( 003 )
THE BADASS FRYING PAN
❝ I'LL GIVE YOU A DEAL, HOLLAND ❞

RAPUNZEL STOOD WITHIN THE SHADOWS OF THE CORNER OF THE TOWER, INSPECTING THE NOW FULLY STRANGER SHE HAS ENTRAPPED. He was panicking, for sure. The man struggled against the blonde hair for seconds, maybe even a whole minute, finding no possible escape.

"Struggling- struggling is pointless!" She calls out from the corner, immediately catching Holland's attention, his gaze squinted as he tries to get a view of the person who managed to have hair so long that they can keep him jailed in it.

Holland raised an eyebrow, eyes still perched tightly. "Is this your damn hair? Newsflash, you need a haircut. Can you so kindly get me out of this?" He replies with a sarcastic pinch that didn't at all register with Rapunzel.

"I know why you're here, and I'm letting you know, that, I'm not scared of you." Rapunzel quivers, hands trembling in absolute fear. She was giving herself up in the most obvious way possible, but she needed to know how he got here. How he found her.

Holland's confusion only grows, scoffing in astonishment, wondering if his growing concussion meant he was missing out on parts of his own conversation. "I'm sorry, excuse you? I have no clue what you're on about."

Rapunzel grows in confidence under Holland's vulnerability, finally growing the courage to bear to step into the light so the strange man in her tower could finally see who he was dealing with. She didn't look best pleased, her eyes squint in anger with a small raging pout formed on her lips, hands gripped onto the handle of her frying pan, the explanation to Holland's mysterious headache like it was her lifeline. Holland couldn't help but see his kidnapper in a different light; he stared at her femininity, saw her young, fresh face, and automatically assumed her weaker position to his, though his situation trapped in her hair said otherwise.

Rapunzel clears her throat once more, her self esteem at its peak, walking toward Holland, lifting the frying pan as a threat. "So, who are you, and how did you find me?"

Holland gulps at the pan, clearly not wanting to say the wrong thing to get struck with it another time, but figures that the plan forming in his head was the most effective (it wouldn't be). He clears his throat, looking intently into Rapunzel's eyes. "I know not who you are, nor how I found you, but let me say this," He begins in an accent that was stronger and more pronounced than the English accent he spoke with that matched Rapunzel's. "Hi. The name's Holland." He charms, clearly intending to use his charisma to get out of this sticky situation.

But to his surprise, nothing affects Rapunzel. She bypasses the moment of humiliation for Holland and total randomness for Rapunzel, waving the pan close to his face. "Well, Holland, how did you find me?" She persists, attempting to be as intimidating as possible.

Holland sighs, rolling his eyes. He knew he couldn't use his masculinity to get out of this girl's hair — literally. "Look, I was being chased in the forest by the guards, found this tower, climbed up it, and oh God no where did you put it?!" He cries as his voice crescendos into a high pitched squeal, panic settling as he searches for his precious brown accessory.

"Where's my satchel?!" He demands to Rapunzel, who silently raised her lips to form a smug smile, her arms pleasantly crossed as she mimicks a ponder.

"You'll never find it, Holland."

Holland widens his eyes, choking on what seemed was air but was because he couldn't get any physical words to roll off of his tounge, completely speechless. Still shockef beyond belief, he luckily felt a piece of hair around his wrist finally loosen, and gave himself a chance to start to escape. But, Rapunzel was an observant woman, she spent 19 years in a tower observing the world go by, and too starts to panic, looking at Pascal for advice. The chameleon slammed his fist into an open hand, and Rapunzel exhales; within the three seconds that Holland began to wring his wrist free, the barefoot girl had used the frying pan a second time to strike Holland, and he falls completely unconscious in the chair.

Rapunzel exhales, glancing at the clock, where the clock had indicated that it had been an hour since Mama Rose had departed the tower, therefore her return would be imminent. She looks back at Holland, who was out cold and certainly won't be easy for the frail Rapunzel to move around to a place where he would be hidden for the time being.

"Oh my, Pascal we gotta move him!"

The next ten minutes were spent as Rapunzel grew sweaty, tired and aching attempting to fit Holland into the cupboard that was situated behind the chair he was sat in. Minutes were spent getting him out of the chair in the first place, and even longer was spent keeping him in the closet without him falling out and gaining more bruises than he already had. At last though, Rapunzel had managed to keep him secured in the small closet with the chair locking the handles so it would be impossible for him to fall out.

