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 SIXTY-ONE

NO TOTO HOMO

"So..." said Ruby on the way up the clock tower stairs, "I've been thinking I might be gay."

Neal groaned. "Jesus, am I like some sort of gay epiphany guy here or something?"

"What?"

"Nothing," he sighed and shined his flashlight beam around the cobweb infested wood beams. "Good for you."

"It's just... there doesn't seem to be anyone else gay in this whole freak'n town!" Ruby complained. "I think I missed my chance with Elsa. She seemed pretty nice for the like five minutes we knew each other. I almost said something, but then it kinda looked like maybe she had something going with Emma, so I wasn't sure and now it's too late."

"I'm sure there's someone here," Neal reassured. "Just avoid Tinkerbell. She's pan-sexul. No pun intended. And probably got crabs... and lots of other skanky tropical diseases from this one slutty mermaid she used to bang during King Tides."

"Oh, yeah," Hook cut in. "I remember that. Kinky. Used to watch for hours. You and Tink would make a hot couple, luv."

"No one deserves to be with Tink. She's a mental drug-addicted kleptomaniac," Neal argued. "Ruby would be better off with Mulan."

"But she's so boooooooooring, Neal," Hook complained. "And she never takes her clothes off. I think she showers in full armor!"

"At least she showers," Neal countered.

"Hey, I shower!"

"Yeah, you take all the hot water at Granny's. You can't make up for three centuries of not showering. Your BO is an entity unto itself like Pan's Shadow."

"I do not have BO!"

"You kinda do," Ruby cut in. "I mean, if I wasn't a werewolf, the cologne would probably cover it, but I can totally detect the stench of BO under all that man perfume."

"It's very masculine!"

"The man perfume or the BO?" joked Neal.

"Shut up! You dress like a hobo!"

"He's got you there," agreed Ruby.

"I'm practically broke! I grew up in this world, not some fucking fairy tale realm where cool leather outfits grow on trees!"

"Cows, crocodiles, and dragons technically," said Hook.

Neal punched him in the arm.

"Owe!"

"Better dressing like a hobo than a skanky stripper in a bad Jack Sparrow costume."

"I am far more handsome and less skanky than Jack Sparrow! And a far more functional alcoholic! And I succeeded in gaining the affection of the Swan woman in my story!"

"Yeah, but she was your blood kin," Ruby said, "so that's not romantic, it's incest."

"I only kissed her once! Technically, she kissed me! And I can't help having erotic dreams about her when I saw her in a wet tanktop!"

"Well, he has a point there," Ruby conceded. "I saw her in a bra once. Spied on her while she was doing her laundry at the Inn. Whoooooooo boy, those abs! Let's just say I didn't have to bang some mimbo that night!"

"Great," groaned Neal, "has anyone in this town not masturbated to Emma fantasies?"

"Well, hopefully not her parents or son. That'd be gross, mate," said Hook, then amended, "Then again, her parents didn't know they were her parents at first, so I bet Charming at least had a wet dream about her!"

"And Mary Margaret totally could have too," agreed Ruby, "What with being all sexually repressed, the sleeping with Whale, living with a woman who wore see-through tops with hot black bras and painted-on jeggings..."

"Oh, my god, will you both stop!?" Neal cried.

"Hey, you're the one who doesn't want to shag her when she's willing, mate."

"She's only willing because she's an emotional basketcast, Hook. Taking advantage of that is wrong."

"You say 'wrong' I say 'romantic'."

"You're seriously like a sexual predator," Ruby told him.

"And you're an actual predator who ate her lover!"

"Yes, I am, so can we get back to my relationship woes?" Ruby barked at them both. "Now tell me more about this Mulan."

"Well," shrugged Neal, "I'm pretty sure she's the only one hundred percent gay woman in The Enchanted Forest. Seems like every realm is allowed only one for some reason. But, yeah, she's as gay as they come."

"I'll second that," nodded Hook. "She didn't even bat an eye in my direction. Even Emma was giving me come-hither looks minutes after she pulled me out of a pile of corpses and then realized I'd helped murder all those innocent people, such is the power of my masculinity!"

"Gross," both Neal and Ruby told him.

