Having fallen asleep on Starkey's comfortable sofa, Hook woke in the morning, blinked against the light, and realized that he'd gotten his hook stuck in the leather. He had time to think of how peeved Starkey would be about this, until the brightness of the room made him realise that something much more important was at stake.
"Oh, no," he said and stood up, ignoring the blistering headache that made itself known the moment he started to move.
He rushed out into the hallway and noticed Starkey in the kitchen, pouring water into a kettle.
"Got to go," Hook told him and grabbed his jacket, which he'd flung over the side of a chair the night before, but which was now neatly folded. "Sorry about the sofa. I'll repay you."
He ran down the stairs and through the streets, wondering how hard it would be to learn how to drive a car. Even if he had one, though, he wouldn't be able to drive it in the woods. Surely this world had to have some horses, or something like horses? How else did they travel long distances on bumpy and narrow roads?
The sun was already high in the sky, which meant his speed was of no consequence whatsoever. Still he ran as fast as his feet would carry him to the trap. He was relieved to find everything untouched. If his prey had been caught and he had missed it, he never would have forgiven himself.
He needed a better way to wake up in the mornings, he decided as he slowly made his way to the Jolly Roger, where Smee's snores echoed through the hull. Perhaps he could buy a cockerel. Smee could take care of it, and an animal wasn't property, after all. Or he might buy a clock and set it up at Starkey's – perhaps Starkey even owned a clock already; it would suit his desire for propriety.
After so many years spent outside of time's influence, having to abide by its rules was a damned nuisance. Hook returned to his bunk and fell back asleep, hoping to get his head back together before he was to meet Ariel.
He woke up a couple of times, and looked out through the porthole at the sky each time, to see the position of the sun. When he deemed it high enough and his own head clear enough, he left the Jolly Roger again. Smee was taking down the rigs, with a care that showed how much he had missed the ship. Hook gave him a salute goodbye and headed into town, where he walked slowly through the streets, trying out new pathways to see what else the town had in store for him. So much of it still made no sense, even though it seemed to him that he had done nothing but learn the ways of this world since his arrival.
Finally he made it to Ariel's place and knocked on the door with his hook.
Ariel opened up, waved him inside, and motioned for him to wait. She ducked into the bathroom, and Hook followed her there, leaning against the door frame.
"Am I early?" he asked.
In reply, she shook her head and pointed at herself, giving him an apologetic grimace before she turned her attention to her false eyelashes, which she put in with meticulous care. Though he wouldn't have deemed them necessary, they did frame her eyes nicely, and the hue of paint that she then chose for her lips served well to complement them.
"You have a lot of things in there," he said, referring to the cabinet behind her looking glass. He took out some bottles and packages, reading their descriptions. A lot of the words were nonsense to him, but he understood that most of the items had to do with hair in one way or another, though there were also bottles for face, body, and hands. "Is this magic or just vanity? No wonder you're prettier than ever."
She slapped at his hand, but he snatched out another small vial which rattled with pills, and had time to read the words 'chronic pain management' before she took it back.
"I'll grant you that one," he said, somewhat sheepishly.
Her reflection in the looking glass smiled at him, and she finished her make-up, but took a small black pen out of the cabinet, turning towards him.
"What?" he asked, suspicious of her expression, and she removed the cap from the pen, raising it to his eyes and drawing, with an expert hand, black lines along the lashes.
"Very nice," he said, admiring his reflection over her shoulder. "Better than my usual, even. Thank you."
They returned to the hallway, and she picked up her phone from the table, telling him, "You have your little vanities, I have mine. In this world, long hair doesn't just take care of itself."
"Duly noted."
"Have you eaten?"
"No, I was waiting for you. You haven't eaten either, have you? Good! So what say you, should we go out? Granny's, perhaps?"
Ariel's wince at the suggestion surprised him. Even his short time in Storybrooke had been enough for him to learn that Granny's was the spot everyone gravitated to, despite the lack of good liquors.
"You don't like Granny's?" he asked.
