Chapter Text
“Marisol,” Mom said. “Mi corazón. I’m so sorry.” She turned to Gin. “Take care of her, Virginia.” And she fled, bursting out the doors of the hospital room, past the doctor walking in to check on Marisol. And, as Gin’s hand clasped her shoulder, Marisol felt like her heart might break in two.
-- ‘The Queen and the Saviour’ by Amy Carey
"That's enough for tonight, dear," Regina says, closing the book and pressing a gentle kiss on the top of Henry's head. His eyelids have been drooping for almost the whole chapter.
"Mom, we can't stop there," he whines. "It's too sad."
"Henry, it's the end of the book," Regina chuckles, although she privately agrees. She usually doesn't care much about the books she reads Henry, but this time, she's even more invested in the story than he is. There's something about Salbatora Mendez that speaks to her on a visceral level, in a way that no literary character (for children or adults) ever has before.
"There's a second book; I got it out of the library today. Please, Mom? I need to know if Marisol and her moms get a happy ending!"
"Tomorrow," promises Regina. Then she gives him another kiss, whispers, "Goodnight, my little prince," and flicks off the light, lingering in the doorway for a moment just to get another look at her little boy. Something about that ending is making her want to crawl back into Henry's bed, cradle him like a baby, and never let go.
"Mom, I can't sleep if you're staring at me," he grumbles, and Regina rolls her eyes and finally leaves.
She doesn't go to her bedroom. It's too quiet there, too lonely ever since Daniela died. Regina hasn't slept through the night in almost two years. Anyway, there's something important she needs to figure out. After pouring herself a tall glass of cider, she retreats to the study and stares at her computer screen for a moment, wondering if she's really about to do what she thinks she's about to do.
Why does she so desperately need this to be true?
How disappointed will she be if it's not?
Regina takes a deep breath and sets down her cider. Then she opens Google Chrome and types:
Marisol Mendez series Gin and Sal bi or lesbians
The first link that pops up is for a story called "Cocoa for Three," written by someone called charmingduckling83:
(AU, no curse) Gin works at a coffee shop where Marisol and Sal are regular customers. She and the kid become fast friends, but the mom's a much harder read. It doesn't help that Gin is a disaster at pick-up lines. This is basically just fluff without much of a plot, but it's my first fanfic, so be nice? VIVA LA VIRGIN SAVIOR!
Intrigued, she clicks it.
Fanfic? It's not something she's ever heard of before, but she's already hooked. "Cocoa for Three" certainly pales in comparison to its award-winning source material, but it's sweet and heartwarming and Regina pauses to chuckle at Gin's antics several times as she scrolls down the page. When she reaches the end of the story (a kiss between the two lead characters that elicits a satisfied sigh), she clicks a button that says "Kudos" and sits back, wondering what it is that she just read.
At six in the morning, after devouring about ten more of these little stories, she starts to wonder if she might have a problem.
In the coming weeks, Regina spends her early evenings getting caught up on the books with Henry (they get through the second in only two nights, and his teacher calls to complain that he fell asleep during a spelling test), and then she stays up until the early hours in the morning reading fanfiction and educating herself on this whole "fandom" business. Apparently she, as someone who wishes Gin and Sal would get together, is a "shipper," and the "ship" is generally referred to as "Virgin Savior" – hence the "VIVA LA VIRGIN SAVIOR" that pops up from time to time in summaries. (Although in the E-rated fics, it's sometimes called "Sin," which makes her cackle. There's nothing like a good Sin PWP to get her through a lonely night.)
She's surprised to learn that she and her fellow "Sinners," as they call themselves, are not the only shippers in the Marisol fandom. A few of the other ships have some well-written fics that she reads with guarded interest, but she can't quite understand the massive following that Gin and Captain Hook seem to have. Ramon, maybe, but Hook? He just seems untrustworthy.
(She's vindicated when Henry spoils the end of the third book for her and Hook is revealed for the traitor that he is. Then she's embarrassed when he notes her manic smile and points out, "Mom, it's just a book.")
It's around four in the morning, after a twenty chapter angst-fest that had her sobbing into her pillow (because Sal has just been through so much and her love for Marisol is so beautiful and why can't Sal and Gin just see that they were made for each other?!), that she gets an idea for her own fic.
