WIP amnesty: everything’s coming up fitzherbert
Right, so, I never post real, finished fic on tumblr, just ficlets and nonsense feels and now…WIPs I’ll probably never finish and make no promises of finishing ever! Basically, this is the fic to go along with the “Miguel and Tulio from The Road to El Dorado are totally Flynn-from-Rapunzel’s dads!” concept I’ve seen everywhere. To be clear: THIS IS NOT MY ORIGINAL IDEA, AT ALL. It’s been all over tumblr, and while I totally don’t know who started it, if you do, let me know and I’ll credit them here!
Also, the fact that this exists at all? Toooootally leupagus’s fault. She is terrible and she makes me do terrible things. TERRIBLE. ONES.
Eugene, being a street-savvy, forward-thinking kind of guy, had figured that there would be some benefits to becoming a prince. He isn’t in it for the perks—the twelve course meals are nice, sure, and he’s certainly getting used to the guy whose job it is to follow him around and whisper praise in his ear—but the real motivating factor is, obviously, true love. He hadn’t planned for true love when he was envisioning life alone on a money island, and he’s willing to admit now that that had been a terrible oversight. True love is a seriously good time.
However, if there is one benefit to being a prince that he hadn’t anticipated, not even in his wildest fantasies, that he is wholly unprepared to give back, it is definitely the bedding.
He’s not sure what part of it is the best, really. Is it the sheer size of it, which was surely a (failed) attempt on his father-in-law’s part to institute some kind of distance between himself and Rapunzel? Is it the comforter, soft and white and all-encompassing, like being wrapped up in cloud of glorious luxury? Is it the pillows, the creation of which probably left several hundred geese humiliatingly naked? Eugene is sorry for their sacrifice, but not sorry enough to feel even the slightest bit of guilt as he reclines into the warm bliss of his newfound life and dreams the dreams of someone well-satisfied with his lot.
He’s having such a dream, actually—it involves Rapunzel in that new…underwear… thing, Eugene is totally going to ask what it’s called when he can remember how to make words while she’s wearing it—when everything goes awry. Rapunzel vanishes, that’s the first problem, and then dream-Eugene makes a really undignified whining sound, that’s the second problem; this is his dream and he should be the manliest of men, goddamn it.
The third problem is that two birds, one red and one blue, land on his shoulders and start pecking at his face.
“Augh!” says dream-Eugene, “look, boys, I get it, I do, I know, it’s a very attractive face but I’m really not an animal guy—I mean, okay, Max, I’ll give you Max, but that really wasn’t my fault—”
“Miguel,” says the blue bird, “he has my chin, I told you, I told you, when he was born I said ‘That’s my chin,’ and you told me—”
“Well they’re definitely my eyebrows,” says the red bird, sounding considerably more enthusiastic. “And look, look, Tulio, look, he drools while he sleeps—”
“He got that from you,” says the blue bird, petulant.
“Um,” says dream-Eugene, who is (real-Eugene thinks, from a sleepy distance) not really the brightest subconscious manifestation ever, “any chance you could stop with the pecking? It’s only this face is kind of, I mean, face of a kingdom and all that, seriously, <i>stop it</i>—”
“Tulio,” hisses the red bird, “I think he’s waking up.”
Eugene yawns, shakes himself awake, and blinks up into the surprised faces of two men leaning over his bedside. One of them has blonde hair and an expression of gleeful surprise; the other’s sporting a black ponytail, streaked with grey, and looks like he just swallowed a lemon.
“Um,” says the blonde one, “hi?”
Eugene has time to let out exactly one high-pitched scream of terror before Rapunzel, running on instinct, wakes up and smacks them all over the head with the frying pan she keeps under her pillow.
—-
It has been a long time since Eugene was woken up by Pascal’s tongue in his ear.
It’s been a long enough time that he kind of assumes it’s Rapunzel’s tongue at first; when he opens his eyes and sees her standing in front of him, frying pan in hand, he has a moment of terrible cognitive dissonance. Then he loses his boner so fast it must be some kind of record and yelps wetly, falling off the bed.
“My head,” he groans. “You hit me with the pan, oh my god—”
“Sorry,” Rapunzel says, wincing, “old habit.”
“I probably have a concussion—”
“Don’t milk it,” Rapunzel advises, and twirls the frying pan in the air. Eugene tracks the motion with his eyes, not-quite-nervous; this is how he catches sight of the two men, both awake and staring at him with identical expressions of quizzical analysis on their faces, tied to chairs in the far corner of the bedroom.
Eugene’s not sure if it’s because of all the years with the hair or just a natural proclivity, but Rapunzel is….very good with ropes. It’s provided a number of decidedly pleasurable evenings but, given the uninvited guests and the Boner That Is No More, Eugene thinks this is not really the time.
“You tied them up?” he says, glaring. “Two men broke into our room in the dead of night and you didn’t call the—wait, you woke them up first?”
