Sometimes, summonings were hands down, the most irritating thing about being the Dark One! Most of the time he considered them an opportunity. A chance to take advantage of someone, to add something to his collection, or teach a valuable lesson that always benefitted him. Unless they came at the wrong time. Then summonings were frustrating. Almost as frustrating as thieves who wouldn't talk and maids who pretended like nothing was happening!
She was a sneaky lass. That wasn't something he'd expected from her when he first brought her home with him, but she'd proved to him that she could be. The day after her little talk with the prisoner, she acted as though nothing had changed. She looked, perhaps, a little more well-rested than she had the morning he'd given her that pillow, but there wasn't a single word uttered that might give him the impression she'd talked to the man, not a smirk, not a gesture or even an attitude betrayed her. It was almost cruel. He'd been fair to her; she couldn't give him just a single fact that she'd learned?!
Well, he'd punish her too then. He could have made a deal with her, see just how far she would take her false ignorance. But why make a deal when he was confident he could break one or the other and get the information he wanted. He'd show them both just how cruel he could be. He'd show the boy just how much pain he could take and make sure the girl questioned just how long she was willing to let it continue every night before she went to bed. With any luck, one of them would break. Perhaps it would be him, who wanted the pain to end. Or maybe it would be her, who would take mercy on him and confess their conversation so that he would stop. Oh, the anticipation of which one it would be was killing him.
One of the previous Dark Ones had been a torturer. He'd been alive a long, long, long time ago. He couldn't remember the name of this Dark One, frankly he didn't care to, all he cared about was the information he stole from him and adopted for himself.
It was bloody work; tedious, bloody work. He wanted to hear screams, he wanted Belle to hear screams! He wanted her to listen to moans of pain and screams of agony. He left smock after smock of bloody leather for her to clean. Let her watch as he chose his knives carefully before descending to the dungeons. He wanted so badly for her to rush in one of these days, throw herself between him and the thief, and tell him everything, or at least beg the prisoner to spare himself and end this!
This…
He let her watch as he took sharp and intimidating objects down to the dungeon for their guest, but he often didn't use them. Often times magic was all he needed. Slice through the skin. Then heal it. Another cut. Then another and another. Let the blood pour out of him, then seal his body back up to perfection. Sometimes he made use of chains. Sometimes he enjoyed watching the man attempt to stay strong.
Most of the time he found himself wanting to stop. He was growing bored, tired of all this, and on more than one occasion, he'd tried to think of an appropriate way to end it all. He had no truth potion ready or on hand, and it took weeks to brew, otherwise he would have been content to feed it to him. Without answers the way he saw it the prisoner had two options. Let the prisoner leave alive and follow him to get his answers or send him away dead with a mystery on his hands. He didn't like either of those options. It had been days. He thought one of them would have cracked by now. And he had other things he could be doing…like responding to the summoning he heard now.
He was mid-session. He'd strung the thief up by his wrists and just healed a broken nose. He was pale, so much paler than when he'd first arrived and for a good reason. At the end of the day, he'd probably drained half his blood from his body, cut him and healed him well over two hundred times, screamed at him, poked him, strangled him, and so much more he'd forgotten to make note of.
Still, he didn't talk.
Regina was calling him. For what point he didn't know. She would be easy to ignore, he'd done it before. But if he didn't know any better, he was more tired of this than the thief was. Perhaps a change in tactic was necessary. He was certain Belle hadn't been down to see him since that first night, but he'd also always been lurking. Maybe if he left for a bit and put the two of them in the castle together, alone, they might feel they could have another discussion. Perhaps she'd manage to play the role of the crying damsel and talk some sense into him, though he very much doubted she'd do such a thing. For day after day as she rested well and woke to see him sleep faded from her eyes and what remained was anger. She really did hate what was happening to the man. Why hadn't she said anything?!
Yes, maybe a break for him and a final push for the pair of them was all that he needed.
He held his hand up and let the man's nose break all over again. He screamed as more blood poured from it. This was usually where he asked a question, but instead, he healed him, then crept closer and wrapped a hand around his neck.
"I'm going to let you hang here for a while…we'll have another little chat when I return, you might want to think on just how important your allies are in your life, if their loyalty is worth all...this," he hissed at him, holding up finger tips covered in his own blood.
He released him with such force the chains jangled behind him. And the boy might have talked, might have answered, but he didn't turn to listen. He had no doubt that what he was going to say was probably no different than anything he'd said any other time he'd left him alone like this.
"My loyalties aren't likely to change."
Upstairs, Belle was sweeping in the Great Room. The sun was pouring in. He knew that in all the excitement that had happened since that first day he'd discovered what she'd done, she probably assumed he'd just overlooked the fact that she hadn't done as she was asked and put things away. But he did notice. There were just far more pressing matters for him to attend to. Besides, he wanted her to go down and have another conversation with their little friend while he was away, he didn't want to give her so much to do that she was too busy while he was gone to have that chat. He wanted her to have just enough to make her angry enough to check on him. She was angry now. That much was clear in the way she made tense movements with the broom.
"I'm going to need another apron," he warned, slapping the dirty bloody gloves purposefully against the table. She'd made an attempt at cleaning it earlier. Maybe this time she'd get it right.
"They're uh…they're on the line. Drying. It'll be some time," she commented with a cold somberness. Oh yes, she was anything but happy with him at the moment. Perhaps all she needed to talk to the man and get the information that she could offer to free him was a bit of time.
"Fine, fine," he muttered, removing his current apron. A trip to Regina's should give her all the time that she needed. "Get to cleaning this one as well," he ordered, tossing it to her pile on the not-so-clean table. "I'll be back later."
He strode from the room, summoning his magic, preparing to see what it was that Regina wanted when he heard her break behind him.
"All this because he tried to steal a magic wand?!" she cried out. Her voice was filled with anger and emotion at the injustice that she obviously felt he was committing. If he weren't so tired and bored of it all, he might have smiled that he'd finally managed to bring her to a breaking point. She wouldn't last long after this.
"No, because he tried to steal from me: The Dark One!" he countered, turning back to her. "You try that you get skinned alive. Everyone knows that!"
He wanted to watch her shrink, to direct her anger inward, that would only add fuel to the fire when he was gone. But to his shock and horror, it didn't go inward. It went out. He'd yelled at her, screamed even, but instead of shrinking away from him, she stood taller, more defiant in a way, and maintained the hard look into his eyes that true servants would never have dared to give him.
"Actually, no. They don't!"
He couldn't remember the last time that someone had left him speechless. He couldn't remember the last time he'd predicted human behavior so poorly that he didn't have a response prepared. Who did she think she was? What, exactly did she think was going to come from standing up to him? Did she really think that he was going to "see the error of his ways"? As a child might have and back down? She was sorely mistaken.
"Well, they will after they discover the body!" he proclaimed. And with a final laugh, he left her standing there, alone, to consider his words.
Straightforward. This is a scene that we saw in the show, though it was super short. However, I am using this chapter as an intro to something else. I'm going to insert a minor Rumple episode in the middle of this episode because it fits really well. Plus, it has the benefit of helping to make the fiction less...blocked. We expect all the Storybrooke stuff to be episode after episode after episode. However, with this, I wanted to not make it so blocked. There aren't a lot of opportunities for that to happen so when I saw this one I had to take it!
Thank you MissAmande, Jennifer Baratta, and Grace5231973 for your reviews of the previous chapter. I hope you'll enjoy the minor episode that I reckon happens at about the same time as this episode. To see where we are going with this then let's move onto the next chapter! Peace and Happy Reading!
