A/N: So this is my first attempt at writing Dragon Queen and hopefully it's not a complete disaster. I also don't normally write characters this young (for reference, Regina is 18, or just about to be and Mal is around 21/22).
This story came about in a strange way - bizarrely enough, it was indirectly the result of the Morrissey bad-sex post that's been going around on tumblr. I went and listened to a whole bunch of The Smiths after seein it to try and remind myself that Morrissey isn't always an entirely terrible writer, and wound up being inspired to write this fic by 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out'. I promise that that's the only inspiration I took from Morrissey - there's no bad-sex here.
It's the pall of silence, heavy in the air, as she walks in the front door that alerts her. The normal sounds of the house are absent – Daddy watching the news in his study, Mother preparing dinner – and she feels her heart rate quicken and an anxious roiling begin in her stomach. It had been the same the day she'd come home to discover Zelena gone after the latest in a series of arguments. It had been the same when Mother had discovered she'd lied about a sleepover to go to a party. It had been the same a hundred times for a hundred reasons, and Regina has learned to fear this kind of heavy, expectant silence, this sepulchral air, more than anything.
She latches the front door quietly behind her, hoping to make her way up to her bedroom unnoticed, to stave off the inevitable for a few moments longer. Her hopes are in vain, because Mother's voice rings out from the dining room, sounding a call to execution and a death knell all at once. When she walks into the room, Daddy is looking anywhere but at her, and Mother's face is like iron, the lines around her mouth appearing more deeply etched than usual.
She's on autopilot as she takes the seat that Mother indicates to her, and it's only after she sits down that she sees her diary on the table, sees the page that it's open at. The formless sense of dread crystallises, and when she meets Mother's eyes, there is not a hint of mercy evident.
There's a sharp, hot flash of anger that briefly tears through her at this further evidence of her mother's intrusions, at the thought of her secrets laid bare, but where Mother is concerned, fear is always the most sensible emotion. They sit there in silence for a few minutes; Regina has learned that if she breaks the silence first, the punishment will be particularly harsh. Her mother likes to draw out the suffering. At one point, her father looks as if he is about to speak, but he is quieted by a hand on his wrist that Regina knows without looking will be bruisingly tight.
Finally, Mother speaks.
"Your father and I are worried about you, dear. We think you might have been exposed to some… confusing ideas." She pushes a book across the table, and Regina's heart sinks as she realises it's the novel that Mal had loaned her. The novel that very obviously had two girls kissing on the cover.
Regina tries to swallow down the fear, tries to summon words, anything, to deflect the onslaught she knows is coming. Instead, her traitorous tongue is thick and heavy in her mouth and she continues to sit there, mute, while her mother regards her with a hint of a smile that is entirely lacking in warmth.
"Dear, do you have anything to say for yourself? Perhaps you can tell me where you got this book?" Somehow, she manages to infuse the word 'book' with a meaning that is something putrid and ugly, something that should not be discussed in polite company, all without dropping her smile.
"I bought it." She knows that Mother won't believe the lie, but she has to try. Mal is supposed to be nothing more than her tutor, but the odd friendship they've formed is something that Regina holds close to herself; it's something precious, something other, something that Mother can't touch. There's already a brow arching sceptically at her response.
"Really, dear? This isn't your handwriting inside the front cover."
"It was second-hand. It came like that."
"And why would you want to buy something like this, dear?"
Regina shrugged. "I just picked it up with a whole lot of other books."
"I wonder if someone has been leading you astray, perhaps. Planting these wayward thoughts in your mind…" She holds up the diary, finally, and shakes her head. "I honestly felt sick to my stomach while I was reading this, Regina."
"Mother, please…" she starts, but her mother interrupts.
"You will be meeting with Pastor Gold tomorrow. He has kindly agreed to counsel you. You are grounded effective immediately, and you will not be seeing that tutor again. She's obviously been teaching you more than just chemistry and your father and I are disgusted to think that we trusted her under our roof, with our daughter."
Regina's heart sinks. Her mother has obviously decoded enough of the information in her diary to have realised that Mal is who she has been writing about. To an outsider, this whole exchange might seem very polite, very reasonable. Her mother hasn't raised her voice at all, and has maintained a tone of gentle concern throughout. But Regina knows that this is when she is at her most dangerous.
"May I have my diary back, please, Mother?" She's desperate to get it back, desperate enough to ask and risk further anger. She hates the thought of her mother having it any longer.
