5 Years Prior

"You know, I quite fancy you from time to time." They didn't react to his arrival in the same way they had Captain Hook, the latter's reputation preceded him more despite the brief time that they had known each other. Killain was younger, more inexperienced but easily the tallest person on the main deck of the ship even if the grace that often came with age hadn't caught up to him just yet. He was lanky but only a little awkward as something strong and much more profound had followed him instead-approaching her with a sense of ungainly superiority.

The crew who had been so jovial before remained as such despite the co-captain making himself present. Had it been their more esteemed captain, they would have only dared to catch each other's eye as he stalked by, relaxed only by the mere fact that they had been given permission to shirk their duties for the time being.

Yet, he didn't seem to mind.

"When you're not yelling that is." Killian came to a full stop at her side, rather than throwing that superiority over her, he leaned over the side of the ship instead, forearms pressed against the fine woodworking, leaning his head between hunched shoulders. "Then again, I think I have more to fear when you're quiet."

It was a harmless jab, one that meant no ill will even if every action taken against her and Peter had suggested otherwise in the few weeks that they had been acquainted. So he had whisked her away from Peter's company for the second time since her arrival to Neverland? So he had expected her to remain civil despite his clear indifference for Peter and also somewhat clear fascination with kidnapping her?

There were worse things, and standing on the deck of a ship with the ocean lapping lazily against the side and the sky nothing but cluttered starlight and a full moon was the farthest from worse that it could be. Quiet, the pricking of guitar strings and distant night calls from various insects and animals echoing faintly, Killian's voice being the most profound thing-a dark timber that was as threatening as it was comforting.

If one could consider Killian Jones comforting in any form of the phrase.

He made no remark of Captain Hook's more obvious dislike for Peter Pan. There was no discussion of the various ways he'd prefer the boy's head on a stick, no angry spiteful words that stomped on his name for the sake of his captain, nothing but an eerie calm and the bare outline of his form against torchlight.

Killian's hair was an organized mess of brown, facial scruff simple patches from a boy in his late teens just beginning to grow it in. He wore the proper "pirate attire" so to speak, but one would think of him as the captain if they didn't know any better; a long coat, and a collection of jewelry that was more extravagant than all of his crew combined. It made him stick out amongst them all, and so she had no trouble recognizing him when he had approached her on the island.

He had not taken to throwing her in a brig when he'd found her wandering Neverland's forests alone. There was no harshness taken in throwing her aboard with the demand that she actually stay. It was an invitation, while one that assumed it would be answered with a yes, it was still extended with some formality.

Almost gentlemanly.

There were several things that were most definitely wrong with the way his words settled in the pit of her stomach-settled a mere understatement, but it most definitely made it flip. She refused to focus on them, a breeze tugging a few strands of hair into her eyes, rifled through the underneath of her dress and yet it wasn't quite strong enough to disturb the serenity of the tree line off to her right.

It was too perfect of a scene, a beauty in the quality of the most picturesque painting in a place so peaceful that it could only exist in pure fantasy. She entertained the thought of it being a fantasy, a mere dream of the highest quality. There were several different places she could imagine herself now, none alarming her as much as the thought that she would ever find peace aboard a pirate's ship.

Her gaze turned up to him as the silence lingered, tense, fists clenched tightly at her sides.

It felt so wrong . That despite everything that Peter had told her about him, she was still here . She could have tried to run when he caught her roaming around the forest; could have screamed for help-Peter would have come running. Instead, she had willingly followed . Quietly, without words, and didn't so much as fight.

Fancy her . She hoped that he couldn't catch her stark blush in the darkness that surrounded them. There was always an entry point, something to draw one in to a person that was based around the fact that he existed, all of his mystery and impossibilities. Perhaps it also had to do with his charm. His looks.

No.

"I won't be involved in villainy against Peter." She said with an authority that she felt was only appropriate for business dealings.

The privacy and the intimacy of the moment felt so unlike anything that she could have predicted.

Something stirred inside of her, something indiscernible at first glance, and nothing that she could have deciphered in that moment.

One look swept over his hands gripping the side of the ship, and her expression turned thoughtful. A part of her wanted to read his mind, solve the mysteries inside, crack open his head to peer in and satiate her curiosity. She searched for excuses within herself to somehow downplay her conflicting feelings over the matter, but she could only find a pricking sensation at the center of her chest instead.