Neal continued, "The rest are like... eighty/twenty and always end up dumping her for some other woman who always dies the token lesbian death so they can end up with their real true love and have babies. I think it's Lucifer's way of wanting people to think God hates gay people and invented bisexual people just to fuck with them."

"That's rather clever," mused Hook.

"That's horrible!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Yeah, that too. But, anyway, Mulan's in the Enchanted Forest still pining for Aurora-"

"She was in love with Aurora?" asked Ruby.

"It's a long and complicated story," said Hook.

Neal rolled his eyes. "Mulan helped Philip find Aurora. Philip broke her sleeping curse with true love's kiss. The Wraith my father summoned and Emma sent through that magical hat sucked out his soul. Mulan and Aurora went on a quest to find his soul. In between that you," he glared at Hook, "ripped out Aurora's heart so Cora could use it as a walkie-talkie and you then left them, Emma, and her mother all to starve to death in a dungeon. They used squid ink to get out. You returned obviously bisexual Aurora's heart to pretend like you were chivalrous to try and get Emma's attention before making rape threats at her that you thought were romantic and for some creepy reason she found romantic. You all went through a portal. Mulan and Aurora found Philip's soul. Philip got Aurora pregnant. Mulan was friendzoned and tried to make it work with the Merry Men, but they're smelly assholes so instead she went off on her own again."

"Fine, not that complicated," grumbled Hook. "But Aurora is dead now. So Mulan can move on the moment she finds out, as is the perfectly normal way for love to work. I'm sure a magical tornado or unicorn queef will bring her here eventually. Or you can use that shriveled testicle wand to make a portal to Arendelle, show up wearing nothing but that red cloak, and Elsa will shag you senseless on the throne and make you co-queen."

Ruby scowled at him. "While I appreciate that attempt at a romantic pep-talk, Hook, that is not how love is supposed to work! Can you guys stop turning my sexual self-discovery into girl-on-girl porn?"

"It's the only manner in which that sort of thing is acceptable in our world, luv," shrugged Hook. "Two hot ladies getting it on in a brothel for a lonely sailor's pleasure..."

Neal countered, "Or two lonely sailors on a ship stranded in the Never Sea..."

"Shut up! I was drunk and Smee was dressed like a woman!"

"So were you," Neal snorted.

"We were trying to sneak into Pan's camp, all right!"

"Dressed as women on an island with no women?"

"I didn't say it was a good plan! We came up with it when we were drunk!"

"God, you are such an idiot," muttered Ruby and she flipped the circuit breaker several times, restoring the lights.

"Brilliant!" cheered Hook. "Now I can use the magic box in Belle's apartment to heat up my grilled cheese."

"Ugh, why are you still alive? You're like a cockroach!"

"Well, you've certainly got the cock part right-"

"As in, you're a massive dick who turns everything into sexual innuendo even when it makes zero sense and is directed at an eighty percent lesbian?" scoffed Neal.

"Plenty of women find it romantic! And you shouldn't ignore that twenty percent!"

"The paralytic drunk ones you raped probably disagree," said Ruby with an icy look.

"I'm not that person anymore!" Hook huffed. "I found love again and it changed me."

"You mean you found chimmichangas that you carry around in a garbage bag to compensate for leaning you made love to your own mother and it made you fat," Neal told him.

"I hate you."

"I hated you first."

"Everyone hates Hook. It's not a contest," Ruby interjected on the way to Belle's apartment. "Can we get back to me and my relationship problems? It's hard enough being a straight werewolf finding love here. But a gay one? It's no wonder Snow wanted to toss my ass back home."

Hook snorted. "You actually think that dimwitted bint is that observant? The doc said my hereditary syphilis rotted her brain to Swiss cheese. Or it did before she got it replaced by Cora's, anyway.

"Now, Cora, she was quite brilliant at discerning one's favored bed fellow. Used that insight to ruin more than a few royals in her schemes from what I understand, including one of Prince Henry's older brothers..."

"I know, you'd think she would be gay blinder than a bat at a Republican caucus," conceded Ruby, "but the IQ drop didn't really start until after she downed that forgetting potion, and before she crashed with the Dwarves she hid out with a couple of old secretly Lesbian spinner 'sisters'."

"My papa had a couple of those for 'aunts'," recalled Neal with a nod.

