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It’s quiet – eerily so. He feels like he’s floating in a world of nothing, and yet his body feels heavy and his mind is tired.
There’s a small image, further than his eyes can see, and it’s Emma with her son and family, happy. But when he tries to reach for them, his arms are too fatigued to move, his limbs hurt too much to try.
“Wake him up.”
It echoes loudly through the vacant space, the ominous voice carries for miles and miles, ringing loud and high in his ears, and when his eyes search for the source, there’s a sudden rush of cold and he feels himself being pulled away with nothing to grab onto, nothing to keep himself here.
And then it stings.
With the deep inhale of breath, his head jerks up, a stinging pain flows through him at every bit of water that touches the wounds and cuts on his skin.
“Glad you could join us, Captain.”
He shakes his head, droplets of ice water falling from his face as he blinks rapidly, trying to get the stars behind his eyes to dim.
“Pan,” Hook spits when his vision clears, for after the blurs vanish a devil appears.
He tuts him, circling around him with a leer that Hook wants to punch off his face.
He attempts it, but his arms refuse.
“You know, I thought you were stronger than a few beatings and cuts, but turns out, that’s too much for the infamous Captain Hook.”
He tries to lunge, aims to tackle and to kill the demon once and for all, but his feet are bound as tight as the rope binding his hand to the back of the chair. His other arm feels lighter and he assumes his hook and brace has been removed by one of Pan’s minions.
“We’re all done,” a voice comes from behind him, and when he twists his head to it, he barely catches a glimpse of arrows pointed towards him – except they’re not aimed at him, just in his direction.
He moves to shake the makeshift seat they’ve forced him to, barely budging an inch, trying to see the scene behind him. “What-what’re you doing?”
Pan lets out a dark chuckle, an even darker smile plays on his lips. “You see – when your dear Savior and her crew of nitwits come to save your sorry arse, the moment they step on this –“ he points the stick he holds to the trap they’ve laid, “- an arrow will go through each one of their hearts. And it’ll all be because of you,” he jabs a finger at Hook’s chest, and he hates how even the slightest touch pains him as much as ripping his heart out would.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he counters, “They’re not going to come for me – and while you’re busy with me, they’re a step closer to getting her boy. You lose, Pan,” he musters every last bit of energy he has to deliver the most shit-eating grin he can give.
But the boy doesn’t falter. “We’ll see about that,” he says instead. “Meanwhile,” he snaps his fingers and he feels the ropes that ties him still to the seat tightening, the fibres of the binds chafing his skin, “we’ll make sure it’ll be nice and easy to find you.”
He watches helplessly as two Lost Boys nod and move to start a fire before him, stares as the smoke rises into the deepening blue, cringes at the thought of Emma and her family walking straight into a trap because of him. “Deliver this to them,” he hears Pan mutter to another follower, a glint of metal catching his eye and he jumps fruitlessly to retrieve his hook.
“Torture me, don’t hurt her,” he begs, every bit of whatever dignity he had left gone with the retreating Lost Boy with his hook.
But then there’s something being stuffed into his mouth, disallowing his jaw from movement, rough hands knotting the cloth at the back of his head and the tightening fabric presses hard into a gash on his cheek.
Pan stalks towards him, his smirk evil and deadly when he says, “But what better way to torture you then to hurt her?”
He isn’t even allowed the attempt to lunge at the devil before a fist meets his jaw and he meets darkness once more.
-/-
“Hook!”
He startles at the sound, gasping awake at the voice, and all the pain rushes back in at once. His jaw is stiff and throbbing, the cut on his face stinging and his limbs cramping against the tight position they’ve been in for God knows how long (hours? days?).
He groans at the pain, but when he hears the muted footsteps grow louder and louder, he panics at the memory of Pan’s set up.
It’s futile but he tries to warn her, muffled yells only escaping him and fuck, it makes the footsteps move faster.
“Stay here,” he hears, “It could be a trap,” she warns whomever else she brought along with her.
You’re walking into the trap, he means to scream, but only unintelligible sounds come out.
