The Girl In The Darkness (Patreon)

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4358774

Another day and Regina was no closer to saving Emma than before. Ridiculous: her saving Emma. If she thought about it, sometimes, when it was late and her mind whispered things to fill the void her mother had left… what was there to save Emma from? From having power? Too much power to ever be hurt? Regina almost wished it had been her. She at least could… survive in those conditions.

But then she remembered; shut the little voice up. Being alone was what she had to save Emma from. And Henry, and herself, because maybe they still had each other and Robin and all the friends and family Emma had slowly pulled Regina in to, with her trust, with her hope, but without Emma, she still felt alone.

Like she was in the old days, with the old need, only this time it wasn’t to get revenge or grab power or be safe. She wanted Emma back. She needed it like she was on fire again and that was the only thing that could put it out.

Still, even when she was the Evil Queen, even when she was at her most obsessed, she could still sleep. She showered body, brushed teeth, combed hair, always hoping something would come to her, some jolt that would keep her working through the night unraveling whatever frayed thread could free Emma.

Nothing came to her. She kept betraying Emma, giving into her slumber. Clothes in the hamper, nightie over her body, the death-row walk from her bathroom to her bed. She collapsed facedown on the covers, wishing her body to just rip out of the tension that held it, that trembling need like her muscles were preparing her to simply beat to death her troubles, even when it was never as easy as that.

Regina pulled the sheets over herself, rolling over onto her back to fully embrace them, and saw Emma on the ceiling, arms open, legs crossed, splayed out over Regina like a lizard sunning itself. Her body unclad. Her smile welcoming.

The Dark One floated down, a spider at the end of a thread, and Regina watched her all the way down. No one else understood. No one could understand. The power wasn’t just strength, it was beauty. Seeing all the vulnerability chiseled away, replaced with cold hard strength—it was intoxicating.

Emma said nothing. Just touched down, hunched over Regina, and was kissing her. The thought of her beauty hung in Regina’s head. It grew like a tumor, this sick lust, this sudden taste for the chill of Emma’s lips, and Regina kissed her back. Ice-cold fingers on her face, holding her still for the tongue in her mouth—shockingly, enthrallingly warm. Emma didn’t kiss like Daniel, didn’t kiss like Robin. She sated needs Regina hadn’t known had been in her. Regina felt the sickly sweet tang of her old obsessions, her craving for power—Emma was meeting them, giving her what she wanted—

“No!” Regina ripped herself away, hands bunched in the mattress pad to keep them from flying to Emma’s nakedly offered body, and counterintuitively trying to flee from Emma across the bed, feet kicking and pedaling over the satin of her bed. Emma didn’t try to stop her, just caught up the sheets that Regina kicked away, hoisting them like a weapon. Regina thought, at last, to let go of the bedding and run—not because she wanted to, but because she didn’t want to. She longed to stay in that bed with Emma and be consumed.

Emma wouldn’t let her. The tightly drawn sheet wrapped around Regina’s throat as she turned, pulled her back to Emma’s breast, holding her too fast for Regina even to speak. Emma did it for her, words a croak that seemed pained, unvibrant. So unlike Emma. So very much like herself.

“I have the power now. And the knowing. Know so much more than you do. No more teaching. Scary, huh?”

“I’m not afraid!” Regina fired back, pulling her fingers under the noose to be able to speak.

“Couldn’t be afraid of us. Loves us so much. Little girl pulling pigtails, thinks we’ll be fooled. Thinks we won’t think about it because we’re with our pirate.” Regina could feel Emma’s smile, the teeth sharper than ever, the tongue flickering out with its tip almost-but-not-quite at Regina’s cheek. She shuddered. It wasn’t fear. “Little boy who thinks he’s good enough for us. Still just wants to be a good boy, with his good girl, so boring and pretending he’s naughty. Don’t want that. Want you.”

“This isn’t you, Emma.”

“Just like wasn’t you that killed all those people?” Emma reached between Regina’s breasts, cold fingers stroking the skin over her heart. Finding a gentle drumming there. Not fast. For all this, Regina wasn’t scared. Emma’s fingertips lightly breezed down the inward curves of Regina’s cleavage, following the trail a drop of sweat would take, and now Regina’s heartbeat rose. Anticipation. “Reached right into their chests. Made yourself a collection. How many of theirs to equal one of yours?”

