rubycity_ooc | February Test Drive!

Entry tags:

February Test Drive!

Thinking of apping a character but not sure they'll fit in the city walls?

Have no fear, a meme for you is here.

Directions:

Use an RNG to choose a location and prompt, or wait for someone else to tag.

Post with your character with their name and canon on top!

If you'd like, leave contact info for people to get in contact for plotting and other such shenans.

Tag around! Make friends. Don't be afraid to chat OOC while tagging.

Locations

1.TRAIN STATION - The place where everyone gets dumped off at. Your first view of Ruby City, complete with informational posters telling you all about where you've ended up.
2. THE BEACH - Lovely year-round, though in the winter months, you're probably not likely to dip your toes in.
3. THE BLACK STALLION - A rather quaint bar. Supposedly, the burgers are great, but you don't see anyone immediately who's willing to serve you. Maybe you're meant to get it yourself.
4. THE OBELISK - The tall monolith in the center of the city marks the gathering place of many events, though right now it seems to be cold and dark.
5. THE CLOCKTOWER - Offering an impressive view of the city, several residents come here to clear their heads, if they don't mind braving the narrow staircase.
6. THE COFFEE JOINT - the front windows are warm and welcoming, and it seems there's always someone friendly enough to fix you a cup when you wander through.
7. THE CATACOMBS - Intrepid, aren't you? Those weird holes may beg exploring, but go too deep and you're going to be in a lot of trouble, considering the viciousness of the creatures held within.
8. THE CITY STREETS - All told, Ruby City is a lovely place, once you get past the fact that several of the buildings look derelict and on the verge of falling down. There's no harm in doing a little sightseeing.
9. THE PARK - You thought it'd be a lovely stroll, but the park is anything but friendly, if those approaching wolf-like creatures are any indication.
10. CHOOSE YOUR OWN - Don't like what we've come up with? Feel like picking your own place? There's a whole host of lovely locations to choose from in the City.

Scenarios

1. NEW ARRIVAL - Step off that train, walk down the street. People usually latch on to newcomers to try and help them out. Even if you look shy, the other residents probably won't be!
2. WATCH TALK - Feeling lost? Disoriented? Don't worry, everyone feels that way on their first day. Fortunately - if the signs at the station are to believed - the watch in your pocket can be used to talk to whoever else might be here.
3. BAD WEATHER - Aw, man. Whether it's snow, or rain, or just plain cold, today was definitely the wrong day to get dumped off in a City in the middle of nowhere.
4. A RUN-IN - Maybe you weren't watching. Maybe they weren't. Either way, you just bumped into someone. Perhaps apologies are in order?
5. HELP, IT HURTS - Clumsy, aren't you? Perhaps wherever the train brought you from wasn't so friendly, or you just tripped and twisted your ankle. Either way, you're in a bit of pain. Hopefully someone will notice your booboos and help patch you up.
6. HUNGRY - It isn't very obvious sometimes that restaurants are what they are, especially in a place like Ruby City. Where can a person go to get a bite to eat around here?
7. MISTAKEN IDENTITY - Hey, there's someone you know! --Or maybe not.
8. BEING FOLLOWED - Maybe you're just being paranoid, or maybe you've got a reason to be afraid. Whatever it is, it feels like there's eyes on you...
9. CURRENT EVENTS - None at the moment, but feel free to look through our <href="http://rubycity-ooc.dreamwidth.org/tag/event">event tag!
10. CHOOSE YOUR OWN - Don't like any of these ideas? Feel free to come up with your own!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Al...alright..." he said. He took the other pants and went back into the room. He got himself dressed though the tiny round button was smaller than he was used to. The track suit pants were certainly easier, but he had no clue what to do with the draw string. Finally he tied each side into it's own knot.

Finally he came out, drying his hair with his old shirt after wringing it out on the floor. "This place is so... odd. What is it called?" he asked, looking around.

Henry was sitting on the bed having changed his own pants but kept everything else. His coat had kept most of him dry after all. He'd debated sending his grandfather a message on the watch but had no idea what to say except being blunt, and really, this wasn't something he wanted to do over the watch anyway. They'd just have to wait.

