Summary: Her brother's a bratty artist-slash-jock and her step-mother has serious vanity/control issues. And then she meets him. And her first thought is that he's an arrogant jerk with a cute smolder. Modern college-ish AU oneshot featuring all human characters.
A/N: Okay, so maybe I've been hit with a writing block that was suddenly lifted upon re-watching Rapunzel. Welp.
Starlight
He's been a nobody his entire life.
Growing up in an orphanage, he became obsessed with "The Tales of Flynnigan Rider" and all he wanted to do was be just like the main character – all charismatic and rich and living such an easy life with the world at his fingertips.
He's selfish, and he knows it, and he's honestly surprised he managed to make friends.
Okay, so the Stabbington brothers were more like the backstabbing brothers, but Maximus has been a true friend through and through. Funnily enough, they started off as enemies – Maximus came from a family with a long standing history of going into law enforcement and/or military careers and he's no exception (he's enrolled in the police academy and slated to graduate the following year at the top of his class) – and he'd been caught stealing fruit from a market stall. Maximus swept in, gave the vendor some coins, lectured the younger boy, and they'd been 'friends' ever since. And despite their initial animosity, they become friends after beating the crap out of each other the first couple times and realize they're much better off as allies than enemies.
Pascal's being such a demanding brat (he wants to go to the art store again, even though they just stopped by a couple days ago), and Gothel's being a pain in the butt as usual (apparently, she needs the freshest parsley to make hazelnut soup and the parsley they have is almost three hours old).
She drops her house keys on the table and sighs. She's only an art major in her first year of college – is it really too much to ask for some peace from time to time?
Her younger brother may be a brat at times, but she can't deny how protective he is of her. He's in his last year of high school, and sometime between junior year and senior year he decided just that. Oh right, it was the summer they discovered the truth.
They're blood-related siblings (she can't believe it sometimes) and she's not quite sure how they ended up with Gothel – she wasn't old enough to remember it. She just remembers cleaning up in the attic one day and finding their birth certificates. (How utterly cliché, but it's life.) She eventually tells him, and he doesn't respond, so she leaves him alone and lets him stew in his thoughts. When everything finally clicks, something clicks in her brother and it's like a switch flips on, turning him into an overprotective-younger-sibling. It's hard to believe he's an artist and a jock. (So unfair.)
Gothel, on the other hand… well, she's definitely not mother material. She used to be a model when she was younger but washed out rather quickly due to a skin condition where she aged quicker than normal. She actually looks her age. No amount of medication could help her, and all the cosmetic surgeries she had were met with minimal success. As a result, she constantly applies Botox to her skin and slathers on cosmetics. How can she afford it? She's some high-end makeup consultant to so a couple modeling agencies, she not only receives luxurious samples of makeup products, but she also has a pretty big salary to back up her spending.
And Gothel still spends more money on makeup and hair products than Pascal and Rapunzel spend on art supplies, combined. And that says a lot. Of course, she makes up for it by making Rapunzel and Pascal take public transportation instead of buying them cars. Cheapskate.
"Rapunzellllll!" Two contrasting voices yell/scream/shout.
This time, she sighs out loud and drops her head on her table, wondering who she killed in her past life because she doesn't remember doing anything to deserve this.
Peace. Please.
"Coming," she mutters, picking herself up and grabbing her keys.
With any luck, she'll make all the necessary stops and won't be back too late.
He decides it's a nice day to take an afternoon stroll, so he shoots a text to Max to tell him not to worry (interesting how his best friend insisted on sharing a flat together and they eventually picked a place that was somewhat halfway between the police academy and the university that also happened to be walking distance).
He idly observes the world moving around him, mentally pointing out useless bits of information to amuse himself (the girl with the summer scarf, coats for sale, a book signing that was two hours past, a coffee shop advertising the world's best coffee).
The sun's setting, and the weather's starting to cool down. He thinks to himself that he should probably turn around and head back to his flat at this point.
And then he sees her, standing under the lamp post, glancing off into the distance. Her blonde hair's braided and there's flowers braided in, and it's long. It brushes past the back of her knees and he wonders how long her hair is when it's unbraided, and if it drags on the floor, but then he supposes that she keeps it braided for a reason. She's wearing a pink dress that falls to her knees and flats, and she's carrying a couple brown paper bags.
He doesn't usually have a deep first impression of most girls beyond the occasional 'she's hot' or 'I'd tap that'.
But he sees her and he thinks she's starlight.
It takes her forty-five minutes to walk to the art store she and her brother frequent, and exactly three minutes to find what she's looking for (what Pascal demanded she buy for his senior project) and she sweeps up the oil paints and takes them to the cashier. Thanking the store manager for their frequent-customer-discount, she takes the bag of paints and pays.
