This story fulfills a prompt from a tumblr nonnie (thank you, person!) that's included at the end of the story. I'd like to thank black-throatedblue for talking me out of rage deleting this story and then giving up one of her mornings before work to sit in a chat window and literally watch me write the last 2k words. Also a huge thanks to outlawqueenluvr for the beta. All errors are my own.

This story is dedicated to lillie-grey in honor of her first thirty days without smoking (which is why the third title of this story is "or, I Just Spent the Last Thirty Days Not Smoking, Motherfuckers!"). I'm so proud of you, Em.

Rated F for Fluff

Roland's never had a big brother before, but he's one hundred percent positive Henry would be the best one in the whole world. A belief only further cemented when the older boy agrees to give him a piggy back ride while they're waiting for his papa to meet them at the school. Oh, yeah. Henry would be an awesome brother.

(Everything is "awesome", now that he's taught him how to use the word. Henry's teaching him lots of words.)

"Faster, faster!" he says as Henry hikes him further up on his back and starts to jog across the grass in front of the school. His hands grip the teen's shoulders (not around his neck, as he'd done the first time) and he hums for the simple pleasure of hearing and feeling his voice stutter in his chest with each footfall.

A few feet away on the sidewalk, Regina paces, phone pressed to her ear, a slight frown tugging her face down. They're supposed to be inside the school registering him for kindergarten and Henry for eighth grade, but Papa's not here yet. Maybe Regina is talking to him right now. Maybe she'll poof him here, and then they can go inside and meet his teacher and pick up his school supply list. They've been waiting for Papa for forever. Long enough for Regina to start wringing her hands and checking her phone every three seconds until it rang.

"Ok, are you ready for the tornado?" Henry asks, slowing to a stop in the middle of the lawn, panting as he once again readjusts Roland on his back.

"What's that?"

"Hold on tight."

Roland clamps his arms tighter around his shoulders and squeezes his knees together as Henry begins to spin in a circle, slow at first and then faster and faster until the world is a blur of greens, blues, and a bright streak of red that is Regina's dress. His head is deliciously sloshy and heavy as they slow and come to a stumbling stop, the older boy staggering forward a few steps before kneeling hard in the grass and releasing him.

"Oh, wow," Roland says, and tries to take a step forward. The world is still revolving, though, and he tilts sideways as his foot hits the ground, and then he's on his back looking up at the clear August sky purpling as the sun begins to set.

"Yeah, that was my favorite when I was little," Henry says, collapsing on the grass beside him.

"My head." Roland lifts his hands and presses his palms to either temple, but holding his head in place doesn't stop the tumbling between his ears.

"Did I go too fast?

"No. That was awesome," Roland says. He flops his arms down to the grass and turns to look at Henry. "Can we do it again?"

Henry laughs and props his feet so his knees bend toward the sky. Roland drags his sneakered feet across the grass until he's doing the same, and he's about to ask him again if they can spin around until he throws up this time when a shadow falls over them and Regina's face fills his view.

"Are you two finished or should I go on without you?"

"Is Papa here?" Roland asks, sitting up a little faster than his equilibrium can handle, and he falls back on one elbow as he looks around for his father's telltale hooded leather jacket.

Regina bites her lip for a second, and then shakes her head. "Not yet, sweetheart. He's on his way, though. He said we could go on in and he'd find us in a little while."

What? But he promised. This... this... sucks.

(Henry taught him that word, too, by accident last week. He's not supposed to say it around the grown ups, but he didn't say anything about thinking it around them.)

All summer they've been telling him how exciting school is, how he's such a big boy now, how much fun he's going to have riding the school bus with Henry. Regina reads to him every night from books with bears who talk and wear clothes getting ready for their first day of school. Papa walks with him to the school on Thursdays to watch Henry run track. Sometimes, Henry even lets him sit on his bed with his old textbooks splayed open on his lap, the large tome covering his legs as he runs his hands across the shiny paper, drinking in the bright pictures breaking up the dark columns of text. The older boy warned him he might not have hardbacked books like that until first grade, but Roland doesn't care. He's going to carry his own backpack and learn how to write and memorize all the names of all the bugs in this realm.

