That chasm between memory

[follow_the_wolf]

For the better part of thirty years he had been limited to the strict boundaries of Storybrooke, to a single small town and its surrounding forest where he had ranged so far and wide in his life before the Queen's yoke had settled across his shoulders. It was all but unthinkable, as even in those years before the dark curse he had been sent out on excursions into the villages and lands under Regina's control. Such expeditions had been rare in eight years and had never been times that Graham had in the least enjoyed who he was or what he had been made to do, but still the memory of them echoed in his thoughts until shoved forcefully away in favor of exploring the first new surroundings he had had in decades.

He wished to get the lay of the land, as it were, and had spent the majority of the past days devoted to exactly that task. Although he had avoided the doors not trafficked regularly (as far as he could see) by the hotel's other residences, the reminder of the Prince's words on the matter keeping him cautious, he doubted his caution would keep him from those for long. There was the matter of why he had been brought to the hotel that plagued him, as much as the how, although the latter he assumed had to do with magic. But whose?

He explored this new world carefully until a careful stock taken of his having only the clothes on his back and a few bills in his wallet had forced him to consider a slightly more long term concept, that of procuring employment at the hotel for the time being. It required some asking around and a visit to the hotel office, but a short time later he secured himself a position among the hotel's security, having little idea else what use his skills could be in such a setting.

The days since his arrival had allowed his memories to settle more sure in his head, the breaks between Huntsman and Graham lining up more neatly for all the fact that Graham's hazy experience when seen through the Huntsman's eyes left him nauseous too often. The complications of Regina and of Emma and of the feelings he had buried years and years before in order to keep them and the woman he harbored them for safe made no small tangle, but still he found himself drawn down to the hotel's bar with the understanding of who he was likely to find there.

He took a seat, setting his forearms on the table in front of him and tried to catch the eye of the woman with her dark hair spilling over her shoulders. "Hello, Ruby."

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[follow_the_wolf]

Graham let his expression furrow into one of a thoughtfulness that was entirely playacted, as if he might have been interested in either playing on his position or in what ladies she thought might be lining up. A moment after and he shook his head, "No, I don't they will be."

The room was not empty of other people and he was very much aware of the fact that their time together was so limited, but he didn't want her to have to leave him just yet. She would soon enough but not yet. It made him greedy for her company, even as he shook his head at her words, believing not an inch of them. "Waitressing might be what you do, Ruby, but it isn't who you are. You are," he leaned in against the table, meaning every word, "Worth far more than that. More than you know."

[littlerubyred]

Humility was an attractive quality in a man who looked the way Graham did, and the way he so easily brushed off her comment about women lining up for him made her smile. She knew that whether he reciprocated or not, he would be one to get more than one or two admiring glances, or perhaps even more than that. For all the attractive people she'd met in the Nexus already, Graham surely stood out among them. What woman wouldn't leap at a chance with him? God knew she'd tried more than once, and now that he seemed interested, almost eager to be with her, she felt giddy and almost flustered beneath his attention.

At his words, then, she blinked at him for a second, her first instinct to laugh such an earnest, overwhelming compliment away until she saw the seriousness in his expression. It wasn't as though Ruby spent her life feeling ignored or lacked confidence as a general rule, but that he would speak so highly of her, even if it was just some sort of platitude meant to flatter, left her feeling stunned and even a bit emotional. She swallowed thickly, at a loss for what to say before settling on another smile. "Graham... Thank you. Gosh. That's the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me."

[follow_the_wolf]

The years he had lost to Storybrooke had put him into closer contact, at least superficially, with the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest than he had ever had before the Curse. It was as true a fact as any, and yet the world as represented by the Nexus and its environs was one almost unimaginable after such limited boundaries as those of a single town and the forest that shielded it from outsiders. He had seen more new faces in a few days than he had in decades. As of yet he could not say of who of their number might be friend and who might be foe, and the task of sorting out the two seemed daunting even without the addition of the promise of new worlds behind new doors.

Still, that uncertainty of the world around him was not what had driven him to Ruby and her smile. Or, at least, not all of what had seen him seeking her out as he had. Even where that second felt as if it dragged on into an eternity and he had had to wonder whether he had stepped too far past the fragile boundaries of their acquaintanceship in being more honest with her than she might understand, he could not and would not regret having said the words to her.

Her smile then was like the dawn breaking, tossing aside his uncertainty for the pleasure of having made her smile and proven that she was not as far from him as the lapse of her memory might have suggested. "You don't have to thank me, Ruby," he told her instead, giving her a smile that quirked a second wider before settling into something easier. "Not for telling the truth."

[littlerubyred]

While anyone who knew Ruby could describe her as a flirt, her style of flirting was mostly complimentary and with little intent. She liked to make people smile, liked to make them feel good, and if showering them with compliments she happened to believe were true, she saw no harm in that. She had flirted with Graham time and again back in Storybrooke and he seemed to take her no more seriously than anyone else at the time, though now the way he looked at her was quite different. Ruby had been on the end of reciprocal attention before, though it hadn't always been from someone with which she might've necessarily wanted it. With Graham, she thought that might be something she liked indeed.

There was a thrill to it, a flare of feminine power, though not the sort of power she would attempt to use to manipulate him or anyone else, as that was simply not Ruby's way. It was the faint flicker of knowledge that she might actually be desired in return that made her wonder about taking her flirting to a more intentional level, as she hadn't in quite a long time.

She uncrossed her legs to push herself up from the table, walking the few steps necessary to be standing almost directly beside him, and propped one hand flat on the table again. "Well, I do thank you, Sheriff," she said, moving her other hand to brace on the back of his seat as she leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a bright red lip print amongst the darkness of his beard. "I'll go get your food, alright?"

[follow_the_wolf]

How many times he had sat in the same exact booth in Granny's, how many times he had begun his morning with a coffee or ended it with a drink, he could not even begin to guess. Had it been every day of the Curse that he had looked up into Ruby's smiling face and felt nothing? He could remember only at the fringes of the details of his world that she had flirted with him, but he had never thought anything of the tilt of her lips and the shift of her body as she sunk into one hip or the pitch and lift of her voice when he spoke.

Even as he knew he couldn't appropriate all of her time for himself, as much as he might have liked to.

How successful he was at keeping something of the surprise from his face as she leant in, moving close enough to press her lips to his cheek. His smile was startled, if not immediate and he nodded. "Sure thing, Ruby."