The grocery store just had to be the opposite direction. It takes her a good hour and a half to walk there and five minutes to look for the 'freshest' parsley. She waits impatiently to pay (it's just freaking parsley, for goodness' sake, and why are there three open checkout lanes for rush hour when there are at least twenty people standing in line?), practically shoves exact change at the cashier, grabs a paper bag, throws the parsley in, and leaves as quickly as possible. As much as she'd like to linger and mingle, she doesn't want to hear another one of Gothel's 'lectures'.
She glances at the watch on her wrist (that she liberated from Pascal right before she left) and notes that the bus will arrive in fifteen minutes if she wants to wait, and it's a five minute walk to said bus stop. It's either that or a forty-five minute walk home.
Sighing, she decides to buy a snack before heading there. She grabs a packet of chocolate chip cookies, tosses it at the cashier, pays exact change again, and leaves. She'll be nicer next time. If Gothel doesn't piss her off.
She decides to wait under a lamp post (partially for safety as the sun's beginning to set, and partially because she doesn't want to spill cookie crumbs on her dress or, you know, the 'freshest' parsley), when she sees him.
He's fairly good looking, she grudgingly thinks, with windswept shaggy brown hair and dark eyes. He's wearing a varsity jacket and she recognizes her school's logo/mascot on it.
And then he spots her and his lips tilt upwards in amusement as he stares at her unabashedly.
Her first thought is somewhere along the line of, 'He's an arrogant jerk with a cute smolder.'
"I'm Flynn Rider," he introduces with charming (so he's been told) grin.
"Rapunzel," she responds wearily, eyeing him with suspicion (as if he were a serial killer and she was his next victim), and he can't help the grin that overcomes him.
"Got a last name to go with that?" He asks curiously. Most people don't think twice when introducing themselves, but then again they're not as confident as he is, he supposes.
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," she quips sassily.
She's got spunk, all right.
He likes her already.
He's cute, she'll admit.
Okay, he's kinda hot.
He probably noticed the look she gave him (the questioning one that's silently asking if she's going to be his next murder victim but she's not really expecting a response) and after her quip, he laughs easily.
He reassures her that he's not planning on killing her and hiding her body, and she doesn't immediately relax. Because isn't what serial killers tell their victims before killing them?
She's thinking of what to say in response when they're oh-so-conveniently interrupted, to her inward relief.
"RIDER!" A voice yells, and she spots a man around Flynn's age wearing a police uniform with a name tag on it that states that he's currently enrolled at the police academy.
He's got light blond hair, so light it's almost white, and a friendly smile.
"Hey Max," Flynn greets easily.
Max looks at her questioningly, and she is spared an interrogation by the arrival of her bus.
She easily waves goodbye as she boards.
It's not as if she's expecting to run into them again.
The words tumble from his lips the moment they arrive at their flat, and he can't help himself (although he can't help but wince at how completely sappy he sounds).
"Her name's Rapunzel and she's starlight,"
Max laughs. "She's pretty, all right."
"She's beautiful."
His friend rolls his eyes good-naturedly and pats him on the shoulder. "It's completely understandable – you're love struck."
Love struck, huh?
It doesn't sound too bad.
She's so completely startled by his presence outside her class she slaps him with her purse (and by default, frying pan).
Flynn yelps in surprise. "You broke my smolder!" He accuses, hurt flashing across his eyes.
She laughs. "You poor thing. That's what you get for scaring the life out of me!"
He rubs his torso ruefully and glares at her purse. "What do you have in there anyways? Bricks?"
She grins, pulling out her frying pan.
He stares at her, gobsmacked. "A frying pan?!"
They're interrupted by deep hearted laughter, and she notices Max leaning against the opposite all, watching them in amusement (if that grin of his is any indication, that is). "You guys are too adorable."
She frowns at that statement, and an idea comes to her and she smiles wickedly at him.
"You're just a big teddy bear, aren't you?" She coos, and Max blushes.
She laughs, and glances over at Flynn, and sees that he's watching her with the strangest look in his eye. It's both intense and soft, and she thinks she must have imagined it, because if she were to put an emotion to the look she swore she saw for just a fleeting second, it'd be… tender.
And then she blinks and he's smiling at her, so she smiles back.
But hell if she'd admit it…
Because he really does have a cute smolder.
"I like her." Max smirks as they head back to their flat.
"Shaddup." Flynn grouses, but he can't help the smile on his face.
He's thinking of the smile she gave him outside of her classroom.
He was watching her and Max, and he found himself lost in his thoughts and thinking of days like this, carefree laughter and good memories, and him and her, and Max, and-
He blinked and found himself staring at her, and she had the oddest look on her face, so he sent her a smile, and she smiled back, and all he could think was that her smile lit up the world.
