Warning: Will eventually contain mature material. Language. Lemons. Some spicy limes. Maybe full-blown things. ~_^
A Salvation Called Love
-Chapter 9-
-BREAKING AWAY AT YOUR WALLS Pt. 1-
[Mr. Gold – A Few Weeks Later]
It's been two and a half weeks since I'd made a 'deal' with Annabelle and at the moment this was the happiest I'd been for a really long time. I found myself not biting back at people when they annoyed me at the office. Sure I was still mean, it's a part of me, but I didn't let it consume me. Something else was consuming me… again. An almost exact situation to the one hundreds of years ago with Belle. The only difference was that I'd actually kissed Annabelle many, many times. Not just once. I gave a loud sigh and sank further into the day couch I was reclining on as I watched Annabelle cleaning the library.
She looked down from one of the balconies I had attached to my floor to ceiling bookcases and smiled down at me. "What are you thinking about so hard down there, Mr. Gold?"
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. She still hadn't gotten the hang of calling me by my first name. It was slightly annoying but all I could do was bear with it. "Nothing that should concern you, Dearie." I'd taken to calling her by her name but when she asked me too many questions or annoyed me insistently I fell back on calling her "Dearie".
She leaned over the top of the balcony and huffed at me. "You're always thinking like that. Is work going alright?"
She was beautiful as she stared down at me. She was almost completely covered in a layer of dust from the books she'd been trying to sort and dust off. She had her hair pulled up into a high ponytail and it was swinging in the air currently. I sighed again as I noticed quite a few things about her that resembled Belle. I still couldn't grasp how she didn't have Belle's memories if she was something along the lines of her reincarnation. "Work is fine, Dearie." Maybe I could attempt to create a potion or something along that line that could help her regain those memories. Only one thing stopped me from attempting that though. My new attempting-to-be-good conscience didn't want me to take away the memories that were Annabelle's. She was a whole different person from Belle. Belle had been Belle and now Annabelle was Annabelle in Belle's body.
I sighed deeply again and moved to lean my head back against the top of the day couch but it bumped into something softer. I frowned before realizing by her perfume that it was Annabelle. "What are you thinking about so hard, Dominic? It looks like it's driving you crazy." I leaned my head back to peer up at her just in time to catch her smirk. "Not that you weren't crazy already."
I gave a small chuckle and closed my eyes as her soft, long pianist fingers gently sank into my hair and rubbed circles against my scalp. I enjoyed when she touched my hair. It's one of the things she did more willingly that others. I'd noticed her getting a bolder in her actions, but she was still a little shy towards me. I had a feeling she wasn't as experienced with men as I was with women. I'd had a couple centuries to perfect that art. I reached up and grabbed one of her hands, dragging it down towards my lips to press a kiss against her skin. "It's nothing, Dearie, nothing you should worry about."
She leaned down and wrapped her arms around my neck, laying her forehead against the top of my head. I played my fingers up and down her arms, watching the effect my touch had started having on her. She shivered and goosebumps formed beneath my fingertips. "You keep saying that but one of these days you're going to have to tell me what goes on in your mind."
I made a soft huffing noise. "I'm afraid you'd run away frightened for the rest of your life if you saw what was inside my head." I opened my eyes and stared out at the books surrounding us. "I'm a monster."
She tensed behind me and slowly pulled away from me before walking around the small couch. She knelt in front of me, sitting back against her heels and crossed her arms over my knees, laying her chin on top of them. She didn't look exactly happy with me. "I don't see a monster in front of me."
I reached out and ran my thumb against her lips. I watched her pupil dilate and felt her breath hitch. "Then what do you see, Annabelle?"
She caught my hand as I pulling it away and cupped it against her cheek as she continued to stare up at me. "On the outside?" She gave a small shrug. "I see a tough, cruel, unhappy business man who's angry at the world. But on the inside I see an old soul. Someone who's seen too much of the world, too much death and hurt. Someone who tries to hide that they're afraid to be weak and powerless. Someone who desperately wants to cry out for help." She smiled now up at me. "You're a kind person, Mr. Gold. That's what I think. I don't care what image you hide behind or how many walls you put up to block people out, I'm not fooled."
Her words just blew me away. I'd been a cowardly man long, long ago. So cowardly that when I was fixing to lose my son I needed power to protect him. I killed for that power, stole it. Then I allowed it to consume me for years as everyone I knew or met feared me, hated me, detested the sight of me unless they needed what I could offer them. I became so consumed with darkness and hate I became cruel. Then one day, when I was called to protect a village from Ogres, I found some light in the world. As the months passed after I'd made a 'deal' for her, her presence wasn't unwanted anymore. The Dark Castle became a place I wanted to be at. I was happy. Then when it was almost too much to believe in I ended up pushing away the one person who'd accepted me, darkness and all. Now in a sense she was back in Annabelle. I leaned forward and stared down at her, trying to see deep into her soul. "Is that what you really see?"
She moved upwards until she was raised on her knees and caught my face in between her hands. Her blue, blue eyes were piercing as they stared unwavering. "Yes."
"I'm a bad man, Annabelle. There are things I hope you never find out about me. Don't say something that isn't true."
She snorted. "Sure you're a bad man… as Mr. Gold you're a bad man. As Dominic Gold you're not. And everyone hides things about themselves that they don't want people to find out about. So what? You think I'm going to judge you because of that? Do you think I can't see behind all of that that there is a good man?"
She was completely unbelievable. I was the Dark One. I had been known by all as Rumplestiltskin the 'deal' maker. And here she sat in front of me not caring about any of that. "I really am a bad man, if I'm a man at all anymore, Annabelle."
She frowned up at me. "Of course you're a man."
I shook my head and pulled away from her, standing and walking over to one of the bookcases to stare at the millions of books I'd acquired. "I was, once… a long time ago."
She followed behind me and tried to pull me around to face her. "Explain, Dominic. Otherwise I can't understand why you keep calling yourself a monster and not a man. If you're not a man, then what are you? Do you think I'll run away if I find out?"
I leaned forward and gripped one of the shelves tightly. "I know you'll run away. Everyone runs away from the Dark One." My sentence ended in a whisper.
"I won't." She slide around me and ducked under my arms until she could stand in front of me. "I won't run away."
I wanted to believe her words. I'd lived for hundreds of years not trusting and believing people. They were frail things. I gave her a sad smile and leaned forward, gently pressing a kiss against her warm, soft lips. "I wish I could believe those words."
I slowly pushed away from the bookcase and left her standing there, her eyes begging me to believe her. I'd been jaded one too many times. I turned away from her and quickly walked out of the library. I had to get out, get away. I had to stop all the thoughts that were bound to swallow me. I grabbed my cane beside the door, grabbed my jacket and keys and left. I didn't know where I was going to go but a drive sounded good. I knew I was just running away but at this point I didn't care.