"You may not."
"But…" The look she receives quickly silences her and she is certain that she will pay later for this moment of insolence.
"You may go to your room and complete your homework."
She walks a measured pace out of the room, waiting until she is out of Mother's sight to run up the stairs. She manages to hold back the flood of tears that has been threatening to spill forth, until she reaches her room – a tiny victory – and collapses onto her bed, hugging a pillow tight to her chest. After a time, she can find no more tears, and the anger of before returns.
The sounds of her mother preparing for bed echo throughout the house; Regina has catalogued every sound, every ritual, and has become far too good at recognising her moods in the way she closes doors, in the cadence of her steps, in the performance of a thousand other mundane activities. At the sound of a padlock clicking shut, she knows that she will be left alone tonight, with an empty belly and a churning sense of dread of what tomorrow will bring. The terror of anticipation has always been her mother's favourite tool.
All of a sudden, the thought of spending another minute of her life under this roof, suffocated by Mother's oppressive presence, sickens her and she's spurred to action. She's throwing things into a bag when she hears the door unlatch and her heart skips at the thought of Mother catching her. She's panicking, not sure what to do with the evidence of her disobedience, but she relaxes slightly when she notices Daddy standing, hesitant, in the doorway. He won't help her, but he won't inform on her either.
"I'm sorry, my dear," he says. He edges gingerly into the room when she doesn't immediately dismiss him. "What are you doing?"
"I can't stay here anymore." She continues packing her bag, not looking at him.
"Please, Regina. She'll come around." He's saying lines that she's heard a thousand times before, lines that fall too easily from his lips.
She shakes her head. "You know she won't."
"I'll talk to her."
For a moment, she desperately wants to believe him. Wants to believe in him. Wants to go back to a time when she was small and he was her protector, her loyal knight at arms. But those days are barely more than a dream, and now his back is bowed and his face is worn and he's timid, rather than brave. And she aches for what he's suffered, what he'll continue to suffer, but she resents him too, because he was never quite strong enough to take on her suffering when she needed him most.
"No, Daddy. Don't. There's no sense in both of us angering Mother." She finally looks up at him, and tries not to see the relief mixed with guilt and grief. Tries to hold onto some small part of that tall, handsome ghost from the past, the one she's never quite sure really existed.
He pulls her tight to his chest as she moves to leave, and she closes her eyes and pretends for a moment, just for a moment, that everything will be alright. She knows it won't, but hopes maybe it will be a little better at least.
Finally, he releases her. "I love you. Be safe," he says, as he pulls out his wallet and presses a wad of cash into her hand. She presses one last, quick kiss to his cheek and then she creeps down the stairs and out into the world.
She suspects there will be a little bit of heat coming his way for this small rebellion and that without her there to divide Mother's attention, his suffering will be multiplied. She feels a pang of guilt for what she's leaving him to face, but she's reached a point where the only way forward is to choose herself.
The door opens and there's a blast of music that Regina doesn't recognise and the sound of laughter coming from inside the apartment. Mal is framed in the doorway, tall, elegant, the epitome of effortless glamour and Regina suddenly feels small and plain and so very young. There's only four years between them, but right now it feels like a vast divide. Objectively, Regina knows she's pretty, knows that boys at school look at her, talk about her. But standing here in front of Mal, she feels like a kindergartener's finger-painting hanging next to an Old Master.
"Regina." There's a frown knitting Mal's brow, and she studies Regina intently.
"I didn't know where else to go."
She sighs. "Come inside."
Mal leads her through to the living room, where two women are draped over each other on a sofa, drinking cocktails. Regina can't help but stare a little; Much like Mal, they're both strikingly attractive, one with dramatically pale skin and hair that is a strange combination of black and platinum, the other with darker skin and golden curls. They look up at her with interest, and one of them speaks.
"Well now. Who is this?"
"I'm Regina."
"Well, hello Regina." She turns her attention to Mal. "She's pretty, but she's a little more virginal than your usual type, darling. Are you going soft in your old age?"
"Leave her alone, Cru." Mal turns back to Regina. "The mean one is Cru, my roommate. And this is her girlfriend, Ursula."
"Nice to meet you both." Regina tries to summon a smile and suspects she's failed when Ursula and Cru collapse into fresh fits of laughter.
