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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Note

Chris basically blacking out when the medicine wears out and Jake bundling him up in a blanket and carrying him to bed or the couch, holding Chris tightly as he lets him sleep soundly

CW: Sick/feverish whumpee, neurodivergent whumpee having a reaction to medicine, referenced past child abuse and domestic abuse, referenced dubcon attempt. Thoughts of an abuse survivor on his fear of recreating the cycle of abuse.

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @stxckfxck, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions

This is what having a newborn feels like, isn’t it? The thought filters blearily into Jake’s mind as he slowly registers the numbers staring back at him from his cell phone’s lock screen. 4:10 AM.

There’s already a bird stubbornly singing just outside the window in the white birch tree. It’s got to be that red cardinal Chris is obsessed with - or his mate - they’ve set themselves up a nice little domestic scene out there with a nest. Chris swore after Jake caught him hanging halfway out the window and nearly had a heart attack that they have eggs now.

Jake normally likes just about anything that makes Chris happy, but right now he hates that fucking bird. He’s been fighting a wild urge to stomp outside and wring its stupid feathered neck.

The bundle of sweat and red hair beside him shifts, and Jake takes a deep breath, settling back against the couch and letting his eyes slowly drift closed, tightening his arm over the blanket-draped lump that would normally be an energetic, cheerful teenage boy.

Chris, at least, had finally stopped bouncing off the fucking walls a half-hour ago or so. Jake had thought Nyquil was a great plan for the nasty flu bug that took Chris out for the count... until it turned out something in Chris didn’t read Nyquil the way everyone else’s body did, and instead of peacefully sleeping off his symptoms, Chris... lost it.

He’s spent the whole night alternating between a constant chattering narration of every single breath he takes to rocking, tapping, shaking, spinning, working out energy that wouldn’t end. Nat told Jake early on it’s called stimming, and Jake definitely can’t think of any other word for what it is - not when he can see what it’s doing to Chris, soothing jangled nerves, keeping his brain more on track, helping him find words when they would otherwise spark like embers and float away.

Chris talked all night.

He’d told Jake all about every detail of the hallway he’d lived in, drawn him a diagram of the fucking bedroom the Mystery Asshole had kept him locked up in, talked about silk sheets and grosser things until Jake asked him to stop. Chris had explained white rooms and white walls and fog and pain. He had talked and talked and talked and talked.

He’d been jittery, snapping irritation when he didn’t mean to but then turning those big puppy eyes on Jake with a mouthful of apologies as soon as he did. He’d gone from cheerful to terrified and back again, unable to stop his mind from whatever wild rabbit trail it ran down. He’d even tested Jake again and he hadn’t done that in months, climbed on top of him and started trying to kiss him before Jake pushed him back and said no for the third time, as firmly as he could without sounding cold or cruel.

Chris had collapsed in relief at the rejection and then bounced back up again, throwing arms around Jake’s neck and thanking him and then tearing off to the kitchen for a snack only to realize he was still so sick he wasn’t hungry and drinking too much Gatorade instead. Jake had half-expected him to climb the damn walls like Spiderman.

The little rescue narrated every move he made until Jake would have given just about anything to shut him up and had to keep reminding himself of how eerie it had been back when Chris did nothing but hide silently in perfect stillness under or behind the bed.

Now - finally - it’s wearing off, making its way out of his system, and the constant barrage of motion has ceased. Chris is settled against him breathing slowly, evenly.

Thank God it’s a Friday and Jake doesn’t have classes. Otherwise he’d have been up all night and still have to get ready to catch the bus by 7:30, be on campus ‘til nearly 10, and then come back again.

There’s a girl he has a ton of classes with who has an almost-two-year-old and he wonders, now, if all the times he’s thought she looked kind of tired... if she had just been up like this, all night, and still had to make it work the next day because life doesn’t stop just because someone needs you.

Instead, he shifts himself and Chris very slowly. Chris’s fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt and hold tightly, even in his sleep he won’t let Jake go. It takes some doing, but Jake eventually gets himself laid out on his back on the couch, head against one arm and his feet hanging in thin air off the either, with Chris laid out on top of him. He’s a fucking furnace giving off body heat and Jake is sweaty already, but fuck it - he’s so exhausted he doubts being a little hot is going to keep him from blacking out soon, too.

Is this what having kids is like? A weight on your chest, the sound of snuffling breaths, sweaty forehead a sign that the fever is broken, hands smaller than yours holding onto you for dear life and with perfect trust that you don’t deserve, can’t ever do enough to earn?

Trust you could shatter, a person you could destroy, just by fucking up?

Jake lays there with his heart pounding in fear at the thought. Chris’s dependency is only something he can handle because it’s spread around - he depends on Nat and on Antoni, too, Leila when she’ll let the little Romantic get close to her. Kauri whenever he drops by.

Jake would do anything for Chris - and there’s enough in Chris, like his straightened teeth and obvious gymnastics training and the things he mumbles to himself sometimes when sparks of something that used to be his life come back, to suggest that he had had parents once who loved him, too - but the idea of someone needing him so badly, and for forever or close to it, is the scariest thing he can imagine.

One day Chris will do something that makes him angry - and it doesn’t matter how Jake acts, Chris will forgive him for it immediately. Jake knows because he used to be the kid who forgave the anger, too.

He swallows against the terror that comes with the memory, that someone could be your worst fear and still hold you when you were sick, could leave bruises where your t-shirts would hide them and still lay a gentle hand to your forehead to feel for a fever. Could throw a plate to smash against the wall next to a small boy’s head while screaming spit into his little round face and then take him to fly kites at a park the next day.

He knows how easy it is to step over that line, he watched his father do it every night. Watched his mother argue and cajole and plead and try to step between them and take it, and then - in the end, when nothing else worked - turn away. Go to a different room. Leave Jake with the monster that turned into a man and back again with a suddenness that no child could ever have been expected to predict.

But she’d left, too, and he never thought of what hadn’t been done without thinking of what had. That she had packed her bags and his, set aside a few dollars here and there with a friend she trusted, and in the end... she hadn’t left Jake with the monster at all, but had taken her preteen son’s hand and walked out the door.

He doesn’t want to be his mother - who could make herself turn away from the injured boy who needed her help. He doesn’t want to be his mother and father’s families, who hid behind the Bible and the church to avoid taking responsibility, who said ‘it takes two’, who sent Jake’s mother to counselors who quoted verses instead of telling her to leave.

He would rather die than be his father - the monster with two faces.

But the idea that Chris needs him this much, in ways that the other rescues don’t, makes him terrified he could end up just like them, anyway, whether he wants to be or not.

These are late-night thoughts and Jake knows it. They’re foggy, slip-slide thoughts. The ideas and fears that come to you when your mind is a physical heaviness inside you, when exhaustion is all your body knows and still sleep can’t find you.

He doesn’t think about it during the day. Only at night, and it’s morning but the world is still dark outside, and so is Jake, inside.

Outside the window, the cardinal has stopped singing. Jake slides his arms up over Chris’s back, lays them across his shoulder blades, and holds him so tightly the sleeping boy shifts around a little.

