#thestraggletag fanfiction

[thestraggletag]

Kin, Part 1 of 3

Prompt: Dragon, Transform, Capture, Marriage, Nest

Giftee: @minnl70

Summary: Chosen by the Blue Fairy to slay the last dragon, Belle defies her fate and strikes a deal with the beast, Rumplestiltskin. As they search for a way to break the enchantment, an unexpected bond begins to form, but magic is never without a price—and never quite straightforward.

Rating: M

A/N: Surprise, @minnl70, it's me, your Secret Santa! I'm away on holidays right now but I made sure to properly queue this up for you. If all goes well all chapters of this fic will be posted today, but I'll try to check to make sure they are (and, if possible, also upload the fic to AO3, which I know makes it easier to read). Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Belle had forgotten what it was like to live without the ever-present threat of ogres. What it was like to not be a prisoner in the fortified castle that was keeping her people alive and protected. What it felt like to not have fear coat the back of her throat. She should be glad that, finally, a fairy had consented to come to their aid. And not just any fairy, but the Blue Fairy, rumoured to be the most powerful of them all. And yet the Lady of the Marchlands felt more uneasy in front of the tiny creature that she had felt in the midst of an ogre attack. There was something about her, something in her demeanour and her syrupy voice that unnerved her.

Maybe it was that she was just now answering their summons. Why not before, when the problem of ogres was easier to fix? Before the bloodshed and the loss of territory? Before the death of her mother? When she had tried to ask that, the fairy had dismissed her concerns, explaining that she could only “just now” be of assistance, without any further elaboration. To Belle the only difference between then and now was the increased desperation, and she couldn’t help but think that this is why the Blue Fairy had waited. For them to be desperate enough to agree to anything, and pay any price.

“The solution to your problem is very simple, though it lies beyond my abilities alone. You need a dragon. Unfortunately, there’s only one left.”

Everyone knew that. Just as everyone knew that, in a distant past, dragons had been uncommon, but not rare, creatures. Nowadays there was only one left, known popularly as the “Dark One”, a being of immense power and magic, that was unlikely to come to their aid.

“Dragons are hard to command, but I can bind its essence to a mortal and subjugate it.” The Blue Fairy spoke of slaving a magical creature as if she was commenting on the weather, or what colour would be in fashion next season. “But it cannot be just any mortal we choose. It must be a maiden, beautiful of body and mind, with blue blood. Someone important.”

It didn’t take a smart person to decipher what the fae meant, and if anyone had any doubts the way her father fiercely opposed the notion would make it very clear. Belle shrunk back in the shadows, uncomfortable with the way the fairy looked at her when she spoke about the binding. There was a greed behind her eyes that felt all too human as she raised her wand without warning and swished it around in her direction, letting fairy dust  float over to her, seeming to take her consent and cooperation for granted.

“It is the only way, sire.”

“To Hell with it. To hell with you. There is no way my little girl is getting anywhere near a dragon.”

In the end, in spite of the protest of all his advisors, Lord Maurice had sent the Blue Fairy away, though she had promised to return in a month’s time, so that the Lord had “enough time to come to his senses”. There was no defeat in her person, only that self-assured, condescending look that told her that she thought she knew the outcome of things already.

Ordinarily, Belle would have felt uncomfortable at the notion that her father would prize her safety above the safety of her people, but she was glad that he sent the Blue Fairy away. Once she was gone Belle was free to go to their library, or what remained of it, and do her own research about what Reul Ghorm had claimed. The books did all seem to point towards a dragon as the most likely solution to her problem. Ogres feared to tread on land claimed by a dragon. It was why ogres incursions had become much more common than a thousand years ago, and why the ogre population had expanded to such a degree. If their land was guarded by a dragon they would be safe not just from this horde, but from any other that appeared in the future. It seemed that the Blue Fairy had not been lying about that, but it didn’t necessarily mean Belle could trust her. There was something else, a reason why the fairy would suddenly seek to help them after years of fighting ogres. Something she hoped to gain for herself that Belle had no intention of giving her. Her unfinished spell had settled on her like a mark on her, a patch of skin on her left shoulder blade, where Blue had rested her wand before her father had stopped her, that seemed to burn whenever she thought about the fairy, as if in warning. 

She kept on investigating, sure that there would be another way of dealing with the Dark One that did not involve forcing him into bondage. She delved deeper, going to the most obscure section of the library, which had blessedly been preserved from the ogre attack that had killed her mother. The scant few ancient tomes they had were housed there, books so archaic they were written in obscure languages almost no one spoke anymore. Languages Belle had mastered the reading of years ago, in secret, after being told those books were forbidden to her. 

It wasn’t until she was halfway through a heavily water-damaged book that she learned the truth. There was a reason why dragons whisking away princesses was a cliche present in most stories told to children. It was because the fairies had been using maidens for what looked like centuries to kill dragons. The book detailed only one such case, which she would’ve dismissed if she hadn’t almost experienced something identical. According to the book dragons were bound to maidens not so they could be tamed, like it had been promised, but so that they would be made vulnerable. The maiden was whisked away and killed by the creature, and later on a knight or a prince, seeking to avenge the woman would- with the help of the fairies, and some prodding along the way- slay the beast and become a dragon-slayer.

It didn’t take Belle long to envision who the fairies had had in mind for that role. She was, after all, betrothed to a hunter. Gaston was a nobleman in the most lax sense of the word, for there was nothing noble in his behaviour or his thoughts. Violent and bloodthirsty, Belle had no doubt he would be more eager to add the title of dragonslayer to the ones he already possessed than to avenge her.

The ogres were an excuse. A means to an end. A way to have a small kingdom become so desperate that their king would be willing to risk one of his daughters. Her papa’s overprotectiveness, his fierce love for her, was the one thing the fairy had not counted on. She had hoped the ogres would be enough of a bargaining chip to get her father to agree.

Belle didn’t find the prospect of dying very appealing, nor the idea of causing the death of the last dragon, and helping the Blue Fairy achieve whatever she was hoping to achieve with the extermination of the Dark One. So, instead, she pivoted on her search, looking for ways to summon dragons. They had a reputation as dealmakers, creatures interested in bargaining to get what they wanted. Surely she could make a deal so that the dragon would protect her people and drive the ogres away. This way she would be in control of her destiny, and serve no other purpose than her own. 

She did the summoning just as the sun set a fortnight after the Blue Fairy had been driven away. She forced herself to act nonchalant as she told her father she planned to take one of the horses and scour a nearby meadow for medicinal herbs they were in desperate need of, kissing his cheek lightly when all she wanted was to throw herself into his arms and have her father hug her so tight he’d lift her off the floor like when she was a child. She made herself pack lightly, lest she arouse suspicion. Some spare undergarments, a little medicine, her favourite book, ink and paper in case there was ever an opportunity to write to her father. She had already done so, leaving a detailed letter in her room that would explain everything to him, along with the books she had consulted and a translated copy of the important passages. She wanted him to understand, if nothing else. And she promised to come back if she could.

With that she took Philippe, her oldest and most reliable horse, and took off into a clearing in the woods she hoped would be private enough, the trees so old they were amongst the tallest in the Enchanted Forest. There all she had to do was say the name of the dragon- it’s real name, written and almost entirely crossed out a number of times in her book- three times.

“Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin!”

Nothing happened, for the longest time, to the point where Belle began to despair of having to summon the Blue Fairy after all, when something moved in the darkness beyond the clearing. A pair of dark gold eyes appeared, followed by the glint of golden scales as the dragon stepped into the bit of sun the trees around her couldn’t cover. It was a huge creature, but smaller than what she had envisioned, with green-gold scales covering his belly and dark ochre ones on the rest of its body. It walked on four legs with the grace of a cat, and its eyes spoke of intelligence beyond that of any animal. And not just intelligence, but craftiness. 

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Even though she had assumed the dragon would be able to communicate somehow, it still surprised her when it spoke in a low, sibilant voice.

“My name is Belle and I’m-”

“Oh, I know who you are, dearie. Which begs the question… What’s the beautiful maiden doing, alone in the woods with the scary dragon?”

“I know I have nothing to be afraid of. I’ve read about it, about where all the stories about abducted princesses and slayed dragons come from.” She paused when she saw the slightest change in the dragon’s expression, from faintly-mocking to suspicious. She was surprised at how expressive it could be, given the scales and the sharp angles of its face. “Can you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The Blue Fairy’s magic on me.”

Its frown- his frown really- deepened, and he moved his long neck to get his nose closer to her, taking in a deep breath before huffing out a puff of smoke, as if it had scented something foul. Before it could be angry at her she rushed to explain that she was not in any rush to rid the world of its last dragon. She told him the entire story, about her people’s desperation and how, finally, the Blue Fairy had come to offer her help. What she had told them about dragons and how she had managed to start her spell before her father had thrown her out of the castle, and what she had uncovered afterwards.

“So, instead of dealing with one duplicitous magical creature, you decided to turn to a far more dangerous one for help? Why would I even help you, dearie? I could just pluck you from here and put you atop a tall tower with no doors and be rid of you as a problem.”

“And I could leap from the tower. Or starve myself. And then you’d be mortal.”

The dragon stood very still, looking at her more intently, only his tail swishing back and forth, which she took to mean he was displeased. Or perhaps curious. She had the feeling he was very much used to getting his way, and hadn’t counted on her having thought things through. She couldn’t tell whether that gave her an advantage or simply served to make him angry.

“But I won’t. I won’t do any of those things. I will come willingly, if you get rid of the ogres in my land. It’ll give you time to figure out how to undo Reul Ghorm’s magic. And then we can part ways in peace.”

The dragon seemed to study her for the longest time, eyes slightly narrowed and strangely still, looking more like a gleaming statue than a live creature. Then, after what felt like an eternity, it unfurled its wings to pounce on her, talons catching on the edges of her cloak.

“Deal’s struck, dearie!”

There was a cloud of burgundy magic, smelling of burnt wood and sage instead of the Blue Fairy’s cloying flower smell, and when she could see again she was in what looked like a castle.

“Is this where you live?”

Belle wasn’t sure what she had pictured, but it wasn’t the run-down opulence of her surroundings.

“Disappointed it’s not a cave? Or a mountain made of bones?”

She shook her head, even though she had pictured something more akin to a cave. The castle was dark, barely lit by a few pitiful, sputtering torches on the walls, and the faint light coming from a series of tall but hopelessly-dirty windows. It smelt damp but also of burnt wood, and a layer of ashes seemed to cover everything. She could feel the chill in the air and knew, without seeing, that it was snowing outside. They were likely atop a mountain, given the thinness of the air.

“Come along, dearie, I’ll show you where you can sleep and be out of the way.”

The sheer size of the castle allowed the dragon room to move, though it was a tight fit in narrow corridors and down winding stairs, not checking to see whether she was following him or even if she could, given what little light there remained as they went deeper down into the bowels of the castle. They finally came to what looked like-

“A dungeon? You want me to sleep in a dungeon?”

The dragon turned away, uninterested in whether she agreed or not.

“You can do as you please, dearie. This is the cleanest and warmest place you’ll find to sleep tonight.”

Sleep was not exactly something Belle saw a lot of that night, curled up over a pile of musty straw, her cloak wrapped tightly around her as she let herself cry, thinking about her father, who had likely already discovered what she had done, thinking of her room, which still smelt like the lavender packets her more insisted they make every year, and everything of hers she had left behind.

The crying must have eventually exhausted her, because she woke up the next morning to less darkness than before. There was a small sliver of a window up high from which some pale morning light seemed to enter. With it she could see the mouse holes, the gossamer spider webs in the corners and the patches of mold in the bits of hay she had discarded the night before by their smell. There was, also, an old oil lamp, the handle rusted over but with a bit of oil still inside. She lit it using one of the torches outside and decided to go exploring, deciding that at least she needed to identify a source of freshwater, and hopefully a place with food.

The castle was less intimidating in the light of day. It gave off an air of fargone opulence, of wealth and power having fallen into disrepair and neglect. She went from room to room, trying to come across anything that resembled a kitchen. Instead she found herself in a bit, opulent room, with faded but once-rich tapestries and thick rugs on the floor. It felt warmer than anyone else, inviting her inside, till something made her stand still.

There was someone else in the room. She didn’t know how she could tell, a feeling in her bones she had never had before, but she was absolutely sure. She held out the lantern in front of her, as far as her arm could reach, and waited for her eyes to adjust. At first she saw nothing, just the expected darkness. But as her eyes adjusted to it she began to notice a faint shape. Thin and scraggly, barely taller than her, and full of sharp angles. Decidedly non-human, but unlike any creature she’d ever seen.

“Who are you?”

The thing seemed to vibrate with excitement at her question, large, golden eyes focusing on her. Belle rather thought she felt like a rabbit ought, when spotted by a wolf. Every nerve-ending was tingling, age-old instincts telling her to turn and run. To escape. But she knew those eyes, as impossible as it seemed.

“I think you know, dearie.”

His voice was heavily accented, and higher than what one would expect from a human male. It had a sing-songy quality to it, a mocking sort of undertone that was difficult to ignore. It was a silly voice meant to contrast with the dangerous nature of the speaker, but still carried a faint sibilant trace she recognised.

“You’re the Dark One.”

The figure in the shadows moved until it was partially in the light. She saw then that her initial impression was right: a thin, unnatural figure dressed in ripped leathers and hide, with green-gold, scaly skin, golden eyes and matted long hair. Sharp teeth too, from what she could see. Much like his dragon form in many ways, but different at the same time. Less unreadable, perhaps, now that she could better understand his mannerisms.

“Dragons are natural shapeshifters, and as large as this castle is it can be quite uncomfortable to navigate in my other form. This is as much the real me as the creature you met yesterday. And an infinitely more convenient form to read books in. Easier to turn the pages, and less likelihood of burning some priceless tome to a crisp.”

The dragon seemed just as dangerous in his smaller form as he did in his big one, the taint of dark magic hanging around him like a cloak, so potent even someone with no magic like her could feel it. Still, they had an agreement, and everything she had read about the Dark One said he never reneged on deals.

“Is there anything you need in particular, dearie? Can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t be avoiding me like mice avoid cats.”

The way he smiled at her at that, showing his teeth as if to remind her that he was predator and she prey. Belle took a deep breath, bringing the lantern closer to her so the light would bolster up her courage.

“I need to know the way to the kitchens. You don’t want me to starve any more than I do, so it’d be helpful if I could know where the food and the water are.”

He flicked a clawed finger, a tiny wisp flame forming in the air. It was a strange, almost green colour and danced around, as if eager.

“Follow the little wisp, it’ll guide you to the kitchens. You can take whatever you want from there, if it’ll keep you from bothering me.”

With another flick of his wrist the flame was off, scurrying quickly out of the room and leaving a faint green-gold trace in its wake that Belle barely managed to catch. It seemed to weave in and out of hallways for what felt like forever, but finally it led her the right way, towards a filthy, but very spacious, kitchen. Cobwebs, dirt and grime covered almost every surface area she could see, and the amount of space highlighted how barren the room was. Some fishing around uncovered a barrel of questionable apples and some hard bread, but nothing more. There was a well just outside, sheltered from the wind by the castle walls, which was difficult but not impossible to operate. 

She understood then the glee the creature showed when she mentioned wanting something to it. The dragon clearly disliked her and her presence there, and she couldn’t exactly blame him, when maidens had been used for hundreds of years to decimate dragons. She couldn’t fathom what it would be like, to be the last human. To have no kin. To live alone.

Her situation was not so dire in comparison, and she told herself that as she gathered up her hair and munched on the least sour apple she could find. She could make the best of a bad situation. The castle might be a bit rundown, but it was spacious and beautiful, full of interesting nooks to explore. This was an adventure, if she was only brave enough to take it on.

[lotus0kid]

OUaT: Old Tricks (2/10)

AO3 link.  And here’s the rest!  Thank you for your patience!

[silwenworld]

Fic: A Leap of Faith

Title: A Leap of Faith Rating: M Word Count: 4898 Summary: A new member on the equestrian jumping team, Belle French has only a month to prepare for the upcoming Olympics. It would be a lot easier if she didn't fall in love with her coach. And his longing gazes didn't help matters at all. A/N: Merry Christmas @thestraggletag​! It was a wonderful time to be your Secret Santa! Even though I lost a track of time a couple of times and tumblr seemed to eat some of my massages, I hope you’ll forgive it 😅 Oreginaly it  supposed to be longer, but I hope you’ll enjoy it nevertheless :)  [AO3]

"You need to jump higher! Come on, miss French, you can do it!"

It was astonishing, how quickly she was learning, Gold thought. In all his career, he had never met anybody even close to what Belle French was presenting. They were in dire need of a substitute, only a month from the competition itself when she had arrived. Many thought her too young and inexperienced to be a part of this team, but all it took for Gold had been one look to know she would do. He had a sixth sense of those things, and fully counted on her securing a medal; what he didn't expect was to fall in love with her. And fall he did - very, very hard, indeed.

"Keep your back straight!"

He had been a trainer for over ten years, but he had never seen someone as graceful as her. Watching her made him whished for the days when he had been able to ride himself.

A memory of only a few days prior when they had both been kissing between the training sessions after too many shots of alcohol caused him to make a miscalculated step forward. It sent a spike of pain through his ruined ankle, which reminded precisely why his riding days were behind him, and why he wasn't the best candidate for a lover. Gold squeezed his cane tighter, banishing the memories as he watched Belle round on the last obstacle - a square oxer. His old nemesis and - as it also seemed - Belle's.

She picked the pace, and he fidgeted with the handle suddenly anxious. Every other obstacle she was able to overcome but this one. It was only a week to the Olympics, and yet she couldn't do it. He could see the frown on her face from where he stood. She was too concentrated, not relaxed enough to do that jump, and the horse seemed to sense her unease.

Gold gritted his teeth.

"Miss French, rein in!" he shouted before she could get close enough to the obstacle. If she did, it would have been a tragedy in the making. She wasn't ready.

Belle pulled at the rains, clearly displeased, but obeying the instructions nevertheless. The horse didn't stop, but she urged him into a walk, before halting and dismounting.

"I would have done it, coach!" she said as she approached him and he had to look up to see her in the eye. One stray lock of hair escaped from under the helmet, falling across her forehead. Gold had to resist the urge to reach towards her and tuck it back. Instead, he gripped the handle of his cane tighter.

"No, you couldn't," He snapped. "You would have broken your neck, falling off a horse."

"That's not true - "

"You were tense like a bowstring, the horse could feel it," he cut in, waving his hand around in a nervous gesture.

"But coach - "

"End of discussion, Miss French. Go back to the basic training, leave that oxer alone."

"The competition is a week away, you know I can't win without jumping over it," she insisted, and the scowl on her face only made it harder for him to stay focused. No. He needed to put his foot in on this one.

"That was my last word. Leave it alone for now and work on your confidence."

He turned around and limped away, not daring to look at her frustrated face. If he did, he would have probably given in, but he couldn't afford it. They had plenty of time to overcome the troubles. The time they wouldn't have if something had happened to her.

And in all reality, Gold preferred to lose a medal than her. He knew well enough what an accident like that could do to a person, and he wouldn't risk it.

What he didn't want to admit that the way he began to feel was going way beyond the coath-trainee relationship. And this kind of feelings he couldn't let himself feel, at least not if he wanted to see Belle with a medal at all, and that one kiss had been a mistake altogether. He wouldn't let the history repeat itself.

*

She couldn't understand him. There were days when he would let her do as he pleased, train the way she felt best, only sparing her small pieces of advice and leaving her to figure out on her own what exactly had he meant and not to be seen again until the evening. At first, she had hated it, almost understanding why the spot on the team had opened - she had been warned about Gold's methods and that he was a difficult man to work with, after all - but then she had begun to see more. The small twitch of his mouth when she had spoken something funny, the way his hand gripped his cane tighter when her horse stumbled, and those tiny sparkles in his eyes when he had been looking at her when he thought she couldn't see it.

It made her confused, those spare moments when he had acted so unlike himself—confused and also curious because it only proved that beneath all those layers of cold exterior he presented on regular days, there was someone else. Someone that wasn't available to see for most of the people. And when noticing this, Belle wanted to be the one who would tear the walls down.= and see the man hiding behind them.

As time had passed by, he spent a lot more time with her than at the beginning. He began to be more attentive, sharing his experience with her that she had absorbed like a sponge.

Belle didn't know when the need to impress him and prove herself had turned into a want for him to notice more of her than her riding skills. There was no doubt he appreciated what she could do, but Belle wanted more. Somewhere along the way, she had stopped seeing him as just her coach, and someone a lot more instead. She still didn't quite understand what had led to that drunken kiss, nor who had made the first move, but it had happened, and it left her even more confused than before. When the day after he had started to act even more distant, she couldn't understand any of it. Maybe her own desperation for him to see her as herself was the reason why the moments he stopped acting cold towards were the reason she felt something stirring inside of her. That was why his sudden change in demeanour had hurt.

The problem that it seemed that he didn't believe in her wasn't a problem at all, no. What was, was the fact that he didn't trust her enough to share his worries with her.

Belle could do that jump. It had been the only one she couldn't yet master, and yes she had been nervous, but not enough for Gold to stop her. She would have let it go if it had been the first time, but it hadn't. The Olympics were just around the corner, and the only obstacle in her way was the square oxer.

Why wouldn't he let her face it? Why act as he cared only to cast her attentions away and then pretend that it hadn't been what he had done?

She hated it, but it seemed that there was more to it than just her inability to relax enough. She had seen it in his eyes as he rebooked her. There was more to it. There had to be. And she would learn what it was.

Belle took the reins in her hand and led Chip on the training arena, softly smiling when he nudged her shoulder. When she had joined the team, they let her chose the horse she would be riding. She and Chip bonded instantly, and that's how she knew he would never willingly threw her.

"A fine horse you chose, Miss French. May I ask why this one?"

"I guess we just clicked, coach."

She watched mesmerised how the horse reacted to his touch, snorting lightly as if greeting an old friend. The smile that bloomed on Gold's face was so genuine as if for a moment, he had forgotten that it wasn't just him and the animal. When the realisation came, his expression closed off within the second, leaving her wishing he would smile like that once more.

“His name's Chip. Take good care of him."

Belle smiled at the memory, briefly wondering if that had been the moment when she had fallen in love with her coach. A terrible choice, considering the Olympic regulations, but well... it was not like she could help it, could she?

She just loved the way his facade cracked when he smiled, and the thought of how his calloused hands would feel on her had been invading her mind more and more lately. Belle shocked her head and gripped the saddle, swinging into it with ease.

It wasn't as if she could make a move on him or anything, considering that after that one heated moment, he didn't want to have anything to do with her. She could dream, though.

Chip blew the air through his nose, shaking his mane as if to remind her what they were supposed to be doing, and she nudged him with her lower leg, urging him forward. The chilly, night air seeped into her bones, mindless of the layers of clothing, but she had always prefered to ride at night. It cleared her head more, making the worries from the day disappear. Besides, it was only her and Chip then, no more people watching.

Or so she had thought.

*

Gold rubbed a hand over his face, sighing. He was, let's face it, a total idiot. And unprofessional one on top of that. He let his feelings get better of him, distracting him, from what was important. Belle's success should have been his top priority, not this own desires. But when at first she had been annoying in her optimism, that same attitude was now the thing that he looked forward to each morning.

He hated to admit it, but for what probably was the first time in his miserable life, he was totally and helplessly in love. And his damned, stupid heart couldn't have picked the worst subject for its attention. He had tried to resist it, distant himself from it and her as soon as he realised what had been happening to him, but it was useless.

Gold couldn't do it. Seeing her laugh as she rode was making him want to be as close to her as possible, but he also knew that if it had gotten out somehow, well... not only he would be finished.

A loud neigh pulled him out of his thoughts, and he frowned, looking to the side where the moonlight entered through the window. It was the middle of the night, and there was only one person who could be up at this hour beside himself.

Slowly, and as silently as possible, he limped through the entrance to the arena, close enough to the stables as not to be seen. He made it just in time to see Belle urging Chip to the jump over the square. Gold could do nothing but watch, his heart immediately going to his throat as the horse sprung from the ground.

It lasted maybe only a second, but in his mind eye, he saw a different arena, in a different time, when a horse had caught the highest beam, throwing the rider off in the process. It didn't help that Chip's hind leg did exactly the same, but to his relief, Belle stayed in the saddle. Gold let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, a twinge of pain in his foot telling him he had put too much pressure on it. He didn't stay to see Belle spotting him, but instead, he turned away and limped towards the stables.

He needed to calm himself down.

*

Belle breathed through her nose, trying to calm her racing heart, her hands twisted in the rains.

That had been close. If it weren't for her reflexes, she would have probably fallen off the horse... Glancing at the big clock that hung over the entrance, she grimaced at the hour. She still needed to get some sleep, and it wasn't as if she would be able to do much more tonight, not after that small scare.

Belle patted Chip's neck affectionately then freed her right leg from the stirrup and dismounted. It was just in time to see a familiar figure limping into the stables.

She should have waited. It wasn't wise to go after him, so late into the night where there were no other people around. Not because she didn't trust him, no, more like she didn't trust herself. But she was drawn towards him, and so, she tugged at the rains and walked after him as if pulled by an invisible line.

He didn't turn when she came near him. Maybe he didn't hear, or maybe he chose not to acknowledge her, as all his focus was on a horse standing before him. Belle had seen the black stallion before, had been warned many times not to get to close to him as he didn't tolerate people that much and could lash out at any moment. Yet, right now he was standing still, not even huffing as Gold groomed him with well-practised movements.

"He's beautiful," she said, making Gold halt for just a split second.

"He's old," he said after he resumed his treatment, still not glancing her way. "He could still give some younger ones a run for their money, though."

She watched him continuously from the corner of her eye. Chip's box was just next to where Gold had been standing, so she could watch him while taking care of her horse. Something was nagging at her mind, but she didn't know what it was.

"I haven't seen him on the paddock, is he sick?"

She glanced over her shoulder and could swear that for a moment Gold's lips quirked upwards.

"If by sick, you mean he's too stubborn to let anyone but two people ride him, then yes."

There was a touch of amusement in his voice, but there had also been something else. Something that made her frown a little and get closer to Gold after securing Chip in his stall.

"What happened?"

She had an inking, which became a fair assumption when she spotted his shoulders stiffening. There were rumours, circulating around about Gold and the sudden finish of his career. Nobody knew how much truth there had been in them, though.

"There is a reason why I'm reluctant to let you perform that jump," he answered when she had started to think that he wouldn't. Gold turned to her with a sad smile on his face. "Not every jump is a lucky one."

Unwillingly, her gaze fell to his right leg.

"He's your horse," she said, glancing back up, realisation blooming on her face as the pieces came together.

"He was."

"What's his name?"

"Baelfire. My son named him," he added with a wistful smile as he patted the horse's neck. "He had a knack for naming horses. He also named small Chip." Belle's lower abdomen suddenly clenched, and a warm feeling spread through her entire body. She loved it when he smiled that way - it transformed his whole face to a more open one, full of something that was hidden away when there had been other people around. She loved that expression, and it made her want him even more ... It also made her wonder - could it be, he felt similar to her? Maybe that kiss hadn't been an accident after all. Belle watched him closely, taking in the details of his posture. He seemed to avoid her eyes, but it appeared he couldn't help the small glances that escaped her way.

She had enough of this dance they seemed to be doing from so time.

She took a half-step forward.

"Raymond - "

"Miss French," he interrupted, holding his hand up, halting her in her movements. "I may have an inking to what you would like to say and let me tell you it would be a really bad idea."

Belle couldn't help it and bit on her lower lip. Gold's eyes momentarily followed the gesture, and she watched him gulp before he turned his gaze upwards to meet her gaze finally.

"Would it really?" she asked after a moment of silence, that felt like hours, but damn it - she was too tired of the both of them running in circles around each other. She wasn't blind. And so wasn't he.

"Miss French - "

"Belle," she said while taking a step forward - more bold one, suddenly sure of what she wanted to do. " My name's Belle. You can use it, I don't mind."

