Holy shit, you guys (And gals)! Soooo much love poured in for this piece in the past 12 hours. I am shocked... but so thankful. You are all wonderful! I don't usually update so quickly but with all the follows/faves and reviews... I just couldn't help myself! Anyway, this chapter pulls in some random peeps and characters from other stories, just for kicks. Happy reading!
2.
"Hey, it's ten; you better get your ass out of that bed." Ruby called through the open door to Emma's room.
"Mhm." mumbled the blonde while pulling the blanket over her head.
"Emma Swan if you don't get out of that bed, I will let Dodger in there."
There was no response from Emma. Quietly, Ruby picked up her wire-haired mutt who had been sitting obediently at her side, and dropped him over the gate that separated Emma's bed room from their shared living room. Within seconds, the little dog was in the bed, scratching the blankets off of the blonde's face.
"Damn it Ruby!" She yelled while fighting off the playful little beast.
Laughing, Ruby padded through the living room and into the kitchen where she proceeded to make two very different cups of coffee. One, in a giant red cup, was half coffee and half coconut flavored creamer while the other, in a tall drinking glass, was black with a few ice cubes floating in it.
Laughter flooded out of the blonde's room as she continued to fight off the dog. After a few minutes, a mop-headed Emma appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. Draped across her arms was the red and white pup that was mindlessly licking her skin. "I believe this belongs to you."
Ruby walked over to her friend and traded her dog for the red mug in her hand. Emma nodded a thanks before pulling up a chair at the kitchen table. Silently she sipped on her coffee and watched Ruby roll around in the floor with her dog. After a while of rough and tumble, the brunette sat back on her knees and looked up at her still half-asleep friend.
"You better go get a shower, dude. You have class in an hour…"
"Yes, mother." Emma snapped.
"Hey! I'm just sayin, you don't want to look skanky for your big day."
"My big day?" She furrowed her brows and glared down at her coffee like it had insulted her. "Oh shit!"
"Yeeeea, welcome back to the real world Miss Swan, do tell me… Why did you miss my class so many times, all those months ago?" Ruby carried on in her best Dr. Mills voice.
"Shut up Ruby, I will kick you." Threatened the blonde before downing the rest of her coffee, "I don't even want to do this today." She sighed.
Ruby pulled herself out of the floor and took the few short steps to the table. "You need to put on your big-girl panties and get with program."
"I can't…"
"You can and you will." Ruby said sternly. "Let me just say, the worst turn off ever, is a coward… Don't be that person Emma."
"Did you just call me a coward?! I'm going to kick your ass."
"Oh, I'm so scared. Shakin in my boots!" She looked down at her sock clad feet, "Oh wait." She laughed.
Emma jumped up and shoved her friend playfully. "Don't make me hurt you."
"Shut up, Emma. Go shower, you smell."
The blonde narrowed her eyes at her friend but turned away without protest. Within minutes she reappeared in the kitchen with a purple towel and a silver hair dryer. She waltzed through the kitchen and down the hallway into the bath room and slammed the door behind her.
"Geez." Ruby cringed at the loud noise. "You'd think she was a man the way she does things." She said to her dog who was laying in it's cage eating kibble.
"I know, you think she is crazy too. Glad we are on the same page Dodgie."
A man's voice started over Ruby's shoulder, "Speaking of crazy, aren't you the one carrying on a conversation with a dog? Honestly, you're a little mad too."
"Jefferson, you shit. Don't you ever knock?" Ruby rounded on her neighbor. He leaned casually in the doorway, picking at his fingernails.
"Why would I knock when you dumbies leave your front door unlocked? I could be a murderer… murderers aren't going to knock."
"What do you want Jeff?" She asked, rolling her eyes.
"I'll be headed to campus shortly, was wonderin if you woooonderful ladies wanted to carpool… I'll be picking up Auuuugust as well." He smiled teasingly.
"Miss Fairy Princess just got in the shower, it'll be a minute…" She threw a thumb over her shoulder. "Coffee?"
"Might as well… two sugars." He smiled. "Thank you."
