Beat Cop - (The Wolf Among Us, M) - 5/5

[Garnet]

Sooo after reading AppleBlossom and Anonymouse's ficlets, and having been meaning to for a while anyway, I've started digging my way through Fables and The Wolf Among Us. I was originally going to wait until I'd finished before doing a fic for either universe, but in the end decided that the canon, while interesting, is so dense and convoluted that I don't feel compelled to try and wedge it into a specific point in the storyline. So this is combining some aspects from both the comics and the video game, plus some reinterpretation of my own. Try not to analyze it too closely, just enjoy the rare beast that is Garnet writing a plot :|

More chapters to come! This one's a little light on the sneezing as it's just setting the scene.

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Snow White stood outside the security office door, peering past the dimpled glass and copperplate script of B. Wolf to ensure that its occupant was in. She knocked twice, then tested the handle when a gruff voice from within bid her enter. The door creaked open, and she took in the default disheveled state of the Big Bad Wolf. He was sitting at the desk with a spread of files out before him, his chin in one hand while the other held a lit cigarette. The air smelled as stale with their smoke as ever, and she made a mental note to get him an office with more windows. He'd probably refuse out of general stubbornness.

She waved away the haze of smoke with a cough, feeling like she was in a Noir film, and stepped inside.

"Hi, Bigby."

"Miss White," he greeted, not coldly, but with just enough rasp to his voice that it sounded like a growl. A heavy brow raised. "What brings you down from on high?"

Snow blinked at that. Bigby usually looked at her like the sun shone out her ass, even when he thought she wouldn't notice, when he thought he was being discreet. Fantastic. She had all of this on her plate, and her sheriff was in a bad mood.

"Just here to ruin your day as usual," she sighed through her nose, and pulled a manila folder out from under her arm. She placed it on the desk before him, then frowned in passing at a half-empty bag of honey throat lozenges on the desk before him, sitting between the usual chaos of a half-full ashtray and coffee long grown cold. That was a new vice. "Smoking finally catching up with you?" She wondered with a nod at the packet, unable to resist digging him about his bad habits. He huffed a breath that could have been annoyed or amused, but didn't rise to her bait.

"Something like that. What's this?" He gestured to the files within the folder, seven or eight of them stacked atop each other.

"Shipments to The Farm," she explained, which didn't register much surprise until she added, "All from the last three days."

Bigby gave a low whistle as he leafed through them. "That's a hefty load." He frowned. "Posey? Red Hen? I didn't book any of these guys."

Snow nodded her agreement, and sat when he nodded at the chair across the desk. "That's what's even stranger. They were all voluntary exiles that showed up in my office missing their glamour. These are fables who never had so much as a scratch on their record."

Bigby stifled a slight cough behind his fist, stirring the paperwork a bit. Snow gave him a flat look, which he ignored. "Why no glamour? None of these kids are bad off, they could afford it."

Snow shook her head slowly. "They all claimed to have lost their jobs, shelled out for some big expense that fell through, that sort of thing. Red said her husband left her. Awful lot of coincidences, though. I finally got one of them talking this morning, Reynard."

The wolf in disguise rubbed the heels of both palms into his eyes, looking as though he'd already pulled a couple all-nighters. "Brer Fox?"

Snow waved a dismissive hand. "He's going by Reynard again. Going through a Renaissance phase, I guess."

Bigby sighed, and coughed again. His voice sounded a little thick and hoarse, like he was getting stuffed up. "Okay. What's his story?"

"His story was that somebody took his glamour." Bigby looked at her skeptically over the steeple of his hands. "I know. Says he got jumped in an alley last night. When he went to get it fixed this morning, the witch he'd been using for years had completely closed up shop, vanished overnight." That wasn't too unusual a turn of events, especially for magically inclined fables, but she went on. "I did a little researching this morning, and four of those fables in the last few days used the same witch. The others used a warlock down by Second Avenue, and no one's seen him for days either. His shop is cleared out. Aaand that's when I brought it to you."

Bigby looked sufficiently rankled. "Well, shit. You weren't kidding about fucking up my day, were you?" When Snow smiled weakly, he sighed and closed the folder. "Reynard's still in your office?"

"Yes, he agreed to stay around for an official questioning," she agreed as Bigby stood and stubbed out his cigarette. Somehow, he looked even worse when he emerged from behind his desk, scruffing a hand at the stubble of his jaw. There was a slight sag to his broad shoulders even when he straightened them, and his eyes were heavy with more than just insomnia. It wasn't until he pulled a rumpled handkerchief from a back pocket and blew his nose into it that the penny dropped and her brow softened.

"Bigby, do you have a cold?"

"Yeah," he grunted, pocketing the handkerchief again. He didn't sound much improved, although his nose was definitely redder now, looking sore around the nostrils. "Don't get too close."

She went ahead of him out of the office and waited as he locked it behind him, evidently anticipating that they might not be back for a while. He was probably right. "I'm not worried, I haven't been sick for decades."

Bigby frowned to himself. "That's not why--..." He shook his head. "Nevermind."

Snow watched him from the corner of her eye as they ascended a flight of stairs to the Business Offices. She'd seen Bigby pretty wrung out and beat up before, with bloodied knuckles and limps and black eyes and worse, in the fuzzy span of time before they left the Homelands. But she couldn't ever recall him with something so frustratingly common a nuisance as a headcold. She felt a little bad for teasing him about the throat lozenges now, although smoking surely couldn't be doing him any favors.

Snow White let him in ahead of her to the offices of the mayor, deputy, and her own position as director of operations. She was the only one who appeared to be working today, no great surprise there given how much of the town she ran anyway. She was relieved to see Reynard just as he'd left him, indeed not in his usual shape of a handsome, slight ginger man. Instead, a small orange fox sat in the chair across from her desk, and turned his head as they entered.

"Miss White," he greeted, leaping down from the chair to execute a little bow. "Sheriff."

"Hi, Ren," Bigby greeted with a sigh, settling one hip to the corner of the desk as Snow returned to her chair behind it, hands folded together. Up above, Bufkin circled through the library stacks with nearly silent wingbeats, probably avoiding the attentions of a fox who might decide he looked a little more like poultry than simian. "So tell me what happened."

Reynard climbed back into his chair, licking his nose anxiously. "It's like I told Miss White. I was coming home from work, almost back to my flat, when a man put a knife to my throat up by Kipling Street. Just materialized from the darkness, like a shadow." He spread the toes of one paw for effect. Bigby rolled his eyes at the theatrics. "I thought he just wanted my wallet, so I told him it was in my back pocket, told him to take what he needed. He said he didn't want my wallet, he wanted my face. My face, Bigby! What kind of morbid fable says something like that? Then he says I better not mention this to anyone, or I wouldn't be so lucky next time. Next thing I know, there's a bright flash of green light, and my head feels like the inside of a barrel that's been banging around the back of a cart for days."

"Could you tell how long you were out?" Bigby asked. Reynard shook his head.

"An hour, maybe two? It was still dark, but I was missing my watch, of course, and all the clothes off my back. When I came to, I was... well." He gestured to himself with one foreleg. "Much closer to the ground than I remembered. I managed to get into my building before anyone saw, don't worry," he said quickly, cutting Bigby's warning off before it could manifest. "No one saw. I called Granny No-man right away, I've been getting my glamours from her for years."

Bigby arched a brow. "We have witches in the Woodlands, you know. 13th Floor, ring a bell? Why you're sneaking all the hell over Manhattan..."

"You have a witch," Reynard corrected. "Pickings are a bit slim lately, yes? Come and go as they please, forgive me if I trust loyal service over the dubious privilege of living in the Woodlands. Frau Totenkinder scares the dickens out of me."

"She's out of town this week," Snow added apologetically. "He's right about the sparse population."

Bigby rubbed his face and sniffled deeply, punctuating it with a small cough. He was looking increasingly more irritated, Snow couldn't tell if it was for the way the story was unfolding, or a symptom of his cold. "And Maddy's still upstate. Shit, who's in charge of scheduling with those guys?" He turned back to the fox, wrinkling his nose and scrubbing it absent-mindedly with one fist. "Okay, and Granny said to come by?"

Reynard nodded. "First thing in the morning. Only when I showed up, her shop was empty. Not a speck of dust in sight, someone had even scratched her name off the window."

Bigby narrowed his eyes. "You're sure."

"On my honor," Reynard agreed. "I tried her line again when I got back, but it was dead. I remembered what the mugger said to me last night, but I thought it was best to come straight here."

Bigby made an uncertain sound in his throat, and exchanged a look with Snow. Reynard was a clever fable, and like most of them too smart for their own good, he was prone to mischief. Even so, he'd always seemed to keep his nose out of serious trouble, and had historically been a cooperative and willing presence of their community. He probably wasn't thrilled about going to The Farm, but if his story held true, it might be safer for him than Manhattan just now. Maybe the other glamour-robbed fables had been laboring under the same assumption.

"The rest must have got the same warning," Bigby intoned, as if reading her mind. Snow nodded.

"Or else they really didn't remember anything after waking up. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them couldn't afford another glamour spell right away, and got spooked by something they didn't remember."

"Especially if they owed anyone," Bigby agreed, and gave Reynard an expectant look. The fox sat back on his haunches and put up both paws.

"My debts are clear, Mr. Wolf. You can run my background."

"You're being awfully cooperative, Ren," Bigby observed as he tugged the handkerchief from his pocket again and folded it under his nose, rubbing discreetly through the fabric. Reynard licked his muzzle again in discomfort, his ears beginning to plane sideways.

"There's a man out there stealing faces, or at least glamours. You're damned right I'm willing to play nice with the authorities if I get to hide behind them."

Snow sighed and rubbed her temples. "Do you know offhand who else used Granny No-man, besides the fables that have already been shipped upstate? Or the other wizard, what was his name?"

"Tim."

"The enchanter...."

"...Tim, yes. I do. I can give you a lis-- oh," the fox trailed off as Bigby slid off the desk and paced a yard or two away. "Oh, no." In a sudden flash of coppery fur, Reynard was crawling under Snow White's desk, the tip of his white tail disappearing last like a flag of surrender. She craned back to look at him in irate surprise, feeling like she had just missed some subtle cue between them. Maybe it was a canine thing.

"Reynard, what..."

Before he could respond, Bigby flinched double from the corner of her eye, producing a bizarrely stifled sound.

"--h-MPFF!" She turned to stare at him. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Bigby sneeze, but the sound was foggily familiar. That's right, he always held them tightly in... "--mfssh!" ...because otherwise... "Hhh... hhh.... !"

Bigby had unfolded the handkerchief to seek out a clean spot, but in so doing didn't quite manage to get it to his nose before he jerked harshly forward again.

"Huh'HHRRSSSSZHHHHOO!"

The unlucky stack of books that had been in his path seemed to almost erupt outwards with a shriek of dismay from Bufkin, who got caught in the draft himself as he dove to save his filing system. Feathers, fur and paper whirled wildly for several seconds before they finally managed to settle, and the soft creak of the ship overhead announced that it had adjusted from a brief detour to its course.

Snow let out a breath she forgot she'd been holding.

"Fucking hell," Bigby snarled in dismay, mopping at his nose with the handkerchief as he picked over the scattered volumes. "Scuse me. You okay, Bufkin?"

The winged monkey librarian squawked mournfully, but let Bigby pull him up from under a heavy text by one hand. He shook himself off, seeming no worse for the wear but for a few missing feathers. "Better than my poor third editions," he lamented. Bigby grimaced.

"Sorry. I owe you a bottle. Or three."

That seemed to cheer the simian up considerably, and with a sigh Bigby returned to their interview, still scrubbing at one nostril while Bufkin attempted to restore some order to the mess.

"Why do I always forget that you can do that?" Snow said, unable to hide the slight tremble to her voice.

"I try not to," Bigby muttered, then grabbed the corner of her desk and dragged it back to reveal the quaking bundle of fox by her feet.

