A/N: I FINISHED SOMETHING! I FINALLY FINISHED SOMETHING! Oh my god, this is incredible. I have not posted any fic in two years because I just haven't been able to finish a single chapter. I've started and abandoned so many things, it's not even funny.

And then three weeks ago, Mother's Little Helper aired and made my shipper heart go crazy. Gideon and Roderick had so much chemistry, you guys. Their scenes together were probably the gayest scenes in OUAT history, and I am including in that the episode where two girls kissed for a full 45 seconds. I was frankly appalled when this very very gay fandom didn't start pumping out fic for these two immediately. Gideon/Roderick had to be written, and if no one else was going to do it, I knew I had no choice but to sit down and do it myself. AND I DID IT! OH MY GOD!

Just as a warning, this story definitely isn't rated M but it is a pretty hard T. It mentions child abuse, but it doesn't go into specifics, and it gets a little steamy towards the end, but not that steamy.

With all that being said, let's get on with the story! I really, really hope you like it. :)

The hero Gideon was born strong, but he was not born brave. Only through the love of his Tatiana did he become brave, as she reminded him of what he had to protect. Every kiss from the maiden Tatiana lit a flame of courage in the hero's great heart, a small flame without which he could not complete his works nor vanquish his foes.

The maiden Tatiana knew not of the vital role she played in protecting her kingdom, and whether she knew was of little consequence. Effortlessly, she loved Gideon and was loved by him, and that was more than enough as long as it lasted.

When Gideon read to him from his birth mother's book, Roderick imagined himself as the maiden Tatiana. She was her Gideon's companion, the one who never left his side if she could help it; Roderick did the same for his Gideon. It wasn't as if he had a choice in the matter – they were cellmates and could only leave their rooms for meals and beatings – but Roderick admired the older boy so very much that, if they were freed, he imagined they would remain friends. He particularly liked the gentle voice Gideon used to tell stories of his namesake and the wistful expression he got as his eyes scanned the pages. He was afraid to read because he knew he wasn't supposed to have the book, but Roderick saw how happy the stories made him and so he asked Gideon to read to him every night. And every night without fail, Gideon would answer him with a little half-smile and produce the courage to take the book out from under his pillow.

Roderick had been born and abducted two hours after Gideon, which in the Black Realm translated into two years. Gideon was ten years old the last time he saw Roderick, a helpless child of eight screaming for his friend as the Black Fairy carried him off in her talons. He would always remember him as a child of eight; as far as he knew, he had died as one.

Meanwhile Roderick, still alive in the barest sense of the word, was watching Gideon grow older as he did. You see, for reasons unknown to the slaves in the dust mines, the Black Fairy had taken a particular liking to Gideon. He was special, she proclaimed, making sure all the children could hear. Gideon was special, and the others were unspecial. Some nights, she would go down to the mud pits where the miners slept and whisper exactly that over and over into a sleeping child's ear until he awoke. She did this once to Roderick, who woke up twelve other children with his terrified screams; as the sounds of crying girls and boys echoed through the mines, the Black Fairy looked at him with a daggered smile, then yanked on his ear and said in a sugary voice, "Gideon knows to sleep when I tell him to."

The miners naturally began to hate Gideon, even those who had once known him. In fact, no one hated him more than Roderick did. During the first few years after their separation, Roderick blamed his old friend for the torturous life he led. Yes, he acknowledged that he was the one who had insisted they read the book which had led to his punishment. But he had done that to make Gideon smile, and to thank him Gideon had stood still and watched as he was whisked away to be attacked by monsters from his own nightmares. To have his head pushed underwater until his vision went white.

To decide which toe would be chopped from both of his own feet.

He suspected for a very long time that Gideon was taking part in and enjoying the children's mistreatment, based on the way his dear mother fawned over him. But at the age of thirteen, Roderick was suddenly proved wrong.

One day, the Black Fairy corralled all the prisoners of her realm – from the guards to the miners to the small children who were still being kept in her torture chambers – into one of the nicer rooms of her palace, having announced that she had something very exciting to show them. The prisoners, all too familiar with the fairy's twisted turns of phrase, were terrified by what she could mean, but none of them expected a cloud of copper smoke to spiral out of the ground next to her and fade away to reveal Gideon standing there, clad entirely in black.

