A/N: First venture in Swan Queen. I think it'll be fun. Also, the summary may change as I cannot write one to save my life. And shoutout to a friend that said, "Finish something for once in your life." Lastly, there may be a tinge of a religious undertone to Regina because I am lapsed Catholic. Sue me.
Her chest burned. Eyes bloodshot and tears streamed down her face as she strained against the sob trying to escape. Abs were sore from hyperventilating but also from trying to calm herself. Her body was violently shaking. Lilac silk was drenched against her back and black lace itchy across her chest. Hosiery was stifling and the dark seam down the backs of her legs started to dig into her tensed calves. She was overheating and she could feel her blood boiling. The high-waisted pencil skirt she fell into bed with was suffocating and she wished she had enough control to fix it, but the discomfort was familiar. It felt like home.
Heels were carelessly kicked off to the side and for once, she didn't give a damn if her outside clothes were on her immaculate bedding. The mansion was silent. And so very empty. But how could something so silent and so empty be so loud? She could hear the whirring of the HVAC. The wind rattled the windows. Her own choppy breaths made her ears sting as if she were screaming. What felt like hours was really only fifteen minutes and eventually her breathing evened out.
Tears started drying on the apples of her cheeks and her makeup was beginning to flake. She knew that her pillowcase would be stained with shimmery shadow and not-so-waterproof mascara. The only thing that stuck around through it all was her burgundy lip stain. Not a smudge or wisp of color out of place. Her only saving Grace.
Regina forced herself up and onto wobbly legs. She dragged her lead-filled feet to the master bath and stripped. No lights. No candles. Just semi-darkness given the sliver of moonlight shining through her curtains. Her body ached and her head was pounding. Throat was scratchy and eyes adjusted to the darkness as she sat on the ledge of the porcelain tub. Shaky hands pulled the left golden lever down and she exhaled as steaming water rushed out of the faucet. She took the amber glass dropper and inhaled deeply as a concoction of lavender and coconut made its way into the water.
She let the tub fill as she split her shoulder length hair into two braids, the only way to tame her fast-growing thick hair. Hands worked quickly and confidently behind her head. She pulled strands, a little harder than necessary, to break up the tension that was beginning to form at the base of her scalp. With the water level exactly where she needed it, she was once again met with the loudest silence.
Sinking down, she all but moaned at the scalding water caressing her. The burn felt good and while the discomfort made her rigid, she felt so soothed. The lavender reminded her of a simpler time. Open fields with Rocinante. Bales of hay. Meadows of wildflowers. And the coconut? Well it reminded her of why she was a wreck in the first place. But the water temperature made her hot. It made her boil. It made her calm. The solitude and heat was good for her. It grounded her. Reminded her of what she could handle. What her threshold was for hurt.
Regina was fully adjusted now. She could relax. Unclench her toes. Stretch her legs outs. Roll her shoulders. Lean back against the tub. Until there was a soft knock at her front door. And thanks to the loud silence, the barely there knock was much more jarring than it should've been. But Regina ignored it. Too tired to care. Too hurt to answer. Too exhausted to get up. So she closed her eyes.
But then her heart plummeted into her stomach.
Regina kept her eyes closed anyways. She felt Emma's presence the second she stepped over the mansion's fence line and onto the porch. She couldn't handle this right now and every form of "go away" made her chin wobble as acid tried to fight its way up her throat. So she remained silent. Still too tired to care. Especially about her own modesty. Not that Emma hadn't seen it all before.
"Hey," Emma whispered after white smoke cleared. She was perched to the side of what used to be her sink. But it was bare. No globs of toothpaste on the drain plate. No specks of water staining the ornate faucet. No blonde hairs scattered around the perimeter of the raised stone vessel. No naked tube of chapstick annoyingly rolling around the vanity despite its assigned crystal dish. It was empty. Like the rest of the house.
"If—," Regina choked up, but sank further into hot water. "If you love me, you'll leave." Her ears were under water now and she regretted it instantly. She could hear her own heart beat. She could feel herself getting worked up again. She could hear her own struggle.
"Baby—" Emma slammed her mouth shut. Fuck.
The sob was immediate. It was a gut wrenching, curdling sound. Regina tucked her legs against her body. Arms clenching herself together. Security. Stability. She felt like she was going to fall straight through this tub and choke on her lungs. It'd be less painful.
"P-please, go," Regina pleaded. Hiccupping profusely as she tried to breathe in.
"We need—" Emma tried again, but she couldn't finish a damn sentence. Not when Regina looked so small. So tired. So hurt. So heartbroken. She couldn't talk to her like this. It wasn't fair. Not when she's the one that broke them.
