Shep. 31. Scorpio. Author/Poet/I do the writing thing, sometimes.. - Avid fan of far too many lovely ladies to name - Multifandom, personal, recovery, misc blog. Welcome.
Mine Nightmare | Part One: Birth - Agatha Harkness x Rio Vidal
Summary: Moments, between everything else. Agatha, between everything else. And now, maybe, three of them. Together. Family.
Word Count: ~2,800
Contains: canon divergence, angst, pregnancy, sad fluff (if that's a thing??), and a lot of soft feelings about Rio
A/N: I sat down to attempt to process episode nine, and this came out instead. Enjoy xx
Read on Ao3
Rio carded careful fingers through Agatha’s hair, brushing stray pieces from her forehead when they fell.
She was laying with her head in Rio’s lap, curled on her side on the mossy forest floor. Fingers twined together. Safe.
Rio had been careful to lay the moss down for her. Any bit of padding to make it easier at this stage.
A soft gasp, and then Agatha was shifting, guiding Rio’s hand over her stomach and pressing her palm flat into skin. A tiny foot pressed against her, no bigger than the heel of her hand, and she pulled her fingers away reflexively. But Agatha was right there, chuckling softly as she smoothed Rio’s hand back down, held her steady against the tiny bumping thing.
“You can’t hurt him,” she murmured, fingers drifting softly over the back of Rio’s hand. Back and forth, back and forth.
Rio let her eyes flutter shut, leaning forward and burying her nose in Agatha’s hair. Just for a second. Just for this one moment.
It was safe, of course. Agatha was the barrier between her and all things. And Agatha was protecting her unborn child from Rio even now, her skin a shield against Death’s touch. Rio didn’t know why she could touch Agatha without any repercussions. She only remembered that first time— Agatha grabbing desperately for her hand through the mess of tears, barely a woman, splitting open at the seams as she sobbed because she hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t meant any of it. Again. Rio had ripped her hand away lightning fast, watching Agatha’s face in horror and waiting for the skin to pale and crack and dissolve away. But it hadn’t. Her cheeks were flushed red, tears streaking and marring the perfect blue of her eyes. Her lips had been swollen, sticky with tears, chin wobbling. And then, she had reached for Rio again.
Rio could still smell the fern and wet dirt, the stench of death that hung in the air. She could still hear the tiniest hitch of breath as Agatha left her hand there, shaking, suspended. The way she stiffened as Rio stepped towards her, like she wanted to run but wouldn’t. And the feel of her— so warm. So, so soft.
Fingers had skated hesitantly along skin, and Rio hadn’t been able to tell if it was Agatha that was trembling or if it was her. But she watched ice blue eyes as she touched, waiting, waiting, waiting. When nothing happened, she let herself look down. Agatha’s fingers were twitching under her touch, and Rio reached up with her other hand to steady her. Held her still in her grip as her thumbs traced the lines of her palm. She took a shaking breath, shifting them up to the vulnerable skin on the inside of her wrist. Agatha had let out the most delicious sound, tipping her head back, and Rio glanced up at her for the briefest moment — just to make sure — before pressing her thumb against her pulse point. Thrumming, into her skin. Vibrating into her very soul. Life, in her hands. Beating on.
“You’re a miracle,” Rio had breathed, almost without thinking. Except she meant it. When Agatha pulled away and muttered something about her mother, Rio had grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed their foreheads together, instantly and dangerously comfortable touching her. She had slid her hands up Agatha’s neck slowly, cupping her face and forcing her eyes up. “You are a miracle, Agatha.”
And now, here she was. Proving Rio right again.
Another small kick, and Agatha winced against a chuckle, shifting slightly. “I think he likes you.”
She turned her head to look up at Rio, and the smile tugging at the corner of her lips was the only thing that stopped the words from tumbling from Rio’s mouth on instinct.
He shouldn’t.
Instead, she managed her own smile, borderline a smirk, and pushed a curl from Agatha’s face. “How do you know it’s a boy, hm? There’s every chance there’s a little girl in there, just as powerful as you.”
“She wishes,” Agatha scoffed, rolling her eyes playfully. But then she was wincing again, and Rio helped the best she could as she rolled fully onto her back. Hands over her stomach, grown infinitely larger than when Rio had seen her last, tugging at Rio’s fingers and playing with them mindlessly.
