They weren't anything specific, and she didn't know where they came from. She assumed that, perhaps, they were the lingering traces of the malignant spell, looming as shadows in her mind...but the emotions she felt didn't really coincide with that theory.
She found that now she remembered little of her time with the pirates..everything that happened was surrounded by a choking fog that made the memories unpleasant to look back upon. She wished she might never see a pirate again, those dastardly creatures.
The words on the page of her book were swimming back and forth lazily, for they were not being read, or barely even seen. The black moved against the white like a monochromatic kaleidoscope before Wendy's blurred vision.
The hatch opened noisily; the boys were home. Happy to leave her dark thoughts behind, Wendy closed her book, ceasing the happy antics of the printed letters, and turned up to face the doorway with a smile.
A smile that disappeared the moment she beheld the man who stood there. She gave a gasp and stood immediately, glancing about desperately for some sort of weapon. But there was none - Peter and the boys had taken them all for the afternoon.
"You stay away from me," she ordered, ineffectually. The pirate captain gave her a sweet smile and waved his hook at the albino behind him.
"Seize her and bind her."
His orders were carried out swiftly and easily, despite Wendy's attempts to free herself from her captor. She flailed and she kicked and she bit and she wished desperately that she had a sword, dagger, pistol, anything! When her hands were bound securely behind her back, her kicking legs tied at the ankles, and a silken gag affixed about her mouth, Hook put against her face his curved iron hand, encouraging her to still her violent head-thrashing. She jerked her face away from it, the thought of him ever touching her again was hateful.
But hate, like love, is an attractive force. Hate was what Hook felt for Peter, and what Peter felt for Hook. And though they despised each other, they could not get enough of one another. And so Wendy, despite her fright of the idea of the pirate's chill hook against her, could not quite put it out of her mind as something completely repulsive.
"Let us go, Wendy Darling," Hook whispered, his every syllable dripping with poisoned honey.
The menacing figure of the Black Castle loomed before them, and the darkened waves of water surrounding their rowboat seemed full of horror and mystery - what lay beneath these restless waters? With every lap, they hinted of their submerged denizens: monsters and skeletons and the mangled remains of hapless Neverland citizens who had strayed too close to the mermaids.
The giant portcullis was raised, and its tree trunk-sized pikes at the bottom, covered in barnacles and seaweed, hovered threateningly above them. The occasional drop of rancid water fell the fifty feet from the sharpened points of wood into their dwarfed dinghy. The only sounds were the creaking of wood, the splashing of water, and the moaning of wind.
As they entered the castle, however, another song could be heard. Eerie and echoing, yet entrancing and attractive, it permeated the air and wafted menacingly towards them. Hook signaled to the men to plug their ears, and they obeyed. Wendy, too, stuck her fingers in her ears. But she noticed the man before her uncover one ear to try and discern the haunting melody. Wendy could not see the man's face, but she saw his shoulders stiffen, and in less than a moment, he'd leaped from the boat, leaving them rocking violently in the murky water.
Wendy feared they would capsize, but, miraculously, they did not. However, the chamber was now filled with shouting. Hook's crew were shouting for their friend overboard, but he was swimming toward the centre island, where the skeletons were chained. But the grisly remains of Hook's past captives barely took any attention from the pale creature sitting atop the island, singing.
A mermaid; laying languidly upon the rock, her shimmering tail swinging back and forth like that of a cat's. Her dull red hair fell down her shoulders in lank strips, her lacklustre eyes gazing lustfully at the man who was climbing up the rock to her. He was standing before her within a moment, and she kept her strange song while reaching a hand up to him. He bent down, and the song stopped. The pirate suddenly seemed to realise the danger he was in, and shrieked. Hook clasped a quick hand over Wendy's eyes, but the sounds that came next would haunt her nightmares for quite some time.
When his hand was removed from Wendy's innocent eyes, the mermaid was gone, and they knew there would be no more trouble from her this night. Hook and his crew members had removed their headgear and were holding them to their hearts in a sombre salute to their fallen comrade. But their mourning did not last long, for they were nearing the island that so recently had held an uncertain death.
