NOTE(S): After the unexpected response to my last fic, The Hulk Fish, I was more than nervous about posting this. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it. But I felt that I would be best off posting this before the release of 2x11. Also, this is un-beta'd and I just got back from China yesterday evening, which means I have an extreme case of jetlag, so I apologize for any mistakes. Please let me know what you think. All the terms in parentheses are chess-related (with the exception of Cadmean) and have significant meanings. I have listed them at the bottom. Because Belle's meeting with Hook was short and ended with her unconscious, I figured her memory of him would be vague and shaky.
Also, you may notice I am rather loose with tense in this story. It is done on purpose.
DISCLAIMER: You know the drill.
(brilliancy)
A spectacular and beautiful game of chess, generally featuring sacrificial attacks and unexpected moves.
(blunder)
He realized what a mistake he had made only after the deed was done. Years he had waited for this moment. Years. Years of pain and practicing and plotting in a strange, strange land—Neverland—where everything was too different to be the same and too similar to be considered different.
(adjournment)
He had learned the Crocodile's craft, if only for the sake of vengeance. Luckily for him, the fairies of Neverland were not nearly as… moral. They were quick to teach, and he was quick to learn. And when it came to the stealing of hearts, they quickly pointed towards the ideal test subjects: young boys who frequently entered their forests filled with naïve notions of adventure and glory.
While he remained focused on his goal of perfecting his technique, he nonetheless found himself hunting a particular prey: adolescent boys, around the age Rumplestiltskin's boy must have been. The boy whom he lost to a strange land—perhaps even the very same Hook himself found himself in—whose powdered heart would hopefully break his enemies' own black one just a little bit more.
But every time he pulled a heart from one of their chests, he saw his Milah in their eyes, and remembered that this enigmatic boy would have as much of her blood as the demon's, if not more—Milah had made it clear that she had never been faithful to her pathetic husband, even before he was branded a coward—and then he couldn't do it. He let them go, and then placed their hearts in jars full of sand to muffle the sound of beating which unsettled him so before burying them deep in the ground. As much as he could not bring himself to return the hearts, he also could not bear the thought of keeping them.
(they were his pawns—testing the briny deep for sharks and Crocodiles and other evil things—unimportant and useful practice dummies)
(kick)
The boys whose hearts he stole lived on, changed, incapable of feeling or reciprocating love. They soon found the world they belonged to was not where they belonged and returned to the forest, which lured them all in like a siren's call. It was here that they all met and bonded over a shared misery, Lost boys all looking to find the one thing they were missing, which unbeknownst to them lay all the while hidden within the depths of the very ground they stood on.
So they searched for the hook-handed man to avenge their stolen hearts who in turn searched for the man who had stolen something from him (which he had stolen first, but had long since decided that this did not change the matter—she had wanted to be stolen, after all).
And the boys never aged—never grew up—as their bodies were powered by the very enchanted hearts they could not find.
(prophylaxis)
Nor could they find the hook-handed man, for he had gone to a far away land in search of his Crocodile, only to find the once-flourishing kingdom decrepit and empty, save for a woman so vile and devious that even he could not help but feel repulsed.
Not enough, however, to keep him from asking her assistance after hearing her mention of the Crocodile's name. In answer to his question she smiles and sends him on a quest with such forethought as to leave him wondering if he should be as concerned with becoming a mouse to her cat as he is with his Crocodile.
So he places the wraith's amulet on the palace steps as instructed, but not before seeing the cursed princess whose tale had even reached his own ears. He unceremoniously takes her heart for practice and as a bargaining chip—he will to lose his chance to skin his Crocodile because of that woman—until he hears the sounds the sounds of riders approaching and quickly sneaks away.
He wonders how this enigmatic demoness—this Cora—is managing to anticipate all of this quite so well. But she has no way of predicting his possession of the bargaining chip which thumped—comfortingly, for once—comfortably against his ribs, resting in a pouch hung on his neck.
(wild)
When Cora tells him the setup he is more than skeptical, but he also really knew he was in no place to argue. He needs her, as much as he doesn't want to. So he waits for well over an hour under a pile of cooling bodies in the midday sun, only to be found by a group of women who (understandably) don't trust him.
They tie him up to a tree in the ogre-infested woods and he can't help but wonder if Cora will be proven wrong this time, and if it will cost him his life. But then the princess in the purple dress—the only one left with a scrap of innocence and unguarded sympathy left—asks her companions the two most dangerous words in the English language: "What if…?"
If only she knew.
(transposition)
When he finally makes it to the land that used to be without magic—oh how his Crocodile will regret that decision—he believes the fates have at last smiled at him. Because the Crocodile has a mate, innocent and sweet and almost certainly too forgiving for her own good—and he kicks himself because he had her in his clutches before and he was just too thick to see.
"He's not a monster," she had said.
Should have been a dead giveaway. Regina mentioned she was a chess piece, but in his red-tinted vision he failed to see that he was playing on the same board. And she was the Queen—this innocent little Beauty who had shacked up with the Beast. If he got her off the board, he could finally get his checkmate (everyone knows that the Queen is the most valuable piece there is).
