way. Might as well save ourselves the cash. Alright, this is it, Swan. Your only chance to say it. Are you ready?"
Humoring him, Emma cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted as loud as she could, "TIIIIIMBER!"
The sound of it seemed to echo across the entire valley, until it was replaced by an almighty crack, and the tree fell in one smooth whoosh onto the ground, covering Killian in a shower of snow and pine needles as he knelt triumphant beside it.
"That's my girl."
It took half an hour to drag it back to the car, and twice as long to get it properly strapped onto the roof, and even then, the top of it dangled dangerously low across the front windshield.
"You're going to kill us," Emma predicted.
"Well, at least you'll die in service to the commercialization of Christmas," Killian quipped, holding her door open for her. "What more noble death could there be?"
But all joking aside, he'd taken it easy on the drive back. So much so that August was already home by the time they burst into the apartment some hours later, cheeks still ruddy from cold, hands unthinkingly clasped.
"Well, well, well," August said, springing up from the couch like cat who'd just caught sight of a mouse. "What do we have here?"
Emma stopped dead in the doorway, her smile still frozen on her lips.
"I uh... we uh..." She let her hand slide out of Killian's grasp.
"A Christmas tree," Killian supplied, as though nothing were at all amiss. "And we've had a hell of a time getting it up three flights of stairs. Give us a hand, will you?"
But August didn't move. He just looked between them, from Emma's guilty expression to Killian's affected nonchalance.
"My sister?" August asked, turning to Killian. "Really?"
"Aye," Killian huffed, dragging the tree further through the door. "Really."
"For how long?"
"Umm, you know I'm standing right here, right?" Emma chimed in, waving her hand in front of her brother's face.
"And it never occurred to you this is something I might want to know?" August continued, undeterred.
"Oh yes, because you're so bloody good at keeping us apprised of your movements," Killian snarled, the facade of friendliness falling completely. "Forgive me for not mentioning anything, when you wouldn't so much as answer a fucking email for half a bloody year."
"That doesn't mean you can sleep with my sister!"
"Still. Right. Here," Emma waved, rounding on her brother. "And fuck you. You never got a say in who I dated or why, but you especially don't now. You let me down, August. You really did, and I'm still pissed as hell at you. So yeah, I might have fallen for your best friend, my bad. Maybe the timing wasn't great, but so what? I could do a hell of a lot worse, and you know I have. So either help with the fucking tree, or go back to the ice box we used to call an apartment. Either way, shut the fuck up with your bro code bullshit, and get out of my face."
Maybe it made Emma a bad person, but she enjoyed the stunned silence that followed, a range of emotions flitting across her brother's face. In the end he seemed to settle on sheepishness.
"Alright then," he said, arms crossed over his chest.
"So we're good?" Emma asked, looking between the two men. "Everything's good now? We can cancel the gunfight at the O.K. Corral?"
"Fine," August relented.
"Killian?" She asked, turning to him.
"Fallen for?" he repeated, one eyebrow raised salaciously, a grin stretching wide on his lips.
Ah. Fuck. Had she really just said that?
She snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Eyes on the prize, Jones. Are you going to play nice with my idiot brother?"
"As you wish," he said, ducking into an overdramatic bow, topped with a poor attempt at a wink.
"I hate you both," Emma declared, throwing up her hands in despair, and stalking down the hallway away from the pair of them. "And where the fuck do you keep your decorations?"