A/N: The one shot I posted several days ago on my Tumblr, xposted it here, had one very interesting comment that begged to be expanded upon. This is the shameless result. I'm bad, I know. Sorry. Title from a quote by Carol Storm.
Standard Disclaimer: These lovely characters ain't mine, I just play with them gently. Please don't sue me. The mistakes are mine, though.
Regina slams the door so hard the hinges squeak out a pathetic protest. The saccharine smile plastered on her face instantly fades into a furious scowl. That infamous vein in her forehead the rabble about Storybrooke use as a weather vane for incoming storms starts throbbing feverishly with every erratic pulse of her heart. Magic crackles at the tips of her fingers, and she itches to let it loose upon the unsuspecting target still within range just on the other side of the door.
Oh, how easy it would be to fling it open and zap the ignorant, conceited, naive, entitled moron. Making burnt toast of her most hated enemy would feel so good, too, if only for a moment before the despair set back in.
Honestly, what in God's name did Snow expect coming here after what she did? An, "Oh, well, it's alright, dear. You didn't mean to kill my mother. I forgive you!" Because the last time Snow inadvertently cost her someone she loved, she took it so well. Right? Was becoming the Evil Queen not evidence enough that it was best to give her a wide berth in the aftermath of a personal tragedy? Apparently not, judging by the dainty knock about five minutes earlier that interrupted some very fine alone time brooding on the sofa. The brat really is criminally stupid. It's a wonder she can remember to breathe or figure out to put one foot in front of the other, let alone exercise only her own limited wit to predetermine how colossally bad an idea it was to visit so soon after Cora's death.
That loss is still a raw, constantly oozing wound for Regina. Every morning she wakes up to a searing pain behind her eyes where a nightmare previously resided. A nightmare portraying in vivid detail her mother's parting message: "You would have been enough." Those were the words she had been waiting to hear from the heartless, heavy-handed taskmaster she'd spent her entire life seeking approval from. She should have known with her long, excruciating history of never getting what she wants that they would only be uttered as the last desperate confession of a dying woman.
Quite frankly, Snow having darkened her heart was an auspicious development for them both. Although probably a fate worse than death to Ms. Sunshine-Rainbow-Unicorn Charming, at least she got to keep her head firmly planted on her shoulders. And her delicate porcelain skin left unblemished by an unquenchable fire. Had Regina not noticed the small yet significant black spot upon yanking Snow's heart free of her chest, both of those outcomes were equally plausible.
"Who was that?" Ruby asks from the hallway, having ambled in from the kitchen while she was preoccupied with her thoughts.
Regina glances up from her brooding to see her girlfriend is holding a little saucer delicately in her left hand, atop which rests the BLT she likely intends to cajole Regina to eat with all of her vast powers of persuasion. She hasn't had much of an appetite since her mother passed, not that Ruby has any intention of coddling that particular side-effect of grief.
"You have to eat something, hon," Ruby usually says, always with the same disappointed puppy dog eyes Regina can't even resist at her lowest, most dissociated point away from reality. It's getting old being powerless against pleas that should not be nearly as effective as they are.
"A woman with a death wish," Regina says with a clipped tone through snarling lips. Ruby's persistent fretting over her well being only serves as a further irritant right now. Which is bad for a whole host of reasons besides the threat of losing her temper. She's not the only one capable of blowing the house down, after all.
As if her thought were prescient, Ruby stiffens, eyes flashing anxiously. Regina doesn't need to elaborate as to whom she is referring any more than she needs wonder where Ruby's primary concern resides. Ruby may be her lover, but she will always defend Snow whenever that hapless little ninny she calls her best friend has earned Regina's ire. Which of late is on an hourly basis. That the volcanic eruptions of animosity don't show any sign of letting up in the near future means she and Ruby are going to indefinitely continue butting heads over what is to both a touchy subject.
If Regina is being honest with herself, she is dubious as to whether their relationship will survive this latest catastrophe. And that only compounds her already monumental bitterness toward the source of her every torment. Snow already robbed her of a future Daniel and a chance to reconcile with her mother. Now she's going to cost her a future with Ruby as well? It's almost too much to bear.
