Work Text:
I've had a life of climbing
Don't let me fall from the trees
Be my lighthouse shining
When I'm out on the sea
(Lanterns, Passenger)
August took in a horrible, shaky breath of air as he lay wide awake, paralysed completely by the nightmare he had just fallen from. His vision rapidly adjusted to the darkness of the room as he purposefully kept himself awake and as far away from the bad dream as possible, although he imagined it would be a difficult task falling back to sleep again now anyway with his heart rate as rapid as it was.
He stayed there for a minute, quietly laying on his back, staring up at the dark, fuzzy ceiling above him, a tiny crack of light from the lamppost outside cutting straight through its centre. Only as his heart rate started to slow, as his breathing became much more at ease, did August finally force himself to sit up in the bed. A glance to his right revealed that Lampwick was still fast asleep, awkwardly sprawled out on the bed beside him, his face half buried in between the pillow and the bedsheets.
A glance to his left told him it was 2:58am.
He rubbed his temples and let out a long, heavy sigh. He had really thought that the nightmares were getting better. That they were starting to fade away, just like they had done during so many of those curse years. Apparently, he had been oh so wrong.
After a moment's hesitation, he swivelled around, slipping his legs out of the blanket and into the cold air, planting his feet onto the carpet. He sat there for a moment, hunched over, with his arms resting on his knees, as he debated whether or not he should just settle back into the warmth of the bed. Try to ignore it all, attempt to get back to sleep again without falling back into the nightmare, or whether he should get up and sit in the other room for a while; Grab a glass of water and something to read, in order to give the nightmare enough time to dissipate before he eventually crawled back beside Lampwick.
As he continued to sit on the edge of the bed, stuck in his indecision, a disgruntled voice from behind him helped to make the choice for him.
“Hey?” Lampwick croaked, causing August to immediately turn around. Lampwick was already starting to sit up in the bed as he continued with. “You okay?”
August thought about the question for a moment, unsure about just how open he wanted to be. The nightmare he had just woken from was undeniably haunting, and not something he was particularly willing or able to freely talk about. Packed full of memories and events that he hadn’t spoken to anyone about, ever. Not his father, not Jiminy, not Lampwick.
He shrugged.
“I’m...I’ll be fine,” he decided, already pulling his legs back under the covers.
Lampwick leaned over and gently grasped the side of August’s arm, causing August to stop in motion. There was a particularly heavy feeling of seriousness and worry that Lampwick carried with him as he asked,
“You sure?”
August nodded.
“Yeah,” he lied. “Yeah. Really, it’s nothing.”
Already settling back into the bed, August didn’t even give Lampwick the chance to argue back. Laying back down, he turned on his left side, facing away from Lampwick and looking out across the small, dim room.
Lampwick didn’t say a word, instead only shuffling closer to August and wrapping an arm around him, embracing him tightly.
August didn’t dare close his eyes, far too afraid that he would slip back into the bad dream again. He focused intently on the little pile of clothes thrown onto one of Lampwick’s chairs, as though it were an oddly shaped creature, staring at him from the corner of the room. For a minute, he did nothing, said nothing, as the stillness of the room overtook him.
Finally, he forced out a quiet, “Lampwick?”
“Yeah?” the other man whispered back, still clearly wide awake.
“Have you ever read Pinocchio?”
Lampwick stirred a little, loosening his grip on August ever so slightly.
“What?”
“The Adventures of Pinocchio,” August repeated, despite knowing that Lampwick heard him perfectly clearly the first time around, “have you ever read it?”
“No,” Lampwick admitted.
August tore his eyes from the pile of clothes and to some, fuzzy, non-distinct patch of carpet next to the edge of the bed.
“I have.”
After a beat, Lampwick asked, “what’s it like?”
“Weird,” August said, his voice still just barely above a hush. “It’s...A lot happens in it. Some of it is accurate -at least, partially- and some of it’s...less so.”
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“In one chapter, Pinocchio runs into an enormous snake with a smoking tail. In another, he almost gets fried in a pan by a giant, green fisherman.”
“Please tell me that shit didn’t actually happen to you?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“The snake wouldn’t surprise me, to be fair,” Lampwick commented. “I swear, I heard rumours about all kinds of weird shit living in the darker corners of the Enchanted Forest.”
