Chapter Text
Although the castle was empty, Rumplestiltskin could hear so much activity. Down the hall was an empty pot that sat in a corner. Not since he’d fixed the leak in the ceiling had it been put to any use. Now, he heard it vibrate every time the thunder would crash - Ssshhhraaang! the pot would clatter. In his library, rustled pages from poorly used books droop into sagged positions. Sometimes a book would fall, but that seemed of little consequence. On the outside of the castle somewhere in the dark forest, a hawk made a screeching noise as it looked for shelter from the storm.
He sat on his bed, angling his face up at the sky considering the movements of the clouds. Stubbornly humming and rubbing his knees together, he began to let his mind drift. Nothing pleased him so much in this room as his bed. It smelled of lilac and clean linen. The feather mattress was something he proudly fluffed every night in an effort to enjoy the most out of his sleep. But tonight the bed, with all its charms and spells, could not provide him the rest he so sorely needed. Even just the sheer thought of lying down in his four poster, redwood, twisted turned canopy bed with it’s gingham curtains and velvety brocade fringe, made him drowsy enough to come in here and take a nap. Lately, it was a battle every night to get to dream again.
He glanced around his enormous room for something to do.
There were so many perfumes on the dresser, he giggled to himself, thinking of creating oils that he could rub into his clothing. The crystals he kept in the cabinet, they had to be drained of their energy before the young woman in the red cape needed them. His face contorted at the thought of working at this time of night.
Or maybe the velvety fabrics he’d thought of replacing would make much better duvet covers. How about the 15 pillows on his bed turned into some kind of secret cave to protect himself until morning from all this routinely ridiculous tedium?
Of course, there was always the option of hurling his ceramic water basin against the wall that would certain break the monotony. He stood suddenly. “Why can’t I sleep?” he bade the moon.
The inevitable pacing began. The floorboards creaked with his movements even though he only walked on the balls of his feet. He knew why he didn’t sleep; he didn’t want to believe it could affect him this much. It was since yesterday evening, when he learned about the terrible tragedies he’d have to endure to get back his son, Baelfire.
The last thing he wanted was to be trapped in a magicless prison, especially one that he would have to stumble into somewhat willingly at this point so that the Queen would think him powerless. Then there was the curse itself to consider too and what would happen when he’d be powerless for yet another 28 excruciating years. He’d be powerful in the town, of course, have his way all the time, but it wouldn’t be the same as the way he could trick people here. The glee of the take would be gone and the magic would be none existent.
He growled up at the ceiling. He didn’t want this, not this. Not to be alone with his thoughts and no solace among his many trinkets. He tore at the curtain leaving a gash in it as big as his palm.
No one else knew what he would do, of course. He hadn’t let anyone else behind his mask since he’d had Belle here and he didn’t intend to. If there was one thing he’d learned from Belle’s passing, it was to keep your secrets as closely guarded as your desires because that way no one could use them to hurt you.
Rumpelstiltskin didn’t want to think about the woman who'd changed his life. The thoughts came to him regardless, unbidden, unwanted and yet loved. He groaned when he thought of the one kiss they shared – that they would ever share.
He didn’t want to think about the kiss itself. He didn’t want to remember the soft press of her lips. He didn’t care for the reminder, and then of course the remembered experience of loosing his powers, the warm sensation that was his magic melting away with a strange euphoria he didn’t recognize. "What wicked magic is true love’s kiss," he fretted, burying his face in his pillows.
His breath caught in his lungs. The feel of her body gently pressed against his when he caught her from that ridiculous ladder. The smell of her, it was in her hair like earth and the musty smell of dried roses.
He could remember all of their last words to each other, all the red-hot anger. His aggressive yearning to get rid of any weaknesses that could bring him to his knees – She exposing him for the monster he truly was, selfish and pained.
The faultiness of memory made him change the ending a million times. Sometimes he grabbed her and kissed her again and would let the magic melt away along with any hope of finding Bae, sometimes he was careful not to kiss her lips but roamed the rest of her body, sometimes he left first and let her come to him.
His mind began to wonder again.
"How could she love me? When did that happen? Was it when I let her go? But I only did that because I was in love with her and the last thing I wanted was her unhappiness… She wasn’t supposed to come back, she shouldn’t have. If she hadn’t, maybe she’d… still be alive."
But in the moonlight streaming into his chambers, he knew better.
This night as he had many nights before, his body began to respond to his loneliness. His claws racked his chest, stopping at his ribs and examining them as he might imagine Belle would do, seeking out every inch of his flesh she could. Suckling a few fingers and pressing them to his cheeks and ears he imagined her kissing him there over and over again. He would imagine her face, intent on understanding his body and its responses as he bowed his back with the pretend feeling of breasts running nipples down his spine.
He placed a hand on his cold bedpost to steady himself as he kneaded his own stomach, testing and adjusting the strong muscles there. He did it as slowly as he could manage but knowing that she would only be a third as strong as he was made him impatient and press harder. She was underneath him now, pressing against his stomach with her own, hips grinding into the mattress, it’s softness not nearly as soft as his lady-love. He would groan into the pillows he had flung about him and whisper her name is if it could summon her out of the cold grave.
The first thing he noticed would be the lack of shape – it was all wrong. The light never dims enough to trick him into the falsity of company. Her breasts and solid hips a fading memory in a sea of forever. Nonetheless, his body wouldn’t betray his need, grinding again and again into the fleshy softness of the fabric.
Eventually turning over onto his back, he would run his hands under his trousers and grab a hold of his candle, working the wick into ecstasy. The head was sore a bit from all of the attention and flourish that was his brash efficiency with self pleasures. He slowly stroked things this time carefully and with interest, really trying to remember how delicate her hands were serving him tea or cooking a roast.
The tugging inevitably became more insistent. Teasing himself with the smallest amount of magic to moisten, warm, titilate, and constrict his candle, he imagined her nether lips pressing in around him. She could be on top right now, writhing and squirming, inching him inside herself as she bowed and cried out in little gasps for him to fill her up. His hero, he thought, straddling the monster, not letting him be his genuine evil self, not letting him be the bad guy anymore and certainly not letting him throw her out.
Not until she finished her pleasures first. He wouldn’t have had her any other way.
Imagining her wet cloister sucking at him with fever, he would of course release himself into the air like a spray of oil paints onto a canvas. He yelped as his candle lit the room positively on fire, bucking his hips, thrusting into her again and again and her flushed face enjoying all the excitement.
He would look up then and confess his love with his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the forlorn face above him. As he reached to caress her check, his beautiful Belle would fade into nothing, he’d remember that the heat he felt was his own hands, that she was not here and never would be again…
His body shook then with his sobbing and miserable pleas to the night sky. He wished his magic could help his sorrow. So total and absolute was his torture here and to come that nothing seemed to give him pleasure. Nothing, but a remembrance of his auburn angel who had been with him so briefly and so completely even though they never shared a bed. He never felt so weak and helpless as he did now. He never felt this for his wife so very long ago nor had any other women before or since sated him with just their presence in a room the way Belle had. A need he hadn't imagined he'd had before, welled in him. He crushed it down, closing his eyes in silence, his tears finally spent and all his woes staining the bed linens.
Finally, after cleaning himself off and throwing the soiled covers off the bed, as if that was what he’d been waiting for all evening, he would turn onto his side and drift off to sleep to dream of the world without magic.