"New stock of termites—er, I mean teething puppies!" Jack grinned at the redheaded vampire.
"Housetrained?"
"Heck, no!"
Rubbing against him with crossed eyes, she decided, "I think I'll pass," then launched herself at his throat.
"There's a vampire in Storybrooke?" Belle asked in disbelief and fascination as she and Rumple strolled arm in arm into the animal shelter. The worker was squelching out horrible sounds as blood dripped from his neck.
Rumple made a hand gesture to halt the feeding with his magic, but the feeding was already over. The redhead pulled back with a smirk on her pallid face. "Dracula's granddaughter," explained Rumple.
The animal shelter worker snatched up a chain and hit the vampire on the side of her head. She flinched then transformed into a bright red bat and flew off.
"Vampires can procreate?" Belle quizzed.
"Not as vampires. Drac sired five children before dying. People who become vampires when they die have a gene that takes them there. Same as zombies. When they die, they can't fertilize eggs if they have sex—this isn't Twilight. Only in fiction can it be impossible for a female vampire to give birth but entirely plausible for a male vampire to fertilize eggs. What an illogical imagination that Meyer woman has—and don't get me started on the icky sparkling. But far as the gene goes, Dracula was the first person in the world with that strand, hence why he's the most famous vampire of all time."
Belle giggled with her lips clamped shut. "I've never read this Twilight you speak of, so I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Spare yourself the misery. I saved myself the time. A girl walked into my shop a couple years ago and gave me the Cliff Notes. She was from out of town, just passing through, or she wouldn't have heard of it, as Storybrooke was stuck in 1983."
"I'm sure it's not that bad, but…there are endless other books I'm more fascinated by. Hey, maybe we should adopt a werewolf cub instead of a dog!"
Rumple stuck his tongue out. "Haha," he uttered dryly. "Hate to break it to you if you weren't yanking my chain, but that's more child adoption than pet. 90% of the time, they're kids."
Belle released a sweet laugh from her chest. "No worries!" she asserted with crinkled eyes. "There wasn't even a smidge of me that was serious—" Her voice trailed off when she saw a dark-skinned man wrestling a large beast that reminded her too much of Gaston to a nearly-invisible door. Belle tried to say something three times but failed due to her anxiety. A part of her insides pierced with the siren of fear it might actually be Gaston transformed by a rock troll or some such. Ears reddening, she croaked, "What is that ghastly thing?"
"A carnivorous bull," he stated without interest, already pulling her in direction of the dogs.
"They let people drop off livestock here?"
"No. He's in for a sorry—" Rumple did a double-take when he got a good look at her face. "What's wrong, darling?"
Throat trembling, Belle whispered, "That looks like Gaston."
"No worries," Rumple clucked. "He's dead. He came charging the castle after I fell in love with you, demanding I release you to him like a real sonofabitch, sexist pig thinking women are too," he fluttered his fingers, "dainty to rescue themselves. I turned him into the rose I presented you with, telling you an old woman was at the door, selling them."
Belle was so happy she jumped in Rumple's arms and kissed him as he held her under her knees and at her lower back. "Thank you," she uttered huskily, touching his chest seductively, "for preventing me from clobbering him on the head with a candelabra as I'd have had to do. He was a monster. I didn't want to marry him. I want to marry—" She stopped herself. Dropped to the floor. Then allowed herself to admit passionately—honestly, "I love you. My father forced me to agree to be Gaston's wife. Not an arranged marriage but one I was bullied into agreeing to. My father wanted my body to belong to a man I'd never choose to sleep with if given a free will. For his benefit, he chose to sell my body. But it belongs to you."
Bowing, Rumple replied easily, "Glad I could be of service. I do appreciate that you love and lust me, and I feel the same. Though I refuse to pressure you. I want you to show me when you're ready. I'll wait years if need be. I haven't in over 200 years anyway, what's an extra 20?"
Belle smirked. "You won't have to wait so long. Just let my brain catch up to the realization I'm free of my thirty-year prison…" She deflated. "Only because Jefferson wanted you to assassinate the Evil Queen on my behalf."
Rumple kissed her. Felt her heart beating hard. "Don't you worry. I won't kill her, and she'll never capture you again."
"What if she does?" Belle whispered with large, round eyes full of terror. "I'm afraid if I have Stockholm syndrome for anyone, it's her. I'm so terrified of her…" she squeezed her eyes shut.
Rumple swayed her in a sweet dance. "I've got you covered," Then he escorted her to the dogs.
Shivering against him as they exited the main building and strode to the first canine-filled trailer, Belle murmured, "Can you imagine if you hadn't turned him into a rose and some sorcerer turned him into that beast…and here we are, meeting again? He was unpleasant when I knew him. I bet however long he'd have served as a bull would make him downright deplorable." In unison, Rumple reached one hand to hold the door open while gripping one of her hands in his other to help her over the steep threshold. Accepting his help, Belle catapulted to the other side of the threshold before proclaiming, "Not that he wasn't already a monster. Shouldn't it smell worse in here?"
