OUaT fic: The Need (Swan Queen)
Title: The Need (1/3)
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Characters: Emma Swan/Regina Mills, Henry Mills, Snow, Charming
Word Count: 2114
Rating: M
Summary: Regina asks and Emma's life turns upside down.
Author's Notes: A big thanks to Dark's Queen for her beta help.
The first time Regina asks, Emma just laughs, thinking that Regina is in one of her moods before licking her way down Regina’s body.
The second time Regina asks, they are having a late lunch in the station and David is talking to Snow on the phone.
Emma is sure that he could hear them but doesn’t think much about it.
The third time Regina asks, Henry is sleeping peacefully after an accident on his bike; the kid is fine, maybe still a little scared and in need of a new bike, but his mom is another story.
Regina isn’t drunk, Emma knows that, but she’s not entirely there and Emma has to call her name a few times before she gets a response.
“Are you serious?” she asks and holds her glass a little closer to her chest, because knowing Regina, that was the last thing she expected to hear from the brunette. “No, are you, I mean… are you serious?”
Regina drinks the rest of her scotch before pouring another glass.
“You know it’s not your fault, right? Kid took the turn without breaks, there was nothing you could do,” Emma tries again while watching her girlfriend drink her fourth glass in an hour.
“Good night, Miss Swan,” Regina is up and out of the room before Emma can say something, not that she would; she knows Regina too well by now to know when not to try.
It bothers her all night though.
The next time the subject comes up, Emma is the one to say something. Regina is lying next to her, spent and satisfied, and Emma is writing words with her finger to her back. Regina is too relaxed to ask her to stop and that’s how Emma knows it’s the right time, and if she’s lucky, maybe she’ll get an answer; if she’s really lucky, she will get an honest one.
“About…that thing,” she stops and waits for any sign that Regina is going to turn her into a frog, and when nothing happens, she waits some more. “Regina?”
“What thing?” Emma starts writing silly things in Regina’s back, wiping them off with her palm when she runs out of space, saying nothing for a while.
“About what you need,” she finds her voice again, but she’s not brave enough to say it out loud. Instead she writes it down.
When Regina says nothing, Emma rolls her eyes. Regina would rather face an execution before getting interested in silly after sex games. But sometimes Emma wishes that she would because sometimes all Emma wants to do is lie next to the other woman and play silly after sex games or just silly not after sex games.
Just because they can.
A girl can dream.
“I do.”
It’s so soft that Emma barely hears it.
“Oh.”
For the next few weeks, Emma feels like she felt when she first came to Storybrooke: uncertain, confused, desperate to run away and never look back.
But.
She has a kid now. She always had a kid, ever since she gave birth to him. But now she has a kid, and a girlfriend that sometimes is still her frenemy, and a mom and a dad, and a best friend that happens to be her mom’s best friend as well.
“You know you want to tell me,” Ruby says filling her cup with coffee.
Emma sighs; when did her life became so complicated? “I can’t.”
“She trained you well.”
It takes ten minutes for Emma to stop laughing.
She’s not surprised when she sees Snow at the door. Henry is talking to some girl on the phone and Regina is probably brooding in her study, leaving Emma to answer the door.
“Ruby talks too much,” she smiles to her mother; she’s not the kind of girl to go cry on her mother’s shoulder but only because she never had a mother growing up.
Snow, judging from her mother’s red face, is still not over the fact that her baby girl is in love with the Evil Queen. “We need to talk.”
Emma nods. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
Emma makes the tea. Some flavor thing that Regina likes and it’s then that she realizes that Ruby was right. Regina trained her well because Emma is, and will always be, a cocoa girl.
“Mom?” she asks, slicing a piece of freshly baked apple pie and no, the irony is not lost to her. “If David, dad, if he wanted to do something with you-“
Snow cuts her off with a, “She’s not doing anything to you!” and a fierce look and wow, Emma never met the Evil Queen, but she could swear she did.
Almost.
She bites her lower lip and tries to find a way to explain to her mother (without really explaining) what Regina wants her to do.