"Is it over?" Reynard winced, then yelped as Bigby scruffed him with one hand and deposited him back in the chair. He apparently had no patience for playing the good cop and coaxing him out with patient reassurance. It was time to get this ball rolling.

"For now. Start dictating those names and we can get you on the three o'clock bus to The Farm." He glanced at Snow, sharing her gaze for a minute. "Then I think we've got some more interviews to do."

Edited August 11, 2014 by Garnet

[Anonymouse]

WHAT A WONDERFUL THING TO COME HOME FROM WORK TO!!! I literally gasped when I saw this on the front page. I've literally been thinking about this game nonstop for the past two days (okay, not literally, but close enough) and I had a rough day so you posting this was perfect timing!

Bigby stifled a slight cough behind his fist, stirring the paperwork a bit. Snow gave him a flat look, which he ignored.

I love coughs/sneezes that make things move. And I'm willing to bet that's not the last of it, Bigby being who he is.

The wolf in disguise rubbed the heels of both palms into his eyes, looking as though he'd already pulled a couple all-nighters.

He probably did, but he also literally just looks like that all the time. It's his default state of being. Like a bitchy resting face, except for looking perpetually exhausted.

lol @ Snow White and me both initially thinking Bigby meant he didn't want to get her sick when he told her not to get too close.

"You're being awfully cooperative, Ren," Bigby observed as he tugged the handkerchief from his pocket again and folded it under his nose, rubbing discreetly through the fabric.

And the fact that he carries a handkerchief with him makes me happy.

The unlucky stack of books that had been in his path seemed to almost erupt outwards with a shriek of dismay from Bufkin, who got caught in the draft himself as he dove impulsively in an effort to salvage his filing system. Feathers, fur and paper whirled wildly for several seconds before they finally managed to settle, and the soft creak of the ship overhead announced that it had adjusted from a brief detour to its course.

Poor Bufkin lmfao. That description though, it was perfect. As was the spelling. If this chapter was light on sneezes, I'm excited to see what the next three chapters bring! I'm also intrigued by the plot; another mystery for the two of them to solve

[GeldingWest]

Ahhh! This was so awesome! I love that Ren just knew what Bigby was going to do and went to hide. Canine things are cute :3

[AppleBlossom]

I'm so happy that you decided to write this! You're writing style is wonderful, it just pulls me right in!

I second that Reyand-Canine-instinct, that was utterly adorable! And to think we are going to be blessed with four glorious chapters of a sneeze-ridden Bigby Wolf?! Incredible!

[Anonymouse]

Ahhh! This was so awesome! I love that Ren just knew what Bigby was going to do and went to hide. Canine things are cute :3

I forgot to mention this but I loved that he could just tell that Bigby was going to sneeze and knew to hide. Also how Snow tends to forget that he can do "that"

[Garnet]

anonymouse - AAA YAY I am so glad you are excited, I am also excited! This stupid game is my new favorite thing, and I blame you (ain't even mad tho).

He probably did, but he also literally just looks like that all the time. It's his default state of being. Like a bitchy resting face, except for looking perpetually exhausted.

Hahaha. To be fair, Bigby also has a bitchy resting face so double whammy.

And mmmn, yes. Yes. I do love me some handkerchiefs, although we'll see how long that poor thing lasts.

Madwonder13 - Thank you! I figure anyone who see the full force of it once prooobably doesn't forget again.

AppleBlossom - Aww, thank you! I super appreciate that! And have you to thank for introducing me, so hey! And yisss, at least four chapters. I actually just adjusted the title to account for an extra one, because this bit got kinda long by itself so I decided to post it early. We'll see how the rest of it goes.

And now the next bit, enjoy!

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Reynard provided them with a short list of names that were still in the area, two of which Snow White crossed off with frown. They were fables that had already been through this week, and continued on to the farm.

"We got too many free-operating glamour dealers," Bigby observed after the fox had left, reading the ledger over her shoulder. He was sniffling intermittently after that last sneeze, and yet somehow sounding twice as stuffy. "They're scattered all over the place now."

"I've sent proposals through to King Cole twice now, but you know how he is," Snow sighed in agreement. "Anyway, I'm not sure stricter laws would help."

"Not what I meant, just that the sanctioned dealers have been too sparse lately. Reynard was right about that much."

Snow nodded her agreement. "Well, maybe some of these freelancing enchanters are willing to convert, especially if there's something out there making dealers pack up and ship out overnight." They did the best they could, she and the sheriff, but there was still enough simmering hostility and back-handedness in Fabletown that protection counted for a lot, these days.

"Bet they'd like jacking their prices up, anyway."

"There's that. Back alley sellers would still attract a certain clientele."

"Mm," Bigby snuffled, as Snow rubbed her eyes. It was an ongoing problem and had been for months, but these incidents were reason enough to revisit the situation and get serious about it. They couldn't afford to have fables getting cut throat over this, more than they already were.

"We'll get to it. In the meantime, we need to put a lock down on... whatever this is." Bigby had gone quiet again, and Snow glanced up to find him with one hand resting on the back of her chair and the other gritting vigorously at his nose. She tried not to wince at the flagrant abuse to his own body. "You're going to make it redder, you know."

That seemed to get his attention as he dropped his fist guiltily, the dilated shapes of his nostrils giving a last good squirm before relaxing. Maybe she shouldn't have dissuaded him. She'd much rather he deal with the itch before it built to another sneeze. "Who's up first?" He sniffed impatiently, before she could backpedal.

"Springheel Jack, or Wampus. They're about the same distance from here."

"Got a preference?"

Snow looked down at the ledger, folding her lower lip between her teeth. She knew what Bigby was asking, but uncertainty stalled her. They could split up and cover twice the ground, or she could send him out to do the legwork himself, something he certainly never seemed to mind. A wolf got restless when it was kept penned for too long. Even, she imagined, a sick one.

And therein lay the problem, or rather a whole host of them. Her anxiety only escalated as his eyes grew hazy again and the bridge of his nose wrinkled up.

"Shit. Scuse me, one se--hhh-HHH...!"

He allowed himself the pleasure of a deep, aching inhale, powerful enough that she had to quickly slap a hand down to prevent the list of names from going flying. It must have made it doubly frustrating, however, to turn away and stifle the fallout in a series of miserably unsatisfying squeaks.

"--mpffsh! -pfssh! -pfssh!... -pfssh!... huh--mfssh!"

It sounded a little like a very tiny dog rather than a very large wolf, a likeness that made her smile but that she elected not to bring up, for the sake of his dignity. Bigby recovered as quickly as he could, giving himself only a couple of seconds of uncertain breathing and a hovering hand ready to clench his sinuses shut again. He gave his head a quick shake as if to erase the fit, and turned back to her with angry apology sketched into his features.

Snow politely ignored the loss of composure, and added decisively, "I think we should stick together on this one."

"Yeah?" Bigby grunted, voice thick. He recovered the handkerchief and managed to find a clean corner to abuse, sounding a little clearer when he lowered it. He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. "I don't need a handler, you know. I got this in check."

"That's not--..." She started, and then dropped it just as quickly. He'd be able to sense her lie anyway. "I know you don't. I'm coming with you anyway."

Bigby gave her a slightly strange look, but didn't argue. "I... okay then. You're the boss."

So she was. She left Bufkin with instructions to mind the phones, and the influx of any more glamourless fables, but even she knew that her chances of returning to an organized filing system were slim. She let Bigby out into the hall ahead of her, and followed at his shoulder. The Woodlands were almost eerie in their quiet, no thinly muffled arguments, stumbling drunks or angry fables milling around the first floor lobby, waiting to be admitted up to the Business Offices. They very nearly made it out to the street without any incidents at all, in fact. Her good fortune ran out at the door, when an impatient woman brushed past them in a cloud of cloying perfume, something powdery and floral. Snow nearly gagged.

"That's laying it on kind of thick," she murmured to her companion after the fable had gone, and she'd pushed out onto the front steps. And then, seeing Bigby's expression of crumpled distress with brows crushed together and nostrils huge, "Dammit."

He gripped the wrought-iron railing hard enough in one hand that she thought it might bend. The other snatched for his nose, but didn't quite make it before he bristled with a massive inhale and lurched to one side.

"--HRRHSSSZHHHHHHOO!" Mulch in the manicured beds of the Woodland's gated yard went scattering across the walk as Snow said a silent prayer of thanks for property-wide glamour spells. Maintenance would not be thrilled, however. Bigby panted twice, deep and hitching, then purged the scent from his nose with a lusty second.

"HUHRRUSSSSZHHHoo!"

His thumb and forefinger went to the bridge of his nose immediately afterwards, grinding in place as his eyes squeezed shut. "Fuck," he growled.

Snow observed the tattered boxwoods with impressed dismay, looking as if they'd just withstood a freak windstorm. Which, technically. At least he hadn't uprooted them, or snapped any trees in half. She'd seen him do worse, and was glad that his involuntary lung capacity wasn't as destructive as his on purpose lung capacity. But it didn't put her much at ease. Especially when they were about to venture into public to be surrounded by mundies. "Wow. Your colds don't mess around, do they?"

"Yeah, well. Go big or go home," he muttered roughly, wristing at his nose. Snow couldn't decide if the pun had been intentional or not. He'd probably heard every one in the book, just as she was set for life on all things apple and dwarf-related. "I swear I'm gonna quit doin' that. Lost my focus for a sec."

"I'm not blaming you for sneezing when you're sick," she said. "But cheap perfume is the least of what you're going to run into out in the city. Are you sure you can do this, sheriff?"

Bigby was already lighting a cigarette, glancing at her from the corners of his eyes as he descended the steps towards the gates. He either looked annoyed or a little hurt. One hand made a sweeping gesture and streamed the smoke from the cherry with purpose, as if to remind her of his defense mechanism for sensory overload. "Honestly, I can't smell much of anything right now. Nose is too stuffed up. Which might be its own problem," he admitted. "But I'm fine. I won't make you fill out any more paperwork than you have to."

"Alright," she sighed, following him out to hail the first cab they could find. "I trust you."

Bigby seemed to put himself back together after a smoke and a taxi ride. His eyes were heavy but calm again as he watched the city roll by, only unfolding the handkerchief once or twice to blot at his nose. The afternoon was hot and traffic was dense, it took them the better part of half an hour to get anywhere close to Wampus Cat's apartment. Eventually, Snow grew impatient enough to thrust a handful of bills at the driver and usher Bigby out. They walked the last few blocks, Snow White in an even staccato and Bigby with the kind of easy, rolling gait of a man who feared nothing, or was incredibly, excruciatingly tired. The seedy low-rise loomed into sight at last, a location Bigby seemed to recognize as he put a shoulder to the front door of the real estate office on the ground floor.

"You've been here before?"

"A few times. Wampus owns the place, and mostly fills it with fables. It looks like a shithole from the outside, but she keeps a pretty tight lid on things."

There was no one manning the front desk, which put Snow's hackles up slightly. She fell close in line behind Bigby as he took to the stairs, glancing back at her over one shoulder in amusement.

"Are you friends?"

"... with Wampus?" He sounded incredulous.

"I don't know. Shut up," she muttered, giving him a little push as they emerged onto the second floor landing. Bigby chuckled as he drifted to 4B, and tilted an ear towards the door without actually touching it.

"Pretty sure this is it."

"Or you're eavesdropping on strangers."

Bigby shrugged and dropped the side of his fist to the door a few times. After a long several beats where he was poised to try again, there was a clatter of locks being undone followed by the door cracking open. "Oh," Wampus breathed at the sight of them. "Thank fuck."

She let them into a small flat that smelled mostly of secondhand smoke and an artificial deodorizer that had tried and failed to cover it, something that probably came printed with a waterfall and tropical flowers and was labeled Rain Mist or the like. Bigby itched his nose briefly, drawing Snow's wary attention, but he seemed alright after a quick snort. He probably would have just preferred the stale smell of cigarette smoke.

