Cyril Gold stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his hips. He walked in front of the floor length mirror and examined his skin as he opened the jar of skin cream kept on the counter and started smoothing it over himself, careful to make sure he paid extra attention to the itchy, scaly skin that clustered around his neck and joints. His lamellar ichthyosis, fortunately, avoided his face almost entirely for most of his life but he still carefully coated it in the thick cream as he prepared for the day.

The jelly-like lotion still felt sticky and claustrophobic on his skin, but he was used to it by now and he didn't really have any choice about it unless he wanted to look even worse by the end of the day. Over the cream went an undershirt with the longest sleeves he could find and then a dress shirt, waistcoat, and suit leaving only the scales on his hands and neck visible. The more layers he had between his skin and the world, the stronger he felt. It was all part of a routine now – he'd done some variation of this process twice a day every single day of his life.

Once he was dressed, he took up his cane and headed out the door. He had a new tenant to meet that day, and the weather was nice so he was in a fairly good mood as he made his way downtown. Storybrooke was a small town, but the tourism business did fairly well in the summer due to the seaside so this time of year there was always a brief influx of budget to infrastructure so Cyril had papers to sign for the new fire chief today and a new librarian who he hadn't met yet, although she was probably moved in by now. She'd done all her paperwork long distance since she was coming from out of state, but her check had cleared and her background check was clean so he'd left a key for her with the building's superintendent and called it a day. He'd have to go check on her at some point this week to make sure everything was okay, but that could wait for another day.

He wasn't self-conscious as he entered the diner. Everyone here knew him, and it wasn't as though he could have kept the scales that lined his body secret even if he'd wanted to.

"Hey, Mr. Gold," Ruby Lucas said cheerfully from behind the counter. "What can I get you today?"

"Just a coffee, thanks."

Cyril wasn't sure why Mrs. Lucas had made the waitress uniforms quite so short when her own granddaughter worked there, but then again it probably helped with tips from the single men who frequented the diner. A few of them were admiring Ruby's skills at the coffee pot from the bar, and when she turned around to ring him up there was a clattering of silverware on dishes as they all went back to eating their breakfasts at the same time.

He paid and left just in time to see two strangers on their way into the diner. He felt his shoulders tense at the sight of the two men and self-consciously tugged on his sleeves. Strangers weren't uncommon in Storybrooke this time of year, but he'd never quite outgrown that sense of nervousness when he encountered them. Cyril consciously held his head up as he walked past the men, but he could feel their eyes on him anyway.

"Christ," he heard one of the men whisper to the other as he passed. "Did you see the lizard?"

Cyril turned to see the pair staring at him openly.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" he asked, waiting to see if the two would own the comment or not before he decided how to proceed.

"Nothing," the taller and darker of the two said, tapping his friend's arm. He hadn't been the first to comment. "Nice tie."

Cyril nodded and turned to walk away, but he heard the second man speak again behind him.

"He looks like a fucking crocodile."

And there it was. If there was one thing that Cyril didn't tolerate anymore, it was people speaking about him that way. He'd learned as a child the consequences of not standing up for yourself, so he turned again to face the strangers who hadn't stopped looking at him.

"Is there a problem?" Cyril asked, knowing good and well that there was about to be a problem regardless of their answer.

"Nah, mate," the first man said. "We're just messing around, don't worry about it."

Cyril held the stranger's eye for a long moment before smiling and relaxing his posture.

"I'm just kidding," Cyril said, stepping forward and juggling the coffee into his left hand and balancing it on the head of the cane so he could offer his his right for a handshake. Both men shook it awkwardly. They were laughing at his 'joke' and apparently buying that he honestly didn't care. "You're both very funny," Cyril continued. "Crocodile. That's quite clever."

"Thanks," the second man said, before realizing that Cyril hadn't let go of his hand yet. He was now looking at Cyril nervously.

"Do you know what's interesting about crocodiles?" Cyril asked, still not releasing the stranger. "They kill by holding their prey immobilized."

The man didn't have time to flinch before Cyril slammed the point of his cane into the stranger's foot and ground it down hard.

"What the hell?" the stranger shouted, yanking his hand away and collapsing. "What's wrong with you?"

"Have a nice day," Cyril said with a sharklike smile as he turned and walked off towards the pawn shop where he spent his days.

He still had paperwork to sign later for the new tenant, but he had until the afternoon to settle his nerves. People were just terrible.

Belle French was in the shower when she heard the alarm go off. It took her a minute to recognize that it was the fire alarm, since she was new in the building and she'd never heard the fire alarm go off at her old place. She cursed under her breath a she turned off the water and grabbed a towel just in time to hear someone banging on her door.

"Just a minute!" she called out, wrapping the towel around herself. She had so much going on between the alarm and the knock on the door and the nudity that she froze and couldn't decide what to deal with first. The knocking at the door turned into a loud banging and she dashed through the living room to answer whoever was there.

Belle popped the door partially open to see her building superintendent on the other side.

"Fire alarm," he said. "Everyone needs to come downstairs."

"Okay, just let me get dressed and I'll be right down."

"Sorry, fire marshal rules," he replied. "We don't know what's going on, and you have to come right now."