Ruby starts to say something, but Regina interrupts her with a choked noise of warning. She has no desire to hear accusations leveled at her from a woman who professes to love her above all others. And she has. That is, Ruby long ago declared her love. That Regina hasn't said it back yet pricks at her faltering conscience, as she is skeptical she'll ever get the chance. In her mind's eye, Ruby already has one foot out the door with the other no doubt soon to follow suit. Like with everyone else she's ever cared for, it's inevitable that she's going to drive her away. It really is only a matter of time.
"Before you ask, yes, she's still alive," Regina says through gritted teeth. "I hope she realizes how fortunate that makes her."
Ruby scoffs loudly, fingers turning white from her grip tightening on the poor, innocent saucer. "She's far from lucky considering what she just went through."
Regina's eyes narrow into slits and her nostrils flare as if a wounded bull before a matador taunting her with a gaudy muleta. She's been provoked far too much today and feels like she is one swipe of the sword short of going on a rampage.
"What she just went through?" she seethes. "Did you really just say that to me?"
Unfortunately, Ruby is also a stubborn woman who tends to dig in when she gets defensive about something. Or someone. Like she is right now. "Rumple manipulated her into doing something terrible, okay? Is it any wonder she's having such a hard time? Especially since this is bringing up all sorts of bad memories."
"Poor Snow," Regina says, stalking forward with barely shuttered violence in her eyes, "having to come to grips being responsible for the death of a mother."
Ruby blanches as she realizes her fatal mistake. "Regina, I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
"Don't even finish that sentence." Regina's explosive interruption startles Ruby so badly she nearly drops the saucer and the BLT with it, which would have been a shame. The sandwich looks delicious and her anger is working up an appetite. "You knew exactly what you were saying and doing," she adds, steaming. "When are you going to stop defending that little traitor? That imbecile. That...murderer!"
Ruby blanches, falling back a step with her free hand grasping over her chest at her checkered flannel shirt. "She didn't mean to do that, and you know it. She was...she was tricked!"
Smelling the kill, Regina slithers forward, a shark on the hunt for her prey. "Forgive me if I don't give a flying fuck. For the second time, Snow White has taken someone I love from me. I won't let her get away with it! Not this time!"
She catches the instant Ruby's fight or flight instinct kicks in. Her blood sings in her veins knowing which one will be chosen. With Ruby, the selection is never flight.
"And what are you gonna do, huh?" Ruby says, drawing herself up to her full height. Towering imposingly over Regina, the veins in her neck popping out due to her rising fury, she has never been more attractive. Ruby is runway model beautiful at her worst, but there is something about her when she's all riled up that drives Regina wild with passion. And with her own temper unleashed as it is right now, it's hard to contain the urge to go on a feeding frenzy. "Gonna curse us all again?" Ruby goes on, with each pointed question drawing closer until they are almost flush front-to-front. "Or hatch some crazy ass plot to punish her through the people she loves? Hell, maybe you're planning on taking her heart and crushing it just like you did Graham's!"
Unsurprisingly, Ruby has yet to get over that regrettable misdeed. She and Graham had been close. For nigh on thirty years, they were the only ones who really understood the other. The huntsman's affinity for wolves, Regina once theorized, made him especially compassionate towards the ultimate apex predator, a werewolf caged in skin tight skirts and blouses. Only Graham could calm Ruby down when the full moon was out and she was stalking through the shadows at midnight, all pent up energy with no where to go because no drugs could numb her enough and casual sex with random strangers or running the streets until she could scarcely make it back home could never burn it all up. Likewise, Ruby was the only person that could coax Graham out of his shell – until Emma came to town, anyway. All it took was one of her signature smiles or a well-timed joke to uncoil Graham from the perpetual knot he kept himself in. They were two peas in a pod, and that made it even more difficult for Regina to fess up to her role in the former Sheriff's premature demise.
When she finally broke down and told Ruby what she did to Graham and why, Ruby went positively apoplectic. Good God, but that was an exhilarating quarrel. Not since then has Regina heard anyone employ such a voluminous, vehement litany of curses. Some of the phrases she'd never heard before, which shocked her because she had spent a lot of time around sailors and pirates when she was a Queen.
