Chapter Text
It was a perfectly normal Saturday morning in Storybrooke.
Emma sat at the bar at Granny’s enjoying a late morning breakfast platter and chatting with Ruby and Lily whenever the waitresses were free between tables. Five of the dwarves were sitting in their usual spot near the front door. Marco and Archie sat in a booth playing their weekly game of chess. Belle was reading a book at one of the center tables, her breakfast practically untouched. Mal sipped a coffee in the back booth with a sudoku puzzle open on the table in front of her.
It was a crisp forty-five degrees out and sunny; the perfect fall day in New England.
Then the door to Granny’s opened; the metal blinds clanging against the glass. Most everyone glanced that direction to see who was arriving.
Emma choked on her coffee.
Ruby swore.
Leroy looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
Regina stood in the doorway, letting the door slowly close behind her as she surveyed the diner. Her hair was slicked back around her face but hanging loose on her shoulders, curling slightly like it was damp. Dark red painted lips were sinfully parted as the tip of her tongue darted out to moisten them.
Bashful fell off his chair.
The distraction drew Regina’s attention.
With the slight turn of her body towards the left, Emma gulped at the ample amount of side-boob showing. Emma was pretty sure she had mentally catalogued all of Regina’s outfits, and while technically, the mayor was wearing a black blazer (not unusual), Emma had never seen Regina wear one with sheer sleeves.
And nothing underneath.
Regina took the two steps needed to approach the dwarves’ table. She trailed one hand across Leroy’s shoulders as she moved to stand at his side. The miner froze like a deer in headlights while the other dwarves watched her free hand play with the single button holding her blazer together.
She eyed all of them one by one, her fingers curled around the back of Leroy’s neck. “Hmmm, I think not.”
Abruptly, she spun on her stiletto heel away from them, and sauntered towards Belle. A single finger guided the bookworm’s chin upwards. “R-Regina?”
Regina stroked the back of her knuckles along Belle’s cheek, grinning at the tremble the simple movement provoked. “Oh, the things I could teach you,” she said, her thumb drifting ever so slightly over open lips as she leaned closer. “Perhaps, one day.”
When Regina leaned closer to Belle, the very short black leather skirt rode higher up her thigh, threatening to expose- “Regina!” Emma slid off her stool, finally finding her voice. “Uhm, hey, uh-”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Ms Swan,” Regina said, but an absent flick of her hand magically seated Emma back on her stool. “But give me a minute, won’t you, dear? There are just so many offerings to peruse.” She straightened away from Belle and slid her hand around the librarian’s shoulders as she walked behind her towards the row of booths.
She paused momentarily at Marco and Archie’s table. She picked up the black queen piece.
“Madam Mayor,” Archie cleared his throat. “Is everything all right?”
“Queen takes pawn. Check.”
Archie looked down at his white side of the board as she gracefully captured his pawn, putting Marco’s queen in place. When Archie looked up, she dropped the pawn in his lap. “Everything is fine.” She acknowledged the other man. “Marco.”
He nodded. “Madam Mayor.”
She moved down the row of booths, stopping at Maleficent’s table. She practically purred, “Dragon.”
Mal arched an eyebrow. “Regina.” She’d been watching the entire scene with interest along with everyone else. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing yet.” She smirked. “Join me later?”
“Perhaps.”
“I hope you do.” She winked then turned towards the bar. Lily leaned against the cash register smirking; Ruby stared with eyes as wide as saucers, and Emma was seated on her usual stool. Regina traced her lips with the tip of her tongue. “What a lovely buffet.”
“Lily is off-limits,” Mal said from behind her.
Regina glanced back over her shoulder then to the shorter brunette behind the counter. “Pity.” She sighed. “Oh well.”
Emma’s butt had been magically stuck to the stool since Regina waved her away, and despite her own magic, she was no match for Regina’s. “Regina!” She said still trying to wiggle free. “What is going on?”
“Ssshhhh. Just a few more minutes, Ms Swan, and you will have my full attention,” she said, gaze fixed on Ruby as she silenced Emma. “But first-”
The swinging door to the kitchen banged open and Granny emerged, wiping her hands on a towel. She’d been watching from the window unconcerned until Regina focused on Ruby. “What are you up to, Mills?”
Regina stopped at the corner of the bar, eyes locked on Ruby. “Seducing everyone in your diner.”
“Uh-huh.” Granny looked around at all the focus still on Regina. She threw the towel over her shoulder. “Why?”
