Don't Ask Questions
Don't Ask Questions Description: Hook drugs Emma with a truth serum to get her to confess her "true feelings" for him and explain why she broke up with him. This leaves Emma with even less of a thoughts-mouth barrier than usual. As they say: don't ask questions, if you can't handle the answers. Vague 3B
A/N: I don't feel like dealing with OQ so we're just going to pretend that they broke up like, a day before Emma came home with Marian.
-/-
Emma drummed her fingers impatiently on the tabletop of the booth at the dinner. This was why she was never early to things—waiting was just so boring. If N—the baby hadn't woken up so damn early—waking her up too—then she wouldn't have decided to leave and show up early to breakfast with Henry and Regina. Kid had the right idea of it, bailing to go live with Regina. Too bad that wasn't an option for her.
Regina had frozen Emma out due to her idiotic plan to take Henry back to New York and how careless Emma had been by bringing someone back from the past, but they had managed to move past that over the last month. Emma shuddered to think how much harder it would have been to get back into Regina's good graces if the brunette hadn't dumped forest boy the day before she'd had her fun time-traveling adventure.
"Swan!"
Speaking of her fun time-traveling adventure and its consequences, Emma bit back a groan as a familiar figure in black leather slid into the other side of the booth. "Ho—Killian. Hi. Surprised you're up this early." She wasn't lying there, she'd never seen him up before noon, even when they had been dating, if you could call a couple kisses and a lot avoidance 'dating'.
He blinked, "Right, early." Emma sighed inwardly, of course he was still up from whatever he'd been doing—and drinking—last night. She gave him her best "who do you think you're fooling look".
Hook coughed and ignored it as best he could. "I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes, love."
"Actually, I'm just waiting for my cocoa before I—" Emma began, already uncomfortable.
"So you're not busy, great. I'll go fetch it for you then," Hook said, with a smile that was probably supposed to be charming, but just made her even more uncomfortable.
"No, you don't—" she tried to say, but he was already out of the booth and swaggering—more like staggering—over to the counter where Emma could see Ruby putting the finishing touches on her cocoa.
Ruby's eyes met her own and Emma gave an exasperated nod, indicating she could let Hook bring the drink over. She sighed, mostly in frustration, and put her head in her hands. It was far too early for her to have to deal with this.
She heard Hook shuffle back into the booth—the squeak of pleather on leather making her skin crawl a little—and two cups being placed on the table. She checked her phone again, as if checking the time often enough would speed it up and she could successfully avoid this whole encounter. She sighed when she saw barely a minute had passed and looked up just in time to see Hook's flask disappearing into his coat because of course one can't have coffee after staying up all night drinking without adding a little something to it.
She reached for her own cup, trying not to meet his no doubt eager gaze and wondered if she tried to turn this into an intervention about alcoholism and some clearly deep-seated fear of bathing and/or laundry she could turn the tables and make him uncomfortable enough to avoid her. Probably not, she thought gloomily.
She brought the cup to her lips, blew on it lightly, and took a sip. It was still a little too hot to drink comfortably, but she welcomed anything that would distract her from this conversation. It wasn't even much of a conversation really, just Hook staring at her eagerly. Obsessively.
She took another sip to delay further and that was when she noticed the weird aftertaste. She frowned, looking into the cup. Had Granny's changed their recipe? Had Ruby accidently—. She froze. The aftertaste was now accompanied by a familiar feeling. The hint of magic. How could magic have—? Her heartbeat stuttered.
Ruby wasn't the last person who handled this cup.
Her eyes moved up to meet sheepish and eager, if slightly guilty, ones.
Emma went cold, a distant roaring in her ears. "Did you put something in my drink?"
Hook mistook her deadly tone for typical annoyance. "Nothing much, just a little magic." Emma continued to stare at him without blinking. "It's just something to make you open up more. I'm tired of never knowing what you're thinking, with your walls and all. It's confusing. This truth serum will help us understand each other more."
Emma carefully let go of her cup, caught between feeling this must be some sort of joke, feeling sick, and feeling so angry she could scream. "You want to know what I'm thinking?" she asked, her voice flat.
"Yes," Hook nodded, hopefully.
"Really? The truth?"
He nodded again and Emma took a deep breath…
-x-x-x-
When Regina and Henry walked into the diner for their family breakfast, they had expected business as usual. Instead, they found Emma, early for once, shouting at a drenched Hook, Ruby trying to hold her back from strangling the man as he pushed himself as close to the wall as he could.
