A/N: This is sort of the goofy little sister to "The Tarantist," because I love playing with dream sequences, and this just seemed like the kind that Emma would be liable to have, post-Hat Trick. Feedback would be awesome! Also, THE TELESCOPE OWNS MY SOUL, YOU GUYS.
Phrenology
She has this weird dream that Jefferson has popped up out of her hat and is leaning far far far too close to her, and she's still in bed, and she might be naked. So, awkward.
"I'm not happy, Sheriff Swan," he says, and indeed, he looks kind of pissed. "Not happy at all."
Emma swallows and lets her teeth touch together in what is not-quite-grinding, left over from the habit she thought she'd kicked as a teenager. Still happens at night, sometimes, when she's stressed. Apparently.
"Sorry?" she tries. Jefferson's handsome face, wait, did she think that or was that the dream-self, either way ohh trouble there. Well. Jefferson's handsome face is practically immobile. His odd-colored eyes are fixed on hers, and she can see right through the depths of them to the clockwork madness within.
"Sorry for what?"
"I'm," she pauses, trying to think what she should be sorry for. "Sorry for bashing you over the head with a telescope?"
"Ohh, I don't think it's me you should be apologizing to," he hisses, and he looms ever closer. She swears he's eighty times bigger in this dream than he is in real life. Suddenly the looming is replaced by something matte black and— rounded? Silver glints somewhere along it. It's too close to really fathom.
"Jefferson. Is that your telescope?"
"No, I'm just very pleased to see you," his voice drifts from somewhere behind it, and she rolls her eyes.
"Oh, come on." She's not sure if she's complaining to him or to her subconscious, or both, or neither.
"Say you're sorry."
She tries to focus on the telescope, which stays silent and merely looms at her in a pointed way, but it just feels like her eyes are crossing.
"Sorry," she says.
"Kiss it," he demands.
Emma stutters slightly. "What? The telescope?" The telescope, or him, because those are the two options open to her at this point, and she's not sure which she'd rather, honestly.
"Apologies aren't good enough." The telescope hovers closer and now she can just barely make out one of his hands, fingers curled protectively around the black matte. "Kiss it and make it better."
"You have got to be kidding me," she starts to mutter, only to have her lips smushed as he puts the scope to her mouth. She's effectively silenced, this way, and the top half of his face comes over the horizon of the telescope like the man in the moon.
"Not kidding," he says, speaking with his eyes. "Dead serious. Or just dead. No, not dead. Mad. No, not mad. Just crazy. But you knew that, didn't you? Didn't you, Sheriff Swan? Savior Swan. Save the world, savior fair. Also, the telescope says you taste like an omelette, and would like to take issue with that."
The telescope is removed abruptly and she says, "I have clearly been watching too much late night television."
He tilts his head, purses his lips. "Hmm," he says, and she likes it, likes the purr of it, like the purse of his lips, likes his lips. "Do you know anything about phrenology? 'Cause I've got a bump on my head like you would not believe."
"I said I'm sorry," she says, defensively. His mouth hovers closer over hers, orbiting, landing gear down, orbiting, flight plan filed, so when he speaks, his lips brush hers in so not enough.
"Kiss it, Sheriff Swan," he says. "Make it better."
She's had just about enough of this, though, so the closer he leans, the more irritated she gets. This is her dream, after all. Isn't it? She plants her palm on his forehead and pushes firmly, following him upwards till she's sitting. Abort mission, abort abort! He may or may not be smirking. She may or may not be blushing, but this is her dream, and she can be naked if she wants to. She pulls the sheet up, anyway.
"Turn around," she says, and he stares at her blankly, so she repeats it. "Turn around. I hit you on the back of the head. Let me see." He half turns, obediently, and she is highly displeased to see that the smirk is even more clear in profile. Highly displeased, or highly pleased, she can't quite decide. She plunges all ten fingers into his thick dark hair. Cold and clinical, she tells herself, and remains so, except not, because there's a faint moan from him at that exact moment and she jolts forward so all there is between them is sheet.
Sheet.
"Where is this mythical bump, anyway?" she says, probing.
"Always the skeptic."
"I haven't been proven wrong yet."
"That's what you think. When are you going to open your eyes?"
Her fingers are so deep in his hair, she doesn't even know if they're still attached. She should probably check. She pulls one hand out and lets it drift downwards—- yep, still there—- and he turns toward her as though pulled by some invisible string. His eyes are luminous with madness and tears and blood and temper tantrums and loss and lust and a deep starry sheen like the dark before dawn. He does the leaning thing again. She's become unexpectedly attached to the leaning thing.
"Open your eyes," he says, just before his mouth meets hers, and Emma does, and then she curses so loudly that Mary Margaret rushes in from the kitchen, dressed in her bathrobe and carrying an empty cup of coffee.
"Did you hit your head or fall out of bed or something?"
"Uh," says Emma, and takes a moment to assess. Well, here she has a choice: she can choose to tell the truth, that she was having an extremely sexy dream about the nutjob who kidnapped, tied up, and assaulted both of them repeatedly the week before and then disappeared; or, she can lie. "Yup," she says, faking a smile even as she reals a wince. "Bumped my head." She rubs at it, for versimilitude.
"Aw," says Mary Margaret, tilting her head like a bird, because that is the kind of thing Mary Margaret says and the kind of thing Mary Margaret does. Emma loves Mary Margaret, she really does, usually, but maybe not just now when she's feeling quite this jumpy. "Take it easy. We're both still recovering, you know?"
"Don't worry," says Emma, and smiles tightly. "My head's my least vulnerable spot."
Lying, lying again, and the truth of the lie is in the mirror, when she chooses to look. She is clothed, at least, so that's something. Someone got in her head, though; it's not exactly impregnable.
"Well, whenever you're ready, I've got coffee going in the kitchen," says Mary Margaret, with that smile that remains cheerful even as her eyes remain sad.
"Bless you," says Emma, and means it. She says it again upon Mary Margaret's return to the kitchen, and means that, too. She needs a moment, a moment or two, or three, or ten. If she can just get back to sleep—
No, she tells herself, sternly. No, absolutely not. Absolutely not, and also, no.
On the strength of her conviction, she gets out of bed— only getting slightly tangled in the sheet for a moment— and marches to the table, whereupon the hat is sitting and looking innocent. She stares at it for a moment.
"I suppose you want an apology, too," she says to it. "For throwing you out the window. Well. Tough luck, buster."
Then she puts it under the bed, just to make a point. It can sleep all day under there, for all she cares, as long as it keeps quiet. And if someone sneaky clambers out of it during the night and finds himself just by her bed, well, she'll burn that bridge when she comes to it.
"Either way," she says to the empty bedroom and the probably empty hat, "I am never eating omelettes that late at night again."
She flounces off and slams the door. It's all done for effect.