CHAPTER VI - Requiem For The Past
DISCLAIMER: Hook is not mine. But I wish he was.
Before I go on:
PLEASE review this, I have worked so hard on all of this story, and it would be nice to get some feedback! Please please PLEASE review - I know, sometimes all you wanna do is to read a story, but with a little bit of effort you can just add a couple of lines about what you love, hate, wish to eat/hug/kick…it makes this all so much more worthwhile, and helps when writing further chapters.
Now that we've established that…
When writing this chapter, I was listening to Kelly Clarkson's "Addicted", and these lyrics seemed to fit this chapter perfectly:
"…It's like you're a ghost that's haunting me -
Leave me alone.
And I know these voices in my head
Are mine alone…"
So, know you know my inspiration, here's the chapter - a glimpse into the past of a dark, troubled man…
The cabin door, with the lustrously-engraved nameplate proclaiming its occupant to be "Captain Jas. Hook", slammed forcefully into place. A kind of silence appeared to be locked in the room: a silence that was ready to receive emotion, if there was to be any.
James hurled the diary onto the floor; several pages flew out and drifted across the polished wood. A booted foot ground down upon the book itself, smearing dirt across the already tattered cover. Hidden snarls crept around bared teeth, longing to be made real. Anger coursed through James and drove him to stamp furiously all over the wretched diary and its horrible truths and memories. He wanted to shout, wanted to hurt something, someone, and was not quite sure why…
Then, all at once, the fury left the man. The snarls were forced back into the treasure chest of a shadowed soul. A hand went up to run through dark curls, and all that could be heard were ragged breaths and the sound of a metal hook being sunk into wood.
For a while, James, couldn't bring himself to say the name out loud, even as a whisper. He cast a black look at the ruined diary and its loose pages, clenching his fingers around the edge of the table. His hook was buried into the furniture piece itself.
Years. Hundreds of years, or was it more? Was it less? This cursed Neverland had a habit of stealing one's sense of time, thought James with a growl. An age had passed since his childhood in London - a childhood shared with his brother…
No! Why should he remember now? Why should he be made to recall his past just because a lowly crewmate had written a pathetic diary account of it, spelled atrociously and completely incorrect anyway?
James withdrew his hook from the tabletop and brushed splinters from its more awkward angles. He could feel a pulsing beat surfacing behind his eyes, inevitable leading to a headache. He sat down and thought.
He had never expected Smee to be able to recognize any of his moods, let alone be so adept at reading them and linking them to other occurrences. Though it hurt to admit it - and let it be said that James Hook would rarely risk damaging his pride through admittance of anything - Smee had delved straight into one of James' most private secrets and connected it with some behavioural traits with unanticipated skill.
Only Smee had ever known that James had had a younger brother. Now James came to think of it, he could remember telling Smee everything about his sibling, and then making him swear he would never repeat any detail to another living soul. That was back when (James laughed bitterly) he had possessed two hands and fought with a sword in his right. Before he had met Pan. Before he had been Hook. Captain James Hook.
James exhaled derisively and got to his feet again. Slipping into the past was a hateful exercise, yet one he was prone to, being a man of substantial grudge-bearing.
A lion in a cage…a lion in a cage…
His thoughts were wandering. He found himself feeling tired, restless, and then found he could not alleviate this feeling without resorting to murder or suchlike. What had he become? It seemed like so long ago he had resided in London, with his younger brother…he supposed he had had a mother and a father, but no recollection of their faces came to him when he cared to recite their names. No, he could only remember Edward.
Edward George. The clever one. The loved one. The boy with dark curly hair and gentle brown eyes, the boy with an extensive library of polite remarks and compliments. James sneered. Edward had been nothing more than a smarmy worm.
Then there was James: the one with wild hair and piercing blue eyes, a scornful twist in his lips and a heart full of daring and selfishness. People, if they had met his brother first, would cast a critical eye over the tall youth almost always to be found playing with - or torturing - a captured spider, dismiss him as a terrible mistake, and turn away in favour of the quiet boy who sat in the drawing room reading books about philosophy.
James and Edward; his name had always come first, since he was the eldest, and therefore naturally considered first. But there had been no doubt who their mother had preferred.
"Darling little Edward," spat James now, pacing his cabin. "Sweet little Edward. What became of you? Did you become a clerk, like Mother wanted? I could have become a clerk - I was offered the job. But you would have been better than me anyway." James felt the anger rise again. "I am glad that I left, left you all. And now, I live in no one's shadow. No one!"
It was then that James realised fully that he had been speaking out loud. He stopped in his tracks, then crossed the cabin to the full-length mirror next to his bed. He leaned in to it, studying his face.
"A lion in a cage," he muttered. "A lion in a cage."