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

PART II

CHAPTER NINE

THE PIRATE OF NO PANTS

An afternoon that in another world was spent cooing over a baby, making out like teenagers, illicitly cheating on one's wife, and secretly hoarding magical artifacts had taken a turn.

Well, somewhat of a turn. Rumplestiltskin was still toting around a magical hatbox, but the rest of Storybrooke's most self-centered residents had seen an unperturbed past adding complications to their present day lives.

For instance, Henry Mills was now not spending the afternoon lamenting his newborn uncle being named after the dead father he barely knew, his mother's moodiness over her new boyfriend's wife turning up alive, and his other mother's previous evening of making out with a dirty pirate like a paid prostitute at the docks on a Saturday night.

Instead, Henry was sitting in a stinky jail cell, magically sealed in by his mother. He was also sharing the station with his scurvy nemesis after Dr. Whale had called Emma and demanded she take the pirate off his hands after Hook puked all over Whale's new white coat and wouldn't stop shouting "Swaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" Apparently, Hook had a bad reaction to the sedative after Nurse Ratched decided to follow up that enima with a colonoscopy.

So, now the pirate was curled up in fetal position in the adjacent cell complaining "that bitch of a nurse" had "raped him in the arse!" He'd gone on in a semi-lucid state about how it was hardly fair punishment for all of the wenches he'd "docked in the aft" so as not to "sow his devilishly handsome seed" as he was just being practical. This was followed by observations on the Evil Queen having a sizable booty he'd have liked to plunder if he wasn't otherwise taken by the "fair Princess Emma" and "the way those pants are painted on her sweet round bum the way Milah used to wear her leathers!"

Henry was certain he'd need serious therapy after tonight.

"Myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy buuuuuummmmmmm!" Hook cried. "The wench ruuuuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiined my buuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmm!"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Henry before pulling his pillow over his head.

He was never borrowing anyone's car ever again. It wasn't worth this torture!

Regina Mills' sizable booty was planted on a stool at Granny's while her red-painted lips were affixed to a glass of scotch being served by a newly employed Tinkerbell who was being quite uppity about her point proven that Regina had ruined lives.

Oh, sure, Robin had a good thing going with a wife he loved and a son, but now he'd fallen in love with Marian's murderer. Of course, the pathetic thing was that Henry had been right in his assessment that Robin was cool with this revelation, more than willing to let an execution slide, what with being so long ago.

The thing was, apart from that being a bit unsettling, "so long" actually amounted to only two years for him, since he was trapped in Cora's stasis spell during the 28 years of the Dark Curse, which really had left Regina questioning the morals and intelligence of her so-called true love.

As the Evil Queen, she would have been totally down with an adulterous dirtbag who shrugged off his wife's murder for her killer. That showed a callous disregard for human decency that she'd valued in her allies and lovers. Unfortunately, it really did seem to be less maliciousness and more stupidity in Robin's case. That pixie dust cloud seemed to have been dispersed by Emma's rather vicious character assassination attempt, and now Regina was looking over the past week as well as the few interactions with Robin in the Enchanted Forest without those rose-colored glasses of lust and fanciful fate foolishness.

Really, what kind of man declared that he had heard of the Evil Queen and all of her atrocities but announced he did not see such qualities in her... when, really, the only thing he saw was her heaving breasts, because they'd only just met, which was hardly long enough to judge anyone's ethical standings. And it had taken her decades to get over Daniel's death. Even setting dark magic aside, she'd moped in her castle apartments for a good several years before even considering the idea of trying to move on- and deciding she didn't want some glittery bitch telling her when to stop grieving!

But Robin? He didn't really seem to love Marian at all. And in spite of his tale of stealing from the Dark One to save his unborn son, he was always foisting Roland off on his Merry Men, unless it was to buy the kid ice cream from that creepy blonde woman who somehow got people to buy her overly-fatty treats in the middle of winter. He acted more like a man who was relieved his wife had died and was grudgingly putting up with Roland as though, had Regina not been more than willing to adopt a child not of her blood, he'd pull a stunt like the pirate's old man and just abandon the tike one day in favor of true love.

Plus, he really did only have that one expression that Henry equated to that hillbilly character on The Simpsons.

"Why would Destiny have saddled me with an imbecile before I was evil? When I could have chosen a good path?" Regina asked, or that's how it sounded in her head. In actual words it was extremely slurred and sounded more like, "Wyyyyyyyyed distnyfaddled maidoon imsool boofuriz elfl?"

Thankfully, Tinkerbell could translate Regina's inebriated query after decades becoming fluent in Drunk Pirate.

"Because Destiny knew you would choose evil," the ex-fairy responded. "Ipso facto, your punishment is a doofus. It was my bad for trying to set you two up earlier than Fate had decreed. I see that now. The Blue Fairy was right that I shouldn't have interfered. Which doesn't mean I regret punching her in the tits. She still had that coming."

"Heeeheee teeeeeets!" Regina giggled. "Ife niiiiiiiiiiize teeeeeeeeeeets. Rubeeen luuuuuuuuuuufs ma tee...ta... tatas!"

