#rb ff

meteor: what you said when you first saw me.

Okay, this is more modern au red beauty because why not. I can do what I want. here’s 550+ words of red beauty meeting in a bar and ruby being an absolute boss and taking care of a drunk belle.

Ruby hates her friends. Actually, she doesn’t hate them, they just annoy her because they’re all couples, or in the case of Killian and Emma almost-couples who won’t admit their couple. It makes going out suck because naturally they all pair off to make out or whatever while leaving her alone at the bar.

She’s only three drinks in and everyone is already doing their couple-y thing. David and Mary-Margaret over by the billiards tables and doing more flirting than playing pool. Robin is pretty much pretending to teach Regina how to throw darts even though Regina totally whipped them all at it last week. Meanwhile Ruby has a sneaking suspicion that Killian and Emma are making out in the handicapped bathroom.

She’s about to order another cranberry vodka when there’s a loud crash. She turns to see a small brunette wobbling on the bar stool, a smashed cocktail glass at her feet.

“Bartender…Bartender…” The woman erratically waves a finger in the air. Her teetering becomes more precarious and without thinking Ruby wraps an arm around her shoulder to stabilize her.

The woman jumps at the contact and she moves to punch her. It’s a sloppy swing and Ruby immediately dodges it.

“Hey…hey…hey…it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. You’re okay.”

The brunette looks at her bewildered, her big blue eyes unfocused and hazy with alcohol.

“You’re not R-ru-umble…”

Ruby blinks. “No. I’m not.”

“I don’t feel so good…” she slurs and puts her hand to her mouth. Recognizing all the signs of a drunken vomit session, Ruby immediately helps her off the bar stool and guides her towards the bathroom.

“Bitches clear out!” She barks at the bar flies doing their make-up at the sinks before kicking open a stall.

The brunette immediately crumbles onto her knees and starts violently vomiting. The woman at the sinks make disgusted noises and squawk their indignation and judgment. Ruby glares at them, daring them to say more before crouching down next to the woman. She pulls the woman’s hair back while gently rubbing circles into her back. She whimpers in response and leans her head against the toilet seat.

“I can’t believe I threw up,” she croaks.

“You had a lot to drink,” Ruby replies in a soothing voice. “You okay, honey?”

“No…I hate everything…my ex…my job…my head…me…”

“It’s okay…you’re okay…”

“Not when everything is spinning…”

“You got a name, sweetheart?”

“It’s Lacey…no, no, no, no. It’s not Lacey, that’s what I say to creepy guys and you’re not a creepy guy,” she responds, lifting her head up from the toilet to look at Ruby. A bright smile across her face and it’s breathtaking in a way no one else’s smile has been before. “You’re beautiful. Like an angel. ”

Ruby cannot help it, she laughs. “Thank you, but I’m no angel.”

“You seem pretty angelic to me, nothing is spinning  when I look at you.” she replies, leaning forward a little too close into Ruby’s personal space. She giggles drunkenly. “What a big brown eyes you have.”

“The better to see you with, my dear,” she replies, unable to help the pun.

“You the big bad wolf?”

“Some would say so,” Ruby can’t help herself from flirting, even if it’s with a drunk girl. “But most people call me Ruby.”

“Rubym like a gem,” she says. “I’m Belle.” 

She smiles brightly at her again before bowing her head again in order to upchuck so more. Ruby sighs but continues to hold her hair back.

The things she does for pretty girls.

D (@sometimesangryblackwoman) suggested I try a drabble to unlock my brain a bit so I can get my dissertation to work. I can’t stick to a drabble word count to save my life, but this is the un-beta’d mess I came up with.

Henry is an accident prone child. Regina spends half her life chasing after him before he can knock into something valuable, or trip down the stairs, or fling himself from the top of the playground castle from the moment he starts to crawl. And it doesn’t matter how baby-proofed her house is (she over compensates a little) because her little boy is fearless.

He is fearless and so confident in his mother’s ability to catch him before he hits the ground that even the few times he ends up with grazed knees only stalls him for a few seconds. Long enough for Regina to kiss it better, dust him off and ask him if he’s hurt before he’s blinking away barely-there-tears and grinning back at her with an I’m okay, mommy! before he’s tearing off again for another adventure. As much as it terrifies her, the idea of her little prince getting hurt sends ice through her veins, she grits her teeth and assures him that yes, honey, of course I’m watching every time he gets the swing just a little higher than earlier. Because she never wants him to feel like he needs to be scared of anything, never wants him to think she won’t be there to catch him. Or at least help him up if she doesn’t reach him in time.

