Work Text:
CAST: Lacey’s the one putting out the X-rated gnomes in her yard, Gold is John Flink, Zelena [Verde] is Linda Hoyt (*cause she’s pining super hard for Gold so of COURSE she’s gonna listen to any and all complaints he has against anybody no matter how ridiculous it is) and by the end, Regina’s the one who eventually takes over as the HOA president. Jefferson designs the gnomes and other weird things himself, when he’s not selling flowers (*owns gardening store called Golden Afternoon, and since Lacey interests him [not sexually], he shows her his collection of garden gnomes he happens to make himself).
***NOTE: REGINA AND ZELENA ARE NOT RELATED IN THIS AU AND NEVER WILL BE FOR PLOT REASONS
PLOT BREAKDOWN (mainly ‘major’ events):
~”GNOME-AN’S LAND” Lacey moves into a house in Storybrooke after hopping from place to place since she’s ultimately sick of living in a crappy apartment in a dingy part of a city somewhere since there’s “too many creeps”, and she plans to keep up a job in Boston so she can still get some of the big city action she craves without having to be smack dab in the middle of it… (*also trying to get away from Gaston, a creepy stalker ex) so there’s no “ugh there’s nothing to friggin do here cause it’s too tiny” moments
~house is definitely a fixer-upper, but the back and front yards are trashed from being not taken care of properly since it was a bank owned property before she bought it “for an at least SOMEWHAT decent price… decent for Lacey, anyways”
~Lacey spends the first week or so in Storybrooke unpacking what little she has and setting up/fixing stuff; figures she can get some guys to help her out with a bunch of the ‘heavy lifting’ stuff, but she wants to tend to the yards herself since she’s always wanted to plant a garden in honor of her mother that passed away when she was really young (*feels like having as many flowers as she can have in a yard keeps her mother closer to her even if only in spirit) who loved flowers
~ (*somewhere in the middle of this, she sees Gold either shirtless or something like that and she be like ‘bro, me gusta’, and starts throwin out total classic Lacey swag to get him to keep looking at her even though she’s in super casual, not-flirty-at-all clothing) until she straight up pulls one of those tripping-over-nothing moments and falls on her face, earning a bit of a snort of laughter from Mr. Gold, but then Lacey gets kinda pissy and HARUMPHs her way back in the house (*cause hurt pride reasons I guess??) leaving Gold to be like “way to go, Gold, you’re scaring away your neighbors again you moron”
~“GNOME SWEET GNOME” [next day] Lacey puts on some super casual whatever clothes similar to previous day since she doesn’t wanna wreck her nicer [WAY more what you’d expect Lacey to wear] clothes more-or-less in the dark cause she has like ONE LAMP in her bedroom right now that’s not even on a real nightstand or anything… she ends up with a shirt and sweatpants on. After getting weird looks from some of the locals when asking around, someone points her in the direction of The Golden Afternoon to help her get her started on her gardening project; Jefferson owns the shop.
~Lacey is ‘casually’ looking at lawn mowers (*like ‘oh shit these are expensive, yo’), but meets Jefferson when he approaches her saying that he rents out lawn mowers and other electrical gardening tools too, since he can get away with it in this tiny town. They strike up conversation; (*insert mention of tulips, morning glories, daffodils, violets, tiger lilies, dandelions, daisies, and red and white roses somewhere here CAUSE LOL MOVIE REFERENCE *shot for bad joke*) Lacey quietly mentions she’s looking for flowers, getting a bit sad since she’s reminiscing about her mother a bit at that moment cause she’s kinda lonely n stuff; Jefferson goes to grab something for her, and when he comes back he notices that her sweatpants she’s wearing say “insert here” above her ass. [lol ‘The Heat’ reference XD …and also probably why everybody was giving you weird looks as you were walking away, girl lol] He can barely contain his laughter, but before Lacey can get too pissed off at him, he leads her into a back room where he reveals his collection of garden gnomes and other funny lawn decorations he’s been creating mostly for fun, (“Your fashion choice leads me to believe you might just appreciate these as much as I do”) and hoped to sell before Regina Mills [the mayor] stormed in and demanded they be taken off his shelves and destroyed, but he was too proud of them to destroy them “so here they stay”. Lacey’s pretty much like “yeah, wow, this mayor can suck it, I’ll totally buy one of these cause they’re fuckin awesome and I need lawn ornaments now anyways to put in this SICK HUGE YARD” and Jefferson becomes the first real friend she makes in Storybrooke and they’re like the best BFFs ever, man (*until Ruby anyways, but that comes later lol)
