Welcome to the Hellmouth

[with_aprice]

The Slayer was in Storybrooke.  That much the Council had been able to tell him, but beyond that they were of little help.  It was a small town, at least.  There weren't that many teenage girls, and he'd been able to cross some of them off his list just through observations or carefully worded questions he'd asked Belle.  She was a quiet girl, a

Comments

[onceaheroine]

She'd been in the back, going over a shipment of books that Mr. Gold had received from England. Alright, perhaps she'd gotten a little bit distracted over one of the German bestiaries -- Belle had been taking German for two years now, so it was kind of interesting to see how much she could make out of Der Wesen by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (Those were the names of the folklorists, she'd thought, and hadn't been disappointed to see some pretty fantastical beasts in the book.)

Her reading had been interrupted by the sounds of a struggle and she'd run out with the baseball bat Mr. Gold kept in the back only to find her employer being attacked by a large, deformed man.

"You get away from him!" she'd yelled, swinging hard and connecting with the man's shoulder -- only to be knocked away hard enough to break the nearby chair. Her bat had gone flying and she grabbed part of the broken chair --

And the man had turned to dust.

She stared open-mouthed at Mr. Gold... because that really, really wasn't normal.

"I --

"But --

"Um -- whatHe

[with_aprice]

"That would be the simplest explanation, wouldn't it?" With a hand at the small of her back he guided her to the back room and the ugly chaise lounge that he was never going to be able to sell. He glanced at the area where she'd been working, and was amused to find that Der Wesen was lying open. She was always so curious, his Belle. So unable to resist opening up a book.

His Belle. She was, now. The way she'd moved, the almost effortless strength with which she'd unfailingly staked the vampire in the heart; it was clear just who she was. His Slayer, right under his nose for months now and he hadn't seen it.

"There's no hallucinogens in the book, no trick of the light. You're not dreaming or feverish."

[onceaheroine]

"He turned to dust, Mr. Gold," Belle pointed out, letting herself be guided by his touch. His hand was warm through the thin sweater she was wearing and she'd flush later, thinking about that. Now, she was preoccupied with how completely calm he was being. "He attacked you and then he turned to dust. How can you be calm?"

[with_aprice]

"Because that's hardly the first time I've had a vampire try to kill me or turn me." This one was too young to understand the potential of turning him, though. It's a nightmare that haunts him, that. He suspects it haunts most Watcher.

[onceaheroine]

"Va--"

The word dies on her lips and her incredulity is replaced with a more thoughtful expression. His attacker had been... deformed, to say the least. Brow ridges, shining eyes.

Belle gets up from the chaise and crosses to the locked bookshelf that she's not supposed to know how to open. She slides the tudor rose detail aside and turns the latch, and stands on her tiptoes to bring down a heavy leather book.

She's seen those deformities before... here in the book called Nosferatu. Setting it on the table, she flips through the vellum pages, seeking the information she thinks she remembers.

[with_aprice]

Some girls might have argued with him that vampires did not exist. Some might have stared at him blankly. Some might have clung to their ideas about drugs or chemicals, and still others might have run. Not his girl. Belle, of course, went straight for a book. A book that she was not supposed to be able to get to, but somehow it doesn't surprise him that she's figured that how. He smirks to himself as he thinks that she'd make an admirable cat burglar, if all she had to steal was books.

"I think you'll find what you're looking for on page 394." It's a good book she's chosen. Later he'll have to remember to ask just how many of the hours he's paying her for have been used to read books.

[onceaheroine]

His wry tone is lost on her; she takes the recommendation and flips to the suggested page and yes. There it is, the full color illustration of a dark haired man with the same deformities as the man who'd turned to dust.

She turns to the next page and traces a fingertip along the text, murmuring the words she was reading. "... soulless, ravenous for the blood of the living, the demon in possession of the body will show itself when the vampire attacks..."

