A Curse Upon Thee 3-5

Wet hair dripped down the back of her collar, Ruby biting back the urge to shake her hair like it was fur. A towel was also too much work so she’d already decided she wasn’t getting up to deal with it.

Twenty minutes in the shower, standing under the water until the stuff in her hair and on her skin went from brown to pink to nothing; head scrubbed until her scalp had gone tender and there was no more smell in it, all the way down in the roots where the water didn’t reach. The stench of copper-and-rot-and-so-much-worse was routine by this point, because Nightmares never died pretty and it took a chunk of her coconut shampoo to get her smelling right again.

Most people couldn’t smell it but it crawled up her nose and made a little home there.

So… her problem.

Another problem was the lunch rush but, thankfully, Ashley handled that for her while she was off hunting something a giant plant with a head the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Biting through a stem and shaking it between her teeth while Graham and Chad hacked and slashed at the thing trying to regrow its limbs had taken a better part of an hour.

And it wasn’t like the thing was strong.

Or even all that tough.

No, it just refused to do them the favor of dying quick.

Annoying. 

On the bright side, it gave her something to chew on for a little bit and that was… fun?

Well, that might not be the best word, but it was still satisfying at least.

And yet, she doubted it was anywhere near as satisfying as the steak her grandfather was digging into across the table, the thing at least the size of a composition book like several others on his plate.

On her own plate sat a grilled cheese Ruby had nibbled into, surprisingly not hungry as she watched the man dig into his rare meal.

Very rare, like so rare that she doubted Granny put it in the pan long enough to sizzle let alone sear from the way the whole middle of it was running pink and red onto the table every time he bit into it.

He wasn’t eating like he looked, either, which almost made it funnier. Fork and knife, elbows off the table, the big scruffy man in a flannel three times the size of hers was already halfway through his second near-raw slab of cow with proper table manners. Considering the bulk on him, there was no even wondering where he put it anyway. “You gonna eat or keep lookin’ at me?”

“What?” Ruby blinked up, the question passing over her head.

“Your sandwich.” Bigby didn’t even look up, another bite making its way into his mouth. “A big fan of cold grilled cheese, I’m guessing.”

“I’m eating it.”

“You’re not even holding it.” Her grandfather made a sound in his chest that could’ve been a cough or a laugh, already going back to his steak.

Ruby’s mouth opened, looking for something to say back to what was just honest truth, but a look from Granny sent whatever bad comeback she could scrounge up dying down. The old woman rolled her eyes, reading glasses pushed up into her hair and she went back to what she was doing — pen in hand and a produce order in front of her.

Except…

Except the hair those glasses where pushed up into wasn’t the same hair Ruby had known for longer than twenty-eight odd years. Red thickened in it, and not just streaks either. Where there had been mostly silver, Granny’s locks had gained a new life to them that had her grandaughter staring more often than not, and not just at that. The lines around her mouth were harder to spot, and even her hands had smoothed out, wrinkles almost gone around the knuckles.

A good fifteen years.

Probably no more than that, but that was still a lot.

Someone had taken fifteen years off her grandmother in the span of two weeks and the town was too busy with everything else to even care. Ruby cared, though.

She had even asked a few days ago, right here in the kitchen, the obvious question and Granny had just said ‘oh, your grandfather makes me feel young again, and then handed her a crate of dishes like that was close to an explanation.

“-—asked for eighty pounds of onions, that’s what I put down and that greengrocer wants to send forty because—”

“Send it back then.” Her grandfather rumbled out, the man sitting there with a raised eyebrow as he held his fork just past his lips. “Send it back, Otsana.”

“I’m…” Granny’s sigh was loud and put-upon, glasses falling back over her eyes as she looked over at Bigby. “I’m not going to to send them back.”

“Then don’t complain to me about it.” Another piece of steak was speared on that fork. “Simple.”

“It’s not so simple as that, a standing order can’t just be-”

“You pick up the phone.” He chewed. “You say send forty more. Or I send these back.” Those jaws worked slow again, Bigby’s dark green eyes settling on her grandmother. “That’s it right there in front of you.”

Another sigh crossed the table as Granny took those glasses off, bare eyes on her ‘husband’ for about three good seconds, before putting them back where they belonged. “I’m gonna call him tomorrow.”

“There we go.” A heavy hand cupped her chin as Bigby rumbled low again, hairy knuckles rubbing up against the older woman’s jaw in a way that Ruby doubted was comfortable. “I knew my Laztana was strong as ever.”

“...I’m trying to eat here.”

