#she’s large with patchy fur and scratches. and she learns to love herself for it

[nightly-ruse]

A sketchy watercolor doodle of the cats of all time. Moth is so happy and Leaf loves seeing her happy. Specifically drew this with “Comfort Me” by Sparklehorse on loop very good song esp in the idea of them.

[emospritelet]

Empty Corridors - Chapter 31

Thankfully my muse has returned after pretty much a three-week vacation due to the flu.  Last time, Lacey told her father she was moving in with Gold and had been accepted to college, and he was basically a terrible, awful person and made her cry :(

AO3 link

Lacey managed to make it home before she broke down completely, curled on the couch as her body was wracked with sobs, her throat hurting, her eyes stinging with the salt of her tears.  She wasn’t certain what it was that had upset her so.  Perhaps the knowledge that he didn’t love her, didn’t even care for her.  Perhaps the sense that she now had no relatives that she could reach out to.  She knew that part of it was anger, for his refusal to recognise how much she had learned and grown in the past six months, but mostly she was grieving for the loss of another parent, for she knew that he would be out of her life from that moment on, as if he had died.  As if she were truly an orphan.

When she finally stopped, she felt drained of energy and desperately sad.  The kittens seemed to sense that she was upset, each of them snuggling close or patting her with soft paws, purring loudly.  She buried her nose in their fur, squeezing the last of the tears from her eyes.

“Gotta stop this crap,” she said, her voice muffled.  “I’m guessing he never once shed a tear for me, huh?”

Severus rubbed his head against her cheek, and she scratched his ears.

“Enough,” she said, with a sigh.  “We have to get everything ready to move to your dad’s place, okay?”

She petted the kittens for a little longer, until they fell asleep, and then pushed herself up on unsteady legs and went to wash her face and check that everything was packed.  The apartment seemed strange with its shelves bare of her things, but she supposed she would feel at home in Gold’s house before long.  The kittens would like exploring the gardens, certainly, and she smiled briefly at the thought of one of them bringing in something they shouldn’t.  Hopefully the bird population wouldn’t suffer.

There was still a little time before Gold was due to collect her, and so she decided to start taking boxes downstairs to make it easier to carry them out to his car.  He would be redecorating and then letting the apartment once she was out, and the thought of someone else being in the place she had called home for five years was odd.  The apartment had been special to her: she had proven at the age of seventeen that she could care for herself and hold down a job and keep a roof over her head.  Looking back, she wondered why she had been down on herself for so long.  There were plenty of people twice her age who couldn’t say the same.  She thought she would miss the apartment, with its snug bedroom and tiny kitchen and its memories of drunken nights with Ruby for company.  She wasn’t sorry to be leaving, though.  Not considering where she was going.

Gold arrived promptly at seven, and Lacey tried to return his smile as best she could when she opened the door.  He frowned at her expression.

“You’ve been crying,” he observed, and she pulled a face.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice barely audible.  “Doesn’t matter.  Let’s start taking this stuff out to the car.”

She moved to pass him, but he stopped her with a finger beneath her chin, lifting her head a little, his touch gentle.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have a total arsehole for a father,” she said bitterly.  “Not that that’s something I didn’t already know.”

He watched her steadily, and she sighed.

“He says I’m a disgrace,” she said, her voice dull.  “Even after I told him about college.  He says I’m a drunken tramp and he can hardly bear to look at me.”

Gold caressed her cheek, his eyes soft, and she leaned into his touch.

“Oh, Lacey, I’m sorry,” he whispered, and she shrugged, feeling the tears prick her eyes again.

“I’ll be okay,” she said.  “Made me realise that there’s nothing there to fight for anymore.  Sometimes you just have to cut ties with the toxic people in your life, right?”

He nodded, and pulled her into a hug.  His scent was comforting, his body warm and firm, and she let herself relax into him, feeling some of the sadness leave her.

“Sometimes that’s best,” he agreed.  “Is that what you want to do?”

Lacey shrugged a little.

“Well, he only makes me miserable,” she said.  “Nothing I do will ever be good enough, and honestly I’m tired of being the one who tries to keep a relationship going with him when he bloody hates me.  I don’t think that’s how family’s supposed to be.”

“No,” said Gold quietly.  “I don’t suppose it is.”

He kissed the top of her head, and she looked up at him.

“Maybe it’s best that I’ll be spending more time in Boston soon,” she added.  “Otherwise I’ll just have to ignore him whenever I see him, and that’s - ugh, that’s just gonna make me feel like crap on a daily basis.”

Gold’s mouth thinned a little, and Lacey suspected that the next time Moe French was late with his rent, there would be consequences.

