A/N: This is a birthday present fic, and as such is very Hamilton-influenced.
/
He steps through the mouth of the cave—the literal gateway into hell—and takes a hearty breath, inhaling until his lungs feel close to bursting. It's quiet up here, in this decaying imitation of Storybrooke, and although the air quality pales in comparison to the brisk freshness of the place he's come to think of as home, it's far less dense and suffocating than in the caverns below.
The grass crunches under the weight of his boots, the blades drier than they should be, less rich in color even in the nighttime. There are no chirping birds or rustling woodland creatures to fill the silence. No signs of life anywhere, in fact, and Killian finds the absolute solitude strange and unnerving.
The absence of his brother is more keenly felt this way, and though he is infinitely grateful that Liam's fate has been a peaceful one instead of the hellish torture he had worried awaited him as Liam's fingers slipped through from his grasp, there is still a raw sort of pain to be felt. A longing, a hopeful wish that perhaps Liam didn't need to leave him yet again (be it under far better circumstances this time around).
Killian feels exposed in a way he hasn't felt since he was a boy. With only his thoughts to occupy the stillness as he makes his way back to the Sorcerer's residence, his mind drifts, as it almost always does, to the past.
/
/
His earliest memory is of his mother. More specifically, of him and his mother counting.
His father teaches him how to read (with Liam finessing the skill in the nights spent embarked on various ships, shuffled from one master to the next.) Their mother teaches him about numbers.
Killian is a quick study, even in his young age. He understands it; it makes sense to him, and he finds comfort in its simplicity and consistency. Addition and subtraction and multiplication remain unchanged, fixed points that would never waver. He only need learn it once, she had told him during their initial lessons. "Learn it, and there won't be anything you can't do, any place you can't go."
Even then, his family's thoughts had been towards achieving greater than their current circumstances. Of reaching for more than the life they were dealt.
She makes a game out of it, to see how far he can get; to know the highest number he could reach.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine," he'd announce in rapid succession, annoying Liam as they'd chase each other around their modest hovel, quickly losing count over a fit of giggles and panting breaths, and at times frustrating their father to the point of stern reproach. But she would always be there, ever at his defense, her darling boy, her little timepiece.
(Tick tock.)
His mother becomes ill one morning and never leaves the confines of her bed again. Killian takes to caring for her, seemingly the only one who can stand it (Liam gets a strange look about him whenever she's so much as mentioned, and their father takes to leaving without warning in the middle of day and only returning when the sun rises on the next.)
There aren't many things she can do in her state—face blanched, voice hoarse, limbs so weak he must feed her himself with a trembling spoon to her mouth and bowl balanced between his hip and tiny arms—but she can count with him. She follows him at each digit, nodding at every number he utters. She encourages him to keep going, a strained smile every time he reaches the next hundred.
One sunny afternoon, between the coughing and the wheezing, she tells him: "Count with me, Killian. Show me how far you can go."
"One… two… three," he says, less cheerful than before, more timid, but as he goes his confidence grows, her eyes tired but always locked on his. "Four, five, six," he declares, bolder, grin broad and leaning on the edge of his seat. Then her eyes begin to close, her breathing more labored.
Killian takes her hand, clammy and limp. "Seven, eight, nine…" He shakes her, speaks a little louder. "Seven, eight, nine…" he repeats. She doesn't respond.
Liam enters the room a short time later, his clunking footsteps ceasing a few feet from them. "Seven, eight, nine—"
"Killian, go," Liam says, placing a hand on his little brother's shoulder, pulling him against the back of the chair. It's only when Killian refuses to let go that Liam becomes more forceful, more pleading. "Please, Killian, come on."
He starts to cry, fat tears starting their path down his cheeks and staining his blouse, knowing something is wrong but unable to place exactly what. She's just fallen asleep, right? She'll wake up like she always does. She's still with us, right Liam?
"Go find father," Liam mumbles through his sniffling and quivering. "Tell him we need him."
/
/
The roar of the gathered crowd echoes harshly in his ears; he's deafened by their raucous chanting and the blood pumping swiftly through his veins. The crew surround the two of them, Killian and George, shouting out violent commands and plans of attack, trapping them in a man-made ring on the deck of the ship.