At the end she says, “She doesn’t want to do anything to me.”
Snow sighs with relief and takes a sip from her tea.
“She wants me to do things to her.”
Later, when she’s done cleaning tea from the floor, Emma admits that it did come out wrong.
Another week passes and life goes back to normal, as normal as living under the same roof with a teenage boy and a woman that once was a Queen can be.
Emma is watching some lame ass action b-movie with Henry and Regina is at some town meeting she had to go because, and it makes total sense to Emma, she kept this town running for three decades and no one knows, or cares, or has the patience to care, how to make things work.
So Regina isn’t at home and Henry lets Emma have dinner in front of the TV like she used to do when she was living alone. Sometimes, Emma misses living alone. Regina has too many rules, like keeping the volume down when she’s in her study working (brooding, Emma is sure that Regina locks herself to her study and broods because that’s what dark magicians do, everyone knows that) or like not laying on the bed with her shoes on.
And sometimes Regina wakes before dawn and bakes them bread and pies, never waking Emma or Henry, and the whole house smells like Christmas came early. Sometimes Henry sleeps with them, always after a horror movie he insists of watching even when he knows he can’t stand the blood, and most of the time Regina is the one to tell when they can look at the screen again.
Yeah, maybe she’s not missing her former life as much as she believes.
“Why are you smiling?” Henry, the little brat, asks and Emma shakes her head.
“I was thinking how wonderful my life was before,” and despite her best poker face, Henry laughs.
“Yeah, you were a mess, mom.”
She doesn’t hear the door open or Regina’s heels, too busy tickling Henry and trying not to drop her food all over Regina’s couch. Kid’s taller than her now, by two inches, and he has his grandpa build, but he’s letting her win and boy, she really hates it when he does that.
All she needs is ten seconds to leave her plate on the table and then she will show him who’s the boss.
“Emma.”
David’s voice startles her and somehow manages to drop sauce on Henry’s hair. “Dad?”
And then she smells it.
In all the time she has known Regina, the woman has had exactly six burgers; Emma is watching her eat her second cheeseburger for the night with Henry next to her. She can’t hear what they are talking about, probably his day or his school project Emma has no idea how to do, but what she knows is that the only thing Regina needs right now is sitting next to her.
“Can’t you do anything?” Emma asks and David shakes his head. “I thought you said that her proposition was good.”
“No,” David looks at the kitchen table where Regina is eating a fry, and drops his voice so only Emma can hear him. “Her proposition was the best-.”
Emma on the other hand doesn’t care. “Then why did they vote against it?”
To his credit, David looks down and says nothing.
“Because she’s the Evil Queen,” Emma finally understands.
“People still don’t trust her. You need to give them time.”
She snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“For what is worth, your mom and I voted for her.” Emma finds it really hard to be angry at them for not standing up for her girlfriend when David smiles at her like this. “And I’m taking Henry for the night,” he informs her. “He shouldn’t see her like this.”
Too late, Emma thinks, but smiles back, a little glad that Henry won’t be here tomorrow morning.
“Three cheeseburgers, Regina? Really?”
Emma frowns; she so doesn’t need to clean leftovers from the toilet, but she has to admit that Regina looks more sober now. For Emma, a hot bowl of Menuda does the trick, for Regina, it’s a burger.
Or three.
“How much did you have anyway?”
Regina’s voice is hoarse when she speaks; from the drinking, Emma wants to believe, not because she yelled at the meeting. At least, that’s what she hopes. “A few.”
“A few?”
“Maybe more than a few,” Regina looks at her with surprisingly clear eyes.
Emma doesn’t know what to say.
No, actually she knows what to say and do, but she’s not sure how Regina will react. So after a while of sitting in the kitchen and looking at each other in what she’s sure is a piss contest, although she could be wrong, either way she’s not going to back down now, she lets out a long breath and stands up.
“Come,” she says softly. “Let’s put you to bed.”