With a quiet crash, they reached the rocky outcrop, and Hook stood. He stepped confidently onto the stone, and then grabbed Wendy's arm and dragged her onto the shore. She stumbled, but he was not patient with her, and forcibly yanked her onto wet stone. He then suddenly released his grip on her bound arms, causing her to fall forward with the remaining momentum.
"Leave us," Hook commanded simply. The men looked confused and opened their mouths to protest, but Hook fingered his gun threateningly. "If any of you dogs dares disobey me, the mermaids will have some feast tonight."
The men, intimidated, rowed off immediately, double-speed. Wendy, who had slumped against the wall, watched in fear as Hook knelt down beside her and pressed the sharp point of his hook against her cheek. He gave her a maniacal grin and, without even scratching her, ripped the gag in half with the razor-blade instrument.
"PETER!" Wendy screamed immediately, "Help! Help me! I've been taken to the Bla-"
Her mouth was suddenly covered by a firm, clean hand.
"I suggest you shut your enchanting mouth unless you wish not to be able to use it anymore," Hook snarled at her, holding his hook to the side of her temple. Reluctantly, Wendy obeyed, and when Hook removed his hand from her mouth, she was silent. "Good girl," he commended her, "Now, answer me this."
There was a long pause, as Hook seemed to be collecting himself for some supreme effort. His pale eyes cast downwards, he sighed and finally looked up again, and the angry fire in his face had diminished, in its stead was something far softer and enigmatic.
"Why? Why, after all I'd done for you, did you turn from me?"
"You lied to me! Everything you've ever said to me has been a lie," Wendy hissed, incredulous at the impertinence of Hook's question, "You tried to destroy my brothers, my friends, and Peter!"
"Your friends iand/i Peter," Hook mused, softly, "He is not your friend? Yet you turn away from your lush treatment to spare his meagre hand. That can mean only one thing."
Wendy stared downwards, begging him not to say it. With every bone in her body she wished he would not voice aloud her unspeakable folly.
"You love him." The words came crushingly down onto Wendy's shoulders, and they slumped in shame. It was true. She had created everything she thought she wanted in a boy, only to realise that she had not created for him the capacity to love her back. That would make him...grown-up. And Peter Pan does not grow up.
"How terribly tragic," Hook growled, looking at the girl before him. She was no more crushed by this news than he himself was. "That you should give your heart to such a careless keeper. Did you wish it broken? For a clumsy young boy like Peter has always been sure to fumble such a delicate treasure, unaware of its worth..." he whispered in her ear, and Wendy's insides turned. He was right, of course. She had given herself away foolishly.
"Perhaps now you would come back with me," Hook suggested in his sugar-covered sandpaper tone. At this, Wendy prickled, snapped out of her sorrowful trance.
"Never! You used me to get to Peter!" she cried angrily, shutting her eyes tightly as if that would make Hook disappear.
"I used you to get me out of Neverland!" Hook growled suddenly, grabbing Wendy's shoulders cruelly and pushing her back into the large bricks of the wall. "I used you for your charming company! And I suppose it was too much of me to expect that you would enjoy it, too!"
Wendy was shocked at the sudden outburst, even moreso than having been pushed into the wall. What was he saying? Could he be saying...iNo! Wendy, do not allow yourself to fall for his trickery again!/i Wendy's pretty face contorted with anger.
"It was too much to expect! No one could hope to be happy around such a miserable soul as you! You disgust me! I hope that you are alone until you die!" she screamed, her heart seething with anger and her chest heaving with the shaking breaths she drew.
Hook could feel his aching heart crack. First at the top, with the quiet ominous sound of an avalanche beginning. And then, nearly audible, the crack traveled the length of his abused heart and with a final rending sound, broke in two. Hook could feel it beginning in his feet, filling his body with red anger and hurt, the anger and hurt that forever he had held back inside his heart. It was all spilling forth, for a broken heart hides nothing.
And now his heart was not in tact to hold back all the constant pain he'd endured since coming to Neverland, hundreds of years ago (or was it just last summer?). Within moments it reached his head and his mind was made mad. He sliced through Wendy's bonds with his hook and dragged her to her feet.
"Run," he said, drawing his cutlass, "Run as if the very devil were behind you...because tonight, he is."