“There was also,” August continued, without any lightness in his voice, “a chapter where Pinocchio was kidnapped by assassins and...And hanged, with a noose, from a tree in the forest.”
Lampwick scoffed, causing August to tense up a little more.
“The fuck kind of kids book is this?” he said. “I mean, I know that things are…” his voice grew a little more sombre. “That things are pretty bad towards the end and stuff -I’ve got curse memories of the damn cartoon to tell me all that crap was in the book too, right?- but this is a whole new level of twisted.” He scoffed again, a quiet, humourless laugh. “That’s just fucked up.”
August was very still and very quiet. His stomach curled up inside him and his mouth felt very dry all of a sudden. His heart began beating harder and faster again.
“That chapter was real, Lampwick.”
Lampwick instantly withdrew his arm from around August’s waist.
“It...What?” he asked softly.
“It didn’t happen exactly how it did in the book but…”
“No, but…” Lampwick suddenly sat up in the bed. “Y-you were a kid. Why would anyone…?”
“I was a puppet.” August’s reply was particularly flat as he continued to lay there. “And anyway, Lampwick, you and I both know that there are lots of people out there that don’t care about hurting children.”
“But…”
August finally brought himself to roll over and sit up. Lampwick’s frustrated rambling only continued to become louder and more distressed.
”No, but you were…I don’t…”
August shook his head. His heart still hadn’t stopped racing.
“I’m sorry, I-I shouldn’t have told you,” he said. “It’s not fair for me to burden you with this.”
“But…” Lampwick said again. He ran a hand through his hair, clearly becoming more and more agitated by the whole ordeal. “No, but, I don’t understand. How did...I mean, why didn’t…?”
“Lampwick, it’s fine. I’m fine. It’s in the past.”
“ Clearly,” an exasperated Lampwick let out, “it’s fucking not. I just, I don’t get it. Where the fuck was the fairy? She’s your godmother or whatever right? I thought that she was meant to look out for you. Keep an eye on you and protect you and shit? Right? How the fuck did she even let this shit happen?”
“She did come. I was only...Only in the tree for a couple of minutes at most.”
“Yeah, a couple of minutes too fucking long.” Lampwick was getting especially distressed now, his voice likely audible from the apartment next-door. “That...It shouldn’t have happened in the first place!”
August didn’t say a word. Lampwick didn’t either. Swiftly, he struck his hand down and hit the bed with a hard fist.
“Fuck,” he hissed before clambered over August’s legs and off the bed completely. He massaged his temples with one hand as he let out a long, shaky sigh. “I need a smoke. You mind?”
August moved around until his legs dangled off the bed and his feet touched the carpet once more.
“No,” he replied. “But I think I might grab a glass of water.”
Fumbling in the darkness, he managed to locate the switch for the table lamp and flicked it on, causing both himself and Lampwick to squint as its soft, yellow light flooded the room. Without another word, he stood up and headed into the other room as Lampwick stalked over to the messy shelf that stood opposite the bed.
It wasn’t until August opened one of the dark, kitchen cupboards and took out a glass, that he realised just how much his hand was trembling. Ignoring it, he reached into the cupboard and stole a glass, before gently shutting the door closed and heading for the sink.
By the time he had filled up the glass and walked back into the bedroom, Lampwick was already half-leaning out of the tiny window, a lit cigarette in hand.
“Are you even allowed to smoke in here?” August asked, almost certain that he had seen a ‘no smoking’ sign somewhere floating around the building’s corridors.
Lampwick scoffed.
“No,” he replied. “But they don’t give a crap. I mean, no one’s ever called me out on it before.”
Still trembling, August walked across the room and back over to the bed.
“Why did we get such a fucked up story, huh?” Lampwick mused as he stared out at a sleeping Storybrooke. “Why couldn't we have been in ‘Snow White’ or something instead?"
August set the glass down and smirked.
"You spend too much time around Leroy,” he commented. “Anyway, you're too tall to play one of the seven dwarves."
“Who said I wanted to be a dwarf? I could have been Prince Charming." August raised an eyebrow at him and a wide grin spread across Lampwick's face. "Hey, don't laugh."
"I wasn't laughing," August denied, despite the creeping smile that was tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Just...You really want David's place?"
Lampwick pulled a face.
