Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
Answer to Chapter 34 Question: The Amulet on Galavant, the one that Isabella absolutely wore every day even though Chef had never seen it before.
PART II
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DAZED AND CONFUSED
"'My mama said, "To get things done, you'd better not mess with Emma Swa-"
Emma paused in her walk through the forest at a tingly feeling on her wrist and noticed that she now had a new accessory.
"Sonofabitch!"
"I thought those wispy whatevers were supposed to protect against dark magic?" asked Elsa, notching her own ribbon.
"I guess it doesn't work for light magic being used for nefarious purposes. Damn it."
"What now?"
"Well, we find your crazy bitch aunt before everyone kills each other."
"It's your fault our son has a stupid name!" David shouted through the bars of one cell to the other.
"You're the one who suggested 'Neal' in the first place! What kind of name is 'Neal' for a prince? It's worse than 'David'!"
"What the hell does that mean!?"
"It means I like the name 'James' better and I lied when I said you should keep it for monarchy-related continuity so the people wouldn't challenge your leadership over George's kingdom! Who pledgees undying love to someone without telling them their actual name? Oh, right, someone like Neal. It must be something sheep related!"
"What's wrong with sheep!?"
"They smell! And they're stupid! And I got trampled by one when I was five and it was very traumatic!"
"Maybe that's the reason you're so stupid then! Did it trample your head?"
"Excuse me!?"
"You. Are. Dumb," David snapped at her. "Oh, you seemed clever when we met, but you apparently woke up from that sleeping curse with brain damage, baby, because you went from a tactical genius to a complete moron and it's been downhill ever since!"
"I'm dumb!? You made a deal with Rumplestiltskin and King George. You lead an army of murderous thugs to your mother's doorstep! And you got suspended by your own daughter because instead of doing your job, you sit around eating donuts and polishing your gun in between beating up people you didn't like back home! And you tried to teach a twelve year boy how to drive stick shift down a crowded street in the middle of the day!"
"Which you thought was a great idea and laughed off the property damage!" David shot back. "Who's the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him, Mary Margaret?"
"You take that back!"
"Nope. It's out there now. Walking around in the world. Just like our daughter's potential for evil that was supposed to make her a well-balanced, well-adjusted person capable of free will. But, you know, someone couldn't hack being an actual parent, so she badgered me into letting a creepy old wizard perform a horrible spell that doomed both our daughter and an innocent child to miserable lives!"
"And I feel really bad about that!"
"Do you really!? Because saying after the fact to just move on and let it be a reminder to be kinder people is not feeling bad, it's turning a crime into some kind of fucking narcissistic delusion!"
"Then you should have stopped me! But you're always worried that I think I'm better than you! That if I dump your ass, you'll lose all the power and pretty things you have as a prince!" snapped Snow. "You're just like your brother, David, but you won't admit it! You like power, fancy clothes, and slitting the throats of your enemies!"
"Well, someone has to do the throat-slitting in this family, or we'd all be repeatedly fucked over by villains you keep giving a second chance to! At least I know the difference between justice and forgiveness and when the latter is just being a damn fool!"
"Hey, I killed Cora! I saved our family!"
"And then had Regina rip out your heart in some bullshit suicidal depression! And then you had her rip out your heart to bring me back from the dead!"
"I wanted you to get to raise your son!"
"Like Hell! You weren't even thinking about our son! You had no idea if we could even share a heart! For all you knew, there was a fifty-fifty chance you'd die too, taking our unborn child with you! Well, congrats, you succeeded, but I was going to go to Heaven and be at peace, and you ripped me out! You brought me back to this fucked up, miserable life! That's why I drink and eat donuts and beat up people! To numb the agony of being alive and bonded to a complete moron!" shouted David. "The only plus is that you nearly get killed with your stupidity so often, there's probably like an eighty-five percent chance neither of us will make it to our son's first birthday!"
While Snow gaped, David went in for the kill, "You are selfish, Mary Margaret! You are selfish and foolish and I am done enabling your bullshit justifications and behavior because we are soulmates and true love!"
"Are you saying you want a divorce!?"
"I'm saying I want you to own the fuck up to all the stupid shit you've done and emotionally blackmailed me into going along with just because you're the one with leadership experience and loving you means you're always right!" David shouted. "Your experience sucks and it doesn't!"
Regina reentered the bullpen right then, back from City Hall and inexplicably now in her Evil Queen clothes. With a flick of her wrist, Snow White was also in her favorite furry outfit and Charming in his bland burgundy leisure suit.