Wendy, terrified at these heavy words, began running immediately, and after a moment the sounds of boots on rock followed. She knew he could run faster than she, for he had longer legs, and soon he was right behind her, gaining on her. Then, suddenly, she felt his hand on her back, and she knew all was lost. But to her great surprise, he shoved her forward.
"Do inot/i let me catch you," he growled at her. Spurred by her surprise and a sudden rush of adrenaline, she gained a few feet of advantage over him.
Then, before her, her salvation. A dead pirate lay against the wall, cutlass sticking out awkwardly from his ugly chest. She drew it quickly and spun around to face Hook, who smiled at her as if proud.
"Prepare yourself, foul Captain, for tonight you die," she declared, and brought her sword up to meet his as soon as he reached her. Their swordfight was brief and furious, but despite all her efforts to the contrary, Hook was a better fighter than she, and her sword soon went flying from her hand. She backed up against the wall behind her, cornered and frightened.
Hook glared at her, and then let his sword fall, clattering, to the stone at his feet. It took him bare a second to close the distance between them, clasping her shoulders and pushing her against the wall for the second time that night.
He leaned forward into her, and at that moment of contact, she felt a quick jolt of elecricity. She felt, for a moment, what Hook was feeling, and in that instant she was more terrified than ever she had been in her life. But in the same, she was intrigued...
"Now let ime/i tell iyou/i a story, miss Wendy," Hook hissed into her ear.
"There was a lovely young girl named Wendy," he said, his deep voice growling ferally as her back ground into the rough, wet stone of the wall, "And she was in love with a boy named Peter Pan," and his voice turned cold and cruel at the name. The strong hand gripping her shoulder pushed harder, and she could feel the buttons of her nightdress straining.
"And there was a little faerie named Tinkerbell, and she was also in love with that detestable little menace. She resented Wendy, whom Peter paid far more attention to. And so she put a spell on her and brought her to the pirates, who were delighted to have her. In particular, the lonely Captain Hook. Hook and Tinkerbell had something in common - unrequited love. Hook was so damnedly lonely, with no one but idiots to talk to...and every night he wished for one thing - a companion."
"Not to kill Peter Pan?" Wendy challenged.
"No, not to kill Peter Pan!" Hook snapped, "What else can a lonely pirate captain do, when there is no hope of companionship? Take up a hobby. But a hobby, when there is naught else to do, can become an obsession, and a frustrating one, at that. Like an itch that cannot be scratched. But he was an itch, nothing more. And an itch, no matter how big, can be ignored in the face of something more important. And Wendy was the one thing that was more important. She joined with the pirates and was a companion to Hook in his loneliness. She soothed him, and in return, he gave her everything. Food, shelter, conversation...everything he had and more, he gave to her. Even his miserable heart. But she betrayed him."
At the word 'betrayed', Wendy felt her top button pop loose and her pale upper chest was exposed to the cruel winds and the crueller gaze of Captain Hook. His right hand, or rather, its fascimile, dug into her shoulder and she could feel a trickle of blood falling from it, staining her white nightclothes.
"And the captain was hurt, and cross at the loss of his only close companion in the decades he'd spent in Neverland. So he regained her, and he tried to see why...why would she do that to him? Leave him and all his succour for the cruel abuse of a group of young boys? She, who had acted as friend and more to him?"
A tear escaped Hook's eye, though he did not mean it to. If he had lifted his head to see Wendy's face, he would have noticed a twin tear on her own cheek...but he did not.
"And she told him..." Hook's voice wavered, and another tear escaped its prison, "She told him that he revolted her. She told him that he deserved his loneliness and torture for the rest of his unhappy life." His voice was broken, now, and his words faltering and unsure, yet they fell with the weight of centuries.
"Hook," she said, softly, for it was all she could say. There was emotion in the one syllable, but Hook could not hear it.
"James!" he cried out to her, voice screeching with desperation, tring to separate himself from the evil character Captain Hook had become, "My name is James, please!"
His grip slackened, now, and his head fell to her shoulder, staining her skin and dress with the watery red tears that hadn't come in so long. Her own form shook with the sadness that enveloped them both.
