Storybrooke - Present

The shock of it didn't hit until a minute later - a full sixty seconds of aggressive blank staring that was met with August's hollow-eyed gaze, my spine taut, muscles screaming in protest as my limbs locked into place. Then, as if suddenly released, I was pedalling backwards, feet slipping on the mossy, leaf-strewn ground; my sneaker caught the edge of something (a rock, a branch, my fallen dignity) and, arms windmilling, I went down, hard; a sharp gasp, colored more with surprise than pain, burst from my lips, though it was quickly drowned out by the hiss that followed.

Needle-like pain skittered over the palms of my hands, and I ducked my head to examine them, sucking on my bottom lip as my eyes flitted over the newly-acquired red lines that crisscrossed my skin. I probably scraped them up during the fall, dragged them over loose stones or something. It wasn't out of the ordinary for me, what with my minimalistic survival skills and knack for tripping over air, but that didn't make it any less aggravating for me. Or any less humiliating with an audience cued up.

Dragging my eyes away from my fresh battle wounds, I managed to settle on August again. He hadn't moved from the doorway, hands still braced on the edges; hadn't budged an inch even in the face of my nasty spill. Again, I wasn't surprised - I hadn't taken August to be the compassionate type, at the very least with strangers, but his inaction irked me all the same.

"Thanks," I breathed, gathering my legs beneath me in order to stagger to my feet. He remained unchanged, his expression just as wary as before (well, I was guessing that's what he was going for, in any case; the lack of facial muscles made it harder to decipher). Dusting myself off, front and back, I frowned down at my hands for a moment before ultimately sighing, knowing they wouldn't receive any immediate attention, or really more than a passing second thought. My priorities had already been decided. "Do you need to be oiled up to move? Is that it?"

"Wrong movie," he said dryly.

I scowled. "Then I hope you're not waiting for me to start screaming. Magic's everywhere now, man; something like this isn't going to send me running into the hills."

"I felt it," he said, "the magic. It's why I'm able to move at all. And I wasn't expecting you to scream - fainting seemed more likely."

Mildly offended, I crossed my arms, tucking my hands under my arms to preserve the meager warmth I now clung to, and lifted my chin in mock challenge.

"Alright, so you are in the know," I concluded, as though that had ever been up for debate. "So... are you... doubly cursed?" My face scrunched up at the thought; that another person in this town suffered from such an affliction... I hadn't considered it a possibility before. But I was drawing a blank on how August could have ended up this way if he hadn't been doused by some tainted magic. "Back in the Enchanted Forest.... you piss someone off?"

If I'd been expecting August to cop to his sordid past in that moment, then I would have been sorely disappointed, as he did little more than shake his head and pinch his wooden brows together (as much as was possible, anyway). 

I huffed a strand of hair from my eyes, twisting around slightly to survey the clearing again. The last of the sun had disappeared over the course of our stunted conversation, and the shadows had congealed into one black mass that swept over the forest. There was no way I was making it back to civilization without assistance, and though I was internally reeling over the fact that August was a tree-man in his spare time, I saw very few paths I could take at this point that didn't end with me tripping over a straggling root and cracking my skull open on a rock because I couldn't see.

"August," I said, crisply, pointedly.

He said nothing, but his hands had slid from the doorframe to sit in his pockets. The stance was slightly less defensive, so I decided to take that as a good sign.

"Am I going to have to invite myself in? You may be a vagabond, but I thought you still had a shred of chivalry in you."

He sighed, angling himself back so that I'd have room to pass by.

"Seeing as I doubt I'll be able to make you leave even if I use force... by all means, come in Melanie Moore."

That tugged a smile from me, which I blatantly flashed at him while I edged past him and into the trailer.

It was cramped, as one might expect, and I could tell August hadn't been here very long - a few days, at most, which fit with the timeline of the last time I remembered seeing him around town with Emma. Dust lay thick on the counters and the small table tucked into the corner, but what I presumed was a bed was rumpled and slept-in, relatively clean in comparison to the rest of the space. 