"Look, I'm just saying that maybe I would have liked a slightly less traumatic backstory." He took another drag of his cigarette. "Hell, why couldn't I have been random villager number 17. Someone from one of the countless books that needed a couple of extra bodies for the backdrop of their story?"
"Everyone has their own problems, Lampwick. Painting yourself into a different story probably wouldn't change things as drastically as you think it would."
"Like hell it wouldn't!" He took a long drag of his cigarette before focusing his attention on August. "Anyway, so what if Joe that works at the pet shelter had a less than pleasant time back in the Enchanted fucking Forest. I promise you, August, whatever he went through, it doesn't come close to what we went through. To what you just…" He directed his gaze back outside again. His voice grew so quiet it was barely audible with his head turned away. His words practically carried away by the soft, night breeze. "It's bullshit. You were so fucking young."
August didn’t reply to it. Pretended he hadn’t really heard Lampwick at all. He picked up the glass and took a hesitant sip of water.
"You know what happened to them?" Lampwick asked.
"Who?"
"The...You know...The sickos that hurt you."
"No. They ran away as soon as the Blue Fairy arrived."
Lampwick let out a little hiss between his teeth.
"She should have strung them up instead."
"She's a fairy, Lampwick. They don't kill people."
"Yeah," Lampwick muttered under his breath, "they just sit back and let it happen instead."
August took another sip of water.
He felt strange. Still tense and sick and nervous about having finally confessed things to someone else. But also lighter somehow, if only a little. Seeing Lampwick so angry about the ordeal made him feel like he actually had a right to be angry about things too, a concept he hadn't quite been able to get a proper grasp on ever since things happened.
It had been windy that night. It was probably cold too, but August didn't really feel that very much in his wooden state. The Blue Fairy had lifted him very gently down from the tree and swept him into a tight, tight embrace, profusely apologising.
That was probably the only time he'd ever even heard her apologise like that. Not her pitying "I'm sorry" whenever she was stuck in a troublesome situation that stretched beyond her magic's means. Not a, "I'm sorry, but this is out of my hands," or a "I'm sorry, but Pinocchio cannot go through the wardrobe anymore," but a hushed, terrified string of apologies that seemed to go on forever and ever, promising that she was sorry she hadn't gotten there sooner.
But that also begged the real question; Why wasn't she there sooner?
"Bitch." Lampwick swiftly interrupted his thoughts. The cigarette in his hand was long gone now and he was already closing the window shut. "I swear, next time I see her-"
"Lampwick…" August quietly protested.
"I mean, who the fuck does she think she is? She should have-"
"Lampwick." August's voice was louder and firmer this time. Then, more softly, "please."
Lampwick stayed very still.
"Sorry." He moved closer to August. "It just...it just pisses me off and…" he paused, his brow sad and withering. " I'm sorry .”
August didn’t respond and Lampwick moved again in order to come and sit beside him. Reaching across, he took a hold of August’s right hand and held it in his own, lacing their fingers between one another and giving it a tight squeeze. Neither let go as they sat there in silence, Lampwick clearly waiting for August to decide where to go from here.
“I’ve never…” August began. “I haven’t ever talked to anyone about this before.”
“Do you wanna? Talk about it?”
“I don’t know.”
August’s mouth was suddenly very dry again. He let go of Lampwick’s hand in order to stretch across to the table on his left and pick up the glass of water again. However, as he lifted the glass with a shaky hand, he found himself unable to take a sip. With a weary sigh, he lowered the glass, setting it back onto the edge of the table.
“You know, I forgot about it for so long,” he admitted. “It wasn’t until I read the book for the first time that the nightmares started up again.” His gaze drifted across the room. “Although, even then, I managed to work through those too. I didn’t exactly forget about what had happened, but the more I immersed myself in the real world -the world away from the Enchanted Forest- the more it just sort of…faded.”
“So, why do you think it came back?”
“Because I was a puppet again.”
Lampwick let out a strange sort of growling noise underneath his breath. In spite of everything, August couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, the wry grin still on his face.
Lampwick didn’t smile back.
“The fucking fairy. If she hadn’t-”
“Lampwick, stop.” He looked at him seriously. The sour frown refused to lift from Lampwick’s face. “I know you’re angry -that you’re upset- about all this. And…and I know you're trying to direct that anger towards someone, but it’s not making me feel any better.” August checked himself before quietly amending his words. “Not much better.”