“Love, love, love-love you, Jake,” Chris mumbles against his collarbone.

“Love you too, kid,” Jake whispers back.

It should feel great, to hear it. It should feel amazing.

Instead, Jake’s veins flood with adrenaline in a new burst of fear. He can’t possibly live up to the trust Chris has in him, but he’s going to have to try... and pray that when he fails, he doesn’t fail in ways he can’t come back from.

I promise I won’t hurt you, Jake thinks, mouths the words but doesn’t say them. If he speaks the promise, he’s just like his father, who swore up and down again and again that this would be the last time, then this, then this time and this time.

Jake has had so many this is the last time I’ll hurt you, it won’t happen again, I promise I would never hurt yous happen to him that he knows words don’t mean shit. What matters isn’t asking someone to trust you - but proving they can.

He has to hope he can be worth even half of the instant, immediate, total trust Chris has put in his hands.

Someone else once tried, with Chris. He clearly had parents who cared for him, once upon a time. Are they still out there? Did something change, and they sold their own kid? Was Chris abducted, hauled off in a white van like the rumors say?

Are there good parents still out there searching for him, while Jake is the best Chris can do now?

Is he playing at being a big brother when Chris might have a real one out there who misses him? They can’t find him, or anyone who even looks like him, on any missing persons reports.

What if he doesn’t have anyone?

What if Jake - with his fears and his anger - is really all Chris has?

He’s still holding Chris, staring up at the ceiling, thoughts spinning and circling like Chris in the depths of the Nyquil-high, when Natalie comes downstairs at 6:30 to start coffee.

That fucking cardinal has started singing again.

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thesithdiaries · 6 years

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Silent Love (Sweet Pea imagine)

Pairing: Sweet Pea x female!reader

Warnings: cursing? Fights? I don’t even know. Some drunk guys holding girls to hurt them (trigger warning)

You were born a Serpent. FP Jones used to babysit you sometimes, when your parents were out on missions. He loved you like if you were his daughter and he made an exception: you didn’t have to go through the entire initiation. Meaning that you did have to take care of Hot Dog and you still had to retrieve the knife, but you didn’t have to do neither the gauntlet nor the Serpent dance.

That was amazing, actually.

But there was one thing that was very important: you liked someone. You fell head over heels for Sweet Pea. He obviously didn’t know this. You were scared of talking to him, because you were afraid of fucking things up. Or that he was going to hate you.

So you kept your distance. He always was with Fangs and Toni, and sometimes there was also a “group” with them. And that’s where you were. Sweet Pea has never talked to you directly though. It did hurt but you’ve gotten over it at this point.

Southside High teachers were awful. Most of them didn’t care if the students were actually learning. So the education there wasn’t worth it. You asked to be homeschooled but there was a situation with that: the teachers that were set to go had a mishap with the Ghoulies and they were so terrified that they ran off from town.

You had almost all of your classes with Sweet Pea. You sat behind him in class. He was sitting on top of the desk with his back facing the teacher.

“Damn it!” You jumped slightly and watch how Sweet Pea marched out of the classroom looking pissed. What happened?

The boys decided to go to the quarry. You loved it there. Sweet Pea had to go look for Toni, who was with Jughead. You stood outside in the hallway, waiting for him.

“Topaz, let’s bounce.”

Your mind wondered around, feeling bored. What snapped you out of it was the sound of Sweet Pea walking towards Jughead to basically beat him up. You watched them walk out, Sweets looking annoyed. You knew he was itching for a fight.

When you got to school, the atmosphere was tense. It always was, but today felt way off. Group of students glaring at phone screens, obviously mad. What happened now?

You spotted Sweet Pea in the cafeteria, sitting with Toni and Fangs. They were laughing at something. When you stood behind them, you saw it.

It was a video of some redhead guy and his friends. Seriously, Northsiders were crazy. Who in their right mind would do something like that? But Sweets wasn’t having it.

Jughead tried to talk some sense into them, but it was useless. Fangs wanted to “earn his Serpents stripes”. That made you roll your eyes. Then Sweet Pea said the Black Hood is their hero, since he’s targeting Northsiders.

Whyte Wyrm wasn’t so crowded that night. A lot of boys weren’t there, including Sweet Pea. It felt weird, not having them around playing pool and being loud.

Your phone, along with others, started ringing. Group chat messages. Freaking out, you quickly unlocked your phone to see many texts about what happened and was going to happen that night.

Sweet Pea went to the Northsider’s house looking for a fight. Then they went to the bridge. Bulldogs vs Serpents. One guy was stupid enough to take a knife to a fight and he stabbed himself. Police were about to get there and Serpents were surrounded.

Your heart was beating out of your chest. It wasn’t uncommon for the boys to get arrested, it was always for something stupid. But this could lead for more trouble, it can turn into this huge thing that can hurt everyone in the Southside.

The boys were really mad. It was scary. Sweets had the most disgusting black eye ever. Toni had a worried expression, she knew it wasn’t going to end well for anybody if they went through with their plan.

Fangs’ cousin was going to build them a pipe bomb so they could blow up the Riverdale Register. Jughead, once again, tried to talk some sense into them. He told them it would make things worst if they did that. Saying he would talk to his friend Archie to figure it all out, but Sweet Pea was right. He couldn’t be half Serpent.

Initiation night. It was brutal. You hated it a lot. Watching your friends getting beat up and not being able to fight back. Jughead Jones was getting punched left and right, and he thankfully got back up. Sweet Pea was the last one. He was waiting for him with his brass knuckles.

The sound of it made you sick, but you held it in. Jughead and Sweet Pea were shaking hands. Good.

The school doors were pushed open. The Mayor and the Sheriff, followed by more officers and dogs. It was a raid. Students fled, not wanting to be part of it.

Only Serpents were being handcuffed. You saw Fangs being thrown on the ground because he was resisting. Sweet Pea was pushed against the lockers. Toni was in the middle of the hallway, with a cop holding her.

You felt your face being smacked against the cold metal. Officers were opening lockers, taking out bags of jingle jangle. You closed your eyes, this wasn’t the best situation to be in.

Almost all the cells were full. Nobody was saying a word. But you knew everyone was about to explode. You were in the same cell as Sweet Pea. You glanced in his direction: he was clenching his fist, his knuckles turning white. Toni had her head resting on Fangs’ shoulder.

Hours went by, some Serpents were being questioned. They finally let you go. As soon as everyone was out of the door, they were cursing and yelling. Feeling that what happened wasn’t fair.

Tall Boy and other older Serpents were there, trying to calm everybody down. You sat down on the curb, your head against your knees. It was actually your first time being arrested.

Boys acted crazy whenever they were drinking. Tonight wasn’t the exception. Some guys from out of town were in the Whyte Wyrm. They were heavily intoxicated.

It was getting late, so you grabbed your things and called your friends so you could walk home together. People knew you in the Southside. They wouldn’t dare hurt any of the Serpent girls. Ghoulies tried sometimes but they got badly hurt after.

