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 NINETEEN

THE PIRATE, THE BITCH, AND THE WARDROBE

The Apprentice's home smelled musty from years of being uninhabited, the man apparently trapped here by the Dark Curse as some of Rumplestiltskin's revenge... though why he hadn't gone back and tidied the place during that year in the Enchanted Forest, who could say? Maybe he'd decided he was done with this magical nonsense.

Of course, Emma could have tracked him down using one of his many personal possessions and magic, but Gold had the potion required and she didn't trust "Micky Mouse" any more than she had Isaac, so she'd just assume leave the old creep to the current Dark One to do with as he chose, and whether or not that damned Gold to death... well... it was his free will.

After the snow monster was discovered, not surprisingly, as a cover for Ingrid stealing Anna's necklace, they'd had to come up with a quick, somewhat half-assed plan to recover Elsa and gaurd the wardrobe against Ingrid using it before she decided, success or failure, to cast her Shattered Sight spell and cause the residents of Storybrooke to murder each other until she was the only one left... after which she would, probably try to use the wardrobe or some other means to get back to the Enchanted Forest.

The plan was to try killing two birds - or villains - with one field trip... to entirely fuck up metaphors. They'd get Excalibur and the Promethian Flame, which would work just as well as the Apprentice's dildo wand at freeing Rumplestiltskin and Merlin from the influence of the sword's pieces when the two were fused.

That would also free Merlin from the tree and allow him to help take down Fake Arthur by freeing everyone of the Avalon Dust fangirl magic and revealing him for who he really was... which might also require removing a charm like the one Zelena and Robin had used, but which hopefully was not up his butt.

Then everyone would be free and they could rain magical Agent Orange down upon those unnatural rose-chive hybrid "Middlemist" flowers created with Devil magic that carried it in their pollen, an insidious means to amplify attractions and twist them into feelings of "true love"... which made Emma really regret rolling around in a field of them with Hook and then routinely huffing that one she'd magically kept alive for the next several decades.

She didn't even like the color pink!

(And then they could retrieve Elsa's urn and find Anna and Kristoff, who'd by then be seeking out Blackbeard, and they could put at least the lesser problem of petty family squabbling behind them before tackling the destruction of the Dark One... and moving on to more petty family squabbling.)

It was becoming quite clear to Emma that Metatron was either fucking with her or not being entirely honest about how involved or not in all of this Satan was. Maybe it was just his minions being proactive and doing evil shit to get promotions in Hell or something, but it sure sounded shady, like part of some greater battle between Heaven and Hell, using fairy tale people as pawns in an old grudge over the whole exile thing that lead to her family being pawns in the counterattack.

Divine being sucked!

Emma was really beginning to miss being an atheist. She'd give Hook's left nut just to be an agnostic again! Unfortunately, God probably didn't want it any more than she did.

"Stop scratching your balls!" Emma hissed at the pirate who'd paused in double-checking his supplies of weapons, rum, and leather to readjust himself with his hook in a rather inappropriate fashion again.

"I can't help it. I only have one pair of britches suitable for this world and I didn't have time to get them cleaned by Storybrooke's Asian residents."

"Dude, that's so racist!" Neal groaned, walking into the room with his own rucksack.

"It is not! The only establishment in town for the cleaning of unwashable garments is run by what this world calls 'Asian' people. And even our people don't bother with 'Shangri-la-ians' because that sounds dumb. Well, aside from their pirates, anyway. If we come across Captain Shang, don't call him 'Magical Chinese' or he will magical Chinese water torture you."

"Ugh, your world is so racist," sighed Emma.

"It's your world too, luv," pointed out Hook.

"Please, just our world?" Regina prompted as she escorted a sour-faced Henry who was pissed off at being forbidden to go. "Did you watch the Academy Awards? It was whiter than a Republican primary."

"Touché."

"What's a Republic primary?" asked Hook.

Belle, who twirled in like she was at a ball responded in her know-it-all tone, "You know how in ancient times the Athenians all voted themselves on the laws of their kingdom to maintain a utopia of peace and tranquility... and then the gods got offended at all of the freethinking, sunk their capital and brainwashed everyone into believing in hereditary monarchies based on fear-mongering, xenophobia, war waging, weapon proliferation, subjugating women through laws on chastity and virtue, and monetary greed? It's like both of those."

"That seems mutually exclusive."

"Yeah, you'd think," said Neal and raised a brow at his stepmother. "Why are you wearing that yellow ballgown? You'd better not be planning to slow dance and have sex up in here again. What if we walk back through that wardrobe while you two are going at it? I never walked in on my parents having sex because they weren't having any, and I'd like to avoid any parental sex-related trauma."

