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kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pmtexts texts texts
this one is for texts!
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2024-01-24 08:25 pm
3/3
During those three days, yes?
It did strike me as singular, that Graham was on your side - and so, on my own - with no retaliation from the mayor. That she gave me no earful after.
Do you know, I think she did take you at your word (no surprise; my Puppy, my wolf is convincing when he has cause to be, hm?); she’s watched me with wariness, tried to prod the boundaries of what I know and who I think I am.
I suspect she’s being careful. I suspect she has no wish to wake up what I am.
I suspect she’s relieved. (She shouldn’t be. Even supposing I’ve forgotten myself, she ought to be wary of you— But again, and always, she errs toward over-confidence. Toward what is simplest to believe.) Something that may aid in securing annulment for a marriage that never was. If she wants to keep calm waters, and keep ‘Mr. Gold’ from working himself into a memory-fracturing tizzy, it behooves her to speed along the process.
…What ever did you say to her, my Love?
What ever did you do?
1/2
Corbin, who has, as it turns out, both rings.
Jack laughingly calls him 'quite the magpie', all the while feeling something in his chest like pride of the paternal sort.
He takes a moment to photograph the unusual rings, then sends this image to Desmond. ]
Look familiar?
Corbin gave me one of them when I decided to propose.
Maybe I should have asked that night, Regina be damned. Maybe if you'd seen the ring, things would've turned out differently.
Or maybe you'd have thought they were yours and hers. With all the mind games they played, I would've thought the same.
But it's all right.
Gold and red toned, just like you said. That's more proof, isn't it? Can't do anything but believe you.
Can't do anything but ask you to be my husband again - soon! - and make sure it sticks this time.
2/2
I went in armed, yanked the cord out of the phone, and made her sit down and tell me what the fuck is happening in this town. I think it shocked her more that I knew who she was and what she could do, but the gun helped.
When I was walking out, that's when she asked me who I am. She should know who I am, right? Isn't that part of the curse? She knows who we are and she assigns us these identities. So if that's true, how'd I slip through the cracks?
How did Lacey?
Flaws like that are why whole systems fail. Jurassic Park, the Matrix, firewalls. You can't have unknown elements running around causing chaos.
But that makes me ask another question: if I'm an aberration in the curse's effects, am I a bug or a feature?
...And how many others here are like me?
1/2
Where did heHow did heAh, but of course he had them, it’s only right, IYes.
Familiar. Yes, I—
My Love.
It was always your ring.
They were always meant to bind us.
My relief isHow in fuck’s name did I ever think I might have crafted one for her, I[ … ]
That was my worry, yes. That I [ … ] had forged those rings for a hand that wasn’t yours. That some slip of fate had bound that woman to myself, and that I had been fool enough to pledge myself to [ … ] some measure of her existence.
Viewed from a distance, the assumption makes no kind of sense. What was she that I could ever want, or - speaking on more likely terms - what good could have come from a contract that required her hand, her marriage?
[ … ]
I become [ … ] painfully erratic in your absence, my Puppy. I worry overmuch; I misreads signs as hazards and [ … ] the conclusions I draw don’t sort themselves to sense.
What did she do[ … ]
I call this proof, yes, Dearest.
And husband or not, husband and not, I am your mate through all. I do stick to you, and with you; I always shall.
Even erasure of memory couldn’t keep us torn forever, hm? Our love was only waiting; our rings were always waiting.
Kept in sanctuary by our pup.
[ ... ]
I'd like my ring, someday. When the time feels right for you.
I'd like to see your nestled on your finger, where it always should have been.
2/2
A bit of business, a little scare; what could be better? What’s more beautiful than my wolf prowling, and flashing fangs?
Ah Love, you do turn your Daddy wild. >;3
[ … ] Telling, that phrase: ‘A bit of business.’ I think of it as one of mine. Perhaps another point of evidence suggesting what we were.
For the rest—
These flaws. You’re right to name them loci of destruction; discrepancies of this sort shouldn’t be possible. There shouldn’t be any flaws. Not given what I know of magic and of this curse; not given the care I took - and that together, we must certainly have taken - in its composition.
Magic is given to fluctuations. Small, mm, flourishes of over-exuberant energies that bloom within vagaries of term or of intention. Magic’s own little loopholes, if you will.
I would have accounted for this. And seeing how well my Puppy sniffs opportunities between contractual lines, I’m certain you would have been vigilant, as well. Regina may have muddled the curse, but then I taught her care as well. More likely, I suspect that whatever befell you and I destabilized some core component of our curse.
