***
15
***
Port Royale, ten years previous:
The Irishman reeked of whiskey sweat, and James wondered how many days it had been since he'd been sober. He looked like hell. Curled by the doorframe with a bottle nestled in his lap he looked like any one of a hundred drunkards at the port; red faced, black eyed, and insubstantial as a paper lantern. Slanted light from the diamond-pane window lent a stretched grid over his legs and arms, turning his ragged clothing into a phantom harlequin suit. Slowly Smee sloshed the half empty bottle up to his lips, disrupted light quivering and swimming in the liquor, and downed another mouthful.
"The ship's leaving tomorrow. Do you plan to be on it?" Hook said bluntly. It was late, even for Port Royale. In a few hours the lanterns would gutter and the sun would push over the horizon, and what men could stand to do it would sober up for at least a little while. James somehow didn't think Smee would be among those.
For only the second time since Hook had known him, Smee turned up his face and sneered. "What does it matter to you?"
"It doesn't." He answered coolly. "I just need to know how many to recruit before we sail, to replace lost crew. I take it your current state means you don't plan to be with us either?" James casually shifted his weight and kicked the bottle from Smee's hands, sending it skittering across the floor with a splash of whiskey to clatter against a table leg.
"I won't be sailin tomorrah. Not with you." Smee sneered and uncurled, the motion like the unfolding of spider's legs. He grabbed the hem of James' jacket to pull himself up by and he balked and jerked away from the hand but Smee came with him, hands climbing by fistfuls of fabric up the buttons if his shirt and dragging the Irishman to a shaky stand. James shoved him off, the thud of his back hitting the wall causing the window to shudder.
The one time Smee had gone on a drinking binge with Hook he'd been a cheerful, stupid drunk. Hook wondered what was wrong now that he was such a foul little beastie.
"Did you get an offer from another ship?" he asked.
Smee glared at him. "I didn't get no bleedin offer from another ship. God knows they havn't got a use for me."
"Then why in the name of Blackbeard's fuses aren't you sailing with us?" James snapped back, getting irritated. Smee stumbled past him gracelessly, almost pitched face first on the floor, and fumbled the spilt bottle from the ground. It wasn't entirely empty.
"Maybe I just don't want to, ye ever think of that?" He swallowed what was left in the bottle. "I'm not yer damned dog, ye know. I don't have te come when ye call me."
"I never thought you were." James growled. "But I thought your loyalty was worth more than a chance to drink yourself to death in Jamaica, of all places. Where's your dignity?"
"I never had it."
Smee paused and looked unhappily at the empty bottle, discarding it with a scowl. It shattered into a chaotic spray of prisms against the wooden floor.
"I ain't never had my dignity." He continued, falling more than sitting on the liquor drenched table, his palms sealing to the tacky surface. "You know that better'n I do. I lost that 'afore I was even born. YOU keep you dignity, you…you... I'm through with you. Sail off into the sunset." Smee swiped his hand in Hook's general direction and dropped to his elbows, head lolling back on his shoulder.
James scowled. "I won't accept a 'no' from such a drunken idiot. Until you're sober enough to tell me otherwise, you're sailing with us tomorrow, whether you like it or not!"
"I'm not sailin' with you anymore! Go to yer brother and tell 'im I'm too drunk to sail, he won't miss me. I bloody well know you won't!" Smee spat. "For all I care you can go find yourself another dog!"
"Another dog?!" Hook flared, but Smee didn't even have the decency to flinch. "If I thought you were a dog would I be standing here trying to talk you back to the god damned ship?! I have better things to do than waste my time on you, Smee, don't overestimate your value!"
"I'm not! You're the one who's hanging around! I already told ye NO!"
"At least tell me WHY you're staying. You owe me that much."
"I don't owe ye a thing." Smee snapped.
"Then do it as a favor."
Smee stared at him over his spectacles and suddenly sat up, skin popping off the sticking liquor stains. "Why do you care?" he asked, the question carrying far more emphasis than it rightfully should have. Hook pulled himself up to his full height.
