A/N: A small ficlet, my contribution to SQ-week, I really do love the idea. This is for day 3; Stuck together, I hope I did the prompt justice.
"Would you stop nagging at me about the damned car already?" Emma exclaims exasperatedly as she throws a quick glare at Regina. "I should've been more careful, I get it already. Just like I got it the last 100 times you lectured me."
"I will stop lecturing you as soon as you start to take your responsibilities more seriously."
"Are you kidding me right now? Jesus Christ Regina, it was just a scratch and it's just a freaking car. It'll be as good as new in a few days."
Regina gave her an unimpressed look as she eyed a stain on the carseat she was sitting on with an upturn of her nose, lips curling up in disdain. "Your penchant for breaking things that don't belong to you, means I've been reduced to getting around town in this yellow eyesore of yours."
Emma groaned in response, barely resisting the urge to lower her head onto the steering wheel. "This isn't just about your Mercedes is it?"
Regina didn't say a word, stubbornly staring out of the window as the mansion loomed up through the darkness.
"Regina? I don't even understand what it is that I've done, but it's obviously something that's been going on for a while now," Emma says, as she parks the car near the back of the house.
"The fact that you don't have a clue..." Regina's nostrils flared as her eyes bored into Emma's green ones. "You're a slop, Miss Swan. You leave your jackets lying around the house, you don't clean up the dishes when you've used them. You keep dragging in dirt after every shift of yours, no matter how many times I've told you to keep your boots outside. Frankly, I must've been severely mentally impaired to ever suggest for you to move in with me."
"That's just..." Emma gaped at her girlfriend, the force of Regina's words hitting her like an invisible blow to the gut. "You could've told me...I just..you really regret having me move in with you?" she questions with a small voice.
"Yes. With every fiber of my being," Regina states coldly as one of her hands reaches for the door-handle.
"Stop, you're not..." Emma was really starting to get angry with the turn their conversation had taken. "No!" Emma shouts and slams her fist into the driver side door. "You're not going to leave until we sort this thing out Regina. And you should know I know you better than that by now, so I won't fall for this cheap attempt to push me away. This whole thing is crap and I won't stand for it."
"I will not spend another minute in this despicable excuse of a car of yours," Regina hisses out while unfastening her seatbelt before yanking the door-handle.
Emma raises an eyebrow as she watches Regina struggle with the handle. "Something wrong Your Majesty?"
"What did you do?"
"Uhm..nothing?" Emma felt her anger dissipating somewhat, feeling a little confused instead. "The doors can stick a little," she mutters and pushes and pulls at her own door-handle. Only for it to give just as much as the other door had. Which was to say not at all. "Did you do something to my car?" she questions, giving Regina an incredulous look.
"Believe me dear, if I have wanted to do something to your car, it would've been turned into a piece of scrap metal by now. The doors simply won't open."
Emma raps with one of her hands against the window, finding it rock solid to her surprise. "I-uhm, I don't think knocking in one of the windows will work either. What the hell?!" she mutters as she tries the door handle again.
Regina shakes her head and makes a counter clockwise motion with one of her hands, frowning when it does nothing.
Emma can't hold in the low chuckle when Regina tries it a few more times, seemingly getting more frustrated with every failed attempt.
"What the hell did you do?!"
"Me? Why am I always suffering the blame for these sort of things?"
"Maybe because you're usually responsible for them dear. It would appear that a combination of your typical lack of control and inexperience when it comes to casting magic has not changed. Thankfully that same lack of talent means that your unwittingly casted spell will wear out eventually, but until then it has locked us into this death-trap of yours."
"You know, one of these days you're going to run out of names to call my beloved bug by."
When she gets nothing in return, Emma glances at Regina, who has resumed her earlier staring out of the window, apparently refusing to acknowledge Emma's presence altogether.
"Back to giving me the silent treatment huh?" Emma sighs as she unfastens her seat-belt. "I can do better you know, if that's the reason you're so mad at me. I'll clean up after myself and do the dishes. Hell, I can even try to take some cooking lessons so I can make us dinner sometimes but please don't do this..."
Getting no answer in return, Emma swallows around the sudden lump in her throat. They were stuck in the same damned car together and still Regina was refusing to talk about this, it aggravated the crap out of Emma.
"Regina..please," she whispers softly. Finally she leans a little to the side and puts two fingers below her girlfriend's chin, slowly turning Regina towards herself. "Whatever it is, you can tell me okay?"
The expression on Regina's face was unreadable, and though her head was now turned towards Emma, her brown eyes were still glued to the dashboard. "I panicked," Regina finally speaks up after a moment. "I found your red jacket on the sofa this morning and I..panicked. I'm not used to living together with another person Emma. Save for Henry, I've haven't had to share things with anyone else for a long time. And I...I've never had to share myself like this before. I'm sorry.."
Emma lets out a sigh of relief as soon as Regina finishes speaking and leans forward to plant a quick kiss on the ruby-red lips that had been tantalizing her the entire drive over to the mansion.
"It's okay you know? It's all pretty new to me too and I guess I should've told you this sooner, but I.." Emma hesitates for a moment, before holding Regina's eyes captive with her own. "I love you. I really do love you. And I'll repeat what I said before, that you can always tell me when something's messing with your head. When something bothers you, just please..don't shut me out? Don't try to push me away like that again. You crush my heart every time you do that and it..really hurts okay?"
"Okay...and I do love you too," Regina says, a beatific smile making her entire face light up with it's radiance. Her eyes twinkle as she leans in to kiss Emma.
Emma feels the back of her chair reclining as Regina manipulates the handle and her jaw drops open in surprise. "You know not that I'm complaining, because I'm sure the make-up sex will be out of the world, but this car really isn't suitable for this sort of..mmmphhh," whatever she was going to say next gets cut off by Regina kissing her senseless, while nimble fingers unbutton Emma's jeans.
"For once in your life dear, please do shut up," Regina tells her in between kisses.