These moments — so, so rare — were what Rio lived for. Or rather, what made her life worth living. She hadn’t thought much about her actual life aside from her work and responsibilities. Not until she had met Agatha. Because she hadn’t known much about life until she had met Agatha. Until she had heard Agatha’s laugh for the first time. Until Agatha had cooked her a meal. Until Agatha had dragged her through a small little village, cackling and dodging people and practically skipping as they headed for the field just over the hill.
Moments, between everything else. Agatha, between everything else. And now, maybe, three of them. Together.
Family.
“I’m just…” Agatha murmured, eyes staring past Rio and up into the canopy of trees. Her fingers twitched over Rio’s palm.
“Just what, my love?”
A long, steadying breath. “I’m terrified. Of having to do all of it alone.”
But of course, all good things had to come to an end.
Rio swallowed hard, rejection burning up her throat. It was a relatively new sensation, carefully crafted by Agatha’s existence. “And what if you didn’t have to do it alone...?”
Agatha visibly startled beneath her, shifting her gaze back to Rio’s face. Realization seemed to strike in the same moment. “No, no— not— I only meant…” She huffed out a breath. After all of these years, Rio still found it too endearing that she was seemingly the only person who could fluster her. “I meant the hard part.”
The hard part. Creation. Birth. Rio could do it with the snap of her fingers.
“It won’t be as difficult as you think,” Rio said softly. As if to prove her point, she grabbed Agatha’s hand, conjuring a carnation between her fingers and placing it in Agatha’s palm.
The smile she got in reward was beaming.
“Now, you tell him to come out that easily.”
“Her,” Rio corrected, pulling the flower from Agatha’s hand and balancing it atop her stomach. “And she knows not to give you any trouble, else I’m coming for her.”
Her wide smirk and raised brow made Agatha toss her head back in a full laugh, and then, before Rio knew what was happening, a warm kiss was pressed to her cheek. She flushed, despite herself.
They sat in silence for a long moment, Agatha’s fingers tracing the petals of the flower and Rio’s hand smoothing over stretch marks just blossoming. Back and forth, back and forth.
“You know,” Rio said softly, loathe to break the silence, “you’ll only have to do the first bit alone.”
Agatha nodded, shifting closer. “I know. I just wish you could be there. He’s yours, too.”
“I’ll be there for the rest of it,” Rio murmured, pressing a kiss to Agatha’s forehead. “And she will be loved more than any child could dream. And safe. I promise.”
—————— ⋆˖⁺‧ ☾ ‧⁺˖⋆ ——————
Rio skimmed her hand over the old woman’s cheek, ice and stone beneath her touch. And then, she woke.
“Come,” Rio said gently, reaching for her hand. “It’s time to go.”
The woman’s brow furrowed, then immediately rose. “No. No— My grandchildren, my daughter… I need more time.”
“You’ve had plenty,” Rio said, reaching further. “Come.”
The woman walked slowly, and Rio walked with her. Through the trees, through the woods. Through the memories that flowed like a gentle breeze around them. She had lived a full life. Rio smiled.
And then, a tug.
Rio ignored it. She wasn’t finished with this one yet. But before she had taken two more steps, it tugged again, harder this time. Rio stuttered, and the old woman stopped beside her.
“No,” Rio said softly, shaking her head. “You go ahead. Keep walking. I have something to attend to.”
She seemed to understand, wise and worldly after all of those years. Most of the older women were. There was something about aging that seemed to breed thoughts of death. Rio had never understood it— the balance was even. She walked just as many children across as she did adults.
Rio pulled out her knife, digging hard into the folds of spacetime and dragging down. She held the edge of the curtain open for the woman, prompting her through. “Keep walking. Your mother is waiting for you at the end.”
Once the woman had disappeared, she stitched the seam shut again.
The tug was burning now, and she walked quickly as she followed it. A few miles down the path, she heard it.
A woman’s cries.
They grew louder as she drew nearer, more and more frequent and rising in pitch. She was closing in through the thick of trees when the woman gasped.
Rio stopped.
A groan, a huffed breath. An anguished cry.
There was the proof that Rio had a heart— the way it seized in her chest, ice splintering through her veins and feet rooted to the ground. A hot tear dropped onto her cheek, and Rio startled, swiping it away. She stared down at her fingers, glistening in the sunlight streaming through the trees.