"And so," Hook said, finally, his voice hoarse but more steady, "Poor James was obligated to let her go. But with nothing else to lose...he took her to the Black Castle, and pressed her up against the wall..." he whispered, and Wendy could feel his sweaty lips moving as he spoke into the nape of her neck, sending shivers all down her spine. He lifted his head slowly and looked into her crying face, surprised to see her tear-stained cheeks. His eyes were squinted with the effort of self-control, and he spoke a final time. "...And he kissed her."
Before Wendy could do anything, the lips that were a moment ago speaking into her neck were pressed against her own in a searing, passionate kiss. It embodied all the pain and frustration and anger and repressed love and loneliness and the soreness of being betrayed in one single movement. It was vicious and it was loving and it was, above all, desperate. Between kisses, Hook drew shakey breaths, and his tears mingled with Wendy's, rendering their poison harmless by adding love to the mixture. He trembled against her, his fingers groping desperately at her shoulders as if she were slipping away. She could feel the sobs in his throat as he sent fiery waves of pure, relentless emotion through her. His hook was again digging into her shoulder, but she barely felt it for the burning kisses being bestowed onto her.
He shuddered, and pulled away from her suddenly, leaving her shocked and crying and so suddenly empty. Her face was dazed and she knew she would never experience something like that again. James held his eyes tight shut for a moment and his shoulders shook with adrenaline.
He rested his forehead against hers and blinked out two last tears.
"...Wendy," he managed to choke out, but that was all. His eyes opened, pale blue like the emptiness of The End, like the sky after a torrential downpour...like the blue of an empty robin's egg. He saw Wendy before him, her slight form trembling. Her dress, stained with the red of blood and tears, and her face - her glowing, brilliant face, smudged with tears and dirt and wearing a most peculiar expression.
Hook let go of her, as if it were the last thing in the world he wished to do. He cast his eyes away, then looked back and finally seemed to see what stood before him. He reached up quickly to remove his jacket, and placed it around Wendy's shoulders kindly and gently. He did not attempt to hide his bitter tears from her.
Wendy's mouth opened, but she did not know the words. What she'd just experienced...
Outside, there was crowing. Hook looked as if he'd been struck, and took one last look at the young girl he so ached to be with.
"I'm...sorry," he said, the words alien on his tongue. He bowed to her, and as the first rays of sunlight reached the inside of the Black Castle, bringing Peter Pan with them, Hook had vanished.
She found that now she remembered little of her time with the pirates..everything that happened was surrounded by a choking fog that made the memories unpleasant to look back upon. She wished she might never see a pirate again, those dastardly creatures.
The words on the page of her book were swimming back and forth lazily, for they were not being read, or barely even seen. The black moved against the white like a monochromatic kaleidoscope before Wendy's blurred vision.
The hatch opened noisily; the boys were home. Happy to leave her dark thoughts behind, Wendy closed her book, ceasing the happy antics of the printed letters, and turned up to face the doorway with a smile.
A smile that disappeared the moment she beheld the man who stood there. She gave a gasp and stood immediately, glancing about desperately for some sort of weapon. But there was none - Peter and the boys had taken them all for the afternoon.
"You stay away from me," she ordered, ineffectually. The pirate captain gave her a sweet smile and waved his hook at the albino behind him.
"Seize her and bind her."
His orders were carried out swiftly and easily, despite Wendy's attempts to free herself from her captor. She flailed and she kicked and she bit and she wished desperately that she had a sword, dagger, pistol, anything! When her hands were bound securely behind her back, her kicking legs tied at the ankles, and a silken gag affixed about her mouth, Hook put against her face his curved iron hand, encouraging her to still her violent head-thrashing. She jerked her face away from it, the thought of him ever touching her again was hateful.
But hate, like love, is an attractive force. Hate was what Hook felt for Peter, and what Peter felt for Hook. And though they despised each other, they could not get enough of one another. And so Wendy, despite her fright of the idea of the pirate's chill hook against her, could not quite put it out of her mind as something completely repulsive.
"Let us go, Wendy Darling," Hook whispered, his every syllable dripping with poisoned honey.
The menacing figure of the Black Castle loomed before them, and the darkened waves of water surrounding their rowboat seemed full of horror and mystery - what lay beneath these restless waters? With every lap, they hinted of their submerged denizens: monsters and skeletons and the mangled remains of hapless Neverland citizens who had strayed too close to the mermaids.
