welcome home // psl

[distingue]

Pity the man who tells Captain Hook that one Captain Darling is back on the seas of Neverland.

It had mostly been to convenience and proximity rather than mercy that the solid iron tip of his hook had buried into bar top wood rather than the softer gut of the messenger himself, but the barman had known better than to stand very close in the first place, even with the counter-top set between them. Splinters came up when he'd wrenched the implement back out in sullen drag of iron through oak, sweeping back out into the port town and the dull of the evening with an agenda coming together in his mind, quite unstoppably. It was a far easier thing to know of Pan's comings and goes, with the shift of icy winter in favour of bright spring dawn and back again, but in this case, Hook could only rely on chance and rumour and it isn't as though he ever asked. Very much.

Time is difficult to track, in this place, but it doesn't take very long.

Staring down the sight of collapsing telescope, the click of brass on iron, the Queen Margaret is only so familiar a shape, anchor down in the cove and away from the shallows. It is possible that whoever is on watch could see that they, in turn, are being watched, but the Jolly Roger sits dark and quiet on the evening horizon, lamps snuffed and voices at whispers, as if they were lurking some fat merchant ship headed out to sea and not a fellow piracy vessels. The crew is a mixture of being on edge at their captain's strange, new priorities, or too dull to be on any sort of edge at all, but that is of no consequence. Punishments come in the form of whippings or the end of his hook. Being nervous and unsure is a state of normalcy.

Turning from the rail, he sets his sights on his bo'sun. "Let us welcome the good captain back to our waters."

They hear it first, over there, some few minutes later -- a thunderous clap of gunpowder and a spark of flame in the distance, before the cannon ball cuts through the air at a hiss, knifing through the rigging of the Queen Margaret, a wooden screech of stress as it snags through rigging and sails into tangles of mess, before it makes its impact on the other side, a rickety shingle in the outlawed port fairly exploding in pieces of brick and wood in unfortunate collateral damage.

To see in the direction it came from would be to see the Jolly Roger promptly sailing in their direction, ever distinctive flag raised aloft and the pale glow of lamps from its deck.

Comments

[ohdarling]

Wendy spins the dagger in her hands as he concedes that much, her small smile broadening just a touch; that's better. "A woman enjoys her trophies as well as any man," she drawls, sliding away from him now that she isn't obliged to be trapped or force the issue. "It might go famously with the hat I picked up in Wonderland, I daresay."

The Hatter's hat, specifically; she had a veil sewn on and refused to give it back, which was just as he deserved for taking a thief to bed with him in the first place.

[distingue]

"A trail of broken hearts and disrobement, truly."

At least he has enough of his humour back to be sarcastic, a haughty scoff in his tone as he tries to measure which would be most intolerable -- consenting to her request, or being reminded to do so. James finds a middle ground -- he slips his hook beneath the leather sash that binds closed his coat, tugging it loose with a fwip of fabric and a rattle of its buckle. Efficiently and primly, buttons and fastenings are undone until the heavy garment lies open from his shoulders, revealing predictable cotton frills and satin waistcoat beneath, hidden finery.

And then his hands lift in invitation.

[ohdarling]

Almost regretfully (it is such a pretty weapon), she sets the dagger back down in its case. She can't have both without breaking the terms of their agreement, and such a tenuous truce shouldn't be toyed with too much. Not when they've still got cannons trained on one another, and not when she's so loathe to damage the Jolly Roger at all. She has a knack for wriggling out of trouble when she wants to, but calculated risk and knowing where to draw the line is a part of that.

"How like old times after all," she observes slyly, stepping forward to slide the coat from his shoulders and down, navigating the hook without catching it on anything in an old, learned skill that she evidently hasn't misplaced in her travels.

[distingue]

He peers down the length of his arm to see this little touch of familiarity and detail. He assists inasmuch as doing slackly nothing is assisting, only drawing his arms back once he is rid of the thing, as nonchalant as if he'd only ever wanted her to remove his jacket since she'd first touched down on his deck. "I trust it won't slow your flying too much," he says, raising his hook to observe it as one might their own nails. "It'll be big on you, after all.