She's up until sunrise scribbling notes on any stray scrap of paper she can find, and the next night, she requests an invitation to the site, and the writer "red_honeycrisp" is born.
One week later, she publishes the first chapter of "Shadowed Heart," and it's the final nail in the coffin. She's officially an obsessive fangirl with absolutely no exit strategy.
And she gets over 100 kudos for it in the first twenty-four hours. Apparently, the Sinners are suckers for angst.
Emma trudges into the apartment and immediately kicks off her high heels. "Successful bust?" her roommate asks. She just nods. They got the guy – a giant asshole wanted for embezzlement and tax evasion – and he'd had a big enough bounty on his head that she'll make rent and even be able to buy herself a nice steak dinner when she's not so exhausted. It's her birthday, not that she has the energy or inclination to celebrate it.
"Nell talked about coming over with cupcakes later," Mary Margaret ventures hesitantly, but she shuts up after one glance at Emma's face.
"Too much human interaction for one day," Emma mutters. It's bad enough that she'd had to wine and dine the guy to get him into custody; she doesn't need to eat cupcakes with her overbearing girlfriend, too.
Then Mary Margaret reminds her, "You haven't seen her for almost a week," and she feels badly. Nell deserves someone better, honestly. Someone willing to take the time and energy to give her all the attention she wants.
"What about tomorrow?" Emma offers as a conciliatory gesture.
Mary Margaret shrugs and just looks kind of sad. "It's your birthday."
With a loud sigh, Emma climbs up to the loft and collapses onto her bed, digging her laptop out from under the pillow so she can check for new comments on her latest fic, "Something in the Water," an E-rated cracky one-shot in which Gin and Sal find a very special river in Neverland that leads to hours of extremely hot sex.
Mary Margaret had been shocked to discover that Emma was writing during the long stretches she spent alone in her room. And, if she's perfectly honest, even Emma herself finds it a little surprising; she's never considered herself a writer. Sure, she'd done pretty well in her high school creative writing class, but then she'd been kicked out of school and sent to prison and...well, suffice to say, the hobby had fallen by the wayside. But now here she is, writing all of these crazy stories about fictional lesbians, and people are actually reading it.
Emma's never really been much of a reader, either, before this little obsession. It's not that she didn't enjoy a good book when she got the chance, she just never got the chance. The long hours at work and the exhaustion afterwards typically rendered her useless for any form of entertainment that didn't include a laugh track. But Mary Margaret is a fourth grade teacher who frequently brings work home with her, and she just couldn't shut up about this one book she was reading with her class, The Queen and the Saviour. For a week, everything was "Marisol this" and "Marisol that" and Emma had finally decided to read the damn thing so she could have a conversation with her roommate for once. Fourth grade reading level – couldn't be too bad, right?
The very next day she was at a bookstore, buying the second and third book and all of the paraphernalia she could find (they have Evil Queen mugs now), and it was somewhere in the middle of the second book that she deduced, somehow, that Gin and Sal must be in love with each other.
Mary Margaret was skeptical at first ("Are you sure this isn't a lesbian goggles thing?"), but after hours of analyzing every interaction and reading online metas and looking at fan art, she's pretty thoroughly convinced. She's written a few fics of her own – epic-length fairytale sagas that Emma doesn't have the time or patience to get through ("Come on, M&M, it's longer than the first three books combined!") – but mostly she just betas Emma's, since the bootleg word processing program she's using doesn't come with spell check.
Most of the comments are fairly routine praise – ego-boosting, but boring – and there's the characteristic "I love this, and you. HUGS!" from mmb_snow. It's nice. It makes her feel a little better about her crap day. It's not like she was expecting any serious feedback: it's not a serious fic.
But then there's one that makes her do a double-take.
red_honeycrisp: I find it difficult to believe that either Sal or Gin would be willing to take a side trip to an aphrodisiac river in the midst of finding their daughter in Neverland. The entire premise of this story is OOC.
It's not that Emma isn't down with a little constructive criticism, when it's appropriate. She knows she's not the best writer in the fandom. But please, it literally says "crack!fic" right in the description! It's supposed to be entertaining, not some kind of deep, provocative character study.