"I DON'T." he said. "But Patch will. And HE'S captain."
"He won't even ask. You know that. So why do you care?"
James stood there with his mouth shut, looking ever so much the idiot, before finally tilting his head down to glare furiously at the floorboards. In the ensuing silence Smee's eyes went a little bit wider.
"I DON'T care." Hook reiterated finally with a thick acidic sting. "You can rot here in your own filth for all I would mind, and why should I? I paid my debt to you." His eyes flashed dangerously. "You saved my life on the galley and I saved yours on the Rake. No one can say James Hook doesn't pay his debts. And now that it's paid I don't owe you anything."
"That's right, ye don't. So shove off from here and leave me be, why don't ye."
The smoldering glare that set in Hook's eyes was lethal. Smee gave a sour sort of smirk, though in the half light of the empty tavern he was drunk enough that his eyes had gone shiny. "Why're you still standin' there, Jacobus. Still waiting for me bleedin' answer. Why is that?"
Hook didn't answer, but the lines at the corners of his eyes tightened dangerously. Smee chuckled.
"Ye'd best be careful, now, someone might think ye actually give a damn about someone. How tragic a delusion, a Hook with a heart—"
Hook's fist smashed into the side of Smee's mouth, knocking him off the table and sending his spectacles skittering on the floor.
"I won't be mocked by you, you flea-ridden simpleton!" he shouted, towering over Smee with taught fists. "Don't forget that I rank you, I could kill you for insubordination with no questions asked!"
"Then do it!" he roared back from the floor, and Hook recoiled. "Stop threatening me and just do it!"
Never in their years sailing together had Smee shown him rage. He'd whimpered, cajoled, and tagged on Hook's heels like a dog, but never had he tried to bite back. Hook stared, dumbstruck, and the pocked map of fury in the cracks of his old face.
Hook stood himself up straight
"You're coming back to the ship tomorrow." Hook said coldly. It was not a request. "And if you don't, I'll tear this town apart to find you and drag you back myself."
Smee's fury wavered in the face of all that calm, and his brows furrowed together, his drunken brain not understanding. By the time his eyes went wide with sudden comprehension Hook was already leaving the tavern, straightening his coat self consciously.
***
The Underground House, six years previous
The fire had gone out. To eyes unaccustomed to the dark, nothing could be seen except the thin, sorry light leaking out from behind Tybalt's curtain, the little fairy flirting wearily with sleep as it turned the pages of its fairy-sized novel. Peter wasn't home yet.
was sprawled on the stone of the hearth, his thumb wedged between his teeth and his breath hissing softly past it. He'd been asleep since Peter left. Nibs and Slightly were propped, back to back, their skulls fallen on the other's shoulders and blonde hair spilling down the wrong chests. Their mouths hung open, glints of white enamel and pink tongue showing as they breathed softly in their sleep.
Caps and Ledger weren't home either.
Tybalt pulled off his reading glasses and laid his book down carefully, upside down so the sinew binding strained but kept his place. He thought he heard…movement. He listened, straining his ears to hear the darkness above them, above the forest floor. There were footsteps. Tybalt heard the faint scrape as something pushed into the hollow tree, and despite his worry, Tybalt felt his heart lighten. Peter was back.
Before he knew what he was doing Tybalt was flitting before the door, listening as Peter fumbled with the catch just on the other side. He deftly dodged the swinging port as it flung carelessly open, and a mess of red and flesh and ragged brown fabric tumbled out into the house, flinging spats of red across the floor as it struck. It moaned softly in a familiar, sniffling voice, and at the hearth, Curly shifted.
"…..Peter?" Tybalt asked dumbly, feeling very cold and somehow, almost nothing at all. The thing on the floor raised its face and blinked blearily at him. He recognized those eyes. He recognized that face, though it was stained a splotchy red with bars of gore-matted hair streaking down past his eyes. Peter puffed softly, like his lungs didn't have enough room.
