heretic
Because the idea of "completely indulgent in her sensuality" is giving me life and taking me higher, and because I'm still playing around with who and what I believe Emma will become.
He never thought he'd eat breakfast with the Dark One, but apparently that is what you do when you are dating her.
Ruby writes down Emma's order, trying hard not to shudder when she takes the menu from her but Emma doesn't seem to notice, too busy adding cream and sugar to her coffee, and he is grateful (these days the power lies so close under her skin that any slight may result in catastrophe).
It's not what he expected to happen. This is not what he dreamed about all those days without her in the Enchanted Forest.
But, like everything in his life, what Killian expects is never what actually happens.
He remembers a time, after Belle banished the crocodile and before the sea witch arrived, when he was happy – when they were happy, basking in the glow of newness, him with his heart, her with confidence in herself and her magic. He remembers how the touches became more than just fleeting, the lingering feel of her body against his, and then finally giving in.
He remembers the night well: the feel of her hair in his hands, of it brushing against his chest (hand on her hip, guiding her onwards, watching the look of ecstasy cross her features), the sweet smell of her skin and the smoothness of it beneath his lips.
He remembers everything about that night because he made himself commit every detail to memory in case he ever needed to remind what he was fighting for.
Like right now.
She looks at him across the table in the dinner, Emma and yet not, darkness inside her blocking out the warm light that always shone through, guiding him out of the pits of despair (and yet she draws him still, like a moth to a flame).
Everything about her is wrong, from her hair to her eyes to the curve of her mouth: everything about Emma twisted, much like that Imp once was, and he hates the man more (all that man touches turns to ruin).
"For someone who couldn't ever shut up," she tells him with a smirk, "you sure are quiet."
That is because there is nothing he wants to say, and too many things that bubble up inside of him. He wants to remind her that he loves her - that he won't give up. He wants to curse the darkness inside of her, wants to rant and scream and shout, wants to beg for it to leave her and volunteer as it's next victim.
Instead, he shrugs, and slumps lower in the booth. "'S'tired," he mutters, tapping his finger against the tabletop, glancing up into her eyes (familiar and unfamiliar, just like everything about her).
She says nothing, but her actions – resting her chin in her hand, looking at him with wide eyes – says everything. Like always, actions over words.
They eat in silence, and the words that he wants to say choke him.
…
Emma fought, at first.
It turns out that there is a limit to how much you can fight the all-consuming darkness.
He remembers the terrified look in her eyes when it consumed her, the way she disappeared then reappeared another person. He remembers the terror he felt when she was pulled away into the night.
It felt like he lost her.
In some ways he did.
She finds him soon after she becomes the Dark One, heels clicking against the wood of his ship, heels clicking in the hall as she enters his cabin.
"I'm still Emma," she says as she sits in the chair across from him, dress so short and legs so bare, thigh-high boots drawing his eyes upwards before he looks away. "I'm just more powerful."
"So you are," he says, clenching his hand into a fist. "So you are."
He remembers a time, after his ship was returned to him, when they drank too much rum, shot after shot after shot in his cabin, until she was writhing in his lap, pressing down against him and making his hips cant upwards into her, teased by her warmth. He remembers that time because they both had too much to drink, and because Emma was unlike anything he had seen before. She was brazen, she was fearless, she did things with her mouth that he wants desperately to feel again, and it was erotic, the way that she took control. The drink took away each and every inhibition and left her very wants and needs open before him, and it was mesmerizing.
(In the morning, she remembered and became shy and embarrassed, but he reassured her with the touch of his hand, the movement of his mouth between her thighs, trying to let her know that she had nothing to hide from him, that he wanted all of her.)
That is what she is like now, drunk on power instead of rum.
And there's a part of him that loves it.
There's nothing he likes more than to see Emma confident, nothing he wants more than to build that confidence up. He is never more in love with her than when she is accepting of herself.
And that's the case now. He finds that he watches her, the way that her head is held high, the mantle of the Savior now slipping off her shoulders (her new title is hardly the same burden as the old) and he wants her. It's no less than he did before, when she was pure of heart and mind.
No. There are times when he wants her more, and that is what worries him.
He wants her when she looks at him with those eyes, and he looks past the skin and hair, looks into her soul and heart and sees a darkness that he recognizes (the pirate, who took what he wanted without care) and he wants. He wants to lose himself between her thighs, wants to fuck her with those boots on, wants her to fuck him into oblivion. He wants it rough and hard and gentle and soft, wants to hold her in his arms and make her scream his name.
And she must know that.
She has to know that.
Because while everyone else tiptoes around her, fearful and worried, Killian embraces the chaos, sails right into the storm.
And she more than rewards him for his bravery.
…
She's Emma but she's not, because she doesn't taste like Emma, doesn't feel like her underneath his palms.
She's got him in the backseat of the patrol car, her hands down his pants and her tongue in his mouth, but there's something wrong. No matter how much he wants her – wants this, the feeling of Emma against him, around him – there's something off (well of course there is. He's trying to fuck the Dark One.).
"Wait," he tells her, lips sliding from hers, and she whines (oh fuck) and presses against him, grips him a little bit tighter, brings him a little bit closer.
"What?" she pants against him, and he needs her not to talk right now, because that voice is Emma's voice but there's something in it that's not (and maybe it's not that he needs her to stop talking, maybe her continued talking is the splash of cold water he needs to cool down his racing thoughts).
"I don't have protection," he says, which is a half truth (he's certain he can do things to her that don't require protection) and half a lie (he's certain he's afraid to do them because she's Emma but she's not).
She falls back against the seat, pouting, and with a wave of her hand opens the door, letting Killian fall out onto the pavement.
"Next time come prepared," she tells him before driving off, the car steering itself through Storybrooke's empty streets.
He pushes himself off the wet road, and says a brief thank you that it didn't occur to Emma to conjure a condom out of thin air.
(Next time he has a feeling he won't be so lucky.)
…
Is it a betrayal when it's still the woman you love, only more powerful?
…
David is angry with him, because he still is with Emma, because he still kisses her and holds her hand, because he tells her he'll love her regardless (it's so true, he loves her darkness and her lightness because he chooses to see the best in her and it's there, still there buried by everything else) and David wants her pure and true.
Mary Margaret is angry with him, because she thinks that he is encouraging Emma's descent into the depths of power that comes from being the Dark One (this is not true and he is frankly insulted). She looks at him like he is a heretic, worshiping a false idol, forgetting what he should be fighting for.
Henry is not angry with him because he believes that true love will save the day.
It's a start.
…
It's not always desperate eager kisses and wandering hands. It's not always a constant battle between the guilt of wanting this Emma while still grieving the one he lost. Sometimes it's simple.
Sometimes, he forgets the darkness that lives inside her, corrupting her from the inside out.
Sometimes she lies in his arms at night, pressed so close that he can feel her heart beating against his chest (her skin is clammy in the night air, the faint sheen of sweat from their coupling making him shiver, yet the cold does not seem to bother her). She threads her fingers through his, pulls him closer still.
"It's not that I don't want to be what I was," she says, lips against his throat. "It's just – for the first time, I'm in control. I'm not the victim. I'm not that girl who was shuttled between foster homes or got knocked up or framed for someone else's crime. Now I have the power. Now I can control things."
Killian wants to tell her that the darkness is something that can be tamed, or that power and control are one in the same. But they aren't, and he knows it. He's lived too long to believe anything different.
He says nothing, pulls her closer and presses a kiss against her forehead.
He chooses to see the best in her, even through the darkness.