A Curse Upon Thee 2-24B

And all the answers were insane.

“You all are psychotic.” Chad clicked his tongue, the syllables more spat out than said as they hit the salt-heavy air of the Storybrooke docks and vanished. The fog took sound in the same way it took distance, everything more than a few yards out swallowed up until the whole world was only sea-splattered asphalt, wet rope, and three half-formed bodies walking just ahead of him. 

The early morning was thick with the white soup.

Too thick.

The kind of fog that made the water seem as if it had climbed up past sea-level and decided to breathe brine right in your face.

Like everything else he’d dealt with today, it was doing little to nothing to help the state of his mood. If anything, the weather was only making it worse. “I want you to know that.”

Both his hands were tucked into the pockets of his coat, the powder-blue exterior hiding cold black firepower from the other three walking in front of him. Every few steps, one of them almost blurred at the edges; David’s shoulders a darker block of denim inside white, Ruby a splash of red, and Granny’s small body the easiest to lose whenever the fog rolled sideways.

And I’m half as crazy for following along. 

Maybe it was sleep-deprivation.

Maybe it was a lack of calories feeding his brain.

Or maybe it was just more of that damn curiosity that had him following the Storybrooke people down to the docks. …damn it. He bit down the words, sidestepping a puddle of oily seawater before the iridescence could stain his shoes.

“Look, I know…” David Nolan didn’t stop walking, the broad-shouldered politician striding forward under a still-flickering streetlamp. “I know how it sounds, Chad.”

“It sounds fucking insane, David.”

“…and I know that.” An over-the-shoulder glance forced Chad to stare into that open-faced honesty, the man looking as exhausted as he did annoyingly sincere. “I know exactly what it sounds like.”

Do you? Chad stared back, eye on the verge of twitching as he forced another bout of profanity back into his throat. The world liked to be funny sometimes, a humor in it that Finn had seen more than Chad ever had. 

And, right now, Chad could see it just fine, but that didn’t mean he felt like laughing.

“We’re not lying to you.”

“Any more.” The correction came quick, just three syllables forcing a flinch from David.

“Any more.” The funny thing here was that David Nolan may have been a bad liar, but the man could tell the truth with the best of them; heart in his hand more than on his sleeve. 

You can’t really be buying this. He wasn’t. 

Hell, he refused to, because things just didn’t work like th-

Chadwick bit down a grunt, frustration fighting control, as he leveled a stare forward. “You keep telling me things like they sound any less crazy. Like you already haven’t been lying to me since the day I met you.”

“Chad, we d-”

“Stop.” To his credit, David did, the mayor of Storybrooke clamping his jaw shut. Chad did the same, far too many choice words rolling around in his head to trust himself with the arduous task of speaking freely. “Just… just stop.”

Eyes the color of the woods they just left behind turned to stare at him, Ruby Lucas silent as she kept herself huddled beneath that fancy hooded cloak Granny had brought for her. “Chad…”

“No.” His hand snapped up, jaw still tight as his index demanded silence. “No, that goes for you too.” Air huffed out of his nostrils, the force of it almost pushing back some of the fog rolling in around them. “

Ruby didn’t flinch but she did slow, both David and Granny matching her pace until the three of them were nearly side-by-side with Chad again. 

The stranger to Storybrooke frowned, fingers flexing inside his jacket, but all he did was ease off to the right a bit more; blue eyes still firmly on the rest of them. “So you’re telling me my cousin was a wizard—”

“Sorcerer.”

Chad leveled a cobalt glare at Ruby, the girl quieting almost immediately. “He… he was a jujutsu sorcerer.”

“My cousin was a wizard…” He took in a breath, eyes open and daring anyone to correct him. “Who was dating a werewolf and did odd jobs for a demon who used him in a satanic ritual that sent him to another world to break a curse cast by the old mayor who was an evil witch-queen.”

He breathed in again, the cold fog entering his lungs. “Am I close?” 

David’s head bobbed in the fog for a few seconds of silence. “…enough.”

“Oh, great!” A laugh burst out, wild and barely-controlled, Chad sounding more like Finn than he had in years as he fought the urge to pull his gun. “That’s so fucking great, David. You people have helped me so much.” He let the laugh trail off, shaking his head as everyone kept walking like their words and his reaction was as normal as anything else. “Silly me for thinking it was just some run-of-the-mill human trafficking cult.”

“It’s not a cult.”

Blue eyes snapped to the side, his smile gone with a glare fixed on the mayor again. “So, you don’t deny the human trafficking then?”

“That’s not what I mean…” David sighed in the fog. “And I think you know that, Chad.”

“All I know is that, magic…” He almost flinched as he said the word, throat clenching around it like bile. “Magic aside, this is a town full of secrets doing rituals and using outsiders for it and nobody leaves. That’s literally a cult. A backwoods isolationist cult.”

