"Impressive."
Gold mutters as he observes the two young women burst into the empty crawl space behind his office. Pulling the curtain neatly back into place, he turns to the Sheriff who currently shares the small, one bedroom apartment with him opposite his shop with a pleasant smile.
"Much sooner than I had expected, Miss Swan. I believe I had placed my bets for tomorrow afternoon. I forget what you wagered?"
Baleful green eyes regard him hatefully from the bed as the blonde glares up at him silently. After finding her this afternoon- bloodied and with the scrap of material he had used as a gag hanging useless around her throat- he has left her mouth uncovered.
It turns out the Sheriff is a woman of few words when in her current predicament.
Limping over to perch beside her, he fusses aside an errant strand of hair that tickles her face; its tip stained a dull maroon. Sighing as the young woman flinches away from him with a feline hiss, he rolls his eyes as he laments the Sheriff's undesirable behavior.
"How's the pain?"
Dark eyes survey her critically as the pawnbroker lets his attention fall to the blood-streaked rags he has bound tightly around her injuries. Her face remains alarmingly pale, while obscure green glitters feverishly from beneath purpled lids, her lips chapped and bloodless, but she has remained both characteristically insolent and thankfully coherent since his lackluster attempt to staunch the bleeding at her wrists, so he pays this little mind.
"Do you want to use the bathroom before we figure out what to do with you?"
Glowering silence, and he supposes he should be used to such ill-mannered, childish behavior by now. Pressing a long-nailed finger cruelly against sodden fabric, he is rewarded with a pained snarl and he moves so that he sits nose to nose with the Sheriff.
"I said... Do you want to use the bathroom?"
"Go fuck yourself."
"Really, Sheriff!"
Gold laughs, shaking his head in amusement as though the young woman has just shared a particularly humorous joke. Raising an eyebrow at her curiously, he simply remains seated and enjoys her silent company.
Her white dress and childish tights both carry ugly blemishes from her foolish little bit of mischief earlier in the day and he itches to change her but doesn't see how this will possibly go down well in her current state.
In her conscious state.
Sighing, his eyes wander back to the blood-damped fabric covering her wrists and he frowns. He has changed his makeshift dressings once already since finding more suitable scraps of material than the sleeves of his ruined suit, and yet still the pale blue fabric is blotted an ugly maroon. He knows little about medicine, but understands enough to be certain that the young woman is in need of stitches, and that forgoing them will leave her with a series of crude scars. He would almost say such a fate would serve her right, but he can't help but be plagued by the mental image of the state of her right hand- now mercifully covered and hidden- and the wary knowledge that if the frail bones she has shattered in her attempt for freedom aren't set soon, she will likely lose the use of her fingers.
She is a pretty thing, and the thought bothers him.
But such is life.
She should have been better behaved.
Lesson learnt.
"Do you want another pain killer, dearie?"
She doesn't react, but then he hadn't really expected her to. He has found early on that to offer the blonde anything is a mistake. What is offered to her, her stubbornness refuses. Taking matters into his own hands, he simply feeds the chalky white tablet he retrieves from his pocket firmly between her lips and holds up a can of coke so that she can swallow it down. He looks away as she does so; having also learnt that if given the small hints of privacy he is able to offer her, the Sheriff is not entirely idiotic.
"Good girl."
She regards him miserably, and he is glad that she has stopped asking him why he is doing this to her. She seems unable to comprehend the idea of there being a bigger picture, and, as little as it bothers him to be thought of as 'evil', to be stuck in a room with only the injured Sheriff's hateful swearing for company had been tiresome.
"Why don't you try and get some- Oh!"
A knock on the door has them both startled, and Gold chuckles lightly at the sudden hope that alights the blonde's eyes. She opens her mouth- presumably to yell out- but the pawnbroker's laughter, along with the amused shake of his head, has her voice catching in her throat.
"Not a valiant rescue, I'm afraid. Not yet. Fear not, Emma, our guest doesn't bite."
Pushing himself up from the bed and grabbing his cane, the little man offers her a warning glance before making his way from the small bedroom out into the more spacious living area. Limping over to the door, he peers cautiously through the peephole, before pulling back shoddily painted wood and beckoning his guest inside.
"You found your way up the inner staircase alright, I see?"
"Evidently. A curious design, is it not?"
"Curious, but undeniably useful. I believe this apartment once served as a janitor's live-in space, hence the separate access."
"How... Fortunate."
"Indeed... Do you have what I asked for?"
"I do. Who's your problem?"
"The Sheriff."
"The Swan woman? Emma?"
