5 TIMES SOMEONE THREATENED HOOK (AND 1 TIME SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED)
4 – Captain Hook and Pinocchio Walk Into a Bar...
The image printed on the bottle's label was this: a crimson-clad, curly-haired sailor sporting a massive eye patch, a wooden leg, and, half-hidden by long sleeves and gathered lace, a hook in place of his hand. A rainbow feathered bird fluttered perilously close to his head, threatening to snatch off the ridiculous hat that added at least another foot to his height. The aforementioned accessory was emblazoned with a very familiar symbol, one that declared to seafarers everywhere which side of the law he sailed on.
"That's supposed to be a fearsome pirate," Hook said. He was unimpressed. "Personally, I wouldn't find a man missing two limbs and an eye very frightening, but I suppose not everyone can adhere to my standard of bravery." In the face of such a garish caricature, Hook hardly knew whether to be amused or baffled, which was more or less how he felt about this entire outing. He had never heard of Pinocchio—or August, as he preferred to be called, and no wonder with a name like that—before today. Emma had raised her eyebrows when he mentioned the invitation, but she had pronounced August "kinda weird, but mostly harmless," and threatened Hook with a night in a jail cell if he got drunk and did something stupid in public.
The warning was unnecessary, at least in Hook's case. He was still nursing his first glass; it was more than halfway full. August had assured him that this was the cheapest booze money could possibly buy, and it was rather vile—sickly sweet and oddly spicy, and it trickled down your throat more like the acidic scouring of undiluted vinegar than a trail of liquid fire. It was fake and chemical and most definitely a product of this modern, mechanized world. He could only imagine what it would taste like coming back up.
Hook swirled the liquor in his tumbler and took a small sip, just enough to wet his lips and singe his tongue. He had tasted worst, and the memory of that foul rotgut had him waxing nostalgic. He'd kill for a pint of the really crap ale that you got in dockside taverns, a hazardous-to-your-health, homemade mixture that the barkeep had brewed in the dark recesses of the cellar. This stuff didn't even come close.
"If you don't mind," August said, waving his glass towards the pirate across the table. "My last serving of the night."
Hook refilled it for the second time—enough liquor to create a pleasant buzz, but not enough to provoke unsightly emotional outpourings or inspire impromptu weddings. What a pity. "So," he said, deciding finally to bring up the topic that they had been dancing around all evening. "Does that mean you've drunk enough to start asking invasive questions about my relationship with Emma yet?"
"Excuse me?"
Hook arched a sardonic brow, his mouth twisting into a bored sneer. "Of course you want to talk about Emma," he said. "The people of Storybrooke generally belong to one of two groups: those who want to kill me, and those who want to lecture me about Emma, although there may be some overlap; her father certainly could be placed in both categories."
August had a sweet, boyish laugh, rather unexpected coming from someone who wore a leather jacket and drove a motorcycle, carefully cultivated his five o'clock shadow, and spoke mostly in vague, cryptic utterances. Maybe he was drunker than Hook realized. "Can't argue with you there," August said, smiling crookedly. "But I don't think it's personal. The man's 'Prince Charming' after all, a living cliché. He can't help being the stereotypical overprotective father."
"I hadn't thought of it that way," Hook replied, a low laugh escaping from his throat. He raised his glass, tipping it towards August in a small salute before taking another nauseating sip. "So to which camp do you pledge allegiance?"
"I like to place myself in a separate camp, one that simply desires what's best for Emma," August said. "It's not my job to judge your relationship. At least not anymore."
"But it was, once upon a time?" Hook leaned back in his seat for the first time that night, shoulders relaxing against the cherry red vinyl. The booze was terrible, the lighting was all wrong, and there was a distinct lack of buxom tavern wenches, but there was nothing new about that posture and that expectant air—he knew the look of a man waiting to tell his story.
"I suppose that depends on your interpretation of events," August said. "My father, who carved the wardrobe, sent me through to spare me, but the Blue Fairy only let him because she thought I had learned my lesson. She thought I could be Emma's brother, be a replacement for the real family she had to lose in order to save us all."