"My extraordinary Gideon has just turned fifteen," the Black Fairy said over the panicked gasps. "What better day than his birthday to surprise you worms with his magic?"

Gideon shifted on his heels and in a faltering voice said, "May I show them, mother?"

The Black Fairy patted him on the cheek and fluttered her eyes. "Of course you may, my son," she said, then held out her claws as if to prove to the children that what happened next was not her doing.

Gideon rolled up his sleeves and lifted one thin arm, and from the center of the throng a small girl flew screaming into the air. The girl flailed her arms and legs, gasping and wheezing as Gideon steeled his gaze upon her filthy, scarred, and rapidly reddening face. Roderick, standing far at the back of the room, felt one of her hot tears prick his skin.

"Gideon is already nearly as powerful as I," giggled the Black Fairy, "and you see he is overeager to use his talents on you lot." Sweetly, she turned to her favorite son and, in a voice that hardly pretended to be a whisper, ordered, "Let it down, dearie. I know how you've looked forward to this moment, but the poor thing hasn't done anything which even I would punish."

"Yes, mother." Gideon lowered his arm very slowly, bringing the girl back to her sobbing friends.

Roderick was not numb to the cries of other tortured children, and he never would be. As his life went on, every scream and wail he heard would fill his heart with pain and compassion. But this moment was an exception. Roderick was deaf to this particular child's anguish because his attention was fixed on Gideon. He saw how his hand trembled as it lowered the girl, and how his eyes sparkled – not with glee, as the fairy had said, but with tears. The Black Fairy was using Gideon as yet another way to terrify her slaves, but Gideon clearly did not enjoy it. Roderick was overcome with guilt as he realized just how wrong he had been about his old cellmate. His kind and gentle friend. The hero Gideon to his maiden Tatiana.

For the first time in years, Roderick recalled that passage from the book. The hero Gideon was born strong – in his black sweater and trousers Gideon certainly looked well-muscled, and, although Roderick didn't understand why this detail mattered to him, he had grown much taller since their last meeting – but he had not been born brave. Gideon was not a cruel boy, but he lacked the courage necessary to stand up to his mother. And if he found that courage, he would be strong enough to save the entire realm. Roderick had failed to make him brave once before, but now he had another chance to be Tatiana. Of course, as one of dozens of faceless prisoners trapped in the dust mines, he couldn't help with his companionship. But, he remembered, Tatiana had something even better at her disposal.

What was it called again?

Oh right. She had loved her Gideon.

At thirteen, Roderick did not fully know what love was, only that it was something extremely scarce in the Black Realm. But in that ballroom, surrounded by miserable children, he kept his eyes on his Gideon and vowed silently to his old friend that he would figure it out and love him, love him until he became the hero he was meant to be.

It became a tradition for the Black Fairy to gather her slaves and parade Gideon in front of them once a year on his birthday. Every year, Gideon's magic grew more powerful, his hands steadier, and his face harder for Roderick to look away from. He was becoming not only a reluctant agent of the most evil being in all the realms, but an extraordinarily handsome young man as well. The contours of his jaw and cheekbones carved themselves indelibly into Roderick's memory. They would appear in his thoughts at inconvenient times and affect him in confusing ways.

Roderick certainly felt something for Gideon, something intense that only grew more intense as they got older. As Gideon's eighteenth birthday approached, Roderick's heart pounded for days in anticipation of seeing him, and for days after he was plagued by dreams which made him wake up breathless and drenched in sweat. By the time he himself was eighteen, the mere sound of Gideon's name made Roderick's skin feel on fire. It was not unlike being set ablaze in the Black Fairy's torture chambers. Indeed, it was its own kind of sweet torture, being so physically drawn to his old friend and knowing he couldn't be near him.

