This is a kinky and somewhat dark Rumbelle fic. It contains light bondage and rough but consensual whipping. Fair warning to my readers who might be squeamish about that.

... ...

Braided Leather and Smooth Skin

By ZionAngel

... ...

Belle lies atop a stone floor, hard and cold in the dark. She sleeps, but only barely. She wears only a plain linen shift to protect her, and lies curled up and shivering. The back of the shift is filthy, caked with dried pus and blood. Both of her wrists are shackled to the floor, and though she is so thin it seems that she could simply slip her hands through them, they hold her tightly, leaving bruises and raw skin beneath. Her hair is matted, her eyes sunken in and her lips pale. The lines and bruises and scabs on her face make her look many years older than she is.

She startles awake as a door crashes open and torch light streams into the room. She curls further into herself, as if trying to hide, as men in luxurious white robes surround her. She whimpers pleas and prayers as they unlock her shackles from the floor and drag her to the wall, where they hook her chains high on the wall. She sits on her knees facing the wall, arms high above her head, back to the men, begging and pleading with them to spare her. Her voice is weak and pained through cracked lips and a dry throat. But the men seem not to hear her, and instead pull open the back of her bloody shift, leaving the cuts and scabs and bruises and scars of countless lashes bare to the dank air of her prison. Still she begs them, promises to do anything if they'll spare her, but still the men do not listen. Then, her pleas become cries of agony as one man lashes a whip across her skin while the others recite prayers. She sobs and screams and begs, but the whip meets her back again and again and again, cutting new skin and opening old wounds again, and her back is covered in blood, the chamber echoing with the screams of a desperate woman who would rather die than endure another lash –

Gold sits bolt upright in bed, his hairline and shirt collar soaked with cold sweat. His heart pounds in his chest and he can't seem to catch his breath. The cries of agony still ring through his ears as he pushes off the tangled sheets, and he stumbles out of bed without his cane and into the bathroom on the other side of the bedroom. The bright light above the mirror is nearly blinding, but it wakes him, grounds him in reality, pulls him away from the darkness filling his mind. He turns on the cold water full blast, and splashes heaping handfuls over his face, over and over.

This is how he has always done it, how he has fought off the nightmares for many years now. He long thought that he had perfected the technique – bright light, cold water, hot tea – and that there was nothing else that could better help him forget the pained screams and bloodied scars.

That is, until she returned to his life, as she returns to his side now, groggy and still half-asleep, and she buries her face in his neck, away from the light, and wraps her arms around his waist.

Gold sighs. Still shaking, he lifts his arms and pulls Belle tightly into his chest. He takes deep and shuddering breaths, inhales the scent of her, feels her warmth, and tries – tries – to remind himself that she's here, and safe, alive and his.

"What was it?" she whispers.

He pulls her tighter. Slowly, he slides one hand up beneath her shirt and caresses her back – soft and warm and smooth.

"They, um," he says, voice weak and cracked. He tries again. "They were… whipping you. You had cuts all over your back." He doesn't use the words torture or mercilessly.

That's how the dreams usually go. Sometimes his mind will give him something a little different. He might simply watch her lie starving and freezing in the tower, or see her tears as her father turns her away. Sometimes he sees the clerics beating her. A few times he sees them brand her with red-hot iron, burning runes and wards into her skin to rid her of his evil. On a rare occasion, he will even see her in her final act of determination and bravery, running for the tiny window just as the clerics unhook her chains, and taking back her will just long enough to ensure that she will suffer no more.

But those are not particularly common. More often than not, when he wakes, panting and desperate and guilty in the night, it is with the image of whips and gashes and blood.

Belle nuzzles his neck, pulling closer. She kisses his collarbone. "I'm here, Rum," she murmurs. "I'm safe. It wasn't real. It never happened."

He sighs, and buries his face in her hair. He rubs a hand slowly up and down her back for a few minutes, trying to let the truth sink in and drive away the nightmares.

When he found her again, when she came back to him and he learned that all the hellish things he dreamt had never really happened, he expected the dreams to stop. When they didn't, he at least expected they might be replaced with new nightmares, of a queen's dungeon and a lonely, empty hospital ward. But instead, the dreams remained the same as they had for three decades prior, and somehow - from guilt, perhaps – seemed more vivid, more haunting, more frequent than before. And now Belle – sweet, innocent, brave Belle – spends far too many nights like this, holding him and comforting him and trying to coax him back into bed.

