Being the Feast
Summary: A story based on the all-too-brief Rumple/Regina scene at the beginning of the most recent episode. Because really, come on, how could I not?
"You think you're the diner at the feast, tasting the offerings. A little love, a little darkness. What you don't realize is, you are the feast. And the darkness has tasted you. The darkness likes how you taste, dearie. It doesn't mind the bitter. And now that it has started the meal, it's going to finish it." – Rumplestiltskin to Regina, "Quite a Common Fairy," 3X03.
He's vile. He is. He is.
She meant it.
But …
The thud of her heart when he appears, like a trapped bird beneath her rib cage, fluttering – no, no, not fluttering, thundering when he materializes, thundering in rage, in pain …
In excitement?
Did he really miss her that much, after just one day?
No. No, of course he didn't. How could he? He's arrogant and calculating and assumes he's so damn important to her that she must have been dead, just because she didn't show up for a lesson. He is using her, she's sure, using her from some heretofore unrevealed nefarious purpose. He's said as much – Someday, you'll do something for me – and even if he hadn't, she knows him (and magic) well enough to know that everything comes with a price, that there are always strings attached.
And yet … and yet…
She is the feast, he says. She is the meal, she is the thing cloaked in white but consumed by darkness, devoured by it, staring into its gaping maw, a lamb to the slaughter, a moth to the flame.
But it is … it is not such an unpleasant thing, to be feasted upon, she has found.
Concentrate, he will whisper in her ear, during their lessons. His arms around her, arranging her limbs just so, his hand on her waist, at her hip, in her hair, brushing it back. His touch is feather soft, but at the same time, his grip on her is like iron.
When he whispers words of encouragement (softly, so softly), and she feels the heat of his breath on her bare skin…
The darkness has tasted you. The darkness likes how you taste, dearie.
He says it. He says to her, this strange, glittering man before her. Rumplestiltskin. The Dark One.
And what is he, if not the darkness personified?
The thought comes to her before she can stop it, as does the blood, the rush of heat to her cheeks, to her face, and to … somewhere else, somewhere … lower, the evidence of her arousal undeniable, the betrayal of her body to her own unvoiced desire to –
"Oh, you're vile! Leave my home!"
He departs, of course, but not without arrogant assurances that she'll come crawling back to him for more. That he'll be seeing her soon.
Afterwards, there is much. There is anger, there is frustration, and there is a fall that just might have been a jump, and then there is an amazing green-clad fairy, one who makes her laugh and makes her hope. There is love, or at least the promise of love, and as she approaches the tavern, spots the man with the lion tattoo, and tries to nerve herself up and put all her anger aside, she remembers him, telling her to come back, to come back, back to the darkness, and bring all her "lovely simmering rage."
It is really so lovely to you, Rumple?
Of course it is. She knows it is.
It's all she's got to offer, after all.
Or so she thinks. Later, it will be her body that she offers up to the darkness, to the Dark One, her virginity (which Leopold never got around to taking) on a silver platter. She will pant and sneer and taunt, but inside she will tremble, the desire to be devoured by him, the sweet dark magic of him, overpowering and terrifying and, in that moment, seeming as inexorable as the sea.
"You didn't just ruin your life. You ruined his," Tinkerbelle had said.
What would it have been like, to be with this man, this man with the lion tattoo? Would he have loved her, truly? Would he have taught her and guided her and tormented her and challenged her and made her feel sated and whole?
Would he have called her his wicked one?
No. He would have saved her, probably. Nourished her, not consumed her.
But the thing is … the worst part of it is …
Sometimes, she thinks, she would once again, as before, really rather be the feast.