a/n: thank you to WhatsMyAge, twihardandveryobsessed, Nicole Billings, Romance and Musicals, Lulu (Gothel is aging very rapidly at this point), and CnC Veteran/TheCryoLegionaire for reviewing! I really appreciate it, everyone, and appreciate everyone who reads this story also. Thank you! :)
The fog's wrapped around the whole capital like a blanket, so thick he could cut it with a knife, and people are nothing but voices in the wind. He can hear vendors yelling about their wares, children running in the street, people shouting and generally continuing with their daily lives despite the grievous lack of visibility. He still sticks close to the building overhangs, out of habit, and finds himself feeling his way to Market Square. It's the place he decides to start really looking because it's the place he would have taken her.
He stands for a moment in the nothing, in the blank whiteness. Behind him he can make out the wood and door of a building, below him the cracked, hard cobbled way, and that's about it. He frowns, rubbing at his chin and his eyes and his nose, jumping from one foot to the other, stomach a wild mess of nerves.
He misses the suave Flynn Rider in times like these.
To his left, where he can feel the openness of the square, he hears a pair of heavy boots, maybe a slight, light noise, but when he turns his head to investigate it is gone, a distant memory lost to the fog, and he's left wondering if he imagined it.
He continues forward, blindly, almost, until he reaches what he thinks is the street leading from the Market to Hightown. The clank of a soldier's uniform reaches his ears, and he ducks into the nearest visible side-alley. When he thinks they have passed he edges his way out into the fog, and trips.
"Dammit all—" he hisses to the empty air, because he has grown clumsy and ugly in the last twenty-four hours and doesn't like it. His knee feels cut, adding to his growing menagerie of bruises and injuries, and his boot is scuffed. He gets to his feet, back-tracking a few long steps to find the source of his fall.
He makes out the shape in the fog before he sees the face. He kneels down when he can clearly perceive the mop of brown hair and large, bear-like form.
"Hello." He pokes at the man's shoulder. A large, red bump is blossoming beautifully on the stranger's forehead. "Hey, are you ok?"
The man doesn't stir so Flynn stands, because, frankly, more important things are currently on his mind. He takes a step into the startling, thick white surrounding him and that's when he hears it and his heart stops a moment and, size difference be damned, he has the man up and on his feet, pressed against the nearest wall, and he's breathing into the stranger's face with intensity—
"Rapunzel…" the man moans again, slowly blinking open his eyes. "Rapunzel, what's—"
"Where is she?" Flynn's voice is hoarse and dreadful and raw. "Where is she? Did you see her?"
"I don't—who are—Rapunzel—"
"Answer me!"
"Who are you?" The man wakes up fully, shoving back; Flynn tumbles to the street, almost loosing everything in the fog but springing back quickly enough that the man is still there in his line of sight.
"I'm no one—" Flynn's heart is pounding rapid, staccato beats, skipping every other one in an irregular pattern. "I'm—where is she?"
"Who are you?" The man repeats slowly. His large, thick hand travels to the bump on his forehead, then back down to his side.
"I'm—" here he pauses. "I'm Eugene Fitzherbert." The name is foreign on his tongue, as foreign as the day when he told a girl in a forest. He doesn't know what possesses him to say it. "You've seen Rapunzel?"
"She slept with me."
"Excuse me?" It's comical, really, how quickly his head snaps up, how his body goes rigid, his fist clenches, how his voice is now deep and dark and threatening—
The other man clams up, blood rushing to his cheeks. "I—I mean, she slept in the smithy with me—not with me, like that, I wouldn't—I hardly know her, but we had an extra cot—"
There is an invisible clock somewhere ticking fast so he cuts off the other man and says, "I'm looking for her. Which way did she go?"
"I don't—there was a man, and then—" he gestures helplessly to his red, throbbing forehead and Flynn frowns.
"What did he look like?"
"Red hair…I think." He frowns, but suddenly something is in his dark eyes and his head snaps up. "How do you know Rapunzel?"
"She's in danger. I don't have time to explain everything." Flynn's up and away, down the street, because red hair could only mean the Brother's Grimm which means they have her, already, taken her back to Gothel, but there's still a chance she's alive, a single glimmer of hope—
"Wait!"
He stops because the voice is loud and he hates to attract attention; his response is a forced sort of quiet.
"Shut up!" He hisses into the fog as the big, burly form becomes visible again, lumbering towards him.
"I think I love her." The big man says when he finally stops before him. Flynn regards him with an open mouth for a heartbeat. Then:
"I don't have time for this—" He rolls his eyes, already turning away from the man.
"I think I love her. So I want to help you. I don't think you want to hurt her." He fiddles with the hem of his jacket. When he looks up his eyes are hard. "If you want to hurt her I'll—"
"Woh, hold on there," and Flynn swaggers forward, trying to look intimidating, which is hard against the bulk before him, "the last thing I want to do is hurt her." The end part, for all his bravado, comes out slow and serious, and the large man studies him carefully for a breath; then he nods.
Flynn is happy the 'again' he tacked on to that statement is simply silently flashing across his mind and not loudly parading itself through the air.
"Well, good. I want to save her."
"Woh, woh, woh again. Nope. Sorry. Hero roll already filled, by moi. Not you." Flynn had thought this day couldn't get any worse but apparently he had been mistaken. He turns, feeling rather than seeing the openness of the Market around him once more.
"Those kidnappers, they're probably far ahead by now—"
Such naivety. He's almost disgusted.
"—I can get you a horse."
Flynn stops, cursing.
"Fine."
"My name's Bastion."
"I find myself not caring. Get me a horse that isn't a demon and I might forgive you for being 'in love' with her."
And he says no more.