All You Sad And Lost Apostles
I'm not one to sit and spin
'cause living well is the best revenge
—REM
Mr. Gold's got a weapon that no one knows about. This is in addition to the weapons that litter his house and his pockets, because those ones are known or at least knowable, so what's the good of them? No, indeed. Secret weaponry's by far the best sort.
Call it knowledge? Certainly. Why not? His knowledge has barbed edges, just as capable of drawing blood as the blade of a knife. Call it intuition, if you like, because it's not as though he could write his secrets down and have them be anything but garbled nonsense. Call it a Plan, even, though in fact he's making it up as he goes along. He knows. He's made a living out of it, and almost a life.
There were times, in the past, when he let people chase him down. Let them call his name, and he would come to them. Well. No-one's calling him now, no-one he would listen to, at any rate, and he walks through the town and sees things click into place— just so, he's very precise— and he smiles to himself. What did he want, in the beginning? No more than he wants here, in the end.
This is the end, and he mouths as much silently to the blithely-blind Sheriff Swan, who's developed a crease in her eyebrows of late. A pretty girl, Sheriff Swan, but the worry is so incipient as to make her look cantankerous and ill. She'll have to stop disbelieving unless she wants premature crows-feet.
Crows-feet, crows-voice, the curse landed on all of them unawares and dug in. He only lets himself think about it on alternate Thursdays, between one and three. If he thinks about it too much, he will give himself away. The thinking will appear on his face and he will slide backwards into capering and grinning and giggling like a fool, and then everyone will know who he is.
Who he was. Who he is. Who he dreams he is, sometimes, because he's allowed to dream about it— no-one watches his dreams, so he can't give himself away— and his dreams can't possibly be real because he's never alone. He's never, ever alone in them, there's always someone looking at him. Once or twice it's the Queen, scowling, but he wakes himself up because he's got enough unpleasantness in his memory, and he doesn't need more. Once or twice it's the Sheriff, and she's worried and bitter but she tastes sweet. More often than not it's the girl who doesn't exist, who used to exist, who has ceased to exist everywhere, and when he wakes from those dreams he tells himself lies. Lies like, Hold on, just that little bit longer. Lies like, Everything is going to be alright.
Sometimes he falls asleep all the faster, on purpose, so he can stop lying, so he can shut up, so she can hover her luminous self over him and bless him with her mouth, again and again and again. The lies are bigger then, though, when he wakes. They take longer to tell.
He's good with lies. Comfortable. He doesn't even mind them, much, because what are lies except alternate versions of the truth? And if this curse has taught him anything, it's to come to terms with alternate versions of things. He senses Storybrooke vibrant and breathing, a falsehood all its own, the colors too bright, the heartbeat too loud. Beneath it, somewhere else tucked away where no one can see, is a silent world of fairy tales. Empty and echoing, waiting for them all.
This curse, though.
It's not Thursday. He won't think about it.
Instead, he will dig himself out of his bed, and smooth his hands downwards over what's left of an imp's body, and dress what's left of the imp's body in an impeccably tailored suit. In the mirror his reflection greets him cordially.
"Good morning," it says. "Everything is going to be alright."
This version of the truth is not comfortable; it is itchy, rather, and he wears it ill, and it doesn't match the vibrant scarlet of his tie. But he nods, mouth sad and grim, and accepts it. Lifts his head and smooths back his hair. Wears it, all the same.
In the night, in the last night, in the night past, the girl who didn't exist had come riding to his rescue, and he'd stood for years and laughed, till she quieted him with a kiss.
This morning, Mr. Gold assaults the sun, and rides against the Queen, and wins.