In which Regina doesn’t want to share a bed with Emma, but gets offended when Emma resigns herself to sleeping on the floor.
Just when Regina thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, the universe had decided to rise to the challenge. Though she can’t very well say she’s surprised that her trip to Henry was proving to be an absolute nightmare when she has Emma Swan for a traveling companion.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spies Emma, shuffling from one foot to the other, clearly just as uncomfortable as she was, if not more so, over what they’re staring at.
Scowling deeply, the brunette pipes up, “This is what they call a bed? I’d like to have a word with the manager.”
“Regina,” Emma sighs, and she’s too tired for this. For any of it. For the stress she feels when looking at the small bed and realizing it’s the only soft surface in the room. And the stress she’d inevitably feel if Regina were to return downstairs and make a scene. God. She just wants to s l e e p. It’s late and they’ve had a tiring journey filled with one too many hiccups. “It’s a single. They’re usually not much bigger than this one.” Emma would know. She’d been in the system for much too long during her childhood and adolescent years n o t to know.
Regina scoffs, her displeased glare moving between the bed and the blonde, as though she’s not entirely sure which of the two she finds more frustrating at the moment and Emma sighs again. “A single? Miss Swan. It’s barely big enough for one of us, let alone the both of us.” Abruptly, she turns on her heel, heading for the door but Emma catches her gently by the arm just as she reaches for the doorknob.
“Hey, hey, no. It’s fine. We’ll make do. I’ll take the floor okay. Just— please. I’m exhausted and I bet you are too and we still have a bit of a journey before we get to Henry.”
As always, it’s Henry’s name that causes Regina to see reason. He’d made them promise that they’d both be there for his graduation, as though either of them would ever miss it, regardless of how many States away he’d moved or how insufferable Regina had said it would be to have Emma accompanying her on the road. Shaking her arm free of Emma’s grasp, the brunette saunters towards the bathroom and slams the door shut behind her, clearly in a mood.
Emma falls face first onto the mattress the minute she’s alone, knowing her time on it will be short lived. Regina’s right. It’s barely big enough for one of them. They can’t share it unless they plan on sleeping atop each other. And only one of them wouldn’t be entirely opposed to that idea.
By the time Regina re-enters their room, Emma is already drifting off but she catches the mayor’s disapproving, “Tell me you at least intend to shower before getting into bed with me.”
Tiredly, Emma peeks up at her through one eye. Was Regina serious? She’d be okay with them sharing a bed if the blonde showered? It’s tempting. So incredibly tempting but Emma doesn’t have the strength to will herself to head to the shower. Instead, she bundles up one of the sheets and throws it on the floor, together with her pillow.
Regina watches her in silence, eyebrows hiking up her forehead as Emma lowers herself to the floor. She should let it go. She really should. And she tells herself that repeatedly as she climbs into the now empty bed, but somehow her mouth still opens as the back of her head hits the pillow and words which she has no control over are pouring out. “Do you find me so repulsive that you’d rather sleep on the floor than share my bed?” She can’t see Emma’s face from her position but she thinks she hears the sudden sound of a choking, sputtering Swan. Which… g o o d.
“What?” Emma asks, her voice high pitched and barely recognizable. How could Regina think—? “I’m just too exhausted to get into the shower right now and you made it seem like an ultimatum for being allowed to sleep next to you. Regina…” There’s a soft sigh falling from her lips before she continues, “I know we don’t always see eye to eye—“
“We never see eye to eye, dear,” The brunette cuts her off and Emma laughs in spite of herself.
“Yeah, that. I know we’ve have our fair share of conflict over the years but I don’t find you even remotely repulsive.” It was true too. Even with Regina’s bossy, superior complex. “God, do you have any idea of how much I—“ Wisely, the blonde clamps her mouth shut. There’s no point, Emma thinks, in confessing to her feelings for Regina. The older brunette is so far out of her league that she thinks it would be embarrassing to even hint at her desire to be more than just co-parents.
Somewhere during Emma’s speech, Regina had propped herself up on one elbow, listening intently as a shadow of surprise flickers across her face. “Any idea of how much you what, Miss Swan?” She dares to ask and isn’t particularly sure why her voice is now emerging with a low, throaty cadence.