Moments, between the living. Moments, between the dead. Moments with Agatha, safe. Moments with—
Another cry, this one more visceral than the last. It came through gritted teeth. Rio didn’t even need to see her to know. She had sounded the exact same so many years ago, when a witch hunter had managed to strike her in the side, just under her ribs. Rio had methodically stitched her up then, careful not to touch the wound, just in case. Agatha had laughed, straightening and rolling her neck out as Rio hauled the soul up by his collar and shoved him through the door. Agatha had walked no more than twenty feet before she started panting, and Rio had picked her up easily and carried her back to their camp. Agatha kept their fingers twined together the entire night.
“Please,” Agatha ground out, voice drifting through the still woods. “You’re okay, just— please.”
Rio closed her eyes, licking her lips slowly as she listened to Agatha panting, all that way away. She reached for the tug, for the invisible string pulling her to someone else’s fate. As long as it wasn’t Agatha. As long as it wasn’t Agatha.
The child’s cries were distorted, muffled and swimming, just as everyone’s last words were. They urged her forward, and she found herself swaying up on her toes before she could stop it. She snapped her eyes open, forcing her heels back down into dirt.
No.
No.
It was the one thing she couldn’t do. Because it wasn’t Agatha, not really. Except he was. In every way that mattered, he was.
He.
She could feel it now, the life waning inside of Agatha. The stretch and pull as it tried to fight the string winding tighter between them. He was definitely male. Agatha had been right.
The child’s cries grew louder, searing in Rio’s mind. Rattling in her teeth, making acid pool in her mouth. She dug her heels harder into the soil beneath her, and the earth tilted on its axis. The trees swayed sideways, creaking against the force of gravity. The force of her. The balance of life was fighting against her.
No.
She was fighting against it.
A ringing started in her ears, morphing the child’s cries to shrieks of agony, demonic screeching as she felt reality start to shake around her.
She had to do it. If she kept fighting… it felt as if the world was coming apart at the seams. Natural order had to be maintained.
There was a certain curiosity that bloomed, under all of the pain and gripping into the present, because she had never actually done this before. It was the reason for her creation, it was the reason for her existence. She had never actually taken the time to question what would happen if she refused.
People had begged her. Of course they had. But she had never once hesitated.
Limbs snapped off of a tree, hitting the ground and shaking it with the force of the gods that came before her. A flock of birds, scattered. Agatha’s cries blending with the shrieking of the crows.
Rio set her jaw and forced herself to step closer. One foot, another. With each step, the world righted and reality settled. So she kept stepping, again and again, until she reached the small clearing at the edge of a lake. She could see Agatha now, sweaty and matted, hair sticking to her face. She was cradling her stomach, cradling the baby, legs spread wide as she crouched against a tree.
“Please,” she panted, sniffing against sobs. “Please…”
One last breath. For Rio. For him. She would gift him one more. A split second decision, and she formed an orchid in her hand. Something for Agatha. A life for a life.
She rounded the tree with her heart pounding somewhere in her throat, legs trembling as she forced herself forward. Agatha sensed her before she came into view, head whipping up and eyes wide. She looked around frantically, and Rio took the final step out into the clearing. Eyes met. The earth tilted again.
It was the first time that Agatha had ever looked at her in fear.
“No,” she choked out, hands gripped protectively across her stomach. She licked her lips, shaking her head. “No.“
“Agatha,” Rio said softly, taking another step closer. Fidgeting with the flower.
“I said no!” Agatha shouted, and Rio actually faltered.
“It has to be done,” she tried, bracing herself against the yanking deep in her stomach. He was waiting for her. He was ready.
Agatha shook her head again, more violently. “It doesn’t. Don’t do this. Please.”
“I have to—“
“Please! Let him live. My love—“ Her voice broke on the last word, sobs wracking through her. “Don’t do this. Please… I need him. I need…”
Rio’s fingers twitched around the orchid, cold petals a weak replacement for skin. The last time Agatha had cried like this, Rio had felt a heartbeat for the first time. The last time Agatha had cried like this… she had given Rio everything.
She felt the fabric of fate shifting around her before she even knew what she was doing. The flower fell from her fingers. Agatha gasped, clutching at her stomach.
