***
26
***
Slightly had to keep reminding himself that all was going according to plan. Well, mostly, anyway. The original plan had not involved him being bound and leashed, nor did it involve being marched back with a cutlass point digging into his spine. However, he WAS going into the cavern ahead of the two, and he thought that Billy and Mullins could handle this little change of plan.
In the corridor of the cave they walked like blind elephants. Slightly led, though without his hands to guide the way he wasn't sure he was walking in the right direction. Hook was behind him with his claw twisted into the fabric binds, and his cutlass digging into his back. Mason was last. He kept track of the tail of Hook's coat brushing against his knee caps, not feeling at all comfortable grabbing hold of captain to keep from getting lost. He wished he'd have remembered to pick up his hat. He'd dropped the bloody thing when that bird showed up, and in Hook's haste, he'd neglected to pick it up again. He felt bald this way.
Turning a corner, the floor dropped abruptly and Slightly ducked, remembering the corresponding drop of the ceiling. Hook ran right into it. The resultant cursing could surely be heard just about everywhere on the island. However, despite the immediate nosebleed that was turning his mouth to metal, Hook didn't let go of the boy, even to cover his nose. He twisted his claw in the bindings, taking Slightly's arms with it into an unnatural angle, and the boy cried out before he had a chance to stop himself.
Hook growled low into the boy's ear "You will WARN us when there's a hazard, boy. The next time I'll break both your elbows, understand?"
He did not at all doubt Hook was capable of doing that. Slightly nodded, then realizing Hook couldn't see him, managed a 'yes' before he was marched again.
***
Billy heard swearing, and a pained yelp echo through the cave to him. Mullins knotted his fist in Billy's vest and jerked him backwards before he could move. "Don't think about it, boy."
"That was Slightly!"
"I know. Which means you best get ready."
Billy had been ready for what felt like hours; they all had. Even the sparrow had found a crevice to wedge itself in so it wouldn't be in the way. It took too long for him to hear the low clunk-clunk of Hook's boots approaching, and they were slow. Something wasn't right. They ought to all be running.
Thanks to a trick of acoustics, he could hear their approach long before they ought. Billy knew that sound too well. Back on his first month aboard the Roger, he'd hid in a steerage trunk down in the bowels of the ship and listened as Hook paced slowly outside it. Billy didn't remember what he had done to get in trouble but he did remember what he had expected to happen to him. He'd bolted from Hook, and hid. He'd thought, for a moment, that the man might pass him by. The footsteps stopped directly in front of the trunk, and for nearly a minute all Billy could hear was his own heart in the darkness, pounding so loud and so violently he was sure Hook was listening to the roar. Abruptly, the top of the chest ripped from the hinges and Hook snatched him out before he could even shout. Hook had shaken him, bellowed at the top of his lungs, and struck him, once, enough to send him backwards over the trunk with his legs up in the air.
He'd been expecting worse. After Flint, he had been expecting much, MUCH worse.
Billy almost didn't catch it when the sound shifted, and he heard the footsteps directly. Behind him, Mullins moved back, shifting down into the ready position he was a little too familiar with. The nothingness beyond the little room clattered and split open, like a black egg spilling its yolk, and the brief moment Billy's mind had to absorb what it saw cut it perilously close. Slightly slid into the firelight, his back bowed, his eyes wide and nervous and his arms twisted up behind him.
The only thing he had time to do was to jerk his head around towards Billy and Mullins, confirming to himself that they were there. Mullins started a swear, but did not get a chance to finish it, because Slightly was thrown forward towards the fire and an immediate flash of silver sliced the air, at the level of Mullins' chest. He shoved back into the wall quick enough that Hook's blade slipped past him, slicing unimpeded into that bare patch of air between Billy's chin and collar and cutting through nothing more than vine rope. Slightly yelped and twisted himself as he stumbled, coming down hard on his side beside the fire instead of on it, and rolling quickly away.
The trap they had set worked perfectly at its accidental activation, but it didn't catch anything: Mason had hung back once the light had come into view. Vine cords snapped up from the ground and the woven net fell from the ceiling, tripping, catching, and holding anything in it, if there had been anything to catch. Mason blinked at it. He didn't really need this today.
Hook had swung blind, and before he recovered Billy had slipped out under his arm and Mullins pulled back, keenly aware of the fact he was facing a doubly armed man with a defensive dagger that wasn't even his. Hook spun on Mullins. Weapons raised in the sputtering light, both men looked undoubtedly lethal.