Two sets of green eyes turned her way, Bigby’s hand still where he’d placed it as Granny scoffed over at Ruby. “Doesn’t look like it, girl. Pick up the pace.”

“Listen to your grandmother.”

Oh my God… Ruby pulled a strand of wet hair off her cheek, the twenty-year old suddenly feeling half that under the force of two powerful glares. I gotta deal with this old married couple now.

Which they were.

Despite how they looked — Bigby more than Granny — they were both old and married. That was just the actual factual situation, married for however many decades before Regina dropped a curse on everybody’s head.

As much as Ruby had accepted it, it was still hard to handle sometimes.

Especially when she’d seen this man rip a Nightmare’s head off with a lazy hand just two weeks back, with no more effort than plucking an apple, and then she’d walked into the diner to see him locking lips with Granny against the counter.

Ever since then, the man in flannel — and sometimes not even that — had just been here.

Every day.

Eating steak, and fixing doors, and arguing about onions; all the good domestic stuff.

It raised a lot of questions for Ruby, though. Questions like ‘where the hell have you been?’, mainly because the man didn’t act like he’d been gone for over thirty years and he definitely didn’t look it either. 

No, he just acted like he’d spent a day at work and was back home.

If there was a reunion, she’d clearly missed it because he hadn’t bothered with anything shaped like an apology or explanation. Just a hand on Granny’s hip and gripping tight in a way that brought all the bile up Ruby’s throat with mental images and pheromones she didn’t need to associate with her Granny.

And he grabbed her like that everyday like he’d done it thousands of times and Granny giggled almost every time he did and Ruby had made sure to go for an early morning run every day around two to four, just in case.

“You’re staring, kid.”

“I’m not.”

“Well, I’m the one being stared at so I would know, wouldn’t I?”

“I’m…” Ruby couldn’t fight the sigh as it slipped free.

“I’m looking, okay. There’s a difference and it’s…” Her eyes trailed all the way down to her grilled cheese, the bread looking harder by the second. “You just… got, like, a lot of steak happening over there. That’s all.”

“Mmmm.” The last piece of steak went down his gullet as Bigby pushed the plate away, the man already on his feet in one smooth movement. “Gotta go take care of something.”

Granny’s pen stopped. “Now?”

“Yes, now.” He leaned back down over the table, one hand under Granny’s jaw again as he planted a kiss on her.

A kiss that was still still going until Granny was red-faced and coming up for air. Oh my God, kill me. 

"Bigby."

"Mm."

"The girl."

"She'll live." Bigby’s lips curled up at one corner as the big man stood up straight and patted Granny on the cheek.

“You really have to leave again?” She leaned into that rough-looking forest of an arm. “Right now?”

“If you want me back before dark.” Bigby adjusted his flannel and took a few steps past the table. “Then it’s best I head out now.”

Before dark… Ruby frowned, her mouth already moving before she could think twice. “Where are you going?”

Her grandfather glanced back over his shoulder. “Canada.”

Canada?! Before Ruby could say anything to that, the bell chimed and with a “Goodbye, Otsana. Goodbye, little Rose”, her grandfather was gone.

The diner was silent again, Granny making the most of their two hour break between the lunch rush and the usual operations as she went back to her work. Ruby, however, just sat there; her thumb pressed up into the salt shaker. 

Little Rose.

She wanted to pretend like she’d gotten used to it but every time — every single time — that name left the man’s lips, she had to fight the flinch. Training out past the toll bridge, in the kitchen, in the parking lot, she heard it and didn’t bother correcting him.

Not once in a whole two weeks had she even tried.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted to and that was a problem all on its own, a problem she’d been tiptoeing around like a puddle. “...Granny.”

“Mmm, dear?”

“Rose Red.”

Her pen stopped the skritch-skratch for a second, just for it to continue for a few more as Granny finished up the line she was on. The writing tool came to rest along the edge of the pad as Granny took the glasses out of her hair and put them right next to the pen and then her Granny finally chose to look up. “...well, took you long enough.”

Took me… Ruby dragged a hand through thick wet hair. “Well, excuse me. It’s been a little busy on my end with the monsters roaming around town. Eleven of these things since last week and Graham’s got me tracking an-”

The wolf-girl bit down the rant, the rest of it coming out a low growl Granny met with one of her own. Both pairs of green eyes flashed bright across the table, Ruby fighting the urge of her own teeth before she pushed her tension out in one breath. “Look-”

“Look nothing, girl. Eat your damn sandwich, first.” Granny snapped across the table with narrowed eyes. “Didn’t make the thing just for you to waste it.”