“I can give you time,” Rio said, as gently as she could. Unwinding that thread. Unwinding. “Time, Agatha. But eventually… I will have to come back for him.”
Agatha’s eyes snapped up to hers, the word hanging between them. Him. Something like hope flickered over her features, and Rio couldn’t bear to watch it shatter. So she turned away.
“How much time?”
The question was desperate— a plea from a mother for her unborn child. When Rio turned back, Agatha had her eyes squeezed shut.
She couldn’t answer it. She didn’t even fully know. He would tell her when he was ready. Until then… maybe she could grant Agatha a fraction of what she had gifted her.
When Agatha opened her eyes again, Rio was lost in the thick of the woods, watching carefully between the leaves as Agatha created life right before her eyes. Her miracle, creating another miracle.
“…no spell or incantation. You… you were made from scratch.”
Rio smiled, despite everything, another hot tear falling. She didn’t catch it that time. She simply watched— watched Agatha cradle her child in her arms. Watched her lean down and press their foreheads together. Watched the way his little feet kicked against her palm.
She felt the ghost of reverberations in her own palm. A happy memory.
Maybe, if she was lucky, she would get to know him one day. Maybe, she would get to experience moments of his life firsthand, instead of through the sea of memories as she walked him safely to the other side. Maybe, in some way, they could actually be a fraction of a family.
The tug, again. String pulled taut. Rio grasped at it, yanking it free from herself with a shocked cry. She had been expecting pain, tearing at fate like that. But there was only relief. A stay of execution, filling her lungs like the first breath after drowning.
She watched the baby, curled together with his mother in the peaceful quiet of the woods, winding his life force between careful fingers. Brushing her thumb against that string in time with the rise and fall of his chest. Back and forth, back and forth. Holding him, the only way she would ever be able to.
Maybe, one day, Agatha would forgive her.
“My perfect boy,” Agatha murmured, voice shaking with tears. “What shall we call you, hm?”
The baby cooed. Agatha smiled.
The string slipped through Rio’s fingers.
“I’ll be there for the rest of it, and he will be loved more than any child could dream. And safe. I promise.”
anyway the actual point of fandom is to inspire each other. reading each other's fics and admiring each other's art and saying wow i love this and i feel something and i want to invoke this in other people, i want to write a sentence that feels like a meteor shower, i want to paint a kiss with such tenderness it makes you ache, i want to create something that someone else somewhere will see it and think oh, i need to do that too, right now. i am embracing being a corny cunt on main to say inspiring each other is one of the things humanity is best at and one of the things fandom is built for and i think that's beautiful
Did I write OuaT fanfiction? I did indeed. Am I rusty after quite a few years of not writing much fanfic at all for any fandom? I am indeed.
Enjoy, I guess...?
And Some Things You Just Can't Speak About (a.k.a The One Where Emma Gets Angsty Over a Jacket)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Emma Swan was no stranger to living small. There had been plenty of times in her life when she had survived just fine living out of one scruffy duffel, or her car, or on more than one occasion simply the clothes on her back. Hell the very first night Henry had brought her to Storybrooke, and she had opted to stay at Granny’s, had not been a problem as everything of importance she carried with her either on her person or in the compartment spaces of her yellow bug.
Despite the number of times she had been to Regina’s place before, it still surprised her just how much the other woman kept around. Not to mention how clean and tidy to a fault everything always was. Surely the whole having-magic thing helped – the only dust she probably kept anywhere in the whole house was probably some of the fairy kind. Almost every surface was polished, pristine or held some kind of knickknack that seemed to have no purpose other than looking pretty on a shelf.
Even the stairs didn’t give a telltale creak under Emma’s boots as she made her way up to the second floor. For a house that had supposedly been lived in for at least twenty-eight years – unless of course Regina had lived anywhere else in that time, but Emma figured that was incredibly unlikely – what felt like an expansive mansion to the blonde, also seemed to be missing something.
Emma had moved through enough houses, hostels, hotels and unfit homes to know all the signs of a building well-lived in and all the stories the very walls could tell. This place in all its grandeur and appearances, held history in the fact that it showed absolutely none at all.
Except, she thought with a pause as she passed an open door, for Henry’s room.
All it took was a quick glance through the gap to see the contrast. Things scattered over the bed from where he must have dressed for school that mornings, the splashes of colour on the wall, the mess over a desk where he had clearly been working hard at whatever latest theories were on his mind.
