A/N: Originally a tumblr prompt and I was pretty pleased with the result. I like to think that curses don't just break and life goes on, that darkness doesn't just get snuffed out, but is a process of learning and healing and mending. Of stitching yourself back together and letting the light back in. Emma's struggle is far from over.
There were still speckles of dirt caked to his shoulder, sprinkled down his skin in the dips in the muscle of his arm. Little blotches tattooed to him, a reminder of what they'd survived. What they'd fought through in the cold, dark night. How far away the battles were with him tucked up in bed, the warmth of their bodies meeting and melting into the cool sheets.
Curses and darkness and evil things had tried desperately, time and time again, to rip them apart. To tear the light out of their hearts, to break them and scatter their love on the wind. But they fought— Christ, how they fought. Clinging to the flicker of hope that kindled inside of them.
The night had been long and cold. Temperatures in Storybrooke dipping below freezing, the heavy air frosting the tips of her hair and numbing her toes in her boots as the Charming Family had trudged through the thick wood. Her own darkness had since been defeated, but that didn't stop other creatures from crawling out of the quagmire and terrorizing the town. Monsters, it seemed, would always somehow be lurking in the shadows.
He murmured in his sleep, fingertips tightening across the smooth expanse of her bare stomach. An unconscious need to stay connected, keep the tether unbroken. Despite the flop of his messy dark hair tossed across her shoulder. And the tangle of feet and legs and toes beneath the heavy down blankets. They had collapsed in a heap of desperate kisses and aching need, coming together in frantic, writhing passion. Until they both had come undone, sobbing out into the still, quiet room. A sweet, warm release that blotted out the world, took away their pain and promised a new beginning beyond the dark depths of the broken world around them.
The sun peeked through the foggy glass of the window, setting alight to the dim room. Her room. Once dark and dusty and cold, she had wiped away all traces of the Dark Swan in the weeks following the Dark One's banishment. It was warm now, lavender walls and floral sheets and dustings of nautical accouterments that somehow completed the space in a way nothing else could. Leathers and underthings tossed about the creaky wooden floor, a trail of desperate desire leading to the bed. Nightmares and memories of cracking bone and dried blood beneath her nails plagued her sleep. The insatiable hunger still rumbling in her gut, a bitter memory that could not be forgotten. But he helped. Every kiss against her lips, her eyelids, the curve of her cheek, warmed a long abandoned part of her heart. Sent heat through her body and awakened the soul so callously beaten down by the crushing darkness.
He stirred next to her again, the rough scratch of his beard rubbing against her arm as he shifted closer. She felt the quirk of his lips in a smile against her skin, the feather light kiss he planted to her arm. Fingers tracing across her waist as he pulled her closer. "Good morning, Swan." His voice was still rough with sleep, spoken into her skin as she let a smile of her own spread across her face. Fingertips running through his hair, scratching an even rhythm against his scalp.
"It's still early. Go back to sleep." She whispered tucking him into her and letting her hands fall away to his dirt spattered arm. Running the length of his skin with the tips of her fingers. The smallest moan fell from his mouth as a breath puffed from his nose. Contented, easy, simple pleasure.
"How long?" He said quietly, pulling away just slightly to look at her. Orange glow of dawn painting her face in warm hues, catching a glint of fire in the green of her eyes. "How long did you sleep, Emma?" A worried knit in his brow replaced his calm, content smile.
It was all she could do to lean her forehead to his and kiss away the lines of his frown. Working her thumbs against the clench in his jaw while she let her lips brush against his. "You managed to wear me out for a few hours, at least."
A long, lazy sigh heaved from his chest as he shuffled himself closer to her, ensnaring her leg between his and kissing along her neck. Down to the curve of her shoulder and back up again. "You know you're meant to wake me, love." He chided through his kisses, lips nipping at her earlobe while his fingertips dragged up her ribcage, "Let me chase away the nightmares."
"One of us has to get some sleep." It came out rough and ragged, a breathless whisper against the still, warm air of the bedroom. Sunshine was slowly filling the dark little space in fiery reds and yellows, a beacon of hope against the dull grey of night. Distant memories of the evening, simmering magic boiling through her veins while monsters and demons threatened her family. The muddy ground splashing as she unloaded her power into the vile creatures. The same mud that still stuck against his skin.
"I'm awake now," he mouthed against her in the soft, sensitive spot where her jaw curved into her neck, "Tell me." His hand trailed up her side, tracing the curve of her breast, up to the underside of her arm. His touch just enough to send a shiver of want down her spine, curling in her belly and down to her toes. Her hands found their way back to his hair, raking her nails against his scalp once again in a soothing but needy pull.
"Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still see it." She confessed quietly, bravery working through her veins as she looked him in the eye, afraid if she looked anywhere else her courage would fail her. And the fear in her dreams would manifest itself in the darkest corners of her heart.
"See what?" It was less a question, and more of a prompt. A gentle nudge for her to say the words aloud.
"What the Dark Swan saw." She breathed out a sad laugh. "The hatred. The judgement. The guilt. Worst of all, the lust. All that power at my fingertips, and this… Desire to sink my teeth into it and just… Indulge." The way her voice steadied as she spoke of her dark doppelgänger's impulses mildly terrified her. The ease in which she recalled her own inclinations to give into the power, and the moments when she did. But his eyes never left hers, and the steady brush of his fingers against her skin soothed the whispers of villainy that lingered deep inside.
He smiled then, crooked and shy, cocking his head to the side and nodding toward the window, "What do you see there, Swan?"
She smiled back, huffed a little huff and let her head fall to the side. Eyeing the bright streams of morning filtering in through the frosty glass overlooking the distant harbor, "Sunshine." It came out sardonically, but she knew what he was getting at. Because they'd had this conversation before. In some way or another, they had it every day.
"Aye," he shuffled down beside her and reached across as if to grab the light. Showy and dramatic and so very him, "Do you remember how hard you fought against the tide of darkness?" His hand fell to her arm once again, rubbing against the pulse in her wrist, "Coming back, every day is a fight back into the light. I lived with the darkness of my own heart for two hundred years, and I can still taste the bitter tang of vengeance on my tongue. Feel the innocent blood I spilled on my hands. But, Emma," at this, he grabbed hold of her hand and interlocked their fingers, bringing their hands to her chest and shuffling closer to hug at her side. "You have so much. The love of your family, your friends. The support of those around you, encouraging you. Helping you along the way."
"Holding me to an impossible standard," she murmured thickly, pressing his hand harder to her chest.
"Perhaps," he agreed, kissing at the back of her ear while his nose pressed into her hair, "But it's okay to stumble along the way. You're fallible, human. And," he brushed his thumb across the back of her hand while he kissed his way down her neck one more time, stopping only to speak into her skin, "You won't ever be alone. If you stumble, I'll catch you. If you fall, I'll pick you up. There's no darkness, no doubt, no curse nor creature nor time nor distance that will keep me from you."
Emma turned back to him. Because she knew through all of it, the tumble into darkness, the curse of the Dark One, the promise of True Love and the power of their sacrifice, he had never given up. Not on her, or himself, or their love. He'd clung to hope, to light and love and he promised her, even when she wasn't herself, he would fight for her heart until the last beat of his. And he had.
She smiled, fingers scratching through his beard while she wound her hands around his neck, tugging him to her and kissing him softly. An early morning, groggy kiss. Full of promise, understanding. The wave of her emotions poured into a kiss that deepened as he twisted himself over her, threading his hand into her hair. The hot, heavy press of his body into hers melting away the cold grip around her heart. The terrible guilt that slithered through her veins and nestled in her gut. Washed away in a warm, thick rush of blood through her body. The swirl of sexual want swimming in her belly and pulsing between her legs as he pressed his bare body to hers, drank her in as he swept away the pain.
Every kiss lightened her heart, every touch and whisper chipped away at the crystalized darkness that ensnared her soul. When he made love to her, she believed she could be whole again. Because when they were together, she was whole.
She could feel the hard warmth of him press between her legs as he kissed her mouth, her jaw, her neck. Grazing her skin with his teeth as he went. Biting gentle marks into her, mapping her skin. The early morning light bathed them in gold, warming her skin as she raked her nails down his back, feeling his muscles tight against her fingertips. He moved like the tides, steady and rhythmic and sure, washing over her, bathing her in his love. Fingers trailing across her body, up from her thigh, sweeping across her belly and tripping over her chest. Thumbing delicately at her breast while he mouthed at her throat, tasting the salty sweat that beaded in the warmth of the bedroom that was hers, theirs.
"You always know just what to say," she breathed as he nipped carefully at her collarbone, rocking his hips against her, teasing the wet warmth between her legs.
"You're somewhat of an open book," he laughed, echoing a distant past that somehow meant even more now. Their centuries-connected souls braided together in a weave of time. Realms and realities and lifetimes seemingly nothing compared to their ageless love story.