Henry's eyes were wide as he took in the scene, his ears open as he filed some of the phrases his blonde mother was using away for future reference.
Regina's frown deepened. While she was sure the pirate deserved Emma's anger, it was unlike her to go off to this extent, especially in public. "What on earth is going on here?" her crisp voice cutting through the noise, giving Henry another thing he wanted to learn.
"Regina!" Emma turned in Ruby's grip. "Thank god you're here."
Regina's brows lifted at the obvious relief and sincerity in Emma's voice. She was actually rather flattered by how glad Emma seemed to be that she was here. Which was odd, really. She frowned. "And why is that?"
"Hook drugged me," Emma turned to glare at the pirate.
The blood drained from Regina's face. "He what?" The room's temperature plummeted as everyone within hearing distance fought the sudden urge to take a step back from the mayor and whoever she might be angry with. Hook gulped.
Emma didn't seem scared at all and, in fact, seemed to take great pleasure in Regina's change in demeanor. It was actually good she was still so pissed at Hook or she may have started to explain in great detail exactly how much she liked Regina when she got angry, especially on her behalf. Instead she said, "Yup, put some weird magical potion into my drink. Called it a truth serum. To get me to "open up to him"."
Regina strode very quickly over to the blonde, Ruby having let go of her once she'd stopped yelling and the threat of immediate violence had gone. Henry trailed behind her, still trying to understand what was happening.
Regina griped Emma's upper arm, her magic quickly analyzing the magic in the younger woman's body as she stared into the younger woman's eyes before she turned to Hook. "How could even you do something so completely barbaric and asinine?" she spat at the pirate. "How did you even come into possession of such a potion?"
"Uh…" Hook tried to come up with a good response, clearly at a loss as to how his brilliant plan had blown up in his face.
Regina's hands went to her hips as she gained traction, "Beyond the fact that it is utterly beyond the pale to force someone to take a potion, especially someone you profess to care about, do you know how many things could have gone wrong? If you made this potion yourself, you could have made a mistake—causing who knows what reaction and poisoning her." Hook opened his mouth as if to protest but Regina steamrolled over him. "And if you got it from a professional potion-maker, then you had no idea what it actually was or what went into it—also leading to poison!"
"Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?" she demanded.
"Uh, Regina?" Emma said, nudging her arm. "Not that I don't agree with everything you're saying, but I think you scared Henry. And me." Regina turned, confused to find a slightly green looking Emma and a very pale Henry.
"Is Ma gonna be okay?" Henry asked, his voice small.
"Oh, Henry. Yes. I didn't mean to frighten you, or you, Miss Swan," she added with a nod to Emma. She glared at Hook from the corner of her eyes, "By sheer dumb luck, the potion seems to have worked as it should. I used my magic to check when I touched your arm. Truth potions do vary though in their effects and this one seems to make one wish to share whatever one happens to be thinking at the moment."
"Yeah, I noticed that," Hook spoke up from his momentarily forgotten place, huddled in the booth. He seemed to be quickly regaining his overconfidence, "What with the lass yelling at me. Not exactly what I had in mind, but—"
"Shut up before I take your hook and shove it somewhere you really don't want it to go," Emma growled out.
Regina glared at him as well and the combination of the women's looks, along with the fact that they had just established that Emma was telling the absolute truth, seemed to cause the man to rediscover his sense of self-preservation as he drew back.
"Where did this potion come from? Did you make it yourself or did you purchase it from someone?"
Hook frowned and replied petulantly, "I don't see why I should tell you anything, your majesty."
Regina's eyes darkened at that and she shifted just that much closer. She'd barely moved and yet the slight action seemed more threatening than anything else so far.
"You need to tell me right now what the hell you gave me," Emma said, not at all concerned by the uptick in violent vibes Regina was giving off. "Did you mix it up in your basement or hull or wherever you live or did you make a deal with your crocodile?"
Hook glared back, "As if I'd ever deal with him." Then his face gentled and his voice took on a cajoling tone, "I got it made proper, I would never want to make a mistake with you, love."
"Don't call me that," Emma said bluntly, not at all moved by his words, in fact she was actually more skeeved out than before. She had known Hook had a crush, was a bit fixated, but this was actually obsessive. "Who made it?"
"I'll tell you if you answer some of my questions," Hook promised, a calculating look on his face.
"Go to hell," Emma said, crossing her arms defiantly.
"Then I think I'll keep where I got my potion to myself," Hook retorted childishly.
