A dark and twisted one shot about Emma's past.
The background is she believes Henry, in the curse and in that blasted one sided book.
She is sure that Regina was The Evil Queen. But that hasn't stopped her attraction to her, stopped them from entering into a sexual relationship.
Set anywhere in Season 1- obviously!
Enjoy as best you can, rated mature for the mentions of adult content.
All comments gratefully received.
Everyone loves secrets right? Everyone likes being trusted, the fact of knowing something someone else doesn't. Or even gossiping, people love that, sharing a secret that then spreads like wildfire, being in the know and feeling superior about it.
So why do I keep thinking back about this secret I know, and shuddering? Wishing it wasn't true and I take no joy from knowing because the nature of this secret, it is dark and dirty and should cause nightmares. Yet once I knew it I decided I was already in too deep with the person and that I didn't care, I just wanted them and it didn't matter about their past, however twisted it was.
But now, I wonder what it says about me, the fact that I hardly batted an eyelid, in fact I'm pretty sure we rolled straight into bed after I laid out my argument, the accusation and she didn't deny it. The sex was razor sharp like always. I'm not even sure I gave it too much thought, easily distracted by the curves and soft exposed flesh. I probably just shut it out to deal with later. I think later might actually have arrived now, because it is eating away at the back of my mind, asking it's whispered questions, about me and my acceptance of something I knew to be very wrong.
To touch on just a few of the sickening details, there is murder, sexual abuse, a whole festering pot of family hatred and twisted love and bent desires, and now I'm right in the middle of it all. Knowing, all be it many years after the event, but saying nothing. Maybe there is nothing to say. Maybe my role in this is never to cast judgement, only being there to hold and soothe, to love and try and make things better. To try and ignore the past, send it back into the locked box, far away from everyday life and the harsh light of the days here.
And the irony is I have never felt safer. She might have done horrid things, but I know with a deep certainty she never would to me. As the passion ignited between us there was always discussion, there was always mutual consent and desire, and it was never forced. And in the past I had known it to be forced, back in the foster system from an overbearing "uncle" that I can never quite forget no matter how hard I drink. There were sexual encounters that were so half hearted because I wasn't enjoying it or didn't really want it. But I needed something, either a job or a roof over my head and I'd opened that naïve and stupid mouth or worn the skirt just so thinking I was in control and could manipulate things into getting my way. Being too arrogant, brazenly following it through, the thing I needed being more important than my own self-worth.
Engaging in behaviour I knew wasn't right, petty theft, drug use, casual sex that was often fuelled by drink and sometimes became hard and aggressive, bordering on physical abuse. I was often bruised either actually with dark blemishes on my skin or emotionally, but burying it deep down, hiding from it. I was damaged, being so desperate for money or affection the moral compass inside me got ignored or switch off altogether.
There was a point where I'd been so lost and so ashamed I had allowed myself to be blackmailed into doing things. Low life scum I had somehow become surrounded by and all they did was take advantage of me. I realise now I was weak and vulnerable and I had needed a friend and instead got false assurances and fake smiles. It turns my stomach to remember being held in place, made to deep throat until I thought I'd be sick but it happened. And I can't remember if it was for drugs or a tank of gas, not like I can still remember the feel of his hand wrapped round the back of my head, holding me in place as his cock spasmed and emptied down my throat.
It was the darkest of times where I felt my mind being pushed and played with and manipulated until I didn't know what to do for the best anymore so I just gave in, closed myself off emotionally and let them fuck me, both physically and metaphorically.
It took years to get out of that cycle, to find my way back to a proper life. To settle, to continue with education, a descent job, a regular place to live and to begin to rebuild and grow.
Now there was a new town, a fresh start and a gorgeous woman. Being with her was explosive and was a stark comparison to the years before. With her there was freedom, there was pleasure. There was tenderness and a choice which had been sorely missing from the past. And it brought out the heat in me, meaning I was no longer searching for a sexual release, it came easily because I relaxed in the comfort of her arms, rocking into her beautiful body. And everything felt right and that helped obscure the lie we were living, helped keep the secret buried and it meant the past just that, and we were ok.