She rolls her eyes and replies:
charmingduckling83: umm, yah, that's why it's called crack!fic. i wrote it in 30 minutes for fun, give me a break.
Maybe it's not the most mature way to respond, now that she thinks about it, but it's been a long fucking day, and this person's obviously not the kind of person who should be reading this kind of story anyway, if they can't take a bit of humor. And then there's another response.
red_honeycrisp: It would have been so easy to have it make sense, though: for example, if they stumbled across the river by accident, you could have written a very similar smut piece about the effects without having either character seem like a callous parent.
Emma scowls. Yeah, okay, there's something there. Of course Gin and Sal aren't "callous parents." That's the whole reason why she likes them, isn't it? Well, part of the reason, anyway. But of course she wants her favorite characters to be good people who wouldn't abandon their kid! Who the fuck is this red_honeycrisp to blindly assume things about her?
Then again, red_honeycrisp has a point; it just doesn't make Emma particularly happy. Rolling her eyes, she types out a response, hitting the keys much more forcefully than she probably has to, slams her computer shut, and goes to sleep.
charmingduckling83: ok maybe you're right, but the whole point of this is FOR FUN. and sex. mostly the sex part
She wakes up in the morning to yet another message from her mysterious non-admirer.
red_honeycrisp: And I give credit where credit is due: the sex scene was certainly very hot. However, I don't think it's too much to ask skilled writers to hold themselves to a certain standard when it comes to plausibility and characterization.
Fine. Whatever. Irritating as red_honeycrisp is, they just conceded that the sex was hot and called Emma a "skilled writer," which no one had done in such explicit terms since her tenth grade English teacher.
She briefly wonders if red_honeycrisp could be her tenth grade English teacher, but she almost immediately decides against it.
charmingduckling83: ok you know what, i'm just gonna take the fact that you called me a "skilled writer" as a compliment and ignore the rest. if you don't like it, go read something else.
Emma leaves the room for just a couple minutes, and there's a new comment when she's finished brushing her teeth and toasting a bagel. Really, red_honeycrisp? Evidently, this person is pretty determined to get in the last word.
red_honeycrisp: Fine, I will.
She stares for a moment at the message, sorely tempted to answer with her own passive-aggressive sign off, but she resists. She'll let red_honeycrisp have this round: an asshole like that is sure to be back.
And honestly, Emma kind of hopes it'll be sooner rather than later. Her roommate and girlfriend are both way too blindly supportive; it's been a while since she's had a good argument.
Sure enough, red_honeycrisp leaves highly critical reviews on most of Emma's other works over the next few weeks, with one puzzling exception. The first fic she'd ever written, "Cocoa for Three," is mysteriously immune to these rants, despite it being, in Emma's opinion, one of her weakest efforts.
The first fic to fall victim to red_honeycrisp's scorn is "One Night in Storybrooke," a one-shot she'd written for her friend Ruby's birthday. (Summary: In the midst of a girls' night out, Gin "accidentally" drunk dials Sal. What happens next is anyone's guess. VIVA LA VIRGIN SAVIOR.)
She's honestly not surprised when she gets the review. Ruby's taste in fic is even more immature than Emma's, and red_honeycrisp doesn't seem the type to appreciate that kind of frivolity.
red_honeycrisp: Why are these grown adults acting like high-schoolers who have never been allowed out of their homes before?
Because that's what Ruby acts like, she wants to reply, but she can't disrespect one of her tiny handful of real-life friends.
charmingduckling83: because it's funny?
But the reply she finds in her inbox the next morning elicits a double-take.
red_honeycrisp: You're better than this.
She's better than this? What the hell does that even mean? Like, she's a better writer than this story? Well, no shit, Sherlock, but given that red_honeycrisp is the one who hates all of her work...
Whatever. She doesn’t have time to worry about it. She'll just ignore that one for now.
A few days later, red_honeycrisp decides to review "Missed Connections" (Summary: When Mayor Mendez starts receiving gifts from a mysterious secret admirer, she asks her new deputy to investigate, but the clues seem to lead nowhere. Suspecting that Gin is dragging her feet on the case, Sal decides to take matters into her own hands. How shocked will she be when she learns the truth? VIVA LA VIRGIN SAVIOR.), a fic Emma's actually pretty proud of. She'd written it for last summer's Mayor/Sheriff-themed Virgin Savior Week, and it's become her most popular story (as well as her longest – five chapters!). Mary Margaret's boyfriend had even read it, and Emma's not sure if he's ever picked up a book in his life.
