Threading Pages

Characters: August W. Booth, Henry Mills & Emma Swan
Summary: Five years after August left Storybrooke for good, he finds himself pulled back into the position of fallen guardian. He's failed her more times than he wants to remember. Can he possibly begin to make up for it now?
Warnings: HERE BE ANGST. Also, this fic is rated M for references to drug and alcohol abuse, some language, situations, and violence.

Author's Note: All right, here we go! I've been stewing on this one for a while, trying to narrow down what I wanted to do with it, and I felt this would be a great day to post it! First chapter, I have no set schedule for this one, but something tells me it will quickly take over my Son of a Woodworker muse, and I'm kind of okay with that for a little while. :) If curious, the chapter titles for this fic are all going to be lyrics from Chess's One Night in Bangkok. Take that how you will. Captain! ANGST AHOY! All members of the Wooden Swan ship, to your posts! A storm be a'brewin'! *holds up beer* But, the ship wench promises to deliver your complimentary booze after you're sucker-punched with the angst. Read! Review! Tell others about it! Share!

Chapter One: The Devil's Walking Next To Me

The smell of sweat, sweet and yet putrid. Days-old laundry, soaked and stained in the pungent odor of bottom-of-the-shelf whiskey and lao khao; mildew and urine and sick.

These were normal for the ungroomed, dirty waste of space huddled up in a corner of a too-small bed in the corner of the too-small hovel. So was the heat, muggy, oppressive, so thick it could be cut with a knife. The floor was littered with dirty needles, broken bottles in atrocious patterns mixed with blood from too many clumsy and impaired accidents, which was also completely normal for the useless man. And the dreams... those were most normal, the most typical and honest of all the things in the small room, where it overlooked Saparn Hin, the sewers of Phuket town.

I can't trust you.

I am never going to leave you. I made that promise, it doesn't matter if you're angry with me.

Angry? I'm not even going to bother with being angry. I expected this. I am disappointed that you proved me right.

But, I didn't. Why can't you believe me? Emma, I'm telling you the truth -

You don't even know what that is! Leave. Get out of Storybrooke.

I can't do that, Emma...

Go or I will push you over the town line myself.

A particularly loud shout from the street below chased away the memory. Head pounding, body wracked with pain from too much abuse and no real cure, the fallen guardian stirred from the suffocating cocoon of equally alcohol-soaked sheets. Out of the nightmare of regret that was his dream-world into the nightmare of regret that was his reality. If he ever once deluded himself into thinking he had something to live for, a cause worthy of battle, all he had now to live for was the next fix, the next high. Anything to make him forget.

He slowly, painfully, pulled the sheet off of his head, trying to open bleary eyes. Even with the years of abuse to his body, somehow, there was still that troubled, lonely boy underneath those impossibly blue eyes. He winced and shaded his face with his hand as migraine-inducing sunlight streamed in through his window.

His hands felt stiff, his... everything felt stiff. One day piled on top of the other, a never-ending fog of inebriation, hustling, and the inevitable fall. He finally had strings to hold him down.

There was a time when every movement was for a purpose, had meaning. But now, only low groans peppered with expletives in Thai and English colored his movement as he sat up and glanced at his haggard reflection in the cracked mirror hanging on the wall. He didn't recognize who he saw the reflection's eyes. He was once Pinocchio. He was once someone's angel.

At least, he'd deluded himself into thinking so. For a time.

Like all dreams, that one had to end. He'd been woken up with a cold, hard slap to the face, the abrupt rejection and shame that triggered his most intrinsic response. He hid his loneliness and his shame in the bottom of the bottle, halfway across the world.

The dreams reminded him how he got there. All of it was so familiar, so much of the haze he'd spent ten years in before. How long had it been since he'd seen that little town in Maine?

He leaned forward, knocking aside a few stray pills, picking up his phone, blearily searching for the calendar. His white wife-beater was stained, confining, even if he only wore that and his boxer-briefs.

The same face that greeted him on the phone's home screen every morning was ever-present. The ache was immediate, heart-twisting, stomach-wrenching. Every fiber shuddered, begging for something to dull that heartsickness. He had told himself he'd gone to this island of pleasures and temptations so that he could forget about her. But, he still had the photo he'd snapped of her, bundled in her winter jacket, gloves on, blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, cheeks pink from the nipping chill.

He couldn't remember when he'd taken it... The memories came and went. It all depended on the day... on the mood...

Another shudder wracked through his body, reminding him that he'd told himself he was trying to forget her. He couldn't do that if he thought about her. He ignored the calendar's day, focusing on the year and doing the math. Five years. Five years since he'd last stepped into Storybrooke. And yet, even in all those years, all the times he'd changed his phone because he'd had to sell it to get the next fix, he'd always saved the SIM card so he could keep that damn picture. Like seeing it was another punishment for his transgressions.

His arm throbbed, begging for something to ease the pain, scratch the itch. He'd spent too long thinking of her. Of what he'd once had. What he let slip right through his fingers...

Standing was a chore - no, an effort of Herculean proportions. His body wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world. It wanted to fall still in the bliss of opium, never to rise again, stiff and unused. Like a puppet in the corner. That was all he was these days anyway.

