CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: DIRTY BIRD DANCING
(In which Henry's got a secret finally revealed and Emma and Neal get jiggy with it.)
They rode back to the school in The Bug, Henry in the back as Neal drove, after pulling another "You married my step-dad" to wear down Emma's petulant refusal to give him the keys.
Henry noticed that she looked about as uncomfortable in the passenger seat as when giving him driving lessons and only grew more tense when they arrived and got out. It would be too much for his mom to just... be comfortable with his dad, he supposed. She loved him too much, and it would hurt too much to fail at a second chance, he guessed, compared to Walsh and Hook, the safety nets she could be comfortable with for lack of real emotional attachment if they broke up... or there was an evil witch or out-of-control Dwarf van.
Celine Dion had transition to the soundtrack from Dirty Dancing, and Henry had to wonder if his grandmother had seen any movies made after he was born.
He noticed Mr. Tillman's tow-truck and Jefferson's old Rambler had double parked out front.
And in the school hallway outside the gym entrance, his grandparents were talking with the two fathers while his friends hung back against the lockers looking glum.
"...drop them off ourselves," Mary Margaret was saying. "And make sure they have detention all week."
As the two men departed, David gestured to the trio. "All right, let's go. I want your butts in the chairs by the punch bowl. You're lucky I don't arrest you all for trespassing..."
Heads hanging, the three quickly ducked into the gymnasium with Prince Charming, the door shutting behind them just before Emma announced their arrival with a, "Sometimes I think Dad enjoys being Sheriff a little too much."
"Neal!?" Mary Margaret gasped.
"Mrs. Blanchard-Nolan," Neal responded with a slight smirk, humor his default for avoiding uncomfortable situations... like how to interact with the woman who basically told you to fuck off when you wanted help getting back to your first love and son then named her kid after you... then spent months barley tolerating you... and the past few weeks teaching your kid self some weird kind of science class that bordered on Creationism; she had picked apart his astronomy essay with all kinds of astrology crap notes. Never mind bewitching some stupid paper heart so he'd have to dance the Mary who only wanted to hang around him because her aunt wanted him to track down a staff that Prince Charming had in his possession; the girl was sweet but so dim her aunt had actually written out instructions on "hints" to drop to find out where David kept it - that he'd picked from her pocket. If Snow White couldn't tell making a mark in a theft plot from a genuine teenage crush, the concept of true love in Storybrooke really as doomed.
"This is..."
"Something we can talk about later," said Emma, heading for the door. "For some reason, and against my better judgment, I promised Neal a dance. And don't you dare start secretly making wedding invitations like the last time I danced with a guy."
"Or girl," Henry felt inclined to interject as he trailed behind. "Gran enchanted a card so Grace would pick me."
Emma paused in opening the door while the brunet looked guilty. "Okay, we're definitely having a talk tomorrow about who's the parent in this branch of the family tree and your matchmaking obsession. After I build a funeral pyre for my panties..."
"Your panties?"
"August has a stolen women's panty fetish. I'm not sure if he sniffs them or wears them or polishes wood with them. But he was all up in my laundry last week while fixing the washer."
Snow White's eyes widened. "He fixed our dryer last month. I haven't been able to find my..." She made a face and sighed. "Sometimes I really think Geppetto carved him wrong."
Neal followed the two women inside, holding the door for Henry to join them in the darkened, crape-paper festooned room. Mary Margaret said some parting words to Emma and then headed for the stage to announce the last dance while the blonde said she was getting some hopefully-spiked punch, AKA: liquid courage. Neal decided not to bring up her attempt at sobriety and Dr. Whale's AA meetings which he knew she'd been attending for several months now as he was pretty sure the only thing in the punch besides a buttload of sugar was the luminous potion he'd caught Gretel pouring in earlier.
As for Henry, he was distracted.
"You should ask him," Neal spoke up, and at Henry's confused look, nodded toward the table where Emma was chugging punch. "Hansel. You should ask him to dance."
Startled, Henry croaked out. "What?"
"Hansel," Neal repeated. "He's totally into you."
"He... he is?"
Neal rolled his eyes. "Teenagers can be so oblivious. Or maybe it's just everyone here grew up in a heterosexual-centric world that revolves around the hereditary importance of making babies. Either way, it didn't take a genius to figure out why you hung around someone with Gretel's toxic personality, particularly after you slept with her. She seems like the blackmailing type."
