Rewrite The Stars: An Outlaw Queen/Hood Mills Family Fic
Summary: Resurrected Remix. Regina could never return. The story of their lives in the before and after.
I got the idea for this angsty bugger based on a prompt tweet by @queen-of-the-merry-men who wanted Roland to learn how to do makeup from Regina...but then Regina died, so he did it for Peanut when she went to her first dance.
Now, I could never actually kill Regina Mills, BUT, I can make her family think she's dead. So, here's an AU of probably my most popular OQ verse. It'll flash around to show why she left (it's different this time) and why she can't come back. It'll show their lives before & after. It's angsty, it's got fluff, it's got family, it's got everything. Please don't hate me. I'm fragile. Send prompts, questions and other things to my Twitter/CuriousCat: justanoutlawfic or my Tumblr: findingtallahassee.
Also on AO3
To Roland, there was nothing his mother couldn’t do. She could tend to his scrapes and made them feel all better in just a few minutes, save an action figure from losing its leg, always knew how to make him and Henry were happy with the movie night and somehow, always knew exactly what his baby sister needed to calm down. Yes, to Roland, his mom was truly like a superhero from one of the comic books that Henry would read to him, Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel. She could always save the day and not even break a nail while doing it.
One night, he sat on the floor playing with some toys while his parents got ready for date night. His uncle Will would be by soon to watch them and had made promises of pizza, movies and wrestling. It was going to be so much fun, he could hardly wait.
Regina exited the walk-in closet, wearing a navy-blue dress, her hair curled. She stood at her vanity, opening up a box. Roland didn’t pay much attention at first, until he got a good glimpse of her putting on her makeup. She made it look so easy. He moved closer as she moved onto her eyes, managing to not poke herself with any of the tiny brushes or sticks. Roland watched in awe, his mouth agape.
“How do you do that?” He asked, in wonder.
Regina arched an eyebrow, looking at him in the mirror. “What do you mean?”
“The paint.”
Regina continued to look puzzled and then the realization washed over. “Oh, my makeup.” She smiled and finished up her eye makeup. “Here.” She placed hand on her padded stool, so the 5-year-old knew it was okay to jump up. “I’ll show you.”
She did her blush, explaining exactly where to put it and how she blended it. Then, she found the shades that would be best on him and taught him how to apply it on himself. She did some light lip gloss next, followed by some eye shadow, explaining it every step of the way.
“Why do people wear makeup?” Roland asked as she went to dip the brush in for his second eyelid.
Regina paused. “I guess it’s just something that was always a part of growing up for me. I watched my mother do it, my aunts and cousins after she passed away. But people wear makeup for a bunch of different reasons, just as they do everything. Some do it to cover up things, other do it to for work. Just know, that you never have to do it to improve how you look. Makeup doesn’t make you anymore beautiful than you already are.”
Roland grinned and then watched her select her jewelry. He found a bulky bangle.
“Can I wear this? It looks like treasure.”
“Of course you can.” Regina kissed his nose and Roland beamed brighter, sliding it onto his wrist. Neither noticed Robin standing in the doorway of the bathroom, grinning from ear to ear. “Just make sure you wipe that off before bed, or your face will get infected. I can teach you how to do more as you get older.”
There would be a few more lessons after that. She taught him about looks for different times of the day or occasions. Overall, she taught him that makeup was there to supplement beauty and that it was there to define it. He’d sit by her and watch her do her makeup when he’d catch her doing it, but there’d be a time when he’d wish he had done it more often.
Only six months after the lessons began, Roland was told that his mother had passed away in a car accident. He had no way of knowing the truth, that she had to be sent away for their own protection. If he had known the truth, it probably wouldn’t have changed the pain that it caused their family. It wasn’t hard not to see the change it brought about their dad. He wasn’t the same bright, goofy person he had been for Roland’s whole life. Robin snapped easier and the boys knew that he waited until he thought they were asleep to cry. Henry wasn’t around much; he would skip school or leave the house at night. Even Bryony, as young as she was, seemed to be acting differently. Roland felt sad too, all the time, and he couldn’t laugh. He felt like no one understood how he felt. He couldn’t even talk about his mom without wanting to cry.
Eventually, they fell into their new normal. It took time-and lots of therapy-but they did. Henry slowly stopped running away and his grades picked back up in school. He even made the honor roll. His dad was back to telling jokes and smiling again. There were times he still got a wave of sadness over him, but it was clear that he was a much happier person. Bryony was growing and Roland found that telling his baby sister about her made things a lot better for him. Despite their 5-year age gap, they ended up very close.
Which is why it wasn’t a surprise that Henry texted him an “SOS Peanut” text, when their little sister was 12 years old.
Peanut was the nickname they had coined for Bryony when she was just a baby. She was so small and Bryony seemed like such a mouthful to say for a 5 and 8-year-old respectively, so they came up with that. Now that she was getting older, she tried to argue it, but she would always be that to them-especially when they wanted to get a fun rise out of her.
Roland was already on his way home when he received the text and he figured that his dad wasn’t there, Henry probably would’ve gone to him if he were. Robin and Bryony had a pretty close bond, so there was pretty much no problem that he couldn’t solve. However, their father was probably at work. It wasn’t that Henry and Bryony didn’t get along, but he was 8 years older, home from college for spring break and they were just so different. He was better for playing video games or ice cream rushes. Roland and Robin were the ones Henry texted when she had a crisis.
He pulled into the driveway and headed into the house, finding his older brother sitting at the bottom of the stairs. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. She came back from the mall and went straight up to her room, she’s acting weird.”
“And that got an SOS text?”
