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It's not really their kind of party, but they came. It's kind of impressive, both of them dressed down a little, trying to fit in. She only catches a glimpse of Maleficent, but Regina's in black jeans; tight, clinging to her hips in all the right ways, jeans that probably cost more than Emma's paycheck, but they're worth it.
She swirls the beer in her hand. Regina's stupid jeans are so worth it. The bottom of the cup is a little too warm, maybe a little flat, but she finishes it watching Maleficent look at Regina like she could peel those jeans off with her teeth.
Maybe that's what they're into.
Teeth on clothing, bare skin—
These are her friends and she should not be thinking that way. At all.
Emma grabs another beer. Lily's trying to teach Dorothy how to play beer pong on the picnic table out back and Ursula's making some kind of cocktail with Granny that smokes like it has tentacles. Emma can poof a beer across a room but she's never seen anything like that.
A drink that grabs back.
Shaking her head, she follows Ruby and Mulan to the table piled high with food. The taco dip is amazing, and even the hummus is good. It's not usually her thing, but it's amazing with pretzels, and carrots, maybe even the nachos. Jury's still out on that.
She loses sight of Regina and Maleficent in the crowd. She's not really paying attention to anyone, because it's loud and the party's spilled into the alley all around the Maelstrom. It's a good name for a bar, now that Emma's sure she's saying it right. Maybe it's meant to be slurred drunk.
It's a step up from the Rabbit Hole, which always had less of an Alice in Wonderland vibe and more of a hole in the wall sort of place that sounded a little like a vibrator. The cocktails are as good as Gideon's fake artisan ones. That one with the cardamon was really good, maybe Ursula can make something like it.
Lily presses another full plastic cup into her hand. "This one's good." She has to lean close to whisper because inside it's loud. Emma half-stumbles back outside into the cooling air. It's less sweaty, thank god.
"What is it?"
"Something spicy. Experimental ale with cayenne pepper." Lily tilts her head towards the edge of the crowd. "Mom loves it."
"Of course she does."
The first time they shared dinner with Lily and Maleficent the two of them couldn't get enough red pepper flakes, and hot sauce. Nearly drowned Regina's lasagna.
"No, not dragon mom, that one's easy, she'll try anything." Lily nudges Emma's arm, drawing her attention. "Other mom. Mom on the right."
She's calling Regina mom now? That's progress. Really, good progress. "Took me months to not feel weird about 'mom'."
"Oh I can't call Regina mom to her face, not in front of her. To you is one thing."
Emma laughs, then sips her beer. It burns the back of her throat a little, tingling her noise. "When did we get hipster enough for craft beer?"
"Ursula says the dwarves kept asking for it, then she realized how much fun it was to play around with what she could make. Loves tinkering, getting her tentacles into everything."
Making a face at Lily makes her laugh.
"Not actually in the beer, I promise."
They fit, Ursula and Lily. In fact, sarcastic as she is sometimes, Ursula's a great addition to town. She makes a great drink, she sings like it's some kind of spell, and once she started serving food Granny had competition and the two of them fighting back and forth over the dinner specials has made getting take out exciting again.
And Lily has them both in her life, hovering, just a little. Helping her navigate having another body, and magic, and two moms who walked out of a Disney theme park into a fashion spread.
Then fell in love with spreadsheets.
One of Lily's biggest complaints is that her moms are total nerds. Flirting over local taxes, rather than talking to each other over dinner.
"They're idiots, aren't they?"
Emma's halfway through her beer as she scans the crowd, looking for Lily's two idiots. She's seen Maleficent's head over the rest, and she knows she was here, but she hadn't seen the jeans, the sheer skirt and the ever more insubstantial sweater on top of it. Emma's eyes trace the sharp contrast of Maleficent's dark bra strap beneath her shirt. She stands talking to Ursula, smiling gently over her own drink. Her eyes stay on Regina, unmoving, almost unblinking, while Regina talks to Ruby, then Mulan and Dorothy. She turns, catching Maleficent's eye and maybe they'll dance or talk or kiss or just stand next to each other because just them looking at each other crackles like a fireball.
Emma can't be the only one who feels it.
"Idiots, I told you."
"You know, Regina, Mom two, always calls my parents that."
"Must be a lovesick thing." Lily downs the end of her beer and crumples the cup in her hand. "Everyone knows your parents basically invented starstruck true love sappy bullshit."
"That's not—" Actually, Emma has no idea what true love kisses came before her parents and if they even worked and it's supposed to be rare. "You might be right."
"Told you."
Snow tugs Regina towards David and Killian, must want to show her something, but she's moving away from Maleficent and that damn sweater. The dragon's seen them now and Lily waves and then Maleficent moves through the crowd towards them, carrying something.
