You know that gifset of drunk!Gold being arrested by his daughter-in-law Sheriff Emma, and then bonus end of his tether Neal that @zoe19blink made? Well I didn’t want to hijack their gifset by posting this prompt on it but I’ve been thinking about that AU they invented. All credit to them for the premise.

It was quite the puzzle how to make this work with Gold’s character, because Gold isn’t Lachlan, so how would Gold have got to this point? I thought of something and I’ve basically gone and made it mega angsty.

Gold started drinking and partying to hang onto Milah. He wanted her to love him, so he was willing to try to be the man she wanted. She left him anyway but by then he didn’t know how to stop. It had become his life, everyone he associated with was part of that scene and the alcohol helped with the grim reality that nobody, could ever love him.

Neal left home the minute he could and their relationship grew strained, so rather than change Gold clung to the only thing he had left – the partying devil may care life he’d made. When Neal moved back to town with his girlfriend Gold kept intending to change but unfortunately he met brilliant blue eyes and an accent he just couldn’t forget. Night after night he went back because Lacey absolutely captivated him. She was like Cinderella though because she always disappeared and he didn’t know anything about her day life.

He started taking more and more risks to impress her and get close to her. He keeps getting arrested and Neal gets more and more fed up. Then one day he and Lacey are both arrested, and Gold learns that her name is Belle and by day she’s considered sweet and sedate and a complete pushover, the opposite to her behavior as Lacey. He starts to wonder what her story is and I’m thinking it’s not pleasant. So it’s basically about them healing and growing together, and backsliding because change is hard. That kind of thing maybe.