Deck the Halls - CSSS 2K19
Getting in just under the wire (it’s still Christmas in my time zone anyway!), but here I am with a fluffy little enemies-to-lovers (ish) one-shot for the amazing and delightful @whimsicallyenchantedrose It sounded like you had a rough start to your holidays, dear, but I hope your Christmas has been the merriest! I’m a bit rusty at this writing business, but I do hope you enjoy your gift.
Rated: G; Word Count: ~2700
~~~~~CSSS2K19~~~~~
“He made cookies, Mary Margaret. Homemade. From scratch. How could I possibly not hate him?”
Emma glared across the teacher’s lounge at the man in question. Killian Jones. Music teacher, expert classroom decorator and apparently on the short list for the next Great British Bake-off. As she looked back to her best friend for moral support, it occurred to Emma that she’d never before realized a person could sip tea sarcastically.
“You’re right,” Mary Margaret replied. “I mean what next? Caroling through the corridors? Oh wait! He already did that with my Kindergartners, didn’t he?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the reminder.” Yes, Killian Jones had in fact led the Storybrooke Prep kindergartners singing merrily through the halls. And yes, it had been absolutely freaking adorable.
She dunked an admittedly delicious homemade gingerbread man into her coffee, then bit its head off. “I don’t see why he has to be such a show off. It’s not like he can actually win the contest. He doesn’t have his own class, you know? Not really.”
“Maybe he’s just really into Christmas?” Mary Margaret shrugged. “Honestly, I think you may be taking this whole ‘Deck the Halls’ contest a bit too seriously.”
“Says last year’s winner.”
“Or maybe there’s more to your fixation on Mr. Jones than just this contest?”
“Don’t start. It’s only about the contest. I wanna know what his evil plan is, that’s all.”
Ah, the annual Deck the Halls contest. Every homeroom teacher at Storybrooke was enthusiastically encouraged by the school principal to decorate their classroom door and hallway in festive winter style. The winning teacher’s class got some kind of prize, usually a special field trip. This year, students would be treated to a Polar Express themed ride on Storybrooke’s fully restored historic steam train. The kids could wear their pajamas and drink hot chocolate while they watched the snowy town pass by, and at the end of the ride, they’d get a chance to meet “Santa”. Emma’s fifth graders all seemed to think themselves too grown up for such a thing, but still… A little Christmas magic never hurt anyone.
Mary Margaret finished her tea and gave Emma’s shoulder a maternal pat. “Time to go pick up my little guys from the cafeteria.”
After her friend left, Emma let her gaze drift back to the object of her ire. Mary Margaret was right. Emma was definitely taking the contest too seriously, but that Killian Jones was just so damn infuriating. Ever since he’d transferred - no, swaggered - in from Misthaven Prep, he’d been the bane of her existence. He and his stupidly perfect hair. And his ridiculous flirty comments. And his stupid, ridiculous, unreasonably attractive face. The man may as well have had a banner over his head that read, “I’m sexy and I know it.”
That was bad enough, but then came the first day of school after Thanksgiving break. Emma walked her class to Mr. Jones’s room for their music lesson to find he’d decorated the entire fine arts hallway to look like a giant gingerbread house with lights, human-sized gingerbread people and enough craft glitter to choke a reindeer. Between that and the caroling and the freaking cookies, how was anyone supposed to compete?
And Emma really, really wanted to win. She had a competitive streak, sure, but it was more than that. It was-
Oh, crap. He caught her looking. And there he went with the eyes and the smile, and oh god he’s walking over to her.
“Swan! I noticed you’ve been sampling my goodies. Fancy the flavor?”
Emma bristled. Killian Jones had a unique ability to say perfectly innocent things and somehow make them sound dirty. And also vaguely appealing, but that was beside the point.
“A little bland for my taste,” she lied. “They needed more cinnamon.”
“So the lady likes things a bit spicy. Duly noted.” He grinned at her, eyes alight with mischief. That smile of his was infectious - like the plague, Emma told herself - and she fought against the instinct to return it.
“My spice preferences are none of your business, Jones.”
“Quite right, Swan.” He glanced downward, seeming appropriately chastised, but it only lasted an instant. He flashed those devilish blue eyes at her again with a wicked smirk to match. “Spicing up your life would be my pleasure, not business at all.”
Emma felt the blush begin to rise up from the back of her neck. It was bad enough that he could make her blush. She sure as heck didn’t want him knowing that.
She managed an unimpressed lift of her eyebrows and muttered something vague about picking up her class, before turning on her heel and exiting the lounge. At a perfectly calm and casual pace, thank you very much.