It was so much more than ok, it felt safe and I felt wanted. It was good and left me feeling worth it, so different from the way I had let my body be used in the past.
Ultimately however much hurt and regret was inside her, she never took it out on me. There was only softness, love, heat and need between us in her bed. And there was need within me too, broken, twisted need, the need to forget the past and to feel something other than desperation.
So in the mess of twisted sheets we fitted together and made the best of it, burning each other with intensity because there was never enough of anything to calm the raging spirits and put out the fires of bitterness, regret and resentment we both felt towards life.
Life that had melded us both when we were young, both of us equally foolish because we had believed what we were told about life being good and love being true. She was broken like I was, just by different experiences, and somehow we had managed to find each other and forge an understanding. When we were tied together in bed, things felt better, if only briefly. The pain was shared, mixed with pleasure and diluted so it wasn't completely consuming.
And for that, I think I'd forgive her anything, because she was the first person to be kind like that, to care and be interested in me. And that deserved my loyalty and trust to keep her secret. Even though now it might seem like a mistake, as things slowly unravelled and the lines separating the impossible from happening started blurring, making the possibility of a fairy tale world inhabiting a town in Maine a reality. And as it starred me in the face I wanted to shy away, but I couldn't. Had my whole life, the suffering and the periods of losing myself all been for this moment, to give me a twisted kind of strength to see this through?
I feel something sit in my stomach, fear or guilt I don't know, possibly both as I start to wonder if perhaps I should have run away from her screaming. I didn't though, I fell into bed with her instead so the thought is irrelevant.
Can I convince myself her behaviour was just a lapse in judgement, a youthful mistake compounded by lies told by a manipulative mother and then Rumpelstiltskin? Was her broken heart any justification at all? Did the dark magic corrupt her innocence or was her heart already blackened? I will never know and the questions never stop so to save my sanity I push them back, further and further until they are just another thing I am ignoring.
What I do know is that some of life is about forgiveness, giving people a chance to change and better themselves. Is anyone else qualified to dictate any kind of morality and judgement in this case? We are all allowed mistakes, to do horrid things, I know I certainly did. I stood by and watched while people were beaten in prison, I brought drink and drugs into a house with minors, I behaved selfishly time and again so I have no right. I lied, I stole and I cheated.
It is part of the struggle I have within myself because when everything is stripped away I'm not the good person I like to think I am. And I am definitely not the good person Henry believes in, The Saviour. When you start to dissect my past it is full of bitterness and regrets. I am trying now, and if there is a decision to make I take time and think about it, hopefully doing what is right rather than what is easy. Except with Regina, because that is both easy and feels right but only when we are together, otherwise I know it is wrong, so very wrong. And we are back to the secret, if I didn't know then I might not be so tortured.
I am old enough now to know life is full of grey areas, and I inhabit them far more than I want to. I'm not automatically drawn to the light, I struggle daily and even when I pick the light and right choice the dark still calls to me. So if someone else was also drawn to it, then can I understand and have no right to cast blame. Especially when I look in her eyes at intimate moments and she her regret. She isn't consumed by the darkness anymore, but it has left its mark and twisted her.
Would I defend her if I weren't currently warming her bed? That is another question I push away. Henry is vehement in his attack of the woman, and yet I can see a different side, a loving mother and diligent Mayor. She has good qualities if you choose to look.
Maybe I need to see the good in her. I feel we are drawn together because we are so similar. We are broken and damaged, running from the past that we can never change. And if there is a chance for her, if there is goodness hidden deep down, then there is also hope for me.
And yes the character study of myself will slowly drive me mad, because I don't like the person I was, but I like the person I am now even less. At least I was young and stupid and had excuses for behaving like I did. I was lonely, reeling from being abandoned by my lover, insecure and at times desperate. I didn't know any better without any real role model to guide and show me, no parents to step in and stop the downward spiral. And now, well I'm older and supposedly wiser. I have a son to think about and there is no excuse for the lies and the destructive behaviour. I should know better and should never have let myself get involved with the damaged brunette.