He wasn't entirely ignorant as to what this feeling was, of course. Teenagers were teenagers even in the Black Realm; boys told stories, always of girls, and those stories were corroborated by girlish noises coming from the other beds at night. Strangely, Roderick was not affected by the girls in such a way, but he decided this was a good thing. The Black Fairy allowed lust to go unchecked in her realm because it inevitably led to the births of more slaves. But the girls who got pregnant tended to suddenly disappear after giving birth, and Roderick didn't think he could ever contend with the guilt from condemning another prisoner to that fate. Nonetheless, the want these boys and girls felt for each other was so strong that they lay together despite knowing the risk, and that was what rang familiar to Roderick in the tales of conquest he overheard.

They often referred to this irrational desire as "love."

The only part of Gideon, of those which could be seen from a distance, which did not send Roderick's body into an adolescent frenzy were his eyes. Roderick still found himself entranced by them, but for a slightly different reason. They were not particularly beautiful; in fact, there was a terrible ordinariness to them, a flat deadness which was shared by many prisoners of the realm, most often those who had suffered abuse directly by the Black Fairy's hand. Roderick often sought out fellow miners with this lack of light behind their eyes so he could comfort and care for them and take pains to protect them from the horrors of the realm. One of these poor dead-eyed children, a young miner named Abigail (who was in fact the same little girl whom Gideon had nearly choked to death) looked at him one evening over her gruel and said "You love me, Roderick, don't you? You love all the children."

Roderick could see that Gideon was a victim of a different kind but a victim nonetheless. As he cared for sweet Abigail, he cared for him, and when paired with that irrational physical desire… well, by the fateful day of Gideon's twenty-eighth, Roderick was certain about what he felt for him. The way the cruel deadness in Gideon's eyes melted into tender tears the moment he recognized his old friend gave him hope that he could feel the same.

Their meeting was too perfectly timed to be coincidental – Gideon rarely went down to the mines alone, and Roderick had never had such a concrete plan to rescue his friends from the fairy. Roderick had often imagined what he would tell Gideon when they saw each other again, but he never expected himself to speak so candidly. And the sense that this was destiny made him say something aloud which he had always been too frightened to even think silently:

"Help me defeat the Black Fairy!"

Gideon, the staid, fearsome sorcerer with a vile reputation and a wraith-like cloak, stood before the miners with the expression of a lost ten-year-old boy on his face. Brow knit and tearful eyes fixed on Roderick, he opened his mouth as if to respond, closed it silently and swallowed, making his Adam's apple tremble nervously. His evil façade was just moments away from breaking, but then he clenched his jaw, steeled his eyes and, with his gaze still locked on Roderick, growled, "All you cockroaches, back to work."

Shocked and rejected, Roderick was nonetheless prepared to take up his pickaxe and return to collecting dust. But before he could turn his back to Gideon and run as far in the other direction as he could, a copper fog twisted out from Gideon's fingertips and encircled Roderick's wrists, solidifying into a chain so heavy Roderick could barely raise his hands.

"Not you, Roderick," Gideon whispered. His voice shook. "A thief needs to be punished." He turned around and lifted the chain. Roderick winced, expecting to be yanked forward or for the metal cuffs to sever his hands. But Gideon just tugged gently on the chain, picking up slack so Roderick didn't have to carry so much weight.

As Gideon led the way through the twisted caves of the mines, he kept glancing back at Roderick, wide-eyed like he were seeing a ghost. Clearly, he wasn't yet convinced that wasn't what he was seeing. When he looked away he lifted the hood of his cloak over his ears, but after the third time the hood got snagged by a stalactite and fell to reveal the Reaper's pale skin and neat, dirty blond hair, he stopped trying to look intimidating.

But even when Gideon looked like a formless shadow of velvet blackness, Roderick wasn't particularly frightened. Brutal punishment was a possibility he had considered at length while planning his rebellion. He had already been through the worst the Black Realm had to offer, and as long as it was him suffering and not the other prisoners, he could handle the pain. Besides, whatever punishment awaited him, there was still a relief, a comfort, even, to standing alongside Gideon – or at the very least, behind him –after so many years of separation. If Roderick's heart was pumping erratically, it was not out of fear, but of hope that his hero would pull through.