After pulling a cup from the cabinet, Ruby filled it to his specifications before thrusting it into his hands. "What class do you have? I can never remember." She asked.
"World Studies with Jack."
"Is that a history class?"
"You would think… but no, it's a cross-listed history-philosophy class. That guy is so fuckin weird. The way he talks about these 'realms' as he calls them, you would think he has traveled to them all. He is seriously off his head." He held his arms out in front of him and walked around like a dizzy zombie.
"Jack? As in Professor Sparrow? I loved him! They say he was stranded on an island for like weeks and he escaped by tying together sea turtles… He is so interesting!"
"uh-huh…"
Before he could say anything further, Emma came padding down the hall clad in only her towel. "Hey, Jeff." She mumbled as she passed him and disappeared into her room.
He smiled like an idiot before turning back to Ruby. "I looove coming here in the mornings." He whispered.
"I heard that, fuck head!" Emma called from behind the closed door. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm taking your asses to class, what else would I be doing here?"
From behind the door, a few banging sounds rang out before Emma came falling through the door. "Admiring the scenery." She responded dryly. "Rubes, have you seen my other boot, the red one?"
"Mmm, nope." She looked around. "Oh wait, did you ever get it out from behind the couch?"
Emma groaned before launching herself over the sofa.
"Why is your shoe behind your couch?" Jefferson asked to no one in particular.
Ruby started to giggle when she saw Emma bent in half over the back of the couch, feet dangling in the air.
Emma grunted a few times. "I… threw it at August… He was being a dick." She panted while standing up, boot in hand. She turned and flopped down onto the cushion before sliding the newly found article onto her foot.
"I wont ask." Jefferson smiled while heading to the front door. "I'll be out front… lock your door when you leave."
"Thanks dad." Emma called sarcastically.
Grabbing her keys and purse from the coffee-table, Ruby turned to her pooch. "Bye Dodgie, mommy loves you."
"Gross." Emma laughed. "Shotgun, by the way. You can sit in the back with Woody."
"Why do you call him that?! That's so stupid."
"If you knew him in high school, you would understand." Emma called while spraying herself with cologne.
"Whatever." Ruby was on her way out the door when Emma popped up behind her and started to close the door.
"LOCK IT!" Jefferson called from the window of his fancy purple and grey sports car.
Emma rolled her eyes before jamming her key in the door. "LOCKED IT!" she screamed back, dramatically.
#
After swinging by and grabbing August, they enjoyed the loud, thumping of crappy music for the half hour ride to campus.
"Alright princess, put on your game face." Ruby whispered once they parted from the guys.
"I really just don't want to do this." Emma sighed.
The girls made the short walk up to their class building before Ruby grabbed Emma's elbow to swing her around. "Hey, this isn't a big deal… You are her favorite person, ever. Why do you think she keeps making you take her classes?"
"Because I'm good at this stuff?"
"You suck at Literature… You can't even spell Literature…" Ruby shot back.
"Whatever you say. Are we going or what?"
"Oh suuure, I'll hold your hand through class but I can't go to the meeting with you, remember that."
"I don't need you to hold my hand, mother."
Ruby just laughed as they ascended the stairs to their class room. Emma took a deep, shaky breath before entering through the open door. Upon scanning the room, she noticed that Dr. Mills was not there yet and that made her feel a little better. The pair weaved in and out of the isles before coming to stop at the two-seater table in the back of the room. Emma threw her bag on the table and drew out her notebook and a bottle of week old water that had been hiding in the bottom, before sliding the bag to the floor between them.
She opened her journal and began to sketch out a vase of flowers, to kill the time. They were earlier than Emma thought. The room slowly began to fill with already bored looking people. After what felt like forever, only a few chairs remained empty.
Emma was so engulfed in her sketch that she didn't even notice that Regina had practically skipped into the crowded classroom.
"Hey guys." Regina hummed.
A collective mix of greetings spread across the room. Emma looked up to see her professor scanning her attendance sheet and scanning the room. Regina nodded to Ruby and then looked back down at her sheet.