"Belle," he agreed. "We can't."

"Don't you want to?"

"Don't get me wrong," he ran a hand through his hair, frustrated and stepped away for his old horse, meeting her in front of the boxes. "I would like nothing more, but there are rules, regulations to upheld - "

Gold hadn't noticed when she had gotten so close to him, but one moment he was pacing at a safe distance from her, and then she was in front of him, holding her finger against his lips, silencing him. He wanted her to work on her confidence, so he would have it.

"To hell with regulations," she whispered, and before he could protest any more, she climbed on her toes and kissed him firmly on the lips.

She briefly wondered if she hadn't stepped over some invisible line, she had no other indication that he was into her as much as she was into him beside his vague answer and a drunken kiss, but this time there was no tase of alcohol on their lips. Belle was about to step away, and apologise before disappearing in shame, but then his lips parted as he returned the kiss eagerly, and all her worries had disappeared even if for a moment. Something fell to the ground making a soft noise, but when she tried to glance its way, Gold's hand twisted in her hair, scraping her scalp. Belle moaned into his mouth, and the noise made him growl as he pushed firmer against her, his tongue brushing her palate at the same time, making her shudder with want.

It was only when they both broke for air, did she notice that her back now pressed against the wood of the empty horse stall, and Gold's cane was nowhere to be found. When she glanced up, her breath caught in her throat. Raymond's pupils were blown wide, his breathing uneven, and hair all messed up from where her fingers had unconsciously wondered.

Gold sighed and rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes.

"Tell me to stop, Belle," he whispered, his breath brushing against her skin, making her shiver. "Tell me to stop, or I won't be able to restrain myself."

She smiled softly, bringing her hand to his cheek. She traced her finger over the soft stubble, waiting for him to open his eyes. When he finally did, her smile widened.

"I don't want you to. I think that me kissing you was enough of an indication."

"Belle - "

"Will it help if I wanted to do this probably from the day I met you?"

He groaned, and she grinned when the growing bulge in his trousers touched her thigh.

"I don't want you to regret it."

"Will you?" she asked, raising her eyebrow, challengingly.

Instead of answering, he claimed her lips in a hungry kiss, pressing harder against her, supporting his hand on the wood near her head. He kissed down her throat, nibbling at her skin with his teeth, sending shivers down her spine, living small red marks in his wake, and desire so intense she wished for more.

Gold couldn't think clearly - not when she had kissed him for the first time, and especially not now, when she threw her leg over his hip, bringing their bodies closer together, and rubbing against him. Some last sane cell of his brain screamed at him that he should stop, that he couldn't do it to her as it would not only ruin his career but even more hers, but he was too far gone to listen to it.

He didn't want to follow its calls because at this moment, with Belle's in his arms and as close as possible, he felt the happiest that he had been. He was just about to kiss her behind her right earlobe when suddenly, there had been a crack, and his hand no longer rested on a firm surface. The only thing he could think of was to cushion Belle's head with the palm of his hand, before they both tumbled backwards, falling on the stack of hay.

They lay in silence, breathing hard, none of them precisely sure, what just had happened. Gold's weight felt oddly comfortable on top of Belle's, but it took her one look at his confused face to start to giggle. When the two horses neighed, her giggle transformed into full laughter that she couldn't stop. Gold bent his head, hiding his face in the crock of Belle's neck, chuckling.

"Yeah, laugh all of you, why don't you."

Belle plucked the straw that somehow found its way into his hair, making him look up at her when she brushed his hair behind his ear.

"You look adorable," she admitted, making him smirk.

"You're the one talking." He started to heave off her, but with one swift motion, she pushed at him, making him roll over with her on top. Gold's hands went to her hips, securing her in place, his eyebrow raised.

"Planning to ride bareback, are we?"

She giggled, her hands going to the buttons of his dress shirt. It was her favourite one - dark blue with bearly visible black stripes.

"Not bare enough," she managed to open three of them before his hands sopped her.

"I'm - Well," he started again, after clearing his throat. "I didn't come here prepared to - you know..."

"It's OK. I'm on the pill," she answered then kissed him softly on the tip of his nose. "And it's been ages since I have been with anyone."

"Not as long as I, believe me," he countered, grimacing.

"I would quote your words about Baelfire earlier if they weren't too cliche for the situation," her answer made him grin and climb up on his elbows to claim her lips. Gods, he loved kissing her. He didn't want to stop doing it. "Besides," she added, pulling slightly away. "I have never had sex on hay before."

The words spoken in a husky voice sent a wave of desire to Gold's loins nad he suddenly felt like he couldn't wait any longer.

"Well, then," he said, sitting up, making Belle squeak in surprise and catch herself on his shoulders. He put one hand on the small of her back, and the other on her neck, kissing her hungrily, first on the corner of her lips and then sucking at her jaw. Her surprise lasted only a second and then her shaking fingers were undoing the last of his buttons, throwing his shirt off his shoulders. The moment he had to let her go to let her remove his shirt left her yearning for his touch, and she took in a sharp breath when he cupped her breast. "We need to change that."

Belle didn't know when he had undone her riding britches button, slipping his hand to touch her, rubbing at her core, making her jerk against his palm.

"Fuck," she moaned.

"I plan to do just that," he growled, flipping her on her back, lying her down on his discarded shirt. The straws were scraping her back through the material, but it wasn't unpleasant in the slightest, making her more turned on, instead. She ran her hand down his bare belly, fascinated by how the muscles beneath her palm clenched. He was more on the thin side, but not unhealthy looking, leaner that she would have imagined, proving he still made an effort to keep in shape despite his ruined leg.

"Found something you like?" he asked, lifting her palm to his mouth and licking her fingers before holding her arm over her head as he bent down to kiss the spot between her breast as soon as he undid her blouse with the other hand.

"Yes," she breathed out, completely lost in the sensation. "You."

She freed her hand and twisted her fingers in his hair, moaning when he claimed her nipple into his mouth, running his tongue in a circular motion, then biting lightly before sucking. Funny how this had been the day when she had forgotten to put on her bra. A lucky day indeed.

"Beautiful," he murmured, moving to her other breast. "So beautiful."

"Rey, please..."

He stopped, glancing up, his eyes burning with desire so profound it made ger gulp.

"Are you sure about this?" He asked, his eyes searching her face. It made her heart swell, and she raised her eyebrow amused.

"You're seriously asking me this after touching and kissing me like that?"

"I think I may be in love with you," he admitted suddenly, and by the look on his face, the words left his mouth without his conscious thought. Belle linked her arms behind his neck, pulling him upwards, so their faces were at the same level.

"Then it's a good thing I may be too."

She undid the buckle of his belt with some fumbling, not breaking the eye contact with him, mindless of her awkward movements, watching him gulp.

"If you're worried about the regulations," she whispered. "We'll work something out." She wriggled out from under him, letting him remove his shoes and doing the same herself.

"I'll resign," he fully intended to do just that. "Jefferson will be all too happy to take over," he added as he discarded his clothes to the side.

"We will think about it later," she said and pulled him back over him, moving her down his belly to grasp him in her hand, making him groan in pleasure as she moved her hand. "Now, didn't you plan to do something to me?"

"I believe," he grunted and bit slightly on her earlobe while his hips buckled with the next movement of her hand, "that someone threatened me with bareback riding?"

"Oh, it was a promise."

And with that, she pushed on his shoulders and climbed on top of him. The way he looked up at her, his hands roaming her bare body, she knew she could never let him go. And so did he. They would worry about the future later, but Belle didn't feel disturbed by it at all. She would make that final jump, and even if she wouldn't win, it didn't matter to her anymore.

She took him in slowly, enjoying the way he filled her in, watching him throw his head back and groaning.

"Gods, Belle..."

Their moans of pleasure were lost in the chill night air, but none of them could feel the cold. They were too lost in each other for the first and certainly not the last time. Afterwards, when Belle's head rested against his bare chest, he knew one thing - he couldn't let her go because the world without her didn't hold as much appeal as before.

"You don't have to resign now, you know? Nobody needs to know to after the competition is over," she murmured against his chest, and he grimaced even if slightly amused.

He reached blindly for her blouse that had been discarded somewhere to his left. It wouldn't do for her to catch a cold.

"With the way that I can't help myself looking at you?" he answered and smirked as he finally grabbed onto the blouse, after flexing a little. "Someone would have to be blind," he added, throwing it over her.

"That would be the fun part. Not getting caught."

He could feel her smiling against his skin and feeling suddenly mischievous, he grabbed a handful of hay and threw it over her head, making her giggle.

"You're a minx - you know that?"

"Well," she climbed on her elbow, brushing her nose against his, making the lone straws fall onto him too. "You're bringing the worst in me."

"You can win this, you know?" he said suddenly, turning his head to look her in the eyes. "I know you will."

The look in her eyes almost took his breath away. Lost in her gaze, he almost didn't hear her next words.

"I already did."

They needed to get dressed and leave the stables before anyone else would stumble on them, but for now, it didn't matter. What mattered was that a completely new chapter had opened for the both of them, one a lot more thrilling than Olympics itself.

Putting her hand on Gold's cheek, Belle kissed him softly, pouring her raw emotions into it, loving the way he responded, bending towards her at the same time.

Oh, yes. They would be fine.

[fuckyeahbelleandrumpelstiltskin]

Rumbelle Fanon

What do we consider to be popular and widespread Rumbelle fanon or headcanons in our fandom/fanfiction?

A few I remember:

The pendant Belle wears in a lot of her ftl scenes belonged to her mother or was given to her by her mother.

Rumple’s Scale Coat is made of Dragon hide.

Belle is from the Southlands or Marchlands.

Rumple loves going down on Belle.

Rumple cried during or after their first time.

Belle is kinky af.

I’ll add your comments to the list. :)

Belle was absolutely the sexual pursuer in the Dark Castle (kelyon).

They have Roleplay Wednesdays (thestraggletag).

The cot in the back room of Rumple's shop is frequently used for sex (woodelf68).

Gold's ring reminds him of Belle and he considers it to be his wedding ring(thisgirlshouldbestudying).

[nothingeverlost]

Ten Fanfic Questions

I was tagged by @woodelf68​

1. what’s your favourite genre to write?

The easy answer is angst, but really my angst tends to be ‘how do these people work through this angst filled situation and come out of it stronger as a person/ship/family.

2. do you pull inspiration from real-life, or do you pull things from other books/fanfiction you’ve read?

Some from real life.  More so when I was writing more procedural fic.  It’s also about taking real life emotions and translating that into a fictional story.  I love AUs and absolutely take fictional ideas.  Like rewriting Knives out as Laura.

3. do you tend to write one-shots, short stories, or longer things?

One shots that turn into continuing things, often.  Chaptered fic.

4. do you prefer to write description or dialogue?

Dialogue

5. favourite fic/book of all time?

Jane Eyre

6. favourite trope?

Found family

7. are you the kind of person to work on more than one WIP?

I can’t even count how many I have.

8. how long have you been writing for?

I don’t remember not writing.  I still have some stories I wrote in elementary school.  I have a folder full of random stories from junior high and high school.  Fanfic wise, 15 years now.

9. do you tend to write more during the morning, afternoon, or evening?

Evening usually.

10. do you prefer to post and update your WIP chapter by chapter, or do you prefer to wait until your WIP is 100% finished before sharing it?

I really wish I was better about keeping it to myself until it was done but feedback is crack.  

I tag @ddagent​ @maplesyrupao3​ @thestraggletag​ and anyone else that wants to answer.

[rumbellewelcome]

The Rumbelle Glossary--add on, please!

