A/N: All I have to say is, this is what you get when you get really, really sidetracked at 1:00 in the morning. Another addition to my terrible crack-fic humor. Read if you dare!
~8~8~
"For the last time Belle, absolutely not." The Dark One growled in staunch finality. His ash wood cane seemed to thud in a last word akin to a judge's gavel rapping to end a case of the accused.
His lovely wife trailed behind him with tiny steps to match his large limped stride as they wove through the newly cleaned corridors of his home. The junk of ages past still remained stuffed into the niches and crannies of the dwelling, and yet instead of looking akin to a dragons hoard, it had an antique charm the assiduous Belle had coaxed from the shambles of mismatched articles of disregarded knick-knacks life and time had tossed away.
Belle protested with a small growl of her own as she tailed him. "Oh come now, Rum; Halloween comes only once a year. What's the harm?"
Violently pushing open the swing door to the kitchen, the business man padded over to the cold tea kettle angrily. Air gusted against his scowling features as he opened the cabinet and snatched down to cups and put the kettle on to boil. "The harm, my beloved, is that I have a reputation to upkeep." He sniffed sagaciously in a superior air.
The russet haired beauty snorted and rolled her cobalt eyes. Her looks seemed caught betwixt half bristling aggravation and amusement; not buying his paltry excuse in the slightest. "What reputation? Every year all you do is eat the caramel apples and peanut butter cookies I make for the children, leaving only the nougat and the candy corn! Then in the morning you're sick and I'm taking care of you all day."
"Well then you shouldn't make so many scrumptious cookies." He grinned in mischievous delight at her disapproving glare shooting daggers of annoyance. Sobering again, a determined look flashed like freshly melded steel in his whiskey depths. "What would everyone else think? I'd look incorrigibly stupid."
"No you wouldn't." Belle assured him softly. "Everyone will be in costume, even Prince James and Snow. I'm going as a cow girl, and you will look fabulous in the pimp suit I bought you."
Steam hissed from the kettle, rising high into the totally silent air. Mr. Gold dumbly blinked at his wife as though she had uttered some ridiculous cacophony of stark insanity. He leaned forward slightly, not fully comprehending. "I'm sorry did we just take a step into Wonderland? Did you just say you bought me a pimp suit to where to this costume ball when I've already said no at least a thousand times?"
"It's dark purple with cute zebra stripes and a huge green and blue peacock feather tucked into the sash upon the wide brimmed hat." She explained sagely, totally nonplused by the blank staring.
The Dark One simply stared at her in abject shock for a moment. His lips moved and gestured like words were falling from his mouth, and yet no sound sailed from the passage in the continuation of minuets.
After an instance of the numb revelation he forced words to spring forth. His hands made a negative motion as he stepped forward to his love. "No. Not on your life. Will not happen. I will not be subject to wearing some pimp uniform simply for your amusement at some drunken hallows eve festivities. I refuse to listen to another word. No, no, no, no, no!"
~8~ Six Hours Later ~8~
"I can't believe you made me go to this absolute waste of time." Rum grumbled distempered. Half his face was adumbrate under the slope of the tacky dark lavender felt hat, his love had insisted he wear to complete the outfit.
He wore a stiff, plum colored suit that made him feel more illuminated that a neon sigh blinking outside Granny's Dinner. Overtop the gaudy suit was a long, also dark purple, overcoat with fur lining upon the cuffs and the fringes. His cane, which he was beginning to suspect had given her the inspiration for the utter ridiculous outfit, tapped in rhythm to his grousing steps whilst Belle tugged him into the banquet hall hosting the annual get-together.
Well I do like this hat, Rumpelstiltskin thought to himself dourly as he slunk begrudgingly into the brightly luminous banquet hall.
Dark pumpkin colored lanterns hung from the ceiling and the slowly whirling fans. Opaque cobwebs were garlanded upon the rafter with huge fake tarantulas super glued to the fabric. Glow in the dark stickers of smiling eerie, green skeletons were tacked upon the walls, and the lights had been dimmed to a more annoying than frightening low darkish orange to give it that supplanted 'spooky' atmosphere.
The huge annex was thronged with people in furry, clunky, thin, huge, ridiculous costumes, all with some form of drink clinking in their hands. Lurid voices rose above the band, playing old spooky songs, from the tumultuous mass like summer thunder, each chatting and talking with friends and enjoying the one day a year where ghouls and goblins ruled the night and when you were not looked upon as half mad running down the street with tiny pink wings and proclaiming yourself the tooth fairy.
Costumes of all sorts ranging from the generic to the outlandish milled in an awkward menagerie of cat costumes and the under achieving 'ghosts' which were no more than old sheets with two eye holes poked out.
"I see Belle managed to haul you to this idiotic thing." James observed with a rueful smile before sipping at his sweating glass of vodka.
A scowl burned upon the clean shaven features of the nattily dressed Dark One who shuffled towards the husband of Snow White. Prince James, rather unimaginatively was garbed in a red and blue superman suit; fluttering cape and all.
