Title: Whispers in the Dark
Author: Nikayla
Genre: 4am drabble
Pairing: Regina/Jefferson, Mad Queen
Rating: M, not graphic but suggestive enough to warrant it

Whispered words from a malevolent tongue, constant reminders of the wrong you have done. Whispered words from adoring lips, hold more influence, and begat passion to be the most fulfilling emotion and greatest form of worship.

One time bled into two times bled into more times than she could count. Scheming and deceiving to feel something, in place of nothing. Numbness became more painful than any guilt. Guilt was nothing when a woman was molded into an unrecognizable stand-in for who she had hoped to be. Love became the intangible experience, and sex masked over the hole that had been punched through her chest, when the same had happened to the only person she ever truly loved. Jefferson was not Daniel, nor did he ever try to be. But he also wasn't Leopold. And that fact echoed around her, seemed to soothe and excuse the treason she committed, and the crown didn't feel quite so heavy on her bent and bowing head.

She let him bind her hands once. Wind a scarf around her wrists and lock her arms above her head. But it had been more for her benefit. At least that's what he said. He made use of the time by positively ravaging her. First with his mouth, deadset on driving her to release with no ability to touch him or even clutch at the sheets. She could only dig her nails into her own palms at his tongue's relentless ministrations and make her pleasure known beyond question with no shoulders or pillows to muffle her screams in. She was left with a nearly bloodied lip from trying to stifle them and a thin sheen of sweat all over her skin. When he released her he kept her wrists still bound together. Hung her arms around his neck and had her pushed to her brink yet again, writhing underneath him. And the worst part was she let him do these things, never once called upon the aid of her magic to turn the tables or free herself. She let him and he didn't let her forget it. He whispered specious placations in her ear, ended each with a thrust meant to shake her very being.

At some point the whispers changed. They were no longer meant to remind her of her infidelity or how she liked to be made powerless. Slowly they started to speak of how beautiful he found her. And later inquiring whether she was satisfied with his actions, or should he adjust them to insure she got every bit of pleasure out of the event as he had to offer. She began to smile more around him, and it was less about being falsely dominated and more about how long could a kiss go on before they ran out of the last remaining molecules of breath their lungs had stored. Less about tearing of clothes as a show of how little it mattered to him and more about how much he needed them off of her because it'd been nearly 2 weeks and that was 2 weeks too long of not seeing her glistening flesh. When kissing her mattered more than meeting a certain imp at a precise and expected time. For the gold he had to offer narrowly measured up to the gold that reflected in her eyes when the sun streamed in an open window and brought them warmly back to life.

When the whispers stopped it was ruined.

And when they returned 20 years later the whispers were screams, amplified by hate and anger for the pain they'd caused one another.