The professor was wearing a red, low-cut button down blouse and classy black dress slacks. Her lipstick matched her shirt almost precisely and Emma appreciated that. She looked the woman all the way to the floor, a smile smeared across Emma's face when she realized that her professor was wearing her favorite black, high-heeled boots.
The blonde rolled up her sleeves before folding her arms across the wooden table top. She soon found herself to be more restless than usual. She just couldn't get comfortable. Letting out a huff, she rested her chin on her fist, and just in time to meet Regina's gaze. Instead of the nod she gave everyone else, Emma received a warm smile. Their eyes locked for a moment before Emma felt awkward enough to give a fake, cheesy smile and avert her eyes.
"Has anyone seen Buzz?" Regina asked, searching the room.
There was no answer from anyone in the room. "That boy is absent more often than he is present. Off saving the world, I have no doubt." She huffed, scratching an X next to his name. "The female world at least."
"Well, what were we talking about last class?" She waited. "No one?" Her caramel eyes scanned the many faces in the room. "Seriously?"
She came to stop at Emma and she stared silently for a moment. "Miss Swan, what is the last thing in your notes?"
Emma laughed awkwardly while flipping through her notes. "Well, Dr. Mills, the last bit I have written down from last class talks about… uh…" Emma stared down at the very detailed pencil drawing of Regina's face dated from last class. She could feel her face heating up.
"We were talking about the role of Literature in documenting history." Ruby piped up, saving her friend.
Regina narrowed her eyes at Emma before smiling. "Thank you, Miss Lucas." She turned to grab a marker before speaking again. "Without literature, what would we rely on to tell us what happened throughout history?" She asked over her shoulder.
Without looking back, Regina called on Emma yet again. "Give me three resources, Emma."
"Urm, Art from the period, Music and spoken word." She replied, resting her chin back on her fist.
"Very good. Now, why aren't those resources reliable?" Regina turned to face the class.
"Spoken word is subject to the telephone effect." A boy in the front row said, slowly.
"Yup." Regina said while crossing the word 'spoken' off the board. "What else?"
"Music is more about emotion and how the writer or performer feels about a situation, than it is the actual situation." Ruby said firmly.
"Very good. What about art?"
There was silence across the room. Emma rolled her eyes. Idiots, she thought. "Fine arts, in all their many forms, are a rendition of what the artist sees. Not necessarily the whole event or even the true event at all. What the viewer sees is completely at the artist's digression… unless the piece was commissioned and even then, artists pretty much just do whatever they feel like doing."
"And there you have it, straight from the mouth of an artist." Regina chuckled while crossing the word 'Art' from the list.
Dr. Mills lectured for another full hour. Emma was lost in her own world, she was playing through what she would say to her professor once she actually got to the office. She wanted to lie, to say that something stupid and made up happened but she knew that Regina would call her out on it.
She stared at the woman who was pacing back and forth across the front of the room. Every now and then, the blonde would look down at her notes and act like she was writing something. In reality, she was continuing her sketch.
Finally Regina came to a stop at the front table. "Alright folks, don't forget to bring all your questions over this week's material with you next class. We will be reviewing for your exam over sections 3.5 through 5.1 in the required text." She looked around the room, casually. "Questions, comments, concern?" She continued to looked around from face to face. When no one responded, she smiled and pointed to the door, "Lovely, leave."
She turned her attention to Emma who was shoving her book into her bag. Regina noticed that Ruby patted the blonde's back and said something lengthy to her but the professor was too far away to make out any word.
Emma looked like she was going to keel over right there. Her green eyes focused on Regina as she stood and walked to the door. "Miss Swan, I'll be up shortly." She tossed her bundle of keys to Emma who caught them with ease. "Let yourself in… blue key." Regina smiled before turning to the group of students waiting to talk to her.
The blonde fled up the stairwell and onto the office filled floor. Yet again, she was on autopilot all the way to her destination. After a second of fumbling with the keys, Emma let herself into the office and threw herself down into her usual seat. Suck it up, Swan. Everything will be fine. She is just going to laugh at you. Nothing bad is going to happen. She thought while shoving her hands back into her bag. She withdrew her notebook from class and turned to her portrait of Dr. Mills. "Please don't hate me." She whispered to the paper.