Rumple countered, "You're thinking of the zoos that don't clean out their elephant enclosure half as often as they should."
The air was slightly stuffy, but it wasn't abusively uncomfortable. The first couple of cages had some brown and white terriers lying on their sides. These terriers only acknowledged the two humans by inching their ears in their direction before smoothing them back. One yawned.
The third cage contained an enormous, fluffy snow white puppy with one large ebony spot on her back and a yellow tennis ball in her mouth. She paraded the ball around her cage while wagging her shaggy tail. If she weren't too young to be housebroken, Belle would have seriously considered her because of the tennis ball.
But at four months old (her biography stated the month and year of birth) at Belle's hip level and tons more growing to do, Belle doubted the dog would have come home with her even had she been a candidate. She'd likely drag Belle on walks like a lump of flour.
Even so, Belle let the pup lick her hand (dropping the ball to do so) and commented to Rumple, "She's sweet."
Her tone told him all he needed to know, so they moved to the fourth cage. This one contained a muscular medium-sized dog with brittle bright red and black fur. She had a mound of curly bright red fringe sitting atop her head. She was panting heavily and wagging her tail furiously.
Belle got the sense a squirrel had run in here just to taunt the hunting dog. Dancing a safe distance away as the dog scrabbled to get loose. Only departing the trailer grounds before Rumple and Belle set foot within.
The next dog was so skinny Belle could make out his shoulder bones. His flesh clung so hard to them it appeared to be eating his bones.
Turning from the dog, an unfamiliar voice called, "Belle!" Belle twisted her neck to see a blonde woman with six similar-looking six-year-olds all around her. The blonde woman kinda sneered at Rumple.
Belle thought it sounded rude to admit she had no idea who the woman was, so she asked, "Are they all yours?"
The blonde woman tittered. "Heavens no! Me and my triplets gave birth one day after the next. Me on the solstice then Candy the next day and Caramel after her…I had two, Candy had five, Caramel had four." She brushed her hair glamorously behind her ear. "Caramel and her husband died in a car crash the day before Valentine's Day, so now I've adopted her children."
Belle was so confused, she had to ask, as one kid launched himself at a dog being escorted on a leash by a man. The kid broke the leash. The woman slapped the child and apologized to the man. "I'm sorry, do I know you?" She could recall meeting no triplets, though she had been introduced to a few sets of twins.
"We never met," explained the blonde. "My sisters and I wanted to marry Gaston. He chose you. But you picked…ew instead." She wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something pungent while twisting her lips at Rumple.
"We're not married," Belle stated frostily, "but I would be honored to have him as my husband. Gaston was nothing but a piece of ass. This is a real man." She turned her back on the blonde, her ears as red as a lobster.
The blonde grumbled at her triplet, who'd materialized with five six-year-olds, "Ooh, she thinks she's so smart because she passed on Hottie McHotstuff for Ugly McHomely."
Belle gritted her teeth and snarled sarcastically, "Lovely woman."
"Say it like you mean it," teased Rumple, unoffended and quite proud. Belle obviously wasn't ashamed of him, as Milah had been. Because Milah hadn't loved him. Anyone ashamed of their partner because some small-minded person failed to understand wasn't in love.
Belle stuck her finger between the bars of the next cage and let the blue/grey Scottish terrier lick it. "He needs to go to the bathroom," she realized after the seventh hopeful lick.
Rumple snagged the attention of the closest volunteer. Then he and Belle continued on their way.
Each trailer had fifty cages. All had at least one—sometimes three—dogs. Some of the cages had signs saying the dog was already purchased but his owner had yet to pick him up. A couple of the trailers were colder—in an unpleasant, not refreshing way—than the others. These trailers smelled different—like dog diarrhea and vomit. The odor wasn't strong, but it hung in the air as if it'd been cleaned one hundred times but the dogs had been sick so often it was impossible to be permanently erased.
They were "sick" trailers, filled with dogs not one hundred percent healthy but being treated for their illnesses and recovering well enough that adoption was fine. In fact, seven cages with taken dogs were in these trailers.
Belle and Rumple saw every dog in the first thirteen trailers, and Belle wrote each one off immediately for various reasons—even the ones in the taken cages, before she spied the signs.
The back of her neck was tense, and her feet were starting to hurt when they exited the thirteenth trailer. She wondered if they'd find a dog. And how did Storybrooke have so many strays?
Rumple seemed to read her mind. "They migrated from Boston. Or New York City, in some extreme cases. They're not from the Enchanted Forest, most of them anyway. Regina dislikes animals, except horses, so any animals that came with the curse were an accident. The dogs that are taken are by people whose dogs recently passed from old age or those just now old enough to own a pet of their own." Rumple pointed at a Dalmatian flickering her tail as she sat on her haunches. "That's one of the one hundred and one Dalmatian puppies Cruella was planning to raise so she could murder them into fur coats to sell the moment they reached adulthood."
"Ah. All now spayed or neutered, I hope?"
