So here we are, like dipsticks, beginning another story while our Stargate fics cry from neglect and Kid Whisperer remains mostly stagnant. This one was inspired by a lack of nearby computers (inspiration always hits when one is far away from keyboards) and the fact that you like to touch yourself at night.

O.o

Disclaimer (lol wtf since when?): I do not own Once Upon a Time or Humanitarianism. I just own a psychologist. He sits in my closet and goes, "We should talk about this. How does locking people in closets make you feel?"

He says it's all because of my mother, but I disagree.

"Dr. Hopper."

"Yes, Mr. Gold?"

"… What are we doing here?"

Archie looked around him. For a moment, he found himself lost in the scenery again. The river before them was blue and sparkling, surrounded by earth so brown and positively fluffy that it looked like cake. They were looked upon by lush trees and bushes on all sides; wildflowers popped out of the ground at random. Best of all was the incessant sound of crickets emanating from every (godforsaken) nook and cranny. Not cicadas, not birdsong – crickets.

Mr. Gold scowled and crushed a cricket. That snapped Archie out of his daze. He remembered Gold's question.

"We're fishing," he said, holding up the poles. Mr. Gold had refused to carry his own out of spite, which left Archie with both fishing poles, the bait-box, the net, and the cooler full of snacks. Gold's lip curled.

"I can see that," he snapped – clearly, trudging through the forest with a therapist did little for his mood. "My question, Dr. Hopper, is why we are doing it."

Archie hummed, which was his general code for 'interesting thought; I'll respond once I've put down all these fishing poles.' He dumped everything on the ground and let his feet slide out from under him as he started clumsily looping the string. Mr. Gold just watched him, waiting for an answer.

"Fishing is therapeutic," Archie said finally. He handed the pole off to Mr. Gold, who promptly set about fixing Archie's tangled line. "I believe that for some people, traditional therapy just won't work. And while I'm not much of a traditional therapist to begin with, this seemed like a good beginning."

"Fishing," Gold checked, saying the word distastefully.

"Yes."

"Well, Doctor, let me know how that goes for you."

Archie nodded absently, trying to bait the hook. It wasn't until several seconds went by that his eyes widened and his head snapped up, looking around. Mr. Gold was walking away.

"Mr. Gold!" Archie cried, scrambling to his feet. He trotted over, easily catching up with the other man and grabbing him by the arm. "You, uh, you can't go – um, the judge said –"

With a very sour look, Mr. Gold yanked his arm away. He stared Archie down for a moment, his mouth a thin line and his eyes dark. Archie was frozen; his brain had melted under threat of the pawnbroker's wrath.

Then something in Mr. Gold's hard gaze relented, and he gave a weary motion for Archie to return to the bank of the river. They both sat down this time, Archie with his legs folded and bundles of fishing line in his lap. Mr. Gold just stared gloomily out at the water, one leg drawn up and one stretched out.

Finally, Archie managed to get his worm (well, technically, it was some sort of minnow) on the hook, and he handed the smelly jar off to Mr. Gold. Gold raised an eyebrow at it, as if he hadn't noticed its presence before, which Archie only found likely if Mr. Gold suffered from chronically clogged sinuses. And Gold didn't seem like an allergies sort of guy.

"What exactly are we fishing for?" Gold asked him, looking genuinely confused. Archie blinked.

"Um … fish?"

"Well, obviously," Gold snorted. "But what kind?"

"Oh." Archie's brow furrowed; he stared across the water in thought. "Well, I – I don't really know what kind of fish live in … in rivers. Not clownfish, I suppose."

Mr. Gold let out a choked sound that might have been an aborted laugh. If it was, Archie was sure the laugh had been a bit derogatory, and he was glad he didn't hear it. Gold turned to him with eyebrows raised, eyes hooded, and his lips curled in a crooked, patronizing grin.

"In this river," Gold said slowly, "there are striped bass, Atlantic salmon, trout, alewives, smelt, and shad. If you're going for the bass, Dr. Hopper, you're going to need sandworms, not dead minnows. If you're going for atlantic salmon, they swim in schools and won't approach the shore. Besides, they prefer their minnows live."

Archie wilted a little. Mr. Gold just went on.

"The trout in our river are stocked, which means they eat marshmallows –"

"Marshmallows?"

"The alewives are small and useless unless you want to use them for bait, which is against our regulations thanks to the lovely Madam Mayor. The smelt would choke to death on your minnows. And the shad are only worthy of being caught if we wish to migrate to a different river and use said shad to catch catfish."

There was a pause. Mr. Gold glowered at the river. Archie stared down at his fishing rod.

"I'm sensing that you believe fishing is a waste of time," he said. Mr. Gold scowled, but didn't answer. "And I think your negativity has to do with your discomfort surrounding the concept of therapy."

Gold scoffed, still not looking at Archie. "Very good, Doctor," he said. "You've read the 'Humanitarianism' section in Psychology 101."

Archie decided not to concentrate on the fact that Gold could identify his methods. He hooked a minnow to Gold's hook and pressed the pole into the other man's hands.

"Let's see how many big fish we can catch from the shore," he said. Gold snorted, but after a while of Archie staring at him expectantly, he cast the line.

"So," said Archie when the bait had time to soak, "you know a lot about fishing."

Gold grunted.

"Did you go fishing often, as a child?"

"I lived in Scotland, Doctor. What do you think?"

Archie had no clue how to respond to that, or what he was supposed to think.