Jefferson raises an eyebrow as he pulls a small, velvet pouch from his tail coat. He has found himself ever more intrigued by the young woman in question over the past few weeks, having started out merely watching her on occasion out of general interest; finding her arrival and that of the writer to be fascinating. His attention had fallen more often on the blonde than on August, simply due to the fact that the Sheriff Station's windows face North, and thus offer him a better view.
At least, that had been the case until two weeks ago.
As a recluse, the madman spends little time in the town; venturing out seldomly for the sole purpose of restocking his pantry. As such, it had taken him a good few months to find out anything more about the blonde than those things pertaining to her appearance and mannerisms.
Her favored jacket. The way she wears her hair down when addressing company but ties it messily away from her face when alone. Her tendency to pace about her small office with a pen held to her lips as though nursing a cigarette. Her slow improvements with the dartboard that hangs on the far wall by her desk... All these things he knows, but it is only two weeks ago that he'd learnt of the Sheriff's name.
Emma.
And wasn't that just a little too coincidental.
"She's the... It's her?"
"It is."
"You're sure? You- What was that?!"
Jefferson cocks his head to the side as the old pawnbroker frowns, the heavy thud from the bedroom catching them both off guard. Giving the madman a harried glance, Gold follows him quickly through the door to the blonde's makeshift cell.
"Again?! Really, dearie?!"
He grumbles irritably, dark eyes flashing angrily as he surveys the Sheriff pull her knees up into her chest as she curls up on the floor, her legs having given out beneath her and her senses telling her to give up on a lost cause; her pained crawling laughable at best.
"Bad move, little girl-"
"-Oh, put it away..."
Gold pushes aside the gun Jefferson holds trained to messy curls irritably, rolling his eyes as he uses the toe of his shoe to nudge gently at the blonde's hip. She growls at him angrily, but the little man pays this little mind.
"She was trying to get away!"
The hatter whines as he re-holsters his gun; unappreciative of being reprimanded quite so patronizingly.
"Of course she was! Why did you think I requested you come here?!"
Shrugging off Jefferson's glower disinterestedly, Gold leans heavily on his cane and points at the Sheriff.
"Help me get her back on the bed."
Despite his words, he offers no assistance as the younger man reaches down to pull at the blonde's long limbs carelessly in an effort to hoist her back onto bloodstained sheets.
"Careful! She's not a rag doll!"
The madman rolls his eyes, but sets the Sheriff down a little more gently; eyes flashing with amusement as she glares up at him with seething fury.
"Pretty thing isn't she?... And you can definitely see where she gets some of her features from. She has her moth-"
"-Go wait in the other room. I will see to you shortly. I wish to make something quite clear to our dear young Sheriff."
Jefferson scowls as he finds himself rudely dismissed, but stalks obediently back into the living room. He has numerous questions of his own, and he imagines they will be answered much sooner if he stays on the little man's good side.
And besides... He is not a man you'd wish to cross.
Waiting until the door clicks shut behind his guest, the pawnbroker turns to the bed and limps over angrily, leaning down to study the blonde with his fists gripping tightly at his cane.
"A rather bad move on your part, don't you think, Emma?"
"Fuck you."
"Fuck me? That's all you have to say? 'Fuck you! Fuck you!'... How dull. Never mind, it matters not, because here's the thing, Miss Swan; you can bitch and hiss however much you please and it will make no difference whatsoever to me, myself and I... But, you try something like that again... And I'm going to grow pretty tired of your games... Now listen up: there are two ways out of this room, dearie. Either, you attempt to crawl your way over to the window over there only to find it's nailed shut- a factor I would pay no mind given the fact that even if you were able to climb down, you would most likely crack open your skull in your current state- or, you could try leaving through that door right there. Now, you and I both know that you are in no fit shape to be outrunning anyone right now... But, nevertheless... You show me such insolence again, and I will break your legs. Do you understand me?... Do you understand?!"
"Hey!"
The little man laughs dryly at the self righteous snarl the blonde offers him as he raps his cane pointedly against her shins. She has yet to beg him or crumble down before him since her little panic attack earlier, and this is something he has found secretly rather endearing. Perching down on the mattress companionably, he tisks as he notes the saturated rags around her wrists have begun to stain her dress where they rest in her lap. Shaking his head sorrowfully, he gives her knee a brief squeeze, ignoring the flash of teeth the gesture garners him.
"I'm going to hope you take heed to my warning, Miss Swan. I don't want to hurt you; it isn't part of my plan at all... But I will if you make me. Now. Be a good girl and sit tight. Young Master Jefferson is here to fix you up some tea which will make this all much more comfortable for you, dearie."