Emma almost growled again and muttered, "Bastard." She looked away in disgust and met Regina's eyes.
"Well?" Regina promoted, frowning at the lack of continuing interrogation. "What are you going to do about this?"
"What do you mean?" Emma asked, furrowing her brow.
"We can't have someone selling who-knows-what standard—good or bad— potions to anyone they come across." She gave Emma an incredulous look, her hands on her hips, "Surely you can see how that would be extremely dangerous."
"Oh, right. Of course" Emma was embarrassed she hadn't thought of that. "That makes sense."
"Well, Sheriff?" Regina's hands went back to her hips, "Now is the part where you arrest the criminal and bring them in for questioning, if I'm not mistaken?" She tried to tell herself that she'd managed to keep the gleefulness at the pirate being arrested out of her voice but she hadn't really been trying particularly hard.
"Yes." Emma blinked, "Right, still weird being the Sheriff again. Sorry. Come on, Hook. Let's move it." She wrangled him out of the booth, ignoring his protests. To the staring dinners she said, "Nothing to see here. Move along." She turned to Regina and smiled rather gleefully. "I always wanted to say that."
"Of course, Miss Swan," her voice was exasperated, though a tad more fond than she might have liked when not in the privacy of her home—she did have a reputation to maintain after all.
"You know," Emma said conversationally, as they made their way down the street, Emma tugging Hook and Regina with Henry following them, "Sometimes it really pisses me off when you call me "Miss Swan", and other times it's just annoying. And more other times I don't really care either way. But sometimes I really like." She punctuated the last statement with waggling eyebrows.
Regina raised an eyebrow in response, surprise evident in her expression. That was enough for Emma to seemingly catch up with what she had just said aloud. She blushed, "Shit. I really just said that, didn't I? Can you please not kill me because I totally did not mean to say that?"
Regina gave her a long look before smirking, "I'm aware you are not fully in control of yourself. No harm done, Miss Swan."
Emma groaned, "Wow, you just do not play fair." Hook looked like he was about to comment and so she gave him another shake leading to some faint protests, "Don't even think about it."
They reached the Sheriff's station quickly and David came out to meet them. He took over bringing Hook in, giving Emma, Regina, and Henry a moment outside to themselves. Emma and Regina exchanged a look and then Emma turned to Henry.
"Henry, I really don't th—want you to come in." Henry's face fell. "Shit, I mean, crap, I mean." Emma sighed heavily, trying to get her thoughts under enough control for her to say what she wanted without saying it in a completely horrible way—and without swearing, judging by the disapproving look Regina was giving her.
She took a deep breath and tried again. "It has nothing to do with you personally or thinking you're too young." Henry looked like he wanted to object before he remembered she couldn't be lying. He continued to look disgruntled, but he didn't interrupt.
"It's just I probably will say things that I don't want you to hear. Like the swearing and other stuff." She shifted uncomfortable and tried very hard to focus on not thinking about "other stuff". "Things I really don't think you want to hear your mom say. Do you get me? It's not the truth-telling part—it's the fact that I seem to be just saying whatever the fuck—heck," she corrected too late although at least Regina mostly looked exasperated instead of pissed at Emma's continued efforts not to swear, "comes into my head."
Henry continued to look skeptical, not wanting to be left out of the loop again. "Come on Henry, you're telling me you'd want me around if you started saying every single thought that popped into your head? Think about that."
Henry concentrated, first admitting to himself that he really wouldn't want to tell either of his moms his every thought and secondly remembering what Emma had said about his mom. He quickly concluded that no, he certainly didn't want to know everything that she was thinking either. "I guess. But you have to tell me what happens—who's dealing potions and stuff. Okay?"
"Sure." Emma agreed.
"Now, why don't you go on down to the diner, I'm sure you're hungry," Regina said, handing him some money.
"Thanks, Mom. Good luck, Ma!"
-x-x-x-
When the pair walked into the station, they found Hook in the interrogation room and Snow waiting with David—Ruby had called to tell her what was going on and that David was probably needed down at the station.
Emma explained what he had done and, while her parents were shocked that he would do such a thing (why exactly this came as a surprise was not apparent to Regina), they agreed that they needed to find out how he had gotten such a potion.
It was Regina who suggested she be the one to interrogate him as Snow and David had little experience with such things and Emma was at a distinct disadvantage between his obsession and her inability to lie. "And I happen to know that he's still rather afraid of me," Regina couldn't help but add with a smug look.