Henry frowned, uncomfortable. "You're not... disappointed? I mean... that I'm... that I don't... like girls?"
Neal smiled. "Henry, why would I be disappointed? So you're not gonna fall in love with a fairy tale princess, so what? Far as I can tell, the vast majority of 'em are spoiled airheads. Actually, the princes aren't much better."
Giving Henry's shoulder a squeeze, he told him, "All I want, buddy, is for you to be happy. The bits of the person you might one day want to spend your life with is irrelevant as long as you make each other happy... preferably in the least self-destructive and quasincestuous way this family can manage," he concluded with a smirk.
He gave his son a pat on the back. "Go on."
As Henry headed off, Emma returned, a bit tense. "Punch wasn't spiked."
"You need alcohol to dance with me?" he inquired as he held out his hand.
"I drink when I'm nervous... or upset... or... it's a problem, I get it, and I haven't for awhile, because I have a family history of alcoholism and Dr. Frankenstein is my sponsor, which isn't weird at all," Emma sighed as she accepted, moving a hand to his shoulder and trying not to shiver at his own hand upon her waist.
"It was always... a thing," she continued, "but it got worse being with-"
"A guy who was a functional alcoholic for three centuries?" Neal quipped.
Emma grimaced and told him, "I never wanted to hurt you, Neal. I pulled you back into a life where you felt even more unwanted, and I'm so sorry."
"I know," Neal exhaled. "I don't blame you. And I get regret. I'm never gonna forgive myself for leaving you - and not coming to find you."
"I know you were afraid. I've been afraid too," Emma said with a sigh, then amended, wincing, "What I said outside Granny's, it's not true, you know? I mean, I never thought about it that way, not even after the cops... I didn't even know it was illegal in Oregon until I found out I was pregnant and the prison councilor..." She shook her head. "I really... I did want to be with you."
Neal let out a sigh. "And I really wanted to be with you. I know we can't recapture that... not exactly innocence, but... ignorance?" He shrugged. "A lot has happened, we're different people, but I want that too."
"So do I. I just... you and me... I don't know how to do this. There's so much... hurt there."
Neal smile knowingly. "And it's always gonna be there, Emma. I knew when I was looking for a way to get back to you that it'd be a long shot for you to change your mind on us. I'm still okay with that. As long as I get to be a part of yours and Henry's lives, that's more than I ever thought I'd get, and it's more than enough. I won't hold you to a death bed confession. We've been down that road."
"You're taking back 'no takesies backsies'?" Emma questioned, brows furrowing.
"I'm giving you an out," Neal said, searching her eyes before asking, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
Emma remembered asking him that in a motel room so long ago and his response: "What I really want is you." Life was so much easier then. But easy wasn't always better. Neal was her first love, and if they tried to start over and it didn't work out, then all of those good memories... memories that had only been 'good' for a comparatively short amount of time given how they'd ended would be damaged. It was a reason not to try at all, but not trying for something amazing now out of fear of losing something long over was pretty cowardly. She was still afraid; after all of the terrifying magical crap she'd faced, having Neal in her life scared her the most. But she was going to do it, because being a hero was doing what scared you the most.
"Yes. No more running," she answered and Neal smiled, that grin that transformed his whole face, that had warmed the frozen corners of her heart from their very first meeting. For the first time she saw Baelfire in him, the Lost Boy she'd struggled to connect him with in that hovel in Neverland, the boy who'd just wanted to find home.
Still smiling, Neal proposed, "Then how about we start with a cup of coffee tomorrow and see what happens?"
"I think I'd be okay with that," she answered, relieved, and surprisingly more excited than she expected. "Life is made up of moments..." her father had told her on the beach that day, and they both deserved some good ones. Coffee could be a good one. Dancing here, tonight, was a good one too, she thought. It wasn't a fairy tale ball with fancy clothes and royalty, just geeky kids in cheap taffeta and crape paper hung from the ceiling. But she'd never had a school dance either, and truthfully, exciting as that one ball had been, she'd take jeans and dancing to bad 80's pop tunes over that pomp and circumstance any day. The regal stuff was fun for a one-off adventure, but it wasn't in her wheelhouse.
Speaking of, she'd never have thought of Neal as being good at dancing - or even knowing how. She opened her mouth to ask only to end up distracted, completely blind-sided by the sight of Henry dancing with Hansel, the two clearly trying to work out who was supposed to lead with the sort of uncoordinated fumbling she'd have expected from Neal. It was one of those 'light bulb' moments, and all of the little questions, some she hadn't even thought to ask, were answered - and she felt pretty dumb.
