Chapter 10

It was the worst night of his life. He finally came in from the downpour outside, from screaming into the unforgiving torrent until his throat was dry and raw. As soon as he crossed the threshold of his front door, he dropped the sunny yellow raincoat and matching galoshes she had left behind in her rush to get away from him. He scoffed humorlessly at the situation; it wasn't lost on him that he hadn't even wanted her to get wet tonight and now she was off somewhere getting drenched.

He felt miserable and dejected as he unzipped his jacket so Pascal could scurry off and dry himself in some dark corner of his apartment. He threw his keys in the general vicinity of the coffee table, not caring where they landed. All the lights were still off and he knew she wasn't there. The place felt cold and empty without her, much like his old life before she walked into his parlor with her warmth and boundless enthusiasm and turned everything on its head. He paced back and forth in his dark living room, running his fingers through his hair unsure of what to do with himself, unsure of what do next.

He felt like someone had punched him hard in the gut and was overcome with nausea as the contents of his stomach swirled violently, plotting against him and threatening to escape. It took every ounce of self-control he had just to keep it together, but every once in a while he felt the panic and fear bubbling up inside him, manifesting themselves in dry heaves he had to stomp back down.

In the back of his mind was the harrowing, nightmarish possibility that he might not be able to find her, that he might never see her again. It brought him to his knees and he braced the seat cushions for support. He wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't allow himself to even think in terms of "what ifs." As soon as the sun came up again, he was going back out there and he was going to find her and if she refused to talk to him, he was going to hound her until she relented.

There was no way he was losing her over this. He wasn't going to lose her over a stupid lie someone told her because if that person couldn't have him, then no one else could.

He didn't know how long he stayed in the living room before he finally decided to go to bed for lack of a better plan. That was a mistake. He felt much worse in the bedroom.

As he finished brushing his teeth, his eyes glanced every which way but the dry, lavender toothbrush in the toothbrush holder next to his own. He accidentally caught sight of her strawberry shampoo through the glass door of his shower stall and, in a brief moment of either weakness or insanity, he contemplated sniffing it the way delinquent kids sniffed paint to get a cheap high. He quickly shut the bathroom door behind him before he got any other crazy ideas.

The bed was still tidy and made; a remnant from this morning when things had been normal and happy between them, before his life had turned to complete and utter shit. He wasn't tired. His mind was racing and there was her side of the bed to contend with as he stared at it like some foreign, painful object. A bit of the cloth from her folded, polka dot pajamas was poking through from under her pillow as he stood looming over the bed debating whether he should get in it or not. For a moment he contemplated sleeping on the couch or on the floor, until he decided he was being ridiculous.

He took off his shoes and his clothes; they were no longer drenched like they had been when he first walked into the apartment, but they were still damp. He put on another shirt and a pair of jeans; he was going to get up in a few hours, just as soon as the sun came up, he might as well get dressed now.

He didn't bother closing the blinds before crawling into bed; his room glowed red from the neon sign of the Chinese restaurant across the street. In his darkest moment, he buried his face into her pillow taking in her scent as if he were trying to take in every last molecule of her into his lungs and hoping he'd hyperventilate in the process.

He was alone in the bed he was supposed to be sharing with her. Her clothes still hung in his closet, the charcoal sketch she'd made of him was still within arm's reach, everything was exactly like he had left it this morning, but there was no her. She was gone.

He noticed his old concert tee, folded neatly on top of the dresser. He recalled how he didn't want to lend it to her that first night because it was his favorite. Right now, he didn't care if she wanted to borrow it swan dive into a pool of purple paint. He just wanted her back.

When dawn came, he was on his back, wide awake staring at the ceiling fan. For a while he had counted the revolutions before even his eyes gave up and he stopped focusing on anything specific. The rain had stopped and the sun had finally broken through the dark night that had imprisoned it; that had imprisoned him.

