Ruins of Innocence
Summary: Bae has to make a quick stop for a friend while on a trip to Boston. No big deal, right? The problem comes when his not-quite-girlfriend's rather innocent father wants to tag along to a porn shop.
An outtake from around Chapter 94 of "Ruins of Camelot", but this crack makes just as much sense if you haven't read ROC.
It was all Robin's fault. He'd asked Bae—blushing madly as if that didn't give the destination away—to pick up a "package" for him at a particular store in Boston. Bae recognized the store's name, of course, since he hadn't lived under a rock in New York City (also, the name Hubba Hubba was damned obvious), but Robin would say nothing more than it was a present for Regina. Bae could put the pieces together well enough from there, and he'd groaned and promised to go, since Robin was kind of busy in Storybrooke with a pregnant wife and the whole war brewing. Going wouldn't have been a problem for Bae at all if David hadn't decided to tag along, but bringing Emma's dad…well, that was just kind of special.
Special of the type he really didn't need, too.
"Hey, you were just talking about how mature Henry is for a thirteen year old," David pointed out, sounding entirely too logical and earnest. "He can keep an eye on Neal here at the hotel. It's not like you didn't find one of the nicest and safest places in town."
"You can thank my dad's bank account for that." Bae shrugged, trying to banish his discomfort. He wasn't used to having money, let along having more money than he knew what to do with. The job he had doing repairs for his father paid ridiculously well, and having been put on Rumplestiltskin's extremely well-padded bank accounts was still a little weird.
"Well, he still does own half of Storybrooke, I guess." David's grin was lopsided. "Anyway, I'm going stir crazy. I hadn't realized how used to doing things I'd gotten in Storybrooke. Sitting here watching another Avengers movie is going to drive me insane."
"I'm just going a couple of blocks to pick up something from Robin at the store—"
"Perfect! Then we won't be gone long."
"Um, David, it's kinda not a really normal store." How could he tell him that Robin wanted him to pick up a box of something that had to be extra kinky, and probably custom made? Anything else, Robin could have ordered online.
Bae really didn't need this window into Robin and Regina's love life, thank you very much. And he extra didn't want to take Emma's father along for the voyage of freaky discovery.
"What's abnormal about it?"
He sighed. David really wasn't going to give this up, was he? "Your curse knowledge tell you what an adult novelty place is?"
"Novelty?" David gave him a blank look. "Like candies and stuff?"
"Great, even Regina's curse made you vanilla as all hell. Look, man, I can't do this. Not with a straight face. It's a porn shop, and I'm so not going to bring the dad of the woman I had a kid with into the place."
"Porn shop?"
"Dude, tell me you're not that innocent." Emma certainly wasn't, but Emma hadn't grown up in Storybrooke. Like him, she'd spent too much time on the streets to be surprised by anything, and even if both of them had tastes that were fairly tame, neither was going to blink at whatever Robin and Regina's random fetishes were. David, on the other hand. Could the curse really have had no idea what a porn shop was?
Fortunately, realization dawned on David's face with rapidness that jerked Bae up short. "Oh. No, no, I'm not."
"Thank God." He reallydidn't want to have to explain that. Really.
"It just, uh, took me a minute to get through those cursed memories." Was David blushing? Bae actually hoped so; then at least he wasn't the only one feeling mortified here. "They're not things I call on really regularly, you know?"
"I can guess, yeah." Hopefully, the growing redness on David's cheeks meant that he would drop this subject. The guy was Prince Charming, after all, and fairly recently widowed. There was no way he wanted to go to a porn shop.
Was there?
"Look, the place is called Hubba Hubba," he said, just to get the idea of how wrong this was into David's head. "I'm pretty sure that I'm going to need some brain bleach after I find out whatever fetishes Robin and Regina share, so you really don't want to put yourself through that, too. Even another Avengers movie is better, right?"
"Better than what?" Suddenly, Henry was in the room, and Bae felt his heart—along with his stomach—dropping down to somewhere near the core of the earth.
"Nothing!" The fact that Bae and David both spat the word out at lightning speed probably didn't help them look less suspicious, though.