"Tybalt?"
"Yeah…"
He could feel it moving in his gut, that wave of horror that started at the bowels and gained fury till it exploded, a mess of sharp angles and colors and adrenaline behind the heart.
"Where are you hurt?" Tybalt asked softly, his voice trembling a little now. Somehow, despite the scene, he couldn't raise his voice and wake the children. If it was really as bad as it looked…they didn't need to see it.
Peter's hand drifted to his neck, where three shallow gashes dragged around from the back, the droplets of blood already crusted into place.
"I'm…I'm not hurt." He whispered.
"Then where did it all come from? Where…" He paused, the knot of panic turning in a different direction. "Where are Caps and Ledger?"
Peter didn't answer.
"Peter? Where are Caps and Ledger? You took them out with you!"
Fat tears slipped off the boy's eyelashes and tripped down his cheeks, swirling with red strands they caught as they fell.
"I didn't mean to…."
The fairy dropped to the boy's face, bracing his palms in the salt and the gore as he hovered mere inches from Peter's eyes. "You didn't mean to WHAT, Peter. What didn't you mean to do?"
"Hurt…I just wanted to…." He swallowed and closed his eyes, pushing tears down over Tybalt's hands. "I just wanted…to make them not...not one of us….They were old, Tybalt…you know that they were old…." His face pinched. "I told them they had…they had to go…they couldn't be Lost Boys anymore……..I told them they had to leave or else I'd……….…I'd…."
Peter whimpered and curled in on himself, his stomach letting a pained, growling sound at its overfed state, and he pushed his palms against it like he could somehow keep it in. His stomach was swollen underneath his matted clothes.
"They didn't want to leave." He whispered in a pained, pathetic tone. "I didn't want to fight them, but they wouldn't leave!" Another tear dripped down, a nearly clean path looking more stark and gruesome than the red. "I took out my knife, I didn't really want to hurt them but…but something went wrong, Caps got in the way! I got him in the shoulder…there was blood…"
"Oh Peter…."
Peter's breath hitched in a near sob. "I didn't mean to do it. Ledger started screaming. I had to make him stop. I had to make him stop screaming…"
Tybalt was pale. "Peter…"
"I made him stop. I made him…" Peter's eyes opened to slits, spilling the tears his lids had managed to retain. "He was blood, all over my hands. It was so red and I didn't even THINK about it, I…I-I didn't mean to do it!" he protested. "But Tybalt….they tasted like rain…"
His stomach made that terrible sound and Peter sobbed again, this time loud enough that Nibs let go a sleeping whine and turned his face against Slightly's ear. Tybalt's mind shivered and gave a sharp pang of rebellion that slipped down his spine like ice chips.
"I didn't mean to do it…"
Cold touched the front of Tybalt's mind in a wave and washed through the chaotic noise with a deathly white silence. Softly, carefully, he alighted on Peter's sticky hair and stroked his forehead with his tiny palms, smearing red across his brow and freeing matted strands with sticking cracks.
"We can fix it, Peter." He said measuredly, his voice low and even. "No one has to find out. Would you like that Peter? To make it all better?"
He nodded slowly, staring into the space between the door hinges and the floor.
"Good. Good Peter." Tybalt slid down, resting his cheek on the shell of Peter's ear. "Come back out of the house. We can go to the river. We can wash it all away, Peter, all of it."
Peter futilely turned his head in an attempt to see the fairy, wide eyes shining in the dark. He looked too young.
"Wash it away?" he asked, his voice high.
"Yes, Peter, wash it away." Tybalt knotted his finger against Peter's scalp. "Wash everything, your face, your body, your hair, your clothes. Make it all clean and new. Then no one has to know, and if no one knows, it never happened."
Peter nodded, eyes glassy. "Wash it away."
"That's right."
"My face, my body, my hair, my clothes." Peter mimed back simply. Tybalt nodded.
