To love, to love, and to truly been loved.

And to maybe, once more, have love again.

He reflects and wonders as emerald eyes stare up at him, glowing with a messy array of gold framing their tainted brilliance.

It was a frightening prospect, and a dangerous possibility, if one understood the context of it. The overuse and recurrence of that single concept, of that one little word, and of his bitter and long history with it.

"Love is supposed to be the simple part," Emma tells him absently, her tone light. Gold grins humorlessly and toys with a ringlet of her hair.

No, he'd wanted to say, love was an addiction, endless relapses and repetition.

Maybe to warn her from it or from him—likely both—but underneath his cold and calculating veneer lays that lowly coward still; impassioned, and pitiful in his silly desires. So instead he utters her name and kisses her sweet, docile lips.

Poetically tragic is what it really was; a true and venomous form of literary madness at its heart.

His damnable and villainous heart.

For love—his love—was a vile poison. A sordid affliction for all those it happened to befall. It had and always would be.

He can't let Emma have it.

But, for the time being, he'll selfishly take hers.

oooo - oooo - oooo

There's an art to it.

How Gold does that; kisses her in deep and colorful ways.

Emma doesn't understand the perspective of it, or him, or any of this for that matter.

It's difficult to grasp. Her mind keeps swirling. He does that to her.

They were blending together swiftly and much too starkly. As if compelled solely by his will and fine talents; a startling stimulus that had rendered her defenseless to its decadent influences.

Her breathe hitches, her body quivering nimbly. Dark eyes are deviously shadowed as they look upon her, his touch a contrast and playfully teasing.

There's an eccentric quality to him that she had not expected; a baleful flair that was suited and entwined with an inherent darkness that brushed and lulled her in the most peculiar ways.

Like she's being spun; round and round and round. Become disjointed, and not quite herself anymore. If she was she'd perhaps feel more concerned about this affect, this power, he held so easily over her, and of his unrelenting and persistent use of it.

It's making her abstract.

But he distracts her easily and often, speaks her name softly, and sways her mind from such needless thoughts. Emma blinks, and blinks again; her mind becoming a canvas before him.

It fascinates and disturbs her and sometimes she hates the way Gold does that; says her name—Emma, Sweet Emma, Darling Emma—uses it like it's precious, and remarkable, and only his to have.

But she doesn't want it to belong to any one. Not again, not anymore.

Yet this is different, feels different. It's disconcerting and draining to be so fervently pursued and adored. A curious thing it was; to feel this ambitiously wanted, and by Gold of all people in this strange little town.

She's never felt this type of passion before, not like this, like it was somehow and always meant to be.

Destined is the wrong word for it, she wants to believe that, but his sultry and excited breathe outlines her name, once more, along her blank skin with curing and precise strokes and suddenly it's the only one that seems to fit the motif between them.

Insistently, he draws at her heart.

Fated, manipulated—it'll all look the same in the end.

Emma closes her eyes.

oooo - oooo - oooo

A fool for love.

He's always been one.

That was very much Gold's problem, and his most apparent weakness. It made him vulnerable and rash; encouraging him to become susceptible to his own distorted and twisted fallacies.

It should, and needed to stop.

Because he could love Emma, has nearly come to love her, in a way, in a terrible and haunting sort of way.

It may be for the best that he considers letting her go and be rid of her in this manner. For he was predisposed not to suffer heartbreak lightly; murder, betrayal, and violently destructive tantrums were his common outlets to its infliction. And she doesn't know that; she'd only had a glimpse. But he did, he knew all too much.

Like how he knows, with a harsh and defined certainty, that if they continued on any further she'll inadvertently break his heart. His thrice cracked and irreversibly flawed heart. And when she does commit to shattering what's left of it he can't be sure how he'll retaliate or the extent of the thoughtless cruelties he'll rain down upon her for doing so.

And he'll go too far if hurt again, regardless of circumstances. Rejection has always brought out the worst and most vindictive shades of his character. He can't allow that to happen. Not again, not this time. He's done enough to her already.

It takes effort, and a degree of willpower he sorely lacks but he rarely uses her name anymore. And when he does there's no directed force or timbre behind it. Its honest now, said simply for the sake of saying it. Enjoying its sound and wanting to savor the feel of it before it fades from him.

Without its power he suspects she'll be gone soon enough.

But then time passes and, quite astonishingly, Emma continues to come.

Gold cannot fathom why she would but it stirs something inside of him. And so he finds he's unable to push her away, to completely deny himself of her. Obviously, he's lonelier and more careless then he had once thought.

So he rationalizes it; tells himself that she comes to him willingly out of her own tangible desires and because he is that fundamentally selfish, and just as desperate, and so can easily make himself believe it.

He wants to keep her, just for a little while longer. But he'll need to tread lightly, and cautiously, or all would be broken to pieces.

This little dalliance could be nothing more then an illusion. A fictitiously weaved romance that would carry on so long as it remained anything but true.

For him, it was just a gratifying and self-indulgent lie. So he slips his fingers behind Emma's neck and urges her close.

And he was so very good at lying to himself.

Gluttonously Gold coddles and revels in her as zealously as a man who has spent too much of his life without goodness or faith in its prolonged existence.

"Don't let me…" he whispers, pleads, in her hair, against her flesh, over and over, as his hands devotedly worship the curvatures of her raw and supple body surrounding him.

It's a hopeless prayer, "Don't let me love you."


Author Notes:

Hello! Hope you all liked reading the first chapter of Instances, for Love.

I debated for a while how I wanted to post this story. It was originally meant to be part of my Golden Moments series but I knew it was a universe that I wanted to keep exploring and expanding on so it was ether make it a series within a series or make it its own story. I figured this was the better option.

Be prepared this story may have some darker undertones; with a Gold who is a little unhinged by love, and an Emma who may be more emotionally damaged and unavailable to it. And I'm hoping to focus more on character moments then plot so there may be a detached quality to the structure of the story but there will be some changes here and there that will have it effect and deviate from canon and give it its own storyline. It's a process that's formulating in my head, and I really hope that I pull it off successfully.

And most of all, I just want people to read and enjoy :)

Any feedback is appreciated, and just amazing in general. Please let me know what you think.

**Random request - can anyone let me know where I can find and create cover images for my stories...I'm so useless at that kind of stuff. Thanks in advance.