@standbyyourmantis did a great job composing this--I have added a few S7-specific terms. Are there any other new terms that you think would confuse rookies?

~~~~~~~~

1x12: Season One, Episode 12. ie. Skin Deep, the first episode in which Belle appears.

A&E: Reference to Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the creators and producers. See: Kitsowitz, Adam & Eddy.

Adam & Eddy: Reference to Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the creators and producers. See: A&E, Kitsowitz.

Anyelle: Basically, a ship that is Robert Carlyle in another role and Belle.  There is a more in-depth definition and a full list of Anyelle ships as well as a links to fic about them provided here.

Anyem: A ship where any Robert Carlyle character is paired with any Emilie de Ravin character. Popular Anyem parings include Hiero & Ives and Rushacey (Rush and Lacey).

Beauties: Fans of Belle.

Dearies: Fans of Rumple.

 Detective Weaver: Rumple’s S7 cursed persona.

 DO: Dark One--usually Rumplestiltskin, usually set in the Enchanted Forest, but could also refer to other bearers of the Dark One Curse.

Dove: The bodyguard/hired muscle Rumplestiltskin-as-Mr. Gold has repossess Moe French’s van in Skin Deep. In fandom, a common assistant to Mr. Gold.

 February 12: The original air date of Skin Deep, considered a most sacred and holy day to Rumbellers, celebrated by the Fluffapalooza festival.

Floof Family: Belle, Rumplestiltskin, and Bae/Neal. Named for their shared floofy hair.

Fluff Family: Belle, Rumplestiltskin, and Gideon. So-called for the short hair.

 FTL: Shorthand for Fairy Tale Land, a fan-given name for the Enchanted Forest.

 FTL2: The second Fairy Tale Land, home of Cinderella Tremaine 2 and her family.

Golden Beauty: The specific pairing of Mr. Gold and Belle. See also: Golden Lace.

 Golden Lace: The specific pairing of Mr. Gold and Belle’s alter ego, Lacey. See also: Rumpled Lace, Woven Lace.

 Goldstiltskin: Rumplestiltskin in Neverland. Specifically, wearing black leather and the painted face.

Her Handsome Hero, H3: The title of Belle’s favorite book, and also of the season 5 Belle centric ep.

 Jane Espenson, JE: The writer of Skin Deep and founder of Rumbelle.

Kitsowitz: Reference to Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the creators and producers. See: A&E, Adam & Eddy.

A Monthly Rumbelling: A Rumbelle prompt event taking place, well, monthly, and offering both smut and nonsmut prompts.

NTIC: Nick the Incorporeal Creeper. A specific fandom version of Nicholas Rush from a fic by user badfaerie. He helps various AU Anyelle Bobbys find true love.

 Papafire: The parental relationship between Rumplestiltskin and his son Baelfire.

 TMI Tuesday: A chance for fic authors and RPers to answer fan questions, sometimes in-character.

 RCIJ: Rumbelle Christmas in July. A version of Rumbelle Secret Santa running over the summer.

 RSS: Rumbelle Secret Santa. A gift exchange running over Christmas where volunteers create gifts for each other based on a short prompt by the giftee. See: RCIJ.

 Rumbelle Showdown: A yearly fic writing contest where fic writers write short stories under pseudonyms in a head-to-head tournament style competition.

 Rumblr: The Rumbelle fandom on Tumblr.

 Rumpled Lace: The specific pairing of Rumplestiltskin and Lacey.See also: Golden Lace, Woven Lace.

 Sir Rumple: Rumplestiltskin as the knight from the season 4 finale AU.

 Skin Deep: The first episode wherein Belle appears, the basis of the entire Rumbelle ship.

 Spinner Rumple: Rumplestiltskin as the spinner character from before taking on the curse. Usually, appears in alternate universes wherein Milah has left but Rumplestiltskin never takes on the curse.

 Storybrooke AU: Nonmagical alternate universe set in Storybrooke, usually set outside of the show’s canon.

 TEA: The Espenson Awards. A yearly award show for fanfiction and other creators. Named for Jane Espenson, writer of Skin Deep.

 The Thing: The official Rumbelle welcome wagon post. Introduce yourself and ask @thestraggletag for it.

 The War/The Rumbelle War: Several years ago, a group of fiction writers decided to try to kill each other with feels. We call this dark time The Rumbelle War or The War. It’s best not to speak of it.

 Woobie: Usually used in the context of Woobie!Rumple. Defined by TVTropes as:

 A “woobie” is a name for any type of character who makes you feel extremely sorry for them. Basically, the first thing you think to say when you see the woobie is: “Aw, poor baby!”

 Woven Lace: The specific pairing of Detective Weaver and Lacey in S7 AUs.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

IT WAS FANFICTION WRITER APPRECIATION DAY!?!?

GUYS I AM SO SORRY two of my friends left today so they were packing all yesterday/spending their last day with me so I COMPLETELY MISSED THIS. So here, it’s a day late, but the fanfic writers that I want to give a shout out to:

@khirsahle: Oh man, this is the woman who got my roommate to read smut for the first time (no small feat) AND made us both scream simultaneously while we were reading chapters AND dragged us back into the Mass Effect and Dragon Age fandoms AND got me into Young Avengers... while at college it was not uncommon to see either my roommate or me tearing across campus, phone in hand, to find the other one at work or rehearsal and scream, SHE UPDATED! KHIRSAH UPDATED! Now we still do that but metaphorically since we are several states away. She’s also taught me a lot about the publishing world, which as an aspiring author is super helpful. The master of the slowburn, the tease, the yank-the-rug-out, the feelings... khirsah’s just The Best.

@phoenixwrites: IF YOU GUYS HAVEN’T READ HER SWANFIRE STUFF THEN YOU HAVEN’T LIVED. Also her original writing is kickass and she deserves to be published because I need to fangirl with more people about her writing c’mon guys get on board. She’s sassy and intelligent and makes me CRACK UP with her sassy writing in her stories, both original and fanfic. She’s an all-around awesome person who has done a lot to keep our ships sailing. And did I mention her fix-it Rogue One fic? No? Well it’s great guys, go check it out.

@thestraggletag: Straggle is kind of like that mystical queen to me that you live in awe of but you’re also kind of scared to approach the throne since she is The Night Incarnate and she could smite you if she was in that kind of mood. This is the person who got me into Rumbelle with her amazing Starbucks series (which is still my favorite) and even though I’m a total fangirling lurker on her blog she hasn’t yet struck me with lightning which I think is pretty awesome of her. She does a brilliant job of getting into the minds of her characters and transporting them to alternate universes and exploring their good and bad sides and their motivations and interactions. Also the smut is great. And we all know I’m a sucker for good smut.

@captainofthefallen: LOOK AT MY ROOMIE POSTING THE PILLARS OF ETERNITY FIC. LOOK. AT. HER. GO. READ HER STUFF GUYS, IT’S GONNA MAKE YOU CRY BUT YOU’RE GONNA THANK HER FOR IT. This woman had been torturing me for months by waking me up almost every morning with PoE fic (and occasionally Knights of the Old Republic fic). That’s right. Every. Morning. And she wouldn’t publish it!? For the longest time!? But she’s finally doing it and it is Amazing. If you want PoE fic (and I know our fandom is tiny but WE ARE MIGHTY), then this is your girl. She’s The Best. She’s also written a couple Critical Role things. It’s all The Best.

[lemusesick]

Hey guys I need help!

Anyone know if there's a fanfiction with Rumple as an actual crocodile? As in a mini comic from @cocoadrops I believe. Anyone who can help? @ao3feed-rumbelle @bookwormchocaholic @anonymousnerdgirl @bad-faery @smartgirlsaremean @thatravenclawbitch @worryinglyinnocent @rufeepeach @mariequitecontrarie @rowofstars @bluebirdofhapiness @judymulder @thestraggletag @wizzygold @emospritelet @ripperblackstaff @violetfaust @woodelf68 @magnoliatattoo @theoneandonlylittlebird @nirvigedearie @rumbelleprompts

[xxlovesuicide61xx]

Tagged

Tagged by @rainfiresnowearth

Rules: 1. Always post the rules. 2. Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. Write 11 questions of your own. 4. Tag 11 people.

1. What is your favorite fictional character? Why? - I honestly have no idea. Severus Snape is high on the list. Death from The Book Theif. Quentin from The Magicians.

2. What is your least favorite fictional character? Why? -Lo-fucking-lita. I can’t stand her! I feel like she’s such a manipulative bitch who uses Humbert for her own personal gain. She’s horrible to him and pretty much everyone else in her life. She’s rude and doesn’t know how to behave. She drives me up the wall. Don’t even start me on the gum chewing. (P.S. Jeremy Irons reading the audiobook is a gift from God.)

3. Which fictional character(s) would you want to be romantically and/or platonically involved with? - Wayyyyyy too many to answer. Morpheus from The Spintered Series. Rhysand from ACOTAR. Erik from Phantom of the Opera. Short answer any Tall, Dark, and Handsome character, probably with a hidden agenda. Sev is my number one, though.

4. Do you prefer waking up early or staying up late? - It’s not so much what I prefer as what my body does. I’ve been a night owl since I was ten. Child of the moon through and through.

5. What plot event would you change in a book of your choice, if at all? - Percy turning his back on the Weasleys. I’ve seen first hand what that does to a family, and Molly and Arthur didn’t deserve it.

6. What do you like most about yourself? - At the risk of sounding super conceited, my hair. It’s long and soft and shiny and naturally straight and I love it dearly.

7. Which genres of fanfiction do you prefer reading, if at all? - Typically the cutesy romance with a nice side of smut. Every now and then I enjoy something super dark or freaky or just plain wrong. I think we all do, every now and again.

8. Which character(s) would you have wanted to be more fleshed out? Why? - ADRIAN PUCEY!!! Seriously. He’s a background Slytherin in the same year as Fred and George. He’s a chaser, prefect, and doesn’t take a side in the war. I wanna know more about him and his moral decisions.

9. What character developments and/or social interactions you wished had happened more in any book of your choice, if at all? - I always wish that there were more classroom scenes in Harry Potter. I want to know if Flitwick uses magical scratch and sniff stickers on his exams or if the advanced level astronomy students get to have camp-outs and how often does McGonagall actually teach as a cat?

10. If you had to pick only one genre of music to listen to for the rest of your life, which genre would you pick? -Hardest question ever. I guess alternative, because it can have a little bit of everything in it?

11. Would you rather have a thumb out the end of both of your knees or one thumb on the bottom of your chin? - Thumb on the bottom of my chin. I already try and hold things with my chin; this would just make it easier. Plus, maybe then I’d actually be able to do a chin-up.

My questions: 1. If you could have a dragon what color would it be? 2. What kind of polar bear is your favorite kind of polar bear? 3. If you had to swap your top two otp pairings in a sort of wife swap, who would you swap and why? How would it go? 4. If could live out your days in any fictional universe, which would it be? Would you want to stay yourself or take the place of another fictional character? 5. What was your first ship? How old were you? (No shame here.) 6. Who is the one character who you genuinely would not want to end up with? 7. If you could tell your favorite fictional character three things, what would you tell them? 8. If you met with your otp and could only give them one reason they should be together, what would it be? 9. If you could only ever read again or write again, which would you choose? 10. No reality necessary- what would your dream job be? 11. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?

Who I’m tagging: @ripperblackstaff @snamioneshipper @emospritelet @worryinglyinnocent @thriftycrimson @thestraggletag @dungeonbat @spottytonguedog @sevmione-otp @mysnarkyslytherinsecret @ladybookwormwithteeth

[phoenixfeatherquill]

3, 4, 6, 15, 20, 22, 26, 27, 31, 36, 40, 43, 46, 50 (i'm sorry if that's a lot!!)

I LIKE THAT YOU ASKED ME A LOT.

3. The best fandom I’ve been involved in?  That is such an unfair question.  They are all so wonderful.  I made so many amazing creative friends through the Rumbelle fandom.  The Swanfire fandom connected me with salty former viewers–and I badly needed that after Neal died.  Inuyasha was one of my first fandoms and I got to watch it evolve and mature.  Klaroline is so passionate–their enthusiasm is so infections!  I’m new to the Barson fandom but they are so chill and great.  And there’s SO MUCH smut.  I love it.  Literally every fandom I’ve been a part of, I’ve made friends, I’ve read and written fic, and I could not possibly pick the best.  

4.  Do I regret getting involved in any fandoms?  I don’t think so.  I’ve loved every fandom I’ve been a part of, even if for a short time.

6.  Most of my fandoms are shipper fandoms, which are smaller and more fun in my opinion.  So…Swanfire, Rumbelle (from OUAT), Klaroline (TVD), Barson (SVU)…well, for Inuyasha it’s just the canon ships, InuKag, MirSan, etc.

15.  Obscure ships…hm.  I love Elijah and Elena on “The Vampire Diaries”.  Is Barson obscure?  I only follow Barson people.  I’m guessing Stabler and Benson are the popular ship, right?  

20.  Barson.  I started off saying “That is ridiculous.”  And then it sucked me in.

22.  *looks off into the sunset*  So, so many things I regret writing.  

26.  I take a lot of pride in my titles.  A lot of times, I’ll use song titles, like “Only if for a Night” or “Chop and Change”, if I feel a song fits with the theme.  Sometimes they come from the sky–”Hell’s Heresies” came out of nowhere and it’s probably my favorite of the titles.  (Fun fact, I was bugging Straggle for title ideas for HH and then I had to followup with NEVER MIND I FOUND ONE)  32 Seconds also came from the sky.  “On the Shores of Loch Katrine” was a little play on “On the Shores of Silver Lake”, which I always thought was a gorgeous title.  “Time Strangers” came from the manga “Time Stranger Kyoko”–I just love how evocative the phrase “Time Strangers” is.  “To Catch A Swan” is another of my favorites–again, no idea where it came from, but I’m really proud of it.  

27.  Definitely writing summaries.  I hate writing summaries–it feels like you’re forcing your story into 142 characters or something.  Titles are a million times easier and more fun.

31.  I have gotten a lot of really sweet and amazing comments on my fics–especially during dark times.  Someone once told me that instead of doing their homework, they read “On the Shores of Loch Katrine” all night, which I got a kick out of.  I had a recent reviewer call my Klaroline fic a work of art.  I LOVE when someone will leave a review that says, “Your fanfic made me ship this”, that is a joy.

36.  Rom com fluff is my favorite genre to write.  Hands down.  Ooh, and smut!

40.  I struggle with action scenes a lot and descriptions of setting.  I don’t find it interesting to write, I want to skip ahead to the dialogue and whatnot.  But descriptions are key to good writing, so it’s something I try and work on with each new piece of writing.  

43.  It will come as no surprise that @thestraggletag is hugely inspirational to me.  Her writing is sublime, she always has my back, and I do not deserve to be in her good graces.  She is awesome and I heart her.

46.  Well, it would depend on what they were interested in.  If I have a salty Swanfire fan who misses Neal, I’ll point them towards “To Catch A Swan” or “Time Strangers”.  If I have a Rumbelle fan who wants a sweeping romance, it will probably be “On the Shores of Loch Katrine” or “Brave”.  I write for a few ships.  

50.  I’ve always written fanfiction in one sense–that is, I’ve been writing in journals sweeping romances between characters I was attached to or playing with my Barbies–making sure that Mulan and Captain Shang got together, of course.  I started posting online I think in middle school–15 years ago–stopped briefly, and when I entered high school, started up again.  I was watching Lost at the time and I hated Sawyer and Kate together.  I couldn’t think of any other characters I wanted Sawyer with (aside from Claire, but I loved Charlie and Claire too much).  So I invented a character and started writing Sawyer/OC fanfic.  (I was fourteen, don’t judge me)                         

[thestraggletag]

Kin, Part 3 of 3

Prompt: Dragon, Transform, Capture, Marriage, Nest

Giftee: @minnl70

Summary: Chosen by the Blue Fairy to slay the last dragon, Belle defies her fate and strikes a deal with the beast, Rumplestiltskin. As they search for a way to break the enchantment, an unexpected bond begins to form, but magic is never without a price—and never quite straightforward.

Rating: M

A/N: Surprise, @minnl70, it's me, your Secret Santa! I'm away on holidays right now but I made sure to properly queue this up for you. If all goes well all chapters of this fic will be posted today, but I'll try to check to make sure they are (and, if possible, also upload the fic to AO3, which I know makes it easier to read). Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Something changed after the incident with the arrow, something he couldn't quite put into words. There was a newfound… ease between him and his little maid. An almost enjoyment of her presence. Before he had never had someone to presume his collections to. Now he found himself introducing bits of his treasures to her, delighting in every gasp and sound of awe his maid produced. But it wasn’t until he showed her his library that she had the best reaction, her eyes glazing over, greed shining through them in a way that made them look bluer. Something rippled down his spine, beneath his scales, as Belle slowly spun around, reverently taking in the thousands of books around her.

“It’s beautiful.”

He shrugged, feigning a detached humility he did not feel.

“I suppose. You may use it, if you wish. It could do with some dusting and I’m tired of seeing you walk around carrying those tatty old things you brought with you.”

It was odd how easily and willingly he gave up his library to her. It was not in his nature to share, but rather to hoard and covet. But seeing Belle rifling through his precious books, treating each one with care and a soft touch he was now familiar with. He told himself it made sense to give her a library, if only to have her help him find a solution to whatever the Blue Fairy had done to her.

He began to find himself often in the library. For completely necessary reasons, of course. It was just that, with the drapes pulled back and the windows clean, the light was much better to read by than in his own personal library, where he kept the tricky, dangerous magical tomes that needed almost complete darkness. And it smelled good too, like old books and ink and that burnt caramel smell that clung to his little maid everywhere she went, including the room atop the library, where she now slept, the fireplace continuously lit so that it would be warm and cosy. Clearly the castle was set on cosseting and fretting over his little human, given how it now maintained both the fireplace in her room and the hearth in the kitchen and how it cleaned itself now, driving dust away before it could settle in spots that she had cleaned before. It had never been this accommodating with him, which he resented the slightest bit. 

Spending more time together eventually translated to talking, the silence slowly filling up with little questions and answers. Often Belle would prepare tea, taking a full tray to the library and offering him a cup. He found the blends she picked were pleasant, and it was a nice little pause in the day, to sit down and have tea with her and talk. She asked after his life, genuine curiosity in her tone, and he found himself telling her, bit by bit, what it was like being the last dragon, his life wholly his own, no expectations or constraints.

“So much freedom sounds wonderful. But it also sounds lonely.”

Her tone, soft and gentle and painfully sincere, made him squirm the slightest bit. Funny how he had never felt this exposed with knights charging at him with their sharp lances pointed at him. He shrugged, as if he could physically dislodge her words from his shoulders.

“It’s fine. I’m used to it. Don’t know anything else.”

“What about when you were young? Did no one look after you?”

“A couple of kind spinners found me as a hatchling, couldn’t have been more than a few days old. They raised me the best they could, since they could not have children of their own. Didn’t mind that I scared their sheep and almost burned down the house a couple of times.”

Her smile washed over him like warm sunlight.

“They sound lovely.”

“They were very nice. Very patient. But, eventually, they were run out of town by angry villagers. When they were able to settle again I ran away, so they would be able to stay. It’s just been me since then, for the last few hundreds of years.”

He had tried, at first, to look for more of his kind. He had never been able to find anything other than bones and empty, looted lairs. He had buried the bones of the first dragons he found, before it became too much of a hassle to do so. 

“And since then, you've loved no one, and no one has loved you?”

She said it so softly, so carefully, but the phrase settled around his midsection like a punch in the gut, prompting him to find an excuse to leave the room. But loneliness wasn’t as enjoyable as it had been before, and so he found that he couldn’t keep himself from his little maid for long, finding excuse after excuse to come across her. It was nice, he supposed, to just talk to someone. And, to her credit, Belle knew exactly what to say and how to say it to get him to open up and spill all of his dark secrets. He found himself opening up against his will, unable to refuse her gentle prodding.

“Is there any way you could have children, if you wanted?” His little maid blushed a bit, pointedly focusing on pouring them tea as he watched her, enthralled by the way the red on her cheeks made her eyes bluer. “I mean, you… you can look human. I- is there a way that-?”

“I may look human, dearie, but I’m not. This that you see in front of you is a facade. A trick of the light. I’m not compatible with humans so no, there is no saving dragonkind. I’m the last the world will see of it.”

He didn’t expect her to look happy, but neither did he expect her to find the idea of complete dragon extinction unpalatable. Dragons were, after all, monsters. Antagonists in children’s stories, evil creatures out there stealing princesses and burning down villages. If there were more dragons around, there would be less humans.

And yet, she looked troubled, her brow furrowed as she glanced at the small creamer she had brought for her own use, since he liked his tea black- but full of sugar, even if he’d deny it. 

“If you don’t stop looking at the milk like that it’ll curdle, dearie. Has it done something to offend you? Do you want me to dispose of the entire tea set? I have nicer ones, you know.”

“Don’t you dare, I like this one. It’s lovely.” She moved the entire tray closer to her, with a possessiveness that he found enticing. “It’s not about the tea set. I just thought… I thought it was a pity that dragons are all but gone.”

“You might be the only human to feel that way.”

“All life is worth protecting. It’s worth existing. All creatures have their place, no matter what the Blue Fairy seems to think.”

It wasn’t the first time she spoke of the little gnat with derision, but it still sent a frisson of delight down his spine. She was lovely in her anger, lips pursed and eyes sparkling. He tilted his head as a new thought crossed his mind. 

“Who was supposed to be your knight in shining armour, little maid?”

She paused just as she was about to take a sip of tea, frowning.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Blue Fairy must have had someone in mind to try and rescue you from my clutches, killing me in the process. Your father, perhaps, but I doubt it. He might have been dragonslayer material in his youth, but he’s past it now.”

He flinched dramatically when she threw a sugar cube in his direction, pretending to be hurt when it bounced off his shoulder.

“Don’t be mean. But no, it wasn’t my father. At least I don’t think it was. I think the Blue Fairy meant to use Gaston.”

“A fiance, I presume?”

“An arranged marriage that thankfully never took place.”

She told him then of Gaston Legume, the strapping young heir to a neighbouring duchy, with dreams of not just inheriting his title but also making a name for himself. A natural-born hunter and fighter eager to prove himself to the world.

“He sounds dreamy.”

“He sounds insufferable. He tried to be charming at first, but the facade didn’t last long. It took me little time to discover he wasn’t just a pompous ass, he was truly an awful person. He had no respect for anyone he perceived as weak and was greedy for power and recognition. For adoration.”

She shifted, and he could smell the unease in her. He didn’t like it one bit.

“There was something unsettling about Gaston, something that only I could see. I never quite felt comfortable with him.”

”Like you do with me, mmh?”

He waited for her to laugh at his quip, but she nodded instead, her gaze going soft as she looked at him from beneath her lashes. There was something about that look that drew him in, made him feel like something was burning in the pit of his stomach. It was an altogether unpleasant, but not unwelcome, feeling. 

She didn’t deny it.

“Is that so bad, that I like your company?”

“Not bad. Mad? Certainly. Then again, I’ve known you’re not entirely in possession of your senses for a while now. You talk to that little wisp, for one.”

“Leave Flicker alone. He’s good company.”

She began to pick up their tea things, and he contained a sigh of disappointment that their afternoon was at an end. 

“You’re better, though.”

It used to be that he could spend hours in his laboratories, obsessed with whatever experiment occupied his mind at the time, but now he found himself seldomly spending more than a couple of hours a day there, and more often than not his mind was not fully engaged with whatever he was doing there. Other things occupied his time now. Recently he had taken a liking to roam the orchards in his true form. The sun there was lovely and often Belle would go out with a book and a basket and collect fruits before sitting in the shade of a tree to read. He would bask in the sun next to her, belly up like a cat some days, others curled up around the tree, tail playing with the hem of his maid’s dress, snout lying comfortably across her lap as she stroked the scales from the tip of his nose to the top of his head. She never shied away from his true form, often telling him how beautiful his scales looked under the light of the sun or how soft and smooth they were to the touch, making him preen. 

He found himself aching to go outside on that particular day, which was likely why he did not realise he was mixing sulphur with fulminating silver without wetting it first, which explained why the whole thing blew up in his face, knocking him to the ground. Stunned, he lay on the floor for what felt like forever, ears ringing and clothing singed. He shook his head, trying to dispel the haze clouding his vision.

“What happened here? Are you okay?”

The dragon tried to stamp down the immediate relief he felt when his little maid burst into the laboratory, still smelling of sunshine and peaches from outside, and burnt caramel beneath that. He tried shooing her away when she knelt down and began to prod and poke him, asking him whether something hurt or felt broken.

“I’m fine, don’t be a nag.”

“Your hair’s on fire.”

It wasn’t, just badly singed, some chunks missing in some places and crispy in others. And there was gunk stuck on it, and everywhere else. Thankfully he was mostly fireproof, other than his hair.

“You need a bath. And potentially a haircut.”

He protested, telling her a dip in the lake would be more than sufficient. Sure, it was frozen, but it was nothing he hadn’t done before.

“Whatever’s stuck to you won’t come out with just cold water and, besides, baths are supposed to be enjoyable. And I’ve been meaning to drag you to one for a while now. There’s no telling me no, so you might as well go with it.”

Impertinent little chit, forgetting her place. And forgetting what he was, feeling comfortable manhandling the world’s last dragon, a being of boundless power, down the stairs like a misbehaving boy, telling him in a firm tone to strip and get into the tub once she had prepared the bath. He thought about disobeying her, of course, but he had to admit the bath she had prepared did feel and smell rather lovely. She had put in some healing herbs and some of her bath salts and lotions into the water, making the water a murky, silvery white, and the temperature was hot, steam curling pleasantly around him. If he didn’t get into the bath she would likely scold him, which was not an attractive prospect. Mouthy little thing, his maid.

In the end he decided it was okay to get into the bath if he did it because he wanted to, not because she had told him. He shed his clothing, noting with some distaste that some of the fabric of his shirt stuck to his shoulder and spine, making it difficult to peel off, and got into the tub, biting back a sigh of pleasure on principle alone. He sank deep into the water, enjoying the way the hearth and a few braziers, placed strategically around the tub, kept it toasty warm. It was pleasant enough to make him drowsy, lulling him into a state of near-sleep that was very relaxing.

“How is it?”

The dragon pursed his lips, unwilling to concede completely in their little fight.

“Passable, I suppose. But completely unnecessary.”

“I see. Tilt your head back so I can get to your hair.”

He did as he was told, more curious about what she had in mind than invested in the notion of imposing his authority in the situation. She poured a pitcher of fresh water down his back, wetting his matter hair, and proceeded to methodically slather some sort of cream into it. It smelt like jojoba oil and hibiscus, the slimy texture almost unpleasant at first, before she began to massage it diligently into his hair. That felt absolutely heavenly, the way her fingers sunk into his hair, her nails scratching his scalp, sending little tingles up and down his spine. 

Touch in general was a rather foreign feeling to him. No one had touched him properly since his aunties, when he was a wee boy, and before he hadn’t thought he had missed it. He had never felt the need to touch or be touched, in his hundreds of years of existence, but it was like his little maid had pried something open deep inside him and all this need was pouring out, all this emptiness that he hadn’t noticed before. But it didn’t make him feel exposed, or vulnerable. Belle felt… safe. Felt like-

Like kin.

He allowed his eyes to slip shut as she cooed at him, praising him for his surprising docility and talking idly about this and that. Her voice was soothing, so much so that he barely flinched when he felt her begin cutting his hair. It was getting in the way of his experiments anyway, a trim might do him good.

…

Something new began to grow after that day. Something he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Rumplestiltskin began to feel new urges, all centered around his little maid. The urge to get her finer things, nicer gowns and sparkly jewellery. After all, he reasoned, she was no longer a maid. She didn’t clean the castle anymore. She was simply his treasure, so it made sense that he wanted her to look good, to polish her a bit, so to speak.

He also found himself seeking out her presence even more, not just sharing tea in the library but also having dinner each night. She insisted on cooking, and more often than not in sharing what she cooked. Reluctantly, he tried on a couple of her scones, slathered with strawberry jam, finding that, surprisingly, he liked sweet things. In turn she grew used to his more meat-heavy dinners, slowly shifting away from more elaborate dishes towards enjoying his charred meats. He delighted in this and soon meal times were a moment spent together, intimate and meaningful.

He decided, during one of those meals, that he would keep her once the Blue Fairy’s spell was broken. This was her home now, and it was unlikely that she would be safe from the little gnat anywhere else. He’d let her stay and, if she wanted adventure, she could accompany him around when he went out to make his deals. He would show her the world, if she would choose to stay. He wanted her to choose to stay. It was difficult now to imagine the castle without her, and the idea of going back to endless years of solitude no longer appealed to him.

It was around the time he had that revelation that he began to feel… uncomfortable. Hot, in a way. And itchy, like he felt when he was shedding his scales, only it wasn’t time yet for that. He found himself wiggling a lot, trying to dislodge some phantom discomfort, and alternating between moodiness and almost suspicious elation. Going outside his castle was usually what turned him surly, especially the longer he remained out, and his mood improved significantly the moment he was back.

He wasn’t the only one who seemed to be coming down with something, though. Belle, he had noticed, was beginning to fidget too, complaining of an itch in her back that seemed to travel all the way down to her toes, never quite localising anywhere that she could scratch satisfyingly. She was also running hot, but did not seem to be under the weather. Quite the contrary, she seemed to have more energy and look healthier than she ever had before. 

He was contemplating pausing in his efforts to figure out the Blue Fairy’s spell. He had to admit his research as of late had been half-hearted at best, his heart no longer in it. As long as Belle was protected he would be safe, and keeping Belle protected had long become a priority for its own sake too. He was doing a once-over in his library, trying to look for books with a medical bent to them, when he heard Belle yell, the castle amplifying the sound till it reached his ears. Instinctually he teleported, appearing in the kitchens to see his little maid curled up next to the stove, a pot of water turned over, steam and water still dripping out. It didn’t take long to connect two and two together.

“You senseless girl!” 

He was surprised that the first thing he felt was anger at her carelessness. Didn’t she know how fragile she was as a human? Why wasn’t she more careful? But, as swift as anger was to come, so it was to be replaced with worry. 

“Come on, let me see. I’ll make it better in no time, don’t worry.”

He knelt beside his maid, itching to gather her in his arms and fix her up, right the hurt. Slowly she unfurled enough to let him take her right arm, which was the one she was cradling close to her chest. The skin there was red, but some careful probing showed no signs of emerging blisters or further damage. He slid the pads of his fingers against the skin there, noticing it felt a bit too slick to be human skin.

“Does it hurt at all?”

She shook her head, still visibly shaken from the incident, even if there was no pain. But there should be pain. He was sure of that. The steam still coming off the upturned pot gave him a clear idea of how hot the water had been when she had accidentally spilled it over her arm. She should’ve been seriously burned, he was sure of it.

“I’m fine. But I shouldn’t be fine, should I?”

He could hear a faint note of hysteria in her voice, and he ached to soothe her, to tell her everything was alright. Except something clearly wasn’t. He turned her arm to one side and then the other, only then noticing the very faint shine the skin had one held to the light. He ushered her to his topmost laboratory, where natural light was the best, and studied her arm carefully. There was something there, more noticeable as the arm went from pink back to a healthy colour. He dragged his mounted magnifying glass so he could study the skin better, turning the arm one way and then the other to be sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

Scales.

Invisible to the naked eye, if not for their opalescent shift. Very much like his, and yet different, more delicate. The entire arm wasn’t covered with them, only the part where the water had spilled, as if the heat had burned away her skin to reveal the scales underneath.

What. The. Fuck.

“Are those-?”

“Yes.” He paused, an idea forming inside his head. “Where did you say your itch originated?”

“On my back, near my right shoulder. Why?”

“Let me see.”

She turned around obediently, biting back a gasp when he sliced the stays of her corset to shreds so he could pull the gown low enough to see. There, clear as day, was a patch of scales. Older than the one in her arm, the scales more noticeable to the naked eye, though still easily overlooked unless someone was looking for them. He touched them, noticing how they mostly mimicked the texture of human skin, except they were more slippery. 

“You see anything? More scales?”

“Yes. Older ones. Is there anything different about this bit of skin? Did you spill anything on it, do anything to it at all?”

She tried to think, body shaking as she processed what was going on. He pulled her closer, nosing the side of her head, trying to reassure her. The smell of her, burnt caramel, hit him like a trainwreck then. It had been growing stronger over time, unnoticeably at first, but obvious now. Leaning down he sniffed her shoulder, where the patch of scales was, noticing the smell seemed to be concentrated there.

What the fuck did it all mean?

“I think- I think that’s where the Blue Fairy’s wand touched me, when she did that spell on me. But it wasn’t meant to do that, was it?”

No, it wasn’t. Then again, none of the maidens that the fairies had used to kill dragons had ever survived more than a week after the enchantment had been placed. Who was to know what the long-term effects of the spell were? 

