distingue | welcome home // psl

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welcome home // psl

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.

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In truth, back when they were sharing this cabin together, it was probably a rare if not entirely impossible sight that Wendy be escorted so fairly and delicate inside of it. It lacks presumption.

The place has barely changed, in the same way that Hook barely ever changes. Some new furniture to replace the old, but all the same stolen splendor of polished wood and brass. The harpsichord remains in place. He turns his hook out of her hand as he moves deeper inside, headed straight for where his twin cigar holder rests on his desk. He sets about replacing it in the slow but practiced methodology of someone with only one hand.

It's the matchbook he may need help with, but for now, keeps his back to her. "There's a chest of jewelry in the corner. You can have a peruse, if you so desire something shiny."

As the door closes behind them, she watches as he goes about, neatly removing her gloves with precise, small tugs on the end of each finger. It's all very deliberate between them now, in battle and in conversation, but she is satisfied to find herself still under his skin. So many years have passed, and she had-

Nothing. Nothing at all.

"So I may, at that." Her fingers trail over his belongings with a proprietary air that's entirely casual, her interest as much in what hasn't changed as what has. For all her lightly expressed interest in the jewels, she's in no hurry to see them. "This is your conversation, oh captain, my captain; what shall we talk about?"

He turns in time to see her creepycrawl her fingers over his things, mustache twitching ever so in sneer before he focuses back on his task, clenching the stem of his pipe between his teeth and taking out the black-headed matches, between thumb and forefinger. Then, Hook wanders closer, and offers the latter thing.

It's a talent, to talk through ones teeth, and it's among his. The two cigars barely shift between syllables. "Oblige me, dearest," he requests. His eyes are bright, almost too sharp with inquiry. Yes, he's interested in conversation.

"And then why don't you regale me with your latest adventures."

With the very faintest of smiles, she lights the match and his cigars - the flame burns nearly to her fingers under her watchful eye before she shakes it out, taking a moment to pocket her gloves. "My latest adventures," she echoes him, turning away to return her attention to objects rather than the man who claims them (would Captain Hook himself be considered an item upon this ship-? a curious thought). "I found a place between worlds, as Neverland and not, a great deal, like Neverland at all. I spent a good deal of time in the port of Wonderland, after I befriended their little girl-queen. They were at war, there, I thought it might be amusing for a while."

It had been; so had the Hatter.

The smoke is breathed deeply, and then follows him like a small, grey cloud as he finds his own territory within the cabin to claim. A handkerchief, embroidered, is used to dab at leaking red through torn cloth, the slice in fabric and skin both too fine to need much immediate fussing over, and then tossed aside.

There is hardly war, in Neverland. Skirmishes, more like.

Plumes of smoke escape his nostrils like steam from that of a bull's, chin tipping back as he listens. "And no Captain Hook to cast a shadow over your glory as feared pirate captainess of the seas. No Peter Pan to stir tricky feelings."

"A Hook," she disagrees, an odd smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she moves through the room - picking things up and turning them over in her hands, replacing them as she found them, investigating the room as if she must in some peculiar way reclaim space that was hers, once. If she notices the attention paid to his wound, she makes no sign of it. "A man with a face very like yours, a name...but of some other life not lived by you or I; he wasn't mine." Not as he is here.

She doesn't deign to respond to the mention of Peter Pan, though for a moment it tests her resolve not to take more than they'd fairly agreed upon, out of impulse and a hint of spite.

"But I don't find you cast much of a shadow over me, my dear captain. Wherever I am."

What.

The idea of another Hook induces a stab of disgust and odd paranoia that others probably wouldn't have, more for his own legacy than his physical self and presence, and disturbance flashes behind his eyes as he glances again her way. Placated once more, in some strange way, of who happens to be Wendy's, and it being him -- brought about at the same time when he finds that idea most offensive.

He watches her toy with things and reclaim the space, puffing cigar smoke to turn the staler scent of past cigars into fresher sharpness. "Of course, silly me. Wendy Moira Angela Darling, who ran away to become a pirate, would never dare let her past keep its clutch on her. Not especially when," and the creak of floorboards signals lazy approach, his voice at a hiss, "she slits throats and abandons ship just to get away from it.

"But believe me, my love -- there will always be that shadow, for as long as you are in Neverland."

Wendy glances to the side of her at his approach, but doesn't quite look back over her shoulder; she is aware of him, and that suffices. She doesn't point out that she couldn't have taken a ship alone, or that she'd then killed them for an attempt at sabotaging her and handing her back to Hook for a traitor- he is hardly going to abhor their behaviour as she had at the time, and in the end she had merely taken what she'd learned and used it.

