Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R
Summary: Snow White's departure reminds Grumpy of who he is and will always be.
Warnings: Het, Slash, Multiple Lovers
Word Count: 1,885
Date Written: 4 April, 2011
Challenge: This was written for a weekly challenge for the LJ comm XDisneyDreamers.
Disclaimer: Grumpy, all other characters mentioned within, and Snow White are & TM Disney and any other respective owners, none of which are the author; are used without permission; and may not be used without permission. 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.
He was accustomed to being red with anger and fury, but this new, green feeling was something he'd never before felt. It raged within him, curling his toes and boiling all the way up through his burning ears. His hands balled into fists as he fought against the primal urge to scamper after his pickaxe; return, wielding it; and batter some sense into the two humans riding off into the sunset and leaving he and his brothers behind.
"Where . . . " The question was penetrated by a long, loud yawn. "Where's she going?" Sleepy smacked his lips, rubbed his eyes, and tried to stay awake to find out whatever was happening. Even he had been by the wretched woman's side, keeping a sleepless vigil over the sleeping beauty, for so many days and nights that he could barely keep his red eyes open.
The other Dwarves had never seen Sleepy stay awake for so long, and they knew it was taking every ounce of strength and will he had left as he fought to stay awake while the woman who they had all thought to be their savior rode off into the arms of an unknown Prince. Sleepy stumbled, and Doc instantly popped up at his side, catching and supporting the narcoleptic Dwarf.
Grumpy snarled. "I say we go get our tools an' go after her."
Happy laughed and clasped his shoulder but quickly released him when Grumpy snarled at him. "You don't mean that, Grumpy," Happy told him. "She deserves to be happy, and that Prince will make her happier than we ever could have."
"I . . . " Dopey's ears wriggled as he spoke up in a voice even tinier than usual, "I . . . I thought she was happy here."
Grumpy snorted. "Women ain't ever happy 'less they're usin' somebody."
"Snow . . . " Sneezy started to say only to have an especially powerful sneeze nearly throw him backwards into the air.
Happy caught hold of Sneezy's hands and turned again to look at Grumpy. "Snow White isn't that way."
"Inn't she?" Grumpy retorted. "Look fer yerselves!" he exclaimed, pointing at the small dot of the humans riding the Prince's horse off into the distance. Very soon, they'd no longer even be able to see her, and Grumpy tried to tell himself that that was just fine with him. He didn't need her. None of them did! They were doing just fine by themselves before she came into their lives and tried to get them killed with her deceitful, feminine wiles that had only gotten herself put under a spell!
His upper lip coiled back in distaste as he remembered the words they had read: that only true love could break the spell of everlasting sleep. Who was to say that that Prince who just rode up and kissed her was really her true love? They didn't know anything about him, not even his name! He boiled inside until he thought he might explode. He was already green with envy, but now his old, red fury was returning. Soon he would be his old self again, and then he would never let any one set him free from the red that colorized his vision ever again!
He should have known it was a trick, and it was his own, stupid fault, Grumpy realized, for falling for the Princess' wiles! She had been a scared girl when they'd found her, desperate to survive and, like any other woman, willing to do whatever it took and hurt whoever it might to survive. She had batted her eyelashes, swayed her hips, and wriggled her way right into their home, lives, and hearts! But not any more, Grumpy swore. Her kisses and hugs hadn't meant a thing; they had only been tools to further pull them under her womanly spell. Soon he'd forget them and her and remember only the anger that he'd felt every day of his life before.
Dopey twisted his shirt as he squinted hard into the distance, trying desperately to catch any sight of Snow White doing the very thing the other Dwarves knew she would never do - return to them. "She . . . She's really leaving us, isn't she?" he asked quietly, his voice breaking on the edge of a sob.
Bashful came up to him and, tugging on his beard, tried to explain. "Sh-She's g-go-going off wit-with her . . . her true . . . true love." His face turned a shade of pink that was truly disgusting to Grumpy, and yet still not as disgusting or harrowing as the situation in which they'd inadvertently found themselves.
{Darn women!} he fumed silently, his own beard and curls curling with his raging fury as Bashful continued to explain the harsh reality of their situation to Dopey.
"She . . . She's going t-to l-lo-love an-and l-li-live ha-hap-happ-puh-ily ever after."
"Without us," Dopey spoke the words that none of them wanted to admit.
