AN: Hello OUAT world! So this is my first OUAT fic. I love Captain Hook and how intricate a character he is but there is also still so much untold about his past so this is just based off some speculation I saw online (not official or anything but just some theories viewers were throwing around). There's some Swanfire undertones (I don't ship it but half of this is in Neal's perspective and If you're going to write Neal in character there's got to be some Swanfire mentions) also has mentions and undertones of Snowing, Rumbelle and Outlaw Queen but this is mostly focused on Hookfire (who I will Brotp to the grave because Daddy!Hook and Stepson!Baelfire gave me life) and Captain Swan (because I will go down with this ship). There's also just a bit of Belle/Hook and Belle/Neal friendship. Hope you all enjoy.
Killian Jones looked around the deck of the ship he currently was standing on in disbelief. He was on this cursed ship once more, the ship that often featured in his nightmares: The Flying Dutchman, his father's vessel. He swore he'd never come back to this place and Liam had promised him he'd never have to.
Why am I here anyway? He questioned.
Oh right. For my friends' sake.
The Wicked Witch had kidnapped a pregnant Snow White along with Robin Hood's son Roland and Henry and Prince Eric too. One of the witch's lairs resided deep underwater according to Ariel. They had needed to find a way to get as many people as needed transported deep underwater safely in order to rescue the captives and fight off the witch's band of flying monkeys. Hook had reluctantly offered a solution when he saw the worry and pain on Emma's face. They could use his father's ship the Flying Dutchman. Emma had a look of utter disbelief when he revealed that his father was Davy Jones. She had the same look when he told her he was Captain Hook. He supposed she heard of his dad... he also supposed she didn't really know anything about the real him, the coward he was.
At any rate, the Dutchman was an enchanted ship like his Jolly Roger and could sail underwater unlike the Jolly while allowing her passengers the ability to breath. The ship was designed for underwater travel as well as aerial travel without the use of fairy dust or Pegasus sails, that's how she got the name the Flying Dutchman. Though the ship was outwardly majestic, a myriad of different hues of blue meshing beautifully, he felt completely uncomfortable and at ill ease as he led the group to where his father's abandoned ship was docked but the look Emma gave him as a result of his helping them kept the darker thoughts and memories at bay.
That is until he walked onto the ship. He had had to check the place to make sure no one was stowing away. It was a nerve-racking and overall unpleasant experience: having to walk through this entire vessel again, having to see the rooms and relive the attached memories. The hardest one to walk into had been his old bedroom. He should have just did a quick sweep of it, should have left without delay, but he didn't. He had dallied and the memories infested him like a disease.
The men's hot breath on his neck.
The stench of liquor permeating the air.
Their laughter, the words they used which brought him untold shame.
The strange sensations their hands brought. Him musing later on after they had got into his head and started making him think he had brought it on himself, that he had purposefully tempted them, he began to wonder whether that was true. He began to wonder if he did actually want it like they told him he did. He also remembered these innocent, confused childhood musings being shattered by pain. So much pain and discomfort and begging for the actions, for the hands and other appendages, to cease.
He remembered the feeling that tore through him when he brought the abuse to his father's attention only for the man to stand by and do nothing for it to stop, he did nothing to save his boy. He didn't care about him.
Hook looked at the captain's wheel. It was there his father hit him the first time. He had broken down and started crying. It would seem to an outsider that he had overreacted. A crew member had walked past and gave an eight year old Killian a wink while his father was teaching him how to steer the ship. Killian started crying and for some reason he just couldn't stop. His young mind couldn't process all the pain and abuse he was suffering. He bottled his pain inside because something told him that there wasn't any way he could let them see him break but he did then. He thought he'd be safe to do that with his father, that he'd hug him and tell him it was okay. To this day he couldn't figure out why he had such faith in that man. When he was a kid his dad was like a giant and he hit like one too. He thumped Killian so hard in the back of the head that his forehead slammed into the wheel and he fell on his back in a daze.
"You stop that sissy whining boy. You're a pirate and what's more, you're a lad and lads don't cry." He hissed before stepping over his son and walking away. Killian had sat on the floor watching him walk away unable to stop his tears and hating himself for it just like he hated himself now.
