A/N: I was just thinking about the cave/drowning scene in Tangled and decided to make a short drabble on what Eugene may have felt or thought during the scene. It's not everyday that you admit your true name to someone after keeping it a secret for years, after all!
Flynnigan Rider wouldn't have gotten into this situation. Trapped in a cave with a seventeen-going-on-eighteen-year-old girl, waiting to drown - it just would not have happened. He glanced down at the bleeding scrape across the palm of his hand, furiously trying to think up a way out of this mess. Then, the girl - likely so frantic that she lost her head - dove into the water. She was swallowed up whole by the menace that lapped at Eugene's waist. I can't believe this, he thought to himself as he dove back into the shadowed water to drag her up. Blondie struggled and fought against him, shoving his chest and trying to yank away from him.
"Hey! There's no point. It's pitch black down there," Eugene gave the young girl's shoulders a quick shake to grab her attention; to make her stop struggling. She pinched her eyes shut, almost as if she expected him to administer a slap to her face. The way she nearly cowered from his touch made him immediately soften. She was strange, yes, and annoying sometimes, but she had also just saved him from the pub thugs and she had to have some dark secret, the way she ducked away from his touch. He pushed the sopping hair out of her face and nudged it in the general direction of her ear, dropping his iron grip away from her bony shoulders. She blinked before giving him a surprised expression, floating away from him and backing against the mound of stone blocking them in, shaking her head. He rubbed his eyes and mouth, drawing in a deep breath as he tried to scrape up an escape plan. But alas, the great Flynn Rider was useless. The young man wrapped his arms around himself. They were going to die down here. Scraps of memories began to flood his mind. Someone holding him as a wee child...someone loved him...someone beating him-but long ago, someone had loved him. He harshly pushed the thought away - what was the use of a trip down memory lane when he was going to die anyway? Now, nobody cared about him.
"...I'm so...I'm so sorry, Flynn!" Blondie was speaking, so he finally pulled his attention back to her.
Suddenly, as he looked at her scrawny build floating in the deep water, her wide eyes filled with tears, he realized how selfish he was being. She was about as open about her past as he was about his, but she was in the same situation as he. Granted, it was her fault that they were down here, but she still didn't deserve to die, he realized. Maybe he did, but she didn't. She was so innocent, and he was so...hardened by the world. And how on earth do you comfort a girl about to drown? A girl whose life was just starting, to boot. A split, fluttering thought whispered across his mind. If I could just save her, maybe I would. Maybe.
"Eugene," he blurted quietly, surprising even himself. She rubbed her nose, asking him what he'd just said. "My real name is Eugene Fitzherbert. Someone might as well know."
Blondie gave him a surprised smile of sorts. He could tell that she hadn't been expecting this, but how weird could she think his name was, when she was the one with seventy feet of hair? He felt as if a weight had been lifted from his chest, oddly enough. But why had he given her his real name? He wasn't entirely certain. Perhaps he wanted to know that, as he died, someone knew of his true identity. Perhaps he wanted to distract her from the current reality - she was so curious that, certainly, this would bring up a series of questions. Maybe he felt just an inkling of affection - no, maybe not affection; but more like a rare form of tolerance - towards the girl.
The water didn't seem so scary after his confession. It would swallow them whole, but there were plenty of worse ways to die. Hanged and quartered. Stabbed. The plague. The water would simply consume them. Nobody would miss him - geez, there might be parading in the streets at his death! If anyone even noticed. But would someone miss this girl? Certainly someone would miss her.
He pointed the toes of his boots, struggling to get a firmer hold of the stones beneath him. The water was rising. It wouldn't be very much longer. He cast a glance towards the girl, who was already floating. He struggled for something reassuring to tell her; but what could even be said? That it'd be okay that she was about to die? That he couldn't help her, and that's okay too? For a moment, he was furious with himself for not thinking his way out of this mess. Flynn Rider could've. Should've. His confession had helped lighten the mood, it seemed, but not by very much.
"I've got magic hair that glows when I sing," the girl broke through his thoughts with a knowing grin. He'd given her a fragment of his backstory, so she was giving him a chunk of hers.
"Huh?" Eugene asked in a very unintelligent manner. Was she trying to lighten the mood some more by joking, or was she a nutcase after all?
Her eyes lit up, seemingly with a realization as she grabbed at one of her long, wet tresses. She looked up at him with an excited expression, which he met with an uncertain stare.
"I have...magic hair that glows when I sing!" she exclaimed, her voice high-pitched with excitement. She gestured for him to face her. Maybe it would make her feel better, he decided, to make up a fictitious ability that would grant them an escape from this cave. He set his hands on her shoulders as he lost his footing on the stones beneath him. He didn't want to lose track of her; didn't want to float away once the water swallowed them up. Little orphan Eugene Fitzherbert didn't want to be alone, and he didn't want her to be, either. It was time. They were going to drown; not solely alone but alone together. It was an odd concept that made a painful amount of sense to Eugene. He just hated that Blondie - or no, Rapunzel - would have to feel the same way, if she did.
Or maybe the girl would save the grand Flynn Rider once more.