But first they have to do this registration thing at the school, Regina said, so the teacher will know who he is on the first day of class. His papa should be here with them. "Can't you poof him here?" Roland tilts his head back to look at her and gives her his best smile.

Regina likes his dimples. She's told him so lots of times before. Sometimes when he smiles she lets him do things she wouldn't on a normal day. Henry always acts huffy when it works, until Regina pats him on the shoulder and whispers things in his ear that make him laugh, and then they're okay again.

This time, though, it's not working. He can tell from the way she doesn't smile back as big as she normally does. Instead, she sighs and tucks some of her hair behind her ear. "No, not now. It wouldn't be safe to poof him while he's driving. He'll be here soon."

"It's ok, Roland," Henry says, pushing himself up and glancing at his mom. "This is the boring part, anyway. Mom can do the paperwork first and then by the time that's done Robin should be here to meet your teacher."

Oh. Regina does a lot of paperwork at her job. One time, when he and his papa visited her in her office, she had a frown on her face bigger than he'd ever seen until he'd crawled into her lap and offered to help. Then she'd smiled and tapped his nose, suggesting they go get ice cream before the party instead, and, well, after that things get a little wobbly in his head, but the important thing is paperwork makes Regina sad. Or mad. Or something Henry called "frustrated with the petty bureaucracy born of a monarchy being compressed into small town democracy."

Whatever that means.

Maybe Papa will be glad he missed the stuffy part. Maybe that was his whole plan. Papa's smart like that, but next time he's going to make sure he's included in avoiding the boring parts.

"Okay," he says, and rolls onto his knees and up to his feet.

Regina smiles wider this time, leaning down to brush grass and dirt from his pants. "Your shoes are untied again," she says, and starts to kneel to help him.

"Wait! I can do it," Roland says, squatting in the grass, crouching over his shoes and blocking Regina's hands with his own. "Please?"

"Okay." Regina raises her palms and stands next to Henry, one hand pressed to her stomach and the other wrapping around the older boy's shoulders as she watches him prep the laces.

He takes a deep breath and stares at his white, black, and red sneakers. Everyone has been trying to teach him how to tie his shoes, and everyone has a different rhyme they use. They talk about bunnies and burrows, loops and bows, but none of it seems to stick in his head. He crosses the stiff white laces of his left shoe and pulls one lace under the other. Above him, Henry and Regina talk quietly, tiny pieces of their conversation piercing his concentration every now and then.

"...Register him without Robin? Even if he can't get the official papers tonight?"

"I am the mayor," Regina says. "We'll figure something out."

Make a long loop with one lace. That's the easy part. The hard part is keeping the loop while the other lace goes around and under. Today he's gonna get it. He's going to kindergarten in two weeks and he's going to wear shoes with laces like Henry that he ties himself. Without Papa or Regina or Henry's help.

"Sorry Operation... didn't work..."

Roland stills his hands, laces half-knotted as he listens with his whole body. Henry makes up the code names when secrets are around. Regina says something he can't quite make out, and Roland resumes his battle with his shoes.

One day, when he's big enough, he's going to ask Henry if he can be a part of one of his special operations, too. Right now he's too little, Papa said so one night when he overheard them talking about Operation Monsoon. No, that's not right. Operation Mongoose? Papa told him it was something special between Henry and his moms (how lucky was he to have two of them), that the Locksley men could help by making sure no one bothered them while they were on their mission and giving lots of hugs. The hugs were supposed to be his part, but Papa hugged Regina even more than he did, and he ended up talking to Henry instead about bugs and horses and something the older boy called "superheroes" that turned out to be the make believe witches and magicians people told stories about in this land.

Roland pulls on his laces again, and as the knot tightens so does his chest. If he can't even tie his own shoes, how can he be a part of Henry's operations? What if they won't let him into kindergarten because all he can tie is knots instead of bows and bunny ears?

"Roland? Honey? May I help you?" Regina asks, sinking into a crouch in front of him, hands resting on her knees. Any other day he'd nod his head, fall backward onto his bottom and watch her pick apart the knots with her fingers while she chants the rhyme she favors, her hair swinging across her face. She always smells like flowers and apples (sometimes like campfire), and deep down in his most secret of secret places he wonders if this is what all moms are supposed to smell like, wants to ask if all moms tie shoes and wash mud out of hair and take little boys who are only their pretend sons to register for school.