As always with them, the venom eventually subsided and both were left drained in its absence. They didn't speak for the rest of the night and slept as far away from one another as a king sized bed would allow. The next morning, Ruby was gone before Regina woke up. Devout cynic that she was, she figured that was it. That their budding relationship was over. They'd made it six and a half weeks, and already she had torpedoed the best thing that had happened to her since she brought home eight pounds, five ounces of squealing Henry Mills. The last thing she expected that evening was a knock on the door around dinner time. When she answered, she found Ruby standing on the other side of the door, looking more nervous than a cat stuck in a cage with three starving dobermans. The caustic apology bubbling up the column of her throat hadn't even made it to the tip of her tongue before Ruby beat her to it.
That was how their relationship operated on occasion. Both of them could be high strung and were incredibly stubborn to a fault. They fought more than Regina would like, but they also made up better than she could have ever predicted. Was it dysfunctional? Perhaps. But they worked. Thus far, anyway.
Sadly, under the current stressor they seem to be unraveling at a terrifying clip. Ruby's eyes are darker than she's ever seen them, even after she'd reluctantly confessed to killing Graham.
"I don't have to do a thing to your precious little gal pal," Regina says boastfully, too drunk on her rage to know when to stop. "She's done it all by her lonesome without any help from me."
Ruby sucks in a breath of absolute distress. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Regina summons up the most infuriating smirk in her vast arsenal. She simply cannot help herself. "I mean that the Princess of Thieves has managed to darken her heart. A feat I would not have believed had I not witnessed it for myself when I cradled it oh-so-gently in my hands. As you may or may not know, there is no going back from that. Once a heart has been blackened, it can only get worse."
A half-truth. Hearts newly blackened will always get worse and can never again be pure, but they can improve with time and diligent effort. Although most lack the willpower to correct such a malady, it has been done. Ruby doesn't need to know that, though. Let her go on thinking Snow is going to eventually sink to the levels of depravity she inhabited as the Evil Queen.
Eyes dancing with glee, Regina pours salt on the wound. "Your self-righteous, oh-so-virtuous friend has started down a path that leads nowhere good. And I, for one, am going to sit back and enjoy the show."
Ruby makes a sound of disgust, her lips twisting oddly. "That's a horrible thing to say. Even for you."
"Maybe so," Regina shrugs, "but she deserves it."
That does the trick. Those pretty green eyes that have thus far managed to maintain a somewhat even keel suddenly flood with a rancor that is almost palpable. In a fit of belligerence, Ruby tosses the saucer behind her, sending it crashing to the floor along with the BLT. Such a waste.
Funny enough, Regina can't summon any outrage over the mess she will have to clean up. The game is on now. The gauntlet has been thrown, and she is more than happy to pick it up.
"Oh yeah?" Ruby snarls right in her face. "You should be careful with absolute statements like that. I mean, your Mom wasn't exactly a saint, now was she Regina? If anybody deserved what she got, it was her."
Regina reels as if physically struck. The grotesque noise that works its way up her throat sounds more animalistic than human. When she recovers, she feels her face grow even hotter so that she's sure her cheeks are as rosy as half the checkers on Ruby's shirt. The inadequate lid precariously teetering over Mt. St. Regina is about to be blown off.
"Say that again," she says, hissing out a threat bound to prompt a response. "Go on. Say it again. I dare you."
Ruby's reaction, though anticipated, does nothing but push them both closer to the precipice of disaster. "You dare me? Oooo. Is that supposed to scare me? I'm shakin' in my boots here, baby!"
Coincidentally, Ruby is actually wearing boots over her painted on leggings. Not that Regina cares about that either when what was just said demands retaliation. The only problem is that she's still so astounded Ruby went there about her mother, she can hardly manage to put together an appropriate insult.
"You should be if you think you can get away with saying such...such..." she stutters, and her humiliation is only exacerbated by Ruby butting in to prevent her finishing the sentence.
"Truths? Cause it was. The truth. No offense, but your mother was a bitch who got what was coming to her."
Something in Regina snaps at hearing her own awful conclusion spoken aloud. It has never escaped her attention that her mother lived her life as if on a route toward a violent conclusion, not even in the hours after that conclusion came to pass. She just never expected it to be like that. At Snow White's hand no less. Dying in her arms, suddenly so frail and old as she apologized for all the hurts she'd visited upon her daughter, was frankly more peaceful an end than she had envisioned her mother would meet. That didn't make it any easier to take, though.
