Once upon a Time/T/Angst-Romance/Regina-Emma
Author's note: First OuaT-fic(let). A bit of me trying to get a feel for the way I see these chracters.
Unbeta'd, but I'd love if anyone was interested in doing just that. Drop me a line, please... Other fandoms I write in are CSI and Rizzoli & Isles. I'm not a native speaker, but I hope that doesn't deter you...
Our own laws
For once, it didn't work.
It just didn't work!
She'd thrown all her weight into this arena that opened up - vast sandy ground all around them, surrounded by thick, high walls, wrought-iron gates, just waiting to release the lions lying in wait behind them, an imaginary audience of hundreds cheering them on - every time they came together like this.
Confrontation.
Time and again, yet to no avail.
Now, exasperation.
None of her heated looks that were immediately reflected back at her in at least equal measure, none of her stepping just that tad bit too close, invading personal space with a few extra inches towards the other woman, none of her glares, her snares, her hollow, snide chuckles of superiority had managed to churn the reaction she'd hoped for, longed for, for too long now.
She had managed to get them all, each and every one, whether here in Storybrooke or - in a different time and another place. It didn't even matter where or when, all that mattered was the blonde standing before her, not backing down, not giving way in the least, yet not being affected the way she should have been by now.
There was no anger in the sharp, alert green eyes, just a hint of such aggravating compassion now and then it almost blinded Regina with fury.
Oh, how she hated her. How she hated her nonchalance, her calmness, her measured, restrained anger that never crossed that line Regina willed it to cross.
It wasn't even that Emma had never yelled at her, or bit into her. It was just that there was something more, something the part in 'Madam Mayor' that had burst open upon the arrival of her son's birth mother, the part that was suddenly filled with so much feeling that sometimes she couldn't even breathe without daring to suffocate in the unfamiliarity of it, this long forgotten, dismissed yearning, needed from the woman now leaning so seemingly casual against her desk. The desk over which she herself was bent forwards, minimising not only the physical distance between them once again.
When Emma simply huffed upon her latest insult of her abilities to perform her job and fixed her with that pointed glare of utter ignorance despite Regina's less than subtle insinuations, one hand -unclenched but yet not completely relaxed - resting on the polished wooden surface, something inside the Mayor snapped.
Like strings on a violin strung just too tightly, unable to stand even another eighth of a turn, already painfully out of tune, she unraveled, the twisted wires gave so suddenly that she almost felt the coming free as physical agony, and she reached out, her unyielding grip around the Sheriff's neck harsh and possessive as she pulled the other woman close and stared into almost comically wide eyes that first conveyed shock, then intent for withdrawal, before recognition lit them up.
There it was, the wildfire that she'd always known to lurk beneath the surface. And she'd rake it up, given the chance, until it burned hotter than hellfire.
But when a much to cool hand curled around her wrist, its grip more of a caress than a hold, and Emma spoke, for the first time in what felt like hours since the beginning of their standoff, her voice hoarse, but steady and seemingly unaffected, Regina felt the scales tipping, and her world tumbling upside down. Felt that this fire might rather be consuming her than the other way around, like she'd intended.
"You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, Madame Mayor."
Scorched by what had fueled her on only seconds before, Regina let go of the blonde just as suddenly as she'd grabbed for her.
Panic forced a prickling, alarming way up her spine, leaving goose-flesh in its wake. And not the good kind.
When Emma rounded the desk, the closeness initiated not by Regina this time around felt foreign, almost frightening to the one who usually was the instigator of such proximity.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
She was always the hunter. Never in her adult life had she ever been the prey. And she'd never felt more cornered in all her life than she did right then. Yet she couldn't seem to find the will to distract herself from the pull her so suddenly emboldened counterpart had on her.
When Emma's actions echoed her earlier ones, the still cold hand clawing not around her neck, but settling over her throat, and not without a fair, though still restrained amount of pressure, a gasp betrayed Regina's at any other time so unflappable demeanour, her attempt to train her gaze to remain emotionless in the face of this irritation unhinging her ever so much more, it was a serious effort to still pull it off.
A frown transformed into a wry smile, then an outright smug, decidedly dirty smirk on Emma's light features.
The pressure to her windpipe increased, drove her backwards, instinctively searching for relief against the shortening of oxygen, until Regina's back hit bricks beneath smooth plaster and elegant black and white wallpaper, leaving her with nowhere left to go.
The tingle that made itself known somewhere deep inside her chest confirmed her fears.
She closed her eyes, albeit briefly, trying to clamp down on the awareness forming, and upon opening them again, she found Emma's face so close to her own she could count feel shallow breaths on her fiery cheek as the blonde still closed in.
Swallowing against the increasing dryness in her mouth, against the tight hold of the blonde, she searched herself for any true intention to flee from her predicament, but came up empty.
"Just remember, it was you who started this. It was you who wanted this, wasn't it? Just you never expected me to turn the tables on you. Did you really think I'd sink down to my knees before you and succumb to whatever power you thought you'd be having over me? You misjudged me. Epically."
Words just wouldn't suffice. All she could do now to show that there was at least some fight left within her was just that. Regina surged forward, embracing the dizziness that slowly blurred the edges of her consciousness and caught Emma's curled lips in a kiss so passionate, so empowering that it didn't matter anymore that there was no more air at her disposal as the Sheriff's lips parted willingly under her own, a thumb relentlessly constricting her ability to breathe at all. The second the tips of their tongues met, Emma released her hold enough for Regina to suck in a hungry breath. Into the mouth she'd now claimed, dominating the kiss effortlessly, Emma whispered.
"I don't want you to faint on me. I just wanna show you what I can do to you. What you'll willingly let me do to you. What you want me to do." Biting Regina's lower lip, Emma drew blood, smearing the metallic taste across both their mouths in the subsequent deep, hard kiss.
Regina had yet to make a sound.
But she refused to moan, refused to acknowledge what they both already knew. Instead, she shook her head, breaking the tangle of lips roughly.
A gauging exchange of glances, a hand faltering ever so slightly in its earlier, clear intention, a small drop of deep red forming on a lip.
A wordless confession, confirmation.
The next kiss, a benediction. A revelation. But never surrender. Never.