it's been a long time. how have you been? i've been really busy being dead. you know, after i abandoned this fic for 4 years. but now i'm back! because i recently replayed portal 2 and got this... itch... to start working on this fic again. and when i opened the document, i saw that i actually had this chapter like 75% written, when i thought i'd only had the beginning of it! that's a good feeling, when you find out that you've gotten more work done than you thought you did. it also means that i'm extremely close to the end. i've got other things i should be writing, but since inspiration has struck and it isn't much further to go, i figured, what the hey. let's do this.


Chapter Seven
The Itch

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. It was actually a relief to see this kind of landing again, and she could almost feel the vapor pumped into the test chambers wash over her, soothing her aches and refreshing her. She left the elevator behind and ended up again on the catwalks of Aperture's backstage. As she turned a corner, Rumpelstiltskin's voice reached her, but wasn't addressing her. "I knew this was a mistake," he snapped. "You're boxes with legs, how hard can this possibly be? You use your legs to walk, and then because you're also storage cubes, you press the button, and there you have it."

Belle turned another corner to end up in an office overlooking a testing chamber. Rumpelstiltskin was visible on a screen in the wall, scowling. The floor of the chamber was littered with storage cubes that had been somehow welded to two turrets. The turrets struggled to drag themselves around the chamber. Belle didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He groaned. "At least I tried. Which is more than I can say for you lot. Back to the drawing board, I suppose." With that, the screen flickered off.

"Alright," said REGiNA. "Let's solve the test to get his attention. When he comes back, hit him with a paradox."

Belle portalled down to the corridor that led to the test chamber. She stepped through the door and almost immediately tripped over a Frankenstein's monster-like turret. Huh. Frankenturret. That seemed fitting.

The Frankenturret nudged up against her leg, whirring helplessly. She picked it up with the portal gun, and it drew its legs in and began to shiver, pupils dilated wide. Her heart twisted with pity for the poor thing.

She carried it over to the button and gently placed it down.

The screen turned on again. "What?" He caught sight of Belle, and for a moment he didn't seem to know what to do with his face. It struck her again how human he was, and her guts churned. "I-" His voice came out raspy, and he cleared his throat. "I was wondering what had happened to you. Where've you been?"

There was an accusatory note in his tone, and Belle glared. "I've been at the bottom of the pit you knocked me down."

He looked her up and down. "You look terrible."

"Yeah, I fell down a pit."

Guilt flickered across his face, so quickly she wasn't sure she'd seen it. His nose wrinkled. "What's on your clothes?"

Belle looked down at herself, and realized for the first time she was covered in patches of gel. On her clothes, on her skin, and she reached up to confirm that it was in her hair, too. "None of your business," she replied archly. She glanced at the potato on her gun, and remembered that there was a plan, sort of. "Hey, Rumpel," she said.

"Yes?"

"This sentence is false."

He stiffened, and then clapped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut in concentration. After a couple of deep breaths (breaths he didn't need to take, thought Belle), he opened his eyes again. "I won't fall for your tricks, dearie."

Belle shrugged, unsurprised. "I tried."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Look, all I want to do is have a day in the spotlight. Why can't you just let me run the facility for a bit? Let me have my moment? I'll run a few tests, and then we can go. Yeah?" He'd taken on a wheedling tone.

"No," Belle said. "Listen to me. You aren't designed to fit into that chassis. It's going to kill you."

His face twisted into an ugly sneer. "If that's how you're going to play it, dearie, don't waste your breath. I can see right through you. Still trying to use the 'caring' card."

"Rumpel," Belle said, growing desperate. "Can't you see what it's doing to you? You say you want a day, but then you'll want another two, another three, another week. You'll never want to let it go, and it's turning you into something horrible."

"And why would I want to let it go?" he snapped, only managing to prove what she'd just said. "I'm the boss now! Top of the heap! I'm done being used as a rug!"

Belle stared at him helplessly. Then she closed her eyes and held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Alright," she said. "I'll be your test subject."

He froze. "What?" he and REGiNA said at the same time.

"I'll run your tests," she continued. "But know this – I'll find a way out. I'll find a way to you."

"Are you threatening me?" he snarled.

"No," she replied calmly. "I'm keeping a promise."

He stared at her, puzzled. "What promise?"

"That you'd be safe," she said. "I promised you'd be safe. I keep my promises."