—-
Later that afternoon, Emma sat at her desk grading papers. Or rather, sat behind a stack of papers that needed to be graded while staring around her classroom in an attempt to visualize a masterful decorating theme. Ugly Christmas sweater? No, that’d be a hot mess. Frozen? No, Ms. Arendelle the art teacher was already doing that. The Nutcracker? Nope. Mary Margaret won with that one last year.
A knock on her door shook Emma out of her Grinchy brooding. “Ms. Swan? Can I come in?” Without waiting for a reply, Henry Mills barged in with an anxious smile on his face and a stack of printer paper clutched in his hand. “You said you’d read over my writing sample, remember?”
Emma pushed aside her grading and took the proffered essay. “How’s the scholarship application coming along?”
“The Sisters are doing most of the paperwork for me,” Henry answered. “I just need one more recommendation letter from a teacher and then my essay.”
The “Sisters” meant the nuns who ran the group home where Henry lived. It wasn’t the posh life that most of Henry’s classmates at Storybrooke Prep enjoyed, but the nuns cared deeply for the children in their charge. A better situation at least than Emma ever had during her years in the foster system.
Emma read through the essay, all about the power of storytelling and how Henry aspired to be an author someday. He was capable of great things, that kid, but he needed the scholarship to pay his tuition so he could continue on at Storybrooke.
“This is wonderful, Henry. I’m sure the scholarship board will approve you.”
“Thanks, Ms. Swan.” Henry beamed at her for a moment, then glanced back toward her undecorated door. “Are you going to enter Deck the Halls this year? The judging is on Monday, right?”
Emma narrowed her eyes and leaned toward him as if confiding a secret. “Sure am. I’m just waiting until Monday morning so it’s a surprise.” Yeah, that sounded plausible, right?
Henry nodded, unconvinced. “It’s just that, well, I was really hoping our class could win this year. I’ve never been in a class that won before.” His focus shifted to a chipped spot on the edge of her desk. “I know it’s more for the little kids. I mean, it’s not like I believe in Santa anymore or anything, it’s just…” he picked at the chip making it worse. “The Sisters can’t really afford to take us anywhere, you know? And I thought it might be kind of fun to ride a real steam train and meet Santa just like in The Polar Express.”
He met Emma’s eyes finally. She knew that look. The I-want-to-be-a-part-of-something look. The I-want-to-be-a-regular-kid look. Her heart twinged with the familiarity. That. That right there was why she needed to win this year.
“Don’t worry, Henry. I’ll get you that train ride.”
—-
That Friday after school, Emma hit the local craft store. She bought tinsel and bows, little strings of lights and fake snow spray, garlands and non-breakable plastic ornaments. She even bought a sprig of freeze dried mistletoe for good measure. Come Monday morning, she had every intention of turning her hallway into a winter wonderland.
As she and Mary Margaret walked to Emma’s classroom Monday morning, their arms laden with shopping bags, it quickly became clear that they were too late. Someone had beaten them to it.
Emma nearly dropped her parcels. “What the hell is this?”
Wide-eyed, Mary Margaret took a hesitant step toward Emma’s classroom door. “I’d say it’s a train.”
Emma took in the sight before her, the initial shock slowly morphing into anger. Her classroom door had transformed into the front of a huge black steam engine, featuring a smoke stack that nearly reached the ceiling and a cardboard cow catcher protruding out at the bottom. Black duct tape train tracks laid neatly from the door clear to the end of the hallway. Blue butcher paper covered the walls on either side of the door setting a backdrop for a winter forest scene, complete with three dimensional evergreens made from layers upon layers of construction paper and fluffy white batting for snow drifts. Delicate tissue paper snowflakes had been hung painstakingly from the ceiling.
The Polar Express. Someone had turned her classroom - hell, half her hallway - into the Polar Express. It was beautiful. Perfectly executed. Emma hated it.
She hated it because she didn’t need anyone’s help. She had it under control. Okay, so maybe her craft skills were not in the same league, but she had determination, damn it. Not to mention six bags of tinsel which she now had to shove into her supply closet for next year.
She hated it even more because she had a pretty good idea who the perpetrator was. There were only two teachers in the school capable of that level of Pinterest-worthy crafting, and since Mary Margaret looked as stunned as Emma, that only left Killian Jones. The one thing she couldn’t figure out was why he’d done it.
“Looks like someone is trying to impress you, Emma,” Mary Margaret said with a sly smile.
Emma shook her head. She couldn’t deal with her friend’s needling right now. She wanted to storm over to the music room right away and interrogate him, but she knew she needed to cool down first. Rationally, she told herself that the whole reason she became so invested in this silly contest was for Henry’s sake, and these decorations were sure to win. Irrationally, she simply did not want to deal with Killian’s smug, perfect face and whatever double entendre he was sure to throw her way.