The path widened and the two men were suddenly no longer in the mines but a spacious cavern. Gideon's pace grew more agitated, and Roderick struggled to keep up. Each time he stepped the wrong way on the stumps where his fourth toes had been, a burst of agony shot up his leg. Even though he knew the answer, he asked just to make Gideon stop, "Where are you taking me?"

Gideon replied in the voice of the executioner. "You know how dangerous it is to even hint at what you want to do to Mother."

"If my transgression protects the ones I care about –" Gideon's eyes met Roderick's at that moment, as if he knew those loved ones included him. Roderick's mouth suddenly felt very dry but he continued: "—then it's all worth it!"

Gideon hesitated, staring at Roderick with a question in his eyes. Eventually, he tilted his head and said, "Protects them from what?" His voice was cautious in a way which told Roderick he was free to answer.

So Roderick answered. He told Gideon all he knew about his adoptive mother's evil nature, the words spilling from his lips, desperate for the young sorcerer to understand them. With every new condemnation of the Black Fairy, Roderick took a half-step closer and Gideon's expression softened, until he finally broke down in tears.

And he apologized. As thin tears painted lines down to the ridge of his jaw, he apologized over and over again, accepting blame and guilt for being – as he put it – "weak." There was an irony there, of course; through Gideon's anguish, Roderick caught a trace of that little half-smile which he had so adored seeing as a child, and he remembered the boy it had belonged to, a young hero who longed for his real mother, not yet brave but stronger than he knew. The hero Gideon may have been confined to the pages of a book for eighteen years, but he was stepping back out now as a grown man, and Roderick was so overjoyed all he could do was smile and tearfully forgive him all his misjudgments in the interim.

When Roderick asked a second time for Gideon's help, the sorcerer nodded yes with vigor. He took a step back and dropped the chains tethering Roderick to him, which dissolved into smoke. "Thank you," Roderick said breathlessly before wincing and grabbing his sore wrists.

"No, Roderick. No, I don't deserve your thanks." Gideon reached out and cupped one of Roderick's aching hands in his to ease the pain. "I owe this to you and to all the other children whose abuse I've abetted."

The touch made Roderick's heartbeat leap to his throat. "Then I'm thanking you for realizing what you owe us," he said softly.

Gideon smiled. "Which I never would have done without your help."

Roderick had no response. He could only stare silently at the handsome face in front of him, closer to him than it had ever been before.

"Follow me. I may know where to find this crystal ball." Gideon let Roderick's hands drop and started across the cavern, in the same direction as before but with a very different purpose. It was so like the hero to want to charge immediately into battle, just as it was so like the hero's love to want him to stay a bit longer.

Roderick didn't want Gideon to only fight the fairy out of guilt. This wasn't a mere repayment for a debt, but if Gideon knew that, it was only subconsciously. If he was to truly become the hero he was meant to be, he needed to know and feel what he was protecting in his mind, his heart, his skin, his bones, and every fiber of his muscles. Roderick shouted "Gideon, wait!" and it echoed off the cavern walls as he ran after the other man, ignoring the agony as the rocky ground dug into his feet. He grabbed Gideon's hand so desperately that he almost pulled off his glove, clutching it to his chest when the sorcerer turned around. "Thank you, Gideon," Roderick said. "I mean it." And with that said, he pressed their lips gently together.

The kiss was short, just a peck, but the magic was unmistakable. It was a spark of pure emotion which Roderick felt leap from his body to Gideon's and which left him dizzy and warm when they separated. He stood planted in place for several moments, the thrill rendering him unable to let go of Gideon's hand, open his eyes or even exhale. When he did, it was in a whisper: "Oh." He looked straight into Gideon's eyes, dark and sorrowful and wide with shock, and continued: "Wow."

Gideon didn't react right away. He made Roderick worry that he hadn't felt the magic spark traversing their lips. Then in a low and shaking voice he asked, "Roderick… what was that?" and placed his other hand delicately over the one he was already holding.

"The gift I always wanted to give you but never could?" said Roderick, his voice ticking up shyly. He ran his tongue over his lips to wet them. "Courage."