"Our kid is gay," Emma uttered, brows furrowing. It seemed so obvious now. Really, how did she not figure that out after Henry obsessed over making a wine and chocolates breakup basket for Regina? She'd worried that his obsession with Regina toed the oedipal complex line at the time, but this made so much more sense! And, honestly, in that respect, was a relief, because this family had enough quasincest going on.
Shaking her head, Emma uttered in bewilderment, "How the hell did I miss that?"
"Well, you were brain-damaged," Neal pointed out.
"You knew?"
"Being fifteen had its advantages. Easier to pick up the subtitles of teenage drama while being part of it," Neal answered and shrugged a little. "Plus, my best friend is a lesbian."
It took a moment for Emma to figure that out, then her eyes widened. "Wait, Mulan is... no wonder Hook never hit on her. How the hell did he pick up on that before me!?" she huffed.
"Really? Three hundred years of chasing ass and all that time spent on a boat with just dudes? Guy's gotta refine his gaydar for the limited amount of time available on supply runs on the off chance all the local whores are currently blowing some other guys."
Emma threw him a sour look. "Okay, fine. You've made your point."
Neal flashed a grin, then amended, "I gotta say, though, it is kinda sad I'm the one that figured out Hansel wasn't enduring his dad's auto shop classes because of some super macho obsession with cars or to ogle Miss Muffet's tuffet while checking a dipstick before Henry. I mean, come on, even in the Enchanted Forest, I'm pretty sure no completely heterosexual men wore pink cravats and waist coats. Guess our kid's gaydar is about as emotionally accurate as his mom's super power lie-detector."
"Really?" Emma huffed. "You're going to insult my lie detecting skills too?"
"When you're emotionally compromised, Em, your 'lie detecting skills' suck. Admit it. Which in this town, pretty much means you're surrounded by kryptonite."
"Okay, fine, my super power is occasionally unreliable, Mr. 'I trusted Pinocchio with all my money'."
"Yeah... wasn't my best moment," Neal conceded with a grimace, turning serious. "Look, Emma, I want you to know, if I could go back and make a different choice, be there for you and our son, I would in a heartbeat."
"I know. If I could go back and keep him, I would," Emma replied, a bit teary-eyed. "Twenty-twenty hindsight, right?"
"Yeah. Seems to take this family more than just the one fuck up to get it right, though," chuffed Neal.
"Does seem that way," Emma groaned, then told him sincerely as the song came to a close, "You're a good father, Neal. Even when you were gone, your determination to fight for this family lived on in our son. And I'm still figuring out that it's not about the time that you missed and the things you didn't do, it's about what you do with the time you have that measures the kind of parent you are."
"I hope so," Neal sighed, and bent forward, pressing his forehead to hers.
It felt almost as if the magic around them was starting to sing as he leaned closer and she tipped up her chin-
Suddenly, there was puff of purple smoke and Emma was replaced with a large white swan. In fact, all throughout the gymnasium, students, teachers, and parental chaperons alike had been turned into animals whilst Gretel leaned sniggering by the punch bowl.
No one had been spared. Everyone had been drinking the Kool-Aid - including Snow White, now a blue bird perched on the microphone stand and proving that not all birds could carry a tune, and Prince Charming, who'd been transformed into a sheep that was apparently threatened by his sheep reflection in the shiny front of the bass drum... which he set about ramming.
Turning his gaze back to Emma, Neal thought if a swan was capable of glaring, this one was definitely doing so. Swan Emma Swan trumpeted loudly while flapping her wings.
Fighting to keep a straight expression, Neal crouched down to eye level with the swan that looked every bit a real swan, save the eyes... which he swore gave him a look that said, "If you laugh, I will bite you in a very private area."
Neal couldn't resist remarking, "You do have to appreciate the irony, though, right?"
AN: Another cop-out on the Swanfire kiss! I am SO evil! Did you see the Henry-is-gay plot twist coming? Approve? Disapprove? I wanted Henry to fly in the face of the show's not-so-modern take on classical misogynist heterosexual fairy tales. And what animals do you think the other characters turned into? Don't worry, it was just a harmless prank and they all turned back by sunrise, though Gretel got a full month of detention... which was totally worth it for the number of hits she got on her YouTube video!
Next up: You'd think it would be sunshine and rainbows now. But what fun would that be?