“You go change, little maid, and bring us some tea to my library, yes? There are some books there that I might need your help with. We’ll get to the bottom of it in no time, you’ll see.”

They didn’t, of course. At least not right away. Days turned into weeks, and even with both of them dedicating as much time as possible to figuring out what the Blue Fairy had done to Belle, there were no easy answers. Little had been written about the subject at all, and most of it by fairies, whose flowery language did not lend itself to easy interpretation, even after Belle carefully translated it. Meanwhile, they both kept track of any symptoms of anomalies they could spot. It was Rumple who pointed out that Belle’s core temperature had increased, and it was Belle who noticed that he tended to lean into their casual touches, often without conscious thought or awareness he was doing it at all. Belle wrote everything down and tried to cross-reference the list with the fairy texts, to no avail.

The snippets they found about the spell did not seem to be very helpful either, at first. The fairies were vague about it in their books, as if afraid to commit the knowledge to paper, determined to keep their secrets. They mentioned what they already knew, that the spell would bind a mortal to an immortal dragon, linking the creature to immortality. By making it kin with the maiden the dragon would become vulnerable upon the demise of the human woman, making it possible for a sword or a lance to fell the beast.

He read and re-read those passages over and over, something rattling inside his brain. Something about the wording, about the implications. He picked up the list of symptoms Belle had written, focusing on her side and trying to think back on the first time he had noticed some of them. Slowly, a picture began to form in his mind. He had studied magic and spells for centuries, including the boring theoretical bits most magical creatures didn’t bother with. Given the general purpose of the spell and where it had gone awry he began to theorise how the spell could have adapted and changed, given the time it had had to macerate and grow. A simple check of a sample of Belle’s scales- taken with utmost care, and replaced the next day by a coat of fresh, healthy scales on her inner arm- seemed to prove his theory, as far-fetched as it seemed.

He needed to tell her. She needed to go. Perhaps putting some distance would slow down the process, giving him time to try and reverse it. Surely there was a way, it couldn’t be permanent yet. He went to his treasury, heaping gold from it into a bag. Jewels would be easier to carry but harder to exchange, so gold it was. Once she was settled somewhere else he would see that she got more money if she needed it.

“What is this?”

Belle looked up from the rather hefty bag of gold he dropped in front of her with a frown. He frowned as well. Was it too heavy? Had he overestimated her human strength? Was it perhaps not enough?

“You have to go. This will help you get settled somewhere else.”

“What? I’m not going anywhere.”

He snorted, smoke coming out of his nose in heavy plumes. He had known Belle would want a thorough explanation, but he feared that would take too long and time was working against them.

“You have to. This will keep on progressing if you stay.”

“What will keep on progressing?”

“The change. Your change.”

She lunged forward, her hand curling around his arm as she looked up to him, hope shining in her eyes. He fought the urge to flinch back, terrified of tainting him further, and the secondary, more base urge to pull her close.

“You know what’s going on? Tell me.”

“We don’t have time.”

“Make some.”

She crossed her arms, planting herself as firmly as she could so he had no choice but to have to drag her out if he wanted her to leave the castle. Anger built up inside him. He was trying to do a good thing for her. A thing that went against what he wanted. She was his treasure, letting her go was against his nature, yet he was willing to do that. For her.

“It’s your change. It’ll keep happening as long as you’re here. Eventually it’ll be too late to reverse it, if possible at all. So you have to leave, and leave now.” He paused, struggling to condense the jumble of thoughts in his head into something that he could say. “The spell was designed to change my nature. To make me mortal in the way you’re mortal, which is why it was meant to be triggered by your succumbing to your own mortality. Except you never did. And, over time, in the absence of any trigger for change, the spell began to work on its own. But not to make me more human, but rather to make you more like me. My nature superseeds yours, so it’s the one the spell eventually latched onto.”

He watched her digest his words, bracing himself for a look of disgust that never arrived. Instead Belle went to the mirror in the far corner, studying herself attentively, no doubt seeing a myriad of other tiny things that were not entirely human. There was a subtle shine in her eyes, an almost bluish tint to her hair that wasn’t there before. He wondered if any of those traits would coincide with certain subspecies of dragons.

“Wait, that only explains my symptoms. Not yours.”

He had not allowed himself to go there, to contemplate what his own strange behaviour and feelings meant. But he knew, or at least he suspected something, something he was afraid to voice out loud. But Belle was stubborn, looking at him hovering behind her through the mirror, daring him to answer the question.

“It’s- it’s possible that something in me recognised the change in you before either of us became aware of it. I can’t be sure, I know nothing about the mating practices of dragons, having never met another one of my kind, but it’s possible that-”

He realised a second or two too late what he had just said, or at least heavily implied. One glance at the mirror let him know Belle had understood, her eyes wide and mouth partly opened as she took in what he had said. He waited again for the disgust to show, or some maidenly anger, but she simply frowned.

“So you’ll have me go and leave you? You’ll give up this- whatever this is?” Her voice softened then, eyes going liquid as they stared at him from the mirror. “For me? Because you think I wouldn’t want this?”

“Of course you wouldn’t want this. Nobody would.”

He stuttered, biting his lip when she leaned back into him, trusting that he would catch her. He did, even though he knew it was a mistake, the smell of her, burnt caramel, making him heady, making him have desires, urges, that he’d never had before. It was no wonder he hadn’t realised what was happening, having never before encountered a female of his species. Someone that provoked what Belle did to him.

“Why not?”

“I’m a difficult creature to love.”

Mateless, without kin or family. No living creature was ever supposed to love him. The idea that someone did, that through sheer luck or the whims of magic, seemed inconceivable. But even as he thought that he wrapped his claws around her corseted waist, unable to deny the yearning for what he couldn’t have, the urge to snatch a bit of it for himself, even as he knew it wasn’t possible, that those things weren’t for him. That Belle wasn’t for him.

“That’s not true.” 

She went soft against him, leaning back fully, letting herself sag against him. The trust, the sheer valor of it all, took him aback. He made a soft, wondrous sort of sound, his claws sinking into her waist, barely able to contain himself as he nuzzled behind her ear, where he discovered a fresh patch of scales neither hand noticed before. Her smell was the most potent there and he took lungfuls of it, half-afraid she would pull back and he’d be denied that scent forever. He told himself that it would be enough, to enjoy the smell and the feel of her against him, that he could be content with that alone, if only the gods would let him keep her.

Belle, however, seemed not to have any appreciation for his iron will and staunch determination not to sully her, taking one of his claws and placing it over one of her soft, perfect breasts. Even through the material of her dress he could feel the heat of her, so similar to his own, and unlike anyone else he’d ever come into contact with. 

“Please, Rumple.”

He was lost after that. The hunger that had been steadily building for the past few months, unbeknownst to him, that he had pushed pushed down, shoved away and ultimately tried to keep contained, took a hold of him. He sunk into her, clutching her tightly, his claws ripping the soft jacquard of her dress  as if it was tissue paper. The laces of her stays dissolved under his hands, reduced to tatters, allowing him to shove the unyielding whalebone and stiff cotton away, rewarding him with a proper feel of her soft curves, even through the shift she wore under. The notion that the skin beneath small rows of pearlescent scales thrilled him. 

She was everything the world had ever denied him, and so when she turned around he could do nothing but submit to her kiss. They were both inexperienced and frenzied, all teeth and bite and eagerness. He was hungry for her, wanting nothing more than to sink into her and stay there forever. After a few tense minutes, he felt her gentling the kiss, arms wrapping around his shoulders, fingers carding through his hair, calming him down. Patiently, she taught him a new rhythm, slow and deep. It made things more intense somehow, more thrilling, and it was only because he was clutching her close that he noticed how she trembled, how hesitant but bold she was. Brave Belle. Beautiful Belle.

When she began to tug at his clothing, the loose banyan in shades of ochre and gold that his little maid had complimented him on so, he shrugged it off, eager to have the least amount of barriers between them. He tugged on her shift then, hands sliding beneath it, feeling her soft human skin break into goosebumps as he exposed her to the room. It took no more than a thought to transport them both to his lair, to lay her down amongst his furs and pelts. The room was dark, but constantly kept warm with a roaring fire that provided a little light. His favourite things were there, his most prized jewels, his oldest books and rarest antiques. As he set her down he noticed, mixed amongst the moss and the expensive silk, one of Belle’s hair ribbons. And one of the throws she liked to use when she read by the roaring fire. He glanced around, noticing small glimpses of his little maid everywhere, silent evidence of what his body had been trying hard to tell him. He tossed her shift to add to his collection, all but purring as he studied the contrast between Belle’s pinkish skin and the dark mess of fabrics and furs that was his nest. In contrast to her now absolute nudity he was still wearing too much clothing, and though his linen shirt was easy to discard his leather pants proved more frustrating, to the point that he scratched himself as he tore himself free of them.

“Easy now. I like you in one piece.”

He let her pet him, soothing his frazzled nerves with soft, cooing nonsense that had him purring, melting into her touch. They stayed that way for the longest time, alternating between gentle explorations and soft, languid kisses, but eventually the urgency began to build up, making him uncomfortable. He wanted to ask for something but didn’t know what, his inexperience making him unable to tell what he wanted.

“What? What’s the matter?”

“It’s… too soft.”

There was no better way to explain it. His body felt poised for violence, for aggression, though the instinct was unlike anything he had ever felt before. But humans were fragile, and Belle was raised to be a lady. Ladies were supposed to be treated with care, with softness. Surely he could curtail these base urges and find pleasure enough in-

His train of thought came to an abrupt, screeching halt when he felt her teeth close around his throat in a playful nip, followed by bolder and bolder bites as she struggled to get on top. This, he thought, was something that he understood. Roughhousing, the give and take of a fight. It was something his body naturally reacted too, what it had been made to do. Though it certainly wasn't the way the dragon had seen humans copulate it felt natural to roll around the furs and fight for dominance. In spite of his claws and his fangs he didn't seem to have much of an advantage. Belle was wily and clever, giving as good as she got.

Naturally, almost without them noticing, a rhythm began to grow between them. The moment he pinned her down, hands holding her wrists above her head and pressing against the furs, the Dark One knew what would happen, what had been waiting to happen since the first time she'd set foot in the castle. She hesitated again then, eyes briefly clouding over with worry, and he remembered she was a maiden, and even a brave one would hesitate in the face of such a step. He gentled their foreplay the slightest bit, letting bites turn into slow, deep kisses and scratches into long caresses. She grew pliant against him once more, her scent spiking and an unfamiliar but very welcome wetness beginning to coat her upper thighs. 

Thrusting into her felt natural, like coming home, and he stilled, wishing to take it all in. She felt scorching hot, in a way he knew no human woman would feel, and it felt like heaven, so good it was almost indistinguishable from pain. He dug his claws into Belle’s back instinctually, but she did not seem to notice or care, trying to pull him close instead of pushing him away.

After basking in the utter delight of being buried balls-deep inside such purity the imp forced himself to pull out, eagerly thrusting back inside a moment later. It was a deliciously messy process, full of blood and sweat, grunts of exertion and impatience and the occasional struggle for dominance. It became impossible to differentiate pain from pleasure, and by the looks of the woman beneath her he wasn't alone in such lovely confusion. Belle was devastatingly beautiful as she writhed beneath him, sweat-slicked hair hallowing her face and cheeks flushed from pleasure.

Though usually a selfish creature by nature the dragon was beyond pleased when he felt the flutter of Belle's inner muscles against his aching cock and watched avidly as she arched beneath him, tight as a bowstring. His own orgasm a few minutes later felt less important than the one he'd torn out of the woman beneath him. A woman who'd willingly and knowingly bedded a monster. With a gleeful sense of triumph the Dark One started to kiss his way down the beauty's body, eager to see in how many ways and how many more times dragons could mate in a single night. Later, he knew, there would be time for other realisations. Time to consider the deeper implications of having a mate, of not being the last of his kind, of the staggering possibility of having little hatchlings running around the castle in the future. But right then and there none of it mattered, his senses full of Belle.

[lotus0kid]

OUaT: Old Tricks (1/?)

AO3 link.  An associate of Rumpelstiltskin is subjected to a false accusation. Can he and Belle discover the truth before it's too late?  ((Happy Gift Swap, everyone! This is for @thestraggletag, using the prompt "Gosford Park AU". It's currently unfinished, because I'm in the process of moving to a new apartment. So please enjoy this teaser until I'm able to post the rest!))

[thestraggletag]

Kin, Part 2 of 3

Prompt: Dragon, Transform, Capture, Marriage, Nest

Giftee: @minnl70

Summary: Chosen by the Blue Fairy to slay the last dragon, Belle defies her fate and strikes a deal with the beast, Rumplestiltskin. As they search for a way to break the enchantment, an unexpected bond begins to form, but magic is never without a price—and never quite straightforward.

Rating: M

A/N: Surprise, @minnl70, it's me, your Secret Santa! I'm away on holidays right now but I made sure to properly queue this up for you. If all goes well all chapters of this fic will be posted today, but I'll try to check to make sure they are (and, if possible, also upload the fic to AO3, which I know makes it easier to read). Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

He had arrived at the clearing a good deal before he had revealed himself. He had been half-convinced the summons was a trap, a newfound way the Blue Fairy had concocted to try and trap him. He wasn’t the last living dragon for nothing. He hadn’t outlived his kin by coincidence. While other dragons had hoarded riches he had accumulated power and knowledge, and had honed his understanding of magic and mastery of himself till he had become all but untouchable. No fairy could trespass on his territory, or surprise him. Their usual tricks and wiles did not work on him, and he had stamped down his weaknesses till there were none they could exploit. Until he could feel safe. And he was damned if he let that little slip of a girl threaten that.

She was like all the other ones, he reasoned, only with a little bit more sense, which worked in his favour. Enough to distrust the Blue Fairy, and make a choice to try and save herself, if only temporarily. He couldn’t kill her yet, but couldn’t risk her being used a second time against him. So he would find a way to dissolve whatever connection the Blue Fairy had concocted between them, which bound him to her mortality, and then he’d dispose of her. At least she would die knowing her people were safe, which is more than he could say for himself.

In the meantime, there was no reason why he couldn’t have a little fun watching her struggle, watching her try and survive in his castle, away from her servants and creature comforts. With that in mind he went early in the morning to check on his little maid, eager to see what a miserable night of sleeping in the damp, dusty floor had done to her posh look and gentle manners. Her brave facade was unlikely to have survived the night, surely.

The first thing he thought when he opened the creaky door to her cell was that it looked cleaner than he had imagined it. The strewn straw that had covered the floor before had been gathered into two piles, one of straw that was wet or mouldy and another of cleaner straw, where the chit had no doubt slept. The cobwebs had been cleared too, and the mouse holes covered with mud. The girl herself sat huddled in a corner, looking as prim as possible, though her hair was a mess and her face and arms were very dirty. Her eyes looked puffy, and her long lashes were still wet. Tear tracks were evident along her cheeks, which gave him a modicum of delight. It wasn’t quite the amount of suffering he’d envisioned, though, which displeased him.

He left her alone until she went out looking for him, and derived only a small amount of pleasure from pointing her towards the kitchen and its meager array of food, imagining the way the apples and the bread would turn her stomach, the way she would have to battle between her hunger and her disgust. He would have walked her to the kitchens himself, but he had other pressing matters. There were magical artifacts and ingredients to collect, and deals to make, after all, so he flew out just after his interaction with the little chit, content on imagining rather than seeing her unhappiness as she got to know her new home. There was no shortage of blood and gore around the castle, especially in the rooms dedicated to his studies. As a dragon he was, by nature, a hoarder. And though most of his kind tended to beautiful things- and it was in his nature too, to seek out what was pleasing to the eye- he had always focused on power. Power in the form of ancient magical items, rare ingredients and potions and knowledge and mastery of spells and incantations. 

His line of enquiry required him to cut open a lot of animals, from common vermin to oxes and the like, either in search of ingredients or to gauge the result of an experiment. Getting someone to clean up the aftermath had always been a chore, given the unpalatable nature of his work, so he never bothered, choosing only to keep clean those rooms that required it for his experiments. There were entire wings of his castle where the air was thick with the smell of rot and death. In time the little maid could, perhaps, get used to the smell. And the mould. He doubted she would ever get used to the maggots or the flies, though. 

The day proved fruitful enough, with the acquisition of two tricky ingredients he had been having trouble getting his hands on and two favours, no conditions attached, to be used at a later date of his choosing. It always amazed him how careless people were, how narrow-minded their view of a favour was, especially with no specifications. Inevitably when he came to collect and named his price someone would say something along the lines of “You can have anything but that!”, as if they had thought to put conditions to their promised favour when they carelessly gave it away.

He kept his visits to the denizens of the Enchanted Forest short but memorable, remaining unseen when it was convenient to him and growing in size and ferocity when he needed to make an impression. Too much exposure and he’d lose some of the reverential terror he had striven hard to cultivate. Not enough and people would grow complacent and forgetful of the monster in their midst. It was a fine balancing act to remain halfway between myth and reality, but he had perfected it over the years. 

When he arrived home he felt the change almost immediately. Though the little chit was nowhere in immediate sight he could feel her presence about, the definite knowledge that he wasn’t alone. It was a strange sensation, which made him twitchy. He went looking for her, finding her making use of an old bucket, a sliver of lye soap and a coarse brush, down on all fours cleaning the kitchen floor. He could see, even in the dim light provided by the few sputtering torches, that it was slow going, since he had sometimes used the kitchen to open up the animals he needed parts from, and over time a layer of crusted blood and dried entrails had accumulated on the floor, and in splatters on the walls. But now the room looked almost like nothing that violently died there, which was quite a feat.

She was looking the worse for it, though, her dress dirty, the robin’s egg blue looking more like murky grey, her hair beginning to lose its shine, hanging more limply around her shoulders. Her eyes, however, remained stubbornly luminous and defiant. 

“I thought you were a maiden, not a maid.”

He giggled at the way she jumped, clambering to her feet, eager to be in a less vulnerable position in front of a predator such as himself. He saw her glance him over- the novelty of his more human form, he was sure, which tended to be more unsettling for humans, in many ways, than his traditional dragon form- before taking a deep breath and attempting a semblance of a smile.

“I’m just making things a bit more pleasant, that’s all. No reason why my stay here cannot be productive and enjoyable.”

He snorted, plumes of smoke coming out of his nostrils and his mouth, and he watched as she followed the smoke around, fascinated.

“At this rate, dearie, you won’t get past the kitchens.”

And she’d be lucky too. He knew what his castle looked like. A noble lady was unlikely to have the stomach to tackle more than a room or two. And it would be to her benefit, since he was hardly the only danger the castle housed. Several of his treasured magical items were deeply cursed, with magic darker than even his own, and would leave his little maid with at least a missing hand, if not something worse. He told her so, cautioning to never enter a room the little wisp he had conjured for her would not dare go into, delighting in the little flickers of fear that swept through her eyes.

She was a silly little thing, that he unfortunately had to keep alive, but more tenacious than he had given her credit for, as he found out after several weeks of uneasy cohabitation. He almost never showed himself to her, but he spied on her when the mood struck him, mostly to make sure she was alive and in one piece, since he had yet to make any advances on how to break their mutual enchantment. She’d struggled with the food at first, until she’d learned to dip the stale bread in water to soften it, and to distinguish between a bruised fruit or vegetable and a rotten one. She made daily use of the well just outside the kitchens, carrying buckets of water, using an ancient wheelbarrow she had uncovered in the barn, every morning.  It was freezing cold, however, which made every bathing experience an excruciating one, he was sure. The kitchen hearth was clogged and there was not readily available wood to build a fire, so she made do with what she had.

He could have easily made things easier, but he didn’t. The complaints he so sought, however, never came. The girl cried sometimes, in the relative solitude of her room, and looked quietly miserable most of the time, but she never voiced an objection towards her treatment, or expressed any outward sign of displeasure. 

The little chit was resourceful, too. With only the barest of tools and surely the barest of knowledge she managed to find innovative ways of doing everything he set her mind to, from cleaning the castle windows inside out to removing impossible stains or even, one time, scraping congealed blood off the rafters of his laboratory, up in the tallest tower. That had been up there for decades, he had no idea how she had managed to wash it away. He barely remembered how it had gotten there in the first place.

She would not give up on a task until it was finished, pausing only to eat or when she retreated to her dungeon for the night. He found it all deeply… unsatisfying. He had wanted to feast in her misery, to delight in the sight of a human wretched by enduring even a little of the misery humans had foisted on his kind. He had thought it would be grand to see a plushy human suffer as they did, but things were not going according to plan. Blasted girl and her blasted iron pride. He understood, as the weeks dragged on and she remained respectful in her treatment of him whenever she saw him but quietly defiant, that his efforts were for naught. The girl suffered, but in silence, giving him no amount of satisfaction.

As time dragged on he found himself displeased with how his little human wilted. How her hands reddened and her hair grew matted, the cold water doing little to truly rid it of the filth and the sweat that she accumulated while cleaning. She had brought a couple of dresses with her, but both were looking worse for wear, and neither was particularly made for the cold temperatures of the castle, meaning that she spent very little time outside, which made her look pale and sickly. 

He frowned. As a dragon, he was naturally inclined towards beautiful things. Things that looked sparkling and valuable. His maid no longer looked like a treasure, and it bothered his creature sensibilities. Besides, he needed her healthy. There was no telling how her declining health would affect him, given their magical bond. So he instructed his little wisp to direct her to rooms in the castle where he knew there was clothing that would fit her. He had looted his fair share of castles over the century and had accumulated all manner of odds and ends. He had a predilection for fine fabrics, having been brought up by a couple of spinsters as a wee hatchling, so he had taken a fair share of gowns here and there, when a particular colour or texture caught his fancy, all of which he had stored in proper trunks, with all the care he had been taught as a child. There were a few things her size, including some that would be more practical for the wintry weather. 

He unearthed a big copper tub from one of the storage rooms, setting it in a corner of the kitchen beneath a pile of discarded linens, as if he had forgotten it there long ago, along with a pile of wood, properly cut and ready to be made into a fire. Then he cornered her just as she was mopping the entrance hall, instructing her to bathe herself properly, telling her the smell offended even his base sensibilities. She opened her mouth, as if to counteract his insult, but thought better of it and closed it instead.

Later that night he snuck into the kitchens, eager to see if the little chit had stumbled into his carefully-placed gifts and had followed his advice. It was immediately apparent to him that she had, since the kitchen was more luminous than usual, a healthy fire roaring in the hearth and the air damp and smelling of vanilla. He saw her curled up inside the copper tub, steam rising from the fragrant warm water- she had found the bar of vanilla-scented soap he had left deep inside one of the cleaning cupboards, along with a bottle of oil for her hair and a pot of cream for her roughened skin, her soapy hair looking almost red in the light of the low candles. Truly a beautiful human, even with dark circles under her eyes and dirt under her fingernails that would take more than a bath to remove. Fragile little thing too, naked and relaxed, not glaring daggers at him or holding her head up high in silent defiance. He made sure to make a lot of noise before retiring to bed, lest the damnable chit fall asleep in the bath and wake up pruned and chilled. 

He began to bring more food from his incursions outside the castle, sacks of flour and oats, fresh milk and butter that the castle’s larder would keep fresh, sugar and salt and spices. He opened up the castle’s orchards, enchanted into a state of eternal summer, so she could get fruits and vegetables and some much-needed sun and instructed the little wisp to guide her there. It was fascinating to him to see her growing healthy again just from a few small concessions, colour blooming in her cheeks and her demeanor brightened.

It was with a perhaps unusual bit of pride that he came to the conclusion that his little maid was a treasure indeed, beautiful in a way that few maidens stolen by dragons had been. He began to feel possessive of her, like he did of everything else he guarded in his castle. His castle reflected his newfound attachment, losing some of its gloominess in favour of letting in sunlight in the rooms she favoured and keeping dust away from places that the girl would usually spend hours cleaning. He let it happen, reminding himself that her presence in the castle was fleeting, and a few temporary disruptions to his routine were not much concern.

And it wasn’t like he was growing fond of humans in general. His frequent incursions into the outside world kept his dislike for them fresh. Greedy little things who thought the world belonged to them alone, who cut down magical forests and chased creatures away from their homes to raze the land to the ground. When he had been a wee hatchling he had been terrified of them, small and defenceless as he had been, with no kin to protect him or guide him. Over time, as he began to grow in power, he started to see humans as petty vermin beneath his notice, except when one was desperate enough to be manipulated into surrendering something he wanted.

But every now and then, very rarely, a human got the best of him. Surprised him in some way he had not been able to foresee. Very few things could even hurt him anymore, but someone had learned that squid ink was one of them, and had seen fit to catch him with a crossbow on his way back to his castle, having previously tipped the arrow in squid ink. Thankfully it hadn’t done any real damage to the wing, the membrane remaining mostly intact, but it burned like hell and rendered his magic useless till the effects wore off.

He managed to keep himself in the air long enough to make it home, shifting to his more human form with enough energy left to drag himself in front of the fireplace of his trophy room, one plume of smoke igniting it just as he yanked the arrow out, feeling chilled and sluggish as he curled up on the stone floor, feeling the squid ink spread inside him like ice-cold water pouring over him. 

He shrugged it off. It would pass. Squid ink did not last forever, particularly on someone as powerful as him. He’d recover in a few days, would get enough magic back under his control to knit the skin back together and move. He was safe in his home and if the girl chanced upon him he trusted she was smart enough to leave him be.

He woke up what felt like days later, and took a moment to take stock of his condition. He felt as lethargic and sluggish as he had anticipated, his magic responding slowly and weakly to his call, but there was no pain, and no discomfort. The overwhelming cold that had taken over him right before he had passed out was gone, and he could feel something soft and heavy draped over him, keeping him toasty warm.

The next thing he noticed was that someone was bathing his face, a soft cloth with warm water passing across his forehead, over his eyelids and down his neck, soothing the slight ache he could feel there, the remains of a fever recently broken. There was a pleasant smell too, like burnt caramel and vanilla, that seemed to engulf him. He turned his head to the side, his nose chasing after the scent, and realised his head was pillowed on something soft. Something that moved.

“Shh, try not to move.”

The cloth was removed, but before he could protest there was a hand carding through his matted hair, nails scraping just so against his scalp, soothing and not at the same time. 

“What can I do to help, Rumplestiltskin?”

“L-little maid?”

He struggled to get out from under the fog he seemed to be trapped in, feeling weak and vulnerable, exposed. 

“Yes, it’s me. I found you like this a day ago. You had a fever, but it’s finally broken. Is there anything else I can do for you? You’re still bleeding, and I can’t make it stop.”

“Get the wisp.”

A dragon’s flame had sentience of its own if a dragon saw fit to grant it, so his little wisp existed independently of his magic, unaffected by the squid ink, so with a flick of his wrist he set it out to guide the maid into his main laboratory, where he stored, in a small, murky bottle, antidote for the ink. He had told her often, during their few encounters around the castle, to stay out of his laboratories. Had gone into details about all the horrible things that could happen to her if she ventured in there. So he expected her to make a valiant attempt at following the wisp only to cower at the last minute, when common sense prevailed over her sickly-sweet disposition. Didn’t matter, though, the squid ink would fade on its own, it would just take a little longer. 

He closed his eyes, intending to rest them for a minute, but when he opened them up again he knew immediately a long time had passed. The next thing he noticed was that there was a complete absence of pain, even the faint headache he had had before was gone, and when he pulled at his magic it answered back readily. He knew before he moved his shoulder that the arrow wound was gone, his muscle and skin having knit themselves together while he slept. He turned towards the fire, noticing a small amber vial next to him, its contents long gone. He recognised it immediately as the bottle where he kept his squid ink counter potion.

So focused was he on that little amber bottle that he almost jumped off the floor when his little maid came into his field of vision, holding one of her ever-present books with one hand and a glass of water with the other.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. I brought you some water.”

“Go away.”

He burrowed deeper into the quilt she had draped around him, trying not to dislodge the pillow she had placed under his head. He thought about teleporting himself to his nest, but he knew his magic was unreliable at best at the moment and it would be foolish to spend himself so when he was just recovering. 

“This is the only fire roaring in the entire castle, and I’m too tired to light the hearth in the kitchen.”

“The wisp can light it for you.”

He knew he was sounding petulant and ungrateful but he didn’t much care. Whatever it would take to get rid of the little chit so he could have some peace and quiet.

“Flicker has done more than enough. He deserves some rest.”

“You named it?!”

He watched as the little wisp came running, as if called, and danced around the maid’s fingers, as if enjoying a caress.

“Some more sleep would do you good, I think. And maybe some food, when you’re up for it.”

He continued to go in and out of sleep, still too weak to feel comfortable using magic but not enough to complacently acquiesce to his little maid’s coddling. Eager for some solitude he tried to scare her away with his temper, conjuring up even a few plumes of fire and more than a bit of smoke, once managing to singe a bit of the hemline of her dress and the spine of one of her precious books. The latter seemed to be the only thing that truly bothered her, causing her to disappear from his side for an entire afternoon. He told himself he was happy about that, but he couldn’t deny the little twinge of relief when she finally came back, carrying a plate with shredded meat and some more water.

“Maybe you’ll be nicer after eating a bit.”

She was fearless, more so than he had previously given her credit for, refusing to shy away no matter what he did to try and spook her. She was, indeed, a most prized treasure, unique amongst humans, which would explain why the Blue Fairy had failed so spectacularly at making her a dragon’s last sacrifice. 

Too good to kill, he decided as he devoured the meat. Once he figured out how to undo what that little gnat had done to them, he would give her some of his gold and let her walk away and explore the world to her heart’s content.

[thestraggletag]

Gluttony, a RSS Fic

Surprise, @tickletorso, it is I, your Secret Santa! Here to wish you some early tidings of joy and bring a little smut to this festive season. I hope things there are ok (I read that the weather is awful right now, so I hope you're coping!) and that you're getting the finishing touches there for the holidays. Here is my present, which wrote itself so I absolve myself of any guilt regarding it. It just came out like that. Hope you enjoy, though!

Summary: Mr Gold had always fancied the idea of running into Belle French, the posh new town librarian, at an elegant party, wearing a designer dress and sitting next to him to share a fancy meal. The reality was, he had to admit, not quite how he had pictured it.