[ … ]
I’m curious as well, to know how many others slip beyond the curse’s grasp.
It might be worth discerning whether Regina knows who Rowan is. Who Corbin is, only [ … ] I’m reluctant to bring his name to her. Better, perhaps, that he pass under the radar.
We’ll need to do a little digging, Love. To discern the one our mayor doesn’t recognize. To discern who slips my knowledge, or your own.
1/2
I told her she had to leave us alone - steer totally clear of us - and that she had to let me have you. In exchange, I'd make sure you didn't "wake up". She agreed to that. We made a deal.
Bought me and you some time to figure out what the hell is going on here.
(Bought you for me, too, and believe me, I mean to get my money's worth. >;3 )
I'll do whatever investigating you tell me to do, Daddy.
But. Behind closed doors, we can be the creature and the wolf. Outside, we're Desmond and Jack Gold. You're a loan shark and an antiques dealer and a lawyer, and I'm the gold-digging stripper that usurped your dull wife's cozy little setup.
[...]
Actually, about that.
2/2
Stuff that didn't really settle into place with what was going on.
Yesterday, he sat next to me at the diner and asked if I've ever considered law enforcement. Casual as you please.
I don't know if it was his idea or Regina's, but she mentioned something similar when I [...] "spoke" with her. Said I'd have to keep my clothes on, though.
[...]
You do get a little erratic and I love you for your eccentricities as much as for every other wild part of you. Annnnnd - It wouldn't hurt to have me somewhere like the station, where I can run some interference. Just in case.
I'll do anything to keep you safe, my Love. I'll always protect you. All the pieces of you, inside and out.
1/2
My feigning ignorance for her noninterference. It’s a price I’ll easily pay, and it’s no small boon to have achieved.
Puppy, I am both grateful for and proud of you.
My protector, my guardian, my always.
I’ve begun to follow a regular routine that happens to coincide with many, many Puppy encounters through the day, and returns me to his arms with the evening. After all, Mr. Gold lives for his Puppy’s love. (And wasn’t it his Puppy who spared him from the anguish of the life he knew before? All roads lead back to Puppy, for Mr. Gold, for Desmond, for every name I am alike. I’d have it no other way.
Nor would I permit my Puppy to ever, ever be short-changed. >:3)
If I happen to draw some small measure of attention, it will be only of the kind to be expected from an ill-tempered, at times erratic loan shark. Nothing to be faulted! Nothing to arouse mayoral suspicions. 😌🗡️
2/2
What in shit’s name is Regina planning toIt doesn’t bode well when our dear mayor attempts to rope you intoShe wants you within reach, she wants me within reach[ … ][ … ]
This suggestion from Mr. Humbert (from, perhaps, the mayor)—
Is it something you’d be interested in?
Either as a change from or in addition to your work at The Rabbit Hole; I don’t wish to see my Puppy overworked, but just as well, I know you take enjoyment in your stripping.
(No matter what the outcome, I’m afraid the mayor’s injunction toward perpetual clothedness is ill-fated. Your clothes will have to come off at some point, hm?
Inquiring Daddy demands to witness his Puppy bared in full. >;3)
[ … ]
I admit, Love, I am wary. Of course I don’t doubt your capacity for the role, nor for managing Regina. I know your strength of will, how perceptive you are. You outdo her in mind and in strength, in patience and in foresight (she never could see further than a month or two beyond the moment).
She’d be a fool to move against you.
(She is a fool, granted!, but she bears no death wish.) (In any case, I’ll ruin her if she tries anything— And if my Puppy hasn’t already torn her limb from limb. 😌✨)
It’s possible - perhaps probable - that she’s seen the wisdom in keeping you provisionally ‘on her side,’ or at least within her sight. She’s glimpsed some fraction of your capabilities; she sees you as an unknown element within her little world. Perhaps this is her way of ‘dealing with’ ‘the threat’ she sees in you. A way for her to sleep easier at night.
Of course, it’s also possible that she had no hand in this. Mr. Humbert appears to get on well with you, and I gather he was impressed by the way you carried yourself through the chaos we [ … ] recently endured.
Whatever their motives may be, you’re right to suggest that joining the station may bring advantages. The more Regina believes you to be cooperating with her game, the more she thinks she knows of you and of your whereabouts, the less scrutiny she’ll set on you. The more likely she is to trust you.
And regarding my little eccentricities— I’d argue that I could curb these habits for the sake of our shared peace. But in the first place, I’m not certain how reliably I could squelch them.
