Chapter 24
It's early, but not nearly as early as that prick page usually wakes him, so there's not really any use arguing as Rapunzel throws open the door to his bedroom and declares that it's a beautiful day.
"Get up, Eugene!" she cheers, bouncing onto his bed and ruffling his hair. "We're supposed to be at Lord Wesley's manor still, so they haven't had time yet to give us anything to do."
"If I don't need to be doing anything, then why am I not asleep?" he asks, propping himself up groggily with an elbow.
"Because it's snowing!"
He groans and flops back down.
She immediately starts poking him in the ribs, which tickles like crazy, but he's not going to admit it. "Come on! I heard from one of the cooks that when it snows you can lie down in it and make shapes that look like fairies. And you can sculpt it into different shapes and make statues."
"You can't fool me into thinking you haven't seen snow before."
"I have," she says. "One time, I left the trap door in the ceiling open so that the snow fell into the tower, and Pascal and I got to play in it. But it wasn't nearly as much as is outside now, and now I won't get in trouble when it all melts!"
Eugene finds this image thoroughly depressing. How much snow could you really get from a little trap door? He imagines her mopping up the puddle as an evil old bat gives her a deprecating lecture while sitting by a roaring fire, drinking something warm and alcoholic. In his head the puddle is much larger than the little pile of fluffy snow that would have made her so dazzlingly happy.
"Alright, Blondie. We'll go play. But watch yourself. I'm going to get you back for getting me up this early."
She grins at him and pulls him to his feet. "If we don't go now it'll all be ruined."
"You can ruin snow?"
"Yes. We need to get to it while it's still fresh before someone comes and messes it all up."
He plasters on a smile and keeps it to himself that snow is horrible. It's cold and wet and it will bite into your fingers and gnaw at your ears. It's definitely not going anywhere soon, no matter what she might think about people messing it up or possibly stealing it. No, it will just sick around for months and turn to black ice and slush and make it downright dangerous to sleep outside.
She follows him to his closet, and excitedly starts pointing at things he should wear to keep warm when she decides he's taking too long. He has to kick her out of the closet so he can change in peace, but then he immediately regrets it when he realizes that that would have been the perfect opportunity to both feel her up and distract her from going outside and getting frostbite.
He hates snow.
When he reappears, she looks him over before telling him that he needs gloves, because the cooks told her to wear gloves. For her it wasn't hard to find a pair because formal ladies wear gloves all the time. "But don't worry. I found a pair for you and they look like they might fit."
He barely understands what she says because she's talking so fast in her excitement, but when he pieces together that she wants him to wear the pair of black gloves she picked out for him he has to put a stop to it. There's no way those gloves are going to fit him. And there's no way in hell he'd be caught wearing them.
He also thinks that she missed the point completely when she shows him her own pair. They're made of red silk and trimmed with lace and go up to her elbows and she fidgets with them repeatedly, fisting and unfisting her fingers. She wasn't going to let her discomfort over how clammy her hands are growing bring her down, but after discovering that Eugene doesn't really want to wear the gloves she brought for him and doesn't really want to go outside at all, she's starting to doubt the whole thing.
Eugene hates snow. But he hates that uncertain look on her face more.
He bites the bullet and pulls the extra pair of gloves away from her before tossing them away. He then strips the gloves she's wearing off, completely ignoring how nice it is to peel clothing away from her soft skin and how her breath catches a bit as his fingers drag down the inside of her arm.
Yep. Completely ignoring it. Doesn't even notice.
"What we need are mittens, not fancy lady gloves."
She blinks up at him. "What are mittens?"
"They're gloves but they keep you warm. And they pull all your fingers together. Like this." He demonstrates with his hand in a way that's not terribly descriptive.
She doesn't seem too excited about the prospect of not being able to move her fingers individually, and gives them an exploratory wiggle. "The cooks said gloves."
"If you really want gloves, we'll find you some warm ones. But snow gloves and ball-gown gloves are different. And trust me, mittens will keep you warmer, especially if you're planning on playing around in the snow."
She brightens. "Where do we find some?"
That's actually a good question and he doesn't exactly know the answer. His first thought is that they should "borrow" some from the guards or the stable hands or the falconers. His second thought is that they should go into town and buy some. Then he remembers that they live in a castle and all they really have to do is ask.
So twenty minutes later they find themselves in the snow covered gardens, adequately prepared in mittens and scarves and hats. One of the handmaids even thought to bring Goldie a warm pair of boots, which the princess found highly entertaining.
