A little gift going into 2017. Wanted to start it out with something fun! Enjoy!
Sophie and Stewart barked loudly and excitedly at one another as soon as Gold opened his front door and let Belle and Sophie in. Gold cringed at the sound of their barking.
"Alright, settle down – I'm going to put them outside and then go get my things." Belle gave Gold a quick kiss on the cheek before heading to the back door. She let the dogs into the yard, went back to her car, and re-entered the house carrying a small overnight bag. "Ronan! I'm going to put my bag upstairs, I'll be right down," Belle called out, as the living room was empty. Belle headed upstairs – the room was immaculate. Belle smiled to herself; Gold had arranged for Bae to be at a friend's house for the entire weekend, and aside from working the next day, they would be all alone until Sunday evening. She had been waiting far too long for this weekend, and it was finally here. Belle was going to consummate her relationship with the man she loved – the man who loved her – and she couldn't have been happier. Practically skipping down the stairs, Belle went to the back door, where the dogs were waiting. "I want you two to behave tonight, alright? This is a special night for Ronan and I," she said to the dogs as if they understood.
Belle headed into the kitchen, where she found Gold sitting at the small kitchen table resting his hand on his forehead. "Hey – what's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing, just sitting down for a bit – dinner's almost ready," he replied in a quiet whisper of a voice. The dogs entered the kitchen and started barking loudly. "Please get them out of here, Belle."
"Alright, you two, OUT!" Belle demanded, and the dogs skulked out of the room. Gold stood up and made his way to the stove. "Anything I can do to help?"
"You just go wait at the table, I'll bring everything out. Help yourself to some wine, there's a bottle chilling there."
"Okay," Belle replied, and she went out into the dining room. The table was perfectly set and the room was dimly lit. Belle smiled – she could tell how hard he had worked to make the evening special. Belle poured herself a glass of wine and waited. Stewart and Sophie snuck into the room and parked themselves next to her. "NO – you go in the living room, no begging." The dogs both slunk off once again. Several minutes later, Gold finally entered the room carrying two plates, and he set one of them in front of Belle.
"Oh, Ronan, it looks delicious!"
"I hope you like it," he said, and he sat down across from here.
"Here, let me pour you some wine," Belle said, but Gold stopped her.
"No, no wine for me this evening, thank you," Gold said. They both began to eat their meals, neither of them saying a word.
"This is very good. Thank you, Ronan," Belle said.
"You're very welcome," Gold replied. Belle noticed that he was taking very small bites of his food, and when she had finished most of what was on her plate, she saw that he wasn't even halfway done with his. "There's more if you'd like," Gold said.
"Sweetheart, are you alright?" Belle asked.
"I'm fine," he replied quietly.
"No, you're not. You've barely said three sentences to me since I got here, you didn't want any wine, you're picking at your food like a fussy five-year old – none of this is like you at all. What's wrong?"
"I have a headache," Gold finally admitted, setting his fork down.
"A headache? Ronan, if you're trying to tell me that you don't want to -"
"I get migraines sometimes. Haven't had one in over a year, there's no way to predict them. This afternoon just as I had finished grocery shopping after dropping Bae at his friend August's house – it hit me. Worst one I've had in a long time."
"Ronan – why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted tonight to be perfect, Belle, I really did. I figured I could just push through it but -"
"Well, did you take anything?"
"Took a couple aspirin but it doesn't do much. I have a prescription for them but – Belle, if I take that I'll be knocked out all night."
"Will it help?"
"Quite a bit, yes," Gold replied. Belle stood up and walked behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders.
"Okay – I will take care of cleaning up here, you go up and get ready for bed and take the medicine you need to make this headache go away."
"Belle, it's barely eight o'clock," Gold said as he turned to face her. "The dogs will want to go out again."
"I'll let them out too, I'll take care of all of that."
"We haven't even had dessert. I made a cherry pie, I know you like that."
"I'll put it in the refrigerator, it'll still be there tomorrow." Gold grabbed his cane and stood up.