Without warning, the boys that were intoxicated grabbed you and your friends. You screamed loudly before one covered your mouth. They were stronger and taller than you. Terrified, you tried to push the guy that was holding you away but it was impossible.

“HEY!”

The sound of heavy footsteps and groans was all you could hear. Not knowing how or why, you were holding yourself up on a chain fence. Tears were running down your face.

“You’re okay. They won’t bother you anymore.”

You had no idea who was talking to you. You were not paying attention at all, so you just nodded. Guys took you and your friends home, trying to calm you all down.

You did catch a glimpse of the ones that attacked you. They were bloodied, their faces looked horrifying.

Jughead Jones thought it was a good idea to grab Penny “Snake Charmer” Peabody out of town so she would leave everyone (mainly him) alone.

You stood behind, watching how Sweet Pea and Toni were holding her down while Jughead cut off her tattoo. She was screaming. You almost felt bad, but then remembered everything she has done.

The school merge happened quick. The Principal got fed up quickly, banning all “gang activity” after a football player painted a snake on the floor and blamed you all.

Finally the end of the day, the school cleared up quick. You took that opportunity to decorate your locker. You always wanted to that back in Southside but you were scared someone would steal something. It was something simple.

You were so concentrated on sticking some random pictures of you and the Serpents. It made you laugh quietly. Happy memories with a “mean, scary gang”.

“Y/N?” Your eyes widened. You knew that voice. Slowing turning around, Sweet Pea was standing behind you. “We’ve been hanging out together for the past few years and you never say a word. Why?”

#sweet pea x reader #sweet pea imagine #riverdale imagines

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mollymauk-teafleak · 6 years

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My Ao3 | My Ko-Fi

Thank you to @minky-for-short <3

Static. Everywhere was static.

It roared and snarled with a volume and ferocity too much for him to handle, that seemed to crack him open and crawl inside and set all his nerves jangling. He tried to shout for help but the was no way he could be heard over the noise. He tried to grab for his ears, to try and cover them but when he reached up, there was nothing there. And then the hands he grasped with weren’t there either, the arms they were attached to, the mouth he was screaming with.

He was nowhere. He was lost. He was nothing.

Where was his sister?

Taako was still screaming when he jerked awake, finding himself twisted in sweat sodden sheets, panting raggedly and yet still unable to take in any air. He whispered Lup’s name against the pillow, voice cracking and making him aware of the dull pain in his throat. It was the pain that made him realise he was awake, long after his eyes opened and his brain fired up.

Dreams couldn’t really hurt him. Taako had spent years telling himself that, often through tears. Moaning it over and over in the darkness or the sickly light of a new dawn, until it became a mantra, something to cling to.

The hand on his shoulder startled him so badly that he lashed out, hand flailing desperately, a curse on his badly bitten lips that he never managed to get out before another hand caught his wrist.

“Taako!” Kravitz cried, “It’s me, darling, it’s me, you’re okay…”

Taako blinked, his eyes burning, now realising that his husband was in the bed next to him. He could just about see the line of his face in the darkness, where the shadows gathered in the sharp angles of his jaw and his nose and his eyebrows, upturned in worry and fear and…pity.

Taako snatched his hand back with such force that the reaper couldn’t keep hold of it even if he’d tried. He curled it against his chest, realising he was still crying, shoulders shaking and bucking as if by random electric shocks, beyond his control.

That was always what Taako despised most about letting go of himself like this. He hated not being in control.

“My dearest, it was only a bad dream,” Kravitz’s voice tried to be soothing but still, there was an edge of panic to it. It was rare for the reaper to be so shaken, “It’s gone now, you’re safe here with me. Here…”

He made to wrap his arms around Taako, to fold him into an embrace that he knew would be just the right amount of cool, would be strong and firm and make him feel safe, as if nothing in the world could hurt him when he was in those arms. Part of Taako ached for it so much that it was an ache, a real one in his back teeth and the base of his neck.

The rest of him didn’t.

“No,” he gasped quietly, voice still sore and small, very different from his usual voice, so much so that he didn’t recognise it. Not that he wanted to, he hated the idea that he could sound so scared and vulnerable.

Kravitz froze, the edges of his mouth pulling down a little, “I…”

“I can’t,” Taako sobbed, scrambling further away until one of his long legs reached the edge of the bed, expecting purchase when there was none and leaving him stumbling, “I’m sorry, I just can’t right now. Please don’t touch me.”

Kravitz hid the hurt in his expression as quickly as he could but it wasn’t quite fast enough, “I won’t, Taako. It’s okay. Whatever…whatever you need, it’s fine. Just…please know I’m here for you.”

Taako managed a shaky nod, before retracting in on himself, pulling his knees to his chest, head between them. He heard Kravitz get up from the bed, move around the room on his soft, precise steps, but he didn’t look up. He couldn’t see that expression again; hurt, pity, fear marring his husband’s usually calm, controlled expression. He’d seen it before whenever he let people get close to him, usually around the time they’d always realise he was difficult to handle. And then they’d leave.

He tried to tell himself that Kravitz would be different, it wasn’t like any of the other one night stands or casual hook ups who’d gradually stopped picking up his calls after they’d seen him at his worst had ever put a ring on his finger. Kravitz knew what he’d been through. He knew who he was.

Taako just didn’t know how much of this either of them would be willing to take.

When he felt more like himself again, when the shaking had leeched down to just his hands and the crying had dried up and left his eyes burning and red, Taako was still alone in the darkened room.

Expect now there was a glass of water on the dresser just beside him, the softest blanket they had and were forever bickering over folded neatly at the foot of the bed, a small plate with three of the strawberries he’d brought home from the market yesterday resting on it. Taako picked one of them up by the stem, turning it in his fingers and sighing softly. He could imagine Kravitz spending far longer than he needed to selecting the biggest, reddest, most perfectly shaped ones from the punnet, just for him. They were a poor substitute for being able to hold your husband, Taako knew, but as he bit into it he could feel the tightness in his chest let go, just a little, and the stinging in his eyes fade a tiny bit.

Kravitz found so many ways to tell him he loved him.

Taako stood up, taking the blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders like a cape, padding off to find his husband.

He was in Luka’s nursery, the next room down from theirs so Taako’s search didn’t last particularly long.

“Hey…” he croaked, awkwardly, making Kravitz look up from where he was cradling their little daughter in the rocking chair Magnus had presented them with a scarily short time after they’d actually gotten a daughter, almost as if he’d known something.

Kravitz gave him a tender smile, eyes gentler than Taako had dared hope for, “Hello, dear.”

“I didn’t hear her wake up…” Taako frowned, perching himself on the arm of the chair, reaching out a finger to brush their daughter’s cheek gently. He got a soft, sleepy cheep in response and an attempt to catch his finger in her mouth, making him grin in spite of everything.

Kravitz cleared his throat, suddenly looking a little abashed, “Well, she…she didn’t wake up exactly…”

Taako found himself somehow grinning wider. He’d never smiled so much so quickly after a panic attack.

“You’re pretty damn adorable, y’know?” he pressed a kiss to Kravitz’s cheek.