"The entire area is called Ruby City. This is my bedroom in the house I share with your father. I suspect you'll find a lot of things to be odd while you settle here."

"I... I do not know how people speak here," Bae admitted carefully, "but whatever you mean with the phrase 'your father', I would rather if you would please not use it." He was trying to choose his words carefully. Even so he was aware that he was tripping over his own tongue.

"My Papa and I... we parted ways recently, and it... I would rather not think about fathers right now," he unknowingly told his son.

He swallowed hard, hoping he had not just cost himself his first chance at having a friend in... years. He had wanted a world without magic, he had wanted to start over... He had just presumed that his Papa would be with him.

So much for hope. So much for believing anything his father had ever said about using the magic FOR Bae. Bae was an excuse for him to use the magic. An excuse, not a reason... Bae... had to come to terms with that now. That while his father had wanted both - the magic and him - the way someone bartering wanted both the coin they came with and the wool they bought, that had been the extent of it. When he couldn't have both, he chose. And he did not choose Bae.

Baelfire would have to come to terms with that. Would come to terms with that when he was alone next. He had a feeling that was going to be quite soon. He wondered what he would have to trade to keep the warm, odd, clothing...

Henry's amusement vanished at that. He so much wanted to give the boy a hug but he thought that might be overstepping his boundaries a bit.

"It means the same thing here as it does everywhere. Rumplestiltskin lives in this house. I promised I'd bring you to him and I don't break my promises. It's a family thing." He added the last part to lighten the mood within himself. "Why would I lie to you?"

He took Bae's hand again and gave it a squeeze instead, since he couldn't hug. "You'll see. Everything's going to be fine." Henry just needed to have hope and believe. That's what his heart was for, right?

He stared at the other boy, mouth suddenly dry, having no clue what to say. The feeling of one hand in another, the memory of Papa letting go... The hope that he was here warring with the impossibility of it.

He couldn't be here. His papa had let go, and this is where he landed.

But then... how did this boy know their names?

And then more of what he had said caught up with Baelfire. About keeping promises being a family thing. He closed his eyes, and it felt as though his father had not just chosen the dagger over him, but stabbed him through the chest with it.

His father had become all about promises and deals... and had broken the one he made with Bae. He kept his bargains with complete strangers, but something Bae had done had caused his father not to trust him... and to not care of there was trust in the other direction.

Somehow... he had broken them. Himself and his papa. But... his father couldn't be here. Everything couldn't be fine.

He found himself shaking his head as he fought to draw a breath. "He can't be here," he said softly. "He chose magic, and there is no magic here," he spoke the words as if they were barbed - ripping not just his throat, but down to the center of his breathing, through the chest, and then out his throat. He spoke the words as if he knew that saying them would make them true. He spoke the words of someone who... could no longer believe.

Henry was also torn. Torn between explaining the truth so Bae would understand and hopefully believe again, and simply find Gold so the proof would be right in front of him. But since he had no way of doing the latter, he went with the former and damn the consequences.

"Listen to me, Bae. This is not where you were meant to end up when you fell through that portal. This place does have magic. But it's more powerful than anything the Dark One could ever have. Even if your father did chose magic, he is still here and isn't that what matters? That you're together? Because he's not the man he was. I can vouch for that. He looks after me, he protects me..." For the most part. "...and all for nothing. No deal involved. He's a good man now."

Henry was determined to make Baelfire believe him. Because it was the truth. And the truth was always important.

(OOC: I had JUST finished shutting down when my ipad told me a post came in x.x So I booted back up to reply to this. Then bed.... If I don't get distracted again...)

Bae looked away, shaking; but he didn't pull his hands free, if Henry still held them. He couldn't be the one to let go of someone else. Couldn't.

"He made me a promise. We made a deal. Now... not only did he break the promise... and choose magic... over me... he found a way to use magic to drag me back into it all?" he whispered. He didn't know it was possible to hurt this much and still live.

"He doesn't want us to be together. He wants me where he can find me. He... he says he is protecting me... but..."

