Disclaimer: I own nothing, etc, etc, etc

Disclaimer 2: This is not a shipping fic, though it is about sex and seduction. Unless you want it to be a shipping fic, of course, at which point go right ahead, though what ship this actually endorses is kind of up for grabs, IMO.


Ruby's always had a thing for wolves.

That's what Granny calls them, anyway—wolves. Predators who prowl in the shadows, hunting down defenseless young women who don't know any better than to wander alone at night.

Ruby may look the part, but she's nothing like the typical prey. She knows their game, and she's much better at it than anyone in this town. Granny purses her lips at that, calls it shameful, mutters under her breath about cheap call girls (Ruby's anything but cheap). Ruby would tell her to quit living in the last century—when men do what she does they're congratulated—but Ruby knows better. Times don't change. No matter what anybody says, things weren't 'better' yesterday, or yesteryear, or last century. Dangerous Liaisons, anyone?

Besides, she's careful. Always tells people where she's going, when she'll be back. Keeps Sheriff Graham on speed dial (though he's so far down the Mayor's pants that he's never coming out; Ruby respects the other woman's stake, even if Regina's a bitch and he's cute). She never leaves the house without a can of Mace, either, though she's only had to use the spray once.

But sometimes you get tired of playing it safe. Sometimes you want to push yourself. A real challenge.

Sometimes you want the top dog himself. Mr. Gold.

Yes, he's twice her age. Yes, he scares the bejeezus out of her. But that makes it more interesting.

He's at least forty (and she has to make herself not think about him being the same age as her deadbeat dad, because that'll kill the mood faster than a semi on black ice) so she's not surprised to find he's not exactly an online personality. She found an eBay account that might be his and the website for his pawn shop, but nothing on the social networks. She even checked Xynga and MySpace, just to be sure, though she doesn't know why (Nobody uses those anymore, at least not the people around here, so why does she remember sifting through those sites? Why does she have accounts on both of them?).

When the internet turns out to be a dud, she turns to the conventional method. She'll admit it's stalking, as much as a fox stalks a rabbit, but she doesn't do anything illegal. It's subtle at first, almost invisible. She volunteers for more chores, does more shopping, takes Granny's car out for a wash and a tune-up, asks for extra shifts at the diner. All the while she keeps her eyes open. Taking notes.

His habits aren't regular, but there's a certain pattern to them. A serpentine efficiency to the way he moves, the places he goes. He'll stop by the other shops around town, browsing for sales (he's always looking out for a deal, but everybody knows that) and then makes his rounds to collect rent. Most of the people in town owe him money, and so he divvies them up across the month, visiting two or three each day to collect his dues. Then back to his shop for tea, where he stays until late each night.

With a name like Gold, you'd think he'd be into the shinies, but it's more the old things that catch his eye. The unlikely treasures. In the spring you'll see him limping through yard sales, examining old dolls and picture frames like they're made out of diamonds. Ruby dresses accordingly. She skimps on makeup and extensions, ditches her typical fare for the classier, more conservative look. Granny would approve, except she's caught on, and she's busy lecturing Ruby about how he's too old, too dangerous, too unpredictable.

Like that isn't the whole point.

It's when Granny tells her he'll break her heart that Ruby laughs. She doesn't have any illusions of taming him, or marrying him, or any of that other fairytale bullshit. This isn't about falling in love—and honestly, the idea of getting all gushy about him are somewhere between horrifying and hilarious—it's about the hunt.

She moves in on him slowly. In the beginning it's just a smile, faint at first and then brighter. A word here or there, asking about the paper in his hand, noting the weather. The first couple of times, surprise flickers in his eyes, like he's confused that she isn't cowering at his polished patent leather shoes. But he regains himself fast enough and starts talking back. One and two word responses at first, seedlings of conversation, but she cultivates them into sprouts, guides them into actual discussions. They last a few minutes, sometimes. Meanwhile her manager taps his foot behind the counter, but he knows better than to interrupt a conversation with Mr. Gold.

Quickly enough their talks turn into sparring matches. Ruby obeys rule number one—don't talk about yourself, because guys don't like girls who are self-absorbed—but Mr. Gold is just as determined not to let the conversation turn to him. They could stick to neutral subjects, but that wouldn't be nearly as fun, and so they jab and parry, feint and rebound, like they're dueling with epees made of words.

"When did your shop open?" gives her an opening, and she takes a chance on "You never really think about being a pawn broker as a dream job, you know? Doctor, lawyer, business man, sure, but broker? Is that what you were aiming for?"