Wampus Cat's glamour was a tall woman with dark skin, bright eyes, and a three foot long spotted tail that lashed when she spoke. Bigby groaned at the latter.

"Are you seeing this shit?" She demanded.

"Trust me, I'd rather not be seeing it. When did that happen?"

"This morning," Wampus hissed, beginning to pace back and forth. "Or close enough to it. Rest of me's just fine, but I can't pull that back into the glamour. I'm not going to no fucking Farm. I got a business to run, I got people who live here." She came up short when she seemed to reach the end of her imaginary tether, and glanced back at them. "Sorry. Hi, Sheriff. Miss White."

Snow White crossed her arms. "Let me guess, an attempted mugging?"

"Yeah," Wampus said, and threw herself down at a card table nearby, whose towering stacks of mail teetered dangerously. "Or I thought it was. I turned around to nail the fucker--..."

"Wampus," Bigby groaned.

"I know, okay? I wasn't thinkin' straight. But just as this big green flashbulb pop goes off -- sort of like when someone's dropping their glamour? I got a glimpse of him, booking it around the corner. He was fast, or else he had a spell helping him."

"What did he look like? Could you identify him again?" Snow encouraged, and Wampus rocked her hand in a see-saw ehhh gesture.

"I dunno. Young, thin, less than six feet. Ginger, I think? I figured you'd be more interested in this." She got up from the table and crossed to the kitchen counter, where a plastic bag containing a single scrap of cloth sat. She handed it to Bigby. "Tore it off his coat."

"You're a smart cookie, Wampus," he approved in a growl, earning a little color from the woman. An unexpected heat stripe of jealousy stirred up the back of Snow's neck. What the hell was that about?

"There's blood on this," he observed, cracking the seal. Wampus winced.

"I uh... might'a got a little carried away taking a swipe at the guy. It can only help, though, right? Get the scent and all?"

Bigby said nothing as he sniffed the fabric, committing the odor to memory. Or, trying to. Snow could clearly hear the congestion in his inhale, and the frustrated huff afterwards. He wasn't getting anywhere. While he was occupied, she turned back to Wampus.

"You used Granny No-man for your glamours, right?''

Wampus rubbed the back of her neck, as though she'd been caught doing something punishable. Not technically, perhaps, but. "I was going to call her just before you two showed up."

"Don't bother," Bigby muttered, rubbing his nose through the handkerchief. "She's-- ... hhhuh..." He breathed out warily, eyelids fluttering as he eventually seemed to irritate a nerve. Snow cased the area immediately, prickling with worry. Lots of clutter, thin walls, exposed wiring. Breakable things. She wondered how mortified Bigby would be if she hit the floor and covered her head preemptively.

"S-scuse me a sec," he got out with wavering difficulty, just before crushing his nostrils shut through the fabric and retreating to a corner.

"--HPT!" His head dipped, rose, breath shivering. Wampus seemed to clue into Snow's apprehension belatedly, and her tail fluffed. She possessed less tact.

"Hey, Sheriff. Watch the internal demolitions, huh? I can't afford new brickwork."

"I'm -- huh! -- I'm workin' on it," Bigby snapped with remarkable patience, even through the grit of his teeth as he wrenched his nose shut again. "HPPT! ... huh-PFTSSH!"

The last one just eeked past his control, but he caught it tightly in the folds of the handkerchief, which seemed to prevent any calamity further than a lampshade canting out of place. Bigby, meanwhile, looked like he'd just taken a blow to the head as he stood there gathering his senses, eyes glassy and breathing uneven. Snow couldn't imagine how much it hurt to cork up that sort of force.

Bigby glanced at her for a moment, expression unreadable beyond its usual frown. When Snow just blinked back in muddled confusion, he turned to give his nose a lengthy blow. Even holding them in, the riot of sneezing seemed to have done the trick in evacuating his sinuses. He tried again with the fabric scrap before his window of opportunity closed and the congestion returned. This was going to be an exhausting day for him. The drop of sympathy in Snow's gut was starting to puddle.

"Get it that time?" Snow asked, as he sniffed with more audible success.

"Yeah," he sighed, and then nodded to Wampus. "Thanks for cooperating, and the evidence. Get that glamour fixed, but it'll have to be from somebody else."

"Ah, shit," she sighed to herself, as Bigby and Snow White showed themselves out.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Garnet

[Nola]

So, I have NO idea what this fandom is, haha, but the title said 'beat cop' so that was enough for me! I absolutely LOVE anything cop related, and you do such a good job with the general procedural cop flow thing.

I've quoted some of my favorite parts...just because!

And therein lay the problem, or rather a whole host of them. Her anxiety only escalated as his eyes grew hazy again and the bridge of his nose wrinkled up.

"Shit. Scuse me, one se--hhh-HHH...!"

Mm...'excuse mes' are my favorite thing....politeness

His thumb and forefinger went to the bridge of his nose immediately afterwards, grinding in place as his eyes squeezed shut. "Fuck," he growled.

Um....I love swear words as a way to describe irritation when sick....yeah, I'm weird

"S-scuse me a sec," he got out with wavering difficulty, just before crushing his nostrils shut through the fabric and retreating to a corner.

And again.

Thanks for writing a fic that even a non-familiar can enjoy!!

[SweaterWeather]

Nnnnn.. Don't mind me, just, here, melting over Bigby's huffing and puffing, everything.. Gah, I'm supposed to be wording. Seriously, the fics popping up about TWAU has been like Christmas in July, and I absolutely adore everything about this. One thing that always, ALWAYS gets me is acutally being able to hear the characters voices in my head, and Dear me this is just.. Spot. On. It's just lovely, super lovely.

[Garnet]

Nola - Oh, yay! I'm always really excited when someone reads my stuff even if they don't know the fandom, so thank you much! And haha, I agree. I love politeness, especially when it's slightly out of place with an otherwise rough and tumble character like Bigby -- like, where the hell did he pick that up?

Although he does still obviously have a garbage mouth. I'm glad you enjoy!

Grey on a Sunday - Awesome! I'm fairly new to the Fables and TWAU fandom, so I'm glad that I'm on the right track, at least. I'm just riding this wave and seeing where it goes.

(Also, yisss, that huffing and puffing It's such a silly concept, I don't know why it amuses me so much)

Aaand here's part three. Enjoy!

----------------

They spent the bulk of the day chasing far less satisfying leads. Trails gone cold, fables that had relocated, similar incidents but with conflicting descriptions. Either there was a citywide conspiracy to keep this one in the air, or the interesting tidbits had already come through her office.

The angry snarl of traffic was an uphill battle all the way to Springheeled Jack's consignment shop, one of the last stops on their route. Snow had been in better moods, as had Bigby. She could feel his frustration bubbling behind the ugly, clotted sound of every stifled cough, or the pinch of his fingers squelching each sneeze into submission. That was happening with increasing frequency, which did no favors for her distress. Partially it was for the threat of massive, public property damage if he let one get away from him, yet also for the sheriff's own health. Maybe even moreso. He almost always looked run down, vaguely annoyed with the world and everyone in it, but a sick Bigby, she discovered, was an entirely different beast. His dreading, irritated grimaces just before hiding his face in both hands and seizing up like he'd taken a punch to the gut were putting spikes of worry in her heart. The dazed looks afterwards, occasionally accompanied by a furtive sidelong glance at her, just drove them deeper.

"...h--chdt!"

There was a pause, a croaky "scuse me", and they fell back into a strange silence. She couldn't take much more of this.

Get it together, Snow, she berated herself, every time she was tempted to reach for his arm and steady him. She didn't think she had a maternal bone in her body, where the hell had this come from. It's just a cold, there are more important things to worry about.

And so there were.

"Out of business, really?" Springheeled Jack sighed, pushing a hand back through his greasy, limp hair.

"Ostensibly," Bigby growled. Snow didn't think he meant to, his voice had just grown so thick and deep with congestion that every word carried a slight snarl to it now. "Know anything about that?"

"No, I... I been using her for years. Shit, I can't afford anyone else if I get hit," he worried, though he, at least, still looked reassuringly human. An ugly human, but human all the same.

"If you had to, who would you go to?" Snow pressed.

Springheeled Jack looked shifty. "I uh... The Woodlands, right?" He said, clearly hoping this was the correct answer.

"Who would you really go to?"

His shoulders went slack with a defeated sigh. "I dunno. Isidora, I guess. She's pretty middle of the road, price-wise, good quality spells. So I hear."

Snow and Bigby exchanged a glance. "We could hit her up next."

It was long past dark by the time they made it out of Jack's shop. Her nerves were frayed enough by then that she stooped to bumming a cigarette off of her partner in the alley just beyond his irregularly flashing neon sign.

"You don't smoke," he said suspiciously, as he lit it for her.

"Not anymore," Snow agreed, leaning against the wall next to him. "I quit, so I can have one."

Bigby chuckled roughly at the wry turn of her mouth, so obviously lying to herself. "Yeah, I think that's how it starts."

She doubted it would impact their lifespans much.

"This is disgusting," she said after the first drag. "You know they make better ones, right?"

"Brand loyalty." He was quiet again, but after a while prompted, "Why'd you ask Springheel about other enchanters? Considering a business angle?"

"That's exactly what I was considering," Snow agreed with some surprise. At least he hadn't lost any of his detective acumen, under the cold occluding his other senses. "It'd be a pretty extreme measure just to try and corner the market, but with the 13th Floor so empty lately, maybe they figured they could get away with it."

"Mmm."

She coughed on a raw, bitter lungful of Huff & Puff. "There are so many other angles too, though. I'm assuming it's a fable, and not a mundy who somehow found out which strings to pull that raise the curtains. But that's a possibility."

"Could be one of those radicals," Bigby gruffed. "You know, no glamour, live naturally bullshit. They usually out themselves sooner or later, though, when they figure out their theory isn't so great in practice."

"I wish we had more to go on."

Bigby shrugged his agreement. "We probably won't find anything else out tonight, it's just legwork. You can go back to the office if you want, I'll check out Isidora's."

"Maybe," Snow agreed reluctantly. It wouldn't take him that long, and there might be some relevant information that had actually been channeled through the proper sources, if Bufkin wasn't too deep into his cups. It was also probably better for everyone's sanity if she put some distance between them to sort out the unexpected influx of emotions about a sick old dog.

... speaking of which. She winced as Bigby leaned hard away from her with a shivery, shallow breath. The crook of an arm fit to his nose and mouth, pressing just hard enough to backfire the oncoming storm into his sinuses.

"Hh-... cht!" It was an awful, pinched sound, and yet still managed to tie up all the energy he didn't have to spare. "Hh-huh...huh! ...-chdssh!"

He gave his head a groggy shake after that one, as if on the recovery. There was a haziness still softening the edge of his features, however, nostrils still crinkled open for want of another. Snow tried not to stare.

"... are you done?"

"M'fine," Bigby muttered, ashing his cigarette distractedly. He looked vaguely embarrassed.

"Because you don't look done."

His brow knotted and he started to protest with a wavering, "I'm--...", but lost it halfway there. He inhaled enormously, warning enough for Snow to flatten herself against the wall, before...

"--HHRRSSSSHHHHHhhoo!"

He'd angled himself away from her, but she still felt the backdraft of that one, as the stagnant evening air formed a temporary vortex down the length of the alley. Fortunately, the sidestreet seemed to be mostly empty, although she heard the distant bang of a trash can toppling over somewhere at the opposite end. No shattered windows or released fire escapes, that was something, but it still shot her right past anxious and fretful and into panicked. Her heart rate thrummed with adrenaline.

"Jesus, Bigby!"

"Sorry," he growled, knuckling miserably at one eye that was clearly trying to water from the irritation.

"Someone could have seen that!"

"Then let's hope it was a crack addict," he snuffled thickly, dropping his cigarette under one toe so he could use both hands to rub his face. He was killing her.