“I’ve been told,” he smiles softly, “How are you feeling, my darling?”

Taako’s automatic answer, a casual joke or spry comment to hide everything else behind a mask of a much easier emotion, didn’t make it past his lips. Instead he rested his head against Kravitz’s, letting a low, exhausted sigh leave his chest.

“Better,” he admitted, “I…I’m really sorry for everything back there. Sometimes I just…it j-just gets so…I…”

Kravitz put a hand on Taako’s arm, shifting Luka just a little so she didn’t get squished between her fathers, “Taako, my love, there’s nothing you need to apologise for. This is about what you need to feel well again. I’m always here for you, if that means in the room or, or just outside or holding you or whatever it means, I will do it. That’s part of loving you.”

Taako could feel the tears again but this time he didn’t fight them, he let them build in his eyes and spill over his cheeks. There was something soothing about them this time.

“And if…if this is just part of me…like, if it never goes away…” he chokes out, biting his lip.

Kravitz stands suddenly, though smoothly so as not to jostle the sleeping little half elf, “Then you will still be you. You will still be my husband. You’ll still be Luka’s daddy. And I’ll love you every bit as much as I do right now.”

Their kiss tasted of salt and Taako’s sobs broke through every time he gasped for air but they kept going, at least until it woke Luka and she tried to push her way into it, mushing her little face against theirs in her six month’s old idea of kissing, leaving both her dads snorting with laughter.

Taako had spent enough of his time alone, screaming into the static. But things were different now. Hewas different.

Dreams couldn’t hurt him out here.

#taakitz #taz #the adventure zone #taz: balance #taako taaco #kravitz #luka #angst #hurt/comfort

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worryinglyinnocent · 7 years

Text

Fic: The Most Beautiful Mistake (1/?)

Summary: Belle French and ‘Rumpel’ Gold have been best friends for a long time, ever since Belle first walked into Gold’s yarn shop. One stormy night, one bottle of wine, and a couple of heartfelt confessions later, and their relationship will never be the same again.

For the Monthly Rumbelling prompt: “Storm. Warmth. Loneliness. Rough. Adultery.”

Rated: NC-17

The Most Beautiful Mistake

One

It seemed that the storm was set in for the duration, and Gold shivered as the wind whistled around the building before tweaking the thermostat and listening to the ancient radiators clang and hiss into life. More than once, he’d thought about getting the old boiler replaced and the entire system properly serviced, but it was always more time, effort and money than he had the stomach for, so he persevered with his temperamental heating as he’d always done. A draught was coming in under the living room window and he sighed, wedging a rag against the sill. Hopefully he wouldn’t feel quite so frozen in a minute. The shop was always warm in the sometimes vain hope of enticing customers to come in, stay in, and hopefully buy things whilst they were in. Gold had always been told that heat rose, but years of living in a cold and damp apartment above a warm and dry shop had taught him otherwise. Since Neal had moved out, he’d seriously considered just moving down to the backroom of the shop altogether. There was a couch there, and a bathroom, and he’d lived in smaller places in his time.

Raindrops clattered against the window and he cringed in sympathy with the glass before pulling the blinds down and shutting the weather out of sight and out of mind, turning on the TV at full volume to drown out the sounds outside. Gold had never been a fan of storms, a fear that he had unfortunately passed on to his son, and he wondered how Neal was faring in Boston. Hopefully the foul weather wouldn’t have got that far south and Neal would be undisturbed. Eighteen years old and in the prime of his life, it wouldn’t do for his newly made friends to laugh at him because he was still scared of thunderstorms. There was a flash of lightning and Gold screwed his eyes up tight against it, his entire body tense as he waited for the thunder. It came only a few seconds later, a sudden crash that made him jolt and his stomach roil uncomfortably. Somewhere in the back of his mind, below the sounds of the storm, he thought he heard the shop bell jangle, but he was concentrating on remembering to breathe and trying his utmost not to be caught out by the next crackle from the skies.

As such, he jumped out of his skin when he heard heavy footfalls on the stairs and then a knock on the apartment front door. Although the apartment was brightly lit and the TV was still blaring some innocuous soap opera, he still felt the need to tiptoe across the room and open the door just a fraction to peer around it into the darkness of the stairwell. A pair of bright blue eyes framed by damp brown curls peered back, and then lifted a carrier bag to the crack.

“I brought wine. Thought we might need it.”

Gold stood back and opened the door wide to let Belle in. Of course it was Belle, who else was it going to have been? He’d given Belle a key to the shop so that she could let herself in whenever she pleased, and this was by no means the first time that she’d done it. It probably wouldn’t be the last, either.

“I thought you might like some company tonight,” Belle said, stepping out of her rubber boots and hanging up her raincoat. She shook her head vigorously to get the water out of her hair and Gold just gave a sigh of good-natured despair, fetching her a towel from the bathroom. That was one of the things he loved about Belle. Ever since she’d learned about his and Neal’s hatred for this kind of weather, she would always come over during a storm to make sure that the two of them were all right. It had just happened one day, and today was no different. Well, today was slightly different. Neal wasn’t here for a start, and Gold was facing his first storm season without his boy. And of course, there was the small matter of Gaston.

“Doesn’t Gaston mind you dropping everything and coming over here?”

“He’s out of town,” Belle said, wringing out her hair. “Gone to a stag party with his cousins. He won’t be back till Monday. So, here I am.”

“I can’t believe you came out in this,” Gold said. “It’s a good job I didn’t know you were coming or I would have had a heart attack. I’m not entirely sure I’m not having one now. How many times could you have been struck by lightning on your way over?”

“I live two streets away and we both know that I am not the tallest thing in Storybrooke. I was fine. Besides, I got here in one piece, so there’s no point in worrying about what could have been.”

That was the difference between them. Gold worried about everything. All the time. Belle put the past in the past and left it there.

She held up the wine with a bright smile. “Shall I pour?”

Gold nodded, waving her through to the kitchen and going back to the sofa, grabbing the throw blankets and shaking them out. Belle knew her way around his home well enough to help herself to whatever she needed. She’d been coming here regularly enough for the past… God, how many years was it now? Seven? Eight? It had all started the week she’d moved to town and she’d come into the shop, looking around and familiarising herself with the town. He’d been spinning in the back and hadn’t heard her come in, lost in thoughts as he always was when the wheel was turning. Then he’d heard her voice, so clear and new and unknown.

“Hello? Is there anyone in here?”

When she’d poked her head around the curtain, he’d been speechless for a few minutes until she’d finally coaxed him into conversation, and they’d gradually become firm friends, with Belle a regular visitor to the apartment. Neal, then ten, had loved her, and she had been a willing and readily available babysitter for years. But now…

Gold sighed as Belle brought the corkscrew and a couple of mismatched glasses through to the living room and settled herself comfortably on the sofa beside him, feet drawn up under her. It was foolish to wish for anything more than the easy friendship they’d always shared. He knew his reputation in the town well enough, the cowardly spinner who hid away in his wool shop to avoid their censure. It was a miracle that Belle would even speak to him and consider him her friend, and he couldn’t dare to think that she saw him as anything other than that. Besides. There was the small point of Gaston.

