Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They had gone too far this time. Granted, they had gone too far last time, and the time before that. Really, every time they had gone, it had been too far. The local politicians of Amity island were not known for their decision making skills.

Martin Brody, Amity’s former long suffering police chief was answering the call of an old friend. That was the only reason he'd set foot on the island in the first place, since he didn't trust anybody else in this godforsaken beach bum hotspot as far as he could throw them. The two hour drive to the island had ballooned out into three, and then four as they'd had to double back to give the keys to the babysitter (Brody's fault, his memory for that sort of thing was absolutely useless). It was now nighttime, and Brody made his way up the familiar paths of the town, noting the cleanliness of the place, the tidy gardens, the new road signs, decorated with discreet shark symbols. The whole place looked oddly fake in the moonlight - everything was too shiny, too new.

“Amity: America’s Shark City,” the sign had said as they’d driven in. As if what he’d been through had been some sort of adventure instead of the most traumatising few days of his life. He still had nightmares.

“What the hell is this?” Said Ellen, voicing his thoughts. She was staring out the window open mouthed as he drove, taking in the full transformation of the town.

“I don’t know,” said Brody, “but Hooper better have a good goddamn answer.”

As it turned out, Hooper did. Brody had barely knocked once on his door before it was flung open, revealing the man himself in a disgusting novelty shark hat, wearing a T-shirt that bore the proud words “Welcome to Shark City!”

“Former police chief Martin Brody!” he said cheerfully, going in for a hug, “how are you doing?”

Brody punched him.

Later that night the three of them sat in Hooper’s tiny lounge space holding glasses of wine, Hooper holding his hand to his cheek every now and then.

“It was too good an opportunity to pass up,” sighed Hooper, “they called me up not long after you’d left, dangled the possibility of having my own entire shark infested beach to play with…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Brody, “keeping it from me when they asked you is one thing, but why didn’t you say anything when you knew I was coming? Why did you even ask me to come here in the first place? You could have come to visit us instead, then we all at least would have our own beds.”

“Let’s not get nasty about it,” mumbled Hooper. The three of them sipped their wine in silence for several moments while the two men glared at each other.

“Well,” said Ellen, “I'm going to bed. And in the morning, I for one would like to see what a mess they’ve made of the place.”

The mess in question was worse than Ellen, or even Brody in his infinite apprehension could have imagined. A "shark net" had been put up in the shallows, giving the eager swimmers an illusion of safety. Various binoculars had been set up along the boardwalk, of different sizes so that parents could sharkwatch with their kids. Colourfully painted billboards littered the beach, the kind with faces cut out so you could take photos of yourself being eaten by sharks. They were selling shark hats, shark postcards, shark T-shirts, even shark dogs, which were like normal hotdogs, but with a small paper shark fin stuck in the middle with a toothpick.
Brody strode out onto the sand and surveyed the beach with his hands on his hips.

“I hate it,” he declared.

Ellen, halfway through a shark fin shaped popsicle, rolled her eyes, bringing a hand up to squint into the distance.

“What the hell is the shark rider?” She asked. Hooper became nervous, shifting from foot to foot.

“It’s - ah - it’s… well.”

Brody followed Ellen’s line of sight and saw the billboard she was talking about - one depicting the silhouette of a man riding a shark. Above it in bold red letters the words “BEWARE THE SHARK RIDER” were written. The silhouette was wearing a baseball cap, and carried a harpoon, and suddenly looked very familiar

“Hooper,” said Brody very slowly, “that better not be-“

“It is,” said Hooper, “it is, but you need to let me explain,”

“I don’t have the energy to explain just how fucked up it is that you’re using a man we watched die as a local tourist attraction,” said Brody, “but if you can’t figure that one out yourself, I don’t know what to say to you.”

“That’s not it,” said Hooper, “look, I know what it looks like, but it’s not that.”

“Then what exactly is it that I’m looking at, Hooper?”

Hooper rubbed his hands together nervously, looking as though he was choosing his words very carefully.

“I’m not sure that Quint’s quite… gone,” he said.

“What exactly do you mean?” Asked Brody, knowing exactly what he meant.

“I mean,” said Hooper, “that people on the island have been seeing him around lately. As in, all the time. Brody, I think Quint is haunting Amity island.”

Chapter Text

They went to a pub. Brody needed a drink before the explanation, and it was the only course of action, short of going directly to the bottle shop (and Ellen wasn't quite ready for that kind of a night just yet). Hooper, to his credit, did manage to find the least shark-afflicted establishment (on the other side of town, down the very end of the main road).

