A/N: Submission for the fifth Swan Queen Week Day 1: bed sharing. (A bit of angst, a bit of fluff, much SQ feels... you know the drill. Enjoy, everybody!)
(Not So Dirty) Little Secret
It started the night that Emma's participation in Operation Mongoose began. After a whole slew of shots, of course, because there was no way in any realm that it would have ever happened with either of them sober… probably.
Emma had done her share of stupid shit while drunk over the years. She'd camped out under a table in a dive bar for an evening, gone cliff diving, gotten a tattoo, and danced on more than one bar counter. She wasn't a stranger to waking up in strange places, entwined with strange people. (Because before Henry had come to bring her home she was so lost and alone and didn't give two fucks about anyone or herself, because sometimes doing what felt good in the moment was so much better than feeling empty even if she regretted it in the morning and never saw the same person more than once.) She was the damn princess of stupid before Storybrooke. Still, she'd been drinking responsibly (for the most part, because girls' nights with Ruby totally didn't count) since she'd come to Storybrooke, and cut down considerably on doing stupid things. (Jumping off pirate ships and provoking Wicked Witches and bringing back dead wives of Regina's boyfriends from the past and trying to take away her own magic aside, of course.) This, though… this was dangerous. In so many ways. Emma didn't think she'd ever gotten drunk and done something so stupid as to fall asleep in Regina's bed. With Regina.
The night before it happened for the first time, Henry and Regina had told her about their search for the Author –Operation Mongoose—and she'd smiled and looked into Regina's dark eyes and said 'I'm in,' and she'd really, really meant it because Emma thought that she'd never met anyone that spoke to her soul as strongly as Regina did and she just wanted her to be happy… but when she'd said 'I'm in,' she hadn't meant Regina's bed, and even if she had, it certainly wouldn't have been like this! Emma didn't do the whole bed-sharing thing. Sometimes she'd fall asleep after one of her one-night stands, sure, but she always snuck out early enough that it didn't really count. Never in her life had she shared her bed with another adult platonically. Emma didn't trust people to be next to her while she slept, unless it was Henry. She didn't even like to touch people in general.
And yet after spending the night in Regina's study talking –really talking—and drinking until the world went blurry, they'd stumbled up the stairs hand in hand to Regina's bedroom and stripped down to their underwear and crawled between Regina's bazillion-thread-count sheets, curled up together like a pair of exhausted puppies and just… slept. Deeply, comfortably, and peacefully. And it was… nice. Emma didn't like to touch people, but snuggling up to Regina's warmth felt good. It felt safe.
She wasn't sure how to handle that realization, but upon waking with the sleeping brunette snuggled into her chest, concluded that it didn't really matter. Regina had woken moments later, and though Emma had half expected to receive a fireball to the face for daring to –what, cuddle with her?—Regina simply pointed her towards the guest bathroom and instructed her on where to find the towels.
And that was that. Emma decided just to write the whole incident off as a one-time drunken mistake and move on with her life, because surely their little incident of platonic bed sharing was just a fluke, right? It (shockingly) wasn't even weird the morning after. Emma was just honestly grateful that she and Regina were back to being sort-of-friends again.
Except that for the next few nights after sharing her sleeping space with Regina, Emma didn't sleep well at all. She was restless, and what sleep she did achieve was riddled with disturbed dreams that had her whimpering and wresting herself free of her sheets. (Sheets that were far inferior to Regina's, her mind insisted.) She tried very hard not to think about the fact that on the occasions when she'd seen Regina during the day, the other woman had seemed tired as well.
The next time Emma found herself in Regina's bed was five days later. Family dinners were on Fridays. Just Emma, Regina, and Henry, tucked around one end of Regina's ridiculously big dining room table talking, laughing, and poking fun at Snow White. (Regina was obviously the most enthusiastic participant in that particular activity, but Emma and Henry let her have her fun.) It was wonderful, and Emma loved it. Yet still, after Henry went up to bed, they again wound up in Regina's study for drinks and in her bed afterwards.
They'd been drinking, yes, but not enough. Not enough to blame their actions on the alcohol in any case. But come morning, neither of them mentioned it aloud at all.
It didn't end with that night. The following Friday ended the same, then the Wednesday after that, and Friday again. Soon enough, a month had passed, and Emma was somehow finding her way into Regina's bed four nights a week at the very least. They didn't have sex, and once past the threshold of the bedroom door, they didn't speak. They just pressed against each other and rested. Sometimes, Emma didn't even sleep, and instead just enjoyed the curious closeness with the woman who Emma had once thought would never stop hating her for long enough to feel anything else towards her at all.