Rumple stuck his tongue between his teeth. "Sure. Archie neutered Pongo. I'd say seventy-five percent accidentally came with the curse, all spayed or neutered. Perdita was murdered by Regina."
Belle quaked with disgust and fear. "That horrible woman."
"Through the gossip chain, I heard she wanted Anita to disclose something about Cruella Anita found to be a betrayal of trust. Was going to murder Roger, Anita, Pongo, and Perdita, but Pongo bit her. She wanted him to suffer, so she left him alive."
Belle concluded, "So Jiminy gave him a home."
They combed through another couple of trailers before Belle abruptly halted Rumple in front of a Saint Bernard mix. "This is hopeless! I'm too picky. Bet I look at every dog and they all feel wrong."
"That's okay." Rumple pressed his mouth to her forehead but didn't pucker up. "No harm checking them all out. If you can't find one, today's not the day."
That's when she spotted the ugliest dog she'd ever laid eyes upon lunging at her cage door with the happiest expression. This dog got one whiff of Belle and instantly wanted her friendship. She was not lunging her large body threateningly but with the sweetest of intentions.
Short, brittle brown fur with crooked ears and the most loving amber eyes Belle had glimpsed. There was no doubt this Rhodesian ridgeback-built dog would drag her on walks. Belle didn't care. The dog felt like family when they first looked at each other, not a stranger. Because the dog's demeanor and Belle's found family love instantly.
This dog would never feel like a stranger in Belle's life.
Rumple snapped his fingers. "This is her. Our dog."
She licked his fingers through the bars, tail wagging jovially.
"Dogs love me," Rumple mumbled, watching the dog dotingly. "Horses, not so much."
Belle decided now was the time to check the dog's name so she could decide whether she needed to change it or wanted to keep it. Her blue eyes rode the words on the sign.
"Debra. I like it. Reminds me of that woman in the show we watched last night. This dog has brown hair too, though Ray's wife's hair is darker…her fur is amber colored, almost gold."
"Her eyes are amber," corrected Rumple. "Her fur has a reddish tint, but aside from that and being three shades darker than her eyes, she is indeed amber. If we were giving her a folktale name and you invited me to suggest a name, I'd pick Goldilocks."
Hailing a volunteer—who happened to be David—Belle asserted without moving her lips, "I picture Goldilocks with curly hair, but yes, you're right. That name does seem fitting." Having never met David, Belle said nothing except, "We'll take her."
From afar, she had once glimpsed James at King George's side, but his head was down and her eyes had been on the king. Besides which, in Storybrooke David dressed vastly different from his brother and himself masquerading as his brother. Therefore, he didn't remind her of anyone.
David looked from Rumple to Belle and back. "The moment I demand an explanation is the moment I've been in this town too long." He pulled a rope-leash out of a pocket on his volunteer jacket. Then he unlocked the cage and slipped the leash around Debra's neck. Slipped in a loop to make a collar and leash synonymously.
Debra bit his hand hard enough to break his skin.
"Yep. This is your dog," David told Rumple pointedly, handing the leash to Belle.
As Rumple and Belle headed to pay for Debra, Belle commented, "Friend of yours?"
"Husband of Snow White," corrected Rumple.
"Ah."
Debra trotted happily at Belle's side. Her ears perked up. Belle felt strange as they made their way to legally purchase the canine, and she couldn't understand why.
In Rumple's car, with the back window open just enough for Debra to hang her head out, Belle burst into happy tears. She couldn't stop them, because she'd suffered so much psychological abuse that she was currently touched.
Reaching for her hand, Rumple steered his vehicle single-handedly. "Anything you'd like to get off your chest, my love?"
Belle expected to blurt, "I don't know why I'm crying!" She was mortified by the liquid plunging down her neck.
Instead, she heard herself state (with a chin that wobbled adamantly), "Nobody trusted me to make choices. Clothing, what I ate, even a husband! I wasn't allowed to have a dog or my own horse. People asked me what I'd like for my birthday but never listened to the answer. Always bought me something completely different…" She wrestled her hand out of his grasp and stroked his arm as he returned his second hand to the wheel. "You not only trust me to care for a dog—you let me choose one. You trusted me with two choices my father would never have…I'm ashamed of myself, but I'm…I'm touched."
"You shouldn't be ashamed," Rumple growled, and Belle could smell a whiff of her favorite cologne lingering on his collarbone. "Your father should. You are a person, and by stripping you of basic choices, they abused you. Kept you fed and unwounded, fair, but psychological trauma is not a sign of love. Your father regarded you as a possession, not a person."
"Well, thank you for not treating me like that." Belle lowered her head to Rumple's shoulder. His scent gave her a sense of comfort. Debra pulled her head back in and briefly snuffled Belle's ear before sticking her nose back out the window with a howl.
Wryly, Rumple remarked, "David has a point." Belle had no idea what he was talking about. "You have great taste in dogs."
Teasingly, Belle replied, "If that's what impresses you, you should see how I am with honey badgers!"