Unable to resist a pull from somewhere deep inside her chest, with a brief glance back over her shoulder toward her original destination, Emma shook her head lightly, pushed the door open further and took a step inside.
The abundance of colour was an immediate switch on the senses from the austere black and white décor downstairs. The vibrant hues of blues, and reds and rich mahogany browns of youth filled all four walls. There was still some sense of attempted organisation in the array of shelves and compartments for things, but these too were filled to overflow, with excess having spilled over into the floor as Emma had spied from the doorway. Just one look around the room and it was possible to see how much stuff was crowded in there. Anything and everything a young boy could want or wish for, more or less. She even spied a few games consoles tucked away alongside the plethora of books.
Emma was hit with an unexpected pang somewhere deep inside her core. Short, sharp, but no less surprisingly strong. If things had been different, would she have been able to give Henry all this?
She couldn’t help but wonder as she stepped by the bed, picking up a discarded jacket with some fancy designer label embroidered inside the collar that she knew she could not have afforded, regardless of career choice. The material felt thick in her fingers, the fibres woven with that sense of luxury many kids didn’t care for, but an adult would spot a mile away. Would he have been able to have any of this...? Of course if Henry had merely been content with possessions, then there would have been absolutely no reason for all of this to have ever happened as it appeared he already had everything he ever needed right here…
“Can I help you, Ms Swan?”
“Regina-“ the other woman’s voice had startled her, made her twist on the spot to see the Mayor hovering in the doorway, a sliver of a smile pulling at the corner of those red-painted lips – though Emma saw that same hint of a smile falter upon seeing the jacket in Emma’s hands.
“How long have you been standing there?” Emma asked.
“Inherited your fathers’ sense of perception I see, or lack thereof,” Regina chuckled, though her eyes remained drawn to the jacket in Emma’s hands. A beat of silence between them continued on a few moments too long to be comfortable, neither of them saying a word. Judging by the look in her eyes and recognisable subtle squaring of her shoulders, Regina had clearly expected the usual snap back from the blonde. When seconds continued to tick by and she must have realised she was not going to receive one, her fine brow finally raised as her arms folded across her chest.
“Looking for something, were we?”
“For you, actually,” Emma replied, fingers curling into the fibre of the jacket. If Regina noticed the subtle clench, she said nothing, merely tilted her head a fraction. To Emma however, that still felt like she was being assessed without words.
“We both know I like to keep an eye on my son, but I can’t say I make a habit out of hiding out in his room every other day,” Regina quipped, and for the first time in the conversation managed to pull her eyes away from the boy’s jacket to survey the rest of the room herself. Emma couldn’t help wondering if she was looking for anything out of place, even amongst the adolescent mess; no doubt Regina probably would have noticed if Emma had so much as accidentally kicked a toy from one end of the rug to the other.
For the second time, the smirk dancing slyly across those scarlet lips faltered when once again the blonde had evidently not risen to the goad of the verbal challenge. “What made you think you’d find me in here?” Regina poked just a little more.
Emma shook her head, as if shaking her thoughts free. “No, I didn’t, I…” she trailed off.
“You certainly seem to be having a way with words today,” Regina chuckled, finally stepping fully into the room and beginning to peruse various objects herself.
If Emma didn’t know any better she might have guessed the other woman was indeed inspecting each and every thing. She watched her pick up a notebook from the desk, flick through a few of the pages that Emma could see were filled margin to margin with Henry’s chicken-scratch scrawl – he had his biological mother’s knack with handwriting it seemed, although the tails of his letters had a more distinct flourish for sure. She wondered if that was because Regina had likely tried to teach him the much more elegant cursive of her own hand before… She heard Regina give a click of her tongue and mumble Henry’s name under her breath, shaking her head at a particularly untidy page; perhaps she had been thinking along the same lines. What else did she teach you…?
“Regina, I…” Emma ‘s voice tumbled out before she could stop herself, the other woman’s name falling from her lips with a softness so unexpected for both of them that Regina’s head snapped up from the book to look in Emma’s direction.
Emma wanted to ask. She wanted to know. She wanted Regina to give her some glimpses, some snapshots, some sort of mental photo album of the milestones she had missed and how the Mayor had managed them alone.