In the second, I [ … ] suspect that isn’t anything you’d ask, or wish.
You love me very well, Puppy, and wholly. It astonishes me still to think you know so much of what I am, and still you breathe encouragement only; acceptance of all that I am.
Lucky, Lucky Daddy.
Who has strayed off-point - but can I blamed, when I stray only to follow sun-strewn thoughts of my mate, and to speak his name with a smile gone daft? - and now returns to the matter at hand—
For me, the focal question remains: Is this something you’d like to do, my Love? You have your Desmond’s full-hearted support one way and every other.
1/2
But I like what I do. I like it more knowing you're around sometimes to see, and that I get to come home to you. I like that I know what I am - we know what I am - and they don't.
It'll get old eventually, but right now it's thrilling.
So is driving around being your right-hand man. I love doing that. Bet it'll be even more fun now I know who these people really are.
The thing is, I could probably just put Graham off for a few years and he wouldn't notice any time going by, right? No real rush at all.
Yeah, I want a few years of you and me against the world. We spent enough time being you and me against each other.
2/2
Seeing as technically, I still work for you when I'm not helping out here or showing off what the good curse gave me? That seems like a lot of special attention.
[...]
Hey, speaking of this...body.
I have an [...] other-skin. Not the wolf, but not quite a man. I don't [...] remember exactly how it looks or feels, but I don't think this is it.
It's just [...]
It's like someone took my shoes and copied them, but made them a half inch too small, you know? It feels off.
I thought I was just crazy before, but now I've got a little better awareness here, that's what it is: my body's literally wrong.
...Until you touch me, anyway. When you touch me, nothing feels wrong anymore.
I think I chose my other-skin for you? Is that possible? I can't rememberI feel perfect with you, Desmond.
1/2
Shall I catch you at the corner by the fishmonger and demand a kiss? Ah, you must count on it!
Shall I corner you some afternoon at Null Set, and steal caresses on our couch? This, as well, is inevitable!
And then— Well. Gold’s premium package is for Puppy’s eyes and Puppy’s touch only. I daresay - I do say - you hold the one and only V.I.P. pass, certified by my own word, and my eternal invitation. 😌✨
(Read ‘V.I.P.’ as ‘Very Important Puppy,’ of course!)
Everything for you, my Love.
All that I am, all that I have ever been, is yours; I feel this as truly as I feel my own heart’s beat; as surely as I feel your presence like slow honey in my veins. ❤️❤️
2/2
It means the world to see you smile. Means worlds beyond to know that you can feel at ease with yourself, even in this other world, this form that doesn’t match precisely what you are.
My Puppy, you are always perfect in my eyes.
And! We’ll find these others forms of yours. Once this town’s stasis has ended, we’ll find every form you once held. We’ll hold each other in our truer forms, hm?
Do you know, I almost think I[ … ]There are times I think I might have held another form mysI can’t say what it might have been, or how I would have found it. I try to think its shape, my shape, and pain turns blinding in my mind[ … ]
We’ll see just what we made
offor?of one another, Love. It will be my pleasure to witness the wolf you are, as well as this other-skin.Just as it is always a pleasure to see you as you are, here and now. Clothed or otherwise; kneeling at my thigh or standing strong beside me, or curled warm against my throat.
I do wonder what it was about the curse that changed your body, if it was a kind of human in that other-formQuibbles of this curse; curiosities to muse on.I like this plan of yours, Puppy: To take what time you like before - perhaps, and if you someday find yourself inclined! - approaching Humbert. To relish the ignorance in hungry eyes, then return to
our denyour Daddy, where we might hold one another and celebrate the wolf you are. To accompany the local loan shark on his bits of business (and engage in furious, private pawings after if we like, hm?).There is no rush; as you’ve noted, nothing in this town will change.
And oh, the thought of a few hours along with you - let alone a few years! years, Puppy, to claim routines and fresh discoveries of our own; years to revel in the Complete Puppy Package and the Premium Gold Package alike! - is life itself. ❤️❤️
1/2
2/3
Joking aside, I[...]I didn't realize how much itI miss being kissed like that.
It's not your fault and I don't want you to be sorry; just let me say it.
I miss being kissed - You know. Without worrying who'll see. Without feeling like what we're doing is wrong. I mean, the past few months, I couldn't remember all the times someone's shoved me away or told me not to speak to them in public, and the allure of sneaking around was there with you. I had fun, being your secret. It was novel enough to be fun.
But [...] I remember now. I remember what I asked you the first time we spoke, and how much it meant to me to be called your pride. I remember how afraid I was that you'd turn out to be like all the others.