Emma’s face is heating up from where she lies on the cold floor, heartbeat increasing. “Nothing.” She gnaws on her lip, hard enough to break the skin and then adds with a somewhat frustrated sigh, “And can you lose the ‘Miss Swan’? We’ve been through too much.”
Stretching her legs out fully, Regina drags the covers up to her waist. “That we have… Though you’re the first woman I’ve encountered who doesn’t enjoy having me refer to her by her title.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma asks, shooting up so fast into a sitting position that Regina chuckles softly when her head becomes visible, a crinkle etched into the centre of the woman’s pale forehead.
Call her cheesy but Emma really loves the way Regina says Em-ma, drawling the two syllables perfectly. She likes the three words that came before her name even more. Wasting no time, so that Regina can’t change her mind, Emma scrambles into bed, laying on her side to face her son’s other mother. It’s a tight fit, as they’d imagined. Her legs are already pressed against Regina’s, sending her thoughts haywire. “I still want to know what you meant.” And she sounds breathless as she says it, breathless with wanting. Regina drags in such a long breath that Emma’s pretty sure that’s all she’s getting in response until the mayor again shocks her with,
“I meant that some women find it attractive when I refer to them by their surnames.” Was that why she did it, Regina’s inner voice grills her. In the beginning, it had been for the sake of formality, to let Emma know in no uncertain terms that they were not friends. But that was during the early days when she’d viewed the blonde as a threat, had been afraid that Emma was there steal her son. Now, things are different. They are different. As Emma had rightfully said, they’d been through too much. They’d come a long way, so long that Regina no longer thinks of Henry only as her son. He’s theirs, always theirs.
“Oh,” The blonde says instantly, her stomach tightening. “Call a lot of women by their last names, do you?” She’s not jealous. She’s n o t.
Regina is still propped up on her elbow and she doesn’t know why her eyes and her whole face has softened but she can feel the transformation as she looks down at Emma, and picks up on what she believes might be—jealousy? “Only one in particular as of late. She’s.. quite the idiot. But she also happens to be the mother of my child.”
And then Emma is glancing up at her with an expression she doesn’t understand (or understands too well… because mother-of-my-child sounded way more intimate than she’d planned for) and Regina’s eyes have dipped to her lips and she wonders when had they gone from arguing about the bed to this— w a n t i n g.
Emma swallows and says, “I really want to kiss you.” Just like that. Because she’s Emma Swan and of course she has little control over the things that come out of her mouth, even when the kiss was probably about to happen organically and now she might have ruined it and scared Regina off.
Emma laughs, emboldened by the fact that Regina hasn’t made a more snide remark and she lets her hand rest on the mayor’s waist, fingers teasing the small bit of exposed skin. She thinks she feels Regina trembling from the touch… or that might just be her own fingers trembling. “Since the moment you opened your front door and asked you’re-Henry’s-birth-mother?”
Regina’s astonishment lasts all of two seconds before she meets Emma midway, lips connecting in the most clumsy perfect first kiss. Because Emma is the clumsy one who fumbles around Regina’s mouth and apologizes every time their teeth accidentally clashes. And Regina is the Queen of perfection who behaves as though she already knows her way around Emma’s mouth, had been there on thousands of occasions, dotting kisses at the corner of her mouth, biting and tugging on Emma’s lip until she’s moaning and willingly giving way for the brunette’s tongue to enter her mouth.
“I never suspected a thing.” Her breathing is a little ragged as they come up for air and Emma is now laying kisses across her jaw and down her neck.
“Of course you didn’t. You were too busy dating the hotter women that waltzed into town. You’d never have looked my way twice.”
Blinking, Regina takes the younger woman’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, drawing her away from her skin so that she can hold her gaze. “I’ve looked,” Regina admits in a whisper, because, well— she had. And if Emma ever attempts to use it against her she’ll deny it with her last breath. “I just never thought—“ When the mayor fumbles, her usual confidence lost somewhere in no man’s land, Emma prompts,
“You never thought—?” She’s hanging on to Regina’s every word, hungry for more openness.
“You were the saviour, Emma. And I, the Evil Queen. There’s no story in which I ever would’ve had a chance with you.”
How about this one?” Emma asks automatically, grinning as she claims Regina’s mouth in another heated kiss.
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