outlaw queen one shot collection

one moment

All it takes is one moment.

One simple moment and your life can be irreparably damaged, altered by a single motion. The flap of a bird's wings, the tree leaves dancing with the breeze, the clouds obscuring the sky, casting shadows above and beyond, heavy, angry tears pelting the ground, a tidal wave crashing on land.

And you, standing at the shore.

One moment is all it takes for your life to spin off-axis, for your world to collapse, the fluctuations in the ether too substantial to be contained.

It's impossible to navigate, readings are off the charts, and try as you may, you cannot make sense of it. Reality has crumbled to dust around you, evaporated before you could hold on to it, and you wish you'd have floated away with it. It would have been simple, maybe, comfortable, almost – familiar. Instead, you're left alone to pick up the pieces, to put back together the wreckage of your life.

(You're not really alone, but that doesn't sink in. Not yet. You feel lonelier than you've ever been. You crave something you can't have, something that doesn't exist anymore, lost in the darkness that now surrounds you.)

At the twilight of your existence, the one you've known until now, that one moment changes something at the very core of you, transforms the nature of your reality into a mess created for the pleasure of those who are never satisfied. Their laughs echo in your ear, an incessant shouting you are unable to block out.

This moment is one of them.

::

The air around them is thick, the silence heavy and loud. Robin can hear it yelling in his ears when Regina's done ordering their drinks, the quiet screaming of a lie lived, of a farce created to make her suffer. He'd bet anything she hears it too, can tell from the way her shoulders stiffen and her gaze darts to the back wall, avoiding his.

It's overwhelming, this mix of joy at seeing her again and gripping pain at the deception he's suffered. One minute he'd been holding her in his arms, and the next she was staring at him with such anguish... He would never forget the look on her face. She'd looked at him as if he was a stranger, like he'd become a different man. (He supposes he has, in a way.)

He looks at her now, Regina, head held straight, lips pressed together, steadfast eyes studying the far wall, her face as void of emotions as she can make it. The hardened Queen, the one who always expects the worse, who thinks she deserves the worse.

She's trying to get a grip on her feelings, to rein them in, but she's haunted by his admission, his words echoing in her brain the same way hers are in his. He'd not wanted to believe her, had yelled at her because it was easier than admitting the truth, that he'd been manipulated, used in the most horrific ways. That he's been wrong this whole time. That he's hurt her again, by adhering to his code, by putting his honour above all else.

Despite her best efforts to put on a face, he can still read her like a book. Her impassible demeanor is no great mask, not to him. He's spent a year deciphering it in the Enchanted Forest, has learned to value and cherish every single one of its imperfections. And he can tell her stomach is twisting and knotting before she even speaks.

"So you've moved on..." she voices out loud, as if it isn't already enough of a burden on him. There's an unmistakable venom to her monotone voice, a flake of anger that becomes evident when she adds, "with her."

After every bomb dropped on him in the last fifteen minutes, compassion is a hard feat for Robin, and the twinge of wrath in her tone sets him on edge. (Has it only been fifteen minutes? How long ago did they leave the apartment? He's lost track of time somewhere between Regina yelling at Marian and Zelena gloating at her sister.)