#<_>

[technovillain]

*apricot-chewing-gum-scented-one*

me when a bad bitch tell me to sniff a nasty fucking old gum wrapper

[wistfulcynic]

Another Brick In The Wall: Chapter 8

a/n: Effusive thanks to @hollyethecurious for the artwork! I love it so much! Thanks also to everyone for reading, commenting, kudos-ing, and reblogging! I'm so pleased by the way people have been engaging with this story. Love you all xxx

Summary: Emma Swan, sheriff’s daughter, mayor’s niece, quarterback’s girlfriend, is the undisputed princess of Storybrooke High. She is smart and confident and used to getting what she wants. What she wants is Killian Jones, the new boy in school. But Killian is not easily manipulated, and reluctant to allow the dark secrets in his past to touch the girl he is rapidly falling in love with.

Rating: T

Read it on AO3: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Tags for: @darkcolinodonorgasm @jennjenn615 and @resident-of-storybrooke

Chapter 8: 

Killian was out of school for a week, for a “mental health break” he called it with a chuckle, apparently a term he’d gotten from Dr Hopper. He saw the psychiatrist daily during this break and spent the rest of his time at the harbour with Liam, working on their boat, reading, playing his guitar, and talking with his brother about everything that had happened. 

“We’ve hashed it all out in excruciating detail,” he told Emma as they sat together in the boat’s cabin, she working on her college essays while he practiced a new song. “It’s such a relief to be able to really talk to Liam again. There was a time when we had no secrets between us. He showed me all the information he had collected on Milah and her situation. Apparently her divorce is almost finalised and next month she’s starting a job teaching English in Japan.” He smiled. “She’ll like that, a chance to travel. What she always wanted.” 

“Hmmmph,” said Emma, glaring at the screen of her laptop as she typed rapidly. 

“Swan,” he admonished, giving her a mock scowl as he strummed a chord at her. 

Emma slammed her hands down on the keyboard. “Killian, I just don’t know how you can be so forgiving after what she did to you.” 

He set the guitar aside and his expression became serious. “I have to be, don’t you see?” he asked, looking at her intently. “I can’t hold on to my anger or it will eat me alive. I didn’t even realise how angry I was until Dr Hopper helped me see it, and how by not acknowledging it, allowing myself to feel it, and then letting it go, I was only hurting myself. Besides, I did genuinely care about Milah, and I’m glad she’s finally in a place where she can be happy.” 

“Hmmmmph.” Emma concentrated on deleting the gibberish she’d produced by her attack on the keyboard.

“A place that doesn’t include me,” said Killian brightly, picking up the guitar again and plucking out a cheery tune. “That’s good, isn’t it Swan?”

“I suppose so,” she grumbled. “Though I’d still prefer if the place was dark and scary and full of nettles.” He laughed heartily at that and she couldn’t hold back an answering smile. “Hey, I’m nearly done with this, will you read it over and make sure it’s okay? Just check my grammar and punctuation and stuff.”

“Of course, love, though I’m sure it’s already brilliant.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Freed from the weight of his worry and guilt, Killian gradually began to smile more easily, and his witty, teasing nature (“cheeky git,” Liam called him, his voice irritated but with a relief so profound it bordered on joy in his eyes) came more readily to the fore. When he returned to school the following Monday, he moved through the halls with a swagger that Emma had never seen on him before. Unlike the arrogant, bullying one that Neal always had Killian’s evoked a simple self-assurance that she had to concede looked really good on him. Despite how much emotional baggage he still had to work through he clearly wasn’t burdened by shame anymore, and equally clearly did not intend to take any crap from anyone. 

This made itself evident that morning when he shut his locker and turned towards his first class, only to find himself confronted by Felix and Rufio. 

“Really, chaps?” he said, raising an eyebrow at them. “You couldn’t even wait until after school so you could chuck me into the bins, like proper high school bullies?”

This mockery went clean over the other boys’ heads, and they continued to block his path, trying to look intimidating while also trying not to be intimidated by Killian’s calm demeanor and his amused expression. 

Felix, the sligtly cleverer of the two, suspected he was being laughed at but couldn’t put his finger on why. He didn’t like it. 

