A/N: Hi all! This song just took my breath away when I heard it. It is called 'Come wake me up' by Rascal Flatts. It's so lovely; I would advise anyone to give it a listen.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of OUaT or the song!
~8~8~
Flames licked somberly at the charring wood inside the hearth of the Main Hall. The Dark Castles usually attended room was half concealed in shadow with only the dancing tongues of fire to instill what paltry warmth and luminance it could manage against the foreboding ill and chill of the ominous citadel.
Rumpelstiltskin sat in his old, chair, used ages upon ages. It was a comfortable seat, upholstered liberally with mulled crimson dyed leather. Its feet and the ends of the arm rest were carved to look like dragons claws greedily curled and clutching over orbs of the same polished grain.
His pointed black talons drummed in an erratic rhythm upon the dark wood of the plush seat. 'The Masters Chair', she had dubbed it jestingly, and it had stuck. A smile briefly twitched at the corners of his lips; though more often than not she used it more than he.
A grimace darkly lined his gray-gold skin as one of his hands curled over a small, squat glass shimmering in the fire lights with amber swill of some alcohol. While he usually preferred tea, it had become unbearable to drink since she had died…because he banished her. Now he carried a small silver flask whenever he rambled, for nothing weaker that the sting of ale or mead could quench his thirst without bile rising disgustingly in his throat.
The shadows battled tenaciously with the glimmering light upon his scaled face as his voided onyx depths sat riveted to the flames as though trying to burn away some thought haunting his mind.
I can usually drink you right off of my mind, but I miss you tonight
I can normally push you right out of my heart, but I'm too tired to fight
Yeah, the whole thing begins and I let you sink into my veins and I feel the pain like it's new
Everything that we were
Everything that you said
Everything that I did and that I couldn't do plays through tonight…
A growl, like that of a demons wounded breath slipped through his sneer twisted lips. Why did she have to come back to his thoughts as though she would saunter through the door at any minute? Why did he hear her tittering laugh so sweet and clear through the drafty wind in his hollow shell of a home? Why did her footsteps sill echo down the long corridors as though she were on some dutiful task?
Angrily, the heart weary Dark One drained the last of the spirits that did nothing to balm his hurt that night, in one swig. Wiping his mouth, he turned the glass slowly in his hand. Every so often his reflection would catch in the prisms revealing a lonely monstrosity, pining for his servant. Rage and loss and hurt seeped through his blood akin to poison. In one great exertion he tossed the fine glass into the fire.
Glass shattered against the soot lined brick. Fire licked against the transparent slivers, blackening them, like his black heart and burning as it did every waking moment she was gone. He sought to scour her away from his mind, but only succeeded in thinking of her more.
Tonight your memory burns like a fire
With every one it grows higher and higher
And I can't get over it
I just can't put out this love
I just sit in these flames and pray that you'll come back
Close my eyes tightly, hold on and hope that
I'm dreaming, come wake me up.
He wanted, nay needed to forget her especially like a night like tonight when all was silent and no deals were placed in his mind to dwell upon, and yet she was everywhere in everything.
Rum swallowed hard, beads of sweat pricking at his oddly hued brow. Running a shaking hand he leapt to his feet as though he were aflame. Eyes of the darkest black darted about crazily. Everything reminded him of her. Even his chair smelled as though it had the faint odor of her perfume there where she had fallen asleep months and months ago.
His wiry talons gripped the edges of the chair tightly until his fingertips began to dig into the wood. The maniacal fiend stared hard at the ancient item as though she would appear before his eyes and all would be well again.
But she did not.
Rage, hot and infinite, surged unbidden to his mind like some primal beast driven into some temporary insanity bereft of her who claimed she could love him. With a curse he all but threw the heavy wood chair as though it were nothing into the hearth.
How the fire leapt! Orange and red embers whooshed through the air almost in dizzying patterns that glimmered then, like his spirit, dulled and died into ashen flakes. The fire seemed to cheer as it crackled and bickered gluttonously upon its new prize that had long sat before its, eternal dance. Heat cascaded out of the fire place brightening up the room considerably, as it feasted upon its prize.
Tongues of flame licked against the leather and wood turning it into char and ash gleefully. If only it could do so to her memories instead of fan them, Rumpelstiltskin contemplated breathlessly.
Such a luxurious piece of furniture was only one of his many trinkets and treasures and prizes garner through years of deal making and stealing. In his still slightly shadowed main hall alone, cases of glass, thick with dust, were crammed with things forged of gold and crafted of magic and silver and glass and far too many things to name. And yet still her mark was upon every trinket ever garnered!
Not one curio was bereft of a memory towards her boundless curiosity or her inept clumsiness. Some articles even held her fingers prints still as though she simply finished cleaning them then trundled off to bed. Those he held more precious than the others.
Once, they would have provided distraction, a welcome comfort, but now, they only succeeded to brand her presence to his weeping soul. There was no more satisfaction combing over his collection.
