#OQHappyEndingWeek

[bonjovishipper]

Some shitty edits for #OQHappyEndingWeek cause I miss my married couple so much:'(

[somewhereapart]

See the World Hanging Upside Down (Rated M)

When Bandit OQ are trapped in a cave waiting out the Queen's patrol, they find a new way to keep warm. For OQ Happy Ending week, Day 1 (Monday)

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They’ve been holed up together for three days now, and Regina is beginning to think perhaps she’s going insane from hunger. Thirst hasn’t been an issue, thankfully – the snow that’s built up around the mouth of the cave she and Robin Hood have hidden themselves away in provides a handy (if chilly) way to wet their whistles. In the worst of the blizzard, she’d snuck over and pressed herself tightly to the wall, out of sight of the Black Guard patrolling the paths below, and crammed as much snow as she could manage into each of their wineskins.

So dehydration can’t be the cause of her addled mind. Which leaves hunger. The snow keeps them from dying of thirst, but they’ve been subsisting on a few nuts each per day to ration out the sparse handful Robin just happened to have in his pocket when they’d gotten tangled up in each other’s attempts at the same heist (his fault they’d gotten caught; his fault entirely). Her stomach is hollow and growling, and she’s beginning to wonder if maybe she’d be better off just having more of the nuts in one go, once a day. It’s not as if she’s never gone a day on a single meal—she’s done that plenty.

She’s also gone longer than this without food, but acknowledging that right now pokes a hole in her the-hunger-made-me-do-it theory, so acknowledge it she will not.

It has to be the hunger, because why else would she find this arrogant, irritating man so convincing.

He’s a pain in her ass, a thorn in her side, and the last few nights, a surprisingly warm bedfellow. She’d protested it at first—sleeping together like they’ve been—but he’d won her over with logic: it’s simply far too cold on this blustery hilltop not to.

The cave walls protect them from the harsher slaps of wind, but it’s still drafty and frigid. A fire’s smoke would give away their hidey hole, so they can’t do anything for warmth but spend their days and nights curled together beneath his cloak, sharing the warmth of their collective leathers and furs.

Tonight, it’s particularly bitter, and he’s just suggested something ludicrous and… tempting.

“I promise, milady, my intentions are entirely honorable,” Robin tells her, and Regina scoffs and rolls her eyes, but it lacks her usual heat (she blames the pervasive cold).

“I’m not a lady,” she reminds him. “And I’m not going to be tricked into taking my shirt off for you.”

“Not your shirt,” he insists, “just your furs. I’ll put my leather beneath us, we’ll drape your furs over us beneath the cloak. We’ll stay warmer if we can share our body heat more directly.”

She lifts one brow, a low howl of wind making its way into the cave and chasing a shiver through her as she asks, “Does this line usually work on the girls you court?”

“I assure you, I haven’t courted anyone in quite some time, and never by spending several days and nights starving to death in a cave with her,” he retorts, just enough moon reflecting off the snow-covered ground outside and into their little seclusion for her to make out his smirk.

She rolls her eyes, and then the wind blows again, raising goosebumps on her arms; Regina bites her lip and considers.

It wouldn’t be so bad, really. They’d both keep their shirts on, two thin layers of linen between them for modesty, and it’s dark enough in here that she supposes he won’t be able to make out the dark peaks of her nipples beneath her threadbare shirt. She can insist he allow her modesty when the sun is up again, and charming jerk that he is, he’ll probably even respect her wishes.

So Regina relents and sits up more fully from where they’ve been huddled against the cave wall together, her chilly fingers reaching for the fastenings of her vest. Robin Hood does the same, sitting up and untying the leather around his torso, shrugging out of it and spreading it over the stone floor beside them. The moment Regina slips out of her furs, the cold worms in deeper, tightening her nipples to icy points and raising gooseflesh all along her skin.

She shivers as she watches Robin lay down, his torso over the upturned leather (it’s fur-lined, too, she notices, though not nearly as thick as her own). He urges, “Hand me that,” and she reluctantly passes over her fur vest before she lays herself down alongside him, her back to his front. He arranges her vest atop them, and his cloak over that, then burrows down beneath them both and wraps his arms around her middle the way he has the last two nights.

His hands are icy, one settling high on her belly and making her hiss. But the fur above and beneath them is more welcoming than the bare stone had been the two nights prior (not that she’ll ever admit that to him), and it doesn’t take long before she can feel the heat of his body soaking through to her back.

He’d been right. This is warmer.

Her legs are still chilly, even though she presses them snugly against his, her rear nestling tightly into the cradle of his hips and thighs. But her middle is growing warmer by the minute, and it’s not long before she finds herself dozing comfortably, his breath warm against her hair, his chest warm against her back.

.::.

She wakes some time later and isn’t sure why. The night has gone quiet and still, the wind abated, although it’s still dreadfully cold. She’s glad for the extra body heat, sighing softly, shifting just a little, and shutting her eyes again in the hope of sleep.

It’s that sigh and shift that have her realizing what woke her.

There’s a hand cupping her breast and a very telling protuberance making itself known against her backside.

Well then.

She feels herself flush, growing even warmer in their little cocoon, and tries to decide what to do. She should get angry. Should yell and protest, elbow him in the ribs and put as much distance between them as possible.

But she’s cold and clearly delirious with hunger, and his hand has warmed beneath their covers. It feels… nice, to be honest. He’s not demanding anything of her—in fact, she’s fairly certain he’s still asleep. His fingers have simply moulded themselves comfortably around the small curve beneath thin linen and come to rest. She’s heard tell that men have no control over their cocks when they’re sleeping, so his erection is probably a perfectly reasonable reaction to a midnight boob grab. A biological imperative. It would be unkind to judge him for what he does in his sleep, wouldn’t it?

His thumb moves then, rubs over and back across her nipple, igniting a little spark of pleasure like flint on rock. He doesn’t move again, and it fizzles out.

But she’s wide awake now, and hunger-addled of course, which is the only reason that she gives her rear end a little wiggle against his erection.

Robin sighs deeply; his thumb moves again.

Regina bites her lip.

She should not do this. She should eat more nuts. She should… she should fall back asleep is what she should do, and never speak of this again.

Instead, she sighs deeply, her breast filling his palm more fully, her back arching slightly as she does. Robin shifts behind her ever so slightly, his cock grinding into her rear, his fingers pulsing against her breast, his lips smacking quietly before he settles again.

She should not want him to wake. She shouldn’t. When he wakes, this will all end and she likes this. Robin is not the only one who hasn’t been courted lately, and it’s certainly the hunger speaking, but the prospect of being touched in a way that isn’t for protection, a meal, or a roof over her head is oddly alluring.

She wonders what it would be like to lie with a man simply because she wants to, not because she needs something.

She wonders what it would be like to lie with Robin Hood.

She wiggles again.

He wakes this time—she can tell the instant he does, because he goes stiff behind her, lets out this quiet noise like a little grunt or a subtle clearing of throat, and then his hand starts to slide away from her breast.

Regina steals up the courage to whisper into the dark, “It’s alright where it was.”

“Mm?” he hums, and she licks her lips and swallows nervously.

“Your hand,” she breathes. “You can... leave it if you like.”

It sinks back more fully against her, cups her lightly once again, but Robin still asks, “‘M I ‘wake?”

Regina snorts quietly and asks, “Do you often dream of groping me?”

He swallows and rasps, “Yes, actually,” throwing her for a loop.

Regina lets out a tiny “oh.” He may be irritatingly handsome, but she’s… just herself. She’s never imagined herself for the kind of woman that men dream of touching. That she might be to Robin Hood has her feeling quite… silly. And also rather… warm. And appreciative.

It must also have her feeling rather bold, because she clears her throat softly and whispers into the dark, “How so?”

“Hmm?”

God, he’s obtuse.

And she’s not that bold, it turns out because her cheeks are flushing, and she’s murmuring, “Nevermind,” but his hand doesn’t leave her breast. Instead she feels it twitch slightly and then shift, his fingers spreading a little and then closing again, a tender, tentative knead that has her lips parting, her tongue creeping out to dampen them.

She doesn’t protest, but doesn’t encourage.

Until he does it again a nearly full minute later.

Then she breathes in deeply, and presses her hips back against his again, murmuring quietly, “It’s important that we stay warm…”

Robin’s chest shakes softly against her back, his breath warm in her hair as he murmurs, “So it is. Does that mean you wish me not to stop?”

“It’s nice to be touched…”

“Are you awake, milady?” he teases, and her cheeks flush with embarrassment.

“Very much so. Your hard-on prodded me from my nap.”

“Sorry,” he murmurs, pulling his hips back a little and simultaneously pressing his lips to her shoulder for a brief kiss. It’s the kiss more than the cold that makes her shiver, she thinks, but she chases his hips with hers and murmurs something about him robbing her of much needed warmth.

Robin molds himself to her again, his arm tightening to pull her more snugly against him.

“I thought it bothered you.”

“No... Just woke me. And led my mind down a scandalous garden path.”

Robin snickers at that and tightens his hold on her, grinds his stiff cock more soundly against her backside and teases, “Oh, did it?”

“Mm. It’s been some time since I’ve been with a man. Even longer since it was for desire and not... lodging, or to barter freedom from capture, or a hot meal when I didn’t have the coin.”

He’s quiet for a moment and then says, “You shouldn’t have to trade your body for those things.”

“It’s alright.”

“Stay with my men. The Queen’s guards have surely found your log anyway—“

“No thanks to you,” she points out, but he only keeps speaking.

“And you’ll have protection and a tent over your head. Food in your belly.”

“And somewhere for you and your men to stick your cocks in from time to time?” she wonders with an accusing air. In her experience, lodging with men never comes entirely free.

“I just told you that’s not a fair trade, not in my mind. And my men are good, decent fellows. They’ll not bother you.”

“I work alone.”

“But you needn’t. Join my company. I’d like to get to know you better.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“Regina, I’ve spent nearly three days now stuck in this hole with you, and it’s the best time I’ve had in weeks. I quite like you, you know.”

He’s not as stiff as he once was, his cock’s gone half-soft while they’ve been talking. So she presses against him again and teases, “Only when you’re asleep, it seems.”

Robin chuckles, gives her breast a squeeze and says, “I assure you that’s not the case, milady.”

She turns then, rolls onto her back and tilts her face toward his in the dark. “Can I consider your offer?”

“I wish you would,” he tells her warmly, and he’s closer now, somehow, his breath washing her cheek as he speaks.

She screws up the courage to ask, “Will you lie with me tonight? While I mull it over?”

She doesn’t expect his sigh of regret. “I think it’s rather too cold to remove our breeches. But…”

His hand moves southward, leaving her breast and coasting down her belly until it tucks itself boldly between her thighs and gives a firm rub that sparks everything inside her to flame. She gasps softly and feels his lips hovering against hers; she closes her mouth in a kiss as he gives another slow, intimate rub.

“I think,” he murmurs before another soft kiss, “that we could find a way to keep our warmth and satisfy our desires. If it would please milady.”

“It would, very much,” she gasps, already panting lightly in anticipation.

His mouth is on her again in an instant.

They kiss and kiss, and it’s heady and thrilling. Almost better than the way he touches her, because touch she’s had, but these desirous kisses are something new. Breeches don’t come off, but they do fall open, their laces falling prey to anxious fumbling fingers until they’re both touching intimately. He’s found a warm, damp place to tuck his away, making her gasp and sigh as her own hands wrap around the thick length of him.

She’s had men his size before and not enjoyed it, but with the spot he’s just found and the way it makes her legs go jelly-like with pleasure, she thinks she might enjoy Robin Hood. She’s never been so slick and hot, so dizzyingly distracted by pleasure.

She blames the hunger, right up until the moment he delves deeper and a finger dips inside her and crooks just so. Her own fall slack around him as she strangles an eager moan, her jaw dropping.

He keeps it up, one finger hooked perfectly, his palm against her, stirring her to bliss, and soon her legs are quaking, her breath labored, her hand working him only absently as she feels the pressure build and build between her thighs.

She gasps his name into the dark, and he lets loose a low groan and then a whispered, “Gods above, I want you so desperately.”

That makes two of them, and she’s plenty warm now, so she does a foolish thing and reaches down. Pushes his hand away, out, and rolls until her back is to him again before wriggling her breeches down to her thighs and inviting, “Then have me. Please.”

He asks if she’s certain, and she wants to laugh. She’s never been more certain.

His chivalrous hesitation is short lived, though, and soon enough she feels his seeking cock. She reaches down to help guide him home, and it turns out she’s right—when he presses into her, filling her up, she feels nothing but a deep, throbbing pleasure.

His first few thrusts are slow and cautious, his breath heavy in her hair, but then he picks up pace, faster, faster, until both of them are muffling themselves to keep from crying out as their hips collide again and again.

It wouldn’t do to give themselves away and die before they can finish.

Not when it feels this good, and not when his hand has found her breast again, his fingers plucking, squeezing, rolling in a way that makes her turn and bite against the arm he has tucked beneath her head.

It’s enough, all she needs, and in a moment she’s crying out into his forearm as everything inside her seizes blissfully. He moans into her hair and fucks her harder, deeper, better for a few firm thrusts and then he’s gone from her.

He pulls out of her with a groan and half turns away, and she feels suddenly bereft and lonely and a bit confused—until she hears his groan of completion a second later and realizes he’d only been being considerate.

She smirks a little at the sound and the heavy panting that follows, reaching down and tugging her breeches back up, but not bothering yet with the laces. Instead she rolls and curls tentatively against his chest, flushing with a warmth born of something other than physical pleasure when he scoops an arm around her shoulder and holds her close against him, his free arm adjusting their furs and cape to cocoon them once again.

They don’t speak, and she thinks she likes that, because it’s always awkward after. She’s perfectly fine with the silence of the night and the whoosh of their labored breathing as it settles and his soft kisses around her hairline.

She can still feel the echoes of pleasure in her bones when she slips into slumber.

.::.

She wakes wondering if it had been a dream, Robin curled around her back again—a shift she has no recollection of. But his hand is cupping her breast again, his thumb rubbing idly back and force across it, his fingers kneading her lazily, and when she sighs and opens her eyes, he greets her with a raspy, “Good morning, lovely.”

Regina smiles. Definitely not a dream.

She murmurs a good morning of her own and sighs, eyes dropping shut as she enjoys his touch.

“You know…” he speaks softly, cups one breast and then the other in turn, “I think I neglected these in our haste last night.”

“A terrible oversight,” she snickers. “One you’ll have to rectify when we return to your camp.”

He stills, his voice full of hope as he says, “You’ll come, then?”