He heard a knock on the front door and nearly fell off the bed in his rush to answer it. Please be Rapunzel. Please be Rapunzel. He opened it without looking through the peephole and his face fell when he saw it was the boy from the restaurant and not Rapunzel. The boy shifted uncomfortably on the second floor landing for a moment, before motioning for Eugene to follow him.

The boy led him back to the restaurant. The woman everyone called Ma was standing behind the counter transforming ordinary cloth napkins into elegant swans. She took one look at Eugene and immediately went back into the kitchen as if she'd just remembered she'd left cocktail buns in the oven.

She brought back with her a small girl wearing the restaurant's uniform, a traditional red and gold cheongsam. The girl wouldn't look at him, but he could tell her eyes were puffy as if she'd been crying all night. Eugene rushed to her side, but before he could reach her, Ma stuffed a rolled up brown paper bag in front of his chest. He assumed it was the clothes she'd worn last night.

"Rapunzel? I thought I'd never see you again!" He told her as he wrapped his arms around her, still clutching the paper bag and felt her shaking when she began sobbing again. It was okay to admit that fear now. She was here; she was safe. "I never slept with her. I never slept with any of those women. You have to believe me."

Ma's hands flew over her son's ears, much to the young boy's annoyance. She had returned to her original position behind the counter next to her swans and it was clear she wasn't leaving that spot. It was like her feet had sprouted roots onto the red carpeting. It was not like Ma to turn her back on juicy gossip, especially relationship gossip. Bringing people together was her self-professed specialty and she had just reunited two people. She was not about to turn her back on the fruits of her labor, especially when it was engrossingly being played out in front of her.

He was about to have a very private conversation in the presence of Ma and her son in the front room of their restaurant, but Eugene didn't care. It was his one shot at winning her back; he wasn't going to squander it to save face. He was prepared to grovel, if that's what it took to convince her of his sincerity.

Eugene tightened his hold on her. "I didn't think this, what you and I have, was possible. I didn't think I was capable of letting anyone into my life. Not since my parents died; not until you came along. I'm not going to throw that away just because some woman wants to take me to bed. I didn't sleep with her, I've never slept with any of those groupies, and I certainly never cheated on you. I love you."

When she didn't respond, he kept talking.

"Look. You don't have worry about ever seeing her at the parlor again. She made a lot of thugs very angry last night, I doubt they'll let her walk on the same side of the street after the stunt she pulled, but I can't guarantee that this isn't going to happen again. Sometimes I work with the door closed, sometimes people request tattoos in strange places. It doesn't tempt me. I want you. Only you. You have to believe me. You have to trust me."

"I do." She responded before pulling him down for a wet, tear-salted kiss.

"Come on, let's go home." He smiled down at her.

###

They didn't make it past the living room. They made it only so far as the few steps from the front door to the couch.

Pascal rushed into the room to greet his found friend, but quickly caught on and ran out of there to go hide under the bed. They were both too preoccupied with each other to notice the thoroughly embarrassed lizard.

There were two awkward pauses. The first came after a few minutes of uncharacteristic fumbling on his part. "I have no idea how to get this thing off of you." He confessed when he broke the kiss, referring to her borrowed cheongsam. She took his hand and guided it to the hidden zipper on the side of the second came when he had to get up to retrieve a prophylactic from the drawer in his nightstand because he no longer carried one in his wallet.

He clung to her body the way a drowning man clung to life preserver, like his life depended on it. And she wrapped herself around him as if she'd had the same thought.

He'd never made love to her like this. It was possessive and needy and desperate - like his hands and his nose and his eyes and his ears were all trying to assure themselves that she was really here again in his arms, where she was meant to be. And maybe in his all-consuming desire to get closer to her, he wasn't gentle as he ordinarily would have been. Maybe he dispensed with some of that delicacy in his urgent rush to quell the yearning he felt for her.