It was confusing.
Emma didn't understand what they –what she—was doing. Was platonic bed sharing even a thing? It wasn't what friends did. Emma hadn't had a lot of friends in her life, but she definitely knew that much. More than that, it didn't feel like what friends did. It felt like a whole lot more. And, well, that was the problem. Emma didn't have 'just friends' feelings for Regina, and as much as she would have liked to explore those, she just couldn't. They spent their nights cuddling together in bed and their days looking for the Author so that Regina could have her happy ending with her soulmate. A soulmate that wasn't Emma. Emma who was the child of Regina's worst enemies: the woman who had butted in to the life she'd built with her son: the Savior who had broken the curse and punched her in the face and a woman in general.
Because if Regina wanted her, she would have said something, right? But then, it was just so easy to pretend when Emma could feel the other woman solid in her arms, smelling like her expensive shampoo and breathing softly and evenly in sleep. It was easy to pretend that what they were doing was normal, and that they were doing it because of mutual feelings and not because –what, that it felt better than sleeping alone? That it made them feel calm and safe? That they slept better that way?
With a tortured sigh, Emma dropped her head into her hands and ground her palms into her eyes. She was at work. She should have been doing the paperwork stacked off to the side of her desk, she knew, but the longer her… arrangement with Regina (And why did that sound like they were fuck buddies instead of whatever the hell they were? And why did it hurt so bad to think about it?) continued, the more her heart ached. She didn't want to stop. God, nothing felt so good as just cuddling up to Regina and having her curl up right back into her before drifting off to sleep. But she wanted more. Emma didn't want to have to keep silent about it. She didn't want to have to sneak out before Henry woke up, or invent excuses for her son and herself to spend time at Regina's mansion on the weeks that Emma had custody. She wanted to be able to be close to Regina even outside the safety of the woman's bedroom, and she didn't want to feel like a dirty secret when they weren't even… well, doing anything. Emma and Regina's friendship had flourished during the past weeks, and Emma could honestly say that the brunette was becoming her favorite person in the world. (Besides their son, of course.) She just… couldn't help but want more, and it killed her that Regina clearly didn't want the same, despite her acceptance and oftentimes initiation of their little habit.
But that didn't mean Emma was going to put a stop to it. It was pathetic, but she would take any part of Regina that the other woman was willing to give. She'd been right in thinking that their first night together was dangerous, because it had opened the door for all these feelings. Emma had always been strongly affected by intimacy. It was why she'd never let a single person close to her before Henry. Even now, she kept a personal space bubble around her at all times and aside from the odd hug from her parents and her interactions with her son, she rarely let anyone close to her either physically or emotionally.
Except for Regina.
And falling for her was possibly the worst thing Emma could have done, because Robin was Regina's soulmate and Emma was just the idiot who'd driven him away (but could apparently still function perfectly well as a hot water bottle in his absence). Yet no one had ever understood or been able to touch Emma's heart like Regina could, and Emma felt helpless in the face of the tender feelings she'd developed for a person who was both a former homicidal monarch and also the woman who scrunched up her nose and made cute snuffling noises in her sleep as she nuzzled into Emma's shoulder. She was both the woman who smiled at her like the sun when she brought her root beer with lunch, and the woman who would never love her.
Hence her current quandary.
God, her life was never easy. But what could she do?
"You okay Ems?" her father said, popping his head into her office and breaking her out of her thoughts.
Emma smiled weakly up at him. "Just one too many bear claws Dad," she offered.
David snorted in laughter, deposited a paper coffee cup on her desk, and exited the room still shaking his head. Emma waited until he'd left again before dropping her head back down.
Yeah, this sucked.
Ten minutes later at two o'clock on the dot, Emma shouted a goodbye to David, swung by Granny's, and made her way towards the mansion. It was a Saturday, and since she got off her shift early, she'd made a habit of using the free time to assist Regina in her research. Emma rarely showed up without some sort of food offering however. Though she'd never admit to it, the brunette's moods were almost entirely dictated by her blood sugar levels, and Emma found her to be far more genial when someone remembered to feed her. (And that person was Emma, more often than not.) The woman made all sorts of smart comments about Emma's poor eating habits in retaliation for the perceived coddling, but Emma knew that Regina was not-so-secretly grateful for the regular pick-me-ups.