In the back of her mind, she realizes that both she and Ruby are at fault for the current escalation. Too bad she is a dozen exits beyond the giving-a-damn off ramp. Right now, all that matters is appeasing the malicious beast that has been collecting energy and momentum inside her since the moment her mother took that final, horrible, shuddering breath.
Rearing back her right arm, she slaps Ruby as hard as she possibly can. Ruby barely flinches at the blow, which is not unexpected considering what she is. It would take a much taller and stronger person than her to put a pissed off werewolf on her ass. Even so, she watches with grim satisfaction as a hand-shaped imprint blooms over her lover's pale cheeks.
"Try that again. See what happens," Ruby growls, her eyes issuing an ominous alarm for which Regina harbors no regard. Nor does she fear the consequences of accepting the appealing invitation.
The next slap is much, much harder. To put in the maximum amount of effort, she throws her hips into the motion. This time, Ruby's head jerks violently to the right, and before she can fully recover, Regina follows up with another vicious slap that lands across her nose and lips, splitting the latter as they bear the brunt of the rings she is wearing on the index finger and thumb of her right hand.
Fat rivulets of blood trickle down Ruby's chin as she rubs at her jaw. Her eyes flash yellow. The wolf is awake, and the chill of death descends upon the room in recognition of her appearance. Regina tenses, expecting to be ripped to shreds at any second.
But then something totally unexpected happens. Just as quickly as it came on, Ruby's eyes loose all traces of the wolf. And when that fascinating amber tint disappears, her pupils are so dilated that there is barely any hint of green left in her irises. Chest heaving, she stares at Regina in that way she only ever does in the privacy of their bedroom. Like she wants to devour her whole and will allow nothing to stop her from achieving that noble pursuit.
"Are you...are you turned on right now?" Regina asks, astonished at the abrupt shift in the atmosphere. No longer does the threat of bloodshed linger. No, another type of violence is in the air, and it sends frissons of arousal jolting through low through her belly, which then descend with breathtaking rapidity into her nether regions. She clenches her thighs together, feeling herself dampen.
Ruby stutters at the question, unable to come up with a coherent explanation for her behavior. Apparently this little development is as stunning for her. "I...I...I don't...I..."
Regina instinctively brushes a hand over her left breast, finding a traitorous nipple fully erect. "Oh my God. You are!" she breathes, at wits end to figure out what the hell just happened and at the same time ecstatic that it did. "You are turned on. I can see it all over your face."
Ruby whines in protest at her body's betrayal. "It's not me! It's her! I swear..."
"She is you!" Regina replies, now in awe of the creature before her. How had she not figured this scrumptious character trait of Ruby's until now? "My God, Ruby, you actually liked it when I hit you? That's so...so fucked up." It's the only way Regina can figure out how to phrase it, which is regrettable as Ruby shrinks in on herself in shame.
"Shut up. Don't make fun of me. I can't help it. I didn't ask for this!"
"I'm not making fun of you," Regina says, modulating her tone from incredulous to soothing. All her previous anger is, for the moment, forgotten. She steps back into Ruby's personal space and risks grasping her by the elbow. Grateful that Ruby does not turn her away, she sets about explaining herself better, "Believe me when I say insulting you is the furthest thing from what I intended. If anything, I wish you'd told me earlier. This is not at all an unwelcome development."
Brows shooting up into her hairline, Ruby gapes in disbelief. "Wait a second. What did you just say?"
Feeling bold, Regina raises her right arm, index finger extended. "I said," she pokes Ruby at the shoulder, just hard enough to move her backwards a step, "I wish," another poke, "you'd told me," and another, "earlier," and another.
A moan half-torment and half-lust escapes Ruby's sinful lips. "Stop." Regina doesn't stop. She can't. As much as she'd been lost to the haze of rage a minute ago, she's even more so under the thrall of her suddenly activated libido. "Regina, I'm telling you. Stop right now." Neither of Ruby's subsequent warnings receive attention.