"Jeez, woman," sighed Tinkerbell, "it's not even happy hour yet and you are wasted. Should I call Henry to drive you home?"

"Naaaaaaaaa funneeee! Iza durty peerots fald!"

"Of course it is," Tinkerbell agreed. "But you have to admit, your kid did the crime. He has to do the time. I mean, if he hadn't been stuck in Pandora's Box by Pan, I've had locked his dumb ass up in it for giving that psychotic shite his heart!"

Regina let out a sigh. "Puuuuuur Hanree godiz gramutter's brawns."

"Yeah, and you got your grandfather's liver the way you're drinking," said Tinkerbell. "Seriously, I am calling you a cab."

Despite the offense at having to take public transportation, Regina nodded, then inquired, only just noticing, "Wh- hic -erez Ooobee?"

Ruby was just down and across the street. After some 'getting fucked over by the nobles and magic-wielders' sympathy from Tinkerbell, the werewolf had marched over to The Charmings' loft to accuse them of trying to get rid of the complication of their friendship just like they tried to get rid of the complication of raising a kid that could make mistakes and that many-mistake-having-made kid so they could make another one, until that hopefully perfect spawn's fate was threatened.

The list of Ruby's accusations went on toward evening, an accumulated list going back to the Enchanted Forest and all of the psychological trauma she now had to deal with - major PTSD - from all the people she had to maul to death to save her "friends" whenever they undertook ill-conceived missions without any other backup and zero scouts, something a fairy might have come in handy for.

Also, David was a shitty Sheriff for letting George go after murdering Billy and doing nothing to stop the anti-anthropomorphic human discrimination in town, plus the duties of a Sheriff did not include an 'executive decision' to force everyone back to the Enchanted Forest or letting everyone fend for themselves after Hook's treachery and Regina's Ring Pop of Doom sidelined that idea... which led into a whole treaties on how they were actually shitty rulers compared to Regina and George who, for all of their evil dictator shit, didn't try to pretend they were beneficent when screwing over peasants in favor of family bullshit.

By the time Ruby was finished, David's post-suspension day drinking had turned into a bender that rivaled Regina's drunken stupor and Mary Margaret was crying right along with Baby Something-Other-Than-Neal.

"... and in closing, our friendship is over!"

And thus the front door slammed hard, Baby Something-Other-Than-Neal wailed even louder, and David grouched, "For the love of Merlin's balls, Mary Margaret, will you shut that thing up!?"

"That thing is our son!" the brunet shouted back. "AND STOP CALLING ME MARY FUCKING MARGARET!"

Outside the window her shriek scattered a small flock of blue birds that might have been people who were turned into parrots who were masquerading as blue birds. Who can say for sure what they were, just that only an idiot would identify them as blue birds. Finches, possibly, but blue birds? Charles Darwin would come back from the dead and smite such a self-described nature lover down if someone were to create a portal to The Underworld. Thankfully, no one was doing any Buffy the Vampire Slayer cosplay with mystical weaponry this particular evening, so Snow White was spared.

David, however, would be sleeping in his truck.

And so it was the Mr. Gold finally woke from taking a late morning post-dagger-switching Ambien as though the shrill Princess' voice had carried all the way across town... which, on some ultrasonic level it probably had since the town was located in a valley.

"Finally!" Belle huffed. "I've been waiting for hours, Rumple! I tried to wake you, but all you did was mumble something about eggs in a basket and getting my creepy eye hands away from you. I didn't think I'd worn you out that badly last night, old man!"

"I am not that old!"

"You're three hundred and something," Belle stated. "Which should creep me out, really, but it doesn't, because I love you!" she said and kissed him.

"I... love you too," said Rumple, hiding his guilt. "Which is why I am so sorry that I really should check up on the shop-"

"No shop!" Belle sussed. "You've other plans. That's why I was trying to wake you, Rumple! Neal is back from the dead!"

The Dark One stared at his new wife while his fingers twitched around the real dagger in his pocket. A thought that came from spending far too much time with young Henry in New York for some reason came to mind:

Oh farts.

AN: Yeah, so the chronology doesn't exactly add up. Belle called Emma at the hospital in the morning on Rumple's phone (the Darth Vader ringtone), but it was almost evening the last chapter. Waaaa? As Adam & Eddy say, "Fuck it!" Did anyone else notice that the "blue bird" in the pilot is really a trained green parrot that they used greenscreen tech to turn blue? I mean, dude, no fucking bluebird has a beak like that and it just makes Snow White look dumb to call it that. And I don't care if that sounds Neil deGrasse Tyson levels of science anal-retentive! Anyway, this was another interlude of sorts. The people of Storybrooke are going to be taken down a peg or two before they have any hope of rising from the ashes of their predestined assholery and changing their fairy tale fates for something less... well... douchey. (Points to anyone who knows what show and character(s) "Oh farts" is from.)

Next up: Neal and Rumple have an awkward reunion (again).