Today wasn't one of their good days though, and after a certain point, no amount of food could change that.
With a frustrated huff, Regina slammed yet another book closed aggressively enough that Emma was ninety percent positive that somewhere in Storybrooke, Belle was twitching because she could feel a disturbance in the Force. "This is pointless," she hissed –more to herself than to Emma—as she slapped the tome back onto the surface of the desk. "There's nothing here. We'll never find the Author this way."
Eyeing her companion warily, Emma slowly closed her own book. (She hadn't really been paying enough attention to read it, but what Regina didn't know wouldn't hurt her.) When they worked in the mansion, they worked in Regina's study: Regina at her desk and Emma in a chair she pulled in front of it. This left Emma well within fireball range, so she was generally very careful not to tick Regina off too badly when working. Today though… Emma had her own frustrations, and she was feeling daring. They wouldn't be them if they didn't regularly push each other to the brink of madness anyways, right?
"Is that even what you really want?" she asked bluntly, fixing Regina with an intense stare.
The brunette appeared simultaneously offended and confused by the question. "Excuse me?" she asked, one eyebrow lifting dangerously.
Emma smirked. "You're excused," she quipped before growing solemn again. "But Regina… I mean it. Is this: somehow finding the Author and convincing him to… meddle with your past or future or whatever… Is this what you want? I understand wanting a happy ending, but is this how you want to get it?"
Dark eyes narrowed.
"I'll always be here to help you whenever you need it," Emma pushed on, nerves quite suddenly gripping onto her firmly, "but this doesn't seem like… well, you."
"I don't know what you're asking me," Regina admitted, irritation fading somewhat in the face of Emma's sincerity.
Emma nodded. No one had ever accused her of being unfailingly eloquent. "I'm explaining this wrong," she sighed, closing her eyes briefly and searching for a better way to convey her unease with this Author nonsense. "The thing is," she decided on, cheeks pinking slightly, "I've always admired you from day one," she confessed. "You're strong, and beautiful, and you never give up on the things that are important to you. You're one of the most tenacious, resilient people I know, and you've always brought that trait out in me too just by like, proximity, which is kind of cool, you know? And I'm still not good with knowing everybody's stories from back in Fairytale Land, but I know enough about yours to know you've been fighting your whole life, and I admire that. For better or for worse, you've always done everything you could to survive, and take charge of your own life."
"Too bad it never worked out well for me," Regina interrupted with a derisive snort, though her eyes flickered with the discomfort brought on by Emma's words. For a Queen, Regina was surprisingly unpracticed in accepting genuine compliments.
Emma just smiled sadly. "Maybe," she admitted. "I guess that between Cora and Rumple, you never stood much of a chance." At this, Regina appeared honestly surprised, though Emma couldn't say if it was the sentiment itself or the fact that Emma of all people was expressing it that was so shocking. It didn't really matter anyways. Emma wasn't done yet. "But you're free of them now," she pointed out, staring down at her hands as she twisted them in her lap. "The only one in charge of your destiny now is you. And yeah, maybe the Author has a say, but maybe he doesn't. I mean, does it even matter in the end? I'm more than the Savior, and you're more than the Evil Queen, and no Author made us like that. We did. We have free will whether the Author says so or not, and you're a fighter Regina. You are. And I want you to be as happy as you've always wanted to be, but this quest to find the Author? Do you even know what you're going to do if you actually find him, assuming it's possible he can be found? Why… why do you need someone else to give you happiness Regina, when you can make your own? This feels… a lot like giving up to me, and I hate to watch you do that."
Emma was hesitant to meet Regina's eyes after daring to say such things to her when their history was full of so much hurt, but when the air was filled only with a heavy silence following her little speech, she chanced a glance upwards and cringed slightly at what she saw on her companion's face. Across the desk, Regina was staring at her with a curious mixture of confusion, hurt, and anger written across her features. She was obviously struggling with expressing her reaction in words, and it made Emma ache to think she'd emotionally harmed the woman. Again. She didn't regret saying anything though, because this was how she felt, and she respected Regina enough to tell the truth, even if the truth hurt.
"I don't… why would you say that?" the brunette finally said, appearing the very picture of betrayal. "This is me taking my happy ending."