“As you say,” he said.  “Sometimes it’s best to just cut toxic people out.”

Gold found that having Lacey in his house was every bit as wonderful as he had anticipated.  Having lived alone for so long, coming home to someone who loved him made him ridiculously happy, and he was certain that he spent most of the first few weeks with a stupid grin on his face.  They took it in turns to make breakfast; she could now cook eggs and bacon without burning anything, and was talking about learning how to make pancakes and French toast.  He was usually awake before her, though, and he had to admit that he enjoyed bringing her breakfast in bed.  Especially when it led to other things.

The kittens had settled in well; they had already considered his house to be theirs anyway, in his opinion, but it was admittedly nice to have one of them curled on his lap in the evening when he and Lacey sat on the couch to read and talk.  He bought them a larger basket, as they were growing fast, but they spent as much time sleeping on his and Lacey’s bed as they did in the kitchen.  He didn’t care in the least.

Lacey had been a little subdued for the first few days, and Gold knew it was because of her father.  His anger had raged and burned, his desire to thrash Moe within an inch of his life almost too much to contain.  He had tamped it down, though, the flaring heat of his fury shrinking to glowing embers, and then becoming something cold and calculating.

It was two weeks later that he had the chance to do something about it.

Lacey had informed him that she would be cooking a casserole that evening, a recipe that Granny had given her and that she thought she could handle.  She had left the shop at four to make a start on it, and he had taken the opportunity to deliver a letter that had given him a great deal of pleasure to write.  He had dropped it on the counter of the flower shop when Moe was serving another customer, briefly locking eyes with the man before smirking and sauntering out.  It was only a matter of time before he would get a reaction.

Gold waited, fingers drumming slowly on the counter in time with the clock’s low, rhythmic ticking.  Eventually the door to the shop burst open with a frantic tinkling of the bell, and Moe French stormed up to the desk with the letter in his hand, his eyes almost popping with fury and a large vein standing out on his forehead.  With any luck the man would have a heart attack.  Gold sent him a thin smile.

“Ah,” he said pleasantly.  “Mr French.  I’ve been expecting you.”

“What the bloody hell is this?” demanded Moe, waving the letter at him.  Gold showed his teeth.

“Are you having difficulty reading?” he asked.  “It’s your eviction notice.”

“You can’t evict me!”

“I think you’ll find I can.”

“I’ve put my entire life into that shop!” protested Moe.

“A fact that is unfortunately not evidenced by the payment of rent,” said Gold dispassionately.  “You’re late.  For the fourth time in as many months.  I have to cut my losses at some point.  If you return home, you’ll find a similar notice in respect of the house I rent to you.”

“I can get you the rent!”

“Then why haven’t you, pray tell?” drawled Gold.  “Despite my previous warnings you have failed to see fit to hold up your end of our agreement.  On multiple occasions, I might add.”

“Business is patchy after Christmas, you know that!” snapped Moe.

“It’s now March,” said Gold coldly.  “And didn’t you assure me that your fortunes would change with the Valentine’s Day turnover?  It appears I was misled into being unduly generous.  I promised myself I wouldn’t make the same mistake again, and you know how I like to keep my word.”

“You can’t do this to me!” blustered Moe.  “You’ve got no right!”

“I have every right!” snarled Gold, the words hissing out through his teeth.  “And not only is it my right, Mr French, it is my absolute pleasure!  If you had any sense you’d leave this town where you’re clearly deeply unhappy and make a fresh start elsewhere.”

“With what?” demanded Moe.  “You’ve left me with nothing!”

“Well, perhaps if you didn’t piss all your profits up the wall every weekend, it wouldn’t be an issue,” snapped Gold.  “I’m not a fucking charity!”

“No, you’re not,” said Moe, scowling.  “You’re a bloody bastard!”

Gold gave him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and walked out from behind the counter, his cane tapping on the floor.

“You’ve been given the period of notice to quit the premises as agreed under the contract that you signed and to which you failed to adhere,” he said quietly.  “I expect you gone by the date in said notice.”

Moe sent him a smile, which was more of an ugly grimace.

“This is about that daughter of mine, isn’t it?” he sneered.  “I might have known.  What, she needs you to fight her battles, does she?”

“I’m not aware that the two of you are at war,” said Gold, in a cold voice.  “Miss French informs me that she no longer wishes to maintain a relationship with you.  I think that considering your appalling behaviour, this is in her best interests.”

“And you’ll put me on the street to make sure of it, right?”  Moe curled his lip.  “You’re a snake, you know that?”

“I’ll put you on the street because you owe me money, Mr French, it’s as simple as that,” said Gold, sounding bored.  “Now get out of my shop.  This conversation is over.”

