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Day in, day out, Smee is reminded that he is the only one on this blasted ship who can cook. Not that he minds, of course; a year or two of kitchen work in a big breezy brownstone in Brighton can whip anyone’s cutlery skills into shape. He’s far more handy with a vegetable peeler than a sword, at any rate, and his captain seems content with the false notion that Smee could defend himself in the event of a dire battle. Oh, yes. Smee will peel the ever-loving hell out of those Lost Boys.
As if summoned by dog whistle, James Hook swaggers into the galley kitchen. Smee would be surprised that he even knows that the room exists but for the fact that he’s been visiting his first mate almost nightly of late. Smee has chosen not to think about it too hard; trying to work out Hook’s whimsies and moods always hurts his head.
“What is that?” Hook says with the air of a person eyeing a torture device. Awe, delight, a shadow of terror. Pirates.
Smee lifts the wooden spoon from his veritable cauldron of soup. He says with some pride, “Paprika.”
“Paprika came in jars when you requested it out of the merchant ship’s loot. Was it liquid from the beginning?”
Smee rolls his eyes, affectionate despite it all for this ridiculous creature. “The soup’s mine. Paprika’s only a spice, James.”
Hook’s eyebrows flare up wildly and his mustache takes an agitated stance. “Shh! Any of the crew could overhear!”
Ah. That old schtick. Smee’s been trying to train him out of his captainly intimidation for years, with varying successes. This is a point where Hook simply will not bend. Smee is absolutely certain that the entire crew knows that the first mate is allowed to call the captain by his first name. Even Hook couldn’t possibly be blockheaded enough to think that they don’t know his name. They all do. And, inevitably, they’ve all walked past Hook’s quarters or Smee’s quaint library at the wrong time. They know.
Still, Smee enjoys humoring the man. “Sorry, cap’n.”
“Hm. Quite alright, Smee, but do be careful in the future.”
“Of course, cap’n.”
Smee watches Hook’s eyes track the spoon’s journey back into the obscenely large pot. He watches the suspicious, investigative, adorably curious twinkle in his eyes. Smee says with no small amount of amusement, “Want to try it?”
Hook looks proud like he thought of the thing and Smee has only just caught on. Smee takes a smaller and metal spoon from the basket he keeps on the opposite counter (let it be known: he is also the only person on the Jolly Roger who ever manages to do dishes with any kind of consistency) and offers it. Hook takes it, fishes out a childishly small pool of soup, and takes an equally childish sip.
“Mister Smee, you have outdone yourself.”
“Y’say that every time I think up something new t’make!”
“It remains true. You are a culinary wonder, my good man!” Then, after an extremely furtive glance at the door, he bestows the sappiest of smooches. Smee feels himself flush happily, even after all this time, and when Hook pulls back he sees that his captain is similarly affected. Hook then takes a liberal spoonful of soup, downs it like ale, and (gracefully, manfully, not at all like one of those Lost Boys stealing something shiny) dips his head to rapidly inhale a few more spoonfuls. Then he drops the spoon with a clatter onto the countertop and darts out the door.
Smee stands for a moment, caught in his bone-deep adoration of this hysterical, dramatic man, then remembers with a start that the soup will boil over if he stands there for too terribly long, and he douses the fire beneath. He had left it to burn out a total of once and returned to Jukes and Murphy playing hot potato with an actual flaming potato. Never again.
As penance for the long-past crime, he calls them in particular to lug the pot to the long dining table in the center of the crew quarters. At a shout from Smee, a herd of men comes tumbling into the room and Wibbles falls out of his hammock with excitement. Smee doesn’t bend in the face of each plea for an extra ladle, says calmly to every single man that there will be plenty for seconds so long as everyone takes their fair share. The dining table is only a formality and in truth is horribly splintery, so most of the crew brings their bowls back up on deck. Smee makes Wibbles, who went back to his hammock, promise to guard the pot with his life, then deems it safe to follow the rest.
As he looks over his crew, his boys, a feathery and frilly emotion wraps itself snug around his heart and lays down. Most of them had come from bad places, as pirates do. Now Smee feeds them soup with nice spices and Hook tells them bedtime stories. Try as he might, Hook will never, ever be able to convince Smee that he doesn’t think of this lot as family. Even Captain James Hook isn’t immune to family. One day Smee will make him see it.
Today isn’t the day, though, so he only brings a bowl of soup (noticeably fuller than the others, yes, sue him) to the captain’s quarters. He knocks softly and enters without invitation, which he is under express orders to never ever do and simply ignores. Hook only gives him a kicked puppy look and sticks his lip out. Smee nudges the door closed with his foot and brushes aside the maps on the table to set their soup down.
Hook clears his throat. “Mister Smee, this is… highly improper.”
“Ah, give it a rest, James.”
Say what you will about the undeniable malice of the legend, but the man is quite a different story. Pan battles Captain Hook; ruthless, heartless, and peerless. Smee makes soup for his darling James. Hook, reading this in Smee’s tone, softens completely.