She's apprehensive when she sees it in her inbox. red_honeycrisp can shit all over her other stories, but "Missed Connections" is her baby. It's the first time in adulthood she's actually felt like a good writer, and she's not going to let that pissy jerk take it away from her.
She's pretty surprised, though, when she actually reads it.
red_honeycrisp: An amusing and engaging story, but there are quite a few spelling and grammar mistakes, particularly in Gin's notes to Sal.
Emma smirks – it's not half as insulting as she'd suspected. And it's wrong. It figures someone like that would let her pretensions get in the way of truly understanding the characters. She can't wait to take this one down a notch.
charmingduckling83: do u really think gin writes with perfect grammar?
A reply comes the following evening, when Emma is finally hosting her birthday get-together with Mary Margaret, Ruby, David, and Nell. Her phone buzzes and she assumes it's a work email, but when she sees the subject line – red_honeycrisp replied to your comment on Missed Connections – she has to read it immediately.
red_honeycrisp: I suppose not. You have a point. Well done.
"What are you smiling about?" Nell demands. "You look like a psycho." Emma just shrugs. Her cheeks hurt and she's probably way too proud of herself for one-upping a random person on the internet, but it's her birthday (well, a couple weeks after, but who's counting?), so she can do what she wants, right?
charmingduckling83: i think i'm winning u over.
red_honeycrisp doesn't reply, and Emma gleefully awards herself the victory for the round.
Finally, after almost a week of being berated for every misplaced apostrophe or tiny characterization mistake, Emma's curious enough to check red_honeycrisp's profile. She's not sure what she expects – something long-winded with esoteric plotlines and entire pages copied from a thesaurus, probably – but she's shocked to discover that the only fic listed is "Shadowed Heart," which she's been hearing about for a couple of weeks on Tumblr, not to mention from a thoroughly smitten Mary Margaret, but hasn't gotten around to reading yet. She doesn't usually have the patience to follow WiPs.
(Set in Book 2) After Cressida unleashes a bloodthirsty monster on the town, Gin convinces Sal to come out of seclusion to help protect Marisol. Sal begins teaching Gin magic while learning to control her own addiction with the Savior's help, and the two women gradually develop an understanding. But when Gin is injured in battle, Sal spirals into a depression that could cost her all of her progress.
It's eight chapters in (out of "?" – that's always ominous) and already has over a thousand kudos. Typical, Emma thinks, rolling her eyes. Fandom always rewards the assholes. (Her most popular fic has about 400, by comparison. Mary Margaret's only has 62.)
She's not going to read it.
No, she's going to read and leave a nasty comment: give red_honeycrisp a taste of her own medicine.
No, that's stupid. She's not going to give this author any more attention and further inflate her ego.
Her cocoa's starting to get cold by the time her curiosity gets the better of her. She clicks the link, deciding she just won't tell anyone she's read it. She'll probably find something that squicks her in the first chapter anyway. She always does with these types of writers – so high and mighty with all of their stupid stans praising their every word (not that Mary Margaret is stupid) and then they can't even write the damn characters believably.
red_honeycrisp, it turns out, isn't one of those writers. She's a little heavy on the adjectives for Emma's taste, but the plot is engaging enough that she can ignore it, and the characterizations are so on point she can almost imagine it as the actual book – well, if the book was geared toward significantly older readers. This writer gets Sal, and there aren't too many people who actually do. She can feel it, deep within her gut, as she reads: the resignation, the anguish, the love. Emma's always liked the Queen as a character, but she's drawn to her more and more as the fic goes on and Sal's struggle becomes increasingly palpable to her.
And then there's Gin. She's seen so many people who can't write Gin to save their lives claim that she's soooo much easier to understand, and then they either make her this faultless hero or some kind of bumbling idiot when she's neither. But red_honeycrisp has her pegged, too – the reluctant Savior with enough street smarts but crippling abandonment issues and a gigantic chip on her shoulder that makes her do stupid things sometimes.