"Alright…"
15
***
Port Royale, ten years previous:
The Irishman reeked of whiskey sweat, and James wondered how many days it had been since he'd been sober. He looked like hell. Curled by the doorframe with a bottle nestled in his lap he looked like any one of a hundred drunkards at the port; red faced, black eyed, and insubstantial as a paper lantern. Slanted light from the diamond-pane window lent a stretched grid over his legs and arms, turning his ragged clothing into a phantom harlequin suit. Slowly Smee sloshed the half empty bottle up to his lips, disrupted light quivering and swimming in the liquor, and downed another mouthful.
"The ship's leaving tomorrow. Do you plan to be on it?" Hook said bluntly. It was late, even for Port Royale. In a few hours the lanterns would gutter and the sun would push over the horizon, and what men could stand to do it would sober up for at least a little while. James somehow didn't think Smee would be among those.
For only the second time since Hook had known him, Smee turned up his face and sneered. "What does it matter to you?"
"It doesn't." He answered coolly. "I just need to know how many to recruit before we sail, to replace lost crew. I take it your current state means you don't plan to be with us either?" James casually shifted his weight and kicked the bottle from Smee's hands, sending it skittering across the floor with a splash of whiskey to clatter against a table leg.
"I won't be sailin tomorrah. Not with you." Smee sneered and uncurled, the motion like the unfolding of spider's legs. He grabbed the hem of James' jacket to pull himself up by and he balked and jerked away from the hand but Smee came with him, hands climbing by fistfuls of fabric up the buttons if his shirt and dragging the Irishman to a shaky stand. James shoved him off, the thud of his back hitting the wall causing the window to shudder.
The one time Smee had gone on a drinking binge with Hook he'd been a cheerful, stupid drunk. Hook wondered what was wrong now that he was such a foul little beastie.
"Did you get an offer from another ship?" he asked.
Smee glared at him. "I didn't get no bleedin offer from another ship. God knows they havn't got a use for me."
"Then why in the name of Blackbeard's fuses aren't you sailing with us?" James snapped back, getting irritated. Smee stumbled past him gracelessly, almost pitched face first on the floor, and fumbled the spilt bottle from the ground. It wasn't entirely empty.
"Maybe I just don't want to, ye ever think of that?" He swallowed what was left in the bottle. "I'm not yer damned dog, ye know. I don't have te come when ye call me."
"I never thought you were." James growled. "But I thought your loyalty was worth more than a chance to drink yourself to death in Jamaica, of all places. Where's your dignity?"
"I never had it."
Smee paused and looked unhappily at the empty bottle, discarding it with a scowl. It shattered into a chaotic spray of prisms against the wooden floor.
"I ain't never had my dignity." He continued, falling more than sitting on the liquor drenched table, his palms sealing to the tacky surface. "You know that better'n I do. I lost that 'afore I was even born. YOU keep you dignity, you…you... I'm through with you. Sail off into the sunset." Smee swiped his hand in Hook's general direction and dropped to his elbows, head lolling back on his shoulder.
James scowled. "I won't accept a 'no' from such a drunken idiot. Until you're sober enough to tell me otherwise, you're sailing with us tomorrow, whether you like it or not!"
"I'm not sailin' with you anymore! Go to yer brother and tell 'im I'm too drunk to sail, he won't miss me. I bloody well know you won't!" Smee spat. "For all I care you can go find yourself another dog!"
"Another dog?!" Hook flared, but Smee didn't even have the decency to flinch. "If I thought you were a dog would I be standing here trying to talk you back to the god damned ship?! I have better things to do than waste my time on you, Smee, don't overestimate your value!"
"I'm not! You're the one who's hanging around! I already told ye NO!"
"At least tell me WHY you're staying. You owe me that much."
"I don't owe ye a thing." Smee snapped.
"Then do it as a favor."
Smee stared at him over his spectacles and suddenly sat up, skin popping off the sticking liquor stains. "Why do you care?" he asked, the question carrying far more emphasis than it rightfully should have. Hook pulled himself up to his full height.