There was only one oversized towel in the bathroom now. Emma's used to be black and Regina's was religiously regalia purple. Even on wash days. But Emma's gold towel rack was bare and a black one hung starkly on Regina's side. Emma grabbed it with haste and unfolded the luxurious cloth. She stood in front of the elongated tub, arms expanded with the towel spanning the entire width, and waited.
"I'll leave," Emma lied. "When I know you're safely in bed." She knew it was cruel, but what the hell was she supposed to do? She had to try to make Regina listen. And even if the lies kept compounding, she had to try to beg for forgiveness.
Regina sprung out of the water, snatched the towel, and gracefully wrapped it around herself while stepping out of the tub. With a slight wave of her finger, she was dried, clothed, and moisturized. The towel was tossed onto the heated marble tiles and Regina stomped to her bed, sliding smoothly under the duvet. There was no time to be a stickler about wet towels on her Italian marble tiles.
"Get out," Regina spat with bile in her throat. She laid on her side of the bed. The side she hadn't slept on in months, but she refused to show Emma that. With her back to the door, she waited for it to shut. But of course, it never did. She should've known better. Instead, Emma made herself at home on the bay window seat in front of her. Legs criss-crossed. Red leather jacket shining in the moonlight. Green eyes raking over her like they were allowed to. It was reminiscent of their nighttime proclivities with her spent limbs haphazardly strewn across the bed and Emma basking in her handiwork. It was just all smiles and unkept promises, wasn't it?
"I'm cashing in a coupon," Emma stated. "My five minutes of uninterrupted talking time. Except, I know that my wear and tear on you has caused some depreciation, so its value dropped to three minutes."
Emma pulled a crumpled, partially ripped yellow piece of construction paper from her jacket pocket. It looked like it had lived in a hovel for decades. But the calligraphy was one of a kind and still so legible. So ornate. Like the giver put almost too much effort into such an elementary task. The dark ink was stark against the obnoxious background color, but the dichotomy of such graceful skill on cheap school paper was not lost to Emma. It was part of her birthday gift last year. A booklet of goods and services she could request from her Queen without hesitation. Not that she truly needed them. Until now.
"That's not valid anymore." Regina's lip twitched and she wanted to smile, but the hot red rage was blinding. Half-moon crescents dug into her own palms and her teeth roughly gnawed on the inside of her lip. She was absolutely quivering in anger. Seeing yellow paper dangled between fingers that have done so much for her— to her—was a reminder that what they had was real and that pain was insurmountable. For Emma to use something so heartfelt to make her bleed out even more, she couldn't breathe.
Emma flipped the yellow square and read the back aloud, "'Does not expire. Even if I hate you. All my love, R.M.'"
"One minute. That's its fair value." Regina ground her teeth together. Kicking herself for even entertaining this. Torturing herself by having to listen to Emma apologize and having to listen to half-assed justifications. Again. But maybe this was the closure she needed. So she waited. And Regina knew it had to be without interruption because of that damn disclaimer she put on the front: For every word interrupted, another minute is to be added on.
"I fucked up," Emma stated. "I walked out on you and blamed it on expectation, duty, and familial fulfillment."
Regina just stared into watery green eyes. She tried not to find satisfaction in Emma's tears, but with the amount she had shed herself, she didn't feel guilt. She doesn't really feel anything. She remained silent. Mentally keeping track of Emma's tortuous minute.
"But I'm done," Emma rushed out. "And I'm sorry and—"
"Fuck you," Regina spat out, "and your fucking sense of superiority and your hang ups about being an orphan. You had a family. We were a family. And you fucked it all up."
That's a whole extra thirty minutes. Emma bit the inside of her lip, trying to prevent herself from nodding in victory. She knew Regina would bite. Knew she'd break her own damn disclaimers. And still, Emma felt heavy with guilt despite vitriolic words being thrown at her. She deserved it. They weren't wrong.
"You know I love you," Emma stated. "And there's a part of you that understands why I left. But, it took your unconditional devotion and love for me to understand that I had everything I'd ever been looking for and I didn't need a dad or a mom or a brother or a…you know, to make me feel whole. I just needed you and our son."
At the mention of Henry, the prominent vein on Regina's forehead pulsed. It was a dead giveaway for an impending explosion. Emma knew it and baited her anyway because she just needed them to talk. Cry, scream, yell. It was all different kinds of talking, which is more than anything they've done in the past fourteen weeks.
"Henry hates you." Regina sneered at the blonde. Hoping to slaughter what's left of Emma's maternal anything and to get her the hell out of the house. Henry had been inconsolable when he noticed that the chipped 'blonde mom' mug wasn't on the mug rack when he woke up. It was the pair to the 'brunette mom' mug he got them for Mother's Day and when he came downstairs to find an eerily quiet kitchen with his mothers not making out on the counter, he knew something was terribly off.
