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Part of the Life Ain't a Fairytale series, although it can stand alone. Uber short. Written for onceuponaprompt over at LJ. Prompt is intelligence.
Intelligence Killed the Cat
A girl who wants to set the world on fire still needs a little tinder. Too bad he's not hers.
Go. Seek out the wolf. It's a menace to society.
It's early morning, the birds are chirping the same song as the day before and the day before that, and the Sheriff smiles his crooked smile as he sips his coffee and listens to Ruby discuss metaphors and similes and lyrics.
"You," he sets the mug down on the coaster, "are much more intelligent than people take you for."
"More curious," she corrects. "People here seem to think that what I look like has something to do with who I am." She leans over the counter and whispers, making him feel like he's a conspirator in a crime. "All the more reason to get out of here."
A warning glance from Granny and she jumps back like she's caught fire, and maybe she has, because he's burning. She shoots him a look, a mix of see what I'm talking about and save me, and he chuckles. There have been days when he's wanted nothing more than to get out of Storybrooke, just like her, and he's tried. Something always derailed him-Regina, a lost puppy, a tornado. He's long given up. Maybe it's fate. Maybe he never tried hard enough.
He's sure, however, that if anyone will be able to get out, it's Ruby, if only because she'll never stop trying.
In the evenings he comes in for (an) Irish coffee(s) and a game of darts and he stays long after the diner has been abandoned for other haunts. Stays and listens to her talk and dream and wishes he could grant her every wish, everything she deserves and more, but he can't. So he listens, because tinder is necessary for a girl who wants to set the world on fire.
Regina tells him to keep an eye on Ruby and he does, but not for the same reasons. Ruby is dangerous because she asks questions, and a young woman who asks questions is a threat to someone like Regina, who has somehow managed to keep everyone under her thumb for the past umpteenth terms.
Graham likes a girl who can think for herself.
Time doesn't go on, but it feels that way and he's the one Ruby turns to when Granny's rushed to the hospital for a heart attack at 2 AM in the morning. He's lying in Regina's ice-cold bed when the hysterical phone call comes.
"Can't it wait until morning?" Regina asks, as she rakes her fingernails down his back.
"No, it can't," is his curt reply, and he leaves. There never was any other option.
Granny doesn't get better and soon it feels like she's been sick forever. Ruby's life spirals out of control. She starts drinking vodka instead of coffee, starts bringing men back to the Inn. She tells him she just wants to escape, to forget life for a second, no matter how fleeting. Graham doesn't know why it bothers him. He's just keeping an eye on her, after all.
He distracts Ruby with picnics and joyrides and music, but she doesn't say much anymore. She's angry most of the time, lashing out at the world like it's out to get her, like she's the only one who life screws over. He still listens. He's not sure why.
When Regina comments that he and Ruby seem friendly, maybe a little too friendly, he responds that he's just keeping an eye on her, like she asked.
He has no idea how friendly has turned into this, into hoping that somehow she'll change back into the girl she used to be, the girl who just wanted to see the world and absorb everything it had to offer, not the girl who wants to leave and never come back.
Graham quashes the nagging realization that leaving and never coming back roughly translates to never seeing her again. The word 'never' is too short to feel like forever, and too final to be dwelled upon.
They're sitting in a booth at the diner when Ruby finally asks him the question he hoped would (never) cross her mind.
"Why do you care about me?" she asks, and he sees how foolish of him it was to think a girl as intelligent as her would never see right through.
"I can't not care," he says, and she understands his circular response. The problem is, it doesn't answer her question.
"Why did you care about me to begin with?" she clarifies, desperately hoping that the answer is not what she thinks it is.
Storybrooke decides that's too much to ask for.
"Regina wanted me to keep an eye on you," he mutters, casting his gaze away.
She feels her heart break, feels a silver bullet pierce each chamber, and decides that intelligent girls always get their hearts broken. They're too good at creating the gun.
"You're the reason Ash has to babysit Henry on Thursday evenings," she says, her hazel eyes freezing over. The lack of feeling in her voice terrifies him. "You're the Mayor's. And you care about me because she asked you to."
He prays to a God he doesn't believe in, prays that she'll forgive him.
Storybrooke decides that's too much to ask for too.
"Ruby-"
"Get out," she hisses. "Get. Out."
A/N: ...pretty sure I'm the only one who ships these two, but still, they are my guilty pleasure.
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