Rumplestiltskin woke late in the afternoon and grimaced at his new captor, wrapped around him like a living cage. All of Jafar's compulsions were gone, the blockages to his magic having been broken, even if for the moment he was completely drained. It could only mean that she had guessed his name, and he had a new master.
He rolled out of bed, scanning the floor for the chest. A minute later, he had it in his lap, lid open. He scowled as he dug through the contents. Of course she had hidden it.
She had been out of the room, the cheesecloth and vase made that obvious. Shoving the chest back under the bed, he stalked from the room, running over every secret hiding place between his bedroom and the kitchen.
The thought of killing her crossed his mind as he began pulling up flagstones to peer beneath for the dagger. He couldn't tell if she had been issuing orders while he slept, but he knew that he would find out soon enough.
However, he amended as he began to shiver, he might need her help over the next few days until he was rested. And at any rate, Belle may have been brighter than he had expected, but she wasn't capable of keeping him contained for long.
Another thought caught his attention. He had to see if Regina had obeyed his instructions.
He headed to the grand tower, stopping often to rest or peer into vases in case the girl had stuffed his dagger inside. The state of his home appalled him. Many of pieces in his collection had been broken as the castle decayed in his absence. It would take some time to set it all to rights.
He started coughing the moment he stepped foot into his workroom. The place was dank with the smell of rotting potions and raw ingredients. He was careful not to touch anything as he approached his desk. To his pleasure, the contract and the scroll with his instructions were missing, and no one else could have entered the castle in his absence.
So, there was Regina's somewhat limited intelligence to worry about. And his dagger. And the girl with her delusional fantasies. And his wreck of a home. Not to mention Jafar was still running about with all of his organs intact. It was more than he had to worry about in a long time, and he felt light-headed from the sudden expansion of his world.
Instinct lead him to the grand hall, and he snarled at the broken pieces of his spinning wheel. Gritting his teeth, he exerted his will to bring it back together. The pieces did not so much as twitch, and the effort left him panting.
He hurled the threading hook against the wall. It wasn't fair. The one thing he had wanted to do with his freedom that didn't involve slaughter, and it only reminded him of his helplessness.
He couldn't even go outside, for the tears in the molded drapes showed snow coming down in droves. Without his magic, he wouldn't last long in this weather. Another reminder of his weaknesses.
Belle entered the room sometime later and walked over to where he was sitting, his back against a chunk of the ceiling which had crushed the dining table in half. She dropped to her haunches in front of him. "Will you eat something now, Rumplestiltskin?"
He sneered at her show of power. "No."
"Some tea then?"
He shoved at her shoulders. "Just order me to drink the blasted tea! And then tell me what else you want! It's power, dearie. It's always power. But I have to warn you, if your concentration ever slips, if you ever leave a loophole, then I will destroy you, and then I will finally be free." His outburst, which had started out in a hoarse shout, ended in a croak.
Belle hands had risen to cover her mouth. "Oh, the dagger!" She pulled it out of her trouser pocket and held it out to him, handle first. "I am so sorry. Of course you'd want it back."
Rumplestiltskin hardly heard the rest of her words. He was busy staring at the dagger's handle. She hadn't taken control of him. Even knowing what he was capable of, she was offering him his freedom.
He pulled it out of her hand. "Thank you." His voice was tight with control.
She moved to sit by his side and pushed a peach into his free hand. He absently closed his fingers around the velvety surface, more preoccupied with examining the dagger. It was no imitation, and he could not believe that such a small thing had been the source of so much of his revel and misery.
He tilted his head to the side. "Why don't we make a deal?"
Belle stretched her legs out in front of herself. "I don't like the idea of making a deal with a demon."
"I'm not a demon," he snapped, needled into truth by the memory of Jafar's tales. "I have demonic powers."
Belle's snort told him that wasn't much better, but he continued anyway. "I will allow you to stay in my castle. You will be fed and clothed. In return, you will help me in whatever way I need."
He didn't like the way her eyes had narrowed. "Exactly how long is this arrangement supposed to last?"
"Until I am well again." He grit his teeth at the admission of his weakness.
"And 'help,' what does that entail?"
"Cooking and cleaning." His voiced dropped. "And I need to stay warm."
Her look was uncomprehending. "So finding firewood then?"
His eyes stayed on the floor. "There's not likely to be any nearby."
She made a noise of dawning realization. "You mean like last night."
He jerked his chin, feeling his face redden. "Do we have a deal?"
"Not quite. I want to go home eventually."
"You may not have a home to return to," he said, her misfortune a balm to his bruised pride. "Jafar had to steal magic from me, figure out the right spell, and then fumble through it before your Ogre War could be stopped."
Her face had hardened. "Be that as it may, I want to go home."
"Fine. Do we have a deal or not?"
"One more thing."
He threw up his hands. "What? What else do you want?"
"Do you have a library?"
-X-
And so Belle found herself employed by another sorcerer. The work was much more stressful than her position with Jafar. The tasks themselves were not all that difficult. However, the sheer number of things to do in the castle overwhelmed her. Nature was well on its way to overrunning the place, and Rumplestiltskin wanted her to gather up every bauble and trinket in the castle and bring it to the grand dining room.