"You're protecting a murderer." Hook sneered, advancing. He sliced upward, and Mullins did not block it; he pulled back, blocking instead the hook that was coming down into his left shoulder. He knew the way Hook fought. A distraction, and a claw; hell, he'd watched him relearn the bloody methods after he lost his hand to the boy.
Mullins ducked a returning swipe. "Everyone in this rooms a bloody murderer."
Which wasn't entirely true, Slightly thought, twisting his head to see the fight as Billy untied his arms. They were quick. Mullins was continually on the retreat, dodging backwards on cuts he shouldn't parry and snipping his dagger forward like an insect, trying to open Hook's veins. Hook's head was turned, just a little, to keep the boys in view.
Slightly's arms shot through with pins and needles when the binds fell free, and Billy grabbed him by the elbow, dragging him towards the exit. Slightly shouted a warning, and a moment later Billy saw Mason there in front of them, looking completely separate from this skirmish. He put up his palms and backed off. He was not going to get involved. Not unless it looked like someone was winning, anyway.
Billy glared and started snatching up rope. It only took Slightly a moment to catch on.
Mullins had pushed forward the moment he saw Billy head for the exit; Hook couldn't watch both the boys and his opponent if he was on the defensive, but it was quite nearly impossible to keep a man with a sword defending when you yourself only have a dagger. Mullins took a claw to the arm, snipping through the flesh below his wrist. Dully, distantly, Mullins heard his own voice shouting an obscene tirade in the background, though neither man was listening to a word of it.
He lost the advantage too quickly, and Hook had begun to press him again, moving him back towards a blank wall where he would be hopelessly unable to dodge. He saw Hook's eyes lose their focus and he knew he was searching for Billy in his peripheral vision. Mullins didn't even know if Billy was gone or not.
Billy wasn't in Hook peripheral vision, and neither was Slightly, though for somewhat different reasons. Billy happened to be directly behind Captain Hook. Slightly was moving above him. The rope they'd salvaged from the netting was ten feet long and looped in a makeshift noose at the end, which Slightly had hold of, while Billy kept the tail. Hovering at the ceiling, Slightly slipped in above Hook, far enough back that the man wouldn't see him, and snapped the noose down over his head.
Billy Jukes pulled as hard as he could. Hook only slipped back about an inch before snapping back into position, never laying off Mullins except to swing the cutlass carelessly back in an arc that would have split Slightly's belly if he hadn't moved away and cut though the cord. Billy hadn't been strong enough even to knock Hook off balance. Whatever curses were coming out of Hook's mouth were indistinguishable.
The hook went into Mullins' hand and he lost his hold on the dagger. Hook kicked it aside and Mullins, aware he had one very small chance to be useful, bellowed "GET OUT!" as Hook backed him steadily into the wall. The three seconds it would take to dispatch him would buy Billy and Slightly enough time to get out into the darkness where Hook would never be able to follow.
Billy did not 'get out,' Billy dodged into the mess, grabbed the discarded dagger, and shouted "Hook! I'm the one you're after!" Which was the truth. Hook latched into Mullins through the pectoral muscle and threw him towards Billy, the claw ripping out messily, and part of him expected the boy to get on his knees and see if the dazed pirate was alright. Billy didn't. He did not blink, he did not flinch, he did not even look as Mullins tried to push himself to his feet. A splatter of blood popped and sizzled in the fire.
"You unnatural—" the blade came down, and Billy barely got the knife up in time to block it. "—unconscionable—" a side swipe. It frayed the fabric of Billy's vest. "—abominable—" a thrust. It went past his ribs, barely. "—inhuman—"
He didn't say another word. Captain Hook's chest ruptured outward with a strangled sound and the blade of a cutlass grew from his sternum like a new horn, his neck ruff absorbing the blood greedily. For a moment his face had the dull, shocked look of a man who does not believe what he sees. His own sword clattered to the ground and his gloved hand fumbled with the horn to prove that it was really there. Ignoring Billy, he turned.
It should have been Mason standing there behind him. God, it should have been Mason.
Slightly, his hands still raised, turning skywards like a hopeless gesture or supplication, stood there with his eyes wide and his mouth open, his tongue moving like it wanted to speak but the rest of his mouth wouldn't follow. For three seconds he met Hook's eyes and that wide, bright expression of disbelief. Then Hook's heart could no longer beat through the impediment, and it faltered, and failed. His legs gave out.
A man never dies all at once, not really, but the fading, convulsive mass at Slightly's feet wasn't any more a man than the stone beneath him was. Mullins muttered something that was probably a curse and pressed his hand over his own bleeding wound. Mason stood at the entrance, swordless and dumb.