Stupid things like running headlong into some enormous dragon with nothing but a broken sword because it dared look at Marisol and Sal the wrong way. Emma sees it coming before it even happens, feels it with a sick kind of twisting in her gut as she whispers at the screen, "Don't do it! Let Sal – her magic is stronger than yours," and her heart leaps into her throat at the image of Gin lying on the pavement, pale and broken with blood gushing from her head as Marisol and Sal kneel over her, heartbroken.
"You idiot!" Sal raged. "You useless piece of – How could you do this? To Marisol, to your parents, to –"
Her voice cut off in a gasping sob from deep in her chest as she felt a darkness tighten around her heart, squeezing the life out of it as effectively as if she'd ripped it out herself. Falling to her knees beside the hospital bed, she let the tears fall as she finally voiced what her heart had been trying to tell her for almost three weeks. "How could you let me love you and then leave me?"
The only response is the steady beep of the monitors and the whoosh of the ventilator keeping the Savior alive.
The lump in Emma's throat is growing more and more painful and there are hot tears prickling the corners of her eyes as she imagines the scene. This isn't okay: she cannot be crying about this stupid fic written by this pretentious asshole that she was only supposed to read for one chapter and then mock. What's she supposed to do now? Leave a comment? She's too gutted to think of anything nitpicky to say, and she's absolutely not leaving any compliments.
Moving quietly so Mary Margaret won't see her, Emma sneaks into the bathroom and steals the roll of toilet paper to wipe her eyes, since the tissue box is way out in the open and she certainly doesn't want to share why she's crying with her nosy roommate.
Then she opens Tumblr and posts her rant there.
Shadowed Heart WTF?!
#omg #i'm dead #red_honeycrisp killed me #stupid fucking cliffhanger #the tears are destroying my keyboard #i don't have the money to replace this shitty computer #plz make it stop #gin better not fucking die #that's all i can say #how could u #fuck red_honeycrisp #emma's problems for ts
She stares hard at the post for a few minutes and before abruptly deciding to delete it. She doesn't know if red_honeycrisp is on Tumblr, but she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction of reading any positive feedback.
In fact, she won't give them the satisfaction of receiving any feedback at all. For all red_honeycrisp knows, charmingduckling83 has never read their stupid glorious heart-wrenching fic.
Once she's into the meatier sections of "Shadowed Heart," Regina begins to find it increasingly difficult to keep her followers satisfied with frequent updates. She's shocked to discover that in just a few weeks, it's become one of the best known fics in the fandom. Not that she's displeased – it's the first time in her life she's been popular – but some of the comments are incredibly obnoxious, demanding new chapters when she's barely finished updating.
She's not sure what exactly they're expecting of her; she's lucky if she manages to post once a week, what with work and Henry and trying (and usually failing) to get enough sleep so she can function like a normal human.
She supposes one of the perks of being a "newbie," though, is that there are still so many fics she hasn't read. She especially enjoys sifting through charmingduckling83's seemingly endless pile of stories, a lot of fluffy, easy reads with mostly apt characterization and just the right amount of dry humor.
Whoever charmingduckling83 is, she's a gifted writer. Regina is convinced that if she'd try her hand at longer (and perhaps slightly more serious) fics, she'd quickly become a fandom favorite, but she rarely ventures beyond one- or two-shots.
The one Regina is reading tonight, "Swap it Out" (apparently titled after a Justin Bieber song), is hilarious. Sal, leaning out her window one night, wishes that Gin would understand her and stop questioning her love for Marisol. Unfortunately, the Blue Fairy ("Shady Ho," as she's referred to in this fic) overhears the wish and grants it in the worst way possible: the next morning, Sal wakes up in Gin's bed and, she's absolutely horrified to discover, in Gin's body. The rest of the fic involves the two of them repeatedly mocking other's mannerisms and attempting to sabotage each other's roles in the Miners' Day Festival until they end up on top of Sal's desk.
In the epilogue, they're back in the correct bodies, and Marisol asks if they're dating.
It's a satisfying read that has Regina clamping a hand over her mouth the entire time so she won't wake Henry with her laughter, but once she's regained control, she realizes she doesn't quite understand the ending. She rereads it twice (because it's unclear, she tells herself, not because it's both hot and funny at the same time), and then figures she might as well ask. Unlike some writers, charmingduckling83 actually seems to enjoy answering all of her reviews.
red_honeycrisp: I'm a bit confused: at the time of the sex scene, are they meant to have switched back already or are they still in each other's bodies?