"I do," she replied, and paused to put on her coat before continuing, "but so does everyone else. Including my father, and my sisters."
For some reason, he had never stopped to consider the thought that the curse would also have taken her family, or that she would be reunited with them. The old ideas of remuneration returned to his mind unbidden, and he asked, "Don't you want to see them? Or is it that you don't want them to see me?"
Slowly, she locked her front door and put the key in her bag, going down the stairs.
"It's complicated," she told him. "They don't approve of my choices."
"What choices?" he asked. "Becoming human? But they're human too, now, aren't they? It seems a frightful pity for you to still be estranged from them, after such a long forced absence."
The hypocrisy inherent in that statement was a bit rich, even for him, considering how things had fared with his own family, and he could hear the false note in his voice.
So, evidently, could she, because she gave him an odd look and, after a pause, asked, "That day we met, you knew who I was right from the start, didn't you?"
"That you were a mermaid? Yes, I did."
They stepped out of the building, and with her back to the street she pointed to her breasts and gave him a meaningful glance.
"Oh. That you were a princess. Yes, that too."
They walked in silence for a bit before she returned to the topic.
"That's why you were always so keen to get me back to my family," she said, head bent so low over her phone that he couldn't read her expression. "You were hoping for some sort of ransom."
"'Ransom' would imply that I had kidnapped you," he said, his words lighter than his state of mind. "That was never the case. A reward, yes, the idea did occur to me."
"And now?"
"And now... I enjoy your company. I'm not a man to turn down an offer of treasure, but I don't need payment to want to see you."
At that, she met his eyes, and he was alarmed to find that there were tears in hers, though she was smiling.
"Ariel," he said, "don't fall in love with me, whatever you do. That's not on the table. You do realize that, don't you?"
She laughed. "I do. And I'm not. That's the best bit. You have no idea how relieving it is. Instead of being hopelessly enamoured with a man who doesn't even notice, I kind of like a guy who kind of likes me."
Hook found her reply to be an immense relief. While he probably would have proceeded with the dalliance either way, it was always a nuisance when the girl carried around all sorts of feelings that he couldn't return, and a damned shame too.
"Any man who doesn't notice you is an idiot," he said. "I could follow the mesmerism of your arse down the wrong alley. Three wrong alleys."
"You do realise everything below the waist is a part of the witch's spell, right?" she asked, turning a corner.
"And she did a damned fine job of it." He tugged at her braid and spun them both around, ending up with a firm hold on the arse in question. "Not that the top half isn't fabulous, too."
She put her arms around his neck and held her phone there to write, "Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special."
"Oh, you want me to spread it on thicker?" he teased. "Bits about your keenness of mind and kindness of heart? I shall need some food first, in that case, to bring on the inspiration. Just know this." He leaned in, fixing her gaze in his, determined not to be the first to smile. "I wouldn't be here, if you were just a body."
That was the plain truth, too. He could sleep once with just about anyone, but to come back for seconds took some extra incentive. Ariel wasn't the kind of woman who could hold his interest indefinitely and alone, but there was something sweetly refreshing about her, like the faint scent of lavender.
Her actual perfume was something heavier that would have suited some women, but not her, a mis-step that reminded him that for all her mermaid nature, she was now a mortal girl. He got a full whiff of it as she gave him a quick kiss and then pointed across the street.
"What?" he asked and turned his head. The bright blue sign of the Fish & Chip shop appeared in his line of vision, and he winced, because he knew then where they were, and what other sign he would see if he kept turning. Too close to Rumpelstiltskin, but there was no brief explanation he could give her, and so he forced a smile instead. "Excellent. I'm starving."
Most people in the shop took their food to go, but Ariel ordered hers to eat in, which of course obligated Hook to do the same. It was more convenient for him anyway, and he quickly realised that Ariel's reasons had been similar, as she placed her phone on the table and continued the conversation as she stuffed food in her mouth.
"I'm waiting."
"For what?"
She gestured at him to eat, and he did.
"There. Now you get to compliment me."