"Having a marital spat, are we?"
"Stay out of this, Regina!" snapped Snow.
"Or, what, you'll shoot me with that arrow you don't have?"
"At least I have skills that don't rely on magic! I'd kick your ass in a real fight!"
"I'd like to see you try!"
"Then let me out and I will!"
"All right then!"
Regina opened the cell door - and Snow White lunged at her, punching her right in the face.
"YOU BITCH!" Regina screamed.
"YOU KILLED MY FATHER!" Snow roared, throwing another punch.
"YOU GOT DANIEL KILLED!" shouted Regina, grabbing Snow by her once-more long hair.
"I WAS TEN AND YOUR MOTHER MANIPULATED ME!"
"I DON'T CARE! YOU WERE A SELF-CENTERED BRAT WHO WANTED TO BE MY BEST FRIEND AND THEN ABANDONED ME TO A LOVELESS MARRIAGE WITH A CREEPY OLD MAN SO YOU COULD SPEND ALL YOUR TIME FAWNING OVER YOUR GODDAMNED HORSE! WHY DO YOU THINK IT SUDDENLY HAD TO GO OFF TO A SPECIAL RETIREMENT HORSE FARM?"
"YOU KILLED STARLIGHT GLIMMER MCTWINKLESHINE!?" Snow screamed, horrified and infuriated.
"THAT'S RIGHT! I KILLED YOUR STUPID PONY!"
"OH, IT'S ON NOW, BITCH!"
The hair-pulling slugfest escalated while David watched from his cell, not really embarrassed to admit-
"It's so hot, right?" interjected Hook wandering over with a key to unlock David's cell.
"Yeah, it... wait, you tried to sleep with my daughter!"
David punched him in the face.
Hook staggered back. "What the he-"
"I'm gonna make you kiss floor, Hook!" he growled before grabbing the pirate by his thinning hair, slamming his face into the bars and then pushing him to the ground.
"Kiss the floor, Hook! It's your real true love!"
Some flying office furniture from Regina and Snow's fight forced David to duck, letting up the pressure on Hook who used his prosthetic to yank the quasi-Prince by the ankle off balance.
As David fell, Hook scrambled to his feet, shouting, "I didn't know she was my kin! You put her in a box to Maine!"
"For her own good, pirate!"
"She'd have died of dehydration and hypothermia, prince!"
"Like when you left her in that dungeon!?" countered David, attacking with his sword.
Hook drew his own sword and it was on.
"I WAS WORKING FOR CORA! I HAD NO CHOICE!"
"THERE'S ALWAYS A CHOICE!"
"LIKE NOT PUTTING YOUR KID A BOX TO ANOTHER DIMENSION!"
"FUCK YOU, HOOK! YOU ONLY SAVED MY LIFE TO FUCK MY DAUGHTER!"
"AND I ADMITTED THAT TO YOUR FACE BEFORE I EVEN DID IT BUT YOU WERE STILL NICE TO ME! THAT'S ON YOU!"
"I WAS ONLY NICE TO YOU BECAUSE MY WIFE TOLD ME TO BE NICE TO YOU AND I WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN ANY SEX OTHERWISE!"
"AT LEAST YOU WERE GETTING SEX! I WAS TRYING TO BE CHIVALROUS PINING FOR MY OWN KIN! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY BUSTY LASSES I PASSED ON THAT I COULD HAVE SHAGGED BEFORE LOSING MY LOOKS!? AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"
"HOW THE HELL IS IT MY FAULT!?"
"IF YOU HADN'T CRUSHED THAT MAGIC HAT AND THEN LET YOUR IDIOT ADOPTIVE FATHER BURN THAT CRUSHED HAT BECAUSE YOU ARE A TERRIBLE SHERIFF, YOU WOULD HAVE BROUGHT EMMA BACK TO THIS WORLD BEFORE I HAD A CHANCE TO DEVELOP INCESTUOUS FEELINGS FOR HER!"
"HE'S RIGHT!" Snow interjected as she ducked a punch. "THAT WAS EXTREMELY STUPID, DAVID!"
"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO JUMPED THROUGH THE DAMN HAT AFTER HER SAYING YOU COULDN'T LOSE HER AGAIN AND THEN WERE ALL TOO HAPPY TO ABANDON EMMA IN NEVERLAND TO A LIFE WITHOUT EITHER OF US!" David shot back while parrying an attack from Hook.