Bristling, he sneered at Killian. “Bet you think you’ve won,” he snarled. “Now that Neal’s in jail and out of the way. Now you can move in on Emma like you did on that—” he broke off as Killian stepped into his space. There wasn’t much difference in height between them, but somehow Felix had the impression of Killian towering over him, his face calm but his eyes darkly furious, and for once in his life he felt a stab of genuine fear. 

“I’m only going to say this once,” growled Killian in the new, lower register his voice had taken on more often of late, “So you’d better listen carefully. Your mate Neal is a criminal, and not even a good one. He’s in jail because he’s stupid, and that’s nothing to do with me. I have no doubt it’s where he’d always have ended up eventually. Bit of advice: If you’re going to steal confidential information, don’t take pictures of the evidence on your phone, and definitely don’t then show those pictures to the sheriff’s daughter. Neal got what he deserved. I now consider this matter closed, and if you or anyone else—” he raised his voice so that the rapidly assmbling crowd of onlookers could all hear, “—tries to take it any further, you will not care for the repercussions.” 

Felix wasn’t sure what “repercussions” were, but the hint of repressed violence in Killian’s manner made him keen not to find out. He had always been content to follow Neal, less out of respect for the other boy than a simple unwillingness to make a thing out of Neal’s belligerent insistence that he should be the one in charge, but he’d always sensed that there wasn’t much substance underneath Neal’s bluster. Killian however didn’t bluster. He simply stated facts, and Felix could tell that he was not the sort of person to make a threat he couldn’t back up with action. Perhaps it was time to step out of Neal’s shadow, thought Felix, and take over leadership of their little gang. He certainly couldn’t do a worse job of it than Neal had, and escalating a pointless conflict with a guy who looked prepared to fight dirty if necessary was much more Neal’s style than Felix’s. He nodded at Killian, and stepped back. Rufio looked surprised but followed his lead. 

Killian nodded back then transferred his glare to the crowd of onlookers, which had grown considerably in the past thirty seconds and now included Emma and Ruby, he could see out of the corner of his eye. “As for what you may have heard about me,” he said, loudly enough for all to hear. “It’s all true.” He smirked for a moment as a gasp went through the crowd, then his expression hardened. “It’s also no one’s business but mine, and those in whom I choose to confide. This is all I have to say on the subject. Now, if you’ll all excuse me I don’t wish to be late for class.” He slung his satchel over his shoulder and headed down the hall, turning his head briefly to shoot Emma a wink. People moved aside to let him pass and as soon as he had turned the corner furious whispering erupted in his wake. 

Ruby pursed her lips. “I may have underestimated him,” she remarked. 

Emma’s heart was pounding, a familiar occurrence where Killian was concerned, but this time it felt different. She’d been worried about how he would react to the ineveitable curiosity and questions from their classmates, but this smooth handling of a potentially explosive situation instead of calming her fears instead filled her with the wild desire to run after him, to fling herself into his arms and kiss them both breathless. 

“He’s just so wonderful,” she sighed, and Ruby laughed. 

“Down, girl,” she teased. “I’ll grant you this one’s worth your time, unlike the douchemaster general, but remember we’re in school. No one wants to see that.” 

Emma rolled her eyes and gave her friend a shove, but the butterflies continued rhumba-ing around her insides, this time accompanied by an odd, hollow sort of ache as she remembered her resolution not to pursue Killian anymore. She was now all but certain that she loved him, that beyond the hot, tingly sensation she always felt in his presence lay a profound devotion. She would do anything for him, sacrifice anything to give him what he needed, and that terrified her. For the first time in her life Emma felt vulnerable, exposed, as though her chest were torn open and her heart lain bare to the mercies of fate and one gorgeous, troubled boy. She hated it. Even knowing that Killian would never intentionally hurt her was no consolation when the truth was that he could hurt her simply by caring deeply for her as a friend. If that was all she could ever have from him she would take it, she knew, without pushing for more, but it would be a wound on her heart that would never heal. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“He’s a bully,” shrugged Killian at lunchtime, when Emma, this time accompanied by a very inquisitive Ruby, found him in the library. “Bullies are just cowards at their core, and cowards are easy to intimidate. He won’t do anything because he won’t want to call my bluff. I might not be able to back it up but he’ll be too scared to risk finding out.” 