Regina turns, takes in his features in the soft light of morning, and nods. “I’m tired of being hungry and alone…”

Her arm winds around his middle, their legs tangle, and she adds, “And I’d like to get to know you too, Robin Hood.”

They lose themselves then, in kisses and soft touches, and neither ever finds themselves lonely again.

[ourheroregina]

OQ Happy Ending Week - Day 7

Day 7 - Canon OQ Happy Ending

(...)

“Where are we going?” Regina asks, curiously turning to look from one Henry to another.

Both of her boys shrug at her question mysteriously but grin to each other, making Regina arch her eyebrow at them – they are obviously up to something again.

They’ve been celebrating her coronation as the Good Queen when all of a sudden her younger son came to her and insisted that she has to go with him. Confused, Regina excused herself and followed her son. Soon, the older Henry joined them and they led her towards the hall where a few hours ago she was crowned.

Sighing, Regina shakes her head to herself and doesn’t ask any more questions, figures they will not tell her anything anyway.

Their walk is quick and when they finally reach the hall, younger Henry lets go of her hand and pushes the heavy door open while the older one walks her inside.

Regina’s eyes widen in surprise when she sees a few people standing there. Archie is standing in the middle of the podium where a few hours ago the Charmings crowned her, smiling at her warmly. Robyn is standing on the left side of it, holding Alice’s hand tightly, a huge smile on her face.

“What is happening?” Regina asks quietly, looking around the hall. “Queenie?” she asks in surprise when she notices her past evil half standing there too with Wish Robin by her side, a smile on her face matching her niece’s.

Even Robin is not grumpy in Regina’s presence.

“Henry, what is going on?” she asks again, this time more firmly, when she sees Snow White wiping the corners of her eyes as she gives Regina a watery smile, all the while holding David’s hand as tightly as possible.

She stops walking and stares at all of them, trying to understand what is happening. The Queen and Robin didn’t turn up to her coronation (they are still in their honeymoon phase, even after a decade of marriage) but they are here now and so are the people who already congratulated her.

Anxiously, Regina tightens her hand around Henry’s. Something is off.

“Regina.”

An unknown voice calls her name and she turns her head to the side immediately. A young man walks into the hall from the other entrance and makes his way towards her.

Regina feels her legs shaking underneath her.

Her jaw drops open in shock as she takes the man in – his brown messy curls, big dark brown eyes and deep dimples in his cheeks.

“Roland!” She whispers, not believing her own eyes.

When she united all of the realms, she tried to find Roland, however, she was unsuccessful -  she couldn’t find Merry Men, Roland or Queen and Robin, they all were gone somehow. But now all of them are here (she notices Little John, Friar Tuck and Will standing on the right side of the podium), grinning at her as if they were children on Christmas’ morning.

Roland doesn’t waste time, he walks up to Regina and pulls her into a tight hug. Tears of happiness immediately collect in her eyes, and she only wraps her arms tighter around the boy that is now much taller than she is.

She holds him for what feels like forever but when he pulls away, her heart aches at the loss of contact. She might not be his mother but she’s loved him as her own from the day she saved him from that winged-freak. During years after Robin’s death, she’s spent so much time thinking about the boy. She has never forgiven herself for letting him go so easily.

She blinks her tears away and smiles at him, he’s such a handsome young man.

Roland returns a smile and takes a step to the side.

Regina’s heart stops beating, her eyes turn wide when she sees who is standing in front of the podium.

Her whole body tenses when the figure says ‘milady’ and she thinks that her mind is playing some sort of cruel game on her. It must be Queenie’s Robin who’s just said that, and Robin standing in front of her must be an illusion, there’s no other rational explanation to this.

Exhaling shakily, Regina blinks her eyes repeatedly, trying to make the figure go away.

But it doesn’t fade.

Regina’s mouth opens in surprise for the second time as Robin, her Robin takes a step closer to her.  He’s dressed in his clothes from Enchanted Forest and when he approaches her, she cannot help but inhale deeply – whoever this person is, he smells like forest, just like Robin did.

“Your Majesty,” he says and bows in front of her, a smirk on his face.

“Robin?” Regina asks, her lower lip trembling, eyes full of tears. Not knowing what to do, she pinches herself and hisses at the pain – she’s not sleeping. “I don’t understand,” she manages to say, looking from Robin to Henry, shaking her head.

“I’ve missed you,” Robin tells her as he reaches for her and Regina falls into his arms, no longer holding back her tears. Her arms wrap tightly around him and his do the same, pulling her as close to him as possible.

His arms are strong and secure around her, and she doesn’t know if it is actually happening or is someone playing with her mind but it feels so real. Her emotions are in overdrive, it takes everything in her not to sob.

“Are you alive?” she asks stupidly as they part, staring straight into his deep blue eyes, eyes she was born to gaze into.

“I am, milady,” he tells her, smiling warmly at her. There are tears in his own eyes too and his arms only tighten around her as he pulls her to his chest again.

“But… how?”

“Your other half brought me back,” he replies, and Regina can feel his chest vibrating under her ear, she can hear his heart beating rapidly.

He’s actually alive.

“Well, I had some help,” the Queen says, glancing at the Merry Men and Roland. “We’ve been on quite a journey until we found him.”

“What?” Regina asks as she pulls away from Robin and turns to look to the Queen. “Is it some kind of joke? Is it actually happening?”

Still in shock she turns back to Robin who wipes a few stray tears from her cheeks and says, “We’re here now. And this is true.”

And then his lips are on hers.

Her heart threatens to jump out of her chest as they break apart and she blinks her eyes again and again until her vision clears.

“Come,” Robin says suddenly, biting his lip.

Still confused and shocked by what just happened Regina follows him wordlessly. They walk to the podium and when they are standing in front of Archie, Robin turns to look back at Regina.

“Regina Mills, I loved you from the day I met you. We’ve been through so much, but not even death can tear us apart. And now when we are together, I don’t want to waste another moment of our lives. So I’m asking you, will you marry me?” His voice is shaking as are his hands and this time a tear rolls down Robin’s cheek as well.

“Of course,” Regina whispers as she cups her face and pulls him into another kiss, still not sure if it is actually happening.

“Let’s start then,” Archie says when Robin and Regina pull apart, and they both smile goofily at one other before trying to focus on what cricket is saying.

Everything happens in a blur. Before she knows it, they are pronounced husband and wife and Robin is leaning over to kiss her again, and the people in the hall are applauding them.

And as Regina wraps her arms around her now husband’s neck and kisses him back, she realizes that she’ll have a lot of things to figure out.

But none of this matters now because finally, after heartache that lasted for decades, she’s with the love of her life.

Robin Hood might not be her happy ending but without him, happiness just wasn’t real happiness.

Now she finally has everything she’s ever wanted.

(...)

Thank you to everyone who read, reblogged and liked my entries for this week! I hope you liked it!!

[thisisamadhouse]

Keep your memories in a bottle 1/7

A/N: For the OQ Happy Ending Week Day 1. Unbetaed, all mistakes are mine.

AO3 & FF link

Chapter 1

In retrospect, Regina probably should have been more careful with her coronation gifts. She might have been embraced by the people who had once feared hearing her very name, but she knew that there were still a few individuals who had no lost love for her. The bottle of wine had seemed so appealing though, after a long day of niceties and celebrations, that she couldn't resist opening it to enjoy a glass, as she settled comfortably in her armchair on the balcony, relishing in the calm and quiet of the night.

She could feel that something was not quite right just a few moments later, the dizziness so sudden and overpowering that it left little doubt in her mind as to its origin. She tried to get up but she had no balance, and she sent her glass crashing to the floor as she seized both armrests to sit back down, the remaining wine seeping on the stones to form a dark red puddle.

She had to close her eyes, the vertigo too intense to keep them open, and then she lost consciousness.

Regina blinked her eyes open, frowning in confusion, wondering why she was lying on the ground, until the recent events rushed back to her memory: Henry, the boy who had claimed to be her son, and his other mother convincing her to stop Robin Hood's wedding to right their stories -whatever that meant-, their fight with the Ogre Slayer, and putting herself in his way to save the boy, the deadly wound to her stomach and Robin holding onto her hand as she felt her life slipping away…

Robin, who was still looking down at her, smiled through his tears, as he noticed that she was awake. Regina raised her free hand in front of her face, finding it clean of any trace of blood, the unbearable pain from before gone.

"What happened?" She asked him, as he helped her up from the ground, after having checked her over.

"I'm not sure," he replied, keeping her close, even as she seemed to be able to stand on her two feet, though Regina found that she didn't mind. "The young boy used some of your blood to rewrite the story, he called you a hero, a saviour even, and when he was done there was a flash of light, and he, the blonde woman, and that distasteful man disappeared, then your wounds healed. I can't tell you how relieved I was about that part."

She smiled fondly at his heartfelt sincerity, she had not been shown much gratuitous kindness in her life, but with Robin there was no question that it was natural and lacking any kind of ulterior motive.

His eyes clouded over for a moment, and he looked away, still keeping her hands in his warm grip. "I saw you at the church's entrance, as we were saying our vows. I thought that you were going to enter and stop me, but when you didn't…" He trailed off, unable to say the words.

Regina swallowed the lump forming in her throat, and she let go of his hold to cradle his cheeks and catch his gaze.

"I wanted to, I really did, but that boy needed me, I had to save him," she replied.

"I know that now, and given how much I was hoping you would speak up, I should have never gone through with this wedding. Maybe… Maybe, we should try again," Robin offered, and Regina's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"You want me to actually stop your wedding?" She wondered, making him chuckle.

"My bride seems to have run away, so I don't think it could be possible. What I meant was that I would like to make this right."

'Is this your idea of a proposal? Because I find it seriously lacking."

"I shall do this properly then," Robin said, putting one knee on the ground.

"You are actually considering it?" Regina interrupted him. "Are you sure this is what you want? We barely know each other."

"And yet, from the moment I met you, I have thought of little else but you," Robin admitted. "I know that your life has been far from easy, the loneliness, the fear, the hardships. It would be my honor to show you that there is more out there."

Regina tugged him to his feet, shaking her head. "You're insane, Robin Hood."

"Is that a 'Yes'?" He asked, grinning from ear to ear.

She rolled her eyes. "I guess I could do worse," she answered, threading her fingers through the hair at the back of his head to bring him down to her level, and kissed him for the first time.

Regina could still feel the taste of Robin's lips as she regained consciousness, back in her chambers in the reunited Realms. The hallucination, vivid dream, or whatever this was supposed to be, was certainly intended to hurt her, but Regina could never resent any incarnation of Robin she was able to meet, and she just added this memory to the others, reflection of a too short time spent with her soulmate.

She went back inside and considered the bottle of wine, entertaining the thought of throwing it away for only a second before corking it and putting it away.

[gray-autumn-sky]

One Day - Bandit OQ, Happy Ending Week Day 1 (Monday)

When Regina has a near encounter with Leopold, Robin is compelled to share his feelings for her.

The fire pit at the center of the camp crackles and pops as she sinks down onto a log in front of it, breathing in the smoky smell and doing her best to enjoy the warmth it brings as she reminds herself of why she joined Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, reminding herself that what happened that afternoon was just a fluke.

Since joining them, she wasn’t often alone--something that proved to be both a blessing and a curse--and that afternoon, they’d gone out on a hunt. Winter was coming and they needed to stock up and prepare to hunker down for the winter. She’d spent her morning collecting berries to boil into jams and though they’d asked if she wanted to tag along, she was already elbow deep in a pot of wild blueberries. She told them she wanted to finish what she started, and truthfully, she was glad for a little time to herself.

As the jam cooked over the open fire, she’d collected more wood to help smoke whatever fish and meat the men returned with, and she put it in a heap next to the smokehouse. When the pot of blueberry jam was cooked, she moved onto the next of raspberries, letting the first cool off to the side of the fire as she mended her coat and socks, and by the time second pot was through, she’d already poured the first into jars.

She’d looked around a bit aimlessly. She’d gotten used to the hustle and bustle of the camp, and she’d gotten used to the company. It felt strange being on her own--and then, a little grin edged onto her lips as an idea bubbled up inside of her.

It wasn’t long before she was at the riverbank, stripped down to nothing as she floated in the cool water. There wasn’t much that she missed about her former life, but she missed the chance to have regular baths. When she was a little girl her nanny bought her scented soaps and would brush her hair for hours after her baths, and in that time, her worries seemed to just float away…

And that’s when she heard the trumpets.

Her heart nearly stopped as she hurried behind a fallen branch, doing her best to stay silent and afloat as the king’s carriage rounded a bend--and though she didn’t believe in a higher power, she found herself praying to any and all that might take pity on her.

But they hadn’t, and the carriage came to a stop along the river.

She tensed as as King Leopold got out. He and another man led the horses to the edge of the river to drink, and she shed her breath as he took a few steps toward her. She sank lower until her shoulders were submerged and tears of worry burned in her eyes as she thought about what would happen if he found her--and then, a twig snapped in the grass behind her.

She whirled around, sending ripples through the water, certain she’d been caught.

But when she turned, she wasn’t facing the king. Instead, Robin was standing at the edge of the bank with his hand outstretched to her. She hesitated for a moment, suddenly very aware of her nakedness, biting down on her lip as her eyes shifted to her clothes on a rock that was dangerously close to the king’s carriage.

Rolling his eyes Robin pulled a blanket from his satchel, looking up momentarily before opening it to her and closing his eyes. Still, she hesitated, but as she heard Leopold laugh out at something his man had said, her heart nearly jumped out of her chest and propelled her out of the water and into the open blanket. Robin wrapped it around her, his arms going with the blanket as he whispered a low I’ve got you in her ear. He offered a wink as he released her, then took her by the hand--and just like that, they disappeared before Leopold could even notice the ripples as they extended to toward him...

“I didn't think anyone would be up,” Robin says as he comes out from his tent, a blanket around his shoulders.

“Oh,” she murmurs, watching him carefully. “I couldn’t sleep.”

He nods. “Same,” he admits as he sits down on the log beside her and holds his hands out over the fire. “I can’t seem to get comfortable.”

“It is chilly.”

He nods. “That’s not it.”

“No?” she asks, swallowing hard as she looks to him, watching as his eyes shift to meet hers.

“You need to--”

“Don’t lecture me,” she cuts in. “I survived quite a while on my own and--” she stops, looking away. She shouldn’t do this. She shouldn’t snap at him. None of what happened was his fault, and if anything, he’d prevented something terrible from happening to her. “Sorry.”

A little grin tugs onto her lips. “Don’t worry about it.” Sighing, she nods and focuses her attention back on the fire. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Without looking at him, she shakes her head. “No,” she lies.