I was blissful, you know. Free and happy with you.
She put you in a position to take that away
She did this to us
[...]
Too many others.
Someone did that to us, too, and
[...]
So I'm going to need to ask for those Premium VIP perks as often as possible. Shop and Null Set and every goddamn street corner.
If we have to live here, I want the life we had for three perfect months.
3/3
[...]
But also, I love this form, too. There's a lot to be said for the current presentation you have going on. Perfect blue eyes, perfect [...] other qualities. ;)
You're doing better with the human male form at "fifty" than most guys are at twenty-five or thirty.
[...]
I have, unfortunately, become an expert on that subject.
[...]
I guess hunting them all is out of the question
for a while, huh?1/3
Anywhere, everywhere I find you, my adoration will ring clear. In my eyes, my breath, my hands set to you at every opportunity.
In every kiss I mean to claim upon your blessed being. Twelve years, Puppy; we have twelve years to turn them ill with our love, our bliss restored.
Twelve years in this senseless little town, and then through our eternity beyond. Where won’t I kiss you? What corner of this world and every other won’t bear the mark of our transcendence?
Ah, a helpful tip! Your VIP pass applies in every realm discovered and yet-undiscerned! So please, do take your perks and claim your backstage pass in each and every one. 😌✨✨
2/3
My poor PuppyKnowing what they were, what they did to youI curse myself for those endless months ofNo, I know you understand, it’s no matter of blame, only IIt ached me, burned corrosion through my blood to keep you as a secret, to urge our silence[ … ]
The messages they sent youThe ways they spoke of you, all that those men, those feigning lovers demandedWhat they took from you. What they took from us. We’ll find every hand involved, and they will suffer to their mewling ends.[ … ]
Vicious, pretty wolf—
Never despair and never doubt, hm?
That hunt awaits us. Twelve years will pass, and then what need have we for withholding our nature? What good need we find in restraint?
What cause to spare any one of them - grasping, puling, sad little men - from meeting their consequences?
Every injury will have its payment. Restitution is owed, and will not be forgotten.
Ah, Puppy. I will thrill to see my wolf take blood.
3/3
I’ve missed you, my Love. Missed being openly yours; missed declaring you my own, freely.
You are my pride, and remained so through those months of [ … ] enforced separation. Have I said— No, I don’t think I’ve told you how pleased, how proud I was to hear you’d kept on with your studies. How even before I saw you again, each mention of your name, of your actions, formed a lifeline.
Even kept distant, it was you who kept me breathing.
Now I have you again, and Love, I’ll cling with tooth, with nail, with scales alike. I won’t lose you again. I won’t let you be taken.
Nor will I go so much as a half-day without a kiss (and even twelve hours unkissed is quite a lot to ask, I think!), or without claiming my own. 😌❤️
Do you know, I’d follow you into the very depths of Tartarus - known in Storybrooke as ‘that goddamned diner’ - and kiss you there—
Or, no, that diner deserves no witness to our love. Say instead that I would enter, would call your name and crook my hand at your elbow, then command your presence outward, freeing you from whatever plight dared detain my Puppy. Then, at the gate, I would take my time in wrapping arms and legs around you, kissing my Puppy deep and deeper there upon the curb.
With a kiss each step our way home, of course. And perhaps a little nip here and there; a gift of teeth for Puppy and for Daddy both. 😌✨❤️
1
Not that anyone would mistake either of us for morally upright citizens if you're climbing all over me like a jungle gym out on the sidewalk. No complaints here: I'm looking forward to the attention.
Vicious, pretty wolf? Vicious, vain wolf, maybe.
You think I'm a pretty wolf? Really?[...]
Oh, huh. The conversation we had about heroes makes all kinds of sense now. You asked me what I think of them or something like that.
I tried to scroll back and look, but I don't have those texts anymore.
I bet you have them, though.
Later.
Let me tell you what I think about heroes: they taste rank. I don't know what it is about them, but every single one I've ever bitten in to tastes like they're rotting or full of metal shavings or [...]
No, you know what? They taste artificial. That's what it is. Couldn't have told you that in the Forest Before, but having had more than a decade of exposure to artificial flavoring, I'm going to decisively say that's the problem with heroes. They taste like someone made a human in a petri dish.
Can't eat them. Can't let them live, either, because they either try to kill me, or they talk along these weird dichotomous lines about good and evil and don't leave any room for reality.
Then again, I didn't really care for humans in general. Maybe I'm biased.