It was early enough in the day that the place was sparsely populated - a smattering of people passing through for the day, if the eye-watering holiday wear was anything to go by. Brody, Ellen and Hooper squeezed themselves into a booth down the very back of the place, where Martin noted with dismay that the coasters were shaped like big shark heads ("that's the only thing, I promise," - Hooper's voice, placating, slightly hysterical at this point). Hooper held his hands up in a silent gesture of supplication and left to go get everybody drinks.

"So what do you think about all of this?" said Brody quietly, leaning his head towards Ellen's.

"What do I think? I think you're being too hard on the poor man," she laughed, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and then leaning sideways out of the booth so she could check on Hooper. He was up the front, trying to stand with his arms crossed in a way that didn't draw too much attention to the garish print on his shirt.

"Too hard on the poor man who brought us to Sharkesville, New England so we could check out the local ghost? Of a man I watched die?"

Something at the back of his mind told him that he should give Hooper a chance first, but he pushed it away. His anger had actually dissipated on the way over, but it had been replaced with a simmering annoyance that made him feel even more stubborn than usual.

"Too hard on your poor friend who's clearly asked you here for a reason, Martin," said Ellen. She walked her fingers along the space between them and over to his hand, which she squeezed. Martin exhaled slowly.

"Three beers. Please don't ask me what they're called, you won't like it," said Hooper, setting down three pint glasses on the table. Martin took another deep breath and mustered up his best crinkly-eyed smile, and took a large gulp. Whatever it was, it tasted good.

"So," said Hooper, fidgeting with his glass. He seemed to be trying to get it in the perfect centre of the coaster-shark's mouth.

"You should probably start at the part where the ghost of our dead friend showed up on the island," said Brody.

"Hmm, yeah. Yeah, you know, ah, it was actually a couple months back. I was out on a dive a couple kilometres out from the main beach, and I just felt this overwhelming sense of-" Hooper opened and closed his hands, grasping for the words, "-this weird feeling that I was being watched. And that I was doing something wrong. You know like, when you were a kid and you were doing something you weren't meant to? That feeling that you might get caught out even though logically there was no one else around?"

Brody gave Hooper a small half-smile.

"Well I stole my eighth birthday cake right out of the fridge once, so I guess it's like that."

Hooper grinned back and continued, noticeably more energetically, "here's the thing though - I kept getting this weird feeling for the next few days. It was random when it happened, usually when I was out on the boat, and eventually, I felt like I could hear someone calling my name! Which was crazy, because nobody calls me Hooper out here, they all call me Matt, and ah - well, I recognised the voice too, and I swear I thought I was going crazy for at least a week, until the one evening - I'd been out for ages and the sun was going down and I was making my way back to the docks, and suddenly I hear this kid yelling "mister mister! It's a shark!" and like, of course it's a shark, where the hell do you think we are? But I looked anyway and it was... Well yeah, it was a shark, but then actually perched on the shark was. Well. It was Quint."

Martin stared. It was the only thing he could do. He didn't trust himself to try and move any of the muscles in his face into an expression.

"Anyway," continued Hooper, "this thing comes barrelling towards me. Faster than it's humanly - well, shark-ly possible? For a shark to do. But I'm there on the boat and I'm looking into Quint's eyes - he's got those crazy eyes when he's mad remember, and he's coming towards me and I swear that giant son-of-a-bitch shark is about to ram us, but then... boom! It disappears into thin air just in time."

Silence descended between them. Hooper watched the Brodys expectantly, drink forgotten, hands gripping the edge of the table.

"Where do we come into all of this?" asked Ellen, as though Hooper hadn't just told them a story about being attacked by a ghost-shark off Amity beach. Martin stayed silent.

"Well that's the thing," said Hooper, speaking more slowly now, as though he were choosing his words more carefully, "he's been back pretty regularly ever since. All he ever does is charge around the ocean. He hasn't said my name once since that incident. But he's been saying yours an awful lot lately."

Martin let out yet another breath that he'd been holding. He took a big gulp of his drink.

"Hooper. It's not that I don't believe you. But I think I'm going to have to see this for myself before I figure what I think about the whole situation."

Chapter Text

That night, Brody, Ellen, and Hooper went down to the beach. Hooper had finally decided that the whole “let’s not tell Brody exactly what he’s in for until he gets there” approach was doing more harm than good, and so the Brodys were well informed that the beach would be populated, even at night. In fact, especially at night.

“Jesus Christ,” whispered Brody, “you weren’t kidding, huh.”

Hooper let out a slightly hysterical giggle.

“Yeah, look. It’s ah - it’s tourism, I guess.”

Tourism it was indeed; the beach was no different at night than it was at the day. The glow of novelty toy lights dotted the beach as people settled down to watch the horizon for the fabled shark rider. The bass notes of some sort of inane, repetitive music blasted in the distance. It sounded like a migraine felt. Brody was glad for the relative dark of the night, so that Hooper couldn’t see the expression of irritation that crossed his features. Nevertheless, Hooper seemed to sense it.