Belle sighs, and plays with the hem of his shirt for a few moments, as though she's pondering. She kisses his collarbone again and yawns, eyes still buried in his neck away from the bright light. "Maybe it would help if we actually did it," she murmurs, just above a whisper. He can feel her breath across his neck as she speaks. "Maybe if you confronted it instead of just trying to cope or repress it, maybe they would stop. Might change things." He feels her smile. "I can handle a few cracks from a whip."

And then she pulls away, squinting as she reaches for the light switch and turns it off. In the dark she tugs him along by his fingers, slow for his leg. She eases him down onto the bed and helps him tug off his damp shirt before she lies him down. Then she crawls under the covers, curls up against his bare back, and tugs the blankets over them. She kisses his shoulder and whispers an I love you, and she's fast asleep again before he can even begin to process what she said.

... ...

He stares at her during breakfast.

And during the car ride when he drops her at the library before heading to the shop.

And all through dinner, and after as she sits and reads, curled up on the couch.

He stares, because she cannot possibly have suggested what he thinks she suggested. He considers it all throughout the wee hours of the morning and all through the day and into the night once again, and no matter how many times he replays the words in his head, he always arrives at the conclusion that she simply did not mean what he thinks. He decides he must have heard her wrong, or that she meant something else by it, that she was only joking, that she was still half-asleep in his arms and scarcely knew what she was saying.

He knows full well that she loves him, even in spite of everything. But that, what he thought she had suggested, was far more than anyone could be expected to give. No, this was nothing more than a kind, concerned, eternally generous and very, very tired lover, her mind grasping at anything that might comfort him. She probably has no recollection of what she even said. And, at any rate, the very idea of what the suggestion would mean – hurt and fear and injury and pain at his own hands – is really quite terrifying. Even if, in some warped reality, she had knowingly and seriously offered such a thing, he would never want to accept the offer. So, ultimately, he decides the point is moot, and he tucks the memory away in his mind, and leaves it to be forgotten.

... ...

He very nearly does forget, manages not to think about her words through several weeks and a few scattered nightmares, and the whole incident may well have faded away and disappeared from his mind forever.

That is, had he not found the braided leather riding crop in the shop.

It happens when he's doing inventory after another sleepless, troubled night, going through some of the many boxes of stuff that seem to multiply on their own, or else come out of some vortex to another realm as if his pawn shop is Mary Poppins' bag. Inventory is a monotonous thing, labeling, recording, sorting, labeling something new, and it is an easy relief on his tired mind on days like this. The task does, however, produce the occasional odd or unusual item that he has no recollection of ever acquiring.

The riding crop, this little whip in his hands, draws his attention the moment he sees it, and it brings with it may remembered nightmares, and an offer that was never really offered at all. In spite of the cold chill of fear that comes with the thought of using it, Gold finds himself mesmerized by the thing. He runs his fingers over the strips of supple, high-quality black leather woven intricately around the handle, and wrapped around and up the body of the whip, and the firm bit of leather folded over the other end. He hits it lightly against his palm, and the leather makes firm, proper smack against his skin as it bounces back. It's in good condition, and well made at that, and any horse rider would certainly find it very much to their liking.

But Gold isn't thinking of a horse.

He's thinking of Belle – his Belle, sweet and beautiful and not at all the sort of woman who would be interested in such a thing, who most assuredly did not suggest anything of the sort all those weeks ago, who he wouldn't want to try this with anyway –

- Sweet, beautiful Belle who just walked through the door with two steaming paper mugs and a plastic bag from Granny's.

Startled, Gold quickly drops the whip back into the box on the floor, hoping she doesn't notice, and goes over to greet her with a kiss. "What brings you by, love?" he asks, calmly as he can.

She hands him one of the cups, tea no doubt, and takes the bag and her own cup toward the back. "It's slow at the library today. I thought I'd bring you lunch. Lord knows you won't eat anything decent on your own." She passes by the box with the riding crop on her way to the back office, but she doesn't seem to notice it. He breathes a sigh of relief and follows.

"Only because if I did, you wouldn't come to visit bearing treats." He grins, and loops an arm around her waist to pull her back against him. "Beasties have many tricks to lure fair maidens into their dens."

She giggles, innocent and pure and happy, and twists out of his grasp before he can do anything more. She moves to the other side of his cluttered desk and pulls a box, napkins and plastic utensils from the bag. She takes the bag and the remainder of its contents and her cup, and returns to his side. "I can't stay."