"You said you had it under control."

"Fuck's sake, Snow," he snarled at last, redirecting his frustrations on her so abruptly that she was a little taken aback. "I feel godawful, and I'm packing a wind tunnel in each lung, here. Cut me some fucking slack."

The tidal heat of anger rose up her throat and then died again before it could form into anything that would quick. Instead, she just pulled her arms in tight to herself and felt small. That wasn't like him, it took a lot to ruffle the sheriff.

She took a weak drag of the cigarette, glad it hadn't extinguished in the draft, because now she definitely needed it.

Fortunately, Bigby seemed immediately repentant for the flash-in-the-pan outburst, hanging his head with a sigh and pushing a hand back through his hair. "Shit, I'm sorry, Snow. I didn't mean to snap."

Snow ground out the smoke underfoot to give herself a few moments to recompose. "It's alright, I was egging you on," she admitted, shifted her weight uncertainly for a second, and then finally reached to bridge the gap between them. He flinched only for a splitsecond, then let himself go loose with relief as her palm curved to his brow. Hot to the touch. Well, that explained a few things. "Bigby, you have a fever," she frowned.

"I run kind of hot," he muttered in his defense, but his eyes were closed and shoulders sagged, as if her hand in place was the locus of his whole universe, and he could drop at her feet right now. It was slightly disconcerting to feel that much control over a person, but Snow couldn't bring herself to break contact.

"Not this hot. God, why didn't you say anything? You should be home and in bed, not running all over the damned city."

He cracked his eyes open at her with logy amusement. Snow realized that her thumb had begun idly caressing his hairline, and hastily she recalled it back to her side, fingers twitching.

"Didn't know you cared," he said, in his typical deadpan, although she sensed a certain, reluctant measure of truth there.

"Of course I care." She paused, wetting her lips, and reflected on the general course of the day in all of its impatience, restless sidelong looks, and grit teeth. She tried to remember if she'd even blessed him, or if Bigby was man who cared about being blessed. "I... was trying not to hover," she confessed. "I may have overcompensated too far in the opposite direction."

"You don't have to mollycoddle me, Snow. I'm a big boy," he shrugged off her atonement, sniffling thickly. He stepped away from her, reached for the handkerchief, and sighed after a moment of trying to salvage some usable part of it. He resigned it back to a pocket.

"Big wolf," she corrected, the corners of her mouth upturning. She bent her head to her purse, sifting through it until she came up with a little plastic travel pack of tissues. Mundy inventions were so endlessly useful. "And I'm a little worried if you think paying attention to your health for five seconds is mollycoddling. Here." She pressed the tissues upon him, but gave him the benefit of pretending to close her purse back up as he turned away to make use of them.

"I'm not going to convince you to go home early and not follow the last lead for the night, am I?" She sighed, when he'd recovered with a relieved wrinkle and relax to his nose.

"Nope."

"Then at least get off your feet for a while. If I'm going to burn the midnight oil, I'm going to need sustenance," she said. "When was the last time you ate?"

"Uh..." He scratched his jaw uncertainly with a soft, sandpaper sound against the grit of beard.

"Too long ago," she responded for him, based on the length of time he had to think about the answer. "You're terrible at this, Bigby."

"Yeah, I don't get sick much," he admitted, looking uncomfortable.

His demeanor improved with food, as it always did, despite that he seemed determined to live solely on beer and cigarettes. There was a Jewish deli three blocks down, where she bought them both sandwiches. A peace offering, of sorts. They ate companionably at the counter facing the windowed storefront, watching the city life teem past in slips and streams. There was a certain comfort in the mundanity of it, and she found herself half wishing that there wasn't a case looming over their heads. She had friends, certainly, but no fable who had seen the end of their own story was unfamiliar with that deep, abiding loneliness. Moments like these helped.

Bigby was quiet as he worked through his hot pastrami with half-lidded eyes. Snow tried not to over-think his attraction to warm, rare meat dripping with juices as she ate her turkey. They were all of them different people now, and many of them tried to be better, perhaps none so hard as Bigby, but there would always be a point where the conscious decisions of morality ended and instinct began.

"We can try again tomorrow, maybe more fables will have filtered through by then."

"I'd rather prevent that first," Bigby said. "But even having the scent's not gonna do me much good if I can't keep my head clear."

He licked a stray drip from the pad of his thumb, then turned his head into the opposite hand. As if to emphasize his point, he scrunched his nose against the press of knuckles for several hard, itching seconds. Snow watched him nervously for the duration, trying not to make obvious her attention. When his breathing switching from an annoyed huff into a waver, she took three paper napkins from the dispenser and slid them down the counter to him.

"Please, please, please don't blow this whole window out," she murmured, trying for some humor.

Bigby accepted the napkins with some chagrin, and bent aside to blow his nose. He was as careful as he could possibly be, but she still discreetly scanned over his shoulder and hers, sizing up the situation and the possible outcomes. Fortunately, the neutral option seemed to win out as he picked his head back up, stable and a little less stuffy.

"I'm okay. Better lay off that pepper, though."

Snow nudged the plastic shakers cautiously to the other end of the counter. "Duly noted."

They mulled over their coffee until it cooled, throwing theories back and forth, as many as they dared while in public. When the late dinner crowd began to abate, Bigby crumpled their trash and dismissed it to one of the receptacles, before following her out into the street. He had a cigarette lit almost before they hit pavement.

"Do you really need to dull your senses if you've already got a cold?" She observed, watching the silver trail of smoke curl and dissipate over one shoulder.

"Nope. This is a nicotine fix," he said, citing it as if it wasn't the reason most mundies smoked to begin with. He pulled a deep drag and exhaled it again, almost petulant as he looked at her. "Incidental side effect."

"I bet." She rubbed both hands over her face, and wondered if that was a habit she was starting to pick up from him. "I'll head back to the Woodlands, see if anyone left me messages. You're sure you're okay to check out Isidora's?"

Bigby nodded dismissively. "Been doin' this for decades, Snow, with a lot worse than a cold," he reminded her.

"I know, I know, but I've never seen you with --... " She slowed to match his pace as it began to lag. He'd drifted off the main thoroughfare, and had that foggy look of irritation again.

"Bigby?"

"Christ," he growled. "I'd like to go twenty fuckin' minutes without... heh... withou'...." His voice trailed off, evidence of the sneeze finally catching up with him. A free hand patted down his pockets with blind desperation. Cursing, Snow dug into her purse in the very likely event that he didn't have a scrap of tissue left on him. In the end, neither of them made it in time, and Bigby was forced to seize the wide spread of his nostrils closed between a thumb and forefinger.

"Huh-- ... mzsh!" It was a truly pathetic sound compared to the literal hurricane force of his unrestrained sneeze. Snow knotted her fingers together regretfully, hating that he had to do it as his lip snarled up again. "Huh--...mtssh!"

He picked his head up for a second, a hand hovering in front of his nose, and squinted at Snow as if seeing her through a fog. She took a step towards him, worried, but he reflexively stepped away from her, bringing both hands up to stifle the next series of four sneezes into near silence. She would have missed them altogether if not for the quick dip of his body and his red face as he held them back in his sinuses, tiny little congested blips of sound.

She was genuinely concerned that he was going to topple over when the fit passed, but the color slowly faded from his face as he breathed and gained his bearings. She finally managed to recover the almost-empty packet of tissues and let him scavenge the rest of its contents, trying not to call too much attention to the little episode.

"Scuse me."

"Bless you." She couldn't help herself, and looked at him nervously as he blew the suppressed congestion from his nose. "I'm genuinely afraid you're going to pop a blood vessel, doing that."

"It's either that or be knocking over every hot dog cart and newspaper stand on the corner, then we'd have even more shit to deal with," he snuffled, tucking the tissue into a pocket. "I can take a few licks."

She resisted the urge to rub between his shoulders, though she surprised herself with the compulsion. Instead, she settled for touching a hand to his arm, which he seemed to register with confused pleasure anyway, gauging from the pink rising to his cheeks again. How one fable could simultaneously be such a snarling, ill-tempered, walking disaster and also unbearably cute was beyond her.

"I'm going to head back, then," she said, reluctantly. "Don't be long, alright? And report in to me when you get in."

"An hour, tops," Bigby agreed. They parted at the street corner, where she paused to hail a cab.

"Be careful. With yourself."

"Always am."

"If by always you mean never," she sighed. Her hands hovered uncomfortably, wanting to occupy themselves with something, but not yet committed to a point in their relationship where they casually touched one another without thinking anything of it. After an awkward pause, she reached to straighten his tie just as a taxi rolled to a stop at the curb. "I mean it."

Bigby blinked in muzzy confusion, though he was smiling vaguely. That was something. "Bye, Snow."

The Woodlands was just as quiet when she returned, although Snow was relieved to see that there was no line outside her office. After unlocking the door, Bufkin was nowhere to be found. Likely sleeping off a hangover somewhere in the rafters. He had, however, recorded her a few messages on her desk, and she was both dismayed and relieved to find that at least two of them were pertaining to missing glamours.

She put on a pot of coffee, and settled herself for an evening of paperwork and phonecalls.

It was nearly midnight by the time she got through them all, and she'd still seen neither hide nor hair of Bigby. She considered the enormous grandfather clock off to her left, and rubbed her temples. She wasn't sure if she was going to kill him or be ecstatic, if he'd slipped right past her and actually gone to bed. She tried not to worry. Bigby was more than capable of handling himself against Fabletown's toughest customers, she knew that inherently. And yet.

That niggling thought didn't go away even after she let herself back out of the office and up to her apartment. It gestated in the back of her mind as she made another pot of decaf, and stood broodily looking out at the city from her window, with a mug steaming between her hands. He was fine. Bigby was always fine. She still couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss.

Maybe she should go up to his apartment to check.

Just as she was resolving to this idea, there was a sudden, terrific crash from the hall outside, as if someone has just bowled a bison down its length. A riot of frantic scratching sounds followed, rattling her door on its hinges. Panic took hold as she set the coffee cup down before it slipped from her hand and shattered, and she wobbled quickly for the door. She chanced a look through the peephole, and her heart skipped into her throat at what she saw. She couldn't wrench the door open fast enough.

In the hall outside her apartment stood an eight hundred pound wolf, filling most of the hall with its bulk. Blood spattered on the carpet beneath it and ribs heaving with deep, rattling pants for breath, as if it had just cleared most of the city in one long run. Its eyes glowed a brilliant, supernatural gold, and its tongue lolled between a set of fangs that kept naughty fable children quaking in their beds at night, for fear of being gobbled up in their hold. It had been a long time since she'd seen this.

"Bigby!"

His sides compressed with a barking cough, and then in a deep and feral timber, he spoke, "I got good news and bad news."

Edited July 26, 2014 by Garnet

[SterlingSilver]

Okay, I don't even know what I'm reading right now, but it's Garnet fiction. So it's automatically my favorite xDD

Seriously, I don't even know these characters, but they are SO real to me <33. You capture them wish such delicacy! And I don't know how you do it, but you manage to come up with new ways to describe sneezing, nose-blowing, and buildups EVERY. TIME. GUH~ *shot through the heart*

I'm going to go read up on this fandom, so I'll be able to fully absorb the rest of this fic <33

Amazing job, Garnet, just amazing. One day I want to gain at least 1/10 of your talent as a writer <33

[Anonymouse]

I loved these last two chapters, especially the lady early in part two setting him off with the perfume

He allowed himself the pleasure of a deep, aching inhale, powerful enough that she had to quickly slap a hand down to prevent the list of names from going flying. It must have made it doubly frustrating, however, to turn away and stifle the fallout in a series of miserably unsatisfying squeaks.

"the pleasure of a deep, aching inhale" HOW DO YOU PHRASE THINGS SO PERFECTLY. And the force of his inhale and the little stifled doggie fit that follows... I'm honestly impressed he was able to stifle that many without letting any slide.