The man himself sat by the table fiddling with broken pieces of wood and looking pale.
After a half hour fight with a tangling vine over a pair of terrified-looking puppets, Belle abandoned her first task and instead spent her time washing the sheets. If she was going to be sleeping in that bed, she refused to spend the night wallowing in dust and grime. She had shrieked when she had uncovered the mattress to discover a nest of weevils and several dead moths. After that, she had worked on cleaning out another bedroom.
She was a bit nervous about the other creature with whom she had been sharing a bed. It hadn't been awkward the first two nights, but he had been so out of it then.
The whole true love thing she also avoided. He wasn't dealing well with his newfound freedom. She would have to treat him carefully.
She began by bringing him food. Rumplestiltskin was skeletally thin, and she knew from the previous night that pointy elbows and knobby ribs did not make for comfortable bed fellows.
Besides which, she was coming to think of him as hers. He had the look of an animal searching for shelter. Why food was helping to calm her protective urge, she had no idea, but it was better than cuddling him like a lost puppy. Something told her he wouldn't react well to that at all.
It was nearly dark when she found her way into the dining hall with two bowls of soup. Rumplestiltskin, surrounded by a pile of dusty treasures, ignored her. She sighed when she saw his breakfast sitting untouched at one end of the splintered table.
Walking to his side, Belle folded her legs as she moved to sit on the floor the floor. She placed one of the bowls on a marble pedestal standing upright amidst the clutter. She raised the other to her mouth, drinking deeply. As she drank, she slide over until her side was pressed against his.
He sucked in a breath at the sudden contact, and his skin was cold to the touch. Belle hummed a little and drank more of her soup. The silence felt fragile as glass.
After a while, she felt him relaxing. He stopped fidgeting with his hoard. His alien eyes slide over to the other bowl of soup. Belle handed it to him.
She rested her fingers against a wooden ship in a glass bottle and, waiting until he had finished drinking, asked, "Did you make this?"
He shook his head in between licking the sides of the bowl. Belle pulled a roll out of her pocket and handed it over. "Do you know how they get it inside?"
He lowered the bowl and raised an eyebrow. "Magic."
Belle dimpled. "Is it a magic ship then?"
"No." He shredded the roll. "What would you do with a magic ship?"
"I always wanted to see the world."
"Perhaps more than one world."
Belle frowned. His tone had darkened as he sunk out of the playful mood she had been coaxing him into. Anxious to discharge the tension in the air, she placed a hand against his arm. "You're freezing. Come on, let's go to bed."
He didn't seem to mind the order, allowing her to pull him to his feet. His gaze was still distant, and he swayed alarmingly once he was upright, but she put his arm through hers and guided him out of the hall.
He didn't comment on the new bedroom, and she exited the room to give him some privacy. Standing about in the hall, she plucked at her grimy tunic. She hadn't seen any other clothes for herself, and she was beginning to grow uncomfortable without at least a simple dress. Her trousers and tunic were growing thin from her hasty washings. Not to mention that the sleeves were still stained from where he had clawed her.
She ran her fingers through her hair, stalling for time. Then she grabbed a book that she had found mouldering behind a chair earlier that day and headed back to the bedroom.
Rumplestiltskin had moved to sit on the bed and was arranging the objects on the small table beside it. He had lit the candle, but Belle wished for darkness. She squared her shoulders; she was determined not to be embarrassed.
She took the opposite side of the bed, sliding up until she could lean back against the headboard. She opened the book to the first page.
A few minutes in which she could hear only his breathing. Then Rumplestiltskin was peering around her hands at the pages. "I see you found the library."
"Nope. Just spotted this behind a chair."
"How can you read this?" He had a point. The pages had holes from bookworms, the binding was cracking in half, and the ink was smeared from water damage.
Belle gave him a lofty look. "Some of us appreciate a challenge."
He grinned suddenly. "Some of us would appreciate some sleep." He then blew out the candle.
Belle gave a cry of indignation and would have hit him with the book if it could have withstood the attack. "Hey! I was only going to read one chapter!"
He was already wrapping himself around her. "Our deal didn't involve reading."
Belle placed her book on the table to the side of the bed. "Yes, it did."
"Only as a sub-clause. Not nearly as important as sleeping."
"Sleeping? This seems more like cuddling."
He growled, rolling over so that his back was to her. "This is a business arrangement. And I suggest you come to see it that way so we can both escape with our dignity intact."
Belle rolled her eyes, but she also turned so that her body was pressed against his back. "Agreed. Please forgive me my sensational inclinations."
"Only if you'll stop feeling me up."
Belle made a noise of inquiry, then jerked back when she realized her thumb had been slowly running over the soft scales on his stomach where his shirt had ridden up. "Sorry." Her face was heating, and she was grateful for the darkness of the room.
"No matter."
She took that to mean that he didn't mind too much. She wrapped her arm back around him, settling in for the night. The scales there felt pleasant against her fingertips, like worn leather or leaves. It made up for sleeping against his back where the rougher scales and ridges of his spine dug into her skin through his shirt and hers.
Yawning into his shoulder, Belle closed her eyes and readied herself for a long night.
AN: And there you have it. Everyone still conscious? Then on with the show...