The door shut with a hollow thud as August reentered the trailer. He looked wary still (which - understandable), but not as though he was planning on starting any futile arguments with me in the near future. I appreciated that, more than I could put into words, because I was tired. Tired and confused, and far too sluggish to process a worthwhile remark let alone throw one back at him. 

I lowered myself onto the singular chair at the table, leaning down to blow away a layer of dust and grime so that I could lean my elbows on the chipped surface. August remained where he was, perched just shy of the door, hands shoved into his pockets. I doubted he wanted to talk to me at all - he gave off such a heavy loner vibe, I was still surprised he'd been able to act to charismatic back at the diner - but too bad for him, if I was going to keep a secret for him, I wanted to know exactly what I'd be keeping from prying eyes.

"August W. Booth." Whatever I thought about the person, I rather liked his name, the cadence of it, how it rolled off the tongue. August itself was pleasant to the ears, but August W. Booth somehow exceeded all expectations. "I'll assume you didn't stick with the name you were born with back in the Enchanted Forest, so mind if I ask what that one is?"

"Like Melanie Moore is interesting enough to have come from our home."

"Rude in your natural habitat, aren't you? And you don't know that - who says my parents were creative?"

"Look, I can understand wanting to hide who you really are, believe me, but Melanie?" August fixed me with a gaze that was entirely too sharp to have come from blue-painted bark, and I'm ashamed to say my shoulders tensed and my nails dug into the table, though I refrained from flinching back completely. "I know a liar when I see one."

That's... unsettling.

Thinking back on it, once I'd heard mention of Emma Swan's superpower - her innate ability to detect even the whitest of lies - I'd unconsciously begun to avoid her wherever I could around town. There'd been a week where I'd refused to enter the diner at all, and I'd somehow rationalized it by claiming it was cutting into my work time, despite the fact that I was on time everyday. Now, I know that Emma talking to me and realizing that every other word out of my mouth was a lie would have landed in me in some viciously hot water, what with all the insanity that cropped up around Storybrooke after her arrival. 

Human lie-detectors spooked me, then and now. Someone who could see through the inconsistencies of my entire existence was a force to be reckoned with in my opinion, and something I'd rather not have to deal with. But I'd willingly saddled myself together with August for the night, and if I wanted to stave off the inevitable awkward silence was that always on the cusp of our words, then I was going to have to play the right game here.

"I like this name better," I said quietly, and it was a half-truth more than anything else. Elisabetta was a lovely name, and one I treasured even then, when it seemed so out of my reach, but Melanie had a certain ring to it that I felt fit this world better; it was modern, Elisabetta old-world, and even if I'd have the chance give out my true name, I thought I might have asked others to refer to me as Melanie for the foreseeable future. There was a comfort in this second skin that I didn't like to look at too closely. "And as of right now, there's no way back to the Enchanted Forest, so I don't see a reason to give up this identity quite yet."

"But I have to?" August questioned, moving to take a seat on the vacant bed. He creaked when he walked, and I had to stifle a wince; I didn't want to imagine whether or not he was in pain in that form.

I gave him an incredulous look.

"You're made of wood, August. Don't you think that warrants an explanation?"

"You said it was a curse."

"Yes. I said that. You neither confirmed nor denied it."

"Just because I say it's because of one thing or another doesn't make it true. There's a distinct lack of trust here, Melanie, that goes both ways. You don't have to believe a word I say."

With a subdued eye roll, I turned in my seat to face him. "I know you said you only let me in because you didn't have a choice, but would I seriously be here if you didn't trust me a little? You didn't want anyone finding you, August, and there's nothing stopping me from telling the whole damn town where you are when I get back tomorrow. Nothing except a solid reason why I should give you the benefit of the doubt." I gestured at him, expectant. "I'll believe you if you make it convincing."