"Were you aiming for waitress?" he counters.

"For college, actually." She concedes the information with a shrug, an informal apology for too blunt a question. Next time she'll do better. "I got accepted into Yale a few years back. Couldn't go, though. Turns out Granny can't live without me." It might not have had anything to do with her leaving, but she'd taken Granny's heart attack as a sign. The next one wouldn't be nearly as painless, and Ruby didn't want her alone when it happened. "How about you? Any college?"

"I've found it's not always necessary." A direct-ish answer. Apology accepted, he says in the subliminal language of the game, but watch yourself.

A week later they meet by carefully calculated chance on the street—she's taking the scenic route home from work and he's on his way back from a late-night collection (from Mr. French, who's always scraping to pay off his debts at the last possible minute). The conversation continues where it left off as they walk together, and they pass Romualdo's.

"One moment," Mr. Gold says, turning to step through the door. "I have a bit of business to attend to."

"I'll come with, if you don't mind." A spark of satisfaction prickles her scalp as he gives her an absent nod. This is the kind of place guys talk about taking her when they're really smitten, but she's never seen the inside. When she passes close enough to a table to read the menu, she understands why—the first entrée she glimpses costs more than she makes in a week.

She's torn between wistful temptation and outrage that anyone would spend that kind of money on a plate of chicken, but she keeps a pleasant smile on her face as she walks at Mr. Gold's side. He signals her with a glance to stay behind, and he disappears into the back room, where the sizzle and clang of the kitchen drown out their conversation.

Instead Ruby focuses her attention on the dining room—the embroidered tablecloths, the silverware that looks like it's made of actual silver, the delicate marble statues and busts that line the walls. The air sings with the scent of basil and roasted garlic, and it's enough to make her mouth water. For a while she's too busy taking it all in to realize that she's being watched—by half the restaurant, from the look of it. They're not blatant about it, but every so often an eye will turn in her direction, appraising her before it flashes away.

Except for the mayor. She sits alone at her table, the salad in front of her ignored while she meets Ruby with a studious eye. Ruby smiles and offers a faint nod in acknowledgement. It's like playing with dogs—you don't want to be the first to look away. But Regina isn't shifting her gaze, and something in her expression tells Ruby that a fight might be looming on the horizon. The smart move is to avert her gaze, but a voice in the back of her mind whispers that that might be even worse.

Mr. Gold saves her—so to speak. The door opens behind her and he sweeps into view, giving her a good reason to turn her attention away from Regina.

"Are you hungry?" he asks, with the same tone that someone else might say "sit". She wonders if she actually has the choice to say no. "It seems Mr. Romualdo is providing dinner on the house tonight."

Gee, that's not foreboding at all. Through the still-swinging door she can see the man who she assumes owns the establishment—at least, she sees a man who's white as a sheet and drenched in sweat, his eyes wide and his jaw shaking. That's usually a good indicator that someone owes Mr. Gold money.

Even the waiter is sweating as they take her coat and push in her chair, though he makes a good show of smiling like nothing's wrong. Mr. Gold orders wine without glancing at the list.

"I recommend the carbonara," he tells her, and so that's what she tells the waiter—who hasn't left them for a second, though from the corner of her eye Ruby notes glasses that need filling and tables that need bussing. Regina sits at her table like it's a throne, swirling ice in her otherwise empty glass.

A faint, satisfied smile crosses Mr. Gold's lips, though he's turned away from the mayor's table and there's no way he should be able to hear the ice clinking in her glass from across the room. He knows he's being watched. And he's enjoying every second of it. A chill crawls down Ruby's spine as she realizes that she's not the only one playing a game, and from the look in Gold's eye, he's in an entirely different league.

Anxiety starts to creep in. This place is too big, too ritzy. She should go back to her diner and her waitressing and forget this stupid game of hers before she makes a wrong move. Nervous tingles are racing up and down her arms when her eyes land on a marble bust against the wall, just barely visible over Gold's shoulder.

"They have Cleopatra here," she says before she can stop herself. Mr. Gold glances over his shoulder, following her gaze.

"Not the real one," he says.

"Of course not. That's somewhere in Germany. But it's a nice touch. Most people wouldn't recognize it." The woman in the bust has a soft chin and a long nose and eyes so wide they'd make a deer jealous. It doesn't look like what you'd expect from an ancient Egyptian queen, but Ruby knows the face by heart. "I've always liked Cleo. She had style." Cleopatra more than played the game—she won it, ruling Egypt for more than twenty years, riding out invasions and civil wars with the kind of grace and panache that the mayor couldn't even dream of.