"Courage," Gideon said. "Courage," he repeated, casting his gaze to the ground. "Only through the love of his Tatiana did he become brave," he recited, and when he lifted his head there was a tear running down the bridge of his nose. "Well, what does that mean, Roderick? What are you saying? Do you –"

"Yes. Yes, I do, and I have since…" Roderick recalled watching Gideon read from the neighboring cell and realized for the first time just how far back these feelings went. "…since we were children." His throat began to tighten, preparing to sob in anticipation of saying aloud what he had kept secret for years. But he looked at Gideon, who was already drowning in tears, and made himself keep talking. "I do love you, Gideon. I love you from a distance, yes, but if it weren't true love I couldn't have believed that you were a hero – and look at yourself now!" He smiled as the tears strained against his eyelids. "I was right to believe it."

He put his free hand on Gideon's arm and in a trembling whisper said, "I can be your Tatiana."

Gideon couldn't help but smile at that. He wiped away his own tears and then, he kissed him. He put his hands on the sides of Roderick's face and he kissed him, and it was different than before, because it was lengthy and open and apparently Gideon kissed with his whole body, not just his lips. Their noses bumped against each other and as they cried and laughed into each other's mouths, they could feel each other's tears splash against their skin. Roderick didn't think he had ever heard Gideon laugh before; it was soft and subdued, and beautiful, just like so much else about him, and it sounded nothing like the sadistic giggles of the woman he called Mother. Of course, the Black Fairy was the furthest thing from Roderick's mind. He wasn't thinking about fairies or saviors or keys or torture or gruel or anything besides the man in his arms who had just thrown his gloves to the ground to run bare fingers through his tangled curls. The delirious haze of a first love long overdue was so overpowering that they even forgot they were in a cave until Roderick's back suddenly slammed against a rock wall. He groaned, not entirely out of pain.

They stayed there for a while, Gideon mere inches away from the wall and Roderick filling up those inches, both of them eager and energized in a way neither had ever been before. Under the heat from the torches, Roderick lost his jacket. Gideon's shapeless cloak came off as well, and through his tunic and trousers Roderick could finally see the lean but powerful build of a hero. He brought his hands down to Gideon's waist and, instinctively, bit his lower lip, getting a response from the other man which could only be described as a growl. He thought back to the most impure dreams of his adolescence and knew he was ready make them all reality.

But before that, all he wanted to do was revel in this feeling for as long as he could. He loved Gideon and, it seemed, was loved by him, for what else could this be but True Love's kiss? It was as if the two were in that moment sharing the same soul, the same mind, the same skin. The same heartbeat – indeed, their hearts were pounding with such uniform intensity that when their chests brushed up close enough together, Gideon's heart may as well have been in Roderick's body. The universe had been split in two for eighteen years but that didn't matter, because as long as their lips were touching it was as good as new.

Until suddenly, it wasn't. Their hands had only just started to explore each other when the magic suddenly dissolved into nothingness and Gideon broke the kiss, taking several steps back and leaving Roderick slumped against the wall. His cheeks were flushed red and his lips, very well-kissed, but the look on his handsome face was one of terror.

"Gideon," said Roderick in a voice hoarse from happy tears, "what's wrong?" He pushed himself onto wobbly feet and followed Gideon to the rock he had sat upon. He put a hand on his shoulder, and was relieved when the sorcerer didn't push him away.

Still, Gideon's voice was trembling and distracted as he looked forward with bloodshot eyes and lied, "Nothing's wrong." He tilted his head up but still did not look at Roderick directly. "We need to get to that crystal ball. Right now."

Roderick had put everything out of his mind, so he didn't comprehend what Gideon was saying right away. When he did, his eyes widened. "Oh gods, why? Is it that urgent? Does the Black Fairy have something planned?" Gideon knew her better than anyone, so there must have been an explanation for his haste.

But he didn't give one. He merely shook his head and said, "We're wasting time on these frivolities."

"What do you mean?"

"Once she's dead, Roderick." Gideon looked up at him. "Once Mother is dead and gone, we can revisit this."

"But why not now?"