Afterward, he took her back to their room and held onto her until both of them succumbed to sleep. It didn't take long; neither one of them had slept the night before.

###

She stared at herself in the mirror above the bathroom sink for what felt like a really long time. He glanced at her surreptitiously from time to time from his perch on the bed under tousled sheets.

She was acting strange, quiet and pensive, not at all her usual self. She was always so affectionate and talkative afterwards. She would rest her head on his chest and he would hold her close, lightly running his hands over her until her soft skin would prickle under his touch. He'd breathe her in through his nose and ink indecipherable little designs on her bare back with his fingertips as she went over every delicious detail - like he hadn't been there, like he'd casually stepped out of the room and she was filling him in on all the fun he'd missed - until she was too distracted by his touch to string together a coherent thought, until he'd silence her with his lips. It was a huge turn on for him, a continuous feedback loop that was in no small part responsible for the fact that with her, one thing always led to another.

"You marked me." She declared flatly, holding her short hair up with one hand and craning her neck to inspect his handiwork in the mirror.

"Shit, I'm sorry, Babe." He said as he scrambled out of bed to inspect the purple splotch he'd made just below her ear.

He had gotten carried away. He really shouldn't have kissed her so roughly; he really needed to be more careful with her. He began to mutter a second apology when his eyes met hers in the mirror and he noticed she didn't look upset about it. She had a smug grin on her face. She turned around and stared up at him, planting her hands firmly on his bare chest.

"I want you to mark me . . . permanently." She told him.

She had never talked about getting a tattoo before, although she could spend hours admiring his and often did. He had thought about it of course. He had thought about how titillating it would be to leave a part of him on her body in indelible ink.

It was a strange craving for him to have considering how he tattooed people day in and day out and never thought twice about how he was leaving his mark on them too. But then again, he'd always regarded her differently. She had a way of doing that to him. Of making him feel like the things he'd done countless times before were new and different and a thousand times more meaningful when he did them with her.

She was adorable and sexy and beautiful all rolled into a tight little package and she didn't need a tattoo to make her more appealing to him. Then again, he knew it wasn't about that. He never looked down at people who weren't inked. He didn't think of them as plain or boring, or conformists; he knew better. He knew that tattoos were about self-expression. Tattoos were an art form, like painting, or sculpting, or writing, or dancing. They commemorated important events. They were a way of telling one's life story or remembering things or people you loved. She wanted a tattoo and she wanted him to be the one to give it to her. The thought made his fingers itch for his machine.

He asked her if she was going to use one of her tattoo flashes, the ones that were selling like gangbusters downstairs in the parlor, or if she was going to draw something new. She surprised him when she told him she wanted him to design it.

###

Every Sunday there was a farmer's market by the wharf. There were fruit stands and fish stands and vendors selling all sorts of wares. He stood on the cobblestone street with a chameleon on his head content to hold a burlap sack filled to the brim with fresh produce and a few knickknacks while Rapunzel cheerfully chatted with a vegetable merchant about his newest crop of radishes.

"I find that if you sprinkle some egg shells into the soil, it helps them spout leaves faster." The old man told her.

As the two of them talked, he couldn't help but think that the old Flynn wouldn't have recognized him. The old Flynn would've still been in bed recovering from a hangover or worse, doing the walk of shame. The old Flynn wouldn't have been caught dead at a farmer's market on a Sunday morning just because it was a certain girl's idea of fun. Then again, the old Flynn hadn't been this happy.

"And we'll need to stop at the wine shop on our way home." She told him.

"Wine? You don't like wine."

"It's not for me."

"Oh." He took a closer look at the items in the bag he was carrying. Several boxes of tapered beeswax candle sticks, imported cheese, arugula, a box of those fancy table crackers, paper frills for the racks of lamb she had ordered from the butcher.

The parlor was closed on Sundays, so it wasn't unusual for her to cook an elaborate dinner on those nights. He was spoiled in that she really was an amazing cook. He knew the food she had picked up was too much for the two of them, but he still didn't know what she was up to and he liked teasing her so he toyed with her a bit.

