I have no idea why I am not a person who enjoys fluff. Why must I be so addicted to angst? Why must I torture myself like this?
These will be five short ficlets, each showing one possible scenario for CS to sink. Not all of them are realistic, and I don't actually believe in any of them, although the possibilities are always there.
Just to be clear: the last thing I want it for Emma and Killian to sink, and I'm quite optimistic they won't.
one
Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.
Stephen King
It happens slowly. So slowly that for the longest time, Emma does not notice. When she does, she tries to ignore it, writes it off as random or unimportant. Everyone has bad days, and he has a lot of dark memories to haunt him, more than anyone should.
He is with her after all, a part of the family, and he makes her feel loved and strong and whole every day, pours all his heart and soul into making sure she knows how much he cares.
It begins with nightmares, nightmares so strong she awakes to his screams, can barely comfort him as he shakes next to her, skin covered in sweat. Emma tries to envelop him in her arms, make him feel her, pulling him back into the real world.
She tells herself that lifetimes of darkness must have left countless scars, and she tries to kiss away the pain, soothe away the deep lines that brand themselves into his skin. At the beginning, he lets her. He is desperate for her comfort, pushing her into the mattress and fusing them together until she can barely breathe. Kissing her so hard she bruises, hovering during the day, trying harder and harder to be the man she knows he wants to be but struggles to find within him.
It happens slowly.
As time passes, he retreats, recoils from her touch, storms out of their bedroom, away from her. Emma thinks he might be scared of her reaction, because he always worries that he is not enough for her. When he takes away her chance to prove him different, it tears her apart, and the further he retreats, the closer she yearns to get.
It happens slowly, but one day Emma sees the way his lips tremble around Mr Gold, the way his good hand curls into a fist, and suddenly she knows what wakes him at night, what haunts him day after day. She covers his hand with her own, gently brushes his skin with her thumb, feels the anger and hatred pouring out of him.
For a while, she thinks it works, that she can suck the darkness out of him like poison from a wound. Still, they never speak about it, about what has changed. He is less gentle, less caring, takes her roughly and turns away after, pushes her away when she seeks his comfort.
It happens slowly. So slowly that Emma does not notice how much he really has changed until her mother questions her about it one day, nervous eyes flickering towards Killian and David at the other end of the room.
He's having a hard time, is all Emma can mutter, and she knows her mother knows she is lying.
That night, when she wakes up to his screams, she does not move. She is too tired to try.
It happens slowly, but then he is gone without a word, and Emma barely finds the words to come up with a lie to explain his absence before tears take over.
He returns weeks later, eyes shining in the light of the moon, and he presses her against him so tightly she feels like he is absorbing her, her warmth, her light. She would give him all of it, but she has Henry, and her parents, her little brother. He is not everything, and she can not give him all. Still, when she kisses him, she wants him to understand that she would.
It has happened slowly, but as she looks at him now, she sees the man she has first met, eyes dark and filled with hatred and determination.
I thought you loved me, she whispers, and she fights to keep the tears away, fights so hard because she feels betrayed. Not only by him, but by her own beliefs. They were true love, so why was the darkness winning him over, why could she not pull him back into the light?
I do love you, his lips are so close to hers that she can taste the rum on his damp breath. So much, Emma. He is telling the truth, and it breaks them both, the way he clings to her. She can see in his tear-filled eyes that he wants to be good and enough for her. Then his eyes fall shut, and Emma feels a salty tear tickling the corner of her lips. But I am not strong enough.
Their lips meet in a frenzy, and they both know this is the end.
Don't leave me, Emma begs against his skin, warm and soft and not enough. It has never been enough.
I'm already gone.
The sea calls him. For a few months, Emma looks towards the horizon every single day, daring to hope that he might return. She knows he will not, knows that he stays away because he loves her, because of what little light she has been able to lock inside his heart. He would not come back to give in to the darkness that haunts him, because he knows it would break her.
She dreams, and she sometimes sees him aboard his ship, fighting and stealing, and cursing her every day of his wretched life for robbing him of his revenge.
It happens slowly. Slowly, the ocean turns into a sea of blood in her dreams, and she wakes screaming, aching for his arms. Instead, she turns over onto the cold side of the bed, where nothing but his memory remains.