"I tried. For a little while." He trailed off into silence, like a man lost in reminiscence, but Hook saw how his jaw clenched, the way the muscles in his throat shifted as he swallowed: these were not pleasant memories. "Until I got a better offer," he admitted. "In my defense, I was just a kid from an enchanted kingdom where fairies could make miracles happen with the flick of a wand. Everyone got their happily ever after, eventually. And Emma had a destiny. I thought Fate itself would look out for her, place her feet on the path that would take her to where she needed to be. I didn't think she needed me, and I didn't know how bad things could get in this world.
"Fifteen years later I had an attack of conscience and decided to check up on her. But she had already disappeared from the system by then. It took two years of searching to find her, and by the time I had tracked her down, I was a bit desperate."
Even the memory of it made him angry, or at least that was how Hook chose to interpret certain subtle signs: his hands suddenly closing tight around his empty glass, lines deepening around his eyes. Unlike Hook, who loved flamboyant emotional displays, the more misleading and distracting the better, August Booth tried very hard to control his feelings in public—not to suppress them, but to focus them and use them to bolster the weight of his words. His voice became more urgent, his gaze more intense. It was a powerful effect, and even though Hook already had some inkling how this story ended, he made no move to interrupt. "And then I saw how she was living. The daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, shacking up with some lowlife and stealing to survive."
He paused to gather his composure, and when he spoke again, his voice had softened. "They were incredibly happy together, of course. So in love that it made them giddy and reckless. They were broke and homeless, shoplifting and running cons just to stay afloat," he said. "It was not what her parents would have wanted for her."
"So you interfered."
August nodded. "I convinced him to go away, and Emma spent the next ten years alone, until Henry turned up on her doorstep and she moved to Storybrooke." He shrugged and offered up a small, painful smile.
"My actions led to the desired outcome. And yet…I wonder. Did I do the right thing? If I had just turned around and left that ecstatically happy couple to their own devices, maybe one day they would have decided to take a family vacation. Maybe they would have gone for a drive up the East Coast, and found themselves in a quaint little town in Maine. Maybe they would have posed for a photo in the square, under the clock tower, the two of them and their son. Maybe afterwards they would have shared a kiss, and broken the curse without even trying. The story wouldn't have been nearly as interesting, but there would have been a lot less hurt and heartbreak and collateral damage. Maybe I should have trusted in true love."
How different would the world be, if Emma had been whole and happy and married from the beginning? Hook was not nearly drunk enough to contemplate the possibility. "I guess we'll never know," he said, light and deliberately dismissive, even though the words of the story still hung about them, heavy in the air. "And I believe I should thank you, since without your meddling, she might have been another man's wife." Hook grinned. "Not that that's ever stopped me before."
"I promised to let him know when the curse was broken."
"Did you?" With those two words, all traces of Hook's previous incarnation disappeared, and August remembered that the man across from him was three hundred years old, and very dangerous. He had seduced sirens and fought giants and outwitted not one but two sorceresses, pitting the black queen against the white while he secretly controlled both sides of the board. When he couldn't trick his opponents, he had no qualms about gutting them like fish.
August knew was out of his depth, but long habit forced him to answer honestly. "I sent him a postcard."
Hook didn't know what a postcard was, but he understood very well what August had done. "Why?"
"Because I want what's best for Emma," he said, echoing his earlier statement.
"I'm what's best for Emma," Hook snarled, bright eyes darkening to pitch as he struggled to control himself. All the lazy indifference had been burned out of his body, and now every muscle was aching to leap over the table and strangle the man sitting there.
"She has the right to know," August said, maintaining his calm despite the killing intent radiating from his companion. "She has the right to choose her fate. And Henry has the right to know who his father really is."
Hook's reply was angry, wordless growl. One hand—his only hand—gripped the table hard enough to leave fingerprints imprinted in the cheap plastic.
"For what it's worth, I think she'll choose you," August said, his gaze serious, almost speculative. "That other guy's an idiot. If he really loved her, he would have moved heaven and earth to find a way to be with her. Even though he had the best of intentions, Emma will never forgive him for deciding some abstract, shadowy future was worth more than what they already had."
"I'm never going to give her up."
"I know."
"She's mine."
"I'm not the one you need to tell that to," August replied, although he looked glad to hear it anyway. "Just try not to sound so much like a caveman when you say it; that will probably just piss her off."