another one of those oq prompts. I've got a few lines up so, yeah.
Imagine Regina getting the mail in only a robe but gets locked out. Neighbor Robin comes to help.
they're incompatible.
clash every moment they're together and prepare themselves for it when they're not.
he's loud, obnoxious, seems to have no consideration for her and her very impressionable son.
if she hadn't spent months just trying to get the place, the job, to establish her name and herself in this new town she would have bolted with Roland the first chance she had.
But she can't subject him to any more turmoil. His questions are growing with his size, trying to wrap his mind around their circumstances, their move, the absence of his father, and she just wants him to settle in for once, to make some friends – even if to her disapproval he seems to find a liking to the very man she despises and his trailing son.
This is for her son, she reminds herself, for him and him alone.
she wakes just with the morning sun, chases it as it makes its way up into the sky, follows it into the kitchen as it greets her with a warm glow as her fingers press on the coffee maker.
Roland will not be up until another hour or so (he likes to sleep in on weekends and she doesn't have the heart to wake him), so she runs a hand over her robe, ties it securely around her waist before stepping outside to pick up the mail.
She notices that the town seems to like sleeping in as much as Roland does, the eerie silence of the streets almost overwhelming as she makes the trek, fuzzy sandals scraping against the pavement before she comes to stand in front of the mailbox.
There's a check and more bills, as is expected, and she closes it with a tight lip, makes her way back over towards the house while thumbing through the letters, half expecting to see something from her mother but not terribly surprised to find she hasn't had the deceny to call or ask how the move has been, how her grandson is.
Manicured fingers find the knob and she turns only to have it resist.
Her eyes fall on the golden sphere, trying a little harder this time even if she's sure what the problem is, and it just rattles against the strength of her hand.
Shit.
Her other hand comes to grip the handle, gives the door a harder shove with her shoulder – as if that would really do much, great thought, Regina – but the only result of her struggle will be a bruised shoulder later on.
This wasn't happening.
She wasn't stuck outside of her house clad in nothing but a robe.
"Well if it isn't the queen herself."
The letters have scattered onto the ground at the sound of his strained voice, tinged with a hint of amusement she can practically feel in her bones, her grip on the handle tightening until her knuckles are white because what are the odds that the British prick would be here when she was so vulnerable?
Of course. Very funny. Whoever was in charge of all this would pay.
"You know if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were locked out of your own house." She can practically see the dimples dipping into his face, the one that irritates the living shit out of her every time she chides him from across the lawn for being too loud, for parking in her driveway, for being himself. She wants to turn around, to use the scary face she has come to hone to her very advantage but she's not wearing any makeup, hasn't had the time to fix her hair, and part of what makes her scary face effective is that she looks stunning while she does it.
"If I didn't know any better I'd think you were at the wrong house." What the hell was he doing on her property anyway? His door was just a few strides away.
"Couldn't help but notice your struggle, m'lady." His lady, she tries to suppress her laugh but it bubbles out anyway, shoulders shaking because she is not his lady– far from.
"You know stalking is illegal."
"I'm your neighbor, Regina. I have no choice but to look even when I don't want to."
That's what makes her whip around because no, that wasn't an excuse, not a good enough one anyway, and she's hit with the smell of sweat – the sight of it too, as she catches the beads of water trailing down his forehead and pooling around his neck. The gruffness to his voice makes a little more sense now, strained under the force of his jog, and she doesn't mean to look toward the broad expanse of his chest but it's basically eye level for her so it's not like she has much of a choice. She shifts on her feet to steady herself, catches herself just as quickly before her eyes meet his again and there are those dimples.
"Who's stalking now?"
Regina scoffs, let's it roll off her lips as she turns again to hide the tint in her cheeks as she gives the door another shove, willing it to open or for the ground to swallow her whole, either or.
"Not technically. I'm not harassing you."
"Oh but I am?" The playfulness in his voice answers his very question and she throws her head back in a groan, exposing the length of her neck to him before she straightens up, hands poised at her hips as she turns.
"What do you want, Robin?" She's done with their usual banter, needs to get inside, to have her cup of coffee, to get out of this miserable position she's in.
He can't help but smile wider, huffs a little sigh with his shoulders that makes his muscles pop underneath his tight shirt but no, she's not looking, not at all, before he sticks a hand into his pocket, withdraws a set of keys.
She's utterly confused, tips her head to the side in question as he twirls it in his skilled hands before he reaches toward the door, unlocks it with a simple click.
What the hell.
"You have the keys to my house?!"
"Correction: I had the keys to my friend Belle's house." He seems terribly smug, like this isn't a huge violation of her privacy, "Unlike you, Ms. Mills, Belle liked me." His eyes dance with something hot, something that lights something familiar at the pit of her stomach she chooses wisely to ignore.
Her lips tighten into a line and the way his eyes drop to them is not lost on her, but even so she manages to keep her eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'm going to change the lock."
"I'm surprised you haven't already."
She huffs because she hasn't had a moment to do much of anything other than settle in – and keep Robin off her back – but now she has every motive to do so. Robin crosses his hands across his chest, flexes those distracting muscles of his as he smirks, "I suppose a thank you is in order."
Her jaw clenches, makes the prominent vein on her forehead show. If he thought for a moment that this meant anything, that she would be grateful over the fact that he's waltzed up to her, annoyed her thoroughly and then invaded her privacy this way that this would make her giddy with appreciation, than he clearly didn't know her well enough.
"Keep the noise down and park in your own damn driveway." And with that, Regina closes the door behind her, but not without the fleeting glimpse of a smirk as she goes.