“She just seemed really upset, alright? I tried knocking on her door, but she told me to get lost. Maybe you’ll have more luck.”
Roland nodded, wanting to appease his worrywart of a brother. He definitely got that from their mother. She had been so overprotective; he could remember thinking that at even 5-years-old. He walked up the stairs and knocked on his sister’s door, which had donned a “Keep Out” sign since she turned 10 years old.
“I said go away Henry!”
“It’s not Henry.”
There was a moment of silence. “Roland?”
“You know anyone else this cool?”
Some shuffling, followed by the door clicking and unlocking. While Henry looked more like a mixture of both of their parents (Regina’s dark hair, hazel eyes that were a mix of both of them and Robin’s pale skin) and Roland was pretty much a carbon copy of his mother outside the dimples from his father (thick, curls, eyes the same color as chocolate and Regina’s coloring), Bryony had been the one sibling to inherit the most looks from their father. Her blonde hair fanned out at her shoulders and her arms were crossed over her Storybrooke Junior High Track & Field t-shirt.
“You’re not at all cool,” she told him, matter of fact.
Roland rolled his eyes. “Henry said you were bummed out. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Henry needs to mind his own business.”
“We live under one roof, and he cares about you.” She didn’t budge. “I mean, if you wanna wait until Dad gets home…”
Bryony huffed, but stepped aside. Roland walked into her room and noticed the transparent garment bag on her closet, containing a purple dress. He tilted his head.
“What’s that for?”
“The school’s having some stupid dance.”
“Oh, you don’t really want to go?”
“I do, it’s just,” Bryony sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “Aunt Mulan took us. She’s going to be helping Greer get ready, all the girls will have their moms to.”
Roland didn’t need her to stay anything else. “And you don’t have a mom to help you.”
Bryony shrugged. “There’s a lot Dad can do, but there’s a lot he doesn’t know too. I just wish I could have Mom here to help me get ready.” She pointed to a shopping bag on her bed. “I mean, I had the sales lady help me find the perfect makeup and I don’t even know how to put it on.”
A small smile poked on the edges of Roland’s mouth. It had been 12 years since his mother’s “passing”, but he could remember her tips like the back of his hand. They had come in handy as he entered middle school, where he ended up having more girl friends than guys anyway and would help them out. He had even looked into YouTube tutorials about hair, so he could be of more assistance in that department.
“Well, I may not know much about dresses or shoes,” he said. “But makeup is my specialty.”
“Huh?”
“Just sit down, I’ll teach you everything I know.”
Bryony skeptically sat down at her desk, which had a mirror on it. Roland grabbed the bag and unpacked the supplies. Luckily, she was right, the sales lady had steered her in the right direction for someone of her complexion and age. There was nothing too extreme about any of it. He started just how his mom had with him, the cheeks.
“You want to spread it out, then blend it,” he explained, as he moved the brush. “The more natural it looks, the better.”
“I was afraid I’d look like a circus clown.”
“It’s common for first time users to make that mistake, but it gets easier with use or if you have a good teacher.” Roland gave her a wink.
Next, he did the lipstick, choosing the more subtle shade of the two. It was then he realized that perhaps he should’ve asked if his dad was okay with sister wearing makeup, but they could cross that bridge later. For the moment, it was important to teach her how to wear it without looking ridiculous. He had seen far too many people make that mistake and he was not about to have his mom haunt his ass. Like Regina had with him, he spoke every step of the way, explaining his process, so she could easily do it again.
As he was getting the eyeshadow ready, Bryony finally spoke up herself. “Where did you learn all of this?”
“From Mom.”
“Seriously?”
Roland nodded, dipping the brush into palette. “When I was 5, I was watching her do her makeup and I was completely mesmerized. It was like…witchcraft or something. I asked her how she did it and Mom just decided to show me.”
“Wow. Most moms probably wouldn’t have done that with their sons.”
“Mom wasn’t most moms,” Roland pointed out. “She really didn’t care what we did or wore.”
“So, like Dad, she wouldn’t have cared about you being bi?”
“I highly doubt it. One year, I wanted to be an angel for Halloween and someone made fun of me. She told me that in the Bible, angels were both male and female.”
The smile on Bryony’s face wouldn’t disappear. “She sounds like quite a lady.”
“She really was, close your eyes,” Roland instructed, feeling himself getting choked up.
He applied the eye shadow, thinking back to those days. What he wouldn’t get for another one of those talks, his then-pudgy hand on her cheek, her warm smile looking down on him. There were days it felt like just yesterday and others, that it felt like a whole other lifetime ago.
When Bryony’s eyes opened again, Roland found himself thinking of Regina’s words from that night. “You know, Mom once told me that makeup isn’t what makes someone beautiful. It doesn’t improve how you look. Beauty is more than the surface. And I want you to remember that, even if you start wearing it now.”
“That’s really cheesy, Roland,” Bryony told him with an eye roll. “Though, I do appreciate it.”
A few finishing touches and the job was done. Roland did a quick simple braid to show her what he could possibly do the night of and then suddenly got an idea. He rushed down the hall to his room, going through the top drawer of his nightstand. He found what he desired and returned to his sister’s room, handing over the bangle.
“What’s this?”
“It belonged to, Mom,” he explained. “I borrowed it the same night she taught me how to do makeup. When Dad decided to clean out her side of the closet a few years back, I asked him if I could have it. I figured you could wear it to the dance.”
The bangle was bulky, flashy and didn’t at all go with the flowery purple dress that hung on the closet door behind them. Yet, Bryony looked from it, back up to her brother and said, “Of course I will.”