A Curse Upon Thee 14

The space behind Granny’s Diner may have smelled like wet cardboard and smoke, but it couldn’t do a damn thing to distract him from the cherry gloss on Ruby’s lips. Hell, it was so much of an improvement nothing else even mattered. 

Her back pressed up against the damp brick of the diner in the morning air, the grit of it scraping against his jacket as she tangled her hands deep in his air with a good, firm grip. His own fingers slid up and down and back again under the thin fabric of her waitress uniform. Fuck yeah… 

Warm skin met warm skin and the cold morning couldn’t match it as Ruby let out a little shiver, breath hitched as his fingers brushed the side of her waist. “Red…” Breath hot on his neck, her laugh made her chest vibrate against his as she pulled him closer, one long leg hooking around his waist with a roughness and strength that still surprised him everytime she showed it off. 

Hungry in so many ways, Ruby Lucas was just a rush of intensity that matched the weird, restless buzz under his own skin. And exactly like him, she was only soft when she wanted to be. Every other time… 

A hard grip on his hair pulled Finn’s head in closer to hers, their teeth almost clicking as he kissed her again; harder this time, biting her lip just enough to make her gasp as he chased the taste of cherry.

Fuck, I love it. He may have been a virgin before, but he had no idea how he wasn’t constantly doing something like this. It may have been a distraction from both their jobs, but fuck it if wasn’t a good distraction. 

The best kind, even. 

For a few minutes, he wasn’t just some stranger in town with a gap in his head where his life should have been, or even a sorcerer, or a former felon, or some stupid pawn in some weird small-town chess game between a witch and the devil. 

Nah, he was just a guy making out with a pretty girl in an alley.

Somehow, for once, the world made sense.

“Hey, Bee…” His words, all two of them, echoed back as he whispered against her mouth. “You keep shivering like that…” Lips shuddered against hers, syllables swallowed up by hungry kisses, “I’m gonna think you’re cold.”

“Mmm-hmm.” The hum left her lips without Ruby even opening her eyes as she pulled him closer, hips rocking against his. “Maybe I am. You could try harder in warming me up, Red.”

“That right, Ruby?” His hand slid higher as his grin spread wider, fingers tracing the line of her waist. “ I think I can handle that.” Finn leaned in, kissing the spot just under her ear as her breath hitched again, the sound as intoxicating as anything else. 

The way she responded to him, the way she didn’t flinch away from the cold or the weirdness.

Hell, if anything, she seemed to be more into him after he told her about jujutsu.

‘You’re a wizard, Cherry.’

‘Stop.’

All jokes aside, she just… wanted him. It was a feeling he didn’t have a name for, something warm and solid in his chest that had nothing to do with Cursed Energy.

He moved his other hand to her hip, squeezing gently, feeling the curve of her under the fabric. “You know,” he murmured, his voice low and gravelly, “Granny’s probably watching from the window with a shotgun right now.”

Ruby laughed, a breathless, throaty sound that vibrated against his chest. “Let her watch. She hasn’t had any fun since gramps went missing.”

Finn pulled back, one eye shut. “I don’t want to think about your grandma having ‘fun’.”

“You think I want to either?” Ruby shot him a look back, scoffing. “Brain bleach, please.”

“Then wh-why’d you…” His breath was sucked out of him as Ruby went in for another kiss, moaning into his mouth as he did the same to her. “Why’d you mention it even?”

“You mentioned her first?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Shut up.” She kissed him again. “Let her look.”

A bite to Finn’s neck killed the complaints dead on his tongue as he groaned into Ruby’s ear.

“Maybe she’ll learn something.” She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes dark and heavy-lidded, a smudge of cherry gloss on her lower lip. “Or maybe she’ll just shoot you. It’s a toss-up, really.”

“I like those odds.” Finn leaned in deeper this time, tasting the cherry and the coffee and the sheer, reckless energy buzzing off Ruby as he stole another kiss and grinned like a maniac against her mouth. “Happy early Valentine’s, Bee.”

“Happy early Valentine’s, Red.” That perfect honey-gravel-rasp murmured it back to him, right before her leg hooked tighter around his wast, pulling him even closer with all the heat and friction and hell fucking yes.

His hand went higher, grazing the lace edge of a bra when— Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

When something started vibrating.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

Right on his hip.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

Right in his pocket.

A hiss slid out of his lips. Fucking hell.

Ruby pulled back, just an inch or two, as she had that same wolfish and always too-amused I-know-what-you-were-just-thinking smirk plastered over every bit of her face. “Is that your phone, Red?” Her breath fogged in the cold Maine air. “Or are you really just that happy to see me?”

He let his head thump back against the brick wall for a second, a groan spilling free from his lips. Seriously? The timing on this woman. 

He rolled his eyes, and gave his girl a light, affectionate tap on the forehead. “One sec, Bee Bee.” 