For a Queen, Regina sure has a hard time letting other people take care of her. Then again, having met and fought Cora, Emma doesn’t find it too hard to believe. Regina sways so much that Emma is this close to going out and buying her another burger when she suddenly remembers something: the stairs.
She looks all the way up to the second floor and back to Regina.
“Ah, shit.”
They end up in the bathroom, with Regina resting her head to Emma’s torso, and as much as Emma wants to move and stretch her arms and legs, she doesn’t want to lose the weight of Regina’s body on hers; the times that the brunette allows Emma to touch her like this are few and far between.
“My parents voted for you,” she announces suddenly, her fingers playing softly with Regina’s dark locks.
“I am aware, dear.”
“But that’s a good thing, right?” Emma doesn’t care if she sounds like an overexcited puppy because, and let’s face it, Snow voting for Regina is a big deal for both of them.
Being in love with the Evil Queen is hard enough and, damn it, Emma wants to be able to bitch to her mom about her lover without fearing a public execution. And loving Regina is hard, too damn hard.
Love should be easy.
Love should be like this.
When Regina says nothing, Emma gives a tiny kiss to the other woman’s neck before continuing with a, “I think they are warming up to you,” which earns her a chuckle and a smile.
Regina, Emma thinks, is a lot like the water.
Like boiled water, she can burn you with her rage.
Like ice, she can break you with her power.
And like water, she can be all over you until you can’t stand to live with or without her.
But Emma can be like water too.
“I’m not…I’m not ready yet,” she says and Regina nods. “I’m not ready to give you what you want.”
“Emma-“
“No, let me finish.” Emma doesn’t know if she can do it, and if the other woman thought that Emma was avoiding the subject, it was because she was. Emma never had someone like Regina in her life, never had to fight with someone so hard and for so long as she did, and sometimes still does, with Regina.
She never had a reason to fight.
And she’s scared.
Because she knows Regina and she knows that if she can’t do it, then the brunette will put up walls so tall and thick that no one will ever be able to get past them.
So she does the only thing she can for the time; she hugs Regina tight, afraid that, like water, the Queen will slip away from her hands.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
TBC...
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Characters: Emma Swan/Regina Mills, Henry Mills, Snow, Charming
Word Count: 2114
Rating: M
Summary: Regina asks and Emma's life turns upside down.
Author's Notes: A big thanks to Dark's Queen for her beta help.
The first time Regina asks, Emma just laughs, thinking that Regina is in one of her moods before licking her way down Regina’s body.
The second time Regina asks, they are having a late lunch in the station and David is talking to Snow on the phone.
Emma is sure that he could hear them but doesn’t think much about it.
The third time Regina asks, Henry is sleeping peacefully after an accident on his bike; the kid is fine, maybe still a little scared and in need of a new bike, but his mom is another story.
Regina isn’t drunk, Emma knows that, but she’s not entirely there and Emma has to call her name a few times before she gets a response.
“Are you serious?” she asks and holds her glass a little closer to her chest, because knowing Regina, that was the last thing she expected to hear from the brunette. “No, are you, I mean… are you serious?”
Regina drinks the rest of her scotch before pouring another glass.
“You know it’s not your fault, right? Kid took the turn without breaks, there was nothing you could do,” Emma tries again while watching her girlfriend drink her fourth glass in an hour.
“Good night, Miss Swan,” Regina is up and out of the room before Emma can say something, not that she would; she knows Regina too well by now to know when not to try.
It bothers her all night though.
The next time the subject comes up, Emma is the one to say something. Regina is lying next to her, spent and satisfied, and Emma is writing words with her finger to her back. Regina is too relaxed to ask her to stop and that’s how Emma knows it’s the right time, and if she’s lucky, maybe she’ll get an answer; if she’s really lucky, she will get an honest one.
“About…that thing,” she stops and waits for any sign that Regina is going to turn her into a frog, and when nothing happens, she waits some more. “Regina?”
“What thing?” Emma starts writing silly things in Regina’s back, wiping them off with her palm when she runs out of space, saying nothing for a while.
