A Curse Upon Thee 2-28

“I… don’t know.”

The cool Maine wind was still blowing, shattered glass and powdered brick settling over the Main Street of Storybrooke.

“I really don’t.”

Almost the same exact words scraped past Ruby Lucas’s lips for what had to be the third or fourth time, her rasp catching in her throat. She sat heavily on the damp curb, knees pulled up to her chest.

Graham knelt beside her, the man’s frame casting a shadow under the pink light of the moon beaming down on them all. As large as he was, the man did his best not to crowd her; pale-blue eyes tracking her dirt-streaked face. “He seemed to know you, though, didn’t he?”

Ruby shivered inside her flannel, the shirt a ruined and shredded mess of mud and dried blood hanging off her. The phantom weight of the wolf still ghosted heavily over human bones, jaw aching like it was still stretched around a muzzle. How am I still… 

The question hung in her mind, Ruby staring at her still-human hand under the full moon. The wolf was still there, just under the surface but it didn’t overtake her. How? 

The wind blew strong around her, tugging at her shirt like a broken flag as Ruby sat there without answers to her questions. Forest green eyes just stared blankly ahead at the empty space in the very middle of the street where the bearded giant had vanished into thin air.

The how was unnecessary.

Magic was the answer.

It was always the answer.

The who, though? That was what pulled at her thoughts, no answer to be found.

“No, yeah, yeah, I heard him, Graham.” The words were a mutter, rushing out of her mouth too fast and too close as she rubbed a shaking hand over her face. A long sigh left her with the words, low and ragged. “Okay, yeah, but… I don’t know him, Graham. I just don’t know.”

A few yards away, the crunch of glass had Ruby look up.

David Nolan stood over a mangled corpse, the remains of the suit telling Ruby exactly who it belonged to — even through all the dark and drying blood.

David’s broad shoulders were slumped, the man looking more exhausted than anything as he stared down at the headless body. "He came down here to take the town from me…”

His gaze drifted over to Ruby, something sad in his eyes. “To kill you..." The rest of what he had to say trailed off to nowhere as the mayor dragged a hand through his hair.

A sharp cough echoed from a good dozen feet to her right, pulling Ruby’s attention from the sad-looking mayor and the questioning sheriff simply trying to do his job. 

She blinked over at Chad O’Donaghue, the boy sitting up against the dented bumper of somebody’s parked sedan. He looked a mess, but then none of them had exactly come off clean after the fight.

His crisp blue jacket was torn open, baby blue boat shoes scuffed to hell too, and the left side of his jaw was already swelling a distinct and mottled purple. One hand pressed against his ribs made it clear that it wasn’t just the outside that had taken damage, Chad’s breath audibly catching with every inhale.

“Stay still, mate.” Graham moved toward Chad, one hand out as he spoke with caution. “You might’ve cracked a rib or two.”

“Yeah, no, I’m fucking aware, Grant.” The clipped grunt from the blond boy came through grit teeth, Chad batting away Graham’s hovering hand with a wince. “...okay, that was rude of me. Sorry for being a…” 

He winced again, pulling in a hiss of breath. “A dick, okay?”

Graham raised an eyebrow, holding his hand out again. “No problem, mate. Been a hell of a night for all of us. You, especially.”

“...uh-huh.” Chad grunted again. “Doesn’t mean I need help to get up, though. I can sit up just fine. Just…” Despite his words, Chad slumped back to let his head thump hard against the bumper, bright blue eyes aimed up at the pink moon. “...Jesus Christ.”

Ruby could only imagine what was going through his head right now. For the last week, he had been moving around like the town was pretty much some sort of coordinated cult and Ruby had listened to what little opinions he’d shared. He had rationalized it all; the lies, the weirdness, the silence.

But you couldn’t rationalize a seven-foot-tall deformed monster. 

Hell, she couldn’t rationalize it either.

And that just made it so so much worse.

“So…” Chad breathed out, sounding too calm for someone whose hair was matted with thick blood. He let out a small dry laugh that petered off into silence, his lips tightening into a pained grimace. “Magic.”
Ruby pulled a weak smile, the expression not lasting. “Yeah.”

“And werewolves…” Chad closed his eyes for a moment. “Which is you.”

“...No… yeah? Mostly.”

Chad frowned. “Mostly?”

“I mean…” Ruby frowned at the ground, mulling the thought over before she finally pushed it out into actual words. “Maybe my grandmother too. She’s been very vague about it.”

Chad closed his eyes again, shaking his head slowly. “...oh God.” After a moment of silent breathing, he let his eyelids flutter open again as he looked back at Ruby. “So that… that… Nightmare…”

“Nightmare?” Ruby blinked back.

Chad pulled a face. “What, like you have a better name for it?”

Ruby frowned, unable to argue with that. “Nightmare.”

“Yeah.” The blond swallowed hard, hand still on his chest. “I don't have to worry about anything like that again, right? That was a one-off. A freak accident."

Ruby looked away, the moon calling her again as she stared up at the pink light. “...I really don’t know, Chad.”

His head fell back against the car with a dull sound of metal. “...fuck.” Another sigh exploded out of him. “Magic. Werewolves. Curses. Nightmares. Did I miss anything?”

“Pretty much it, Chad.” David stepped forward, the thirty-two year old mayor looking exactly like the battered knight he was. A gash bled freely down his forehead, red trailing down his cheek as he rested his sword point-down on the asphalt. “Hope you can believe we’re not all… all just insane.”