~”CHILLIN WITH MY GNOMIES” She’s still working on the yard (same day as previous paragraph) work after she puts her new garden gnome friend in the front yard when she notices Gold looking back and forth between her and the garden gnome, until Gold practically RUNS back into his house (*despite, you know, THE CANE) after Lacey catches him looking, and Lacey’s just kinda sittin there like “LOLWHUT….okay…??? I guess I have some interesting neighbors here…I mean, I know I looked SUPER dumb in front of him that one day, but REALLY?? …This might be fun actually :awesomeface: ”. She takes a break to go get some food and meets Ruby, and they’re just like ‘WE SHOULD HANG OUT BRO’. Couple days later, the first letter from Zelena arrives in Lacey’s (email) mailbox; Lacey has an absolute fit about the letter at first, but then realizes that this ultimately means Gold’s noticing her, or at least noticing where she lives, thus higher chances he’ll come over of his own accord [and possibly jump her like she wants him to do], and promptly decides to visit Jefferson and purchase more gnomes cause Zelena and the mayor can suck it since Jefferson’s gnomes are awesome. (*see April 8th letter)
~ “AND NOW YOU GNOME” Chapter written in Gold’s perspective talking about checking Lacey out that one day, seeing her in Granny’s, and pretty much reporting Lacey to the HOA about the garden gnomes since he can’t stop imagining him and Lacey in the same sexual position the first gnome is in [and he’s being weird about it] XD Gold goes to the mayor’s office wanting to report Lacey to the HOA, and Zelena Verde’s in charge of the HOA [she totally ogles Gold n stuff the whole time while this is going down, even though Gold’s like ‘dude, ewww, no’] in hopes that if she makes him super happy he’ll have sex with her or something and it gets weird)
~*side note: Jefferson’s been dropping by Lacey’s place sometimes now to help her with gardening n shit cause he’s an awesome friend and Gold’s starting to notice like “huh, she’s making friends quickly” but when they’re all touchy-feely at a certain point (*lacey fake-jabbing Jefferson on the shoulder, Jefferson bumping his hip on hers), he starts getting SUPER jelly like “oh wait, shit, is she DATING him now? Goddamnit that’s my girl, IT IS ON LIKE DONKEY KONG UP IN THIS BITCH, BRO LETS GO” Ruby hangs out at her place occasionally too, but he doesn’t seem NEARLY as concerned about this for whatever reason XD
~”THE GNOME-N INVASION” (thanks to woodelf68 on tumblr for the title!!)” Jumping to when Lacey has more of the gnomes set up, and Gold’s just staring at them like “are you fucking kidding me right now” [insert fantasies maybe??] Minx is totally doing this on purpose isn’t she?? Nah, she couldn’t possibly be interested in me… we’ve barely spoken two words to each other, so I’m just gonna have Zelena send another letter I guess cause idk what else to do even though I could totally just go up to her door and talk to her like a normal person (*see april 9th letter)! Lacey gets April 9th letter and is pretty much like ‘bring it bitches lets go’
***BACKSTORY HAPPENS HERE TOO BTW
~”GNOMEBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I’VE SEEN” Regina is starting to find out about the gnome thing happening (“because nothing happens in this town without me knowing about it”) from Zelena, cause Zelena’s driving Henry to school one day (cause Regina’s super busy or something, idfk) and there’s now the 12 gnomes in Lacey’s yard and she’s like OH SHIT, HENRY DON’T LOOK while turning-13-years-old-Henry is like “omg that’s awesome bro XD”
So Regina pretty much immediately marches down to Golden Afternoon demanding that Jefferson actually removes the gnomes from his shop or she’ll close his whole store down or something, and Jefferson’s like ‘oh shit dawg, I don’t want her to take my gnomes, NOOOESSSSSS D:’ (*even though on the outside he’s like ‘YOU KNOW THIS MEANS WAR’ complete with Daffy Duck impersonation) So he packs them all up in his van (*he’s got a van for the Golden Afternoon, similar to canon Game of Thorns-type van) and heads over to Lacey’s house SUPER early the next morning so nobody notices him n shit, and kinda wakes up a grumpy Lacey cause it’s like 5am or some shit and Lacey’s like “DUDE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW, I HAVE TO BE AT WORK IN LIKE 5 HOURS” but softens up when she sees that it’s Jefferson like “oh it’s you, nvm bro, ENTER MY LAIR OF AWESOMENESS [*which isn’t all that awesome yet cause I still need more furniture n stuff but whatever]” where Jefferson proceeds to tell her about Regina’s threat and asks if he can basically hide his collection of gnomes at her place since Lacey’s “the only one who really appreciates his art”, and he’s afraid Regina will like ransack his house or some shit if he just takes them all home to his place, so she’s like ‘uhh, okay sure bro, whatever you say….??’, then Jefferson leaves all happy like “girl, I’ll be back later with the ones from my house too, but in the meantime we’ll stick these dudes in your garage :D’ and Lacey’s just like ‘uggghhhh’ *collapses back on couch for another hour before her alarm goes off to get ready for work* She goes out and gets the paper mail, and she receives [sort of] the April 10th letter (email) and is just like “BITCH, I DON’T EVEN CARE, THIS IS TOTALLY ME NOT CARING. SUCK IT.”
