Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

Note #2: Apologies in advance on two fronts. I know, I know, it's annoying that I am leaving out what Emma confronted and how she defeated it. It's lazy-ass writing. I just don't have the time to fill in some gaps and I want to get the main part of the chapters done. Hopefully, if any one cares down the line, I will fit in some flashbacks, perhaps with a dream sequence or something. On the second front, sorry that this chapter evolved mainly into an excuse to feature disgusting carnival food and call Emma a 'skank' as many times I could fit it in. So... if you don't think Emma is a skank and are eating right now, maybe don't read this?

CHAPTER SEVEN

THIS AIN'T NATHAN'S

Emma coughed and sputtered, brackish water pouring out of her lungs onto the dock... or boardwalk as it turned out to be when she pushed herself up.

She was back at the carnival on a strip of wood-covered planks that held food and game stalls, all of them with lights and even music, though there seemed neither vendors nor customers...

Accept for one.

She spotted a figure lounging at a table by a stall advertising caramel apples and warily approached only to stop short, startled.

"Dad?"

The man in black with a dusting of facial hair looked up and scoffed, "Well, I've probably sired some bastards in my life, but none that would address me as such. You'd be my skanky niece, I suppose."

Frowning, Emma returned, "And you'd be James. Murderer of Giants."

"And murdered by a giant of a man. Never say life - and death - doesn't have its ironies. Like yours. Both. Very ironic."

"What are you going to do to me?" Emma challenged, "sick a stay puft marshmallow man on me?"

"I have no idea what that is," said James, "but don't be so quick to dismiss me, skanky niece. We share blood. Just because your mother tempered my brother's flaws doesn't mean you're free of them, particularly when her line's got a shit-heap of its own. You wouldn't have swooned over a functional alcoholic slut otherwise."

He frowned a little and lamented, "Speaking of, I do miss Jack. That wench was always the perfect combination of drunk and horny. A woman of my own persuasion. Just a tad impetuous. I didn't want to leave her to die of that poison, of course, but there was nothing for it. Pity we got neither gold nor magic beans. Rather pointless death," he concluded while stroking his goatee.

"Yeah, you have my condolences," Emma muttered, then asked, "So, if Cora was Lust, who are you supposed to be?"

James looked at her smirkingly and waved an arm at the food stalls as he replied, "Gluttony, of course."

"Seriously?" snorted Emma. "You don't look like a fat slob."

"One doesn't need to be a fat slob to be a glutton," retorted the Prince. "The best gluttons are ruggedly handsome and wasteful in their overindulgence and over consumption of wealth in its many forms, however social norms might define it."

Shining his rings on the sleeve of his princely garb, James expounded, "Which, in my case, was just about everything, including my mistresses and many balls and feasts, splurging on what might have gone to the peasants if we'd actually cared much for them. But why should one care overmuch of people who are so indoctrinated into the idea of being hopelessly stuck in their fate without help of a fairy godmother? Some may call me selfish and evil, but I got up off my fine fit ass and did things to try and change my kingdom's fate!"

"Yeah, like King Arthur," challenged Emma.

"Well, he was delusional. But he tried."

Picking up a napkin and tucking it into the collar of his leather vest, he scoffed, "I mean, what did Cinderella do? She bartered her first born for a ball gown and then cried fowl when the Dark One collected. And Thomas. His father only sanctioned his marriage as an attempt to appease the peasants for the years of property mismanagement that had lead to blights and crop failures and unscrupulous tax collectors like that Bo Beep witch. And your parents started two wars that lead to the deaths of far more than a half dozen giants."

"So, what's your point? All good leaders suck?" Emma huffed.

"No, just most of them," retorted James. "It's the inbreeding. Not that the evil leaders are better, of course. More cunning, generally more intelligent over-all, but it's wasted on vices. Look at Midas?"

"I thought he was a good leader," remarked Emma, confused. "I mean, he was cursed..."

"And used that curse to make a castle solid gold and fill it with the gilded carcasses of endangered magical creatures," scoffed James. "You think he wanted me to slay a dragon to impress his daughter? I didn't get a reputation as James the Dragon Slayer for nothing. He just wanted to add another trophy animal to his hunting castle. But you know what they say, if life gives you curses - use it to become an animal-killing loan shark."