"And what's that, Regina?" Emma pled, her voice breaking slightly as she gripped onto the edge of the desk in front of her with whitening fingertips. The dam had finally broken on all of her doubts, and she just couldn't hold them in for the sake of Regina's good opinion anymore. "I want you to be happy –I do—but I don't understand what we're doing here. You want to find the Author. Great. Say we do. What are you going to do, Regina? Demand he rewrite your story so you never became the Evil Queen, and just married Daniel? Or maybe you'd rather he'd write you back together with some guy you'd been dating for like, a week, and just poof his wife out of existence in the process?"
"How dare you?" Regina hissed, recoiling in her chair as if Emma had physically struck her. Outwardly, she was angry, but her eyes were suspiciously bright. "The Author has it out for me Emma, and you know it. He needs to fix it and you promised you'd help," she growled.
Emma exhaled shakily, tears stinging her eyes. Her mind was full of days spent bickering good naturedly with this woman and nights spent pressed tenderly against her, and it hurt to know that life had maimed her so and to see the desperation lurking just beneath her indignant exterior. But this had to stop, because it would only end in further heartbreak for both of them. "I am helping, Regina," she sighed, expression earnest. "Operation Mongoose… it isn't about finding the Author. It's about finding your happy ending. Not what Tinkerbell told you would make you happy, or what Cora or Rumple or even Snow wants for you, but the people and things that you want, Regina. You. Whatever you want to do, and whomever you want to be with, I'll help you to make it happen, but it has to be what you want, and not what you think you should want. So what do you want? What happy ending do you choose, and what can I do to help you get it?"
Emma was quite sure she hadn't spoken so much at one time in at least two weeks. The tips of her ears were burning red beneath the concealing golden sheets of her hair, but she took great care to keep her features carefully composed as she watched Regina digest her words.
"You're a hypocrite, Emma Swan," Regina snapped out between bared teeth after a moment where she'd appeared slightly shell shocked at the passion the blonde displayed for the subject at hand. "You insist that you don't want to spend the rest of your life with the pirate, and yet you… you carry on with him at every opportunity just to pretend that you're happy! So don't lecture me about choosing what makes me happy when you're clearly incapable of doing the same."
The words hit Emma like a sucker punch, and she winced at the sting. She deserved that, she supposed. She'd never exactly told Hook 'no' once and for all, but Hook's attentions were better than no attentions at all, and her mother just looked so damn happy whenever she spotted Killian and Emma within ten feet of each other… The pirate wasn't bad company, and it wasn't too difficult to pretend to be glad to be around him, but Emma didn't love him. She should have known Regina had taken note of that little fact. Regina never missed anything (though the complete awareness that it wasn't Hook's bed Emma slept in at night probably helped a great deal in this case).
"This isn't about me," Emma insisted weakly, eyes dropping to her lap again, fearful that Regina would be able to see her pain just by looking into her eyes. "I can't ever have what I want, but you… you can, and you've more than earned it. So what do you want?"
A long silence ensued as Regina finally looked away, and Emma tried not to fill her head with thoughts of what she herself wanted and kept her eyes down. Because this wasn't about her, or the fact that she wanted to be able to sleep next to Regina any time she wanted, and be able to express her love for her too. This was about making sure that Regina got what she wanted, because that was more important to Emma than her own happiness. (She'd learned so very much about love since coming to Storybrooke because she'd never loved anyone but Lily and Neal and her unborn child before and the only thing that love had ever brought her was pain; but Henry had taught her to be selfless and her parents to have faith and Regina to be protective and Neal that love was wanting someone to be happy, even if it wasn't with you; and fuck all if she didn't want that for the woman who had taught her through their strange silent ritual of platonic bed sharing that love could also be gentle.)
"I find myself wanting what I can't have as well," Regina finally answered softly, her voice a throaty murmur.
Emma wasn't sure if the brunette meant Robin or someone else, and said as much. In response, Regina just scoffed. "Does it matter?" she asked bitterly, finally looking back into Emma's face with defiance crackling in her eyes.
"Yes, it does," Emma insisted just as seriously.
Regina shook her head slowly, her shoulders slumping slightly. "No. You were right, Emma," she admitted. "Finding the Author is pointless. He can't help me, and I'm sorry I've made you help me try to track him down for so long. You can go now."
Frowning, Emma stayed stubbornly in place despite the obvious dismissal of her presence implied by Regina's words and tone. "I didn't say you should give up, Regina. Just find a better way. I made a promise to you, and I'm not leaving."
