Work Text:
"And who the hell is that?"
Lacey looked up at the murmurs suddenly crowding the bar.
The man standing elegantly in his tailored suit among the smoky atmosphere, looked completely out of place.
"He looks like he's from some sort of romance novel." Lacey snorted, then grinned. "He looks like he's well enough off to have a Rolex. Bet you I could win it off him."
Her temporary companion for the evening nearly spilled his next shot, turning to look at her. "Jesus, girl, you are insane. Even I know not to mess with-"
"He's either a lost puppy, or finally someone interesting." She slipped off the barstool.
When his eyes found hers, there was a flash of something that almost made her frown - it wasn't desire, exactly, which she was used to. It wasn't even quite danger.
"Hey. Waiting for someone?"
"You could say that."
"Well then." she leaned back against the pool table, slinging the cue familiarly into the crook of her arm. "Wanna kill some time?"
She had won nearly 300 dollars from him before the night was over - he had folded his jacket primly like some princess, over the back of a chair.
"Whaddya think? One more?" She flashed him a teasing grin as she leaned far over the table to gather the balls. "What about the fancy thing on your wrist?"
"Fine." He didn't react to her lean-over like she was used to.
His patience was wearing thin. He lined up for the shot. She could've sworn she heard fingers snapping, and looked back as... many of the balls clanked home.
"...How the fuck-?"
"Magic." He offered a cutting smile.
"No, like, seriously-"
He turned fast and moved into her space, suddenly predatory. She didn't falter, but kept her eye on him.
"Do you think I'm stupid? I know what you're doing, dearie."
"...Why did you play for so long? You want something?"
"Your time."
"Huh?"
"Just your time, Lacey. Get out of this junkyard. Tomorrow night, come by my shop. Make it late."
Now, anyone who had a persistent sense of self preservation would refuse, or bargain.
"...See you tomorrow, Mr. Gold."
The one date turned into two, turned into... she lost count. He kissed her like he wanted to eat her alive and yet did less than half the men she had known would want to. His moments of feral violence didn’t even glanced her way. She was beginning to like him, in some way. The drinks and stumbling to his cot in the back of his shop never ended in anything more.
Rumple, though...
He saw snippets of Belle still in Lacey - the new memories hadn't overwritten all of her. It had changed the way they showed. Her draw to danger had been protective, now it was just reckless.
There were times Lacey's eyes would slide away - and he couldn't tell if she just had a gap in her memory Regina hadn't bothered to fill, or if the fake memories she did hold were quite so terrible. He had met women like Lacey in his life, and Gods know their stories were rarely pretty ones.
Only allowing himself ignorance of what Lacey remembered stilled his hand from marching to Regina and demanding what she had made Belle suffer a second time. Well, ignorance, a few annoying circumstances, and his protectiveness over this woman who had once loved him so. Her love had changed him then - it was changing him now.
His heart ached. His heart ached like it would crumple in his chest under the pain. It made him writhe but he took it out more viciously on the people who owed him - or rather Gold - money.
Violence and ignorance was the only way he was keeping himself together. He had his doubts, more than once, as he pushed Lacey against the nearest surface to kiss her - to fill that thrill she needed to find in him to stick around. True love's kiss should do it. Lacey was intoxicating at times - to pour out his darkness and for her to drink of it so eagerly. But she wasn't quite his Belle. So far, each kiss yielded nothing. Nothing and nothing and...
He had felt that stalling of grief before, that loss with no end in sight of finality. A chance of eternal torment. It hurt more when he was near her, because the occasional gleam in her eyes would be softer than the others and he would see his Belle again.
But it would be worse to be without her.
He wondered for the hundredth time if he was doing the right thing, keeping her at his side like this. He didn't pray - but he wished, to see his true love in that face again.
That bastard Gold had stood her up, again. She had gone to his shop, and nothing. She had flaunted around the Rabbit Hole, and nothing. He hadn't done it continuously, but at least once a week he'd drop off for something else lately.
Rumple, sitting in the back of his shop and looking over the latest alchemical formula he had been trying, glanced at his buzzing phone.
where the fuck are you
Get your ass down here
You cant just do this to me you know
Imm better than whatever other girl you've been shovwing around your fancy ass car
don't be a chicken!
mother duck
fucker**
Then a pause in the barrage. He wasn't concerned - Lacey had shown herself to be able handle herself, drunk or otherwise.
Alright, maybe he would go and make sure she got home later. He had done that, a few nights she wasn't with him. It wasn't stalking, surely. And even if it was, well. Lacey wouldn't have minded.
Another buzz.
Yknow what
the library is lovely this time of night
especially that clocktower
His heart pumped ice water from a realm distant. Like Lacey always eventually did, it hit him right in the chest. His senses blanked into a point of panic and all he could hear... with scourges and flaying.... she threw herself off the tower... she died... she died...
"Get down from there!" Gold's voice was rough and angry in her ears and she grinned.
"Come and get me then, coward!"
He flinched in a way that she didn't notice, as she climbed higher.
He swore in a language she wouldn't understand as he rushed in after her. He climbed as quickly as he could, his ankle was starting to protest, but he ignored it. His heart rammed a familiar, painful rhythm against his ribs.
He rushed up, and finally found the door out, the night air stinging his face.
"Belle!"
She frowned, scowling at him. "Who's that? The other girl that you've blown me off for?" her words were annoyed and a bit slurred as she clutched the banister she was sitting on.
He advanced as quickly as he could, he raised his hand to yank her back and-
She winced back but jutted her chin out, hands clenched at her sides, the picture of defiance.
It didn't take him more than second to realize what she was bracing herself for, and knew a woman like Lacey had far too much pride to consider cowering in front of the likes of him. The image in front of him was far too familiar, in a way he cared not to remember, but the bite of the memory drove him from his panic.
He snapped darkly, his jaw set. "If you think I would stoop – that I would be the one to raise a hand... you're not as smart as I thought. Trust me, dearie, I know better.”
There was a flash of surprise on her face, followed by the falter of incredulity, maybe a bit of concern. Even Lacey had a little heart.
For a second, he saw Belle in her face. The aching in his chest spread, clambering up to nest in his throat and drop to the bottom of his stomach, pressing into tender, reactive flesh. It was an ache that was so different to the one in his ankle, but one that had made itself at home inside him in the past weeks. He had begun to be familiar with it, but at times it would expand to grip into soft places inside him, making it hard to breathe.
He swallowed it down and spoke around it.
"I said we're getting down from here. Now."
Her defiance faded and when he grabbed her wrist, she didn't resist him tugging her back down, safely from the tower.
He shoved down every emotion he felt - those nights and nights he had dreamt he would save Belle like this, from the hell he had assigned her too. A hell that was fake, but one he believed long enough it had still wounded him.
But he was saving her. He had to believe he was saving her.