Henry breaks his arm when he’s four. 

A pipe bursts under Main Street, ruins the road and floods some of the buildings, and she’s been stuck dealing with the fallout with Graham, and by the time she gets home—barely remembering to thank Ruby as she leaves—Regina is exhausted. She’s been out since the early, early, hours of the morning and all she wants to do is sleep. But she has a toddler who is hyperactive at the best of times, and it’s not quite his bedtime yet. Though she tells herself to send Ruby flowers, or candy, or wine because the girl has him bathed and in his pjs already while he sits—fidgets—on the couch with his teddy, Hercules playing on the TV, and a sippy cup of milk.

She misjudges how long she can get away with changing out of her grimy clothes. She locks the door behind Ruby, kicks her shoes out of the way, dumps her purse and coat by the hallway table and moves to say hello to her boy. He’s so transfixed by the cartoon, bouncing away to the music, that he barely notices the change from his favourite babysitter to his mother. But he nods and mumbles an acknowledgement when she presses a kiss to his hair and tells him that mommy is just going to have a quick shower and she’ll be right back. The movie is only at the point of Hercules going to the Temple of Zeus, so she figures she has at least twenty minutes to clean herself up a bit and throw on her own pyjamas before he wonders where she is.

She’s wrong.

It’s only been ten minutes—she is pro at five minute or less showers now—when she comes out of her room in time to hear a thud and a sharp cry that stops her heart. She’s stumbling down the stairs before Henry’s cries really have time to start, but her pulse is still racing at the sight of the love of her life in a tearful, crumpled heap of fleece footie-pyjamas, a crooked coffee table, and mussed up couch cushions.

“Mommy,” he whines, tears spilling over his red cheeks, when he sees her all but skid into the living room.

Dropping to her knees in front of him Regina tries not to let on just how panicked she is, lest she upset him more. “You’re okay, baby,” she soothes. “Mommy’s here.”

Regal Believer, 7x01, FF.net

I blame myself for this. After seeing some set pictures from the new season and some talks with my dear puppies, this came to mind. Big thanks to @reginasevilpanda for looking this over for me :-*

“Mom? You okay?”

His mother sits on his bed in the mansion, her back turned to him, when Henry steps into his soon-to-be old room.

He can hear her sniffle, subtle but still there. She probably doesn’t want him to see her like this.

“I’m fine,” Regina replies while straightening up and moving a hand over her face.

Henry smiles. His mom is always fine, even when she’s not. Right now she is clearly not, not that she would ever admit that. He’s leaving his childhood home, leaving his mother to go to college.

He moves to sit next to her on the bed. The room is practically empty. Most of his stuff is already packed in boxes and on its way to his new room in college. The furniture is still there but the room lacks his personal touch. It feels weird, even to him. It must be even harder for his mom.

“Of course you are,” he answers with a knowing smile and takes one of her hands into his. Regina looks at him and tries to smile as well. But it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“You know, it’s okay to cry.”

She laughs wetly at this, holds his hand tighter and leans slightly into him.

“I always told you that when you were sad or mad. You were convinced that boys don’t cry, that it’s weak to cry,” she tells him softly, her head leaning on his shoulder.

“But it’s not.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Regina lifts her head from his shoulder and looks him into his eyes. “I’m going to miss you terribly, Henry.”

Again, he smiles. “I know. I’m going to miss you too,” he says and draws her into a tight hug. They stay like this for a while longer, nobody saying a word, just enjoying the moment and the closeness.

Regina is the first to break the silence. “You probably need to get going. I don’t want you to drive in the dark on this death trap on two wheels.” She breaks the hug gently, moving to stand up from the bed, while purposely ignoring his sigh and growled ‘Mom’ on her comment about his motorcycle.

Henry only chuckles. “Okay.”

They both move to leave the room to go downstairs when Regina stops in front of his chair, his striped scarf in her hands. “Are you not taking this with you?” She sounds sad.

“Mom, it’s summer. I won’t need it now.”

“Oh,” she simply says and drapes the scarf back over the back of the chair. “I can send it to you when it’s getting colder.” She still stares at the woolen scarf, which accompanied him for so long, softly running her fingers over the material. It clearly holds a lot of memories to her.