"You knew, didn't you?" her breath was shallow as he kissed down, lips and tongue and teeth ghosting across her skin, her chest, her breasts, her stomach. Lower, lower, lower.
"Knew what, darling?" He teased, anchoring his left arm under her, arching her back as his right hand massaged at her hips, her thighs. Careful, gentle.
"We keep meeting," she laughed, though it was more a throaty, heady thing, as he kissed inside her thighs. Palmed at the soft skin of her hips. "Keep trusting," she gasped as he angled her quickly, shifting her as if she weighed nothing and propped one leg over his shoulder, "Keep falling…"
Her words slipped away into a low groan as his thumb trailed down against her as his kisses followed. She was wet against him, his fingers, his mouth. Kisses planted against her, fingers teasing, nose brushing, breathing her in. He answered in a dive, rubbed the length of his tongue against the aching swell of her, swirling and circling and sucking gently as a low, deep moan rumbled from her chest.
He was her light, the silver lining against the storm clouds of her own dark deeds. She told him once, long ago, he was a pirate. A villain. But somehow, she always knew his heart, knew who the man was, buried deep. A good man who loved fiercely. Whose sentimentality burned in his veins, whose life had led up to the good moments, the cherished moments. The quiet ones.
Her breath was short while a strangled gasp squeezed from her chest as his mouth worked against her. Thumb brushing at her, the slickness of her skin. Before slipping one finger inside while he devoured her.
While their evening lovemaking had been desperate, foregoing foreplay and tumbling into a hungry need, their morning was slower. Careful. She had torn at his clothes the night before, bit hard into his skin and sucked deep, purple welts into his neck as he pinned her down, wiped away her tears with his thumb. Whispered his promises while she swore at him, made him wish he'd never been so foolhardy as to throw himself into the demon's fire. "Never do that again." She had growled as she'd thrown her weight and flipped him down onto the bed. Rocked her hips into his and proceeded to fuck him. Fuck away the fear and pain of almost. And please, never again.
Now they were slow and careful and reverent. She was soft beneath him, pliable and gentle. The fear of loss replaced by the light in her heart. The darkness of night, shadows of the past wiped away by the touch of his fingers, the kiss from his lips.
His hand worked against her, inside of her, steady and sure as his mouth continued to drive her into oblivion. Her hands grasped at his hair, scraping her fingernails against his scalp, urging him. And she felt his smile against her as he slipped two fingers inside of her. Curling up with every pull. Hitting the spot that made her see stars and a pulsing electricity shoot down from her scalp to her toes and back up. Mouth continued to work, teeth nipping, tongue circling. Gently sucking and licking and fucking.
"Killian, Christ," a thick curse fell from her mouth as she ground her hips down and up again, winding one hand into her hair while still desperately grasping at his with the other. He took his cue, pulling his hand away and kissed up from her. Trailing wet kisses up her stomach and up her chest, stopping just briefly to lick at the taught swell of her breasts, before kissing and biting his way back to her mouth. Chest heaving, face flushed, she looked up at him with desperate need, whining as she wrapped her legs around his, "So close…"
"I know," he shushed, gently nosing her cheek as he planted small, delicate kisses against her. Felt the burning heat of her skin beneath his mouth. "And to answer your question," at this, he hitched her leg up around his waist and rubbed a few even, sure beats at his own aching length, before leaning down again and bringing his mouth to her ear, "I've always known."
He pushed himself inside of her, thick and hot and wet. She cursed into his shoulder, he breathed her name into her hair. There was no darkness here. No demons, no shadows— only hope. Only light. Their bodies still, both breathing in time, buried inside. Only us.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed a small, gentle prompt into his mud-stained skin. And he nodded a breathless gasp against her as he pulled his hips back. A long, slow, wet pull that made her swallow down hard, bite against her bottom lip and whisper his name.
They made love against the golden light of dawn, in the warmth of their bed. Forgetting monsters and darkness, leaving behind their broken hearts and bruised souls. They moved together, joined and whole, where they weren't villains or heroes. Her role as savior, past deeds as the Dark One, title of Sheriff or daughter or mother— for one, brief moment, she could just be. Hers and his and theirs.
He pushed inside of her again, thumbing at her, driving her hard into the bed, deep into ecstasy. Before she pushed a hand against his chest, pulled herself away and cocked a wicked smile at him as he slipped out of her. The loss of him inside of her ached, but only briefly, as she rolled them over and straddled his hips. Dragging herself along him, rocking into his own desperate need. His jaw clenched and eyes flashed, sitting up to drag his hand up and down her back while nipping at her breasts. "That bloody beanstalk," he moaned as she wrapped her hand around him and sank herself down to take him inside of her.