"I don't want to," Regina says, tone oozing sex as she continues forcefully poking at Ruby's shoulder. "And I don't think you do either."
"Regina...seriously." Ruby is getting frightfully close to being backed against the door. "Stop I said!"
Regina grins. Quarry in sight, she is a woman on a mission and she will not be deterred. "Make me." Her statements are punctuated by another slew of domineering pokes. "Otherwise I'm going to keep pushing you until you break. And I think you'll enjoy every...last...second."
When Ruby's back collides with the door, she accidentally bumps her head. "Ow! Fuck you, bitch!"
"Oh," Regina sighs as erotically as she possible can, "please do."
Before she can utter another syllable, Ruby roars like a lioness loosed from her shackles. In one fluid motion, she lifts Regina off the ground and tosses her over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Regina is so shocked she can only grunt with each step as Ruby carries her upstairs. When she's thrown with as little gentility onto the bed and her clothes literally ripped off her body, she finally rises to the occasion. She has never been one to back down from a challenge or to turn down a good fight. And that is precisely how she would describe the next hour. A fight to survive an onslaught of pain and pleasure that very nearly does her poor heart in – several times its rhythm reaches such a frenzied pace that she's afraid it's going to run right out of her chest.
Later on, sprawled atop Ruby's inert form, she is panting for precious oxygen, having just rode Ruby's long, dexterous fingers to an incredible climax that made her vision go white for at least several seconds. Their skin glistens with sweat, and the smell of sex lingers heavily in the air, mixing with the coppery tang of blood from where she had bit Ruby's abused lower lip whilst wrenching a remarkable orgasm out of her. The delicious blend is stimulating enough to make Regina tingle all over.
Never in her wildest fantasies had she imagined post-Curse Ruby would be into adding some pain into their lovemaking. Pre-Curse, oh hell, yes. Cursed Ruby practically had Fuck-Me-Stupid tattooed across her forehead. The thought of bending her over a table after hours, hiking up her miniskirt, snatching a handful of those pigtails, and giving it the old college try crossed Regina's mind more than once over the years. In retrospect, she kind of wishes she had scrounged up the courage. She's missed out on so much fun! There is a silver lining, though. Maybe knowing what she does now, she'll get indulge that wicked fantasy in the near future.
She swears internally, biting her lip as she is assailed by visions of that extremely exciting scenario.
Anyway, the point she was trying to make before that detour is that with timid, do-gooder, Charming-groupie Red mostly back in control, she'd thought her lover too pure, too Snow-like for what that vanilla, missionary only princess would dub an unforgivable perversion. Boy, was she ever wrong, and she has never been so glad to cop to an error.
The back scratching, ass smacking, jaw slapping, and rough groping of sensitive areas had only spurred Ruby on. She gave as good as she got, too, and Regina loved every second of it. The highlight thus far for her, and she believes for them both, was slowly tightening the fingers wrapped around Ruby's throat and muttering the most filthy things she could come up with into her ear while mercilessly pounding into her with their favorite toy. In all of their seven months together, Ruby has never cum so hard or long as she did then. There is no point denying how amazing it was to watching her gorgeous lover dissolve into an incoherent, trembling, drooling mess. It was such a turn on, in fact, she did not even need to touch herself to find her own euphoric denouement. The visual and aural stimuli in combination with the friction of the toy proved more than enough to send her over the edge to her own intense completion.
Just thinking about that unrivaled experience produces a flood of wetness she can hardly fathom herself capable of at the moment. She didn't know the human body was capable of producing so much fluid without becoming dehydrated.
Having evidently smelled Regina's arousal, Ruby emits a prolonged groan that rattles her chest. "Already? Jesus, woman. I need five minutes here. You about fucking killed me."
"Since I can't argue that point, I'll give you one. Maybe two if you're a very good girl," Regina sweetly sings, her hand already roaming up the length of Ruby's sweat-slick inner thigh. Once she's at the apex, she pinches at flesh that is already inflaming with want. Grinning with satisfaction when Ruby yelps in pleasure, she emits a groan of her own upon feeling moisture rapidly gathering between folds that are literally weeping for more attention.
It's going to be a long afternoon. But that's okay. There is nothing else she would rather be doing than this. And the best part? She's pretty confident Ruby feels the same.