He barely heard any of what was going on around him. So lost was he in his past that he didn't even hear his companions' arguing voices and he didn't hear the sounds of the sea which usually calmed him but all he could hear was his blood rushing through his ears. He felt air starting to constrict around him and struggle to get down into his lungs. He felt tears prickling his eyes and only then did he became acutely aware he wasn't alone. On the deck with him five feet away were people he'd never want to see him in this state but he couldn't calm down, he didn't remember how to. It had been a long time since his last anxiety episode. What the bloody hell was he going to do?
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Neal rolled his eyes as Regina once again suggested a method of rescuing Henry, Roland, Eric and Snow that would undoubtedly put all of them in even more danger.
"Regina, honestly I don't know why you're opening your mouth anymore because you are of no help." Emma said angrily.
"Excuse me, Miss Swan? You want to repeat that. I dare you." Regina hissed as she stepped closer to Emma threateningly. She was glaring so hard at the blonde Neal thought she was about to hex her. In that moment she looked every bit the Evil Queen he'd heard so much about.
"Regina, perhaps we should exercise more stealth on this mission as opposed to brute strength. The element of surprise can only benefit us." Robin said in a placating voice. Regina seemed to calm down at his words and stepped back to stand closer to him than she was standing before. Neal raised an eyebrow at it but didn't comment. It was a good thing, he guessed, that there was someone other than Henry who could temper Regina's malicious nature like Belle had for his father. He didn't like thinking of him, his Papa, he was gone and that still hurt but somehow he thought Belle hurt more than he did. He looked over at the woman who sat on a bench watching Neal, Tink, Robin, Regina, Ariel, David, Emma, Mulan, Aurora and Phillip argue over how to best undergo this rescue mission.
She was quieter nowadays, keeping to the library at the Charmings' renovated castle and mostly sticking by Neal or Ruby's side. She didn't believe his Papa was dead and while he didn't want to take that belief away from her he didn't want to cling to false hope himself so he let her bury herself in books and tomes but made sure she ate and slept and was safe and protected if only for the sake of his father's memory and in honor of his sacrifice. Belle didn't contribute much to rescue efforts but she was smart, skilled and strategic and knew books better than anyone else so she was invaluable when it came to gathering information and making theories based on her research but Neal worried if she knew that or if she'd do something drastic to get back to his father.
Belle looked over at Neal then and he flashed her a little smile which she returned before her eyes flickered away and beyond him. She looked at whatever was behind him with confusion and concern. He turned and immediately saw what or rather who she was staring at, Hook.
I thought someone's voice was missing from this conversation.
Neal really didn't know exactly how he felt about Hook. He was the man who sold him out to the Lost Boys and was vying for Emma's love. Somehow Hook managed to get Emma, even with memory loss, to trust him and he helped her and Henry regain their memories and brought them to the Enchanted Forest. Hook was as invaluable a help as Belle was despite both their appearances. The pirate had once been a friend, a father figure, to Neal and with Rumplestiltskin dead he felt like he should be reconciling his differences with the captain. It was a hard position to be in, both loathing the man and caring for him, but Neal balanced that fragile line quite well if he said so himself.
As he stared at Hook longer he realized something was wrong. The Irishman's face was redder than it should be, his eyes were watering, his hand was holding his chest and his breathing looked slightly labored. Neal exchanged a glance with Belle who looked at him knowingly. They both could tell he was having a panic attack. They both had experience with that after all they had been through. Neal looked back at Hook and he was staring directly at him with fearful, panicked eyes. Neal had never seen him like that before, he'd seen him a bit worse for wear but never afraid because in his mind he held onto the belief that the fearsome Captain Hook feared nothing, not even Peter Pan or death, but here Hook was freaking out. Over what? Neal had no idea but he did know that the last thing he would want was to attract the attention of the rest of the group or for them to see him this vulnerable.