Think fast, think fast, he forces himself, twisting his head back, his gaze following where the arrows are aimed.
The footsteps grow louder and Emma’s getting closer and closer, and he sees no other choice.
-/-
When he comes into view, she swears her heart skips a beat.
It’s been two days since she’s seen him, but she freezes when she gets a second look at him.
There are red lines all over him, all over his face, and especially all over his exposed chest. They’re deeper and longer, the cuts on his chest, trails of blood – dried and new – fall from the wounds. She notices the bruises too, of course, she notices. Especially with them damaging his face, a whorish purple littered all over – one at his left cheekbone that continues below the gag in his mouth, and one bruising his right eye.
“We- we need help here!” she yells back when she finally finds her voice, not bothering to wait for her parents before she paces towards him.
But he yells something muffled at her, shaking his head furiously as he uses his body to move the seat he’s tied to, shifting only slowly, and she pauses momentarily trying to understand what he’s doing.
But he keeps trying to shift his position, but she hears the grunts of pain he makes at each inch he moves, and so she runs, and he yells, there’s a click, there’s a swoosh, and there’s his scream.
-/-
For once, he wakes up to his own accord, when his body finally tires of sleeping, his eyes roll open and he takes in the surroundings. He’s no longer in a dark, dingy corner of a Neverland jungle, he’s no longer bound to a blistering chair and more importantly, he’s no longer Pan’s bait.
His eyes meet Emma’s figure. She stands by the small window of his cabin, her gaze trained outside with her arms crossed and her foot tapping a staccato on the wood of his floorboards.
He lets out a breath to see she remains unharmed, relaxing as he rolls himself onto his back, but—
“Bloody fuck.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Emma rushes towards him, pulling him back onto his side, and right – arrow to the back.
“Forgot about that,” he laughs it off, but his voice comes out more gravelly than he expected.
She reaches out of his sight and then she’s carefully tipping his head to the side and feeding him sips of water that he accepts very gratefully.
“Thank you,” he says and she gives him a tight smile.
She moves to place the drink elsewhere, moving all over his cabin to get God knows what. He tries to sit up, but the scars on his chest ache and when he looks down, from his abdomen to his chest, he’s wrapped in bloody bandages, and a rush of memories of the torture Pan had implemented on him reappears and he can’t help the shudder he feels.
When she comes back, she’s got a scissors in her hands and a roll of new bandages next to her.
“We’ve got to change these,” she says, not bothering to look at him to tell him, moving to cut off the bandages and reaching for a wet cloth to clean his body from all his blood.
He watches as she does it, with a gentleness he rarely sees come from her, but he makes no comment on it. Not when with the clearing of the blood comes a show of black veins making its way to the left side of his chest. He notices how she freezes slightly at the sight of it before continuing at her task.
“Neal- Neal, uh, found some herbs, and they seem to be working – you’re bleeding less anyway, as long as these don’t get infected then it should all—“
“Swan,” he stops her rambling with a tight hold on her wrist. “The Dreamshade’s moving fast, love – it won’t matter if the wounds get infected or not. The moment it gets to my heart, I’ll be d—“
“David went to the magical fountain place – he’ll be back soon. And Neal and Snow went to look for Regina, to help heal this,” she waves her hand over his scarred chest, “We don’t need any more set backs.”
He lets go of her wrist, his hand dropping to his side. “You shouldn’t have come after me,” he murmurs defeated. “You didn’t need any distractions from getting Henry.”
“Fuck you, Hook,” she snaps, pushing herself up, pacing back and forth next to his bed and this time he sits himself up despite the pain that shoots through him, ignoring the stabbing sting at his back when it comes into contact with the pillow. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you stupidly made yourself the bait, maybe you should have thought about it before you got yourself tortured, and fucking almost killed.”
“Better me than you or your family! I’m disposable! While Pan was busy with me, you should’ve already gotten Henry back, and gotten your arses out of this God forsaken island!”