Emma scoffed, "Pretty that's not an actual saying."

"Not in your world," argued James. "Guy was scary, let me tell you. No one ever wanted to take out a loan from Midas. His interest rates were criminal and you never know when he'd collect by turning one of your henchman to gold. Sure, he wasn't as mad as Arthur, but you didn't want to owe Midas any debts."

James snagged a deep-fried Twikie from a pile of food that seemed to have just appeared out of nowhere while Emma wasn't looking and amended, "Aaaanyway, my point is, skanky niece, you've got a bit of glutton in you with your fancy-ass apartments, tight leather dresses, and those designer stripper heals."

"I don't wear stripper heals. Belle wears stripper heals," Emma harumphed.

"I'm sure a number of stores on Fifth Avenue would say differently. Seriously, skanky niece, who wears stripper heals to make breakfast for their son and take a walk in the park?"

"I had fake memories for a fake life - and stop calling me 'skanky niece'!"

"Fake or real, it doesn't change the core of your personality. You're skanky. You are my niece. And you are also a glutton. And I don't mean the grilled cheese and onion rings - which is a disgusting combination."

"You're eating a deep-fried Twinkie," Emma pointed out, "and I don't like onion rings."

"Evil twin thing, huh? That's cool," grinned James.

"It is not cool."

"Well, obviously not. It's a gastronomically insult. But soulless beings - there's no accounting for taste. Literally," agreed James. "Now... where was I? Oh, yes, your non-food-related overindulgence. Besides the commitment free sex with strangers and the emotion free sex with fanboys family relations, you covet pretty things - like sex-supplying fanboys. Also, there's the day drinking."

"Alcohol addiction is a disease-"

"Accepting it is the first step to recovery I've been told."

"I was going to say, but I am not an alcoholic. Or a jacket shop-aholic. Or a sex addict!" Emma argued. "And everyone likes to be flattered once in a while," she concluded, crossing her arms.

"Flattered, huh? Being stalked is rarely flattering," imparted James after polishing off the Twinkie. "I should know. Sexy prince that I am, I had a number of stalkers in my lifetime." He licked his fingers before continuing, "And I may be evil, but I grew up loved and well-adjusted enough to know that attention from strange woman who declared their undying love for me, insisted I was destined to be their one true love, invaded my personal property, and turned every conversation into some narcissistic revisionist history of their pathetic lives that paralleled mine were mentally and emotionally unbalanced stalkers looking to bed me, wed me, and use their feminine wiles to bend me to their whims. Of course, your pirate's only feminine wiles were eyeliner, excessive jewelry, and being emotionally smothering - but you get the point."

"Yeah, okay, I got a bit escapist obsessed with his attention to distract me from my otherwise shitty life," Emma grumbled, "but that doesn't mean I have a problem. I mean, I barely knew him before I lost my soul."

"Oh, skanky niece, you have so many problems!" tutted James as he waved a stick of cotton candy like a fluffy sword. "When you don't want to deal with a problem, you drink. That's a problem. When you get drunk, you destroy other people's personal property. That's a problem on top of a problem. And only an alcoholic would drink the backwash of a three century old STD-riddled pirate on a regular basis."

"Alcohol kills germs," Emma grumbled.

"Pure alcohol kills germs. Homemade rum kills brain cells. No wonder you're so dumb," James chortled, poking her in the temple with the stick.

"I'm not dumb."

"Your mother's not very bright. Neither is your father - though I think that's more our father dropping him on his head as a baby when he was drunk than any heredity stupidity like you got from your maternal grandfather. Poor Leo. His parents were first cousins."

"I'm not a glutton, okay?" Emma hissed. "Just because I have a drink sometimes when I am stressed or bought a lot of jackets doesn't make me a horder. It's not like I was withholding anything from the needy like you."

"Just your dedication to their happiness in equal measure to your family, some of whom, like me, are stone-cold asshole murderers who don't deserve anything remotely like happiness," he told her with a smirking grin and a shrug while Emma scowled.