The unmistakable sound of Regina's heels connecting with the tile floor echoed in Emma's already burning ears. Quickly she flipped to the cover of her journal and shoved it under her on the seat. "That's not awkward." She whispered to herself. She then ran her fingers through her hair and leaned back in her chair, trying to appear passive.
"Hey, girl." Regina said as she slid though the doorway and closed the wooden door behind her.
Emma mumbled a "hey" as she took to resting her chin on her fist as she usually did. She was trying so hard to keep a passive face but when she noticed Regina was closing the door, her heart began to race. She never closes the door. Sweet baby Jesus, I cannot do this.
"So," Regina started as she slowly sat down in her chair. "How are things?"
Turning her head slightly, to seem skeptical, Emma narrowed her eyes. "Fine?"
"Lovely. Now… What kind of story have you been practicing?"
"What do you mean?"
"If you haven't forgot already, I too am an artist… and I know doodling off in La La Land when I see it. Why so deep in thought? You hardly paid any attention to the lecture."
Emma opened her mouth to protest, to tell Regina that she had been paying attention but she quickly thought better of it. "I don't know." She shrugged.
"Are you nervous or what? You look like you're about to pass out."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine…"
"Gee, thanks Lady." Emma huffed, shifting in her seat.
"Oh stop. What's up with you?"
"Noooothing."
"Okay then, Nothing, tell me… why did Miss Lucas and yourself skip history yesterday afternoon?" She arched a brow at the blonde while gently pursing her lips.
"Are you stalking me?" Emma glared hard. Her head was spinning.
"Oh yes, dear. Stalking indeed. Basil lives next door to me… He asked me if I had seen you… I told him that you had been sick and Ruby was looking after you."
"Oh." Emma took to staring at the floor between her feet. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. What is your major issue, why are you skipping class?"
"I just had to think about some things, I lost track of time."
"Things like what?" Regina rolled her chair closer to the blonde. The room was already a tight squeeze but she felt like they needed to be closer.
Emma didn't answer her right away. Just tell her you pussy! Fucking tell her! Now! She scolded herself. This isn't like you. She is a woman. A woman like all the rest… Slamming her eyes shut, Emma shook her head. She is nothing like the rest. She sighed and looked Regina in the face.
"Alright look, this is super immature and absolutely unprofessional but you have to know the truth… Lying to you is pointless." She mumbled.
"Okay, go on." The brunette leaned forward in her chair and brought her hands into her lap.
"Just let me get through this, okay… Please don't hate me for this." She whined.
Dr. Mills stared at the girl with curious eyes but said nothing. The last thing she wanted was to scare Emma away. A quick nod launched the blonde into a hurried story.
"So you know when I had photography and we were talking about it that one day? Well I never got to ask you what kind of things you liked to photograph because Robin showed up. I ended up looking you up on the internet and I stumbled onto your personal photo-site."
She looked up to see Regina smiling faintly but she couldn't tell what the face meant so she continued. "And you know what's on there, the same as I do… After I looked through all of the pictures I felt so awkward and guilty that I couldn't face you. I didn't want to look at you like I was thinking about what was under your clothes... I was going to just never come back to class... to forget all about it but you caught me in the hallway and let me have it. I couldn't let you down... not after publicly embarrassing me. Who knew what you would have done if I hadn't come back."
"Is that so, Miss Swan?" Regina's words practically slithered from her lips.
Emma nodded shamefully without looking up at her professor.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you liked what you saw?"
Emma said nothing but looked up to see Regina smiling down at her. She drew her brows in and stared back into the brown eyes that were boring into her sole.
"Emma, darling, I don't know if you realize," the brunette smiled, "but you have a very animated face. Your expressions give you away very easily. You were checking me out long before you saw my pictures."
There was a shocked gasp from the blonde but still, she offered no words. Her cheeks where bright red and she strongly considered pulling her shirt up over her face to hide her embarrassment.
Dr. Mills started laughing. "And you flirt with me openly… it's always been so obvious to me."