“Why not?” She took a step closer to Ruby. Ruby gulped.
Lily slid out from behind Ruby and stood in front of her. “The Wolf is taken, your Majesty.”
Regina’s eyes narrowed; it was a blatant lie. Her magic assured her Ruby was available. And willing. But the dragon claimed her – the baby dragon. Her lip curled upwards; a young dragon standing between her and what she wanted was no obstacle at all. She took another step closer to Ruby.
Lily arched an eyebrow. “Seriously?” She looked past Regina’s shoulder. “Mom?”
“You would hide behind your mother’s wing?” Regina snarled.
“Hell, yes,” Lily laughed, “especially when you’re acting all crazy and homicidal.”
“Regina.” Mal appeared behind her. Regina craned her head around enough to see the elder dragon at her shoulder. It would be a close fight…
Emma slapped the top of bar, drawing everyone’s attention. She gestured wildly at her mouth and then the stool she was still stuck to.
Regina smirked. “Oh yes,” she purred, forgetting all about wolves and dragons. “I did promise you my attention, didn’t I, Ms Swan?”
Emma suddenly found herself free of the stool, almost falling but catching herself at the last second. “What the hell, Regina?”
“Em-ma.” The extra sway in her hips was hardly necessary. No one was looking away from her, least of all the blonde in the leather jacket.
But Emma did try to get away. She stumbled back a few steps as Regina stalked closer. She felt absurdly like a mouse being stalked by a cat, but not just any old house cat, Regina was like a panther or lioness.
And Emma was most definitely her prey.
When she bumped into Belle’s chair, Regina grabbed her by the front of her jacket. “Careful, Em-ma.” She pulled her closer. “We wouldn’t you to hurt yourself.”
Up close, Emma saw the remnants of magic swirling in Regina’s normally dark eyes. What had a moment ago been both arousing and confusing was now worrisome. Carefully, she laid her hands over Regina’s. “Regina, what is going on?”
Red lips curled into a smile. “Nothing.” Her hands slid free from Emma’s, working their way up until she cupped the blonde’s face. “Now that I have what I want.”
Emma tried pulling Regina’s hands down. “What do you mean?”
Regina surged forward, her mouth crashing against Emma’s, teeth mashed against lips. Emma stumbled with all of Regina’s weight suddenly pushing against her. The hands that had been on her face slid down to her belt, scrambling to undo it.
“Hey! Whoa!” Emma grabbed Regina by the wrists. “Stop.”
Regina’s head dropped to Emma’s shoulder; a throaty laugh bubbled out of her. “Make me, Savior.”
Emma jerked back when Regina bit her earlobe. Blown pupils with a spark of purple deep inside them met hers before Regina laughed again. “Don’t act like you don’t want it, Ms. Swan.”
They were close enough Emma could see a sheen of sweat beading on Regina’s upper lip. She looked past Regina’s shoulder at the audience still watching them. “Mal, a little help here.”
“You want to pull Mal in?” Regina asked. “I’m for it; I just thought you’d want me all to yourself.” She eyed Mal hungrily as she joined them. “If we get the dragon and the wolf to join us…”
Mal frowned as she studied her old friend. She’d thought Regina was acting odd earlier, but had hoped the former queen had finally decided to pursue the one she wanted. But the Savior was right, something was off. Flirting had been one thing, but kissing and groping would never be something Regina did in public.
Gently, she gripped Regina by the chin and looked into her eyes. “Take her home, Savior. Now. I will join you as soon as I can.”
Emma folded a very willing Regina into her arms and poofed them back to the mansion. Re-appearing in the foyer, Emma’s eyes widened.
The mansion was in shambles. Shattered glass and shards of mirror littered the floors; the bottom of the banister was cracked in half and the table where she usually dropped her keys lay in shambles. She could only partially see into the dining room, but it appeared to have fared no better with the long table turned on its side.
Instinctively, Emma tightened the arm she had around Regina’s shoulders and called magic to her palm. “What the hell happened here?”
Regina groaned and seemed to melt further against Emma, wrapping her arms around her waist. “Where?”
Emma glanced down at the head buried against her neck. “Your house, Regina. We’re in your house.” She was suddenly supremely thankful Henry was gone on a school trip. “It looks like a bomb exploded in here.”
Or a tornado.
“Regina, did you and Zelena have a fight?” Emma asked, trapping Regina’s hand against her chest so it couldn’t do any further exploring.