"That counts as gluttony," tutted James while pulling off wads of pink fluff. "It's selfishness, essentially placing concern with one's own interests above the well-being or interests of others, and that extends to elevating your family to VIP status when you were explicitly given the task of being everyone's Savior. Doesn't require schadenfreude to be a dick," he said, "just ignoring that misfortune while enjoying your own sweet deal."

Emma glared while James ignored her and ate his cotton candy. When she couldn't take the silence anymore, Emma demanded, "How are you even using Land Without Magic slang? And you know about my shopping habits, but you don't know pop culture terminology?"

"I'm an enigma!" chortled James. "Also, the dead can see many worlds. But that doesn't mean we take the time to watch their movies and television shows. Furthermore, I met Isaac back in the day. He wrote me a cure for syphilis in exchange for some tips with the ladies. Seems he had an unfortunate knack for attracting serial killers and wanted to break that cycle with some new moves - and with all the syphilis going around the Enchanted Forest, he could make quite a few mutually beneficial trades."

"Right, because Jack was such a sweetheart. She probably gave you syphilis," snorted Emma with a roll of her eyes.

"She was a sweetie when she was sober... which wasn't very often, and I actually got Cupid's Disease from a pretty little bar wench who got it from your great grandfather - I think she was one of his few consensual non-pirate shags - though how consensual an alcoholic sex addict is is probably open to debate."

After licking his fingers again, James told a glowering Emma with a pointed look, "Look, skanky niece, you've been a complete and utter dickhead in many aspects of your life. I know how that goes," he told her and paused to offer her...

"Where are my manners? Beer Ravioli? Deep fried Kool-Aid ball?"

"No thanks," Emma grunted.

"Really? You seemed so into the Enchanted Forest Kool-Aid," quipped James. "I mean, you had inherent psychological issues sure. Even before the de-souling, you transferred a love-hate relationship with your Latin-y childhood frenemy who betrayed you terribly to an adult proxy who betrayed you even more terribly... and then your childhood frenemy was transformed into a giant of a white woman-"

"Yeah... I never did actually figure what was up with that," Emma conceded with a sigh.

"Magic, obviously. Merlin's apprentice is racist," said James after finishing off a Kool-Aid ball. "Although whether be was racist before he became Merlin's lackey or after is debatable. I mean, you try being a crotchety old fucker indentured to a handsome and eternally young wizard and assigned to be his proxy in the most racist part of our world - and not pick up some hate issues. The Enchanted Forest is so racist. I mean, like really really racist. Non-super-white people only go there if they're exiled or enslaved. Which is a shame. Do you know how hard it is to find a white mistress with an ass in the Enchanted Forest? Jack was great in bed, but she could have used a bit more junk in the trunk if you know what I mean."

"You are a loathsome human being who let your lover die," grumbled Emma.

"And you're a shallow skank who pursued a man just because his ass looked hot in leather pants. Don't deny it. You liked laying on your back and being jabbed with his sword. Seriously, though, did someone touch you as a kid in the foster system, because I'm pretty sure finding rape threats at sword-point romantic is a sign of sexual abuse."

"Stop channeling Cora, you weirdo!"

"Stop denying you were molested, you skank!"

Red-faced, Emma exclaimed, "Fine, I was five, but it has nothing to do with me and Hook!"

James scoffed. "Just keep telling yourself that. Do you want to know how many of my lovely stalkers were diddled by their step-daddies?"

"Shut up!"

"Of course, in your world, it's surprising you didn't end up pole dancing. Or not. You really lack coordination. I feel for your pirate kin's pointy-booted feet. Though pointy boots went out of style a good two centuries ago, so not that much."

"Is there an actual point here?" Emma growled.

"Besides getting you to admit that someone touched you in your naughty place before you started renting it out to perverts? Well, that would be that Lust and Gluttony are strange but close bedfellows," James told her. "Not literally, but I'd have laid with Cora in her younger years, let me tell you. I hear she was quite the freak between the sheets!"

"Oh. My. God. I hate you. Why are all you people perverts!?"

"It's the social oppression of a patriarchal society that defines a woman's worth by the state of her virtue - that being chastity until marriage."

"I suppose I should have guessed that," sighed Emma as she finally took a seat at the table to watch in disgusted fascination as James dug into a fried ice cream burger.