“Regina--”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine. We won’t talk.”

She expects him to leave, but he doesn’t. He just sits there beside her, staring into the fire, watching the flames flicker.

“You’re… not going to go back to bed?”

“No.”

“But--”

“Are you?”

She blinks. “I can’t sleep,” she admits.

“But you don’t want to talk about it.”

She does--and that scares her.

She didn’t have a reason not to trust him, but no matter what he did or said, no matter how kind he was, she couldn’t stifle the little voice in her head that told her to be leery of him. She accepted his kindness, though, and when he’d offered her an invitation to join his band of Merry Men, she’d accepted that, too--but her motives had been self-serving, and still, she kept him at an arm’s length.

Life had taught her that’s what she needed to do to survive and she knew that she was safer in a group than out on her own. The Merry Men welcomed her easily into the group, and sometimes, she found herself wanting to let her guard down--especially where Robin Hood was concerned. But she’d been burned before--burned by those she’d least expected--and each time it happened, it hurt a little more, and regardless of whatever kindness Robin or any of his men extended to her, no matter how many times they told her she was part of their family, she had to protect herself.

Little by little though, that had been getting harder, especially where Robin was concerned. She found herself feeling things she’d long forgotten she could feel and wanting him in ways she’d never wanted another person. He made her smile and laugh; he made her feel safe.

“Why did you get up?”

His brow arches. “I saw you sitting here all alone and…”

“You thought I’d let myself get kidnapped?”

“No,” he’s quick to say. “I just thought you might like the company,” he tells her, shrugging. “Besides, like I said, I couldn’t sleep.”

Chewing at her lip, she hesitates. “W-why not?”

“Because I keep thinking about what might’ve happened had I not heard those trumpets.”

“Oh--”

“And I might’ve lost you.”

At that, she scoffs. “I don’t see how that would affect--”

“I could have lost you without ever getting the chance to tell you how I feel.”

Her lips part and her heart beats a bit faster as a shy little grin edges onto his lips. “What?”

“It’s… not really a secret.”

“Robin--”

“You know that I care about you.”

She nods. “For reasons neither of us can explain.”

“I can,” he admits as he looks back to her. “It’s really not that difficult.”

“No?”

“No,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “In fact, it's quite simple.” She draws in a shaky breath as a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “I’m in love with you.”

“Y-you are?”

He nods. “And I know that you’re...not quite there,” he tells, his voice cautious, her as her eyes widen. “But I’m hoping that one day, you… you might be.”

Her mouth is dry and her heart is racing--and despite that little voice in the back of her head that’s telling her all the ways that this could go wrong, she finds her cheeks flushing as a smile spread across her lips. A little laugh escapes her as she bites down on her lip as their eyes meet. She wants to tell him that’s she’s not as far off as he thinks she is, that she thinks she might love him too, but she can’t quite find the words--so, instead, she pushes herself forward and kisses him, giggling softly against his mouth.

She can tell that he didn’t quite expect her to kiss him, but it doesn't take him long to settle into the kiss. His hand pushes into to her hair as his tongue parts her lips, gently swirling around hers as he breathes her in, filling her with a warmth she hasn’t quite felt before, a warmth that comes with a sense of belonging, a sense of acceptance and what she’s always imagined home might feel like--and when he pulls back, his breath ragged and his smile bright, her walls she’s spent years building up around herself beginning to crumble.

[brookeap3]

Awakening (Whiskey Neat Verse)

Day 5 of #OQHappyEndingWeek Cursed OQ. Possibe Happy Ending for Roni and Grant set in my Whiskey Neat verse.

-:-

The irony is not lost on her. That they’ve been trapped here in this cursed land for months, both together and unwittingly. That they’ve spent the majority of those months fighting and flirting and falling in love all over again.

But then what else would they do?

Roni and Grant.

Regina and Robin.

It seems it doesn’t matter what persona they partake in. They’ve proven time and time again that they will find each other in every realm, in any time or place, no matter the circumstances. Hyperion Heights is no different.

He’s sitting on a stool across the bar top (in his usual spot and supporting his favored whiskey on top of it) when the curse breaks. A sweeping sensation of awakening that they are all too accustomed to at this point, and then she watches as Grant Hawthorne’s irritatingly charming grin morphs into Robin’s characteristic smirk.

“Well, hello, milady.” He greets and Regina can’t help but chuckle, her laugher bubbling up and ringing through the bar as she shakes her head at him.

She wastes no time in reaching out a hand to grip him by the collar of his fancy dress shirt, the top few buttons undone now as he relaxes after yet another day at the mercy of Victoria Belfrey, to pull him up over the bar to lay her lips on his in a passionate kiss.

It’s not the first time their lips have touched in this place, unable to resist each other even under the curse, but as Robin angles his head, mouth slanting over hers and lips heating as they press together, tongues darting out to taste each other, Regina can’t help but think it feels like coming home.

[believingispowerfulmagic]

My first entry for OQ Happy Ending Week. Day 1: Bandit Outlaw

Regina escapes Snow and Mist Haven but finds that someone has followed her as she makes her new start. 

Also read on FFnet or Wattpad

[outlawqueenmanips]

Friday. Cursed Happy Ending Robin comes to Storybrooke with the first curse and becomes Regina's right-hand man 🌲👑 For #OQHappyEndingWeek on twitter

[somewhereapart]

All That Was Good, All That Was Fair (Rated M)

Vegas-verse. Every Friday night, Robin and Regina veg out on the couch and binge-watch a TV show. A month into their marriage, onscreen chemistry ignites a passion they can't help but indulge.

Click here to read/review on Ao3.

Friday rush hour traffic is one of Regina’s least favorite things, extending the drive from Santa Monica to Pasadena into something truly intolerable. So she avoids it, most weeks. She stays late at her office, or she treats herself to a post-work dinner or a little shopping spree at Santa Monica Place. She arrives in time for Roland’s bedtime, but not much earlier.

Even so, she’s grown pretty fond of Friday nights over the last month.

If she hasn’t eaten, Robin has dinner waiting for her when she arrives, and if she has, he usually has a bottle of red breathing on the countertop. She tosses her purse in her room, shrugs out of her heels and peels off her work clothes, then washes her face, swaps her contacts for the purple-framed glasses she’s taken to leaving at his place lately, and changes into something more comfortable. Not pajamas, not yet, but leggings and a long t-shirt, or soft cotton lounge pants and a tank.

She’s still a novelty to Roland, so he usually insists on at least one story from her, snuggled up together in his little bed. She’d been worried about this, at first—about getting a little boy to lie for them consistently (especially once they’d settled on their current living arrangement), but also about whether they’d connect. Whether her maternal urges would translate into actual maternal affection and action.

She needn’t have worried. Having that little boy cuddled up against her, giggling at the story she’s reading about a barn cat and her wily kittens, Regina feels her heart expand and swell until it feels like it might just crack.

Usually, she passes him off to his father after story number one, or at the very least story number two, and then she takes the rest of bedtime to relax. Sometimes she showers, sometimes she just liberates a glass of that wine and savors it slowly while she waits for him on the sofa.

And then they veg out.

They’ve been watching their way through Outlander, something that absolutely cannot be on the TV while Roland is awake. Too much violence—even Regina had had a hard time stomaching the last episode, her heart starting to race with telltale panic when the male lead had begun to be subjected to a gory, violent whipping from an English military captain. She’d had Robin mute it and had rolled from her side to her back, tipping her glasses up toward her hairline to take momentary advantage of her terrible eyesight. She’d intended to keep her blurry gaze trained on the ceiling and take slow breaths until both the scene and her anxiety had passed. Instead, she’d mostly ended up squinting at Robin to make out the way he grimaced his way through it, his hand resting on her ankle, thumb rubbing absently back and forth.

As he’d punched the mute button back into life, he’d muttered, “That was fucked up; you had the right idea,” and given her a half smile. “Sometimes being blind as a bat has its advantages.”

Regina had given him a little shove with her toes as she tipped her glasses back down and turned her attention back toward the screen.

She’d been grateful that he hadn’t made a big deal about her reaction, but then, he never does. Even later, when the same sadistic bastard had winded their heroine with a sudden brutal gut punch, catching both Claire and Regina entirely off guard. She’d let out an embarrassing yelp, slamming her eyes shut against the memories of steely hands on her arms, of her back colliding with the edge of a door jamb, of nursing a swollen lip as she “worked from home.”

As she’d cursed Leo for interrupting what should have been a perfectly enjoyable Friday night, she’d felt Robin shift swiftly and then the sound cut out again.

“It’s off,” he’d assured her. “Completely off.”

Heart hammering, she’d opened her eyes again to find he’d turned the TV off entirely.

She’d blown out a breath and murmured an apology that he refused to accept, and then he’d asked if maybe she wanted to turn on something more lighthearted.

They’d switched to comedy news, with a promise from him to watch the rest of their episode and tell her what happened this weekend.

She’s determined to power through, determined to watch this show that she enjoys and all of her ghosts can go to hell where they belong.

So here she is on his sofa, wine in hand, waiting for him. It had been a single-story night for her, and as she’d left the room, Robin had told her he’d cued up the end of last week’s episode for her so she could catch the “important bits at the end.”

She trusts that it won’t be anything upsetting, especially since he’s left her to watch it by herself, but she still takes a deep swig of wine before she hits play, nerves dancing in her belly until she sees that Claire has clearly been rescued from her ordeal and is riding across the Scottish countryside with one of the men from their party.

A few minutes later, she realizes why Robin had wanted her to watch it, her jaw dropping slightly as English (and secretly married) Claire agrees to marry hunky Scottish Jamie to become a Scot herself and be protected from the British Army.

She pauses it on the end credits with a shake of her head, and finishes her wine, pouring another glass and carrying it, an empty glass for Robin, and the rest of the bottle into the living room.

She’s feeling pleasantly relaxed when Robin finally joins her, apologizing for the delay—Roland had insisted on three more stories after she’d left.

“Pushover,” she smirks.

“I seem to recall you reading him three stories before bed just last week,” Robin taunts back, settling onto the sofa with a satisfied sigh and reaching for the wine.

“That’s different; I still have to win him over,” she excuses, earning a doubtful look in response.

“I think we both know that little boy adores you,” he says, holding the bottle up in an invitation to top her off. She probably shouldn’t, she’s already had a glass and a half. She should pace herself. But she’ll also likely end up scooting down to lay across the expanse of sofa sometime in the first fifteen minutes, and then she won’t drink anymore. So, why not?

She holds her glass steady as he refills what she’s sipped away and asks, “All caught up?”

“I am,” she nods. “I hope her marriage-for-necessity goes as well as mine.”

He pauses to smile at her, bottle halfway back to the table, something warm and appreciative in his gaze as he says, “I’m flattered, milady.”

Regina shrugs, sips her wine, and dismisses, “Don’t let it go to your head. You had a pretty easy act to follow.”

“You’ve been a challenge to win over,” he points out, settling back into the cushions and reaching for the remote to start the next episode. “At least when it comes to the benefits of the institution.”

“I do like these little Friday night dates,” she admits. “Even when Leo and I got along, even before things got really bad… It was never like this. We’d stay in and watch a movie, have popcorn and wine, but… I don’t know, it feels different with you.” Regina takes another swallow of wine, and a deep breath, before admitting, “I don’t think I ever really felt safe with him, truly, after the honeymoon.”

“But you feel safe with me?”

“I do. You’ve never broken my trust.” It’s a deep topic for what should be a casual movie night, but she’s trying to be open with him. Trying to be a spouse, trying to share with him the way he so easily does with her. “With Leo, it was always in the back of my mind. Even before the abuse started, I’d wonder… would tonight be the night he wanted something I didn’t want to give? Was I selfish for not wanting to give it? Would I ever stop resenting that he changed the rules on me in the first place?”

Robin doesn’t seem to mind the turn of topic; he’s set the remote down again, paused it less than a minute in to give her his full attention. And now he tells her, “You weren't selfish. He was. And I don’t think you should ever have to stop resenting a person who waits until you’re in bloody Italy, alone for three weeks, to tell you he wants your body after all.”

She stares into the dark surface of her wine and whispers, “I should have refused. Gone home and asked for a divorce, or…” Regina sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose beneath her glasses for a moment and muttering, “It would have humiliated everyone—him, me, our families. But I should’ve done it.”

“It’s not your fault,” he assures, the warmth of his palm settling on her knee and squeezing there. Regina looks up and gives him a smile, nodding more in appreciation than agreement. And then he wonders, “Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Do you think he’d have let you refuse? If you’d been adamant, do you think he’d have gone along with you?”

He sounds genuinely curious—doubtful, but curious—and while she’s loathe to give Leo the benefit of the doubt about anything in their relationship, she thinks she knows the answer to this one.

“Yes,” she tells him. “I think I could have stopped it. It would have ruined the rest of the trip, and probably ruined our marriage. In retrospect, that probably would have been a good thing, but at the time… it didn’t seem that way.” Another sip, and she gripes, “And now it’s ten years later, and I am still so angry at him. I hate him.”

“Me too,” he tells her, not quite solemnly, but with gravity, his fingers squeezing gently against her.

“Well, at least we have that in common,” she teases, trying to lighten the mood and get them away from such a heavy topic. She doesn’t want to think about all this anymore, she’s thought it to death for the last decade, so she nods toward the remote, urging, “Start the show,” and glugging down another swallow of wine.

“You sure?” he asks. “We can keep talking if you want.”

But she tells him, “No,” and, “This is our night to relax, it’s our thing. I don’t want him here. He’s taken up enough of my time.”

“Alright,” Robin agrees, reaching for the remote again with an affable, “As milady wishes.” Just before he pushes the button though, he hesitates and admits, “I watched ahead.”

“Robin!” she scolds. “We said we were going to watch together. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything triggering,” he tells her, and she scowls because she can’t really fault him for that one. “Or at least that it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

She lifts one brow, trying not to be too annoyed (if she thinks about it, it’s really very sweet) as she questions, “And?”

“For this one, just lots of sex,” he assures her. “And while she doesn’t really have a say in the whole thing, he doesn’t push her. He waits for her to be ready.”

“Okay,” she nods. “Sex won’t be an issue. I’m fine with sex.” And then her brain catches up and she narrows her eyes, asking, “Wait—‘this one’? How far ahead did you watch?”

“Three episodes,” he admits, and she scoffs. “We usually get through two or three! I won’t spoil anything, I promise.”

Regina rolls her eyes and grumbles something into her wine glass about how they’re supposed to be experiencing it together. “But thank you,” she grumps, because he’s not wrong. It is better to know when it’s coming.

Still, Robins frowns and offers, “Get comfortable, and give me your feet. I’ll make it up to you.”

