Last chap seemed quieter in reviewer response, but I think ridonkulously long essay-type messages with a few reviewers outshines a bunch of 'I like it update soon' reviews ANY day of the week. Best highlight from reviewer-convos is quite definitely Eugene donking himself in the head with a frying pan in response to Rapunzel telling him she's pregnant.
Flynn Wanted
~11~
When Eugene claps eyes on Francis for the second time in nearly ten years, he has the leg of his trousers clamped between the teeth of one very persistent horse; though the boy kicks trying to get loose, he hasn't yet reached the desperation required to actually crawl out of his clothing in escape.
"Get off! Get OFF!" he screams at the horse, who continues to chomp down on his prisoner with an unwavering determination.
"Francis!" Eugene barks as he approaches – he runs a little faster than Rapunzel, so arrives before her.
"Eugene? No – get away, stupid animal!" yells Francis, and finally lands a fierce kick in Max's face. The horse yelps and flinches, releasing his grip and allowing the boy to try scramble to his feet.
"Oh no you don't!" Eugene bellows as he launches at the boy, landing on top of him and rolling all the way over as he forces him to the ground. Francis struggles like a wild animal, kicking and screaming, lashing out for anything he can reach. Though he tries, Eugene can't calm or even restrain him – so eventually he lifts a hand and smacks Francis hard across the face, hoping to knock some sense into him, by which point Rapunzel has arrived on the scene.
"NO!" she screams, racing towards the fray. "Don't hurt him, Eugene!"
"Stay out of this," he says sharply, and looks up at Rapunzel for a moment, reaching out with an arm to hold her away from Francis. Unfortunately his distraction gives the boy an opening to retaliate, and he punches Eugene in the face.
"Francis!" Rapunzel shrieks anew. "Don't hurt Eugene either!" Needless to say, both of them ignore her, and Eugene fights back, landing his own fist into his opponent's belly. Francis coils up with a wheeze, and then goes very still.
"Francis… Francis?" Eugene probes, relaxing for a second as worry bites into him – he never meant to seriously hurt him. However, as soon as his guard is down, Francis uncoils like a mousetrap and flips Eugene onto his back, reaching out to close hands around Eugene's throat.
"Let me go!" he shouts, enough pressure on Eugene's neck to be felt, but not enough to hurt – yet. "Let me go and don't chase me any more!" The threat doesn't need to be stated, but Eugene doesn't believe for a second Francis has it in him, so shows no fear as he fixes on the boy.
"Never," he forces through the grip on his throat, and his eyes flicker to Rapunzel for a moment, who stands shocked behind them – still like a statue, her eyes glassy and dazed. Eugene finds the strength and space to punch Francis again, trying to throw him off, but it isn't enough and the boy scowls, fury pouring out of him as his hands tighten.
"I'm warning you!" he snarls, but Eugene just smirks at him, a quick shot of original Flynn Rider.
"You don't have it in you," he says wheezily, but then Francis's fingers suddenly seize tight, closing around Eugene's throat; he tries to reach for the hands that choke him, to pull them away, but his head starts to spin, throat screaming with pain as his fingers fumble uselessly. He realises that calling someone's bluff when they were about to throttle him may not have been the wisest call.
Eugene's ears have just started to buzz, black closing in on the corners of his vision, when Francis suddenly goes slack, eyes rolling back in his head, and he slumps over Eugene like a run down clockwork. Eugene pulls the hands from hiass neck and gasps painfully for breath, then as his vision clears, he makes out Rapunzel, standing over the two of them with a familiar shape brandished in her shaking hand.
"Frying pans..." he croaks, easing himself upright and sucking in air like he's never tasted it before.
"N-... n-never leave home without it..." she stammers, the words of a joke assembled, but no humour to carry the line. Then in a split-second she's thrown down the kitchenware and tumbles to her knees beside him.
"Are you okay? Eugene, oh I'm sorry I should have – or maybe I shouldn't have, but he was- and I panicked, and I thought... then I couldn't – but I – I thought he was... I thought he'd kill you!" Her voice cracks, breaking into a sob as she wraps her arms around him. "I couldn't lose you, not again," she cries desperately, and Eugene shoves Francis aside, looping an arm around her in awkward embrace.
"Easy, easy," he murmurs hoarsely, rubbing her back as she squeezes him tightly, still shaking with fright. "No harm done, okay?" Even with his reassurance, she still feels the need to throw herself into a kiss that almost bruises – which Eugene allows for a guilty moment, before setting her back and looking over at Francis. "Now," he coughs. "What do we do with him?" Rapunzel turns too, pouting as she thinks, and then a soft smile creeps across her face.