Scowl on her face, Ruby ate her damn sandwich; the first, second, and last bites tasting as cold as her grandpa had said. “Done.”

“Good girl.”

Ruby’s ear twitched in sync with her eye. “Can I ask now?”

“Ask, then.”

“Okay, so…” She swallowed the last bits of dairy stuck in her teeth. “This Rose Red thing… why does he think he get to call me that? No one has called me that in forever. Even you stopped calling me that after…”

“After your mother left?” Granny leaned back into the booth.

Ruby’s mouth fell open, memories she didn’t like fighting their way back to the top. “My mother?”

“Rose Red Lucas.” Granny scoffed out loud, the sound as much through her nose as it was her mouth. “She had a whole damn thing about it. Wanted something that sounded like it belonged to somebody, called you her ‘little princess’ even. Anita was — Anita was flighty at best, and she did like the sound of things more than the truth of them, that… that girl.”

Okay. Ruby gripped her glass tight, water threatening to slosh. Okay, that’s…

She looked up at Granny again. “Why didn’t you e-”

“Because you were Red before you could walk and it stuck.” A single shoulder shrugged the question off, Granny grunting with the motion. “Then you were Ruby for three damn decades and that stuck harder. Those things tend to do that.”

“But h-” Ruby caught the hitch in her own voice and fought past it in the same breath. “But he uses it.”

“That he does. But he’s an old thing, isn’t he?” Granny’s mouth quirked up but Ruby couldn’t call that look a smile. “He left when you were no bigger than his hand. He’s back now and you’re a big thing. You’re still the little Rose in his head, you know?”

Ruby turned the glass around. “That’s… that’s kinda sad.”

“His own doing. His own nature. All it is…”

“I still don’t understand how you’re okay with that, the way he just leaves like th-”

“Don’t.” The word came with another growl, the sound heavier than Ruby’s own. “You’re jumping far to the end of it. Sit still if you want the front part.”

"Fine." Ruby crossed her arms as she pushed back in her chair, eyes on Granny. “Go ahead.”

“Rude girl, I swear…” With a sigh, Granny spoke anyway. "You know how I got bit."

"I know a version."

“You know what I told a girl that was panicked and in fear from… “ Granny licked her lips, the room silent as Ruby pushed back the feelings of that night. “Doesn’t matter. There was that big wolf, of course, the same one I told you about. The one that came during wolfstime and bit me up fierce.”

“A werewolf…”

“No. A wolf, girl. Big and bad and more fierce than any you’d ever seen. The same one that bit me on that worst night of my life, yes.”

The story was old and Ruby remembered it when Granny had told her the last time, so many years ago back in the Enchanted Forest. How Granny’s brothers — all six of them — and her father were all taken in one night in one wolfstime.

“That bite left me with a new hunger and the weight of the moon on my chest.” Granny’s hands came together on the table. “Years of fear and being alone before the wolf found his way back as a man, him pretending as a woodcutter and myself a young woman.”

“What?” Ruby blinked slow. "Why?"

“Because he was ashamed of himself.” Her thumb ran along the seam of the table, fingers tracing it alongside. “He knew what he’d done. Didn’t come back asking me to forgive a damn thing, either. He just… stayed. Moon after moon, he was there to teach me the shape, to hold it and to let it go and everything else.”

“...that was enough for you?”

“Not by itself, girl.” Granny clicked his tongue. “But he showed me how a woman ends up loving something that took a bite out of her. Left half a deer at my door one winter when I was still too scared to hunt. Sat outside the door when I wouldn’t let him in. Did all he could, what little he could, for a wolf that was trying to be a man.”

“...and then he left.”

“He did.”

“Thirty years, Granny.”

“Blame Regina for that much, the little bitch.” She tapped the pad a few times more. “But his trips were less than that, on and off, months at a time and then seasons until they’d got long enough for me to start planning past the next winter. I threw a pot at his head once. He stood still and let it bounce off and out a window. Took me months to get the glass for that.”

The old woman sighed slow. “And, trust me, every woman in that village had their opinions and those only got worse when your mother went the same way, a child with her and no father to be seen…”

Another breath came out of Granny, eyes closed. “But he came back. Every damn time he did. I wanted to take his pelt every time but there he’d be again and I couldn’t stay mad at the man for long.”

Ruby chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"You gonna say something, or you gonna sit there thinkin' at me?"

“I…” Ruby looked up. “No.”

“Mm.”