“Keep it.”

“What?” Regina utters distracted, lost in a memory.

“Keep it,” he repeats, “you need it more than I do.”

She looks at him in confusion but quickly realizes that he isn’t talking about proper clothing for cold weather. He isn’t talking about the weather at all.

“Thank you.” She smiles genuinely now, already tearing up again. “I love you, my little prince.”

I’m not even sorry. Blame @the-notsoevil-queen, She coulda talked me out of this. She chose not to. Thanks to @ninzied @dee-thequeenbee and @belleoftheballpoint for suffering so that this was grammatically correct.

When Whale brings back Daniel, Regina pays the price.

Season 2 divergent. Because I can. Major character death ahead lads. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Usual warnings that come with character deaths. Graphic as fuck descriptions of blood, and yeah, shit goes wrong in the stables with Daniel guys, tread lightly, I guess?

She never saw this coming.

She’s thought about death and how, eventually, it would come for her often throughout her years. As a child, too young to understand why Mother’s room behind the fireplace was off limits (just that it was), Regina had had nightmares of Cora ripping out her small, developing heart for getting grass stains on her petticoats. She’d daydreamed about slipping beneath the surface of her bath water as Queen and never coming back up, of slipping over the balcony railings and falling down, down, down into blackness and away from humiliation and pain night after night. But a servant would ultimately knock on the door, or a fairy with misguided good intentions would catch her, and eventually Regina stopped courting Death and became her.

Pitchforks and burning at stakes is honestly how she imagined this would go. Especially since the curse broke and everything she held dear shattered around her by her own fucking hands. She didn’t think it would happen like this, because of him, and she was starting to hope—she let it twist and carve its way into her being—that she might yet live to see her son forgive her.

She really should be used to being wrong by now.

You stupid, insolent, little girl, Mother’s voice hisses. Did you really believe you could have this?

Daniel is in ashes at her feet, and Regina has one hand over her mouth and one over her midriff, vainly trying to keep the blood in. The shears that he’d lodged deep into her gut, once, twice before she’d managed to stop him—kill him—clatter to the floor, staining it with drops of red. Where did he get those? is all she has time to think before her knees give out.

I’m sorry.

By the time Robin and Roland get home, hiking gear peeled off by the back door and left in the utility room, Regina is sitting in the living room. Olivia is entertaining herself on the floor with her baby gym, seemingly unaware that her mother is inches away from snapping. She can’t think about what Henry is doing right now or she might tip over into a complete and utter breakdown.

“Regina?” Robin’s voice calls out, Olivia shrieks in delight at the sound, and she is vaguely aware of them moving from the kitchen to the front of the house. “Hello there, Trouble.” Robin greets Liv first, squats down beside where she’s pushed herself onto her hands and knees and presses a kiss to her wispy curls. “Regina? You alright, love?”

“Mmhmm.” Speaking is not something she can do right now. She keeps her head in hands and eyes screwed shut as she nods, tense and twitching.

“What’s wrong with Regina?” Roland is there too.

“Why don’t you go and get yourself cleaned up, son?”

Roland grumbles, still clearly wanting to know what is going on but Robin hushes him and she hears him sigh before small feet are thundering through the hall and up the stairs. She doesn’t even call out for him to be careful.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, his hand reaching out to rub soothingly up and down her spine as he sits next to her.

“I really, really, can’t talk about it right now.” She knows she’s not making any sense right now, but honestly she might still be in shock.

“Alright… I’m going to assume that there’s no new town-wide disaster, based on how my phone didn’t ring while we were out. And Olivia is clearly in one piece.” Regina opens her eyes a little at that in time to see Olivia look over at her name, one fist in her mouth as she grins around it at them. “So that leaves something happening with Henry.”

She lets out a slightly hysterical laugh, hands still pressing tight into her temples. Robin falls silent, though he continues to rub up and down her spine with one hand while the other drops to squeeze at her knee.

“Love, I’m sure it’s not as b-”

“Don’t,” she warns, looking up slightly and holding out a finger to cut him off. “Don’t you dare. He is fourteen. Barely fourteen! He should be lying to me about doing his homework while he reads comic books, okay? Not… he should not….” she can’t even say the words, and she knows the pink staining her cheeks hasn’t faded at all since walking in on her son, on her baby boy doing… doing that! “Oh god.” She drops her head back into her hands.