Neal had seen him vulnerable before back when he was still Baelfire and was rejecting the pirate. Despite whatever was happening with Emma for whatever reason trust for Neal shone in Hook's eyes as the two men stared at each other. Neal didn't want him to trust him. Emma had trusted him and he left her, Henry had trusted him and he nearly died on Neverland. Neal was already dealing with Belle, Robin, Tinkerbell and Mulan trusting him without question, Hook didn't need to trust him too, that was just more pressure not to mess up and end up hurting someone but Neal put the self-deprecating thoughts away. He slipped away from the group and walked quietly over to where Hook was. Neal gently reached his hand out.
"I'm gonna touch you." He informed the man. Hook hesitantly nodded.
"Come on, I'll take you down to your quarters away from the others. Try to steady your breathing a bit in the meantime so you don't pass out." Hook nodded again and Neal turned them so his body shielded Hook from the others' view and his arm was around the brunette's shoulder while he carefully guided him to stairs that led to the quarters below the deck. He nodded at Belle as he passed her. Belle got up, walked to Hook's other side and held his arm to help him walk steadier. They were almost to the stairs when Emma called after them.
"Hook? Is something wrong?" She asked. Neal repressed a sigh and turned to the group who now stared at him, Belle and Hook.
"He's fine, he just needs a minute." Neal reassured. Emma looked at him skeptically, he tried not to be hurt by that. Even though she got her memories back she had whole new memories of raising Henry without him because he left her and let her go to prison. It didn't matter which set of memories she chose to live by he left in both of them because some shady guy who turned out to be Pinocchio told him to. Not his finest moment and he was still paying the consequences for that decision.
"What's wrong him? Why won't he speak or turn around?" She asked, getting more and more concerned for Hook with each question. David shared her worried expression. His wife, unborn child and grandson were just kidnapped so he didn't fancy losing his best friend too.
"If this has anything to do with rescuing Henry-" Belle cut Regina off.
"It doesn't have anything to do with this but the captain does need a moment and you all should get back to your... conversation. The three of us weren't contributing much to it anyway." Belle said in as polite a tone as she could muster whilst speaking to the woman who had her locked away in an asylum for 28 years. Her tone was actually shockingly polite but that was Belle. She was the woman who could have a civilized conversation with the Evil Queen and sit down for tea with her, she was the woman who could help Captain Hook when he was in need and fall in love with the Dark One despite the wrongs they'd done her. Neal admired her for her capacity for forgiveness and compassion. The group didn't protest further, though Neal could see that Emma's eyes didn't stray from Hook as they led him downstairs. They brought him to the captain's quarters and by that time he looked ready to pass out.
"Belle bring water please. Or better yet, rum. Or both." He asked her as he made Hook sit down on the bed by the window. She nodded and ran off to look for the rum and water and Neal opened the window to let the cold, salty air wash over the pirate and then kneeled in front of the man who looked dazed and dizzy and was now hyperventilating with a tear or two slipping down his face.
"Hook, listen to me. Look at me." Hook did his best to focus on Neal.
"Hold your breath for five seconds, no more than that or you might pass out. When you start breathing again I'll coach your breathing, follow me exactly." Hook nodded and looked up in slight surprise as he felt a wet cloth being pressed to his forehead only to see Belle smiling gently at him. He did stop breathing then because here were two people who he had hurt both directly and indirectly and they were taking care of him.
Why the bloody hell are they doing this? It's me. Have they been enchanted or something. He narrowed his eyes disbelieving at Belle but she just smiled slightly wider at him. Neal suddenly pat his shoulder.
"Okay, you can breath now but breath with me." The next minute was spent with Belle cooling his forehead with a wet rag and Hook and Neal breathing deep breaths in sync until Hook's heart rate gradually slowed and his lungs retained the oxygen he was giving it. He slumped against the wall when he finally calmed down and Neal handed him a bottle of rum. He looked at the two gratefully.
"Thanks for helping me. You both, out of everyone, definitely didn't have to." Belle merely patted his shoulder before departing the room. Hook noted that she'd been quieter since the Crocodile died but Hook had been quieter, broodier with Emma gone so he understood. He looked to Neal who just watched quietly for a moment.
"First panic attack?" Hook snorted at that.