He finished it in three disgusting bites, then continued, "Aaaaanyway, where were we? Oh, right, Regina."

"I don't think we were."

"Yes, we were. Your childhood lesbian crush proxy."

"Lily was not-"

"Right, you kissed by accident in that boathouse. Embrace your bi-curiosity, skanky niece. The men in your life were certainly not living up to expectations," said James. "Not that you should have scissored your step grandmother. That woman was a crazy bitch. I was all for your 'you are a sociopath, I going to take you down, bitch' speech." He then rolled his eyes. "But you took one holiday to the Enchanted Forest and even after the whackjob tried to kill you and your family to help her formerly fuckable mama become immortal, you invited her for lasagna. Betrayal equals friendship is just as bad as your sex pervert addiction."

Emma scowled. "I told her she had to work to spend time with Henry, though..."

"Which quickly transitioned to 'I will jeopardize my very soul to help you make a new family with your murderer-loving fuckboy,'" he waved a hand, remarking, "kudos to Robin, really, what a bro," before continuing, "It warmed the cockles of my heart when Gi-Gi truthed you all free of Pan's clutches by saying she would murder and destroy and rape and pillage and fuck over your happiness all over again so she could change your son's diapers. But then, I love murdering raping and pillaging - and hate children. But you, skanky niece? You've got issues," concluded James with a snort.

"Shut up," Emma grumbled and took a beer ravioli off the table. Sadly, it was delicious.

James smirked.

"Shut up."

"Didn't say anything."

"It's cooked! There's no alcohol in it!"

"It's deep fried for like three seconds. Still boozy. You can get so wasted on these things. I try to lay off the carbs, though. Got to keep in shape for the ladies."

"You're dead."

"So are all of my lovers, and the well-bread ones always come back for more."

Emma made a disgusted sound and again her creepy uncle smirked.

"See, skanky niece, us royals excel at gluttony. Food, fucking, fashion, ferocious beast slaying. Anything that puts the peasants to shame will do."

James paused, then grinned, "Hey, I wonder if your parents feel bad for all the roast swan they ate over the years? And the funny thing, of course, is that swan tastes terrible. It's gamy and tough and full of fat, but not good fat like duck fat, rather nasty, bad-tasting fat. Still, swans are pretty, so kings and queens love having them slaughtered, dressed, and cooked inside their feathery taxidermy bodies for centuries. I'm sure there's some analogy to you in there somewhere."

Emma glared. "I can't believe I'm related to you!"

"I can't be worse than Great Grand-Pappy Killy-Poo-Put-His-Sword-in-Your-Lady-Scabbard. And by 'scabbard' I mean your vagina."

"I can't believe I'm related to either of you."

"You know, shagging your own kin, that's sick even by my liberal standards," sniggered James. "but I understand how hard it is to comprehend such a physically perfect pedigree. We are both excessively hot, tall and muscular with smolder turned up to eleven that never quits while you are ridiculously short with straight dishwater blonde hair, a face full of childish freckles, and tits like a twelve year old girl. Unless you spend hours with highlights and curling irons, concealer and false lashes, and magical push-up bras that make it appear as though you've got something to show for puberty there - or use dark magic - you look like Tilda Swinton and Gollum's love child. Actually, using dark magic does that too."

"I do not look like that! And I thought you didn't watch movies!?"

James scoffed. "Gollum is quite real. Middle Earth is a real trippy place. And Tilda Swinton is an androgynous forked-tongued lizard witch whom you apparently find hideous."

"She is not! And I do not!"

"You do and she might be. You're dead and banned from television and movie privileges, so you'll never know."

After a pause to pick up... a chocolate covered scorpion? James expounded on his previous point, "You see, you are deplorably plain, just a step above homely, really. It's the eyebrows and eyes that are deceptive. You have great eyebrows from your great grand pappy and eyes that aren't quite hazel and not quite blue, both of which distract from the over-all average package until it's too late. A bit like Jack, really. It was the eyes that pulled me in before I realized she wasn't so much hot as kind of looked like a dude. I feel for Killian. He must have been so disappointed with the reveal."