"Oh, do I?" He dipped another piece of deep fried fish into sauce and chewed on it, enjoying the greasy, crunchy taste. "You're very resilient," he said, meeting her gaze. "It's not romantic, but it's admirable nonetheless. And you do have a kind heart, but it's still a strong one. And I believe I have been doing quite a lot of complimenting now and you have been doing none, so," he pointed his piece of fish at her, "your turn."
"You're a handsome man, with the most beautiful eyes," she wrote, growing more serious as she continued, "You saved my life. And you were very kind to me. Maybe it was for the reward, but it was kindness just the same. And even now..."
She stopped mid-sentence and blushed.
"Yes?" he asked, as he took her hand in his and let his eyebrow rise.
She mimicked the signature move and gave a wry smile."You're charming my socks off."
"You're not wearing socks," he pointed out, peeking under the table. "You're wearing – oh! The thinnest set of stockings I ever saw. And those legs! Gods! I need to write that witch a letter of commendation." He tilted his head a little further. "Are you aware that from this angle I can see all the way up... ow!"
The exclamation was due to the fact that she had just kneed him in the face, and he withdrew, rubbing at his nose.
"You're not supposed to be looking from that angle," she said, and her prim expression was so much like one of Wendy's that it left a lump in his throat.
"You know," he said and sat back down on his chair, "sometimes you really remind me of someone."
Her eyes turned to his wrist, and while the tattoo was hidden under his shirt he knew that was the aim of her gaze, and he shook his head. No, Milah had been an entirely different kind of creature. Emma, now and again, had a touch of Milah about her, but Ariel next to none.
At Ariel's questioning look, he continued, "It was a brief aquaintance, and a long time ago now. It must be... well, almost a century. But she had that same way of looking at me. So high-principled that you just wanted to ravish her on the spot."
Indeed, that very notion would have been enough to earn him reproach from Wendy, but Ariel was enough of a mermaid to let it slide, and merely asked, "What happened?"
"Much the same as what happened with you," he said. "She left me, for my wicked ways, and had the poor taste to fall in love instead with an immature, conceited, ill-bred brat. My only consolation is that she left him too, in the end."
She pondered that, and then something seemed to strike her. "What was her name?"
"Wendy," he said, "Wendy Darling." Even before he had finished speaking, he could tell from Ariel's expression that the name meant something to her. "You know her?"
"I have heard of her."
"From here in Storybrooke? No – from the book, right? I may need to read that book."
"We could rent the movie."
"What's a movie?"
"Finish up," she said, cramming food into her mouth. "I'll show you."
Of all the peculiarities of this place, perhaps the most ridiculous and petty was the way that they restricted access to pissing. Hook had to aquire a key from the patron before he was allowed into the bathroom, where he did his business while Ariel waited outside.
What he saw once he exited into the street made his blood run cold. Rumpelstiltskin and Ariel were standing together, him speaking to her while she had her face bent down, preparing a reply. As her device spoke, Hook cursed the fact that he was too far away to hear her but he could see the closed expression on Ariel's face. Whatever that monster had said, it had not been welcome news, and he raised his hook as he came closer, though he knew it would serve him little.
"Well," Rumpelstiltskin said. "Speak of the devil."
"Step away from her, beast," Hook spat out, "or I swear I shall burn your store down to the ground."
Rumpelstiltskin leaned in closer to Ariel, making Hook's wrist twist in futile anticipation, and told her, "Such bad company, dearie, don't you think?"
Hook struck then, with full force, even though he knew it was no good. Indeed his hook was warded off before it reached its target.
"Don't fuck with me, pirate," Rumpelstiltskin sneered, and walked off, with a limping gait like the one he'd had back when he had just been a poor, snivelling spinner.
If only he'd had the courage to duel back then, so Hook could have killed him on the spot. At this moment, he wished he'd done it anyway, and never mind what Milah would have had to say about it. At least she would have been alive.
In impotent fury, he snatched away Ariel's phone, ignoring her gasp of protest, and scrolled to see what she had written, if there was any sign of betrayal.
"What do you want? / I don't believe I owe you anything, Mr. Gold. / There is nothing that you can take from me that I would care about losing."