"Oh no, I'm a seasoned veteran trust me. It's just been a while since I had one and I suppose I forgot how to calm myself down but you did fairly well. I suppose you had your fair share."
"Neverland wasn't easy." Hook looked away guiltily.
"The modern world wasn't that much better." Neal said, for some reason feeling the need to reassure Hook. He cleared his throat and looked away as the other man looked at him with sad, regretful eyes. No need to rehash those days right this minute.
"I'll tell the others you're feeling a little under the weather, that it's nothing serious and that you just need to sleep it off." Neal turned to leave but Hook grabbed him back by the hand before he could.
"Baelfire, I really do appreciate what you and Belle did for me." Neal nodded, seeing the honesty in Hook's eyes, before he patted the man's shoulder then left the room.
It was hours later and Hook now stood on the ship's deck looking out at the water as they sailed leisurely. He couldn't sleep, especially not in the room which used to belong to his father and being there made him feel like he wanted to burn the place down which wouldn't be conducive to their rescue mission. So he left the room before he lit it ablaze and steered the Dutchman out to sea at a lazy pace in the direction of the Wicked Witch's hideout whilst the others slept.
"You set sail."
Well almost all the others. He thought looking over at Emma as she walked up the steps towards where he stood by the helm.
"I figured there's no use in wasting time. All of us can argue more whilst we do something at least slightly productive in actually saving Snow, Henry, Roland and Eric." He said with a shrug.
"I don't think I thanked you yet for telling us about this ship. Thank you Hook, you didn't have to do this... especially when you don't want to be here." Emma said, hesitating at the end a little as she leaned against the ship next to Hook and overlooked the water with him.
"Why do you say that?" He asked in an emotionless tone.
"You've been acting off since we got here. You didn't act so distant before you told us about the Flying Dutchman and we boarded it. What's wrong? And what happened earlier with Neal?" He looked over at her and there was genuine concern on her face. She still had trust issues but ever since New York she'd been opening up to him more and putting more faith in him. She trusted him with Henry and herself and that was more than she gave most people. There was an understanding between them that only grew with time. She had revealed a few secrets to him and he'd done the same, perhaps it was time to let this particular secret go. He'd been carrying it for so long it would feel good to have someone who understood what being on the Dutchman did to him, what it made him relive.
"This ship belonged to my father."
"Yeah I know, Davy Jones." She said shaking her head a bit as she thought of it. She didn't know why she was so shocked, it made sense she supposed.
"What exactly have you heard of him in your world?" Emma was taken aback by that.
"Well, not much. I wasn't very much into pirate lore but I do know that he was said to be the scourge of the sea, the captain of the Flying Dutchman with a crew that was cursed to be undead. He had a locker where he locked away the souls of men who owed him a debt." She couldn't shake the image of Davy Jones from the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' from her head, a man with gray slimy skin and tentacles on his face and a wooden leg along with large lobster claws for hands.
"Everyone seems to agree that he was a monster with a crew of monsters but he was your father so he couldn't be that bad… could he?"
"His crew wasn't undead, they were just as living as you or I. He did have a locker that existed on a separate plain but he kept what exactly he put in it secret. As for how bad he was… remember on the beanstalk when I told you an orphan's an orphan? I could tell you were one because so was I. My mother died when I was 3, my father was barely around. When I was 7, my brother Liam joined the Navy and my father came back and took me aboard the Dutchman. I thought it was going to be perfect, all I wanted was for someone to want me. I was upset that Liam left, I thought he was leaving me so when my father came back I had all these expectations. They were all ridiculous of course but I was a child, didn't know any better, didn't truly know the world for the cruel and twisted place it is. I was assigned cabin boy duty. Everything was fine at first, I cleaned and did inventory and my father taught me how to steer a vessel such as the Dutchman in the air, on the sea or under it. Then one night the crew was drinking below the deck and my new job was to bring them their drinks. I suppose men get... bold when they're drunk because later on that night two of the men cornered me and forced me to kiss them. " Emma's eyes widened and she had to swallow her gasp as she stared at a distant looking Hook.
