Loving the Devil

Part 10: Waiting to marry the Devil

"Oh no! This is such a tragedy!"

The anguished yell coming from upstairs immediately alerted Isaac, obliging him to close the call with mr Gold without even a goodbye. For ten seconds – the needed time to reach Cruella – he feared the worst, but when he finally pushed the door of their bedroom, he simply saw her with her back turned staring at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a long and sumptuous white dress, her hair were unusually tied up and, despite the position, it was possible to see a slight swelling at her belly that gave somehow a certain kindness to her beauty. For a while he simply kept staring at her in silence and almost forgot his previous fear. Almost. Because she was beautiful indeed, but her complete distraction was revealing all her indifference.

"What is it so tragic?"

Despite the question was asked in a calm voice – at most it was only slightly ironic – it was the woman's turn to be startled. In fact, she turned around quickly with widened eyes, but not before throwing one of her furs on herself though.

"What the hell are you doing here Isaac?" she asked, approaching him with a furious expression now. "You can't see the dress before the wedding!"

He instinctively took some steps back, raising his hands up in a sign of defence. The border between handling her bad attitude and surrender completely to it was still very fragile: the aristotelic metriotes was yet to be found, after all.

"I heard you yelling and so I came here to check…" he started to say in an unwillingly apologetic tone, but suddenly he stopped and a curious smirk appeared on his face. "What does it mean that I can't see your dress? Are you becoming superstitious?"

Cruella just rolled her eyes. "Of course not, darling… But I don't want to ruin the terror of the moment you'll see it" she added with a wink. And she seemed really thrilled about it.

However, that amusement didn't last long and, while the annoyance was back in her, she pushed him out of the room until slamming litterally the door on his face. For some moments he stood still: he didn't know actually if he should have felt offended, amused or simply resigned, but in any case the astonishment made vanish any other thought. Only when he started to climb down the stairs and heard a new imprecation, he remembered that he still hadn'r understood what was the "tragedy".

Unless, of course, the tragedy didn't stand for the general idea of their marriage: he had the strange feeling that it wouldn't have been her to become the taimed shrew but maybe it would have been him to turn into Macbeth.

"…And so I had to broaden the dress of two centimetres, and it is all of this little devil's fault! Argh, that's a true tragedy!"

Cruella finished the account of her little big misadventure of the morning with a deep sigh and it was with an instinctive gesture that she moved her hand toward the bottle of gin. Unluckly for her, someone was quicker though.

"Don' you dare, mom of the year!" Regina reproached her, stealing the bottle and passing it to the closest friend.

And Maleficent was ready to be that complicit. "You know you can't drink during pregnancy, Cru! And besides, don't call the baby like that! Why don't you call him something like little puppy?"

The proposal made Ursula laugh loudly and she almost choked with her drink.

"Considering the relationships between Cruella and puppies, I don't think that's a good idea at all!"

At that point the three witches laughed together in spite of the guest of honor that wasn't having fun at all. Granny's empty dinner wasn't proving to be a good location – maybe also because it was too empty. And then the music they had was awful, the little devil-puppy was preventing her from eating all the delicious food her eyes were carving for and, most of all, she couldn't drink a drop of alcohol!

"Oh, damn it! What the hell am I supposed to do then, darlings?" she suddenly complained, hiding her exasperated face in her red-gloved hands. "Tell me that at least Sheriff Chiseled Chin and Mr Timber Scruff are coming to make a strip tease!"

The other three women looked at each other susprised for the maybe not completely joke, but trying to cancel from their minds the image of a sexy Charming and a sexy Pinocchio, they did the best they could to hold back the new unavoidable laughter. Ursula placed a hand behind her back as attempt to comfort her, while Maleficent tried to say something, but before she could Belle French appeared in front of them with a suspicious smile on her lips.

"Now we'll make a good chat about the wedding and the baby… And in the meanwhile you can enjoy this good analcoholic cocktail" she offered, sitting down between Regina and Maleficent, and placing a glass full of some colored water in front of the new mommy.

It must be a fruit mix – Cruella thought vaguely disgusted. And the disapproval wasn't only for the cocktail actually.

"Uh, darling… Was it really me the one who have invited you?"

Mr Gold read the text just appeared on his phone and shook his head. He had much trust in Belle, but the idea of her as a spy for both Granny and Isaac didn't reassure him. At the moment, she was in fact with the whole queens of darkness team and one of the four had not even had a inch of redemption yet.

However, there was someone he was concerned more about, someone that was already destroyed enough right by that same witch. Sitting in front of him, Isaac looked thoughtful and strangely very nervous; it remembered for a moment himself waiting in that same place for Belle-Lacey and if he had to play the Charming of the situation he would have done that – according to his own rules, of course.

"Here is it!" the waiter of the Rabbit Hole exclaimed placing on their table a plate with at least a dozen glasses of whiskey.

Both the men looked up, but if Rumplestiltskin was smiling, Isaac widened his eyes surprsied. At least he was shaken from his thoughts, though.

"Look, we are just in two"

"No, actually these are all for you alone"

Gold's smirk widened, as also his new friend's eyes.

"Com'on, dearie. You are about to marry a black widow and honestly getting you drunk is the only support I can give you"

The author shook his head and slightly chuckled, preparing himself to reply; however before he could even mutter a single word, he found himself almost unwillingly grabbing one of the glasses. Thinking about it, getting drunk wasn't a bad idea after all.

The next day there would have been the marriage between Heaven and Hell - as William Blake would have called it – even if he saw himself more like stuck in some terrace of Dante's Purgatory. Anyway, he wasn't an angel himself, quite the contrary in spite of his biblical name, he wasn't offering himself in sacrife to God, but directly and willingly to the Devil.

Et voilà chapter 10! This was the day before the wedding, so we are finally approaching it (or maybe I'll let something else happen? mmm). Anyway hope you liked the interactions with the other characters, mostly Rumbelle because I honestly love to imagine the two ships together :) Oh and please forgive me for the amount of references in this chapter, but they just fitted for me - especially the comparison to biblical Isaac.

See you soon:D