(plan)
So he goes off to Granny's, because one of the first things he realizes is that everyone goes to Granny's, and the red-streaked waitress's painted lips couldn't keep a secret in if they tried.
(She is the Wolf-girl, and if a little birdy told him correctly, his target's very best friend. It seems the poor girl just can't stay away from the beasts.)
(mating attack)
The wolf points him to the Library and his vengeful heart skips a beat. It is the middle of the day, and the middle of the week, and in his gut he just knows she will be alone and this is the day he has been waiting for for so long, that has occupied his hopes and his dreams and consumed his ambitions.
(A little voice within questions what will happen after—next, after spending decades in pursuit of a singular goal and letting all his achievements crumble to dust.)
(like milah's heart)
He has no idea how much the Crocodile's Beauty knows—about him, and Milah, and what he's done, or who he was—or if she would remember him from their one brief encounter, so he hides his hook behind his back as he opens the door. She is sitting at the large front desk, both comically and annoyingly unaware that the final grains of sand were slipping through her hour glass.
He shoves his emotions down so she won't see them in his eyes, but knows the pressure will overwhelm him soon. He must act quickly.
He breathes in heavily—silently—then clears his throat. She looked up surprised, but a smile soon spreads on her face and she puts away her book.
"Hello, can I help you?"
He clears his throat again, his tongue becoming awkward and stiff, like a cotton ball in his mouth. (he can't ruin it. he's come so far.)
"Yes, actually. I was wondering about your hours? Also, I prefer to work in total quiet, so could you recommend the best times to come in? The least busy, perhaps?"
Her smile shifts into a good-hearted smirk.
"This is a library. It's always quiet. But during the schooldays it tends to be pretty empty—like now, for instance."
Her brow furrows.
"Have we met before?"
The blood in his chest is suddenly chilled. He tries to remain charming.
"I don't believe we have, Miss..."
"Belle."
"Ah, Beauty. A fitting name, if I do say so myself."
She looks equal parts flattered and discomforted with his praise, and in these emotions she doesn't notice him slowing edging closer—until he is mere inches from her, leaning against the desk, her beating heart well within his reach.
She looks up at him nervously, either waiting for his next move or trying to figure out her own.
"What are you reading?" He asks, feigning interest in the cover-bound text.
"Oh, um—" she picks up the book to look at the title, and he cuts her off.
"May I?"
He gestures at the book.
"Of course."
She hands the book to him, but he grabs her wrist instead. She tries to pull away, but he won't let go. She looks up at him nervously, like a rabbit in a trap.
"I-I have a boyfriend," she says, continuing her polite attempts to escape his grip.
His façade fades and he lets all his anger, his hatred, his terrible intent, shine clearly on his face.
"Trust me, I know," he growls, not giving her any time to contemplate his words, not to mention fight back, before he plunges his hook into her chest.
Her eyes widen like dinner plates and she lets out a strangled gasp (for a second she is Milah and he nearly hesitates). He rips out her heart without ceremony. Its beating, no longer muffled by her flesh, is nothing more or less than the sweet music of victory.
She grabs at her chest, trying to reach the void she now feels. In her hysterics, she starts to form questions, to make threats or bargain with him, but he quickly quiets her.
"Hush," he whispers to the heart, "and do stop squirming, I'm trying to tell a story."
And she does, despite her earnest attempts to do otherwise (her mouth won't open and her tongue won't move, nor will her feet).
"Many years ago, your dear Rumplestiltskin killed my Love," he begins to explain (he doesn't have to explain anything to her, but he wants to—to see the horror on her face), "by ripping her heart from her chest and crushing it in his hand."
(he unconsciously tightens his grip on her heart—and she trembles in pain and chokes on the cries she was ordered not to utter—before he remembers and loosens his hold—not yet, not yet)
"I have spent decades looking to slay my Crocodile, but my plans have changed as of late. I look not to pierce his hide, but his heart. I had assumed such a monster had no heart, but assumptions have failed me before."
He silently relinquishes her right to speak. He wants to hear what she has to say.
"H-he'll come for me soon," she whispers, meaning it as a threat.
He smiles widely, reminding her of a cat she cannot place, somewhere in the corners of her mind.
"Oh I know, luv. And I'm counting on it."
The door swings open, right on cue.
He turns to see his Crocodile and nearly laughs. Cora had told him this land lacked magic, but he never believed the Mighty could fall quite so far. He walks again with the signature limp of a found coward, though cowardice no longer radiates from his being as it once did.
"So glad you could join us. You're right on time." He has waited so long, he figures it is only fair that he gets both the first and the last word, if only just this once.
"This fight, Captain," he growls, spitting out the title like a curse, "is between you and me. Leave her out of this."
Hook genuinely chuckles at this, tightening his grip on Belle's heart. She fights against it but in the end cannot help crying out—the poor thing, trying to be brave.