"What part of Scotland are you from?" he asked. Gold shifted a little. He looked around until he spied the cooler, then pulled it toward him. For a moment, Archie thought the man was actually going to make use of the ridiculously delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Archie had packed, but Gold just used the cooler to prop up his fishing pole. Archie wilted a little.

"I'm from a small village," said Gold shortly, making sure the pole wouldn't fall down.

"Like Storybrooke," Archie responded.

"Smaller."

Archie bit his lip, rolling his eyes upward in thought. "Like …?"

"Like I knew everybody's birthdays by the time I was five."

Archie nodded. There was a tug at his far-off line and he jumped, sat up straight, ready to reel it in. Then he realized it was just the wind.

He sat back incrementally, hoping Gold hadn't noticed his excitement.

"You knew everyone's birthdays when you were a toddler?" he asked, trying to distract. "That's very impressive. If I'd known that, my parents would've set me up as some sort of tiny psychic at the fair."

Gold didn't answer. Time for the 'genuineness' policy – and as Archie thought about it, he realized that was exactly what it was called in the Humanitarianism section from his textbook in Psychology 101. The thought almost made him frown.

"My parents," he said earnestly in an attempt to forget textbooks, "weren't very nice people."

He thought he saw Gold roll his eyes. Archie continued his tale.

"They were petty thieves," he explained. "We used to con people a bit. My parents pretended they were furniture movers, and while I distracted the, ah, targets, Mom and Dad would take the most expensive pieces and sell them later on."

Gold seemed completely unimpressed and a little bored.

"Would you like to talk about your family?" Archie suggested. He realized he'd leaned forward until he was at a thirty degree angle, and promptly righted himself.

"No."

"I'm sensing some resistance," Archie said. Gold barked out a laugh.

"Really? Well, I never would have seen it. I understand now how you earned that – what was it, again? M.D.?"

"Yes."

"Well, at least we know where your usefulness lies. If you get a hook stuck in your lip, you're fully qualified to perform first aid. Although, judging from earlier conversation, I think you're more likely to speculate on the fact that it's there."

There was a bit of a pause.

"That hurts me," Archie said. Gold's lips thinned and he refused to acknowledge his therapist, which just gave Archie the opportunity to continue his earlier line of questioning. "Freud believed that if a … a client refused to talk about something – if they lapsed into sudden silence, or changed the subject – it meant that subject was the source of great psychological frustration. Do you think your family is a great source of psychological frustration?"

"What family?" Gold asked. Archie blinked, momentarily stumped. He'd never heard of any other Golds in town, that was true. Mr. Gold never had family members to his house for a visit; he never went on trips to see them for the holidays. It must be lonely, Archie thought, struck by the thought. One man with no friends - nothing but pawned garbage and a big empty house.

He looked over; Gold was staring out across the river with his brow furrowed, eyes squinted just a little against the sun. His expression was closed off, stony, just a little close to scowling.

"How about some lunch?" Archie asked.

Carefully, he placed the propped-up fishing pole into Gold's hands and dragged the cooler closer, looking inside. He took out two wrapped sandwiches, handing one off to Gold.

"It's peanut butter and jelly," he explained. "The peanut butter's store-bought, but I made the jelly myself. It's called candy apple jelly. It's made with Red Hots."

Gold stared at him. Archie flushed and stuttered on.

"A-And I wasn't sure if you liked crusts or not, so I just cut them off."

Gold picked the plastic wrap off his sandwich and held up two diagonal cuts of white bread, red jelly and creamy peanut butter lined up perfectly with each slice.

"Chuffing hell, Archie," he chuckled. "It's not a date. You're acting like a forty-year-old woman desperate for the man she's going out with to like her. I wouldn't be surprised if you planned a moonlit dinner for two in the woods."

Archie's face turned bright red. Gold gave a self-satisfied smirk.

"You didn't account for one thing, though," he told the doctor. Archie's eyebrows knotted in confusion. He looked around – he'd brought everything they'd need! Drinks, chips, paper plates and Styrofoam cups, some sort of salad Ruby told him was a 'picnic staple.' Unable to see anything, he turned to Mr. Gold with a silent plea for enlightenment.

"I'm allergic to nuts," Gold said simply, and handed him back the sandwich.

Archie stared down at it, dumbfounded. He continued to stare at it as Gold turned back to his fishing pole, humming tunelessly.

Apparently, Mr. Gold was an allergies sort of guy. Well.

"I'm so sorry," Archie told him, rooting through the cooler for something else. "I didn't know. Um, I brought potato chips –"

"No thanks."

"Salad? Deviled eggs?"

Gold shook his head. The corner of his mouth was twitching upward in what might have been a stifled smile.

"Juice?" said Archie desperately. Gold turned to him, finally allowing the smile to show.

"Archie," he said comfortingly, "it's fine."

Archie hesitated, one hand still in the cooler. He looked down at the remaining snacks. "It is?"

"Yes. It's fine."

With a sigh of relief, Archie sat back. Gold watched him, actually looking friendly for the first time that day.

"If I get hungry," he said pleasantly, "I can always catch a striped bass."

Archie's heart sunk.

"You know. With dead minnows."

The doctor swiped a hand over his face and sighed.

"From the shore."

"Thank you, Mr. Gold," said Archie wearily. "I get the point."

Gold returned happily to his fishing.

He wasn't really allergic to nuts, but he sure did hate therapy.