Turn the TV up loud just to drown out your voice, but I can't forget
Now I'm all out of ideas and baby I'm down to my last cigarette
Yeah you're probably asleep deep inside of your dreams while I'm sitting here crying and trying to see
Yeah wherever you are, baby, now I am sure you've moved on and aren't think twice about me and you tonight
She felt so close, so there as though she would stand there beside him and he could touch. How he wished to touch her. He breathed in a deep intake of the musty air about him, now thick with the stench of burning leather. Yes, he wished her there again, and yet all he could content himself with was the ghost of her voice speaking upon the wind.
Padding towards one of his restored wooden cases, he slowly opened it with little more than a squeak from the hinges. The Dark One's dexterous, slim fingers tapered over the many items till a deep, melancholic frown dashed across his lips.
Cold. All of them cold, though they possessed memories of her. Memories he wanted with all his being to cast away and forget. His hand curled over one trinket, a glass slipper until he felt it crack in his grip.
He didn't even register he swiped the entire self of its delicate contents until the broken trinkets lay wobbling at his feet. But he didn't care, the fire inside was to hot and large to be doused now with reason and sense.
Tonight you memory burns like a fire
With every one it grows higher and higher
And I can't get over it
I just can't put out this love
I just sit in these flames and pray that you'll come back
Close my eyes tightly, hold on and hope that
I'm dreaming…
She wasn't coming back. That fact was the wind that fanned his flames while the trinkets demolished in his range were the fuel stoking his mourning fury to the level of an inferno. Tears coursed down his dappled cheek, and blood trail where shards and sharp object had pierced his skin, but he cared not. Maybe a lucky shot would send him reeling into oblivion and that would quell the fire of her within.
His hands were a whirlwind tossed and break and shattering all in his path to demolish her sweet voice and touch and kiss. Would it be enough? No, he knew, nothing would ever let her hold abandon him, but what else could he do?
She was gone, forever.
I know that you're moving on
I know I should give up
But I keep hoping you'll trip and fall back in love
Time's not healing anything
Baby, this pain is worse than it ever was.
Gone.
Gone.
…gone.
She was-
"Rum." An ethereal voice whispered through the main hall like the song on an angel.
Rumpelstiltskin's blood turned to ice at the words so clearly chiming through his ears like a cloisters bells pealing out its hourly chime. The things being smashed and cracked beyond repair ceased flying about the room at his hand as he slowly turned around to face the speaker.
All of a sudden the room was flooded with the warmth of a summer sun. She kicked her feet back and forth as she sat upon the large oaken table, a blue and white tea cup by her hand.
Her face looked straight at him in her endearing quizzical manner, her head slightly cocked to the side. "Why did you want me here?"
His feet lumbered forward to the image numbly. Was she there or simply the figments of a mind fraught with longing and guilt and love that could never be expressed?
"You're not a monster." A quiet smile played upon her pink lips he wished with all his being to press upon.
For a moment he actually let himself believe that she was there, that his delusion was real and not simply memories of a fatigued mind conjured into some torment. The magical monsters bottom lip quivered tremulously as he reached out a gnarled talon to stroke her cheek. There was so much he desired to say; how he wished to fall upon his knew and beg for forgiveness.
As he lifted his hand to her face, dust and smoke were the only things that wisped about his wiry talon. All he desired was to touch her skin once more, to have her smile beam upon him, to have his name pass her lips in that way that made his heart flutter at the knowledge such a beauty was speaking to him. But only the vapors carried by the lofty draft met his touch. Her image disappeared as steam from a kettle spout once more leaving him in a slightly darkened room about ruined artifacts and a demolished chair.
Slowly, he fell to his knees, his claws gripping the table viciously. Tears brooked down relentlessly as he gave himself fully to sorrow and what he had done. If she were there, she would have made it better, she would have made tea and talked and helped him sort out all that troubled him and weakened his spirits and made him feel like the beast in him would fully take over.
I know that you can't hear me, but baby I need you to save me tonight…
"Please forgive me for what I did to you." Rum whispered to the darkness as though saying a prayer. His eyes clamped shut as he howled to the very rafters as though her spirit could hear and send down fire to purge him and all the evil she tried to take from him so that they could be together and happy.
All around him, her voice, her body, her laugh, her smile, and even her mock disapproving frowns encircled him like a whirlwind of flame he could not escape.
Tonight you memory burns like a fire
With every one it grows higher and higher
And I can't get over it
I just can't put out this love
I just sit in these flames and pray that you'll come back
Close my eyes tightly, hold on and hope that
I'm dreaming, come wake me up.
He wanted it to be a dream. Heaven above knew how badly he wished it to be some illusion of a tired mind, overcome and fraught from too much toil. Only the deepest regions of his heart could still cling to such a lingering hope it was all a bad dream and he would awaken to her humming down below preparing tea. But her demise was real, so very real.
Oh I'm dreaming, come wake me up…
It felt like a nightmare of flame, but there was no escape for one such as he. Forever, her ghost in his castle, branded upon his heart, would be his burden and his treasure. His would be a penance paid for the rest of his immortal years, knowing what he had done, and the loneliness voided in his heart.
"I miss you." Rumpelstiltskin sobbed raggedly kneeling there as the fire began to lower. "I miss you, Belle…my love."