Already knowing who was on the other end of it — considering there’s only one damn frickin’ number in this thing — Finn pulled the cheap, plastic piece-of-shit burner from his pocket and flipped it open with a sigh. 

Sarcasm coated his voice — thick, heavy, and already hating it — as he raised the phone up to his ear.

“Hey, Boss. This better be life or death.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“So, wait a minute…” He didn’t mean to whisper or anything, but the dusty-ass house he was standing in made it hard to want to talk all that loud. Like, just speaking at a normal tone would kick up dust and mildew or whatever. “Just… just lemme run this back one more time…”

The place smelled worse than just that, not wrong or anything creepy like that.

Just normal person bad.

Normal guy bad.

Emphasis on guy.

All the stale beer, old socks, and the thick, unmistakable scent of just… giving up that came with either depressed men or divorced dads or… well, both honestly? “Lemme get this straight, real quick… This uh, Moe guy… he owes Mr. Gold money, sure. A lot of money. A bad idea for a  bunch of reasons. And he also decides that he’s gonna rob him? On top of that?”

He was supposed to be lookout, posted up by the grimy front window that looked out onto a small-town street where nothing ever happened.

But Finn McHale wasn’t a guy to stand still.

He was pacing the small, sad-looking living room, brand new boots silent on the threadbare carpet. His eyes kept snagging on the family photos on the mantel. A fat, old bald guy — the idiot they were looking for, Finn figured — grinning like an idiot next to a teenage girl who looked like she’d rather chew glass than be in that picture; her eyes flat, bored, downright trapped. 

Something about her expression… Finn found himself frowning, blue eyes narrowing as he looked around the dusty dimly-lit house. Power bill not paid means this guy was definitely hurting for cash, sure. Still, he couldn’t deny that something about the feel of this guy’s life and his kid… hell, this whole place… It felt… familiar, kinda.

Not entirely, but close enough that he could have sworn…

Sworn…

Well, sworn something.

“That’s what it looks like.” The voice of his beleaguered bosslady boomed from the back bedroom, muffled as hell but still definitely enough to pull him out of his head. He could hear her right now rummaging through drawers not at all gently, pretty much every noise she made audible from where he stood.

“C’mon!” Like that grunt definitely went along with what had to be some kind of drawer, the thing squeaking in protest as she yanked it open.

The deputy tilted his head as he mulled that over in his head. “Damn…” After a few seconds, he could only come to one well-reasoned conclusion. “That’s just… retarded.”

“Finn!” Her head popped out of the doorway, giving him the full-on, disappointed-mom glare she swore up and down she didn’t have. The cop glare. Whatever. 

It was the same look that said ‘I expected better of you, but you better believe I’m not that surprised either.’

“What? It is.” Finn glanced back at the sad photo, eyes trailing all over the general, overwhelming sadness of the man’s living room. “Look, Mr. Gold’s already Mr. Gold. He’s scary enough just as a creepy old dude who owns everything and talks like a Bond villain.” Finn rolled his eyes just remembering the old man’s specific verbiage and the thump-thump of his cane. “But you add him being… whatever the fuck he is… on top of that? Being real, robbing him isn’t just dumb. It’s pretty much suicide by stupidity. Dumb guy’s asking to be turned into a goddamn lawn ornament.”

“So, Gold’s an evil wizard, too?” She was back to searching, her voice distracted, disappearing into the room again. Barely a second later, he heard the thump of a mattress dropping to the ground. “Like Regina?”

His eye twitched, a full-body cringe coming with it, Finn unable to stop the immature groan that left his lips. “Ehhhhh… I mean, kinda but also sorta not-kinda?” He shrugged, a palm smacking his forehead a second later when he realized Emma couldn’t see it. “Like, look… It’s hard to explain without context, but Momma Mayor’s definitely a Grade 1. She’s a fortress, yeah, she’s scary. Brick shithouse of curse energy, feel me, but still a house. But Gold?” 

The deputy shivered, a quick, involuntary tremor that ran right up his spine. “Gold’s a goddamn natural disaster. He’s a walking, talking Special Grade. I know you can’t feel Cursed Energy, but if you could, you’d be pissing yourself. You wouldn’t even be in the same state as him.” 

He rolled his eyes, a full-body gesture of pure, unadulterated frustration. “And it’s Sor-Ce-Rer. Not wizard. Wizards are for kids with fake scars and owl-mail.”

A long-suffering sigh drifted from the other room. “You know, you keep rattling off this… this D&D grading stuff… you never actually explain what any of it means.”

“I’ll explain it later. When you’re not… you know. Just humoring me.”

“What ever gave you that idea?”

“Am I just meat to you, Boss? Is that it? Here for my strong back and my sparkling personality? Just a glorified pack mule with better hair?”

“You’re a meat-shield,” she shot back, her voice flat with only the barest hint of anything close to a joke. “A fast, weirdly-hard-to-kill meat-shield, sure.”