When she returns to her computer (after a cold shower and an hour of deeply unsatisfying sleep), she's caught off-guard by the reply.
charmingduckling83: whichever u find hotter ;)
Which does she find hotter? It's a hard question: she can see how there might be merits to both scenarios. She types out a long, detailed response and eagerly awaits the author's reply.
red_honeycrisp: I'm not sure. On the one hand, I believe it would make more sense after they'd switched back, or they would essentially be going down on themselves. On the other, though, if we're assuming they're both women who are intimately familiar with their own bodies, it could be a very pleasurable experience to have a partner who knows their every need.
charmingduckling83: oh...didn't actually mean that as a serious question, but if we're going down that road, who's to say they didn't spend some time getting to know their new bodies, if u know what i mean...
Embarrassed, Regina feels her face heat up. It's so difficult to read tone over the internet. But then she studies the latest response again, and she realizes charmingduckling83 may actually be teasing her. Is she? It's almost five in the morning – her brain isn't working at its full capacity. But if there's teasing, she can tease back.
red_honeycrisp: You're the one who never included such a scene in the story. A gross oversight on your part. ;)
She falls asleep on the living room couch with a smile on her face, and the next morning, she almost chokes on her coffee when she sees the message in her inbox.
charmingduckling83: shit, my bad. is it too late to retcon that in?
When she hears a scream from the living room, Emma immediately comes running with a frying pan held over her head, ready to fight an intruder. It's almost a letdown when she finds her roommate sitting alone on the couch with her laptop and a bowl of popcorn
"Sorry," Mary Margaret says sheepishly, "'Shadowed Heart' updated."
Groaning, Emma steals a handful of popcorn and plops down on the couch, depositing her frying pan on the coffee table. Mary Margaret can put it away later as payback for giving her a heart attack. "Did Gin die yet?"
Mary Margaret stares at her. "You've read it?" she asks curiously. "But you never –"
"God, no," Emma lies, mouth full of popcorn, "I just already know the whole plot from a bunch of idiots on Tumblr." And you, she adds silently.
"Oh," Mary Margaret mumbles, looking confused. "Well, she's still in a coma. Marisol just tried True Love's Kiss, but it didn't work. She's afraid Gin doesn't love her, but Sal's trying to reassure her that it's because she has a head injury and isn't, you know, cursed." She pauses to wipe away a tear. "It's pretty gut-wrenching. I mean, she finally found her birth mother, and – well, you know. But I think Sal's finally -"
Emma rolls her eyes and stalks back up to the loft, where she pulls out her laptop and furiously opens the latest chapter of "Shadowed Heart," clicking so hard she's worried she'll break her trackpad. She's not sure what about this fic or the attention it's getting makes her so angry, but she just wants to take red_honeycrisp down a notch.
(And she's going to do it anonymously, because apparently she's a coward.
A coward who doesn't want the nightly debates to stop if red_honeycrisp somehow gets offended.)
anonymous: i don't even get what people see in this fic. it's just a bunch of melodramatic garbage and people who claim to be obsessed with it are just following the hive mind. come onnnn. gin's on her deathbed – sooo original. this is completely formulaic and we all know how it's gonna end. why does anyone even bother?
The replies start coming almost immediately: red_honeycrisp's army of stans all think she's garbage.
let_it_snow: what the hell is wrong with you?
sidglass: What's wrong with you? This story is brilliant and red_honeycrisp is a genius. VIVA LA VIRGIN SAVIOR.
goldentouchgirl: Don't be an asshole. This story is great. You must be delusional.
jeffinahat: get the fuck over urself, loser.
Guest: you're stupid.
its_zeleeeeena: It might not be all it's cracked up to be, but it's still pretty damn good.
MademoiselleLacey: What the actual fuck? This story is amazing. You're probably so used to reading garbage you just can't recognize brilliance staring you in the face.
anon: shut up u idiot!
arrowmaiden5: Honestly, it sounds like you're just jealous.
redwolfruby: come on! what r u doing? this story is literally the best thing this fandom has ever seen.
mmb_snow: That wasn't very polite. If you dislike it so much, just don't read it and let the rest of us enjoy ourselves.