Olivia crawls into her line of vision, frowning a little now that her attention has moved from chewing her toys to where Regina is half way through a freak out over her big brother. She takes a deep breath, picks up the baby and settles her on her lap when Liv pats at her knees, and tries very hard to forget this afternoon ever happened.

“I’m gonna need a little more than that to understand what’s gone on today, Regina.”

“Henry didn’t know Olivia and I were back from Granny’s. We came home instead because Neal wasn’t well.” Her leg is bouncing a little in her agitation so Robin reaches over to take Olivia. “I mean, I didn’t know he was home - I thought he was out with his friends! His door wasn't even fully shut, I just wanted to put his laundry on his bed…”

“So, you walked in on…”

“Him… and Violet…”

Robin’s eyebrows shoot up a little at that. “I take it Violet is no longer here.”

“What?” Regina frowns over at him. “They were skyping.” She can tell by the look on his face he’s still not completely sure on what she’d seen. “Robin he had his shirt of and was… posing for her!”

He’s silent for a minute before he clenches his jaw and lifts one hand to hide his mouth. Then she hears the sputter of a poorly smothered laugh. “Are you actually laughing at me right now?” And he can’t even speak properly, the bastard, so he just shakes his head at her while his shoulders shudder. “I can not believe you are laughing right now.”

“Regina,” he says, managing to calm down a little when she goes to stand. “Hey, no, come on love. It is not that bad.”

Not that bad? Henry is her baby, she could have quite happily gone to her grave never seeing that. “He is fourteen,” is all she manages to get out as she deflates a little, sinking back into the couch cushions and placing her hand over her eyes. Liv wriggles her way from her father’s lap to hers, pushing and pulling until Regina shifts enough to cradle the little girl to her chest. “He is barely fourteen,” she repeats.

There are still traces of amusement on Robin’s face as he deems it safe enough to move closer, throwing one arm around her shoulders and settling in beside her. “Yes, he is fourteen, with a girlfriend that he has been with for quite a few months now. I’m not saying it’s alright,” he adds, cutting off her argument. “Okay? I’m not saying that at all.”

“But…”

“But… I may not have grown up around all the technology of this world, but I do know that if I’d had access to skype and thought it would impress a pretty girl, I’d’ve probably done the same thing.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

He laughs a little again, presses a kiss to her frown lines and says, “It’s supposed to make you realise that it could’ve been much worse, and remind you that you raised an incredible young man. One who is probably just as embarrassed, if not more so, as you are right now, milady.”

He smirks at her when she scrunches her face up a little, and there’s a very small part of her that wants to smack it off because it’s that stupid little shit-eating one he gets when he knows he’s right, and when he knows that she knows he’s right. And he is. He is completely right if the way Henry had turned beet red, screamed mom! and rushed to yank a hoodie on after she’d dropped the piled of folded laundry is anything to go by.

“Have you talked to him about it yet?” She scrunches her nose up again, because no she hasn’t spoken to him other than a shocked utterance of Henry Daniel Mills! and a sarcastic well that makes it so much better, after he’d stuttered out that she was meant to be at the loft for Liv and Neal to have a playdate. “Do you think that maybe sooner rather than later might the way to go here?”

She ignores that, she’ll talk to Henry soon, she will, but she still needs a minute. And a drink. “We’re never getting Roland a laptop, ok?” Robin just laughs again before he nods. Sighing Regina nods before she’s hugging the baby tighter and dropping a kiss to her chubby cheek when she looks up from playing with her toes to grin at them. “And Olivia is staying this little forever.”

sun: what you said when you saw me in a new light.

I haven’t written Red Beauty before but I’ve been jonesing to because I’m still hella bitter that A&E didn’t have the balls to make it canon. They had amazing chemistry and I’m never not going to be angry about it. Anyway, this is like 500+ words of season four canon divergent goodness.

It isn’t until she forced her husband over the town line that Belle realizes just how isolated she was from the rest of Storybrooke. Her only constant companion had been Rumple and without him, her days are unnervingly quiet and there is only so much comfort she can get from her books.

She takes to sitting and reading at Granny’s. While almost no one approaches her, the sound of people bustling about around her, laughing and talking makes her feel less lonely. On top of that, her tea cup is never empty.

And then there’s Ruby.