The giant portcullis was raised, and its tree trunk-sized pikes at the bottom, covered in barnacles and seaweed, hovered threateningly above them. The occasional drop of rancid water fell the fifty feet from the sharpened points of wood into their dwarfed dinghy. The only sounds were the creaking of wood, the splashing of water, and the moaning of wind.
As they entered the castle, however, another song could be heard. Eerie and echoing, yet entrancing and attractive, it permeated the air and wafted menacingly towards them. Hook signaled to the men to plug their ears, and they obeyed. Wendy, too, stuck her fingers in her ears. But she noticed the man before her uncover one ear to try and discern the haunting melody. Wendy could not see the man's face, but she saw his shoulders stiffen, and in less than a moment, he'd leaped from the boat, leaving them rocking violently in the murky water.
Wendy feared they would capsize, but, miraculously, they did not. However, the chamber was now filled with shouting. Hook's crew were shouting for their friend overboard, but he was swimming toward the centre island, where the skeletons were chained. But the grisly remains of Hook's past captives barely took any attention from the pale creature sitting atop the island, singing.
A mermaid; laying languidly upon the rock, her shimmering tail swinging back and forth like that of a cat's. Her dull red hair fell down her shoulders in lank strips, her lacklustre eyes gazing lustfully at the man who was climbing up the rock to her. He was standing before her within a moment, and she kept her strange song while reaching a hand up to him. He bent down, and the song stopped. The pirate suddenly seemed to realise the danger he was in, and shrieked. Hook clasped a quick hand over Wendy's eyes, but the sounds that came next would haunt her nightmares for quite some time.
When his hand was removed from Wendy's innocent eyes, the mermaid was gone, and they knew there would be no more trouble from her this night. Hook and his crew members had removed their headgear and were holding them to their hearts in a sombre salute to their fallen comrade. But their mourning did not last long, for they were nearing the island that so recently had held an uncertain death.
With a quiet crash, they reached the rocky outcrop, and Hook stood. He stepped confidently onto the stone, and then grabbed Wendy's arm and dragged her onto the shore. She stumbled, but he was not patient with her, and forcibly yanked her onto wet stone. He then suddenly released his grip on her bound arms, causing her to fall forward with the remaining momentum.
"Leave us," Hook commanded simply. The men looked confused and opened their mouths to protest, but Hook fingered his gun threateningly. "If any of you dogs dares disobey me, the mermaids will have some feast tonight."
The men, intimidated, rowed off immediately, double-speed. Wendy, who had slumped against the wall, watched in fear as Hook knelt down beside her and pressed the sharp point of his hook against her cheek. He gave her a maniacal grin and, without even scratching her, ripped the gag in half with the razor-blade instrument.
"PETER!" Wendy screamed immediately, "Help! Help me! I've been taken to the Bla-"
Her mouth was suddenly covered by a firm, clean hand.
"I suggest you shut your enchanting mouth unless you wish not to be able to use it anymore," Hook snarled at her, holding his hook to the side of her temple. Reluctantly, Wendy obeyed, and when Hook removed his hand from her mouth, she was silent. "Good girl," he commended her, "Now, answer me this."
There was a long pause, as Hook seemed to be collecting himself for some supreme effort. His pale eyes cast downwards, he sighed and finally looked up again, and the angry fire in his face had diminished, in its stead was something far softer and enigmatic.
"Why? Why, after all I'd done for you, did you turn from me?"
"You lied to me! Everything you've ever said to me has been a lie," Wendy hissed, incredulous at the impertinence of Hook's question, "You tried to destroy my brothers, my friends, and Peter!"
"Your friends iand/i Peter," Hook mused, softly, "He is not your friend? Yet you turn away from your lush treatment to spare his meagre hand. That can mean only one thing."
Wendy stared downwards, begging him not to say it. With every bone in her body she wished he would not voice aloud her unspeakable folly.
"You love him." The words came crushingly down onto Wendy's shoulders, and they slumped in shame. It was true. She had created everything she thought she wanted in a boy, only to realise that she had not created for him the capacity to love her back. That would make him...grown-up. And Peter Pan does not grow up.