But, he did manage to stand after all. Stumbling forward, he ignored a sharp pain as his feet crunched over broken glass so he could make it to his leather jacket hanging off the doorknob. Immediately, the need became impossibly strong, consuming him as his fingers searched his pockets for another hit. The second he found what he was seeking out, he stumbled backwards against the wall, sliding down until he hit the welcoming ground. One of the few parts of his room that wasn't completely filthy, that corner was a small haven as he rooted around in his other pockets until he found the tourniquet he kept there.

A bird from somewhere, maybe down the hall, was furiously hitting against something wooden. A distraction...

With the same practiced care that the son of a woodworker had once built locks and threaded pages of an old, worn book, he weaved the latex around his arm and tied it off, looking for a vein. He held the last clean needle of smack in full view and tugged the protective tip cap off with his teeth.

This was the lowest moment. Surrounded in all of the disappointments, all of the things he'd done wrong, he considered what he would do if he shot up too much. No friends, no family... no one cared if he came or went...

He couldn't land the needle in the normal spot. His hands shook, he paused to steady himself, letting out a deep breath. Still no dice. Groaning as pain wracked through, he leaned back as his head bumped the wall, the hand with the needle limp on his leg as he tried to focus.

That bird was louder, just knocking repeatedly against the wooden door of his room.

He couldn't even wreck his life in peace.

"August?" …The bird sounded lower-pitched than he assumed it would. "August W. Booth!" The bird was taking extra care to say his full name. He tried to steady himself, trying to ignore it. Being a smart-ass wouldn't help him for long. It was probably one of Hawhnā's goons, ready to collect. He'd spent too many days under. He knew he was out of cash, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd stared at cards. "Pinocchio!"

Not one of Hawhnā's goons.

Ungainly to say the least, the waste of space pulled himself to his feet, setting the needle on his nightstand. He stumbled forward as the pounding continued, sounds of a name he hadn't answered to in... so many years echoing in his mind. He finally reached for the doorknob, unlocking it and slowly pulling it open, stumbling back as he did so.

He blinked, trying to focus on the tall, lanky person in front of him. A mop of brown hair, dark blue jeans, a T-shirt that seemed too big on the frame, he thought he was looking at a teenager.

"August... it is you." The voice was deep, it didn't ring a bell. He scowled as his body shook with another wave of craving. He didn't have time for someone from his past, especially Storybrooke. Didn't this asshole know the depths August had crawled into so he could forget that place? Immediately, threads of memory tied together, trying to remind him of what he left behind, what he'd ruined.

He pushed it away as he stumbled away from the door, back towards his bed. "I don't know you..." He grumbled as he staggered over to his bed. "I don't want to know you. However you know that name, forget it quickly and get out of here." A shard of glass stabbed at his feet worse than before, and he hissed, collapsing onto his bed with an angry shout.

He groaned as he heard the door close, and instead of relative silence, there was crunching and jingling as the unwelcome guest let himself in, walking around. "Wow." It wasn't an amazed 'wow'. It was definitely an unimpressed and displeased 'wow.' Oh, good. Someone else to judge him...

"You can feel free to leave at any time..." He breathed, pained, as he tried to pull the glass out of his foot.

"Yeah, I don't think so..." The visitor replied, although he sounded distracted and concerned as he looked around the room. "You live here?"

August laughed softly, falling back on his bed as he gave up on the glass for the moment, his body protesting the lack of juice in every other way it could think. "If you can call it living..." He lolled his head over to the guest, scowling. "Just go. I don't know any Pinocchio. I don't know anyone. Just go..."

"Hey, you have any juice?" The visitor was rooting through the small fridge he had on the other side of his hovel. Wait, did this punk come all the way from Storybrooke to steal August's damn junk? He pulled free the small carafe of orange juice he saved for screwdrivers. "Never mind, found some."

Even in his haze, that potently painful fog in between highs, he was curious even in spite of himself. He sat up slightly so he could watch the tall, lanky teen - he looked to be a teen anyway - poured himself a glass and downed it. "You mind?" He groused, beginning to wish it really was one of Hawhnā's goons.

"Nope." The brunette licked his lips and glanced over at August with a piercing, serious expression. He was debating something, it seemed. Those eyes, a mix of sea-green and a grey-blue, were oddly familiar to August, but he didn't want to think about why. It was better if he just stayed here and made sure next hit was his last. "You need to get dressed. We need to get going."

August blinked stupidly. "Excuse me?"

"You need to come home with me." It was matter-of-fact, simple, almost like a kid's logic. Last time he'd heard someone talk like that was... "You told me once why you were in Storybrooke. You said you were a believer. But more importantly," The visitor stepped forward, and as August put the pieces together, that fog was parted by cold, icy fear and shame, guilt, all raw, all new again. No... it couldn't be... Not him... You weren't supposed to see me like this... "You were there for my mom." August's eyes widened, he wrapped his arms around himself. "You need to pull yourself together, August." The visitor walked closer. "My mom needs you. Storybrooke needs you. Everyone needs you." He reached out, setting his hands on August's shoulders.

"It's me, August. It's Henry."