During the lulls in service, the waitress takes to sitting and chatting with her. They had been close once, before Rumple, and it isn’t until Ruby sits in front of her and talks to her with a friendly smile on her lips does Belle realize just how much she missed her.

Their conversations are light-hearted, usually focused on whatever novel she’s reading that day, but there’s an understanding look in Ruby’s eyes that lets her know that she understands that she really needs to not think.

She’s hurt, mind still reeling from the extent of her husband’s betrayal. She always knew what he was capable of, the horrific acts that he committed, but never did she think that he was capable of doing that to her.

The pain of it lingers in the back of her mind, a consistent dull ache that occasionally bursts in flares of unbearable heartache where she can’t help the tears that dribble down her cheeks. Normally these moments hit when she’s alone but occasionally and embarrassingly it happens in public when someone gives her a particularly pitying look.

Today, it’s one of her novels. It’s a riveting tale of romance and adventure where the villain falls in love with the heroine and willingly changes his ways, changes his heart, in order to do what’s right and save her. It hurts.

Why couldn’t he do that for her?

She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until her tears hit the page and she’s mortified because it’s the middle of the lunch rush and literally everyone in Storybrooke is here.

She drops her book on the table and buries her face in her hands, trying to shield her wet face from prying eyes. She doesn’t notice someone sliding into the booth beside her until slender fingers slide into her hair. She jumps at the unexpected contact.

“Hey, you’re going to be okay…”  Ruby says in a low comforting voice. “You’re going to be okay…”

Her body immediately relaxes at the sound of her voice and Belle doesn’t realize until that moment just how comfort she takes in Ruby’s presence. Without even thinking about, she leans into her, her head resting against her shoulder. Someone shouts for her in the back and Ruby turns to give them a vicious glare before she turns her attention back to her, features immediately softening.

“How?” Belle chokes out, hating the way her voice breaks.

Ruby’s fingers leave her hair to rest tenderly on her cheek.

“Because you’re amazing and strong and though you don’t think so now, someday it’s going to stop hurting.”

“But what if it doesn’t?”

“Then I got you.”

Drabble based on spoilers from the set for 7.01, with Jared, Lana and a motorbike.  

The air is crisp, that morning, when Regina pads outside to say goodbye. There should be so many words, right now, but she only feels a grip in her throat and an insuppressible desire to cry. Henry is already there, backpack incremented in size and August’s motorbike ready to start its trip.

“Okay, mom,” he says reaching out for her hand. “I think I got everything.”

Regina nods, gulps, squeezing his fingers. “Promise me…”

“…I will be careful,” he ends. “And I will call every night, I swear. And come to see you guys often.”

She tries a smile, that doesn’t pair well with her heavy heart. He’s so tall, she muses, when he envelopes her in a hug. Strangely enough, she focuses on his height not to think about the rest. I’ll miss you so much, she half-sobs in his shoulder, praying her eyes will remain dry.

“I will too,” he smiles. “Bye, mom.”

She stands there and watches him go, sprinting the bike, a dreadful feeling grasping at her heart. A premonition, maybe. She presses two fingers on her lips, stares at the empty road. 

This prompt was sitting way too long in my inbox, considering the one-shot was written months ago too.

Big thanks to @spiral-nebula for beta-ing (and prompting me ;)).

Season 1 Regal Believer feels ahead!

FFnet

Regina peeks into Henry’s room. Last night he came home sniffing and with arough voice, thick from a cold. He was picky at dinner, didn’t eat much andclaimed he wanted to do his homework, so Regina let him go upstairs. She knowsbetter than try to push herself back into his life right now. Ever since he ranaway to find his “real mom” (the words still pain her), he put a distancebetween them.

The room is a huge mess, everything scattered on the floor, school books,pencils, clothes, comic books. This isn’t like Henry, he’s usually very neatand tidy for a ten-year-old (she surprisingly doesn’t mind the mess though).The desk lamp is still switched on but she finds her little boy curled up onthe bed, fast asleep. He hasn’t bothered to change into his pajamas or draw upthe blanket around him. How poorly did he feel?

She tries to pull out his blanket from under his body without disturbinghis much needed sleep. He only stirs a little but stays asleep. She draws theblanket up to his shoulders and presses a light kiss to his brow. “Sleep tight,my little prince.” Regina switches off the light, leaves the door of his room abit ajar and heads to her own bedroom. Maybe it’s just a 24-hour-cold, he’llprobably feel better in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.

He doesn’t.