Four Christmases: The First
So I know this is a leetle bit early, but since there are four parts to this tale I decided to post the first today so the others can fall on Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. So here it is, Part One of my @cssecretsanta2k18 gift for the lovely @imharryaf. An enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story with some family moments, the tiniest smidge of smut, and of course ice skating. I hope you enjoy it!
Summary: When Emma Swan first meets Killian Jones at her sister’s Christmas party, she is not impressed. Over the course of the four Christmases they spend in each other’s company, Killian does his best to change her mind.
Rating: T+ for language and some naughty thoughts.
Read it on AO3
The First:
They say first impressions are important, and Emma had always been a believer in this. It was essential for her job; if the skips weren’t convinced that she was there for a date with them, they’d never fall into her honey trap.
Of course, in her line of work she never spent enough time with anyone for there to be a second or third impression, so the first was pretty much all you got.
Her first impression of Killian Jones, formed about two hours into Emma’s sister Mary Margaret’s annual Christmas party, was not favourable. Of course she noticed his handsome face with its bright blue eyes and very kissable lips, but at the moment of their meeting those eyes were fixed on the naked breasts of her friend Ruby as the lips descended to latch onto her nipple and suck it hard as Ruby leaned back against the bathroom sink and moaned.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” shouted Emma.
“Ems!” shrieked Ruby, pushing Killian away and yanking up her dress.
Killian turned to glare at her, clearly displeased by the interruption. “Are you fucking kidding me,” he growled. “Barging in like this…”
“‘Barging in’? To the bathroom of my own apartment?”
He regarded her more closely, interest sparking in his eyes as he took in her habitual honey-trapping outfit of tight red dress and sky-high heels, her blonde hair in loose curls tumbling down her back. (“It’s— maybe a bit much for a friendly Christmas party?” Mary Margaret had said, but Emma knew that if she were going to survive a whole night with her sister’s very friendly friends then she needed her armour very much intact.)
“Ah, you must be Swan, then,” said Killian, his blue gaze now fixed on her as though Ruby and the party and the entire rest of the world didn’t exist.
“Emma Swan, yes.” She resisted the urge to squirm under his intense regard. The accelerated heartbeat and sudden hot flush across her skin she attributed to outrage. She simply wouldn’t allow them to be due to anything else.
“And do you not knock on bathroom doors here in your apartment, Emma Swan?” he inquired mockingly.
“I did knock,” hissed Emma, unconsciously moving closer to him. “You clearly didn’t hear me.”
“Well, I was rather occupied, love,” he said with an arrogant smirk that made her blood boil.
“I am not your love!”
“No, indeed. Although that could certainly be remedied, should you wish it… Swan.” His smirk turned lascivious as he leaned into her space, his gaze roaming her body. His tongue flicked out to wet his lower lip and Emma actually shivered, suddenly overcome by images of that tongue and those lips on her skin.
What is wrong with me?
“You’re disgusting,” she hissed.
“Bit harsh, love.”
“Coming on to me in front of your— of the—” she gestured angrily at Ruby, who had been watching the interplay between Emma and Killian with extreme interest.
“Chill, Ems, it was just a bit of fun,” she said, “I took the opportunity to get some hot pirate action, but now that you have completely killed the mood, I’ll be getting back to the party. Maybe another time, Captain.”
“Aye, love,” replied Killian, his eyes still locked with Emma’s.
Ruby shook her head and squeezed behind Emma to get to the door, forcing her to take another step closer to Killian, who favoured her with a smile she would have found charming on a man she didn’t loathe.
“Now then, Swan, care to pick up where she left off?”
“I would rather rip out my own fingernails,” she retorted, the breathiness of her voice revealing the lie of her words. Why couldn’t she breathe?
He laughed, completely unperturbed. “I’d heard you were a tough lass.”
“Woman.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Lass means girl, right? I’m not a girl.”
The smirk returned. “That you certainly are not,” he purred, his voice dark and velvety and dripping with sinful promise.