“Ch-Chad, please…” A rasp sounded out and Chad’s eyes slid shut with a sigh. “I know how it sounds but we’re not like tha-” Her voice hitched and by the time Chad opened his eyes to look back at her, she was clenching the scarlet cloak tight in both hands as she held it up for him to see. “Look at me, Chad. I… I don’t even know where I was last night. I woke up out there. I…”

“Ruby, please.” Chad’s sigh came out harder than he meant it to, almost a grunt more than anything. “You clearly had a weird night. Maybe you drank too much, or did some mushrooms or whatever. You’re not a werewolf, okay?”

“Chad!”

“Keep your voice down, Ruby!” The old lady’s bark was hypocritical as it was loud, Granny Lucas standing near the edge of the pier with her head turned to face her granddaughter. “We’re here for a reason.”

A reason. Chad bit down another burst of laughter, a half-smile on his face. Another missing person. Because Finn wasn’t enough, somehow. The young man shook his blond head, hair falling into his face as he had foregone his usual morning routine to catch Ruby early.

Or at least, attempt to.

Everything had gotten rather derailed with the… the forest search. Werewolves? Magic? Other worlds? Yeah, he wasn’t gonna believe a single thing. Whatever elaborate hallucination the town had sucked itself into, he wasn’t biting one bit. Finn had clearly gotten tangled up in some rural psycho-pagan nightmare, and Chad was going to have to drag him out by the collar.

His attention flicked towards Ruby, the girl’s eyes watery and not from the fog.

“We should get her some water.” Everyone turned his way, Chad scoffing at the sudden focus aimed at him. “Ruby. She’s clearly dehydrated, coming down from whatever she was on last night.”

“She’s a wolf, boy.” Chad frowned at the old woman’s bark, Granny Lucas managing to bite off the end of the sentence and aim it like an insult. “Don’t argue with what’s standing right in front of you.”

“I am. I’m looking right at her.” Chad’s scowl only deepened with her words. “She’s a girl who clearly had a weird night celebrating her birthday, not an overgrown golden retriever. She needs help.” He took a few steps toward Ruby, hand reaching for her shoulder to try and pull her back toward sanity.

“Don’t.” As much as she seemed to need it, Ruby Lucas clearly didn’t want help. The older girl pulled back from him, teeth bared as she snapped the word out harsher than her grandmother’s barks. “Don’t touch me. D-”

The rest of her words stopped halfway, nostrils flaring as Ruby inhaled sharply. “Blood.”

Chad blinked. “What.”

Ruby’s head snapped towards a narrow alleyway between two warehouses, the space as shadowy as it was cramped. “Blood!”

“Where?” David’s hand was already on the pommel of his sword, eyes peering through the fog as best he could. “Where is it, Ruby?”

“The truck!” Ruby’s words came out tooth-forward and raspy, the girl almost stumbling in her gait. “Billy’s truck!”

What the h- 

Chad didn’t have a chance to voice his further confusion, David drawing his sword and rushing off after Ruby with Granny right behind the both of them. “Goddamnit!” Against his better judgement, he followed after them for the third time today.

As they rounded the corner past the alley, Chad’s eyes landed on a battered truck parked messily by the pier and just beside  a row of dumpsters, the driver’s door hanging open. Ruby gasped, eyes wide under her red hood, and Chad didn’t need to ask this time as the smell hit him.

Heavy, wet, and strong with the taste of pennies.

David stepped forward, sword held in one hand as he stepped cautiously toward the truck. The man paused, as did everyone else, at the splatters of dark red all over the side and front bumper of the truck.

Chad swallowed a mouthful of nothing.

“Oh… Oh, God.” The sheriff’s face went pale as he peered over the plastic green edge of a dumpster, momentum draining out of him as the sword nearly fell from his grip. “Don’t… nobody look!”

Chad didn’t listen, already stepping up beside David to look down.

Shredded flesh stared back at him, a body torn apart and mangled in a way that looked less like murder and more like…

His stomach lurched hard enough to make him sick, Chad stumbling back even as he locked his jaw. The smell was bad enough to make him gag, but the sight… 

“I… I did this.” Ruby collapsed against the side of the truck, hands gripping at her hood. “I killed him. The wolf… I ripped him apart.”

“No, Ruby, don’t! Don’t go there!” David turned to her, sword dropping to his side as he forced a stubborn hope into his voice. “Look at me. You didn’t do this. I know you didn-!”

“People heard howls, David! It’s in the report!” Ruby cried out, voice breaking past the edge of a sob. “Screams down by the water! On the full moon! It was me!”

“…Werewolf.” Chad pulled his hand down from his mouth, still biting down the bile in the back of his throat as he looked down at the crying Ruby. “Really?”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“Chad, for the fifth time…” David Nolan paced across the sheriff’s office, the man’s arms folded over his chest. “We heard you already.”