"You leave that to me," she says with an unnerving air of foreboding for a girl of her nature. "I've got an idea..."
When Francis awakes, groggy and suffering a pounding headache, he tries to cradle his thumping skull, but his hands won't move properly. He looks down at himself, and sees a strange kind of rope wrapped around both wrists, binding them together and then leading away into the shadows. He follows it up, trying to work out what seems so weird when it suddenly hits him.
"Is this hair?" he exclaims as he holds the rope up close, and then Eugene and Rapunzel appear, stepping into view, tightly gripping the other end of the braid, keeping him leashed.
"Okay, Francis," Rapunzel gets the first word in. "No more fighting. Let's just talk."
"I've got nothing to say to either of you!" he hisses, and fixes her with an incinerating glare. "Especially Pascal." Eugene looks around bemusedly, then realises who he's talking to – which unfortunately makes him even more confused. "Or is it Rapunzel – right? Because you're the princess – the lost princess?"
"Well... um," she murmurs awkwardly. "I though you woulda... but you didn't recognise me, and I thought – so I... Yeah," she mumbles at last. "I'm the princess." She feels horribly traitorous for lying, but Eugene comes to her defence.
"You're hardly one to talk, Francis," he accuses. "Or can we call you Flynn?"
"So what!" he snaps furiously. "You quit, didn't you? And she's the reason," he spits with a hatred so sharp it sends chills down Rapunzel's neck. Francis is beyond angry, practically murderous – she actually thought he wanted to kill Eugene, and could have really hurt him if she hadn't intervened. Even when he's tied up she fears him a little – it's never been appearances that scare her, because she knows that the real thing to fear is what someone is capable of.
"I'm the reason? For what?" she echoes.
"For everything!" Francis snarls, and again she's struck by how uncontrollable he seems, like a wild animal. "Everything that's happened, the reason I had to– it's all your fault!"
"It is?" she meekly questions, and it's only the thought of Eugene by her side that keeps her feeling safe. "I don't understand, Francis... how could I-"
"You ruined everything!" he interrupts, and she flinches instinctively. Rapunzel never imagined she could do this to someone she never met, without even realising. Eugene almost died for her once, and now wonders how many more people she could hurt without realising – by fumbling through the world in her clumsy, inadequate way.
"No, Francis," Eugene cuts in, stopping both ranting and her runaway worries. His voice is absolute, his tone deep and serious. "Don't blame Rapunzel. It's me you should blame."
"But if it wasn't for her, Flynn Rider would still-" Francis argues.
"No he wouldn't," Eugene interrupts. "Flynn Rider's gone. He was never real."
"Don't say that! You were a hero!" Francis protests desperately. "Now what are you? Just a rich girl's lapdog, you sold us all out just to get your hands on-"
"That's not true!" Rapunzel cries, and before she can go on, she feels Eugene's hand on her shoulder, stopping her as she tries to rush forwards and explain herself.
"Shut up, Francis," he warns ominously. "You've no idea what she's been through," he'd try to explain, but the boy has no ears to listen. Eugene can see he's shut them out, rejected everything he doesn't want to accept – just like they would when they were young; that was the reason their games were always the best, so far detached from reality.
"If you won't be Flynn, someone has to," Francis murmurs resentfully.
"Flynn wasn't... I wasn't a hero," he replies, "I was just a thief, Francis. A selfish, shallow thief." He tightens his grip on the rope that binds their captive, and steps a little closer; he drops down to his level and tries to look the boy directly in the eyes, desperate to get through to him. "Don't make the same mistakes I did," Eugene pleads with him. "You won't be so lucky – you're just going to get hurt."
It's not meant to be an insult – he just knows Francis isn't made of the right stuff for thieving; on his second heist he was wounded and didn't even get away with the loot. Eugene fears the next thing he'll injure is his neck, breaking it in a hangman's noose.
"Well that's just it," he glowers resentfully. "That's it – I can't ever be as good as you, can I, Eugene? You always get everything. You get to be the hero while I get nothing – and now you just toss away our dream , because you're better than that – so now you can preach to me about how you've moved on. Well maybe I haven't, maybe I still want to be selfish because I've never had anything I want!"
"Francis," starts Eugene, trying to cool his notoriously explosive temper – they used to joke it was because of his red hair, but he can sense now isn't the time for such remarks.