Ever since Regina Mills had won her first election as mayor of Storybrooke she had always had at least one scheme in the works. Her first success had been bringing back the Miner’s Day Festival, an inconsequential local celebration that, he had to admit, had turned out to be good to attract some nearby tourism. A few years later she had followed her initial hit with an expansion of the local hospital, a very popular idea by any measure, and later with the reopening of the local library. That last little bit had been good to boost real estate prices, so he had actually supported her actively. And just last year she had overseen the construction of a new playground, just in time for her adopted toddler son, a lovely little chap by all accounts, unlike his adopted mother, to enjoy it.

Sadly for the library, and the librarian, Regina’s love-affair with the public building had lasted about as long as it had taken her to understand what a drag keeping it open was to her carefully-curated budget. Royce Gold wasn’t really surprised about it. Regina tended to be, sadly, a bit short-sighted when it came to her ambitious pursuits, and dismissive of what no longer appealed to her.

Her latest scheme- some expensive vanity redecoration project aimed at “elevating” the town from solid middle-class to upper-middle-class or, even better, upper-class- had recently gone over budget, and Regina had not managed to bully the town council- bully him, mostly- to let her have use of discretionary funds. Instead, she had managed to divert funds allocated to fixing the library’s leaky roof to compensate for what money she was missing. 

Royce didn’t care much about that latest obsession of hers. Motherhood had made her ruthless in the pursuit of the sort of perfection that was finally good enough for her wee bairn. Nevermind that Henry looked like a happy, healthy, well-adapted little chap who wasn’t lacking anything that a posher town could potentially offer. Regina, however, was blind to such things and had made the betterment of Storybrooke’s social class her newest quest. She had tried to approach him as an ally first, convinced that he would see the benefits of her way of thinking. She was wrong, of course. He didn’t see the appeal in turning the town into some cookie cutter suburban monstrosity. He rather liked Storybrooke the way it was. He had selected it specifically because of its inconsequential small-town charm, and saw no need to change that. He didn’t mind having to go out of town when he fancied something less mundane or to order from outside whatever extravagant tastes might strike his fancy. Storybrooke was sleepy and quiet, and though there was definitely room for improvement, he didn’t want to change the essence of it. Small, charming and sometimes even a bit unsavoury. 

Places like The Rabbit Hole made him nostalgic for the run-down pubs he used to frequent back in Glasgow, when he was an uneducated street urchin with more ambition than sense. Regina didn’t see that in him, or chose to ignore it, thinking that whatever barbarism remained in him from his rough upbringing was a flaw he would be eager to cleanse or conceal, eager to welcome more people of “his class” in town to cover whatever filth still clung to him.

She was wrong, of course. Royce Gold wasn’t a man to lie to himself. He saw no point in it, no gain. He knew who he was, what he was. A bastard son of no one from the dodgy part of an already dodgy city. No polishing or education, both of which he had strived to get, would ever erase that, nor did he want it gone. He had grappled with the notion for years as he pulled himself out of misery one deal at a time, but he had learned to embrace it in the end. He could pretend, put on Armani and Brioni and enjoy a good bottle of Scotch, turning his head at the swill he had once upon a time guzzled down gladly, but inside he was still that small child who had grown up on the streets, grifting and fighting for whatever he wanted to own and keep. And he liked it. He liked the edge it gave him. How desperation and need had sharpened him, like a dagger. 

The mayor was blind to it, but he knew well that a bit of savagery still clung to him, coiling beneath his expensive suits. He had just learned to channel it into deal-making and, perhaps, the very occasional bout of violence. Just a little beating here and there to relieve the stress, and only ever with good reason. Like that time he had rendered Keith Nott unconscious after he had found him accosting the librarian.

His thoughts turned towards her. Isabelle French. Belle French. Belle. Not a small town girl by any means, and yet, against all odds, she fit in perfectly. She was a strange gust of fresh air, ruffling the stale stillness of the town with her quirkiness and her cultured background. He knew a posh lass when he saw one and Belle French was definitely posh. A lavish wee bird, the kind that he had never been allowed near when he was young. Private-school educated, with a fancy degree from Cambridge and a rather expensive wardrobe. The kind that only people who knew quality could appreciate, no flashy branding or ostentatious touches. But he had an eye for beauty and quality, and could easily tell her clothing was too rich for most people’s blood. Her shoes alone were decadent, and her good taste he knew was acquired from a lifetime of being around the finer things in life. She had been to his shop and correctly identified several of the most valuable antiques, which would not have appeared so to the untrained eye. 

And yet. And yet she had no trouble drinking with the miners, whose rough manners and bawdy jokes she took in stride and who she could, apparently, drink under the table. She had no trouble striking a friendship with Miss Lucas, whose outrageous fashion sense and reputation sometimes scared people away, or with Gus Souris, the shy mechanic who had a rather unearned reputation for aggression after Sidney Glass, who ran the local gossip rag on the side when he was not trying to look respectable as the editor of the Storybrooke Mirror, had blown a minor bar fight- where Mr Mius had been the victim- out of proportion in order to embellish a story. She also seemed intent on participating in all the trite small town affairs Storybrooke had to offer. She had carved a space for herself, in spite of her quirkiness, out of sheer force of will. 

He had tried to tell himself at first that all he felt for her was admiration. For how she refused to cow to Regina, or pretended she didn’t understand Mother Superior’s unsubtle jibes at her reputation for wearing short skirts or hanging around undesirable people. Then he told himself that he was a man with eyes and as such he could recognise that Belle French was, objectively speaking, an attractive woman. In the way he liked the most, disarmingly wee, with reddish-brown hair and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. With a sort of effortless elegance that could not be feigned, or copied. She was gorgeous, and he had no problem admitting that. The sort of lass too good for the likes of him.

But at some point he had to come to the painful realisation it wasn’t just her looks. Belle French, if possible, was more beautiful on the inside than she was on the outside. Genuinely kind, volunteering at the animal shelter and lending her ear to whoever had a problem and her hand to anyone who needed help. And intelligent too, not just a bleeding heart with good intentions. With a unfeigned thirst for knowledge and almost obsessive when it came to books and all the wonders that they entailed. He had been smitten by their third conversation, and in love by their fifth. He had gotten a library card only so he could check out books in order to see her, though he had to admit that her book recommendations, along with the improvements she had made to the selection of books in the library, caught his attention as well. 

Being in love with Belle French soon became the new normal for him and he told himself nothing needed to come out of it. Through some bizarre miracle the librarian seemed to consider him a friend and did not object to his sporadic visits to the library, often engaging him in conversation and keeping him for longer than he had planned to stay. And she visited him at his shop too, not necessarily to buy something but to inspect any new treasures he might have acquired. And, like the fool he was, he obliged her every time. It was nice, he told himself. And harmless. As long as he didn’t get any silly ideas about where their relationship stood and did not push things further than what was appropriate it would be fine.

He had so internalised his feelings that he barely felt a flutter in the pit of his stomach when he entered the library and saw Miss French shelving books, wearing a lovely Valentino dress in dark blue wool tweed, with flesh-coloured tights and a cardigan to ward off the chill, a wine-red hairband keeping her faintly-bronze curls off her face. Perfection, as always, and he could let himself admire it because he was in control of himself and his emotions.

He was. As long as he did her best to not look at her sleek Santoni ankle-length boots, of course. He knew his limits, after all, and his weaknesses. His disproportionate fondness for her shoes was the biggest chink in his armour. 

Like always her eyes lit up when she saw him, a delightful smile spreading across her lips. She smelt like vanilla and bergamot, with a subtle aftertaste of jasmine, a perfect winter scent. He hoped that he was not smiling as hard as he felt he was.

“Mr Gold, how nice to see you! It’s been a while since you’ve ventured into my library. How are you?”

He liked how she called it her library, like that little possessive flair in her.

“I was about to ask you the same. I heard about Regina’s latest stunt and thought I would inquire as to how bad things are.” Anyone else would have likely accused him of behaving like a shark smelling blood in the water. But not Belle French.

“It’s kind of you to ask. I wish I could say the roof could keep for a couple of months till the next budgetary meeting, but it won’t last the winter. Marco confirmed it yesterday. I’ll have to get the cash quickly, somehow. I have a bit of a supplementary income”- he had always suspected so, given her clothes and shoes “but it’s nowhere near enough for something like this. And I have savings, but I’d hate to dip into them. My mamam always stressed the importance of having savings.”

Ah, yes, Colette French, who apparently had been, in fact, French. She had told him early on that she had passed when she was still young, and small stories about her. A lovely woman and a devoted mother, apparently. He rather envied her that.

“I-I might have an alternative for you, then. An offer.” He paused, wanting to get things right. Wanting to get his offer right. “I could, perhaps, be persuaded to lend you the money, at a reduced interest rate, something negligible. After all-” He paused, feeling like he was coming across as too eager- “The library is good for the town’s real estate. Keeping it open works in my best interest. It’s just good business, you see.” Yes, that was good. Sounded convincing and appropriately self-serving.

“That’s a lovely offer, but I’m not looking to make a deal.” Belle smiled up at him, with not one ounce of distrust or fear, which took a bit of the sting out of her rejection. “I’m picking up a temporary job that pays really well, so I’ll just have to dip into my savings a tiny bit, I’ll make it up in no time after the holidays.”

He flexed his fingers around the handle of his cane, feeling a sudden and acute rage towards Regina. The library had been her project, and as the mayor it was her responsibility to make sure the town’s buildings were properly maintained. And yet she got to swan around in pursuit of whatever new fad took her fancy and it was Belle French who had to sacrifice her time and effort to make sure Storybrooke got to keep and enjoy the many essential public services the library provided.

“As a librarian you’re paid by the town to work at the library, not the other way around. And your hours are already ridiculous, cannot imagine they leave much room for anything, let alone a side-gig.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s temporary, and a friend’s father owns the business, so I know I’ll be comfortable. I know what the library means to the people around here, so I’ll do whatever I can to keep it open.”

Whatever she could, apparently, did not involve making a deal with him. Which he was not going to take personally. At all. 

“It’s also not the first time I’m left scrambling for a bit of cash. Once, when I was in uni, my dad got into a bit of trouble so I got a gig as an Easter bunny for a private party. Which, I thought, would be rather charming. Only the costume was, to put it mildly, absolutely terrifying and no child wanted to get anywhere near me.”

She was a delightful storyteller, he had always thought so. Funny and engaging, both to the wee bairns that she read to several afternoons a week- he had memorised the storytime schedule so he could sneak in to “browse” and enjoy the cadence of her voice in the background as tots hanged on to her every word- and to adults. She leaned close as she told the story, pausing for dramatic effect at the right time and bursting into laughter at the end, pulling a reluctant bark of laughter out of him and looking delighted at having done so, a secretive little smile pulling at her lips. He would’ve called it flirty, if it hadn’t been directed at him.

“In the interest of looking to avoid you traumatising any more children, could I get you to reconsider my deal? It’d be the best one I’ve ever offered, some might say you’d be taking advantage of me. That would make you incredibly popular around here.”

She smiled, recognising his attempt at humour, but shook her head.

“I’ll be fine without it, I promise. Besides, I wouldn’t want a deal between us. It would… muddy things, don’t you think?”

“Of course.

He was still thinking about the library days later, as he sat behind a rented car making its way across upper Manhattan. A courageous little thing, with boundless optimism. Too good for the town she fought for and certainly too good for him. Which explained her rejection of his help. But at least that grounded him in reality, reminded him where they stood. No use longing for more.

With that finite thought he tried to relax and ready himself for the little soiree he was about to attend. He had dressed himself with care, knowing the subtle power play behind a well-tailored, black Kiton suit paired with an understated Gucci shirt and a bold tie and pocket square combo for a splash of brashness. It was his battle uniform, of as much use to him as his brass knuckles had been when he was a young lad. And to him this evening was akin to a fight.

Though people in Storybrooke thought his money came from his real estate portfolio and his profitable deals, those were mostly ways to maintain himself on top of the power structure of Storybrooke, above whatever elected official- Regina Mills, as of late- occupied the mayorship at the time. His real money came from deals, yes, but those he helped broker between companies behind closed doors in the business world. Some of the biggest mergers, take-overs or joint ventures of the past years had happened because he had acted as the middle-man, making the necessary introduction, ironing out the terms for both parties, smoothing over any perceived wrinkle. He used to actively seek those deals, when he was younger and looking to make his fortune. Nowadays he had to make himself attend a few society parties to be seen and perhaps approached, or at least partially propositioned, and he would decide later whether the deal was sweet enough for him to get involved in. Otherwise he would return to Storybrooke and bask in the simplicity of it. Another reason why he didn-t want things to change. He had sought the town out as a retreat from the corporate world, a place of escape where he could disappear until it was time to show up at another party.

He had come to this one mostly as a favour to the hostess. Corinne Deville was a longtime… frenemy, he supposed, who he kept in touch nowadays mostly so she could be his eyes and ears around the city. She knew everyone worth knowing on the island and her parties, at least, were never dull, stale business affairs. She liked to be a bit outrageous and had the money to pull it off. And she always had good booze and a lot of it, which was enticement enough. He rather thought a rooftop party in early December was a bit of a bold choice, but Corrie was like that, and the Peninsula Hotel, though not his first choice for a Manhattan stay, was acceptable. 

He arrived fashionably late, so that everyone could see him as he came in. That way he didn’t need to do the rounds and he got to see who was looking at the entrance, as if waiting for someone, and swiftly turned around and avoided eye contact when they saw him, as if afraid to look too eager or interested. Those people would inevitably approach him at some point in the evening. All he had to do was get himself a drink, something to eat, and seat himself somewhere off to a side, looking vaguely approachable. 

But first, he needed to greet the host. Corrie wasn’t one to play hard to get, thankfully, rather effusively swanning over to him to give him her customary two kisses on the air just next to his cheeks. She looked amazing, wearing a black-red orchid mermaid-style Alexander McQueen, with a voluminous stole to protect her naked shoulders from the nippy Manhattan winter air. She was clearly already drunk, yet she almost didn’t look it, managing to walk gracefully in spite of the alcohol and the cumbersome shape of her dress. He knew her too well not to notice the way her eyes were just a bit redder than usual, or the way her grip on her glass was just the slightest bit unstable. Besides, she was holding a Martini, which was usually her third drink, right after a Gimlet and a Tom Collins. 

“Royce, dah-ling, so thrilled to have you join my little party.” She smiled, all teeth, like a predator showing its weapons, and ushered him to the bar. “I’ve ordered that expensive Scotch you like to drink, had it brought specially for you. Never say I don’t do things for you. And there is… a lovely and a bit risqué food arrangement, do try it. Some very good, very expensive sushi, with a rather spectacular presentation specially commissioned for this get-together.”

He glanced to a corner of the terrace, where he could see some tables laid out, with a rather large number of people around them. 

“Some interesting antique set, perhaps?”

“Rather the opposite, dahling.”

She left him once they reached the bar and, almost against his will, he found himself curious as to what surprise Corrie had prepared for this particular evening. He asked for his Scotch, a 25-year-old Glenmorangie Signet that he hoped Corrie hadn’t blabbed about to anyone else, so he wouldn’t have to share- and sauntered over to the tables set up with the sushi, noticing again the inordinate amount of people lingering around them. Most of them, he noticed, were men.

He understood then when he spotted a foot peeking from behind a wall of people, naked and attached to what looked like an equally-naked calf. He got the gist of it right away. After all, it was hardly a novelty, though he couldn’t recall ever attending a party where sushi had been served in such a way. It was Nyotaimori, the practice of serving sushi on top of a naked woman, a fad from the 60’s born from the economic bonanza of the era in Japan and inspired by some much older Japanese food-play practices having to do with sake rather than sushi. Rather trite, in his opinion, but allowed for a bit of harmless titillation without it actually being very boundary-breaking. Something right up Corrie’s ally, risqué enough to make her party memorable but not too taboo that would get her exiled from the Manhattan social scene.

He grabbed a plate and slowly made his way along the tables, barely seeing the skin on display. It didn’t interest him much, though he was glad to see the entire thing was done in a rather tasteful fashion, with not only the bare bits of modesty guaranteed but also with somewhat of an artistic flair. The models’ important areas were covered by lovely bits of greenery and flowers- and bless Corrie for avoiding the mistletoe and holly typical of the season in favour of something less hackneyed- but there was a theme and a colour palate, with bits of the skin on displayed painted to imitate the swirling brushstrokes of vaguely-oriental designs in different shades, depending on the model. 

A glint of gold caught his eye as he added his twelfth piece of sushi to his plate, a model painted in delicate shades of his namesake and blue, which, along with her creamy complexion, reminded him of a porcelain tea set he had at his shop. The colour palate complimented her hair rather nicely, a rather fetching shade of red-brown that reminded him of Belle French.

Rather a lot, actually.

Come to think of it, the model’s softly-blushed skin was also the exact shade of the librarian’s. And she also had a beauty mark on her left inner-thigh, close enough to her knee to be seen when she wore some of her more flirty skirts during spring and summer. He staggered close, almost losing his grip on his plate, his eyes refusing to acknowledge what they were seeing as truth. It was fucking Belle French. Naked. On top of a table. With delicious food spread over her, ready to be plucked and eaten. Surreptitiously, Royce pinched himself. No, not a dream. Sounded a lot like a dream, but no.

After the initial shock wore off- and he managed to pull himself together the slightest bit- he forced himself to think about his choices. Should he approach her? Would it be awkward, would she be embarrassed? He didn’t want to shame her in any way, especially given that this was clearly the temp gig she had gotten to help pay for repairs to the library. And what would it mean for their future relationship? Would this damage whatever small relationship they had? He rather liked their little talks and their small everyday interactions. But she might not want to interact with him much at all if she knew he had seen her naked.

As straight-out-of-his-fucking-fantasies a naked Belle French on top of a table slattered with food was, it was not worth risking the everyday Belle French he got to enjoy every day. She hadn’t spotted him yet, so he could quietly slip away and she would be none the wiser. She seemed distracted by the people around her, mostly young men, circling her like vultures, spending too much time deciding on what piece of sushi to take, pretending to be musing over the selection while their eyes drifted towards her covered breasts. Insolent little things, trying to engage her in talk while the librarian struggled not to make eye contact and keep a placid expression without making it look like she was inviting their advances. She was also trying not to fidget as a man used his chopsticks to try and move a leaf covering her lower right breast under the guise of trying to pick a piece of nigiri. Where the fuck was Corrie and why was she letting something like that happen? Hadn’t any of those wannabe executives learned basic manners? Or the barest notion of consent?

The cherry on top of that absolute clusterfuck was a tall, brawny fellow- someone’s favoured son, no doubt, the lad didn’t look like he could count to ten by himself-, some junior VP that distantly rung a bell, pretending to be too clumsy with the chopstick to try and pick up a piece of maki with his bare hands. The moment he saw Belle flinch at the touch of the man’s fingers he decided that enough was really enough. His cane came out a second later, smacking the offending hand away as he told the eejit, in his most Scottish tone, to keep his hands to himself. The idiot looked like he was going to protest before he realised whose cane that was. Looking like he would rather be chewing glass, but also like he might be shitting his pants, the oaf apologised, quickly scurrying off. He smiled with thinly-veiled satisfaction, setting his cane back by his side.

“Mr Gold?”

He turned to look at Miss French, making sure his eyes never strayed from her face, both to convey that he was not looking at her nude body and to try and read carefully any emotion flickering across her eyes. She didn’t look uncomfortable, to his surprise, at least not more than she had before she had noticed him there. Rather she looked cheery, as she always did with him, and more than a bit relieved. He noticed that most other youngsters fluttering around her had gone along with the big lummox, likely scared off by his presence.

“It’s so lovely to see you!”

“It is?”

The librarian laughed, one of her hands reaching out to touch his on top of his cane.

“Of course. Under rather peculiar circumstances, but it’s nice to see a familiar face here.”

And of course it was. She was naked in a party full of strangers, some of them entirely devoid of manners. Seeing a familiar face, someone who could intercede in her favour since she was limited in her actions by her circumstances, was a comfort. And to have someone like him, who could instil fear into people’s hearts even more so. Which meant he had to stay. He could not leave her exposed to whatever lech or overconfident idiot who decided to let his small prick do the thinking.

“It is rather lovely to see you, Miss French. I do so enjoy our talks, and I had resigned myself to a rather dull evening of empty platitudes and boring business talk. Would you mind if I sat next to you?”

She didn’t seem to object, her eyes reflecting pleasure instead of panic, though she did glance around and confessed she wasn’t supposed to talk to the guests.

“Corrie won’t mind, she’ll be delighted I’m sticking around for longer than I intended. Don’t worry.”

It took him a moment to signal for a waiter to get him a chair, sitting right next to the librarian’s head, his glass of Scotch by her hip and his plate of sushi in his hands. He sat himself at an angle so that he could both look at her in the eye and also glare at any passerby that even thought about approaching Belle, a bit like an old dragon guarding his hoard or, if he tried to look at things in a more benign way, guarding the fair princess. He had amassed a fearsome enough reputation with the present crowd to foresee little trouble staking his claim.

He had prepared himself for an awkward evening, telling himself he would endure the discomfort for Miss French’s own ease, but he had been mistaken. It was surprisingly easy to “get over” her nudity. Being so close to Belle while she was wearing nothing- with bits of her bare skin painted the colour of his namesake- was still intoxicating as hell, but he managed to quickly reign in that sensation and store it somewhere in his subconscious to deal with it at a later date- no doubt in nightly fantasies for weeks, if not months, to come. 

He had always thought her attractive to the point of distraction, but it was her mind and her conversation that had always kept him coming back. It was lovely to have her “all to himself” for so long. Their library interludes were always cut short by a patron or some crisis, and she tended to visit his shop during her brief afternoon break right before school ended, which meant she could never stay for longer than twenty minutes. But here she was free, with no one to claim her time and attention but himself, and after a few failed attempts at starting a conversation- she was nude, after all, and he could not imagine himself being very socially graceful in her position- she managed to engage him in a light-hearted discussion about books, starting with a ranking of books by Thomas Hardy based on how depressive they were, both agreeing to put in first place Tess D��Urbervilles  but squabbling good-natured about second place. He maintained the honour went to The Woodlanders, while she argued strongly in favour of Jude, the Obscure.

It was a much more engaging discussion than it had any right to be, mostly thanks to the librarian’s sincere passion for the subject, combined with her extensive knowledge. He saw how effortlessly cultured she was, and how at ease she was amongst the wealthy and privileged, even while wearing nothing but a skimpy thong and some strategically-placed foliage and paint. A posh bird like had often admired from afar as a lad, a perfect fit among the Upper East side crowd around them. And yet she wasn’t snobbish like a lot of them where, or like one would expect someone like her to be. She wasn’t putting on airs or feigning interests. She was as she presented herself to be, her manners effortless instead of artificially refined and her intellect sharp from curiosity rather than a need to boast. But it was her generous spirit what was more fetching about her. A sincere concern for anyone that crossed her path, from a drunk miner to a grumpy, misanthrope pawnbroker who no one else liked.

Even when he attempted to do something for her- it was cold out, so he managed to talk a poor waiter into bringing some of the spare braziers he knew the hotel had in abundance and had distributed generously already to the nearby tables were people were sitting and talking, so that she would be more comfortable. She had thanked him and immediately insisted that she didn’t need as many as he wanted to light around her, telling him to distribute them amongst the other living displays as well.

“It’s not fair that they should go cold just because they don’t have a guardian angel to look after them like I do.”

Time passed without him noticing. He waved away the few people stupid enough not to correctly read his body language and try to approach him for conversation, having decided that it wasn’t a night prime for dealmaking like he had previously intended. Instead it was a night for talking about literature and the places they had been, recalling anecdotes from their college years and in general sharing bits about their lives. It was the most he had ever shared of himself with another person, more intimate than Belle’s nudity. She told him about her mother, and how she had come from money. Old money. But she had fallen in love with an Aussie with more ambition than wealth, and had moved to the ends of the world to be with him. Later he had proven himself, building a successful business and allowing her a childhood spent half in Australia and half in Europe with her mom and her grandparents. 

But Moe French’s entrepreneurial spirit did not survive his wife’s death, and so he had let his business languish. Her mother, who had fretted for her only daughter’s future during the last months of her life, had set up a considerable trust fund, which had allowed her to go to college in England for her undergrad and graduate degree. And later, when her mother’s parents had passed away, she had inherited a modest investment portfolio, which accounted for the few luxuries she allowed herself as a small town librarian.

He, in turn, shared as much as he could stomach about his rather sordid upbringing. An unwanted mongrel, son of a mother who he never knew and a father he would rather forget. Left behind by both at a young age, to beg, borrow and steal a life for himself. It wasn’t until he had come into contact with distant relatives- two of his father’s cousins, who lived modestly but honestly outside of Glasgow, that he had been given a chance to settle, to get an education. Still, he had learned bad habits that had been difficult to break and he had continued with them in his new life, brawling for cash, gambling and doing unsavoury jobs to raise the money needed to get his law degree. It should have made him uncomfortable to expose their stark differences in upbringing and breeding, but there was nothing but understanding and compassion in Belle’s eyes, something he would’ve mistaken for pity if he didn’t know her well.

“Thank you for sharing all of that with me. It must not have been easy.”

They were so enthralled in their own little world that they both startled when they began to clear the tables in preparation for dessert. It was to be a selection of fruits and tarts, served in the same style.

“But before there’ll be a bit of a break, mostly so that us models can walk about a bit and freshen up. Will you be here when I come back?”

The way she said it, with a hopeful lilt, looking at him from beneath her lashes, had him nodding effusively. Wild horses could not drag him away. He did think the idea of walking around sounded good, and he wanted to refresh his drink. While he was at the bar he had the idea to request a glass of ice water and a straw, so he could offer Belle a drink if she was thirsty while she worked. While he waited, not minding that the bartender was a bit busy at the moment, he felt someone approach from behind, one boney, well-manicured hand sliding up his shoulder. He smelt smoke, and considered himself lucky that the hand currently slipping something into the pocket of his suit jacket wasn’t the one holding Corrie’s trademark long cigarette holder.

“I’m so thrilled you’re still here, darling. And given how you’ve been spending the evening so far I thought I would give you a present. One you’ll like, for a change.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, knowing Corrie was looking intently at him, he fished whatever she had put into his pocket out. It was a sleek keycard, one from the Peninsula.

“As an admirer of fine, beautiful things I thought you might want a more… private setting where to study your latest find. I would not usually condone it, but she seemed so willing, so strangely… receptive of your attention, that I thought it might not go amiss to get you a room for the night. You know, just in case you’re too tired or hungover to go back home safely, of course.”

He could see her grin out of his peripheral vision, something feral with a hint of madness that summed up Corinne perfectly. He rolled his eyes, affecting an unaffected manner, knowing it would piss her off not to get a rise out of him.

“Corrie, I wish you’d stop after the fifth drink. Once you get into the gin tonics you grow somewhat fanciful.”

“Be that way. Keep your secrets. I’m not here to interrogate you, dear. Just doing my one good deed of the year before time runs out. I was cutting it rather close.”

With that she sauntered off, but he paid her no mind. Let her think whatever she wanted. He knew it wasn’t like what she was implying with Belle. They were just two friends, or friendly acquaintances, though perhaps that was too distant in light of all the bits of themselves they had shared with each other that night. But still, nothing like Corrie was suggesting, nothing unseemly, just two people having a friendly and thoughtful con-

Fuck.

Belle was back. They had laid her down on her stomach this time around, a few gauzy bits of nothing covering her incredible ass from his view, her head pillowed in her arms, which meant he could see the soft curve of the side of a small, perfect breast. Along her delicate spine and sloping shoulders someone had arranged bits of fruit, bombons and bite-sized tarts. He narrowed his eyes, swearing he could hear Corinne’s shrill laughter in the background.

He took a deep breath, shaking his head. He was not some slobbering animal. And Belle was a lady. He would keep it together, would march there and pretend nothing was amiss. Would not give the perfection before him a second glance. When he sat down he focused on Belle’s face, the way her eyes lit up when she spotted him, no doubt grateful to have her protector return and keep the mannerless young men from before at bay. When he offered her some water, shyly, she beamed at him, as if he had offered her the moon.

“You’re so kind, Mr Gold. And such a gentleman.”

His ears burned at hearing Belle fucking French, with her exotic accent and posh manners, call him a gentleman. He had to force himself not to preen. 

“Please, call me Royce.”

“Only if you call me Belle, as I’ve told you to do before.”

She gratefully sipped at the water offered, making a pleased sound in the back of her throat that threatened to go straight to his groin. Thankfully he was sitting down, which allowed him a bit of coverage. With herculean effort he sought to resume their conversation, which had moved on to a rather spirited debate on the merits of the different adaptations of Around the world in 80 days.

They were in the middle of comparing Cantinflas and Eric Idle’s Passepartouts when the librarian fidgeted the slightest bit, looking uncomfortable.

“What’s the matter? Are you unwell? Do you need me to call someone?”

Belle sighed, shaking her head.

“I’m just hungry. They had to retouch my body paint a lot when I took a break, so I never got to eat any of the power bars I brought specially for that purpose. And it’s not helping that whatever they’ve put on me smells rather heavenly. It’s strange to be literally brimming with food and yet unable to eat.”

He had to agree with her about the food. It smelled amazing, the bombons nestled inside foil wrappers to protect them from her skin’s warmth- warmth he was very specifically trying hard to think about– and the pieces of fruit, cut and arranged into fanciful, artistic shapes, glistened in the dim light of the terrace, looking beyond succulent.

“I could- I could feed you if you wish. It’d be no problem.”

‘It’d be all sorts of problems, but oh so worth it.’

“Oh, you wouldn’t mind? Because that would be lovely.”

“What would you like?”

“I saw some lovely raspberry tarts and some Royce nama chocolate squares that looked amazing. Just not dark chocolate please, I can’t stand it.”

“More for me then.”

Gingerly, making extremely sure he did not touch her skin at all if possible, he picked up a few selections of sweets, arranging them into a plate so she could pick and choose what she wanted. When she made a selection he made sure to hold it out to her so she could bite into it without worrying about his fingers, though he still felt the phantom touch of her breath on his skin even when he tried his best to get himself out of the way. It was a heady, altogether surreal experience: the closeness, the trust, the implied intimacy of the gesture. A dream fucking come true, as far as Royce was concerned, the single most erotic moment of his life and it was happening in public. He had come to the party with the intention of testing the waters for new deals and he would leave it empty-handed and yet a changed man.