Slightly's eyes skipped from Hook's bleeding body and hesitantly found Billy's face. His jaw wavered. The dagger fell and Billy clumsily caught the boy as he crumpled, Hook between them, Slightly's fingers clutching into Billy's vest with white knuckles. He folded his arms under Slightly's ribs and hauled the boy over the bulk, his adrenaline making it easy, and managed to pull a few clumsy steps back before Slightly's dead weight dragged them both to the ground.
Slightly's face was hot against his shoulder. Billy held him as tight as he could, chanting "It's okay…it's okay…" into his hair. Like a bubble rising to the surface Slightly's wail came up, and brought with it the coarse hysterical sobs and the thin tears. Billy held him, and stared at Hook's cooling body.
"…it's okay…..
***
Long ago, Hook had woken up from fever's delirium in a dark cabin. It had been two weeks after he had lost his hand to Peter Pan, and the dull, constant awareness of the pain was all that made him sure that he had really woken up at all. Bed sheets had been nailed up over the portals and the light that seeped through was diffused and distant. Smee was snoring faintly with his head and arms on the counterpane and his body kneeled down on the floor. There were black smudges under his eyes. He looked exhausted, even asleep.
Weak and damp from a constant sweat, Hook half-heartedly prodded Smee with his remaining hand. The bo'sun mumbled something and frowned in his sleep. He really hadn't ought to wake him up just yet; he'd probably run the man ragged with his illness. It wouldn't hurt to let him sleep just a little while longer.
Outside, the ship was quiet. Her beams creaked softly as she rolled and he could hear footfalls on the deck. He would have been concerned if he couldn't. Smee shifted, resettling himself on the floor, and the fact that Hook smiled at him just a little was proof enough of how ill he had been, and how thoroughly his brain had boiled in his skull. He was too tired to care about keeping up appearances to an empty room.
The bo'sun didn't flinch when Hook's shaking fingers pulled his spectacles from his nose. He folded them, carefully, and set them on the coverlet beside Smee's elbow where even he would see them when he opened his eyes. There'd be time enough to sleep, now, time enough if he wanted it. Sighing softly to the dim light, Hook settled himself against his pillow and closed his eyes on the cabin. Smee's snoring paved the road down into sleep.
26
***
Slightly had to keep reminding himself that all was going according to plan. Well, mostly, anyway. The original plan had not involved him being bound and leashed, nor did it involve being marched back with a cutlass point digging into his spine. However, he WAS going into the cavern ahead of the two, and he thought that Billy and Mullins could handle this little change of plan.
In the corridor of the cave they walked like blind elephants. Slightly led, though without his hands to guide the way he wasn't sure he was walking in the right direction. Hook was behind him with his claw twisted into the fabric binds, and his cutlass digging into his back. Mason was last. He kept track of the tail of Hook's coat brushing against his knee caps, not feeling at all comfortable grabbing hold of captain to keep from getting lost. He wished he'd have remembered to pick up his hat. He'd dropped the bloody thing when that bird showed up, and in Hook's haste, he'd neglected to pick it up again. He felt bald this way.
Turning a corner, the floor dropped abruptly and Slightly ducked, remembering the corresponding drop of the ceiling. Hook ran right into it. The resultant cursing could surely be heard just about everywhere on the island. However, despite the immediate nosebleed that was turning his mouth to metal, Hook didn't let go of the boy, even to cover his nose. He twisted his claw in the bindings, taking Slightly's arms with it into an unnatural angle, and the boy cried out before he had a chance to stop himself.
Hook growled low into the boy's ear "You will WARN us when there's a hazard, boy. The next time I'll break both your elbows, understand?"
He did not at all doubt Hook was capable of doing that. Slightly nodded, then realizing Hook couldn't see him, managed a 'yes' before he was marched again.
***
Billy heard swearing, and a pained yelp echo through the cave to him. Mullins knotted his fist in Billy's vest and jerked him backwards before he could move. "Don't think about it, boy."
"That was Slightly!"
"I know. Which means you best get ready."
Billy had been ready for what felt like hours; they all had. Even the sparrow had found a crevice to wedge itself in so it wouldn't be in the way. It took too long for him to hear the low clunk-clunk of Hook's boots approaching, and they were slow. Something wasn't right. They ought to all be running.