"Roland?"

"Please don't tell my teacher I can't tie shoes yet," he whispers, watching a tiny black ant crawl across the toe of his sneaker.

A crooked finger under his chin lifts his face to hers. She's not smiling, but she's not frowning either. More like serious, with her eyebrows raised and her chin dipped until her eyes are level with his. "How old are you?" she asks, her voice soft, like a warm blanket wrapping around him.

"Five."

"Do you know how old Henry was before he could tie shoes?"

Roland shakes his head. Probably four. Henry is smart.

Regina winks at the teen, then leans closer. "He was six and a half," she confides, her nose scrunching as she smiles.

"No way," he says, gaping up at Henry, who's bouncing the toe of his right shoe in the ground, lips pressed together in a thin smile as he nods his affirmation, and then swivels his head back to face Regina. "Really?"

"Really." She leans forward until their foreheads are touching, and her fingers leave his chin to start working apart his shoelaces. "You have plenty of time to learn, little knight."

A smile blossoms unbidden on his face. He is her knight, Papa is her thief, Henry is her prince, and Regina is the queen. Or mayor, here, but mayors don't wear fancy clothes with shiny jewels sewn into them. She doesn't seem to mind, but one night he found Papa kissing her neck in the kitchen, asking if she had any of her gowns from the Enchanted Forest hidden away in her vault. He never did find out what the answer was because Henry snuck up behind him and clapped his hand over his mouth, carrying him up the stairs under his arm like a stolen watermelon. He'd put up a fuss once they were shut in the older boy's room until Henry said if they were quiet his mom and his papa would probably let them stay up and play video games. He woke up the next day curled up under a spare quilt at the end of Henry's bed, controller still clutched in his hand, a warm glow swimming in his chest.

Regina finishes tying both his shoes and then taps them with her fingers. "There. Now, are you ready to get registered for school?"

His chest isn't tight anymore, has more of the glowing type stuff swimming between his lungs like the night he and Henry played video games, and he jumps up in the air with both hands raised as high as he can stretch. "Yes!"

The three of them walk into the school together, each of his hands in one of theirs. Half the town crams into the hallways, older children sweeping the walls for their assigned lockers, younger children clinging to parents as they're led to their new classrooms. Regina creates a small wake around her (because she's the queen, Roland thinks, and he puffs his chest out, pretending he is the one escorting her), and he and Henry follow her in a single file line, their hands linking them together as they snake through the corridors until they reach the cafeteria.

Once they're in the large room, Regina releases his hand to rummage through her purse. Roland steps closer to Henry as he looks around. Tall gray tables sprouting blue circular seats stand folded and pushed against the edges of the room. Colorful posters of happy fruits and vegetables paper the walls, some with dangling corners that wave as the air conditioner pumps cool air into the room.

"Over there is where you get your food," Henry says, pointing to a darkened corner of the room where several kiosks sit in a line. "And when you get here on the first day all the tables will be down in long rows."

"Will you sit with me?" Roland asks, looking up at Henry, keeping his grip tight on his hand.

The older boy shrugs. "We'll probably eat at different times. And you'll sit with your class for the first year."

"Oh."

"But if I see you in the lunch line or in the hallway I'll make sure to say hi."

"Promise?"

"Promise," Henry says, and he crosses his heart, holding out his pinky. Roland crosses his own heart and links a pinky with his.

Regina glances back at them, dropping her purse back to the crook of her elbow, folded paper

clutched in her other hand, and smiles at their locked fingers. "Shall we?" she asks.

Roland nods once and squares his shoulders, standing as tall as he can like his papa does, and lets go of Henry's hand to stand next to his mom. Henry chuckles, and he's pretty sure he's laughing at him, but he doesn't care because Regina is smiling that special smile she seems to save for just him and Henry, the one that hatches warm fuzzies in his chest. Together, they walk to the table with a large "K" printed on stiff blue paper taped to the edge.

"Hello!" the woman sitting behind the table says, smiling at them both. "Who do we have here?"

Regina squeezes his hand tight for a second before letting go and pushing him forward with a gentle hand on his back. "This is my so—"

"Regina!" a familiar voice says, and both he and Regina turn to see Papa jogging toward them, a thick, folded sheaf of papers clutched in his hand.