"Don't bother," Bigby muttered, rubbing his nose through the handkerchief. "She's-- ... hhhuh..." He breathed out warily, eyelids fluttering as he eventually seemed to irritate a nerve. Snow cased the area immediately, prickling with worry. Lots of clutter, thin walls, exposed wiring. Breakable things. She wondered how mortified Bigby would be if she hit the floor and covered her head preemptively.

UNF. This fic doesn't hit my fetishy buttons, it annihilates them with a sledgehammer.

He gave his head a groggy shake after that one, as if on the recovery. There was a haziness still softening the edge of his features, however, nostrils still crinkled open for want of another. Snow tried not to stare.

"... are you done?"

"M'fine," Bigby muttered, ashing his cigarette distractedly. He looked vaguely embarrassed.

"Because you don't look done."

His brow knotted and he started to protest with a wavering, "I'm--...", but lost it halfway there. He inhaled enormously, warning enough for Snow to flatten herself against the wall, before...

"--HHRRSSSSHHHHHhhoo!"

This entire exchange, and then the sneeze of course...

The almost-sneeze at the deli, exacerbated by the pepper was also :dribble:

How one fable could simultaneously be such a snarling, ill-tempered, walking disaster and also unbearably cute was beyond her.

ehehehee I wonder the same thing <3333

Two more parts to look forward to!! Can't wait! And he wolfed out at the end omg shit's going down.

[AppleBlossom]

Oh my gosh! It just keeps getting bigger and better haha! It was only halfway through this chapter, I realised I was reading through my fingers with all of the heartwarming interactions between my favourite couple! The way you write those two are spectacular, I can only dream of writing in the way you do!

I'm almost upset at how we are halfway through the story, but I certain I will enjoy very word of it!

Edited July 26, 2014 by AppleBlossom

[GeldingWest]

Holy poop! This is so freaking awesome! Love this story so so so much! Can't wait to read some more! <3

[*Dark_Side*]

All I'm going to say is that this story is so good that it should definitely be illegal

[Nola]

Oh my....I was going to go and do what I did last time and highlight my favorite parts, but there are too many! He's so grumpy and and miserable and just uuuhhghh...and I love Snow's sort of nonchalant caring, like she does, but she doesn't say too, too much about it. That's just my favorite kind of concern.

But this part, I don;t even know why, but it's so good...so I had to quote it!

"You don't smoke," he said suspiciously, as he lit it for her.

"Not anymore," Snow agreed, leaning against the wall next to him. "I quit, so I can have one."

Bigby chuckled roughly at the wry turn of her mouth, so obviously lying to herself. "Yeah, I think that's how it starts."

And I don't even like smoking!

[Garnet]

BlackScatter - B'aww, my heart! You are so nice, that means a lot to me! And oh my gosh, yes. Please jump in on the fandom. Hell, I recommend that anyone plays through The Wolf Among Us, it doesn't take long and I really love Telltale Games's style of storytelling and animation.

Anonymouse - Ahhh yay! So glad you're still reading! And your fetish buttons must be my fetish buttons because I'm just wailing on mine carelessly and not giving a damn. Viva indulgence 8)

The forceful inhales are a particular new favorite of mine, I have your little fic to thank for that!

AppleBlossom - Oh gosh, yeah. I love them together. The actual relationship in the Fables comics get a much more awkward and rushed start than I'd prefer, so I'm just kind of going off into my own AU tangent here because argh. My feelings.

And no worries, I'm still very much enjoying the setting and still reading through the comics, so I'm sure there will be at least some drabbles and mini-fics still to come.

MadWonder13 - Thank you so much, I'm so glad you're reading!

*Dark_Side* - The things I want to do to Bigby should probably be illegal, so it all works out :x Thank you!

Nola - You are lovely, ahhh! Thank you! Grumpy miserable antiheroes are my weakness, I confess. And I love Snow White's no nonsense, all business classiness, but I love it even more when it fractures and she shows some softness.

And finally, here's the next part! WARNING: The sneezing is a little light in this part, and what there is is done by a (sentient, talking) animal. So if that's not your bag, uh. Skip that part. I'll make up for it in the conclusion.

Enjoy!

--------------------------------

"Are you blee-- is that your blood? Get in here," Snow strung a few half-sensible sentences together, and hoped for clarity.

It wasn't an easy fit. She would later size up the width of her door and the breadth of his chest and wonder how he'd squeezed through at all. But soon enough there was a wolf of unusual size filling every bit of her living room, his ears nearly touching the ceiling and blood dripping onto her carpet. Oh.

She'd worry about it later.

For the time being, Snow White felt flushed with enough exhilaration and relief and anger that her head went a little giddy, and she was suddenly hooking both arms around his neck and burying her face into his thick pelt. Bigby went rigid with surprise for a few seconds, then slowly let the slack back out of his muscles and sank into her embrace. He was a furnace under the fur.

"Hey, Snow." She felt his speech rumble through his chest.

"That was more than an hour." She expecting to be embarrassed with herself for the loss of composure, but instead found her fingers threading deeper into his fur, gripping thick handfuls as she centered herself. She didn't look at him yet, too busy memorizing the scent of cigarette and city that still clung to his fur. Somewhere deep beneath, she imagined that she could still smell the fresh pine and deep snow of the Homelands. The pang of nostalgia was so unexpected it was almost painful. "I was starting to worry."

"Just starting, huh?" The wolf chuckled deeply, though it turned into the heave of another cough. His lungs thundered with sound close to her ear, and she was glad that he corralled it behind the snarl of teeth before it could punch a hole through her wall. "I'm okay," he said. Paused. "Might be an overstatement, but I'm alive. Just got the glamour knocked outta me."

She pulled back to look him in the eye.

"How is that? You don't have a glamour."

"That's what I thought. Beats the fuck out of me."

And yet here they were. She couldn't recall the last time she'd even seen this form, resigned to that same blurry span of time as his last illness, the vague before of decades or centuries. It was impossible to ever truly forget the wolf inside the man, when every growl or brutish expression of id betrayed him. But to see it unshackled and panting in her living room was something very different, and very strange. The last time they'd met like this, she probably hadn't wanted to scratch behind his ears, either.

"Did anyone see...? Bigby, what happened?"

With a deep grunt, the wolf eased onto his haunches, wincing at the spots of blood soaking into the carpet.

"Ah, shit."

"Some hydrogen peroxide will get it out, don't worry about it. Are you okay?"

"Spoken like someone who's done this before," Bigby rumbled approvingly. "Nothing that won't heal on its own in an hour or so. And no, nobody saw me, I just cut over from the Park. I took the roofs. Nobody ever thinks to look up."

Snow White took stock of his wounds while he spoke. It seemed worse than it was. Several wet, sticky patches in his fur suggested that he'd taken a few bullets, the slugs either having exited the other side or lodged somewhere internally. He wasn't coughing up blood or swollen in the abdomen, so they'd likely missed any organs. Bigby could bounce back from quite a bit, as she'd seen firsthand.

"You missed all the fun," he said bitterly, as she inspected a long, jagged gash on a foreleg that was thicker around than her thighs. The cut was already beginning to stitch itself back together. "I caught the same scent on Wampus's evidence about twenty minutes after you left, spent most of the night circling downtown trying to pinpoint it. I kept losing it."

"Nose too stuffy?"

"That was only part of it," Bigby admitted, craning his head to watch as she inspected his leg. His paws were the size of dinner plates, she couldn't resist holding her palm against the rough pad of one as she tested its flexion. "It fluctuated a lot, like he was altering it on purpose. I guess he figured out I was tailing him, anyway, because he caught up to me in the Park and jumped me first."

"Did you get a look at him?"

"Yeah. He didn't match Wampus's description at all. Big guy, dark hair. I roughed him until he pulled the piece on me, took me by surprise. I should've smelled it on him. He shot me... three, four times, then fucked me up pretty good when I was down. Then came the magical jewelry."

"Oh, no," Snow groaned, as frustrated by the cliche of it all as she was upset about the turn of events. She lowered his foot again.

"Oh, yes."

"If it was an amulet, I'll scream."

"Well, try not to blow my ears out. Cheap looking thing, like something you'd find at The Lucky Pawn. The stories matched up from there -- flash of green light about knocked me out, suddenly I'm a lot hairier than usual, and he's long gone."

"That's so strange. If it's not removing glamours, maybe it's blocking any access to a human shape, somehow?" She sighed, dropping her head into her hands. "Dammit."

She felt the press of his nose nudging against her stomach, more like a guilty dog than a once-upon-a-time vicious and maneating fable in his own right. "My fault for losing him."

"It's not your fault," she corrected, taking his jaw fearlessly in both hands. Historically, there weren't many people who wanted to be that close to the business end of his snout, but Snow White had barely a thought for the teeth. "You can't go chasing him around the city looking like this."

Bigby made a snuffling sound of agreement that installed a new level of unease in her subconscious.

"Annnd you're still sick," she observed, as she examined his runny eyes and nose.

"Which brings its own cadre of problems, in this shape."

"Should I be concerned for the structural integrity of my living room?"

"More like the whole building," Bigby muttered, pushing his snout through her palms until they rested along its bridge. Her thumbs brushed where the fur grew short and soft, tracing the tiny creases where it wrinkled like velvet for a snarl. "Holding them back is a hell of a lot harder without hands."

Not for the first time tonight, she felt a pang of sympathy that the most irritatingly persistent symptom of a headcold was the one he couldn't afford to indulge. The frustration must only be compounding his misery.

"Well, my hands are at your ready disposable."

Bigby exhaled a sigh that fluttered her blouse and the ends of her hair, his eyes heavy. "I'd turn that into innuendo if I wasn't so fucking tired."

"Then you can take a rain check on the accompanying slap, too."

He whuffed with something that sounded like amusement, and she finally gave in to the compulsion of scratching behind the ears. Just in case she didn't get a chance to do this for another fifty years. That seemed to make his legs give out as he sank slowly to his belly and then flopped over onto his side with a groan, leaning into her hand. His eyes rolled shut in pleasure, one paw drawn to his chest and the tip of his tail thumping gently like a puppy. There was a certain addictive quality to being able to undo the Big Bad Wolf of legend at fingertip, a sense of power that she reminded herself not to get too attached to.

Bigby seemed to come back to himself as soon as she stopped, blinking his eyes open as if in bewilderment about how he ended up on the floor. Radiating vague embarrassment, he climbed back to his feet and gave himself a good, thorough shake from nose to tail. Snow mentally resigned herself to vacuuming up wolf hair for days.

"Uh. Sorry."

"For what?" She smiled, brushing herself off. "I'm just exploiting your weaknesses. Don't worry, I'll take your secret to my grave."

"You're a good woman, Snow."

"I know. In any case, we'd better get this fixed before anything else. At least temporarily. I... suppose back alley glamour dealers will have to be what we resort to, now."

"Who's closest?"

Snow thought for a moment. "Bella Blackbriar?"

"She closed up shop six months ago."

"Uncle Tuppens?"

"Moved to the other side of the city. Shacked up with some new wife. Young, pretty. It'd be a haul to get over there, if he even answered the door."

Snow eyed him. "Why do you know all the gossip that I don't?"

The big wolf moved his shoulders in a shrug. Fable animals' body languages tended to be a mix of human and their own species. It was always just a bit disarming. "I work the seedy underbelly, you work the civilized end of things."

"That's debatable," she muttered. "You never made it to Isidora's, did you?" Bigby shook his head and muffled another cough behind his teeth. "Think we can get over there undetected?"

"Assuming I don't have to sneeze again? Yeah, it's down in SoHo but I think we can avoid most of the night life. It smelled like rain coming in, that ought to keep most people indoors."

"Just what we need," Snow sighed, with only a smidge of sarcasm.