He swallowed hard. He didn't want to scare this kid, he didn't. But now Bae was afraid for him. He remembered everyone else who had taken any interest in him since his papa became the dark one.

"He looks after you and protects you?" he whispered. "Then you are in more danger than you know."

His whole body was trembling. The tremors would come next, not that he knew it intellectually; he could feel it building viscerally.

"Either he'll protect" the word was said with some bitterness and a whole lot of pain "you from ever being trusted to make your own choices... or he'll decide he doesn't like you getting too close to me."

He looked away again as he realized... Papa might trust this boy... it was Bae he didn't trust.

"Never mind," he whispered as it all fell into place, as it all started to make sense. "He didn't bring me here, did he? This is that everything has a price thing, isn't it?" There was no accusation in his voice, he wasn't mad at the other boy. He was just... breaking....

"The price for having found a new son... one who wanted a papa with magic... was having to deal with me one last time, isn't it?" he asked of the air itself, not expecting an answer.

That... made the most sense. All of this had been his fault, and he had tried to make Papa choose... and he had chosen. He had chosen to start over again... with a new boy. Having a son mattered. Bae himself... did not. Not anymore.

(OOC: Well I had to wait this long to be able to tackle your monster tag. So thanks for that! <3)

Henry had never seen the bitterness his father had had for his grandfather before. They'd always hidden it from him. Like so many other things. And now,he was seeing the pain Rumplestiltskin had caused first hand. It hurt him like nothing else ever had.

Throwing caution to the winds, Henry dropped Bae's hand again but only to wrap his arms around the boy. Bae needed the hug, that was evident, but Henry needed it also. This was his father and while the other boy didn't know that, Henry did and this just helped with the pain of losing him ever so slightly.

After a moment, Henry pulled out his watch and sent a message to his grandfather. Rumplestiltskin. Come home. Don't use magic. Then smiled as best he could at Bae.

"I've sent him a message. He'll be here very soon. And we'll explain everything. But I am not his son. You haven't been replaced. He loves you more than anything else in any land and would do anything for you. You'll see." Henry didn't know what else to say to convince him without the truth. And he wasn't explaining that without Gold present.

The hug had startled him. He had no clue what to do... He had forgotten what any hug other than his Papa's had felt like and... recently hugging Papa...

The hug was over before he was sure if he should be hugging back, leaving him standing there more than a little bewildered. At least the confusion wasn't pain and anger, it was... almost welcome...

He watched the boy do something with... something. Well, apparently confusion was the order of the day. He tried to cling to it... because it wasn't pain. Because it didn't make him look at how badly he had messed everything up.

"Sent a message?" he asked, because that was the only thing said that he thought he could handle. Because the rest? The other boy was wrong about his papa loving him more than anything... so could be wrong about the rest. If his papa loved him more than anything, they would have come through the portal together. If he would do anything for him... he would have given up his magic. But he chose magic. He chose magic and a world that feared and hated him over his son who loved him. He would see? Either more of the same... or some new horror. He... he had to come to terms with it... the truth was that his Papa no longer loved him at all....

Henry held up his watch. "These devices can talk to people across long distances. Hear their voice, see what they're doing or simply send letters. I told your father to come home, meaning here, and you'll see him when he arrives. He shouldn't be long."

Henry hoped he wouldn't be long. He was finding it hard to keep all the truths within him. He wanted to blurt out who he was and why he was here and what had happened in those three hundred years but he knew he shouldn't. He probably shouldn't have hugged him but that was done. He just smiled at Bae and crossed his fingers for this to work out.

Rumplestiltskin. Come home. Don't use magic.

The message raised several red flags upon reading it, not to mention a few fears, despite the fact that home was supposed to be a safe place for Henry and him. Needless to say, he closed up his shop quickly enough and set to walking down the road toward the house despite the desire to use magic to get him to the front door at the very least.

Once he'd arrived, he opened the front door and headed inside the house, closing the door behind him before silently checking the protections on the house. Still intact, untested by anything as of yet. That put those fears to rest. He checked the obvious places downstairs for Henry before heading for the stairs and calling for the boy as he did.