But it bugged her all day.
Was Jones trying to be some kind of white knight swooping in to save her ass? Well too bad, mister. No one saved Emma but Emma. Did he want two chances to win? That didn’t make sense. As music teacher, he didn’t have a homeroom class so the prize didn’t apply to him. Maybe it was just the bragging rights? That could be. That was way more likely than Mary Margaret’s suggestive suggestion. Wasn’t it?
She had to stop that train of thought right away before she devolved into the ten year-old mentality of her students and sent him a note: “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” Not that she thought he actually did. Not that she would want him to. It was only a point of curiosity.
—-
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Emma’s classroom won the Deck the Halls contest. She waved sheepishly at her students as she walked to the front of the school assembly to accept the prize tickets from Principal Hopper, but one look at Henry’s bright smile had her grinning for real.
As she scanned the crowd, her eyes locked onto another face. Jones’s bright blue eyes met hers with an unreadable expression. Wasn’t this his moment of triumph? Wasn’t he going to claim the glory? She raised her brows in question at him. Was it you? He gave a small nod. Yes. She subtly bobbed her head to the side. Meet me outside. The whole silent conversation only took a couple of seconds.
After the assembly ended, the students were dismissed for the day. A small group of teachers herded them outside to the bus lanes, but Emma noticed Jones wasn’t among them. Her stomach began to flutter as she ducked out a side door from the cafeteria. She shivered when the crisp December air touched her face and shrugged on her coat, thankful she’d remember to bring it to the assembly with her. Why did she feel nervous? No, she wasn’t nervous, she just wanted answers. Right.
Emma heard the door creak open again, and Jones stepped out clad in a black leather jacket that couldn’t have been much insulation against the winter chill, but did a marvelous job of framing his broad shoulders and lean torso. He looked… wait, did he look nervous, too? She needed to say something. Anything. Right now.
“What the hell, Jones?” Okay. Solid start. “You hijack my classroom, but you don’t take credit for it. I don’t get it. Did I seem like I needed saving? Because I’ve got news for you, buddy-”
“I didn’t do it for you, Swan,” he interrupted.
“Then why?”
“I did it for Henry Mills.”
For Henry? Her student? Emma blinked at him, trying to formulate a response to this twist, but all that came out was. “What?”
“I happened to overhear your conversation with him last week. I had written him a letter of recommendation for his scholarship application, and I was bringing it to him when I noticed him going into your classroom. I figured I would wait outside your door until he finished talking to you. I wasn’t eavesdropping exactly, but the door was open.”
“So you heard him talk about why he hoped our class would win. And just what? Took it upon yourself to make that happen?”
“Aye.” He ducked his head, looking almost shy. “I suppose the lad reminds me a bit of myself. I shan’t go into detail, but suffice to say my childhood was less than idyllic.”
Emma huffed a laugh. “I know the feeling.”
A tiny smile tilted the corner of Killian’s lips. “I thought you might. At any rate, the thing that made my young life bearable was my brother, specifically his insistence that no matter what, we would have a special Christmas. I simply wanted to be able to do the same for young Henry. I apologize if I overstepped, but a bit of Christmas magic never hurt anyone, did it?”
He reached up a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, and that right there did it. The vulnerability of that simple gesture shifted something into place in Emma’s heart. She regarded him for a second longer, looking for any trace that this was an act, but could find none. So, she raised up on her toes, placed her hands on his shoulders and kissed him softly on the lips.
Killian froze at the contact, and Emma was sure she’d made a terrible mistake, but then his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. He returned her kiss with exuberance, smiling against her mouth. Oh, god she’d never in her life been kissed like this. For all the sin his lips usually promised, this kiss held more joy than lust and an almost unbearable sweetness. His smile lingered even as they separated again.
Emma shook her head in a bit of a daze. “Wow, that was…” He seemed to stop breathing, waiting for her to finish the sentence. “-really unprofessional of me. Sorry.” Emma cleared her throat, but saw Killian’s expression droop. He took a step back.
“Of course. You’re right, Swan. That will ne-”
She reached out and touched his arm, halting his retreat. “No, what I meant to say was, would you maybe want to get a cup of coffee with me sometime?”
No display of Christmas lights could have been brighter than the way his eyes lit up for her, and Emma thought fleetingly that she could get used to basking in that glow.
“Aye, Swan. I’d love to have coffee with you.”
----
On the day of the Polar Express trip, Emma’s class had an extra chaperone along for the ride. Emma served hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and cinnamon, while Killian passed out homemade cookies, and soon even the most blasé fifth graders were filled with Christmas spirit. A little Christmas magic never hurt after all.