"Yeah, right. You guys going out? If so, will you pick up some Chinese? The front desk says that the best place is around the corner, but they don't deliver."
"Um." Bae gulped, glancing at David. They were kind of caught now, because if he said that David wasn't going with him, Henry would ask why. Having the 'porn shop' conversation with David was awkward enough; having it with his son would be a nightmare.
I think he's interested in girls, but he's only thirteen, Bae thought, trying not to panic. He needs a few years before he learns the depths of depravity that consenting humans can explore.
"Sure." Thank goodness David was quick off the mark; Bae was still trying not to imagine how he'd explain a 'novelty' store to his kid. "Just tell us what you want, and we'll pick it up."
"Great!"
Henry bounced off to grab a pen and paper, and Bae threw David a wide-eyed look of thanks. "You can, um, stay outside if you want," he said in an undertone. "I don't think you really want to go into that place."
David just shrugged. "How bad can it be?"
An hour later, Bae wanted to sink into the earth and disappear. David, contrary to his advice, had not stayed outside, and he was pretty sure that a) the girl between the counter thought they were dating and b) David's eyes were about to physically bug out of his head. About the only thing he could be grateful for was that Henry wasn't here, and that David had—so far—not asked if he and Emma had been into any of this insane shit.
Hubba Hubba was way more intense than Bae had expected. And, of course, they'd lost Robin's order, so here he and David were, wandering aimlessly around the store while the manager talked to Robin on the phone and scrambled to put a box of stuff together. Bae really didn't want to ask what was going inside that box, so he'd headed as far away as he could get, with David following him like a particularly frightened lost puppy. Unfortunately, walking to the far end of the store took them away from vanilla things like vibrators and sexy costumes, and straight into the BDSM section. Which, of course, seemed to be Hubba Hubba's pride and joy.
"People actually…use this stuff on each other?" David whispered after a moment, making Bae swallow.
"Yeah. Not my, um, thing, but some people are really into it with all the bells and whistles." Oh, that'd been a bad phrase—there were definitely dog collars with bells on them and police whistles on a shelf to their right. Quickly, Bae tried to say something, anything, to distract from that. "I mean, I've been tied up by a few girls and all, but never anything heavy."
David's head snapped around so fast that Bae heard his neck crack. "You mean you and Emma used to—oh, nevermind. Stop. Please don't answer that."
"Yeah." Bae could only gulp. "Best I don't, and best you don't ask questions like that. For both our sakes."
"You got it." David looked away quickly, even redder around the ears than before. Unfortunately, the poor man's attempt to find anything other than Bae to look at led him right to a rack of whips, floggers, and other things that Bae had no prayer of identifying. David skittered past that, and then quickly found himself in a section labeled "CBT".
Bae tried to backpedal, figuring that they could get out of this aisle without talking about anything in particular, only to have David turn to him with a horrified expression.
"Do I want to know what CBT stands for?"
"Nope." Bae might not have been really kinky, but Tamara had been pretty controlling, and he knew quite a bit about that stuff. She'd backed off when he'd said no, but he'd always had the feeling that she wanted to try some of it, anyway. Back when he'd been engaged to her, Bae had figured that they could maybe try it all again someday far in the future, when he trusted her enough. Now he was really glad that he hadn't.
"But that looks like it goes on—"
"This is another one of those 'don't ask' categories, man." Grabbing David by the arm, Bae pulled him out of that section and into one full of gags and masks. At least those were self-explanatory, and David wouldn't stare at them in such horror.
Damn Regina for making the man so innocent. Even a straight up vanilla dude in the real world knew what some of this stuff was, but David Nolan seemed to have no clue. Even the gags made him gape. Though to be fair, Bae had to admit that some of them looked extreme enough to raise his eyebrows, too. Then again, that was probably more in character than the curse could have made him—Bae had no doubt that Lacey would have gone on a shopping spree in this store. She'd have undoubtedly known what everything was without asking embarrassing questions, and she'd have known how to use it, too.
He didn't want to know what his dad's reaction to that would have been. No, he didn't.
Times like this, Bae was really grateful that the Sorcerer's House was big and that he couldn't overhear the pair of them. Ever.