"I'm so sorry, Belle." Belle gave him a kiss on the forehead.
"Things happen. I'm not angry – except at the fact that you didn't tell me this the moment I walked in the door."
"I just wanted everything to be nice for our first time."
"It will be – it just won't be tonight. Now go on, go up to bed. I'll be up in a bit."
"You – you'll be staying then?"
"Unless you don't want me to."
"If I had my way you'd be staying here forever," Gold admitted. He gave her a soft kiss on the lips. "I love you," he whispered.
"I love you. Go get some rest." Gold dutifully did as she asked and went up the stairs. Belle took care of cleaning things up, and let the dogs out one last time. When she finally made her way upstairs, Gold was sitting up in bed wearing his pajamas, his eyes closed. He opened his eyes and looked at her when she entered the room.
"I thought you'd be sleeping already," Belle said.
"Takes a while for the meds to kick in," Gold said.
"You think your headache will be gone tomorrow?" Belle asked.
"It usually is."
"Well, you'll probably be hungry, you didn't eat much for dinner. I'll make us a nice breakfast in the morning."
"Okay," Gold whispered.
"Just let me get dressed for bed, I'll be right back." Belle took her overnight bag into the bathroom, and came back out several minutes later wearing a white negligee with a long, flowing robe and carrying a book.
"What is that?" Gold asked.
"Oh, I um – I bought this earlier in the week – bought another one for tomorrow too, it's the only thing I had to wear to bed."
"Not THAT – lovely though it is. Why did you bring a book with you?"
"I bring a book with me everywhere, Ronan," Belle said.
"Planning to be that bored, were you?"
"Stop it," Belle said, climbing into bed with him. "I get insomnia sometimes, and I like to read, you know that. What did you think, that your amazing skills in the bedroom were going to put me in a sex coma?"
"Something like that," Gold said quietly as he finally laid his head down on the pillow.
"I'm sure you're wonderful. I'm not very tired yet though, you don't mind if I read a bit, do you? If the light bothers you I'll go downstairs."
"It's fine. The meds are starting to kick in."
"Can I do anything to help?" Belle asked.
"Not really," Gold replied. He turned onto his side and sidled up to Belle. Belle played with his hair a bit, and he closed his eyes and sighed.
"Good night, love," Belle whispered as he drifted off to sleep, and she kissed the top of his head gently.
Gold and Belle were both sound asleep when the dogs came charging into the bedroom the next morning. Stewart jumped onto the bed, landing in between them, he started licking Gold's face. As he did this, his stubby little tail whacked Belle in the face. Both of them grumbled as they awakened. "Stewart, stop," Gold complained.
"What time is it?" Belle asked sleepily.
"Breakfast time, apparently," Gold replied. Stewart had stopped licking Gold and began barking at him. Sophie, who was still on the floor, started barking as well.
"Alright, enough," Belle whined. Before either of them could even move to get up, Sophie leaped onto the bed, and Gold let out a loud, pained scream.
"Get this monstrosity off me!" Gold shouted.
"Sophie, OFF!" Belle yelled, and she sat up. Sophie began to wrestle with Stewart on the bed, stepping on Gold once more. Gold screamed in pain again.
"I said get the hell off!" Gold shouted, and he shoved the dog aside, then sunk back into the pillow, a look of pain covering his face.
"Go downstairs, both of you!" Belle cried, and the dogs leaped off the bed and ran out of the room. "Ronan, I'm sorry, she usually cuddles with me in the morning, I'm going to have to train her to modify her behavior. Do you still have your headache?"
"No, that's gone. Pain's a bit – lower now," he said, gritting his teeth in pain.
"Your leg? Oh sweetheart, did Sophie hurt your bad ankle?"
"Not that low," Gold squeaked.
"Well then – oh Ronan, I'm so sorry. Let me see."