This is my what? What was Regina going to say?

Papa interrupts at the worst times.

He stops just short of them and claps Henry on the shoulder as he catches his breath. "Sorry I'm late. The clerk 'lost' our papers for a bit, but the phone call you made must have been quite inspirational."

Regina hums deep in her throat as a wicked smirk forms on her face. "But you got them?"

Roland turns back to Henry, tugging on his jacket sleeve until he looks down. "What's going on?" he asks. The air around him is electric, like a lightning storm about to strike, and his tummy is quivery, like the time he ate ice cream and then drank two glasses of root beer before Papa realized the waitress at Granny's had brought him a refill.

"Hang on a sec," Henry whispers, ruffling his hair. "It's a surprise."

"For me?"

"Yeah, kid." Henry winks at him and holds his finger to his lips.

Roland nods, holds his hand over his mouth lest he speak and let the grown ups know he's caught on to them. Behind him, the woman at the table shifts in her chair, the metal legs scraping against the floor. He turns around and places both hands on the edge of the table, and whispers, "I'm getting a surprise."

She nods her head, and makes the zipper motion across her lips, pointing back at his papa and Regina. Right. He can be quiet. He can be quiet if he tries very hard. The woman behind the table gets a toothy grin from him before he mimics her shushing gesture and spins around on his heels.

"Appropriate documentation, as milady requested," Papa says, handing Regina the packet.

She flips through the pages, scanning them, her eyes darting back and forth as her smirk changes to a full on grin.

This must be good paperwork, he supposes, but what is it? Why isn't anyone saying anything? "It's been a second," Roland says, tugging on Henry's sleeve again. "Why does everyone know what's going on except me?"

"Mom," Henry says, holding up his wrist to show her his watch. "We might still have time for Operation Knighthood if we hurry."

Regina rotates her wrist to check her own watch, the papers flapping sideways in her hand. "Well, maybe," she says, and turns to Papa. "What do you think?"

"Come on, son," he says, holding his hand out as a smile emerges behind his whiskers. "We have a surprise for you outside."

Roland curls his fingers around his papa's palm, his skin warm and rough against his own, and it feels like home.

"We'll be right back," Regina says, touching her hand to the table as she talks to the woman sitting behind it. "We're going to duck out to the playground for a few minutes."

The woman nods, listening as Regina whispers something to her, and then she sets aside a sheaf of paperwork and motions for them to to go on.

The four of them navigate through the crowds again, Henry leading them out one of the back doors and across a small field to where the bright colored playground equipment sits, an island in a sea of dark brown mulch. Once they're at the metal playset, Papa lifts him below his armpits and settles him at the top of one of the little yellow slides.

Henry runs up the slide next to him, ducking his head as his mom chides him for setting a bad example, and smiles at Roland as he sits beside him. "Tight fit," he says, wiggling his hips and legs until he's wedged between the raised edges, Roland giggling at the faces he makes while getting settled.

Regina huffs and braces her hand on a blue support pole. "If you get stuck," she warns, trailing off.

"I know, I know," Henry says. "Let's get on with it. Roland's about to burst over here." He pats Roland on the back, and the little boy swells at being noticed. Finally.

Henry would be an awesome brother.

"Roland," Papa says, his hand warm on his knee through his jeans. "You know that Regina and I love you very much." His eyes flick over to Henry, then to Regina where they stay for a few seconds, and then back to him. "You and Henry both, right?"

"Uh huh," Roland says, tapping the sides of his feet against the lip of the slide, folding and unfolding his hands in his lap. They tell him every night before bed. Goodnight, little archer, or goodnight, little knight, Regina says, dropping kisses on his forehead, his nose, before moving away for Papa to tuck him into the bed when they sleep over at her house. Papa says their bedtime rhyme, and Regina watches from the doorway, her head resting on the doorframe until they're finished, and then she blows him a kiss as she turns out the light.

Yes, Papa and Regina love him.

On the other side of the slide, Regina clears her throat. "I told you the story of how I adopted Henry, remember?" She's got one of her hands on Henry's leg, like Papa's is on his, but when she starts talking Henry moves one of his hands to cover hers and squeezes her fingers tight. When Roland nods, she takes a deep breath, and says, "Your papa and I have been talking for a long time, and Henry and I have talked, too, and we decided we wanted to invite you and your papa to be part of our family."