Regina squelched any other feelings in annoyance. “If you’re trying to make me go dark, it’s been tried. And Maleficent was far better at that sort of thing than you.”

“Ooooh. Oooh.” Emma pulled on the noose, hard, whipping Regina down to the mattress and holding her underneath herself. Regina could see her again; wasn’t able to brace herself for it. The sharpened angles of her cheekbones, the stark whiteness of her face, the hair that tightened at the back of her skull like a fist, and the lips that bled from her bared teeth. It was almost entirely alien, repellant, except this picture was painted on the canvas of Emma Swan. And Regina felt herself drawn to that. Her body tingled in the presence of Emma’s becoming. The woman she had known, now a goddess…

Emma’s strange ululations ceased as quickly as they had begun. She craned down to Regina’s prone form, face over Regina’s as if about to deliver True Love’s Kiss to a sleeping beauty. While she held her down. The mocking quality made Regina’s heart race when it shouldn’t have.

“How many of those hearts were dark, Regina? So many. Yes… so many. Took you a long time to find a pure one. Especially with those who had dealings with you… I see now. Smell now. Darkness is the natural state of us. Goodness is the delusion. The sickness. All the sinners, pretending they’re not like us. You waste time wanting to be like them. There’s no them. A mirage.”

It was still Emma, and Regina’s mind jumped to where Emma’s thoughts had to be speeding. “Your parents made mistakes…”

“All we are is mistakes. They just make us take responsibility for them. You, now me. We have to be bad. We have to be bad so they’re not as bad as us. Why not be bad together?” Emma lowered her head to Regina’s chest—heartbeat still racing—purring as she felt Regina’s breast rise against her cheek. The nipple a small pebble, brushing over Emma’s lips. “Wanted you. Wanted you back when I was… small. Now I can have you. I can have anything…”

“I don’t want you…”

“Liar!” Emma forced Regina onto her belly, the sheet in a coil around her wrists, her legs, tying Regina tightly as she muttered black curses under her breath. Emma was full of darkness and all of it wanted out. She didn’t know how to control it. She couldn’t control herself.

For the first time, Regina felt a kind of fear. Not for herself, but that Emma might go too far, do something so heinous that she wouldn’t forgive herself. Regina knew all too well that you could save a person from anything but themselves.

“Emma, please… please listen…”

“I’m not going back!” Emma roared. She was off the bed, stalking through the room, her white nudity like the moon on a dark night. Nothing else could draw the eye. “Your darkness is part of you, Regina! Even if you’re ashamed of it, it’s still part! I don’t have that part! Didn’t have… ripped out of me before I was born, pushed onto someone else. Now you say this isn’t me? How you know? How you know this isn’t me with my birthright darkness? My power! My strength! How you know this isn’t what you drawn to?”

“Emma,” Regina said, but she didn’t feel like she was speaking to her. More herself. “Emma is my friend. Not the Dark One.”

Emma cocked her head. Finally stopped, muscles not straining, not holding Regina down.

“The Emma I know—you—could overcome her darkness. These aren’t your demons, they’re something else. A curse. That’s all.”

“And I was good before?” Emma laughed, low and silent. “I lied before… didn’t tell you… hid the truth because that made me good…”

She knelt at the foot of the bed, before Regina as if in mocking worship. Regina could feel the force of her personality, directed not at her but at the Evil Queen. Trying to summon her up from the dark corners of Regina’s brain.

Emma’s hands splayed on her knees. “Heard you tuck our little Henry in—“

“Don’t say his name!” For all Regina could bandy words with this creature, as she had with Rumpelstiltskin and a hundred other foul things, to have Henry’s mother say his name without Emma’s love… it was an obscenity.

Emma ignored her. Hands moving up her thighs. “Thought about it being us. Us the ones who read him asleep. Two mothers, one son. Enough for a family. He’d ask for glass of water. You’d go get it. I’d go up to bed. Wait for you. Tuck him in again and kiss him goodnight and answer little questions, all while I waited for you. Blindfold around eyes. Sheets around body. Waiting for you. Burning for you.”

She was touching herself. Regina tried not to look. Thought of the real Emma (her Emma), thought of having her back, being able to get past this because she hadn’t looked. Hadn’t listened. Hadn’t heard the wet sound that was partly her, partly how Emma (the Dark One) felt about her.