"They call me Hook, now," he clarifies, the light gleaming off the metal where his hand used to be, "I really don't think you're in a position to be making demands. Do you?"
The Crocodile says nothing for once. No taunting, no begging, no pleading. Just fear. But this time, not for himself—for someone more important to him than that.
Hook watches them in the silence that ensues. Both so obviously terrified, neither wanting to show it. So he waits. He has for decades, a few minutes means nothing. But the fear on his enemy's face means everything.
"What do you want?" His Crocodile asks quietly. It is another victory for Hook. He, once again, holds the power—just as he did in their first meeting.
"I want you to suffer," he says, his voice cool and sharp, "like I did." The words come to him automatically. He has imagined saying them for so long that they do not feel foreign in his mouth.
"Please—"
"Silence!" He squeezes her heart again, this time more violently. Caught by surprise, Belle keels over with the pain. Rumplestiltskin rushes to her side, dropping his cane to try to help her off the floor.
(It is his time to talk. This is his moment. This is his revenge.)
"Beg, like she did." He is looking at the Crocodile, not the Librarian. He does not want to hear her plead, but him.
"I beg you," he pleads, reluctant but genuine, "leave her be. Your quarrel is with me, not her. Take my life, my power, I give it up freely, but leave her be."
(Meanwhile, she is whispering to him. She knows that if this was one of her stories he would find a way to save her and everything would be okay. But this isn't—it's not even her world, her home—and things are different here. Still, she knows how this is going to end, and she is trying to be brave (but it's so hard). I love you, she tells him, I love you and this is not your fault. I will always love you. Don't go back to the darkness. Find Bae, like we planned. Do everything, like we planned, even if I'm not there. Please, Rumplestiltskin, for me. Please.)
"But she's more important to you."
Rumplestiltskin is silent—he knows it is the truth—and he knows that even if he tries to lie Hook won't believe him.
(And Belle remembers a time when it wasn't the truth, a time where she left, but came back, even though it took a while. It both warms and breaks the heart that is no longer in her chest.)
"Please, I beg of you, have mercy." He knows it won't work, but he can't help but try. It reminds Hook of a time, many many years ago, where the same man (because the Crocodile really has been reduced to a man now) pleaded for a different woman—not for her sake, but for the sake of her son.
"Have mercy," Hook mocks, tightening his grip once again (he has no intent of relaxing it this time), "Did you have mercy?"
"Please—"
"DID YOU?!"
(Rumplestiltskin realizes that it is not only magic, but everything—every action—that has a consequence, a price someone must pay. But not, necessarily, the person who deserves to.)
"No." It is a whisper, but it is a enough. And he is crying, and she is crying, because they both know what happens next.
"Then neither shall I."
And he crushes her heart to dust.
(kotov)
He realizes, then, once it is too late to do anything but regret, that he did not win. The Crocodile had lost, surely, but so had he. He had killed an innocent woman—the only innocent woman, if he were to be completely honest, in the whole mess. Milah was many things, but innocent was not one of them. The Crocodile—the Dark One—could not, by definition, be innocent. He, a pirate, infamous even amongst his own kind, and therefore similarly guilty. She was a gentle soul—brave, but in a less obvious way—who loved books, and, for whatever reason, a Beast. And she was, more importantly, completely innocent. And dead. And he had killed her.
And that, that makes him the true monster.
That leaves him to blame for the entire mess that had occurred, and all the suffering yet to come. He had only wanted to avenge the death of his love—a love which he had long since realized, but not admitted, was truly no more than lust and a shaky sense of loyalty toward a woman with hot blood and, if he were to be honest, a cold heart (what kind of woman abandons her own son?—and suddenly he feels white-hot rage flowing through his veins towards the woman whose sullied name mars the skin above his treacherous heart).
So he takes the vile organ from his own chest, his dirty blood staining his dirtier fingers. It pulsates sickeningly against his palm, warm and wet. His ears are ringing but he can still hear the anguished cries of the Crocodile, still too overwhelmed with the death of his lover to concern himself with her murderer's fate. The sound grates against his brain as he runs his hook right through the flesh of his own heart.
He remembers how this all started, when he stole from a man whom everyone called a coward, and figures it is only fair that this is how it ends—he himself proving to be the biggest coward of all.
Cora had called this the land without Happy Endings.
He should have realized his was included.
(Cadmean) End
TERMS:
adjournment: suspending a chess game with the intention of continuing it later
blunder: a stupid move
Cadmean: as in Cadmean victory, a victory involving one's own ruin.
kick: Attacking a piece to force it into moving
kotov: as in Kotov syndrome, in which a player cannot think of a good move, and, spurred by time pressure, makes an impulsive and detrimental move
mating attack: an attack intended to checkmate the opponent's king
plan: a strategy which makes optimal use of a player's advantages in a specific position and minimizes the dangers of his positional disadvantages
prophylaxis: a move that frustrates an opponent's plan
transposition: arriving at a position using a different sequence of moves
wild: an unclear or incomprehensibly complicated move