A/N: Next chapter, as promised! (Might even be a little early, maybe? I can't remember when I uploaded it last week. Oh well)
And thank you for all the nice reviews!
Now without further ado: shit, say hello to the the fan.
Chapter 9: Someone Didn't Read the Label
They were strolling through the woods the next day, looking for some mushrooms needed for the potion. At least that was what Emma guessed, since she didn't exactly remember all of what Regina had told her about their little trip.
"I'm telling you, Mom was this close to flip her shit right there, right in front of the convent."
"And you didn't invite me to watch. What a shame," Regina mused, smiling lightly.
Emma shoved her hands down her pockets and kicked a nearby rock. "I'm pretty sure she would be happier if I was dating an ogre by now. I don't get why she can't just–"
"Stop being an idiot?" Regina filled in.
"Not exactly how I would put it, but yeah."
Bending down to inspect a small, green mushroom that seemed to be coated in some gooey substance, she chuckled. "From what I've seen it's a dominant trait, so don't hold your breath. And stop staring at my ass."
"I wasn't," Emma insisted, reluctantly tearing her eyes away from Regina's behind. "Not sure what I'm supposed to look at otherwise anyway," she added under her breath.
"This." Regina held out a neatly written list of several mushrooms and flowers, each one with a rough sketch or a photo and a short description. "We need at least five of each and it would go much faster if you would get your mind out of the gutter and ogle your surroundings instead of me."
Emma muttered something inaudible, snatching the list from Regina's extended hand.
"There they are!" Snow whispered and grabbed David's arm, pulling him close.
David squinted at the two figures in the distance. "What are they doing? Picking flowers?"
"We have to get closer," Snow mumbled, eyes still fixed on Regina and Emma. "Maybe we can hear what they're talking about. I want to know what they're planning."
"They don't look like they're planning anything in particular," David said doubtfully, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with what they were doing. "Should we really be following them like this?"
"We need to find out what they're doing and what Regina has done to Emma," Snow said with finality. "As soon as we know that Emma isn't in any danger, we'll leave them."
Despite his misgivings, David let himself be pulled along towards the two women, always keeping at least a few brushes between them.
"Look!" Snow hissed, pointing indignantly at Emma who was smiling softly at Regina, apparently amused at something she had said.
"It looks like they're having a good time," David tried, watching how Emma easily put a gentle hand on the small of Regina's back as Regina climbed over a fallen tree. It was odd to see the two former enemies like that, sure, but he wasn't sure a spell was to blame. After all, Regina and Mr. Gold was fairly civil with each other nowadays as well.
But Snow wasn't convinced. "Something is wrong," she mumbled, eyes narrowed and her lips turned down at the affectionate display. "We should probably use the potion now. It doesn't look like we can get any closer without risking that they notice us."
David started to object but Snow had the potion out and opened before he had time to figure out a good response. Maybe it was easier to use the potion and put Snow's fears to rest anyway, he reasoned halfheartedly. "Okay."
Snow gulped down half the potion in one take, shivering in disgust at the foul taste. David soon followed suit, gagging as soon as he had swallowed it. "What was in that thing," he muttered, covering his mouth with his hand and hoping that whatever it was wouldn't come back up.
"I can feel it working already," Snow croaked, wincing at the lingering taste. "We'll know what Regina's doing to our daughter any second now–"
A large cloud of smoke suddenly enveloped them and what felt like electricity tore through both their bodies in a none too pleasant way. When the smoke dissipated, Snow and David stared at each other, all color leaving their faces.
"I'm going to kill him," David growled, jaw clenched hard enough for his teeth to feel like they were about to crack.
"Not if I get to him first." Snow buried her face in her hands. "Fuck."
"I will never understand why you think high heels are even close to suited to trekking through the woods in," Emma grumbled, eyeing Regina's shoes critically.
"I am a queen, dear. The terrain bends to my will." With surprising ease – considering she was wearing both heels and a pencil skirt – she stepped over a large log.
"Yeah yeah, sure," Emma muttered but didn't remove her hand from Regina's back until she was safely on the other side. "Why not just poof everywhere instead?"