‘Best. Night. Ever.’

But as nice as it was, it couldn't last forever. He tried to pretend at first he did not see the signs, the way the crowd around them began to dwindle down, the waiters passing around with trays laden with champagne flutes, offering a “last round”. The writing was on the wall even before he saw the first of the “living displays”, the one closest to the exit, being taken away. Still, neither moved or made a comment about things coming to an end, not even when Belle was the last model left out. 

At some point, however, they had to acknowledge that something was happening, because the waiters were beginning to clear the tables, the bar was getting ready to close, and no one had come for Belle. She seemed puzzled by it, but he imagined it had something to do with the fact that no one had wanted to bother him. Perhaps Corrie had said something, or perhaps his reputation had done the talking. Either way it was unacceptable that Belle be made to wait, exposed in cold weather that no amount of heaters could nullify, for someone to finally come get it. He proposed he get his long overcoat so she could drape it around herself and he would escort her then back to wherever she had left her clothes and things, so that she wouldn’t have to walk around half-naked alone.

He loathed to leave her, but there was no choice. He hurried to the coat room, commanding the attention of the poor sod running up and down fetching coats, and managed to get his long Zegna cashmere coat in no time. Pleased with his expedience he rushed back, pausing when he noticed that something wasn’t right. Belle was still in the far corner of the terrace where he had left her, but she had scrambled to a sitting position on the table, using the white tablecloth she had been lying on to cover herself as much as possible as a tall man- the lumbering idiot from hours before, now clearly drunk off his arse-  leaned close to her, one hand gripping one of her naked forearms. She was trying to shake him off, her body language screaming her discomfort and unease, but she was clearly reluctant to make a scene, the power imbalance working against her. 

Thankfully it wasn’t working against him. He felt no restraint or compunction when the urge to do violence overtook him. Thankfully he had, as always, a handy weapon as his disposal. It took one sweep of his cane, once he was close enough, to get the idiot away from her, the surprise at the unexpected blow to his side making him let go of Belle before staggering back a few paces. A few more blows had him first on his knees and later sprawled out on the floor, and only Belle’s gentle hand on the back of his jacket got him to put his cane down. With enviable nonchalance he signalled for a passing waiter, letting him know that the poor bloke on the floor had had a bit too much to drink and should be scraped off the floor and put into a cab as soon as it could be arranged.

“Right away, sir. Thank you for letting me know.”

He tried not to gloat as three people were called away from clearing the nearby tables to pick up the unfortunate young man, no one making a comment as they dragged the lummox away. Good fucking riddance. Realising that he still held his coat in his hands he turned around and swiftly draped it around Belle, noticing with pleasure that, though she had had a front scene to his violent outburst, she didn’t shy away from his touch. Rather the contrary.

“Are you alright? Was he bothering you for long? Did he say something inappropriate?”

“No, nothing like that. He was just not taking no for an answer, and looked drunk enough to try to do something stupid out in public. Thank you for taking care of him.”

Fuck, it was doing things to him that a prim and proper lass like Belle French was thanking him for behaving in a less than gentlemanly manner. Right out of his fantasies as a lad, the idea of a posh bird that would revel in his most coarse manners, in the violent habits he had had to acquire at an early age. It all threatened to go to his head or, even worse, his groin, so he forced himself to push it to the side and concentrate on Belle's immediate wellbeing. Wrapped up as she was in his coat- and fuck, did she nuzzle the lapel and take a deep breath, as if smelling his cologne in the collar of his coat?- she was clothed enough to get off the table and walk out of the terrace. He accompanied her past what was clearly a staging area for the models, given the remnants of body paint and the leaves and petals strewn on the floor, until they arrived at a large room with screens in the corners, clearly where the models had first disrobed. Only one bag was left, a Jackie Smith tote he recognised as Belle’s. He glanced around, noticing there was no place to shower, just some baby wipes packets with which he gathered the models were supposed to wipe the paint off their bodies before putting their clothes back on. Which wouldn’t do, really. Not at all.

“I-I have a room. Here at the hotel. With a shower.”

She stood there, looking waifish and small in his oversized coat, with paint still on her skin and her hair in disarray, yet even then there was an air of understated elegance about her, something in the way she carried herself. Himself, on the other hand, could not boast the same, feeling like he was sweating as he waffled on about how he got the hotel key as a prank but now she could put it to good use to shower and relax, perhaps charge ungodly amounts of room service. It would serve Corrie right to have her little joke backfire on her like that and-

He paused when he noticed how much closer Belle was than a second before. She was looking up at him with something akin to… expectation, almost, and clutching the sleeve of his suit jacket, almost afraid he would take off. There was a patience to her look, as if she was trying to coerce a shy deer to eat from her hand, and Royce’s eyes narrowed, a puzzle slowly unravelling in his mind. He recognised that look, she had worn it often around him as of late, something tinged with affectionate exasperation, as if she was waiting for him to figure something out, something that should be obvious. A nagging voice that had been whispering in the back of his mind now started yelling, telling him he was an idiot for not seeing what was right in front of him.

Could she… could she fancy him? Was that possible? Was he just so fucking dense and self-loathing that he hadn’t realise Belle fucking French was coming onto him? That she had been for a while? It sounded too much like wishful thinking to be true, but there was also no other way to account for how close the librarian was standing to him, how hopeful she seemed as she looked up at him. He froze, unwilling to accept the reality in front of him and yet unable to deny it.

Thankfully for Royce the librarian seemed to notice and understand his inner turmoil, a soft look overtaking her face before she slowly, carefully, leaned into him, standing on her tippy toes to reach him and making sure he had more than enough time to pull away in case her advances were unwelcomed.

No fucking chance of that.

The magnetic pull of her, in the end, overcame his deep-seated denial, pushing him forward, his attention drifting towards her mouth, so laser-focused on the heat and the scent radiating from her that he almost forgot where they were.

Almost.

When he did, he pulled away, babbling about how this wasn’t a private enough place for her to kiss him while wearing nothing but his overcoat. His self-restraint only went so far and his control had been close to breaking the whole evening. If she kissed him he would not be able to stop. It was a shameful confession, but Belle barely batted an eye, looking briefly deep in thought before she took one of his hands in hers.

“You mentioned you had a room, right?” He nodded dumbly, unwilling to connect the dots himself and assume she was saying what he thought she was saying. “Maybe that would be a better place for this?”

There was no mistaking her meaning, not even for someone like Royce Gold, for whom denial was an Olympic event. When she tugged at his hand he didn’t fight her, hopeless to do anything but follow behind her, vaguely dazed, having only enough presence of mind to offer to carry Belle’s bag, which she politely declined. The elevator ride seemed to take forever, even though they were going down only one floor. Corrie had given him one of the best rooms in the hotel. She never half-assed things and wasn’t known for being cheap. 

He held it together till the hotel door was firmly shut behind them, at which point he pounced on her, restraint and decorum entirely absent after four fucking hours of close, unrelenting contact with a naked Belle French. He had been good, so good, but they were behind closed doors and Belle had made it clear that she was not opposed to his advances, so whatever disguise of gentlemanliness he had created over the years was now in tatters and only the unpolished, savage beast from Glasgow remained, intent on quenching its thirst on her. He pressed her up against the hotel door, his mouth eagerly seeking hers out, pleased when she opened herself up to him eagerly, her hands going around his shoulders so they could tangle in his hair. She felt amazing against him, soft and pliant, smelling faintly of something fruity and a scent that was uniquely hers, a mixture of vanilla and the smell of a new book. It was intoxicating, and so he pressed closer, the hand not clutching his cane for dear life wrapping around her waist, resenting the fact that he could not touch her directly. He had relished the fact that she had been wrapped in his coat only minutes ago, when they were outside and she was shivering. But the room they were now in was cosy and warm, with an artificial gas fire crackling nearby. There was, therefore, no need for the librarian to remain bundled so he tugged at the fastened buttons of his coat, humming in pleasure when it was Belle herself that reached down to undo them, shimming out of the outfit altogether a second later.

He could feel her then, gloriously nude but for a scrap of skin-coloured fabric covering her cunt, soft as he had always imagined she would be, skin like silk beneath his fingertips. She didn’t seem to mind her lack of clothing, didn’t shy away from his hands or his lips when he began to explore her throat and the gentle slope of her right shoulder. She was delightfully responsive beneath him, making the softest, most devastating noises as he nipped at bits of flesh, taking care to avoid the big swatches of skin covered by the gold and blue paint.

“You don- Oh, dear Lord- you don’t have to worry about the paint. It’s edible.”

“Come again?”

He couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly.

“Yes it’s-” She sighed when he caressed her spine- “It’s chocolate paint. For safety, mostly, in case the food came into contact with it.”

He blinked, pausing a second to take stock of the situation. He was in a lavish hotel room with Belle French, who was basically naked and, apparently slathered in strategically-placed swirls of chocolate paint. And they were making out like wild beasts. This was beyond his wildest dreams, so far-fetched that it could not possibly be a figment of his imagination. Even his subconscious had limits. Reality, apparently, didn’t.

“You’re gonna be the death of me.” His Scottish brogue, reasserting itself as a result of the drink, the lateness of the hour and how absolutely out of his mind he was with lust, made him slur his words. “Fucking minx, been teasing me the whole bloody night. So gorgeous, so lovely to an old monster like me…”

He lost himself in the feel and smell of her, feeling starved for every bit of her he could kiss and touch. She was perfect, everything about her the right size and feel for him, as if she had been made to fit him. Her skin felt warm and soft beneath her tongue, the taste of her pairing well with the taste of chocolate from the paint, and she was delightfully responsive, no pretence or air of artifice in her as she pulled at his hair and whimpered helplessly. There was also no faking the delicious wetness between her legs, the scrap of fabric that was her flesh-coloured thong drenched to the touch. 

“Take me to bed.”

He had dreamed about Belle French telling him just that, but not even his wildest dream could have conjured up the reality of it, the way she sighed it, her hands grabbing handfuls of his hair to drag his ear against her mouth, the way it was both a plea and an order. He hastened to comply either way, manoeuvring both of them down the small hallway to the suite, where the king-sized bed stood pride of place. In the small journey there he had somehow lost his dinner jacket, the librarian’s nimble hands working on his tie, undoing the Eldredge knot with an ease that had him imagining her, wearing nothing but one of his shirts, kneeling on his bed and tying his tie, a lovely little domestic tableau with implications that set his blood on fire.

The bed at the Peninsula had standard, if luxurious, white bedding, nothing quite like his burgundy sheets and cream damask comforter, but he barely registered any of it. His senses were full of Belle, who managed to half-shove him into the bed, swiftly climbing on top of him before he could complain about their separation. She sought his mouth immediately, her fingers sinking into his hair to change the angle of the kiss just so. When she let go he whimpered, immediately missing the scratch of her nails against his scalp, but he quieted when he realised she was undoing the buttons of his shirt, having finally done away with his tie and, apparently, his belt. Crafty little thing, this lass, devious beneath her prim and proper facade. And all his, his to kiss and touch, to lay down the bed, legs dangling from the edge while he dragged that little scrap of lace generously called underwear, allowing him to see her in all of her glory. She was every bit as perfect as he had imagined, and so smooth. She was almost entirely devoid of hair from the waist down, a small strip of soft curls the only thing left. 

“So lovely.”

She was. Lush curves, smooth skin and the irresistible lure of unfettered enthusiasm. The moment he put his mouth on her she was like a livewire, practically vibrating beneath his touch, the tension and energy in her impossible to ignore. It made him feel powerful, and more than a bit smug, to know that a woman like her, who could have anyone with a look and a gesture, was trembling with barely-repressed desire because his tongue was lapping at her cunt, his hands curling around her thighs, teasing the edges of her labia. None of the young, rich assholes that had circled her like vultures before he had seen her had interested her, only him, old and crippled as he was.

It wasn’t long before he felt her tense even further, her back bowing in a perfect arc and her whimpers turning into loud moans. He thought briefly about denying her the pleasure she was building towards, to drag things out to heighten the sensations, but soon came to the conclusion he didn’t have the self-control to deny her. So when he felt her tumble close to the edge he sunk two fingers into her, the heat and pressure making his already hard cock ache. He was not going to survive her. Thankfully she came just as he thought he was going to lose the last shreds of his composure, her cries distracting him from his more pressing needs. She was beautiful when she came, as far away from the composed, prim lass he was used to seeing, wild and uninhibited. A magnificent sight to behold, one he tried hard to prolong for as long as possible. Eventually, sadly, she grew slack, almost boneless, one hand lazily combing his hair, as if he was some pampered pet who had done a good thing. The feeling was exhilarating. 

“Mmmmh, that was…” she sighed, her nails scratching against the sensitive skin of his nape. “Wonderful.”

He smiled against the supple skin of her thigh, feeling smug, like he often did after a beneficial deal being signed. He didn’t even care that he was so hard it bordered on painful, not when he could smell Belle, feel her warmth and revel in the knowledge that he had made her come apart.

“I’m cold. Come up here?”

The hand petting his hair tugged on it, leading him to crawl over to the bed after quickly discarding his pants and socks and, after a deep breath for courage, his underwear. He pretended not to notice Belle staring at his cock as he climbed on top of her, trying to distract himself with the feeling of her hands as they explored his naked back, pausing every time they encountered a scar. He had amassed a small collection of them, mostly in his late teens and early twenties, knife wounds and a couple made with glass. They were all faded, the only one standing out being the curved one on his side, product of a rusty blade he had mostly-but-not-quite managed to dodge, and the one on his right shoulder. That one had gone in deep but hadn’t been able to hit anything major. 

“Do any of them hurt?”

Belle’s voice was soft, her eyes wide and the slightest bit watery, likely imagining the pain he must have gone through to acquire each of his marks. He shook his head quickly, wanting to reassure them.

“No.” He paused, wondering if saying anything further would be oversharing. But she had to know. It would be a factor if things… progressed. “My ankle does, sometimes. When it’s raining, or I’ve been overexerting it.”

To her credit she didn’t even try to glance down, her focus entirely on his face, likely trying to read any signs of discomfort that might appear there. He kissed the hand that went to cup his face, for once not mistaking compassion for pity.

“Are you comfortable?”

At that he smirked and, daringly, he ground his hips against hers, bringing her attention to his rather desperate state.

“Not really, but my ankle doesn’t hurt, if that’s what you were asking.”

He was rewarded by a genuine laugh, easing whatever leftover bit of self-consciousness he might still have felt. He leaned down to capture her mouth, eager to devour her whole. She was delicious, still tasting of the raspberry tart he had hand-fed her, and something uniquely hers, which he had already tasted when he had delved his tongue into her cunt. But now he could also feel her beneath him, all the soft curves he had dreamed about pressing against him, her body cradling his like he was something precious. Beneath the buzzing of adrenaline and the thrill of his desires coming true there was an undercurrent of safety he was surprised to feel. He was safe with her, he knew this innately. Safe from judgement or ridicule, safe to expose those parts of him that were weak or ugly without feeling like he was ceding the high ground, leaving himself open to an attack. And that small undercurrent of safety, somehow, heightened everything else he was feeling. Allowed him to let go.

“I can practically hear you thinking, you’re doing it so loud.”

Belle’s voice, throaty from her screaming earlier, sent a shiver down his spine. He burrowed his head against her breasts, anchoring himself in the moment, and apologetically kissed the skin there. One kiss turned to two, and before he knew it he was taking one of her rosy nipples into his mouth and sucking reverently on it, like he had often imagined doing in his own home, usually after a few drinks. She was wonderfully responsive, squirming in the most delightful way, each movement sending sharp spikes through his groin and reminding him that if he didn’t manage to do something about it he was liable to explode. Luckily his lass was bold and brass, and the sort to take charge, and so when he was distracted by her lovely breasts- just the right size for his hands, and so, so soft- she moved one hand down to grasp him firmly and, with the help of a bit of shimmying, guide him to her entrance.

“Oh, fuck, I forgot to ask about…” She hissed when a startled movement made him bump her clit with the tip of his cock. “Protection. I-I mean, I’m clean and on the pill but if you want-”

He had no doubt that there were condoms in the room. It had been, after all, paid for by Corrie to unsubtly encourage him to fuck someone silly in it. The drawers of both nightstands were probably chock full of them, likely in all colours and sizes, and it would take but a moment to crawl over either one to grab what he needed. But the thought of feeling her fully was too good to pass up.

“Fuck, sweetheart, I’m clean too. Can I- can I really…?”

He couldn’t finish the phrase, nor take that last plunge, but before he could try to shake himself out of his stupor she draped her legs around his hips, hooking her feet right in the dip where his spine met his ass, nudging him rather unsubtly forward till he was, blessedly, balls deep into her, his cock enveloped by silky, wet heat that had him almost coming right then and there. He gritted his teeth and almost bit his tongue off in an effort to not shame himself, body tense for another reason entirely as he fought to control himself. It seemed to take forever but eventually he began to thrust, first tentatively, afraid of hurting her or discovering he hadn’t quite gotten it together as he hoped he had, but need, that itch that was growing to rule every instinct he had, slowly pushed him to go faster, to thrust harder. Belle met him move for move, canting her hips forward, her nails digging into his back in a way that should have felt painful but only enhanced the pleasure building up inside of him. She was, like before, delightfully vocal, and disarmingly demanding, telling him to go harder, to give her more.

“Insatiable little minx,” he grunted, trying not to stare at her breasts as they bounced with the force of their actions. If he got distracted he ran the risk of spending himself inside her without bringing her to orgasm at least one more time and that was unacceptable. “You’ll be the death of me.”

It felt a little bit like he was on the brink of death, of a pleasure so acute it was indistinguishable from pain. His hard-earned self-control was close to snapping and only his pride was keeping him going. Desperate to feel her flutter around him he braced his upper body on his left arm and both his knees, leaving his right hand free to trail down her stomach and dip in-between her thighs, looking for that bit of flesh that he had previously only touched with his lips and tongue. He let her cries guide his fingers, letting her gasps and keens set the pace as he stroked her slowly at first, increasing the tempo and the pressure in response to her needy demands. Finally she tensed beneath him, back arching in a perfect bow as she came, loud and uninhibited, her cunt gripping him tight as it spasmed, the feeling too much for him to bear. His orgasm was quieter, his groans muffled by her hair and skin as he pressed his head against the crook of her shoulder and spilled himself into her for what seemed like forever, a catharsis that felt both physical and mental.

Afterwards he had enough sense to collapse to the side instead of falling bonelessly on top of Belle like he had wanted to. His heart was pounding a mile a minute, and he felt cold and clammy, but a second later Belle was cuddling up to him, draping a leg over his, making sure to keep her feet away from his ankle. He drew her close, greedily seeking out her warmth and the reassurance she brought. He dared drape an arm around her, his fingers ghosting up and down one of her exposed arms.

“Any complaints?”

He kept his tone light, flippant even, but he paid attention closely to her face, trying to read her expression. She looked dishevelled and delightfully smug, satisfaction oozing out of her, stretching out like a cat in a sunspot, but then frowned, her nose wrinkling a bit. He tensed, preparing himself for whatever had put that look in her face. Maybe she was having second thoughts already?

“I’m sticky.”

“Come again?”

“From the edible paint and your valiant efforts to rid me of it. Don’t misunderstand me, it felt heavenly when you were licking the paint off but now that my skin is dry it feels… well, sticky.”

“Oh.” He shook his head, willing his blood to flow upwards to his brain again and allow him to think somewhat coherently. “I’m sure the bathroom’s facilities are more than adequate. These sort of rooms usually come with the full package, a spacious shower and a bathtub with all the bells and whistles.”

Her eyes sparkled and he patted himself in the back mentally for clearly saying the right thing.

“Oh, it’s been ages since I’ve been able to take a bath. The apartment above the library only has a rather pitiful shower stall and I love a good soak in a tub every now and then. Some bubble bath, a glass of wine and a good book… And maybe some company.”

There was no mistaking the look she shot him, eyes heavy-lidded and glittering with promises.

“You don’t suppose the bathtub here is big enough for two, do you?”

Her tone, mellow and just the littlest bit sultry, had him aflame and made his tired body reconsider the time it would take to rise to the challenge once more.

“Only one way to find out.”

[thestraggletag]

Ties of Blood, aka the Rumbelle cursed!faux!incest, Part Two

Summary: There’s nothing more tragic than ripping two lovers apart, except piecing the broken pieces together wrong. Never say the Evil Queen doesn’t know about revenge.

Rating: NC-17

Part One here.

Hey, it only took me FOUR YEARS to put up part Two! This fic will likely have four parts so I'll be finished before the decade's over.

Enjoy the big cliffhanger at the end of this chapter!

She figured it out seconds before Miss Swan blurted it out to the entire assembly, too late to make a hasty and discreet retreat. She forced herself to look relaxed and betray no emotion as Emma confessed the truth.

"The fire was a setup. Mr. Gold agreed to support me in this race, but I didn’t know that that meant he was going to set a fire. I don’t have definitive evidence, but I’m sure. And the worst part of all this was - the worst part of all this is - I let you all think it was real. And I can’t win that way. I’m sorry."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw her brother stand up and slowly walk away, understanding that he'd avoided sitting next to her because he knew what would happen. Knew Emma Swan enough to predict exactly how she'd react, down to her spontaneous confession. It was terrifying, how he could do that. And it was terrifying, for a whole lot of different reasons, how much he seemed to already know Miss Swan. How he could get inside her head so easily.

Once he was gone she felt some people turn their attention towards her, and it took all she had not to acknowledge it, to pretend she didn't notice it. As soon as she could, however, she slipped out of the hall, hastening home. She felt a sad sort of relief to find the house dark and quiet, Rabbie having retired to his room early for the night, allowing her to do the same and be alone with her thoughts. And they centred around Emma Swan and Mayor Mills, the two women who seemed to hold her brother's interest. It was difficult to tell which one he seemed to favour, and she could see either as being his preference. On the one hand he seemed to be doing the impossible to try and keep Emma Swan in town, toying with her in a way that could easily be interpreted as flirting, but on the other his hatred of Regina bordered on obsession, and could have easily been hiding a deep attraction. She was certainly privy to a side of him Rabbie fought to hide from Belle herself. Besides, the mayor had a dangerous sort of beauty that she could understand would be attractive to someone like her brother. Things were getting out of control, were escalating. A fire was too much to ignore, to excuse.

The days after the fire and the election were filled with the tense silence of things unspoken, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Though neither mentioned it Belle heard about clandestine meetings in the woods with the mayor and unexpected acts of kindness towards the sheriff, including the exchange of information- something Rabbie priced highly- in exchange for "tolerance".

Though she had told herself that she would've been happy if his brother decided to pursue Emma Swan she wasn't sure of it now. But she should try to embrace it, try to see the positive side of it. It was good of Rabbie to take an interest in someone new, good for him to interact more with people. When she expressed a wish to invite either woman for dinner, however, he seemed set against it, as if he found the idea distasteful.

"It's just... you seem to have so many things in common with both women, Rabbie. I thought inviting either for dinner would make a nice change from lonely nights with the town lunatic."

Her brother banged a closed fist on the table, startling her into dropping her cutlery. He seemed contrite as soon as he saw the scared expression on her face, reaching out with that same hand to take one of hers.

"Do not refer to yourself as that. Please. You're not... you're not crazy."

She wished she could agree, but she knew there was something wrong with her. She had dreams sometimes, strange and elusive and unsettling, and often she'd be hit by a sense of wrongness in the middle of the day, as if the world around her... wasn't real. Certain people also made her feel strange, like Maurice French. There was something about him that made her strangely nostalgic and yearning. The mayor, on the other hand, terrified her, and she didn't very well know why. But it was a cold, visceral sort of fear, deep and inexplicable. And her brother... Well, of course she loved him, but sometimes that love felt... wrong. In ways she didn't really want to explore at all.

It was happening more and more, which in turn had her feeling more and more like the little girl trapped in the asylum she'd once been. And like she'd deserved to be there.

"I'm sorry. I know you worry. And I don't want you to, I want you to... enjoy yourself. Mingle a bit more. Perhaps take the new sheriff for a drink or two, now that things seem to be better between you."

He looked puzzled, as if it had never occurred to him to view Miss Swan in a romantic light. Then again her brother was good about lying to himself when the mood struck him, it was altogether very possible he was in denial.

"You're seeing things, dear."

Belle chuckled, a mirthless sort of sound.

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Without Graham to go to for some peace when things got to be too much Belle got into the habit of visiting his grave to bring fresh flowers and sit awhile to enjoy the peace and quiet. Her brother had thoughtfully seen fit to install a wooden bench, Marco's handiwork judging by the simple elegance of the design. Unwilling to go visit her friend empty-handed she became a regular visitor of Game of Thorns. The flower shop was poorly kept and Moe French looked like a man who could barely keep things running or his life together, but there was a sort of dignity about the man, the shadow of something great that had faded away with time. His flower arrangements were certainly beautiful, and his merchandise well cared-for.

Though he was wary of her at first her sunny disposition soon had him warming up to her and once she expressed her interest in flowers he became a veritable chatterbox. Every time she stopped by he'd have a new flower arrangement for her, taking great pains to tell her interesting tidbits about the flowers. She got used to stopping by with something to share, muffins or cookies or anything else she might easily carry in a tupper, once she realised the florist seldom remembered to eat during the day. He spoke, sometimes, of his wife- Belle hadn't known he was a widower- and how she'd been the one with the business sense, a force of nature that had kept the house and the shop running smoothly and profitably. He'd tried to emulate her efforts after she passed away, but he'd quickly found himself overwhelmed by daily life.

"I'm just no good outside a greenhouse, it seems. Plants come easy to me... Everything else usually becomes too much."

For some reason, she felt the overwhelming need to fuss about his clothes and his eating habits, though she knew that would imply far too much familiarity. Moe French was a gruff sort of person, and she was nothing but a glorified customer. He did seem not to mind her intrusions on his time, cheering up when she entered the shop and not at all eager, it seemed, to send her away.

Once, after a particular rotten day- she'd woken in the middle of the night with the remnants of some sort of horrible dream about her and made her way to her brother's room only to find him gone, and nothing had quite gotten better after that- he'd offered to show her to his greenhouse, which was fascinating. A large portion of it was occupied by rows of hydrangeas.

"It was my wife's favourite flower. Funny, some days I can hardly remember her face, but I've never forgotten she loved hydrangeas."

For some reason it didn't surprise her to find the late Mrs French had also favoured hydrangeas. It certainly explained why the flower shop always kept them in stock and in such an array of colours. Belle had thought perhaps that the florist did it to curry favour, to try to appease her brother come rent day, give him a reason to be lenient. She rather liked the more romantic explanation, it made the flowers seem less mercenary. And it fit her newfound understanding of Moe French as a man who'd loved fiercely and lost, who was hopeless at anything remotely business-related- something her brother often commented on, in a far less diplomatic manner- but made the most beautiful flower arrangements imaginable and spent a lot of his time talking to his plants in his greenhouse, claiming it helped them grow.

Changes were definitely happening, and though Belle could have done without a lot of them she rather liked some others.

He hated it. Couldn't quite tell why, but he hated it. Somehow the florist had always rubbed him the wrong way, for no apparent reason. He was a snivelling, barely-functional excuse of a man, with the worst business sense he'd ever seen, who saw fit to blame all of his woes on others. Granted, he was not the only person in Storybrooke Gold was less than impressed with, but there was something about him, something special that pushed his dislike into outright, seething hate. Being in the florist's presence for long tended to make him violent, to fill him up with an inexplicable rage.

Belle's soft spot for the old man made him strangely apprehensive and anxious. It felt almost as if he thought Moe was dangerous for his sister, like he wished to do her harm, which he knew wasn't true. In the past, however, that awful feeling in the pit of his stomach had not been recurring, since Belle crossed paths with Mr French only seldomly. The flowers that decorated their home were picked up by him or, more often, by Dove, his only employee. The library and the flowershop were far enough away from each other and Moe French wasn't into reading anything longer than a magazine. Gold doubted he even had a library card.

But after Graham died Belle had acquired the habit of visiting his grave, often bringing with her a bouquet to place near the headstone. Which meant she was suddenly visiting the flower shop often and that set his teeth on edge. Especially when it became clear his sister was taking a genuine interest in the florist and he seemed to be responding in kind. Belle had never given him the impression of wanting a father figure. They had both tacitly agreed, once they'd been reunited, that each was all the family the other needed. He didn't like the notion that he wasn't enough, that he'd failed somehow, in some way he couldn't fathom. That he was lacking.

Moe was a lonely man, who likely found himself nearing retirement and dealing with the regrets of a life half-lived. He had a vague notion that he'd once been married, long ago, but there had been no kids, and later on his wife had passed away, leaving him all alone. A man with no family, with no friends, with very little in the way of a future. He could understand that someone like that might start to covet things that weren't his, things he desired. For some reason the idea that Moe might actually have... an unseemly interest in his sister had never crossed his mind. Man was no lecher, which might easily be his one and only virtue. But he did have some sort of interest in Belle, man lit up whenever she was around and became someone capable of carrying a conversation and not simply grunting. He'd tell her about plants as if they were a fascinating subject and, much to his chagrin, it led to botany books joining Belle's multiple book piles around the house. Books were how Belle best expressed herself, and so he'd learned to read the book piles. Victoria Holt novels when she was feeling down and needed a bit of romance with a twist, Agatha Christie when she was feeling bored with the quiet daily life of Storybrooke, Cortazar for when her mood was dark and strange and she needed stories to match and so on. Everything new that caught her eye would eventually end up in the piles and, over the years, he'd been their biggest influence. Law review books when he was handling a tricky case, art history books to learn more about whatever big project he was working on, even the odd medical journal whenever there was an interesting or relevant article about physical therapy for people with his sort of injury. To see a bit of Moe French in the piles set him on edge.

He tried to tell himself when rent day came along that he wasn't taking any sick pleasure from running the numbers and discovering that French was a whopping three hundred and fifty bucks short. Told himself that he was simply following protocol when he called Dove to provide muscle protection as he prepared to seize the florist's collateral, his van. So what if he'd perversively and carefully picked out what he was wearing that day, down to the paisley purple and silver tie? It simply meant he knew the power of appearances.