"No, you're not going to see!" Gold shouted, pushing her hand away as she started to move the blankets. "You haven't even seen it for the reason you were supposed to, I'm certainly not going to have your first glance at my privates be to examine it for injury. Just – go take care of the dogs and leave me be." Not saying a word, Belle left the room. She got the dogs settled downstairs, letting them outside and feeding them. She was in the kitchen making coffee when Gold came into the room, still in his pajamas. He was carrying her robe, which she had left upstairs.
"Thought you might be cold," he said, and he walked up behind her and helped her into the robe.
"Thank you," Belle replied.
"I'm sorry I snapped," Gold said. Belle turned and faced him. "I have a temper sometimes."
"I already know that," Belle said, and she reached out and touched his cheek. "Are you okay?"
"Not particularly," Gold admitted. "I'm not relishing the idea of going into the shop today, to be honest. But – I have some clients coming in from Portland to look at a few things, and I don't really want to miss the sale. I think once I'm done with them I'll head back home and put an ice pack on it."
"It really hurts that bad?"
"Sweetheart, to be blunt, I feel like someone had taken a hammer and smashed my dick with it."
"It's probably not going to feel much better tonight, is it?" Belle asked.
"Odds are – no. Probably not." Gold walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. He took it over to the table, set it down, the grimaced as he sat down on the chair.
"Maybe you should have a doctor look at it," Belle suggested as she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at table with him.
"And tell him what? That my girlfriend's dog broke my penis?" Belle started laughing. "It's not very funny."
"It kind of is," Belle said. "I mean – I'm sorry that you're hurt but – at least we have a story to tell."
"Who would we tell this story to? No one needs to know about this." The dogs entered the room and sat down next to the table. Sophie nuzzled Gold's leg and looked up at him sweetly. "Oh, of course – NOW you're gentle."
"She doesn't know what she did," Belle said.
"Doesn't make it hurt any less. Thought I'd be done with my headache this morning, and your dog simply transferred it to another head."
"It kind of makes sense though, doesn't it?" Gold looked at her in disbelief.
"How does any of this make sense?"
"Because it's our thing. Being complicated." Gold sighed.
"Belle, I know that I – I haven't made any of this easy for you. Aside from Bae and my various dogs over the years, I – well, I haven't had a lot of light in my life. Then you showed up and – there was light. And I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't believe it was real at first, and – then I was afraid and – well, I'm sorry that it took me so long to – not be an ass."
"You were worth the wait," Belle said. "And you still are. Obviously, this weekend is a wash as far as what we'd planned on, but – we still have tonight. We can cuddle, watch a movie – we can watch that Colin Firth one that we fell asleep on last time."
"Yes, nothing says romantic evening like watching you fawn over some pasty Englishman," Gold remarked.
"Well, it doesn't have to be that movie. Liam Neeson has a couple I haven't seen yet."
"Ah, an Irishman – even better. I sense a theme here."
"What can I say, I'm a sucker for a man with an accent. I do have to admit though – Scottish is my favorite."
"Well – you're in the right place then, aren't you?"
"Wouldn't want to be anywhere else," Belle replied. Gold stood up and Belle did as well, and she walked up to him and kissed him. The dogs began barking at them.
"Go away," Gold grumbled at them, and he pulled Belle back into a kiss. The dogs continued barking.
"I think they're happy for us," Belle said.
"Well, they need to go be happy in the other room, they're killing the mood." Belle giggled a bit, and she and Gold began to kiss again. After several minutes, Gold pulled away from her, and he moaned in pain.
"What's wrong?" Belle asked.
"I think – we need to stop," he groaned, and he moved back to the chair and sat down. "I got a little – too eager there."
"Well, at least we know it still works," Belle teased.
"You're not funny," Gold said. "Go do something that's not going to excite me." Belle kissed the top of his head.
"I'll make breakfast," she said. As soon as Belle moved away, Sophie set her head in Gold's lap.
"Is this supposed to be an apology?" he asked as he pet the dog's head. Stewart started barking at him, and started to move as if he were going to jump onto Gold's lap. "Don't even think about it," Gold said through gritted teeth, as Belle watched and laughed.