"No matter," he says, following her back out to the front. He enjoys her little midday visits, no matter how brief, no matter how recently he saw her that morning, nor how soon before he sees her again in the evening. She kisses him again, a tender, quick peck on the lips, and bids him goodbye.

She has one hand on the door, and he just a step outside the office, when she stops. "Rum." He turns, and after a pause, her eyes fall on the box at his feet. "I meant what I told you before. I can handle a little pain and a few whips, and I'm glad to do it if you think it might help you, even just a little. I think it would help you, anyway." She smiles. "It's up to you. Just think about it. And hang on to that riding crop."

And just like that, she's out the door and gone, leaving Gold shocked and confused in her wake. He may know his Belle, but it seems she is still full of many surprises to uncover.

But as unnerving and unexpected as the true offer is, the idea still holds little more than disgust and horror for him. And though he sits in something of a daze as he eats his lunch, wondering why and how she might possibly want or need or be willing to submit to such a thing, he finally chalks it up to his Belle, being a little too brave and a little too generous for her own good. She may offer, but he has no plans to accept. So, he pushes it away once again, and does not concern himself with it further.

... ...

The world and the tower prison are fractured and dark, half-broken and raging at their own confusion. The world flashes blood and burns and gashes and bruised, broken skin. The tower echoes with screams and sobs and pleas, and the very air itself sears with pain and agony and desperation and hopelessness. She exists only in disjointed flashes of thin frailty and dirtied blood and a breathing corpse, at once pleading for mercy and praying for her end.

Gold wakes, muscles strained and sore and ears ringing with sobs. He is utterly exhausted, strained and desperate for sleep, but the horror ricocheting through his brain demands he sit up, find some grip on reality once again.

He throws the covers off and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. His sweat-soaked t-shirt is so oppressive he nearly rips it off. His hands shake as he buries them in his hair, running them through over and over. His heart aches as much from its furious racing as from sorrow and fear. He doesn't have the strength to stand, to hobble to the bathroom and try to forget the dream. It's the second time in a week, at least the seventh in the month, though he's quickly losing count. And each time, it seems he's left a little more aching and trembling and broken than before.

Belle shifts on the other side of the bed, sits up, and then, angel come to save him, she's pressed against his back, arms wrapped snug around his waist, and her soft cheek rests against his bare, clammy shoulder.

"It's okay. I'm right here with you. It's all right."

Gold doesn't have the strength for this. Thirty-some years and so much grieving and pain and mourning, and now with such confusion and desperation to move on and simply be happy is wearing away at him, slowly, inevitably, like a death march, and he simply doesn't have the strength to keep going at it forever. He doesn't have the courage to keep fighting this losing battle forever, he's far too much a coward for that.

"Shhhh," she murmurs still, rubbing circles in his skin with strong, gentle fingers. "It was just a dream. It's not real. I'm safe and I'm here –"

"I want to do it."

She stops, lifts her chin to his shoulder. "Do what?"

He takes a deep breath, and his whole body shakes with it. "What you said before. It that, if…" He steels himself, finds some tiny shred of flimsy courage to say it, to face it. "If... whipping you is going to do anything, if it's going to help stop this at all… I want to try it."

Belle sits up fully, and shifts to his side so she can look him in the eye. "Okay," she nods. "When do you want to do it?"

His hands are shaking. He plants his palms on his knees and forces them still. "Tonight. Tonight, or I'll change my mind. And if…" He shakes his head, pushes the thought, the possibility away. He can't afford that possibility. "Tonight. I need to do this."

Belle simply nods, forever his strong, brave, steadfast light in the storm, and kisses him. "Okay.

She brings him a glass of water, and sits with him a while before lying him down again. She curls into his side, and as he drifts off, he prays that he has not made a horrible mistake.

... ...

That evening, Gold waits in the bedroom while Belle gets ready. He is still fully dressed, wearing his suit as though it is armor, as though it can somehow protect him from whatever horrors might be waiting for him. He fidgets with the whip anxiously, twisting it in his hands and staring at it over and over.

Countless concerns race through his head like plagues. He's quite sure he will not enjoy this, but he fears it will only make things worse. He fears it will add fuel to the fire of his nightmares, give them new life once he experiences the real thing right in front of his eyes. He fears Belle will regret it, that she'll loathe it as much as he already does once they start. He is afraid she will regret it and that it will drive them apart. He's afraid he will hurt her, that there will be blood and agony and it will all be his fault.

He twists the riding crop in his hands until his palms turn red, and he is battling with himself, part of his mind demanding that he call this off and continue to cope as he always has.

