My submission for Evil Charming week. In this universe, Marian is really Marian-not Zelena. And Snow...well...just read. Many thanks to outlawqueenluvr for all of her encouragement and read-throughs! And as always, thank you, dear reader, for taking time to read and comment. :)

It began with a touch.

Innocent enough at its onset, fragile in its make-up, desperation its fuel, emptiness its adhesive.

It originated in a man still grieving the wife he buried just over one year ago. It reached out to a woman still privately mourning the loss of her soulmate who lived a world away with the family he left her to save. It spanned the distance between two lonely humans who felt more hollow than alive for longer than they cared to remember.

It was meant to be merely a touch, merely a gesture—nothing more, nothing less. But their humanity had other ideas.

It began as a touch on the shoulder as she washed the dinner dishes, small talk fading as soon as the others made their exit, their children tagging along into the moonlight, lured by promises of a walk by the docks and ice cream before bed. The kitchen morphed from small to gargantuan when it held just the two of them, a fragment of a house filled with memories of both the living and the lost. There was so much shared history between them, both bitter and sweet, and he wasn't certain just why he stayed behind that night after Emma and Killian left with Henry and little Neal. The truth was that he wasn't certain he wanted to know.

That's when he touched her. That's when it all began.

She paused at the onset of the contact, having almost forgotten what it was like what it was to feel a man's touch on her body. It was soothing, even as it jarred her, for she knew this wasn't the touch she cried out for from the depths of her dreams, this wasn't the touch that gave her the child now asleep in her crib just upstairs, the child her father knew nothing about. But it was a touch, and a gentle one—a needy one, one she understood even though she wasn't sure just how she should respond.

His palm did not move at first, it remained on her shoulder, the delicacy of her skin crying out to the barren wasteland of his soul.

She didn't ask him to stop. So he didn't.

Instead the touch moved, slowly at first, spanning the length of her upper arm until it came to rest just above her elbow near her waist. She abandoned the dishes, allowing them to lay helplessly in the soapy water as she closed her eyes to reality and basked in the ability to feel. His hands moved again, up and down in a slow dance, one neither of them knew but would soon falter through step by step.

She leaned into his chest, and his warmth hit her everywhere at once as skin accustomed to being solitary basked in the glow of companionship. His hands continued the waltz they'd begun, but their tempo increased along with the pace of his heart until their breaths were weaving a parallel design that pushed away all reason.

This was madness. They both knew it. But it was all they had.

The touch grew bolder in its assertions, tracing hips, encircling her waist, making her feel light in her shoes and more nervous than she could remember in a long time. This was new, but oh so familiar, the persistent gnawing of need, physical in its nature, emotional at its core. She should move away, she knew this, but the lure of him nudged her closer.

He welcomed her with open arms and a broken heart.

His nose grazed her neck, breath sparking flame, a flame they succumbed to with no words and no hesitation. The course had been mapped, the journey had begun, and she shifted in his arms then, unable to look him in the eye just yet, but willing to let him kiss her cheek.

The kiss didn't stay there—it needed more—craved everything, and it soon consumed her temple, her forehead, her jaw before honing in on lips primed for his. Mouths opened, tongues danced, the moves awkward yet unhindered, all pretense now tossed aside. They both knew what this was and what it wasn't, a carnal craving, a remedy for the lonely, and they drank of it greedily, two parched souls who had found an oasis, even if it was only for one night.

He lifted her easily, setting her on the edge of the counter as she kicked off her shoes, sliding into him as buttons were undone and shirts cast aside alongside all inhibitions. Fingers sought her nipple beneath black lace, and she moaned as she hadn't in ages, going under the tide of simply being a woman with no immediate desire to come up for air. Sensation targeted her breasts and pulsed lower, the sheen of sweat on his chest only making her need more acute.

Teeth joined lips as he marked and tasted her skin, her inner fire like cinnamon on his tongue, the feel of her burning him up but making him crave more. Her skirt was pushed to her hips, her undergarments removed, and then he felt her in a manner that took both of their breaths.

That's when they looked at each other. But they chose not to stop.

She pressed into his hand, he slid into her body, connecting them in ways they'd never dreamed of, never sought. Then his pants were shoved down and he was inside of her truly, making her groan as he moved in deep.

They were sloppy and selfish, groping, nipping, taking as much as the other would give, trying to fill a soul's worth of emptiness with someone else's missing half. Her climax seized her out of nowhere, making her convulse and cry out as nails imprinted this moment on his skin. He came seconds later, his forehead on her shoulder, the wrong name on his lips.

Snow.

She didn't let go then, but didn't press tighter as tears mingled with sweat and bodies stayed connected.

I'm sorry, he whispered.

Don't be, she breathed. I know.

She touched his face with fingers now trembling as he shakily breathed in her hair, both swallowing down the knowledge of who was missing, both clinging to the world they had left.

There were no more words, they seemed to hide as they dressed, locked inside thought and emotions as bodies once again covered themselves. Yet hands somehow found each other once again, a last gesture from one human remnant to another, a last chance to cling to the reality that they both still lived before separating and returning to a solitude no longer wanted by either.

His walk home was somehow longer. Her house seemed larger than before. Neither slept until the witching hours of morning, their skin still tingling from touches previously forbidden, their newly awakened humanity reluctant to slumber once more.

Regina, he chastised himself, apologizing into the empty pillow of the wife he lost, pressing it into his chest until sleep finally came for him.

David, she uttered, rubbing her arms as if they could explain to her what exactly had happened when her armor clattered to the kitchen floor along with her clothes and her sanity.

He had left her with no intention of returning. She went to bed believing it was done.

Yet she found him on her doorstep within a week, his face and heart more transparent than her own reflection.

And she did not turn him away.