"I DON'T." he said. "But Patch will. And HE'S captain."
"He won't even ask. You know that. So why do you care?"
James stood there with his mouth shut, looking ever so much the idiot, before finally tilting his head down to glare furiously at the floorboards. In the ensuing silence Smee's eyes went a little bit wider.
"I DON'T care." Hook reiterated finally with a thick acidic sting. "You can rot here in your own filth for all I would mind, and why should I? I paid my debt to you." His eyes flashed dangerously. "You saved my life on the galley and I saved yours on the Rake. No one can say James Hook doesn't pay his debts. And now that it's paid I don't owe you anything."
"That's right, ye don't. So shove off from here and leave me be, why don't ye."
The smoldering glare that set in Hook's eyes was lethal. Smee gave a sour sort of smirk, though in the half light of the empty tavern he was drunk enough that his eyes had gone shiny. "Why're you still standin' there, Jacobus. Still waiting for me bleedin' answer. Why is that?"
Hook didn't answer, but the lines at the corners of his eyes tightened dangerously. Smee chuckled.
"Ye'd best be careful, now, someone might think ye actually give a damn about someone. How tragic a delusion, a Hook with a heart—"
Hook's fist smashed into the side of Smee's mouth, knocking him off the table and sending his spectacles skittering on the floor.
"I won't be mocked by you, you flea-ridden simpleton!" he shouted, towering over Smee with taught fists. "Don't forget that I rank you, I could kill you for insubordination with no questions asked!"
"Then do it!" he roared back from the floor, and Hook recoiled. "Stop threatening me and just do it!"
Never in their years sailing together had Smee shown him rage. He'd whimpered, cajoled, and tagged on Hook's heels like a dog, but never had he tried to bite back. Hook stared, dumbstruck, and the pocked map of fury in the cracks of his old face.
Hook stood himself up straight
"You're coming back to the ship tomorrow." Hook said coldly. It was not a request. "And if you don't, I'll tear this town apart to find you and drag you back myself."
Smee's fury wavered in the face of all that calm, and his brows furrowed together, his drunken brain not understanding. By the time his eyes went wide with sudden comprehension Hook was already leaving the tavern, straightening his coat self consciously.
***
The Underground House, six years previous
The fire had gone out. To eyes unaccustomed to the dark, nothing could be seen except the thin, sorry light leaking out from behind Tybalt's curtain, the little fairy flirting wearily with sleep as it turned the pages of its fairy-sized novel. Peter wasn't home yet.
was sprawled on the stone of the hearth, his thumb wedged between his teeth and his breath hissing softly past it. He'd been asleep since Peter left. Nibs and Slightly were propped, back to back, their skulls fallen on the other's shoulders and blonde hair spilling down the wrong chests. Their mouths hung open, glints of white enamel and pink tongue showing as they breathed softly in their sleep.
Caps and Ledger weren't home either.
Tybalt pulled off his reading glasses and laid his book down carefully, upside down so the sinew binding strained but kept his place. He thought he heard…movement. He listened, straining his ears to hear the darkness above them, above the forest floor. There were footsteps. Tybalt heard the faint scrape as something pushed into the hollow tree, and despite his worry, Tybalt felt his heart lighten. Peter was back.
Before he knew what he was doing Tybalt was flitting before the door, listening as Peter fumbled with the catch just on the other side. He deftly dodged the swinging port as it flung carelessly open, and a mess of red and flesh and ragged brown fabric tumbled out into the house, flinging spats of red across the floor as it struck. It moaned softly in a familiar, sniffling voice, and at the hearth, Curly shifted.
"…..Peter?" Tybalt asked dumbly, feeling very cold and somehow, almost nothing at all. The thing on the floor raised its face and blinked blearily at him. He recognized those eyes. He recognized that face, though it was stained a splotchy red with bars of gore-matted hair streaking down past his eyes. Peter puffed softly, like his lungs didn't have enough room.