"It crunches," she squeals, carefully setting one booted foot down, as if trying as hard as she can to not disturb the snow covering. She giggles as her foot sinks, compressing a few inches of snow with a noise like falling leaves.
He grins at her and takes hold of her elbow as she bends to inspect the snow's depth. As much as he fights against it, her enthusiasm is contagious. Plus he's not that cold yet. Once he's cold he'll probably go back to being grumpy.
"So what do we do first?" she asks, her eyes dancing with contained excitement.
"What do you want to do?"
"Can we make a snow statue?"
"You mean like a snow man?"
"Yes! But I want to make a snow kitten."
"…ok."
"So how do we do that?"
"You know… I have no idea."
She pauses a moment in her inspection of a frozen hedge. "What do you mean?"
"Well," he says, chewing over his words carefully before speaking. "I think the way you make a snow man is to get a really big snowball - like this tall – for the body, and then get another big snowball that's a little bit smaller and put it on top for the head. But I don't know how you would go about making a cat."
"Oh. Well. Maybe we should start with something more basic."
"Sounds good."
They start packing snow together, building it up layer by layer, as Blondie tries to disrupt the surrounding snow as little as possible, taking a handful then smoothing the rest back out, placing her feet carefully to avoid any unnecessary crunching.
While she works she creates an elaborate back story for the snowman. He's an Admiral in the navy, who's visiting the castle while his ship is being repaired because it was attacked by a sea monster. The sea monster thought that the ship was his friend Stanley the Sea Monster. But when he went to give Stanley a high five and Stanley exploded into a million shards of timber he realized that he had been mistaken.
"Mmm," Eugene says. "Happens to the best of us."
"It happens to me all the time. The other day I got Derek the gardener and Ralph the steward mixed up. It was so embarrassing, but they do have the same hair cut."
"They do," he agrees. It's about the only feature they share, but they do have the same haircut.
He tries to hide it, but after the third time the giant snowball cracks open under his hands like an egg and spills out fluffy snow onto the ground it becomes painfully obvious that Eugene has no idea what he's doing. Rapunzel bites her lip and looks down at the disaster, her eyebrows drawing together but not wanting to say something to make him feel bad about himself.
He hates that he's ruining this for her. He tries to run a hand through his hair, but in his frustration he forgets that he's wearing a hat. And that he's wearing mittens. And that his mittens are wet.
Shit, he hates snow.
She peels off her mitten to help him, brushing the snow from his forehead and readjusting his hat before cupping her chilled hand against his numb cheek.
"You haven't done this before either, have you?"
"No," he admits. "But I'd heard about it and it didn't sound so hard."
"Maybe we can find someone who knows what they're doing and they can teach both of us."
Honestly, he'd rather be ignorant on the issue of snowman construction than ask someone to teach him something that every normal child manages to figure out.
"You want me to find you a better teacher?" he asks.
"No," she says, wrapping an arm over his shoulder. "I want to spend the day with you, because you're the best."
"You're sweet, Blondie."
She beams at him, and somehow he feels warmer. Maybe it's from her body heat.
"Show me something different."
"Different?"
"Something you know about."
"Ah." He pulls back from her and gathers up a handful of snow. He holds out his hands so she can watch as he compresses the snow between his palms and shapes it with his fingers. She watches him carefully, wondering what the difference is between what he's doing and what he did when making the snow man. He pulls one hand back to show her an oddly shaped lump in his hand.
Then her rears back and throws it at her, hitting her in the arm and causing her to squeak.
He takes several quick steps back from her and grins, waiting for her retaliation. But she just stares at him with a stunned look on her face that seems to say, "Why would you do something like that? How could you betray me? Betrayal via snow, which is the worst thing ever."
His face falls. "Rapunzel." He hurries back to her, reaching out for her hand. "Rapunzel, I'm so sorry. Are you alright?"
There's a split second before it happens when he catches the impish sparkle in her eyes, and he has enough time to think oh shit, before she lunges, throwing her weight at him and tackling him to the ground. She doesn't bother forming snowballs, opting instead for a rapid fire assault of loose snow, as she pins him to the ground and grapples with his hands, laughing hysterically even as he flips them over, traps her hands over her head, and rubs a handful of snow against her neck.
She yelps and laughs and squirms, and the way her eyes shut and her nose wrinkles and the way her cheeks are flushed with cold has him grinning and then kissing her. Hot kisses against chilled skin. Warm breath against nerves raw and vulnerable form the cold. She sighs contentedly, kissing him back, slipping her hands from his to pull him closer –
Pull him closer and chuck a snowball against his face.