"Yea." Emma grumbled.
"Listen to me, Miss Swan…" Regina placed a single finger under Emma's chin and slowly lifted her eyes to meet her own. "This is something I have known since the day we met. I am not angry that you looked at my pictures. I am not embarrassed by my body. I am not fazed by your attraction to me… In fact, I'm glad you were honest." She paused. "It makes everything much easier on me." Regina let her finger slide a little ways down the front of Emma's neck before bring her hand to rest back in her own lap.
Emma visibly shivered at the contact Regina had given her. Goose bumps flooded her arms and crawled around to her back. "W-what?" was all she could manage.
"I have quite the interest in you, dear. Not just your academic studies but your… extracurricular activities." Her words came out slowly, teasingly.
Emma's heart was beating like a sledgehammer in her throat. Oh my fucking fuck! Did she just say that?! She shook her head. "I'm sorry, what?" Her mouth still hanging open.
"Oh come on now, you are not naive, I know you better than that. I have seen you go from one bomb-shell woman to the next and you don't get around like that being naive." Regina whispered.
"No really, what did you say? Wait... Did you just call me a slut?" Emma asked, more calmly than she had meant to. For some reason, she was beginning to calm down, it was starting to feel like a normal conversation between them and it kind of worried her.
Regina tilted her head forward to look out from under her high brows. She began to talk very softly. "Emma, dearest little thing, I would love to have you in my bed."
Emma's eyes widened and her mouth fell open slightly. She started coughing and it quickly turned into nervous laughter. When Regina looked around, un-amused, and leaned back in her chair, Emma fell dead silent. "Wait… you're serious?" She blinked several times, hoping this conversation was real and not something she was dreaming up in her lust-crazed mind.
Without hesitation, Regina slowly stood and leaned over the obviously confused blonde. Two dark hands cupped a pale jaw while she closed the space between them. Emma's quickly dilating eyes looked as if they would fall right out of her face. She managed to whisper a "holy shit" before Regina's dark red lips gently met hers.
At first, they stayed that way, lips locked solid against each other's. Emma's hands, as if having a mind of their own, slid up the other's arms and wove themselves into short, thick, dark hair. That little bit of contact flipped a switch in the blonde. She pulled her professor down closer to her and parted the deep red lips with her tongue. Instantly it became a power struggle, a tangle of hands through hair and sharp tongues dueling for dominance.
A light tapping on the wooden barrier that separated the lust-fueled women from the outside world, rang out. Emma's eyes shot open before she even realized that she had closed them. She jumped, nearly crushing her face into Regina's. A soft chuckle escaped from the professor as she brought her finger to her own lips. "You have some lipstick…" She whispered.
The blonde darted a shaking hand across her face before looking back to the woman who then gave her a thumbs up. "Who is it?" She called, not taking her eyes off of Emma.
"It's me, Darling." Robin called from outside the door.
Emma through her hands in the air while rolling her eye. "Leave it to that asshole to interrupt the one time I get this chance." She whispered quietly.
"I'm almost done here, give us a moment." Regina called back to her husband while leaning down to rest her hands on the blonde's thighs.
"Oh, I assure you, Miss Swan, this is just the beginning." She whispered in Emma's ear before running a hot, moist tongue a little ways up her neck.
Emma closed her eyes and gasped. Oh shit. This is so bad. I'm a terrible person. When she opened her eyes, she was met with a perfect, bright smile. "Get your shit, straighten your hair and don't say a word to him." Regina whispered before grabbing her bag from the desk.
When Emma was ready, Regina opened the door and shoved her out before turning the light out and locking up the office. She turned to see Emma practically running past her husband and down the hall.
Robin watched as the girl vanished down the stairs. "What was that all about?"
"It would seem, darling, that I have caught a live one."
"Oh, is that so?" He laughed, taking her bag.
"Oh yes, quite so indeed. And guess what..."
"What?"
Her lips pulled tight into a wide smile. She slowly and seductively pulled her husband down to her level and drew his ear to her lips. "I'm not sharing this one."
Thanks for reading! Ya'll are the best! -DR