For your Hookedqueen baby AU, how about a fight, Regina accidentally starts crying and even though she insists it’s just pregnancy hormones he feels very guilty?
Here you go! It’s been a while since I’ve last written something for this AU, thanks for the push XD I hope you will enjoy it!
(This is part of my fuck-buddies to accidental co-parents to lovers AU, here on Ao3 you can find the full collection)
(Ao3 link to this ficlet specifically)
“You can forget it!” Regina thunders, shooting him a glare so full of rage that for a moment Killian half-expects to be turned to dust on the spot.
When that doesn’t happen, the only thing left to do is standing his ground, really.
“Were you expecting me to just come spend the afternoon every now and then?” he counters, raising his eyebrows. “I know how this works! She’s supposed to stay with me too!”
“Since when do you know anything about custody arrangements?” she asks, annoyed.
“I know things,” he says, defensively. Truth be told, where he comes from divorce isn’t really a thing and he knows next to nothing about it, most of what he has learnt comes from observing how Henry gets moved around between his parents on regular basis, but he isn’t about to tell Regina that. For all she knows, he could have spent hours on the Internet learning the ins and outs of this – he would have, if he had enough patience to spend more than two minutes dealing with those bloody machines.
“She should stay a week with you and one with me, it’s fair,” he argues, to which Regina snorts.
“It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is.” He opens his mouth to reply, but she doesn’t give him enough time. “You can’t expect to move her around so often! Do you have any idea how much stuff a toddler needs? No, of course you don’t — not to mention, my daughter isn’t going to live on your goddamn ship, not even for two minutes.”
“Henry stays with Emma and Neal!”
“In an apartment. I let her go with you, she’ll end up catching something! That is, if you don’t kill her some other way.”
“Well, what makes you think that I trust you, Evil Queen? Aren’t you more the kind of person to eat children, rather than mother them?”
That was the wrong thing to say, he realizes thirty seconds later.
She stares at him for a few moments, speechless, and tears quickly gather in her eyes, her mouth closing in a thin line and her face twisting into a grimace as she turns away.
He feels like absolute crap.
“I —” he mutters, taking a step forward, hand extended towards her to reach out, though something stops him before he can – maybe it’s his preservation instinct kicking in. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that — please, don’t cry —”
His usual method to console an upset woman would probably only get him slapped in this particular case. Or hexed. Possibly both.
So, yeah, he’s kind of at loss here.
“I’m not crying, it’s —” she soon begins to protest, quickly wiping away the tears with her hand, but as she turns to glare at him there are already more forming. “It’s the hormones.”
Seeing her attempt at being threatening fail miserably is not making him feel any better.
“I really didn’t mean it, I’m sorry,” he repeats, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. “Obviously you don’t eat children, Henry’s grown into a fine lad —”
“I know that I am a good mother, thank you,” she snaps. “Will you get out of my damn sight now? Or do I have to make you?”
Yeah, that sounds like a decent idea. They can discuss their daughter’s living arrangements at a later date, right now he should probably just — squirrel away with his dirty conscience.
“Alright, alright, I’m going —” he mutters, hesitating a moment before sliding past her, a huge knot in his throat because she’s still crying.
Really, they are bickering all the time, he didn’t mean anything by that comment —
“Sorry,” he resolves to say once again, before heading for the door. He isn’t even sure he can remember the last time that he apologized so many times in a row.
(The next time he sees her, she acts like nothing happened, and he doesn’t dare bringing it up first. He’s even less inclined to when she concedes that he can stay at her house after their daughter is born, and that they can figure something else out later: it’s best not to upset her into changing her mind.
And, if he’s being honest, he might just be a little bit terrified of accidentally making her cry again.)