“Fuck you!” Emma repeats, a roaring heat behind her words, “And what? Just leave you? You’re fucked in the head if you think, even for a moment—“
“No one will miss me – I’ve lost everyone who could possibly miss me if I were gone – you have Henry, your parents, the whole of Storybrooke! Hells, even the Crocodile has Belle that’d miss him! I have nothing!” his voice rises. The speech has taken the energy out of him and he slumps in defeat. “You should have taken the opportunity – if the tables were turned, I would’ve.”
She shakes her head and sits back down on the edge of the bed. “Enough with the self-loathing act. There are people who’d miss you,” she says quietly. As much as it’s not a confession, he’ll take it. The corner of his lips can’t help but curl upwards, but when she shoots him a glare, he forces it into a completely natural totally neutral look. She grabs the new bandages and begins wrapping it around him. He tries not to be affected by her hands on his chest, nimble fingers keeping the white cloth in place. “Plus, we both know you wouldn’t.”
“You underestimate me as a villain,” he says, leaning forwards so she can wrap his back and cover the arrow wound. “A villain would definitely leave you for dead.”
“Good thing you’re a pretty shit villain, huh?”
He shakes his head with a smile, allowing her to finish her task.
“There,” she says, lightly brush her palm over his chest. “Good as new.”
“I’ll add those scars to my collection,” he grins, but she just frowns at that. “It was a joke, Emma. I’m a pirate – I scavenge the seven seas and I get hurt along the way. Wait till my next adventure and I’ll add whatever scars that gives me to the shelf,” he shrugs and smiles, but that doesn’t change Emma’s expressions and now he frowns.
“Next adventure, huh? Where’s that going to be?” she asks, busying herself with menial things she really doesn’t need to be fidgeting with, shifting things on his desk, then shifting them back.
There’s a hint of something behind her questions, a tinge of sadness or foreboding that he isn’t quite confident to name, but he swears it sounds a lot like what he suspects it is.
“Well,” he starts slowly, eyebrows furrowed as he gauges her reactions, “Wonderland’s always fun – lots to steal,” he mentions, and she nods repeatedly, though never once looking at him. “Agrabah seems like a nice place – though not much water to steer this vessel,” he says as he runs his hand over the wood of his wall. “Though, I’m willing to stay in—“
There’s a rush of footsteps above them and he knows there’s no point trying to continue his sentence before—
The hatch opens and David’s head pops in, nodding once at Emma before climbing down the ladder and into the cabin. “I’ve got it,” he mutters, holding up a tumbler that he hands over to Hook.
He doesn’t waste time to dwell upon it, drinking it in it’s entirety, and see? Learning how to chug does come in handy.
It’s Emma’s hands that reach his body first, cutting in before he can, pulling away the bandages and they both watch as the black lines retreat, growing fainter and fainter, until it’s finally gone.
She lets out a breath when she sees he’s safe, her eyes closing momentarily in relief.
“Thank you, mate,” he nods at David, a grateful smile on his lips.
“After you saved my family, it’s the least I could do.” The man slaps him firmly on his shoulder, stroking Emma’s head before he climbs back up and out of the cabin.
“You’re okay,” she breathes out a moment later, patting him lightly after straightening the bandages.
“Aye, I am,” he nods. “About what I was saying before, lass – I’m quite willing to see what adventures S—“
“Doesn’t matter,” she cuts in dismissively, standing back up and cleaning out the area, throwing the old bandages into the bucket with the cloth. “You could go anywhere you wanted, really. You do better alone, right?”
She’s moving away when he says, “Quite right, that is,” and he watches as her head nods once before her hand moves for the rungs of the ladder.
“Though not anymore, I suppose.”
She pauses once more, but two seconds pass and she’s climbing out from his cabin and away from him.
He sighs.
A man can try.
-/-
“Though not anymore, I suppose.”
He says it with so much hope but so little confidence, and she lets out a breath.
She doesn’t turn for fear that the slight curl of her lips will give away too much, that her the look in her eyes will give him the hope she cannot promise she can give to him.
She doesn’t let him see it, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t smile anyway.