"I am aware that you feel guilty Miss Swan, and that you'll insist on keeping to your word out of some misplaced concept of nobility, but I'm releasing you from that obligation," came the carefully neutral response.
"Bullshit," Emma snarled back, leaning aggressively forwards in her chair. "I'm not doing this because I feel guilty!"
"Then why are you here?" Regina burst out, uncharacteristically losing her composure for a moment as she stood from her chair, her chest heaving and her cheeks reddening with her sudden ire. Clearly, Emma had struck a hidden nerve with her declaration.
As she always had, Emma met her challenge with zeal, springing to her feet and leaning over the desk between them until she was well within the woman's personal space. "I'm here," she spat out, "because aside from Henry, you're the one person that matters most to me in the world, and if you think for one second that I could just stand aside and do nothing while you're unhappy, think again!"
And quite suddenly… Regina was kissing her, and Emma was kissing back with everything she had and it was awkward and fumbled –the angle strange because both of them were bent forward over the desk far enough to be slightly off balance. Their noses bumped and their teeth clashed and their motions were desperate and forceful and their hands were both clutching and hesitant to touch at the same time (because Emma didn't want to force something that Regina didn't want, but she also never, ever wanted to let go). It was a messy kiss, but it was also perfect. It was perfect because it was Regina and so very much like them, and it had Emma wishing that she didn't have to actually breathe to survive. She was only human though, and the lack of oxygen eventually forced her to pull away from Regina's grip on her chin and shoulder and straighten up again.
The brunette mirrored her actions but curled her arms defensively around her middle once all contact had ceased between them, averting her eyes from Emma's form. It made Emma's already racing heart pound just a little bit harder to see Regina's walls already rebuilding themselves so quickly after their momentary burst of passion. She knew what Regina's lips felt like now. She knew how she tasted. Emma didn't think she could ever come back from that, and she didn't want to. For the first time since their whole unspoken venture began, she felt hope bloom brightly beneath her breast, fluttering like a heartbeat. Hope for them. She wasn't ready to let that go. To let Regina go.
So instead of speaking, Emma simply rounded the desk with a false air of calm and eased herself between Regina's warm body and the solid form of the furniture, lifting herself up and seating herself on the smooth surface of the desktop. The woman didn't look at her or acknowledge her presence in any way, but she also didn't move away from her, which Emma took as a positive sign.
"Is this what you want?" Emma asked with all the gentleness that waking in Regina's arms had taught her, tilting her head slightly and regarding the woman with bright eyes and trying not to seem too much like a hopeful puppy because she did still have her dignity.
Regina still wouldn't look at her. The woman's body was painfully rigid, as if prepared for a physical fight, and Emma wasn't sure if she was silently berating herself for what had just happened or preparing herself for rejection or both. For a moment, the blonde was actually afraid that Regina wouldn't deign to answer her.
She was proven wrong when the woman finally whispered a cracked 'yes' into the expectant silence.
The sudden realization that Regina wanted her simply shredded through her last thread of self-control like tissue paper, and Emma sobbed out a relieved sigh in response. She felt as if she could burst with the newborn happiness that was racing through her veins like liquid sunshine. Regina still stood away from her though, and she wanted to share this moment with her more than anything. Sticking out one leg from where it had been swinging in the open air beneath her, Emma nudged a socked foot playfully against a still-stiff Regina's thigh. "Then you'd better kiss me again, don't you think, your Majesty?" she teased breathlessly.
Regina turned to face her quickly, searching her features as if looking for a sign that Emma was teasing. When she found nothing but tenderness and giddiness though, the suspicion was quickly overtaken by an expression of pure desire, and Emma suddenly found herself being pinned in place and kissed rather thoroughly by the brunette who was suddenly standing between her legs.
"Idiot," Regina murmured onto her lips.
Emma wasn't sure what she'd done to deserve the insult, but so long as the woman kept kissing her like she was, Regina could call Emma whatever degrading thing she wanted to and Emma wouldn't care in the least. "Yours," she gasped back. Regina's lips curved into a smirk against her own, and her hands wondered up to tightly squeeze Emma's hips, sending a surge of heat pooling in her belly and causing her to honest-to-God whimper.
She honestly did love sleeping in Regina's bed, even when she hadn't had permission to touch. But maybe tonight… their sharing could be a little less platonic. After all, she did owe Regina a happy ending, and Emma intended to give her one. (Again and again and again.)
Because Emma always kept her promises.