And it sounds childish and like I'm sulking, but I don't want to stop. She makes me happy, gives me something I was previously missing. But I recognise it is dangerous and I am not the only person involved here. Apparently there is a whole town of people uprooted from their homes and living a lie. It would be selfish to keep indulging in my own pleasure but that is all I really want to do.
In the end I have done this and I can't go back, only forwards, so what choice is there? I sometimes feel there is a finite amount of honesty and goodness inside all of us and every day a little bit more gets chipped away. I wonder if all of mine got crushed after I left prison and I lost my way because it is so easy to fall into her bed and then pretend like we hate each other in public. The façade is easy, the lie requiring very little thought to maintain. I can't even tell my son. Do good people behave like that? I don't think so.
No I am certain good people don't behave like this, but in my defence life after prison was a battle and I know it changed me, warped my perception. I was already guarded and troubled but I once had hope, strength and motivation things would get better. I wouldn't say I was happy because the foster system had worn me down and shown me life was hard but I wasn't like I am now. Eaten up with guilt and doubting every decision.
I feel broken and I don't want to get up in the morning. I make myself, because that is what adults do, they hold down a job and they set an example to their children. Money is a daily requirement to pay the bills, and Granny's diner won't feed me for free no matter how friendly I am with Ruby. The only thing that perks me up is a text from a certain sarcastic brunette and the hope of getting laid, and with that thought the guilt starts again.
Plus going to work keeps the darkness at bay, it is a distraction and stops it engulfing me. I think I'd go crazy if I had time on my hands, time to think and remember. I just hate how hard things are now, everything in my life seems to have been fought for, never freely given. Except for the warmth and kindness between Regina's sheets. That is free unless you count the demons it causes and the emotional strain it is costing me.
And everything feels like a struggle, there is nothing cushioning me from my mistakes, and I feel fear about making more bad choices grasp at me. There is a lack of spark, no fire burns inside me anymore. I feel lost again without a clear path to go down. There is no drive and nothing I want because the fear stifles it before the idea can take root and blossom into something to look forward to. It leaves a bitterness behind and a pervading and deep need that filters through everything I am. And it is a need that doesn't get satisfied because it is the need to feel acceptance with myself, to feel I made the right decision, to feel positive about something in my life. And that never comes.
I feel better in her bed because she wants me, despite my poor life choices or because of them. It doesn't matter why, just that she does and between us there is mutual acceptance. And I make her feel good as she comes often at the ministrations of my hand or the touch of my tongue and I know there is something I am good at and can be judged as a success. Something I can be proud of, unless of course you know the lover you are currently intimate with is a murderer. Push it away, you can't change your actions or hers.
It is with a heavy heart I acknowledge I am only surviving during the day, not living. I only come alive at night with the brunette above or below me and we are on borrowed time. Her secret will eventually be revealed and if I am not careful I will get caught in the vortex that can only pull me down further as the world we know spins away to be replaced with hurt and accusations.
Then there will come a time to pick a side, to tell the truth, to either defend her or to give her up. I want to believe I'll do the right thing and that I have honestly changed and learned to be a good person.
Is Regina worth that that risk? I don't know, I'm certainly caught up in something with her. And can I live with myself if I make the wrong choice, can I let her go? I remember the pain of betrayal, of being abandoned so well myself, to do that to her when I know she is already broken would devastate her, probably killing the last good part of her. It would be on my conscience forever, but then so much is already.
What I do know is the phone has just vibrated and it will be a text from her, saying there is a glass of apple cider at her house with my name on it and I am going to walk over there and get lost in her bed for a few hours. I'll happily forget the past and the present, hoping for a future that can never be as the clock in the tower continues to tick round signalling the countdown to our combined destruction.