“Well, I knew how you got here,” Rapunzel says, as though this should be obvious. “And you kind of get a little—”
“Hysterical?” says the blonde one. “Yes, he gets that from his father.”
“Which. Father,” says the other one, through gritted teeth.
“Well, you, obviously,” says the blonde, “I carry myself with the composure of a god—”
“For the thousandth time, would you let it go already—”
“I’m sorry,” says Eugene, holding up a hand, “or, no, really I’m not sorry, I’m not sorry at all, I live here, I was sleeping, I was dreaming about—and the bed—and then my wife hit me in the head with the frying pan and lizard and no boner and what—”
“Eugene,” says the blonde, drawing himself up as regally as he can while tied in place, “I am your father.”
“Also me,” says the other one, twitching in his bindings. “Fathers, plural, he’ll take all the credit if you let him—”
“Well, only because I was the one raising him while you were off galavanting, I cooked and cleaned and changed diapers and for what—”
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, tell it again, the terrible story of the great woes of parenthood, all six months you suffered them, I know, it is so hard to be you—”
“Rapunzel,” says Eugene, as the bickering descends rapidly into Spanish, “how hard did you hit me, exactly?”
—
Their names turn out to be Miguel and Tulio.
“That’s so funny,” says Eugene, “I was just having a dream where there were these birds calling each other—oh.”
“Intelligence is all you,” Tulio mutters, and Miguel shoots him a death glare and kicks at him as best he can with his feet all tied up.
Eugene gets the impression that they’d continue to dissect his personality traits for his viewing pleasure, were it not for the woman who walks in through the door without a care in the world. She’s wearing expensive-looking earrings an exasperated expression, and her jet-black hair that goes all the way down her back, shot through with white.
Next to Eugene, Rapunzel makes a small, choked sound.
“What did I say,” the newcomer says, pointing a finger at Miguel and Tulio, “what did I say, one night I want to go out and get some air and I come back and you two have run off again! How hard is to execute some simple strategy—”
“Long,” says Rapunzel, strangled, and then, “no, I’m sorry, I mean—I get kind of, uh, hair-envy, a little, and it’s just—oh, god, I bet you can braid it for hours, do you know how much I miss—I’m sorry. Ignore me. It’s fine.”
“Oh honey,” the woman says, abandoning Tulio and Miguel entirely and to look at Rapunzel with wide eyes, “I heard that story but I didn’t think it was true, it really won’t grow again? The man did that to your head and you still married him?”
“Well, it was life or death,” Rapunzel says, waving a hand, “and there are more important things in life than hair—”
“Um, hello?” says Eugene, because the whole world has gone mad and he is the last bastion of sanity. “Is there, did we just fire all of the security, I thought this was a castle, who are you?”
“I’m with them,” says the woman, jerking a thumb at Miguel and Tulio. “But try not to mention it, it’s embarrassing for me.”
“Yes,” says Eugene, over the loud protests of Tulio and Miguel, “I got that, thank you, how are you with them, and how did you all get in here—”
“Guile,” says Miguel. “Cunning and guile and—”
“Catering uniforms,” Tulio finishes, rolling his eyes. “Your head chef is sleeping with the guy in charge of your supply orders, by the way, in case you were wondering why your tomatoes are better lately.”
“I just told the guard at the front that I was here to throw petals at the feet of whoever was the type to want that,” the mysterious woman says, shrugging one shoulder. “I figured any off-spring of theirs…anyway, guy didn’t even bat an eyelash, sent me right up here.”
“Clever,” says Tulio.
“That would work on me,” says Miguel.
“I’m starting to see the family resemblance,” says Rapunzel.
“Oh my god,” says Eugene, “this is the worst—and, wait, okay, if they’re my fathers, we’ll get to that, we’re not there yet—then who are you, exactly?”
“You can call me Chel,” says Chel. “Part-time sex companion, full-time ego check.”
“Hey!” says Miguel, in wounded tones.
“Would you prefer ‘business manager’?”
“I thought we agreed on ‘life partner,’” Tulio hisses.
“Well, I thought we agreed that you two were going to stay put for the night until we figured out a plan,” says Chel. “Funny how things work out, no?”
It is at this point that Eugene feels it necessary to sit down.
“Oh, god,” Rapunzel says, looking at him askance. “I’m sorry, he gets like this—Eugene, honey, don’t freak out, I don’t want to have to hit you with the frying pan again—”
“I think,” Eugene says, dropping his head into his hands, “that I need a drink.”
“I will indeed give you an explanation,” says Miguel grandly, even though that is not what Eugene asked for at all. “But first, as is customary, you must untie me.”
—-
Fifteen minutes later, everyone has a glass of brandy, except for Eugene, who has the bottle.
“I need it,” he says. “For moral support. And my head wound. And…reasons.”
Rapunzel sighs and pats him on the shoulder. It is a gesture that somehow manages to say, “I love you,” “I am ashamed to know you,” and “Never forget that I wear every last pair of pants in this relationship, including that pair you keep in the back of the closet with the sequins,” all at the same time.