The last two are the only ones that actually hurt. She'd thought her two best friends would be on her side, but apparently not. (Not that Mary Margaret and Ruby know it's her, of course. Then again, if they did, they'd probably still be pissed. Evidently, she's immature as well as cowardly.)
She doesn't get a reply from the author until the next morning, but when she does, she hangs her head in shame. Why the hell does red_honeycrisp have to be popular and polite. It takes all the fun out of hating them.
red_honeycrisp: I'm sorry you don't like my work, dear, but you're entitled to your opinion. If you have more specific criticism, I'd be happy to discuss it with you. I'm always looking to improve my writing. Thank you for reading!
These days, the first thing Regina does after tucking Henry in is to check the Gin/Sal tag on AO3 for any new fics. While most of what she reads could be classified as mindless drivel (some of the sex scenes are especially cringe-worthy, clearly written by teenagers who need to better familiarize themselves with the female anatomy), there are a few that stand out and make her wait for the fifth book in the series much more bearable
(She shares a few of the G-rated ones with Henry, who enjoys them but doesn't seem to understand her obsession. "They're not as good as the real books, Mom," he whines. And she agrees, but she can't explain it to him, why she needs to read a million different versions of the same two fictional characters falling in love as much as she needs water or even air. She can't explain it to herself, but she keeps reading and she keeps writing like her life depends on it. In a way, she supposes it does.)
Tonight's crop of new fics is pretty slim – unless you're willing to read something with "i suck at summeriez lool" in the description – and none of her favorites have updated. She sighs and downs a large gulp of cider, prepared to close the window and start work on her next chapter, when she sees a new one-shot from charmingduckling83: "I tried to page you twice, but I see you roll your eyes."
Disappointment forgotten, she immediately clicks the link.
Early 2000s high-school AU inspired by the song "Juliet" by LMNT. Gin's the new girl at Storybrooke High who REALLY wants to get the attention of her classmate, Sal Mendez.
Author's Note: Picture young Gin and Sal in their distressed denim and spaghetti straps, being adorable dorks. VIVA LA VIRGIN SAVIOR.
It is, as promised, adorable and almost embarrassingly dorky. Even more embarrassing, however, are the giggles and squeals that come involuntarily out of her throat as she reads it. Worried she'll wake Henry, she grabs one of the couch cushions and hugs it over her mouth to muffle the sound.
The fic ends with Sal agreeing to give Gin a chance and a kiss that leaves warm butterflies dancing around in Regina's stomach.
red_honeycrisp: A cute story on the whole, but a few of the interactions feel a bit stilted to me. Gin's behavior also seems slightly out of character; I don't think she has enough self-confidence (or she wouldn't, at this stage of her life, given her history of rejection) to pursue Sal so doggedly when Sal claimed to be uninterested.
charmingduckling83 must be online now, because a reply appears in her inbox only a few minutes later.
charmingduckling83: she's dealt with rejection from foster parents, but at this point she hasn't been betrayed romantically (this is pre-ramon) so idk. i think high school gin was probably kind of a hottie and she knew it. anyway, it's based on the song.
Regina rolls her eyes. Was high school Gin a hottie? Probably, but the confident swagger she has in the fic doesn't seem particularly appropriate. Her own headcanon is that Gin was fairly shy and possibly edgy – smoking behind the train tracks and that sort of thing – in high school, while Sal would have been less of a queen bee and more of a science geek perfectionist, who lived in constant fear of her mother.
red_honeycrisp: But why would you choose that particular song to describe Gin and Sal's relationship?
charmingduckling83: idek? someone asked me to write a fic based on a boy band hit, and that's what i came up with? if you don't like my stuff, don't read it.
That's the problem, though. She does like charmingduckling83's "stuff," she'd just like to see the writer try her hand at a less frivolous topic. She has so much potential, and she's wasting it on this fluff when she could be producing masterpieces.
red_honeycrisp: I just feel that a relationship between the two of them, at any age, would be far more fraught with anxiety and conflict. That song choice doesn't make sense.
charmingduckling83: some of us like our fluff. what song would you have chosen, angst queen?