It’s worthy penance for his little crime (she shouldn’t be so hard on him, really), so she downs the rest of her wine in one go and then does as offered.

.::.

Halfway through the episode, she wants to eat her earlier words about being fine with sex.

It’s not that the sex is triggering, not at all—Robin was right; for a forced consummation, it was handled in a way she could stomach. She’d even say their clumsy first round was almost cute in its hesitant, fumbling, only-one-orgasm-between-the-two-of-them way.

It’s round two that’s giving her the issue, coupled with the way Robin has spent the first half of the episode kneading his thumbs in her arches; tugging her toes until a few of them give soft, satisfying pops; massaging the sensitive spot behind her ankles. He’s watching the episode with interest, but he’s already seen this, so he’s not skimping on the foot rubs in the slightest, his touch very… intentional. Affectionate, and… sensual? Not intentionally arousing, she doesn’t think, but having someone (not just anyone someone, but someone with whom she’s had incredible sex) stroke and caress and relax her while watching someone else get, uh… stroked, and caressed, and relaxed is making her feel a little, well… horny, for lack of a better word.

There’s nudity and groping and thrusting and moaning, and she’s very aware of Robin’s presence right beside her. Very aware that she’s done those very same things with him in their not-so-distant past. Very aware that there’s a part of her—certain parts of her—that would very much like to do them again.

She licks her lips as she watches a post-orgasmic Claire bite her way down Jamie’s torso, and imagines her bare skin sliding along Robin’s, imagines the way he had kissed his way down her torso in Santa Barbara. His thumb presses into her arch again, and she feels her cheeks flush; she shouldn’t be thinking about fucking him with him right there beside her. She certainly shouldn’t be letting her mind wander from Claire giving Jamie a blowjob to Robin going down on her, to the way he grasped her thighs, the way he traced his tongue over her clit again and again and—

“I miss sex,” she murmurs right around the time Jamie hits his climax.

She doesn’t even realize she’s said it out loud until she hears Robin chuckle from the other end of the couch, his fingertips teasing over the edge of her foot as he murmurs, “You and me both, darling.”

Her cheeks flush, and she bites her lip. She shouldn’t have said that, and she tells him so: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that to you if we’re not having it.”

“It’s alright,” he dismisses easily, while Jamie drifts off to a post-coital nap. “I agreed to the terms—and while I don’t want to push, I will remind you that the terms are an assumption of no sex, but sex isn’t off the table entirely.” She shifts, rolls onto her back so she can look at him as he says, “We’ve had sex before, and I am more than happy to do it again—when you want it and only when you want it. Sex is entirely on your terms, that was the deal.”

“I suppose,” Regina concedes. “But it’s not really fair to jerk you around, is it? It’s using you. You’re not a convenient bed to hop into whenever I feel an urge.”

“No, I’m your husband,” he tells her softly, and with so much warmth. Like their marriage is something special and sacred. “And sex may not be a requirement for this marriage, but it’s something we can both enjoy with mutual consent. It’s not using me if I want it, too, Regina.”

“And… you want it?” she asks, biting her lip.

Robin smiles at her and says, “Always.”

She snorts, shaking her head at him, but Robin just argues amusedly, “Can you blame me? You’re gorgeous. Sexy and smart and fun and passionate, and I don’t think I need to remind you—or maybe I do—that we got ourselves into this situation because of our mutual drunken desire to fuck each other immediately and repeatedly.”

She laughs at that—and can’t deny it. They certainly don’t suffer from a lack of mutual attraction. And he’s not wrong, she supposes—he’d made it very clear from the beginning that he was open to sex if she was. She may have insisted on nothing after the honeymoon, but that had been her choice. And she’s free to… choose differently. If she wants.

It’s not changing the rules on him like Leo had with her, and it’s not pushing him into anything he doesn't want. And it’s not going to mean that next week, if he wants sex and she doesn’t, she’ll be expected to have it. Mutual consent, he’d reminded her, never anything they don’t both want.

And with Jamie and Claire going at it once again onscreen—this time with more tenderness and passion, and with Jamie dropping kisses on Claire’s breasts that make Regina’s own nipples tighten in envy—she definitely wants. Her thighs clench and she licks her lips, sitting up finally and shifting closer to Robin.

Her hand runs along the back of his neck, over his shoulder, their faces drawing closer until they’re only a breath apart. Just before she kisses him, she whispers, “Pause the TV,” and Robin grins.

She can feel him fumble blindly for the remote, the sound cutting out just as the episode is ending, and then there are no distractions for them but each other.

For the first few minutes, they just make out passionately, enjoying the taste and feel of each other after weeks of keeping things platonic. She’s missed the way he kisses, the way he moans in appreciation and tilts his head just so to deepen the kiss, even if his nose bumps against her glasses in the process.

Regina chuckles warmly and pulls back just enough to lift her frames off and toss them on the coffee table next to her wine. As much as she loves the look of him, she won’t need 20/20 vision for the next little while.

When she turns back, Robin reaches for her, murmurs, “Come here, darling,” and urges her to move even closer. She shifts until she’s straddling his lap, enjoying the way his palms slide up over the soft material of her leggings, up her thighs, her hips, around and down to give her ass a squeeze as she leans in and kisses him again.

It's only a pit stop, though. Moments later, his hands are rising again, stealing beneath the loose-fitted t-shirt she's wearing and coasting up her back, around her ribs, sneaking in between their bodies to cup her breasts. Regina presses into the touch, eager for it—if they're doing this, she wants to do it.

He gives her a squeeze, nipping at her lower lip as his thumbs rub over her nipples. She lets out a little moan at the shiver of pleasure that chases through her, whispering, “Please.”

She doesn’t need to elaborate—no sooner have the words left her lips than Robin is honing his grasp, giving her nipples gentle tugs and squeezes. Pleasure sparks and burns through her middle, another soft moan sounding in the back of her throat.

It never takes much with her, and he knows that by now. Her nipples are so sensitive that even these light touches are enough to have her growing wetter, her hips starting to pitch and rock against his. He’d changed before coming out here, too, so there’s only her leggings and his thin cotton pants between them. She can feel him growing harder against her, the slow, grinding friction between them serving counterpoint to the way he teases her nipples.

It takes an almost embarrassingly short amount of time before she’s gasping into their increasingly sloppy kisses, every exhale trembling out, or falling free on a soft cry. If they keep this up, she’ll come before they’ve even removed a stitch of clothing.

As if the thought leaves her head and goes straight to his, he gives her nipples one more light, twisting roll through his fingers and then skims them down her belly and grasps the bottom hem of her shirt. It’s up and off in no time, and then his mouth is on her, lips dropping kisses from her collar down to one pebbled peak, giving it a maddeningly gentle suck before he kisses over to the other, does the same, then completes the circuit back up to her lips.

He only gives her a quick smooch, their noses bumping as he asks, “Do you want your nipples sucked, darling, or your clit?”

Regina swallows hard against the flicker of anticipatory pleasure that skitters through her at the offer, her nails raking through his hair as she asks, “Can I choose both?”

Robin grins, nodding, and gives her a little hoist up to get better access to her breasts, jostling a laugh out of her before it melts into a moan at the feel of his tongue against sensitive skin. He licks first, lazy spirals around each nipple in turn, until her breath has gone thick, and then he chooses one to lavish attention on, sucking and flicking his tongue against the tip and teasing it with kisses.

One of his hands has found her ass again, kneading while he riles her up, and Regina has the vague thought that she really should do more for him than the occasional scrape of her nails along his scalp (it makes him shiver and flare up with goosebumps). But it’s been weeks since they’ve done this, weeks since she’s had her nipples licked and sucked, and she wants to take the time to enjoy it. There are many bedroom-related cravings she can take care of herself, but this, God, this isn’t one of them, and it just feels so good.

She’s making these noises now, soft little mewling moans in the back of her throat as he switches to her other breast and treats the nipple to the same delightful attention. She wants more, needs more, wants his tongue on her clit and his cock inside her (quick, deep thrusts just like the ones that got her all hot and bothered in the first place), but she also doesn’t want this to end.

She moans his name, and “God,” and “That feels so… unh!”, her desperation making Robin chuckle. He does it with her nipple sucked tantalizingly into his mouth, though, and the vibration of it makes her clench.

Regina threads her fingers through his hair and grips, tugging him away from her breast and ducking her head down for a heated, tongue-filled kiss. When it breaks, she steals another grin from him by whispering, “Eat me out.”

A quick peck and he surges forward and sideways, jostling her off him and back toward her former position on the sofa. She collapses back with an eager snicker, wriggling when he grasps the waistband of her leggings and gives them a tug.

“Why is it,” she wonders as she helps him rid her of the snug material, “that I am entirely naked, and you’re fully dressed?”

“I don’t know that I’d call sleep pants and a t-shirt fully dressed,” he argues, but he yanks his shirt up and off regardless. “But I see no reason not to even the playing field a bit.”

Her vision is fuzzy with him this far away, so she shuts her eyes and smiles as his hands find her knees, parting her legs wider to accommodate him as he shifts to kneel on the floor beside the sofa and moans appreciatively at the sight of her.

His thumb swipes down over her clit, down to her opening and back up, and he tells her, “I love how wet you are right now. Can’t wait to taste you.”

And then he does.

Regina’s head tips back on a breathy sound of pleasure as his tongue finds her clit and licks and licks, finding a sort of swift, flickering pattern that makes her fingers fist in the cushions and her back arch.

“God, just like that… just… Mmm, just like that and then—oh…”

He stops, just for a moment, and asks, “And then what?”

Regina glances down at him, glad for a moment that he’s a little blurry, because it means she doesn’t truly have to look him in the eye as she says, “Then suck my clit until I come. Please. I can’t do that myself and I’ve missed it.”

“I’d be very impressed if you could,” he smirks as he bends back to his task, on a mission now. His tongue flicks and flutters against her clit, quick barely-there sucks interspersed every few moments to tease her.

When she’s moaning and grasping restlessly at his hair and rocking her hips up into his attention, growing closer and closer, he finally draws her clit in for a good, proper suck. Regina cries out, one hand dropping to find the one of his gripped at her hip, their fingers weaving as he sucks at her again, again, then holds it out and starts to give her these little pulsing sucks that make her thighs shake.

“Oh, God, Robin!” she cries out, her belly clenching, her fingers tightening against his. He releases her, then drags his tongue down, fucking her with it for a few seconds before he runs it back up and captures her clit again, treating it to more of those pulsing sucks.

With all the build-up she’s had, it doesn’t take much longer, pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in her gut until it releases in a spring of long-overdue bliss. It’s the first orgasm she hasn’t had to give herself in a month, and Regina revels in it, lets him draw it out until her hips are trembling in his grasp, her toes curled tight, moans far too loud for a house with a sleeping child down the hall, but she’s not thinking, she doesn’t care.

When he finally eases off, she goes boneless, melting into the couch with a satisfied sigh and a pleased little chuckle.

Robin sucks warm, damp kisses over her inner thighs, his beard tickling there as he murmurs, “Was it everything you hoped, darling?”

“Mm, definitely,” she praises, still trying to catch her breath.

“Do you want more?” he wonders, planting a kiss right at the join of her hip and thigh. “Or did that satisfy your desire?”

Regina squints down at him, a little frown on her face and reminds, “I said I wanted to have sex, and I meant it. If I’d just wanted foreplay, I’d have made that clear.”

She hears him mutter, “Thank God,” and giggles a little, still feeling relaxed and giddy. “But you know you can always change your—”

“I know,” Regina interrupts, sitting up and pulling him into a kiss that tastes like her. “And thank you.”

He nods, their foreheads bumping, his fingers tangling into her hair as he leans in for another kiss.

When it breaks she bites her lip, nudges her nose against his, and breathes, “Take me to bed, Robin.”

[somewhereapart]

Camelot is for Lovers (Rated M)

After a long day of trying (and failing) to find a solution for freeing Merlin, Robin decides Regina could use a little TLC. For OQ Happy Ending Week, Day two (Tuesday).

Click here to read/review on Ao3

She’s been staring at those damnable books all day and all night, worrying herself to exhaustion over a way to free Merlin. A way to cure Emma. To repay her debt for her sacrifice. She rises early and returns late, and some days she doesn’t even descend from that stuffy tower to take her midday meal with the rest of them.

Robin doesn’t push, too much. He checks on her now and then. He brings her encouragement, and tea, and plates of food that often go uneaten. He watches their sons, and distracts them with rides on horseback, and increasingly elaborate games of hide and seek all about the castle.

Tonight, she misses dinner, so he saves a plate for her, piles it up with figs, and pomegranate seeds, and wedges of pear, and slices of ham. He steals an entire roll of crusty bread and a thick pat of butter, a hunk of cheese. Then he enlists Henry’s help in pilfering a carafe of wine and a pair of goblets, and carrying it all back to her chambers.

The boys make themselves scarce after dinner, and Robin lights lanterns and candles until the room glows, drips fragrant oils into warmers until the whole place smells rich and soothing.

And then he waits.

She doesn’t come down until late, with weary bags under her eyes, and pale skin, and one hand massaging the kinked side of her neck.

When she sees the room he’s prepared for her, she stops and gives him a look so soft he could melt.

“Oh, Robin… You should have said something.”

“You’d have groused at being interrupted,” he dismisses easily, reaching for the wine and beginning to pour. “And you’d have been distracted. I only wanted to make sure you came home to a meal and a bit of comfort.” He hands her a full goblet and asks, “Any luck?”

“No,” she grumbles. “A few promising leads, but not the breakthrough I keep hoping for.”

She takes a deep swallow as Robin’s arms circle her waist, his hands smoothing over soft velvet and softer curves. “You’ll find it,” he assures her with enough confidence for the both of them.

Her brow lifts and falls, doubtful and grumpy. Robin gives her hips a squeeze, steals her goblet to take a sip of his own and then sets it aside and draws her in close. He feels her exhale against him, her forehead falling to his shoulder, and for a few long minutes they just stand there together and breathe.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispers into the crook of his shoulder, and Robin lifts a hand to comb through the hair behind her ear. Her head tilts into the motion and then she tenses and hisses, pulling back a bit.

His grip slips down, fingers pressing into the tight muscles along her neck as he asks, “Are you sore?”

“Mm,” she confirms, hissing quietly again as he kneads a little more deeply.

“Sit,” he urges her, “Eat.”

Robin pulls back just enough to maneuver her toward the stool set beside the small table, his hand still cupping the back of her neck all the while. Once she’s seated and perusing her options, he begins to rub and stroke again, up and down the corded sides of her nape, thumbing into the curve of neck and shoulder.

