Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary: Flynn Rider wasn't going to let any one bedazzle him, and especially not a girl who'd never really lived before a day in all her life.
Warnings: Het
Word Count: 1,151
Date Written: 24 August, 2011
Challenge: For a XDisneyDreamers LJ comm's monthly game
Disclaimer: Flynn, this version of Rapunzel, all other recognizable characters mentioned within, and Tangled are & TM Disney, not the author. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
"I'm a bad daughter," she said, pouting.
"No, you're not," Flynn spoke, taking pity on her at long last. He could tell from the way she reacted to the smallest of things around them that this was not only Rapunzel's first road trip but, in actuality, her first time going outside her tower. "I don't know of any other daughter who would have stayed in that tower for as long as you have."
She looked at him in surprise, her head cocking slightly to one side. "Who said I stayed in there?"
He spread his hands wide open before him. "Look, Princess," he chided, "you can pretend all you want, but nobody takes such delight in getting their feet wet or stops to watch a caterpillar crawl. You can admit it or not, but I know this is your first time going outside your tower."
Her mouth fell open in surprise. His hands perched naturally on his slender hips, and he shot her a broad grin. Flynn loved knowing when he was right, even if the circumstances were horrible. He couldn't imagine spending so many years locked up in a tower and never once leaving it when you had the power to do so. The only reason why he'd ever stayed for years in a place was because he'd had no way out, and as soon as he'd gotten the means, he had been gone from his jail, the orphanage, and had never once looked back.
Yet Rapunzel continued to look back toward the tower, bite her trembling lip, and think about running back to its safety and being there when her mother returned from wherever she had gone. She was a mystery that he was slowly beginning to unravel and which continued to astound him. He'd never known any one else like her. No one else had such naivety, such innocence, but then every one he'd ever known before her had already been knocked around by the cruel world that surrounded them all.
Rapunzel leaned forward and gazed at something beyond Flynn. Her shimmering, blue eyes grew wide with amazement, and he wondered if she was looking at another bug or a blade of grass blowing in the cooling wind. "Ooh, pretty," she murmured, and then she was on her feet and running like a shot out of a gun. She zipped around him, and he turned in her wake to watch her slowing down as she neared the bluebird.
She started to whistle, and he watched her in growing amazement as her whistle sounded so much like a bird's call that, had he not been watching her, he could not have told the difference. She stopped running entirely, knelt down, and slowly closed the distance between herself and the bird, holding one hand aloft. The bird lowered her head to her hand, studied it, and finally hopped onto her palm. Flynn's lips parted in silent surprise. He watched her as she slowly stroked the bird.
The bird's tiny head pressed into her finger, and Rapunzel continued to stroke her soft, blue feathers with a hand that, though Flynn's head was still stinging from its ferocity while wielding a frying pan, the outlaw knew was as gentle as a caring mother's, as the gentle breezes blowing around them, or a young lover's first, tentative embrace. He swallowed hard. He didn't want to think of Rapunzel in that capacity. She was too naive. He wouldn't take her heart and leave it in pieces. He just wanted to get his crown back, and then he would be out of her life, leaving her with her naive and innocent ways mostly in tact.
The bird became distracted as she saw a worm wriggling in the green grass. She hopped off of Rapunzel's finger to resume her hunt, and Rapunzel turned toward Flynn. His breath caught in his gruff throat as the sunlight beamed onto her hair and made its golden strands sparkle with a glittering beauty beyond anything he'd ever seen before. "Beautiful, isn't she?" Rapunzel asked quietly, and Flynn nodded.
He could see the bird pecking the worm behind her, but he didn't make any comment of the cruelty happening just behind the dainty, elegant female before him. Instead he nodded for she was indeed beautiful. Rapunzel was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, and he could stand and watch her, especially the way the sun struck her hair, forever. His heart thudded in his chest, but then his brain chimed in with reason.
He didn't have forever to make his plans of complete freedom and ultimate riches so he really could do anything he wanted whenever he wanted a success, and Rapunzel wasn't a woman. She was a girl who barely understood the world around her and was just beginning to see even just the every day things he took for granted for the very first time. She would scream and possibly even faint dead away if she saw the same bird she'd just petted now swallowing the poor worm she had attacked, but he wouldn't have her see such cruelty, let alone feel it, if he could prevent it.
He shook his head. It wasn't his place to protect her. He only needed her as far as it took for him to get his crown back. The girl was dazzling him, and that was a danger. He couldn't let any one dazzle him. He couldn't let any one cause him to forget the mean and careless, but heartbreaking, outlaw he was, and he wouldn't put his plans to the side for any one, not even this mere slip of an innocent beauty before him.
Flynn swallowed hard again. She was dazzling standing before him, being bathed in the golden sunlight, watching him with those big, blue eyes, and smiling at him from those innocent, lush lips. She was dazzling, but he wouldn't be bedazzled by any one. "We should get going," he stated. He turned sharply on the heel of his boot, telling himself he wouldn't think of her any longer as anything more than what she was and should be to him.
He wouldn't think of her as a scared girl living for the very first time. He wouldn't think of her as a naive beauty or a sweet innocent. He definitely wouldn't think of her as a friend or a treasure ripe for the plucking. He'd think of her only as the end to his means of getting his crown back. That was all she was to him, nothing more or less. Rapunzel gathered up her remarkably long hair and chased after him. His proud head held high in the air, Flynn kept walking away, walking away from her beauty and innocence, walking away from the entrapment of her female wiles, and walking straight into his future which he didn't know yet would bring him right back to her.
The End