“I just…I wanna help. But I don’t know what to do to make things better.”
August shrugged. He gave lampwick a sad smile.
“You could give me a hug?”
“Shit,” Lampwick said, immediately pulling August into an embrace, almost faster than August could react. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
They held tightly in that embrace for what felt like an eternity. August felt very fragile all of a sudden, as though Lampwick were literally holding him together and that he might collapse and shatter into pieces if left alone.
Eventually, however, they broke away from one another, Lampwick only daring to let go after August loosened his own grip first. As they did so, Lampwick graced August with a quick kiss on cheek and refused to let his grip waver completely, keeping both hands staunchly on the sides of August's arms.
“They’ll fade again,” Lampwick reassured.
“Have yours?” August challenged.
“I know it might not seem like it but…yeah. At least, they used to be a lot worse and a hell of a lot more frequent than they are these days. Even…” His voice dropped a little. “Even if they have been more regular than they ever were right before the curse hit. But, I didn’t have any nightmares during the curse -not any related to…well, to that, at least- so I figure this is just my body’s way of catching up on twenty-eight years worth of bad dreams, you know?”
“I’m sorry that the end of the curse brought back all those bad memories for you.”
“Yeah well,” Lampwick said as he lowered his hands, letting go completely with his right, and idly slipping his left into August’s open hand. “I’m sorry that I’ve made this conversation all about me.” He frowned a little more seriously at August. “I mean it when I say that they’ll start to fade. Especially now that you’ve talked about it. Keeping that to yourself can make you obsess over things. And that is what’ll fuel the nightmares.”
August let out a particularly long sigh.
“Thank you.” He smiled back although there was still a withering frown set upon his face. “And thank you for being angry about it. I think that…I think that for a long time I just accepted it as something that had happened. As something that wasn’t very pleasant, something that still haunts me so many years later, but also as something that just… was . I don’t know, I guess that for a long time I just thought it was some kind of karma. For not listening to my father or Jiminy. For running away all the time, being a bad son.”
August half expected Lampwick to argue against the assessment right away. To tell August that he had been wrong to think those things. Instead, he cast his eyes downward, his gaze distant and voice quiet as he responded.
“I thought about that too, sometimes.” He quickly looked back up with a nervous, apologetic smile and frantically added, “not about you, I mean. But about me. After the…After my transformation and stuff. But I know deep down that I didn’t really deserve it -not that anyway- and neither did you. What we went through was bullshit.”
“Yeah,” was all August could bring himself to say. "Yeah, it was."
The initial adrenaline of the situation was just starting to wear off now and August could feel his body react to the change. Although he wouldn’t say he exactly felt sleepy right now. Just tired.
As though Lampwick could read his mind, he asked, “so, do you wanna play cards or something for a bit?” He finally let go of August’s hand and used the newfound freedom to scratch at the back of his ear. “I dunno about you but I'm not sure I can sleep just yet. Though, if you wanted to then-”
“Let’s play cards,” August agreed. “Just for a little while, at least.”
Lampwick grinned back and stepped across the room and over to a set of drawers. As he opened up the top drawer and removed the cards, August set to work straightening out the duvet, before sitting himself, cross-legged, on the bed.
“So,” Lampwick began as he clambered onto the far end of the bed and sat himself opposite August, already sliding the pack out of its card case. “Wanna make bets or do you just wanna play?”
“What’s the bet?”
Lampwick started to deal out the cards, not bothering to inform August on which game they were playing.
“Urm…” He thought for a moment, slowing the dealing until he came to a full stop. “Loser washes the dishes next time we eat in together.”
“I don’t mind doing the dishes.”
Lampwick smiled sarcastically at him.
“Okay, then even better, because I won’t feel so guilty when I wipe the floor with you.”
“And,” August countered, “when I win, I’ll get to stand back and be forced to watch you complain about it the entire time.”
“So,” Lampwick said with a wide grin, “from the sounds of things, you lose either way?”
“Only because you’re such a sore loser.”
“I have to be a sore loser.” He examined the cards in his hands. “In order to balance out you being such a smug winner.”
August grinned back at him.
“Best of five?”
“Sure. Best of five.”