These are some brief drabbles I wrote in response to prompts. The intention was five sentence pieces, and some are, but many are a bit longer. Ah, well.

Irrational Fear

Outlaw Queen + an irrational, almost comical fear of the fearless Robin prompted by reginian

This has reached the point of absurdity, Regina decides as she slides her hands up Robin's chest and feels once more the rapid thump-thump of his heart; he has, believing her to be still asleep, apparently thought his absence prudent for no more than a handful of seconds, and has left in a rush and raced back.

"You can leave bed without me, you know," she whispers conspiratorially.

His fingers freeze where he'd been tracing circles on her upper arm, the start of finding her awake, and his eyes find hers. "Do you want me to?"

She laughs, her brow furrowing at the absurdity of the question, the delusion of even asking. She gestures to the way her arms have wound around him, even in sleep, to the unwrinkled and untouched pillow on her side of the bed in contrast to the rumpled sheets and pillow on his, "Yes, I clearly want you out of our bed as quickly as possible."

He shoots her an amused grin, sobers "I don't want you to wake without me here," and she notes his sincerity with a pleasured jolt, his fear with an empathetic sigh.

She wedges her leg more securely between his, "Get over yourself," she grumbles, allowing her eyes to fall shut once more. He buries a hand in her hair, settling into bed with a groan, and when she smiles where her lips press between his shoulder and the pillow that smells of him, he feels it, and he may be an idiotic sap, but he's pretty sure it's one of the things she loves about him. (It is.)

Stubborn, Part 1

Drabble: Robin and Regina cuddling. prompted by Tracyhaven

Robin enters the house already in a foul mood from a fifteen-hour shift at the sheriff's office, and his bitterness sharpens when he enters to find Roland tearing up in a corner and Regina throwing dinner into the oven as though she would rather be pitching it into the wall.

Their fight turns nasty in minutes, why has she upset Roland so, why is he never there to help, she disciplines too harshly, he would say that about any parent who did not coddle children unnecessarily; he draws out every fear she has ever had of becoming her mother, and she reacts with venom because she knows it isn't true and isn't fair, and they're scaring Roland and his baby sister and perhaps even Henry (because venom is what she does, fight or flight, she has found a way to do both at once).

Later, in bed, alone, Regina tosses and turns, shoves his pillow onto the floor and retrieves it a beat later, hates that each of their fights somehow still manages to ignite some remnant of the fear that he might finally leave. Robin sinks into the couch without a blanket, arms tight around his stomach, and drifts in and out for hours before he finally settles into unrestful sleep.

Stubborn, both of them, as stubborn as they come, and yet 2:00A.M. finds her padding through the kitchen, 2:02A.M. and she's dragged a knit blanket off the opposite chair and sat beside his ankles, 2:09 and she's laid gingerly beside him, exhausted, while maintaining what little distance she can on a sofa, 2:24 and his nose is buried in her collar, his arms draped around her hips, both of them fast asleep (much left unsaid, but the most important thing expressed in a way words could never manage.)

Stubborn, Part 2

Come dawn, both are loathe to admit to wakefulness, and linger purposefully in that halfway point between conscious and unconscious.

At last, she presses her lips to his brow, and he tugs her closer in response; they say the things with their tenderness that they sometimes leave unspoken. Everyone—or nearly everyone—they know would guess that Robin always apologizes first, but because he does not tease or mock or wish her apology had been earlier or later, because he does not grow smug, with him she has learned to sometimes be the first to surrender.
He opens his mouth, I'm sorry on his lips, and she shushes him, covers the words with languid kisses and tilts their foreheads together. I love that you're so warm with them, she tells him, they are lucky to have such a father, and he twirls wisps of her hair between his fingers as he assures her, so are you, and I hadn't been there all day I had no right barging in and questioning you, and you're a wonderful mother,and if neither of them can find the willpower to move to bed when he suggests a few more hours of sleep, it is because they are both too stubborn to be apart.

Sidney

She enters the cell with the rigid calm of emptiness, asks for his help in destroying someone, something that stands between her and the aching happiness she'd felt mere days before. Destruction, blame, these things falsely ease her pain, when really they are like patches over a steaming cauldron of hurt, they bottle up her pain, make it destined to explode with enough force to destroy everything in her path, including Regina herself, and everything and everyone she loves. Still she orders him, to rid the world, to toss away like garbage, to hurt and destroy, and the dark magic, the hatred, rises in her belly and in her fingertips, takes her over once more, contagious and poisonous and inevitable, making her the person she can never escape.

Regina wakes with a pounding heart, sits with her back ramrod straight against the sofa on which she'd been trying to sleep, twists fingers in her hair and pulls and pulls until the pain breaks through, gasping for air. How could any part of her think she might get a happy ending after that? (and yet—how could any part of her have thought that killing Snow White would ease the pain of losing Daniel?) because it is not a thoughtful part of her that would do this, she is not thoughtful, she is dark and impulsive and vengeful, and the people she loves should stay far, far away, far enough, she hopes, to save them from her.

Spilled Coffee

5 Sentence Drabble Prompt: OQ + spilled coffee + first meeting

Friday morning, and she's frazzled, running late as she waits impatiently in line to buy coffee for herself and hot chocolate for Henry, and when she sidesteps a running patron, her four-inch heels land solidly on a pile of spilled coffee, and she barely has time to register the unbalance before she's falling back. Wide hands catch her elbows and linger, and she has no time for this, is about to shrug whoever it is off when she catches sight of her rescuer, that man who always arrives just as she is leaving, and damn if he is not even more attractive this close, with his stubble and sea-blue eyes and lean muscle and the dimpled smirk that should be infuriating but is actually making her stomach flutter.
She slips her arms out of his more gently, and hurries away, but Monday finds her pushing back her morning routine by five minutes just so that she can catch him, Wednesday and he ends up just behind her in line again, teases her about her fall (not in a mean way, it feels deliciously flirtatious).

It's an odd Saturday morning that they meet each other once more, though this time Robin has a four-year-old in tow, happily chomping away at a blueberry muffin, and her heart sinks as he approaches and asks her who the second drink is for. Her son, she tells him, and when he wondersnot your husband? she sighs and answers single parent. His next words surprise her, me too, and something of the pain in his eyes urges her to continue. Widow she nearly whispers with a heavy swallow, looking down, nobody ever wants the depressing widow with a half-grown son, and this flirtation, or whatever this is, will be over in moments, before it's really even begun. Then he's meeting her eyes with so much kindness and empathy, widower he returns, and she finds that it's not over at all.