"Everyone and their cousin had a couple of those," said Hook who then amended, "Well, that or whore 'aunts'. I recall some wenches from the brothel where I shagged my mum who were getting right frisky that Liam said were sisters, which seemed rather odd as I'd not known sisters to behave in such a socially objectionable manner, but it was my first time in a brothel, as well as my first time getting drunk. Of course, I did shag my own mum..."

"Yeah, for all you know, it was a brothel that catered specially to incest-fetish perverts," Neal told him.

"How many times do I have to say I didn't know?" griped Hook. "And at least I'm not in love with a product of incest!"

"What, Emma?" groaned Neal. "She's a decedent of incest, not a product of incest. Probably at least fifty percent of the Enchanted Forest's population are through first cousin fucking at the least. And you're totally still in love with her. And she says she's not in love with you, but you two have this sick Jaime/Cersei thing going on."

"You kind of do," Ruby agreed who rolled her eyes as Hook used his apparently sporadically magnetic hook to retrieve a spare key hidden above Belle's door. "You apparently even had a kid that grew up to be a raping, murdering psychopath."

"That was the different more messed up version of me!" Hook complained. "Will all of you stop blaming me for breaking Swan! She's the one that buggered things up with that time portal and apparently made past me develop a drunken-hazed recurring dream infatuation with the very slutty act she was putting on to get my ship."

"He does have a point. Magical heroic plan fuck-ups seem to run in Snow's paternal line."

"Thank you!"

Hook let them in only to have a butcher knife fly at them, embedding itself in the wall of the hallway.

"BLOODY HELL!" Hook yelped. "And... what happened to your face!?"

"It's an avocado mask, idiot," Tinkerbell rolled her eyes. "Now, get out."

"But Belle said I could heat up my grilled cheese," Hook insisted, pulling the greasy brown paper bag out of his pocket.

"No she didn't. Now go back downstairs and get your idiot savior out of the elevator. I am not hauling a shit-ton of laundry and trash down the stairs."

"Can't you just wave your wand-"

"Do I look like I am in possession of a magic wand? Would I have this crap on my face if I could use magic to vanish the dark circles under my eyes from night shifts at Granny's?"

Neal tugged on Hook's sleeve. "Come on, man, it's not worth it."

He then noticed Ruby eyeing Tinkerbell's cleavage where her robe was gaping and shoved her toward the door as well. "For either of you!"

Back outside with the door slammed soundly behind them, both pirate and werewolf grumbled, "You're mean."

"And you're sluts with greasy food addictions."

"But Tink is hot," sighed Ruby. "We could move in together, get a puppy, commiserate over our deadbeat families, maybe open our own magic shop slash tattoo parlor..."

"She has a pixie dust addiction," Neal reminded.

"Oh oh oh!" Hook squealed. "I know what you are, Ruby! You're a species reverse Willow!"

"Ah... I'm a tree?"

"No, idiot, the character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Hook told her.

"Why are you watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

"Because I want to understand Emma's pop-culture references, obviously."

"Not because you're gay for Spike?"

"No, but he has great fashion sense," said Hook. "Anyway, see, Willow was into this ginger werewolf musician in high school, but then the actor who played him wanted off the show so he could make a stop-motion animation show about chickens and nerds, so the writers had Willow fall in love with that wench Tara even though she'd never before shown any interest in the fairer sex, and after that Willow was full-on Lesbian as though she'd never been with a man and liked it. Even when Oz did reappear for a guest staring stint, they never addressed the possibility that Willow was bisexual or if she was straight up gay why she was clearly in love and in lust with him and had previously harbored a quite embarrassingly massive crush since childhood on her male best friend. Perhaps she was only into Oz because she was an ostracized loser and the only person who positively acknowledged her existence, including her parents who seemed to be even more neglectful than Emma's, was that loser boy Xander who, come to think of it, reminds me of you, Neal."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Neal told him, "but it's obviously an insult, so fuck you, man."

"So," scoffed Ruby, "what you're saying is, I either suffer from a deeply repressed psychological issue due to a messed up childhood with my only other companion besides Granny being a boy who had a crush on me... or I was straight and our love was true until Isaac decided to write me gay to torment me in a perpetual state of unrequited love?"

"Pretty much," nodded Hook.

"But that doesn't help me at all!"

"I miss Zelena," sighed Hook. "She was our Anya."