"Henry?"

Once he reached the top of the stairs he called again. "Henry? What is it you wanted?" It must have been something of some importance given he hadn't trusted the watches enough to tell him via them.

Just then, Henry heard the door and smiled wider hearing his grandfather's voice. He turned to Bae with that grin and spoke encouragingly.

"There he is now. Go to him." And if Bae didn't move, Henry would drag him out of the room to where Gold was.

Bae stilled, it wasn't the stillness of one preparing to act, it was a brittle frail thing, as though he would shatter if he moved. How... how could he miss that voice? Different than it had been since the dagger...since the magic... but that voice... it was still his... still Papa's.

He wanted to run. To him. Away from him. He wasn't sure which. His chest felt as though a powerful hand had clamped around it and was squeezing and only getting tighter. His legs felt at once both like tree trunks - rooted and immovable - and like saplings - too weak to hold his weight.

He wasn't shaking. He was too still for that. He didn't know if he could move if he wanted to. His brain was sending conflicting orders. His heart was filled with conflicting feelings. Hope, love, desperation to see his Papa again, to apologize for everything. Fear, pain, betrayal, anger, the desperation to make his papa live with the choice he had made, and the despairing surety that his papa would be happier left to live with the choice he had made.

He couldn't move. He was frozen, he was stone. No... stone... didn't hurt this badly. It couldn't. Nothing could hurt this much.

When Henry tried to drag him out of the room he stumbled, tripping over his own feet. He fell. There was no way to stop the fall and only a second to choose... would Henry let go and save himself from falling also, or would they hit the ground together? Not that Bae was thinking of that, he was hardly even aware of the ground rushing towards his face....

Well that didn't turn out the way Henry had envisioned. Once he'd seen Bae still, frozen with too many emotions to count, he grabbed his hand once again and started to pull him towards the door. But they'd barely gone two steps before he realised his father was falling. It was a split second decision but Henry didn't let go. He wouldn't have Bae feel like Henry was abandoning him too, even if it was simply to the ground. So they fell, together, and Henry looked towards the other boy once they'd reached the ground, checking he was unharmed and hoping Gold wouldn't be too long in thinking to look in Henry's bedroom for him.

Hearing that thumping come from the direction of Henry's room didn't help his nerves any and he quickened his pace toward it. He pulled open the door, not really certain what to expect, it could be Henry had dropped something to make that noise after all.

Anything that he might have said to Henry about that little message of his or what he wanted from him died unspoken in his throat as his eyes fell on the boy beside his grandson.

It wasn't all that often that he was rendered into wide-eyed shock and speechlessness, but this was definitely one of those times. He merely stared at the boy for a good minute in silence, a multitude of emotion welling up to cause his eyes to tear up. This was what the message had been about he was now certain. The reasoning behind the last part of it now crystal clear to him.

His voice was soft, filled with regret and sorrow as he spoke a single word. A name he hadn't expected to speak again here to be honest.

"Bae?"

Now he was trembling, now he could move again. He didn't get up though; that much control he still lacked. Or maybe he knew he was shaking so hard that he'd just wind up on the floor again. But he did look up, his eyes wide, too many emotions filling them.

He was breathing hard, terror and joy in equal - and painful - measure. It... it was Papa... not the dark one... Papa... It.... how? He tried to remember everything the other boy had told him, about how he changed, about how Papa loved him more than anything, would do anything for him... Did he... did he really give up his magic? For him?

His mouth worked, he tried to speak, but no sound came out. Over and over again before finally the word had the smallest whisper of a voice. "Pa...pa?" the sound was almost too soft to hear, but full of heartbreaking hope.

Henry moved, almost crawled, out of the way, letting the father and son reunion take precedence. He would stay and watch and be there for either of them, almost like a third party. Hopefully he could defuse any problem there might be but he also didn't want to miss anything.

But he wouldn't get in the middle unless he had to.

