Based on a Tumblr prompt :)
"Look at this!" Regina breathed, and Emma laughed, shaking her head as she continued washing the dishes. She had been hearing Regina ooh and ah over that wall hanging for a week now, ever since they had picked it up on their way back from Asia.
Regina has commissioned it from a master weaver in mainland china, and when she had picked it up, it had become the only thing she could talk about. It's intricacy was impressive, Emma had to admit. It was made of the softest of silks, and showed a beautiful arching mountain landscape. Emma knew it was a mountain retreat from fairytale land, and Regina's only escape from King Leopold. Emma wished there was a way to bring that mountain to Regina, but they had still not found a way back to her land. So the tapestry would have to do.
"Emma." The blonde looked around to find her wife nose to nose with her.
"Um, yes dear?" Emma said.
"Put it up now."
Emma rolled her eyes, but Regina cut her off before she could say anything in response. "You've been putting it off since we arrived home, and expressly told me not to hire anyone to do the job. The party is tonight. What must I do to get you to hang it? It's not that hard, Emma."
Emma laughed and pulled her wife's hips against her own, raising an eyebrow suggestively. "Oh, I know quite a few things you could do to motivate me to hang it. I could think of one right now, and a few specific ones for later." She smirked and leaned in for a kiss, and after a huff, Regina gave in. But before Emma could take things further Regina had ended the kiss and spun her wife around, propelling her out of the kitchen and into the foyer.
"Put it up. Now." Her tone brooked no argument, and Emma sighed. She knew she had no choice now. She pulled her phone out and saw they had three hours until the party. Plenty of time.
Regina hovered in the foyer until Emma had brought the ladder in, put a rug under its feet so it wouldn't scratch the floor, laid out every hook and screw, and had the tapestry next to her and ready to hang. Nodding curtly, Regina then walked purposefully towards the kitchen. Now that she knew her precious possessions wouldn't be damaged by a certain careless blonde, she could get back to preparing the food for the party.
She hummed quietly to herself as she worked, content with the sounds of whirring drills and strained grunts as Emma lifted up the tapestry on it's rod. Regina knew it was heavy, but she also knew Emma was strong enough to handle it.
She was just about the start slicing a tomato when she heard the most unsettling sounds she could think of in that moment. A rumble, lots of crunching, and the squeal of metal. Her heart stopped in her chest as she stood frozen.
No.
Emma couldn't have.
NO
Emma stared in abject horror at the new hole in the wall, and she felt her blood run cold. Fuck.
The slow, hard click of heels made Emma cringe. She turned around, dreading what she would find, and saw Regina's wide eyes, open mouth, and rigid body. 'Fuckity-fuck-fuck'she thought.
After a minute of complete silence, Regina turned a disbelieving and shockingly cold gaze to the terrified blonde.
"What. Did. You. Do." She hissed.
Emma felt a shiver down her spine.
"Um. I put the wall hanging on the hooks?" She said, trying to smile apologetically, and failing miserably.
Regina's jaw flexed, but no matter how many times her mouth opened, she couldn't form words. She merely gave a strangled groan when she looked back at the gaping hole in her otherwise pristine foyer. Then her eyes fell on the crumpled silk, and her eyes blazed. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY TAPESTRY!" She roared, fingers crackling with purple sparks.
'Shitshitshitshitshit!' Emma ran to pick up the wall hanging and blanched when she saw all the plaster dust on it's once perfect surface. One look at her wife and she knew she was going to be in the dog house for a VERY long time. But the way Regina suddenly went cold, eyes shuttered, jaw set, shoulders hard, back straight as a rod, and fingers clenched into fists made Emma realize that not only was she in the doghouse, but she was sleeping in the guest bedroom.
So much for the romantic evening she had planned for that night.
Regina reached out and silently took the tapestry from Emma.
"Fix it."
That was all Regina said as she turned and walked away with her prized possession, hands beginning to shake.
Emma looked at her phone again and realized there were two hours before the guests would arrive. She eyed the gigantic hole in the wall with growing apprehension. It looked so completely horrific, and she hadn't lived here for 11 years like Regina had. Nor was she a neat freak like her wife. She stopped herself from imagining what her wife was feeling, because she knew she would probably want to kill herself as much as Regina wanted to at the moment. Taking a deep breath, Emma walked up to the mess. This was going to take a while. Forty-five minutes later, dustpan and broom in hand, Mrs. Emma Mills took a relieved breath. The hole was still there, but the mess was cleaned up. She just hoped Regina would see the bright side of things. But when she walked into the kitchen to see Regina pulling out pieces of plaster from the tapestry with tweezers, she realized that she would not be in Regina's good graces for a very long time. When she saw Regina's face as she once again surveyed the hole in the foyer wall, she also realized she would never have sex ever again.
Regina was the perfect hostess as always, but everyone could tell she was upset. Despite Regina's obvious rancor, even Snow and Charming couldn't keep their gasps or laughs from bursting out as soon as they walked in the door. Emma felt her feathers ruffle as her parents looked pointedly at her, wiping tears of laughter from their eyes as they shook their heads. They did NOT envy their daughter at the moment, but they sure as hell weren't going to let their daughters misery prevent them from having a good time.
Henry soon followed, and instantly became terrified as soon as he saw the hole in the wall. His eyes darted from one mother to the next, but once he realized that his mother would only be taking it out on Emma, he continued the rest of the way inside. Meals might be a bit tense for the foreseeable future, but he knew Emma could handle whatever his mother threw at her. At least, he hoped she could, henry thought as he surveyed the damaged wall.
The party passed quickly for everyone except Regina. Regina couldn't wait for everyone to leave so they wouldn't have the chance to spend more time than necessary in proximity to the hole. For Emma, time passed way too quickly. She knew that as soon as everyone left, she would be at Regina's mercy, and that she was not looking forward to.
Thankfully, Leroy, with all his brusque guff and harumphing, told them that he could easily patch up the hole and repaint the wall. Then Regina kindly thanked him and informed the dwarf that as far as the painting was concerned, Emma had already volunteered to paint the foyer and a few other rooms in the house, and to not worry about such trivial things.
Leroy grunted and went back to get some more punch. Emma just gulped her cider and cringed. This evening was just getting better and better.
The next day found Emma dressed in holey jeans and a stained t-shirt. She rubbed the back of her paint smudged hand across her forehead. This was ridiculous. She didn't mean to hang the tapestry without anchoring the hooks in the studs. She just didn't know she needed to do that.
She looked furtively around to make sure her wife was nowhere to be found before she sneaked into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
She winced as she passed plaster from where she and Grumpy had patched up the wall.
'Damn studs' she muttered to herself. The clicking of heels on the stairs made Emma scramble, but she knew she could never beat her wife back up to the guest bedroom. Regina's jaw was set, and her hands moved to her hips when she saw her wife guiltily make her way up the stairs and look abashedly at the floor.
"I'm almost done." Emma mumbled, stuffing her hands in her pockets.
Regina scoffed. "Hardly."
Emma's eyes snapped up to look incredulously at the woman. "I only have the trim left."
"No. I don't like the green you picked for the room. Paint it red." And with that, Mayor Regina Mills stalked past her wife, and back downstairs to her newly repaired foyer. Emma gaped at her, mouth opening and closing like a fish.
"But you picked out the green paint!" She shouted.
After getting only silence in response, she turned and surveyed the large room. She groaned.
'Stupid tapestry,' Emma grumbled to herself as she dragged herself into the green room. She was going to be busy for a while.
~fin~