"Are you going to all this trouble just for me, Babe? Cause you know, I put out quite easily."

"It's not for you." she retorted, extending her hand so that Pascal could safely climb onto her shoulder before shoving him off the sidewalk for his cheeky comment.

"Oh? Got some poor schlub on the side? I almost feel sorry for the guy; he can't compete with my superhuman good looks and my irresistible charm."

He gave her a cocky grin and despite her eye roll, he knew she secretly liked his air of confidence and borderline narcissism.

"So, I take it we're having company over tonight?" He asked seriously.

"Yup."

"Anyone I know?"

"It's two people you know."

"Oh?"

"Have you noticed Vlad has been coming around the parlor a lot more lately?" She hinted.

". . . . Yeah."

"I think he's in love."

"Oh no. I can tell you right now she's not interested."

Rapunzel's face fell. Her expression reminded him of a kid who'd just dropped his ice cream cone on the sidewalk.

"Why? Did she say something to you?" She pouted.

". . . . No. But she's got a type. If the guy's not an asshole who treats her like garbage, she's won't give him the time of day. I can't believe I'm saying this about Vlad, but he's too nice."

"Oh." Rapunzel shrugged in discouragement.

His receptionist had regarded Rapunzel with apprehension when Eugene first brought her to the parlor. She had mistook her for a competitor, back when she was still bouncing back and forth between his apprentices. But Rapunzel had worn down her jaded exterior and had won her over.

To her credit, she stuck up for him, when that girl was spewing malicious lies and she had been singlehandedly responsible for uncovering Rapunzel's immense talent for drawing, even if she had given her those colored pencils to keep her away from the attentions of her male co-workers. She wasn't a bad person. She just had some pretty messed up ideas about love and dating. Then again, so had he and he had managed to turn it all around. Maybe she deserved that opportunity too.

He wasn't going to be the one to take the wind out of Rapunzel's sails. If his girl wanted to play Cupid for two people with nothing in common, who was he to stand in her way?

"Come on, I know which cabernet she likes best."

She grinned up at him as he reached for her hand.

AN1: Oh my goodness Crocodile! You seriously made my day. I can't wait to see the fan art you make for this fan fic. As for what Inked!Flynn looks like, the only tattoos that would be visible with a shirt on would be the tattoo sleeves that run down both of his arms. I always pictured them in black ink (not colored) and wild and chaotic. I'm thinking skulls and maybe crashing waves or a broken compass or ship wheel, things that would symbolize being untethered, directionless, and in trouble. There would probably be some coins and gemstones to mark his obsession with getting rich or his earlier run ins with the law. Maybe a palm tree or palm fronds to represent his old dream. Some foreshadowing would be cool, maybe items that were used in some of these chapters? IDK. Feel free to pick and choose and add anything else you think would fit. He probably thinks his face is perfection, so I don't see him messing with face piercings. He definitely would've experimented with hair color when he was younger, but he's pushing 29 in this fic, since Rapunzel is 21, so by now he's probably settled back into chocolate brown. Hope this helps. I'm so excited!

AN2: Beta Gyre, they say write what you know, but sometimes writng what you don't know is a lot more fun. I'm not terribly confident that I'm using the jargon properly, but I certainly gained a lot of appreciation for tattoos and people who have them from researching this fic. =D

AN3: We're one chapter and one short epilogue away from finishing this story. I'm kind of sad about that; I don't think I'm ready to part with this AU just yet. At least there's the follow up ficlet about Rapunzel's parents to write and maybe, possibly that smutty one-shot for Jade1994. Thank you guys for the reviews, favs and follows. I get ridiculously giddy when I receive one. This little project wouldn't be nearly as fun without your comments and feedback and encouragement. So if you're on the fence about leaving a review, please write one.