"Asshole!" Emma threw a spaghetti and meatball on stick at him. Which he caught. Damn it. "I like the way I look. I am not vane."

"Your nerdy glasses say differently, nerd-hater," argued James as he took a bite of the meatball.

Emma, finding the glasses on her face, pulled them off and growled, "I had to get Lasik surgery because I was a bountyhunter! I have nothing against nerds."

"Suuuure. It's funny, really," said James, "that it's most often the people who have to primp and preen themselves to look pretty who are the most superficial of other people's looks. Speaks to some deep insecurity and self-esteem issues, I suppose. Also, keep the man-hands to yourself, young lady!"

"SHUT UP!"

"You shut up," James taunted back. "I'm the adult giving the lecture here, and you may not like to hear it, but I'm the expert on excess and debauchery and you can't even go swimming in the deep end without your floaties or you end up falling down portals, turning into the Dark One, shagging on a bed of rape roses, and spawning evil."

Emma glared. "I hate my family."

"Yes, yes, they are terrible, aren't they? Bunch of hypocritical rape-lovers. I hate them as well," James agreed. "Badly written, every last one of them. And did you see how fat your mother got popping out another brat? I mean, the ass was nice, sure, but the rest of it was a turnoff. And the weird obsession with orange and ponchos. I don't know how she can retain the title of 'fairest of them all' with the fashion sense of a road construction crew worker. Plus, that weave. Did your father make it from a mangy goat?"

All Emma could manage was an aggravated growl that her uncle ignored.

"Maybe more of a pumpkin... Halloween must be a fun holiday," James mused off topic. "Dressing up in sweet outfits to trick old people into giving you things."

"That is not how trick-or-treating works!"

"Really? And how would you know? The big kids always beat you up for your homemade costumes and took your candy before you made it down the block. The closest you got to candy was half-eaten PopTarts... which rather makes your food-related prisoner abuse hypocritical, don't you think?"

Emma harumphed and crossed her arms again. The Halloween part was true. She always got laughed at and never got any candy. Part of the reason she at first hated Enchanted Forest clothes was the feeling that she was wearing a costume and would be ridiculed. But then, as the Dark One, she didn't give a fuck if people were judging her. Sure, she picked a pretty shitty costume, but Emma strongly suspected that fashion sense required having a soul... and true memories.

She blamed the PopTart thing on her soulless demon self. She would never do that. Or powder her hair and eyebrows for no reason.

James expounded, "Children are horrible. Hence the reason I never claimed any of mine. One day they're calling you 'Papa' and making cute drawings and the next they're screwing your mistress and plotting to take your thrown."

"That didn't happen."

"To me? You don't know. Or do you mean your son? He turned out to be quite the pervert, didn't he? Well, what do you expect with a man-slut for a male role model? But he got his comeuppance in the end. Or is it cum-uppance? Heh. You're meat shadow dying for that cute little bastard that wasn't even your blood... now that's sad, isn't it?"

"Well, apparently, it's good that I'm completely dead," Emma hissed, "or my soul would still be in that past prison hell."

"Purgatory."

"Whatever."

"I suppose you're right, though. That existence needed to end, but better a chance the souls - sadly incomplete as they are - could be saved by you preemptively kicking it than if you'd gone out with the rest of our kin in a Dark One sized orgy of evil. As I understand it, that would have just tabla rasa'd the whole thing. Not sure even you would have existed anymore, being a storybook character like the rest of us, no matter how unique you're supposed to be."

After a pause, James mused, "Though I can't say I miss the Enchanted Forest, it's surrounding kingdoms, or the majority of the inhabitants. As I said, all the racism made for a very bland variety of ladies. And Asians. I think they only let Mulan in because she's gay, so there was less chance of her creating any half-Asian baby warrior princesses to beat the shit out of all of the dishonorable white rulers in the land. Which is most of them. We've a very corrupt and xenophobic homeland."

"Yeah, well, God apparently created it that way," stated Emma, still not sure what her feelings on God were. She'd stopped believing in a higher power at every early age, but then magic was real, so... and here she was, having talked to self-proclaimed Angels.

"Of course. No one wants to read about generous and well-functioning governments to learn how to form a generous and well-functioning government," scoffed James, pickle pop in hand. "Thank God. Can you imagine how boring my life would have been if not for the requisite debauchery? Sure, it was a short life, but YOLO, am I right?