There was that shiver again. Emma ground her teeth, struggling to think over the pounding of her heart, barely aware that she was biting her lower lip and shifting on her feet, squeezing her thighs together in an attempt to quell the tingling between them. What the hell was happening? There was no way she could be physically attracted to this jerk.
Killian closed the remaining distance between them, leading with his hips, one thumb tucked under his belt. With the other hand he reached up to grasp a lock of her hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger.
“So what do you say, Swan…” Maybe, she thought wildly, maybe I could… just this once… “…shall we see just how much of a woman you are?”
And the spell was broken.
Ugh, he was the worst, and now she was furious. Furious with him for ruining his gorgeous face by being such an asshole, with herself for being prepared to overlook it. How could she ever have even considered letting him touch her?
Quick as a flash, she grabbed his hand from her hair and whipped him around, twisting his arm behind his back, smiling in satisfaction at his grunt of pain.
“I would not fuck you,” she hissed in his ear, “If you were the last man on earth and the last hope for continuing the human race.” She wrenched his arm higher. "Do you understand?”
“I do,” he replied, through clenched teeth, “You needn’t press the point, Swan.”
She released him, and he immediately stumbled away from her, wincing as he reached up to massage his shoulder. He turned towards the door, twisting the knob and opening it a few inches before suddenly pausing and closing it again.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She blinked in surprise. “What?”
He turned to look at her for the first time since she’d released his arm, his expression free of suggestion or innuendo. Instead he looked… ashamed?
“My behaviour just now, it was… uncouth. Bad form. I apologise.”
“Oh.” She had not been expecting that. “Uh, fine. Thanks. Still not gonna fuck you.”
The smirk returned, this time merely a wry twist of his mouth, an eyebrow slightly quirked. “I’d never dream of suggesting you would,” he said. “See you around, Emma Swan.”
And with a small, slightly mocking bow, he was gone.
She saw him several more times that night, watched him actually, if she was honest, as he chatted and laughed and charmed his way through her friends and acquaintances. She waited for him to slip up, to show them the nasty, leering side of himself she’d seen in the bathroom, but he never did. In fact, they all seemed to love him.
It really pissed her off.
“So who is this Killian guy anyway?” she asked Mary Margaret when they went to the kitchen together to get drinks for everyone.
“Uh, he’s a friend of David’s.” Mary Margaret was distracted, trying to remember all the drink orders.
“Yeah, but how do they know each other? They seem… kinda different.”
“They met during David’s year abroad. You remember he studied in London? Killian was there too, I think they met in a pub or something.”
“Yeah, he seems like the kind of guy to hang out in pubs,” said Emma, wrenching the cap off a bottle of beer with perhaps slightly more force than was strictly required.
Mary Margaret gave her an odd look. “Killian is definitely a character, but David says he was miserable in London before they met. Killian helped him feel more at home, introduced him to his friends, invited him to parties and stuff. He’s really a nice guy, Emma.”
Emma snorted. Nice guys didn’t come on to strange women in bathrooms.
“David’s been trying to get him to Storybrooke for Christmas for years now, but he’s always busy. He has to leave again tomorrow, actually. Something to do with his work.”
“What does he do?” Why was she interested?
“I don’t know exactly, he works on some kind of ship. Modern piracy, or something, David said.”
Ruby had called him a pirate too.
As she helped Mary Margaret carry the drinks, Emma found her attention drawn back to Killian, who was sitting on the arm of the sofa talking to… well, everyone, it seemed. He was telling a story, illustrating it animatedly with his hands —nice hands, she noticed, damn it— obviously coming to the punch line just as she arrived because the entire room burst into laughter.
Emma gritted her teeth as she handed him a beer.
“Thank you, Swan,” he said, with a polite smile. She nodded brusquely and turned away. She did not stomp off. She didn’t.
“So you’ve met Emma then,” said David.
“Aye, though I fear I’ve made rather a poor first impression,” Killian replied.
“Yeah, that’s not hard to do. Emma can be a bit prickly. She wasn’t my biggest fan at first either.”