The younger man had been making overtures towards her for months, and up until recently Belle had always refused him. It was as if she had been waiting for something, but whatever it was that she’d been waiting for, she’d either given up expecting it or Gaston had provided it, for now their relationship was steady, she was in the process of moving into his home, and of course, the huge sparkler on her third finger couldn’t be denied. It really was a gorgeous piece, and Gold’s brow furrowed when he noticed its absence tonight.

“What’s up, Rumpel?” Belle asked, noticing his abstraction. He gave a soft huff of laughter at the nickname. She’d started to call him Rumpelstiltskin in honour of the spinning, and over time that had shortened down into Rumpel. He found he didn’t mind the moniker. He liked it better than his given name at any rate, although Belle’s lips could make Tobias Gold sound like the sweetest thing on earth.

“You’re not wearing it,” he said, nodding towards her hand.

“Oh. No.” She looked down at her fingers, curling them into fists and hiding them under the blanket that covered her lap. “No. It’s not a great fit, if I’m honest, and it sits really heavy on my finger. Sometimes I feel like I can barely move my hand, like it’s this great weight on me…” She trailed off with an embarrassed cough. “Sorry, that sounds awful, like I’m bragging about the ring my fiancé got me being so big I can’t lift my hand. It’s not like that. It’s…” She didn’t finish the sentence, taking a big gulp of wine instead. “Enough of that. How are you? How’s Neal?”

“Neal’s doing well. He seems to have taken to college like a duck to water, and he’s working so hard.” The day Neal had received the envelope telling him he’d received the art scholarship he’d worked his ass off for had been the happiest day of Gold’s life. Although he’d never deny Neal the chance to go to college if that was what he wanted, the funds that he’d managed to put away would not have held out long and he didn’t want a lifetime of debt facing his son once his studies were done.

“I’m so glad to hear that.” She gave a small smile, swirling the wine around in her glass. “I can’t believe how much he’s grown up. When I first met him he was just this bright-eyed, bushy-tailed ten-year-old, and now he’s off at college. Makes me nostalgic for my own college days. Well, maybe not the hangovers.”

Gold just laughed. He’d never been to college himself, hadn’t even finished high school, and he was so proud of his boy, the first one of the family to go into higher education. Neal could make something of his life; he had enough gumption to conquer the world if he wanted to. He got that from his mother, but whereas Millie had used her fire to argue and fight and eventually run away, Neal poured his passion into his art and strove to make the world a more beautiful place.

They fell into silence for a while, both thinking about Neal and drinking their wine, until Belle turned her attention towards the TV, snuggling in a little closer beside Gold. He put his arm around her shoulders on instinct and she leaned in against him. It was a position that they had fallen into many times over the years when they’d been sitting together like this, just drinking and talking like old friends did. The gesture didn’t mean anything, the intimacy was purely platonic. Belle was a tactile creature and enjoyed being close to the people she liked. Gold just enjoyed the warmth of her next to him, and the knowledge that for a little while at least, he could hold her and pretend that they were a little more than friends, and commit just how well she fitted under his arm like this to memory for the long nights he spent alone, wishing she was there beside him.

“What is this?” she asked presently, nodding at the programme.

“I’ve no idea. Just whatever was on at the time. I didn’t really pay much attention.” He’d just wanted to drown out the sound of the storm outside, but the wind and thunder seemed to be dying down a little and now the TV was far too loud in the small apartment. Belle scrabbled for the remote and turned the volume down, and they continued to watch the romantic drama for a while.

“Does it still count as adultery if you’re not actually married?” Belle asked, with regard to the scene playing out on the screen. “I mean, adultery implies marriage. Is it still adultery if you’re only engaged? Or is that just ‘infidelity in general’?”

Gold shrugged. His first-hand experience of adultery was on the losing side, and he’d been married at the time. Glancing over at Belle, he saw that she was no longer looking at the screen, but was instead studying her hands intently, rubbing her thumb over the slight indent on her finger where her ring should have been sitting. It was clear that her mind had wandered away from the TV and to real life, but Gold knew better than to ask what she was thinking. They had very few secrets from each other, such close friends rarely did, but he felt that he was straying into dangerous territory now, his tongue loosened by the wine and the thoughts of infidelity and adultery fresh in his mind. Belle was engaged to Gaston. She was his dearest friend, but it was clear that she saw him as just that, a friend. She had a romantic life that didn’t involve him, and he couldn’t dare to try and insinuate himself into it now. He’d waited too long to reveal his feelings, never quite finding the right moment, and now it was too late. He’d made his bed and now he was going to have to lie in it and let his heart break a little bit more every time he saw Belle with Gaston.

Loneliness, he thought, was a strange thing. In that moment, he knew that it was perfectly possible to feel lonely when you had another person sitting only inches away from you. That small space between them seemed like an ocean. Belle was right there beside him, and yet he had never felt more alone.

He took the remote from her, changing the channel and hopefully changing his train of thought. Belle made a grunt of protest as the screen changed from a passionate embrace in a janitor’s closet to some kind of inane game show.

“You weren’t really watching that, were you?” he teased.

“I might have been. I might have been incredibly invested in the janitor’s illicit affair with the doctor’s fiancée. The fact I don’t know any of the characters’ names is neither here nor there.”

Gold rolled his eyes and continued to channel-hop until Belle saw a black and white movie beginning and begged for him to stop and let them watch it. After a few minutes, the identity of the film became clear. Casablanca. Perfect. Another man in love with a woman he was destined never to have. Gold sighed, refilled their wine glasses and readjusted the sofa throw over them both.

He didn’t take in much of the film, spending most of the time watching Belle instead. She was rapt, although he knew that she’d seen the film dozens of times before, and she didn’t move at all save to take sips of her wine.

By the time the end credits were rolling, silent tears were pouring down her cheeks.

“You fool, Ilsa,” she muttered under her breath. “You should have stayed with him.”

“Belle?” Gold ventured, turning the TV off and reaching over for the box of tissues on the end table, stretching as much as he could without disturbing his weeping friend. He managed to knock them off and sighed, grabbing his cane where it was resting against the back of the sofa and scooting the box along the floor until it came to Belle’s feet. She gave a weak little snort of laughter and grabbed a handful of tissues, wiping her eyes.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” he asked, then cringed at the endearment. He hadn’t meant to call her that. Either Belle didn’t notice or didn’t care, as she made no comment, just blowing her nose and giving a long sigh.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I always cry at the end of Casablanca.”

She drained the rest of her wine and shared the remainder of the bottle between their two glasses. They drank in silence for a while, the muted sounds of the storm outside a soundtrack to Gold’s dark and tumultuous train of thought. They’d spent enough time in companionable silence over the years that this was not odd and neither of them felt the need to fill the gap, but there was something different about it today. Gold could feel it, a certain tension in the air. Maybe it was just the electrical storm. Maybe the tension was between them. Something taut and undefined. He pushed the thought aside; it would be dangerous to follow it through to its completion, which was why when Belle spoke again, her words jarred him.