"I didn't learn to walk like this in heels to stand around all day, dear," Regina sniffed. "And while your chivalry is admirable, I can assure you I don't need–"
Two yelps and a large cloud of yellowish smoke caused them both to freeze and tense up, Emma subconsciously placing herself slightly in front of Regina. Always they knight, Regina thought with a fond roll of her eyes. When no vicious beast or grotesque monster came rushing towards them, Emma and Regina quickly sprung to life and hurried over to the source of the commotion, both with a fireball ready in their palms.
The sight that met them stopped them dead in their tracks.
"Mom? Dad?" Emma half-shrieked, staring at her parents who was clinging to each other, completely naked, looking very uncomfortable. Very, very uncomfortable. "What are you even– I mean– out here? Really?"
"This isn't what it looks like, Emma," Snow scrambled to explain. "We weren't, ah..." She met David's bewildered look and trailed off, not knowing what to say.
"We're out in the forest and you're naked. Where are your clothes?" She winced and took a step back, holding her hands out in front of her. "You know what, I don't want to know. It's bad enough I had to see my parents in bed together and now... now you're banging in the woods? God damn it."
"We were not doing anything like that!" Snow bristled, looking poised to stand before remembering that she still wasn't wearing any clothes.
"No?" Regina asked, a gleeful smirk firmly in place. "It is nothing to be ashamed of, dear. You're still in your honeymoon phase, wanting to spice up the marriage a bit–"
"Regina," Emma groaned.
"–maybe add a little magic to it," she continued with a wink, enjoying herself thoroughly. "Back in the Enchanted Forest, I sometimes experimented a little with enhancing magic, giving a little extra reach when I felt the urge." Her smirk grew even more gleeful. "The maids loved it. Every inch of it." Emma had loved it as well, multiple times, but she thought it best not to mention that.
"Regina!" Emma looked like she wanted to sink through the earth and her parents looked part mortified and part horrified. "Maybe not brag about your magic... sex... whatever, right now?"
"And here I thought you wanted me to mend my relationship with your parents," Regina countered with mock consternation. "I felt we could really bond over this."
"Look, just get us a blanket or something and we'll just... forget this ever happened," David suggested, failing miserably at sounding calm and collected.
"And we won't ask why you're here," Snow quietly piped up.
Three pair of eyes turned to her in various amounts of disbelief.
"Really? We were just out picking up stuff for a magic lesson." Shaking her head, Emma crossed her arms, lips turned down in disappointment. "You know what, I could actually have you arrested for this. Don't try to turn this on me."
"Emma, just give us something to cover up with," Snow sighed with a little too much condescension for Emma to let slide.
Emma didn't answer directly, uncrossing her arms and shifting her weight slightly from leg to leg. "Look, this time it was just us who found you, but if there had been someone else..." She let the sentence drift off, shooting an unsure glance at Regina.
"No one else is out here," Snow pointed out, her eyes narrowing. "Except you. What were you really doing out here?"
"Mom, this is serious," Emma insisted, increasingly exasperated. Turning slightly towards Regina, she sent her a pleading look, wriggling her fingers on the hand closest to Regina. "This is illegal and we're not in the Enchanted Forest anymore. You're not above the law... and I have to do my job." She flexed her hand again, nodding almost imperceptibly towards Regina.
Had Regina not had an near perfect poker face and excellent self control, she might have not been able to hold back the laughter that was threatening to bubble up inside her. Emma wanted to arrest her parents for being naked in the woods and was going to let Regina be the one to do it for her. She couldn't have planned the day better even if she had tried. Scooting over towards Emma, she nudged Emma's hand with her own, linking their fingers as covertly as possible.
"I'm afraid Emma is right," she said calmly, peering down at the Charmings over her nose. "To have the sheriff and the mayor let a crime like this slide would be a blatant example of nepotism and terrible standard to set. We have to be role models." She tilted her head and gave them a wide, sharp smile, genuine for all the wrong reasons.
"Emma," Snow pleaded. To Regina's delight, the situation seemed to have finally begun to sink in. "You can't be serous."
Her hand still touching Regina's, Emma straightened and schooled her face, looked every inch the sheriff she was. "Maybe having sex in public wasn't a crime for royalty where you come from, but in Maine it's a misdemeanor. I'm completely serious."