The stairwell was more accommodating to his massive dimensions than the elevator, even if she thought they would meet the weight requirements. The alarm for the rooftop exit had already been stifled, as if in the crush of enormous jaws, and the slightly-too-narrow frame had been cracked and bowed down to the drywall. So that more or less answered how he'd gotten in.

"Maintenance is going to hate you."

"I'll be surprised if they don't have a hit out for me, by the time I shake this cold," Bigby snorted, then trotted to the edge of the roof and gauged the descent. A series of fire escapes wended gradually down the side of the building, though she wasn't confident that even the wrought iron would support the weight of his drop. "We'll go across. Can you keep up?"

Snow pushed the hair from her eyes. "Across the rooftops? No, Bigby. I'm not a grasshopper."

The huge wolf crouched down, and lowered his head. "Get on."

She took a bewildered step towards him, reaching a hand out without truly processing the command. "I... what?"

"You can ride a horse, can't you?"

"Of course, but--..."

"Good, this is nothing like that. C'mon, it's faster."

"This stays between us," she warned him tentatively, gripping a thick handful of fur on his neck and pulling herself up between his shoulders. He was right, it wasn't anything like seating a horse, and the lack of tack was only the beginning of her problems. "How should I..."

"Believe it or not, I'm not eager to share how I let the gentry ride me like a pony either. Just hang on tight, you can't hurt me."

He lurched into motion before she was quite sure of herself, and by then Snow had no choice but to lay low against his spine and hope for the best.

To Bigby's credit, traveling by wolf was much faster than taking a cab or the subway, even if the option had been available to them. It didn't make it any less terrifying. At their first running leap between buildings, her stomach nearly dropped out, and she had to bite down hard on her tongue to keep from screaming. She tasted blood when they landed, but the city was already blurring past as Bigby loped ahead, paws eating up the gravel and building momentum for the next jump. No doubt there were a few penthouse apartments whose residents expected a plane turbine to crash through their roof at any moment, but they were moving fast enough to avoid any detection. She wrenched her hands tightly in his fur, arms as far around his neck as they would go, and clamped her knees to his sides so hard she was sure she was hindering his breathing, and yet each time she felt sure she was about to go flying off and land in a dirty alley somewhere.

The things they did for Fabletown.

It took less than ten minutes to clear Clinton and Hell's Kitchen, but the weather was still quicker. A drizzle progressed to a shower, and finally pelting droplets that engendered an overwhelming smell of wet dog. She could barely see a thing even in the light pollution of Manhattan, and squinted as Bigby hurtled off a squat tenement building and hit the ground on all fours. She found herself measurably more nervous on street level than she was jumping the gaps, and scanned for any potential onlookers. They were sequestered for the moment in an abandoned construction lot. Scaffolding and cranes blocked out an eerie silhouette against the rainy sky.

"Are we there?"

"Almost. You okay?"

"I think I left most of my gumption back on 42nd, but yes. I'm fine, just wet." She sat up nervously, feeling the wolf's side heave beneath her thighs as he panted for breath. "Didn't get his scent again, did you?" She asked, half-hopeful that they could clear this whole mess up with one trip.

"I wish. The rain makes every smell stronger, but it also blurs them together. Like a shitty watercolor painting." He put his nose to the air for a few seconds in an effort to test it. Snow stiffened in alarm when he wrinkled his snout and brought his head back down, snorting hard enough that she felt it through his whole body. Loose litter scattered across the empty lot.

"Ah, hell."

"Bigby?"

"Yeah," he grunted distractedly, giving his head a bleary shake and attempting to clear his nose with another violent exhale. It brought with it a sudden, hitching break in his breath. "Huh...! Fuck, gimme a seh--..."

"Oh, god, Bigby. Don't."

He didn't appear to hear her, or else couldn't react beyond the part of his jaws and the tight, twitching crinkle of his nose, too sensitive and raw and overworked to fight this one off. "You'd better s--h-huh... ! Stand back."

"Wait, wait, let me get off," Snow urged, but she got the words out only as he was swelling with a deep breath. Tarps fluttered wildly in the backdraft, and she could feel his chest expand between her legs. Maybe the ground was a bad place to be. It seemed to be shaking, or else that was Bigby. Reconsidering, she held on tighter as he worked through a gusting build-up, and finally put her head down just as he erupted with a massive sneeze.

"--HH'WHFFHHSSHHHHHhh!!"

It was a little like watching and feeling a cannon explode. Wet dirt leapt and scattered with an impressive spray, revealing the long tract blasted across the ground. Across the lot, a stack of reinforced concrete pipes rolled and clanked dangerously, and a few tarps vanished, airborn, into the night sky.

Worse, he didn't appear to be finished. His head tipped back and jaws worked miserably for a few seconds, evidence of an unrelieved tickle still fluttering somewhere in his expansive sinuses. She prayed any mundies still out wandering the streets would chalk it up to some late night demolitions, because this was going to be...

"--HRRRHSSSZHHHHHOO!!"

The detonation of the second sent the pipes skidding and rolling across the muddy ground, and a level of the scaffolding buckling under the force. There was a terrific crash of metal and plywood. In alarm Snow saw a few lights turn on in neighboring buildings. From the other side of the plastic sheet fencing that separated the site from the street, someone shouted.

"Go go go," she hissed, swatting his shoulder, and didn't have to tell him twice.

Bigby ducked into the skeleton of the half-finished apartment building, dodging steel beams and still recovering as he clenched with a tic-ing "HPFFSH!" of a snort once or twice, just enough to keep her heart rate a buzz of terror.

Fortunately, he made good tracks, and fled out the other side of the lot without detection. They rattled mounted to the rooftops again at the next available launchpad of a closed dumpster, Snow cursing a steady stream of obscenities.

Bigby was panting out something in between breaths. She only picked it up only when their pace began to slow minutes later, a heaving and repetitive "sorry" as he ran. She rubbed the back of his neck, dizzy with adrenaline, still a little shaken.

"It's -- Bigby, stop. Promise me you won't get sick again for another century or so, and I'll keep that off the books."

He barked something that might have been a laugh or a cough and slowly, slowly eased to a trot. They circled SoHo in the rain like that for a few minutes, before something finally seemed to strike him as familiar. They were both wholly drenched and filthy by the time they leapt down into one of Manhattan's sparsely placed back alleys, where a single neon sign flashed with a stylized mortar and pestle. Beneath it, the script spelled out Isidora's Fortunes and Herbology. Also, to her relief, a small subtext that flashed 24/7.

"That's the place."

Snow dismounted at last and cracked her back with a wince. She dreaded the state her muscles were going to be in tomorrow. It had been year since she'd seated a horse and she still remembered the searing pain in her ass the next day. This would be fun.

"You alright?"

"Might need to schedule an appointment with a chiropractor next week, that's all," Snow smiled wanly, and approached the nondescript green metal door. There were no shopfront windows or any other signs to be seen. Before she could knock, it came open, and a small, teetering old man wobbled out. She stepped back quickly while silently willing her companion to retreat into the shadows. Even if this man was a fable, there were very, very few among them who enjoyed the sight of Bigby in all his wolfish glory.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Quite alright, I was just--..." The old man started, and stopped, staring past her. He adjusted his glasses.

Snow White closed her eyes in exasperation, and was about to cook up an excuse on the spot when all at once, Bigby pounced.

A shriek rose in her throat automatically as the huge wolf leapt forward and seized the man by his shoulder, teeth closing all the way to his chest.

"Jesus, Bigby!"

He ignored her and began whipping the man back and forth, shaking him like a terrier with a rag toy to a chorus of cracking sounds, cries of protest and pain. The door beside Snow White swung open again, nearly clocking her as a tall, older woman hustled out to see the commotion.

"Fenwick!"

"For God's sake, get him off me!"

Snow was a heartbeat away from stepping in to pry Bigby's jaws open herself, when before her eyes, the image of the frail old man began to slip and waver. Like a flimsy paper veil, the visual distorted, crumpled, until in its place Bigby was wildly thrashing Wampus back and forth. And then a tall, burly man with dark hair. And a small ginger one. Red Hen's portly shape, and finally a thin, ugly little goblin with a long tail and jagged teeth, wearing a ridiculously oversized green amulet. He screeched like a canary.

"Mangy mongrel!" It howled. "Isidora!"

The woman had by now drawn a wand from somewhere on her person and was curling its knotted shape in a sigil pattern over her head. Snow White's eyes widened, and she seized the woman's arm, yanking it to the side just as a bolt of magic cracked into the alley wall opposite with concussive force. It missed Bigby by a foot. She hoped the witch had a wide berth of enchantment concealing her property from mundy eyes.

Bigby dropped the goblin with a snarl, and lunged for Isidora next, leaving Snow to swoop down before the little cretin made his escape.

"Bitch!" He yelped, scrambling for the amulet. "I'll take your glamour too!"

"Oh, please try," she snapped, and wrestled for a grip on his arms. The goblin displayed surprising strength even after being maimed, and landed a few good kicks and punches. Snow White was well-versed in fighting dirty, however. She didn't feel bad about yanking his ears and twisting until he screamed, then prying the necklace free with the opposite hand.

The was another blast of magic and the smell of singed fur, but even with the benefits of spells, there really wasn't much arguing with a half ton wolf. Bigby bit and wrenched the woman's arm hard enough that the wand went clattering across the alley, fortunately without a hand attached. Snow hustled to claim that too. The goblin reached for it at once, but she pinned him under one arm and held the other at length.

"That's one glamour you probably should have left intact," she told Fenwick, gesturing to Bigby. "Stop squirming or I'll feed you to him."

"You can't! I... the Amnesty!"

"Don't test me."

Fenwick went obediently still.

"What the hell is going on here," Bigby roared in the meantime, pinning Isidora under one paw and putting enough weight behind it that she was clearly having trouble breathing. Her hands shot up in surrender, easily cowed now that her weapon and her minion had been confiscated.

"Alright, alright!" She wheezed. "I give, it was never meant to go this far! Don't kill me!"

Edited August 6, 2014 by Garnet

[Anonymouse]

For the time being, Snow White felt flushed with enough exhilaration and relief and anger that her head went a little giddy, and she was suddenly hooking both arms around his neck and burying her face into his thick pelt. Bigby went rigid with surprise for a few seconds, then slowly let the slack back out of his muscles and sank into her embrace. He was a furnace under the fur.

She expecting to be embarrassed with herself for the loss of composure, but instead found her fingers threading deeper into his fur, gripping thick handfuls as she centered herself. She didn't look at him yet, too busy memorizing the scent of cigarette and city that still clung to his fur. Somewhere deep beneath, she imagined that she could still smell the fresh pine and deep snow of the Homelands. The pang of nostalgia was so unexpected it was almost painful.

Let's play how much of this can I copy and paste in a single comment. I really tried not to replicate every part I really liked because I'd just end up copying the whole goddamn thing, but these bits were incredibly well-written. Not many 'sneezefics' make me feel the feels I'm currently feeling. You convey the full spectrum of Snow's emotions - the pain of longing for home, her worry and relief over Bigby and seeing him in that state for the first time in years.

His lungs thundered with sound close to her ear, and she was glad that he corralled it behind the snarl of teeth before it could punch a hole through her wall.

Mmm dem deep, thundering coughs.

It was impossible to ever truly forget the wolf inside the man, when every growl or brutish expression of id betrayed him.

Loved this.

"I caught the same scent on Wampus's evidence about twenty minutes after you left, spent most of the night circling downtown trying to pinpoint it. I kept losing it."

"Nose too stuffy?"

ehehehehehee

"Should I be concerned for the structural integrity of my living room?"

"More like the whole building," Bigby muttered, pushing his snout through her palms until they rested along its bridge. Her thumbs brushed where the fur grew short and soft, tracing the tiny creases where it wrinkled like velvet for a snarl. "Holding them back is a hell of a lot harder without hands."

omg all that snout contact... And when she offers her hands I was half-hoping she was going to have to make good on her promise.

