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Wendy watches the blood drip down onto the floorboards.
Plink, plink, plink. She looks up, slowly, towards Captain Hook’s face—watching her own intently—waiting for her reaction. She quickly schools her expression. Doing her best to remove any emotion as she tries to contain her fury, her panic, her fear, and her pain; she knows that at the first hint of it, Hook wins. Peter told Wendy that he cannot be trusted. (Implying that Peter can be, theoretically).
Hook’s lips dip into a frown, briefly.
(Point to Wendy).
She’s still tied up in his Captain quarters, though.
…
…
Neverland at first had felt like something out of a dream.
Magic. True and real. Capable of astounding wonders like flying, and fairies, and mermaids. Magic was everything; magic could stop her from growing up. Magic could save her from the expectations that she will enter into society, find a husband and bear his children.
Despite Mother and Grandmother’s best efforts, Wendy doesn’t want to understand the world of secret kisses hidden in the curl of her mother’s lip. She doesn’t want to spend her adulthood forced to endure endless nights of parties full of idle, performative chatter. Or to sit still, breathing shallowly in corsets to watch melancholic operas in languages that she can’t speak.
She tried to want it; playacting her future roles in the nursery sometimes, instead of sword fights and mermaids and pirates. She imagined the most handsome man that she could conjure up leading her through the parties, the opera, and domestic mornings. Her mind never was able to hold onto the image of him for long. It would flicker in and out like a candle flame; the gallant man before her changing shape, morphing himself into a beautiful woman, before he was back again, and again. No matter how she tried to hold onto it, to gear herself up towards excitement, the way that other girls spoke of men and parties in school, it never quite satisfied the way it had when she woke up sometimes in the most quiet, darkest parts of the night with an odd, nameless ache between her legs. She was too ashamed to ask her mother if it was normal, because what if it was not? What if she was defective somehow? Wrong? Magic could make her right. Neverland could save her.
The excitement that she could never quite muster up before was bursting out of her as she flew away with a magical boy who crawled into her bedroom window. Flying. Fairies! Mermaids! Wendy hadn’t even hesitated, not really.
Not until she was there.
Not until she saw how skinny the other boys were. How dirty. How feral and cruel and uncivilized. The contrast between her brothers and Peter’s boys was vast and alarming, at first glance. More alarming was how quickly John and Michael adapted to them, instead of the other way around.
A mother. She is only twelve years old. She isn’t even the eldest among them. Peter is thirteen. Slightly claims to be, as well. He is certainly the tallest, after Peter. She doesn’t know how to be a mother, and she has no interest in it whatsoever. That’s why she is here. She wants to climb trees with the boys and swim with the mermaids.
Peter’s smile turns almost cruel, just at the edge of his lips, and Wendy agrees to motherhood.
It’s the first sign.
…
…
Captain Hook—Jas—according to the sign on his door, seems keen on using Wendy as a trap to lure Peter to him. He doesn’t need to be kind to her for that, but, surprisingly, he brings her food, eating bites of everything himself to prove that none of it is poisoned, and then he sits down to share a civilized meal with her. She hasn’t eaten with silverware for weeks—maybe longer—she doesn’t know how long they have truly been gone, maybe whole years have been taken from her. There is both something unsettling about it, and something that fills her with longing and relief.
Wendy sits across from Hook and subtly tries to study him.
Peter has spoken of him at length. His Great Nemesis. The antithesis of all things bright and fun and joyful. A grown up. A traitor.
(Implying that he might have been something else, once upon a time).
They teased Hook and his band of pirates once, on their way to the mermaids. Wendy had only seen him from afar. All she could glean was his height, his hair, his clothes, and the sound of his bellow as they flew past, laughing.
He hadn’t seemed like a real threat. Nothing in Neverland had, then. Not yet.
Except, then there had been a sword at her throat.
A boy—a man? He seemed to transition between the two, like a candle flickering, hard and soft all at once, never staying quite long enough to make a term stick.