"Aren't you two an adorable couple?" The question made David and Bae both stop in their tracks, wheeling away from the rack of gags to look at the cute girl who had been behind the counter earlier. She was practically glowing with her desire to be helpful, but Bae just wanted to sink into the ground. "Is there anything I can help you find? Or do you need a fitting?"
"Oh, um, no. No, definitely, not." He was babbling, but Bae couldn't care. Being in this store was bad enough, but having been mistaken for the boyfriend of his ex (was she ex?) girlfriend's father was just plain weird.
"And we're not—the two of us are definitely not a couple." David managed to sound a little calmer, but he looked near panic, too.
"I'm so sorry for the assumption." She reached out and squeezed both of their hands. "But there's no need to worry. We take all kinds here, and we don't expect you to wear labels."
Was it possible to die from pure mortification? Under normal circumstances, Bae wouldn't want to die again, but now it was looking like a semi-attractive alternative to the present.
"We're just here for a friend," David said quickly. Bae nodded firmly, glancing over to where the manager had disappeared into the back room.
"Yeah. Just picking something up."
"Of course." The smile on her face—her nametag read 'Tiffany'—said that she didn't believe them for a moment, but Tiffany was happy to let them pretend. David looked ready to argue, being the believer in truth and honesty that he was, but Bae got in first.
"Would you mind asking your manager if the order is ready to go?" He really didn't care what she thought; he just wanted to get out of there. "We've got to get back."
Henry would be fine, but they'd been wandering around this store fifteen minutes longer than Bae wanted to, and at this point, Chinese food sounded glorious. Everything did, compared to this mess they'd found themselves in.
"Have someone waiting for you?" Tiffany's smile was a knowing one, and Bae just wanted to make it go away.
"Yeah. My kid," he answered, hoping that would shut her up. Unfortunately, David had the same idea, or was just being honest again.
"My grandson," he said at the same time. "And my son."
Tiffany gave them strange looks, and part of Bae started to wonder if she was wondering about them. So long as she doesn't think we're pedophiles, we'll all be fine. Fortunately, David's tendency to be truthful saved them.
"His son is my grandson," David explained with a smile and a shrug. "I'm older than I look, and Henry is babysitting Neal."
"Oh." She blinked, looking confused—but at least not like she was going to call the cops. "Right. Let me go check on your order for you."
Bae gave her his brightest smile. "Thanks!"
Tiffany still looked confused as she headed for the back room, but their family tree did tend to have that effect on people. She doesn't even know the half of it, Bae thought with a crooked smile. Now he just hoped that Robin's mysterious order was ready—and that the box was sealed. He really didn't want to answer David's questions about whatever kinks the Evil Queen and her outlaw husband had.
"What did Robin want you to pick up, anyway?" Henry asked once they got back to the hotel. David had the two bags of Chinese food, but Bae was carrying a suspiciously large box.
They'd had to stop for packing tape on the way, because of course the damn thing hadn't been sealed, and the last thing Bae wanted was to answer his kid's questions about this stuff. Regina could do that, thank you very much. Henry was her kid, too, and these presents were obviously for her. He hadn't gotten that good of a look at what was inside—and he didn't want to!—but it was enough to know that his thirteen-year-old didn't need to see it.
"Something for your mom." Bae shrugged with as much casualness as he could manage, praying David would keep his mouth shut. "Package is sealed, and I didn't ask."
"Probably a good idea." Henry looked utterly unsurprised. "If they want it private, I'm gonna leave it that way."
Bae had no idea he could feel so relieved, but one glance at David's face told him the other man felt the same. "You know, Henry, you're a smart kid when you're not doing dumb things."
"You're one to talk." Henry rolled his eyes. "I have read my Book, you know."
"Yeah, I know." Bae laughed, and the subject of the box was put aside whilst Henry lectured him on the stupidly heroic things he'd tried to do over the years.
But that was a lot better subject than explaining where the box came from and how he and David were never going to talk about that trip ever again.
A/N: If I haven't scared you away yet, the parent series for this story, "Ruins & Battles" is in the running for this year's TEAs. Please vote for it if you are so inclined!