“Z?” Regina laid the side of her face against Emma’s chest, drumming her trapped fingers. “Is she still here?” She sighed heavily. “I left her in the study.”
“After you fought?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Why were you fighting?” Emma asked, using a blast of magic from her free hand to clear a path.
“Because she’s a jealous bitch.”
Emma jerked her head back, barely dodging a bite along her jaw line. She never thought attention from Regina would become tiresome, but until she knew the hows and whys behind Regina’s sudden interest in her, she was not about to let anything happen. More’s the pity.
And Zelena being a jealous bitch wasn’t anything new. It was pretty much her modus operandi. So how did that end up with the two most powerful magic practitioners in the town having a magic fight inside the mansion. “Well, we need to find out if she’s still here. Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go-”
“NO!”
“Umph.” Emma stumbled, hands immediately going to support, as Regina suddenly and effectively wrapped around her. Arms around neck and legs around waist. “Oh my god. Regina.” If possible, the hold around Emma grew tighter.
“Don’t leave.” The dark head was tucked tight against Emma’s neck. It was the only reason Emma could hear the suddenly small voice when she whispered next. “I just got you.”
Clearing her throat and trying to calm her racing heart, Emma promised, “Regina, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. We’re going to figure this thing out together.” Whatever the hell it was because Emma didn’t know how much more of this drunken adoration she could take.
“Promise you won’t leave me?”
Gods above, was that a tear Emma felt on her neck. “I promise.” What hell was she in that Regina had gone from seductress to terrified child? And where the hell was Mal?
Regina slowly slid her feet to the floor, but kept her hands wrapped in Emma’s jacket. She stayed melted against Emma’s front. Then she stiffened, “Emma?”
“Yeah?” she asked warily; Regina’s voice had changed again.
Regina slowly lifted her head; her gaze left Emma for the first time since they arrived at the mansion as she looked around with a dazed expression. Emma held out her hand when Regina took a step away from her; Regina grasped it to keep herself steady. “Dizzy.” She blinked a few times. “Light-headed.” She brought her other hand up to her forehead. “What happened here?”
“Was going to ask you the same thing,” Emma admitted. Dark eyes met hers, questioning. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Regina braced one hand on the wall, eyes closed. She swallowed a few times. “Z and I were in my vault.”
Emma hated to think what shape the vault must be in. “Doing what?”
“A spell of longing,” Mal said, announcing herself with a swirl of smoke, “unless I’ve missed my ingredients?”
Regina straightened at the sight of Maleficent; her entire energy shifted as she slid from one form to the next. One second, she appeared almost ill and the next…the next, her persona once again fit the tight black leather skirt she was wearing. “Did the dragon come to join us, after all?”
“Oh boy,” Emma gulped as Regina once again draped an arm around her. The way Regina’s voice dropped an entire octave made her stomach do flip-flops. “Mal?” Warm breath fluttered against her neck as Regina laughed.
“What’s the matter, Savior? Can’t handle me by yourself?”
Emma yelped when Regina grabbed a handful of ass. Emma grabbed the hand and moved it to a more suitable location. “You said something about a spell?!”
“Of longing,” Mal repeated, watching with some amusement. “I found the remnants of it in her vault, but I’ve never seen it manifest quite like this.” Regina seemed to need constant contact; no matter how Emma discouraged her, Regina found another body part to touch. “I sensed Zelena’s magic there as well,” Mal added, “but she wasn’t at her farmhouse.”
Regina growled and Mal noticed that her eyes briefly glowed green at the mention of her sister. “Regina? Do you know where Zelena is?”
“She was here,” she said idly, playing with the ends of Emma’s hair. “But come on, Mal, Z isn’t really your type, is she? Wouldn’t you rather help me corrupt the incorruptible Savior?”
As amused as Mal was by the whimper the blonde released, she declined and watched Emma once again take control of Regina’s wandering hands. “Check the study, Mal,” Emma said, allowing kisses to be feathered along her jaw. “She said something earlier about leaving her there.”
“I could knock her out, you know, it would be painless for her,” Mal offered.
“I’d rather not,” Emma said, looking down at Regina cuddling into her side again. “Not until we know more of what happened.”
“Very well.” She carefully picked her way across the debris littering the floor. “The vault appeared to have suffered the same level of upheaval.”
“Silly old dragon,” Regina muttered; Emma saw Maleficent twitch. “It was Zelena’s fault; she thinks just because she’s older she knows more than me.”
There was a childish, petulant note to Regina’s voice that Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever heard. She tried hard to ignore the fingertip tracing circles on her chest. “What did Z think she knew?”