Bigby exhaled a sigh that fluttered her blouse and the ends of her hair, his eyes heavy. "I'd turn that into innuendo if I wasn't so fucking tired."

There's that breath again. Also omg!! and and at Bigby forgetting himself for a moment when Snow pets him. Way too cute. Can't deny those canine quirks.

Fable animals' body languages tended to be a mix of human and their own species. It was always just a bit disarming.

I feel like it's because they're more abstract than just being creatures - they're legends. Or... fables lol, that would be the word for it. Which is why I don't feel so weird about being into Bigby's sneezes in all forms (not that anyone who likes reading animal sneezes is weird, but it's unusual for me).

That roof jumping scene was freaking exhilarating. I could actually imagine what it would feel like to ride a giant wolf across rooftops. Even more exhilarating was what followed... Those explosive sneezes, and while Snow was still straddling him basically... dear God. And him apologizing as they fled (that whole scene had a 'sneezing while hiding (in the open)' vibe to it) and then immediately turning feral on Fenwick's ass. One of my favorite parts of the game was Bigby's potential for unbridled aggression and I'm so glad you included some of that.

[GeldingWest]

Oh frick yes Bigby is such a cute pup! Ahhh wolfie sneezes yess! I fricking loved everything about this chapter. Now I must go re-read it like 10,000 times....

[SterlingSilver]

Aw man Garnet, this is just great x'D.

You have a way of putting drama, humor, and fetishy goodness on a perfect balance! I laughed to myself when Bigby sneezed so hard he destroyed property, and then Snow is like, "All right, flee the scene!" xDDD. That's the best xDD. I absolutely love what you have done with this fandom, and I'm definitely going to give this game a try~

[Garnet]

Anonymouse - Ahhh, your reviews make me so happy! And I am very satisfied to induce feels. Although I don't usually write stuff with much action and plot, I am a big fan of character studies. And here you've got ones that have literal centuries of baggage to unpack, so I figure that's got to show up here and there.

Also ehehe snout contact. I actually did have a scene where she made good on her promise, but I couldn't end up fitting it in with the general progression of the plot so I nixed it. Maybe in a later drabble, though :q

And uh, right? I wish there were more opportunities to squish giant wolf time into the middle of NYC, because there is so much I could do with that.

MadWonder13 - I'm so glad! Wolfie sneezes, because why the hell not? I am such a filthy furry for Bigby, I swear. Thank you for reading!

BlackScatter - YAY I am excited, do let me know what you think if you check it out! And haha, thank you so much! I love reading stories that are a little more than just straight fetish indulgence, so I figured I should probably make good and try write something to that effect once in a while.

And now, last bit! Lots of caretaking. Enjoy, and thank you guys for reading an obscure-ish fandom! I'm sure I will end up doing more with these two dweebs eventually, either here or on the adult board.

--------------------

It was Friday evening by the time Snow White managed to extricate herself from the political and legal fall-out of the incident. After Isidora confessed to the curse that had bypassed a baker's dozen glamours, a thorough toss of the shop had yielded the missing enchanters as well, currently recovering from a short stint of being turned into frogs. Snow didn't like to be a bully, but she was admittedly glad for Bigby's heavy hand in the matter. Isidora was an old witch, and a talented one. Snow doubted her cooperation without an enforcer breathing down her neck and threatening to blow her entire shop apart.

Not that she'd be minding it for quite some time. She and Fenwick alike were spending some time cooling their heads in the detention cell below the Woodlands, until the mayor and the paperwork determined their fates. Fenwick was a bit stupid, and might get off with a sharp crack across the wrist and a trip upstate to the Farm, for hard labor. Isidora's punishment was a trickier one. Kidnapping, robbery and extortion aside, her crimes hadn't been serious enough to warrant a beheading. On the other hand, it was dangerous to let a rogue witch off easily. The whole thing was frankly giving her a headache. This came on top of Bluebeard nipping at her heels in his eagerness to deal with the prisoner in his own fashion, and her efforts to rein in King Cole's attention. Being one of the few competent people in the office was enough to make her long for a vacation. When was the last time she'd taken one? Before shipping over to the colonies?

She also hadn't seen Bigby in almost twenty-four hours, at least since the initial interrogation, and since Isidora had meekly lifted the stopgap on his lycanthropy. She worried how bad his cold or his mood had gotten in the interim, especially after their flight through the rain. He wasn't in his office, she'd checked and rechecked, listened for his voice passing by outside her door, only half because she was looking for someone to rescue her from the pitfalls of bureaucracy. Every so often, she thought she noticed the walls shaking, but couldn't be sure if it was her imagination or not. Nobody had filed any noise complaints.

Now, however, she stood in front of the door to his apartment with a paper bag in one hand. She issued a crisp four-beat knock with the other.

"Fuck off, Colin," a muffled snarl issued from within, chased by a cough.

Snow tested the handle. It was unlocked. Cracking the door open just enough to peek inside, she tried a joke, "Are you saying I look like a pig?"

There was a creak of Bigby's rickety bedframe as he sat upright, looking groggily surprised. "Snow!"

Taking that for permission enough, she edged herself inside his tiny studio apartment and heeled the door shut behind her. She thrust out her free hand to stay him in place, as he made to get up. "Ah-ah! No, stay put. Bed is exactly where you should be right now."

Bigby looked ruffled and reluctant, but he eased back onto his elbows, regarding her hazily as she put her purse and the paper bag on the counter. He'd regained the shape she was more accustomed to seeing, although he'd traded in his usual assortment of bruises and bandages for crumpled handkerchiefs and a red nose. She was both hugely relieved and a tiny, tiny bit disappointed. There were things and feelings and touches she was more comfortable administering to a wolf the size of a Wrangler than she was Bigby's familiar features, with his dark eyes staring right through her. That had to make her some certifiable level of insane.

"Didn't know you were coming, I would've cleaned up."

She wasn't sure whether he meant himself or the apartment. She glanced around. It was more cluttered than filthy, his limited personal belongings looking as if they'd just been strewn about haphazardly, like he didn't actually care about any of them. "I'll choose to believe that you've been sneezing everything out of place, rather than just being a slob."

Bigby issued a hoarse laugh that turned into another cough. He dropped back against the bed just as a few sheets of paper on his desk were starting to gain some air. "Well, thanks for the benefit of the doubt." His throat flexed with a swallow. "How's the shitstorm?"

"Subsiding. When you're feeling better, and when Frau Totenkinder is back, I'd like to have another meeting about it. But for the time being, there's nothing else to be done." She began unpacking the contents of the paper sack. "How's the glam-- well, you know what I mean. Back in working order?"

Bigby stretched a hand open, letting its back grow dark with fur, its palm hard with paw pads, and its nails long into the meat hooks of his claws. He flexed them once, then allowed everything to recede again at will. Back to a man's fist, weathered and rough, but "normal" all the same. "Seems to be."

"Good," Snow nodded, after a peek. "I sent Flycatcher up to the Farm to collect the recent deports, if their glamours were also restored as she claims."

"That'll piss off the masses," Bigby said, voice thick and wobbly. She glanced back just in time to get a deliriously candid view of his pre-sneeze face, nose wrinkled and the tips of his fangs just showing. She willed herself to look away and give him some privacy, but she was too transfixed on the tiny glints of moisture at the corners of his eyes, and the sheer, impressive size his nostrils could dilate to, an instant before he seized them shut.

"--mxxt!"

"Bless you," she offered, dutiful, but Bigby waved her off impatiently. He wasn't finished, and they both knew it.

"--mxsh! ... huh!" A lampshade across the room tilted dangerously in the pull of air. "--mpffshh! Huh-mpfssh!"

He recovered slowly, head bent low and shoulders slouched with exhaustion as he retrieved the last usable handkerchief from the covers and blew his nose. It was a weak and unproductive sound, like he could barely get any flow. His sinuses must have almost completely swollen shut.

"Bless. Does that hurt as much as it sounds like it does?" She cringed.

"It feels fuckin' awful, thanks for asking," Bigby growled, then sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of both palms. "Remind me to go on sabbatical the next time I get sick, somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, where I don't have to hold this shit in."

"I'll keep that in mind. Who's going to be pissed off?"

It took him a few seconds to backtrack to their conversation, a progression she measured by the shift in his eyes and a shake of his head.

"Oh. The other Farm fables. Some of them are sore enough about being up there, it's salt in the wound seeing recent arrivals get the green light right back out again, huh?"

"You're probably right," Snow sighed as she finished unpacking the bag's contents, and leaned her weight forward onto both palms. "I'm probably due for another visit up there anyway, to smooth things over." She flashed him a weak smile. "Wish you could come."

"Hah. I'm not so great at 'smoothing things over'," Bigby reminded her and gave another faithful effort at clearing his nose, to no greater success. "What'd you bring?"

"Just the basics," she said, stepping back to let him see what was sitting on the counter. "Chicken barley soup from the deli down the street, there's some tea in the thermos. A few other necessities."

Bigby looked thrown. "...for me?"

Snow smiled wryly. "No, I brought it up here to eat in front of you."

The sheriff rubbed his jaw uncertainly. "Sorry. I'm not used to other people, uh..."

"Looking out for you?" She finished for him, and received a weary nod in response. "I've got your back on this one, wolf," she said simply, quietly, which made him avert his gaze with a suspicious well of unspoken emotion. Snow moved on briskly. "Are you hungry?"

Bigby gave another frustrated, snarling sniffle, taking in no air despite that his nose seemed determine to run. "Uh... haven't had much of an appetite," he admitted, apologetic. "Wish I could smell it."

"I'll put it in the fridge, it's fine," she said, and found a place for it beside a depleted six-pack and a carton of cigarettes. There wasn't much else in there to speak of, he didn't even seem to own any condiments. "Heat it up later."

"Yes, ma'am."

She brought the tea and the rest of the sundries to the bedside. "Can I sit?"

"Please." He sat up and moved over to accommodate her as she set the thermos on an end-table. It was a reasonably sized but fairly beat-up bed, probably acquired from one of the other residents. At least he'd upgraded from sleeping in the one armchair. She settled on the edge of the mattress as Bigby glanced over her shoulder with an endearing sort of curiosity. "What's...?"

"Vapor rub," she said, holding up a little plastic jar. "I don't know if I want to see you hopped up on cold medicine, but mundies swear by this stuff. It should clear you up. Better take this first, though."

She put the last gift on his knee -- a thin, square box that she hadn't bothered to wrap. Bigby lifted the lid off cautiously, and raised his brows at the plain stack of white handkerchiefs folded on the bottom. "Thanks."

Snow could hear the uncertainty in his voice, and smiled. "It's spellweave, special-made. It should stand up to even your lung capacity." She nodded upwards with her chin in an encouraging gesture. "Try it out."

Bigby seemed doubly wary now as he lifted the cloth and unfurled it. "It's real nice of you, Snow, but I don't think..." He trailed off with a heavy blink and crinkled one side of his nose. Good timing.

"Trust me. If it doesn't work, I'll pay for the repairs myself." It didn't seem to reassure Bigby, who had conceded to at least press the handkerchief against his nose and rub both nostrils in an effort to subdue their twitching. It didn't seem to be working.

"I..." He started to protest, his voice gone heady with weak with irritation. He brought both hands up to hold the cloth in place, brow crumpled. It didn't appear that he had a choice, his nose and the cold alike had apparently had it with being violently, miserably squelched over the past few days. "Huh...!"

"Don't hold back."

Bigby drew another deep breath, chest swelling as he tilted back at the waist. The ends of her hair fluttered in the backdraft of his characteristically huge inhales. Erring on the side of caution, she moved back a bit, giving him room to twist away.

"HH-WHFFFHHH!"

Either obediently or because he couldn't help it, Bigby crunched inward as he sneezed with all his strength. The sound was still impressive, even well-muffled, but more encouraging was the fact that he hadn't blown right through the fabric and the floorboards alike. She'd barely felt a breeze. His relief registered in the form of a deep moan as he sank backwards, hitting the mattress with a squeak of springs.