"Ah, and of course." He moves aside, then, towards his desk, flipping open a small chest containing some of the treasure he had mentioned before. He rakes his hook through the inside, snagging up a few chains glittered with gemstones and fine metal, offering it out with an extended arm. "The expense."

[ohdarling]

"Oh, I intend to have it tailored," she returns, pleasantly, as she accepts the jewels with her free hand and slides all but one of the chains into a pocket on her new coat. The last she holds up to the light to examine it before slipping it on, shaking her hair out over it at the back. The diamond rests against the very top of her corset, a slight sheen of sweat on her skin from their earlier exertion visible where her blouse is open above it.

With the coat folded over her arm, she tilts her head and considers the stain of blood on his shirt. "That is such a dreadfully awkward angle," she observes, the barest twitch of a smile coming for just a moment at the memory of how she'd put it there. "Will you let me...?"

'Let' her, yes, she's good at navigating ego.

[distingue]

He glances down at the injury itself, free hand coming to touch where the fabric is stained as marker of her victory, and it hasn't stopped thanks to the fact that he insists on walking around and trapping women against furniture. The look he returns to her is flat, and he raises the arm that suffered its brutal amputation as if-- as if anyone needed any reminders at all, let alone Wendy Darling.

His smile is crooked. "I have suffered greater afflictions than your kitten scratches, my lady."

Hook is only occasionally good at navigating around his own ego. Occasionally, it gets in his way quite tremendously. He picks up his smoking cigars, not yet bringing it to his mouth. "And why, I was just about to propose you flutter on back to your ship."

[ohdarling]

A pause, then a shrug, elegant and insouciant. "Oh, suit yourself. You always do." She could've shot him in the face and not the hat, and her infuriating smile is almost better than taking the time to remind him of that pertinent detail - he can guess for himself why she remains so self-satisfied in the face of derision.

"But I rather think you missed me."

[distingue]

"I rather think you care not a lick what I miss."

A fresh puff of smoke puts up a hazy, intangible wall between them, his eyes flickering bright blue behind it, and a huffing exhale disperses the cloud to reach drifting tendrils in her direction. "And I do believe you are stepping out the bounds of our arrangement in what you may or may not have. Take care that I do not see fit to revoke our conditions, my lady."

Never mind the dagger.

[ohdarling]

Her gaze tracks to the dagger in its case, and she's about to object on the grounds of having been very good and put it back (despite terrible temptation-) when her expression turns almost mischievous and she glances back at him.

"The heart is like an ocean of its own, James, it can't be stolen. You gave it to me fair and square in your own words."

...so there.

[distingue]

His crew is going to suffer such a mood from their captain this week.

"Get out," James near snarls in sudden snap of renewed anger, hook swiping the air in imperious gesture, ash spilling on his sleeve as smoldering embers litter the ground, the doubled pipe neglected in his whole hand. "Leave, now, with your winnings, before I start investigating the worth of hearts with the cold of my iron hook! I'll run ye through for your presumptions, believe you me!"

Not that his eyes have begun their telling glow of red, but there is a certain measure of promise in his voice.

[ohdarling]

As impudent as she is, Wendy does have a sense of timing and she's already moving toward the door before he's finished making his threats, the sudden clatter of her boots announcing to crew near enough to hear that this audience is definitively over before she swings the door open. (This exit is a good deal more familiar than their sedate, polite entrance and regardless of good sense, it makes her grin.)

"Oh, my darling, I missed you too-!"

And then she was in the air.

[distingue]

"Vile, treacherous!"

Yes, this is familiar.

"What worth of a woman or pirate without loyalty! Without good form!" This echoes through his cabin and then back out onto the deck, standing framed in the door way with his hook come to wedge against the edge and focus only for the skies. "Just fly, fly away, ye..." And his words run out around then, seething where he stands and slightly wild, before his eyes grow a little distant in philosophical realisation.

And a little narration. Much to the bewildered stares of his crew. "She misses Hook. Ah. What sense this day now makes, what worth. Raise anchor! We set sail!"

And with a metallic scrape of wood, the cabin door slams shut once more.