Title: Boys in the Trees
Rating: erm…?
Disclaimer: These characters are not my creative property

Summary: Anonymous asks: Prompt: One of Henry's moms catches him masturbating. The one that catches him panics, tells the other one, more panic. The way they handle it can go a few ways: either they talk to him about it, ask David to talk to him, or leave some men's magazines and lube on his bed while he's at school one day; or a combination of these. Hilarity and awkwardness ensue.

"Here I grew guilty and no one was at fault
Frightened by the power in every innocent thought" ~Carly Simon, "Boys in the Trees"

"Have you been using my work laptop for your personal amusement, dear?" Regina didn't exactly look angry, but depending on Emma's answer that could change quickly.

"I haven't touched your work laptop, why?" Emma winced internally, God only knew what she was about to get blamed for.

"I found some…interesting websites in my browser history from yesterday evening. You don't know anything about that, I'm sure?" Regina was smiling now. She looked like a cat toying with a bird before snapping its neck between her jaws.

Emma scratched her head thinking, "No, I really don't. What kind of interesting websites?"

"Pornographic websites," Regina stared at Emma intently to gauge her reaction to that news.

"Wasn't me, swear…I only look at porn at the Sheriff's stat—" Emma trailed off when she realized what she just admitted to the Mayor, her lovely girlfriend and boss, the Mayor.

Regina glared and fumed, she rolled that information around in her head and filing it away for a future argument. For now, the task at hand was getting to the bottom of who had looked at no fewer than 23 porn sites in the past 24 hours.

"Maybe it was you?" Emma boldly tried to take the heat off of herself, waving her arms for a sense of misdirection, "Maybe you don't even remember and you clicked the wrong popup and the porn just took over. Happens."

"I wasn't anywhere near my computer at the time this was accessed, dear. Furthermore, I'd certainly remember 23 porn clips, don't you think?" Regina paced back and forth in her study.

"Well, the only person home yesterday evening was…oh dear God!" Emma and Regina's eyes both grew wide in fear and horror as the realization dawned on them simultaneously.

"Henry!"

"Regina you need to talk to him about this right away!" Emma felt her lungs constrict with panic.

"Talk to him about what exactly?" Regina sat down, her body shaking with fear.

"His body, changes- God the hormones are just coursing through him at his age. We should have expected this!" Emma shoved her hands in her pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels.

"When he was very small he used to play with it, but Dr. Whale assured me he was just familiarizing himself with his body. That it was perfectly normal and healthy," Regina ran her hands her hair and tugged at the roots.

"Well, it is- and we can't make him feel ashamed or anything… we'll just talk about pornography and safe sex-"

"Sex!" Regina's head snapped up her eyes wide.

"No one had the talk with me- no one even told me what my period was- I thought I was gonna bleed to death! I wouldn't want that for Henry, and I especially wouldn't want him to end up pregnant at 17 just cause he didn't know any better, and he started hanging out with the wrong guy."

"That is not going to happen to Henry! Go talk to him, good God, right now!"

"Whoa! Well, I'm sure HE won't end up pregnant, but unless you want him to be the deadbeat dad on 'Teen Mom: Storybrooke Edition' we need to stop him before he knocks someone up! And I've only been his mom for just over a year, you've been his mom his whole life so you get to be the one to talk to him, Regina," Emma sat down with a huff. Rationally, she knew she was overreacting, but the thought of sweet little Henry and sex were so unsettling she couldn't see straight.

Regina seemed to be faring even worse. Her eyes were red and her breaths were coming in shallow uneven spurts.

"Jesus, you're hyperventilating! It's okay, ok…calm down, breathe in, breathe out….1,2,3…"

….

David sat next to Henry on the park bench. They were both staring straight ahead holding their wooden practice swords. Emma didn't know who else to turn to so had asked David to give growing Henry 'The Talk.'

"So um…" David whistled nervously and bounced his knees while Henry continued to babble about his sword moves.

"Swords are fun, right?" David blew out his cheeks and scratched his head. He took a breath and realized it was better to just get it all out on the table.

"Sometimes… being men, our swords can get excited. Does that ever happen to your...sword, Henry?" David winced at his own cheesy words. He hoped a euphemism would make things easier.

"Swords can't get excited, they're inanimate objects. Unless, it's some cool fairytale sword…" Henry looked confused.

David sighed and tried again, "I'm not talking about a literal sword, Henry. I'm talking about your happy sword… like the sword between…nevermind…Your penis, Henry. I'm talking about your penis."

"What!? Why?" Henry's shoulder's tensed and he rubbed his hand nervously on his thigh.

David swallowed but stayed brave, "Your mom…moms, said that perhaps you had looked at some…adult video on the internet, and well… when one looks at porn it's usually to masturbate."

"No…I mean I looked, but it was only because some kids at school said mom and Emma were in lesbians with each other, and I wasn't sure what that meant so I googled it."

David glanced around looking for an out; he rocked back and forth slightly. He had not signed up for this shit, "Oh, did the internet answer all your questions?" He so hoped Henry knew all he needed to.

"Well, kinda…it was kinda gross, but kinda…interesting. I didn't know being lesbians had to do with being naked so much," Henry looked far off in the distance and whacked his sword in the dirt.

David felt sweat drip down his brow. He was not getting into the logistics of lesbian sex with Henry. His moms could handle that. He simply turned the conversation back to masturbation.

"Right, well… just…um…if you need to touch yourself maybe put a sock on the door so your moms know to give you privacy. And the only time you should take it out of your pants is to pee or to masturbate, understand?"

….

"Henry! What is this sock doing on your door?" Regina burst into Henry's room waggling the sock that he had for some reason stuck on his doorknob. She was not prepared for what she walked into…

"MOM, GET OUT!"

"Oh, Henry I'm so sorry…" Regina backed out quickly and shut the door, "so very sorry…"

She saw stars dance in her vision as she quickly raced to her bedroom where Emma was reading on the bed.

"H-He-Henry was… hand… pants," Regina muttered and stuttered, making obscene gestures until Emma got the hint.

"Jesus! You can't react like that- kid is gonna need 30 years of therapy if you make him feel ashamed," Emma sat up and pulled Regina down to sit on the bed, "I forgot to tell you, David told him to put a sock on the door when he needs…privacy."

"I should go talk to him…" Regina jumped up and raced back down the hall. The sock was back on the doorknob. She didn't enter this time.

The sock was still on the doorknob two hours later.

…

"Well, wouldn't you rather have him masturbating then having sex? As long as he does it at home and not in public, and we clarify some house rules on pornography- which he was looking at to better understand what WE do together," Emma rubbed circles around Regina's back and she sat shaking and weeping her head in her hands at the foot of the bed.

"Oh dear God," Regina repeated over and over between shaky breaths.

"Not that he has a good example of appropriateness," Emma said offhandedly.

Regina snapped up, and dared to look offended, "what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Um, where shall I start? Your twice daily sexts to me: 'Oh, Ms. Swan, I'm being naughty and touching myself at my desk, anyone could walk in and catch me."

"That's…I thought you liked that?" Regina looked up puzzled, "I like it…"

"Well, of course I like it, and I like how you have an itch to do it in public as often as possible: the playground swing set, the alleyway, the clock tower, the step of Gold's pawnshop the harbor…all of that is fucking awesome, but I'm just saying we can't really be hypocrites in this situation."

"You're right. We will have a proper talk with Henry about sex, but for now we will let him hang his sock up anytime he needs to," Regina agreed, warily, shuddering a bit at the thought.

They took a moment to process that their baby was growing up and it was all going to be okay.