She moans quietly and asks, “What about you? Don’t you need to eat?”

“I ate with the others,” he says, finding a tender spot and working it gingerly. “This is all for you.”

“You’re too good to me,” she murmurs, before taking a mouthful of buttered bread.

Robin smiles and tells her softly, “No such thing, milady.”

They don’t talk much for the next little while, Robin working sore muscles methodically while Regina focuses on eating (she’s suddenly ravenous, she says, and Robin bites back the urge to point out she’s had barely a bite since breakfast). He takes care to be thorough, to tend every little knot until it loosens, or until she recoils from the ache of too much attention over the more stubborn, painful lumps.

She slows in her eating once she’s cleared most of the plate, picking at pomegranate seeds one by one, slowly and slower still, letting out soft appreciative hums now and then. When he thinks she’s eaten her fill, he asks, “Would you care for a slight change of venue?”

She turns her head to answer, then seems pleased that the action doesn’t cause her any pain, and turns the other way, and then back again, testing. “Mm. Those nimble thieving fingers are good for something, it seems.”

“I recall you praising their many talents on more than one occasion,” he challenges, making her grin naughtily, dark brows waggling.

“True, true…” she teases back, relaxed now in a way that pleases him, but not nearly as relaxed as he knows she could be. Not nearly as relaxed as he intends to make her.

“If you’ve finished eating, my love, I was hoping to show you just how much these hands can do for you.” He nods toward the bed, where he’d already drawn the covers down before her arrival, a little bottle of oil on the night table ready and waiting.

“Oh, really?” she asks, intrigued as she rises from her seat and lets Robin pull her close and steal a kiss.

They stay pressed together as he walks her over toward the bed, as he nods and tells her, “You’ve been working so hard, day after day. I’m sure your muscles are all in twists from all those hours bent over those books and sitting in hard chairs. Let me see to all your knots and aches.”

She gives him that warm look again, the melty one she’d given him when she’d arrived, and one of her hands lifts to cup his jaw lightly. “I don’t deserve you,” she tells him with so much affection that he almost wants to overlook her lie.

But he cannot let her speak so ill of herself, so he shakes his head, and tells her, “No, my love, care and attention and soothing touches are exactly what you deserve. Now, let’s get you out of this dress…”

Miraculously, she doesn’t argue with him—in too agreeable of a mood now that she has a belly full of food and wine, and a neck free of kinks. They rid her of that lovely velvet dress in no time, the heavy fabric pooling at their feet in between slow kisses and lingering caresses. His fingers hook into the waistband of her panties—cream-colored lace today, a luxury she’s conjured for herself to make this world a bit more bearable for her and exciting for him—and draw them down to join her dress, leaving her delectably bare before him.

Robin cups her breast appreciatively, giving a soft hum of approval, his thumb skating over a nipple before he steals one last kiss and then urges her to lie down on her belly. And then he gets to work.

He dribbles lavender oil down the center of her back and then works it into her skin with firm pressure until he’s popped every ready vertebra in her spinal column, and gotten a soft, popping crack from one of her hips. Regina rewards every release of pressure and discomfort with a soft moan or grunt or sigh, each one music to Robin’s ears.

The symphony of her pleasure is his favorite melody, and as he digs his thumbs in a line up either side of her spine, he thinks that maybe he ought to take her relaxation one step farther and cap off this massage with an orgasm. It’s been days since they’ve made the time to enjoy each other, and he finds that since his return he’s always wanting her. Always wanting to touch her, to assure himself that she’s really here, and that she’s still willing to take him inside her even after everything that happened with her wicked sister.

So yes, maybe, if her increasing bonelessness doesn’t make her soporific, he’ll let his hands wander a bit more freely.

She’s breathing deep and slow by the time his massage reaches her upper thighs, and he worries he may have missed his moment. That she’s nodded off under his attentions, and his more amorous intentions will have to wait for another day. Maybe he’ll rouse her in the morning…

Just to be sure, though, he lets his fingers graze over the peachy softness between her thighs when he works his way up to the top. Her lips curve, her lashes fluttering open, and it seems she wasn’t asleep after all. Simply enjoying.

Her voice is thick and sleepy when she teases, “Is this massage going to have a happy ending?”

Robin smirks and asks, “Would you like it to, my darling?”

Her eyes drop shut again and she hums softly, tells him, “Mm, I think I would, if your hands aren’t too tired.”

Robin chuckles and reaches for one of her thighs, shifting it gently until he has better access to the requisite parts. “I’m never too tired for that, milady.”

Regina’s breathing shifts, thickening with anticipation.

He continues to massage her thighs (he wasn’t quite done with that yet), but he focuses more of his attention high up, near her lovely backside. He lets his fingers graze her sex as if by accident now and again, enjoying the way her thighs tense and twitch at each little caress.

“Tease,” she breathes after several long minutes.

Robin breathes a quiet chuckle and finally lets his thumb part her. He strokes from her opening down to her clit, back up and back down, and she’s slick and hot beneath his touch already. When he coasts down to her clit and begins to circle it steadily with his thumb, she lets out a high-pitched little moan that delights him.

He starts lightly and slowly increases the pressure with each little spiral, until her breath is shaky, her toes curling, her tongue peeking out to wet her lips. His thumb sneaks up to gather more wetness from the source now and then, dragging it back down to slicken her little bud. Every time he does, her breath catches just so.

When she’s biting her lip and circling her hips against his caresses, her fingers gripping into the down pillow beneath her head, Robin shifts just a little and sinks his middle two fingers easily into her depths. She greets them with a low moan of appreciation that goes straight to his stiff cock, her jaw falling open.

Robin hooks his fingers just so and earns another soft cry and a whispered, “Right there.” Her thighs quake as he rocks into her slowly, lazily, calling up little gasps and sighs, and a moment later and breathy plea of, “Both?”

His thumb falls to her clit again, rubbing against it with the rhythm of his rocking hand—fingers in to thump that sensitive spot inside her, then out to grind against her swollen bud. Back and forth, again and again, her sex hot and slick around him, tempting and wonderful and the only thing in any realm that needs attention at just this moment.

He brings her up at a steady pace, no rushing tonight, no fancy tricks, just a slow-and-steady build of bliss between her thighs. Robin watches how the muscles in her back flex, the way her jaw trembles, the scrunch of her nose and sweep of her tongue. He listens to that symphony he so enjoys as it builds and builds to crescendo.

When she comes for him, finally, her hips lurching against his touch, she cries out his name. He doesn’t stop. In and out, in and out, his thumb on her clit, his fingers just so, until she’s burying her face in the pillow and moaning loudly, her fingers gripped tight, her hips twitching, her thighs tensing.

God, she’s gorgeous in her pleasure. He could watch her come for ages and never tire of the sight.

When she turns her face from the pillow with a gasped plea, he relents and slips his fingers languidly from her, giving her flushed and swollen sex an affectionate caress with the backs of his fingers.

For a moment, she simply basks, lying there and catching her breath, eyes shut, lips parted. Robin thinks perhaps now is when she’ll slip off into a much deserved slumber, and he’ll be left to take himself to hand to relieve the ache in his cock.

But a moment later she rolls, treating him to a dazzling, sated smile and holding out her arms to him.

“More?” she beckons, and Robin grins and moves to join her.

“As much as you desire, milady,” he assures, both of them reaching to remove his shirt.

And for a while, the troubles of Merlin, of Emma, of Dark Ones and Saviors, are the furthest things from either of their minds.

[somewhereapart]

Erosion

True Love can break any curse—but can it survive the breaking? An addendum to Parks and Wreck, for OQ Happy Ending Week, Day 5 (Friday)

Read/review on Ao3 or FFnet.

This place is not designed for Happy Endings, and she has always known that. She had made it so.

She had hoped, once, dangerously, that she might be able to slip free of the curse’s clutches. That as the architect she might be immune from it’s wrath—it’s what she’d told herself when she woke up on a chilly New Year’s Day under the warm cocoon of covers with Rob Locksley curled against her back.

She’d convinced herself that they’d be safe from all this, even though she knew, deep down, that they’d been undoing it bit by bit since that first kiss.

The problem is simply that she likes him so much.

No. She doesn’t like him. She loves him, and that was her mistake.

True Love is strong enough to break any curse, even her own, and as the months moved on and on, she’d turned a blind eye to the danger in front of her. The Blue Knight had been joined in the sky by the Queen’s Scepter, and the Celestial Galleon, and she had caught him once standing on his porch, at that cabin tucked back in the woods, staring up at towering oak and poplar. He’d been frowning, deeply, and as Henry had chased Landon around the side of the house, she’d asked Rob what had him so lost in thought.

“These trees are all wrong,” he’d muttered. “There should be a grove of Witches’ Pine here; it’s always grown outside my home.”

Witches’ Pine doesn’t grow in Storybrooke, or anywhere in this realm. It does grow rampant all through Sherwood Forest, and the Dark Woods of the Enchanted Forest.

The words had made her stomach go sour, just like every other little remembrance he’s had. But he’d turned his head and seen her, and then blinked, and then smiled. And forgotten.

Just like the Blue Knight and the Queen’s Scepter, the Witches’ Pine had notched away inside his head and found a home there among the curse’s many lies.

She’d thought perhaps it would go on that way forever, little bits of the-life-that-was spilling over into the-life-that-is in drips and trickles. A tree here, a constellation there, but nothing so much that it would move the sun or sink the moon.

She’d forgotten that a drip here, a drop there, again and again is all that it takes to carve canyons into mountains. To bore holes through the rock solid foundation of her curse.

Six months go by and he stares longer at trees, at people, at her. He looks sometimes like he’s trying to work out the answer to a particularly vexing problem, and she loves him, so she ignores it. She tells herself it’s nothing, that she’s imagining it, that she’s paranoid—until one night he wakes in a cold sweat, panting, the force of his nightmare rousing her from otherwise pleasant dreams.

When she reaches to soothe him, he recoils, barks, “Don’t touch me, you wicked woman!” and for a moment he looks at her like he doesn’t know her.

Or worse, like he does.

She’s stunned, rooted; tears well in her eyes even though she knows she should be strong, she should not cry. She had to know that someday this would happen, that it was inevitable.

This land was not built for Happy Endings—not even, it seems, her own.

And then just like that, he crumples, reaching for her with apologies on his lips, drawing her close and whispering into her hair that he didn’t mean it, not one bit. He tells her that she’s lovely, and that he adores her, that she’s precious to him. Swears he’d been caught between sleep and waking, a nightmare fresh in his mind. He begs forgiveness, and she gives it.

It tastes like ash on her tongue.

He is not the one who needs forgiveness.

.::.

She doesn’t sleep. Lies awake until the dawn touches the windowsill and creeps across the floor, and then she slips from the bed and makes coffee, thick and dark the way he likes it. She grimaces with every sip as she curls her knees to her chest on the old swing on his front porch and stares at where Witches’ Pine should (never) grow.

She has a choice to make. Love him or leave him. Either way, she’s destined to lose him.

He finds her there, sitting on the porch, the dregs of her coffee gone cold. Her bones feel cold, too.

She knows what she needs to do. Even as he sits beside her, the bench creaking under the shift in weight, she prepares herself for his impending distance.

She loves him. He will hate her.

The way she always knew he would.

“Did you get any sleep at all after I woke you?” he wonders, guilt heavy on his tongue.

She frowns and asks, “What was the dream?”

Rob looks away and mutters, “Doesn’t matter now. The mind plays tricks; it wasn’t real.”

She swallows heavily, heart beating hard in her throat and asks, “What if it was?”

Rob squints at her for a moment, then shakes his head, dismisses, “No. Don’t be silly, love. That woman I dreamt of, she wore your face, but she wasn’t you. She was… evil. You’re not that.” His shoulder bumps hers, teasing, playful; it hurts to smile back. “Bold and audacious, perhaps. A bit stubborn, and I wouldn’t want to come between you and your morning coffee. But you’re no Evil Queen. I know you.”

Her eyes squeeze shut; those fault lines he’d put in her heart months ago start to spread and tremble. She will break open and shatter into shards at his rejection, but she cannot go another day lying to him.

Secrets always bear harsher punishments than confessions.

“You do,” she gasps, forcing her eyes open, forcing them to meet his own confused blues. “You’re the only one in all these years who ever has. It’s why I love you… Robin Hood.”

It hits him like a bolt; she can see the recognition dawn on him. His hand releases hers like a trap springing open (so why does it feel like she’s ensared herself?). He shifts, moves away one inch, maybe two. His head turns toward those missing pines, then back at her.

“What have you done?”

.::.

She thought he would be murderous.

He is not.

Strong men can be gentle, and he’s gentle even in this. She can see the betrayal, can watch it percolate and rise as he realizes the woman whose bed he’s been sharing is the very same evil monster who’d haunted his dreams. His land.

“I cast a curse,” she whispers. “I made this place; I changed everything. But you… you’ve been waking up.”

“Why?” he asks, harshly.

She doesn’t know if he means why she cast the curse or why he’s broken free, but the answer to the second question comes more easily, so that’s the one she chooses to answer. She tells him what she’d told Snow White all those years ago (who knew the innocence of Regina’s youth could destroy her so many times over?): “True Love is magic. It’s strong enough to break any curse. And I do love you, Rob. I really, truly do. This land may be woven from magic, but what we have is real. I meant every word of it. Every kiss. Every touch.”

She cries as she says it. He looks at her like she’s grown a second head. Or like she’s a murderous despot who shed the blood of scores of his countrymen in a quest for vengeance.

For a long while, there’s only the birdsong of early morning and the hammering of her terrified heart, and then he tells her, “I think you should go.”

.::.

It’s three days before she sees him again.

Three days where she jumps at every knock on her door. Three days of expecting an angry mob brandishing pitchforks to stalk up her drive. Three days where her heart feels hollowed-out and empty, and three days where Henry asks why his playdate with Landon has been put off again, and again.

She didn’t expect his apparent mercy, but she’s grateful for it. She doesn’t deserve it.

When he comes to her, it’s nearly midnight; she’s already dressed for bed.

He stands on the porch and looks her up and down, that same seeking, searching look he’d given poplars and the stars. “I want to know who you are.”

She thinks maybe he’s forgotten yet again, maybe the curse has remixed his brain once more. So it’s entirely masochistic to tell him, “You do.”

“No.” He’s like steel over candy floss—so firm in his convictions but she can see the tender sweetness of him beneath. The candy-coated comfort of familiarity, of twenty-odd years of nostalgic affection. For the first time, she begins to hope he might be capable of loving her despite the horrors. “I want to know the parts you kept hidden. I want to know how you came to be her. I want the truth.”