"I know," Emma ground out. "But he has you and that's all that matters."
"Don't be a fucking martyr, it doesn't suit you." The crying was exhausting, but Regina's finding that the anger was energizing. It was a chaotic force she hadn't felt in a while and she's feeding off of it. But she has to reign it in because the dark purple sparks shooting from her hands makes her aware of the incoming danger. "He had two happy parents and now he has none."
She needed to stand. She needed to not be laying down in a silk camisole and matching shorts. She needed to expel some of the anguish and heartbreak before she set something on fire. And in her crazed, unstable, and injured mind, Regina slapped her mattress in anger and whipped the duvet violently away from her legs. Two long steps had her straddling Emma as she crashed their lips together. It was nothing but teeth and tongue gnawing and biting. Wet and loud.
Fuck.
Finally.
Just one more time. To remember.
Regina wanted hard, quick, and fast. The anxiety and hurt had her rolling her hips aggressively towards Emma. The leather, the denim, the scratchy cotton t-shirt, all enough friction to send pinpricks down her body. Silk was beginning to stick to her, again, and that's when she realized Emma made no move to bring her closer. Just hands on silky hips, steadily holding her upright. Fingertips gently soothed at her sides and it made Regina boil with ire. She needed the fight. The anger. The anguish. And maybe, just maybe, she could move on.
"You owe me this," Regina snarled. She couldn't handle gentle. The coddling. The preconceived notion of care. Not when she'd been waiting for days, weeks, and months for Emma to come back to her. A little manipulation as a parting gift.
"Tell me what you need," Emma softly replied. Patient. Loving. Guilty.
Anger was debilitating. But to get what she needed, she had to give a little. So she reverted back to who she was—a woman who could get whatever she wanted, when she wanted. Regina relaxed her back and sat fully on denim clad thighs with her legs wrapped around Emma's back. She gently placed her forehead to Emma's and nudged their noses together. Arms circled around her shoulders and only then did Emma pull them flush together. She was throbbing with want.
"Give me what I want," Regina whispered. She softly pressed her lips against Emma's and waited. Small, hot open mouthed kisses encouraged movement, but it wasn't enough. She was angry, hurt, and wet and god, she just needed Emma in and around her.
"Tell me, baby," Emma breathed, "tell me and I'll give it to you."
Regina groaned. It was bad enough to give herself emotional and mental whiplash within the last half hour, but now she had to verbalize what she's so obviously asking for? She refused to say it, but instead pulled Emma's hand from her side to her inner thigh. Regina was shaking, from want or residual anxiety, she wasn't sure. But Emma's fingernails dug into sensitive skin and Regina couldn't stop herself from jerking forward with a surprised oh.
"Please," Regina nipped at her jawline, "don't make me ask for it." Her teeth caught an emerald studded lobe as the fingertips between her legs became more intentional.
"Ask me for it anyways." Emma lifts them and in two long steps, they're on the half unmade bed. Red leather was shucked and thrown. Jeans were kicked off and before she could untangle her arms from her t-shirt, Regina's got her lips and teeth attached to her neck. Hard and bruising. Angry and possessive. But soft and loving as Regina soothes it over with her tongue. Regretful and remorseful.
"I don't need you," Regina lamented. "But I need you," she worried her bottom lip, "to take what you so carelessly threw away."
Emma stared guiltily down at the woman who had unshed tears pooling so dangerously to the edge of falling. She gently pried silk from a warm body and ran her hands down perfection. Calloused palms over the tips of her breasts and slowly back up her sides. Lips nipped and dragged over the same paths until short black manicured nails pulled hard at the fine blonde hairs at the nape of her neck. Regina roughly yanked Emma back up until they were nose to nose. Eyes bored into each other. Breaths became one.
"I'm right here," Emma affirmed. "I will kneel before you, for the rest of my life, if I have to."
"Show me," Regina whispered. "Show me how sorry you are. That you understood what this meant to me."
Emma shimmied down to where tan legs bent at the knee. Black polished toes flexed as feet planted firmly against the mattress. Hips rolled against teasing breaths of air. Fists clenched. Regina could feel her sweat making her stick to high thread count sheets. Emma was running a teasing tongue along the junction of her thighs and all the Queen could do was wait. She knew Emma was deaf when she was between her legs. The status of them wouldn't change that for the world. So she waited. And waited. Moaned and groaned as Emma reacquainted herself with Regina.
"Some time today, Em," Regina breathed. She hated that she couldn't get the last syllable out of her mouth. Calling out to her as if nothing was wrong. That Em had been there for breakfast and called her on her lunch break.
"I'm savoring it," Emma whispered, "in case this is the last time."
