Chapter 6

They fall into a routine over the course of the next week. Rapunzel slips into Eugene's room as soon as her maids leave her for the evening and she considers the hallways deserted enough for travel. She has found a genetics text that she is reading cover to cover with fascination while tucked in next to Eugene. She falls asleep over her book after no more than an hour, and Pascal takes his place wrapped around the back of Eugene's neck, which wakes the man up enough to slip the book from Rapunzel's hands, extinguish the lamp, and pull the girl close. His room is close enough to the kitchens that at four in the morning when the cooks arrive Pascal can smell their baking or hear them moving or sense the subtle change in temperature enough to nudge Rapunzel awake again so she can sleepily return to her room.

Eugene wakes every morning feeling as though something is missing. There's no telling what it is.

This schedule of small amounts of interrupted sleep is wearing on the princess. She's yawning more than usual and her eyes are heavy and stinging. Although it's really hard to say it, Eugene tells her that she should probably stop coming and stay put in her own room. She promptly refuses and the next night Eugene goes to extreme measures to get her to take her rest seriously. He locks his door again and listens to the scuttling sounds as she once again picks it. He grins as she tries to open the door, only to find that he has shoved his heavy dresser in front of it. He assumes that she's taken the hint and gone back to bed, but then a few minutes later he hears the pat of bare feet on his balcony and then she successfully snuggles up next to him with her book.

"I know you're awake, and you know you can't get rid of me that easily. So there."

"And you shouldn't be climbing around the outside of the castle at night."

"Just give up, Eugene."

"Yeah," he yawns, draping an arm over her. "That's a good plan."

She has completely abandoned pursuing a physical relationship in fear of becoming pregnant. He has to admit that it's practical and it's probably wise, but good grief it sucks.

Kissing? No.

Making out? Hell no.

Cuddling in the dark and looking all peaceful and attractive? Yeah. That's apparently ok.

Being insufferably frustrating? Oh yeah. That's cool too.

After a week, Eugene takes it upon himself to put an end to her fears. Being afraid of sex is sad. Being afraid of sex with him is just absurd.

This is a three stage attack, the first stage of which is to show her that there are certain precautions one can take to avoid conception. Although he has a condom made of sheep intestines and soaked in some sort of stinging chemical in his inside shirt pocket at all times, he's pretty sure that it would be best if she doesn't know that. He's new to this whole relationship thing and he's trying pretty hard not to screw it up, and announcing that he's easy seems like a way to do that.

Besides, the one in his pocket doesn't have instructions. He lost those. Well, no he didn't lose them, he just threw them out, but the point is that they're not around anymore. So he takes a trip to the sketchy part of town to get a brand new box of prophylactics complete with instructions handwritten by the chemist. He tosses them into the window seat on top of her books, where she'll find them that evening.

She and Pascal spend a good hour whispering to one another as they puzzle through this new, grand invention by reading the directions and scattering the individual cloth baggies about and opening a few and poking at them.

"They smell funny," she confides to the chameleon, who agrees whole heartedly. Eugene almost dies laughing and Rapunzel teasingly scolds him for spying. She gives him a peck on the lips, and the light of reassurance glows in her eyes. He victoriously considers this to be progress.

Stage two is reminding her that kissing and such is fun and that she wants to do it. She was so interested just a few days before, surely a part of her is still interested. The problem with stage two is that he has very few ideas as to how to make her want him besides looking devilishly handsome, which he's already tried. How do you seduce a girl? He's never sat down and thought about it before. It's usually pretty easy for him as a well placed word here and there, an easy swagger, and a smolder will generally get the job done.

Flowers? Barf. No.

Poetry? He had a few good ones memorized for when such a thing might be necessary (or more accurately he had bits and pieces of good ones memorized, cutting out the stanzas about betraying the girl and leaving her to kill herself, and hoping that no one he tries it on is well read enough to know.) But using a poem that he's used before on a floozy feels wrong considering that whole relationship thing again. Maybe he needs a new poem. No. That's not going to happen.

Sing her a song? No. He doesn't sing.

Buy her something shiny? Or… steal her something shiny? She wouldn't like that. If she ever found out.

Maybe he could die for her. He's hesitant about that one, because he thinks that he really should have some credit left over from last time.

So he decides on flowers (ick) and that evening he presents her with a little bouquet of purple something or others. This earns him a squeal, a bounce, a declaration that they need water, and then-

She leaves. Off to put them in a vase, which was not at all the way he was hoping the evening would progress.

He considers that maybe these failures are a sign that he should not be attempting to seduce her. Even though she now knows what's going on more or less – mostly less, he still feels guilty. Guilty enough to stop trying to think up romantic gestures that he finds distasteful and most likely won't work.

But he's a lecherous, horrible human being, and he can't fake sleep as she scoots up close to him and searches for her place in her book and her place in his arms, and she's wearing that blue silk nightdress that's just a touch shorter than the rest of them. He sits up and peers over her pale, bare shoulder.

"Learn anything new?"

"Yes! Someone did these experiments with pea plants that I want to try but… Hey, you're not listening."

"Hmm?" He looks up at her from rubbing his cheek against her shoulder and nuzzling against her neck. "Yes, I was. Pea plants. Fascinating. Tell me more." He turns back to his work, dragging his chapped lips over her smooth skin.