Chad raised his head from where he stood, weight leaned up against the edge of a filing cabinet. Hands tucked firmly into his jacket pockets, he was currently fighting the overwhelming urge to bury his face in his hands.

“Let’s just say I believe it, okay?” He really didn’t want to, but everything was staring him in the face so blatantly he might as well have been looking into a mirror. To accept too much was to accept that his cousin was not only further than he’d ever been before, but also… also… a wizard? “Let’s say I believe this.”

“You do.”

“Let’s just say that. My only point is just…” The young man shook his head at David’s quick dismissal. “A werewolf disposing a body in a dumpster? C’mon.”

“Boy.” Granny grunted, the old woman gripping the bars outside the furthest of the two cells in the sheriff’s station. “We’ve been over this enough.”

“A mindless beast tears a guy to shreds, fine.” The blond huffed out a breath, lips pursed as he stared at David and Granny both. “Then it tidies up after a meal by throwing the leftovers in the trash? Maybe werewolves are big on being neat, but that’s homicide. That’s a regular person covering their tracks.”

Ruby didn’t bother to answer, the girl nearly as quiet as she had been since they found the body of the mechanic; a young man named Billy. Instead, she simply sat inside the holding cell, knees pulled to her chest and face buried in her arms. 

Her choice, even. 

She’d insisted David lock her up; simply to keep everyone else safe.

Chad wasn’t exactly sure how that was supposed to work; especially as Ruby had apparently torn her way free of steel bars already last night. Still, though, it seemed to make the ‘werewolf’ girl feel better.

“Not that well.” 

Chad turned to where the room’s other occupant sat, the town’s newest — and oldest — sheriff in  his seat. The man who had originally made the report about Finn, and the very same man who was apparently dead just a few days ago; Sheriff Graham Humbert.

“What?”

“A human who doesn’t want to be caught, well…” Graham raised his eyebrows, tilting his head as his voice rolled out low. “They don’t exactly hide the body in an open dumpster two feet away from the crime scene.” The man let his brows fall again. “Bit of a fault there, y’know, in your whole idea.”

“Okay, maybe the real killer is an idiot, then.”

Graham hummed at the offered counter. “Even an idiot doesn’t put more effort in than he needs to, no?”

“I…” Chad simply sighed, hands finally leaving his pockets. “I guess? Then why was Ruby on the opposite side of the town from the kill? Why just one? That was a mauling, not a meal. What stopped the rampage?”

“”Don’t.” Ruby’s voice finally snapped out, the girl inside the cell making herself heard for the first time in over an hour. “Don’t even try. The wolf takes over. I don’t know what it wants. It’s been almost thirty years since it came out. I couldn’t control it then. I can’t control it now.”

“Ruby…” The old woman’s voice was soft for once, gravel-worn tone downright gentle before it shifted as she glared at Chad. “You, boy. Stop analyzing her like a crime scene.”

“I’m just trying to make sens-”

“I promise, Ruby. I know this wasn’t you.” David paused his pacing to interrupt Chad, the mayor gripping the bars beside Granny. “And I’ll prove it too. I will prove it wasn’t you.”

The heavy glass door of the station swung open.

All eyes turned down toward the hallway as an older man stepped in. He stood there in a full navy suit, well-tailored to the point it was almost bespoke, broad and heavy face set with pale soft jowls.

“Charming.”

The name left the older man’s mouth, sharp yet soft; a knife in the room.

“Geor…” David’s jaw went tight, the mayor flinching around the word for a second. “Albert, you know it’s David. Now, what are you doing here?”

“Currently serving witness to a gross dereliction of civic responsibility.” Small blue eyes, light as ice chips, slid toward the holding cell. “You’re harboring a known deviant, Mr. Mayor; a murder suspect even. And you are protecting this girl, under your banner, simply out of personal friendship.”

“She’s in protective custody, Albert.” David stood straight, sky blue eyes hard as Chad had ever seen them. “And I’m coordinating with the town’s new sheriff in an active investigation.”

Graham raised a hand. “Hey.”

“Now, get out of this station and stop interfering with police business.”

The older man’s expression didn’t change, somehow managing to hold disappointed disgust as a resting state. “The public good demands accountability, Prince Charming, and the public demands a target. Your people are frightened. An innocent man is dead. And you stand here playing favorites. We’ll see how this ends.” 

David scowled back. “How what ends?”

“How you’ll keep the mayor’s seat by the end of the day, of course.” A small smile touched the old man’s lips. “Good day.”

The old man turned on his heel, the door sealing shut behind him as the station was left silent.

Prince Charming? Chad blinked over at David, the mayor looking like he was ready to use that sword for distinctly non-noble reasons. “Who was that?”

David let out a long, exhausted sigh, eyes closed. “…My dad.”

Chad stared back at him for three long seconds before he gave in, face finally falling into his hands.

“…Alright.”