~”Gnome-a Sutra” (title courtesy of NevermoreBlack of Ao3!)
… This is literally Lacey looking up the Kama Sutra since Jefferson tells her that (surprise, surprise) some of the gnomes were, in fact, inspired by the Kama Sutra, and, on top of that, she’s actually bothering to research what positions would piss everybody off the most when they’d be seen in her front yard. She gets super turned on, and can’t help imagining her and Gold in a ton of these positions, further ‘inspiring’ which gnomes she’ll put in her yard next.
THIS IS BASICALLY JUST MORE SMUT ADDED IN CAUSE I FUCKING CAN AND I’M GARBAGE, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME.
~ “OH GNOME YOU DIDN’T” (next day) So Gold is backing his car out of his garage, when he turns and happens to spot the 30 GNOMES in Lacey’s front yard all staring at him in a bunch of different sexual positions. At first he’s just sitting there gaping, but then he’s just like ‘dude, I have to go to work, ain’t got time for this shit’ *takes picture of them via his phone and sends to Zelena for her to deal with it*
*insert Zelena screaming with outrage cause there’s like 30 gnomes in Lacey’s yard now but also that the problem still isn’t resolved and she hasn’t gotten laid by Gold yet probably*
The April 11th letter arrives in Lacey’s mailbox (like, EMAIL mailbox) after she gets home from a long, exhausting day of work and she calls up Jefferson like “DUDE. WE’RE GONNA BRING THE GODDAMN HOUSE DOWN, YOU READY FOR THIS SHIT?” “Wait, what’s going on, I don’t get it” “U WOT M8?” “no srsly what’re you talking about” [Lacey tells Jefferson everything that’s going on and Jeff’s just like ‘dude, you totally have a crush on him don’t you” ‘pffff NOPE’ *oh fuck wait I totally do, well shit”]“WE’RE GONNA TOTALLY STICK IT TO ZELENA AND THE MAYOR [AND GOLD] AND IT’S GONNA BE SO GODDAMN AWESOME, NOW ARE YOU GONNA HELP ME OR NOT?” “Umm… yeah sure I guess??” “BE AT MY HOUSE IN LIKE 20 MINUTES BRO [AND BRING A BUNCH OF BOOZE CAUSE THIS MIGHT TAKE A WHILE]”
~”GO BIG OR GO GNOME” Next day (12th) Gold steps outside on his front porch like “Ahh… what a nice Saturday morn- WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON HERE” cause he sees the 100 gnomes all piled on top of each other n stuff while her first gnome is still in its original place, but there’s 3 gnomes in particular that stick out like a sore thumb (the one with the horse mask and the John Flink/ Gold shirt and the other two “treating it like a horse” – one of the gnomes near the horse one ‘looks like Lacey’ [sort of]), which makes him get immediately dressed in “more respectable” clothes (aka something that’s not a bathrobe lol) and marches over to Lacey’s house banging on the front door super loud, where Lacey finally gets the door after like 10 minutes like “DUDE, I HAVE A HUGE HANGOVER RIGHT NOW, STOP BANGING ON THE DOOR WHAT DO YOU WANT”, and she’s totally just in a skimpy tank-top and panties practically half asleep, while Gold’s CRAZY level ogling her, then eventually is just like “oh for fuck sake girl…” *enters Lacey’s house* “you been trying to get my attention this whole time, haven’t you?” *sneaky Lacey smirk* “maaaaaaybe” “girl, did you set out those 3 garden gnomes in those positions on purpose” “actually that one was Jefferson’s idea, and I thought it was too damn funny to pass up, [but it still works since I totally wanna ride you like a fuckin pony]” *EPIC LEVEL SNOGGING HAPPENS* *[literal] FUCKING MAGIC FUCKING HAPPENS*
