Chapter 20: Fake It and Break It
"And furthermore, if I catch you skipping school again, I will add more days to your grounding. You will also be paying me back for the missing phone." Fiona says sternly as the black car carrying her and Henry stops in front of the casino hotel. "Is that anyway unclear?"
Henry is hardly paying attention to anything that she has said, he just keeps looking down at the floor of the car, trying to formulate some kind of plan in his mind. He doesn't care about the groundings because she wasn't his real mother, he doesn't care about school because there were much more important things happening around him, and finally he doesn't care about anything about his current situation because none of it is real and now that he knows that he has an ally in the cause, he knows this wicked woman can be defeated.
Fiona becomes furious by the fact that Henry is still ignoring her, so she roughly grabs his face with her hand so that they are looking into each other's eyes. Henry tries not to show fear as he gazes into her eyes… they are supposed to be brown, but in the limited light, they look as black as night… it's like staring into the darkened abyss of space or a black hole that sucks all the light and happiness from his existence. One could say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but Henry was sure that The Black Fairy had no soul.
"I said, is that anyway unclear?" she snarls, putting dark emphasis on the last word. Henry can feel the coldness in her voice and it sends shivers up his spine.
"Yes Ma'me," he says, before finally being released from her spidery fingers.
"Good, now I want you to go straight upstairs and do the homework that you missed. You're lucky your Uncle Gideon was nice enough to go get the work from school for you."
Uncle Gideon?! The thought makes the teenager's stomach turn violently. While they all knew that Gideon was not evil by choice, he had still tried to kill his mother multiple times before that, so the very mentioning of him being related to "the hooded figure" makes him shift uncomfortably. And knowing that Fiona was the one controlling and manipulating his half-uncle the whole time is merely creepy on top of everything else.
Henry doesn't say another word, he grabs his bag and goes through the rotating doors of the hotel that he is forced to call home. He actually looks at the bright, sparkling neon sign and learns the name of this overpriced prison; The Golden Deal, likely a bad word-play on his Grandpa Gold's curse name and his nature as Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold. The sign glitters like it's made of gold and there are bright spotlights shining up into the night sky to attract attention to the hotel-casino. There are people lining the streets, waiting to get inside. Henry is easily let through by a security guard and he enters the crowded and noisy lobby. He hates to look at this grotesque display of greed and the curse any longer than he has to, the teenager goes to the elevator, pushes the button and then gets on the lift, riding it up to the penthouse alone.
When he gets off the lift, he goes to the heavy oak doors at the end of the hall and slips inside. Again, he ignores the Mediterranean mural below his feet and the fancy crystal chandelier hanging above him in the main hall. He begins climbing the steps when he hears the sound of ice tinkling in a glass. He turns to see his grandfather casually drinking a martini as he hobbles down the upstairs hallway, which has velvet carpeting with flecks of gold woven into the material.
When the Dark One notices his grandson, he immediately stops and goes to greet Henry. He places his martini down on an antique looking table and then limps towards the young author. To the boy's great shock, Rumpelstiltskin wraps him in an affectionate and seemingly earnest hug.
"Henry," he says quietly, patting the boy's back. "I'm so glad that you are safe and home."
The author shifts slightly, uncomfortable with this show of affection. As far as anyone knew, the Dark One could not stand any physical forms of affection with anyone besides Belle. In fact, Crystal often had to force her father into giving her hugs and she no doubt would love to trade places with Henry at this very moment to feel the seemingly loving connection her father is trying to make with him.
The older man stands back and sniffs the air suspiciously. He leans forward and smells Henry's coat.
"You stink of tobacco son," Rumple says skeptically. When Henry lets out a heavy sigh of annoyance wanting to able to go to his room and think of a plan, but then his grandfather also recoils in disgust from his breath.
"Have you been drinking too?" he asks in a highly accusatory tone. He takes another smell of his grandson's breath. "Did you eat some cinnamon too?"