2
Definitely, no one's going un-nipped.
Besides, you need to be reminded of something: I'm proud of you, too. The difference between you and all those men, Desmond, is with them I wanted to be acknowledged. With you, I want to do the acknowledging. It'll be nice for people to see I'm wanted, but even nicer to be open about my choice.
It feels like something shared - me and you. Something worth living for.
And if you want to kiss me in the diner, that'd be just fine by me. A little love would be good to brighten up the place.
[...]
I do love you. More than words are good for.
3
You think I'm a pretty wolf?
Really?[...]
Really?
1/3
Oh, Puppy, I know it.
(And think it as well, yes. 😌❤️)
Even in the Forest, when I was a creature driven half from my senses, careening after a wolf more shadow than flesh and bone, I knew it. There was nothing that better caught my eye, or snared within my knowing.
…I [ … ] hadn’t realized this before, not consciously, but [ … ] there were notions I carried. Stray images, stray certainties flashing gossamer through my thought. A sense of shadow as beauty; a sense of brilliance wrapping itself in night.
A sense of longing, though I couldn’t name it at the time.
[ … ]
I glimpsed you, one or thrice, with fur silver, gold, and gleaming. Did you know? The wolf, my wolf caught sleeping.
[ … ]
I’d almost forgotten. It’s another memory that’s difficult to keep in hold. But I saw the wolf you were, outside your shadow; I’m certain of it.
You’ve said you were weary; that your coat was disarrayed, your skin worked into torment by forest-needles and neglect. And perhaps your fur had grown matted, but I— What I remember.
What I saw was brilliance.
I couldn’t approach you. I watched you, and I left you there.
You turned my heart; you stole my breath.
My Love, I have never seen anything so beautiful as the wolf you are.
I’ve never seen something, someone so pretty. In the guise of man or wolf - and I dare to say, in any other form you might take - there is nothing so pretty as my Puppy.
Believe me on this, hm? And ask yourself (an unanswerable query, for there is no other): Who else could make the Dark One swoon?
😌✨❤️🐕
2/3
You remember our talk ofOf course you remember.I did, yes. Ask what you knew of their tales. It was incautious, perhaps, to venture into that vein. But then, as you may have surmised, when one endures the charading ‘virtues’ of heroes for centuries, the bile induced eventually builds beyond containment.
I’ve met so many of their kind; they’re dreadfully, painfully dull. Cookie-cutter glossed-up stock characters mouthing words oft-spoken, thinking their pat declarations brilliant.
They charge in with steel and righteousness, demanding ‘their right’ and the death of monsters. As if they commanded the world by virtue of a noble title or a well-turned jaw. As if their axiologies spelled perfect truth.
And you, Love, have described them exactly.
‘Rank,’ to the very center of their ideology.
‘Artificial.’ Composed from pre-drawn pieces, rather than grown from experience or understanding of a complex world.
’Artificial.’ Why does thatI’ve never tasted human blood in myA sample here and there. A taste to verify its utility before putting it to use, but that can’t account for this sense of[ … ]There was a surge of blood. More than once? A rush of blood, but I cannot pinpoint or begin to[ His head. A burst bright-shot through his head, and Desmond grinds a palm against his temple, shuts his eyes and breathes, waits, waits.
Whatever paths those thoughts pointed toward are explorations for another time. Let them be. Let them linger in mind’s distance, and slowly, slowly coalesce. There’s no need to rush, after all. ]
And you’ve landed precisely on a perpetual trouble of heroes: There’s little one can do about them. Gods forbid they keep their noses to their own business! And there’s little chance they’ll keep their viRtuOus idEaLs out of yours. >:/
I suspect the collection of them share one to two braincells, cycled daily among their number.
It must take very little thought, to live such strict dichotomies. Really, I suspect a few clear thoughts - or a few personal encounters with, gasp!, reality - would topple their structure entirely.
Fuck’s sake, they are a boring lot.
(And damn them doubly, for failing even to provide a serviceable snack!)
3/3
You speak pride in me, and Puppy, I—
I don’t know what to do with myself. How to [ … ] understand the form I hold; this being that I am.
I know that I feel relief like the dispersal of an ages-long weariness.
I know I feel freer; that I feel myself and feel like myself more wholly.
There is no one else I’d care to hear these words from.
And I am grateful, my Love, for you, for everything you are. My Dearest, I flourish in your care.
You protect and you discern me, you help me know the rightness in myself.
Beautiful, pretty Puppy; there is no rightness, there is nothing in the world without you. ❤️
< < <
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