Title: Good Help (Is Hard To Find)
Characters: Rumpelstiltskin, Fido the Talking Horse, Margie and Verna
Genre: pure crack
Rating: PG
Summary: "What was her name again? Margie? Verna?" The crack history behind the Evil Queen's throwaway line in Skin Deep.

A/N: Use of capslock is justified because, hello, IT'S RUMPELSTILTSKIN. If he's not giggling obscenely, he's CAPSLOCKING IN EXTREME ANGST. Also, this is complete crack.

Good Help Is Hard To Find

"Now, Rumps," says Fido the talking horse, chidingly, "remember to take it easy on this one."

Rumpelstiltskin chuckles obligingly at his pet's joke. "Good one!" he purrs approvingly, but Fido just shakes his head.

"Look, just— no more turning your servants into dust, at least, alright? It's really just adding to the problem."

"Oh, certainly, certainly," says Rumpelstiltskin, then again, "—certainly!" and a wild little cackle that, admittedly, gets out of control a bit. Fido regards him silently for a moment, as stoic as only an enchanted horse can be.

"And if you could laugh like a normal person, that would probably help, too," he says.

Her name is Margie and she's wearing a cloak of invisibility.

At least, she thinks she's wearing a cloak of invisibility. Presumably it was a gift from someone with a fondness for practical jokes. Briefly Rumpelstiltskin wonders if it's the same person who traded Margie for those three magical beans, but Duke Gordo the Fiber Challenged doesn't really seem the type for levity.

"Welcome," he says, bowing low for effect, "to my humble home."

"Freedom!" shrieks Margie, and makes for the door. He's there before her, naturally, and there's a momentary lull while she figures out the obvious: cloak of cloth, true. Cloak of warmth, debatable. Cloak of invisibility, definitely not.

Then the spark of defiance kicks in.

"You can't keep me here, not with a thousand walls and a thousand archers," says Margie, defiantly. "You can't cage me, not with a thousand bars and a thousand keyless locks."

Clearly this is hyperbole. Rumpelstiltskin considers for a moment.

"Fair is fair, my dear," he says. "And you are not, but after all." He smirks. "I suppose you get what you pay for. All I ask is that you clean, cook, wash, and keep quiet."

She stabs her pointer finger at him. "And that's nothing but sexism! You are everything that is wrong with men!"

"Ah, but I'm not a man!" He chuckles to himself. She seems unimpressed.

"Monster, then," she says. "Same difference."

He grits his teeth, which honestly have enough trouble without such abuse. It's really a bad habit. You'd think after that last trip to the dentist he'd have learnt his lesson. Then again, these really are trying circumstances.

Fido's advice in mind, he's willing to grant her a little leeway, assuming that she keeps the floors swept in return. It's not long, however, before things go downhill. She announces her dislike of doing laundry immediately, and he hears about it repeatedly throughout the week— but it isn't till day three of Margie's stay that disaster strikes. The afternoon sees Rumpel storming into her room, what looks like a pair of very limp twigs flapping from his hand.

"Do you see these? DO YOU SEE THESE?"

"They look like sickly mandrake roots," says Margie, dismissively.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO PUT THEM IN THE SPELL-DRYER!"

"I told you I don't like doing laundry." She folds her arms primly, lifts her chin. To his distress, Rumpelstiltskin realizes he is again grinding his teeth. Well, there's really only one thing to be done about that, and so he does it.

He needs a new candelabra, anyway.

The transformation accomplished, he heads back to his room to try to stretch his leather pants back to their original size.

"Now, listen, Rumps," says Fido, rather severely, "I can't keep trying to sweep up the castle. The broom's heavy and my teeth won't take it. So be nice to this one, alright?"

The only response to this, obviously, is to throw one's head back and laugh wildly. Rumpelstiltskin does so, with relish and vigor. Then he does it again, because he's young, he's free, his skin sparkles, and his hair is fabulous.

When he's finally through, he meets Fido's eyes.

The horse shakes his head.

"I don't know why I hang out with you," he says.

The daughter of a large land-owner, two provinces over, introduces herself as Verna. Colloquially, however, she's known as the Mouth. He's disturbed to an epic degree when he finds out why.

"A curse, you say?" is what she starts with. "I've never met a man with a curse! Well, there was that fellow with the limp, but I think it was from falling off a horse, not an actual curse. But they say you have a curse. What's the cure?"

He bares his teeth at her. "Death," he says.

She blinks at him for a moment.

"That seems rather drastic," she says, "if you don't mind my being frank."

She remains unimpressed as he tells her that he is the Dark One, and unfazed as he goes on to list the chores she will have about the castle. He thinks perhaps mentioning the phrases "Dark One" and "clean my privy" in quick succession was a mistake.

"What about laundry?" she asks at the end of the iteration.

"I'll do my own laundry!" he snaps.

"Ooh," says Verna, eyes lighting up. "A man who does his own laundry! It can't be too terrible of a curse, after all."

He gnashes his teeth. This is also a mistake, as it invariably ends in a headache.

"I'm not a man!" he rasps. "I'm— A MONSTER!"

"A monster who does his own laundry," says Verna, somewhat skeptically. "Yes, that's much more believable. If you're a monster, shouldn't you have more hair? Or limbs, perhaps, more limbs. Extra fingers? Are you left-handed? It's a sign of the Devil, they say. Only Tommy from the village was left-handed, and the most evil thing he's ever done was cat-slapping. Not that cat-slapping is something I agree with, nor is it particularly pleasant. But the cat did slap him back, which was punishment enough, I think, as Puss had claws and Tommy had none. And that was before we even found out about the boots, too. I never dreamed that cats could leap that high, but Tommy had a noseful of shoe leather before you could say Jack Robinson. As to why you would want to say Jack Robinson, I'm sure I can't imagine, unless your name is Jack Robinson, and even then it strikes me as egotistical. Are you washing your fur, is that why you're so un-hairy? Since you do your own laundry, after all—"

He's already left the room.

He returns several hours later to snap his fingers and turn her into a clock.

"Don't say it."

"I'm not saying anything," says Fido. Rumpelstiltskin wags a single finger at him. Which finger shall be left to the reader's imagination.

"Your not-saying is louder than anyone else's saying."

"Well, I am a horse," says Fido philosophically. "Big lungs, you know. Anyway, I didn't say it. I haven't said it. I'm not saying it."

"You just watch yourself, horseface."

Fido is quiet, but he is clearly struggling with himself. Rumpelstiltskin looks at him keenly, eyes narrowed, for a few moments, before he finally turns away. As soon as he does, the horse blurts out, "I told you so!"

"That's it," says Rumpelstiltskin, and snaps his fingers. "I hate it when people tell me that!"

He glares down at the result. Ah, well. He needed a new wardrobe, anyway. The old one's getting uppity. Keeps trying to put him in tailored suits with red cravats.

"Well, fantastic," he says to himself, shrugging so violently that his hair gets seasick. Here he is, all by his lonesome again. An entire castle of enchanted servants, and not a single one is worth what he paid for them. Well. What he traded for them. And now he doesn't even have a horse.

He's going to have to make a serious trade this time, try to get someone who knows what they're doing. Maybe there's a war on he can help with.

The very idea makes him brighten up. "See?" he says, tilting his head first to one side, then to the other. "Things aren't so bad! Nothing that a little carnage won't clear up!"

He waits, but no one answers. Who was he expecting to hear from, anyway? No one. There's no one there. He can fix that, though. All he needs are the right circumstances. Everything comes with a price.

So he packs himself up, and goes out to make a deal.