"How terribly tragic," Hook growled, looking at the girl before him. She was no more crushed by this news than he himself was. "That you should give your heart to such a careless keeper. Did you wish it broken? For a clumsy young boy like Peter has always been sure to fumble such a delicate treasure, unaware of its worth..." he whispered in her ear, and Wendy's insides turned. He was right, of course. She had given herself away foolishly.
"Perhaps now you would come back with me," Hook suggested in his sugar-covered sandpaper tone. At this, Wendy prickled, snapped out of her sorrowful trance.
"Never! You used me to get to Peter!" she cried angrily, shutting her eyes tightly as if that would make Hook disappear.
"I used you to get me out of Neverland!" Hook growled suddenly, grabbing Wendy's shoulders cruelly and pushing her back into the large bricks of the wall. "I used you for your charming company! And I suppose it was too much of me to expect that you would enjoy it, too!"
Wendy was shocked at the sudden outburst, even moreso than having been pushed into the wall. What was he saying? Could he be saying...iNo! Wendy, do not allow yourself to fall for his trickery again!/i Wendy's pretty face contorted with anger.
"It was too much to expect! No one could hope to be happy around such a miserable soul as you! You disgust me! I hope that you are alone until you die!" she screamed, her heart seething with anger and her chest heaving with the shaking breaths she drew.
Hook could feel his aching heart crack. First at the top, with the quiet ominous sound of an avalanche beginning. And then, nearly audible, the crack traveled the length of his abused heart and with a final rending sound, broke in two. Hook could feel it beginning in his feet, filling his body with red anger and hurt, the anger and hurt that forever he had held back inside his heart. It was all spilling forth, for a broken heart hides nothing.
And now his heart was not in tact to hold back all the constant pain he'd endured since coming to Neverland, hundreds of years ago (or was it just last summer?). Within moments it reached his head and his mind was made mad. He sliced through Wendy's bonds with his hook and dragged her to her feet.
"Run," he said, drawing his cutlass, "Run as if the very devil were behind you...because tonight, he is."
Wendy, terrified at these heavy words, began running immediately, and after a moment the sounds of boots on rock followed. She knew he could run faster than she, for he had longer legs, and soon he was right behind her, gaining on her. Then, suddenly, she felt his hand on her back, and she knew all was lost. But to her great surprise, he shoved her forward.
"Do inot/i let me catch you," he growled at her. Spurred by her surprise and a sudden rush of adrenaline, she gained a few feet of advantage over him.
Then, before her, her salvation. A dead pirate lay against the wall, cutlass sticking out awkwardly from his ugly chest. She drew it quickly and spun around to face Hook, who smiled at her as if proud.
"Prepare yourself, foul Captain, for tonight you die," she declared, and brought her sword up to meet his as soon as he reached her. Their swordfight was brief and furious, but despite all her efforts to the contrary, Hook was a better fighter than she, and her sword soon went flying from her hand. She backed up against the wall behind her, cornered and frightened.
Hook glared at her, and then let his sword fall, clattering, to the stone at his feet. It took him bare a second to close the distance between them, clasping her shoulders and pushing her against the wall for the second time that night.
He leaned forward into her, and at that moment of contact, she felt a quick jolt of elecricity. She felt, for a moment, what Hook was feeling, and in that instant she was more terrified than ever she had been in her life. But in the same, she was intrigued...
"Now let ime/i tell iyou/i a story, miss Wendy," Hook hissed into her ear.
"There was a lovely young girl named Wendy," he said, his deep voice growling ferally as her back ground into the rough, wet stone of the wall, "And she was in love with a boy named Peter Pan," and his voice turned cold and cruel at the name. The strong hand gripping her shoulder pushed harder, and she could feel the buttons of her nightdress straining.
"And there was a little faerie named Tinkerbell, and she was also in love with that detestable little menace. She resented Wendy, whom Peter paid far more attention to. And so she put a spell on her and brought her to the pirates, who were delighted to have her. In particular, the lonely Captain Hook. Hook and Tinkerbell had something in common - unrequited love. Hook was so damnedly lonely, with no one but idiots to talk to...and every night he wished for one thing - a companion."
"Not to kill Peter Pan?" Wendy challenged.