But then Belle, his beautiful, brave Belle, comes into the room, all gentle smiles and warm eyes, and shuts the door quietly behind her. She wears a silky blue robe, and her curls lie soft and loose around her shoulders. When she reaches him, she takes his face in her hands, rubbing little circles with her fingertips, and kisses him.

"Are you ready?"

He rests his forehead against hers. Her smile is easy and kind. It tells him that she loves him, trusts him, that she is calm and without fear. He thinks of the words she spoke so long ago, the sentiment she lives and breathes every day, even after all that the world has put her through. Do the brave thing, she had said, and bravery will follow. He holds onto those words, and hopes she was right.

He takes a deep breath, and nods.

"Good." Her voice is strong, resolute. He lets it guide him and center him as she plucks at his tie. "Now, here's how this is going to work. You may hit me as hard as you like. If it's too much, I will tell you so." She pushes off his jacket and undoes the top few buttons of his shirt. "You may go for as long as you want. If I need to stop before you do, I will say so. Do you understand the rules?"

She makes him kick off his shoes and socks. The wood floors are cool under his bare feet. He nods.

"Good."

She pulls two of his ties from her pocket and takes off her robe. Beneath, she wears only a lacy ivory slip. It's thin and clings to her curves, and it only barely covers her when she's standing up. She gives him one of the ties, and waits. With trembling fingers, he lays the tie over her eyes and ties it as a blindfold. She hands him the second tie, and lifts her arms up between them, wrists pressed together. He swallows hard. Carefully, slowly, so he doesn't make it too tight, he wraps the tie around her wrists several times and binds them together.

Belle cups his chin with a feather-light touch, and rises to her toes to kiss him. Then, with an air of perfect calm, she finds her way to the area rug, and sinks down to her hands and knees. From here, he can see that she is wearing nothing beneath the slip.

This, here now, is really it, really happening, and coward that he is and always has been, his mind screams at him to call it off. But his Belle is brave and strong, and even if her courage has not rubbed off on him over time, he finds he wants to be brave, for her.

With a deep breath, shaking hands, and blood rushing through his ears, he follows.

Not quite sure how to begin, he slowly runs the flat of the whip over her skin, and uses it to push the fabric up onto her back. He rubs the leather against her backside a bit more, steadying himself. The skin is perfect and unblemished, as though it is waiting for him. Belle breathes steadily, utterly unafraid, and he clings to her calm, and brings the whip down on her skin before he can second-guess himself. She gasps quietly but then she breathes calmly again. So he swallows, and brings the whip down across her skin again.

He starts out slow and hesitant, only hitting her very lightly across her bottom and the tops of her thighs. It's more than a little awkward, and still with each hit he must steady himself, make himself be brave enough to keep going. Somehow, he does it. The whip makes a sharp but faint smack against her skin, and she moves a little each time.

Steeling himself, he tries hitting with a bit more force, making her jump with a little squeak. He does it again, harder still, and this time her whimper is pained. But she doesn't tell him to stop, and it has taken him too much courage to get to this point to stop now. Gripping the rod tightly, he hits her again, and again, and again, the strikes harder and more vicious each time.

Her whimpers and cries cut through the dull silence of the room. She sounds exactly as she did in his nightmares. And he was right - hearing these sounds, watching her writhe away from the crop in pain each time is a horror to watch. But that is the point - to see it, to live it, to slay the nightmares with their own weapon. He wants to face this darkness, fight it away now in hopes of ridding himself of the darkness in his dreams later. He wants, needs this to work.

The whip raises welts on her pale skin, turns it bright red with the sting of the leather, and bruises already begin to bloom below the skin. At some point he realizes that he's hard, his cock straining against the trousers and ht belt he's still wearing. He has no idea why. He doesn't find what they're doing, the act or the image or the sounds or any of it the least bit arousing. It is nothing but morbid and horrifying to him. He still cannot fathom how anyone could possibly find this sexy, how they could want to do this on a regular basis for fun, as foreplay. And yet here he stands, hard as he tortures his lover and listens to her cry out in pain. But still, he keeps hitting her.

He pushes through the anxiety and fear, through decades of guilt and sorrow, with each hit. He forces himself to remember that none of it was real, that it never happened, that it was all a lie, that his Belle is here, safe and alive and strong and brave and safe and happy with him. And as hard as he whips her, as loud and pained as her cries become, as red and painful as her skin looks, she speaks not a word.