"Because it's foolish, Roderick!" Gideon snapped.

Roderick took a step back. It felt like he had been punched in the gut. He wanted to argue It isn't foolishness it's love it's True Love it's powerful it's the only weapon I have to fight and I love you and you love me I know what I felt and I know you felt it too but he couldn't, because Gideon was retreating into his aloof and despotic shell. Roderick could only back away, trying not to cry, and let Gideon have the moment alone he clearly needed.

Gideon stood from his rock and paced, muttering to himself and wiping his eyes with the heels of his palms. He was so beautiful in distress, especially without his cloak, that Roderick almost felt dirty watching him. He started using the sleeve of his tunic to wipe the sweat off his forehead and the sleeve rolled up. Roderick hadn't seen his arms in years because he'd stopped wearing clothing that exposed them…

For good reason, it seemed. Even from a distance, Roderick could see an ugly red scar running up the inside of Gideon's forearm which had not been there when they were cellmates. He had assumed Gideon had only suffered psychological abuse but there was no doubt who had caused the scar – Abigail had one that was identical. He cried out Gideon's name and ran back towards him, no longer caring about his rejection. When he touched Gideon's arm, he pulled away in surprise, but Roderick was not fazed. "She beat you, too," he said simply.

Gideon didn't answer but for a small, sad smile. He looked Roderick in the eyes and said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say… Roderick, you told me that…" He trailed off.

"I love you," said Roderick. "And I do."

"You do," Gideon repeated. "And I believe I might be able to… I could be in…" He stammered, opening and closing his mouth several times with no sound coming out. The word just wouldn't escape his lips. But Roderick grabbed his hand to tell him silently that he didn't need to say it, and Gideon sighed and continued. "I need to defeat Mother and return her prisoners to their real families, and I need to do that for my friend." He squeezed Roderick's hand. "But doing it for my friend is all I'm ready for right now. I hope you understand."

Roderick felt a pang of sadness in his heart, but he did understand. "Very well then, friend," he said with a disingenuous smile. "You're right. We do need to find that crystal ball as soon as possible."

"Let's find this Savior," Gideon said, nodding gratefully.

Gideon went to retrieve the clothing he had discarded during their kiss, but Roderick was content to leave his coat where it had fallen. As he stood wait, he couldn't stop thinking that this was not how it should have happened. It was not how it worked in the book. Gideon and Tatiana's love didn't cease to exist because there was a dragon or a giant spider to battle. In fact, the opposite was true: in the face of evil, not loving each other was a death sentence.

But Gideon needed to take baby steps towards love, apparently, and Roderick was beginning to understand why. His life as the Black Fairy's special son, ostracized from the other children, had been loveless. For Gideon, there was little love of family, scarce love of friends, no physical love, and absolutely no romantic love. He didn't know what it felt like; he barely knew what it looked like, and he clearly didn't believe he deserved it. The kiss of True Love he and Roderick had shared, which had been so perfect and wonderful for the destitute miner, must have been overwhelming for him.

And Roderick felt sympathy for him, he really did. But as he watched Gideon replace his cloak, letting it swallow his body and conceal his true self, he couldn't help the feeling that he had failed and was allowing Gideon to march into battle unprepared. The maiden Tatiana made it look so simple. What was he doing wrong?

From the mouth of the cave, Gideon called for Roderick and waved for him with a gloved hand. As Roderick approached, he smiled a kind smile that made him look simultaneously transformed by what had just happened and as if nothing had happened at all, and Roderick had a sudden and solemn realization: he wasn't doing anything wrong. He loved Gideon just like Tatiana, and that was all he could do for him.

The problem was that her Gideon and his Gideon were not the same. Tatiana made the hero brave through her true love. Unfortunately, Roderick was learning through Gideon that love, no matter how true, couldn't make a man brave if love itself was the thing he feared.

A/N: God, I love this ship but it's so sad. In my head there is an M-rated alternate ending to this story where Gideon doesn't freak out and they end up getting to third base, but I didn't end up writing it because somehow it makes what happens to Roderick seem even crueler. I don't know.

Reviews are always appreciated!