“About what you need,” she finds her voice again, but she’s not brave enough to say it out loud. Instead she writes it down.
When Regina says nothing, Emma rolls her eyes. Regina would rather face an execution before getting interested in silly after sex games. But sometimes Emma wishes that she would because sometimes all Emma wants to do is lie next to the other woman and play silly after sex games or just silly not after sex games.
Just because they can.
A girl can dream.
“I do.”
It’s so soft that Emma barely hears it.
“Oh.”
For the next few weeks, Emma feels like she felt when she first came to Storybrooke: uncertain, confused, desperate to run away and never look back.
But.
She has a kid now. She always had a kid, ever since she gave birth to him. But now she has a kid, and a girlfriend that sometimes is still her frenemy, and a mom and a dad, and a best friend that happens to be her mom’s best friend as well.
“You know you want to tell me,” Ruby says filling her cup with coffee.
Emma sighs; when did her life became so complicated? “I can’t.”
“She trained you well.”
It takes ten minutes for Emma to stop laughing.
She’s not surprised when she sees Snow at the door. Henry is talking to some girl on the phone and Regina is probably brooding in her study, leaving Emma to answer the door.
“Ruby talks too much,” she smiles to her mother; she’s not the kind of girl to go cry on her mother’s shoulder but only because she never had a mother growing up.
Snow, judging from her mother’s red face, is still not over the fact that her baby girl is in love with the Evil Queen. “We need to talk.”
Emma nods. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
Emma makes the tea. Some flavor thing that Regina likes and it’s then that she realizes that Ruby was right. Regina trained her well because Emma is, and will always be, a cocoa girl.
“Mom?” she asks, slicing a piece of freshly baked apple pie and no, the irony is not lost to her. “If David, dad, if he wanted to do something with you-“
Snow cuts her off with a, “She’s not doing anything to you!” and a fierce look and wow, Emma never met the Evil Queen, but she could swear she did.
Almost.
She bites her lower lip and tries to find a way to explain to her mother (without really explaining) what Regina wants her to do.
At the end she says, “She doesn’t want to do anything to me.”
Snow sighs with relief and takes a sip from her tea.
“She wants me to do things to her.”
Later, when she’s done cleaning tea from the floor, Emma admits that it did come out wrong.
Another week passes and life goes back to normal, as normal as living under the same roof with a teenage boy and a woman that once was a Queen can be.
Emma is watching some lame ass action b-movie with Henry and Regina is at some town meeting she had to go because, and it makes total sense to Emma, she kept this town running for three decades and no one knows, or cares, or has the patience to care, how to make things work.
So Regina isn’t at home and Henry lets Emma have dinner in front of the TV like she used to do when she was living alone. Sometimes, Emma misses living alone. Regina has too many rules, like keeping the volume down when she’s in her study working (brooding, Emma is sure that Regina locks herself to her study and broods because that’s what dark magicians do, everyone knows that) or like not laying on the bed with her shoes on.
And sometimes Regina wakes before dawn and bakes them bread and pies, never waking Emma or Henry, and the whole house smells like Christmas came early. Sometimes Henry sleeps with them, always after a horror movie he insists of watching even when he knows he can’t stand the blood, and most of the time Regina is the one to tell when they can look at the screen again.
Yeah, maybe she’s not missing her former life as much as she believes.
“Why are you smiling?” Henry, the little brat, asks and Emma shakes her head.
“I was thinking how wonderful my life was before,” and despite her best poker face, Henry laughs.
“Yeah, you were a mess, mom.”
She doesn’t hear the door open or Regina’s heels, too busy tickling Henry and trying not to drop her food all over Regina’s couch. Kid’s taller than her now, by two inches, and he has his grandpa build, but he’s letting her win and boy, she really hates it when he does that.
All she needs is ten seconds to leave her plate on the table and then she will show him who’s the boss.
“Emma.”
David’s voice startles her and somehow manages to drop sauce on Henry’s hair. “Dad?”
And then she smells it.