Grumpy didn't need to turn to his youngest friend to see his crestfallen face and know that his heart was sinking to deeper pits than it had ever known before. {Darn women!} he growled again. "That's fine!" he finally snapped, his anger causing him to leap into the air. His beard fluttered, curling upwards until it almost smacked him in his face. He grabbed it with both of his pudgy hands and forced it back down. "That's just darn fine!" he continued. "Darn women and their wily ways! We were the idiots who fell for her wiles, but we don't need her! We never needed her! She needed us, and she used us, got what she wanted, and don't need us any more! Let her ride off with the Prince! Let her use him now! We're done with her!"
All six of the other Dwarves were looking at him with mixtures of sadness, shock, and disbelief on their faces. "What?" he snapped, waving his arms violently at them. "I'm just saying what we're all thinking! She used us, and now she doesn't want us or need us any more!"
"That - That is . . . isn't true," Bashful stammered.
"Inn't it?" Grumpy demanded. "Look at the facts!" he demanded, lunging into the other Dwarf's face. "She took advantage of us! She didn't have anywhere to go; we let her in! We let her live with us!"
"She . . . She cooked for us," Dopey spoke hesitantly, "and . . . danced with us . . . and . . . and . . . "
"And made us take baths and do other things we'd never done before and I ain't ever doing again! Women can keep themselves, darn it! They've always been more trouble than they're worth!" Still pushing his beard down as it struggled against him to fly up into his furiously, blood red face, Grumpy turned on his booted heels and marched away. He wasn't bisexual. He'd played the game for a dame who wasn't worth the mud under his boots. There was a reason why he and his adopted brothers lived way out here. They didn't need women. They only needed each other, and Snow White had just proven them right again with even more harshness than they'd ever felt from the mortal world before.
They didn't need her, and he didn't need to be happy. Happy was another Dwarf, a joy in bed, granted, but still an entirely different Dwarf. He was now red with fury and green with envy, but before then, even now, and forever after, he would always be Grumpy. He'd be darned if he'd ever forget it again, too! He spat on the ground as her name and image welled up within his mind again.
He'd fought the hardest against her wiles, but when the others had caved, he had slowly followed suit. He should have stayed strong, should have kept prying her hands off of him and shoving her away. Maybe then the others would have awakened to harsh reality, realized what she was doing to them, and remembered that they only needed each other, but he hadn't done that. He'd fallen for her tricky wiles, too, but that was the first time and the last time that he would ever fall for a woman.
He didn't need her. He didn't need any woman or any one else outside of his six friends standing and boring holes into his back with their stares. "Bah!" he growled back at them, waving his hands in dismission. "Come on home or keep starin', ya fools! It ain't gonna do any good! It ain't gonna bring her back! She don't want us!" And he didn't want her!
He had his happily ever after right here in the forest, with his six best friends and hot lovers, and he needed nothing else, especially not a darn woman with her tricky, venomous wiles! A rattlesnake could be trusted first, he thought, growling again with his dark eyes flashing like thunderclouds. Never again, he swore. He was and would always remain Grumpy, but he had his happily ever after, his love and life, right here in one of the quietest, disturbingly merriest parts of the forest, and if any woman ever dared to show her head in his paradise again, by Gods, he'd chop it off with his pickaxe!
One by one, the other Dwarves looked over their shoulders at where the Princess had disappeared and then slowly followed Grumpy. Grumpy barely looked at them for the rest of the night for he couldn't stand the sour, dour, and sorrowful expressions upon their faces. Even Happy had forgotten how to be happy, but he had remembered well and would never again forget how to be Grumpy. He was his own Dwarf and needed only his other male Dwarves, and women could always rot in Hell for all he cared.
He drew his dull, cracked fingernails against the sharp edge of his pickaxe, forcing himself to forget, and nearly broke the blade off of his axe's handle when he heard Dopey murmuring a name in his sleep. "Snow White."
Her skin might be as white as snow, Grumpy thought, but her heart was truly blacker than the night. They didn't need her, and he'd prove it to them in the morning's light. He'd make each of them remember who and what they truly were, and never again would they need or even consider wanting a woman. He'd make sure of that, and if one did ever again show her ugly face in their forest, Grumpy vowed once more, he'd make sure that the others never saw her and that she never saw anything else ever again! He hadn't gotten the name Grumpy for being a nice guy, after all, and the only thing the tragic encounter with Snow White had done for him, in the long run, was to remind him of the angry Dwarf he was and forever would remain.
"Women, go to Hell," he muttered, casting glances around at his sleeping men. "I've got my Heaven right here." And he'd gladly kill any bitch who ever threatened it again! He drifted off to sleep at last, dreaming of revenge and showing the world just how Grumpy he really was.
The End