“Come in. Smile at me like you do… tease me like you do… always wanting me to challenge you, always hoping I’ll see through you but so afraid I will…”

“Stop it!”

“No more fighting now. Now you know you’re mine. Draw back covers. All of me for you. You show yourself to me. Everything so mine. Kiss me with my lips, touch me with my hands. You think about it too. See it when you look at me, but let you pretend. We let each other pretend. Admit it. Just admit it. Feels so good when you admit it…”

Regina opened her eyes. Saw how Emma came, mouth opened like she wanted to suck the life out of the world. Hand between her thighs, wishing it were Regina’s. Regina saw everything and it was worth it, God help her, it was worth it.

That smile. It was Emma’s smile, not the Dark One’s… or Regina’s smile. That fond little thing that only seemed to live around Regina Mills. The Dark One wore it to mock her. “Your turn now.”

“I want—I love Emma. Not you.”

Emma untied Regina. A spring in her step. “But I’m all you get. All you deserve.” She took Regina’s hand, rubbing the feeling back into the bruised wrist, kissing the back of it. Then lowering it to the hem of Regina’s nightie. Pushing it higher.

Regina closed her eyes, feeling herself being lowered to the bed. Feeling Emma over her. Feeling the sheet being held over her face like a wedding veil, thin and translucent enough for Emma to see her gasp as she touched herself. She thought of Emma, her Emma, the Emma that should’ve been hers… the one waiting in their bedroom after she’d gotten their son his glass of water, the one who she’d dreamed of kissing, the one who she’d dreamed of holding her…

She opened her eyes and there she was, just through the sheet, watching her touch herself. A little aroused, a little embarrassed, all her.

“Ms. Swan,” Regina breathed.

“Madame Mayor.”

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t cry out. It was so much like she’d imagined and yet so much better.

She closed her eyes and held onto that Emma, like she could force her back to take this imposter’s place, drag her out of her memories and forget the Dark One instead.

And she opened her eyes and it was Emma… long golden hair befitting a million blonde jokes, stupid red jacket… keys to that damn death trap in her pocket, even. She smiled at Regina, but now she could see it wasn’t her smile. Not really. It was just muscles moving flesh.

“Would it be easier if I looked like this?” the Dark One asked. “Talked like this?”

“Easier for what?”

“Us.” The Dark One stopped trying that smile. Sensed it wasn’t her strong suit. “I don’t need you to go around dressed like some Disney burlesque show. Why should I need to look like an Aryan dominatrix? I can be this. Be waiting when you’ve finished tucking Henry in.”

“You don’t love me. You’re too damaged to love anyone.”

“Look who’s talking.” Emma stood. “I don’t want to see the archer sniffing around you anymore. Keep away from him and you’ll be rewarded. We can play Evil Queen and Savior again. Only now you don’t have to stop because I’m Henry’s mother. You can hurt me. You’re so good at hurting people…”

“I’m going to fix you.” Regina stared at Emma—it was easier now. Without the Dark One’s trappings, she could look through the Emma she’d known and see the darkness in her eyes. “I’m going to find the venom inside you and draw it out.”

“Like I fixed you?”

“Yes. Like you fixed me. Me and Henry and this whole damn town, because you wouldn’t give up—”

Suddenly it was the Dark One standing there. Or at least admitting it. Wrapped in black to make the exterior match the internal. “You’re not fixed, Regina. If you were, you wouldn’t want this. You’re still broken, or at least as broken as you ever were. Too broken to pretend like all the others do.”

Regina paused for a long moment. Just looking at this woman. It was like looking in a mirror and watching herself go back in time—Robin stripped away, Henry stripped away, Emma stripped away, until all she was left with was her pain and her throne.

Only this was the other way around. She was watching Emma fall away from the goodness she’d been born with, and not because of Rumpelstiltskin, not because of Cora, but because of Regina. Because she’d cared more about Regina’s happiness than her own.

Because maybe she’d loved Regina, the same way Regina loved her.

“Maybe I am just pretending,” Regina admitted. “But I never could’ve believed it without you. And I’m not giving up on that.”

Smoke rose around Emma, like she was burning and couldn’t be put out. As she disappeared, Regina thought she heard someone say “Good luck.”

But it was late. And she was very tired.