She has known of him, always. Since the beginning. He is her head of Parks, he is the thorn in her side, he is her soulmate.

She doesn’t like him. She loves him, down to her marrow.

He knows her better than anyone living, but he doesn’t really know her at all.

So she invites him in. She pours them each a whiskey. And she tells him her story.

He does not seek vengeance upon her many sins. He does not spit venom at her feet. He does not threaten to steal her son, or raze her town, or oust her from the Mayor’s office.

He listens.

And then he makes her an offer: “Regina, would you like to start again?”

.::.

They have no secrets and no lies. Happy Endings have no room for such things.

They still fight, they still bicker. He is still a thorn in her side at every Town Hall meeting, and he still protests vehemently when she proposes a soccer field take the place of that ever-contested plot of land.

He never tells a soul who she really is.

In the evenings, they sit on her deck and map the stars, and compare stories of gods and legends—the ones here and the ones there. One night, after sharing what she knows to be a very dubious retelling of the story of Sylar the Sphynx (he’s stuck in the sky until his riddle is solved, not, as Robin tells it, because a nearby constellation has caught his tail and won’t let go), he asks her, “Do you regret it? Casting the curse? All that you did?”

She ought to. Her story is a tragic one, worthy of constellations. She ought to be Regina the Mad Queen, a cluster of red fire burning in the sky, but she is not.

“No,” she tells him. “It brought me my son. And it brought me you. I could never regret that.”

Robin tilts his head against hers, points to the sky, and never asks again.

[gray-autumn-sky]

We’ll Find a Way -  Missing Year, Happy Ending Week, Day 2 (Tuesday)

A little fliclet exploring Regina’s feelings during the Missing Year, and how Robin helped her to enjoy moments of happiness in spite of herself.

She lays on her back, staring up at the ceiling as Robin’s lips flutter against her skin, his fingers strumming up and down her bare thigh.

For months they’ve been together. She and Robin were an open secret that everyone allowed her to believe was a closed one. She’d tried to resist him--and for a short while, she succeeded--but slowly, her guard came down. It hadn’t been Robin who’d broken through it, though. That honor went to his son. But the closer she grew to the little, curly-haired, dimple-faced boy who reminded her that sadness didn’t have to be all-consuming, the more willing she’d been to entertain his father’s company.

At first, she tolerated him--she had to if she wanted to spend time with his son--and then, she liked him. For a while, they’d had a tentative friendship that was wrapped up in sarcasm and tension, and then one night, she’d kissed him. It’d been a decision fueled by too much wine and the need to feel close to someone, but once it happened there was no stopping it. They’d slept together that night, and from them on, after tucking Roland into bed, he’d come to her room and lay with her. Sometimes it was sexual, other times, it was just comfort, and a lot of times, it was both.

They hadn’t talked about it, though--not properly, anyway--and she doubted that they ever would.

That just wasn’t the way they did things.

Really, though, it was her last wall and the only thing left protecting her heart. She knew that if she could find a way home--a way back to Henry--she’d take it without giving anything or anyone a second thought. He knew that she was trying--every day, she spent hours pouring over magic books, looking for a way out--and most of the time, he sat with her, ready and willing to do whatever he could to send her back to her son.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

“Mm,” she nods, turning her head on her pillow to look at him. “I’m tired.”

His eyes narrow and they shift up to meet hers. “You’re worried about something.”

“I miss him.”

“I know,” he murmurs, pressing a warm kiss to her shoulder. “You’ll find a way back.”

“It’s been a year, Robin. A year, and I haven’t found anything.”

“You will, though,” he says, his voice so sincere and full of promise. “I’ve faith in you.”

“If only your faith in me were enough.”

“Who knows,” he murmurs, looking up at her. “Maybe it is.”

Her brow furrows in spite of herself, a soft grin tugs onto her lips. “How can you always be so optimistic?”

“Where you’re concerned, I’ve learned to always be optimistic,” he says, offering a hearty laugh. “It wasn’t so long ago that the sight of me made you cringe.”

“Cringe is--”

“Exactly what you did whenever I’d come near.”

“Well, you were always getting in the way.”

He nods. “So you said.”

“I didn’t… hate you,” she murmurs, her brow creasing. “I just--”

“You were in a bad place,” he supplies. “I know, and I understand.”

“You always do.”

“Well, that’s because I love you.”

His words hang heavily in the air, and her breath catches in her chest. He’s grinning at her, and his eyes are soft, his fingers still strumming at her hip. For a moment, she wonders if he doesn't know what he said, maybe it just slipped out or he didn’t mean it in that way.

But then, he pulls himself up, propping his head up with his hand, looking at her in a way that’s soft and sincere, and in a way that’s full of love.

“You don’t have to say it back.”

“I just--”

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, his smile growing coy. “I wanted you to know how I feel about you.”

She swallows. She loves him. She knows that she does, but loving him complicates this and in her experience, love only leads to loss.

“It doesn’t seem fair to say it back,” she admits. “Especially if I find a way to leave.”

His fingers skim over the top of her hand and his eyes narrow as he looks at her. “We haven’t talked much about what happens after you find a way home,” he says. “But maybe we should.”

“It doesn’t seem fair to either of us.”

Again, his eyes narrow. “Regina, do you… think that I wouldn’t follow?”

She blinks. She never considered that he’d want to. “Your life is here,” she says, her voice soft and a little sad. “Everything you and Roland know is here.”

“That’s true,” he nods. “Our life has been here.”

“I can’t ask you to give that up.”

“Suppose I want to,” he counters. “Suppose I’d do it gladly.”

Her eyes widen, and her breath catches in her chest, almost aching as she sits up. “You’re telling me you’d want to go back to Storybrooke with me?”

He nods. “If that’s where your son is.” A warm grin spread across his lips. “I’d follow you anywhere, m’lady.” She can’t stop her smile as he pushes himself toward her, rolling on top of her. “And I’ve all the faith in the world that one day, very soon, you and I are going to have everything we’ve ever wanted.”

“Mm, will we?”

“We will.”

“What if I fail? What if I don’t find a way back.”

“You will.”

“But--”

“You will,” he cuts, his smile so sweet that she can’t help but believe him. So she nods, laughing as he leans and kisses her, drawing her knees up and giggling as his beard tickles her--and for at least one night, she allows herself to believe that her happily ever after is near.

[somewhereapart]

In Sickness and In Health

After Robin gets injured during a reckless heist, Regina tends to him. For OQ Happy Ending week, Day 3 (Wednesday).

Click here to read/review on Ao3.

“You’re such an idiot,” she huffs as she cleans the wound on his back with herbal tonics and antiseptic oils and wishes desperately for some peroxide and Neosporin, and her goddamn magic.

His voice is tense and pained beneath the veneer of joviality as he tells her, “I do believe that’s why you love me.”

An absolute, complete, stupid, reckless idiot.

“It’s not as though we need the riches,” she mutters, “You could have at least waited until this damnable hex wears off.” He breathes in and out heavily, and she tries to hold onto her anger despite how grateful she is to see proof that he’s alive. She still remembers how still the other Robin had been, lifeless and limp without a breath in his body, as she’d clutched him to her in the office that had once been hers.

He has no right to go and die on her again, not this Robin, not the one that’s made for her, she won’t allow it.

“We don’t know when that might be, milady,” he points out, and she rolls her eyes and presses perhaps a little harder than is necessary on the next swipe of the cloth around the raw edges of where so much skin has been scraped off his lovely back.

“That may be,” she admits through gritted teeth, “But at the very least you could have skipped shimmying from a third story window and grating your back on castle walls and rooftops the whole way down.”

“Well, had I gone any lower—ah!”—he hisses as she begins to spread a salve over the angry, pulpy wound and his voice is strained and tight—“I’d have likely been eaten by a dragon.”

“And that’s another thing!” she gripes at him, though she gentles the touch of her hand when she notices the sweat beading along his brow. “Why a dragon? Of all the creatures you could steal from, why the one with wings and talons and fire?”

“Because they have the best hordes,” he shrugs—the move pains him, and she’s glad of it, and then feels guilty that she takes any amount of joy in his misery. But he’s just such an idiot! “And you’ll notice I’ve managed to avoid talon, and wing, and fire despite my back being ripped to tatters. I did that one all on my own.”

“Idiot,” she mutters darkly. Her hands are shaking, she realizes. How long have they been doing that?

“Yes, so you’ve said,” Robin mutters, and he has the audacity to sound annoyed. He has no right to be annoyed, not with her, not after he put himself at risk at the worst possible time and for no actually discernable good reason.

“You could catch fever and die, Robin, and I wouldn’t be able to heal you,” she gripes at him. “This is not the time to be reckless.”

“I made a calculated—”

“I watched you die once, and I have no desire for a repeat performance!”

It’s the last thing she says before she tosses the cloth she’d been using to clean his wounds aside and stalks off, slamming the chamber doors behind her with an impressive bang and leaving him spread across their bed, alone, to stew on what he’s done.

.::.

 Robin wakes hours later, in the dark, still on his belly (no surprise there) with an ache in his neck from the way his face has been smushed against the pillow. He grunts and lifts it to turn to his other side, and the wounds on his back make themselves known, painfully.

He hisses at the rippling fire across his back, but manages to turn his head and finds Regina in bed beside him.

He hadn’t expected her to be there, honestly. With how angry she’d been earlier, he’d imagined she’d spend the night somewhere else, holed up in one of the castle’s many other rooms. They’ve fought before, sometimes bitterly, and he recalls a night where she’d attempted to kick him out of their quarters, refusing to hear a word of sense, but he’d refused to go. He’d insisted he would stay right where he was, in their chambers, until she’d bloody listen to what he was trying to say to her.

So she’d left him there, and spent the next three nights in the east wing study. He’d seen neither hide nor hair of her until she’d strolled into the great hall for breakfast one morning, and taken the meal with him in silence but for two words: “Not yet.”

It had taken until after dinner for her to properly speak with him, but they’d finally made their amends.

So it’s a surprise to see her lying there beside him, in her bedclothes, her dark eyes open and watching him. It does not surprise him that she doesn’t speak. She simply stares at him, a look in her eyes that reminds him far too much of the Regina they’d left behind in Storybrooke. Like she looks at him and sees someone else. The other Robin Hood.

She doesn’t look at him this way often, and usually when she does it galls him. But today, he thinks perhaps he understands. Her last words to him echo in his head, and he grits his teeth against the effort of sliding his hand across the covers toward hers.

She meets him halfway—more than, probably, her fingers sliding swiftly across the expanse of soft cotton the moment his begin to move. They’re warm against his own as they curl and weave together, and then he tells her, “I’m sorry.”

She frowns, and sighs, rubs her thumb across his and answers softly, “I love you.”

He can see how much, can see how worried she is for him, how frightened. It makes him feel a bit guilty for his little errand to be honest—even if the diamond ring he’d pilfered for a very specific purpose is even now burning a hole in his satchel.

He won’t tell her where he got it, he thinks. It wouldn’t do to start their marriage off with a lie, but he thinks she’d probably not be too terribly fond of it if she knew he nearly died in the heist that procured it.

So he’ll keep that little secret to himself and hope she never asks, and tonight he’ll simply tell her, “And I, you. There’s nothing in this realm or any other that I love as dearly as I do you, and I’ve no intention of being parted from you.”

He intends it to reassure her, but she only frowns more deeply, her gaze dropping into the shadowed chasm between their bodies. “I’ve found life—or more accurately death—doesn’t care all that much about our intentions.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. She’s known so much death and pain—they both have—that he knows no platitudes will ring sincere.

So he offers the only thing that might bring her comfort, and swears to her, “I’ll be more careful. I promise.”

She softens, just a bit, telling him, “That’s all I ask.” Then she leans in and presses a kiss gently to his lips, sealing his promise and settling both their weary hearts. When she pulls back, it’s to disentangle their fingers and stroke hers gently over his bearded jaw, her nails scratching in a way he always enjoys. His eyes drop shut for a moment as she asks, “How’s your back?”

“Painful,” he admits with a grimace, trying very hard to lie very still, lest he cause himself even more discomfort.

Regina sighs, her breath washing against his jaw, his neck.

“It should be redressed,” she murmurs. “I’ll make more salve.”

The bed shifts as she makes her way out of it, and Robin cracks his eyes back open to watch her. The moonlight streaming in makes her look ethereal, in a gauzy nightgown the color of smoke, the blue light reflecting off her skin to make it glow, her hair somehow even darker against the luminescence of her skin. In the moonlight, it looks inky and soft, plaited over one shoulder in a way his fingers itch to unravel.

She’s so lovely. Stunning, in every way, and all his.

He’s a lucky bastard, he knows that. So lucky that a part of her still fits so finely with a part of him. So lucky that she didn’t skin him alive this afternoon when he came loping home bloodied and exhausted. So lucky she’s here with him now, mixing poultices and potions to see him well.

He’s found a home here with her, a possibility he’d thought lost to him after Marian’s untimely demise. Robin thinks again of that ring in his satchel and wonders if she’ll say yes.

She’d told him once that she had wasted too much time in her life on fear and regret and revenge, and she didn’t want to waste a single minute more. She wanted to take a chance on them and see where it might lead.

So far, it’s led them quite well.

So he’ll ask her—soon. Once he’s back in fighting shape, and she’s gotten her magic back, and their world has been set to rights. He’ll ask for her hand and give his in return, and spend the rest of his days in this bed, fighting and fucking and laughing and loving, his Queen by his side.

For tonight, though, he’ll content himself with the gentle, aching touches of her fingers as they do their best to heal him.

[brookeap3]

Love in a Hopeless Place

Regina and Robin can't stay away from each other, despite their best efforts. A canon happy ending for day seven of #OQHappyEndingWeek. Set in 4a.

{ ffn } { ao3 }

-:-

It happens again and again, night after night. No matter how many times they promise themselves they are going to stop, that this will be the last time, it never is. They can’t stay away. Have lost track of the number of times they’ve failed at this point.

Regina is lying naked in his arms, her ear listening to the steady beating of his heart still returning to a normal rhythm after they’d finished driving each other wild. Their bodies are still slick with sweat, her fingers swirling aimlessly around his chest as she whispers, “We can’t keep doing this.” Robin sighs deeply, his arms tightening around her as if afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go.

“We’ve said that before, many times in fact, and yet here we are,” he points out.

“That doesn’t make it right, Robin,” Regina counters, exasperation coloring her tone. She wants to push away, to draw herself out of his hold because this has to end. But she’s weak. Just as her mother had always told her. Love is weakness. And she loves him so very much. More than either of their honors, it would seem, and she can’t quite bring herself to untether that feeble connection quite yet.