He told himself over and over he was in the right, preparing the arguments in his head to tell Belle once she, without a doubt, went off on him for it. He rehearsed them over and over and was in the process of reciting them in his head for the seventh time as he approached his house when he noticed the front door open. It was too soon for Belle to have closed the library and made her way home so his guard was immediately up. Once he made his way inside he reached for the Walter PPK he kept near the front door, removing the safety quickly as his eyes surveyed the living room, already noticing some valuables missing, as well as things strewn about, clear evidence of a robbery.

The appearance of Miss Swan a few seconds later, far from welcomed, put a damper on the plans already forming in his head. It was too much of a coincidence, being robbed the same day he'd moved against Moe French. This had all the markings of French's brand of sloppiness, down to the many expensive items he'd left behind because they weren't glittering baubles. He wouldn't have guessed anyone else was involved if he hadn't noticed a particular object missing. It was a small, insignificant thing, a bone china cup, dainty and chipped, that had once belonged to an expensive tea set his aunties had owned. Belle had chipped that cup as a baby, and so when the aunties were forced to sell it they had omitted the cup, which he had saved from the trash and kept in secret for years, the one thing Belle had touched that he could get his hands on. It was worthless except to him, nothing that could have possibly attracted the attention of someone ransacking the house for valuables.

No one knew where he kept the cup, though. Only Belle, of course, who might not remember breaking it as a toddler but had heard the story enough times to repeat it from memory at the drop of a hat. But no one else even knew the cup was of any significance.

‘Regina.’

He turned around, as if expecting someone to materialise behind him. He shook his head, wondering if there was something in the water. First Sheriff Graham seeing wolves in the woods and now he was hearing noises. And there was a nagging feeling, one he couldn’t explain, regarding the mayor. As if some part of him knew she was responsible for it, just like Belle had been sure she was responsible for the good sheriff’s death.

It didn’t matter how the florist knew anyway. Perhaps it was a coincidence. What mattered was getting the cup back intact. Everything else could wait.

He felt off kilter, in a way he could not explain away. Like he had spent half the day on autopilot, doing things without a conscious thought or a good reason. Kidnapping the florist had been a deliberate move, that one he could not excuse. After all the man had touched what was his and needed to know that such actions carried consequences. But what happened later… that he had no reasonable explanation for. The rage that overtook him when he heard Mr French’s pathetic pleas for leniency, his desperate attempts at reasoning with him, he could not explain. It felt like something foreign, something subconscious he could only scratch at, that was dying to push its way out of his body. A voice told him that Maurice had done something awful. Something beyond redemption. That he had taken Belle from him, in a way that was permanent, and that he needed to pay for it.

‘He hurt her,’ the voice told him, over and over until it was howling inside his head, drowning out the desperate cries from the florist and the sound of Sheriff Swan identifying herself on the other side of the door, demanding entry. It wasn’t until she barged in and cuffed him that he snapped out of it, as if awakening suddenly from a dream that felt too real until the last second.

“What the hell were you thinking, Gold? What did he do?”

“He stole.”

He thought about the cup, but somehow other images kept popping into his head instead. Of Belle, dressed in a blue dress he could not recall her ever owning, lounging around in an unfamiliar, palatial place. Of them dancing around each other, the air charged with something he could not describe. And then himself, alone. Devastated. Because Belle was… gone?

“That reaction was about more than taking a few trinkets. You said something about how he hurt "her", what happened to "her"? Who was that? What did he do? If someone needs help, maybe I can help. Unless this is about your sister, in which case I would remind you about the virtues of sharing. She’s a grown woman capable of choosing who she socialises with.”

“No. I'm sorry, Sheriff. I think you heard that wrong.”

He was in no mood to have whatever discussion this was turning into, not with the Sheriff or anyone else. He knew what people thought about him, and his relationship with his sister. But it wasn’t any of their fucking business. They weren’t family, not like-

Except he had called Maurice her father, hadn’t he? Why had he done that? At the moment he hadn’t thought about it. Words had just poured out of his mouth, as if he had always wanted to speak them. As if he had been dying to say them.

“You really don't wanna cooperate.”

He really, really didn’t.

“Look, we're done here.”

He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to have to explain to others what he could not even begin to make sense in his head. He just wanted to go home, to Belle’s relaxing company. Sheriff Swan slapping cuffs on him jarred him out of his little fantasy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The cells back at the sheriff’s station were not known for their comfort, and his headache wasn’t helping matters. His mind felt scattered, as if it was difficult to concentrate. He struggled to make sense of things, to keep it together. Nonsensical images flitted about his mind, of places he had never seen, a life he had never lived. And that voice, that damnable sing-songy voice, kept whispering in his ear, taunting about how he did not remember, how he had forgotten something important.

When the mayor came, it took everything in him not to snap because he realised that whatever was going on wasn’t happening in his head. Regina knew. She knew and he was in the dark, yet for some inexplicable reason she thought the opposite. There was a power struggle happening, and he was on the losing end of it unless he figured out fast what the fuck was going on in his town.

The glee in the mayor’s face when she realised that he did not know what she was talking about was a bitter pill to swallow, but the return of his chipped cup softened the sting. He needed to be out to figure out what was going on and how it connected to everything else wrong around him.

A quick call later, which Sheriff Swan had allowed him only after he had rather mockingly reminded her of his rights, had him out of the station in little time at all. DA Spencer was nothing if not shady, after all, and though he had no expectations of loyalty- he was sure Spencer was dealing with him only because Regina had not come knocking with a better offer- it got him out of his more immediate and pressing problem. He would deal with the charges themselves later.

He hoped, rather foolishly perhaps, that his slightly-rumpled estate would put off whatever inevitable confrontation would eventually happen between himself and his sister but it was a testament to how angry Belle was that she seemed not to notice the way his limp was noticeably more pronounced once he was finally home.

“What the hell has gotten into you? Are you mad?”

He shrugged off his coat and hung it in the rack near the door, unable to help the way his eyes went up and down Belle, making sure she was alright, that no harm had come to her in the time he had been indisposed. She looked healthy. And absolutely furious. Worse than that. She looked betrayed.

“I was merely seeking justice. The good sheriff didn’t seem to be going anywhere with her investigation of the theft in our home, so I took matters into my own hands. Miss Swan clearly did not appreciate me showing her up, so to speak, by finding the culprit and making sure there wouldn’t be a repeat offence.”

So what the handle of his cane was covered in a bit of blood? Headwounds bled easily, everyone knew that. 

“Moe French is in the hospital! You should’ve seen him in the hospital bed, covered in bandages, practically unable to move!”

“You went to visit him?”

It felt like a betrayal, knowing that while he had been seething in prison, dealing with Regina and getting his precious cup back, his sister had been visiting the person who had violated their home and taken things of untold value to him. Hadn’t she thought about visiting him? About his comfort? He had done all he had to protect her, after all. To protect them.

“I had to! I had to see for myself, apologise on your behalf and make sure he knew we would cover all medical expenses.”

“Like hell we are.” He had never raised his voice to his sister before, not that he ever recalled, and yet something about their current dynamic felt so strangely familiar. “Not an ounce of my money is going to that snivelling little leech.”

“So it’s your money now? That’s how this is? Your money, your power, your reputation. That’s what you were protecting when you were beating a defenceless Moe French, wasn’t it?”

“He doesn’t deserve your fierce defence of him. He never has. He’s beneath your notice, and yet you’ve insisted on paying attention to him. Of spending time with him. Of course he was going to take advantage of it eventually, of your kindness and your bleeding heart.”

He stalked off towards the wet bar in the corner of their living-room, serving himself a generous three fingers of 30-year-old Macallan, trying not to remember it had been a gift of Belle’s for his last birthday. 

“I’m not some idiot that someone can easily take advantage of! And you don’t get to dictate who I spend time with! I keep quiet about your social life, don’t I? Meeting with the major in the woods at night, having questionable encounters with the sheriff. Things any other person might have questioned you about. But I kept silent, I’ve not complained about how much less time we spend together, how you’ve become more secretive, more cagey. You have no right to dictate to me in return.”

Rabbie scoffed, downing his drink and contemplating pouring himself another. It wasn’t the first time his sister implied he was paying too much attention to either the mayor or the sheriff, and he was sick of it. It wasn’t true, for one, and he disliked that his sister kept both pushing him towards the two women and then acting strange when she perceived he was spending too much time with either of them. He disliked how they had wormed their way into their home. For him, both women were… business connections, which he cultivated and utilised for his own benefit, to maintain and grow his hold over the town and make things go the way he wanted them to. But all that stopped mattering as soon as he crossed his front door. Their house was their private sanctuary, a world of their own. That’s why he had taken such a dislike to the mere idea of Moe French violating their space. And it rankled that she didn’t seem to hold the same sentiment.

“Stop it! Stop whatever weird little thing you’ve been imagining it’s happening between me and the sheriff or, God forbid, the mayor. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, you’ve completely lost-”

He stopped himself, the enormity of what he was about to say hitting him a second before he did. But he could see from the way that Belle’s eyes suddenly filled with tears that it was too little, too late.

“My mind? Say it. It’s what everyone thinks, after all. The truth is you’ve never cared about my social life before because I had none. Because everyone in this town keeps their distance from me, like I’m some sort of wild animal that’ll attack them unprovoked at any moment. And they’re not necessarily wrong, are there? I… I have these dreams, sometimes. So vivid they feel more real than my life here sometimes. And I have these inappropriate-”

This time she was the one that stopped herself, her eyes suddenly not meeting his as she side-stepped him to head towards the stairs. He knew her well enough to know she was planning to go up to the library to read herself to sleep. The library was her personal space, like the basement workshop was his, and they had a tacit agreement not to step into each other’s rooms without express permission, making them places where they could take a break from each other. He would have let her go, only he felt like she had been about to say something important. Monumental. As if she had been about to give voice to something that had, for the longest time, been unspoken between them. He grabbed her by the arm, gentle in spite of the tone and charged air in the room.

“What were you going to say?” 

“Nothing.”

He could see her folding into herself, escaping into that bit of her mind he could not touch and it infuriated him. She never did that with him, not on purpose. She was always an open book where he was concerned, the one person he didn’t have to worry would have ulterior motives.

“It’s not nothing. Why are you lying to me? You’ve never done that before.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to reply that he only ever lied to her for her protection. There were things she was better off not knowing, things he was happier if she could safely deny having knowledge of. Things she might find unseemly or unpalatable and would struggle to reconcile with her values. Belle was a much better person than he was, than most people were. He didn’t want her to have to pit her love for him against her sense of right and wrong. 

But saying that suddenly sounded incredibly condescending.

“Don’t change the subject. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. And when it comes to us I’m always honest with you. And until now you’ve done the same. But there’s something you’re keeping from me.”

The way she wouldn’t meet his eyes told him that he was right.

“Can you really say that? You think I don’t realise you’ve been different these past few months? Ever since Emma Swan showed up, as a matter of fact.”

She was right, of course, but not in the way she seemed to be implying. Something had indeed changed the day Henry Mills had dragged his very reluctant biological mother across the townline months ago. He could not pinpoint what, or when he had first noticed it. When things he had kept mostly buried beneath layers of denial, started to surface. When he began to hear a niggling voice in the back of his head that told him there was something wrong with the way he felt about his sister. In the ways his eyes and hands lingered on her at times, in the way he felt when other people- other men- took her from him, even if it was only for a little while. It was the only part of what made beating Moe French make sense, this notion that this man was there to take Belle away from him and needed to be stopped. The other part of it, the blind, consuming rage, that remained a mystery to him.

 “Stop this obsession with the bloody sheriff. Who cares about her? Why do you insist on bringing her up between us? Acting like-” Like a jealous girlfriend. “-like you’re insecure. Like you’re afraid we’re drifting apart.”

“Aren’t we? When was the last time we had lunch together when I wasn’t the one taking the trouble of going to the pawnshop to make it happen. When was the last time we went a week without something making you skip dinner? The last time we sat down to watch a movie?” Belle’s eyes welled up, her face a mixture of anger and sadness that made him want to wrap his arms around her, even though he knew she wouldn’t appreciate it. He still held on to her, both hands on her arms now, his cane dropped. He trusted her to keep him upright.

“Sometimes… sometimes I think I love you more than you love me.”

“No one could love anyone more than I love you.” He felt his hands tighten around her upper arms and though a part of him knew he must be hurting her he could not make himself pull away. “You’re mine. And I’m yours. It’s the only thing I’ve ever felt sure about in this world. The only thing that feels right.”

“Does it? Because it hasn’t felt right for me lately. Like I’ve woken up and realised that the way we are is not… It’s not good for us. It’s not healthy. It’s not normal.”

“Fuck normal. No part of our lives has been normal. What we have is not normal, it’s better. Better than what most people will ever have. It feels good, doesn’t it?” He let one of his hands wrap around the back of her neck, the other going around her waist to pull her closer to appease the blind panic welling up in him at the idea that Belle might pull away. “You feel this? Whatever this is, it can’t be bad. Not between us.”

They never knew what happened first, whether it was Belle looking up or Gold looking down. One moment they were simply close, foreheads touching, the air charged between them, and the next their lips grazed, tentatively at first, the pressure increasing as something sparked between them. Belle sighed, her hands pressing against his shoulders to be able to stand on her toes and lean into the kiss and it was all that was needed for Gold’s carefully-curated self-restraint to snap. Suddenly he was hauling her close, his mouth pressing insistently against hers, coaxing her lips to open so he could slip his tongue into the warm heaven that was her. He growled, feeling exhilaration course through him as he kissed her frantically, with a desperation he had never felt before. Something sizzled between them, something that felt a bit like electricity travelling all over his body but he pushed that feeling aside, concentrating instead on the feeling of his sister’s hands sliding to the back of his neck, one taking a lock of his hair and tugging on it, urging him closer. She was soft and warm and wonderful in his arms, and he could not shake the feeling that this was right. It was what they had always meant to be doing, what their entire lives had led to. Why he had always been resentful of men sniffing around Belle, why he had always compared women to her. The few women who he had dated had all closely reassembled her, but he had never noticed. All a pale imitation of her, he could see now as he fisted the back of her shirt, his hand seeking the warmth of her skin. She was perfect, and she was his. His beautiful little sister, his true love.

‘That means it’s true love!’

There was a bright flash of something and next thing he knew Gold was on the floor on the other side of the living-room, a searing pain in his forehead and a deluge of confusing memories hammering into his brain. A spinning wheel. A dagger.

Baelfire. His son.

A curse to become reunited with him. And just as he was about to accomplish it… a flicker of light. One that had been snuffed out.

Dead.

He looked across the room, at his sister sprawled next to the couch, her eyes wide as she looked at him.

“R-Rumple?”

“Belle.” He had said her name a thousand times as Mr Gold, but it felt different, like he was talking about a different person. And, in a way, he was. Not Belle French, but Lady Belle. Except she was supposed to be dead. Regina had told him-

Fuck. How could he have been so stupid?

“You’re real. You’re alive.”

[thestraggletag]

The Caretaker, Chapter Three

AKA: A Rumbelle Sugar Daddy AU… kinda.

Rating: Explicit.

Summary: Belle French had never thought helping came with strings attached, confident that in a community people naturally tended to help each other, until the day she needed help to keep the library open and no one seemed to care. No one but Mr Gold, whose penchant for dealing could always be counted on, even if the price for his generosity was known to be steep.

The sound of glass breaking woke her up from a fitful sleep in the dead of night. It was pitch black, and the wind outside made what felt like an unreasonable amount of noise in the room. Belle snuggled further into her bed, trying to go back to sleep. But soon she began to notice the temperature drop considerably as wind began to rattle inside her room, knocking a few of her trinkets and flapping books open. Reluctant to leave the dwindling warmth of her bed but worried about what was going on she wrapped herself up in a spare quilt and walked blindly around the room, blinking to try to adjust her eyes to the darkness. It was pitch-black inside the apartment, but what little light got in came from the windows, which allowed her to easily spot the broken pane in one of the small windows in the room. Her bedroom was the only part of the apartment with windows, including a balconette that was directly below the library clock, and though she usually loved that at the moment she wished she had kept all the windows boarded up like she had found them when she had first moved in.

She moved closer to try and gauge the damage, hoping it wasn’t too bad and a bit of cardboard and some tape would see her through the night when she flinched, a previously-hidden bit of glass that fell on top of her vanity scraping against her skin as she leaned against the piece of furniture, scratching her arm. She swore, blindingly searching for the light switch till she managed to find it and flip it on. By that time she could already feel wetness on her skin, and a look confirmed she had cut herself, though thankfully it looked shallow and did not hurt as bad as it looked. Clumsily, given the location of the wound, she cleaned herself up as best she could and wrapped gauze around it, trying to think about her choices.

She could not stay there. It was raining out, so she would have to patch the hole somehow no matter what, but even if she managed to do a good job of it, good enough to keep the rain out at least, it would not help the freezing cold wind from coming in, and cranking the heat up would not help much. She set out to work, finding a box cutter, some tape and the used boxes she kept from book deliveries, working methodically as she thought about what to do after.

She could call Ruby, but they had not parted on the best of terms the last time they’d seen each other and it would be awkward, if not downright unpleasant, to call her, though she had no doubt she would offer her a place to sleep. Leroy was another option, if he was not too drunk to pick up the phone, but his place was cramped and filthy, at least from what she remembered, and there was likely to be no food in the fridge and perhaps not even a sofa for the night. She was certain she would not feel comfortable there. She would not feel comfortable anywhere, really, except perhaps-

Belle knew Alexander was a bit of a night owl, or at least their conversations seemed to have indicated such. He operated on little sleep in general, and preferred a quick kip after lunch than a restful eight hours at night. He was likely awake, and she didn’t doubt he would take her in. Still, calling him felt a bit much so Belle decided to send him a message instead, so he would only see it if he was awake, with his phone nearby, and whether he wanted to answer her at all.

She didn’t expect to hear from him right away, much less to call her, but her phone rang not even a minute after sending the text.

“Belle, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

The worry in his voice somehow unlocked something in her, because she began to choke up, which was silly. She was okay, everything was okay, she was just having a rather unfortunate night and now she was worrying Alexander over nothing.

“It’s nothing, sorry I bothered you, just-”

“It’s not nothing. Tell me.”

Before she could think better of it the entire story spilled out, from the warning Marco had given her about the windows to what she had woken up to an hour or so ago, and how freezing the apartment was. The more she talked the more she thought she had made a mountain out of a molehill and she could tough it out and try to sleep downstairs in the living room, even though she had no bedroom door and therefore no way to block the incoming cold air. 

“Could I-could I stay with you tonight? I won’t be a bother, I promise. You’ll barely notice I’m there, I have a key so you don’t have to even stay up if you were about to go to bed and-”

“Belle.” Alexander’s voice cut through her ramblings, firm but not severe. “Come over. I’ll be waiting.”

She thanked him and hurriedly put on some thick socks, her rain boots and a hideous parka that she had purchased in a thrift shop when she had moved to Maine, since her lovely Burberry coat wasn’t waterproof. When she felt ready to face the elements she packed a few things she would need into a bag and exited the library. Outside the wind was even worse than she had experienced inside her room, blowing the rain sideways so it would soak her in spite of the hood she struggled to keep over her head. Alexander’s house was, unfortunately, on the outskirts of town, near the forest, and though it was usually a lovely walk at night when it was pouring it was a different experience altogether.

When she finally arrived her fingers felt too numb to manage to even fumble in her pockets for the key. She knocked instead, a bit startled when the door opened right away and she was flooded with warmth and light. A second later a hand was pressed against her cheek, and Alexander was wincing, looking vaguely angry.

“Belle? Christ, you’re fucking freezing. Come inside.”

She mumbled something about being wet and ruining his hardwood floors, but he paid no attention to her protests, gently ushering her in and towards the kitchen so she could take off her coat and hang it up in the laundry room adjacent. 

“What’s that?”

Belle paused in the process of hanging up her coat, looking around to see what Alexander might be asking about. It took her a few seconds to realise the sleeves of her pyjama and the heavy cardigan she had thrown on top of it had rolled up, partially exposing her shoddy bandaging on her right arm.

“Oh, that’s nothing, I just cut myself with the glass.”

She tried to move the sleeves back to cover the wound but Alexander would have none of it, gently but firmly taking her arm and inspecting the bandage carefully, obviously noticing the blood was starting to stain even the top layer of gauze and that the tape was coming loose. He ghosted his fingers over the edge of the bandage, humming as he did so.

“This needs checking. I’ll go run a bath for you, your skin is like ice, and while the tub fills I’ll rebandage this for you. I’ll have something prepared for both of us for when you’re out of the bath, something warm. How does that sound?”

It sounded heavenly, even as guilt over the fuss he was making over her threatened to overwhelm her. She bit her lip as he limped upstairs to start the bath, fighting the impulse to make herself and her problems small, to shy away from the help he was offering and she desperately wanted. He came down a few minutes later with a first aid kit and proceeded to unwrap and inspect her wound.

“It doesn’t look like it’ll need stitches. I’ll have to disinfect it again, just in case, so I apologise for the discomfort.”

He made soothing noises when she squirmed at the pain of the antiseptic seeping into her fresh cut, the fingers of his left hand, that were holding her arm in place, gently massaging her skin, willing her to relax. Belle could not remember the last time someone had taken care of her in such a way, and in that moment the idea that people saw Alexander as a soulless monster was incomprehensible. Ruby often liked to say the pawnbroker did not have feelings beyond greed and malice, but to her it seemed rather the opposite: he felt deeply. She saw it in the way he was soft with her, in how carefully he bandaged the cut and applied a clear plastic film over the fresh gauze.

“That’s better. Now up and into the bath, and don’t forget to peel the protection film off once you’re dry, so it’s not uncomfortable. I left you some clothes as well, so you can change out of those wet pyjamas.”

She found the bathroom easily, even though she had not set foot in the upstairs of the house. It was a lovely, spacious room with a clawfoot tub filled to the brim with lavender-scented water. It took her no time to peel her clothes off, noticing only then how muddy the pants of her pyjama were, and soaked with rainwater. It was heavenly to get rid of everything and sink into the hot water, feeling returning to her frozen feet and hands as her clenched muscles began to relax, the anxiety of the past hour seeping out of her and melting into the water. She hummed, trying to remember the last time she had had a bath, a proper one with bubble bath and bath oils, but could not remember. She either hadn’t had the time in a while or the energy for anything more than a perfunctory shower, plus a proper bath required at least some investment and she still had trouble getting used to spending money like she wasn’t on survival mode anymore.

It was only when the water started to turn lukewarm that Belle took stock of the other products in the room, noticing some lovely-smelling shampoo from a brand that she had always wanted to try. It smelt citrusy, not like the sandalwood she associated with Alexander, and looked unused, almost as if it had been waiting for her. Feeling daring she decided her hair could use a wash, lathering her scalp as the bathtub drained and rinsing with fresh water from the faucet. 

Afterwards she wrapped herself in the biggest towel she had ever seen, fluffy and warm and began to look around for the clothing Alexander had promised her, glad she had thought to grab some clean underwear along with her toothbrush and other necessities on the way there. She found some pyjamas neatly folded near the towel rack, and when she unfolded them she knew at once they weren’t Alexander’s. They were new, for one, a bit small for him and not his style at all. They were silk, like the set he was wearing beneath the robe he had on, but a turquoise instead of a navy blue and they had exquisitely-drawn crocodiles in shades of green, pale pink and baby blue. She snorted, seeing Alexander’s brand of humour all over the purchase. She glanced at the tag- Olivia Von Halle, no way those pyjamas were less than five hundred dollars- and noticed it was her exact size. He had bought them for her, for some reason. And though she thought she should feel wary of it or even creeped out she didn’t. She felt… something else. Effervescent almost.

She got dressed quickly, deciding she had taken too long in the bath already, and came downstairs with a comb in her hand, trying to look like she was not regretting not having hunted around for some conditioner to untangle her hair, which was abundant but also impossible to tame. She hadn’t cut it in a while, only trimmed it herself from time to time, and it was showing.

“I should cut it all off, get rid of the bother.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Alexander came out of the kitchen with a mug of something that did not look like tea, ushering her into the living room so they could sit on the sofa. Another cup of the mystery liquid was already on top of a coaster on the coffee table, along with a plate of the shortbread cookies she loved.

“I’m never going to untangle it.”

“Not with that attitude. Sit down, I made you a hot toddy to warm you up. I’ll strong-arm your hair into submission while you drink. Want to make sure you don’t catch anything from the cold, your skin was like ice when you got here.”

She accepted the drink gratefully, blowing into the hot liquid to give herself something to do while she felt Alexander settle behind her, gently taking in a lock of her hair and patiently combing it, moving from the ends upwards so as to not drag the knots. It felt shockingly intimate, for some reason, even though he was only touching her hair. He was so careful with it, though, as if it was spun gold, and she could feel the full weight of his focus on her, a heavy but not unwelcome feeling. She sipped her drink, idly realising the alcohol wasn’t hitting her quite as hard as Alexander’s gentle touches.

“It’d be a shame to cut hair like yours.”

His voice was a low, throaty purr, his accent thickening as she had always imagined it did when he was tired. At some point he finished detangling her hair, switching from combing it to brushing it, making sure to keep it away from her back as it dried. Belle finished her drink, feeling at once drowsy from the warmth of the house and the alcohol and electrified by Alexander’s gentle touch.

“Tell me what happened tonight.”

She told him all of it, including Marco’s previous warning regarding the windows. She had hoped to have more saved up to replace them all at once but clearly that would not do. She could go bit by bit, perhaps, if Marco was amenable. A window at a time, beginning with the broken one.

“I’ll call Marco in the morning and deal with it myself. All glass needs to be replaced as soon as possible. I will not have you wake up to a broken pane again.”

She made a move to turn, but he tutted and softly tugged on her hair to instruct her to remain as she was.

“I can’t possibly ask you to do that. This is my problem, I’ll deal with it. I have a plan.”

“Nonsense. I was supposed to bring the library up to code, make sure that it was left in working order.”

“And you did. This isn’t part of the deal, you don’t have to-”

She felt one of his hands fist on the fabric of her pyjamas by her hip, his forehead pressing slightly between her shoulder blades as he leant forward.

“Please, let me do this.” His voice was rough and low and Belle had to take a deep breath to try and centre herself. “Let me take care of you.”

He said it as if he was desperate to help her, as if she would hurt him by rejecting his offer. Tentatively she took the hand that was holding onto the side of her pyjama top and stroked her thumb across his knuckles, willing him to loosen his grip.

“Alright. You can call Marco.”

She felt him relax against her, his forehead pressing more against her back as he practically slumped forward, holding himself back at the last second.

“Thank you, sweet girl.”

Something about how he said it, the genuine gratitude mingled with something she could not quite name, something intense and dark and deep, stuck to the back of Belle’s mind, bothering her, but the rest of her could only concentrate on Alexander’s presence behind her, all power and energy barely contained, like a tiger ready to spring. And yet she did not feel afraid, but excited. The air between them felt charged as he continued to brush her hair, eventually discarding the brush to run his fingers down her mostly-dried curls.

“Let’s get you to bed. You’ve had quite a night.”

She let him lead her upstairs, marvelling at his strength as he carried her almost limply to the bedroom he had prepared for her, one hand on his cane and the other around her waist. Once there he tucked her in, bending down and, after a small flicker of hesitation, pressing his lips against her forehead.

“Thank you for taking me in.”

He was almost out the door before the words slipped past her lips, almost slurred as she fought with her fatigue.

“Thank you for calling me.”

The events of that night replayed themselves over and over again the following days, occupying her thoughts entirely. Marco showed up promptly the day after, in the afternoon, ready to replace the broken window that day and work out with her the best time to replace the others. But after he left there was nothing to keep her from obsessing over what Alexander had told her, the way in which he had desperately pleaded with her to let him help. It meant something, something profound, something she had gotten glimpses of before but never like that, never so raw and exposed.

She was thinking about it while shelving books one slow afternoon when she was startled by a tap on her shoulder. She jumped, the heavy encyclopaedia tome she was about to shelf with its sisters falling to the ground with a loud thud.

“Jesus, Belle, it’s me!”

Ruby backed away from her slightly, holding her hands up in an exaggerated gesture of innocence. She was dressed in her waitress uniform, a long red puffer coat and woollen hat thrown over to keep her warm. She looked sheepish and sort of downcast, clearly not there to pick a fight. Belle was glad of it.

“Can we talk? Are you free? I got us some chocolate and cookies to sweeten the deal.”

She took out a small thermos and a paper bag from inside her jacket, holding them out like offerings to an angry god. Belle sighed, trying to put on a reassuring smile.

“No eating or drinking in the library. Let’s go to my office, I have some mugs there and a plate for the cookies.”

It was incredibly awkward at first, both women stuck inside the small room, sipping chocolate and looking at each other, expecting the other to speak first. After a while, though, Ruby took a deep breath and set her cup of hot chocolate down.

“I’m sorry, Belle. About everything, including how long it took me to get here to apologise.”

Belle blinked, surprised. She knew that Ruby showing up with food was meant to soften things between them, a sign that her friend wanted a reconciliation, but she had not thought it would include a direct apology. Perhaps a “I hate it when we fight, let’s forget about it, okay?” or a half-hearted, indirect admission of partial guilt. Nothing more. 

“You were right, about everything. I thought you weren’t at first and I was so angry but I talked about it with Granny and I was surprised that she did not feel the same as I did. I mean, not about Gold, I didn’t tell her about that part, but the rest. Looking back I see you were not okay, not for a long time, but I didn’t wanna see it. I just thought… You’re so independent. You could handle anything. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I was just unwilling to get out of my comfort zone and see that maybe our relationship had always been one-sided.”

Belle bit back the natural instinct to contradict her friend, to tell her that their relationship hadn’t always been unbalanced, but she held herself back. It wouldn’t do to lie and minimise the hurt after all that struggle to express it in the first place. And clearly it had taken a lot for her friend to come to the library as well, she should hear her out completely and honestly.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t see you struggle. That I didn’t see you suffer. That I minimised your worries. I thought about what it would’ve meant for the library to close and all I could think about was how much I’d miss you.”