Snow and David didn't look like they knew how to respond to that, but Emma just laughed. "He's not completely stupid—his self-preservation instinct works just fine as long as it doesn't involve me or his libido. I say go for it. I'll watch from behind the window—this is gonna be hilarious."
Regina's answering grin was wicked and Mary Margaret interrupted just in time to keep Emma from commenting on it. "Let's all calm down a little here."
Regina rolled her eyes and Emma, and David, frowned. "Let's not. Dude drugged me with a magical potion and now won't tell me where he got it or even what exactly it is. I think we should be a little less calm."
Mary Margaret's eyes softened, "It's not that I don't care, sweetie. I do. It was a bad thing to do. But two wrongs don't make a right. We have to be the bigger people here."
"God, could you be less of a Disney princess and more a bandit or an angry mom or something?" Emma complained. "Like I'd be even more pissed if someone had done this to Henry."
"Of course I'm upset, I just told you that, but we shouldn't go in there looking to hurt him. That's not right!" she protested.
No one else in the room looked moved, not even David, who was feeling pretty protective at the moment. The pirate had drugged his little girl after all—that was not okay regardless of how old she was. Mary Margaret met everyone's eyes with disapproval and dismay until finally Regina spoke up, "Right. Well, 'we' aren't going anywhere. I am going in there to get answers. You may feel free to watch."
She marched off to the interrogation room, trailing an eager Emma and a sheepish David. Mary Margaret shook her head and followed as well.
-x-x-x-
Regina barely needed more than ten minutes between threatening certain parts of his anatomy and goading Hook's arrogance to get him to confess that he'd actually procured the potion in a deal he'd made decades ago and that no one in Storybrooke that he knew of had any idea how to make such a potion. Then Emma came in to yell at him for how stupid and messed up the entire plan had been before Mary Margaret dragged her out seeing as Regina had only watched with satisfaction.
David had then moved Hook into the cell while the rest of them tried to think of what to do with him next and deal with the paperwork. The comfortable silence as they worked couldn't last though.
"So, Swan," Hook said as he leaned as close to the blonde as he could from inside the cell. "Now will you tell me what you really think of me? And why you really broke up with me?"
Emma, and Regina, rolled her eyes at that. "Riiight."
"What?" he asked, obviously still confused.
"The "real reason" I "broke up" with you." Emma was even using air quotes as she spoke, "Was exactly the same as the reason I told: I don't like you like that. I do not have romantic feelings for you. I do not want to be with you." She was trying to be as clear as possible as she was just completely sick of his weird obsession with her. It needed to stop. "I also don't consider a couple of kisses dating, fyi."
He went to protest, to tell her to stop lying and just trust him, tell him the real reason and then the glint in her eyes reminded him that she couldn't lie, that he had made sure of that. His smile fell and shattered.
Silence reigned as everyone focused back on paperwork. Snow murmured suggestions to Regina for the design of the forms for 'drugging someone with a potion' that Regina ignored, while David and Emma filled out the forms for ordinary drugging charges.
After another few minutes Hook seemed to have scraped up some more false confidence from somewhere, "At least admit I'm the most attractive person in the room—other than yourself, of course."
"Please, everyone knows Regina's the hottest person in this room," Emma didn't even look up from the report she was filing out as she scoffed at the pirate. Mary Margaret and David froze and even Hook looked taken aback.
"Really?" Regina asked, amused and flattered by the automatic, truthful response, "Do go on, Miss Swan."
Emma's mouth opened automatically, "Well, your whole face is just beyond unfair and your hair looks so soft. Your clothes always look like they were made for you and your make-up looks like it was done by a professional. Your ass is ridiculous and so are your—"
"Emma!" Mary Margaret had finally found her voice which emerged as a squawk, her face beat red.
"Hey, this isn't my fault! She asked!" Emma replied defensively; she refused to feel embarrassed for something she had no control over. "You ask, I tell—that's how my mouth is working right now. Deal with it."
"I think I want to hear Emma continue to compliment me," Regina smirked.
"I-I'm going to go down to the diner and see how Henry is doing," Snow said, rather desperate for an excuse, her face still pink.
"How kind of you," Regina responded, flashing a few too many teeth to not seem like she was enjoying how awkward the other woman was clearly feeling. "Feel free to update him further on the situation." They had texted Henry with what had happened, but told him he could finish his breakfast while they did up the paperwork and updated the new town bylaws for magical crimes, which had really been stacking up in that past few months.