"Tybalt?"
"Yeah…"
He could feel it moving in his gut, that wave of horror that started at the bowels and gained fury till it exploded, a mess of sharp angles and colors and adrenaline behind the heart.
"Where are you hurt?" Tybalt asked softly, his voice trembling a little now. Somehow, despite the scene, he couldn't raise his voice and wake the children. If it was really as bad as it looked…they didn't need to see it.
Peter's hand drifted to his neck, where three shallow gashes dragged around from the back, the droplets of blood already crusted into place.
"I'm…I'm not hurt." He whispered.
"Then where did it all come from? Where…" He paused, the knot of panic turning in a different direction. "Where are Caps and Ledger?"
Peter didn't answer.
"Peter? Where are Caps and Ledger? You took them out with you!"
Fat tears slipped off the boy's eyelashes and tripped down his cheeks, swirling with red strands they caught as they fell.
"I didn't mean to…."
The fairy dropped to the boy's face, bracing his palms in the salt and the gore as he hovered mere inches from Peter's eyes. "You didn't mean to WHAT, Peter. What didn't you mean to do?"
"Hurt…I just wanted to…." He swallowed and closed his eyes, pushing tears down over Tybalt's hands. "I just wanted…to make them not...not one of us….They were old, Tybalt…you know that they were old…." His face pinched. "I told them they had…they had to go…they couldn't be Lost Boys anymore……..I told them they had to leave or else I'd……….…I'd…."
Peter whimpered and curled in on himself, his stomach letting a pained, growling sound at its overfed state, and he pushed his palms against it like he could somehow keep it in. His stomach was swollen underneath his matted clothes.
"They didn't want to leave." He whispered in a pained, pathetic tone. "I didn't want to fight them, but they wouldn't leave!" Another tear dripped down, a nearly clean path looking more stark and gruesome than the red. "I took out my knife, I didn't really want to hurt them but…but something went wrong, Caps got in the way! I got him in the shoulder…there was blood…"
"Oh Peter…."
Peter's breath hitched in a near sob. "I didn't mean to do it. Ledger started screaming. I had to make him stop. I had to make him stop screaming…"
Tybalt was pale. "Peter…"
"I made him stop. I made him…" Peter's eyes opened to slits, spilling the tears his lids had managed to retain. "He was blood, all over my hands. It was so red and I didn't even THINK about it, I…I-I didn't mean to do it!" he protested. "But Tybalt….they tasted like rain…"
His stomach made that terrible sound and Peter sobbed again, this time loud enough that Nibs let go a sleeping whine and turned his face against Slightly's ear. Tybalt's mind shivered and gave a sharp pang of rebellion that slipped down his spine like ice chips.
"I didn't mean to do it…"
Cold touched the front of Tybalt's mind in a wave and washed through the chaotic noise with a deathly white silence. Softly, carefully, he alighted on Peter's sticky hair and stroked his forehead with his tiny palms, smearing red across his brow and freeing matted strands with sticking cracks.
"We can fix it, Peter." He said measuredly, his voice low and even. "No one has to find out. Would you like that Peter? To make it all better?"
He nodded slowly, staring into the space between the door hinges and the floor.
"Good. Good Peter." Tybalt slid down, resting his cheek on the shell of Peter's ear. "Come back out of the house. We can go to the river. We can wash it all away, Peter, all of it."
Peter futilely turned his head in an attempt to see the fairy, wide eyes shining in the dark. He looked too young.
"Wash it away?" he asked, his voice high.
"Yes, Peter, wash it away." Tybalt knotted his finger against Peter's scalp. "Wash everything, your face, your body, your hair, your clothes. Make it all clean and new. Then no one has to know, and if no one knows, it never happened."
Peter nodded, eyes glassy. "Wash it away."
"That's right."
"My face, my body, my hair, my clothes." Peter mimed back simply. Tybalt nodded.
"Alright…"