Eugene really loves her a lot.
“Okay,” he says, “okay. So can we start with how exactly you can both be my fathers—unless, Chel, are you—”
“Ohhhhh no,” Chel says, holding up both hands and recoiling in her chair. “No, no, no, definitely no, absolutely not, you are all them. I don’t want to be responsible for what their combined insanity has wrought, absolutely not, why would you even say that?”
“Wow,” Eugene says, “way to make a guy feel loved.”
“We love you!” says Miguel.
“Well, we did,” says Tulio, “when you were six months old—and obviously still, it’s only we don’t really know you and you’ve kind of gotten a lot bigger—”
“Tulio!”
“Well it’s not my fault you got all the maternal instinct—”
“Six months I cooked and cleaned—”
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound, you are such a broken—”
“I was a GOD—”
“Me cago en la madre que te parió—”
“NOT HELPING,” yells Eugene, which effectively silences them. “Alcohol, you are my only friend in this cold, cruel world.”
“Hi,” Rapunzel says pointedly.
“Well, yes, you were in the running,” says Eugene, “but then I remembered about the frying pan—”
“Seriously, stop milking it—”
“Oh, good,” Chel says. “Just what I always wanted, the two of them in stereo.”
“Can we get back,” says Eugene, “to how you can both be my fathers?”
Tulio gives him an unimpressed look. “You married a lost princess locked in a tower with magic glowy hair—no offense, Rapunzel—”
“None taken.”
“—and you’re asking us about unlikely circumstance?”
“Aha!” says Eugene; he’s going to go ahead and blame that linguistic turn on the brandy. “And how do you know that story?”
Rapunzel sighs. “Eugene, everyone knows that story. You played yourself in a staged production of that story last week.”
“They never get my voice right,” Eugene says, “it’s not like I had a choice.”
“Oh, no, you’re like both of them but worse,” says Chel.
“Or he’s both of us but better,” says Miguel, who appears to be the optimist of the group. Also, the dummy.
“I think maybe you two should start at the beginning,” Rapunzel says. Eugene, lovingly and not without a fair amount of drunkenness, thinks that this is why she is the best and most awesome princess ever in the history of ever.
She catches him looking at her, makes a face, and says, “Oh, no, not that again, there’s only so much praise a girl can take. Think it to yourself.”
Eugene revises his opinion. She is obviously the <i>worst</i> and most awesome princess ever in the history of ever.
“Right,” says Tulio. “The beginning.”
“Okay,” says Miguel, “so there was this elf—”
“Dwarf—”
“Guy, with this name—”
“Rubsasmoothskin?”
“Raspatutin?”
“Rumplesbedsheets?”
“Something like that—and anyway we won a bet—”
“Well, lost a bet—”
“Don’t be like that, it’s all about how you look at it—”
“And anyway this guy, Rumpmuffin or whoever, he was really drunk, apparently he normally does the baby thing the other way ‘round—”
“And it’s not like we were prepared for fatherhood, but there you were and you obviously had my chin—”
“My chin—”
“Whatever, it was clear you were ours, so I did my best to raise you while Tulio wandered around having fun in the streets—”
“Oh come on—”
“Well, it’s true!”
“Ignore him, Eugene. We raised you together—shut up, Miguel—but then one day he had to go and complain that we weren’t getting enough us time—”
“Oh, you try being the one left at home with the baby! I dare you!”
“Six months—”
“That’s six more months than you spent, mister!”
“And anyway, long story short we accidentally ended up on a boat to El Dorado and conned an entire civilization into believing we were gods!” Tulio finishes brightly. “That’s where we met Chel, good times, only it all went a bit wrong, we got attached and also no one really believed us after the first, uh, day or two. And there was some gold and some boats and then we had to go, better not to mention it, Miguel gets a little bitter.”
“I was a GOD,” Miguel says. Eugene is getting the impression that he says that a lot.
“Wait,” he says, “so let me make sure I’ve got this straight. I am the product of a drunken bet with some…elf…dwarf guy named Asshole—”
“Rumpslide—”
“Whatever,” Eugene snaps, “and then you left me to go be gods?”
“We did try to come back!” Miguel says, but he sounds pretty guilty. “We did come back, look, here we are, it’s just kind of hard to hitch a ride to Spain—”
“And then you weren’t in Spain,” says Tulio, “and the babysitter was dead, stab wound, apparently—”
“Not really the best babysitter ever, Bloodbath,” says Miguel, “but handy in a barfight!”
“And then we looked around for you,” says Tulio, “we kept telling people, we had a whole speech, ‘Hello, we’re Miguel and Tulio Fitzherbert, we’re looking for our son Eugene,’ only we’re kind of a little bit wanted in a couple of places so we had to scrap that and that made it harder—”
“And then we saw your wanted poster!” says Miguel, “And we got a good price for it at that pawn shop too, and now here we are!”