"Don't challenge him to find a way to hurt you," Hook warned, thrusting the phone back at her. "He will."
Furious, she pounded away on the phone at him, though of course the mechanical voice was calm as always. "How dare you? Don't ever take my voice away from me again. It's mine. If you want to know what I've said to someone, you ask me."
"You shouldn't be speaking to him at all!" he growled.
"You don't get to tell me what to do. What is it between you and him, anyway?"
Spinning the wool over her eyes wasn't really an option, not in his current state of mind. His choices were between telling her the truth or leaving, and he opted for the truth.
"I came here seeking revenge on him," he said, trying hard to keep a steady voice though his pulse thundered in his ears. "For this." He lifted his left arm, then tugged at his right sleeve to show the tattoo. "And this. He murdered her, took my hand, and I swore to kill him. It has taken me much too long, but finally, I'll soon get to fulfil my vow."
She stood in silence, and he expected her to leave, or to give him some sort of lecture about the immorality of vengeance, the way Wendy would have done. Instead, when she finally wrote something, it was just, "Be careful."
He knew that look on her face. He had seen it before – when speaking to Sir Maurice about his daughter, or the Lady of Avenant about her son, or a little pink fairy about her best friend. The look of someone who would never, ever have the courage to go up against the Dark One, but who was pathetically grateful that someone else would.
"You know him too, don't you?"
"Everyone knows Mr. Gold," she replied, evading the question. "He owns this place."
"I don't mean from this world," he said, and sat them both down on one of the wooden benches outside the store. "From the other."
She bit her lip, then nodded.
"How? Tell me everything you know about him."
Her fingers paused between every word, and though he ached to hear the story, he waited patiently like so often before.
"After I had made my deal with the sea-witch, my sisters still came out to see me this one time. They found out that Eric didn't love me, and they went back to the witch to get the deal undone. She refused to do it, or to give them a new one. She said that she'd had enough of stupid mermaids. So instead they turned to Rumpelstiltskin. Each one of them sold her hair to buy legs, for one night only, to walk the earth. In addition, they stole some treasures from my father's chambers and used them to buy a knife. By stabbing the prince with this knife, they could steal his life force and use it to restore me. The only way to save him would be if I died instead."
She stared at the screen and swallowed hard, then continued,
"You must understand, they did it to help me. To them, the choice was easy. We had fed upon sailors our whole childhood. It was my love that was unnatural, not their blood-thirst. They came to me and claimed to want to see my beloved. I was fool enough to show them to his room, and they stabbed him, presenting me the knife. "Here you go," they told me. "Restore yourself, be our sister once again." I couldn't do it, of course. I destroyed the knife and threw the remnants in the ocean, then as the storm brew, I threw myself in after it, to drown myself and save Eric. They never forgave me."
"So you didn't meet Rumpelstiltskin yourself?" Hook asked, disappointed.
"I did, some time later, while I was working as a dancer. He came to me and said that if I was unhappy with the deal I'd been given, I could always make another. I think... I got the distinct impression that he thought the whole thing was funny. That he'd known how it would turn out, or at least he didn't mind it. So I told him no. I'd never make another magic deal, for as long as I lived. He laughed at that, but he left me alone."
The story wasn't of any use to him as far as his vengeance went, nor was it among the worst ones he'd heard of the Dark One's actions. Just another run-of-the-mill deal gone wrong, though it did explain the bad blood between her and her family.
"I'm sorry," he said.
They sat in silence for a while, then she sighed and wrote, "Well, this makes for a glum date. We should go get those movies."
Movies, whatever they were, seemed to be stored in small, flat boxes with images on the front. Some were portraits created with such lifelike skill that Hook would have suspected the artists of using magic, had he not known that to be impossible. Others were of a more stylized appearance. Ariel led them to an aisle lined with colourful pictures and proceeded to search out the items she wanted.
