AN: ok so, I love lacey so much. I just want her and rum to be happy, fuck morality tbh. I mean I love belle, but I relate to lace a lot and I just… I care about her happiness a lot.

He couldn't imagine what price he'd ask such shallow people. Perhaps he'd ask the little king to give his throne, in the end it was all he had. He figured he see what they offered, first. Rumplestiltskin hadn't made such a mistake in a long time, and maybe he was overdue.

Their first offer, gold and glitter and baubles may have taken, but it didn't give. There's nothing to be done with riches, they can't sate the magic.

And so the old man pointed his short, fat finger across the room, towards a young woman, clad in white, eyes staring off towards nothing and towards the vast everything of the world, who stood as though chained by invisible iron. Though he could feel there was no magic, he knew her bindings. "Take the girl. She won't be fit for any virgin sacrifices but"- the court snickered, "she could still be of use I'm sure".

He had contemplated asking for her, taking her from her grabby little pop, but now that they'd offered, it felt… wrong. His stomach churned.

"You can't sell her, she's not yours to give". The dark one's voice was monotone.

And immediately after, booming from across the room like he'd never been told to be quiet (and he probably hadn't): "He's right, she won't be going. Lacey's my fiance, the demon won't hav-"

She turned suddenly, moving imperceptibly and astronomically farther from her betrothed, and looked Rumplestiltskin up and down and (finally) cutting off the man's voice. "Yes, he will". Her eyes were fierce as she walked past him towards the door, leaving her father and fiance red in the face and sputtering. "No one decides my fate but me"

"It… It's forever dearie". It took him a second to find his voice, and even after he couldn't create his visage.

She nodded, almost offhandedly, as if a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders and from her heart.

Lacey's heart beat faster. The future didn't matter, fear didn't matter: this was an escape.

When they reached the dark castle, he drops the act all together.

"You don't really have to stay you know". He speaks stonely and gently. She doesn't mirror his tone.

Her anger and sorrow melt away entirely, a surprised smile crawling to her lips. "Can I though?" she asks, curious and as though he'd put her out. "I've heard so much about your castle and if I'm going to see the world… well I don't have anywhere better to start."

He nods, muddled and unsure.

"Thanks, magic man". This smile is different, and it takes him a minute, with her biting her lower lip, to realize he never told her his name. But when he does, she just grins and says, "oh, I know of you", before wandering off into the heart of the castle, footsteps echoing loudly.

It's five hours later when they speak again, and when he realizes how beautiful she is. He makes them both dinner and her laugh is starlight. Then she says, head cocked, "I want wine". She doesn't ask or decorate her words with please or thank you. She's demanding and she's blunt. Before he even realizes he's cast a spell, it appears in a haze of aquamarine smoke, which she reaches out to touch. "Magic man", she murmurs, and she looks like a storm. Her hair is a hurricane and her eyes are the sea. Rumplestiltskin stares down at his shellfish.

She tells him about her past, about her frequent escapes from her marble palace and the forest men and their ambrosia and their kisses, about how deeply she loved her mother, about her boorish betrothed and his hard hands and harder words, about the pious clerics and the righteous lords, and about all the things she hates. Bloodlust "I'm going to see every part of every world, even as far as the stars and depths of the sea", her voice is breathy; Wanderlust. She looks at him through hooded eyelids. Lust, too.

Her legs tumble out from slits in her skirts and he hears laughing as she talks to the goblins he can't find the heart to send away. He watches her, sometimes, dancing alone, without a care in the world. He wonder's how anyone could have tried to chain her down.

Lacey's always been bad at love, that's what they say. She thinks she's too good at it, so good it never lasts. Like she loves everyone who kisses her and hates them when they stop. People call her a whore, a sinner. She's never minded, there's no getting womanhood right in their eyes, so why care anyway. She's spent as long as she can remember trying to be her own. Trying to belong to herself. Or, when she's with someone who's really, really good, trying to belong to whom she chooses.

With him though, it's easier. Maybe not love (or maybe it is), but as close as she's been to it in a long long time. She feels like, for once, she can be completely his and completely free. His darkness and his power are alluring, and she can't help but feel… safe with him. Not trapped or sheltered, but like that feeling of curling up on the softest bed after a long day, like the feeling of surrendering to sleep when you're worn out in all of the best ways. Maybe he's just easy to love

He makes her a charm, golden thread and moonbeam and blood. "This'll take you anywhere" he grins, a real "dark one" grin. She isn't quite so disarming anymore. She's almost comforting. He prays she takes it and never looks back.

She holds it like it is love itself, gently like a baby chick and firmly like a diamond.

"Just think of any-", but she's gone before he even finishes. It's for the best. He says it almost one hundred times.

It's 27 hours later (or 26 or 28 or who-knows how many, it's not as if he's been counting) when she returns, laughing and holding a basket of glowing, colorful orbs. He sees a lipstick stain on her neck, but he doesn't think about it.

"You…'re back?", he asks from the seat at the spinning wheel, failing miserably to sound aloof, and she looks surprised.

"Why wouldn't I be?" He really… likes her. And he feels awful. He feels like a lecher and a wretch and, well, a monster. She's beautiful and she's strong and she's abused and everything about her screams that he must not touch her.

Everything but her, that is. She's pouting her lips and batting her eyelashes at him. "Magic man, what are these?". He smiles, even if he shouldn't.