Regina considers for a moment, wondering if that was a serious question. Then she shrugs and figures she might as well respond to it. Boy band music isn't her forte, but Daniela had a few tracks she liked back in those days. After a brief scroll through her iTunes library, she thinks she has her answer.
red_honeycrisp: For the era and the genre, I'd choose All or Nothing by O-town.
charmingduckling83: uuggghhh you would. why don't you just write that shit yourself then?
Scowling, Regina closes the tab and finishes the last of her cider. Maybe I will, she thinks. She's not in the mood for "Shadowed Heart" tonight anyway.
It's not even forty-eight hours later when Emma sees it in the tag: "I've had the rest of you; now I want the best of you" by red_honeycrisp for charmingduckling83. It's the first time anyone's ever "gifted" a fic to her, and she's not quite sure how she feels about it
It's already amassed eleven comments, which she views first with no small amount of apprehension. Nothing about her, thankfully, and she lets out a breath that she didn't realize she was holding in: just a bunch of people praising the genius of red_honeycrisp (ew) and demanding another chapter (even more ew). Oh, and apparently it's another giant pile of angst. Great.
red_honeycrisp really went all out. There's pining and fighting and passionate kissing in supply closets...and betrayal and tears when it's all for nothing, and somehow at the end there's still this tiny bit of hope, and Emma wraps herself in her baby blanket and sobs for a solid five minutes because this may be an AU about fictional magic moms, but she swears it's about her and Lily.
It's not. Obviously it's not, but somehow all she can see when she reads the last sentence is Lily's back getting smaller and smaller as she walks away, and the emotions are as fresh as ever and the tears won't stop falling.
It's oddly cathartic.
She wants it to stop.
Once her eyes are dry enough, she vents in her Tumblr tags and considers her position. She doesn't want to give red_honeycrisp any more attention (come on, she's not that great), but she can't just leave this here with no comment because, well, it is that great.
In the end, she goes with her old standby.
anonymous: this fic killed me. (in a good way...maybe.) thanks for the crying jag. totally needed it :/
And another:
nonnerz: OMG you are amazing. i am dead.
And another:
A.NonnieMouse: are you buffy because you just slayed me. (i mean i'm not a vampire but goooddddd that fic)
And another:
anon: this fic brings me all the way back to my high school self's outrageously terrible taste in music and relationships.
And another:
nonnnnnie: is someone cutting some fucking onions around here?! it is raining on my face. this fic is a rollercoaster in the best (and worst) ways.
Then she splashes a handful of water on her face, drinks about five beers, and calls Nell to break up with her.
("You never wrote anything for me," she sobs.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Nell replies, sputtering in confusion. "Is this...are we...?")
Then she wonders if she actually just dumped her girlfriend of two years for a random fanfic writer on the internet whom she knows absolutely nothing about, and she drinks another beer.
Every time Regina's phone buzzes with an email alert, she rushes to check if it's finally a review from charmingduckling83.
("Mom, what are you doing?" Henry demands when she picks up her phone at the dinner table. "You're breaking your own rule. Does that mean you have to ground yourself?" The truly sad part is that she leaves the house so rarely, apart from going to work or driving Henry somewhere, that being grounded wouldn't make that much of a difference. Well, she supposes if she took away her computer...)
After a week passes with no comment (not even kudos – she's checked all the usernames multiple times), she resigns herself to the fact that it's not coming.
She tries to find consolation in the twenty-five other reviews, most of them positive, but it just isn't the same.
She's not sure what she expected; she and charmingduckling83 aren't friends, after all. Sure, the snarky comments they leave for each other are the closest thing to friendship Regina's had in a while, but they don't have the kind of relationship what would lead to writing fanfiction for each other.
She'd enjoyed the debates; they made her feel more alive than she has in a long time – since Daniela was alive, really. (Or, if she's being honest, since Daniela got sick.) The banter back and forth over comments... there'd been something to it, hadn't there?
She'd thought...
Well, clearly it was all one-sided.
There's a note in her inbox from mmb_snow, congratulating her on some nomination for a "VS Fan Award," whatever the hell that is. She can't find it in her to care.
Instead of editing her next chapter, she goes to sleep. And if her pillow is damp the next morning, it's not like there's anyone who'll know.