“He usually appears near the pier," he stammered "er - come on Brody, I’ll take you up and we’ll see if he shows up tonight.”

“Knowing my luck,” said Brody, and then he paused.

“Actually,” he continued after a moment, “I dunno if him showing up would count as lucky.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that I want to see him either,” said Hooper. Despite the warmth of the summer night, he shivered. Ellen wriggled between the two of them and took them both by the arm.

“Come on, boys,” she said, half dragging them along with her, “I don’t think we’ll ever know til we try and find out, hm?”

Both men followed her down to the pier, bewildered but not unappreciative. Hooper shot Brody a look of surprise behind Ellen’s back, and Brody responded with his first genuine smile since he’d arrived, one that was full of warmth. 

The pier was as busy as the beach when they got there, but as the three of them approached, a chill breeze picked up, driving many of the sightseers away back to the safety and warmth of the beach. The closer the trio came to the pier, the louder and harder the wind blew, stinging their faces with sea spray and sand. 

People were running from the pier now, and Brody, Hooper and Ellen stood at the land end of the pier, huddled together against the gale.

“The hell is this all about?” shouted Brody, his voice nearly swallowed by the roar of the cold wind.

“Damned if I know,” came Hooper’s faint reply.

As the last few people hurried from the pier, the wind died down as suddenly as it had begun, and the absence of it now made the inky water seem eerily calm. The pier appeared to fade into darkness, and Brody decided that perhaps he wasn’t all that interested in the mystery of Quint’s disappearance, after all. 

His wife, on the other hand, had other ideas.

“I think he’s waiting for you,” she said softly. She took his hand and he squeezed it, never taking his eyes off the dark spot in the distance where he imagined the pier ended.

“Now… now let’s think about this rationally,” said Brody, though the way his voice wavered betrayed how shaken he was already, “how often do you get sudden changes in the weather in Amity anyway? It could have just been the start of a - a freak storm or something.”

“Weather’s usually fine year round,” said Hooper, also staring out into the distance, “one of the reasons it’s such a popular tourist spot.”

Brody took in a deep breath, then exhaled it through his mouth for as long as he could manage.

“Well, if you two aren’t going to see what’s going on, I guess it’s up to me,” said Ellen. She suddenly strode down the pier, her arms swinging by her sides, a look of determination on her face. She didn't have to walk for long before she heard the clatter of two sets of footsteps on the damp wood of the pier. She smiled.

“Ellen, now listen, you can’t just-”

She whirled to face Brody.

“I know I can’t - I’m not the one he’s looking for.”

Brody sighed in frustration, running his hands through his hair as every rational bone in his body fought what he was experiencing right now.

“But we don’t even know if this is real or not-”

“Martin,” she said, in that tone of voice that made the chattering in his brain go quiet, “Martin, stop it.”

Martin opened his mouth to retort, but he opted for kissing her on the nose instead.

“You’re right,” he said

“As usual,” she replied, “say hi to Quint for me, let’s hope the afterlife has done something about that temper of his.”

“Wouldn’t count on it, if that wind was anything to go by,” muttered Hooper. 

He turned to Ellen.

“Keep an eye on us, will you?”

“You know I always will,” she said. She leaned against the railing and watched the two of them wander into the night.

“Jesus, it’s freezing out here,” said Hooper as they made their way down.

Indeed, both men had their arms wrapped around them as the air grew steadily colder, and the seas steadily rougher. Brody tried not to think too hard about the presence of Quint in those waves, his angry roar in the wind, the teasing gusts that buffeted them this way and that. Brody could hear Quint’s voice in his head, and he knew exactly what he’d be saying.

Ah, what sort of men are you, can’t even take a little knock of wind from the sea herself? Can’t handle a hit from a lady?

“Wish he’d just come right out and say what he wants, why’s the man gotta turn everything into a test?” said Hooper. His elbow bumped Brody’s, who threw an arm around the shorter man’s shoulders. It was fucking freezing.

“Gotta make us freeze our balls off so he’s got something to laugh at us about by way of greeting,” said Brody through teeth that were chattering. Hooper's responding laugh sounded more like a shout.

They reached the end of the pier and stood there, clinging to each other for warmth and squinting past the sea spray into the night, hoping to god that whatever apparition seemed to require their presence here might actually take mercy on them and decline to appear. 

There was no such luck.

The sea exploded in a burst of spray, drenching Brody and Hooper and sending them stumbling backwards. 

“ Well, it took ya both bloody long enough! ” came a familiar, gravelly voice, “ what the hell have you both got to say about yourselves for this sorry mess? ”