He gave the business man a cursory glance from behind his fifth dwindling glass of alcohol. "Well, at least Mrs. Gold gave your costume some imagination at least. Snow went as Wonder Woman, meaning I had to be the meat shield."
"I cannot relate how I thoroughly despised having to be dragged to this." Gold admitted darkly. Tugging at the bright amethyst shirt, he gladly accepted a glass of whiskey from one of the milling servers dressed as a zombie. His sharp eyes made certain to pin point all of the waiters in their rotation. It was looking to be a long night only to endure the humiliation of the festivities with the hard balm of spirits.
Taking a long draught of the fiery swill, he continued insipidly. "I am the Dark One, stealer of children, rued and cursed throughout the old land. And yet, my darling wife, shanghaies me to this drunken bash to tote me around in the costume she all but wrestled on to me!"
"Look on the bright side." James shrugged and drained his glass. "At least we are not completely humiliated in what we're wearing. Our costumes have a certain amount of decorum, if you will, for these types of things."
Rum snorted grumpily, his back leaning against the furthest wall to shrink away from the dancing fools and tipsy party goers. "If we're not the worst it could get, how bad could this thing be?"
As if on cue, Graham waddled by in a ridiculous Winnie the Pooh outfit. Under the smiling yellow of the silly bear loved by all children, the sheriff glowered at them in challenge to any of them to dare speak a word. "One phrase, gentlemen; one obtuse word and I will make sure you have a ticket on your car every day for the rest of your natural born lives."
"You lose a bet to Emma?" Rum inquired with an amused grin. Seeing the sheriff clad head to toe in one huge yellow bear suit in a red shirt, did assuage his pride just a fraction.
Graham sighed dreamily and stared off into space, momentarily lost in some hallucination of past or present. "No, she promised me things…wonderful things."
James chuckled. "Yeah, Snow promised me those 'wonderful things' as well."
"Crap, all I bargained for was cookies and caramel apples and a belly rub in the morning." Rum's head suddenly shot up in alarm. Had he really said that out loud?
"Hey look here comes…Archie?" Graham expertly changed the subject from the implications of what they would be receiving for sacrificing their manliness to wearing cheap, degrading costumes to a drunken carouse.
Indeed, the physiatrist awkwardly peeled through the mass of tightly packed, laughing bodies to come out at the far wall, the other prominent men of Storybrooke had congregated. His normally insipid, timid features had been smeared with red and black war paint or mascara from Ruby's collection of beauty products. A red strip of cloth had been tied around his forehead and a bandolier was slung crisscross about his pale almost sunken chest.
"Apparently Ruby enjoys Rambo movies." Archie clarified and moved to his place beside the giant Winnie the Pooh. He heaved his scrawny, pasty shoulders in a small accepting shrug to his fate and cocked his head slightly to the side to watch his love and other chat and laugh, probably at them. Crossing his arms he sighed heavily. "It's okay though. I am going to get…"
"Wonderful things, yes we know." Gold finished in embittered dryness; angry he had missed out on the 'wonderful things' himself.
James let a huff of an amused chuckle blow from his lips as he beckoned the zombie waiter over and swiftly disarmed the snickering fellow of the entire tray of ice chilled drinks ranging from hard liquor to olive bobbing martinis. "Don't be sore you traded your 'wonderful things' for cookies."
Before the Dark One could parry with a stinging retort about the tiny, drunk Wonder Woman, also known as Snow White spinning around in a wasted delusion, Belle finally managed to track him down.
Her cow girl outfit suited her perfectly with the spurs on the brown boots that clanked every time she took a pitched, wobbled step. A maroon colored vest and bandana fitted about her form and the tiny skirt she wore made Gold's eyes trail down involuntarily past her waist.
Tiling her ten gallon hat sassily, she offered her love a half drunken smile and pulled at his purple sleeve. "There you are! I was wondering where you went to! I was beginning to think you heisted a broom stick and took off back home." Gripping his suit jacket she pulled him close, the alcohol steeping heavily about her. "Come on, let's dance!"
"Dance!" Rum stammered in protest, whilst the chuckles of his fellow whispered behind him. "Is being here not enough? Now you desire to show the whole of this miserable little town my two left feet?"
Belle shook her dark amber tresses. "Oh no, I would not try to humiliate you by myself. You see it's not just you." She inclined her head behind him.
Snow, Ruby, and Emma grabbed their loves and began to drag them like cave women of ancient past to the heavily pressed dance floor. "See, it's not humiliating if everyone is dancing against their will." She attempted to balm his pride.
"And besides." She giggled and whispered in drunken seductiveness into his ear, making the hairs on the back of his neck tingle and prickle with expectation. "You don't just get 'wonderful things', you get super, awesome, you won't be able to walk for a week, things."
Thrilled by the ever pleasant prospect of being rewarded for things he loathed, Gold cleared his throat and offered his love a small peck upon the temple. If dancing at a costume ball dressed as a pimp would get him 'wonderful things' he was on it. "Well then, shall we try our hand at the electric slide?"