Regina sighed and wrapped herself further around Emma. “What I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
Regina didn’t answer right away; Emma didn’t push. She did look towards the study, wondering what was taking Mal so long.
“Emma?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are we standing in my destroyed foyer with my arm wrapped around your waist?”
Now that sounded more like the Regina she knew. “Well, my waist was a safer place for your hand than grabbing my ass.”
“Excuse me!” Regina reared back from her but then immediately groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh.” She clutched Emma’s forearm with one hand and brought the other to cover her mouth. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Hold on!” Emma urged and flailed to open the front door behind them, finding it locked, she panicked and poofed them both to the kitchen. Regina lunged for the sink as Emma winced, last second poofing would not have made the nausea better. “Sorry.”
Regina grunted and turned the faucet on while still leaning over the basin. She swished through several mouthfuls of water before turning it back off and slowly standing upright. She took a long, slow inhale and exhale. “I just vomited magic.”
Emma’s face scrunched up. “Do you know why?”
“Not…really.” She rubbed one hand across her forehead. “Z came over last night and we were talking about…we went to my vault…she wanted to do a spell?”
“So, this all started last night?”
“There was wine,” Regina admitted before turning around to lean back against the counter. A smile crept over her face when she saw the blonde. “Emma, you came over.” She nervously twisted a hand towel between her hands. “But the house is such a mess, I’m so sorry. I’m not sure what happened.” Color was rising in her cheeks. “Mother will not be pleased. Royal company comes over and I haven’t even bothered to clean up. If you can just give me a minute, I’m sure I can get everything put away.”
“Regina, it’s okay,” Emma said, gently taking the towel from between her hands. She was starting to get a feel for this even if she didn’t understand it. So far there had been a young Regina, the one that clung to her like a koala and was scared of her mother; then there was the sex goddess Regina that couldn’t keep her hands to herself and then also Madam Mayor who seemed confused but could probably tell them what happened if she could stay present long enough to remember.
“Please, Emma, you mustn’t tell Mother, don’t let her see,” Regina said, turning into Emma’s embrace, burying her face against the blonde’s shoulder. “She’ll punish me.”
“No one is going to punish you,” Emma promised, damning Cora beyond the grave while wrapping her arms around the trembling woman. “I promise. You’re safe.”
Mal appeared in the doorway and arched an eyebrow. She’d heard enough to know Regina was worried about her mother. No one else had ever made Regina sound so small; even when she’d been frightened of the king, she’d had the fears of a woman not a child.
“I’m afraid Zelena is down for the count,” Mal started, “but she did manage to tell me a few things before she passed out again.”
Regina turned her head enough that she could see Mal; she grinned. “Evil beats wicked, after all.”
Emma rolled her eyes and dragged the hands that had been inching up her shirt away from her body. The switches in personality were going to give her whiplash. “What did Z say?”
“They did the longing spell together which was mistake number one,” Mal said, “and they did it in a room with more than one mirror.”
“Let’s pretend I’m new to magic and don’t know why those two things are bad,” Emma said, leaning away from Regina trying to nuzzle her. The tip of a tongue grazed along her jaw.
“Basically, the magic got confused, because they both had unacknowledged desires. Then when it couldn’t settle, the mirrors amplified the power of the spell,” Mal said and stepped close enough to help pull Regina off of Emma. “I can only guess that in a confined space like the vault; the magnification of the spell hit both of them.”
“And that would’ve caused them to fight?”
“With these two, the fight is always simmering just below the surface, but yes,” Mal said, controlling Regina from twisting around in her arms, “they would’ve been hit with each other’s desires as well as their own. Add in Zelena’s jealous nature, Regina’s possessiveness, two quick tempers and you have a perfect storm for magical chaos.”
Regina slumped a bit, drawing their attention. She dropped her head back against Mal’s shoulder, breathing heavily. “Don’t forget,” she grunted, “Z and I also have some of the same desires.”
“Double magnified.” Mal shook her head. “When you screw up, child, you don’t do it in small measures.” Mal brushed hair out of Regina’s face and frowned. “You’re burning up, little one.”
“Too much magic,” Regina said, licking her lips for moisture and not to tantalize. “Absorbed it all.”
Mal’s brows raced up her forehead. “You absorbed all of it?”
She gave Emma a lopsided smile. “I wanted it more than she did.”
The dragon’s quick reflexes were the only thing that kept Regina from falling to the floor when she passed out.