Ruby burst into tears then, leaning over to give her a hug. The strength of it spoke of her genuine contrition, making Belle start crying herself. As much as it had felt good to give the waitress a piece of her mind it felt even better to be acknowledged and validated, and she was relieved that her friend had chosen to apologise instead of doubling down. Ruby was a genuinely good person, and she had been her rock during that first year at Storybrooke, before things had gotten uneven between them. And Belle had to acknowledge she herself had somehow encouraged that by giving without taking, falling into familiar relationship patterns that replicated those she had learned as a child, especially after her mother’s death. It didn’t absolve the waitress from her guilt but it did let Belle know what she needed to look out for going forward.

“I’m glad you kept fighting for this town even when everyone in it turned their backs on you.”

“Not everyone.”

The librarian very much wished she could control the blush she felt creeping across her face, wondering if she could pass it off as the result of the steam from the hot chocolate hitting her face. The waitress arched an eyebrow, smiling tentatively, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

“Am I now allowed to ask after Mr Gold now? I promise to keep an open mind. I’m sorry about what I implied before, but something is going on and I want to know, if you want to tell me.”

Belle hesitated, desperately needing to talk with someone about whatever was going on between her and Alexander but at the same time refusing to do so before she understood it herself.

“I want to, but I’m not ready yet. Later.” She looked up to notice Ruby frowning and rushed to reassure her. “I’m just not ready to talk about it but I will. I promise. Thank you for the offer Ruby. And the apology.”

“So… are we back to being friends? Because I’ve been miserable these past few weeks and Granny is about to kick me out over my moping.”

“She would never. But yes, we’re friends again. Better friends than before, I hope.”

Ruby gave her a characteristic wolfish smile before leaning close for another fierce hug.

“You bet.”

“Did Marco finish replacing the windows in your flat?”

Belle looked up from the chessboard, studying Alexander as he fiddled with the white queen she had taken off the board a couple of moves earlier with her remaining knight.

“Yes. He’s confident the windows can withstand a hurricane at this point and it does feel like the apartment is more insulated, warmer. Thank you again for that, by the way.”

“My pleasure.”

He smiled, still refusing to meet her gaze, and moved a bishop across the board to threaten one of her rooks. A bold move, but she had expected it. He was a rather aggressive chess player, which made him deadly in the short term but beatable if she managed to sidestep his brutal attacks.

“About that, I think I’ve figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

She moved her pawn, watching as he swept his bishop to take her rook. If she could manage to keep him distracted it would only take a couple more moves for her to get her queen back, and then the last piece would be in position for a checkmate.

“Why you made that deal with me. A deal for my time. A deal that hasn’t seemed to benefit you at all.”

Her words finally managed to make him lift his eyes off the board and settle on her. He looked composed at first glance, but Belle had had months to learn how to read him and she could easily spy the flicker of nervousness in the corner of his eyes, the tense setting of his jaw.

“Whatever do you mean?”

She moved her pawn again, trying to appear nonchalant.

“I thought it was a power move at first, but that didn’t last long. You never flexed your deal to others or treated me with anything but respect and courtesy, not to mention that I got to know you and realised that just wasn’t something you seemed to want.”

She gestured towards the board and watched him as he moved a knight to a rather random position. She doubted that it was a calculated move.

“Then I thought you were lonely. And I was right about that, so I was convinced for the longest time I had figured it out. You just wanted a companion. But that wasn’t true either.”

She moved her pawn again, reaching the end of his side of the board and reclaiming her queen from his rather lax grip.

“This deal- it wasn’t about power, or about loneliness. I think-I think it’s about you taking care of me.”

“What a ridiculous notion.”

Belle moved her queen to threaten both his wandering bishop and the pawn keeping her rook from checking his king.

Everything you’ve done has been to take care of me. The food, the clothes, the free time. You’ve tricked me into comfort, somehow. And I could not see it, not until you made it obvious. Till the other night.”

He moved his pawn forward, sacrificing his bishop to her queen. She took it quickly, her mind already mapping out the final moves, making sure he had no wiggle room left. He was slippery and violent when cornered, after all.

“And so what if I did? You’re a proud woman, Belle, and so terribly unused to unburdening yourself to others or accepting help. You were literally starving yourself trying to do things alone, thinking no one noticed. But I noticed. Every fucking day. So when the opportunity presented itself to help you I took it. I’m not apologising for that. I only wish you would’ve asked sooner.”

He snarled the last part, though Belle sensed none of his animosity was directed at her, not really. She knew there was a violent side to Alexander, that wasn’t just town gossip gone wild. But she knew, instinctually, that he would never hurt her. The most she had to fear was him being violent in her name, for her sake.

“Is this some- some pity thing?” This was her greatest fear, and now that she had voiced it she wished she could take it all back. She didn’t want to know. As long as he didn’t tell her outright that he felt sorry for her she could pretend he didn’t and nothing would change in their relationship. His pity would devastate her.

“It’s not fucking pity. No one who’s ever known you could pity you.”

“Then what is it? Is it kindness? You were just being kind?”

“Could we please drop it?”

His words were a nervous whine, with an edge of a warning at the end. Usually that level of distress would be enough to make her stop but Belle was determined to get an answer. If he felt sorry for her she would rather know then and there and deal with that before it was too late.

“Just tell me what this is. I deserve to know.”

“It’s just-” Abruptly he got up, knocking a few pieces off the chessboard in the process. It was just as well, they both knew she had won the game already. Just as they both knew that she would win whatever power struggle was happening between them now.

“Just what?”

“Can’t we speak about something else?”

“Just what, Alexander?”

“I love it. Taking care of you. Watching the tiredness and anxiety seep out of you. Watching you regain colour and vitality. Laugh more, indulge more. Love taking you to new places and giving you beautiful clothes, things that you deserve. It’s a power that I marvel at.”

He was pacing back and forth, like a caged panther, and though Belle felt her heart speed up she knew it wasn’t from apprehension. It was something else, something she could almost taste, like a storm brewing between them. Looking more frenzied the more he thought he sat down again, his hand grabbing the wrist of her outstretched hand, which was fiddling with his black king. His grip was frantic, as if he was afraid she would bolt unless he held onto her.

“It’s not me being kind, it’s more than that. I don’t just want to help you. I want to spoil you. I want to give you everything you deserve, not just what you need. I want to wrap you in expensive silk and satin, fill your arms with bracelets and your neck with chains. I want to see the way diamonds and pearls look against your skin, whether gold or platinum compliments you more. The idea of being able to do it sets my blood on fire. You have no idea about the depths of this depravity of mine, how I’ve had to curtail my baser instincts, my more urgent impulses. I’ve been tame till now, living off of the clothing I was allowed to buy you, and the food I was allowed to feed you.”

Alexander’s hold on her wrist tightened to the point that it was painful, but Belle barely noticed. Her attention was riveted on the pawnbroker’s face as a glint of desperation shone in his eyes. Alexander Gold was nothing if not composed, a man used to always being in control, no matter the time or the circumstance. And yet he was unhinged then, as if something inside him had finally snapped, something that had been quietly building for a while. Something she had managed to catch a glimpse of the night he took her in.

“If you could- if you would ever consider, just consider, letting me- I mean, if you could ever consider indulging me I would drench you in jewellery, surround you in books, lay you in Savoir sheets and drape you in the softest Sarrieri chemises.” He spoke in hushed tones, feverish and almost unintelligible given how his accent had thickened, and yet Belle was focused on his words, his tone, the feel of his fingers as they began to caress her wrist above her thundering heartbeat.

“Nothing would please me more, bring me more joy, than to cook decadent meals for you. Pamper you with whatever you wanted, at whatever time of the day you’d allow it. Buy you expensive shoes, take you out to experience new things, new sights.”

“You would-” Belle paused, trying to wrap her mind around what she was hearing, her efforts hampered by the distraction of his fingers ghosting over the skin of her arm, idly going higher with every pass. “You would give me anything I wanted?”

“Name it and it’s yours.”

She felt an initial rush of power at the offer. Alexander Gold bowed to no one and yet here he was, putting himself in her hands, willing to do whatever she asked him. And he was powerful, his offer was real: if he offered anything it was because he could get anything. After that came and went she began to process what was going on in front of her, what Alexander was trying to say.

“This is- this is a sex thing?”

She winced, wishing that she had found a way to phrase it that didn’t make her sound like some naive, inexperienced idiot. Not that she did have a lot of experience, but she was well-read on the topic. Extremely well-read, some might say.

“It’s not- not that, but it’s beyond that. It’s always been the way I express affection. It hasn’t happened often in my life, and after the disaster that was my last attempt at a romantic relationship in which I took care of my significant other I shut that part of myself away. An annoying quirk I decided I would do better without. Until I met you.”

The way he looked at her, the adoration in his eyes, how had Belle missed it all that time? It wasn’t new, he wasn’t staring at her in some special novel way, it was just that now she understood. Like she had suddenly developed an ability she hadn’t had before. He clung to her still, both hands holding onto her arm, his fingers tracing patterns against the sensitive skin of her inner arm, and the feeling of it grounded her somehow, made it all feel real.

“You’re kind, and brave, and funny, and I could not help myself. I tried. I told myself I would be unwelcome. That you were just being polite when you talked to me, or friendly, the way you would be to anyone else. And that you didn’t need me poking around, giving myself the right to barge in where I was not invited. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to take care of you.”

Belle could not remember the last time someone had so fiercely felt the need to look after her, not with the single-minded passion she could see in Alexander’s face. It was heady, which was unexpected. She had always prided herself on her independence, and would’ve thought it difficult to even contemplate giving up, even if just a little. And yet-

“So- so it isn’t a sex-”

“Oh, no, it very much is. I haven’t- allowed myself to feed those fantasies, but they’re there, clawing at the last remnants of my self-restraint. It’s- it’s a natural extension, I suppose, wanting to give you pleasure in whatever way it’s possible. Wanting to- to- I can’t quite put it into words. Too-” he paused, as if trying to come up with the right word. “Too intense.”

Belle knew, without a sliver of doubt, that if she simply changed the topic he would drop it. Or that if she made it clear she wanted to hear none of it, he would shut up and never bring it up again.

“Show me, then.”

The words barely made it out of her lips, breathy and thin, but they resonated across the room, as if she had shouted them. Alexander leaned back against his chair, as if to put as much distance between themselves as possible, one of his hands fumbling for his cane, as if even sitting down he felt out of balance.

“What?”

“You said you couldn’t quite put into words what you wanted to do to me. So… show me.”

Belle took a deep breath, trying to look calm. She kept replaying her manta over and over inside her head: ‘Do the brave thing and bravery will follow.’

“You cannot possibly want me to-”

“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. Unless you don’t want to, after all.”

She didn’t know what led her to question his commitment, given how passionately he had spoken about what he wished to do to her, how he wished to bring her pleasure, but it somehow seemed to do the trick, the disbelief leeching off his face to be replaced with single-minded determination. He looked around, seeming to be considering something, shaking his head before standing up and taking her hand.

“Not here. You deserve a bed, at the very least.”

He led her up the stairs, and though she had already been there before it all felt new and exciting to Belle, different from the other night, when she had not had the understanding of Alexander she did then. They bypassed the room she had slept in the other night and went into the next room, which she now realised was his room. It was the way she had imagined his bedroom to be like, the walls a dark burgundy and the room almost entirely dominated by a four-poster bed, with an exquisitely-carved headboard.

“I wanted to bring you here, the other day. Had to talk myself out of it a hundred times. I was afraid of making you uncomfortable, but the thought of you in my bed was almost enough to override my common sense.”

It was wild to Belle how earnest and passionate he sounded, given how well he had hid that part of himself for months. And yet, it was not completely foreign to her, this side of him: Alexander was naturally intense about the things that fascinated him, from antiques to books. She just had never expected to find herself added to the list.

“It’s a lovely room.”

Lovely and warm, which made her feel more than a bit overdressed. She pulled her cardigan off, both in fear of breaking into a rather unsexy sweat, and to perhaps signal her willingness for things to progress further, pleased to have worn one of her nicer shirts- a cream Valentino blouse with a ruffled collar and cap sleeves. She watched his eyes darkened as he took her in, his gaze lingering on the still-healing cut on her arm. Like he had predicted it hadn’t needed stitches, though it was still in the process of closing.

“Does it still hurt?”

Daringly, she extended her arm towards him, letting him ghost a finger over the line.

“Not at all. It’s mostly a bother, but it’s healing fast.” She paused, breath hitching as he leaned down and, gathering her forearm gently between his hands, kissed the tip of the cut. “You took good care of me that night.”

The words made him shudder, and the grip on her arm tightened slightly. His lips trailed across the thin red line, mapping it carefully. It felt very intimate and Belle could hardly believe she was getting turned on from just having her arm kissed. Eventually he moved up again, kissing the crook of her arm, nosing her shoulder and, finally, mouthing the exposed skin of her neck. She could feel his sudden spike of annoyance at how the high neckline of the blouse limited his exploration so she reached behind, undoing the top button on the back of the shirt and guiding the dainty little zipper bellow it down as far as it could go, so that the shirt would gape open at the neck. He rewarded her by clutching her close, no longer keeping some distance between them as he seemed adamant about doing before, his lips firmer as they explored her neck and her now-exposed shoulder, one of his hands, the one not around her waist, untucking her blouse from her pleated rose skirt to slide up her naked back, the contact electric. She gasped, arching against him as she bit back a needy little moan.

“Sweet girl…”

His voice was soft, cajoling, even as his touch became more insistent, more desperate. He explored her clavicle- a zone that before Belle would not have found to be erogenous at all for her- and other shoulder thoroughly before he grew displeased again, the hand on her back grabbing the hem of her and tugging upwards, his intent clear. She tutted in mock reprimand at his rough handling of the garment, dutifully raising her arms so he could slip it off her.

“Careful, I like this shirt!”

“I’ll buy you twenty like it.”

It wasn’t the promise of him lavishing her with designer clothing that had her heart speeding up but rather the desperation in his voice, as if he would die if he was denied more access to her skin. His mouth became frenzied as it seemed to try and map out her entire torso, his teeth nipping at the white bow of her bra, tucked neatly between her breasts.

“If I ruin this lovely bit of lace, would you let me buy you a replacement? I’ve seen some lovely sets at La Perla and Simone Pérèle.”

Belle sunk her hands into his hair, unable to voice her ascent or denial. She was too lost in the feel of his touch and the notion that he had browsed lingerie for her, thinking what would look good on her, what he would want to see her in. 

“Talk to me, sweet girl.” Alexander knelt down, his hands around her waist, his tongue teasing her bellybutton.

“A-about what?”

She could hardly think of anything. She doubted she would be able to tell him her name if he asked.

“Am I pleasing you?”

In almost any different context Belle would have thought such a question during sex to be boastful. But there was genuine curiosity in his tone, mixed with the slightest hint of anxiety she wished to completely vanish.

“Yes.” At first that one word is all she could articulate, especially as she felt his fingers working on the hook and zipper of her skirt. She was glad that she had worn thigh-high stockings instead of tights in spite of the cold. She held onto his hair as he gently tugged her now loose skirt down, careful to help her step out of it before he tossed it aside. 

“I need more from you, darling. Tell me what you want. Tell me what to do to make you feel good.”

The way he slurred out the word ‘good’, as if he was drunk on her, her body and the experience of being able to touch her and kiss her, was overwhelming. He was kneeling in front of her, looking up at her with both tender admiration and passionate need and the sight was enough to conquer her remaining embarrassment and loosen her tongue and propel her into action. With shaky but determined hands she reached behind, deftly undoing the clasp of her bra, letting it fall to the ground without hesitation. She didn’t want him to think she had any doubts about what they were already doing and about to do. She took one of his hands, the right one with the moonstone ring she had often admired, and pressed it over her left breast.

“I want you to touch me here.” He curled his fingers around her flesh reverently, his thumb gently tracing the red, angry patch of skin right beneath her breast where the underwire of her bra had dug in. As he did this she took his other hand and, after only the briefest hesitation, pressed it against her lace-covered cunt. “And here.”

The sound he made in response to her little bit of daring was inhuman, a growl that she shouldn’t have found as arousing as she did. Now that he had permission he didn’t hesitate, the fingers of his right hand eagerly exploring the soft flesh of her breast while his right hand traced the lace of her panties, playing briefly with the scalloped seams before moving the fabric aside so that flesh could meet flesh. She was wet already, she knew, but it felt even more as Alexander’s fingers glided over her bare cunt. She had grown up next to the beach and had gotten used to waxing, leaving only a strip of hair, what the Americans called a “French bikini”. She had kept the practice out of habit and comfort, though it had been ages since she had last gone to the beach in a bikini, given that she lived in Maine.

“You’re so soft, everywhere.” His voice was rough like gravel, and the way he pressed his face against her bare stomach made it so that she could feel it more than hear it. “Just like I always imagined.”

She wanted to reward his words with some of her own but the stimulation was getting to be too much and all she could concentrate on was on holding onto him to avoid toppling over. Eventually, likely noticing the way her legs shook with increasing violence the more he explored her, he manoeuvred them so a simple, gentle shove landed her on the bed, with Alexander quickly following after. 

It was then that it occurred to Belle that though he had had his fingers inside her, or close enough, they had yet to properly kiss and it was a travesty. Taking advantage of the fact that she now could move more freely she tugged him upwards, swallowing his grunt of protest as she pressed her lips against his. It wasn’t soft as tentative as she had first imagined it would be, nor slow and deep as she had later fantasised. It was violent and hurried, some unknown urgency pushing them both into trying to consume each other. Belle returned one of her hands to his hair, obsessed with the silky feel of it and the way he responded to having it tugged, how in control it made her feel to be able to render him senseless with such a simple gesture.

Though the kiss was frenzied and desperate neither was in a hurry to move on to other things, content to let out months of pent-up frustration with what amounted to heavy-petting. Belle managed to make him lose the jacket and the tie, with his shoes coming off right before his hands busied themselves sliding her stocking down her legs one at a time, his fingers curling around her thighs as he did so. He was still too overdressed while she was clad only in a pair of increasingly-uncomfortable panties, so she eventually, with a low whine at the unfairness of it all, let go of his mouth, shoving him backwards and stopping his determined efforts to resume kissing every inch of her body.

“Clothes. Off. Now. Or I’m putting mine on and walking out.”

It was the emptiest threat Belle had ever issued and yet, given the ruthless efficiency with which Alexander took off his shirt, undershirt and trousers, it was clearly effective. He paused slightly only when it came to removing his socks, which puzzled Belle till she caught a glimpse of the mass of discoloured scar tissue that was his right ankle. Till then she had all but forgotten Alexander’s limp, had not factored it at all in what they were doing, but the reminder gave her pause. She chewed her lower lip, wondering whether to say anything and risk offence or say nothing and potentially have him overdo himself while refusing to tell her. Finally, when he reached out to kiss her again she took hold of his face so that she could look him in the eye.

“If at any point you’re uncomfortable or in pain let me know, please.” He could see the annoyance and shame flit through his eyes so she reached up to brush her nose against his. “Tell me and I promise to do the same.”

It was a rather disarming argument, something he could not object to and proof that there was no shame in showing vulnerability between them. He nuzzled her back, his lips quirking into an almost unwilling half-smile.

“Deal.”

He slanted his mouth against her as if to seal the promise, and the rushed, desperate feeling from later slowly returned, pecks and caresses turning quicker, harder, bolder. Belle felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of Alexander’s naked skin nor readily available to her touch and wasted no time mapping his chest, with the sparse and greying chest hairs and the occasional faded scar, which she had to keep herself from asking about. He also had a tattoo on his forearm, a lizard of some sort, which she lovingly mapped as a way to try and distract herself from how good his thigh felt as it pressed against her cunt. 

She wanted to offer him pleasure but he seemed determined to drown her in her own, nipping at the skin just below her breasts as his hands quickly disposed of her now sodden underwear to then delve into her. She was more than ready, drenched in a way that would have made her feel embarrassed if her body wasn’t on fire and her mind completely unable to form coherent thought beyond the need for more, and there, and now. In the end it did not take more than a few minutes with two of his fingers deep inside her and his thumb stroking her slippery clit for her to break apart, the experience far more intense than the mellow orgasms she was used to giving herself. She tried to clamp a hand over her mouth, embarrassed for the sounds coming out of her, but he tore it away almost viciously, looking down at her with such an intense look in his eyes he almost seemed angry, if not for the faint uptilt of his lips.

“I’ve earned those sounds, sweet girl. Don’t deny me them.”

It was hard to let go of the last bit of self-consciousness she had, but it was also exhilarating, and the last remnants of pleasure burning through her bloodstream seemed amplified every time she cried out. He was caring in the aftermath, blanketing her with his body and trading soft, languid kisses while she came down from her high. It was as if the earlier urgency had passed and they could take their time, could explore and gauge each other’s reactions to whatever new they tried. And yet there was a remaining frisson of tension in Belle every time Alexander’s hard cock brushed against her, still hidden behind the Scotsman’s silk boxers. It reminded her that he was still aching, even though he had made her come. Resolute, she tried flipping them over, determined to let him rest his ankle and let her ride him instead, but he shied away, his mouth going lower and lower, living a damp trail in its wake.

“Alex, what- Oh.”

Belle had had someone go down on her before. It wasn’t an entirely new experience by any means, but it was perhaps the aspect of sex she was less familiar with. Most men she had been with seemed to find it undesirable at best and a turn-off at worst, and Belle had never insisted because she had never much seen the appeal of it. In books it always seemed sexy but in real life it was rather underwhelming, and sometimes even uncomfortable. 

But the moment Alexander pressed his mouth against her sex she knew that it would be different. Perhaps because her feelings towards him were so strong, or because he was so good at it, or because he seemed so completely determined to read her every whimper and twitch of her legs to figure out what she liked and how she liked it. It was as if whatever she had experienced before was muted and sloppy, uncoordinated, whereas Alexander was a man on a mission, single-minded in his pursuit of her pleasure. And, she thought giddily, she had always known he had a silver tongue.

“Oh, yes, there, please.”

She didn’t mind whining anymore, or thrashing, liking the way he held her down, anchored her to the bed, one hand between her breasts and the other holding onto one of her legs. Though she thought it would take her time to come again her orgasm built up out of nowhere, taking her completely by surprise. She arched her back, grateful for Alexander’s firm hold on her body keeping her from potentially falling off the bed. He petted her as if to calm her down while his tongue kept constant, almost painful stimulation over her clit, never quite enough to be too much, to be overwhelming, but feeling as if it was always skirting that edge. The orgasm was more drawn-out than the one before, lingering as a pulsating feeling between her legs longs after Alexander was done lapping at her cunt.

“You were so good. So good for me, sweet girl.”

He kept praising her, his hands stroking her legs, her stomach, her arms, whatever they could reach, trying to soothe her. He told her how much he had enjoyed it, how she was a dream come true, how this had been better than the fantasies he had built in his head were nothing compared to the reality of her, her smell, her taste. It would have made her blush, if her body had the energy for it. This is what he had meant by wanting to take care of her, and he had been genuine when he had told her that he would like nothing more. She could tell there was no expectation of more from him, he wasn’t simply scoring points so that she would later go down on him or let him do something that otherwise she wouldn’t have. He was not keeping score at all, or hoping for anything other than what they had done. She was sure that if she told him she was done he would not object, would not act as if she owed him anything.

That just made Belle more determined to take matters into her own hands and so when she felt a bit more in control of herself she rose up, deftly planting both knees on the mattress on either side of Alexander’s narrow hips. She laughed at his startled look, leaning down to give him a reassuring kiss while her hands tugged insistently on his underwear, the intent clear. It took some wiggling and huffing, less graceful than she would have liked but with the aftershocks of two orgasms still in her system Belle found herself unable to care. Finally he was as naked beneath her as she was above him, and though she would have liked time to explore that, to trace the veins of his cock and explore just what part of it was more sensitive to her touch, she knew that Alexander would not stand much more teasing and she would rather he come in her. The way he whined and thrashed when she ghosted the tips of her fingers over the underside of his member told her it was all the foreplay he could possibly stand.

“You ready, darling?”

“Been ready for hours. Days. Weeks.” Alexander took a deep breath when she got a firm hold of his cock, likely trying to keep himself in check. “I’ve been ready since the day I met you.”

“Aren’t you sweet.”

She sunk into him without further ado, loving the way he dug his fingernails into the sides of her waist, his whole body tensing beneath her. He was thick and perhaps if she hadn’t been so thoroughly wet and slick the sudden intrusion of him into her cunt would’ve been uncomfortable, but all she could feel was how perfectly he filled her up, how he stretched her in just the right way. Alexander, meanwhile, did not seem to be enjoying their union as much, thrashing beneath her, clearly eager to move but fiercely determined not to do so without her permission. She leaned down, taking a hold of a lock of his hair and tugging, forcing him to tilt his head back and calm down. Once he stopped moving altogether she pecked him on the lips as a reward.

“Good boy.”

She began to rock then, slow and steady at first, trying to figure out if any sort of movement on her part could potentially jolt his ankle, increasing the pace when she saw no hint of paint bleed into his features. She was surprised to feel the slow burn of arousal build inside her as well, having thought that after two orgasms her body would be too spent and overly-stimulated to allow her to come another time. 

“Harder, Belle, please. Faster.”

Alexander’s hips rose to meet her thrusts, as much as he possibly could while keeping his right leg mostly immobile, and though it was rocky at first they soon found a rhythm, a back and forth that had her gasping, struggling to concentrate on her partner’s pleasure even as her own began to build up. Finally, when the pawnbroker’s slippery fingers began to rub her clit, providing that bit of extra friction she needed, she broke, tipping over the edge just as she could feel him do the same, delighted by the filthy profanity in heavily-accented English that accompanied the Scotsman’s orgasm. She focused on keeping her thrusts, making sure to milk every little bit of pleasure out of him. After they were both spent she fell against him, his hands coming around to cocoon her in warmth.

“Well, that was-”

She struggled for breath, feeling as if she had just ran a marathon. She was certain she would be sore in the morning, but could not find it in herself to mind. Instead she relaxed, complaining a little bit when Alexander nudged her to move so they could both slip under the covers, with her curling against him the moment they were both tucked into bed.

“Perfect.”

The way he said it, a mixture of awed and satisfied, his accent wrapping around the word, made her toes curl. She turned to her side to face him, idly combing his hair into a semblance of order, loving the way he leaned into her touch, like a cat.

“Anything else I can do for you? After a short rest, I beg you.”

“Yes, actually.” She paused, the pawnbroker turning to face her, expectant. “I want to go out. On a date. In public. Here. I-I don’t want to hide this, hide us. Would that- would that be okay?”

The smile that spread across his face was soft and beautiful, and there was surprise there too.

“It would be more than okay.”

They decided that their first public date should be at Granny’s. It was, after all, the point of origin and dissemination of most gossip in town, barring Mrs Nolan’s classroom. Belle had prepared herself for being gaped at and talked about. It wouldn’t bother her, and whoever had a problem with it either was not worth the trouble. Ruby would understand, and Granny. Leroy wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t give her a hard time about it, and as someone who both knew what it was to have a controversial love and what it was to be fodder for town gossip. He would probably get into a fight or two if he caught people talking badly about Belle and her new relationship, even if he privately gave her grief for it.

She dressed carefully, not too flirty but at the same time trying to be clear that she was on a date. She had carefully selected a Miu Miu dress she had bought and paid for herself, a respectable crepe-de-chine mini dress that with her height lost a lot of the scandalous appeal of the hemline and with her modest breast lost also a lot of the impact of its statement v-neckline, paired with a cream, oversized cashmere cardigan that was meant to soften the look and was also something she had gotten from Alexander. She knew now that he enjoyed seeing her in things he purchased for her and she figured him being in a good mood would go a long way in making the evening a success. 

They met just outside the library after closing time, Alexander waiting patiently as she locked the building before offering his arm to escort her to the dinner. They had gotten used to walking that way, with her pressed up against him, but never while in town, and they attracted a fair bit of attention in their short walk. Belle almost burst out laughing when Mother Superior passed by and stared, a shocked look in her face.

“The way she’s gawking you’d think we were doing more than walking arm in arm.”

“Given Mother Superior’s experience this is probably what she considers second base.”

Their laughter garnered them even more attention, especially Alexander’s booming bark, which the people of Storybrooke had perhaps never heard before. Soon enough they were in front of Granny’s and Belle was surprised to see it was packed. Ruby, at her request, had reserved her a small corner booth like she had asked her, but there were no other tables available and most of the bar spots were taken too. She paused, bracing herself when she caught Ruby’s stare, seeing the calculating look in her friend’s eyes and the way she seemed to focus on her close proximity to the pawnbroker.

“You sure you want to do this today, Belle?” Alexander must have interpreted her pause wrong, because he looked at her with gentle understanding. “We can do it another day, when there aren’t as many people around.”

“You would rather wait?”

“I would rather you not be uncomfortable.”

Belle relaxed, understanding. Alexander wasn’t getting cold feet, he was, as always, concerned for her. How she had managed to miss how much he cared for her for months she would never know, not when it was so clear to her now. Emboldened by his little, unconscious show of affection she rose on her tiptoes, hands resting on Alexander’s shoulders to steady herself as she captured his lips with her own. She meant it to be a soft, affectionate peck, a message rather than a spectacle, but she did not count on the way Alexander would always respond to her, how he would turn a goodbye kiss into a ten-minute tug-of-war where Belle struggled to keep her clothes on because she was going to be late and she took her librarian duties very seriously, thank you very much. Like in those occasions when she pulled back he chased her mouth with his, his left hand going around her waist to press her firmly against him, leaving her no choice really but to wrap her arms more firmly around him, fingers tugging on his hair in silent reprimand, which she knew was counterproductive. But it wasn’t her fault that he was such a good kisser, or that his barely-restrained passion made her forget herself and where she was-

A car horn sounded in the distance, bringing her back to reality. Reluctantly but firmly she pushed Alexander away, patting his hair into some semblance of order once she saw how she had mused it. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Ruby’s flabbergasted expression, but noticed she seemed excited rather than outraged. She pointedly did not look at anyone else, deciding that they didn’t matter.

“Shall we go in? I’m dying for one of Granny’s burgers.”

Alexander nodded, looking vaguely dazed and, dared she say it, rather pleased.

“After you, my dear.”