Marian is lying frozen on the other side of her vault, and they are no closer to discovering a way to bring her back. Yet here they are. Lying naked and sated in each other’s arms and the guilt weighs heavily on Regina’s heart. She doesn’t know when she became this person, considering others before her own selfish desires. The Evil Queen never would have hesitated to take what she wanted from anyone, least of all the woman who had returned from the dead to rip her soulmate away from her. Not that it would appear she’s doing a bang up job of it, but that’s why this has to stop.

Robin’s nose nuzzles into her hair, his grip tightening ever so slightly as he admits, “I know.” Because she’s right. What they’re doing is wrong. It’s disrespectful to not only his wife but to Regina and himself as well. They’re in a messy, complicated situation, but he can’t deny that he’s no longer in love with Marian. He’d had years to grieve her, to allow his heart to open up to the possibility of loving another again. And then Regina had swooped into his life, the same way that wretched witches flying beasts had, and stolen his heart right out from under him. Though if he’s honest, he knows he’d given it to her willingly. He hadn’t stood a chance from that first snarky retort.  

The end result remains the same, however, and Robin is incapable of turning those feelings off. After even the short amount of time apart they had managed, he knows that he would never survive cutting her out of his life, the thought too painful to even contemplate. That’s what had driven him to her arms in the first place. There’s no going back for them. “But I don’t know what to do, Regina. I will not forget you to save Marian. I just can’t do it. I want you.”

Regina’s heart squeezes painfully in her chest at his confession, torn between elation and bitter heartache. For what she would have given to hear him say those words to her under better circumstances, with both of them free to follow their heart’s desire. The universe is determined to keep every meager measure of happiness from her grasp though it seems.

Suddenly, the heat of his skin seeping into hers, the smell of pine surrounding her and the soft cadence of his voice so near to her ear is too much. She can’t take it or the pain and wonder that accompanies such closeness any longer. She pushes away from him, rolling over and sitting up in bed, the soft silk sheets falling to her waist as her knees draw up. Perhaps she should be more concerned with her nudity, but what’s the point? Robin’s reached depths inside her far deeper than that of merely her flesh.

Hesitantly, his hand reaches over to stroke down her spine, “Regina…” his voice is soft and concerned, and she has to fight the onslaught of tears that have welled up in her eyes. She refuses to let them fall, is stronger than that. She is not weak, and it seems it’s going to be up to her to fulfill the role of moral pillar this go around. And isn’t the irony in that just perfect?

Shrugging off his hand with an arch of her back, Regina shakes her head and scoots off the bed, moving to find a robe to cover herself from the closet of this hidden room in her vault. The one that’s been her escape in Storybrooke when she’s needed it over the years. Of course, that’s where they’d come for all of their intimate nights together, stored away from the outside world here. It seems they can’t hide from reality within these walls any longer though.

“Robin, don’t,” she finally tells him, voice much steadier than she feels. “I know you care for me, that perhaps we could have had something real in another life,” her voice chokes just a little at that, thinking of pixie dust and taverns and long forgotten second chances.

The mattress squeaks behind her and Regina turns back around to face the bed just in time to see him sitting up as well. The sight takes her breath away as she glances at his bare chest and the rumpled sheets covering him from the waist down. It’s the crease between his eyebrows and the utterly distraught look on his face that slices through her thin façade. “Care for you?” Robin questions, almost angrily in his offence before he drops his biggest bomb yet. “Regina, I love you. I am so incredibly in love with you I can’t breathe without you anymore.”

It steals her own breath from her lungs, makes her heart ache painfully in her chest. He’s alluded to it before, when Marian had first been frozen, but this is the first time he’s said it in so many words, so definitely. And maybe she is weak after all because Regina loses her battle with tears then, trails of them running rivers down her cheeks as she wraps her arms tightly around her waist and shakes her head in defence of this onslaught of emotions.

Robin’s standing instantly, rushing across the room to wrap her up in his arms without a care for modesty, burying her face in his chest as he cups the back of her head and whispers soothing nothings into her hair. The two of them stand there for several minutes, Regina purging herself of all the pent up emotions she’s suppressed the last few weeks. “Shhhh. It’s alright, my love. It’s going to be okay,” Robin whispers to her, rocking them a bit, just as he’d soothe Roland when he’s upset.

She scoffs at that, drawing back enough to look into those endless blue eyes that she could drown in every day for the rest of her life and be totally content. “How? How is any of this going to be alright, Robin?”

His hand slides up her spine, lifting to brush a stray lock of her mused bed hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Because we are going to find a solution. I don’t know what, but together we can figure out a way to right things. We’ll find a way to unfreeze Marian, and then I’m going to tell her my true feelings and we’ll work it out.”

He sounds so certain, so confident in his convictions that Regina nearly believes it could be so easy. Robin cups her jaw in his palm, thumb stroking gently across her skin as he repeats reverently, “I love you, Regina. Marian or no Marian that isn’t going to change, and I refuse to live my life as a lie. Not anymore. I don’t want to sneak around or hide what I feel for you. I want to love you openly and whole heartedly for everyone to see.”

It seems to good to be true, this incredible, wonderful, loving man can not possibly be choosing her. Yet here he stands, arms locked around her, looking at her as if she’s his entire world when he should be anywhere else and her heart is weak, or maybe just too resilient for her own good, because she believes him.

And who is she to deny either of them what they really want any longer?

“Okay,” she murmurs, giving up the fight against her own heart and his.

Robin’s breath whooshes out of him, his muscles relaxing instantly. Still, he can’t help but question, “Okay?”

Regina nods, swallowing another onslaught of tears that well up in her throat. “Okay,” she repeats. “I believe you. I don’t understand it, or how you could possibly love me more than her, but I’m tired of fighting this — of being the better person.” She lifts one shoulder and settles one of her palms over Robin’s heart, the organ beating steadily beneath her hand and comforting her immensely. “Turns out I’m just as selfish as everyone’s always said and I want you too much...”

He shakes his head immediately, cupping her face in both his hands as he tells her, “Not at all, milady. You are the most extraordinary, stunning woman I’ve ever met. You deserve to be happy, to get what you want. Perhaps it’s a bit presumptuous of me to assume that might include me.”

“It does,” Regina assures him instantly, interrupting him with a small smile, just the corners of her mouth tipping up.

Robin’s own grin begins to form, a slight smirk gracing his features as he tells her for a third time, “I love you. With all of my heart and soul.”

Fear and anxiety are a hard knot in her stomach as she gazes up at him. But his hands are still warm against her cheeks, his body close and his eyes reassuring in the depth of his feelings as she looks deeply into them. So Regina encircles his wrists with her fingers and takes a leap of faith, testing the fates as she whispers back, “I love you, too.”

The smile that erupts on Robin’s face makes her heart flutter, bursting inside her chest as he swoops in and covers her mouth with his. Everything about it feels right, despite the wrongness of the situation. The two of them make sense and it’s time they both stop trying to pretend otherwise.

It takes almost no effort at all for Robin to coerce her back into bed, settling back amongst the mountain of pillows and sinking into the mattress, into each other again, getting lost in the exquisite feel of their bodies and souls joining together. Languid kisses and soft skin, quiet sighs and strangled moans as they bring each other to bliss yet again.

It takes them another few weeks. Endless nights and days pouring over every single magical book and potion she possess, a few desperate conversations with The Dark One, but eventually they find a spell that works. One that melts the frigid ice from Marian’s crystalized form until she’s warm blooded and fully herself again, heart and all.

The conversation Robin must have with her then isn’t easy, and she’s confused, hurt and heartbroken that her husband isn’t the same man she remembers, the one who would have moved heaven and Earth to be with her, would have walked through fire just to have her standing at his side again. But true to the woman he’d fallen in love with in the first place, she eventually grows understanding, would never do anything to keep him from being happy, and as hard as it is to accept, that happiness lies with the queen now.

Things are a bit awkward and uncomfortable between the three of them at first, but gradually she begins to get to know Regina, discovers the qualities about her that Robin had fallen for in the first place and she and Regina fall into a bit of a tentative friendship, much to the shock of both of them.

With everything out in the open now, Regina and Robin have a chance to truly start to form a life together. There’s weeks of breakfast dates at Granny’s, afternoons spent in the park with their sons, and evenings cuddled together by the fire. Gradually, she begins to trust in their relationship, in their love for each other, and Regina begins to believe that this time might just be different. That she’s finally repented enough to deserve her happy ending.

That’s when Robin and Roland move from the Merry Men’s camp into the mansion, when the four of them finally become the family she’s always craved. Her and Henry, Robin and Roland, and the happily ever after that’s always been just beyond her grasp. Until now.

[ourheroregina]

OQ Happy Ending Week - Day 1

Day 1 - Bandit OQ Happy Ending

Nice reading!

Inhaling, Regina opens her eyes slowly.

She has no idea where she is. She does not remember anything except standing up in front of that unknown boy to protect him from getting hurt. What she does remember, however, is the piercing pain that shot through her the moment the sword touched her chest and then everything is a blur.

Confused, Regina lifts her head a bit from the hard pillow but regrets the decision immediately.

Her palms turn into fists as everything around her starts to spin. She tries to breathe through uneasiness and pain that floods her body, her chest shakes with every breath she takes, making her knuckles go white from how hard she’s squeezing her hands.

It’s pure torture.

“Milady,” she hears a voice from above her, a voice that she recognizes and her eyes snap open (she doesn’t recall closing them). For a moment, everything is blurry but then her vision becomes clearer and she catches him, the man who saved her from the Evil Snow, looking at her with relief written all over his handsome face.

She tries to say something but the unbearable pain in her chest forbids her and only a gasp escapes her as she closes her eyes, trying to steady her breathing so that it wouldn’t hurt so much.

“Stay calm, milady,” he says in that annoyingly sweet voice that he probably uses when he talks with small children and she scrunches her nose at him, but even that takes the pain to a higher level. “You were injured pretty badly but the healer cleaned your wound and patched it up,” Robin tells her and she gives him what she hopes is an understanding look, praying he’ll get its meaning.

It seems Robin does get what she means because he only smiles sympathetically at her and squeezes her hand. He stands up then from his chair and walks to the nightstand, puts a washcloth into the water and then brings it to Regina’s forehead.

She hisses as the cold cloth makes contact with her hot skin (she probably has some kind of infection which made her feverish, she thinks) and even that little sound makes the muscles of her body tense, reminding her why she was trying to stay so still in the first place.

“The healer said you are forbidden to leave bed for a few days,” Robin continues to speak, and if Regina wasn’t in so much pain, she would have laughed at his words because she’s pretty sure she’s not capable of lifting one single finger up. “But you’ll fine, milady. I’ll make sure that you’ll survive all of this.”

Robin’s words make Regina frown and she wants to say something, to ask where she is or what happened after she got injured, how he found her but the weakness overtake her body and she falls into unconsciousness where there’s no pain.

(…)

When Regina wakes up next time, she feels better. She still has to open her eyes slowly but when she does, the ceiling above her is no longer turning. Breathing has become a bit easier, only every other inhale makes her grit her teeth from pain.

She smiles to herself as she slowly lifts one hand, then another and it might hurt like a bitch but she can survive that, it’s nothing compared to what she was feeling when she woke up for the first time. She shifts a bit then and tries to sit up.

It turns out to be a huge mistake.

She screams out in pain, can’t help it, and falls back on bed, her whole body shaking. Every breath is an agony, every moment spent not breathing is an agony too and she fists the sheets as hard as she possibly can and tries to breathe, tries to stop the shaking of her body, tries to wait until this pain will lessen.

“Regina!”

Robin’s alarmed voice is heard and it doesn’t take a second until there’s a zipper sound heard and Robin is rushing to her side, his face anxious. She sees a few other men walk into what she finally notices is a tent but she stays focused on Robin’s eyes, those blue eyes that she thinks she was born to gaze into but her faith was cruel - he married another.

“I’m alright,” she manages, her throat sore and scratchy.

It takes a while but the pain finally lessens and turns into something that she can take without squeezing sheets in her hands. She still breathes cautiously, afraid of putting herself into unbearable pain again.

“Are you thirsty?” Robin asks when the men leave the tent, zipping it up and leaving the two of them alone.

Water would be amazing right now but she shakes her head – moving does not sound amazing at all. She watches as Robin takes a chair from the other end of the tent and carries it to Regina’s bed. He sits down on it then and takes her hand in his.

“You scared the hell out of us,” Robin tells her with a small, unsure smile on his face. Regina arches an eyebrow at him – they knew each other for like… one day, and she definitely feels something for him but there’s no way he could feel the same, after all he got married.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her voice too weak to say words loudly. “I promise to leave your tent as soon as I am able to get out of this bed,” she tells him, feeling guilty. She does not remember the last time someone took care of her and asked for nothing in return or made some cruel things to her.

She’s learned her lessons the hard way and now she’s able to protect herself. She’s not afraid of Robin but she’s not the one to take help from others, she does not trust easily and if the pain wasn’t so bad, she would be on her way now.

“No worries, you can stay here for as long as you need,” he assures her. After a beat, he adds, “Even though we are rivals, we can forget our differences right now, at least until you get better.”

Regina stays quiet, not knowing what else to say.

For a moment they stay in a comfortable silence and Robin takes her hand in his and strokes it, and Regina blames it on some sort of drugs that must be coursing with her blood for making her so damn weak for this thief with deep blue eyes.

Trying to distract herself from the thoughts that should not be invading her mind, she asks, “What happened after I got hurt?”

“Well, the man who did this to you disappeared. The boy you saved took your blood, and you’ll not believe it but he used it as an ink to write something. As soon as he finished, he, the blonde woman and some crazy man disappeared and you were left there bleeding down to death,” he says, squeezing her hand. “Me and my men brought you to our camp, found a healer that saved your life.”

Regina swallows hard, feeling so conflicted and confused at the same time. Her thoughts drift back to this unexplainable pull she felt towards that boy, there was an unknown need to protect him so badly that she didn’t even care about her own life.

The boy is gone now and she’ll never get her answers, so instead she changes the topic.

“Where is your wife?”

“She… disappeared.” Robin frowns, and  then explains, “She ran away right after our wedding ceremony. A few days later I got a letter from her telling me that our marriage was a mistake and that she’s leaving to the West side of the land.”

Regina’s eyes widen in surprise. “A few days later? How long have I been staying here?”

“For about two weeks now, milady.”

Regina gasps at the revelation. Two weeks. She’s been here for two weeks. The air is stuck in her throat as she curses herself over and over again. She’s pretty sure her little home in the middle of the forest now belongs to someone else while she’s laying here hurt and homeless now.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

“I’m so sorry for putting you through all this trouble.” Regina says after a moment, turning to look at Robin who tells her that it was no trouble at all. Still, she assures him, “I promise to pay you for your hospitality and as soon as I’m back on my feet I’ll leave and you’ll never have to see me again.”