He sucks in a sharp gulp of air, his eyes widening until he's sure they're going to pop out of his face, and then he ducks his head, staring at his feet, his new, red, black, and white sneakers he'd asked his papa to buy him for school. Part of their family. She wants him and Papa to be part of their family. Her and Henry.

Inside his shoes, he wiggles his toes. Regina tied them good. They haven't come loose yet.

He has a family already. Papa and the Merry Men. Papa waking him up in the morning, pouring gobs of goopy, gray oatmeal into his wooden bowl by the fire, sprinkling cinnamon into the thick mixture and handing him the spoon to stir it up as he blinks himself awake. Papa playing ogres and archers with him even after he's patrolled the forest since before he woke up. Papa teaching him about arrows and bows, how to carry a weapon safely, when it is acceptable to kill and when it is acceptable to let live.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Henry laying a hand on Regina's shoulder when Papa says something. His shoes start to ooze and go watery, and he blinks three times until they sharpen again. Papa's hand moves away from his leg, grips the side of the slide, and Roland takes a shuddering breath as he folds his hands and flexes his fingers like a butterfly's wings.

He likes Regina and Henry's family. Their little family and their big family. Regina reads to him, sings to him on nights when he and Papa sleep over but maybe Papa has to go help someone in the forest during bedtime, and her voice sounds like starlight even though she never sings when anyone else is around except Henry.

Henry. He glances sideways to the teen, who's talking quietly to Regina. Henry could be, he could actually be… The thought gets caught in his throat, sticky and thick even when he tries to swallow.

"Roland, are you alright, son?" Papa's hand rubs his back, and he snaps his gaze away from Henry and his shoes to meet his papa's worried face.

"Did you hear that?" he asks.

"Yes, I did," Papa says, leaning close to whisper, but he doesn't do a very good job because he's pretty sure Regina and Henry can hear him. "What do you think we should say?"

His heart pounds like a baby rabbit's, and maybe if he'd eaten more of his dinner earlier he would have thrown up by now because his tummy is even more churny than when he ate the ice cream and root beer, but he grins so hard his face hurts and it doesn't even matter. He swivels back to Henry and Regina, and she's biting her lip like Papa does sometimes and Henry's face looks as happy as his feels and before Papa can stop him, he's launched himself toward Regina.

"Woah!" Henry says, grabbing him around his middle before he falls off the side of the slide. "Easy there, kid."

Regina's smiling and laughing, scolding him even as she picks him up and cuddles him close and this, this is what moms are like, what family is like, catching and falling and hugging and knotty-tied shoes. He breathes deep as he wraps his arms around her neck, and his tummy is still bouncing bouncing bouncing, his arms and legs buzzing like he's been sitting for a long time. How has he not exploded and then come back together again yet?

Papa steps over the slide and hops down next to them and wraps them both in a hug, opening his arms for Henry to lean into it as well. For a few seconds they stand there and the world is perfect. He never thought he could have this, be a part of something like this anywhere but that secret place inside his head.

This is what Henry has, what he's seen since they came to Storybrooke. This is what Regina told him about in the Enchanted Forest on rainy nights when the thunder shook the stones of the castle and drove him to tears. His family is good. His papa loves him, the Merry Men love him, and he loves the dirt and sleeping outside and fishing and learning about forest things. But this family is good, too, this family of warm hugs and soft spoken secrets and blanket forts and magic.

He needs to get down, wriggles his arms and legs until Regina bends to set him on the ground, and then he's off, running under the tunnels snaking through the playground, kicking up mulch as he turns, and then Henry runs down the slide and starts to chase him. He taps him on the shoulder, yelling, "Tag, you're it!" and then Roland is chasing after Henry as Papa and Regina lean against the slide, and as he runs past them he shrieks, "Ew!" as Papa wraps his arms around her from behind and she leans her head back to kiss him.

He runs as fast and as hard as he can, and every time his foot strikes the ground the buzzing in his limbs pounds into the mulch until only an aching tiredness fills his bones. Henry runs with his head half turned back, almost runs into the yellow fireman pole, loops his arm around it to swing around, and runs back toward him, growling like an ogre. Roland yelps and skids, running back to his papa and Regina, ducking between them and the playground equipment. Henry's too big to follow him underneath.