“It’s over when I say so!”

Moe swung a punch at him, and Gold ducked out of the way, feeling a whoosh of air as a fist narrowly missed his nose.  He raised the cane immediately, throwing it up into the air and catching it near the bottom before swinging it around to catch Moe in the ribs.  Already off-balance from his wildly-thrown punch, Moe stumbled to the ground with a yell of pain, and Gold struck him again.  Rage surged within him; bottled up for too long, it had seethed and fermented and now exploded outwards.

“Who the fuck do you think you’re dealing with?” he said through his teeth.  “You think you can screw me over and attack me without consequence?”

He whacked Moe again, relishing the hoarse cry of pain, and Moe held up pleading hands.

“Gold!  Please!”

Gold pressed the handle of the cane against his throat, making him choke, and leaned down, his nostrils flaring.

“Shut.  The fuck.  Up!” he breathed.  “I want you gone as soon as you can pack your filthy belongings and get out of my property, do you understand me?”

He was staring into Moe’s eyes, enjoying the pain and terror in them.  The tinkle of the shop’s bell barely registered.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

“Mind your own business!” snarled Gold, glancing around.  His heart gave a lurch as he saw who it was.  A dark-haired man in his late twenties, familiar brown eyes flicking from his face to Moe and back again.  Gold straightened up, grounding the cane.

“Bae!” he whispered, and his son’s mouth flattened.

“It’s Neal,” he said coldly.  “Neal Cassidy.”

“You - you changed your name?”

Well, that hurt.  He supposed he should have expected it, but it still hurt.

“Wanted a clean slate,” said Neal, folding his arms.  “Worked, too, until I had a visit from your girlfriend.”

“Lacey came to see you?”

Gold was stunned.  Why hadn’t she told him?

“Yeah,” said Neal flatly.  “Turned up singing your praises, talking about how you’d changed her life.  That you were a good person, that all you wanted was to be a good father.  I should have known it was bullshit.  I should have known you were still a bastard.”

“Got that right,” said Moe, from the floor, and Gold glared at him.

“Shut the fuck up!” he snapped.  “Get the hell out of here and start fucking packing!”

Moe got to his feet, holding his left side a little gingerly, and shot Gold a venomous look before turning his attention to Neal.

“Take my advice and stay away from him,” he said.  “The man’s a bloody beast!”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” growled Gold, and Moe curled his lip, limping out.  The door closed behind him, the cheerful tinkle of the bell very loud in the close, ominous silence that had fallen between him and his son.

“So,” said Neal.  “Using violence to get what you want, huh?  Nice.”

“He broke the heart of someone I love!” hissed Gold.  “He’s been trying to break her spirit for years!  That’s when he wasn’t beating her with anything that came to hand, of course.”

“Oh,” said Neal uncomfortably, running his hand through his hair.  “That was - that was Lacey’s dad?”

Gold nodded.  “Told you about him, did she?”

“Yeah.”  Neal shifted his feet, looking awkward.  “Still, I don’t think…”

“He tried to sell me her virginity when she was barely sixteen,” Gold went on, “and then took it out on her when I turned him down!  He is a sad drunk and a vile, pitiful excuse for a father!”

“So you thought you’d beat him up?” said Neal, in a flat voice.

“He threw a punch at me!”  Gold raised his eyes to the ceiling with a heavy sigh before looking at him.  “Look - forget about the tragedy that is Moe French.  I’m just - I’m thrilled that you came to see me.  Can’t we - can’t we just talk?”

“I don’t know.”  Neal ran a hand through his hair again.  “Maybe this was a mistake.”

He took a step back, heading for the door, and desperation made Gold reach out, try to grab his arm.

“No, please!” he said quickly.  “Please don’t leave!  Give me a chance to make it right!”

“How can you make it right?” demanded Neal, stepping back further.  “You can’t make it right!  You can’t just - just erase what happened!”

“I didn’t mean that.”  Gold settled back on his heels, clutching the handle of his cane.  “I just meant - I just want us to get to know one another again, Bae.”

“It’s Neal!”

The name was delivered with a shout, and a flash of dark eyes.  Gold swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “Neal.”

There was silence for a moment, and Neal shook his head.

“I wasn’t even gonna come here,” he said.  “I thought - I thought maybe just shutting you out was better.  Cleaner.  But then Lacey turned up and told me some stuff, and I got to thinking that maybe Mom hadn’t been straight with me about you.  That maybe she’d lied.”

“What did she tell you?” asked Gold, anger still making his chest heave.

“That you never wanted me,” said Neal, looking uncomfortable.  “That you left because of it.  Never heard anything from you until that time you turned up when I was sixteen, so I figured it was true.”