"It was disgusting and the liquor made me vomit. They hit me for it and made me clean it up with my shirt. That was my introduction into the hazards of being a cabin boy. I spent the next three years in hell as it escalated to… a lot more. I was scared, I was on this ship in the middle of the ocean and everyone seemed out to make my life hell and to use me for their own twisted, nefarious purposes. A year after it started I told my father. He sat there and listened to me recount every encounter, he listened well into the night and I fell asleep in his bed that night... I felt safe for the first time in months." Hook scoffed then and shook his head while looking down with a cold smile on his face.
"In the morning he acted like nothing ever happened. I tried to bring it back up and he walked away from me. When he finally did say something to me about it he told me that every man on his ship had their cross to bear and their sacrifice to make and that this was simply mine. He didn't even try to protect me, he didn't-he didn't... care." His voice became heavy with held back tears as he recounted that time in his life. Emma's eyes misted over and she tilted her head to the side a bit as she looked at Hook understandingly. She had had an unpleasant encounter with dad #5 when she was 12 while in the foster care system but as soon as she made mention to her case worker of what happened she was immediately removed from the home. She couldn't imagine being surrounded by water on all sides with no land in sight while people molested and abused you every night and the one person you thought would protect you had thrown you to the wolves and stood by and watched while you suffered. Hook laughed bitterly then.
"He didn't bloody well care. He saw me, he saw the bruises, the cuts, the pain I was in and he turned a blind eye. I don't know what I did to make him hate me so much. Three years of my life, nothing really compared to the 300 years I've been living but being on this ship again... it's like revisiting the scene of a horrible crime."
"Because that's exactly what you're doing." Emma said. Hook turned to look at her.
"This wasn't your fault, you were a kid. There's nothing you could've done to warrant what happened to you or your father turning his back on you. It doesn't matter that they were drunk and rowdy because there is nothing at all in this world or any other world that you did that caused that to happen to you." Emma said with such strong conviction that Killian had no choice but to take her words as the truth. They hit him in the chest hard. He now had to try to accept that he had no guilt or blame for what happened to him after having lived 3 centuries believing otherwise. It brought on a strangely freeing yet empty feeling because that would mean accepting that he was beaten, molested and raped just because those men felt like it. That it just happened for no reason at all.
"How could something that... painful, that... unholy happen for no reason at all?" Killian asked. A tear fell over Emma's cheek at his uncharacteristically timid voice, his broken face. In this moment she didn't crawl into the shell she usually did, she didn't put up her walls because the vulnerable little boy the ruthless Captain Hook had transformed into in front of her eyes needed her. He was there for her with a warm embrace and comfort when the situation was reversed and she needed his support in New York, he was always behind her with words and nods of encouragement in Neverland when she didn't believe in herself so she could let him see beyond her walls in this moment in order to help him get over this hurdle.
"I believe there was a reason but it wasn't anything you did or anything you controlled. Those men were sick bastards and they deserve to suffer for what they did to you but you shouldn't be the one suffering for their sins, you shouldn't be the one who feels guilt and shame because it isn't your guilt or shame to bear. It's theirs." She reassured while bringing up her hand to his grizzled cheek and stroking it comfortingly. She pressed her lips to his cheek and pulled him into her arms, hugging him tightly. The dam that he had suppressed for 300 years broke in that moment, he knows that despite his affection for Baelfire he wouldn't have been comfortable being so vulnerable that tears feel down his cheeks and sobs shook his body. He could only allow his swan to see him in this undeniably human state. She held him even more tighter and he held her just as tightly, needing her support and enjoying the strength she transferred to him with the words she mumbled into his ears. It was mostly gibberish to him but he could make out her telling him it wasn't his fault and that it was okay and that he was safe now and that they couldn't hurt him anymore. Her words and embrace made him fall in love with her even more.
Once he calmed down he pulled back from her and stared down at the ground, feeling a little embarrassed and naked in front of her. While he usually didn't have a problem with and would actually welcome the latter, for some reason it caused him to feel the former. She pulled his head up gently by his chin and in the same manner whipped the tears from his cheeks with her thumbs. She placed another kiss to his cheek when she was done with that and pressed her forehead to his. He closed his eyes as they breathed the same air for a few moments before Emma spoke again.