"I didn't bring you aboard to ask such from you." Killian stated it as a mere fact, as if confident in his own life enough to deliver it as a simple truth without the guilt that would normally be associated against a moral, empathetic man. In the last few weeks, he'd been known to state nothing but the truth, however harsh that may be.

He waved a hand out over the water. "I brought you out here for a toast." He shrugged, voice ringing out over the deck. "Without the champagne. Your Neverland prince destroyed what little we had of that after his latest romping." The words rolled off of his tongue so seamlessly, but the insult was there despite the suaveness in the way he said it.

He cocked the utmost innocence of a grin, so much more profound than his other facial expressions. "So I'll wager that you'll have to make do with my company sober."

Killian didn't look at her, not at first. Not until she did take one tentative step toward him and he had to raise his head in order to see her. At least see her in all of her depths. The torchlight added something favorable to his hair, enlightening the dark tint that she'd only just begun to notice now that she was looking more closely.

The scruff that adorned his chin was charming, and despite their difference in height, she would be a damn fool to not admit that she still stood equal beside him-as equal as she could be aboard a man's ship. The wind brushed against him, the gentlest breeze pulling and pushing just enough. The breeze touched her, too.

Just not in the same way.

"He's not-Peter isn't my prince ." Wendy retorted, but it was spat with empty defiance. He had brought her out for a toast. Not to lure Peter from his camp-a space that she had flown upon only to nearly be shot from the sky because of a jealous fairy-not to make her walk the plank and let that somehow hurt Peter in the process, not that he necessarily had any reason to be hurt by her disappearance considering they'd just met several weeks prior.

Was this a trap?

A game?

Did he actually enjoy her company in some twisted way?

Her remark earned a smile from him, a low rumbling in the beginnings of a laugh starting in his throat. At first it seemed as if he would retort, announce that everyone was Peter's plaything in one way or another, that if one were unfortunate enough to have Peter Pan in his sights, he would have them. He didn't press the issue, however heinous he may have found her answer to be, rather one hand pushed him upright from the side of the boat, dragging his attention away from the island sitting eerily quiet off the shoreline to instead look at her again, not taking any long moment to look at her-not really.

There was no sweeping gaze this time, nor a hungry curiosity that couldn't quite be satiated and plucked over her form and lingered there. He'd seen whatever there was to see, whatever he wanted her to see, and seemingly whatever he had found had been good enough.

Or at least, enough to satisfy whatever current urges lingered there still.

Her shoulders slumped when he averted his gaze, but she looked him up and down, cataloguing the details of his appearance. Unexpectedly, his attire suited him. He was dashing, and even thinking as much she considered a heinous crime herself.

"Next time you bring me here, you should at least offer me a glass of wine." A dare on impulse. Merely a desperate attempt to downplay the ridiculous softness of her tone before.

But it was also confusing, an abrupt longing to appear more grown up than she actually was. Wendy was actually surprised herself by leaning back against the side of the ship, allowing herself to relax, to ease the tension in her muscles. Her stomach was a mess of excited nerves, her face a soft flush of color.

He cocked a brow at her suggestion instead, and with a soft grin he echoed. "Next time? I'll take note for the occasion if that's what you would prefer." His voice resounded so strongly with an almost agonizing confidence. It fit him perfectly.

It all felt like her own way of following a rabbit into its hole with the striking and obvious exception that the pirate standing next to her was neither harmless nor soft. And this tension between them? Something that was akin to magic, but not quite; something more scientific and logical.

Despite falling in love with Neverland through the stories that she'd tell her brothers, being in such a place in person had caused her to love it so much more fiercely that she was secretly worried that it would disappear.

A few weeks had felt like months, adventurous and cherished spent in the company of Peter and his boys. She smoothed down her dress, albeit still watching him, the corners of her mouth involuntarily twitching into a faint grin.

He perched one elbow on the side of the ship, leaning his head against his fist. The other hovered between them for the barest second before it slipped into quiet submission into one of his coat pockets. He stood at his full overbearing height, turning his gaze out toward the sea once again.

A puff of air released through his nose. "You could look past his petty façade, you know? See him for the bloody demon that he is." The words were spoken through grit teeth, then added on more softly, more lighthearted . "You're more intelligent than the average, I'll certainly give you that, but your judge of character leaves something to be desired."

A smile tugged at his mouth, just one corner upturned into the barest trace as his knuckles tapped against the side of the ship. One hard, solemn tap, not creating any particular beat or resounding an echo, but one that suggested whatever thought had crossed his mind had gone and passed.

