Disclaimer: OUAT isn't mine. But I'll put the toys away when I'm done playing.

Spoilers through 3x14 "The Tower." Look for this to continue with each episode of 3B.

Feed the Madness

Cages have always driven him a little mad. His curse doesn't like being hemmed in like this.

The last one he could have walked out of at any time. That made the madness a little easier to manage; he could usually draw the line between real insanity and play-acting. Crawling on the ceiling was more of a choice than a necessity; Rumplestiltskin usually could stop himself if he cared to, though he'd rarely bothered to try. But oh, no. Not this time. Not while she has him trapped and cornered, and hurts him and plays with him like he's a toy. Not this time. Not in Storybrooke and not elsewhere, but at least here in the Land Without Magic the visions of future puzzle pieces don't uncontrollably drive him over the edge. No, that was last time.

This time is still worse. She has the dagger, and he doesn't want to think of all the reasons he has to go mad. If he does, he'll be even worse off than he is.

You feed the madness, and it feeds on you.

He's never been so trapped. Never like this. Not in that dwarf-made, fairy-enchanted cage, waiting for the curse. Not as a poor spinner, unable to save his son. Never like this. Zelena doesn't need a cage, doesn't need this tiny construction of cobweb-covered mesh. She's got a better way to hold him, the only way to hold him, and his soul is caged far more thoroughly than his body. Trapped and helpless, obedient to her wishes and unable to resist.

It's terrifying, being caged like this. There's a lesson in it, Rumplestiltskin is sure: don't try to play the hero. Villains don't get happy endings, and they don't earn peace, either. He'd been a fool to hope for something else. Of course, he actually had expected to die, despite the myriad of tricks he always has up his sleeve. Maybe he'd wanted to, for all that survival is a nasty habit he perfected centuries earlier. Perhaps he'd just wanted to do something right for a change, for once, to shove the fact that he, too, could make a sacrifice, right in their too-good faces. That yes, Rumplestiltskin could love despite the darkness owning his soul, and he could make something worthwhile out of that.

Now there's only darkness. Zelena leaves him in the dark, leaves him in this hole of hers, as if it will somehow bother him. But the lack of light can't compete with the darkness staining his soul. It never has been able to. He's the Dark One, despite his best efforts to be something better, and the nature of his curse has never been so clear. He's been a fool, fighting it for so long, wanting to love and be loved. He's not a man—he's a monster, and it's time he remembered that.

Don't think about them. Thinking about the two people who mean more to him than even his own darkness will only further feed the madness. Don't think—

The giggle escapes, as pained as it is insane. He's trying not to think, trying not to remember. It hurts too much, being here. Remembering. You never should have brought me back. Everything he once was is now nothing. He's caged and he's helpless, and his old student has the dagger with which to enact her revenge. She holds his soul in her hands. Shredded and tattered though it is, it's his soul, and Rumplestiltskin has protected it jealously for his entire ill-begotten life.

Not now. Now it's hers to abuse as she pleases, and Zelena knows enough to know what she's doing. It's amazing what pain the dagger allows you to inflict without leaving a mark, without the nuisance of leaving evidence or blood behind. She can leave him reeling, screaming, without so much as physically harming him, or even touching him, but it's a worse torture than anything physical she could devise. That was the one thing he'd never known about the dagger, though Zelena figured it out quickly enough. And she uses that to leave him shaking and screaming when she worries that he might be too coherent, too prone to outsmarting her and sidestepping through the inevitable loophole he's found.

Loopholes or no—and there aren't enough of them to salvage his soul—he's caged. Trapped. Terrified. His curse hates it as much as Rumplestiltskin does, and he can feel what little sanity he possesses fracturing. The confinement would do the trick nicely by itself, but Zelena's clever enough to combine it with pain. His inability to resist her—she has the dagger—would be frightening enough if he wasn't left spasming every time the Witch so much as tapped the dagger with a sharp nail. Yet that doesn't leave a mark, at least not one anyone can see. It only rips holes in his already battered soul, tears into what little of Rumplestiltskin is left under the Dark One, and he wants to shrink away from her, but thinks she'll believe him more mad if he doesn't.

Zoso's last master was either careless or a fool. Zelena is neither, but he'll make her both if he can. He'll hide his soul under the madness, hide himself inside the imp she expects to see. She's never known him any other way, and was more than a little startled by the very human face he's wearing. His face, truly, for all that he's still the Dark One. But that little shred of humanity must be hidden, must be protected at all costs. It's all he has, and he's inches away from letting the madness take that away from him.

But Rumplestiltskin is well-acquainted with madness. It's fed on him before; he'll weather the storm. He always has. Caged or no, hurt, broken, and empty though he is, he's a survivor. He survived, again, and he'll outlast her. He must. There are reasons to, reasons he dares not think of. But he has reasons to survive. Reasons to bury what little sanity he has beneath the outward pain and sing-song-y madness, reasons to let it feed on him and let her see. Let Zelena see what she expects, let her watch and make her not wonder.

He's warned her. He has. Whether or not she listens might determine if she lives or dies.

Feed the madness, and it feeds on you.