He fell into stunned silence. She could almost see the same expression on him as when she'd first made that promise, as when she'd told him about bravery, as when she'd said that he was a genius and that they were a team. Then his face warped. "I am safe."

She looked him dead in the eye, holding his gaze for a long, tense moment, and an uncertainty began to creep onto his face. At last, she said, "Shall we?"

"We shall," he replied with a smirk that wiped away all traces of the old Rumpel. He steepled his fingers. "Let the games begin, dearie."


01

The Excursion Funnels were an incredibly surreal experience. It almost felt like being submerged in a viscous liquid and becoming weightless. The first time she stepped into one, she forgot how to breathe, the sensation of being simultaneously light and pressured upon seizing up her lungs. After that, it became almost enjoyable, but not quite. It was too bizarre, too dreamlike.

He was still using the Frankenturrets as cubes, though. She put one down in front of the monitor and gestured at it. "Really?" she asked.

"What?" he said defensively.

"They're pitiful. What possessed you to make them?"

"I was experimenting," he replied haughtily. "Since there was a distinct lack of test subjects around, I was exploring alternative methods."

"Well, you've got a test subject now." She paused to grab it as it struggled to scoot away, and ran a soothing hand over it. "Can't you do something to make them less miserable? You don't even need to use them anymore."

"Well, I made so many of them, it seems a shame to waste them." He shrugged.

Belle noticed how he didn't answer her question, and her expression hardened. "Have you really become so callous?"

"Look," he snapped. "Just solve the test, will you? Squabbling over trifles will get us nowhere, dearie."

Trifles. Belle sighed and stroked the Frankenturret, slowly easing away its shivers before she picked it up and placed it on the button.

She heard a sharp intake of breath, and glanced up at the monitor in time to see a shudder run through him, his eyes squeezed shut. Her gaze darted from him to the potato on the end of her gun. "Just keep moving," REGiNA muttered.

He exhaled heavily, and his eyes opened again to see her watching him. "Yes?" he said irritably.

Belle shook her head wordlessly and stepped back into the Excursion Funnel, and rode it up to the door.


02

She had to admit, he was pretty good at making tests. It had become clear to her when she was working with him that he was pretty clever, and it seemed that access to the mainframe had only amplified it.

"I'm afraid I can't help you solve the tests," REGiNA said. "My program won't allow me to."

Belle rolled her eyes. "I wasn't going to ask you anyway."

"Well. I was just letting you know. In case."

Rumpelstiltskin watched her intently as she made her way through the chamber. After a few minutes, she stopped on a ledge and glared at him. "Will you stop staring?" she snapped. "It's throwing me off."

He looked taken aback, and his eyes flitted about the room before settling back on her. "Well, where else am I supposed to look?"

Belle faltered. She supposed that she should be used to being under observation – after all, she'd known that REGiNA had been watching her while she ran her tests. But she hadn't actually been able to see REGiNA, there had just been the cameras. And the cameras hadn't watched her with a strangely intense, almost hungry stare. "I don't know," she said, her cheeks burning.

She turned away hastily, and tried to solve the test as un-self-consciously as she could.

When the Frankenturret pressed the button, he shuddered and bit down on his lip, screwing his eyes shut. When he returned his gaze to her, his breathing was a bit more labored and his eyes were dark. She felt herself flushing again and hurried from the chamber.


03

She was getting more used to the Excursion Funnels now, though switching from one to another over a bottomless drop was something she didn't think she'd ever get used to.

This time when she solved the test, she realized that the poorly suppressed expression on Rumpelstiltskin's face was pleasure.

"What's going on?" she hissed to REGiNA, but the potato's light was dark. Belle suspected the AI was playing possum.


04

Belle was less than thrilled to see the return of actual turrets, but was glad that the Excursion Funnels proved a simple and effective method of removing them. And she did like that she could switch the direction the Funnels flowed in.

This time when she solved the test, Rumpelstiltskin wasn't quite able to bite back a moan. Belle felt her cheeks turn red and she hurried for the elevator, unwilling to admit to the electric jolt that had shot through her at the sound.


05

The combination of Aerial Faith Plates and Excursion Funnels was an odd one, and she wasn't sure she liked the sensation of being flung headlong into a Funnel. It was a little like being slapped into a bowl of jell-o. She was pretty sure being slapped into a bowl of jell-o was something that had never happened to her, but it felt like an accurate analogy all the same.