Gold blinked.

“But - but I wrote!” he protested.  “I wrote to you every week!  I - I sent presents and money, whatever I could!  Are you telling me you got none of that?”

“Not a damn thing,” he said flatly.  “All I knew was you left.  Of course, later on I found out you were in jail.  Not sure which was crappier, to be honest.”

Gold shook his head, his heart aching.  All these years his son had thought he didn’t care.  He wondered what other lies Milah had told him.  Rage swelled in his chest again, and he tried to calm himself.

“I’m sorry, son,” he whispered.  “I don’t expect you to forgive me for not being there for you, but can we at least try to build something going forward?”

“Maybe,” said Neal, after a pause.  “I don’t know.  I’m not promising anything, okay?  I have Henry to think about now.”

Gold looked up at that.

“Henry?”

“My son.  Mine and Emma’s.”

Gold’s mouth twitched in a smile.

“I have a grandson?”

“Yeah.”

His smile grew, but he sensed that Neal was still cautious, and while he wanted to ask a hundred questions about Henry, he decided that taking things slow was probably wisest.

“Look, why don’t you come to dinner?” he said.  “Nothing fancy, just the three of us.  Lacey’s cooking tonight.”

Neal eyed him warily, but then gave him a cautious nod.

“Okay,” he said.  “We’ll have dinner.”

Neal was silent as they made the brief journey to the house, and Gold tried to think of something to talk about with him.

“How long will you stay?” he asked.

“I’ll go back tomorrow,” said Neal.  “Can’t leave Emma on her own with Henry for too long.”

“Of course.”  Gold turned into his street.  “Do you - do you want to stay with us?”

“I’ll stay at that inn in town,” said Neal.  “Granny’s, or something?”

“Yes.”  Gold hesitated.  “You know, I have plenty of room…”

“One step at a time, okay?”

“Right.”

He pulled onto the driveway, and Neal looked over the house.

“It’s pink,” he said.

“Yes, I’m rather fond of it.”  Gold shot him a brief smile.  “Shall we?  I’m sure Lacey will be pleased to see you.”

“You - uh - you guys live together?” asked Neal.

“Only for the past couple of weeks.”  Gold got out, using the cane to steady himself.  “It’s - it’s going well.  We’re getting along very nicely.”

“Well, she seems like a good person,” said Neal, and Gold smiled.

“She is,” he said.  “I’m very lucky.”

A savoury smell wafted out to greet them as Gold opened the front door to let them into the house.

“Oh good, you’re back!”  Lacey came through, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.  “I was just about to—”

She cut off as she spied Neal, her mouth falling open a little before she snapped it shut.

“As you can see, my son has paid us a visit,” said Gold.  “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Lacey shifted uneasily.

“I - may have made a note of his address and kind of visited him when I went to New York,” she admitted.

“And you were planning on telling me this when, exactly?” he asked, in a very dry voice.  Lacey bit her lip.

“I didn’t think he’d come,” she said.  “Didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

Gold met her eyes, and a faint blush rose in her cheeks.

“We’ll discuss this later,” he said evenly.

“Sounds promising.”

She wound her arms around his neck, smirking, and Gold rolled his eyes.

“Hey Lacey,” said Neal, and she turned to him with a grin.

“Hey Neal.  Good to see you again.  Are you staying for dinner?”

“If that’s okay?”

“Of course!”  She beamed at him, and turned back to Gold, her eyes gleaming.  “I made chicken casserole and didn’t burn it!”

“That’s - excellent news,” he said, with a tiny grin.  “Why don’t I get us all a drink before we taste this magnificent creation?”

She kissed him before spinning away, and he watched her with that grin still on his face as she bounced off to the kitchen.  When he looked around he saw that Neal was eyeing him curiously.  He wondered what was going through his son's mind.

"Right," he said, shrugging off his coat.  "A drink.  I suspect that Lacey and I will be having wine.  What would you prefer?"

"I'll have some wine, I guess," said Neal, taking off his own coat.  He had begun looking around at the pictures and trinkets in the hall, and Gold gestured towards the lounge.

"Have a seat," he said.  "Oh, you might want to check for kittens first.  They've taken to hiding under the cushions.  I sat on Severus last week, and he wasn't too pleased."

"You have - kittens?"

Neal was looking at him as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing, and Gold wondered what the hell Milah had told him about his father's personality.  Blatant lies, by the looks of things.  He decided not to ask about it at this first, fragile meeting.

"We have three," he said.  "Let me introduce you to the family."

Neal ran a hand through his hair, but nodded, and Gold led him through to the lounge.  His son was right.  One step at a time.