"Holy shit."

Snow tried not to preen. "Bless you."

Bigby scrubbed roughly at his nose with the handkerchief, sighing as if he'd just come down from an orgasm. "You can't imagine how good that felt. I'll take another dozen of these."

"I've got a pretty good idea," Snow said. "I'll put them on order."

"Seriously, thank you."

"You must still be sick, you're being awfully nice," she teased, and reached to brush his hair back from his brow. Bigby let his eyes sink shut and turned into the touch. His forehead was still much too warm, and it tugged on her heart.

"So are you. What's your excuse?"

"Maybe I'm a sucker for a wounded animal."

"You're hysterical."

She smiled and unscrewed the cap of the vapor rub with a soft rattle of plastic. "Do you want to try this?"

"If I can breathe again, I'll try anything," Bigby said, then crinkled his nose at the first, stinging whiff of menthol. "Christ, it reeks."

"That's how it works," Snow chuckled, but leaned back to crack the window beside the bed open anyway. Outside, the sounds of the city were a muted backdrop. Cars passed, dogs barked. The rain had brought in a cool front, however, and that felt nice against the back of her neck. "Open your shirt."

Bigby gave her a suspicious look even as his hands went for the buttons, slowly parting a V of hot, bare skin and dark hair.

"You rub it on your chest," she explained with amusement. He looked no less reassured as she scooped out a thick smear onto her own fingers and hovered it over his sternum. "Or... I will."

"This is weird."

"Weirder than me scratching behind your ears?"

"I don't know. Does this count as second base?"

Snow bit her lip to hide her smile. Bigby jumped slightly as the gel made contact, and gave a few heavy coughs into his fist as the full force of the eucalyptus hit him.

"It's cold."

"You're such a baby. Hold still," Snow chastised as she spread it in a thin layer from collar to ribs, trying to mentally dissociate herself from admiring how the years and rigors of the job had shaped him. It was more difficult than she expected.

Fortunately, Bigby seemed to relax under the touch, and that kept her from getting herself too worked up. His eyes went heavy, breath deepened and steadied as the grease warmed between their skin and filled the air with its sharp, clarifying fragrance. The odor was powerful, she couldn't imagine how it was assaulting him, even through all his congestion. And yet she'd never seen him so relaxed. Her thumb came to rest in the shallow divot between his pectorals, fingertips spanned across one.

"How's that?"

Bigby drew a deep breath through parted lips, and let it out again in a long, cool gust that stirred the blankets. "Not so bad, actually. I can feel it working. Sort of like smoking fifty menthols at once, though."

The corners of her mouth pricked. "Are you going to sneeze?"

"In a minute," he agreed, voice already foggy despite the serene cast of his features. "This is too nice."

"I don't think you can last that long," Snow teased.

"Probably not."

She let the quiet fall between them again, and let herself actually enjoy it. There was a hypnotic quality to the rise and fall of his chest under her hand. She rested it there even when his breath began to hitch deeply under her palm and he unfolded the handkerchief, hovering it under his jaw. Snow could see the precise moment that the menthol finally burned through the congestion to the delicate inner workings of his nose, as he gave a sudden, terrible snarl and sat forward with a sneeze.

"HH-WHRFFFHHH!"

Her throat worked with a swallow when his lungs collapsed under her touch, reminding her too keenly of his sides heaving between her thighs as he'd sneezed in his wolf shape. It put an unexpected pit of warmth in her stomach, so poignant that she hastily withdrew her hand and fought the heat of a blush.

Now it was weird.

"Bless you."

Bigby nodded a bleary sort of thanks. He had the handkerchief lowered just enough to reveal the weak strobe of his nostrils as he mounted towards another.

"--WHFFHHHH!" And another. "HH-RHHFFHHHH! ... HUH-RHHFFFHH!"

The bed shook. It took another three or four in massive succession like that before he seemed to find relief, by then too winded to notice much. Which was fortunate, because she was staring.

"Scuse be," he choked when he'd regained himself and his breathing started to stabilize. Snow shook off her reverie with a start.

"Gesundheit," she corrected. Many centuries and at least one failed marriage had made her good at compartmentalizing her feelings, so she crammed the sudden tide of them into a box to be opened some other time. Or never. Instead, she put a hand to Bigby's back and rubbed until his intermittent coughing had subsided. Guilt crept in where lust had been, as he bent forward and put his head in his hands. "Too much, huh? I'm so sorry, Bigby, I can wash it off."

"Dod't be," Bigby grunted, picking his head back up. "Felt fucki'g abazing, just ki'de of dizzy dow." He turned from her and furled the handkerchief back to his nose to blow carefully, and at great length. It sounded much more successful this time as he emptied days of misery from his sinuses. "Shit," he sighed with immense relief, when it was over. He sounded clearer, a better approximation of his usual gritted voice. "You can recoil in disgust now, I won't blame you."

"Please," she scoffed. "You underestimate my constitution. Shove over."

Bigby blinked groggily, but complied, edging closer to the wall to lend her a few more inches. Snow pushed off her heels and drew her legs up onto the bed beside him, until they were lying parallel. "This okay?"

"You're kidding me, right?" Bigby huffed, as he rebuttoned his shirt. "Taking your safety in your own hands there, Snow, but you're not gonna hear any complaints from me. Might fall asleep on you, though."

"That's the idea, wolf," she said. "I'm exhausted too. Just don't get handsy." She opened one shoulder to him, until he tentatively put his head down against it. Under the vapor rub and stale cigarette smell, she thought she could still detect the imaginary scents of warm fur, and of the pines and snow. She closed her eyes until the wave passed.

"What's the matter?"

She blinked down at him muzzily. "What?"

"You were upset, just now. For a second."

She rubbed her eye. "Maybe I liked you better with dulled senses." He jostled her with a shoulder until she caved. "It's nothing. I just... I think I actually missed seeing you as a wolf."

He shifted slightly to look up at her. "Nobody misses that."

"I do. I enjoy this life. I like what I do, and there are so many benefits of the mundane world that I wouldn't... I don't think I'd want to go back. Too many bad memories. But it still felt a little nostalgic, in spite of all that. Sometimes I forget how much we're all hiding, here."

Bigby snuffled softly. "The clean slate's worth it, to me."

She rested her head back and considered the cracks on his ceiling. "You don't miss being a wolf?"

"I'm still a wolf," Bigby answered slowly. "But I don't miss the one I was, no."

It was a sobering discussion. Snow was actually glad when he shifted against her, catching a breath that she felt stir her clothes. There wasn't enough room for him to turn away. Instead, he clutched the handkerchief tight to his nose and mouth as Snow braced an arm around him.

"Huh... HUFFSHH!"

Just the one. He relaxed again with a muffled sigh and rubbed the fabric against one nostril until it relaxed, the tickle relieved.

"Bless you. Look, Bigby. I'm sorry, if that was... I didn't mean..."

"No, I get it," he assured, turning again to favor her with a glance. "But like I said, I'd rather hide my face if it means I can try to be a good person. Emphasis on the try."

She jogged his shoulder lightly. "You're doing pretty good. When you actually listen to me."

He chuffed a weak laugh. "Thanks. Anyway, if you miss the mangy old monster so much, I'm sure we can arrange something."

Snow smiled, and rested her head against his for a moment. "What else can I do for you? I'm a little out of practice with this whole caretaking thing."

"Makes two of us." Bigby thought for a moment, then cracked her a little glance from between slivered lids, revealing a glint of feral gold. Her stomach clenched, not unpleasantly. He could be a charmer when he really wanted to. "Mmm... can I get a scratch behind the ears?"

Snow was content to oblige. She let her fingertips glide through his hair until they came to rest behind the shell of one ear, where she scratched fondly. Bigby didn't even try to hide his pleasure as he sagged against her. The last of his tension melted out in a deep, warm sigh.

She took the handkerchief from him while one well-muscled forearm draped across her waist, then applied it to his nose with a quick dab. He seemed too tired and content to be ashamed, and hauled in a lazy sniffle in response.

"How's that?"

"Mmm. Just be quick with that thing if I start to sneeze, and I'll be right as rain."

"Good. Get some rest, Bigby."

He turned into her blouse with a final, ruffling exhale, and was dead to the world minutes later.

Snow was never an easy sleeper. Nights were when she felt well and truly alone with her thoughts, and when they could turn dark and restless. Falling asleep still reminded her too strongly, in those moments, of slipping into that poisoned coma.

There was something reassuring in Bigby's heat and the weight of his arm on her, however. She fought consciousness for a while, watching his body relax. Occasionally, she tended to his nose with little gestures of the handkerchief, when he sniffled or wrinkled it in his sleep. Her eyes grew heavy listening to the rhythm of his breathing against the cityscape. It felt too good, too comfortable.

Later. She'd deal with those emotions later, too. For the time being, she reached back to unfasten her hair into a thick black cascade across her shoulders, then inched down enough to rest her head on the pillow. Bigby went undisturbed, and Snow was not far behind in following him to a deep and quiet sleep.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Garnet

[AppleBlossom]

AHHHHHhhhhh! Oh my gosh, this is beautiful! I don't know what to say, I am stunned! You got me right in the heart, everything was perfect!

Typical Bigby, boyishly dense as to why on earth would Snow come to see him when he was sick! Cuddles and snuggles in the end together, and OMG wolfish Bigby wanting a scratch behind the ears?! Are you kidding me?! ASDFGHJKL HAPPINESS!

And wtf, the magic-infused handkerchief to stop Bigby's monstrous sneezes?! I swear on my life I had the same idea--! Great minds think alike!

Although your rendition was far better than I could have done!

Seriously, please write more! Quit your job if you have to-- I need your incredible stories to live!!! <3

[Nola]

Oh my God, wonderful!!! More on this later...

I have to tell you my favorite parts!!

"Fuck off, Colin," a muffled snarl issued from within, chased by a cough.

- you know why...in fact every time you mention his grumpiness or his hoarseness I swoon...

"It feels fuckin' awful, thanks for asking," Bigby growled, then sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of both palms. "Remind me to go on sabbatical the next time I get sick, somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, where I don't have to hold this shit in."

D'awww...I love it when tough, stubborn, driven guys finally admit it....because then you know it's bad....and you put this in at just the right time because the case is over, and so he can focus on himself...sigh...

"You must still be sick, you're being awfully nice," she teased, and reached to brush his hair back from his brow. Bigby let his eyes sink shut and turned into the touch. His forehead was still much too warm, and it tugged on her heart.

"So are you. What's your excuse?"

"Maybe I'm a sucker for a wounded animal."

"You're hysterical."

I love the way these two interact with each other...your humor is so sarcastic, and I just love that kind! And, it just makes the two of them seem so comfortable with each other...somehow...not sure that makes sense, but I *shrugs* I just really, really like this part!!

The corners of her mouth pricked. "Are you going to sneeze?"

"In a minute," he agreed, voice already foggy despite the serene cast of his features.

Just

I really like how you managed to keep up the same tone throughout your story...sometimes I think we sf writers have to try really hard to balance plot with getting all the 'feels' out, but you do so without sacrificing any of your original tone, plot and flow. I love reading a story that could honestly be a good story even without all of the you know....anyways, thank you so much for sharing this wonderful story with us!

[GeldingWest]

Oh Lord I can't- Jesus H. Christ this is too precious... <3 You've done a wonderful job with these two and I love the interactions between them throughout the whole story. Gosh it's just too perfect for words. I'm not sure I've ever loved a fanfic more than this one and that is saying something. Hoping to read more fics of yours in the future!

[*Dark_Side*]

That was so good, I can't even tell you

[SterlingSilver]

Truly, I can't offer more than what the others have already said~

Pure, unfiltered adorable~ And compelling 'till the very end. All this fluff was so good for my soul QwQ~