The bust turns the conversation to history, and suddenly Ruby's back in her game. History she knows. She matches Gold fact for fact, stretching him across ancient Egypt and into Greece, Rome, drawing him to the tumult of medieval Europe (he does most of the talking there, his stories filled with so much detail it feels like he's been there himself). He drinks as he speaks, though the wine is dry and leaves Ruby parched. By the time dessert rolls around she can see it having an effect on him. He's talking faster now, his voice a little higher pitched than before, and an odd lilt keeps leaking through the controlled smoothness she's used to hearing.

Ruby's inner waitress rebels at leaving without the check, but Gold said dinner was free, and he's talking as he walks. She can't get too far away from him without losing the conversation, though it's not what he says that matters—it's the fact that he's not stopping. No "Goodbye, I'll see you later" or "If you'll excuse me, it's getting late". He expects her to keep coming with him. When he pauses for breath she fills the silence with words of her own, another unspoken signal: I'm with you until you kick me out.

At this point they've reached Madame du Pompadour. His own thoughts keep straying to the growing whispers of the French Revolution, though that bloodbath is still more than a hundred years away. There's something in the way he talks, like he can see the tiny threads across history, twisting together until they tangle into world-shaking cataclysms. Like he can stand there and watch it unfold.

The fire in his eyes sends shivers down her spine. It turns into a jolt as they approach his house, rising like a castle among the smaller homes on either side.

His house. The lair of the beast. And he's leading her inside, like he expects her to follow. Like all this is perfectly natural. She remembers an old primal fear, stories she only half-remembers hearing, that he keeps the bodies of ex-girlfriends in a closet somewhere. A part of her wants to run away, but that would be a forfeit. Instead she draws her purse tighter against her thigh and takes comfort in the canister of Mace she feels there.

It isn't a perfect defense, but it's something.

She's not sure what she expected his house to look like on the inside (aside from the bodies, of course, but she doesn't really believe in all that), but it strikes her as old. Tastefully decorated, but all of it out of date, more like a display in a museum than an actual house. A spattering of dust has accumulated in the chairs, though it looks like they're beaten out every so often. The only sign that this house is lived in at all is the collection of antiques crowded on the table, waiting to be sorted and priced.

She's so busy taking it all in, she doesn't notice that he's stopped talking. Only when she turns, when she's caught sight of him standing there, smiling.

It's a predator's smile.

"Awfully brave of you, dearie," he says. "Coming in here. There's plenty of people couldn't have managed it."

Something about the look in his eye makes her blood run cold.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says lightly, though she takes a step back.

"I think you do." His teeth flash through the smile, one of them crowned in gold. She can feel the can of mace through the fabric of her purse. He's standing between her and the door, which he's already shut behind him. A maddened voice in the back of her mind tells her to make for the window—a running jump should break the glass, and then she can run and call the Sheriff to save her.

But she doesn't listen to that voice. Instead she obeys the other one, the one that wells in the pit of her stomach and slips out of her mouth before she can stop it:

"My, what big teeth you have."

Oh. My. God. What the hell was that?

But now she's said it, and she's got to own it. She flashes a broad smile—wasn't that a funny joke? But now he's laughing—a soft chuckle at first, but it grows. A nice laugh, a part of her thinks, while another part of her wonders what's so damn funny. He tugs the blood-red handkerchief out of his suit pocket.

"Are you familiar with the concept of counting coup, Ruby?" he asks. She blinks, completely dumbfounded by what this has to do with anything, and he continues. "An ancient tradition. A warrior sneaks into a rival's village and touches his enemy, just to prove he can. No blood is shed. It's simply a matter of pride."

He presses the handkerchief into her hand, and his fingers feel like they're made of stone. She didn't realize until now that she's shaking all over.

Gold steps forward, closing the distance between them, and for the briefest of seconds his lips press against hers.

"There's your conquest, dearie," he says. "You've done well. But now it's time to go home."

He leads her to the door like a true gentleman, escorts her down the front step, then disappears back inside. She's vaguely aware that she's moving after that, but she can't feel her legs anymore. She's gone entirely numb.

A few weeks later she learns that Granny's rent has been cut down by a couple hundred each month. Granny keeps throwing her funny looks, but Ruby keeps her mouth shut. She doesn't know what to say.

But she keeps the handkerchief he gave her, on display over her mirror like a wolf pelt.