But a catch in her throat and a caustic ache in the centre of her chest stoppered the words thickly before they could fully form, let alone be said so freely. Did she want to know? Did she want to open herself up to the regret, the guilt, the burden of knowing how she had soothed each fever, comforted each cry in the night, encouraged his education to become the man Emma already saw every day in the young boy?
“Spit it out, Ms Swan, for both our sakes,” the words were sharp, but there was something else under the sting. Emma folded the jacket in her hands, over her arm, and she could have sworn she saw Regina’s brow twitch watching the imperfect action.
“Henry…” Emma began again, attempting to find a common ground for conversation to start but once again found her words caught on a soreness in her throat that had nothing to do with the time of year. The usual sharp clip of Regina’s heels seemed subdued on the carpet as she stepped closer, softened, but not silenced.
“Did you-“ Emma tried to clear her throat, to little avail. “Did you ever…”
“Take care of him? Of course I did.” Regina snapped, the defensive thorns of the dark rose pricking at Emma’s skin. A perfectly poised hand snapped forward, attempted to snatch the jacket from Emma’s unsuspecting hands. A pull, a stronger tug, Regina’s hands grappled for the jacket, but Emma’s grip neither loosened nor let go. If anything her hold held fast, refusing to relinquish the fabric.
Caught in such a physical impasse, Regina looked up, mouth open to lash out with another venomous barb no doubt. But rather than clench tighter to the hypothetical stem of the dark rose in spite so well as she did her son’s jacket, Emma flinched, surprising them both.
For a moment, just a flickering moment, Regina’s gaze appeared to soften, seeing something in the blonde’s eyes, shoulders, way she held herself, the way she held that ridiculous jacket that spoke more volumes than any book on Henry’s bookshelf.
“Of course I did,” Regina repeated, her words softer than any velvet, dark eyes softening with as much of a sheen. Doing her best to clear her throat of the thick lump that had so stubbornly caught there, Emma averted her gaze from those eyes, and laid the jacket back down on the bed with a careful touch that Regina had never seen her use with her own awful leather jackets that tended to be slung, hung or thrown over the backs of chairs. The feeling of that intense stare prickled Emma, burned through leather and cotton and skin alike right through to the turmoil underneath. She didn’t dare to look up, to look back, fearing as much what Regina might find through such a gaze.
“Right…” Emma finally managed to force out through the silence. If either of them noticed her inflection being a fraction higher than usual, they did not mention it.
Perhaps purely out of habit, as much as anything else, Regina stepped closer and brushed a stray fleck of flint from the exposed lapel of Henry’s now-folded jacket. It was a movement so precise, so practised and probably done a thousand times before to the point she must not have even thought about it as she leaned over.
Yet, Emma had to tell herself forcefully, as she felt the brush of Regina’s arm against her own, that it wasn’t as purposefully possessive as it seemed. For every scrape, every stray thread, every speck of dust caused by Emma’s careless exploits, there Regina would always be waiting to dust him off after, to clean off and care for the clothes and the kid who wore them. A fact that gave her both relief and an unrelenting ache inside in almost equal measure. As worried as Regina might have claimed to be, Emma couldn’t help wondering how much of that constant fear of losing him also obscured her from seeing how she was always there.
Smooth expensive fabric of a blazer likely only worn once or twice and the old worn leather of Emma’s own jacket that had endured a lifetime was all that separated skin to skin contact – was all, and was everything - as Regina straightened herself again, unnecessarily dusted down her already impeccable skirt as if she too needed something to do with her hands for just a moment. Emma’s own clammy palms clenched to fists at her sides, blunt nails digging into the creases of her palms, tight and taut. If she gripped hard enough, the prickling pain of her nails just might detract from the inexplicable pool of warmth that had gathered deep inside from the brush of such closeness. A warmth both impossibly familiar and completely foreign to the Sheriff as she rocked back and forth on the heels of her boots. And with such feelings came all too familiar itch, the urge to run far, far in the opposite direction of finding out what it meant…
“Care to enlighten me as to the reason for this visit, Sheriff, or shall I have to prise it out of you like a tooth?” Regina asked, with a not entirely feigned sigh.