"She murdered me!" Neal growled.

"But she didn't bullshit. That's rare in our world, mate. And now Cruella's gone too!"

Ruby asked Neal, "Did I fall in love again in that other universe? Did I find true love?"

"Erm... kind of," Neal replied. "I mean, you were with Dorothy for a few years."

"As in 'Oz' Dorothy?"

"Yeah. You knew each other for like twelve hours, barely spoke, then Dorothy ditched you," he told Ruby, "and got herself cursed. Then twenty-four hours later you found your way to Oz with Zelena's sliver slippers and after the Snap Chat equivalent of a relationship you true love kissed her awake, after which, I think, Toto always held it against you, because that poor dog definitely loved her more than you. So I'm pretty sure it was intentional when Toto ran in front of a motorcycle and you died trying to save him. It turned out someone had stolen August's bike that he stole from Dorothy and she and August ended up getting together and ruled Oz with their creepy half-wooden children who could only exist because Oz has that sort of fucked up magic. But they did name their first born 'Ruby', so you had that backhanded compliment namesaking tradition going for you. Though, you had to share a funeral with Toto and to be honest, Dorothy's eulogy was mostly about her dog and then she hopped on August's wood to see if being with a man could cure of her grief."

"Fuck, I hate our world!" Ruby cried as the reached the staircase landing.

"Wait, how many flights have we gone down?" asked Neal. "This is taking way too long!"

"Bugger, Swan jinxed us!"

"More like Tinkerbell," he sighed, looking at his green-tinged hand. "You don't need a wand to wipe pixie dust snot on the hand rails."

"Godamn that ex-fairy!" cursed Hook.

"But she's so dreeeeeaaaaaaaaamy!" sighed Ruby.

"Aye, I want to punch her in the face and then make sweet love to her in the arse," agreed Hook.

"Are you sure you're not bi?" asked Ruby.

"I did spend three hundred years on a ship with a bunch of blokes and never arse-raped any of them," Hook pointed out.

"Yeah, but they're all like, fives at best," Ruby pointed out. "I wouldn't do any of them either."

"Would you do me?"

"Hell to the no. I got enough STD's from being a cursed slut without adding your antibiotic-resistent shit to the list. Plus, I'm gonna be like Willow now and forget I was ever into guys. You're all smelly assholes anyway. I want someone I can share a wardrobe with and talk about periods."

"Sure you're not on the rag now, luv?"

Ruby punched Hook in the face.

"Owwwwe! Bloody hell!" Hook croaked, the sniggered, "Bloody. Hehe."

"I will push you down these stairs, pirate slut!"

"I will use my hook to pull you down with me, werewolf slut!"

Suddenly the two flew together and started making out.

"Fucking pixie dust," grumbled Neal and he resisted the urge to slam their heads together like cartoon characters. But they were already so close together it wouldn't have worked anyway.

Thankfully, Emma's whacked out mojo trumped the pixie dust when the lights dimmed and popped again.

"Bugger," repeated Hook after pulling away from Ruby who looked disgusted, "did I just give a monologue about a bloody vampire TV show?"

"Never mind that. Did I just spill my previously closeted sexuality to a pirate slut and an emotionally dead robot and then make out with said pirate slut like our plane was going down!?" moaned Ruby.

"I am not a slut!"

"A robot, seriously?"

They emerged back on the ground floor of the Library just as Snow came barreling through the front doors with Charming right behind her.

"It's about time!" Regina directed at them. "I texted you an hour ago!"

"I'm sorry. I dropped my phone in the bathtub!" Snow explained. "We've been looking all over for Emma. Then we ran into Belle and she said she'd magically locked herself in the elevator with dark magic."

"So you're the reason for this then," Regina growled. "What did you do this time?"

"Nothing!"

"Well, not nothing..." muttered Charming.

Snow sighed and admitted, "Emma walked in on us... you know... in the bath."

"It's not our fault," groaned David. "She doesn't live there. We were having a romantic bubble bath. Wine. Some baked ziti."

"Ziti is the most romantic of pastas," Hook nodded in approval.

"And seeing you two going at it would probably put most anyone in a catatonic state out of shear disbelief at how boring seeing two people having sex could be," snorted Regina. "But I know she walked in on you before and all she did was drink more than usual at your taco party."