(But he is the only one who knows, truly knows her of past, present and future and it is a knot in her shoulders that won't ease.)

"You are a creature of contradictions," she informs him, pitching her voice as placid and unaffected as she isn't quite, "to attach such an endearment to such a speech."

"It is among my many attributes."

He's closer, now, from the proximity of his voice and the reek of cigars, although these are held away to smolder as they like. "Does it bother you?" In truth, it bothers him that it's pointed out, enough that he affects a sort of simper in his voice that is transparently disingenuous. The sound of a metallic slither slides by her ear, when the rough tip of iron hook takes the liberty of pulling almost intangibly through her hair as if parting curtains.

His voice adopts its edge once more as he adds; "I'm afraid that contradictory will have to suffice when it comes to my view of you, lady captain."

Her fingers flex on the hilt of a dagger - his dagger, lifted from the case in front of her as they spoke - but she only tilts her head, permitting this peculiar intimacy. The smoke and the steel are as familiar as as the sense of him at her back, and she is briefly vexed by that familiarity, by how easy it comes. Still.

"In fact, I had thought I might drive you out of my memory," she says, almost thoughtfully, as she tests the edge of the blade, "with the Hatter's two hands."

Yet here they are.

The change in his breathing is the only thing that warns her before his hook slips forward enough to conform its cold curve over the base of the throat, the tip set against her collarbone and a sharp tug backwards threatening to break skin -- although he is well-versed in its use enough that the angle keeps it blunt.

He only wants to get her attention, after all.

"Then perhaps I ought to leave more marks," is hissed uncomfortably close to her ear, all rough gravel in his voice rather than affected silkiness. No one forgets Captain James Hook.

Wendy's back collides with Hook's chest and she slides the dagger in her hands up between herself and the hook, the flat of the blade against her skin before she uses it to establish herself a little more space free of steel. "Are you jealous, James?" she murmurs, injecting just the right hint of amusement into her voice, turning her head enough to see him behind her.

She could say it was only a fling, that the mere fact of her presence now proves how much she still remembers, a hundred things- but she feels no such obligation to explain or justify herself to him.

It is among my many attributes is a phrase that might have gone better here, but admitting anything of the kind is so far out of Hook's mind that it's barely even true. His head tips enough so that he can peer at the obstruction between his hook and her throat, and at this distance, she can probably get a sense of his too even breathing.

He doesn't answer her question, nor does he back off.

"Why are you back? Why have you returned?"

"I have made a home of Neverland," she reminds him, pressed further back to his chest in a small effort to put more distance between her throat and aforementioned hook. Funny how their conversations aren't always so much different to their swordfights. "It was never in my mind to be gone always."

From Neverland? From him?

There's a slight jostle, if only to test her strength against his hook, the metallic scrape of steel and iron sharp and intrusive. Hook is having a hard time convincing himself to release her for all that the desire to spill blood has waned enough with his black temper, and not only because he can feel the spring-loaded tension behind her own blade and know well the skill at which she has mastered most things that are metal and pointy.

He reaches passed her, then, to set still smoking cigars in their piece on the furniture in front of her, angled to ash on the marked and scraped floor rather than elegant polished wood.

Whole hand freed, he tugs her around to face him, flipping hook enough that it more blocks the presence of her knife than hold her at ransom, although the curved end of the implement still reaches too close to her face for particular comfort. He is studying her face at this range, as if to find the answer to that unspoken question there, but reading the subtler nuances of people is not one of Hook's better known qualities.

"What is never in a woman's mind? Nothing but betrayal and change. What is it you are taking?"

Her expression is artful affectation; she lifts her chin away from the edge of his hook with a small smile that suggests tolerant indulgence of his unruly temper, leaning her weight back into the cabinet that's now behind her rather than in front of. She pushes his hook down, slow and deliberate, and rests her free hand on the lapel of his coat. "I was rather thinking I might have this."

She means the coat, James, not you.

That has his brow furrowing, not quite catching her meaning before he tips a look downwards to see her hand rest upon coat lapel, all golden embroidery and red satins and velvets and big sleeves and does a wonderful kind of flare thing when he turns sharp and-- his hook isn't by her face anymore, and it's wrenched back to his own side as he gives up an inch of ground.

"Wench. Away from me a mere speck of time and she already forgets how to undress a man. Shoot off my hat and gamble away my coat, will you?"

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.

"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.

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.

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."

"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.

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."

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."

"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.

welcome home // psl

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