From the cut of the jibe, Emma knew the expression on her own face was tantamount to the way one would look prior to a dental extraction. So intense had her focus been on trying to smother the tumultuous feelings tossing around inside herself, she hadn’t thought s much to school her outward emotions also. Nevertheless, she was grateful for the slightly awkward return to the expected banter after the uneasy silence had lingered for so long – too long. Seeing Regina’s eyes flicker, however briefly, to her fists still held at her sides, Emma shoved her hands into her pockets – as much to avoid the gaze, as to avoid being waylaid by any other stray objects or ruminations in the room.
“You’re needed at the Town Hall,” Emma finally croaked out, inwardly cursing the ever-so-slightly rusted aspect of her voice. Regina’s brow raised, obviously awaiting further elaboration for such a vague answer, but Emma turned on her heel, headed back toward the doorway, the sudden urge to leave, to flee from this house and all its oppressive things coiling uncomfortably inside her like a spring prepped to snap or spiral out of control with every prolonged second or step. She wasn’t surprised to hear the click of Regina’s heels behind her, but she made no move to turn back around even as Regina spoke.
“What mess has your mother made for us to clean up this time, that couldn’t have waited, that you’ve felt compelled to come to tell me in person- Emma?” Regina’s sarcastic quipping cut short just as Emma’s hand found the door handle, and Emma tried her best to ignore the voice in her head telling her to recognise that tint of concern to those last two syllables.
“Gotta get back,” Emma replied, too hastily for either of them to believe it. If she looked up from the door now, she knew she would see those dark eyes staring back, scoring deep, searching for answers in cracks and crevices that Emma always tried her damned hardest to conceal.
Before Regina could open her mouth, let alone say the words what’s the rush, Emma had pulled the door open – with perhaps a little more force than was necessary, and a breathless ‘see you there’ – and set off down the driveway at a near-impossible pace. Her fingers flexing down at her sides as though the repetitive motion could wear the memory of the coat-fabric from her fingertips, could shake away the unfathomable prickling warmth humming in her blood, and rub away the bruising half-moons setting deep into her palms, leaving Regina disconcerted, standing in the open doorway, to watch as she disappeared.
Happy Anniversary, my love ♥️💋✨ I am so blessed to have been able to share three years with you, and I cannot wait for infinitely more. I love you, I love you, I love you ♥️💋
My doe, my dear, my darling,
I love you, I love you, I love you - you're my everything, always, ad infinitum
i cannot emphasise enough how much you need to create something. anything. it doesn't matter if you suck. you don't need to monetise it, or make it your career. you can restart an old hobby; you can start from scratch. it doesn't matter. you just need to hold something and be able to say "i did that". baking, drawing, painting, writing, coding, crafts, whatever. make something ! you cannot have all your hobbies be a form of consumption. it's fun, it's great in its own right. but the single best action to make yourself feel better, to calm your mind, to gain self esteem, is to Create
something happens when you join any artform where you connect to the past in invisible string . there is a tradition behind you and the second you pick up that pen or paintbrush or guitar you are connected to the thread and THAT alone is enough. every other success is a bonus
sometimes that thread is late nights on a tour bus cross country. sometimes it is a sold old galley opening. sometimes it is a book deal. but they are just the ones that get the most attention they are far from the most important
that thread also connects to the first garage band practice, to buying a paint set on a whim, to the novel in your head that refuses to trot out. these moments connect you to your heroes and your villains. to the way of legends.
and these quiet moments are SO IMPORTANT. never believe the bumps in the road have severed your tether. buckaroo that IS THE TETHER. you are part of a beautiful tradition and that alone bends timelines. congrats bud. its great to be here with you along the string
This sounds fake but the logic behind it is actually really interesting? She said obsession with a new fandom triggers quick dopamine release when we consume all this related content--it's easy and addictive.
What we're NOT getting is that 'slow dopamine' that's more sustainable and engaging. That's the kind we get from DOING things that take effort but are ultimately rewarding.
So like, she suggested that writing fic and making fanart are ways to balance the quick dopamine of watching a show/reading fic with the slow dopamine of working at something that takes effort.
Moral of the story is you should engage in the process of creation around your favorite things. You'll feel better for it.
Fanfiction is great because I'm a greedy slut that wants it all. Nothing you could ever give me in a TV show would achieve the high I get when I've got 13 au's all on the go at once with bonus fanart on the side, like the most luxurious multiple course meal with wine pairings curated just to my taste
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