"Peter isn't a demon." No, he was just Peter: lively, curious, brave, but stubborn Peter. She should not be conversing with his enemy. She should've left by now, or at least have taken a step to actually try .

She didn't.

"Why do you hate him so much?" Her question burst out with little thought and she sounded so brazenly attentive, her voice barely above a whisper. She had listened-with an unmistakable interest-and something about his presence made her more open, though not necessarily against her will.

It occurred to Wendy-that same prodding, insistent excitement that had flown her to Neverland in the first place. A shiver ran up her spine, and she felt hopelessly and disgustingly proud that he would think of her as intelligent , or even imagine her on a level similar to his own.

"I leave the hate for Pan to Hook. Their petty squabbles are of little importance to me, but I do know how to properly judge a man, or rather a boy." A soft grimace touched Killian's features as if whatever unspoken truth that stood between him and Peter was as simplistic as he made it out to be. Yet so complicated at the same time, something much more complicated than cutting off his captain's hand and feeding it to a set of crocodiles-even with as gruesome a story as that, he didn't seem to back that behind any sort of dislike for Neverland's king.

His dismissal did little to satiate her curiosity, and her brows furrowed the tiniest bit at his grimace. He may not have hated Peter, but there was something underneath, dedicatedly and with such a ferocity that she could swear it radiated off of him in waves. Killian didn't treat him like an irksome fly circling his head, rather a snake swerving between your legs and prepared to bite at any given second. Wendy wanted to broach the subject again if that would help pilfer around in his head, but the low beginning of a laugh that came from him made her lose her train of thought. A rumbling sound that encircled her.

And there it was one final time. That sweeping stare as she leaned against the side of the ship. It didn't dwell; there was no lust behind it if just the barest possibility in its place, as if he knew or rather sensed something was unspoken there, some sort of interest of the other that had piqued them both. He hadn't the gull to act on any form of instinct lest he be wrong, and while Killian may not have been a liar, he most certainly held his fair share of being wrong .

Even if the tension whipping between them was unmistakable-two strong forces playing a gentle tug of war-some strange magic that didn't quite belong to any particular thing. No origins, no reasoning, no offers for a solution that would calm the sudden yank in her chest and the fluttering against her heart, she was left with nothing to do but feel it hitting full force and threatening to drag her under with whatever this was.

She wasn't exactly complaining.

"Why don't you join me?" He offered underneath a lowered brow. What started out a startling conviction ended with his head jerking gently toward the middle of the deck toward the low strum of instruments and a low hum of a tune whispering sweet nothings against their ears but still struggling to dissolve that spike of energy. The two snapped back at one another, a sense of calm and a sense of… Wendy wouldn't quite say urgency but something that didn't require them to hurry if just to absorb the moment.

"For a dance." Killian finished with a shrug, almost helpless in nature. "We don't have much else to occupy our time unless you have suggestions and without the rum, I'm afraid any more leisurely activities are rather useless without it." He smirked.

He spoke and held himself with such intimidating confidence, and she once again reminded herself that she should have left. There was no way in which she could successfully throw him off guard as he glanced down at her with that soft grin-a grin that she hated to admit utterly melted her underneath it.

Somewhere buried, her brain couldn't decipher what to do with Killian Jones. She thought about declining the invitation, but quite frankly didn't have it in her. This was a man who had fought Peter Pan alongside his crew's side countless times, had witnessed who was presumably a close friend lose his hand watch it be fed to a crocodile. Most men would have retreated after such an event, made humble by defeat. Not him. He seemed confident, powerful, maybe even more frightening because of his loss.

How Peter had bragged about it, passed it off as self-defense. The story had unnerved her since first setting foot on the island, and she should have shunned his request, avoided it, even standing there now with him. A part of her didn't want to bury her head under the sand and keep quiet either.

Why wasn't Killian angry?

And why wasn't Wendy afraid? The obvious reasoning was that she'd lost her mind. There was no real fear-nothing except anxiety. His playful words resounded in her head and she reminded herself that there were certain rules in Neverland-not any she knew were written down, but figured were obvious enough for newcomers to figure out on their own.

Do not fall for a criminal.

Do not dance with a ruthless, cold-blooded pirate.

Rules were meant to be broken, with a crash and rebellion for someone who clearly didn't fit.

"I'd be delighted." She quipped, dropping into a tiny curtsy. Her anticipation was difficult to mask, the timid smile upon her lips curving contentedly and betraying any attempt to remain stoic about it all.