Thanks to a trick of acoustics, he could hear their approach long before they ought. Billy knew that sound too well. Back on his first month aboard the Roger, he'd hid in a steerage trunk down in the bowels of the ship and listened as Hook paced slowly outside it. Billy didn't remember what he had done to get in trouble but he did remember what he had expected to happen to him. He'd bolted from Hook, and hid. He'd thought, for a moment, that the man might pass him by. The footsteps stopped directly in front of the trunk, and for nearly a minute all Billy could hear was his own heart in the darkness, pounding so loud and so violently he was sure Hook was listening to the roar. Abruptly, the top of the chest ripped from the hinges and Hook snatched him out before he could even shout. Hook had shaken him, bellowed at the top of his lungs, and struck him, once, enough to send him backwards over the trunk with his legs up in the air.
He'd been expecting worse. After Flint, he had been expecting much, MUCH worse.
Billy almost didn't catch it when the sound shifted, and he heard the footsteps directly. Behind him, Mullins moved back, shifting down into the ready position he was a little too familiar with. The nothingness beyond the little room clattered and split open, like a black egg spilling its yolk, and the brief moment Billy's mind had to absorb what it saw cut it perilously close. Slightly slid into the firelight, his back bowed, his eyes wide and nervous and his arms twisted up behind him.
The only thing he had time to do was to jerk his head around towards Billy and Mullins, confirming to himself that they were there. Mullins started a swear, but did not get a chance to finish it, because Slightly was thrown forward towards the fire and an immediate flash of silver sliced the air, at the level of Mullins' chest. He shoved back into the wall quick enough that Hook's blade slipped past him, slicing unimpeded into that bare patch of air between Billy's chin and collar and cutting through nothing more than vine rope. Slightly yelped and twisted himself as he stumbled, coming down hard on his side beside the fire instead of on it, and rolling quickly away.
The trap they had set worked perfectly at its accidental activation, but it didn't catch anything: Mason had hung back once the light had come into view. Vine cords snapped up from the ground and the woven net fell from the ceiling, tripping, catching, and holding anything in it, if there had been anything to catch. Mason blinked at it. He didn't really need this today.
Hook had swung blind, and before he recovered Billy had slipped out under his arm and Mullins pulled back, keenly aware of the fact he was facing a doubly armed man with a defensive dagger that wasn't even his. Hook spun on Mullins. Weapons raised in the sputtering light, both men looked undoubtedly lethal.
"You're protecting a murderer." Hook sneered, advancing. He sliced upward, and Mullins did not block it; he pulled back, blocking instead the hook that was coming down into his left shoulder. He knew the way Hook fought. A distraction, and a claw; hell, he'd watched him relearn the bloody methods after he lost his hand to the boy.
Mullins ducked a returning swipe. "Everyone in this rooms a bloody murderer."
Which wasn't entirely true, Slightly thought, twisting his head to see the fight as Billy untied his arms. They were quick. Mullins was continually on the retreat, dodging backwards on cuts he shouldn't parry and snipping his dagger forward like an insect, trying to open Hook's veins. Hook's head was turned, just a little, to keep the boys in view.
Slightly's arms shot through with pins and needles when the binds fell free, and Billy grabbed him by the elbow, dragging him towards the exit. Slightly shouted a warning, and a moment later Billy saw Mason there in front of them, looking completely separate from this skirmish. He put up his palms and backed off. He was not going to get involved. Not unless it looked like someone was winning, anyway.
Billy glared and started snatching up rope. It only took Slightly a moment to catch on.
Mullins had pushed forward the moment he saw Billy head for the exit; Hook couldn't watch both the boys and his opponent if he was on the defensive, but it was quite nearly impossible to keep a man with a sword defending when you yourself only have a dagger. Mullins took a claw to the arm, snipping through the flesh below his wrist. Dully, distantly, Mullins heard his own voice shouting an obscene tirade in the background, though neither man was listening to a word of it.
He lost the advantage too quickly, and Hook had begun to press him again, moving him back towards a blank wall where he would be hopelessly unable to dodge. He saw Hook's eyes lose their focus and he knew he was searching for Billy in his peripheral vision. Mullins didn't even know if Billy was gone or not.
Billy wasn't in Hook peripheral vision, and neither was Slightly, though for somewhat different reasons. Billy happened to be directly behind Captain Hook. Slightly was moving above him. The rope they'd salvaged from the netting was ten feet long and looped in a makeshift noose at the end, which Slightly had hold of, while Billy kept the tail. Hovering at the ceiling, Slightly slipped in above Hook, far enough back that the man wouldn't see him, and snapped the noose down over his head.