Belle looks up at her employer, brow wrinkling in consternation. "Seriously?"

[with_aprice]

"Deadly." He looks at her, unblinking. They share a bent for dry, sometimes dark, humor that's a delight since so few find his jokes anything to laugh at. This, though, is something that she needs to understand as being not only serious, but a matter of life and death.

"Vampires are real. They are deadly. And they are your destiny." 'Unfortunately,' he almost adds. There's a part of him that wishes it had been Ms. Swan that was called. He knows what the life of a Slayer is, and how long it usually is. He vows to himself that he will train her as hard as a Slayer has even been trained. She may end up hating him for it, but he'll do anything in his power to be sure that she lives.

[onceaheroine]

"My... destiny."

There are other books in that cabinet, handwritten books, that she's flipped through that speak of sacred duties, watchers, slayers, chosen ones and the fantastical feats done by such people. It read like the most incredible stories and Belle has rendered her own such adventures in fiction form, thrilling her creative writing teacher with the tales of a Slayer around the Salem witch trials.

In retrospect, that might not have been her best idea.

"How can I be a Slayer? I mean, wouldn't I know it? Wouldn't I be fast and strong and... well, less clumsy?"

[with_aprice]

"Someone's been reading quite a bit from the locked bookcase." He raises an eyebrow. They are going to have to have a discussion about that, and about where the boundaries are, but that's not for tonight.

He limps over to the sink and fills the teakettle with water, putting it on the single burner that's in the back office almost exclusively for making tea. While he's standing there he picks up the mug that's become her own, throwing it across the room, aimed for her head. "Belle."

[onceaheroine]

"Skimming. A little." It's a token protest. Belle's never much liked locked doors or even cabinets. Her innate curiosity is such that she has to know what's being hidden from her. Possibly this is a character failing; she's aware of that. A little, at least.

She leafs through the open book absently as he limps his way over to make tea, still reeling with all that's happened. She doesn't even lift her head when he calls her name and it's only literally a second before the rose-print mug would have crashed into her forehead that she plucks it from flight--

And she stares at him.

"What was that?"

[with_aprice]

"I suspect it's more than a little, dearie." There are a few bits and bobs he's going to have to do better about hiding, but most things are going to have to be available to her anyway. He is going to have to figure out where to keep his journal, though.

"That's you mug." He limped back over to her, easily plucking it from her hands as she was still rather slack jawed. "It was also a point about being fast and less clumsy."

[onceaheroine]

"You threw it at my head!" Belle frowns, pleased to have a subject that isn't the fact that she likes to know where everything in the shop is and hates locked doors.

"Firstly -- my head! Secondly -- that's a Royal Doulton mug that's probably older than I am and I really, really like it!" she pouts a little, watching him make tea and sitting back down to keep looking through the Nosferatu book. "I suppose your point is made, but what if it wasn't?"

[with_aprice]

"If it wasn't then I'd be minus one mug and I'd still be looking for my Slayer," he says calmly as he adds cream and sugar to the tea. He carries both cups carefully in his left hand, well practiced at doing so.

"Considering that you just unerringly found the unbeating hear of a vampire and turned it to dust a few minutes ago, though, I felt my china was relatively safe."

[onceaheroine]

"You could have gotten shards in my eyes and blinded me!"

She gets up and takes the cups the way she always does and sighs, dropping the subject as her adrenaline rush is beginning to wear off. Her gaze rakes over his dusty suit with concern, "Did you get hurt?"

[with_aprice]

"I also could have thrown a knife rather than a cup, which is a somewhat common test." He lets her hold both cups until he settles himself onto the chaise and takes his own cup back. From her first week working for him she's been good at noticing the small things that make it easier to cope with his knee and cane, and does them without comment.

When she looks at his suit he does as well, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the dusted remains of a demon that cling to the fine wool. He'll have to take it to the dry cleaners in the morning before work. "I'm fine. He's hardly the worse thing I've faced before."