There was a beat of silence, in which August looked like he felt I was the most irritating woman in either realm and I tried to appear less aggravating than I was by smiling slightly, friendly as I could manage in my current situation. 

He sighed again, dropping his head into his hands with a wince-inducing thwack.

"You have to swear you won't tell Emma where I am," he said lowly, "or... or Marco. Alright?"

I nodded, wondering what Marco had to do with this. Marco'd never mentioned August as far as I could recall, and I'd never seen them together around town. That didn't mean they didn't know one another, though, so I tried to keep an open mind about all this.

"I swear."

"Pinocchio."

"I'm sorry?"

"That's my name. Pinocchio. Explains a lot, doesn't it?"

I gaped, then abruptly closed my mouth as August lifted his face from his hands to fix me with another grating stare. All of my initial thoughts were a tad too scathing to be said to someone I barely knew, so I sifted through my shock and scraped at this world's take on fairytales, comparing them to what I remembered from home. In both versions, I could have sworn Pinocchio had ended up human, and stayed human. A few scares here and there from being untruthful (the irony killed me, honestly) or cowardly, but ultimately, he proved himself worthy of his flesh and bones and lived happily ever after. Now, in the Enchanted Forest, that happily ever after would have had to factor in Regina's curse, but that just raised more questions.

Last I'd heard, Pinocchio was a boy, still being raised by Geppetto--

"That's Marco, then? Geppetto?"

"That's him. My... papa."

--so that didn't explain why August was clearly in his thirties. Kids were still kids in Storybrooke, apart from Henry, who'd obviously aged outside of the curse's reach, having been raised here. So something had gone wrong on his end, something that also led to him devolving into twigs and leaves. 

"Okay," I said, slowly, blinking, "What was it again? You were meant to be courageous, truthful, and... unselfish? I take it you fell off the wagon at some point?"

"For a long time," August agreed, running a hand over his glossy, painted hair. "I was an idiot, obviously, but coming here, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was scared. I did what I had to do to survive. And I didn't have any consequences until Emma found Storybrooke."

Ah. Right. The day the clocktower started forward again. I'd overheard talk that that was the day everything changed for our sleepy little town. Which made sense. Shortly after that was the whole David incident and everything that followed was certainly unlike anything Storybrooke had faced before. If August was living as a flesh-and-blood human for all that time (twenty-eight years, I supposed, barring the idea that he somehow slipped through the curse before or after Emma was sent over), then perhaps the shock wave that went through town that night reverberated outwards until it reached him, wherever he'd been at the time. 

He was doing well so far. I didn't have any desire to call him out for his bullshit, at least, and for me that was something of a win.

"I can understand that," I said, "the wanting-to-survive bit. It's not always the most noble of pursuits. But how did you even get here?"

"...that's something I don't want to talk about. Not right now."

I would have pressed him, thinking that a fairly integral part of his story, but the emotion in his voice stopped me cold. Shame and grief mingled together, creating some monstrously dark tone that sent a ripple of shivers down my spine: I had to press my back hard against the chair to keep from alerting August. 

So instead of harping on him and demanding he spill every last detail, I nodded shortly, accepting his request, and I thought he may have sat a little less stiffly on the bed (though that might have been my imagination getting the best of me, him being wooden and all). 

"That's fair," I said with as much sincerity as I could muster. It wasn't any generous amount, but August seemed to accept my words at face value. "Alright, to sum things up: Pinocchio" - August ducked his head, stiff fingers curling into the wrinkled bedspread; clearly he wasn't a fan of being reminded of his not-so-distant past. I could relate - "tumbled through the wardrobe.... What? Don't give me that look. Have you seriously never read Chronicles of Narnia? Oh, wait." A tendril of memory snapped to attention, firing off a round of synapses that probably hadn't had a chance to flex their muscles since the curse broke. "Emma did actually get shipped through a wardrobe."

