1107 words of Regina and Emma getting to know each other when they find themselves assigned as roommates.
Written for my Summer Prompt Challenge 2019 on Ao3.
Testing - 1, 2, 3...
"Oh!"
Emma's head snapped to the doorway. There was a girl, possibly a pixie, literally vibrating in the doorway as her eyes circled the room. Her hair was dark, but cut short to frame her face in a delicate manner. It complimented her small frame and colorful aesthetic. Maybe pixie was too calm a descriptor.
"This is so exciting!" The pixie girl spun around, now hopping up and down as she yanked on the arms of another girl - less pixie, more goth. The dark hair was longer, her makeup with dark, sharp, and plentiful, and she was wearing actual leather. In August.
Emma wasn't sure which was her roommate, but right now she was hoping for the goth.
"It's a dorm room, Snow," the goth's eyes swept the room. They paused for a moment on Emma, moved up, then down, and then over her three bags and one box of possessions. They were dark, very flat eyes.
Emma was rethinking her preference.
Snow, the pixie, rushed over with her hand out, "Hi! I'm Mary Margaret, this is my big sister Regina." Emma took the offered hand and the girl shook it so exhuberantly that Emma thought her arm might actually be ripped off.
"Emma."
The goth, Regina, moved further into the room. She looked over the other bed with a wrinkled nose and pinched forehead. Mary Margaret flitted back over to her sister.
"So…which of you is my roommate?" Emma asked, clasping her hands behind her and attempting to smile in a friendly manner. Her scholarship advisor had told her it would be a good idea to make friends.
Regina raised her hand, but didn't speak. Mary Margaret smiled, "Gina, but I'll be coming here next year!" Okay then.
"Cool." Emma stuck her hands in her pocket as Regina stalked around the room with narrow eyes. "Where's your stuff?"
"The movers are downstairs," Mary Margaret supplied. She plopped up onto her sister's bed. "They'll bring everything up after Gina decides where things will go." She even nodded chipperly.
Regina returned to her sister, "Off. The bed has not been properly sanitized yet." Mary Margaret rolled her eyes, but dutifully slipped from the bed.
Emma raised a brow, then swiftly squashed it as Regina turned to face her.
"I'd like to reorganize the furniture and have the room professionally cleaned," Regina glanced at her things, "I could have my movers take your things out and bring them back in."
Emma blinked, looked at the two desks and two beds that barely fit into what was, generously, a rectangular box the size of a small public restroom. "Rearrange how?"
"Do you care?" Regina arched an eyebrow. Emma shrugged. "Alrifht then." Apparently a shrug was consent because with a sudden shout from Regina there were three men coming through the doorway.
Emma grabbed her backpack, but let them take the rest of her sparse possessions as she followed the two sisters out of the room. Regina stood in the center of the hallway explaining exactly what she wanted done to a man roughly the size of a house. Obviously, goth and pixie had both money and power.
"Gina can be a bit bossy," Mary Margaret whispered to her, hand covering her giant grin as she spoke, "But she's a total softy underneath, I swear."
"You're her little sister." Emma said, eyes on Regina as the woman directed a small army into their tiny dorm room. "People are generally kinder to their siblings than to strangers." Or the exact opposite. Emma had seen both growing up.
Mary Margaret snorted, "We're step-sisters, so the stereotype is actually vicious cruelty." Mary Margaret looked over at Regina with a smile much softer than her blazing grins of the past, "But she is pretty protective of me, that's true."
"Alright," Regina walked over to them, tilted her head, "Lunch?" Mary Margaret bounced on the balls of her feet and Regina kept looked at Emma.
"Oh." Emma blinked, shrugged, "Sure."
This was probably foreshadowing the year to come. Emma followed after Regina - Queen of good posture and sharp gazes. People literally jumped out of her path. It was awesome.
The whole walk to the student union Mary Margaret jabbed on about what she wanted to study here the next year and asking Emm what she was studying - Criminal Justice - and where she was from - Boston.
"Oh!" Mary Margaret gushed, "I loved the summer we spent in Boston! The museums, the libraries, the parks!" Emma nodded along. She didn't mention that her experiences with the museums, libraries, and parks was probably very different than theirs.
Regina handed Mary Margaret a credit card and then took a seat at a table, "Don't get something healthy."
"Cookies and cake for lunch it is!" Mary Margaret saluted and then disappeared into the crowd of students and parents.
"So…" Emma sat in the chair that Regina had pushed out with her foot. "I assume that was your less than subtle way of giving us privacy."
"Pseudo-privacy," Regina's hands gestured out at the crowd around them, the other tables. Emma nodded. "Do you know who I am?"
Emma raised a brow, "Should I?" The air around them stilled.
"Given that I specifically asked Mary Margaret's father not to room me with anyone who had a prep school on their resume - no."
"You...asked?" Emma blinked, "Who's her father?"
"My step-father is the President of the university." Regina leaned back in her chair, face frozen as she waited.
Emma recognized a test when one was given. She crossed her arms, "Okay." She scrunched up her face, "Why are you telling me this?"
"Checking," Regina shrugged and the gesture looked odd on her. Unnatural. Emma raised a brow. "I don't want to spend a year rooming with an ass-kisser."
"Ah," Emma uncrossed her arms, leaned forward, "That's not going to be a problem." She smirked. "I'm pretty prickly."
Regina's lips quirked up on one side, "That makes two of us."
"I'm back!" The crowds parted to reveal Mary Margaret and a tray loaded up with actually cake and cookies. Emma grinned.
"Good," Regina nodded approvingly. Mary Margaret set the tray down and handed Regina back her card.
Regina then reached into the pile of 'lunch' food and withdrew a single apple. She narrowed her eyes on Mary Margaret, "I said nothing healthy, Snow."
"Apples are sweet!" Mary Margaret took the apple. She stuck her tongue out and then took a bite of the red fruit. Immediately she winced, "Ow!" In the apple was a tooth colored pit, "My filing!" Regina cackled. Emma snorted.
This year would certainly be interesting.
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