Gold let go of the door, and after a second moved toward Bae, reaching down to offer a hand so as to pull him up to his feet. The emotions filling his expression, his eyes merely became more prominent as his son spoke.

He nodded once quietly before answering. "Yes, son. Your papa's here." He would have to explain before the night was over and while that would no doubt break them both again, it needed to happen. Perhaps with the truth and maybe with Henry's help, he could regain his son's forgiveness, if not his trust.

He looked at the offered hand and swallowed hard. That was the hand that had been in his hand just... what was it now? Hours ago? It felt like longer. It felt like no time at all. That was the hand that had tried to pull him back from the edge of the portal. That was the hand that tried to pull him back from their deal.

That was the hand that had let go.

He sat up on his own, not touching the offered hand. The shakiness in his limbs made it difficult, but he managed. Pain in his eyes when he looked up again at his father.

"You broke your promise," he said softly, surprised by how strong his voice sounded. It was quiet and angry but not shaky. Pain throbbed through him, he felt like his chest was heavy and tight. He swallowed hard, afraid of what his father would say or do next. Perhaps for the first time, truly afraid of his temper. After all... he had a replacement son now. He was no longer needed. And clearly the other boy didn't mind the magic. He closed his eyes, not sure if he was waiting for words or worse.

Pain there, either way.

The action combined with the words felt like a stab to his chest, worse than any injury he'd received in this city. He straightened up, letting his hand fall back to his side and blinked away the sudden onset of new tears.

"I know and I'm so sorry Bae. You were always right. I was a coward, and I never, never should have let you go." He paused for a beat to take a breath and then pushed forward with his apology. "I know it's little consolation, but... I just want you to know, that ever since you left, ever since you crossed the barriers of time and space, in every waking moment... I looked for a way to find you. I can't make up for breaking our deal, but I just want to say that I love you and I'm sorry. I hope in time I can again earn your forgiveness."

Edited 2015-02-12 04:53 (UTC)

"Do you still have the... the magic?" he asked. Yes, even as hurt and angry as he was... he would not mention the dagger in front of someone else. In part it was to protect his papa, in part... it was to protect the other little boy. His eyes didn't flick to him, though they wanted to. He had learned not to remind his father when there were witnesses around.

Oh how he wished he could answer that with a negative. Instead, he just ended up looking more miserable than he had previous and after a silent internal debate he silently nodded. A small gesture from his right hand and abruptly the glamour he'd been using to keep his Storybrooke appearance fell away to reveal his actual appearance.

"You're so much more important to me than it, Bae. I know you won't believe me, but it's true."

"Then why do you keep it? Why did you break your promise? If you regretted it...why do you still have the magic?" he asked, almost screaming, tears running down his face. He forced himself into a standing position.

"Ever since... You keep saying this is for me, that is for me, I matter. But I don't! Because what I WANT has never mattered. You smile to my face and agree, but then you ALWAYS just do what you want anyway! You never cared what I wanted, and you never ever trusted me!"

He turned his face away, hand in small fists as the tears ran. That was the heart of it. If he had just admitted that Bae gave him reason not to trust him, if he ever pointed out how Bae had betrayed him first... But they never just... talked any more. What was the point of trying to talk to someone who would rather play with magic than listen. Even if Bae was the one at fault... didn't he deserve even a little bit more?

"I know. I was wrong. I was afraid. I was so...scared of the past repeating itself...that I caused it to repeat itself. Can't you give me a chance to prove that I've changed and that I can be a better man, a better father than I was before?" His voice broke as he spoke, but he paid it nor the tears that fell any heed.

"I'm willing to listen and to talk...about whatever you want to talk about. Please, son. Just give me one more chance."

He closed his eyes. "Then... let's talk. Tell me... what I did..." he whispered softly. "When was the moment I hurt you so badly that... that I could no longer reach you?" he asked softly. He was pretty sure he knew the moment but... would his papa actually tell him that, tell him the truth? Or was this just more of the old one thing to his face, then do what he wants thing?

He opened his eyes, though tears made it hard to see, and tried to search his father's face for... for some idea if the answer would be the truth.

Re: Replying when tired so same lol

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