“And what would you have done if he had called your bluff?” inquired Ruby. 

Killian shrugged again. “Probably got the shit kicked out of me.” 

“Would you have, though?” Ruby pressed, watching him through narrowed eyes.

He returned her stare with a look of wide-eyed innocence. “There were two of them to only one of me. Seems inevitable.” 

“Does it?” Ruby’s disbelief was almost palpable, and having fenced with Killian for months now Emma shared her friend’s suspicion that he was deliberately underplaying his fighting skills.

“Let’s hope we never have to find out,” said Killian with a small smile, in a tone of voice that made it clear he would answer no more questions on the subject. “I quite like my face arranged the way it is.” 

“It is a nice face,” said Ruby with a wolfish grin that widened as Killian’s ears turned pink. “But I didn’t come here just to flatter you. Victor asked me to ask you if he could have your phone number.”

“My number?” Killian blinked in surprise. 

“Yeah, there’s some concert in Portland and he doesn’t have anyone to go with and he thought you might be interested.” 

“Um, sure, I guess.” Killian rattled off the number and Ruby sent Victor a text. A minute later his phone buzzed and he looked at it, snorting as he read the message. “Bit of a wanker, your boyfriend,” he remarked to Ruby. 

“I don’t know what that is but I’m somehow sure that Victor is one,” smirked Ruby. “Is that gonna be a problem?”

“Not at all, I’m rather fond of wankers,” said Killian absently as he typed his reply. “My brother is one, after all.” His phone buzzed again almost instantly and he raised an eyebrow at what he read on it. 

“Ems, I think maybe we should leave the boys to their chat,” said Ruby, and as much as she hated to sacrifice free time with Killian, from the way he was fixated on his phone, his expression almost gleeful as he typed rapidly, Emma had to admit she was probably right. 

“Okay,” she said. “See you in class in a few minutes, Killian. And maybe hang out after school?”

“Hmmm? Oh, I have an appointment with Dr Hopper at four, but I can text you when I’m done.”

“Okay.” She smiled at him but his attention was back on his phone, so she followed Ruby out of the library trying not to feel too disgruntled. Killian should have other friends, she told herelf firmly, male ones who shared his interests. That was normal, and he could use some normal in his life right now.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next few weeks, things at school settled back into a routine, albeit one that was markedly different than it had been. Neal had been officially arrested after David’s investigation, charged with burglary, theft, and theft of a medical record, and was facing up to five years in prison. His parents had put up their house as collateral to pay his bail, but weren’t allowing him to return to school. 

“Not much point when he’ll just go straight back to the slammer after he’s sentenced,” said Ruby viciously. “So much for that football scholarship he was so cocky about.”

Emma tried to find some compassion for Neal and what was basically the wreck and ruin of his future, but couldn’t dredge up a single particle of it. He had committed several felonies for no other reason than to stick it to Killian for outsmarting him and for becoming her friend, and he’d committed them flagrantly and with no thought to the consequences. He’d probably thought there wouldn’t be any consequences. Killian was right: Neal deserved everything that was coming to him, if only for being so colossally, arrogantly stupid. 

People still whispered about Killian as he walked through the halls but true to character he paid little attention. He did, however, gradually began to open up more and allow more of himself to show through his defences, willingly participating in classes and talking to people other than Emma and Ruby. By the time finals week arrived had actually made a few friends. 

Killian reflected wryly that in a twisted sort of way Neal had done him a favour. With all his secrets now out on the open he was free to embrace the opportunity for a new life he’d found in Storybrooke. Not that there had been anything particularly wrong with the old life, at least since his father had finally left. He’d been a mean old drunk, Brennan Jones, and by the time he’d been forced to flee his creditors for good, stealing a boat from Bristol harbour and melting into the offshore underworld, his sons had been glad to see the back of him. Killian thought about what he himself had been like back then, before Milah, and even though it had only been about a year since he’d first become involved with her so much had changed both in his circumstances and in himself, he feared that hopeful, enthusiastic boy was lost forever. Who exactly had taken his place was the question Killian had asked himself daily for weeks now, and he still wasn’t sure how to answer it. He’d become so used to holding everything in, to keeping such a tight rein on his thoughts and feelings that letting them out, accepting that it was okay to express them had become almost unbelievably difficult. The only person he felt even remotely comfortable being fully himself with aside from Liam was Emma, whose support and friendship remained unwavering as he bumbled and struggled thorough the reclamation of his life, and he remained intensely grateful for it. 