"Don't you 'Francis' me!" he snarls, and it's more than clear he isn't finished. "You got everything, Eugene, you always have. Now you even get a princess, get to take the first girl I thought I-" he cuts himself off, choking on jealousy and embarrassment.
Rapunzel watches, horrified, and wants to cry – but for him, because she's never seen someone so hurt and angry; she feels responsible, even though there's no way she could have known or done anything different. Though Eugene still tries to argue with the boy, she's realised there are no arguments to make – no matter what either of them do or say, Francis is hurt, and he won't stop being hurt if they make the right excuses.
"I'm sorry," she butts in suddenly, and the way Francis catches her eyes suggests he might be listening. "I'm so sorry, Francis. Please forgive me," she pleads, dropping down to her knees and staring at him, heart beating on her sleeve.
"No, Rapunzel, you don't have anything to-" Eugene interjects.
"It doesn't matter," she says firmly. "I've hurt Francis, and I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry." He looks at her now with that same expression as before, a look of adoration that makes Eugene bristle beside her. "But," she begins, and the tension between them springs like a string being plucked, "is this... really the way to fix things?"
"Whu... whaddya mean?" he growls mistrustfully.
"Well, pretending to be Flynn Rider, hurting people, stealing..."
"-Graffiti on my wall," Eugene adds sardonically.
"Graffiti on Eugene's wall," she mimics without thinking. "I mean, is it going to make it all better?" She looks around them at the harsh, wintering landscape. "Was this really what you imagined when you decided to be Flynn Rider?"
"Well... I don't... I... I," Francis babbles, and it's clear he hasn't got an answer, that this isn't what he envisioned. Then, in a split-second, his mood snaps back like stretched elastic. "I don't have to listen to you two!"
Then he pulls fiercely against the rope, looser in their hands now he's got them off-guard; then, in a flash he grabs for his boot and manages to pull out a small jackknife, something neither of them thought to look for. He thrusts it down through the braid that binds him and yanks on it – the rope splits easily, and Rapunzel lets out a scream like he's stabbed her.
In seconds all of them are moving; Francis is away, sprinting through the forest with Eugene hot on his tail, while Rapunzel scrambles to the place her hair has been cut, still on her knees, oblivious to the chase that happens around her. Even Max sets off after them, but the two men dash through a pair of small-spaced trees, and when Max attempts to bound through after them he gets stuck.
Eugene struggles to keep up with Francis; the boy got a head start on him, and moves like a rabbit across the peaty forest floor. Eventually Eugene realises the farther he runs the further he is from Rapunzel, and worries make his feet drag, until the distance between them increases to hopelessness. He gives up and staggers to a stop, hanging from a low tree branch, panting heavily as he kicks himself for not thinking this through well enough. Even if he could catch Francis up, it'd be impossible to handle him alone – not in the current state, not taking him all the way back to the Kingdom. Francis notices him stop, realising he's won, and whoops from a safe distance.
"Can't keep up, Eugene?" he yells through cupped hands. "You must be getting old!" Eugene winces, hating to be reminded of his age – or more specifically, his age in relation to them. "You're not worthy of Flynn Rider any more!"
"And you are?" he bellows back, but as much as he wants to go after Francis, he knows he can't just run off and leave Rapunzel in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a neurotic horse for company.
"We'll see about that!" Francis slings, stating it like a challenge. "You just stay out of my way – I'll show you!"
"You know I can't let you do that," he retorts, and the redheaded boy holds out his hands in invitation.
"Then come on," he baits, sticking out his tongue, laughing like it's still just a game – even though it's not, even though if he gets caught the guards are real, it's not just a scolding from Aunt Aya he risks. "Or are you just going to go running back to your princess, huh?"
Eugene bites his lip, wishing he could go racing after Francis and grind his face into the muddy forest floor for even daring to talk about Rapunzel the way he has, but he knows it won't do any good, and can see they've reached an impasse. As a highly successful thief, he's always maintained that an important ability is – was – knowing when to walk away from a job. Like many other lessons of crime, it actually has useful implications in the legitimate world – not that he tells people that's where he learned these kind of things from.
"Go, then!" he barks, and the boy goes haring off into the woods again, but Eugene calls after him, cool and confident in his tone – a rare dose of Flynn Rider, because maybe that's the only way he can make Francis take him seriously. "You win this round, kid – but I'm coming for you next time!"
So I just read the story 'Freudian' by I forgot who but OH MY GOD what a Tangled AU. Makes me go all gaga over Eugene and Rapunzel again. Whaaaat a story. I'm just fangirling here. Leave a review or something.