“I don’t want to get married.”

Her voice was small, barely more than a breath, and she wasn’t looking at him when she said the words. She was staring at the empty wine bottle, a serious expression on her face.

“Belle?”

She looked at him now, still sombre, somewhat mournful.

“I don’t want to get married,” she repeated, her voice cracking a little on the last word. “I just… I think about it and I get this horrible trickle of fear down my spine, and I don’t know why.”

“Well…” God, there were so many things that he could say now, so many things that he wanted to say. Don’t get married. Please, for the love of everything holy, don’t get married. You don’t have to marry me instead, but please don’t marry him and break my heart. None of them were the right thing to say, of course, and he shooed the thoughts away. If Belle was going to get married, then Gaston was by far and away the best choice. He was closer to her own age, tall, handsome, good-looking. Hale and healthy and strong, everything a man should be. In short, nothing like Gold himself.

He tried to think of the best thing to say in the circumstances.

“Well, you’ve got a while to think it over,” he hedged. “It’s not like you’ve set a date. I think it’s natural to get cold feet about such a momentous decision. If it was the week before the wedding, I’d be more worried.”

Belle shook her head. “It’s not like that,” she said quietly. “This isn’t just last minute nerves. I’ve been feeling this way for weeks. Ever since…” She sighed heavily, as if the entire weight of the world was on her shoulders. “Well, ever since I said yes, to be honest. I just have this terrible fear that I’ve made an awful mistake and if I go through with this then I’ll live to regret it.”

“What is there to regret?” Gold asked.

“Oh, so much!” Belle exclaimed, and he could see her cheeks and the corners of her eyes turning pink again, tears welling and dripping onto her lap. “This will change my entire life! I mean, Gaston’s a lovely guy, but can I really see myself spending the rest of my life with him? Will he really want me for that long? Maybe this was all a huge mistake.”

“Belle, please.” Gold reached out and wiped away her tears. “Belle, you are amazing and any man should feel lucky to have you agree to marry him.” He paused, and completely unbidden, he added: “I know I would.”

Belle sniffed. “You really mean that?”

He nodded, biting his tongue to stop him digging himself even further into this rapidly deepening hole.

She stared down at her hands, clasped loosely in her lap, rubbing the ridge on her finger again.

“Gold,” she began, her voice so small and unsure that he wanted nothing more than to wrap her up in a hug and never let her go again. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

He swallowed hard. What could he say to that? It would be selfish indeed to say yes and try to talk her out of it to spare his own delicate feelings on the matter. But at the same time, Belle was so very sad at the moment, and he knew that he needed to say what she truly needed to hear.

“I think that the biggest mistake you could make would be to ignore your gut,” he said finally. “If you think that marrying Gaston is a mistake, then it probably is.”

“I just don’t know why I think that, though,” Belle said. “It would help if my gut gave me some reasons. All I know is that I just feel like it’s a bad idea to go through with it.”

“You’ll work it out together.”

“Yeah, because saying ‘sorry but I don’t want to marry you anymore’ is really going to go down well.” Belle snorted, and then burst into a fresh flood of tears, collapsing against Gold’s chest and burying her face in his sweater. All Gold could do was hold her.

He’d held her whilst she cried before. They’d spent entire nights together ensconced on his sofa like this after Belle’s father had passed away. He never got used to it though, the horrible, gnawing feeling of unavoidable guilt that Belle was terribly unhappy and there was nothing he could do to ease that pain.

Gradually her tears subsided into snuffling sobs, and the odd hiccup,

“Did you really mean it?” she asked eventually, voice muffled in wool.

“What?”

She looked up at him, red-faced and snotty and utterly beautiful.

“When you said you’d feel lucky to marry me.”

All her walls were down and she was staring into his face, searching for the truth. The painful truth that Gold knew he was going to have to give to her.

“Belle, if you married me I’d be the luckiest man alive. You’re brave, you’re smart, you’re so beautiful… All the things I’m not. You deserve the world, and it would be a mistake to marry someone who can’t give it to you.”

He certainly couldn’t. A lame spinner tucked away in his shop that barely made ends meet.

For a long time, Belle just stared at him, and Gold was on the verge of making a torrent of apologies when she spoke.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”

Gold wasn’t sure whether she was aiming for his mouth or his cheek when she kissed him, but she ended up with her lips pressed against his own. Instead of giving a quick peck of friendship and moving away, however, she leaned in to deepen the kiss, slanting her mouth over his and carding her fingers into his hair.

He should have put up some kind of resistance, however feeble. For all she was having doubts, she was still engaged to another man, and their friendship had been so long-lasting and so precious, he couldn’t let himself possibly ruin that for her in a moment of madness born from insecurity.

But he had wanted her for so long and dreamed of this moment so many times that he couldn’t resist. Belle was kissing him, she wanted to kiss him, and he wanted more than anything to kiss her back. He brought one hand up to cradle the back of her head, expecting at any moment to be pushed back, but she continued to kiss him. When she finally pulled away there was a brightness in her eyes that had not been there before.

“Belle,” he began, heart pounding. “Belle, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

“Shh.” She pressed a finger to his lips. “I was the one who kissed you, Rumpel.”

“I know, but I kissed you back, and…”

The finger was back against his lips.

“Do you want this?” Belle asked quietly. “I mean, you kissed me back which makes me think that you do.”

He was going to hell, Gold thought as he nodded, and Belle smiled and kissed him again. There was more ferocity in this kiss, more energy, as if she’d made up her mind to do something and was going after it with the full force of her being like she always did. Belle never did anything by halves, that was one thing that he had learned about her very quickly when she had started coming into his shop. She had no woolwork experience, but she’d set about teaching herself with gusto, and although her first efforts had varied degrees of success, no-one could ever say that she was not enthusiastic about her chosen hobby.

Kissing was no different, and as she wound her fingers back into his shaggy hair, Gold brought his hands to her waist, anchoring himself in the moment. If this was a dream, then he never wanted it to end.

Belle’s teeth nipped his bottom lip and he felt the sting of it smart a little before her tongue ran over the wound like a balm. It definitely wasn’t a dream then. He was really kissing Belle, and she was really scrambling into his lap, and his cock was really very interested in this latest development. Christ, how long had it been since he’d last made love to a woman? The thought of laying Belle down on the sofa and kissing her all over, hearing her moan his name in the throes of her orgasm, or having her ride him in the back room of the shop downstairs, well, those images had filled his dreams and idle hours for months, and Gold was embarrassed to admit just how many times he had taken himself in hand in the dead of night in his lonely bed to the thought of Belle as eager as she was now. It was hardly surprising how quickly the blood was rushing south, he couldn’t even hope to be able to satisfy her, and this one time that he and Belle were more than just friends would be forever imprinted on her memory as one of her least satisfying sexual experiences. He could never compete with Gaston in the physicality department. Millie had made that very clear when she’d gone off with her sailor boy.