The way all remaining blood fled both of the Charmings' faces made Regina want to cackle. Loudly. Again.
Snow opened and closed her mouth uselessly for a while before exclaiming, "But– I'm your mother!"
"And I'm the sheriff." Emma emphasized it by conjuring up a pair of police handcuffs. "Don't make me use this, Mom."
Snow sputtered some more but wisely didn't press her luck.
"At least give us something to cover up with?" David asked, very much regretting he ever got out of bed this morning.
"Of course, dear. We're not cavemen," Regina assured him. "Unlike some people," she added airily.
When Regina had conjured two blankets and both Snow and David were safely covered, they all began their walk back to where Emma had parked her car, Snow and David huddled together in front and Regina and Emma trailing behind them, far enough to be able to talk without risk of being overheard.
"Thanks," Emma whispered as Regina relinquished control of her mind. "I would have, you know, but..."
"But you're still a pushover when it comes to them," Regina dryly pointed out. "You have to assert yourself at some point, Emma. They'll run you over until you do."
"Well, I did do this, right? Kinda?" She gave Regina such a hopeful look that Regina couldn't help but smile fondly.
"You did in a way, I suppose." Making sure the Charmings wasn't looking, she leaned over and whispered in Emma's ear. "Good girl." The way Emma's face lit up with pride was well worth the impending headache of having to deal with her insipid parents.
"I need some air," Emma muttered as she locked the cell she had just put her father in. She looked about to say something else but changed her mind at the last moment and turned on her heel, stomping out of the room instead.
"This is your fault," Snow hissed just as Regina she was about to join Emma outside.
"My fault?" Regina chuckled, stopping in the doorway. "And how is that?"
"You've done something to her to turn her against us. Before you became friends," she grimaced at the word, "she would never have done something like this."
"Oh, please." Regina sauntered back to Snow's cell, a taunting swagger in her step. "She just watched her parents naked, being intimate and breaking the law. She isn't the one at fault. Besides, how would you feel if the roles were reversed and you found her in the woods, naked and in the arms of... someone?"
Before Snow could reply, Emma poked her head in. "Regina, you coming?"
"I sure hope so, dear," Regina drawled with a smile. "I think I've said what I have to say."
"So..." Emma said when they were safely out of the room and out of earshot, warily glancing at the door they had just exited through, as if her parents might come barging through at any moment. "What are we supposed to do with them now? I can't just leave them there, can I?"
Regina scrunched her nose up in displeasure. "Like I said, this isn't a nepotism. For all intents and purposes, they had public sex and that is a misdemeanor in the state of Maine. At least keep them overnight unless you want to look like they're completely above the law."
Slumping against the wall, Emma sighed. "I guess you're right." She paused, mulling over something. "I don't think they were out there to have sex, though."
"Neither do I."
"You don't?" Emma looked up, surprised.
"Of course not," Regina scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "Your parents may be disgustingly affectionate with each other on a regular basis, but they're far too prude to do something like that. That, coupled with the magic cloud of smoke and them just happening to be a few feet away from us..." She shrugged.
"They were spying on us, weren't they?" Emma let out a colorful string of curses, pushing away from the wall and starting pacing. "Being all weird because we're friends is one thing, spying on us? That's way over the line."
"I agree." Regina pursed her lips in thought. "Perhaps we should also have a talk with Rumple to see just what that magic was meant to do."
Emma stopped and stared at Regina incredulously. "You think they went to Gold for that? What about the fairies?"
"That wasn't fairy dust, dear. Now, why don't I go speak with the imp while you make sure your parents aren't trying to escape or instigate some kind of overthrowing of the local authorities?"
"What? Oh, no no no," Emma sputtered. "You can't expect me to sit in there with them the rest of the day. No way."
Crossing her arms, Regina met Emma's wide eyes calmly. "Someone needs to watch them and you are the sheriff."
"I'll get Ruby," Emma blurted out. "She's worked here before, she can watch them and call me if anything happens." Without skipping a beat, she pulled up her phone and pressed the speed dial to Ruby.
A couple of tones passed until the line crackled and came to life.
"Yeah?"