"I'm surprised," Emma said after Snow had retreated and she stood up to file the report she'd been working on. A cocky grin spreading across her face as she realized Regina genuinely didn't seem upset with her runaway mouth and she decided to just go with it. "I figured you were gonna yell at me for being 'vulgar' or something, plus it's not like you don't know you're gorgeous."
"I suppose," Regina conceded with a smirk as she preened lightly, leaning back in the chair she'd commandeered, "But I admit, I did not know you specifically thought so highly of my physical appearance."
"Really?" Emma raised her eyebrows, moving closer to lean against her desk. "I thought I'd been pretty obvious, guess it's good to know I can hide stuff like that."
"But what about me?" Hook whined, butting into their conversations.
"You're hot, I guess," Emma said with a shrug. "But your problem is that every time you open your mouth, you ruin it. Your whole personality cancels out any attractiveness."
"And mine doesn't?" Regina asked, curious.
"Your…" Emma waved a vague hand, "…personality issues don't affect your appearance the way his do. And you have good traits to balance out your problematic ones. His creepy stalking and come-ons make him slimy and his only good traits are his looks. Besides, even when I hated you, I was still annoyed at how good you looked. Still annoys me sometimes, to be honest."
"What do you mean?" Regina was far too interested in this insight into how Emma saw her to hold back her questions. Emma's honesty was unknowingly pushing down her own walls, reassured by Emma's own attraction that she wasn't concerned about showing her own to the other woman.
Emma shrugged, although the look in her eyes was anything but casual as they met Regina's. "You always look so well-put together—even when we were hiking through fucking Neverland jungles. It's crazy and not fair and just makes me wanna messed it all up because I bet you'd look even hotter all…" she made a vague hand gesture, "disheveled."
"Is that so?" Regina's eyes were darker as she placed the file down on the desk, resettling herself in her seat. "And how exactly would you go about accomplishing that?"
"You know what," David interrupted. "I think I'm going to go patrol." He was already opening the door to leave, his coat only halfway on.
"Good idea," Emma commented, her eyes never leaving Regina's face as she took a step closer.
Regina stood up herself, smirking at the blonde woman who was suddenly so close, "How?"
"Like this," Emma said before pulling Regina into her, their lips meeting. Regina grasped Emma by the waist, while Emma's hands dove into her hair, not forgetting her mission to dishevel the regal woman as best she could. Regina was kissing back with just as much passion, nipping lightly at Emma's bottom lip to get her to open up for her as one of her hands grasped Emma's ass in her skin tight jeans. Both moves made Emma moan as she tried to use her grip in Regina's hair to better angle the kiss to her advantage.
Eventually they broke apart, panting. Regina was abruptly reminded of where they were at the sound of a distant squeaking noise from the cell to her side. As cool air touched her rather flushed face, a wicked grin crossed it, "I think I have a good plan for the rest of the day, hm, Miss Swan? You're being so articulate and I think such honesty should be rewarded. For the rest of the day, whatever you say you want to do with me or me to do to you, we shall do as long as you stay honest. How does that sound?"
"God damn, you're perfect," Emma said, leaning her forehead against Regina's before beginning to travel down Regina's neck, practically giddy at the fact that she had permission to do that, and wrinkling the collar of Regina's shirt as she pushed it aside. "You better get to poofing unless you want the prisoner to get way too much information. I've thought about this a lot."
"Have you, now?" Regina asked, running her hands through Emma's hair as she enjoyed the attention, tipping her head back slightly.
"Oh yeah," Emma admitted cheerfully, giving a careless shrug, which was awkward considering she refused to lift her lips from Regina's skin for longer than a few seconds. "What else is there to do during your meetings?"
"I see," Regina's eyes glittered dangerously as she arched an eyebrow. "Perhaps I really will punish you then."
"Nuh-uh," Emma protested. "I got a list. That comes later," she finished with a smirk.
"I'm sure I could be persuaded," Regina replied as they vanished in a puff of purple smoke.
-/-
A/N: And now both my truth serum ideas from SQWeekSummer2014 are done-only took me over a year (headdesk). Anyway, trying to get more serious about all the writing I need to be doing (especially S&W) but classes just kicked into high gear and Netflix put the first three seasons of Person of Interest up yesterday (and instead of work I've decided to re-watch the entire show cuz I'm responsible like that) so who knows if anything will get done.
Keep an eye out for my own as well as a lot of other talented peoples upcoming SQBigBang work which will be coming out all month.
Thanks for reading and especially thank you to anyone who bookmarks, favorites, or reviews!