The clock ticking down echoed in the shop. Rumpel was not looking forward to closing time, as it would mean he would have to go home and get ready for a night out with his son and the Charmings. Belle was insistent that he would be going out with the boys and ordered to blow off some steam. The idea of going out with the boys was the least stimulating idea anyone had ever suggested. He was two hundred and eight four years old. The idea of kicking back with the boys and chasing tail had never interested him. Even as a young man, he had been too respectful to proposition a drunken maiden or too scared to try.
Rumpel's idea of a good night was sitting in front of the fire with his spinner. It was probably why Milah had tired of him. The beginning was always the best part in a relationship. The high of something new. Milah had loved that she had gotten one over her parents, rebelling against them by marrying the man they had forbidden for her to marry. Using him more of tool. There was no foundation for love to grow and not even having Baelfire had helped.
Glancing over his shoulder to check the time, he groaned seeing it was nearly six o'clock in the afternoon. They were supposed to be meeting at the Rabbit Hole at seven o'clock, it was time to go home and get ready. Grumbling to himself, he began to turn off lights and locked the rear door to the shop. He parted the curtains to go into the front of the shop as the bell rung above the door of the shop. Rumpel stopped midway through the gap, holding the curtains aside, to see Zelena enter with Robin on her hip.
"Ah! Rumpel!" Zelena greeted, letting the door close behind her. Rumpel stood still. He did not want to speak to her. For two years, he managed to avoid her and kept himself to himself where she was concerned. Now, she had the audacity to walk into his shop.
She came to a stop in the middle of the shop to say. "I need your help, Dark One."
"I'm not interested in helping you." He told her, encouraging himself to carry on locking up the shop by reaching for the light switches.
"Oh, come on, Rumpel." Zelena smiled at him, shifting Robin further up her hip. "For old times' sake."
"Old times sake?" He growled pausing midstride as he went to walk pass her.
"We spent so much time together in the past and of course, that special year we were together." She said, her free hand laid onto his chest, trying to be intimate.
Looking at her hand on his chest, he swatted it away before saying. "If you, dare, touch me again, I will do unthinkable things to you."
"Ooo… Sounds like someone isn't get much action in the bedroom!" Zelena jested, talking to Robin. Pursing his lips in annoyance, Rumpel marched to the shop door and yanked it open, sending the bell into a fit. She looked at him where he stood by the open door and then slowly ambled her way to the door.
"I guess we're not welcome, Robin, Uncle Rumpel has other plans." She told her child as she left the shop. Slamming the door shut behind her, Rumpel leaned against the door to stop her coming back and supported his own weight. The idea of being near that woman made him terrify, his skin crawled under her touch. A year of torment from a woman he had once called a pupil. He had never taught her how to do that, even he never subjected his prisoners to the acts she had performed on him.
Taking in a deep breath to chase the memories away, Rumpel reopened the door and retrieved his keys from his pocket to lock the door. He sauntered over to his car, glancing over his shoulder to see Zelena and her child making their way down the street towards Grannies. As long as she kept going in the opposite direction, it made the pain in his chest ease. He climbed into his car and made the short journey home.
Rumpel let out a long sigh, as he pulled into the driveway, happy to be home where no trouble could follow him. He got out of the car and jumped up the steps two at a time to get to the porch, desperate to get to the sanctuary of his home. Before he even opened the front door, he could hear the excited voices inside, which brought a smile to his face. He opened the door and slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind him.
"Gideon, honestly, you can't allow them to do that to your father!" Belle protested at something in the kitchen.
Gideon chuckled as he replied. "I never said I was going to let them do it."
"He really won't appreciated it." Lilly added, fighting her fit of giggles.
Frowning at the snippet of conversation he heard, Rumpel stood at the edge of the kitchen area. "Won't appreciate what?"
They all jumped at his voice. Belle was the first to get her composure. "There's talk of instead of tying you to a lamppost when they get you drunk."
"Tie me to a lamppost?" Rumpel said, shrugging off his suit jacket to lay over the back of an armchair in the sitting area next to the kitchen.
"It's a custom of this realm to make mockery of the groom on his stag do." Lilly informed Rumpel, watching him take a seat in the armchair to remove his shoes. "They do silly pranks on him, such as getting him drunk and tying him to a lamppost."
"I'm not the groom." Rumpel looked puzzled as he pulled his socks off to discard to the floor.
"If you remember, Rumpel, you didn't have a stag do." Belle said waddling around the kitchen counter to sit on the couch end nearest Rumpel.
Rumpel shook his head, leaning back into the armchair. "Well, I'm glad I didn't if this is their custom."