“My heart… You wound me. Deeply.” He placed a hand over his chest, her insults no different than a grievous mortal injury. “Just for that, I’m doubling my rate. Six burgers next time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get Ruby to kiss it bett-”

Emma suddenly stopped, the sound of rummaging going silent along with her voice as the air in the dusty little house went completely and totally still.

Finn tensed, all the bullshit sarcasm evaporating in a cold, instant snap. “What?”

He almost jumped as he rushed forward, footsteps moving loud on the balls of his feet, hands already tight at his side and energy coiling in his gut.

He burst in the room to see Emma Swan standing silently in the dark doorway of a closet, a self-satisfied, almost predatory smile on her face as she turned around to look his way. The kind of smile he was pretty sure she got right before she kicked in a door and ruined some bail-jumper’s life.

“Jackpot.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“So, you found Mr. Gold’s stuff?”

Ruby slid into the booth opposite him, topping off his coffee mug without asking. The diner was quiet. That weird, dead-air quiet of the morning after, Finn dead on his feet after a night of chasing down a fleeing felon with Emma before Mr. Gold could beat the guy to death.

“Yeah,” he said, wrapping his cold hands around the hot, comforting ceramic. “Most of it. But the guy… this Moe… he didn’t find what Gold was actually looking for. Emma found it. Tucked in a box of, like, old baby clothes. A chipped teacup. A teacup. It’s like the crazy guy didn’t even care about the other stuff he took. Just grabbed a bunch of shiny junk from the front of the shop. I don’t get it.”

Ruby shrugged, sliding onto the vinyl bench, idly polishing a spoon on her apron. “What’s not to get? Some stuff just… means more, you know? Sentimental value.” She paused, her smile fading for a half-second, a little frown line appearing between her eyes. “Like… my little wolf charm. The one that hangs from my rearview in my car. Can’t find it anywhere. It’s just… gone.” She grumbled, a low, frustrated sound, attacking the innocent spoon with the cloth.

Finn’s hand froze. Mid-sip.

He looked away. Quick. Too quick. Out the window. At the goddamn frozen clock tower.

Shit.

He could feel it, too. 

The little glass wolf. A small, hard, tell-tale lump in his jeans pocket, pressed against his thigh. He’d… lifted it. From her car. Days ago. When she’d given him a ride to the sheriff’s office. He hadn’t even thought about it. That dumb fucking habit. Just a stupid, stupid, magpie impulse from a life he couldn’t even fucking remember. Fucking idiot. Moron. An bhuil tú as do mheabhair?

​​Why did he do shit like that, just steal things his brain didn’t even want?

“Y-yeah…” His voice somehow came out a little too tight and a little too rough all at the same time. “I guess.” He cleared his throat, forced himself to take a sip of coffee. “Just… don’t have a lot of stuff like that. You know. Considering I’m just getting over being a drifter bum felon.”

Her face softened, the frustration gone, replaced by that soft, teasing smile. “Awww. But you’re my drifter bum felon.”

He looked back at her, forcing the easy smirk, pushing the hot, stupid guilt down into the pit with all the other shit. “You mean that, Bee?”

She leaned in, fast, and tapped him on the nose with her finger. 

Then she kissed the spot. The gesture was so quick, so warm, so her. “I do.”

Mmm. The guilt faded, just a little. 

Replaced by that warmth, that her-ness. “That reminds me,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, breathy, half-joke tone. “I wanna show you something tonight. For Valentine’s.” Make up for being a klepto piece of shit.

Ruby blinked as her smile wavered.

“Oh…”

His smirk faltered as that warm feeling in his chest decided to chill. “…What?”

“No, it’s just…” Ruby winced, suddenly looking nervous as her eyes turned down. “Shit. Look, Red, I… well, I thought you were gonna be busy, you know? Investigating all day, like Emma said? So I already… already made plans.”

Finn blinked, all the words leaving her mouth fast as she ripped it off like a band-aid. “For a Girls’ Night. With Ashley? Her kid’s a handful, she never gets out, and Mary Margaret’s been moping about David, and… well, I promised.”

Finn blinked.

Oh, well…

Why did that sting, kinda? Finn blinked at the thought and the feeling, confused at the tiny, stupid, unexpected pinprick of disappointment. Before a second blink, he crushed it down before it could spark bright. 

Just stomped the fuckin’ thing flat. Plans change. People leave. It’s fine. He wasn’t some clingy boyfriend. He was Finn McHale. He was fine. He was always fine.

He forced the easy, laid-back grin, the one that said nothing bothers me, ever. “Hey. That’s okay.” He made his voice light, as carefree as it could get. “No, seriously. Go. Have your girls’ night.” An rud is áil leat. Whatever you want. “You can get your gift after. It’s not going anywhere.”

She blinked back, the guilt fading, replaced by that familiar, sparky curiosity.

“Gift?”

He let the smirk turn wolfish to match hers, a private little promise.

“Gift.”