He smiled. Hard and cruel; his teeth nothing but rows and rows of sharp needles, like the ones she pricked her fingers on when she embroidered with Mother.
“A girl?” he called it upward, to where the group of other boy-men waited at the edge of Peter’s tree. An ambush in waiting. “What use does the Pan have for a girl ?” he sneered, as though it was the lowest of things a person could be.
Hot waves of shame curdled inside Wendy’s stomach. She had been asking herself the same nearly since the moment she stepped foot in Neverland. “A mother,” she whispered.
The boy-man burst out laughing and Wendy recognized it—the same laugh from the ship. His hair was tied back now, instead of draping down in waves across his back. His red, flashy coat was gone, in its place, earth tones to blend in with the forest. The pirates had planned this well.
Hook grinned, and then the sword was gone, replaced by a rough hand that never relented, and a cloth against her mouth, silencing her scream.
She understands now, as she looks at Hook across from the table, why she had thought him a boy at first. When Peter said grown up, said traitor, said pirate, she had imagined someone her father’s age. Instead, looking at him now, he looks barely older than the oldest boys at Eton. He’s more likely to be closer to her age, than her father’s.
It’s a surprising and sobering thought. The word ‘traitor’ rattles around in her brain, curious and unrelenting.
Wendy picks up her fork the way that Grandmother taught her, playacting the lady. “What’s your plan?” she asks him, primly. “Lure Peter in, then toss me overboard?”
Hook grins that needle-like grin again, and Wendy recognizes it—Peter’s is the exact same. Full of teeth and bravado. She wonders if one of them learned it from the other, or if it’s just something that boys can all conjure up at will. The antithesis of the kiss in the curl of girls’ mouths. She wonders what that might mean, if so. Her mother would have an answer—nothing that Wendy would like.
“Something like that, yes,” he says, delicately biting a bit of melon. Wendy’s eyes without even her own consent, watches his lips intently as he chews. “Any objections, Mother?” It comes out cruel and teasing and Wendy feels that quick-hot shame in her belly again. She had been irritated by the role since she arrived, but there was a strange innocence to it, and to how the boys related to her. Even Peter, for the most part. But, now, the way that Hook says it comes out mocking and almost lewd, like she’s gone and done something wrong that she doesn’t even understand.
“Quite a few,” Wendy says, trying to channel her Grandmother at her most prim and irritated. Hook’s smile twists, losing some of its cruelty. “On the whole, I enjoy swimming, but I don’t see how I would find being unceremoniously tossed into the ocean, presumably to my death, to be something I should look forward to.”
“If you enjoy swimming, then you might not perish,” Hook counters, sipping his wine.
“I doubt you’d help me back up to the ship, regardless.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Hook asks, seemingly to be genuinely pondering it. He fixes her with a hard stare, probing and leaving Wendy shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “What could you offer me? I don’t have any need for a mother.”
“Everyone needs a mother,” Wendy counters, missing her own terribly, even if there are things she never feels comfortable asking, or being, around her. Wendy has never once doubted her mother’s love. She knows how profoundly lucky she is, in that.
Hook snorts, gulps two large sips of wine, and then slams the goblet down onto the table with a harsh thunk. “I’ve already had one, thanks.” He sneers at her, his stare twisting something awful in her belly, indecent. “I certainly don’t need some brat playacting at one for me. What are you, eleven?”
“Twelve,” Wendy whispers. Hook’s laughter rings out cruelly in the room between them. Wendy glares back up at him, fierce, like Peter. “And how old are you? ” she snaps back. “You can’t even grow a proper beard! You hardly look older than an Eton boy!”
Hook sobers at that, a horrible, horrible stillness settling between them. “Just what the fuck do you know about it?”
“Plenty,” Wendy says, doubling down, though it’s the most frightened she’s felt since coming to Neverland.