And as if it was pure convenience, Rapunzel heard the daily chant that her mother let down to her. "Rapunzel! Let down your hair!" Rose sung, and Rapunzel promptly came to the tower window, letting her hair down on the hook for her mother to climb up, but her chest was heaving in anxiety incase Holland were to ever wake up and start screaming the odds from inside the tower.

"I got parsnips for the hazelnut soup you have! How marvelous!" Mama Rose cheered, eager to see Rapunzel put a smile on her face, but the young girl was still at odds after their argument, and Rose sighs, kissing her daughter's hair.

"Oh, Rapunzel. I hate leaving after a fight. But you know I'm right, don't you darling?" Rose coos, stroking Rapunzel's cheek and the daughter sighs, biting her lip as she tries not to look back at the closet to make her hiding spot for Holland any more obvious.

"I know mother." Rapunzel lowers her head in cowardice and fear, and Rose sighs.

"Listen, Rapunzel, you know you can't go outside. You're never going to leave this tower and you know that, don't you?" Rose almost threatens her daughter.

Rapunzel gulps, knowing now more than ever that she can't reveal the hidden man inside the closet literally metres away from Rose, the woman who forbid such people for the entirety of Rapunzel's life.

"Yes, I do. I- I do have an idea for my birthday present, though." Rapunzel mumbles, rubbing her forearm as she steps infront of the closet consciously, Holland constantly in the back of her mind.

Rose sits on her chair, rubbing her temple with her fingers in what only one could describe in stress, looking back at Rapunzel. "What?"

"That blue paint, made from those shells you gave me once, I-I've run out." Rapunzel softly speaks, seeing the bummed out reaction on Rose's face.

"That's an incredibly long journey, Rapunzel, almost three days time!" Rose retorts.

Rapunzel bites her lip, "I thought it would be better than seeing, you know, the stars." She says sadly, using the phrase her mother constantly uses to trick her that she was finally going to stop asking about leaving the tower.

Rose sees that there would be no other option, and reluctantly agrees to fetch the shells on the coast of the kingdom, sending Rapunzel to make her enough food and water for the long journey.

Rapunzel was desperate for Rose to leave, because she finally knew what she could put Holland to use for, and Rose needed tk really be gone for a long time. "I'll be back in three days time, okay darling?"

Rapunzel nods in understanding, sending her hair down the tower as Rose loops her feet around it, letting Rapunzel slowly lower her onto the ground for the second time today. Rapunzel watched from the window as her mother slowly walked out of sight to the outside world, and as soon as she was no longer visible to Rapunzel's eye, she immidiately run to the unconscious man, releasing the chair from the handles of the closet and opening the doors.

Holland slowly falls out of the cupboard, face first once again, and Rapunzel once again spent time getting Holland into the green painting chair and tied her hair around the body of the stranger. Pascal stuck his tounge into Holland's ear for the second time that day, and Holland jumped up awake, rubbing his ear with his shoulder vigourously.

"Will that frog stop doing that?" He shrieks, and Rapunzel steps infront of him once more, her trusted frying pan still stuck inside her hand as a mild threat to Holland, who is well aware she is not afraid to use it.

"I'll give you a deal, Holland," Rapunzel begins, circling around Holland who was still trapped within the golden hair of the mysterious girl. "Tomorrow is a very special day for me, my 20th birthday, to be precise, and I want you to do something for me in return for your precious satchel that you long for so much."

Holland jumps to a conclusion, rolling his eyes, "Blondie, I'm not a working man, if you get what I mean. My body is my temple, not to be sold."

Silence followed in the tower as Rapunzel pauses her walk toward her fresh painting of her dream of seeing the lanterns that she had created earlier in the morning, raising her eyebrows in confusion. "I don't understand...?"

Holland catches on that was certainly not what Rapunzel was proposing to him, and clears his throat awkwardly, shifting in his limited space in the chair. "Oh, er, sorry. What do you want me to do, then?"

Rapunzel finally displays her painting to Holland, looking back at him. "Do you know what these floating lights are?"

"Yeah, the lanterns they release every year for the lost princess." Holland replies as quickly as he saw the painting, and Rapunzel tries the new word out on her tounge, something new to her vocabluary.

"I knew they weren't stars." She whispers to herself, clearing her throat and jumping down from the wooden pane where the painting starts, almost running back toward Holland, the excitement hard to hide on her face.

"I need you to act as my guide to take me to the lanterns tomorrow night, and then, and only then, will you get your satchel and your crown back." Rapunzel proposes at long last to Holland.

She just needed his response.

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hi so this is possibly my fav chapter
ever bc its tom and rapunzel's first meeting and it makes me go shwoosh

i'll give you updates on my health as i go along, so far i'm pretty bad but i can cope <3