Robin Hood doesn't wake on his first Christmas morning in Storybrooke like he thought he would.
He thought he'd be woken by his five-year-old son jumping on his head or shouting in his ear because Santa Claus has been, his six-month-old daughter wailing through the monitor next to his head because she's hungry or needs changing, or maybe if he was very lucky, his true love nibbling on his earlobe because she intends to make good on her promise of letting him unwrap her for Christmas. But no, he finds when he wakes that every person he thought would be responsible for pulling him from slumber is actually still sound asleep.
It's still dark out (just as it is most mornings when he wakes during the cold months, one can't get away with having a teething baby and a small son suffering from chronic nightmares and expect to wake only after the sun has risen), and the clock by his head tells him it's 5:34AM - far too early for him to be waking for no apparent reason when none of his family need him, so he tries to settle back down, tells himself he'll need as much shut eye as he can get if he's going to get through the hectic day ahead.
He turns on his side, smiles at the sight of Regina sleeping peacefully beside him, facing him. He's learned over their time together (the few months in this realm and the odd occasion she would let him lie with her during their year in the Enchanted Forest) that she doesn't like to be cuddled when she sleeps. Needs her space to stretch and cool down if she needs to, so he lets her be, lets her come to him and she always does in the end. Migrates over to his side of the bed as she's stirring until she's pressed right against his back or snuggled into his side.
Or laying right on top of him on the mornings he's lucky.
He closes his eyes, starts making a list in his head of everything that needs to be prepared before Emma and her parents arrive for dinner. They did as much as they could last night; prepped the veg, laid the table, made the decision to set aside their presents for each other so they could enjoy the night time alone, when their extended family has left and the children are in bed.
He starts counting the children's presents in his mind, checks for what seems to be the thousandth time that they're all relatively even on the parcel front - something Regina rolled her eyes at, she'd scoffed that the number of presents wouldn't matter as long as the money spent on all three was the same, and he knew she was right, but there had been something rather unfair about the hoard of presents wrapped neatly under the tree for Roland and Evie next to the small handful for Henry. Henry's presents were more expensive, she'd argued, and again she was right. But Robin would be damned if he and his children would be a reason for Henry to feel left out on Christmas Day.
It's their first as a family after all, and no matter how well-adjusted the boy seems, he knows it still must be overwhelming to go from living with Regina alone, to living with two small children and a man who sleeps in his mother's bed.
He turns onto his back, slings his arms above his head and cracks his eyes back open, stares up at the ceiling. Sleep is evading him, the one day of the year he knows he really ought to make the most of the opportunity to actually drift back off - his daughter snatches any he might get for a few hours extra in bed most mornings now, and of course on the one morning he's wide awake, she is seemingly still out for the count.
Regina moves beside him, shuffles closer to the middle of the bed, snuggles down deeper in the covers and he can't help but smile again. She looks utterly adorable when she's like this. Void of the paint she wears for the world, face peeping out behind the curtains that are her beautiful dark locks, and he can't help but move closer towards her. The movement makes her stir, an unintentional consequence, and one that makes him wince, but as she blinks away sleep and lazily smiles up at him, Robin finds he isn't sorry.
"Good morning my love," he whispers, and she nods, closes her eyes again and reaches for his body beneath the blankets, urges him closer until she's pressed to his side with her head pillowed in his chest.
"You're awake too early," she grumbles, rubbing her face against his t-shirt, and he wraps his arm around her shoulders to give her a squeeze.
"Well Merry Christmas to you too," he chuckles.
Regina groans in response, mumbles something that sounds faintly like I'm declaring Christmas cancelled until the kids are awake, and slings her leg over his.
"Oh well that's a shame," he says, theatrics in his voice. "Here was me thinking we could make the most of us both being awake whilst all three children are not."
A hum escapes her throat, and the tone alone makes gooseflesh of his skin. Yes, this was worth waking up at an ungodly hour for, he thinks as she starts drawing patterns on his chest with her hand. Robin turns on his side, urges her onto her back before leaning in to drop a sweet kiss to her lips.
She slides her hands up his chest and around his neck, hums once more as their kiss deepens and lightly digs her nails into the base of his head. Robin presses his body into hers, sucks at her bottom lip before pulling away and focussing his attention on her jaw, her throat - rather enjoys the little squeak that pops out of her mouth as he reaches the hollow at the base and grazes his teeth along it.
He crawls a little lower down, kicks at the bedsheets so he's free to move without having to stop and detangle himself, takes a second to marvel at his love as she opens her legs for him to sit between. Even in her tired haze, she is the sexiest thing his eyes have ever beheld. He brings his kisses lower still. Across her collarbone and down her chest, licks at the dip between her breasts and smirks as her hips thrust up beneath him, and he loves that he gets to make her feel like this, gets to witness the only time she'll ever be willingly needy (even more so loves the fact that he is the reason she gets needy to begin with).
He slides his hand beneath her camisole, palms and squeezes at her breast until her breath gets more shallow, until her nipples are stiff and her body is alive with desire, feels himself getting harder by the second. The all too familiar burning in his belly, the heat that's rising from the tips of his toes to the hair on his head only intensifies when she groans out his name.
He moves his attention again.
The camisole gets pushed up, hoisted beneath her armpits so his eyes can feast on her top half, even if only for a moment. He slips his hands down her waist, draws his head back down to plant wet kisses on her stomach, sucks at her skin as he inches lower and lower and she's thrusting harder now, clutching at his shoulders and sighing out his name. Robin runs his tongue along the edge of her shorts, curls his fingers around the hem with every intention of pulling them down and tossing them aside, of making her nought but grateful he woke her up this early on Christmas morning.