He creeps below the platform housing the slides, watching Henry's jean clad legs slow to a walk, pacing around the perimeter. When he sees his feet turn away, Roland shimmies out into the open and tackles him from behind with a yodeling war cry as they fall to the ground.

"Oof!" Henry grunts, but as soon as he catches his breath he's got Roland trapped below him on the ground, knees on either side of him, and he's tickling him and oh, how awfully wonderful does it feel to laugh right now.

"No, stop! I'm gonna wet my pants," he pleads, kicking his feet, his heels gouging dark tracks in the wood chips.

Henry holds his hands in the air and tips over so he's lying on the ground next to him, and they're both breathing hard, knees pointed at the sky as the first stars wink into the twilight, hands clutching their bellies, still laughing intermittently, and then the older boy says, "Don't think that just because you're my brother I'll go easy on you every time, Sir Roland."

Oh.

He's… Henry's his brother now, and somewhere amidst the laughter his giggles turn into tears. He's crying now, fat tears falling down his cheeks that he can't stop no matter how hard he tries, and now, maybe, he might throw up.

Papa's blurry face hovers over him, he's being lifted into his arms, and he's just so tired, but so happy he wants to scream and run around with Henry more and cuddle with Papa and Regina until he falls asleep. But first he needs to cry a little more. Papa starts walking back toward the school, Regina walking next to them with her arm around Henry's shoulders. Roland reaches out, and she grabs his hand and presses a kiss to it before setting it back on Papa's shoulder.

Most of the people are gone from the school when they go back inside. Regina's face creases until they get to the cafeteria, and then she's sighing, a happy sigh, not a sad one, and he lifts his head a little from Papa's shoulder and sees the registration lady still sitting behind the table with the blue "K" talking to another lady, who turns out to be his teacher.

Roland gives her a quiet, "Hello," and then buries his face in his papa's neck. It's still early, not quite his bedtime, but he's sleepy now, can't keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time. Regina sits at the table with both women and starts to fill out forms while Henry grabs a second set of paperwork and leads Papa to a separate table with a few chairs pushed underneath.

Papa grunts as he sits. "You're getting too heavy to carry, m'boy," he murmurs, running his hand over his curls. "Are you happy?"

"Mm," he says, cuddling further into him, holding on tight as his papa's rumbling laugh vibrates through his chest and into his own. He drifts into a heavy doze, waking every now and then as Papa leans over to help Henry fill out information in the packet of papers or calls out a soft question to Regina.

He remembers being tucked into the bed he stays in when they spend the night at Regina and Henry's, remembers he had a thousand more questions he wanted to ask, questions about where they're going to live, will this be his room now, does this mean he has to call Regina mom, does she want him to call her mom, what if Henry doesn't want him to call her mom, what if he does, but can't get anything past his lips that's more than a hum when Regina kisses his forehead and Papa tugs the quilt over his shoulder.

Later, when the moon still hangs heavy in the sky, he wakes. Throws the covers from his bed and shuffles down the hallway, clinging to the wall until he reaches Regina's bedroom. The door is always cracked open, but the room is dark, and he presses inward slow in case the metal parts squeak. He can hear soft voices talking from where the bed sits, and he pushes open the door all the way.

"Roland? Are you okay?" Regina asks, leaning over the edge of the bed, her voice deep and rumbly like in the mornings. Maybe she was woken up by the night sky, too.

He clambers up to the bed, settles between Regina and his papa under the covers. Regina kisses his forehead, cuddles him close, and then Papa is wrapping his arms around both of them. He's a tiny caterpillar cocooning until the sun rises. Regina brushes his hair back with her hand over and over again, humming a song that sounds almost familiar. His papa doesn't like to sing, but he can feel his arm flexing as he rubs Regina's arm in time to the tune.

Roland stretches a little, and then sighs. The warm glowy isn't swimming in his chest anymore. It wells up, past his heart and lungs, streaming down his arms and legs, filling him up to the top of his head, and down to his toes.

Prompt: Regina calls Roland her son (submitted by anon)