George, a cabin boy in Captain Kidd's service, holds his fists high, flexing his fingers with every side step along the rim of the circle that's formed. Killian mirrors his movements and stance, knees and arms bent, eyes fixed on his opponent, nostrils flaring with the rage that simmers within him.
He's grown accustomed to the gossip and the taunting that he and Liam have had to endure at the hands of any crew member who catches wind of their story: abandoned in the dead of night by their own father and sold off for a simple rowing boat; two boys' whose combined worth didn't even surpass a poorly crafted barge barely large enough to fit one man. He's used to it, but with every exchanging of masters and change in lodgings, Killian hopes their past remains secret; that the bullying and ridicule would take it's time to descend.
Word travelled aboard the Blessed William in less than a fort night.
The man across from him now had been the worse offender. "So tell me, Jones," he had started in as Killian had been scrubbing at the floorboards, his attempts at ignoring the unrelenting ass failing spectacularly. "How do you think your father occupied himself on those lonely nights at sea when he left? Do you think he took care ofhimself, or do you think the rowboat was his"—George stood right in front of him then, near enough that Killian couldn't avoid him, and proceeded to thrust his pelvis into his open palm, the obscene gesture earning the cackles of the other men—"companion?"
In an instant, Killian was on his feet, shoving George back with such force that the still-jeering cabin boy nearly fell over. The sailors in attendance had flocked around them within seconds.
They continue to circle one another, the midday sun beating down upon them. One of the riggers makes a particularly loud commotion, drawing George's attention for the briefest of moments. For Killian, it's enough to send him launching towards his adversary, hitting him square in the jaw with an audible crack.
The uproar intensifies as their quarrel continues, a blur of jabs and punches and blows that leaves both of them bloody and bruised. The fighting is only brought to a halt when a booming voice breaks through the chaos.
"Enough!"
The group disperses, creating a path for Liam to push through. George jumps back at the sight of the elder Jones brother, while Killian slowly turns to reveal his battered face. The rage leaves him then, evaporated in the summer air and replaced with the shame of having been caught in such a miserable state.
"Haven't you all something better to do?" Liam bellows at the remaining onlookers, and not for the first time is Killian grateful for the command and respect that he effortlessly earns and exudes wherever they go.
His heart is still racing, one glance at George's retreating form enough to reignite his ire. "Liam," he mutters, wincing as the effort further splits his injured lip. "Liam, I'm sor—"
"Count to ten, Killian," he says, tone much more soothing that it had been before. "Just take a breath and count, hmm?"
He does as instructed; what he always does when he's overwhelmed, when he needs to find comfort in something constant. During stormy nights with crashing thunder and the turbulent waves. When the boorish men decades his senior loom over him to pick at his rations. Amidst the unforgiving tempers of their masters and the lashes he's received on especially bad days out at sea.
"Nine, ten," Killian mouthes, settling upon a barrel tucked away in the corner, just below the helm's position. When he's recovered—and when it's only somewhat painful to speak—he relays the events that led to this latest brawl (and Killian wishes such displays were rare, but his reputation reemerges with every new station: the trouble-maker, the spitfire, the lesser of the Brothers Jones.)
"I'll never understand why you even bother defending the bastard," Liam sighs, scrubbing at his face.
"Because…"
Because they deserve better than to be constantly tormented. Because in some ways he's just like him (many ways, a shrill voice in his head corrects. You are exactly like him.) Because he's scared that with every repeated taunt, the words become truer.
"Because he's still our father, and I cannot let their insults stand."
They exchange glances in silence until Killian feels a firm pat on the unmarred skin of his neck. "You're a far better man than me, that's for sure."
Killian shakes his head in disagreement as he laughs good-naturedly with his brother, and wishes desperately to even be half the man he is.
/
/
"Help!" he yells brokenly, the weight of Liam's collapsed form heavy against his torso and legs. He clutches at his brother's uniform, the thick material of his coat like sandpaper against his hand. The light from the cabin's window is blinding, his vision impaired by the harshness of the sun's rays and the tears that spill from his eyes.
Killian feels the final breath Liam takes and he doesn't know what's worse: the strangled groans of agony, or the quiet that comes with the end of his struggle.
The quiet, he decides, is the worst of any outcome.
His skull thuds against the wooden drawers behind him, his weeping unrestrained in the Captain's quarters. He remembers being by his mother's bedside when she passed, how Liam had been there to unburden him. Now, however, he has no one. He is adrift, lost, alone in a way he has never been before. Afraid in a way he's never felt before.