In all the time she has known Regina, the woman has had exactly six burgers; Emma is watching her eat her second cheeseburger for the night with Henry next to her. She can’t hear what they are talking about, probably his day or his school project Emma has no idea how to do, but what she knows is that the only thing Regina needs right now is sitting next to her.
“Can’t you do anything?” Emma asks and David shakes his head. “I thought you said that her proposition was good.”
“No,” David looks at the kitchen table where Regina is eating a fry, and drops his voice so only Emma can hear him. “Her proposition was the best-.”
Emma on the other hand doesn’t care. “Then why did they vote against it?”
To his credit, David looks down and says nothing.
“Because she’s the Evil Queen,” Emma finally understands.
“People still don’t trust her. You need to give them time.”
She snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“For what is worth, your mom and I voted for her.” Emma finds it really hard to be angry at them for not standing up for her girlfriend when David smiles at her like this. “And I’m taking Henry for the night,” he informs her. “He shouldn’t see her like this.”
Too late, Emma thinks, but smiles back, a little glad that Henry won’t be here tomorrow morning.
“Three cheeseburgers, Regina? Really?”
Emma frowns; she so doesn’t need to clean leftovers from the toilet, but she has to admit that Regina looks more sober now. For Emma, a hot bowl of Menuda does the trick, for Regina, it’s a burger.
Or three.
“How much did you have anyway?”
Regina’s voice is hoarse when she speaks; from the drinking, Emma wants to believe, not because she yelled at the meeting. At least, that’s what she hopes. “A few.”
“A few?”
“Maybe more than a few,” Regina looks at her with surprisingly clear eyes.
Emma doesn’t know what to say.
No, actually she knows what to say and do, but she’s not sure how Regina will react. So after a while of sitting in the kitchen and looking at each other in what she’s sure is a piss contest, although she could be wrong, either way she’s not going to back down now, she lets out a long breath and stands up.
“Come,” she says softly. “Let’s put you to bed.”
For a Queen, Regina sure has a hard time letting other people take care of her. Then again, having met and fought Cora, Emma doesn’t find it too hard to believe. Regina sways so much that Emma is this close to going out and buying her another burger when she suddenly remembers something: the stairs.
She looks all the way up to the second floor and back to Regina.
“Ah, shit.”
They end up in the bathroom, with Regina resting her head to Emma’s torso, and as much as Emma wants to move and stretch her arms and legs, she doesn’t want to lose the weight of Regina’s body on hers; the times that the brunette allows Emma to touch her like this are few and far between.
“My parents voted for you,” she announces suddenly, her fingers playing softly with Regina’s dark locks.
“I am aware, dear.”
“But that’s a good thing, right?” Emma doesn’t care if she sounds like an overexcited puppy because, and let’s face it, Snow voting for Regina is a big deal for both of them.
Being in love with the Evil Queen is hard enough and, damn it, Emma wants to be able to bitch to her mom about her lover without fearing a public execution. And loving Regina is hard, too damn hard.
Love should be easy.
Love should be like this.
When Regina says nothing, Emma gives a tiny kiss to the other woman’s neck before continuing with a, “I think they are warming up to you,” which earns her a chuckle and a smile.
Regina, Emma thinks, is a lot like the water.
Like boiled water, she can burn you with her rage.
Like ice, she can break you with her power.
And like water, she can be all over you until you can’t stand to live with or without her.
But Emma can be like water too.
“I’m not…I’m not ready yet,” she says and Regina nods. “I’m not ready to give you what you want.”
“Emma-“
“No, let me finish.” Emma doesn’t know if she can do it, and if the other woman thought that Emma was avoiding the subject, it was because she was. Emma never had someone like Regina in her life, never had to fight with someone so hard and for so long as she did, and sometimes still does, with Regina.
She never had a reason to fight.
And she’s scared.
Because she knows Regina and she knows that if she can’t do it, then the brunette will put up walls so tall and thick that no one will ever be able to get past them.
So she does the only thing she can for the time; she hugs Regina tight, afraid that, like water, the Queen will slip away from her hands.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
TBC...