Chad’s eyes flicked down to the sword, then back at Ruby, before landing on his own scraped bloodied palms. “I mean, you’re definitely all crazy, but yeah, I believe you.” His lips quirked up in a half-smile, looking back up at David. “Definitely a believer now. Just wish I knew what the hell I did with that sign.”

“I don’t know what you did.” David walked over, boots crunching on glass. “I don’t know what that blue light was. But you saved my life. Thank you.”

“Aye.” Graham grunted from Ruby’s side. “You held the line, lad. Good work.”

“Yeah, sure.” Chad waved off the gratitude. “You can thank me by explaining anything I might have missed, starting with where to find that Mr. Gold.”

“I can help with that…” David’s face tightened, the man’s brows furrowed as he looked down the street. “Just not right now. I have to get to… to Henry.”

“David…” Graham rose to his feet, wearing a worried look. “You’re bleeding, mate. Relax. He’s with his moth-”

“Exactly!” David cut him off, voice louder and huskier. “Henry’s with Regina! And as much as I think she’s doing better, she’s still the woman who killed you. I have to go.”

Without waiting for any more an argument, the bleeding mayor turned and immediately took off at a dead sprint down the damp street, heavy boots slapping the pavement as Ruby stared after him.

“Alright. Cool.” A long hitched breath from Chad punctuated his words. “Guy in charge just bolted. That’s fine.”

"I'm going home too."

Chad blinked over as Ruby spoke again. “...okay?”

"Ruby, wait," Graham cautioned, taking a step toward her. “Just wait a b-”

"I said I'm going home, Graham," Ruby rasped with a glare. She needed to be home. She needed Granny. "I'm leaving."

“...alright, go check on your grandmother.” Graham nodded her way. “I’ll get Chad cleaned up.”

Ruby nodded once, Chad rolling his eyes as he finally accepted a hand from Graham. She turned her back on the wreckage, pulling the ruined edges of her flannel tightly around her chest, and walked into the shadows alone.

The walk back to the diner was a blur of cold wind and phantom aches as she limped down Main Street. Shifting twice in one night. She’d never done anything like that before.

And the second time, she had controlled it, something she didn’t even know was possible. The ‘hows’ kept bouncing around in her head as the cold soaked into her through the torn shirt she wore but Ruby ignored it, bare feet padding on asphalt. 

Those same feet carried her all the way to the diner, the "Closed" sign flipped in the window and the lights inside dialed almost all the way down.

Ruby pushed her shoulder against the heavy glass door, the bell chiming far too cheerfully for the chaos of the night. She stepped inside, almost expecting to find the kitchen completely blocked off.

Either that, or Granny sitting at a booth with a loaded crossbow.

Instead, she found the stranger.

Ruby dropped to a half-crouch with feet curled on cold linoleum. Full lips pulled back into a snarl and a low growl rumbling in the back of her throat, she faced off the man from before.

He was lounging casually on one of the red vinyl stools at the main counter, looking so much different from the towering force of nature that had ripped the head off that Nightmare like it was nothing. No, he stood shorter now — an inch or so smaller than Chad even — and the massive, wild bulk of unnatural muscle had condensed into the rugged frame of a lumberjack. Even the wild beard was trimmed down to just thick scruff and that carpet of chest fur was hidden — if it was even there anymore — under a blue flannel.

But the scent was the exact same.

And those eyes — those green eyes were exactly the same.

“The fuck are you doing in here?” Her hands curled into claws as she spat the words. “Who the hell are you?”

The burly man didn’t flinch. The stool swiveled around, his broad back relaxed as he took a slow sip from a white mug; the scent of fresh pitch-black coffee in the air.

"You fought well out there, kid.”

"Thank you, but you need to get the hell out of my diner," Ruby hissed back, the strong musk wafting off the man making every single hair on her body stand at attention. "Right now."

He looked her way again, a smile on his face as he took another sip. "Sloppy. But brave."

"I said get out!" Ruby took a step forward, nails growing sharper as she fought the urge to shift a third time. "I don't know who the fuck you are, or what you want, but if you don't m—"

"Lower your voice, child.”

The swinging doors to the kitchen pushed open as Granny stepped out from the kitchen. The old woman wasn’t wielding her crossbow or her usual scowl as she walked past the cash register. 

The stranger set the mug down on the counter and spun around, leaving the stool behind as he crossed the linoleum in three long strides. Towering over the old woman, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her flush against his chest as she squealed like someone at least forty years younger.

Before Ruby could open her mouth or rush forward, those big hands rose to gently cup Granny’s face as he leaned down and kissed her; a deep, desperate and possessive kiss, as if he was drinking her in.

Ruby stood frozen near the door, her jaw open and brain refusing to work.

Granny pulled back, forehead resting against the man's broad chest. Her voice lowered into a whisper that was almost tearful, the words scraped clean of all their usual armor. “It’s been so long, Bigby.”

The man wrapped thick arms around her, face buried in her silver hair. "I missed you too, Otsana."

Bigby? Otsana. Ruby couldn't breathe, lungs refusing to work as the diner suddenly began to spin on a brand new axis. "What..." She choked on the word. "What the fuck is going on?!"

Granny slowly turned her head, Ruby blinking as the old woman’s silver hair seemed to catch the dim diner light; somehow looking just a bit more colorful and a little more vibrant. 

"Rose Red Lucas," Granny’s bark returned as an order. "Behave yourself. And apologize to your grandfather."