~”Gnome-nclature” Gold and Lacey essentially are spending the whole day in her place together, but Regina happens to be driving Henry to a birthday party when, surprise surprise, she passes by Lacey’s house like “OH SWEET MOTHER OF GOD.” (the 100 gnomes are still outside), which turns a bored Henry into ‘homina-homina-homina Henry’, where Regina super hardcore speeds the fuck outta there, IMMEDIATELY calling Zelena like “BITCH, I THOUGHT YOU FIXED THIS PROBLEM””, despite Henry being like “no srsly, this lady’s front yard is officially the coolest thing ever, I wonder if she’s named them all or something like a crazy cat lady” XD
Lacey gets email from Zelena saying that Zelena’s gonna call the police n shit if she doesn’t remove the gnomes from her lawn, and Lacey’s just like ‘uggghh, fine, whatever, I don’t want the cops involved.. so Gold, will you help me clean up since technically a lot of this is your fault?” where he’s like “how in the hell does that even make any sense, girl” but at the same time she’s like “well, they DID say that I have 5 business days to clean it up, so TECHNICALLY we don’t have to go anywhere yet” *totally jumps him* AND MORE SEX HAPPENS AND EVERYBODY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE MOTHER FUCKIN END
~(EPILOGUE – “GNOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS”) BLOCK PARTY!!! There’s like bouncy castles n shit on the street and everybody’s running around having a good time… At this point, Lacey’s LONG taken the gnomes out of her front yard, and put the five that she actually owns in her backyard to chill with her new flower garden that she finally finished thanks to Jefferson and Gold. She puts up the flamingo during the block part instead basically just to innocently fuck with Zelena and Regina a bit since she knows they’re gonna be there, but at some point is like “hey Gold, where’d my thong go?” after sexing up Gold super hard (*THE THONG’S TOTALLY ON THE FLAMINGO NOW CAUSE JEFF FOUND IT IN HER BACKYARD AND PUT IN ON THE FLAMINGO IN THE FRONT YARD CAUSE IT’S JEFFERSON), while, back outside, Henry’s running around with friends and spots the thong on the flamingo like “CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME SHIT” and Regina finds out is like FLIPPING the FUCK OUT, calling Zelena over to take care of the problem once again, but then Zelena sees the thong on the flamingo and is just like ‘fuck this I quit, BITCHES I’M OUT’
*** Lacey puts some of the gnomes in her backyard and in Gold’s backyard so they’re off her FRONT yard for the moment until she can finally give a lot of them back to Jefferson when he can eventually take them – inspired by a comment from Moonlight91 (of Ao3)!! Much love to you!! <3
DELETED SCENE: JEFF HELPING LACEY SET UP THE 100 GNOMES
~They’re starting to get super drunk and somewhere along the way they start telling REALLY stupid jokes
Lacey’s like “JEFF, I’M GETTING TIRED, TELL ME A JOKE TO KEEP ME AWAKE” and he’s like “….whut? okay then I guess? Where do the generals keep their armies? Up their sleevies!” and Lacey’s like “BOOOOO, THAT ONE’S SOOOOO MIDDLE SCHOOL, I’VE GOT INFINITELY BETTER ONES THAN THAT. Where do poor meatballs live? The spaghetto!” Then Jeff be like “OH YEAH?!?!! The frustrated cannibal threw up his arms” Lacey be like “DUDE, I GOT A BETTER ONE ‘why don’t ants get sick? BECAUSE THEY HAVE LITTLE ANTY-BODIES”
*like an hour of really dumb jokes later*
*they’re placing the last like 5 gnomes barely* Lacey turns to Jeff when she’s running out of jokes and slurring all her letters like “Why do scuba divers fall backwards off of the boat? Because if they fell forward, they'd still be on the boat.”
*lacey passes out in a pile of gnomes* Jeff tucks her in bed and leaves a glass of water and aspirin next to her bed and peaces out