Mal rests a gentle hand on her shoulder and her breath is warm against Regina's ear. "Can I get you something to drink?"
"Ah… no, I'm okay." She swallows, nervous, hyperaware of Mal's proximity. Cru and Ursula are still laughing, and she's suddenly wondering if she made the right decision coming here. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude on your plans."
"It's alright." Mal is studying her intently again. "Do you want to get out of here, go somewhere a little quieter where we can talk?"
"I don't want to ruin your evening." Regina desperately wants to say yes, but she doesn't want Mal to feel obligated.
"These two will be like this for hours and there's only so much of Cru I can handle. You'd be doing me a favour. Really."
They go down to Mal's car and she drives for a while, until they're on the outskirts of town, at a lookout over the ocean.
"This is where I go when I need to think," Mal says.
It's a warm night, and they sit on a picnic bench and watch the waves roll in, barely visible under the light of the moon. Regina closes her eyes and breathes in the scent of salt and finally feels a slight degree of calm settle.
They sit in silence for a while. Mal finally speaks. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"
"My parents found out that I'm gay. It wasn't pretty." Regina stares resolutely out towards the water, willing her voice to remain steady, willing herself not to cry.
"I'm sorry."
Regina's breath catches at the sensation of elegant, fine-boned fingers tracing the line of her jaw, her cheek, sweeping upward to catch an errant tear. She's surreptitiously watched those hands so many times as they leafed through the pages of her Chemistry notebook. She's dreamed about what they might feel like, and now she knows they're more gentle than she'd imagined. She turns to look at Mal properly, and there's a look in her eyes that warms Regina. For a second, she thinks that Mal might kiss her, thinks about closing the distance herself, but she's not brave enough and the moment passes.
"Do you mind if I smoke?"
Regina shakes her head and watches as Mal lights a cigarette, struggling with her lighter for a moment in the wind. She finally gets it to light, before taking a long draw. Mal's lips are painted a vivid red, and Regina can't help but stare as they close around the cigarette. She's often wondered what that colour would look like on her own lips, but Mother has banned her from wearing anything more than a subtle hint of make-up. She wonders now what it would look like smudged across her mouth, painted there by Mal's kisses.
She watches as Mal tilts her head back, blowing smoke into the night with practiced ease, exposing the long, slender column of her throat. She longs to reach out and trace the planes of her skin with her fingers and retrace them with her tongue. Out here, alone in the night, her mind is racing to places she doesn't normally allow it to.
Mal turns to her and silently offers the cigarette. Regina hesitates for a moment before accepting it and taking a long draw from it, thinking as she does that her lips are touching the same place Mal's had a moment ago. And then, she's coughing at the unexpected irritation of the smoke hitting the back of her throat, and Mal is rubbing her back and laughing, and the cigarette is somewhere on the ground. She finally catches her breath and then it's gone again, because at some point the distance between them has narrowed and she can feel Mal's breath on her face, and she's falling into stormy slate-coloured eyes. And this time, Regina is brave.
There's an expression on Mal's face that's not quite a smile, not quite a frown. She cups Regina's chin, holding her in place, frustratingly short, while her thumb strokes gentle patterns along her jawline. "Regina, you've had a rough day, and you might think this is a good idea right now, but tomorrow you might not think so."
She bites her lip, trying to wrest her focus away from the warmth pooling in her belly in response to Mal's caress. She wills control to her voice and it only quavers a little as she says, "I don't want to think about tomorrow right now, but this, this I won't regret." She holds Mal's gaze, until she relaxes, the frown slowly disappearing. "I've thought about this, about you, so many times."
And then, the hand that was cupping Regina's chin is sliding around to tangle in her hair, and she forgets to breathe for a moment as full, soft lips finally meet her own. Then she's breathing again and she's filling her lungs with Mal; the hint of smoke, the subtle perfume she wears, the essence of her. She's kissed before, been kissed before, but it's never been quite like this. Even as close as they are, Regina aches to be closer still. And then Mal slowly eases away and Regina feels the loss acutely.
She raises her fingers to her lips, almost unable to believe the reality of this moment. But it is real; it's evident in the way her breath is coming slightly quicker than usual, the way her heart is beating hard and fast, the way that Mal's eyes survey her, warm and languid, her lips slightly parted. She thinks it's more real than anything she's ever felt or known, and she can't bring herself to regret a moment of this day because it brought her to this place.