“The shadow took me away.”
The memory brought a fresh wave of tears to the boy’s face; arms curled around his small frame, hugging himself and looking away from the man. Screaming, crying for the shadow to take him back to his Papa, for him to save the boy— but he didn’t.
Papa didn’t love him.
“I don’t… remember coming back. I only flew once—.” Taking a deep breath, he looked back at… Neal, before eyes fell to the ground. “My papa and I came here…with a magic bean. We were supposed to be together, but it— it took me back… so Papa could fly again.”
Trying his very best to be brave, the boy returned the smile with a wavering one of his own. He felt a little safer, with someone else. Someone nice. “I’m Rumpelstiltskin.”
When the boy turned to look away from him and resorted to practically crumbling down before Neal’s very eyes, there wasn’t even the slightest part of the man that didn’t feel guilty—though for what, exactly? The boy was in some serious emotional pain, and Neal had jabbed at him, perhaps a little too directly. Had he asked the exact wrong question? He didn’t have the faintest clue.
However, the moment a magic bean was mentioned, Neal’s expression changed, and he fell dead quiet as to listen to what the boy had to say and make sure he didn’t miss one bit of it. Without even realizing it, the older man ground his teeth together at the mention of the word ‘Papa’, especially in relation to magic beans. Was this a trick, perhaps? He wouldn’t quite know until he had heard the boy’s full story.
And there it was. There was the story, though it was far from what the man could ever have hoped for. The moment the kid spilled his name, Neal jolted up into an upright position, as though he had just been burned. Then, a fraction of a moment later as he realized how out of place his reaction may have seemed, he took a deep breath and approached the boy again.
“Rumpelstiltskin, huh? Can I—is it okay if I call you Rumpel?”
He paused for a moment to let the boy answer, trying his very best to keep up a smile but failing for the most part.
“And where d'you suppose we’d find your Papa now?”