Robin doesn’t seem to agree with her but he keeps his thoughts to himself and smiles at her instead, squeezing her hand again in a comforting way.

She could stare into his eyes for the rest of her life.

(…)

Recovering is a hard process.

She tries to get better as quickly as possible but it takes another two weeks for her to finally get out of the bed without screaming out in pain. She can barely eat for the pain most of the time is way too much and that awful scar in the middle of her chest doesn’t make her feel any better either.

After getting out of the bed things become easier. Before she knows it, she’s able to walk without support around the camp of the men who somehow became her friends, and she’s able to eat properly, she can even chuckle without feeling like her insides are being torn apart. Even though getting up from bed, sitting up or standing up still makes tears collect at the corners of her eyes she’s getting better.

She’s finally getting strong enough to leave.

And she tells Robin so one evening when he escorts her to her tent (evenings are not the best part of the day, after a day on feet she barely makes it to bed on her own).

“I think I’m strong enough to live on my own,” she says slowly and she can feel as Robin immediately tenses beside her. They’ve become closer during those weeks she stayed with them, they bonded while talking about thievery and their secret tricks, and Regina would be lying if she said that she’s not sad to leave this camp.

She would be lying if she said that she didn’t developed feelings for this thief.

“Maybe… maybe you could stay?” Robin offers, stopping their slow walk. He turns her aching body a bit so she’s looking directly to his face and for a moment he just looks at her. Then he inhales deeply and stutters, “I… you became a part of our … family, Regina. You’ve become a friend to all of us and I would hate to see you leave us.”

“What are you saying?” She asks, confused.

“You can stay with us.” He tells her, making her eyes turn wide. “You’re a wonderful bandit and we would be honored to have you in our band. You’re also a wonderful friend to me and even if you don’t see it, you helped me to survive the hardest part of my life – being left by a wife is not as simple as it looks.”

“Robin, I could never-“

“Please, think about it,” he asks her, “Don’t give me an answer now. Just think about it.”

“I…” she stares at him at a loss of words, opening her mouth over and over again but no words come out.

Robin smiles at her and wraps his arm around her again, helps her go to bed and lie down. Then he pulls the sheet over her body and takes her hand, squeezes it and tells her that he would love to have her around for the rest of his life.

That night Regina doesn’t sleep. She thinks about all cons and pros of staying with the band of Merry Men, she thinks about what it means to them to take her in permanently – she’s sure Snow White will be not only after Regina, but after them too.

She’s good at being alone and she liked the life that she’s built for herself – a life where she’s a homeless person who barely gets to eat but it was still better than living in the castle with that crazy woman – but now, now she got used to the loud voices of men, to inappropriate jokes and stories around the campfire. She got used to Robin’s arm wrapped around her for support while they walk around the campsite and his forest scent.

She thinks that she’s good at being alone and she can always go back to it if she doesn’t like being in a band of thieves.

And so she tells Robin and this band the first thing in the morning that she’s staying. The reaction she gets from those men surprises her and makes tears collect in her eyes – they all applaud her and hug her and some of them squeeze her too tight making her grit her teeth in pain but she’s still happy, as happy as she has never been before.

And when finally Robin approaches her, he pulls her into his arms but instead of hugging, he presses his lips against hers, surprising her. She doesn’t hesitate and responds, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer, ignoring the pain that rushes through her as their chest press together.

She’s dreamt about this moment for so long now, and it seems that Robin did, too.

And as a group of wild men whistle around them, Regina thinks that this is what a happy life feels like.

In the back of her head she realizes that she’s found her happy ending in the middle of the woods with thieves and criminals, and she could never regret giving up the life that she once had.

[ourheroregina]

OQ Happy Ending Week - Day4

Day 4 - Pre-curse Happy Ending

(...)

Blankly Robin stared at the cup of ale in front of him. Laughter could be heard around him as his friends rose their glasses and drank, pulling random girls closer to themselves, shamelessly flirting, but Robin could barely hear them, too lost in his own head.

He would be doing the same thing his friends were doing if one year ago the Queen wouldn’t have entered this tavern. He would be drinking his night away, kissing random girls around the corner freely, unbothered now.

But the Queen had entered the tavern. She had stolen Robin’s heart and soul in a blink and now that she’d left him, he felt as if he was drowning. He didn’t know how to be himself anymore; all he felt was pain that the woman who changed his world had to sacrifice their relationship in order to save his life from her cruel mother.

Robin was foolish enough to believe that they would and could be happy together. She was the Queen of Enchanted Forest, and he was only a thief with some lion tattoo (tattoo, that said they were meant to be together) but the social status didn’t matter, nothing mattered, Robin thought they would escape her husband and be together.

Sighing sadly, Robin takes a gulp of his ale.

It’s been six months since he saw her the last time. That day she was teary-eyed and shaking as she ran into the very same tavern he’s sitting right now, telling him that her mother was back and that the monster knew about their affair. Regina was sobbing when she told him that the only way to save Robin’s life was to stop seeing each other.

Robin stills remembers that day as if it happened moments ago. He still remembers how soft her lips were as she kissed him one last time. His own eyes were filled with tears when her wet cheeks pressed against his, when her hands gripped his shoulders one last time.

And then she was gone.

Feeling a lump forming in his throat, Robin empties the cup of ale and mutters to John, who’s very busy kissing some girl, that he’s going to refill his cup. His friend doesn’t even react to his words, so Robin stands up and turns around to walk to the bar but when he catches her.

Regina is standing there, in this tavern, right in front of him. She’s bent over a bit, her head rested against the doorway for support. She has a thick fur wrapped all around her body, her soft hair is cascading down her face but Robin can see her grimace, can see how she struggles to breath.

He’s rotten in his place, blinking his eyes over and over again, not believing that she’s actually here.

Finally snapping out of his shock, Robin puts the cup on the table and makes his way towards her. The closer he gets to her, the faster his heart beats in his chest, his palms becoming sweaty.

Suddenly something happens to Regina and she almost falls to the ground, her head thrown back, her mouth opened in a silent scream and Robin cannot control himself anymore. He runs straight to her, wrapping his arms around her before she can fall.

“Regina!” he exclaims, holding her in his arms, feeling his heart jumping in his chest. “Are you okay?”

She slowly lifts her head a bit to look at him. Her cheeks are wet, face red, eyes bloodshot and Robin grits his teeth in anger – if that bastard touched her again, Robin will kill him. He swears to Gods he’ll slit the King’s throat and watch that man bleed to death.

“Robin,” she manages to say but then her face turns into a grimace and soon she lets out a silent scream, her eyes squeezed shut.

Confused, Robin furrows his brow. He doesn’t understand what is happened, he doesn’t understand what hurts her so much, so he hesitantly tightens his arms around her so that she doesn’t fall to the ground in her agony.  

After a few moments Regina finally lets out an easier sigh and tries to pull away from Robin, straighten herself and that’s when Robin finally sees it – her huge bump. The fur around her covers her stomach protectively  as does the thick dress and any other person would just think that the Queen has gained weight.

Robin knows her body like the back of his hand and this curve on her front is definitely a baby bump.

“Regina,” he gasps in surprise, his eyes wide as he looks up from her belly to her eyes and she only bites her lips and squeezes her eyes shut, her palms turning into fists as her whole body tenses.

Only then does Robin realize that she’s in labor.

It takes everything in him to stop himself from panicking but he manages to breathe through the uneasiness in his stomach. He tightens his arm around Regina and motions with his head towards the small room upstairs, “Let’s get you somewhere quieter.”

Regina doesn’t fight him, just nods her head quickly and bites her lip hard. Robin inhales shakily, mentally encouraging himself and slowly starts to walk her to the stairs. She winces with every step, and he wonders how long she’s been suffering this pain but then they finally reach the end of the stairs and Robin quickly pushes the door open and leads Regina inside.

There’s a small bed, a bed where whores do their job and any other time Regina would have grimaced at the fact but now she lies down on the bed without a fight and sighs in what Robin hopes is relief.

“What are you doing here?” Robin asks as he puts a pillow under her back to make her more comfortable.

When he pulls away, Regina grabs his hand and looks straight into his eyes. “Nobody knows that I’m pregnant,” she says, her voice as steady as it can be in a situation like this, “I had to protect the baby, Robin, I couldn’t let anybody know.”

“I have to find a midwife, Regina,” Robin glances down at her belly and stands up then, not knowing what else to do.

Regina tightens her hold on his hand and stops him. When he looks at her confused, she insists, “No midwifes. No one can know about this, Robin. You’ll help me.” Her hold on him becomes stronger as she grimaces again and Robin feels powerless standing there and watching her suffering.

“Are you out of your mind?” Robin asks when the contraction is over and her beautiful features relax a bit. He shakes his head even though Regina is not looking.

“We can’t risk it,” Regina tells him, tears in her eyes. “Robin, if my mother or Leopold or even Rumple find out about our baby, he will be dead before he’s even born.” The tone of her voice makes goose bumps raise on his skin and he’s not sure if it’s the threat or the revelation that the baby is his that had such effect on him.

Another contraction comes and this time Regina screams out in pain, her grip making Robin grit his teeth. She struggles to catch her breath, her face turning red and he curses under his breath, not knowing what to do.

He knows that Regina’s mother wouldn’t pity their child, she would kill the baby instantly. He knows that Regina would suffer then too, and she’s suffered most of her life already, she does not deserve more pain.

Robin swallows hard, his hands shaking from panic.

“What will we need?” he asks when Regina starts breathing again and she manages a small smile before the hardest part begins.

(…)

“He’s so small,” Robin whispers into Regina’s hair as he watches down to the pink newborn on her chest.

Regina smiles weakly and says, “I am so lucky he is small. Otherwise, it would have been so much harder to hide my pregnancy. Someone would have found out about it and –“ she stops for a moment and shakes her head, her eyes closing. “I don’t even want to think what would have happened to him.”

Robin hums in response. Their son would be killed, Regina would probably be locked up for the rest of her life in dungeons for betraying the King. The thought makes him tense.

“What will we do now?” he asks, trying to push these thoughts away – she’s here now safe and so is the baby. No one can harm them anymore.

For a long moment Regina is silent, and Robin wonders if she’s fallen asleep but then she finally sighs and shrugs her shoulders.

“I love you,” Robin whispers into her hair then, his voice soothing.

“I love you too,” Regina echoes and rests her head against his shoulder before falling into a much needed slumber.

(…)

In the morning, Robin wakes up alone. He finds the side of the bed bloody but empty and cold. Roland lets out a piercing cry then and Robin immediately lifts his gaze up until he notices the baby and immediately takes him into his arms as carefully as he can, shushing him.

When the baby calms down in his arms, he takes another look around the room. There’s a small piece of paper on the chair and when Robin takes it into his hand, he recognizes the handwriting instantly.

“Dear Robin,

I know you have never wanted children but you have one now and I have no doubt that you’ll raise him well. Please, do not look for me, do not try to reach me, we both know it will end badly.

Just keep Roland safe and love him for the both of us.

I love you both more than words can tell,

Regina.”

(…)

Regina storms into her chambers and shuts the door behind her with a wave of her head. She quickly wipes away the fake tears from her cheeks – she’s had to pretend that she was sad that her very sweet husband was killed, she had to fool everyone and act like she was heartbroken when in reality she was celebrating her best victory.

Mother is away, Leopold is dead, and she controls her own magic now, she does not need Rumple anymore.

She’s not felt so free in her whole life.

Not wasting a single moment, Regina demands the guards to take her carriage and moments later she’s in the middle of the forest, heading towards Sherwood.

The whole way her hands are shaking, she tries to keep her emotions under control.  She’s dreamt about this moment for so long but she’s never thought it would actually happen.

After a few hours she gets out of the carriage and makes her way to the campsite she saw on her mirror a few days ago.

She’s never came here but she’s watched Robin and Roland through her mirror. She watched how her son would run around the campsite shouting and screaming while his father chased after him. She celebrated Roland’s birthdays, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ songs to him along his father. She watched how he tried to shoot an arrow for the first time secretly and almost got hurt.

Roland has never seen her but she was always there.

She did disappear from his life but she always tried to make sure that he was safe and happy.

Now nobody was holding her back anymore. She didn’t have to watch him through the mirror anymore. She could finally meet him in person.

Inhaling deeply, Regina forces her legs to move. She takes a step closer, her hands shaking at her sides, her breath hitching in her throat as she enters the camp and notices the most handsome boy running around the bonfire.

Everything around her stop while she watches her son. There are gasps heard in the background but Regina doesn’t move her eyes away from Roland until a strong hand is rested on her shoulder and she’s being turned around.

“Regina!”

“Robin!” she exclaims and wraps her arms around him immediately. Her heart is beating like crazy in her chest as Robin wraps his arms around her tightly, holding her close to him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, burying his nose in her hair, inhaling her scent.

Regina does the same – Gods, she missed the smell of forest.

“I killed my husband,” she finally says as she pulls away from him and looks straight into his eyes. “I killed him, Robin, I’m free now.” Robin’s eyes widen in surprise and then he grins and pulls her even closer, lifts her from the ground and turns around.

“You’re free,” he lets out a shout and presses his lips against hers.

Regina chuckles into the kiss and tightens her arms around Robin’s neck but then suddenly he stops kissing her and pulls away a bit, looks down. She follows his gaze and finds Roland standing beside them, his dark wonderful eyes staring at them.

Regina has to press her lips together in a thin line so she doesn’t start sobbing.

“Roland,” Robin starts, quickly picking the boy up from the ground and turning back to Regina. He smiles at her and continues, “Do you remember that I told you had a mama out there who had to leave so she could protect us?” The boy nods, looking from Regina to Robin.  “Well, Roland, mama came back to us.”

“Mama?” Roland asks shyly looking straight at her.

Her eyes fill with tears as she manages a quiet, “Hi, baby,” before smiling at him. A few drops fall down her cheeks as she looks at her son, a beautiful boy who had to spend his first four years without a mother. Her heart clenches at the thought.

The boy looks skeptically at her for a moment before grinning, dimples appearing in his cheeks.

“Can I hug you?” Regina asks awkwardly and the boy nods his head eagerly before stretching his arms out for her.

As soon as her hands wrap around the boy, something inside her just clicks. Suddenly all the rage she felt for Snow White disappears, all her troubles with Rumple don’t seem so important, all that pain she’s felt after losing her lover and son doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

And as Robin’s arms wrap around the two of them, Regina feels complete.