"Yeah, you definitely want to avoid that," Emma agreed with a glance at her parents who flushed.

"You walked in on your parents?" Neal sputtered, bemused.

"It can't have been that traumatizing," shrugged Hook. "I'd imagine their lovemaking is as shocking as watching paint dry."

"HEY!" The Charmings both exclaimed, offended.

"I did mention that they have little flowers on their sheets did I not?" he continued.

Regina sniggered, "I'm surprised that being so neutered, David was able to procreate at all."

"Burn!" Hook beamed and held up his only hand in expectation of a co-burn high-five, but Regina gave him a disgusted look.

He in turn gave Henry a disgusted look and hissed, "You told me that was a thing!"

"Oh, I'm sure it is," sassed Regina, "but I don't want to catch whatever strain of syphilis rotted your brain and turned you into an incestuous alcoholic slut."

"Speaking of," Emma changed the subject and frowned at Hook, "why you are even coming? I'm not going to give in to your 'charms', Hook."

"To get my first love back, obviously," Hook replied in a huff while affixing a cutlass to his belt. "You may have chosen Nealfire over me-"

"I haven't chosen anyone over anyone," Emma cut him off, "and even if I had, he hasn't chosen me."

"Really?" sputtered the pirate, befuddled. "Why ever not? I thought he wanted to win you back, or seemed to when last we had a heart-to-heart prior to his funeral."

"If that's what you want to call setting me up to scare Emma away with a load of bullshit, sure," muttered Neal.

Emma sighed and responded, "Because I'm an asshole. Can we just go already?"

"I bet," Regina interjected again, "he's really going to get that hair tonic. We all know Hook's real first love is himself."

"It's for my ship!" Hook snapped.

"Sure, Captain Rogain."

Hook glared at the other man shouldering a pack of supplies and now dressed in fairy tale land clothes that were far more appealing on him than his hobo clothes, which he was sure Emma would notice and worked to offset, somewhat, Neal's otherwise inferior physical appearance - along with the shorter man having inherited the Crocodile's hair, which was problematic, because he had to consider Rumplestiltskin's hair as one of the reasons Belle had fallen for him, as he had no other good attributes. Women did love being able to run their fingers through a man's hair after lovemaking.

"Damn you, Nealfire!" Hook growled.

"Stop calling me that, Butt Pirate!" Neal shot back.

"Both of you shut up or I'm taking Regina instead!" Emma hissed.

Hook's glared turned to a grin. "I did always suspect Swan was a bit gay for-owe!" he howled as Emma smacked him upside the head.

"The only person I have ever been 'gay for' is Lily, and that's not any of your business."

"It is now that you brought it up. Who is this Lily lass and what exactly did you two fine ladies-bloody hell!" Hook hissed as Neal hit the other side of his head. "All the hair tonic in the forest and ships in the sea aren't worth this abuse!"

"Then stay here," Neal stated.

"Okay, fine," grumbled Hook, checking his head in the nearest mirror for further evidence of thinning since Whale cut him off due to the vomiting incident, "they're worth the abuse."

After Neal had done, Emma hugged their moody son and instructed, "Be good. Stay in school. Don't steal anything or kiss any girls. Pretty much anything Hook taught you, don't do it."

"Fine," Henry grumbled.

"And don't drop my brother down any wells," Emma instructed her parents.

"Oh, very funny," Snow harumphed before giving her daughter a hug.

"And seriously, name the kid already!" Emma amended.

Rumplestiltskin grumblingly spoke up, "Well, get on with it before that creepy old wanker shows up and curses us all for trespassing!"

"Don't die!" Tinkerbell called after them as the door shut and glowed, earning an annoyed look from everyone.

"Who invited you, anyway?" Regina complained.

"I figured since you and Robin are on the outs there was an available bon voyage spot."

"I'm beginning to see why the Blue Fairy tricked you into exile."

Everyone began filing out of the room as they broke into various overlapping arguments, appropriately forgetting about Henry instantly and leaving him alone in the room.

"Dude, my family are such idiots!" he snorted and opened the wardrobe's door, stepping confidently through-

And when the bright flash faded, found himself in the cell at Storybrooke's Sheriff Station with a box of Pop Tarts and note on the cot written in Emma's handwriting: You are so grounded, young man!

Henry sunk down onto the cot and pouted, "Oh, farts."

AN: "I'm an asshole" is from Jessica Jones who knows she's no hero. Poor Henry is in the slammer again. I can't help it. I just haven't liked his character since... I don't know... ever? He was okay in Season 1, but around 2B when he became a villain apologist and went from holding Regina accountable to defended her against any legitimate criticism with the "she's my mommy and she tried to clean up her own mess" defense made me kind of hate his little punk ass.

Next up: The Disenchanted Forest.