Smee sets their chairs and turns to the chest of non-hand apparatuses to fetch the spoon. He has learned again and again that when he does not insist on the switch, Hook will try to wield a spoon with his left hand, and then do the same with a quill when he has to then redraw the maps he spilled his food on. Hook waits petulantly for Smee to detach his beloved hook and barely restrains himself up to the click of the spoon fitting into place. Smee places the hook reverently on the red satin pillow that it lives on, and only notices the distinct lack of soup-devouring noises when he turns back to see Hook completely ignoring the soup in favor of looking at him.
“Have you got starstuff in yer eyes, cap’n?”
Hook smiles fetchingly. “Must be reflecting off of you, dear.”
“The paprika is getting t’yer head. Come on, eat up. Get it gone before y’pass out.”
Hook scoffs without heat, and, to his credit, immediately begins scarfing down his soup. Smee joins him, but not without first opening the lush curtains to the night sky. He quite likes those curtains. He had subjected the entire ship to his amateur interior design skills a few years back when he finally couldn’t stand the threadbare and bland garbage any longer, and everyone is better for it. He’s been considering a paint job for some time. He considers suggesting it and glances at Hook, tipping back his bowl and probably earning himself a thorough mustache grooming; far too soft and squishy in feeling tonight to believe that his ship is anything less than perfect. For this kind of thing, Smee has to catch him at a middle ground between the performative and obnoxiously hard-headed Captain James Hook and the lovey dovey kitten of a man that he holds to his chest at night. Tonight is headed very quickly toward the latter. He’ll suggest new paint another day.
Hook yawns explosively. Smee says, “Bedtime.”
“No.”
“James.”
“I am a grown man, Smee!”
“James.”
“Well. Fine, then.”
Smee smiles winningly to cement the fact that following his mother hen commands is the best thing for everyone involved. “Gotta check on th’boys, you get yerself comfortable.”
Checking on the boys, as it were, includes wrangling all of them into a line to drop off their dishes in the washbasin. Smee doesn’t have the heart to make it their problem tonight. Maybe it’s that frilly emotion snoring in time with his heartbeat, maybe it’s the gratitude on the crew’s faces, or maybe it’s the promise of his sleep-addled and blatantly affectionate captain waiting under the blankets to be cuddled. The dishes are left all by their lonesome.
After making certain that his boys (God, he’s too content to pretend that he means anything other than his children tonight) are getting ready for bed, and making them swear up and down that they’ll comb and wash, Smee makes his way back up on deck. A shadow passes through the moonlight and he looks up in time to see the figure of a boy zooming up over the docks. He waves. The shadow passes. The shadow of the shadow, shrinking to a visible shape on the deck, waves back, then follows its Peter.
“What’s got you so happy?” Hook grumbles when Smee comes in.
“A whole lot of things, cap’n.”
“Oh, please, I’ve told you a thousand times what to call me when we’re-”
Smee, having crossed to the bed, halts the theatrics with a kiss. “A whole lot of things’ve got me happy, James.”
Hook makes a pleased rumble. Smee checks with a restless perfectionist energy on the gaudy hat, wig, and coat, all of course hung with utmost care. He places the pillow bearing the hook in the wardrobe with the rest of Captain Hook, ruthless, heartless, and peerless, and curls up in bed with the snoring head of his darling James on his shoulder.
After several blessedly peaceful, a herd of elephants stomps around outside the cabin, then all shush each other passionately. Mister Starkey opens the door. “Er. Captain?”
Smee hushes them and points emphatically at the “er, captain” who, thank someone, sleeps like a rock. It’s a talent Smee admires. Hook will collapse as though shot, and remain collapsed exactly the way he fell asleep, and wake up in eight hours, come hell, high water, and possibly meteors.
Someone behind Starkey loudly whispers, “He promised us more of the story!”
“What’s it about this week?”
Starkey grins wide. “A mouse who learns to breathe underwater to chase down an ‘orrible turtle that insulted ‘im.”
“There’ll be more tomorrow, then.”
“But-”
“G’night, boys.” A firm, somewhat maternal look. No ifs, ands, or buts.
It works. The crew all poke their heads in to say goodnight and to give forlorn glances at their captain in hopes that he’ll spontaneously awaken to continue the adventures of their aquatic mouse. No such luck, but Smee does get gradually more fluttery in the tummy as he wishes sweet dreams to all of them.
When the door clicks shut, he leans back to look out the window. He watches a tiny sliver fall off a star and float past the horizon. He watches the trees wiggle lazily on the side, the sea toss and turn for the greater part of his view, and a few sluggish clouds mosey past. As the moon makes its determined climb up the sky, and as his husband’s snores gradually settle into pleasant little bodily earthquakes, Smee closes his eyes and thanks everything he can think of for giving him a life so wild it’s become mundane, and so mundane that every moment is an adventure. He drifts off to sleep and he dreams.