"It'll only take a minute."

"It's not safe," he continued. "Look, I have to go check on everybody else on this floor and you're slowing me down."

She cast one quick glance helplessly back at her apartment before nodding and stepping out into the hallway. The super pulled the door behind her and Belle held the towel tight around her chest before heading down to join her neighbors in the street.

Cyril had pretty much calmed down within an hour of opening the pawn shop. He'd met a fair few assholes in his day, and if he was going to let any of them bother him for too long he'd never get anything else done. So, as a result, he was midway through doing the books in the back room when the little bell on his door that announced customers rang out. He marked his place quickly and made his way into the front to see a woman standing there naked in nothing but a towel. He wanted to ask if she needed help, but he was having trouble remembering how to make words work.

"Are you Mr. Gold?" she asked as soon as she saw him, clutching the towel tight as she halfway hid behind an armoire. He finally managed to nod, and he saw her shoulders sag in relief. "You're my landlord," she continued. "And I got locked out of my apartment."

"Oh...dare I ask?"

"Someone pulled the fire alarm when I was in the shower," she said. "The super made me come down and I obviously forgot my key."

He didn't recognize the woman, which was odd because he knew all the tenants in his buildings save one.

"Ah, you must be Bellissima French," he said, going to the wall safe where he kept his master keys. "I'd been meaning to come check on you soon."

"Please don't call me that," she said quickly. "I go by 'Belle.'"

"My apologies. I should have asked first."

He pocketed the keys and came around the counter to flip the sign to closed and lock the front door.

"It's fine," she replied. "I just really have no idea what my parents were thinking."

"It will be our secret, then." He gestured towards the back room and she recoiled. "There's a backdoor to an alley that goes behind your building," he said. "We can go back out the front if you'd like."

She smiled at him and looked so relieved as she walked to the back room and let him lead her through the back into the alley. Belle was picking her way carefully through the pavement and he realized for the first time she was barefoot and he probably should have thought about that before he invited her into the alley.

"Are you alright?" he asked, watching her carefully sidestep a puddle a few feet from the door to the service entrance of the building she lived in.

"I'm going to be really happy to get inside," she replied easily, turning her eyes back towards him and smiling. She had incredibly blue eyes. He hadn't really noticed it before, but they were close enough now that he could reach out and touch her if he'd wanted to.

He suddenly felt self-conscious and looked away, just in time to hear her yelp out a curse. Cyril turned to see her leaning against the wall and holding her right foot up off the ground.

"I stepped on something," she whimpered before he could even ask. "I don't wanna look at it."

"Here, let me," he said, dropping down on his good knee and taking her ankle in his hand. He guided her foot to rest in one palm while he brushed the debris off her foot. Whatever she'd stepped on was gone now, but there was a decent sized cut on her heel that was bleeding fairly heavily. He grabbed a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it against it. "The good news is I'm pretty sure you'll live."

She giggled a little but was definitely in pain, so he tied the handkerchief around her foot as well as he could before he stood up and offered her his arm so she could lean on him as they both limped their way to her apartment.

Belle didn't think she'd ever been happier to bring a stranger into her home in her life than when her landlord finally let her in and helped her into the living room. She heard him doing something as she made her way into her bedroom and found a pair of legging and a tank top.

"Do you have a first aid kit?" she heard him call out while she was putting on her bra.

"In the medicine cabinet," she called through the closed door, and when she emerged it wasn't too surprising to see him still there with the first aid kit open on the table and a bowl of warm water next to it.

"I hope I'm not being too forward," he said as she took in the tableau. "I thought you could use some help."

"I appreciate it. I'm not really good with blood."

"Well then we have something in common."

He said it with a cheeky grin that let her know he was teasing and she couldn't help but to smile at him. He had a weird sense of humor, but she liked it. It made her feel easy with him as she sat down in one of the chairs.

She watched as he took his jacket off and started to roll up his sleeves a little. She could see him watching her out of the corner of his eye as he revealed more of the scaly skin that she'd had glimpses of earlier. She made a concerted effort not to stare, but the easiness of the conversation evaporated as he sat down and pulled her foot into his lap.

"Thank you for all your help," she said while he untied the cloth from her foot. "I don't know what I'd have done without you."

"Don't mention it. I'd hate to lose your business to the local jail, after all."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure getting put on the sex offender registry would probably lose me my job if nothing else."

He smiled at her, but was fairly engrossed with her foot by now. He'd been carefully washing the dirt off her foot, but now he seemed to be trying to make sure there wasn't any inside the cut itself and Belle had to look up at the ceiling and pretend to be someplace else until she felt the adhesive bandage on her heel.

"There you go," he said as she lowered her foot back down. "Good as new."

"Thanks again, Mr. Gold."

"Cyril."

"Well, then thank you Cyril."

"It was my pleasure," he replied, putting his shirt back to rights and taking up his coat. "I'm sure I'll see you around."

"I'd be surprised if you didn't. And I'll be sure to keep you in mind next time I get stuck outside naked."

"I'd be disappointed if you don't," he said. "It was lovely to meet you, Belle."

"You too."