There were names on some of them that were highly familiar. Mulan, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland... and he started a little at The Swan Princess, though it seemed to feature an actual swan. Others meant nothing to him, even if a few raised his interest. He wondered just how fearsome an Iron Giant could be and whether there was anything about The Black Cauldron that distinguished it from all other kitchenware.
Ariel held up the two items she had chosen: Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid.
"That's not a very good likeness," he said, giving the mermaid on the picture a critical look before turning his attention to the other box. Pan's portrait didn't have a good likeness either, but that just served the little pest right.
Catching sight of something else, he blinked. "Is that supposed to be me?"
She burst into laughter and gave him a pitying nod.
"Dear Gods. I'm not going to like this, am I?"
"It's been done to all of us. In fact, we could start with mine if you want. Give you some perspective."
"No. No, I want to see what the people of this world say about me."
Once they were back in the apartment, Ariel set them up in the sofa with a bottle of wine and a bowl of "popcorn", strange white treats that tasted of nothing but salt and oil yet proved strangely addictive. She took from the box a small flat disc and slid it into a machine that soon proceeded to show pictures, much like the way her phone showed text, except for the lifelike way that these drawn characters moved. By now he knew that a question of how things worked would nearly always get the answer "electricity" or "computers." While the former of those things might be somewhat explicable the second was not, and any attempt to sort things out only confused him more. Still, the images fascinated him, and so he asked anyway.
The explanation, for once, turned out to be simple.
"It's pictures that change so quickly the eye can't keep up," Ariel told him. "Like this."
She took a dictionary out of the bookshelf and drew, in pencil along a corner, a little stick figure with a ball. On every new page, she shifted the position of stick figure and ball slightly, and finally she pulled her thumb across the pages so they flipped through her hands.
The stick figure threw the ball into the air and caught it again.
"Ah," Hook said, looking up at the movie image. Ariel's demonstration had been very simple, yet taken a good deal of time to carry through. The movie consisted of much more detailed images, and he marvelled at the skill it would have taken to make them all move. Regardless of his feelings on the subject matter, he couldn't help being impressed. "Very well. Carry on."
They returned to the movie, and as he watched the dog serve medicine and the caricature of Pan chase his own shadow around the nursery, he realised that this was a children's story, a bedside tale for babes too small to even be told about any real adventure. Which was all very well, except for one thing.
"She's a little girl." He frowned at the image of Wendy. "At least five years younger than she's supposed to be. Will she grow up further, or are they honestly claiming that I bedded a little girl? I may be a pirate, but I don't seduce children."
"They're not saying you bedded her at all. None of that is in the movie."
"Not surprising," he said darkly. "The only thing they've got halfway right so far is that impertinent fairy."
Still, it was diverting enough, until he got to the portrayal of himself and half rose from his seat, teeth clenched and fist curled, ready to blast the world for daring to saddle this cowardly clown with his name.
Ariel grabbed his arm. "If you break the TV set, you pay for it."
"Might be worth it," he grumbled, but he sat back down and accepted the glass of wine that she passed him.
"Drink every time there's an error?" she suggested.
"There's not enough wine in the world."
With this as her frame of reference, no wonder Emma had been so cold to Hook's advances. Who had written this libellous, juvenile tripe anyway? Pan himself? It would be just like him, but the portrayal of Pan in the movie was just a touch too unflattering. Pan would have made himself even more the hero. The pirates and Lily's people were all portrayed in an atrocious manner too. Wendy was the one who came off best, but this wasn't like Wendy, at all. Maybe one of her brothers. The youngest one, perhaps. Yes, an impressionable child getting his memories muddled with Pan's tall tales might just come up with something like this.
It was a little easier to take, thinking of it as the rambling insults of a pouting child. Not a lot, but a little. He still seethed at the screen, but managed to keep his grumblings down to a minimum with the help of wine, popcorn and Ariel's mouth against his.
"To summarize, then," he said once the movie was over. "Peter Pan gets every woman in Neverland, despite not being able to find his own cock with both hands, while I get called a codfish and am thrown to a literal crocodile." He slid his hand in under Ariel's blouse and played with her nipple ring. "Well, little mermaid, I hope your tale is as atrocious as mine. Misery wants company."