06

Somehow, REGiNA and Rumpelstiltskin got into a shouting match. She was pretty sure REGiNA had started it, something about getting her body back in the same condition she'd left it, and it had devolved into name-calling and general unpleasantness.

Belle pressed her free hand to her temple, trying to ward off an oncoming migraine. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. "Both of you, shut up!" she all but screamed. "I can't think over your obnoxious bickering!"

They both immediately fell silent. Rumpelstiltskin looked torn between shock and embarrassment, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

So she did still have some influence over him after all. She filed that bit of information away. It was definitely going to come in handy.


11

"Why are you so determined to make me run tests?" Belle asked him.

To her surprise, he actually gave the question some consideration. "It's like… it's like an itch," he said eventually. "I don't know how else to put it. Just this itch to test. And I can't resist it, because if I do, it just gets worse and worse. But when you solve a test… oh, dearie." His sigh was almost dreamy. "It's the best thing in the world."

Once she was in the elevator, she fixed REGiNA with the sternest stare she had. "Tell."

There was an awkward pause. Finally, she admitted, "My body has a built-in euphoric response to testing. I was able to push past it of course – I'm just in it for the science. Him, though…"

Belle swallowed. She'd suspected as much, but to hear it laid out in solid facts made it much more real. However, the immature part of her couldn't resist the opportunity to take a jab at REGiNA. "You seem awfully defensive about just being in it for the sc-"

"Don't make me reconsider my offer to let you go after all this is over."


12

As Belle stepped through the Emancipation Grid out of the test chamber, Rumpelstiltskin said, "Hm."

The worry in his tone made her stop. "What?"

"The elevator seems to have… melted," he replied, clearly baffled. "I can't figure out why. I'm just getting some error code."

"It's starting," REGiNA muttered. "We have to hurry."

Belle nodded and started to walk again.

"Never mind that," Rumpelstiltskin said hastily, as Belle rounded the corner to see the walkway abruptly end. "I'll just get an Excursion Funnel and… there you go."

After a moment of hesitation, Belle hopped into the funnel.

"I'm sure it's not a problem," Rumpelstiltskin said as she floated along. "Probably a leftover malfunction that REGiNA didn't get around to fixing." But he sounded unconvinced.

"I fixed all the elevators, coward!" REGiNA snapped.

"Oh, all of them? In the short amount of time you were back online?" he sneered back. "And I'm not a-"

A loud, ominous groan cut him off, and Belle looked up to see a massive chunk of facility falling towards her. Rumpelstiltskin saw it too, and immediately panicked. "I'll- I'll get you out of there, just-"

The funnel vanished. "No, wait!" he shouted as Belle dropped through the air.

She crashed through the ceiling of an office section, landing thankfully on her feet.

"I didn't mean to do that!" Rumpelstiltskin said, flustered. "I didn't- It wasn't supposed to- There was another error-"

"Rumpel, you're losing control," Belle pleaded. "Listen to me, I told y-"

Rumpelstiltskin's voice snarled through the facility. "This again! I'm in control. For the first time, I have total control! And I'm not losing it. I won't lose it! I won't let you take it from me!"

"You c-" REGiNA began, but Belle clamped her hand over the potato. There was nothing Belle could think to say that would help, and letting REGiNA speak would only make things worse.

"Let's just keep going," Belle murmured.


15

In this chamber, Rumpelstiltskin was oddly quiet. He seemed to be mulling something over, and didn't even appear to respond to the reward protocols when Belle completed the test.


16

"I've decided I have a surprise for you," Rumpelstiltskin said as soon as Belle stepped into the chamber.

Belle found this highly suspicious, especially considering his silence during the previous test. "A surprise?" she asked warily.

"Yes indeed, dearie," he replied brightly, with one of his unpleasant sniggers. "A surprise."

A distinct sense of unease formed in the pit of Belle's stomach.

"I think he found something," REGiNA said in a low voice. "This won't be good."

Belle knew better than to ask what kind of not-good things Rumpelstiltskin could have found, because considering this was Aperture Science, it would be a very, very long list. "We'll just take things as they come," she replied.

"I know you're… good at improvising," REGiNA said, sounding like it physically pained her to give a compliment, "but it might not be enough."

Belle looked up at the monitor, where Rumpelstiltskin lounged in the chassis, watching her with a calculating stare.

"It'll have to be," she said grimly.