Regina didn't respond, but she was rewarded with some relief as the faintest flick of a teasing tongue diverted its attention to wetness. Craving to control what was left of her anger, Regina let her legs fall to the sides, nearly flat against the bed. The sides of her knees dug into the mattress as she opened herself up wider. Wetness was cooler as air and Emma's descending mouth wrapped her lips around a swollen clit.
She bit back a groan, letting it settle in the bottom of her throat. Emma loved nothing more than to hear Regina, but Regina wasn't in a giving mood. It became an unspoken rule: let me hear you or I stop. Regina just wanted to take and take and she knew that all Emma wanted to do was give, give, give. But when a knowing tongue swirled and lathed and hummed down her slit, Regina nearly gave in. The gasp was so small and had it been anyone else, Regina would have gotten away with silence.
"Just because you hate me, doesn't mean the rules have changed," Emma reminded.
"Lover's rights and rules no longer apply," Regina moaned. "This is penance."
"For who?" Emma dove back with gusto, wrapping strong arms around quaking thighs. Regina tilted her hips up, trying to angle herself to catch wet friction. But fuck, when Emma's nose nudged her clit and her tongue drove into her, Regina let out a strangled squeak, which was more embarrassing than she normally sounded. She could feel the cheeks of a smiling woman, but god, she did not care. Her body was singing. She had missed being loved.
The sounds of wetness smearing and Emma's enthusiasm made Regina groan internally. She momentarily forgot that Emma was nothing short of an attentive lover. In fact, Regina has never been so thoroughly fucked and satisfied and god, all she could do was just accept her fate. Her back began arching and her hips had a mind of their own. Her hands wanted nothing more than to bury themselves in blonde locks, but she refused to pull Emma closer to her. Refused to lose control and grind against what was being given to her freely.
"You," Regina moaned. "This is penance for your wrong doing." She slammed her head into the pillows, eyes rolling back, her neck straining, and her lip raw from trying to contain herself. Hot pinpricks of want raced up her legs and settled in her lower belly. Emma was silent as her tongue worked harder and harder against a swollen and straining clit. Regina turned her head hard against the mattress and squeezed her eyes shut as waves and waves of scorching pleasure washed over her, chilling and warming her from head to toe. Her sex throbbed and throbbed as her body vibrated with bliss.
"Forgive me," Emma whispered. With a press of wet lips against a sensitive sex, Emma trailed her tongue up every inch of skin she could find.
Regina's breath was ragged. Her chest was pounding, but she felt so warm and light. So protected as Emma laid her body over hers. Her arms remained at her sides, still bitter. Still angry. Still hurt. She turned her head away from lips that tasted like her and inhaled shakily as kisses made her chest flush with more warmth.
"No," Regina replied softly. "You hid me away to play house with your parents and him."
"I did not play house," Emma bit back. "I especially did not play house with him."
"You kissed him!" Regina yelled. Her headache was returning and her post coital high was fleeting and now that she had hers, what more was there left to do? To say?
"He kissed me!" Emma screamed.
"You let him and you allowed everyone to think that he had a right to you." Regina refused to meet her eyes. She sounded possessive and she was losing sight of everything, but she had done so much reflecting and thinking, Regina couldn't hear anything else. Wouldn't entertain anything else.
"A right?" Emma screeched. "To me? Like property? Do I have her Majesty's crest cattle prodded into my ass?" Emma grabbed two small wrists and pinned them above Regina's head. Hips locked into place and knees squeezed tightly around the warm naked body beneath her. Normally, this was a signal of a fucking so hard, Regina always thought that the mattress would combust and consume them whole.
Brown eyes closed and Regina tried not flinging Emma into the drywall, like she had done to so many random objects in her search for clarity. She could feel her hands shaking and warming as the subtle feeling of chaos was bubbling beneath her palms. Emma really couldn't be this dense.
"You had full access to my vault," Regina reminded gently. "You had keys to my house. You drove my car like you owned it. You had complete ingress to my bedroom, to me. You burned my favorite dishrags."
Regina was exhausted, but she continued. "I pluck your socks from between the couch cushions and Henry gets so pissed because I never say anything. You shed blonde hair all over my house. I let you eat pizza once a week and have it for breakfast the next day. And Emma, you know how I know that you were mine?"
Green eyes filled with hot stinging tears as Regina whispered, "I allowed you to disrespect me by keeping me your dirty little secret for over a year."
Emma's tears fell onto Regina's cheeks as they laid there in silence.
A/N: All mistakes are mine. I have a live-in proofreader (educated, licensed, & certified) but that would mean asking my wife to read this trash. LMAO. The title of the fic is actually "Cate Blanchett" in my Google docs.