He is painfully hard in spite of himself, his cock throbbing with each hit. He groans loudly in need and determination. As she writhes beneath him on the floor, he can tell that she's wet, though he doesn't have the presence of mind to try and comprehend why. Her cries fill his head, so familiar and frightening. But they are liberating, too, in a way - the thing he has dreaded and feared in his nightmares for so long is here and real right in front of him, and yet he is pushing through, surviving it, not being completely destroyed by it. Somehow, inexplicably, it seems to be working, and something somewhere deep inside him begins to heal, growing stronger. It compels him to keep going, urges him on to finish what he started and be rid of the nightmares for good.

He whips her hard now, with nearly all of his strength, enough that the pain radiates into the palm of his own hand as well. Her cries are loud and pained, and she moves like she did in his dreams, writing as her body tries to find some relief. But she is brave, so very brave, and never says a word to make him stop, and he can see her forcing herself to keep going, to hold still and let him hit her again. And all of it is so much and so overwhelming, so good and bad and frightening and therapeutic all at once, but he pushes through and doesn't succumb to his own fear and cowardice, and his cock is throbbing and she's screaming in pain -

- And all of a sudden he stops, drops the riding crop and doesn't want to whip her anymore. Not from cowardice or being overwhelmed - something within him, that part of him that wept for her and is beginning to heal, stops needing to confront the nightmares. Instead, that little part of him wants to save her, stop her pain and suffering and heal her, the way he had wanted to so many times in his guilty dreams.

He drops down beside her, his knee be damned, and tears away the blindfold as he takes her in a fierce kiss. "I've got you, love," he hears himself murmur against her lips. He pulls her up with him, guides her across the floor. "You're safe now." He lifts her up and tumbles onto the bed with her, and pulls the binding from her wrists. He buries a hand in her hair, and presses hurried, fevered kisses down her neck. "I'll never let you go again." And just like that, as she frantically pulls at the buttons of his shirt, her torture ends, and he is her savior, the knight in shining armor she deserved all along.

He drags her further onto the bed, kisses and nips at her breasts through the cool silk. She fumbles with his belt and zipper, and once she has them undone, shoves them down frantically with her feet until he lies naked and hard and very much in love on top of her. He's inside her with one quick thrust, and when she cries out, her voice is full of pleasure.

He doesn't bother with slow or gentle. He takes her hard and fast, already on edge and nearly overwhelmed with emotion and sounds and sensations. He squeezes one arm between their bodies as he rocks and thrusts into her, and his fingers find her clit and rub furiously. She lets out a long, deep moan, and wraps her arms and legs around him, clinging for dear life. Her fingers dig like claws into his muscles, and her heels press hard into his lower back, driving him on and demanding all the strength and force he gave with the whip.

He devours her in a kiss, his tongue plundering her mouth mercilessly. Her tongue battles him back, returns with everything he has and more. His fingers rub viciously just there, and his thrusts are sharp and deep, she hot and wet and tight around him. When she tears away from the kiss and curls into him, pressing her forehead against his shoulder, he knows she's close, and he won't be far behind her.

He braces his free arm against the bed, ignores the twinge in his knee to find leverage, and drives into her relentlessly. He quickly pushes her to the brink, and she comes with violent shudders and a wail of sheer ecstasy. She brings him right along with her, and he growls viciously against her neck as his climax tears through him.

After, he leaves no space between them, rolls off her and onto his side and pulls her back against him, tight and protective arms wrapping around her as he nips and sucks and lavishes her neck with love.

... ...

The night leaves long, narrow lines of sore welts and dark bruises across her bottom and thighs. Belle sleeps on her stomach at night, and is always careful when she sits, choosing soft couches and upholstered chairs wherever she possibly can. But as she sits, she always glances at him and smiles, mischievous and loving. He smiles as well, relishing their shared secret.

The dreams subside. For a few nights, they occasionally carry the vague threat of a dungeon and pain, or just the essence of the old darkness, but never push farther than that. In time, these too fade.

Each night in bed, as she lies naked beside him, he pushes the covers away to study her skin. He watches night after night as the bruises and welts slowly fade, running feather light fingers over her healing skin. He remembers the night, the courage she helped him find, and finally, when he tells himself that she never suffered as he believed, his mind listens. Then, night after night, he lies beside her, and kisses the smile (mischievous and sexy and perhaps just the tiniest bit smug) from her lips.

It takes over two weeks for the bruises to fade completely, for her skin to return to its soft, unblemished appearance. And as the marks on her skin slowly heal, so does he.