Only one thing about Emma troubled him-- that she no longer seemed to be interested in anything beyond his friendship. All the little hints and cues she had been giving him since they’d met were suddenly gone, and while he was relieved to be free of the added stress of constantly resisting something that part of him desperately wanted, he couldn’t help wondering if there was a darker motivation for this abrupt about-face. Perhaps, whispered an evil little voice in his head, Emma was actually more disgusted by his past than she let on and was simply too kind to tell him directly. Maybe the thought of him touching her turned her stomach now. He certainly couldn’t blame her if it did.   

“What do you want from your relationship with Emma?” asked Dr Hopper one afternoon, after Killian had finally brought himself to mention the change in her behaviour. “Do you want it to be romantic?”

Killian frowned, struggling to sort through the complex tangle of his feelings about and for Emma. “I don’t want a romantic relationship with anyone,” he said finally. “I still feel too messed up for anything like that. But I— I’m still really attracted to her. I think about her all the time, about how we kissed at her party, and I want to kiss her again pretty much constantly, but then I remember Milah and how I thought I felt about her, and I just—” 

“You don’t trust your judgement.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Killian, it’s important for you to remember that you have a much more equal relationship with Emma than you ever did with Milah.”

“Equal, with Emma?” Killian snorted. “You have met her, right?”

Dr Hopper smiled patiently. “I understand that you feel she’s beyond your reach, and that’s a separate issue, but what I mean by equal is that she’s your age and at your stage of life. With Milah you were constantly struggling to relate to her life and her experiences, and when you couldn’t you attempted to make up for that by offering her the affection and sexual attention she craved. You forced yourself to offer these things even though you didn’t genuinely feel them because you feared the consequences of not offering them. But with Emma there is no need to manufacture anything. She is placing no demands on you and therefore any attraction and affection you feel for her is genuine.”

“But what should I do about it?”

“Why should you have to do anything? You said you’re not ready for a romantic relationship, and that’s fine. Let yourself heal. The process is slow and frustrating, but believe me you are making progress. Let your feelings for Emma and your relationship with her develop at a pace that is comfortable for you. From what you’ve said it sounds like she will still be there when, if, you’re ready for more.” 

“It’s more than likely she no longer wants more. And even if she did, what happens when she meets someone who isn’t so hopelessly fucked up? Then where does that leave me?”

“Why don’t you worry about that if —not when— it happens?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the last day before winter break, Emma nervously approached Killian’s locker and handed him an invitation to her parents’ annual Christmas party addressed to him and Liam. 

“It’s just a thing they do every year for their friends and our neighbours,” she began to ramble as he examined the card, certain he would refuse and wanting to delay that painful moment. “My mom loves to entertain, and my dad says it’s good for building a rapport between law enforcement and the community, and—”

“Swan,” interrupted Killian, giving her that soft, indulgent look that said he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I’m sure we’d love to attend. Thank you for inviting us.” 

The butterflies soared in a grand jeté, and she felt like she was flying with them. “Great,” she said trying to keep her voice calm, “I guess I’ll see you then.”

Her delighted smile made his breath catch, and his answering grin set her heart galloping. Their eyes met and held, and as the end of semester chaos whirled around them they stood a breath apart, swathed in frustrated yearning and brittle tension, the only two people in the world.  

Then the final bell rang, and they leapt apart, Emma smoothing her skirt with shaking hands while Killian ran his own trembling fingers through his hair. 

“So, onion rings at Granny’s?” ventured Emma, wanting to kick herself for making him nervous again, after all her resolutions, hoping desperately he wouldn’t pull away. 

Killian sighed in relief, tinged with a hint of disappointment. Granny’s was safe. “Sounds perfect, love,” he said.