When he goes to sleep that night, he dreams of starlight.
They hang out a couple times a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he finds himself waiting outside her art class (because he only has one class on those days and they're in the morning) and they usually end up at a café or the library.
It takes him a month to muster the courage to ask her out properly, to which she smirks knowingly and asks playfully, "What took you so long?" and then smiles and catches him off guard when she leans on her tippy toes to brush her lips over his jaw. And he'll never admit it, but he swears his heart stopped beating.
She eventually introduces him and Max to Pascal, her younger (kid) brother.
Pascal, in typical little kid fashion (never mind that he's not so little and not really a kid), likes Max (read: hero worship) but doesn't like him. Go figure.
But the surly teenager eventually relents, stating something along the lines of Flynn better making his sister happy or else (and punctuating his point with a hand-slash movement across his throat in the universal gesture for "You're dead"), and ends his statement by gesturing to his eyes with two fingers, then reversing it to him in the universal "I'm watching you" sign.
Rapunzel (brave girl) just rolls her eyes and tells him she'll buy him new oil paints, and the kid practically lights up like a Christmas tree.
"Does he know who you are?" Gothel asks one evening.
She shrugs. "Does it matter?"
There's an odd glint in her stepmother's eye as she takes in her stepchildren. Finally, she shrugs and says, "Your last name is Corona."
What.
The.
Hell.
She catches Pascal's eye across the room, and he looks as stunned and surprised as she feels.
Corona…
As in…
"The owners of the company famous for their lantern designs." Gothel confirms.
"WHAT THE HELL!" Rapunzel shrieks. "You don't just keep something like that from us and drop it on us like… like this!"
Pascal frowns. "They're alive. So unless they gave us up for adoption, which I doubt because Corona hosts a lantern festival every year on Rapunzel's birthday in honor of their missing children…"
The unspoken ugly truth lingers in the air between them.
"I can't believe this." Rapunzel hisses.
Gothel shrugs. "So maybe I kidnapped you. You can go home now."
"I'm calling the cops." Pascal states bluntly, pulling out his cell phone and dialing. Neither women miss the anger flashing thorugh his eyes.
Gothel is arrested. Surprisingly, she doesn't put up a fight.
The siblings later find out that she confessed to everything quite compliantly and without a lawyer, then agreed to a three year sentence for kidnapping. She also admitted to putting a permanent dye in their shampoos to alter their hair color – which should return to their normal brown if they stop using it.
Rapunzel is so disgusted she asks for a pair of scissors and promptly chops off her hair. It's choppy and a little unruly, but it feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. Pascal, on the other hand, borrows an officer's razor and shaves his head. The police officers watching the scene can only watch in dumbstruck amazement before muttering something about teenage rebellion (never mind the fact that they're not quite teens anymore).
The siblings find themselves brought to an empty room at the police station where a couple kind officers bring them dinner in the form of burgers and fries with milkshakes. (They amuse themselves with the complimentary stickers.) A couple hours later, they find themselves face-to-face with people they've never met in their lives, but there's no mistaking the remarkable similarities in their hair (now that they know their true hair color) and eyes.
For what feels like an eternity, both pairs stare at one another in silent amazement, and then without a word, they find themselves tangled up in arms and there's tears all around as the voids in their hearts slowly fill.
The next time he sees her, he blinks. Her hair's short, and brown.
"Nice hair," He comments, unsure of what else to say.
She offers him a small smile. "Thanks. A lotta things came up and I figured it was time for a change."
Change, huh?
He sighs deeply before finally confessing the secret that's been at the tip of his tongue for the past couple weeks, "My real name's Eugene Fitzherbert."
She blinks in surprise, but takes it in without so much as a mischievous smile before responding, "I guess I should tell you my real name too. I'm Rapunzel Corona."
He freezes almost immediately.
Corona… as in…?
It hits him all at once as he splutters helplessly, "C-C-Corona?!"
She frowns. "You gonna start bowing to me or something? 'cus if you do, I'm going to swing my frying pan at you."
He scoffs. "You wish, your highness."
He expects her to respond with some sassy remark, but instead she smiles at him with a beautiful smile and responds softly, "Good."
He's selfish, and he knows it.
Because he wants her, all of her beautifully bright eyes and shining intelligence and sunshine kisses and starlight smiles and–
He wants all her starlight to himself.
"Did I ever tell you I have a thing for brunettes?" He quips cheekily.
She laughs, and then she throws her arms around his neck and pulls him down for a kiss.
He's selfish, and he knows it. But he's unapologetic about it, and he looks down at the woman in his arms and thinks she doesn't mind either.
FIN.