It was an impossibility to avoid, his charming manner evoking a child-like giddiness in her, very much like hearing a secret for the first time. It struck her with guilt, but she took another deliberate step toward him, an almost dreamy ease to her expression, eyes alert yet fluttering as if dosed with some sort of sedative.

Killian's expression mirrored her own, extending a gloved hand to her in order to lead her to an open space on the deck. He didn't stop until his polished boots came to one particular spot directly in the middle, an area subconsciously reserved for the two of them-out in the open of the pirates, even Neverland itself to see them. Dark eyes freely strayed to her again, relieving his hands from their gloved confines-finger by finger, agonizingly slow before even they were retired to the pockets of his coat.

"My asking was me merely being a gentleman, but having your outright permission is swell indeed."

His bare palm pressed against her own, interlacing their fingers and raising them to a position where he could better glimpse the intimate motion-one flicker of a glance to the side that didn't obscure his ability to look at her fully. To feel the growing warmth that resonated from his bare skin to hers made her entire being swell with heat. Not out of embarrassment or any general discomfort, rather quite the opposite. Comfort. Confidence.

Exposing his hands so freely to her made her imagine him as strangely vulnerable in a way, as if opening a part of himself to her that he shared with no one else.

It was one thing to admire the sun-and in a way Killian most certainly reminded her of it, but in the way that in a similar fashion, she found that she could not look at him too long lest she were to get frustrated: a thought that pricked her when his other hand snaked around her waist and gently lingered against the small of her back to tug her closer. She could bask in the warmth that he radiated, revel in the heat that flowed between their intertwined fingers.

Electricity surged through her body the moment he touched her. Her pulse pounded in her ears, harsh as thunder. He stood so close, the moment unspeakably intimate, like a quiet understanding or a word scribbled on a blank slate. Her steps were light and practiced.

How could a man who had the reputation of being so brutal touch her so gently, sway with her so softly? With each thrum of her racing heart, Wendy felt her legs trembling. Everything else became more obscured, a little more irrelevant.

But she couldn't look.

She would complain when he was gone, be unsaisfied with the fact that she didn't sneak more than a peek at a time, nothing ever as closely as a part of her secretly wanted . When he was quiet, she could complain that she didn't hear the sound of his voice and on the days that he proved to be stronger than even she, she entertained the possibility that she would hide.

In a strange way, it was easier to look at him when he was leaving, and in the beauty of the vanishing sunset in the distance, she wondered how she had never seen him before now. Actually seen him. Really looked as she was now, mustering up the bravery to let eyes linger on certain aspects.

Killian took the first step.

"Did they teach you how to dance properly in those London nurseries?"

"Luckily they did."

Wendy's eyes fluttered when she forced her gaze upward, goosebumps running the length of her skin. She subconsciously squeezed his hand, delicately, shakily as if to make sure that he was really there, that this was somehow real. It was surprising how warm he was, having always assumed in her stories that such a villain was cold to his very core.

The vanishing sunset skinned the skyline, dark as a bruise but red as blood. A part of her feared losing this , the strains of her heartbeat telling her so. Losing Neverland. Losing Peter.

Losing Killian Jones.

The deck was hard beneath her feet. Her firm set jaw and pensive glare seemed to mark the fact that she was reflecting, slow dancing with the very pirate who was after her friend. It unnerved her. She could not fathom his purpose in all of this.

But her musings dissolved, gradually replaced by a fiery intensity burning in her stomach instead. She stared at him, savored a particular look on his face, soaking in the central feeling that he gave her.

Killian squeezed her hand in return, no particular reasoning behind it if only to copy her gesture without understanding its full meaning. At least for her side. Her steps were graceful-much unlike his own-but oddly he managed to keep up with her well enough. The way she placed her feet one after the other was led by multiple dances in the past, multiple partners adapting to different styles.

But none quite like this.

"Well, I may not be the most well behaved man on the island, but-" He began, his voice finding a new sense of formality. It was as if his whole composure changed in the blink of an eye, as if he was coming to realize he shouldn't be dancing with her. Though that switch only depicted itself in his tone of voice.

Killian actually drew her closer to his body, his foot hooking against the back of her heel and sweeping her feet out from underneath her into one final step in their dance; the dip. He lowered her in his arms, relishing to see the color drain from her face if fate willed it so and thought itself a comedian. A sly smirk found his lips as he did so. "I'll wager I'm a lucky man to be given the honor of your company."