Shots.
She's going to do shots with two dragons.
She's going to die, or wish she was dead tomorrow. She's past thirty now, she can't just—
"Hey Mom."
"Lily, Emma." Maleficent nods to both of them, pressing a shot glass into Emma's hand, then Lily's. She's so close that Emma has a great view of the front of her bra, which is some kind of push up day dream that makes her breasts just right there under the thinnest of fabric. Hasn't Regina seen this? Hell, if Snow saw this she'd give in and let Regina and Maleficent go make out in a corner where they belong.
Emma's breasts have never looked like that. She's not even sure they can look like that. Look up, dammit.
"What's this?"
"Ursula's new concoction. She thought I might like it."
"Hot sauce mixed with sleeping curse?"
"Very funny."
Lily and Maleficent grin at each other and then wrap arms, ready to drink. Emma sniffs her own drink, not wanting to ruin the moment. She's definitely not on the mother-daughter side of things.
"You too, dear." Maleficent takes her hand gently and winds it in, so they're all drinking around each other. "Leaving you out would be bad luck."
Lily smiles a little in Emma's direction, grateful. "Is it a toast?"
"Or a spell?" Knowing her luck she's casting some kind of thing that'll make her life hell tomorrow. On top of the hangover.
"Would you believe it's just a drink?"
Emma and Lily share a glance. "No."
Maleficent tilts her head, studying them both as if looking for the thread that connects them. Heck, maybe she can see Emma's darkness in Lily, and she loves it anyway. Maybe Emma needs to stop checking her out because she's almost her mom.
Or just the tequila. Rum. Whiskey, whatever the fuck it is needs to take the edge off because she has no idea how to deal with Lily's moms being head over heels for each other.
"Well then, for luck, darlings." Maleficent leans over the shots and blows a tendril of fire across all of them. They light up blue, bursting into flame.
Emma needs a whole lot of luck just to make it through the night. "Do you drink it while it's still on fire, because I am not a dragon and I'll burn."
"Maybe the burn is the point." Lily meets her mother's eyes then elbows Emma in the side.
"For luck."
Luck burns like gin, and something bitter, warming her chest. She makes a face, as does Lily.
"Compari, really mom?"
"Ursula likes it, you don't approve?"
"It's good, it's just...bitter."
Maleficent leans in and kisses Lily's cheek. "Luck, is often bitter, dear."
Lily squeezes her hand and Emma's chest aches because this is parental. This is adorable mother-daughter bullshit and they're doing it. Lily does that now.
She's smiling too much. Way too much because Lily blushes pink as soon as Maleficent leaves them.
"Shut up."
"I didn't say anything."
"You never have to say anything, Emma, it's right there." Lily waves vaguely over Emma's face and Emma bites her lip.
She shouldn't laugh but she does.
Rolling her eyes, Lily fidgets with her sleeve, then leans close. "You know why she needs luck."
"Aren't they past that?" Emma mutters back. "They have a kid, Maleficent stayed at Regina's house that whole time when Regina was so sick."
"They slept in the same bed." Lily waves her hand and obtains two more full red cups of beer. "Open bars are heaven, seriously."
"Same bed?"
"Henry told me. Mom- Regina-- shut up."
"It's nice that you can call her mom!"
"Fucking nice, I'm sure."
"Regina has nightmares. Bad ones."
"Fevers do that." Emma sips her beer. Lily's never going to meet Cora. Well, maybe not never, there's the underworld and maybe dragons have some way of talking to the dead and maybe she can visit her granddaughter from wherever she is now. "And she's got plenty to have nightmares about."
"So Mom said." Lily leans against the brick wall, staring down at her beer. "And maybe that's easier for them, Regina needed her, so she stayed. Regina's fine now, she doesn't need Mom, and Mom-- she's too fucking patient, you know? She doesn't push anything, not me, not Regina."
"It's hard."
"Look at them."
Ursula has Regina's attention on a drink, but Regina's hand rests on Maleficent's arm and they're so close that Maleficent's arm must be around her. That's luck, isn't it? Wrapped up close, mutual friends, touching... Regina turns to Maleficent and her head is right next to that chest and Maleficent's breasts and Regina looks.
Of course she looks, she has to fucking look.
Is that blushing?
Lust?
"She wants your mom."
"My mom wants my mom?"
"Yeah, you're moms want to jump each other so badly."
"I hate you."
"My parents are basically lap dancing in the corner."
"They are fucking not, are they?" Lily turns, following Emma's eyes, searching the alley for any sign of them.
