Chapter Text
They’d put Rumplestiltskin on trial. Such as it was, conviction was quick.
The Fairies made a device, like a witch-lock. He was in rags, no longer known as Gold. He was only The Imp, The Goblin. The cold iron of the Fairies’ making encircled all of his fingers and toes. It joined his wrists to his ankles. He rocked, tailbone painful on the cold, cement floor, hair falling in his face.
The Fairies were bitches. Bitches. Hypocrites, in their nun’s costumes, their good-girl capes. But there were Fairies and there were faeries. Those, native to the land where Storybrooke was born, were a different breed. They were wild things, attached to trees and roots, to the earth and air. They were rarely visible. They cared nothing for diamond mines and Fairy Dust…. In fact, those things caused offense, tearing into the earth.
He'd come to know them. He closed his eyes and tried to stretch out to them, stifled by the iron that bound him. It made him sick, weak, fuzzy-headed.
He had visions of his past… Would he be that man, again? They were trying to reduce him, to strip him of power and grin at his helplessness, indulgent. They enjoyed his bare feet, which made him feel quite naked. They enjoyed his bared torso, which was bird-bony at the chest and had grown a paunch at the belly, now going slack with hunger.
Fuck them all.
The pirate said, “Sweet mother of holy-fucking-hell, mate.”
It took Rumplestiltskin somewhat aback. He’d exhausted himself, his mind fighting the black, damp fog of the iron, his body squirming and useless against it. Not a soul had shown sympathy; not even those who were known for it. Belle came nowhere near the jail. Emma, it was said, had left town.
Mary Margaret Blanchard’s face was stone, and Nolan was much the same. They were frankly terrifying, as often occurred when the zealously good were set free within wickedness. They’d kissed one another before him, celebrating his wretchedness with tongues and moaning, and he’d looked away, ill. Something in the display suggested a putrefaction of spirit.
It was no mystery whose doing this was. Bloody Zelena. What a mistake it had been to teach her…. her insidious envy had delayed her in all but magic… she was like a neglected toddler with a gun.
Killian’s voice was the first he’d heard that sounded… concerned. He looked up, eyes peering from under his long bangs, the witch-lock making him bowed and penitent, curled in on himself.
“Pirate.” Rumplestiltskin said, his voice a mere scrap of a whisper, a dry leaf, skittering along the pavement.
“Look what they’ve done to you.” Killian said. His hand was white-knuckled to one of the cell bars; iron, of course. Infused with yet another Fairy ensorcellment, and Zelena had made certain there were no loop-holes in the spell. No squid ink, no saviors.
Killian’s eyes showed frank shock over the cuts and bruises covering the bared parts of Rumplestiltskin’s body. Nolan was a big man. When his friendliness disappeared, he was a machine. Thorough. Zelena had cured him of conscience.
“Well, guess what?” Killian gave a soft exhale. He dug in his pocket, trousers tight and restrictive. He came up with a ring of keys, which he dangled like a cat toy.
More be-spelled iron. Rumplestiltskin’s stomach turned, but his eyes were glued to Killian’s hand.
“I’m your guard.” The pirate said, now smiling. “I’m also the witch’s weak link… she has no idea how I feel. She trusts me.”
Rumplestiltskin’s lips, parched and cracked, caked in dried blood, parted. It hurt. How did the pirate feel? His eyes questioned Killian, and – in answer – Killian raised a brow and inserted one large key into the cell’s lock.
For a moment, Rumplestiltskin couldn’t breathe. As old as the memory was, he could still feel the cutlass the pirate wielded, pressing into him as Milah looked on. Was there to be another beating? Would Killian come at him with the bloody hook? Again?
But, as the door swung open, Killian strode in quickly and sank to his knees. There was a different, tiny lock for each finger and toe. The pirate freed all of his digits, one by one, as Rumplestiltskin’s insides shook. When he was freed, the murky, slimy feeling of the iron-spell receding, Killian helped him to stand.
“Come on, mate.” He murmured. “We’ve got to be quick about it. You’ve very few allies… most, here, are under Zelena’s spell.”
“I have allies?” Gods. He sounded like a frog.
“Me. The Hatter. Leroy. The doctor. That’s it, mate. I don’t know how we escaped the spell… we were really drunk when Zelena cast it. That’s the doctor’s working theory… he thinks that, in a manner of speaking, we weren’t here to become bewitched.”
Rumplestiltskin almost smiled. Not bad, for an amateur. For a man of weird science.
Killian was practically carrying him… his bare feet stumbled and dragged, his legs mostly numb from days of being bent, crouched to his body.
“The Hatter is getting us all the fuck out of here. He’s taking us one at a time; the hat only takes two, apparently. He’s taking you first.”
“No. Last.” Rumplestiltskin rasped.
“No time for heroics, Croc.”
Rumplestiltskin shook his shaggy head. “No. I’m weak. But out of Zelena’s iron, I have magic. Leave me for last, in case something happens.”
Killian glanced at him. After a moment of study, he nodded.
The others were waiting, just behind the sheriff’s department. Jefferson handed Rumplestiltskin a shirt, which he accepted gratefully. He couldn’t manage the aplomb of Gold… it hung, untucked, cuffs loose and near-hiding his hands. He was barefoot. Still, it was a note of civility.
Leroy said, “I can’t believe I’m a part of this. Helping the Dark One.” He shook his head, and Rumplestiltskin gave a sharp look. He was grievously aware of being the smallest man present… a head taller than the dwarf, but far less solid. The runt of the litter.
“But Zelena’s insane.” Leroy added. “Ain’t no way I can be under her thumb. The other dwarfs are servants at her estate. They have uniforms.”
Rumplestiltskin looked at them all in question. With a shrug, Victor said, “Bitches be crazy. Let’s blow this taco stand.”