Work Text:
“No.”
"Belle, please."
"Absolutely not, Rumplestiltskin." She didn't even look up from her book. "You know perfectly well that rest is what you need right now. You are not going outside - besides, it’s raining. You’d catch cold."
"I don't need to go outside, I just need to get out of this room and do something," he responded petulantly.
Belle rested her book in her lap and gave him a stern look. "You’re a brilliant man, Rumplestiltskin - what part of 'rest' is so hard for you to understand? That curse could have killed you. You're going to stay in that bed until you’re entirely well again.”
She was both amused and touched that he bothered to grouse at her about his enforced bed rest. As the most powerful wizard in the land he could, after all, find ample ways to get around her orders. The idea of Belle being able to keep the master of the Dark Castle anywhere he did not wish to be kept was laughable at best. And yet here he stayed, covered in a heaping mound of blankets and managing to look only slightly put out about it.
Belle was taking no chances. Whenever she thought too hard on how close she'd come to losing him, a suffocating panic rose up to claw at her throat. He'd been so cold...
He’d been gone for six days - three days longer than he had said he would. While he was often away from the castle to strike his deals with unfortunate souls, Rumplestiltskin had always been very careful to let Belle know when he would return, and he’d always stuck to his word.
By the third day of anxious waiting and mounting fear, Belle had given up all pretense of calmness and had sat in watch over the approach to the castle, willing Rumplestiltskin to appear.
When he had done so, Belle’s heart plummeted. He barely seemed able to walk, teetering forward on uncertain feet and looking as if he might fall at any moment. The power that normally was an all but visible presence around him was nowhere; he seemed like little more than a shadow. Belle had run out to him, and just in the nick of time - he’d opened his mouth as if to say something then collapsed, unconscious, into her arms.
It had been touch and go for a while. Once she’d gotten him, with a little magical help from the castle, up to his room and into bed, she’d only grown more worried. Rumplestiltskin had been shaking violently, his golden skin tinged blue as if with frost. Piling more blankets on the bed and more wood on the fire had done nothing, and over time he seemed weaker and weaker, and Belle’s heart was gripped with dread.
The only thing which had seemed to help had been human contact, so Belle had firmly ignored the awkwardness of climbing in bed with her master and cuddled up next to him. Almost immediately, his tremors had stopped. He’d felt warmer through his tunic and breeches, and his breathing seemed to come easier.
Feeling him relax against her, Belle had slowly allowed her guard to drop, no longer in immediate fear for his life.
“You must wake up, Rumplestiltskin,” she’d said in a quavering voice. The stress of dealing with this disaster had caught up with her, and she’d felt curiously empty. She’d sniffed back the tears that had been creeping up on her since he’d appeared outside the castle.
“Don’t leave me alone in this place. I haven’t the faintest idea of how to get back to Avonlea from here.”
There had been no response.
“Besides,” she’d continued with a brave attempt at a smile, “just think what it will do to your reputation when someone comes to the castle to deal and finds only me. I’d be a terrible Dark One.”
The last thing she recalled as she drifted off to sleep was nuzzling just a little closer to Rumplestiltskin - to be sure he was warm enough, of course…
Four more days had passed since she woke up hugging Rumplestiltskin. He’d recovered enough by that first morning that she could leave her careful watch over him to prepare soup to restore his strength. The next day, he was able to talk, although his voice was faint and rasping, and he guided her through the steps necessary for his recovery - these mostly consisted of bringing him specific vials from his workrooms and preparing certain concoctions for him to drink. She’d nursed him patiently back to health.
Now, he did not seem quite recovered - but he was evidently well enough to resent his long inactivity. Belle amused herself for a moment by considering the sorts of games her nursemaid used to play with her on rainy days, and she wondered if she dared suggest one of them to keep Rumplestiltskin occupied. It was probably not wise to antagonize the Dark One overmuch, Belle decided - she quite liked being a human and didn’t think life as a slug would suit her.
“Shall I read to you?” she asked patiently as he whined once again about his predicament.
He stopped mid-sentence, looking slightly taken aback. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Do.”
“Move over then,” Belle said, and as he complied she sat down on top of the covers next to him, her back resting against the headboard.
After a moment of reflection, she realized that it was an odd thing to have done. In fact, she couldn’t quite say why she’d thought to do it, but Rumplestiltskin seemed to be taking her actions in stride. He had the covers pulled up to just under his chin and was looking at her expectantly, a curious sort of smile playing over his features.
Belle smiled down at him, flipped back to the start of her current chapter, and began reading.
It was one of her favorite books, and she’d happened to be reading the part where the heroine, who had disguised herself as a man to serve on her prince’s guard, saves his life, reveals herself, and confesses her love.
As she read, Belle schooled her features to be carefully blank so as not to convey quite how charming she found this part of the text, and she avoided looking down at Rumplestiltskin. She could feel him as he occasionally shifted, and she felt her cheeks heating as she realized that he always seemed to somehow move closer to her.
After a long while, Belle paused and put her book aside. Rumplestiltskin seemed to be fast asleep, his face turned toward her and one hand resting gently against her thigh. Belle allowed herself a moment of calm delight, appreciating that he’d choose to be so vulnerable in her presence even while he wasn’t in pain from a traumatic curse. Gently, she traced her fingers through his hair, reveling in the silky texture of it and admiring the way it fell against his face - so peaceful now, not drawn with lines of pain or exhaustion.
Not wanting to move, Belle picked up her book again and began reading silently, although she kept one hand resting on Rumpletstiltskin’s head.
She could get quite used to this, she supposed.