The small man stood on the porch of the Victorian house watching gray clouds crowd out the last patch of dirty blue in the sky. He leaned on the railing, lifting his right foot off the ground to ease the ache in his ankle. It never lied. Soon it would rain.
Thunder and lightning flared in the distance, the electricity in the air making the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
No, not just electricity he amended. Magic. Dark magic.
Even though he no longer possessed it, he could still sense it. It called to him like a lost lover, always just out of reach.
He heard the creak of the wood on the porch behind him. Someone stepping lightly on the squeaky board by the door.
Not someone. Her.
Finally. It was a relief in a way. He was tired of waiting.
"You can come out dearie," he said in a sing-song voice. "Let's have a look."
He wondered what the curse would look like on her. You could manipulate it, once you learned how to create the front that you thought best suited to your needs. There had been dark ones terrifying, intimidating, disgusting, seductive, even childlike in appearance. Gradually, you could learn not to look human at all, to help distance yourself, keep them away, yourself apart.
Emma stepped from the shadows. He was relieved to see she still looked human, though clothed entirely in black. No lizard scales for her.
Yet.
"I should kill you, Gold," she hissed as she strode purposefully across his porch.
"By all means make yourself at home," he replied with a wry twist of the mouth, waving to his garden furniture with one of his old affected gestures, however much his heart quaked within him and he longed to flee and hide. He couldn't forget how bereft of power he was now, how vulnerable to everything and everyone.
"All this, it's all because of you."
"You have my sympathies," he said, though he doubted she'd believe his sincerity. "It's not an easy path, the one you've chosen."
"Did I ever really have a choice?" Her voice oozed bitterness.
"You always have a choice," he said, echoing the words of Zoso, the man who'd passed the curse to him so long ago in a deal he didn't understand, beginning a long-lived fascination for him with contracts and the fine print of human existence.
"Perhaps I could interest you in a deal Miss Swan…"
"Screw you and your sketchy deals," she snapped. Her body swirled into a cloud of roiling purple-black smoke, reappearing now in front of him, startling him into letting go of the railing. "I make the deals now."
He stumbled backward at her menacing approach, barely managing to grab the back of a deck chair for support.
A cruel smile curled at her lips to see him so discomfited.
And yet a moment before, he couldn't help but notice the look in her eyes right when she appeared in front of him out of the cloud of smoke, frightened, confused as if for a split second she wasn't entirely sure how she'd got there. Her teleport had not been planned, it had just happened. Though she'd quickly covered it up as if she meant to do it all along, but he could see how her new powers and their unpredictable nature frightened her. He could use that, if only she gave him enough time.
"You tell me how the Dark One curse works and how to get rid of it."
He shook his head sadly. "It doesn't work that way. Once you take it on you're stuck with it. The curse was bound to me for over three hundred years. Don't you think I would've got shot of it if I could?"
"No, you were too afraid to let it go, of being defenseless without magic."
"Was I now?" he taunted her. "Think back. I came to this world without magic to find my son. I subsisted like this, as you see me now for 28 years by my own choosing."
"But no one knew who you were then. You had no real enemies. You didn't know you'd ever had magic yourself, so how could you miss it?"
He had missed it though, during those 28 years. He'd been aware of feeling so hollow, so wrong for some reason, he just wouldn't have been able to tell you why.
"At least let me tell you my offer," he said mildly. "If you wish to eschew it, than by all means do, it's not like I can collect on any favour you owe me these days."
"Fine!" she said and evaporated in smoke again, to appear sitting in the chair across from him, arms folded across her chest pouting like a child.
"I can't teach you to be rid of the curse, but I can instruct you in how to contain the darkness, how to remain yourself for as long as possible, long enough perhaps for someone to find a more permenant solution."
She looked up. "And in exchange what do you want from me?"
"Protection," his voice quavered slightly, he was not looking forward to begging, but if he had to…
"I've made many enemies over the years. Once they find out how…"
"Pitiful you've become?"
"I'd prefer indisposed…" he snapped, before remembering she could crush him with a thought. He smoothed out his tie and attempted to speak more softly. "Well, perhaps they may seek vengeance."
"Perhaps?" she snorted. "Everyone in this town wants a piece of you and I don't see why I shouldn't help them to it."
"Remember, you need me," he growled.
"Not all of you…" she answered and clenched her fist.
"I could probably make you tell me, you know." He could sense the darkness in her now, tangling its cruel threads further and further into the weave of her soul. As her fist clenched tighter and tighter an invisible force pinched his injured leg, squeezing it in its most broken places, tighter and tighter… "How would you like to spend the rest of your days as a puppet on my shelf? No? How about inside a mirror? Trapped in Pandora's box? Tell you what, I'll let you choose!"
"Emma stop!" he gasped as white spots danced in front of his eyes. All the schemes and tricks he'd run through his mind, all his many ways to verbally manipulate her to his desired position evaporated under the onslaught of pain and fear. "This isn't you!"
"Isn't it though? How dare you ask me for my protection! You deserve to suffer for what you did to my family!"
My family. His eyes watered, but his breathing evened out as he remembered he still had one more card to play. "Maybe I deserve to suffer, but my child doesn't! Please, don't let him grow up without a father."
"What is this?" she laughed bitterly. "Neal is dead."
"Not Neal."
Her eyebrows shot up. "You and Belle are…?"
"Yes," he nodded and couldn't help, but let a small smile shine through. "Please, we want to give him his best chance."
"His best chance?"
The light seemed to return to Emma's eyes for a moment and her expression softened as her fist unclenched, releasing him.
"All right, Gold. Teach me."