"Was there any moment in that time period where it wasn't totally and completely horrible?" She asked. While she was in the foster care system there was a candy shop by the orphanage and the owner of the store, a kindly older man from Guatemala named Esteban would, would give her candy everyday after school. If he noticed bruises on her he'd let her spend time at his store under the pretense of her working there and would give her money every though she mostly just spent time in the back of the store doing her homework or doing little things for him like fetching something for the cupboards or spending time with his dog. He said he would've adopted her if only he could get his papers to become a citizen but he died before he could just before she met Neal.
"Actually... yes. We would dock sometimes and my father had a friend, a fellow pirate who went by the moniker of Blackbeard."
"The actual Blackbeard. He's as famous as Davy Jones back in my world." Emma said with disbelief coloring her voice but she didn't move from their position in each other's arms with their foreheads touching.
"He was a good man. For some reason he took a liking to me, he brought a present for me whenever we docked and spent the whole week that we were inland regaling me with stories and giving me the hugs and praise and positive attention I was so starved for on the Dutchman. He taught me how to steer his ship, The Queen Anne's Revenge. It's a magical ship as well. He was more of a father to me than my own father. Every time we were getting ready to get back to the sea, he would offer me a place on his ship. Every time I would deny him because for some reason I believed that one day my father would have some amazing revelation and realize that... I don't know, that he loved me I suppose. That never happened and one day when we docked he was running from the authorities and just left me. I was arrested for piracy, not even children were safe from the strict law. I was to be executed, I was going to be hung on the bottom of a bridge that hung above the ocean a little ways away from the port. I was to serve as an example that no one would be shown mercy for being a pirate. I thought that was it, that my life was over." Emma was riveted by the story, captivated by the childhood of Hook. The only thing they'd talked about concerning his life before Milah was that Hook had been in the Navy along with his brother who died after a run in with dreamshade.
"I was standing there with a noose around my neck getting ready to be hung and I looked out at the ocean and suddenly The Queen Anne's Revenge appeared out of thin air. One of the ship's abilities is to turn invisible, the royal soldiers never saw it coming and didn't stand a chance. That was the first time anyone had ever cared enough about me to come back for me. I was with Blackbeard until I was 17 and he gave me some semblance of a good childhood before I decided I wanted to find Liam. I joined the royal navy and it was through sheer luck that Liam and I reconciled with each other." He stopped there and she decided not to push him, she knew that after that Liam died and he became a pirate and then overtime he met Milah and the rest was history, bad history.
"What happened to Blackbeard?" She asked.
"I kept in contact with him even while in the navy. I told him about what I was doing, which places he should avoid due to naval presence, I even had meetings with him every year on my birthday. He would tease me about becoming an uptight prissy pants but he never put me down for joining the navy, he said as long as I followed my moral code and didn't let anyone change it then he was proud of me. He knew when I turned my back on the Navy and went rogue, he did his best to make sure I kept a level head about me and that I didn't let my thirst for vengeance get me killed. He retaught me the ways of being a pirate and I managed to find some middle ground between the code of piracy, the code of the navy and my own personal code. I didn't break contact with him until I went to Neverland. I don't know where he is now. He could be dead, he could still be out there sailing around on a ghost ship. Something in me refuses to believe him dead despite the amount of time that's passed."
"Hmm," Emma commented, wondering if Blackbeard could still be out there. She raised herself onto her tiptoes before pressing a kiss to his forehead and pulling him to sit on a bench by the bridge. She left him there for a moment before going down the stairs into the hull and bringing back up a large, warm blanket. She sat back next to him and wrapped them both into it before curling up beside him.
"Let's just... stay here for tonight, okay?" Emma said softly. He nodded and shivered a bit as he felt her hand go under his shirt and rest itself over where his heart beat strongly in his chest. She rested her head on his shoulder and relaxed as his arm went around her waist and his head rested onto hers.
"Goodnight, my swan." He mumbled.
"Goodnight Killian." He smiled at her using his name, which she rarely did, and relaxed into her embrace as well. For the first time in his ages, he slept soundly aboard the Flying Dutchman.