"Fuck," she hissed, the two of them breathing heavy as she began to rock around him, pressing her forehead to his, "That long ago?" It was all she could do to keep from babbling, pressing her lips to his while she bounced her hips against him, taking him deep with every quick movement.
He only murmured into her neck, bracing her back with his arms as she took him deeper and harder. The rub of their bodies burning her skin, the rough drag of him against her winding the coil, building her release and driving her mad. She pulled herself closer, rocking her hips into him, pulling herself against him, around him. "I'm gonna come…" She moaned, feeling herself start burn, start to melt.
"Not yet," he groaned, grasping at her hip and pushing her backwards into the bed, hair falling in a golden halo around her head as he slowed, moved inside of her with a steady, strangled push and pull. The restraint was almost enough to drive him insane. Almost. Her skin was on fire, tingling, electric. And she was so close, wanted him to drive her over the edge. Wanted him to take all the darkness away in one final push, burn it out of her heart, let it drip from her skin.
Dragging himself out of her, almost completely, she groaned in frustrated agony. Lying beneath him, flushed and sprinkled with the sweat of sex and passion, she murmured, "Please."
And he just smiled, hitching her leg up, then the other, so her ankles locked around his waist as he thrust into her in one, hard push. As she gasped, he smiled down at her, "As you wish."
His hand braced against her hip, left arm tucked up beside her, he let go. Tossed restraint to the wind and fucked her down into the bed. Emma, usually one to bite down her own vocalizations, let herself moan into the still, warm air of the quiet bedroom. Let herself hiss out his name and babble curses as he increased both his speed and force, burying himself deeper and harder with every rough rock of his hips. And God, they were both so close.
She was going to come. She couldn't hold it back this time, couldn't stop the dam from breaking. He was just there, just at the right spot, the right tempo, the perfect angle. Hitting her deep inside at her most sensitive spot, winding the spring tighter and tighter with every thrust. And driving her closer to the edge with every whisper of her name, every rough groan from his throat. His sweat trickled down his arms, washing away the last traces of dried mud, mingling with her slick skin and seeping into the cool linens beneath them.
"Emma," he pleaded, leaning down to capture her mouth with his, hips rocking into her desperately. And it was enough, more than enough, to push her over the edge.
"Killian, oh God!" Her body shook in the release, chest heaved and voice a strangled cry as she burned from the inside out. Waves of pleasure washed over her as he chased her orgasm, fucked her down, down, deep into the depths of pleasure. Felt her clench around him as she rode out her climax, felt the wet warmth of her around him as he let go. Snapped his hips against hers in a maddening, quick, rough pace.
She was beautiful, rosy pink skin, flushed in pleasure, as she gasped beneath him, moaning out in the last moments of her own release as he finally, blessedly came. He cursed, grit out her name and thrust himself into her in quick, concise movement as he let go. Filled her up and reveled in the pleasure only True Love could bring. In all his years never had it been like this. Never quite like her.
They were still, bathed in the yellow dawn light as morning spilled across Storybrooke. A frosty dew clung to the tall grass that grew along the sandy beach dunes, the little wind chime that hung over her front porch. They clung to each other, sweat-covered and sated, his fingers brushing gently through her wet hair, before planting an easy, lazy kiss to her temple.
"Did you really mean it?" she asked quietly, looking up at him under dark lashes, the red flush of sex still sprinkled across her cheeks.
"Did I mean what, love?"
"The beanstalk— you really knew since then?" Her voice was small, but not unsure.
He laughed into her hair, dragged her close and kissed her, "Didn't you?"
"Of course," she laughed back into his mouth, dragging her hand down his neck and through his beard, "Why else would I have left you? You scared the shit out of me." Clicking his tongue against his teeth he just shook his head, pressing a kiss to the space behind her ear, breathing her in as he smiled. And she shuffled closer, dragging his arm up around her and buried it against her chest, "Thank you."
He kissed her hair again and sighed. The darkness couldn't be cured in a day. Couldn't be taken away in one declaration of love, one passionate morning of lovemaking. But she believed in him, believed in his heart, their hearts. The darkness would linger in her, as it had in him, but she knew it would never fester. Would never consume her again, because she had too much love, too much light in her life to abandon it all.
Sunshine poured over them, warmed their already burning skin and painted them together in the morning light. It was a new day, a new fight. And as he kissed at her hair, whispered her name in the quiet stillness of their bedroom, she knew. For at least today, she could meet the darkness in battle and that the light would win.