"Well, not for most of our family, actually. It's rather unfair. I got stabbed through the heart once and I die forever while my brother and the rest you lot came back a half dozen times from mortal injuries that had you colder than the Snow Queen's titties. Although, to be fair, you technically died just the one time while your soulless body double slutted and murdered it up, giving you a shit-heap of extra sins upon your soul once she kicked it. Not the best parol terms, I imagine."

"Having the memories of a creepy obsessive love affair with my great grandfather and murdering people? Yeah, not really. I preferred the halfway house and work study courses."

"And I prefer food that wasn't deep fried in pig lard," sighed James. "But what are you going to do? At least I still have my looks and my fashion sense and wasn't punished with flannel and burgundy leisure suits.

"Merlin's balls, my brother had terrible fashion sense, and he couldn't remotely rock a sexy scruff beard. Mostly David just looked gay, and not in a gay-fashion-designer-making-awesome-evil-outfits way. Which, I get, is an insulting use of the term, but I am a douchebag."

"A very long-winded douchebag," grated Emma.

"Well, if I don't talk, the ladies want to talk after sex, and then I would be tempted to kill them," James explained. "So I extoll the virtues of all my non-sexual conquests. They love hearing about the many dragons I killed. I plucked many a virginity with those tales. Virgins love dragon stories."

He unwrapped another treat. "Caramel apple covered in meal worms?"

Emma grimaced. She'd actually seen these nightmarish things at the Arizona State Fair. Just to spite him, she took a bite, chewed, forced herself not to gag, and swallowed.

James smirked. "Quite good at repressing the gag reflex. Lots of practice?"

"FUCK OFF!"

"I bet you did. I wonder which of you is the bigger skank, you or Jack? Ever participated in an orgy? Banged a unicorn?"

"What kind of a freak do you think I am!?"

"One of my deviant gene pool overlapping with another sex-addicted gene pool," James told her and rolled his eyes adding, "Duh."

"I have not had any orgies or 'banged' any animals... well... aside from Walsh, but he was human at the time and I wouldn't have had sex with him I'd known he was a flying monkey!"

"Well, here's hoping you get off on that technicality," nodded James. "Bestiality is the only thing worse than incest. Though I'm not sure how it relates to, say, Dwarfs and Fairies. Personally, I don't see the problem with it, and the fact that the Blue Fairy made a stink about it suggests it's perfectly acceptable. The only people more racist and sexist than Enchanted Forest humans are Fairies. I mean, Cinderella got that Fairy of Color killed, and she got a husband for it. Tinkerbell tried to help the only biracial monarch in the Enchanted Forest and got exiled to Neverland. There's something shady going on with that cult of glittery bugs, let me tell you."

"Okay, you may have a point there," Emma conceded. "The fairies are creepy and suspicious."

"And never ever ever put out," sighed James.

Emma groaned, "And theeeere it is."

"And here you are," countered James, "trying to act all high and mighty and virtuous. But even knowing that unnaturally pretty people tend to be ugly on the inside, what with never having to work hard for anything and being spoiled into rotten worm-covered apples," he remarked while picking up the candy apple, "you've regularly been drawn toward them."

"I had part of my soul missing!" huffed Emma.

"True, but still, it's something you should talk to a therapist about."

"What therapies!? I'm dead!?"

"There are therapists in the afterlife. Freud might even proscribe you some cocaine. It's better than pixie dust!"

"Arrrgghh!" Emma cried in disgust and jumped to her feet.

She was not an alcoholic or sex addict or intentionally screwing over peasants or some shallow drama queen. This was such bullshit!

"You can't walk away from your enemy before it's defeated!" James called after her. "You'll just get stabbed through the back!"

Emma growled and spun back around, but James was gone.

Suddenly, the ground shook and a shadow fell over the food booths.

Craning her neck up, Emma hissed, "You've got to be kidding me!"

AN: What did you think of James? A lot more adolescent than on the show, but he was definitely a douchebag. Sorry again for not showing Emma fight the Tunnel of Love Monster.

Next up: Another 'G'.