Gideon sat onto the arm of Rumpel's chair. "Oh, come on, father. It'll be a good laugh."
"No, son," Rumpel started as he stood up to go to the kitchen counter, laying out the contents of his pockets, before making his way towards the stairs. "A good laugh would be turning you all into snails."
"That just sounds… icky." Gideon said, allowing himself to fall off the arm into the chair sideways. Rolling his eyes, Rumpel climbed the stairs quickly and entered their bedroom, waving his hand to close the door behind him. He entered the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Rumpel quickly removed his tie and unbuttoned some buttons of his shirt to pull up and over his head, catching sight of himself in the mirror as he tossed the shirt to the floor. He flicked some of his hair about. The face he saw in the mirror reminded him too much of the man he used to be, the coward who had allowed his son to go to another realm. It was nowhere near, as long as it used to be. Only about three inches long, but it was enough of a distant reminder. A reminder that he had seen that day in his shop when he had decided to chop his hair. With that in mind, Rumpel dug into the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a pair of scissors.
In minutes, his hair was gone, back to its short length, back to the strong man that had put his beloved and family first. Checking it in the mirror, he was happy with his handy work, clicking his fingers to clean up the mess on the floor. A renewed feeling swept over him as he stepped under the shower. The feelings Zelena had reminded him of, were washed away down the drain as well. She was always going to be a sick reminder of the torture she had put him through.
Drying himself off, he wrapped his towel around his waist and went into the bedroom. He stood in front of the wardrobe and picked out the dark blue jeans that Belle had told he looked sexy in and one of his white shirts she liked as well. Rumpel dressed swiftly, dowsing himself in some aftershave and then moseyed down the stairs. As he stepped off the last step, he finished buttoning his cuffs, heading back to the armchair.
"Wow!" Lilly exclaimed, watching him cross over to the armchair that Gideon was occupying.
Rumpel stopped to look at her, as he bent over to pick up his shoes. "What?"
"You… You look great!" She said. Belle and Lilly sat staring at him. Gideon was frowning looking between the two women and Rumpel. Disregarding them with a shrug, Rumpel took his shoes to the opposing armchair and put his shoes back on, checking the time with the clock over the fireplace.
"What time are we meeting? Seven?" Rumpel asked the room.
"Yeah." Gideon said, watching his fiancée and his mother stare at Rumpel. "Though, David, Hook and Henry have texted to say they're already there."
"Well, I'm ready then. I can eat there." Rumpel said getting out of his chair to cross to the kitchen counter.
As he put his phone, keys and money into his jean's pockets, a pair of hands glided over his sides and then his stomach, her whisper barely audible. "Maybe you should stay home?"
Baffled, he turned in her arms to confront Belle. "Eh? You told me to go."
"Yeah," Belle told forcing him into the counter to press against him, or as much as she could with a watermelon between them. "That was before you cut your hair, wore those jeans and smelt so heavenly."
"Oh, we like do we?" Rumpel asked, wrapping his arms around her.
"I more than like, but I think I would embarrass our company if I told you what I wanted to do with you." Belle said suggestively, leaning up to whisper into his ear. Taking advantage of her closeness, Rumpel moved his arms to clasp her face gently and kissed her lips. She melted against him, her fingers clutching at his shirt to support herself.
"Will you put my mother down and come on?" Gideon said impatiently. They broke their kiss smiling and rested their foreheads against one another. After a couple of seconds, Rumpel kissed her quickly on the cheek and left her standing by the counter, following Gideon out of the front door.
Rumpel pulled his keys out of his pocket whilst he opened the door to his car. He caught sight of Belle on the porch before he climbed into the car. She smiled at him and waved. Unable to help himself, he waved and smiled before ducking into the car.
"You're so whipped." Gideon stated to his father, closing his car door.
Raising an eyebrow at his son, Rumpel asked. "Whipped?"
"You're under mother's thumb." Gideon said, trying to explain but carried on explaining with the eyebrow still raised on his father's face. "You do whatever mother tells you to do."
Rumpel allowed himself to smile at his son's comment and started the car, pulling the gear lever into reverse as he said. "You will learn, son, that if you keep them happy, they'll do whatever you want."
"I don't see her doing a lot of what you want." Gideon snickered as Rumpel reversed out of the drive into the road.
"Son," Rumpel paused changing the gear into drive. "You're not with us twenty four hours." Leaving Gideon to think about what he said, Rumpel drove off into town and pulled up into the Rabbit Hole parking lot. As he turned off the car, Rumpel caught the look on his son's face and laughed at the disgust. No child wants to have images of their parents doing things. Especially things that their children had secretly forbidden their parents from doing.