"We are not boring!" Snow argued. "We were using sex toys!"

"Really now? Details!" Hook perked up.

"Where's a portal when you need one," groaned Neal.

"Look, it doesn't matter. Can we just talk to our daughter?" demanded David.

"Oh, by all means, make it worse," Regina declared.

Snow approached the door and knocked. "Emma, sweetie, can we-"

"GO AWAY, YOU TOY MOLESTING FREAKS!"

"Emma-" David tried.

"GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY!"

As she shouted the lights flickered again.

"I'll escort them out," said Ruby and narrowed her eyes at Snow. "We have to talk."

"Owe, Ruby, let go of my arm!" Snow whined as the werewolf hauled her out onto the sidewalk.

"No," Ruby retorted, "I want to know why you really tried to send me back to The Enchanted Forest? Did you know I was gay and think I'd actually have a better chance finding love in a feudal misogynist sausage-fest of a world where women are defined by how many babies they can pop out, or are you really that shitty of a friend?"

While David looked confused, Snow sputtered, "I... well... I saw the way you looked at me and-"

"You tried to toss me through a portal because my gay feelings for you made you uncomfortable!?"

"NO!"

Snow sighed. "I felt bad, okay? I was never going to reciprocate your feelings-"

"That doesn't give you the right to decide how I should get over them!" Ruby shouted. "You think you're being adorably sneaky for other people's own good because they'll have some self-realization, but all you do is throw people into dangerous situations where they get hurt learning what you could have just told them over coffee! But do you know how that turned out in that other timeline? I fell in love with some dyke from Kansas, married her two minutes later, and when I got killed trying to save her stupid mutt she married August. Fucking Pinocchio. And named their half-puppet spawn after me! And not even my real name! I became a token lesbian sacrifice!"

"I'm sorry," Snow sniffed.

"I'm sorry I ever had a crush on you," Ruby retorted coldly. "I wasted years pining for you. I knew you'd never feel the same, but I at least thought you were a good friend who cared about me, who considered me family even. But you've kicked me to the curb too many times since marrying your prince, Snow, for me to believe anything you say is actual genuine sympathy and good intentions. It's no wonder Emma wants nothing to do with you. Either of you," she huffed before stomping off toward the diner.

"We're horrible parents, Charming!" Snow burst into tears.

"I thought it was Jerry's," sighed David. "How the hell was I supposed to know our thirty year old daughter has a rubber ducky?"

"I have an idea," Regina uttered with a rather deviant look in her eyes as the lights continued to flicker.

"I have a bad feeling about this," groaned Hook.

"I THOUGHT I TAUGHT YOU BETTER THAN THIS!" Regina shouted through the door. "YOU'RE A PATHETIC WASTE OF MAGICAL SPACE IF YOU CAN'T EVEN KEEP YOUR SHIT TOGETHER OVER SOME STUPID TOY!"

The lights really flickered and with that same look, Regina flung her hands toward Neal, enveloping him in purple smoke and vanishing him.

Hook's brow raised. "Did you just-"

"Take advantage of a magical destabilization to transport your stepson into your great granddaughter's self-imposed prison?"

"Please don't remind me of either of those relations," Hook scoffed. "And how do you know he's in one piece?"

"Well, I don't hear any screaming, crying, or vomiting," shrugged the former Evil Queen.

"Fair point," the pirate conceded, unwrapping his grilled cheese.

Regina launched a fireball and turned it into a pile of ash.

"What the-"

"You need to go on a diet."

"You're mean!" sniffled Hook, slouching into a chair to wait for this latest drama to play out. "Want to play poker?"

"Fine," sighed Regina, conjuring a deck. "Follow the Queen."

AN: The Buffy thing is so true, right? And I can see Hook watching it like Spike watched Passions. The chimmichangas are from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when Mac was fat. 'Follow the Queen' is a 7-card stud poker game in which the wild card is designated to be the next exposed card after a queen is flipped. (What would you ship more, Ruby & Elsa or Ruby & Mulan? Or would you just want Emma to have a brief bisexual fling with the other blonde?)

Next up: Remember way back when Merlin hinted that he's the reason Emma's life went to shit so he deserved to die for being the catalyst for what brought about her self-destruction?