Billy Jukes pulled as hard as he could. Hook only slipped back about an inch before snapping back into position, never laying off Mullins except to swing the cutlass carelessly back in an arc that would have split Slightly's belly if he hadn't moved away and cut though the cord. Billy hadn't been strong enough even to knock Hook off balance. Whatever curses were coming out of Hook's mouth were indistinguishable.
The hook went into Mullins' hand and he lost his hold on the dagger. Hook kicked it aside and Mullins, aware he had one very small chance to be useful, bellowed "GET OUT!" as Hook backed him steadily into the wall. The three seconds it would take to dispatch him would buy Billy and Slightly enough time to get out into the darkness where Hook would never be able to follow.
Billy did not 'get out,' Billy dodged into the mess, grabbed the discarded dagger, and shouted "Hook! I'm the one you're after!" Which was the truth. Hook latched into Mullins through the pectoral muscle and threw him towards Billy, the claw ripping out messily, and part of him expected the boy to get on his knees and see if the dazed pirate was alright. Billy didn't. He did not blink, he did not flinch, he did not even look as Mullins tried to push himself to his feet. A splatter of blood popped and sizzled in the fire.
"You unnatural—" the blade came down, and Billy barely got the knife up in time to block it. "—unconscionable—" a side swipe. It frayed the fabric of Billy's vest. "—abominable—" a thrust. It went past his ribs, barely. "—inhuman—"
He didn't say another word. Captain Hook's chest ruptured outward with a strangled sound and the blade of a cutlass grew from his sternum like a new horn, his neck ruff absorbing the blood greedily. For a moment his face had the dull, shocked look of a man who does not believe what he sees. His own sword clattered to the ground and his gloved hand fumbled with the horn to prove that it was really there. Ignoring Billy, he turned.
It should have been Mason standing there behind him. God, it should have been Mason.
Slightly, his hands still raised, turning skywards like a hopeless gesture or supplication, stood there with his eyes wide and his mouth open, his tongue moving like it wanted to speak but the rest of his mouth wouldn't follow. For three seconds he met Hook's eyes and that wide, bright expression of disbelief. Then Hook's heart could no longer beat through the impediment, and it faltered, and failed. His legs gave out.
A man never dies all at once, not really, but the fading, convulsive mass at Slightly's feet wasn't any more a man than the stone beneath him was. Mullins muttered something that was probably a curse and pressed his hand over his own bleeding wound. Mason stood at the entrance, swordless and dumb.
Slightly's eyes skipped from Hook's bleeding body and hesitantly found Billy's face. His jaw wavered. The dagger fell and Billy clumsily caught the boy as he crumpled, Hook between them, Slightly's fingers clutching into Billy's vest with white knuckles. He folded his arms under Slightly's ribs and hauled the boy over the bulk, his adrenaline making it easy, and managed to pull a few clumsy steps back before Slightly's dead weight dragged them both to the ground.
Slightly's face was hot against his shoulder. Billy held him as tight as he could, chanting "It's okay…it's okay…" into his hair. Like a bubble rising to the surface Slightly's wail came up, and brought with it the coarse hysterical sobs and the thin tears. Billy held him, and stared at Hook's cooling body.
"…it's okay…..
***
Long ago, Hook had woken up from fever's delirium in a dark cabin. It had been two weeks after he had lost his hand to Peter Pan, and the dull, constant awareness of the pain was all that made him sure that he had really woken up at all. Bed sheets had been nailed up over the portals and the light that seeped through was diffused and distant. Smee was snoring faintly with his head and arms on the counterpane and his body kneeled down on the floor. There were black smudges under his eyes. He looked exhausted, even asleep.
Weak and damp from a constant sweat, Hook half-heartedly prodded Smee with his remaining hand. The bo'sun mumbled something and frowned in his sleep. He really hadn't ought to wake him up just yet; he'd probably run the man ragged with his illness. It wouldn't hurt to let him sleep just a little while longer.
Outside, the ship was quiet. Her beams creaked softly as she rolled and he could hear footfalls on the deck. He would have been concerned if he couldn't. Smee shifted, resettling himself on the floor, and the fact that Hook smiled at him just a little was proof enough of how ill he had been, and how thoroughly his brain had boiled in his skull. He was too tired to care about keeping up appearances to an empty room.
The bo'sun didn't flinch when Hook's shaking fingers pulled his spectacles from his nose. He folded them, carefully, and set them on the coverlet beside Smee's elbow where even he would see them when he opened his eyes. There'd be time enough to sleep, now, time enough if he wanted it. Sighing softly to the dim light, Hook settled himself against his pillow and closed his eyes on the cabin. Smee's snoring paved the road down into sleep.