"YOU ARE ALL IMBECILES AND I HATE YOU!" roared Regina, breaking the rules and using magic to throw them all into the walls.
"CHEATER!" said Hook.
"YOU PROMISED NO MAGIC!" growled David.
Snow didn't say anything as she'd hit her head extremely hard on the metal bars of the jail cell and was laying in a crumpled heap with a rather nasty bleeding head wound.
Regina poked her with her fancy shoe. "Damn it, get up so I can keep beating the crap out of you!"
"I think you killed her," said Hook.
"No, she's still bleeding," argued David.
"All over my shoes too!" grumbled Regina and then she turned and punched Hook in the face.
He fell to the floor and coughed out, "What the hell was that for!?"
"For teaching my son to cheat and stealing that car! He could have been killed! And all the times you took him out on that smelly shrimp boat without my permission because his birth mother was too lazy and a slutty gullible moron like her mother to tell that you were an alcoholic pervert rapist!"
"Hey, Snow is not slutty and you don't get to pull the rape card, Regina!" interjected David. "I know what you did to Graham!"
"Who was a much less benevolent person than I made him under the Curse!" Regina shot back. "He was sexually infatuated with your teenage wife!"
"Really?" mused Hook. "Emma has awful taste in men. She must have been horribly screwed up as a child. I bet she was molested." He smirked at David. "Your daughter was probably diddled by a pervert as a kid and it's all your fault, princey boy!"
"SHUT UP!" howled Daivd.
"HAS EVERYONE FORGOTTEN THAT I WAS DIDDLED BY AN OLD PERVERT AT EIGHTEEN AFTER LOSING MY TRUE LOVE!?" Regina reminded.
The fight resumed while Snow lay bleeding and forgotten on the floor.
"So...we should probably go do something," Henry unconvincingly said while eating Funyons and watching the closed circuit TV in the Mayor's office.
"Yeah, probably," shrugged Neal, who'd come over with said Funyons, a case of beer, and some of Happy's weed and was holding an ice pack from Regina's mini fridge over a lump on his head.
Of course, Henry had not been thrilled to see him at first. While Neal had avoided the marbles there was lots of shouting and throwing of apples and horse figurines as the kid let out his pent up anger at Neal trusting August and sending Emma to jail so she had to give him up, so he was raised by a homicidal loveless bitch who made him feel crazy, and the whole not coming to Storybrooke with August or after he got the postcard and then bringing Tamara to Storybrooke and dying twice, the second time without Henry even remembering him so he kept hating him even worse for weeks...
Anyway, Henry's rebellious teenage impulses - such as that to try weed, beer, and eat massive amounts of junk food - outweighed his anger, just as Neal had suspected it would. Sure, Emma would kill him later for getting their son getting high and tipsy, especially when there was probably a family history of alcoholism... but he'd only let him have the one beer and focused on making an apple bong.
"Like, really, Grandma's bleeding a lot," Henry observed, then snorted. "She should wear a helmet like people with epilepsy considering how often she gets knocked out. It's like her thing."
"Her thing?"
"Yeah," giggled Henry. "Regina's thing is fireballs. Emma's thing is that superpower bullshit. David's thing is trying to look like a hero by putting himself in mortal peril. Belle's thing is books and getting tied up. Grandpa Gold's thing is lying about doing dark magic. Hook's thing is being a pervert stalker douchebag drunk. And Snow's thing is trusting bad guys who knock her out."
"I suppose that is true," Neal agreed. "What's my thing then?"
"Well, I haven't known you long, but I'd say it's mostly not giving a shit," considered Henry. "You're like seriously jaded, Dad. Totally with the 'I don't give a fuck, whatever' attitude."
"I won't deny that," nodded Neal after taking another apple hit. "Neverland fucked me up, buddy. And then coming to this world all alone? Emma was my one bright spot."
"That's kind of pathetic considering what a jerk she is," said Henry.
"She wasn't always a jerk," argued Neal with a shrug.
"I guess," agreed Henry. "For like five minutes after we met, maybe, though she did spend most of her time being condescending, though I didn't realize it when I was ten. I think she must get that from her mom. Or maybe she hit her head real hard when she fell through that hat portal."
"Maybe," Neal said and tipped his head at the monitor. "That really is a lot of blood."
AN: There was a Swanfire fanfiction in which Emma sang a personalized version of "Ashes of Ashes" while house-sitting with Neal. Great story!
Next up: The battle royale continues!