“She’s Mary Margaret’s sister, you say?”
“Half sister, yeah. It’s a sad story. Their dad had a fling with Emma’s mom right after Mary Margaret’s mom died. When Emma’s mom found out she was pregnant, she freaked out and ran away. Their dad tried to find her, but she’d completely disappeared. Emma was found abandoned on the side of a road when she was less than a day old, and no one ever saw her mother again. She got swallowed up by the system then, spent years in foster care before their dad finally tracked her down.”
“Bloody hell.”
“You said it.”
Killian watched as Emma distributed drinks to the rest of the guests. Although she wasn’t unfriendly, her body language was decidedly closed off and unwelcoming, a clear warning to anyone who might try to get too close. Yet she couldn’t quite hide the yearning in her eyes as she watched the easy way the others interacted. She wanted affection, he realised, longed for intimacy, she just couldn’t open herself up to it, couldn’t bring herself to let anyone in.
Fascinating.
He wished he could tell her that he understood, that he’d also been abandoned by a parent, and that after his brother’s death followed closely by his girlfriend’s he’d closed himself off from people too. It was hard to let anyone in when your only experiences with intimacy had ended in loss and betrayal, no one understood that better than he. Unfortunately, he feared he’d destroyed any chance to connect with her before he’d even really known he wanted to.
Killian kicked himself mentally for what must be the hundredth time in the past hour for having been such a boor in the bathroom. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking.
Although no, that wasn’t quite true. The problem was that he hadn’t been thinking. At least, he hadn’t been thinking with his brain. With his body already worked up by his dalliance with Ruby and his wits dulled by alcohol he had simply not been prepared for Emma, for the sharp green eyes that had pierced clear to his soul even as her soft gold hair had begged for his fingers to sink into it and pull her mouth to his. Immediately Ruby and the party and the fact that they were in the bloody bathroom had flown right out of his head, leaving only Emma and the hitch in her breath that he could feel on his cheek, the way her eyes had darkened as she bit a bright pink hue into her lower lip completely overwhelming his common sense and all his filters.
Oh, and he was a complete arse. That hadn’t helped matters either.
If only he didn’t have to leave early the next morning, he thought in frustration. Given enough time, he might be able to salvage the situation —salvaging wrecks was his job, after all— but instead her negative opinion of him would only solidify in his absence, and she’d probably spend the rest of her life thinking he was a creepy jerk.
He had no idea why this troubled him so much. All he knew was that he’d never felt so drawn to a woman before; even beyond the sexual attraction he sensed a kindred spirit in her and he couldn’t bear the idea of her despising him. Even if they never saw each other again.
He managed to speak to her once more, as he was leaving the party. She had fetched his coat for him (at Mary Margaret’s request and clearly under protest, he couldn’t help noticing), and he allowed his fingers to brush hers, lightly, as he took it from her.
Her sharp intake of breath and the way she snatched her hand away was balm to his soul. Whatever else, she wasn’t indifferent to him.
“So, you’re leaving tomorrow,” she blurted out, as he was shrugging the coat on.
“Aye. I have to get back to work.”
“On Christmas Eve?”
“Much of my work is… time sensitive. And I’ve no family anymore, so there’s not much point in taking the time off when I’d just be spending it alone.”
He had no idea why he’d told her that.
Perhaps he just wanted her to know that he too knew what it felt like to have no one.
Understanding and a hint of sympathy flashed across her face. “You could spend it with David,” she said, in a friendlier tone. “The holidays, I mean. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
“Aye, so he keeps telling me. But I don’t wish to impose.” He hesitated a moment before adding “Perhaps next year.” He zipped up his coat and slung his satchel over his shoulder, then turned and smiled at her, offering his hand. To his surprise, she took it.
On impulse, he lifted hers to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Her eyes widened, and she swallowed hard, licking her lips as she did, and Killian cursed the gods and the fates, and his own idiot self for ruining whatever chances he might otherwise have had with this woman.
“Happy Christmas, Emma Swan,” he said.