"I really don't think you're listening."

"Mmm."

"Eugene… Eu- oh." She tilts her head and her eyes flutter closed. Her shoulders relax ever so slightly.

Phase two accomplished! On to phase three: fun without going all the way.

He hisses at Pascal, who – good man that he is - glares at him, sticks out his tongue, and wanders off to make himself scarce.

She keeps her spine straight so as to hold as much contact with him as possible as he guides them down, her back pressed against his chest, his arms about her waist, hands splayed over her stomach, her arms wrapped over his pulling him tighter, her backside flush against his groin. He trails kisses over the sensitive back of her neck, over the upper vertebra of her back. He can feel every muscle of her small form tighten and release and tighten again as she breathes, as she feels, as the electricity between them turns palpable.

He breathes against the shell of her ear, and she shivers so deliciously, that he can't help but bite her, and she can't help but press back against him more tightly.

"Tell me to stop and I will," he murmurs, then groans burying his face in her hair as her hips rock back against him.

"Ok," she gasps, her voice thin and quivering.

He kisses her neck again. It's sloppy and inelegant. She's so full, overflowing with life, radiating perfection with her smile, her eyes, the press of her hips. His hands quiver so close to her skin. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise." He would never hurt her. Never.

"I know," she promises, trusting and open and innocent and resting in the circle of his arms.

"Close your eyes," he whispers, drawing his hand to the curve of her breast, so near and immediate beneath her nightgown. "Just feel."

She moans and the song is beautiful. There is nothing in his world but her, the feel and the taste and the sound and the warmth of her. Her breath quickens in fright and he tenses to pull away, but she wraps herself around his arm and holds him in place. "Slower," she breathes, her eyes still closed. He nods against her shoulder and strokes her more carefully, building each wave of sensation before pressing on, building momentum until she's pulling at his arm and whimpering.

He shakes because this is new. This has meaning. Before her he had nothing, and now... Now she is his. She is his everything. And this feeling of holding her as she is elevated to new heights of pleasure has him feeling more deeply, more passionately than he has ever known. His desire for her has grown to near shameless proportions. That burning in his navel is threatening to devour him.

His free hand slips down over her hip, down her leg, to find the hem of her gown and pull back again against smooth skin. They groan together as he skates over the fabric of her underwear, silky and thin and revealing. He pulls the flesh of her backside against him and squeezes his eyes closed as she rocks back. Maybe her movements are instinctive. Maybe she's just perfectly following every subtle guidance of his fingers as they dig into her abdomen. God help him, she's a fast learner.

She latches onto his bicep with one arm, trying to wrap herself up in him, trying to get closer without knowing how. One of her hands fists and twists in the sheets as she writhes, needily searching for satisfaction. Eugene slips his hand between her legs to oblige.

She jerks, knocking her head back against his cheek. He barely feels the throb of pain over the throb of his need, but he stops and listens to her struggle for breath. It's an intoxicating sound, one that pulses through his veins. She swallows thickly. "I'm alright," she croaks.

"You sure?" His voice is pained, and he swallows as well, tightening his hold around her, seeking support for his spinning head.

She nods. "You won't hurt me." And there's so much assurance, so much blind trust in her voice that he feels as though his heart may explode with the exquisite homecoming of it all.

He holds her tight with one arm, and gently – so gently – he strokes her. She bucks and gasps each time, but they gradually wane as she becomes accustomed to the sensation and starts jerking and panting for entirely different reasons. She grinds against him in the most deliciously, painfully provocative way. She tries to curl in on herself, but immediately misses the feel of him against her back and forces herself to bear it, forces herself – no, allows herself to feel it all even though the feelings are coming at her so fast she feels she might be drowning.

He can feel her tense. He can feel her pulse race under his lips, under his fingers. He can feel her skin heat. "Eu- Eug-" She can't get the word out, but it's still enough to send him careening. Her legs lock around his hand. Her back arches violently. Her whole being shakes.

She comes undone in his arms and it is the single greatest moment of his life. She is perfect and delicate and she shatters all because of him. This is all for him, because she loves him completely, and together they're finally both whole. Lights burst before his eyes, as his loins jerk and erupt and drag part of him away, as his very soul explodes with bliss, as a pounding surf rushes in his ears and blocks out the world so that the only thing he knows is the smell of her sweat.

When he can think again, she has collapsed against him, limp and heavy and still tingling with residual shudders. He's drained and slow and there's a pinprick pain in his skull, but he musters up enough effort to turn her face and kiss her, deep and slow and lazy.

She bats her eyes - he loves her eyes - and smiles at him - he loves her smile – and rolls over sleepily to wrap weak arms around his chest.

He has this habit of saying stupid things at stupid times, things that are true but he doesn't know they're true until the words are loose and there's no chance of snatching them back. Words like "My real name is Eugene Fitzherbert," and "You were my new dream," and

"I love you."

"Mmhmm," she purrs. "I love you more."

But there's something in the way she says it that makes him still, something automatic, something insubstantial. He frowns and pulls back to meet her weighted, fluttering eyes.

"That's… the first time I've ever said that," he admits.

To anyone. Ever. Some sort of fanfare, or at least mild shock would seem appropriate.

"Mmm," she says, already dreaming.