Killian hugs his brother's body closer, and begins his counting.
/
/
Neverland is a strange place to say the least. The permanent night is a new development, but one that is not entirely unwelcome. Killian—no, Hook—thrives in it. There is no room for light in his life. Only vengeance, or the promise of a glorious death in it's pursuit.
In the privacy of his chambers aboard the Roger, he is at liberty to remove the makeshift brace that was crafted in his haste to fill the void left by his severed hand. He plans to modify the thing; he certainly has the time to perfect it. But for now, it's only real function is to hide his mangled wrist, the wound still fresh and sensitive.
He removes the bandages with care if only to not further handicap himself, hissing as he removes the cloth from his tender flesh. Hook pushes past the pain, taking note of his condition through clenched teeth and dizzying fatigue. Still a gruesome sight, but better than yesterday, and it'll get progressively better by tomorrow. And if there's one thing he's got in full supply in this ageless land, it's tomorrows.
He no longer feels fear. Not the crippling sort anyway. Hook has no more use for his numbers, not here. Not anymore.
/
/
When Hook meets her, this brilliant lass dressed in red leather and a perpetual frown, he feels the stirrings of uneasiness once again. He is helpless, but in the best kind of way; the kind that rights you, that uproots the darkness and turns your world upside down. The kind that makes you want to be better.
He feels genuine fear again. Fear of never earning her trust; that he'll never be good enough. Fear that she'll leave her family and him behind for a less complicated life in a city she doesn't belong in. Fear that he'll never be everything she surely deserves.
He's afraid he'll lose her, just as he has anything good in his life.
/
/
The door chime rattles as Emma and the royals of Arendelle enter Granny's in a rush. "What happened here?" Elsa inquires. He doesn't need to see them to guess at their reactions to the diner's disorder.
"What do you think," Emma replies, her boots catching on broken plates and glass. "The Snow Queen."
Oh how wrong his beloved is. The magical hat resting in his lap, Killian leans further against the counter's support, compelled to conceal his presence at all costs per the Crocodile's command no matter how much he yearns to tell her the truth.
"So what do we do now?"
"Prepare for the worst," his Swan says before departing the establishment along with the rest of her guests.
While no longer bound to his spot, he lacks the will to budge even an inch. Their faces haunt him, the pleas and cries from the fairies replaying non-stop in his brain. He can still feel the strength of the winds and see the crackling sparks as one by one they were sucked into the hat. For once, he wishes for the quiet, for anything is better than this agony. This brutal mixture of guilt and sorrow… and dread.
He inhales deeply, eyes pressed shut as he tries to conjure up happier times, anything to calm his wrecked nerves, then breaths out steadily while whispering, "One, two, three, four, five…"
Killian watches as the young girl who had been imprisoned with him sprints down the murky hall, her torn and sullied gown flowing behind her as she rounds the corner. She'll make it, he thinks. This will work.
There's a low rumbling from the other end of the stone corridor, beyond the shadowed doorway that comes to life as two red circles blink at him. He limps towards it, wary of the hell beast that had paralyzed his cell mate into submission, which growls menacingly now.
And he waits for it: the all-encompassing panic that's been a steadfast companion since childhood, already anticipating the need to self-soothe. Except, it doesn't come.
There's a foreboding he feels, certainly; a grim acceptance that fractured bones and grisly claw marks await him, but alongside it is hope. Faith in Emma Swan to find him, to complete the self-appointed task she's set her mind to. Trust that their love is strong enough to overcome any obstacle.
She is his constant now. She is the fixed point that will never waver. Emma Swan is his reassurance that the world makes sense.
After all, when you love someone, you just know.
/
/
The mansion is vacant when Killian finally makes it back. As he steps into the dusty foyer, Emma comes jogging towards him with not a clue as to what he's just experienced; to what he's had to let go.
He tells her he fully intends to join her and her family in the land of the living. That he realizes forgiveness is no longer an unattainable feat and that, with the help of Liam's parting words, he'd always been worthy of it.
Show me how far you can go.
Killian tells Emma he wants a future with her, that he'll fight for this gift his brother has given him, and that he's no longer afraid of it, or anything, as long as she's there with him.
.
.