He's going to make her come. Hard. He's going to-
"Robin," and it's the tone of her voice that has his hands halting. She's frozen, has let go of his shoulders and when he looks up from his position at her pelvis, Robin can see her staring hard at the baby monitor.
His heart sinks as he shares her stare, and for a second, neither of them breathes.
And then his daughter, his beautiful bouncing, highly frustrating, sex-reducing baby, cries out (apparently for the second time - he'd been too wrapped up in her mother for the first).
"She might settle herself," Robin whispers, but Regina's eyes don't move from the monitor, which lights up a second later, and more cries fill the room.
Regina looks down at him, smiles with a playful wince and pity in her eyes before cupping his face in her hands and telling him, "She's not settling herself. Go get my baby."
Robin sighs, drops his head to her stomach and groans as the bridge of his nose hits right where he'd wanted it to be not seconds before - only there are garments in his way and a guilt flooding his veins that any part of him feels frustrated at his daughter… All she wants is her breakfast.
He hoists himself up, squints as Regina knocks on the bedside lamp beside her and quietly pads out of the room and down the hall to where Evie's room is.
She's still crying when he enters, bottom lip wobbling as she rubs her eyes and kicks her legs, the top hem of her baby pink onesie drenched in drool and Robin finds himself eyeing his daughter with empathy. Any frustrations he might have felt a minute ago are gone as he reaches down to lift her up and cradle him against his chest, and he reasons he'd probably cry too if he woke up with an empty tummy and sore gums, Christmas be damned.
"Good morning sweetheart," he coos softly, smiling as her cries die down and she stares up at him, clutching at the hand he's offered while she sucks on his finger. "What say you Daddy goes to sort breakfast, hm?"
She gurgles softly, gums at his knuckles while he pads back through to the bedroom - takes extra care when passing Roland's room so that he doesn't wake his son up because he's fairly certain once the five-year-old is awake there will be no stopping for trivial things like breakfast.
Regina is sitting up in bed when he comes back in, bed sheets rucked down to her waist, eyes still puffy from sleep, but the smile that lights up her face when she claps eyes on their daughter makes his heart nearly burst.
"She okay?" She asks lightly, reaching forward to take her from Robin as he comes to stand by the bed.
"Beautiful as ever," he replies with a smile, watching as Regina hooks her hands under Evie's arms and touches their noses together. "Thirsty too, I imagine, I'll go get her milk," he adds, rubbing his eyes and walking back around the bed to make for downstairs.
He throws a backwards glance to the clock, reckons he has maybe twenty more minutes to make up a bottle and get Regina coffee before Roland wakes up and demands they all go and open their presents. Henry is more patient, and no matter how excited the boy is, Robin has no doubt he would happily wait for them all to be fed and watered before starting the festivities - no doubt that without Roland around, he'd stay in bed longer too.
Robin chuckles as he leaves the room, fondly rolls his eyes when Regina's words meet his ears, that he'd better get her coffee too, because Mommy needs caffeine just like Evie needs milk! Yes she does! She coos softly, earning a gurgle from their daughter.
This routine feels old now; him sorting the bottles while Regina soothes her in the morning (is usually washing and dressing her too, but not today, today they get to stay in their pajamas and not rush about the house… today they get to enjoy the morning and not use it as a means to an end of getting to school or work). Things in this realm haven't been the easiest to master, namely anything technological, and it took him a while to get to grips with how to sterilise bottles and why this teet was the wrong one for Evie's age, and if you ask Robin it's all a bit over-cautious. Roland had none of this when he was a babe, and he's grown perfectly fine.
But it's the way of this world, Regina has insisted, it's something all parents just do, and so he's grasped it, finally. The coffee maker… not so much. He's well aware Regina conveniently 'forgets' he's made her one after three sips and leaves it to go cold, well aware she makes herself another just as soon as she's downstairs and ready for the world, but he appreciates the fact she doesn't nag him to get it right. Appreciates that she knows he's still learning, that he'll get there eventually, just like she made sure he did with sterilising the blasted bottles, and isn't that just like his love?
To make sure he puts the needs of his children before her, no matter how trivial.
It's that thought that stops him entering the bedroom as he goes back upstairs clad with a warm bottle and a mug of not-so-fantastic coffee. That thoughts that has him standing in the doorway and watching as Regina jostles their daughter, tickles her stomach until belly laughs are erupting from her mouth. She's lain her down on the bed, is jiggling her little body and joining in Evie's delighted squeals with laughter of her own.
She's beaming, Robin thinks to himself, feeling a smile of his own tug at the corners of his mouth. Staring down at their daughter with such affection in her eyes that for a split second Robin feels his throat get a little tight, his eyes a little misty.
It's a tap, tap, tapping on his back that pulls him from the moment, and when he turns he's met with the most excitable child he's ever seen; Roland bouncing on the balls of his feet, whispering quickly that he's sure Santa has been, and can they pleeeeeeeeeease go downstairs to check?
"Of course we can, my boy," he tells him, suddenly feeling just as giddy as Roland is, adds to go and wake Henry up so they can all go down together, and it's right there in that moment Robin realises what woke him so early in the first place.
The excitement of experiencing the kind of magic this realm has to offer. Magic born of love and celebration.
He was excited to wake on his very first Christmas.