Gold cursed himself inwardly, trying to smack the thoughts out of his mind. He was getting ahead of himself. Belle didn’t want to have sex with him, she couldn’t, and now she was pressing in closer against his chest and her hips were inching closer into his and if she hadn’t felt his erection before, then she’d definitely feel it now. Any moment now she would pull away, disgusted, and their friendship would be ruined forever because his manhood didn’t know when to call it a day.

Belle broke away, her lips plump and pink from kissing,

“I…” Gold began, a thousand apologies forming on his lips, but Belle shook her head, plunging back in against him again, and all he could do was moan with pleasure against her mouth at being allowed to remain in this blissful moment for even longer. The alarm bells were flaring in his mind, Millie’s snide voice creeping in through his ears telling him that this was going to be the worst night of his life and Belle was never going to speak to him again, even as her hands were going to the hem of his sweater and trying to get it off him without breaking their kiss.

“Do you...” Gold began once she finally let him up for air.

“Yes?”

She paused, her eyes bright with the wine and her desire through the pink and puffiness from her earlier tears, his sweater bunched in her hands halfway up his chest. There were so many things he could have said, ought to have said. Do you think this is a good idea? Do you realise how long it’s been for me? Do you really want this? Somehow, he couldn’t make his mouth form a single word.

“I want this, Rumpel,” Belle said. “I really, really do. Do you?”

Gold nodded, because he couldn’t lie to her, not when she could feel his cock hardening against her thigh, desperate to be inside her.

“Do you think we ought to move to the bedroom?” he asked.

A smile crept over Belle’s face.

“Yes, I think that would be an excellent idea.”

She slipped off his lap, standing and holding out a hand to him, and Gold scrabbled to switch off the TV and take her hand, clinging to her fingers almost as if she were a lifeline, like he was about to drown without her. His bedroom was just a few steps down the hall, and as they entered and Belle turned on the light, Gold wished he’d known that she would be seeing in here. It wasn’t untidy, but it wasn’t exactly the most welcoming of rooms. It had never had to be; Millie had taken all the homely atmosphere with her when she had left, and Belle was the first woman ever to venture across this threshold since her.

She didn’t seem to mind the spartan feel to the room though, crossing the floor and switching on the reading light before hovering by the bed, and Gold was glad to turn the main light off and join her.

“Yes?” she asked.

He shouldn’t have nodded. He really shouldn’t. She had a boyfriend, a fiancé no less, and she was his dearest, nay, his only friend. But that was just it. She was his friend, and she was so very beautiful, and she was so very sad, and of all the people in the world, Belle did not deserve to be sad. If this was what she wanted, then Gold, as head over heels in love with her as he was, could not deny her it.

“Yes,” he said, and he joined her as she turned the covers back, once pristine white now faded to dull grey from too many cycles through the washing machine over the years. Gold cringed, and Belle caught his expression.

“What’s the matter, Rumpel?” she asked.

“You deserve white silk and rose petals,” he murmured, cupping her cheek and trying to reassure her that it wasn’t anything she had done that had caused his worry. “All I can give you is murky polycotton.”

Belle shrugged, slipping her arms back around him and finally divesting him of his sweater, discarding the baggy wool onto the floor.

“They’re just sheets, Rumpel,” she said. “They’ll serve their purpose no matter what colour they are or what they’re made of.”

He had to kiss her again after that, and she gave a giggle against his mouth as she tugged at his t-shirt. Her hands were so soft against his skin; everything about her was soft, and Gold thought of his own hands, rough and scarred and careworn. He was unworthy to touch her, and yet here she was. In his bedroom, gradually undressing him. His t-shirt joined his sweater, and Gold resisted the urge to cross his arms over his thin chest, instead grabbing Belle’s waist, digging his fingers in a little as if to convince himself that she was real and not just a fantasy, that he hadn’t fallen asleep on the sofa in front of Casablanca.

Her fingers mapped his chest, nails grazing his nipples, and he couldn’t help but hiss at the sensation.

“I think it’s time you took something off me,” Belle said, bringing her hands down to cover his and then moving them to the top button of her cardigan. “I don’t want to have all the fun here.”

Just being in the moment and having her touch him was more than enough fun for Gold, and anything else was just a wonderful bonus, but nevertheless, he unfastened her buttons with shaking fingers, and Belle pulled off the cardigan and the blouse beneath it with impatient movements, unhooking her bra and tossing it aside in one smooth motion. For a moment, all Gold could do was just stare at her breasts, small, perfectly formed pale peaks with dusky pink points.

“Oh Belle,” he breathed. “You’re exquisite.”

Belle’s cheeks coloured at the compliment, and she traced a finger down the centre of his chest to his belt buckle. “You can touch, you know,” she said. “Please touch me, Rumpel. I want your hands on me.”

God, it was a beautiful mistake, doing this, but Gold had long since known he was powerless to deny her what she wanted, and what he knew he wanted too. It was selfish he knew, to take so much pleasure from something that was for Belle, to make her feel better about herself and her choices, but he couldn’t help it. She was just so lovely.

Gently he cupped her breasts, grazing his thumbs over her nipples and rubbing them in small circles; it was the same motion he used on the wool when he was spinning, and Belle gasped out under his touch. Gold’s head jerked up, afraid that he’d done something wrong.

“Belle?”

“Do that again, Rumpel,” she breathed. “It feels wonderful.”

His fears only slightly quelled, Gold rubbed her again, feeling her wriggle.

“I love watching you spin,” Belle murmured, her fingers slipping beneath his waistband, clinging to his belt as if it was the only thing keeping her upright. “Watching the way your fingers move… It’s mesmerising… The number of times I wanted to feel your hands on me, feel you caress me like you caress your wheel and your wool…”

Gold chanced to kiss her again, pressing his lips to hers as his hands stilled on her breasts, and Belle tugged at his waistband, pulling him in closer. There was a voraciousness in her kiss, a fire and desperate hunger, as if she was drowning and he was her air. Gold felt exactly the same way; and now that he was here touching her, he never wanted to let her go. Finally her lips broke away from his and she pecked little kisses down his cheek and neck, her hands dancing around to his belt buckle and unfastening his trousers, the metallic sound of the zip harsh in the quiet bedroom.

“Ok?” she prompted, her hands ready to shove his trousers down. Gold nodded. He didn’t think he’d ever been more ok, his body aching for her touch all over even whilst the snide voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that what they were doing was a mistake. Such a wonderful mistake.

It took a little bit of fumbling then as he almost tripped over the fabric pooling around his ankles, and he had to sit down on the bed to take off his socks and trousers completely. Sitting there in just his tented boxer shorts, Gold felt incredibly exposed, but then Belle shimmied out of her own jeans and settled herself in his lap, crossing her ankles behind his back and kissing him deeply, arms hooking around his neck. Her body was wrapped around him like a safety blanket, her breasts flush against his chest, the warmth of her sex right next to his cock… Gold groaned with want against her mouth.

“Are you all right?” Belle asked, pulling away with alarm at the noise.

“Yes. Yes, I’m all right. Are you?”