I snorted on impulse, amused beyond rationality. C.S. Lewis had nothing on the wild insanity of our realm. 

"Fedex would've been cheaper," I mumbled, which startled a laugh out of August. I counted that among my small cache of wins for the evening, lips flickering over a grin as I eased back into the unyielding chair. The fact that August was living in this decrepit trailer made my skin crawl with an unhealthy dose of sympathy. Poor tree-man. 

"Anyway," I went on, getting back to the matter at hand and ignoring the curl of regret in my stomach when August breathed a sigh, "you two came here... before the curse, I'm assuming? Emma for sure, since she's the savior and all, and... you aged. So." He nodded once, an acknowledgement. "Then you went your separate ways. Or you were never together? I'm grasping at straws here, man. Well, either way you grew up separately. You fell off the wagon of truth and bravery, Emma got the clock tower ticking--"

"And I started reverting to wood."

I blinked at the upfront bitterness of his tone. I could definitely understand his caustic attitude towards Emma's first step in breaking the Queen's curse, what with it resulting in him having to come face to face with his own weaknesses. And, well. This world was cruel and capricious as the one we all left, and without Marco's (Geppetto's?) gentle guidance, August had become more than a little jaded. Things as abstract as bravery and justice didn't mean as much here as they might've in the Enchanted Forest - and people always did what they had to to survive. My own circumstances (courtesy of my piss-poor parents and their overzealous trust of magical beings) were proof of that. 

"Is it reversible?" I ventured, lifting a curious brow as August straightened on the bed, raising his eyes to meet mine. 

"As far as I'm aware... no."

"The, uh... whatsername? The Blue Fairy? She can't do anything for you?"

August slowly shook his head, settling his hands against his knees. "She warned me when I was a kid, and again recently - that if I strayed too far from the guidelines she set for me, I'd lose what made me... real."

Now that got me frowning. 

"You're still real, August," I pressed, idly waving my hand to emphasize my thoughts. "Whether or not you adhere to some fancy morals doesn't mean much; shit, have you seen the assholes in this realm? If being human or real or whatever means you have to act like a saint, then you're probably still miles above some of the people who end up as nightly news stories."

"That's a nice sentiment," August said wryly, and I was already scowling at the notes of disbelief in his voice before he'd even lifted his hand and wiggled each individual wooden finger. "But I don't think it changes the fact that I don't exactly meet the physical standards of humanity."

I try to play nice and this is the thanks I get. Duly noted. 

Hunching my shoulders, I leveled a calculating glare at him, to which he shrugged and lowered his eyes to the mattress again. 

The fight drained out of me as quickly as it had slid into my bloodstream. What would fighting do for me, in the long run? Possible it'd remind August that I stood to gain absolutely nothing from ratting him out to Emma or Marco, which would likely lead to him unceremoniously kicking me out of his trailer. With the last of the light having been smothered by the dark, I didn't fancy trying to get myself back to civilization given my pathetic (and aforementioned) track record. 

"Well, you're in luck," I said after a beat of oppressive silence; a part of me wondered how I could have ever mistaken him for a carefree charmer in those first few minutes in Granny's diner. "Your secret's safe with me." I pantomimed zipping my lips closed, threw away the imaginary key; August merely nodded, though the tension seemed to bleed out from his shoulders. Again, I wasn't sure trusting my eyes was the best idea here, considering his statuesque state, but knowing next to nothing about him meant I had to rely on visual cues. "Soon as morning comes, I'll be out of your hair."

"I... appreciate that. Really. That you believe me."

"I have eyes, August. I'm a little squirrely about magic, but I know it when I see it."

"I wish Emma could have reacted more like you. Would have made my job a lot simpler."