Emma started, momentarily wondering if she had called the wrong number. "Granny?"
"That's me. Ruby's busy right now."
"I'm having something of an emergency down at the station, do you know if she's free the rest of the day?"
"I guess it's not too busy over here," Granny replied hesitantly. "If it's that much of an emergency–"
"It is," Emma assured her, "it really, really is. Tell her to get over here as soon as humanly possibly. Or faster."
"Fine. By the way, do you have your girlfriend there?"
"My what– my girlfriend?" Emma stammered. "I don't have a girlfriend."
"Yeah, and Ruby is completely straight," Granny scoffed. "Sure. Just put Regina on the phone if she's there."
Emma stared at her phone in bewilderment for a moment before giving up and holding it out to Regina. "Granny wants to talk to you."
Raising an eyebrow in mild surprise, Regina took it. "Yes? Oh, yes," she shot Emma a glance that was somehow both fond and condescending, "she can be a little slow at times. Hm? The recipe was delicious, thank you. Of course, I'm more than happy to– yes, exactly. It gives them a little more kick. Yes. I'll bring it tomorrow. Goodbye."
"'A little slow'?" Emma repeated as she snatched her phone back from Regina's grasp.
"It's rather endearing, really. Don't pout."
"I'm not pouting!"
"Whatever you say, dear." She gave Emma a quick peck on the cheek and headed for the exit.
Emma was just about to call and pester Granny a second time when she finally heard someone outside the station door. "Ruby, I've seriously been waiting–" She jumped back with a squeak as the door opened, revealing a huge, hulking black wolf just outside. "Rubes? What the– is that you?"
The wolf started shifting and morphing into a human until Ruby stood before her, getting up from her hands and knees and dusting herself off. "Hey Em!" she chirped with a wide grin.
"Why?" was all Emma could come up with.
"Granny said I had to hurry, and since I'm way faster on four legs than on two I figured I could use the exercise," Ruby explained with a carefree shrug. "So what's the situation?"
"Well, ah, my parents," Emma began, trying to gather her thoughts. "They were, um, caught in the woods... naked. And I had to arrest them. They're in different cells now, Regina got them blankets..."
At first, Ruby just stared, but when Regina's blankets were mentioned what little composure she had crumbled with a snort and she started laughing. "Are you serious?" She wheezed out between fits of laughter. "They– they shagged against a tree and you and Regina arrested them?"
"I do not need images like that. Do you even know how traumatized I am already?" Emma whined.
Wiping away tears, Ruby held her stomach with her free hand. "And then Regina poofed them to the station?"
"We walked here," Emma mumbled, causing another giggling fit from Ruby. "But we didn't meet that many people, I think. We were pretty discreet."
"Sure you were. Damn, I would have loved to have seen Regina's face. She must have looked so smug." Chuckling at the thought, she sighed happily and ran a hand through her hair. "Man, you're a riot, Em. So, what do you want me to do? Give them a lecture in public decency?" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Emma took in Ruby's outfit with a skeptical expression: stiletto heels, her signature tiny shorts, and a flannel shirt with one too many buttons undone. "Funny. No, you just need to sit in there with them and make sure they don't... escape... or something." She winced at how ridiculous it sounded. "It's too weird for me to be in there with them right now."
"Sure thing, I'm on it," Ruby happily agreed.
"It won't be a problem then? That it's, you know, Snow? Your friend?"
At that, Ruby sobered up a little. "Not really. She's made remarks about the way I dress more than enough times for me to get to tease her about this without any guilt." She peered curiously at Emma. "Did they really have sex in the woods, though?"
Emma hesitated for a moment, wondering just how much she should reveal. For now, it was probably easiest to go with the obvious explanation, even if it wasn't entirely correct. "Me and Regina found them naked in the forest, holding each other," she said truthfully. "I honestly didn't ask them what they were doing. I'm traumatized enough as it is."
"Leave that to me," Ruby replied with a wicked grin. "I'll be sure to get all the juicy details."
"Just as long as you don't tell me about them. Anyway, I'll be going but call if something comes up. And don't let them home even if they try to go all royalty on your ass. They're staying there until at least tomorrow."
"Yes, Ma'am!" Ruby replied with a salute.