Belle nodded and kissed him again, carding her fingers into his hair and capturing his mouth again in a fierce, hungry kiss, possessive and needy all at the same time. They eventually made it onto the bed properly in the little breaks between kissing and mapping each other’s bodies with their hands, learning the places that made the other moan and begin to fall apart. At length, Belle tipped Gold over onto his back and knelt up, slipping her panties down her legs and tossing them off to the side, giving him his first look at her completely bare. The evidence of her arousal was glistening in her close-trimmed curls, and Gold felt his mouth begin to water at the sight, longing to taste her juices whilst the snide voice in the back of his mind expressed complete disbelief that she could be so wet at the thought of having sex with him of all people.

“Rumpel?” she hedged. “Is everything ok?”

“Please let me taste you, sweetheart,” he managed to rasp. “You look so delicious.” Inwardly he cringed at the line, but it didn’t seem to put Belle off at all, and she crawled up his body, bracing herself against the headboard so that her slit was directly above him, right where he wanted her, shining and inviting. He took her bottom, pulling her down towards him and pressing a kiss right on her folds, feeling her gasp and wriggle with pleasure. In for a penny, in for a pound, and he probed his tongue gently along her cleft, seeking out her clit. He’d never been all that good at this; Millie had so often moaned at him to hurry up and bring her off already, but he was determined that Belle would come as many times as he could make her tonight. This was her pleasure, this was to make her feel better. Anything that he received was merely an added bonus. It wasn’t about him.

“Yes!” Belle’s nails scraped along the headboard and one hand came down to tangle in his hair as he continued to lap at her. “God, yes, just like that, please, Rumpel!”

He didn’t know what he was doing to elicit such a vivid reaction, but he just kept lapping at her clit, chancing to slip a finger up inside her clutching entrance. Oh, she was so hot and wet, he couldn’t wait to be inside her. His cock twitched eagerly at the thought, jumping back to attention ready for action, and he willed it to behave itself. This was not for his greedy cock, this was for Belle, and she was perfectly within her rights not to let his cock anywhere near her. Gold returned his attention to her clit, hating himself for neglecting her needs in favour of fantasising about his own, and he slipped another finger inside.

“Yes!”

He felt Belle clench around his fingers, felt the warm wet rush of her orgasm, felt her thighs shaking either side of his head, and for a moment he couldn’t quite believe what had happened. But then Belle was moving, letting his fingers slip out of her and collapsing down against his chest, pressing her mouth against his, licking herself off his lips.

“Thank you,” she said. There were tears in her eyes as she continued to pepper his lips with kisses, and Gold reached up to brush them away, his brow furrowed. Was she regretting it, the fact that they’d done this? He thought he’d been making her feel better, but he’d never forgive himself if he’d just made everything worse.

“Belle, I…” he began, not even sure where to begin his apology but just knowing that one needed to be made. “I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t be.” Belle pressed a finger against his lips. “Please don’t be sorry. I’m not.”

Oh. Well, that changed things then. Gold felt his cock twitch again as Belle brushed her hand down over his groin, cupping him gently and squeezing his balls, tearing a groan from his throat before she hooked a finger into the waistband of his boxers.

“May I?” she asked.

“Yes.” Good lord, this wasn’t for him, this was for her, but if this was what she wanted to do then he was weak-minded enough not to argue, and he lay there mute as Belle eased his shorts down his legs and they joined her panties on the floor. She turned her gaze to his cock, lying flush against his belly, hard and hot and desperate for her touch, one she readily provided, tracing up and down the thick vein on the underside in the sweetest torture possible. Finally she stopped teasing him and settled herself back over him, rubbing her wet centre up against his cock.

“Belle, I haven’t, I mean, it’s been a long time… I don’t have any protection,” he gasped out.

“I’m clean,” Belle said, running her hands over his chest and flicking at his nipples, making him almost sob with pleasure and the need of her, the need to be inside her and feel her around him, clinging to him. “Had my gyno last week. And I take the Pill. I just want you inside me, Rumpel. Please?”

Well, he was never going to deny her, and he nodded, taking himself in hand and lining them up, pushing in gently and letting Belle set the pace. She was slow and languid in her movements, just the way Gold liked to make love, with no urgency, none of the franticness that his own nervous ministrations had held. He slipped his arms around her back, pulling her in closer and changing the angle, going deeper as she rocked her pelvis and he rolled his hips up to meet her. She felt like heaven around him and he never wanted to let her go and relinquish her hold on him. He’d be happy to have her here on top of him for the rest of his life.

But his body was evidently not of the same opinion and he felt his orgasm building in the pit of his stomach. He closed his eyes, trying to hold back, hearing Belle’s little pants and moans as she kept rubbing against him, stimulating her clit against his pubic bone as she moved.

“Are you close, sweetheart?” he asked. “Are you there? I can’t…”

The release washed over him in a beautiful tidal wave as he spilled himself inside Belle’s tight channel. Belle continued to move on him, wringing every last drop of pleasure from him that she could, and just as Gold thought that he could feel nothing sweeter, her inner walls fluttered around him and she cried out, burying her face into his neck as another orgasm took hold.

As they lay there in the cooling, Gold realised that there was no going back. This had happened, and it would forever be a part of them and their relationship. What would change now? Would anything change? Come tomorrow, Belle would go home, go back to her relationship, but could they pretend that this had never happened between them, that this was just a measure of comfort between two friends? Although he tried to keep that feeble hope alive, Gold knew that it was impossible.

Belle lifted herself up on her knees, letting his softening cock slip out of her, and she moved away into the bathroom. Gold sighed, grabbing tissues from the nightstand and cleaning up as best he could, the sweat and semen drying on his skin making him shiver in the cold night air. He got under the covers, waiting for Belle to return. Maybe he could persuade her to stay the night with him. It was so dark out, after all, and the weather was miserable. But he wouldn’t force her to stay if she didn’t want to. If she wanted to try and forget what they’d done - and who could blame her if she did - then he’d be the last person to remind her.

The pipes moaned into complaining life as the toilet flushed and the sink ran, and a minute or so later Belle appeared in the bathroom doorway. She seemed tentative for a moment, pensive, and she was playing with her fingers nervously as she took a couple of steps back across the room towards the bed.

“You don’t mind if I stay?” she asked. Gold blinked. Why on earth would he mind? He patted the pillow beside him and Belle came over, snuggling down beneath the covers and curling up against his body as if she’d been sleeping beside him every night of their friendship. On instinct, he put his arms around her, and she gave a sleepy, happy sigh in his embrace.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

“Yes,” Gold murmured. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

This had been a bad mistake, he thought, as Belle’s body went lax in his arms and she drifted off into sleep, but somehow, he could not bring a single part of himself to regret what had happened between them. The storm had died down to a calm wind whistling around the outside of the apartment, its noise soothing and gentle as it went about its way, protecting them from the outside world in their little cocoon of blankets. Gold pulled Belle in closer against his side, the comforting warmth of her body seeping into his own and making him content and sleepy. They could deal with the consequences of this most beautiful mistake in the morning. For now, he never wanted to let Belle go.

#rumbelle fic #A Monthly Rumbelling #rumbelle #rumbelle smut #woobie!rum #AU #Fic: The Most Beautiful Mistake

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