I canted my head to the side, considering. August frowned like he hadn't meant to say that. From the little he had let slip, I gathered he'd tried this spiel on Emma before the curse broke. God, how much of him had been one-with-the-trees by then? And she didn't believe him, after seeing that? Strange; despite my (self-imposed) limited interaction with the sheriff, and all the rumors from Regina's personal mill, she'd struck me as a level-headed woman. Plus she had her superpower; surely she would have known August was telling the truth. 

But, well, I didn't ask any more on the subject. I'd ruffled his feathers enough for one night.
"I'm gonna ask one more question," I said, giving August a chance to refuse. When he remained quiet and seated, I asked, "Why not go and see Marco?"

The full-body flinch was more or less expected, and I waited, lips pursed in mild concern, while August got himself under control. 

It was another few minutes before he deigned to respond.

"I can't... I can't let him see me like this. Papa, he'd--"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Booth. No way in hell he's ashamed of you."

August shot me a look of reproach. "And I suppose you're an expert on parental affections?"

"Did I say that? No. But my father...." And wow, somehow I'd gone twenty-eight years without starting a sentence like that. Regina's cursed had done a goddamn number on us all, to make it seem so natural to excuse our pasts like they were irrelevant to who we were as individuals. Wrinkling my nose, I shook the thought away. "My father, my mother too, they'd forgive me for murder."

Never mind that I'd lied to their faces every hour of every day for ten years, which in my book beat out murder for the worst thing you could possibly do to your family. Unless the murder victim was a family member, I suppose, but - in any case, if they knew about the true nature of my curse, then I thought they'd forgive me for that, too. 

"But it's your call," I finished lamely, shrugging. "Not like I have any stake in this. I don't even know Marco that well, haven't talked to him much apart from that time he fixed my cabinets for me." 

A fond smile tugged at my lips at the memory; Marco was a charming man, cheerful and talkative, and surprisingly receptive to even my cynical attempts at polite conversation. I was also a sucker for his accent. 

Naturally, August didn't catch my cheesy smile, seeing as he was burying his face in his hands for another bout of self-loathing. 

It occurred to me then that I wouldn't be getting anything else out of August after that, and true to form, we didn't speak unless the occasion called for it, like when August (gallantly) insisted I take the bed - apparently overlooking his earlier desire to leave me out in the cold - or, come morning, when he gave me curt directions for getting back to town. I had half a mind to request he show me in person, since I wasn't under any delusions about my wilderness survival skills even with the return of my memories, but one look at August's too-expressive eyes told me that was too much of a tall order. 

I managed to make it home without dropping dead in the woods (another win for me), but after I'd changed and readied myself for another day of work, I couldn't shake the sense of melancholy I'd picked up from August's trailer. The guy had messed up, maybe in a big way, but he didn't deserve to spend the rest of his life alienated from his loved ones because of it; a thought that only grew in prominence when I spotted the "lost child" signs - undoubtedly drawn and hung up by Marco - on my way to the hospital. 

There's a huge chance I'll regret this but... hell, even my conscience can't take this kind of rebellion. 

And that was how I found myself knock-knock-knocking on August's door two days later, armed this time with a hand-drawn map and a stack of paperbacks in case August wasn't in a talking mood. Or in a let-Melanie-in-and-save-her-from-winter's-unforgiving-bite mood; I was all set to plop down on the steps and wait him out, with a new tear-free jacket and some entertaining reads. 

But the door creaked open and it only took a moderate amount of convincing for August to allow me inside. 

"Knew you were lonely," I greeted him, flashing a fairly friendly smile as I slipped past him to take up what I now considered my customary place at the table.

All August did was shake his head (which I thought stood in place of a more telling eye-roll), but he didn't deny what I'd said.

Maybe we were both lonely. 

Maybe that's how everything started.   

Haven't updated this in god knows how long, but I had a sudden desire to round out this chapter, so here we are. No clue if I'm actually gonna finish this, but I'd like to try. I also have a mad itch to write a Jefferson/Mad Hatter fic, since I have rediscovered my love of all things Sebastian Stan, but we'll see if that actually goes anywhere.