Per Tumblr request.
Prompt: Robin is proud of Regina for accepting happiness
This didn't turn out exactly as I expected, but hopefully you guys enjoy it anyway.
Things are dangerous, the Author has just run off with the magic ink and pen, set to rewrite history as they know it and change their lives forever. He knows, he knows it's not the right time, but he needs to tell her, needs to convey how much hearing her words meant to him, and so as they leave the place of Zelena's seclusion, he grabs Regina's hands, pulling her with him to a nearby tree.
"Robin?" she asks worriedly, confusion etched on her features, but he doesn't reply, only takes hold of her arms and slams their bodies together, crashing his mouth to hers, surrendering to the moment.
"What was that for?" she asks with a small smile after their lips part.
"Because you are an absolute wonder, and I'm so incredibly proud of you for what you said back there."
"You think too highly of me. I still have half a mind to roast her," Regina says with a skeptic raise of her eyebrow and an adorable scrunch of her nose, but Robin merely laughs, knowing she doesn't really mean it. He cradles her cheek in his hand, his eyes drinking her in.
"You're strong, and you are brave. You've made your own destiny by showing kindness to your enemy, and seeing you do that? Watching you embrace your true happy ending? I have never loved you more."
She blushes at his words, smiles dreamily at him as she laces their hands at their sides, closing her eyes when he leans in for another kiss, one that she deepens with slow passes of her tongue over his, gentle grazes of her teeth against his bottom lip.
"Thank you," she tells him in a whisper, "for believing in me."
"Always have, always will, that won't change, regardless of what this Author has planned for us."
"That quill has great power, Robin, what if we wake up in a world where we hate each other? Or even worse, a world where we never meet?" she asks him, and her voice shakes at the idea.
"We're soul mates, Regina." He runs his thumb over her temple, his other four fingers buried in her hair, his voice a mere whisper as he tries to make her understand, "no matter what universe we end up in, my heart will always make its way back to you."
"Are you telling me you'll 'always find me'?" she asks with an exaggerated bat of her lashes before she rolls her eyes. It's ridiculous, how giddy it makes him to see her be this amused at something he does or says, and yes, his statement is quite similar to Snow and David's ridiculous catch phrase, but he won't admit that to her, won't let her get the upper hand, even if she is somewhat right in her mockery.
"No," he finally says with a chuckle and a shake of his head, "I'm telling you that I love you, and that no storybook, magic or otherwise, will ever tear me away from you. I'm never leaving you again, Regina."
His hand is still holding her face, and so he coaxes her towards him, bringing their lips together again and basking in the wonderful sensation of her kisses, the delicious moan she releases into his mouth, the way her arms circle around his waist as she pulls herself closer.
Things are dangerous, the Author will change their stories any minute now, and they should be on their way to stop him instead of here, standing outside a mental institution and making out like teenagers. He knows, he knows it's not the right time, but he'd needed to tell her, needed to kiss her, hold her and let her know how proud he is of her.
When he wakes some time later, their lives are not their own, but rather an illusion created by someone with magical ink and a big imagination. He doesn't remember a life before this one, no vestiges of memory of the time he served as an honorable thief who won the love of a redeemed evil queen. Here, instead of a nomad who spent his time robbing the rich to give to the poor, he's a charming and just noble, with riches and subjects that kneel at his feet, but it doesn't matter, because he'd been right. When he meets a beautiful, daring bandit in the woods, his heart soars, a familiar, wonderful echo of a feeling blooming inside as he falls for her sass and her bravery, for her mysterious brown eyes, so full of pain and wonder, for her lovely, lovely lips, soft and pouty and gorgeous...
And when he kisses her, his world finally makes sense again.