"No, not to kill Peter Pan!" Hook snapped, "What else can a lonely pirate captain do, when there is no hope of companionship? Take up a hobby. But a hobby, when there is naught else to do, can become an obsession, and a frustrating one, at that. Like an itch that cannot be scratched. But he was an itch, nothing more. And an itch, no matter how big, can be ignored in the face of something more important. And Wendy was the one thing that was more important. She joined with the pirates and was a companion to Hook in his loneliness. She soothed him, and in return, he gave her everything. Food, shelter, conversation...everything he had and more, he gave to her. Even his miserable heart. But she betrayed him."
At the word 'betrayed', Wendy felt her top button pop loose and her pale upper chest was exposed to the cruel winds and the crueller gaze of Captain Hook. His right hand, or rather, its fascimile, dug into her shoulder and she could feel a trickle of blood falling from it, staining her white nightclothes.
"And the captain was hurt, and cross at the loss of his only close companion in the decades he'd spent in Neverland. So he regained her, and he tried to see why...why would she do that to him? Leave him and all his succour for the cruel abuse of a group of young boys? She, who had acted as friend and more to him?"
A tear escaped Hook's eye, though he did not mean it to. If he had lifted his head to see Wendy's face, he would have noticed a twin tear on her own cheek...but he did not.
"And she told him..." Hook's voice wavered, and another tear escaped its prison, "She told him that he revolted her. She told him that he deserved his loneliness and torture for the rest of his unhappy life." His voice was broken, now, and his words faltering and unsure, yet they fell with the weight of centuries.
"Hook," she said, softly, for it was all she could say. There was emotion in the one syllable, but Hook could not hear it.
"James!" he cried out to her, voice screeching with desperation, tring to separate himself from the evil character Captain Hook had become, "My name is James, please!"
His grip slackened, now, and his head fell to her shoulder, staining her skin and dress with the watery red tears that hadn't come in so long. Her own form shook with the sadness that enveloped them both.
"And so," Hook said, finally, his voice hoarse but more steady, "Poor James was obligated to let her go. But with nothing else to lose...he took her to the Black Castle, and pressed her up against the wall..." he whispered, and Wendy could feel his sweaty lips moving as he spoke into the nape of her neck, sending shivers all down her spine. He lifted his head slowly and looked into her crying face, surprised to see her tear-stained cheeks. His eyes were squinted with the effort of self-control, and he spoke a final time. "...And he kissed her."
Before Wendy could do anything, the lips that were a moment ago speaking into her neck were pressed against her own in a searing, passionate kiss. It embodied all the pain and frustration and anger and repressed love and loneliness and the soreness of being betrayed in one single movement. It was vicious and it was loving and it was, above all, desperate. Between kisses, Hook drew shakey breaths, and his tears mingled with Wendy's, rendering their poison harmless by adding love to the mixture. He trembled against her, his fingers groping desperately at her shoulders as if she were slipping away. She could feel the sobs in his throat as he sent fiery waves of pure, relentless emotion through her. His hook was again digging into her shoulder, but she barely felt it for the burning kisses being bestowed onto her.
He shuddered, and pulled away from her suddenly, leaving her shocked and crying and so suddenly empty. Her face was dazed and she knew she would never experience something like that again. James held his eyes tight shut for a moment and his shoulders shook with adrenaline.
He rested his forehead against hers and blinked out two last tears.
"...Wendy," he managed to choke out, but that was all. His eyes opened, pale blue like the emptiness of The End, like the sky after a torrential downpour...like the blue of an empty robin's egg. He saw Wendy before him, her slight form trembling. Her dress, stained with the red of blood and tears, and her face - her glowing, brilliant face, smudged with tears and dirt and wearing a most peculiar expression.
Hook let go of her, as if it were the last thing in the world he wished to do. He cast his eyes away, then looked back and finally seemed to see what stood before him. He reached up quickly to remove his jacket, and placed it around Wendy's shoulders kindly and gently. He did not attempt to hide his bitter tears from her.
Wendy's mouth opened, but she did not know the words. What she'd just experienced...
Outside, there was crowing. Hook looked as if he'd been struck, and took one last look at the young girl he so ached to be with.
"I'm...sorry," he said, the words alien on his tongue. He bowed to her, and as the first rays of sunlight reached the inside of the Black Castle, bringing Peter Pan with them, Hook had vanished.