"No, they just stare adoringly." Emma drops against the brick wall next to her. "It's almost worse."
"Worse than that?"
That is Ursula leaving Regina and Maleficent smiling at each other over a stupid plastic cup of something not alcoholic enough for either of them to make the first move. Is there anything that strong?
How can that be romantic? Stupid red plastic frat party cup in a damp alley with lazy Christmas lights overhead. Maybe it's the staring that matters. The way neither of them seems to even be aware anyone else is here.
"They need music," someone whispers on her right.
Emma turns, nearly choking on her beer. "Mom?"
"They need music, don't they?" Mom takes her drink from her hands and takes a sip. "I like this one."
"This one?"
"The IPA is too bitter."
"That's right," Lily agrees, and fuck, they're looking at each other. Are they just drunk enough not to be awkward? "They go way overboard with hops."
"And I thought that problem would have been left behind in the Enchanted Forest." Snow lifts her glass to Lily and they clink the plastic.
Progress everywhere today.
"How do we get them music?" Emma stares sadly at her beer, then turns to Regina and Maleficent and the problem that is them just staying at each other, hands touching.
"You have magic., as do you, Lily."
"Yeah, because that's subtle." Lily finishes her beer, drops the cup and rests her boot on it. "Super subtle."
"Find a way," Snow insists, smirking at them both before she leaves with Emma's beer. "Or they're going to ignite something."
"Those are my moms," Lily crushes her cup and crosses her arms over her chest. "She's insinuating--"
"Yeah, she fucks my dad too, in the middle of the day, Let's get your two moms together so they can share the same experience with you."
"I hate you."
Emma catches Ursula's look across the alley. That's the answer, that's how they get music. She tilts her head towards Maleficent and Regina, hoping Ursula figures it out. It's really fucking obvious, so Ursula gets it. At least, that's what that knowing smile has to be.
Ursula waves her hand, and the lights dim, the picnic table moves to the side, somehow the lights of the town seem very far away and the stars are so bright she could touch them. The sea whispers in the background, mixing with the wind, and whatever spell Ursula has woven slips so gently over all of them that her voice rises like fog, like smoke.
Lily shivers, and Emma squeezes her wrist.
"I know, I know--"
Maleficent extends her hand, taking Regina's elegantly. They chuckle, probably because the steps they know don't match jeans. Regina follows her easily, and the steps are something Emma would make a mess of, but they float together.
"Fuck them both, seriously."
"It sucks, doesn't it? They're all from this place of beauty, and elegance and dancing and like, I learned the macarena and I can do the electric slide."
"You can?" Lily's eyes haven't moved from her mothers. "I get the steps wrong."
"If you get your arms into it--" Emma drifts, because they're just staring at each other, as if no one else exists.
"They're so smitten."
"It's fucking ridiculous."
Ursula's voice carries deep and full, coursing through all of them like the alcohol in their blood.
"They get a second chance." Emma shouldn't be gaping, but there's no way Maleficent and Regina are even aware of anyone watching them. Maleficent lifts Regina's chin with her hand and they break form, wrapping their fingers together and that's how fires start.
"You know Mom taught Mom to dance? Dragon Mom, I mean. Regina hated it. Her mother was-"
"Kind of a bitch."
"Yeah," Lily looks down, and then back at her parents. She smiles, uncomfortable and relieved all at once. "So Regina hated it, all of dancing, the twirling and the hands, the jumps, and Mom, she fucking loves it. The more ridiculous peasant Renaissance bullshit, the more she adores it."
"Really?"
"Dragons fly in formation, when there are more of them than two, I mean. They swoop and dive, twist up in the air...dancing, it's like the closest humans get." Lily rests her head on Emma's shoulder. "I think she misses them, the other dragons. She can't tell me where they are, they lose each other after centuries, but..."
"They look so happy." Emma wraps her arm around Lily's shoulders, hugging her tight. "They are happy."
"They're idiots who insist on wasting their time when they could have been scaring me mentally by now."
Their foreheads touch, and that look is more than they should watch. Lily sighs, like her breath is caught in her throat. "They really fucking do, don't they? Like, fuck them both."
"That's the plan, Mom one, Mom two, not getting up until noon."
"I live in that house." Lily groans, and snuggles closer. "And it's worth it."
Regina's hands wrap around Maleficent's waist, just above her jeans. Maleficent's hands rest on her back and they sway back and forth, alone.
Ursula starts another song and they're still there, turning, staring, absolutely enraptured.
And it's beautiful. They're beautiful.
"Second chances are great, aren't they?"
"I think they're on three or four now."
"Still--"
"I know, I know." Lily's voice drops so low that Emma can barely hear her. "I love them too."