She smiled, gave him a look of comical exasperation, and poured herself a drink, taking a hearty swig of it before leaving him to exchange the discs in the TV machine.
It was obviously impossible for Hook to know if this new movie deviated from the truth as much as his own did, but the crab with the sheet music suggested that this was the case. Not to mention the bizarre notion that mermaids would want to avoid the surface because humans were a danger to them.
"Did this really happen?" he asked as the prince's ship sank in the sea and the mermaid swam to rescue him.
Ariel nodded, but seemed disinclined to discuss the movie, her phone lying unused on the table and her face tense in concentration. Though this movie granted her more dignity than the other one had granted Hook, he couldn't help but wonder how she could voluntarily bear to watch it all play out, even with the help of wine. Was it some strange form of self-punishment? It had to hurt, to see the deal that maimed her and took her from her family to be with a prince who never even loved her back. Except in this version, it was very clear that he did, or at least felt a great deal more than the real-life fop had seemed to do. Maybe that softened the blow a bit, made it into some kind of a wish-fulfilment fantasy.
Despite the grim tale, Hook had to laugh at the more absurd parts of it, and even Ariel smirked a little at the chef chasing the crab around the kitchen. During the romantic scene that followed, she drained her drink, turned to Hook, and gave him a deep, wine-flavoured kiss.
He hummed his pleasure, but as he brushed aside the locks that had loosened from her braid, he did point out, "It's not true love's kiss. It won't restore your voice."
She shook her head impatiently and kissed him again, unbuttoning his shirt to get her hands on the chest underneath. During the rest of the movie, he paid very little attention, though he did notice that this version of the princess was the evil witch in disguise and that she nearly caught the mermaid until...
"They gave it a happy ending," he said and broke off the wooing to wrap his head around that idea. "They gave it a bloody happy ending. Who wrote this?"
She scowled at him and slapped her fingers lightly against his lips a couple of times, saying "quiet!" clearer than words.
"All right," he said and eased her blouse off her shoulders. There was still plenty of time left before he could go to the ladies' tavern and seek out Teynte. He might as well be productive until then. Kissing her breasts, he murmured, "He's a bloody fool, you know. You're gorgeous."
Would he have preferred it if his own movie had been twisted in a way similar to hers, making him the hero of a happy tale where everything turned out fine in the end? He didn't think so. The caricature was annoying, but bearable. The mere thought of seeing a story play out where Milah got to live and they sailed off into the sunset, careless and free, made his heart ache.
The sofa was a smidgeon too small for their activities, and he kicked the table away to get some extra room, but Ariel still jerked her head towards the bedroom.
He nodded his agreement, and they walked in there, still caressing each other. The sun had not quite set, and they took their time undressing, letting eyes, fingers and lips claim the skin as it was revealed.
Her fingers brushed against his straps and she looked up, a question in her eyes.
"Go ahead," he told her, and she undid the straps and slid off the sleeve, gently carrying it in both hands to the bedside table as if it were a crystal chalice or a living creature.
The odd gesture made him smile, and while his hand sought its way down under her skirt, he caressed her cheek with his forearm. She turned her face to kiss the pale, scarred skin, sending shivers down his spine. Though it wasn't a subject he tended to mention, he loved that mingled sensation of pleasure and pain, as nerves that ended in nothing told him of touches that shouldn't be able to exist.
With a careful, deliberate lightness, he caressed the inside of her thighs and rubbed his thumb against their apex. Through the impossibly thin stockings, he could feel her getting wet, and it occurred to him that the sea-witch she had met in reality seemed a more generous sort than the one they had just seen. The movie had made no mention of cunny, and yet here it was, as lovely as the legs and a great deal more enjoyable for the lady in question.
Pulling her gently closer, he leaned back on the bed with her halfway to straddling him, his fingers still moving in a way that made her squirm, and with her arms leaning against his hips, he whispered in her ear, "Truth is greater than fiction, love, don't you think?"
In reply, she caught her mouth in his and closed her eyes.