The teenager takes a step back, not wanting to answer the question, but his silence does this for Rumple.
"What have you been doing Henry?"
The Dark One frowns at Henry, his eyes staring daggers into his grandson's face. He puts his hand on his cane, which now had a crystal skull on the end of it. His foot taps as he waits for an answer.
"I…I ended up... meeting with some people… it was kind of like a party…"
It wasn't a total lie but hanging out with a motorcycle gang sounded much worse than it actually turned out to be.
Rumple raises his eyebrow in suspicion, grasping the skull of his cane with both hands and there is a lengthened silence between them with only the sounds of the antique grandfather clock, likely collected from the Dark One's shop, ticks away the seconds, and the sounds of crowds of gamblers playing their card and slot games far below them.
"Is that the whole story?" the older man inquires.
"Please don't tell her," Henry whispers in an almost begging tone. While he truly did not care about the consequences of hanging around Violet and her motorcycle gang, he had to act normal for the time being. "I'm already in trouble for skipping school."
Suddenly, the corners of Rumple's mouth twitch and then they lift into a smile… a knowing smile, as if the Dark One knew exactly what Henry had been doing. This was not likely the case as it was heavily implied that his mind was still within the grasp of the curse, but he simply nods and chuckles to himself.
"Boys will always be boys," he mutters to himself. "And teenagers will be teenagers. Don't worry son, I will not tell her. This is the time to explore and break the rules, feel the freedom that the fickleness of youth brings you. In fact, there are many things that I've kept a secret from my mother and would still like to avoid being punished for it."
While this is not the reaction that he was expecting, Henry is relieved that his grandfather appears to be on the heroes' side this time, despite the fact that he'd gotten them all into this mess in the first place by lying about the Black Fairy's death. No further words would be spoken to the black-hearted woman.
"Thank you," he whispers. "Goodnight Grandpa."
"Goodnight Henry," Rumpelstiltskin grins before turning to retrieve his martini and continue towards his destination.
The teenager finally finds his room and slams the door shut. He sighs in great relief and slides down the door until he's in a sitting position against it. He lays his head against the hard oak wood of the door, utterly exhausted from the day he's had. So much to process in so little time. He shuts his eyes and wishes that everything would just stop, allow him to catch his breath and rest for just a minute. Acting normal is hard enough when there is not a demonic fairy actively pursuing him and trying to control his life while the rest of his real family are suffering in an asylum and in the hands of alcoholism.
How did it get to be this way? He ponders to himself, trying to fight sleep for as long as possible.
He couldn't rest yet, there was too much to do. He needed a plan and he had to get back in touch with Crystal so they could finish their conversation.
When he opens his eyes again, they fall on the glass case that held his storybook inside. Remembering his author's pen, Henry gets up and goes to the case. He searches for any kind of way to open it; maybe with a key or a button he had to push, but there was nothing. He realizes that Fiona had encased the book as a way for him to never get his hands on it again. Everyone assumed that he'd finally "outgrown" his fairy tale phase and now, this book was meant to be kept there forever; frozen in time, never allowing the author to finish his stories and to prevent The Final Battle from ever happening. However, Henry was not going to let that stop him.
He finds a heavy looking ornament near his comic book shelf, it looked like some kind of prop from a movie, a warrior's helmet made of real metal for realism. Knowing that it is perfect, Henry throws the thing at the glass case.
To his horror, the helmet merely bounces off and clatters to the floor. Undeterred, the teenager grabs the sword that had been mounted on the wall and he makes use of all his strength to try and break the case. However, despite denting the edges of the weapon, the book and case remain intact. There wasn't even a scratch on the clear casing. He's sweating and breathing heavily, thankful that no one heard the chaos that he'd been causing.
Henry immediately suspects magic is protecting it, his great-grandmother's desperate attempt to keep the author from reuniting with his book. He knows that there's only one way to break it, fight magic with magic. He had to get Crystal up here as soon as possible.
A/N: Please review.