Hook suddenly pushes himself up from the table, snatching his goblet and refilling it. The wine sloshes over the edge and onto the floorboards, staining red. (Adding to the already congealing blood). He stumbles, already drunker than Wendy realized. As he advances on her, Wendy remembers the sword at her throat, Peter calling him dangerous, the hook on his left hand—she doesn’t back down, but inside, she is terrified.
“You are a child, ” he sneers, his hot, rancid breath right up against her face. “You’ve got a few years yet, before you know anything at all about Eton boys. And, Wendy Darling, I promise you, the Pan will feel like a cakewalk, then.”
Wendy turns, just enough to meet his eyes head-on. “Were you one?” she asks, her voice not quite a whisper, but not projecting. Gentle enough not to spook the drunk boy-man in front of her who holds all the weapons.
“Was I what? ”
“An Eton boy.”
Hook’s eyes go distant, unresponsive. Wendy thinks that he won’t answer, but then, “once upon a time, I was a lot of things.” His gaze clears and he levels it back on Wendy, some of the cruelness seeping out of it. “I’m sure you’ll learn that yourself, if you haven’t already.”
And then he leaves her alone, shaking with adrenaline.
…
…
Peter doesn’t take kindly to his authority being challenged, Wendy and her brothers learn that early on.
His punishments are quick and cruel. Nibs has lost the tip of his middle finger; Tootles has a scar across his right temple; Curly is waif-like from constantly being denied his supper as punishment for a crime that Peter no longer even remembers.
What had felt at first glance to be child-like camaraderie, is quickly realized to be feral competitiveness among them. Peter doles out scraps of food, attention, affection, and everyone fights for it. His whims are as fickle as the breeze—one minute he loves you, is fascinated by you, the next, he dismisses you with a casual cruelty.
“He kills them,” Tootles whispers to Wendy, maybe her third week there? Time has lost meaning, despite her trying to track it. “Or banishes them,” he adds, “if they want to grow up.”
Wendy is aghast. She’d noticed some behaviors that proved worrisome, but nothing like killing. “That can’t be true,” she whispered back.
But Tootles nods, emphatic, “I heard it from an older boy who disappeared in the night when I was seven!” He frowns, “or maybe twelve?”
Wendy glances at him. “How old are you now?”
“Oh,” Tootles frowns, counts on his fingers, then shrugs. “Nine?”
“You can’t be seven, then twelve, then nine,” Wendy tells him, gently. Tootles only shrugs again, unbothered. Not one boy ever claims to be older than thirteen, and none of them are particularly adept at mathematics.
“Anyway, Jordy told me that he saw it happen,” Tootles says, taking up the tale again. “Peter cut one boy’s throat, quick as you could blink, and then we all ate him for supper.”
Wendy nearly vomits. “No, you did not,” she insists, desperately hoping that this is nothing more than one of the boys’ make believe stories.
Tootles shrugs again. “Not me, I didn’t eat anyone, this was before I got here. Jordy said.”
“Who’s Jordy?” Wendy asks him.
Tootles looks at her, confused. “Who?”
“You said… Jordy told you this story, who is Jordy? I’ve never met him.”
“I don’t know,” Tootles says, and runs off to tackle John.
Wendy watches them wrestle, unsettled. It’s not the first time that a boy has forgotten something that they only told her a minute or two before. Peter is the one that it happens to the most, but it happens to them all.
It’s the first time that Wendy wants to go home, but it isn’t the last.
…
…
Hook leaves her alone in the quarters for hours. Eventually, Wendy crawls into the bed and curls up to sleep. She wakes up to the smell of freshly baked bread, and nearly cries with longing.
Hook is seated at the table again. Thankfully, there is no sign of him having come anywhere close to joining her in the bed during the night, though, it must be his. She pushes herself up, feeling strangely embarrassed to be caught unawares. Disheveled. She’s slept piled together with the boys in Peter’s treehouse for days—weeks?—and felt no trepidation about it whatsoever, but Hook isn’t a boy.
She doesn’t feel his gaze linger for long. He glances her way, looks her over for a moment, almost clinically, and then nods to the table, “come eat,” he demands, “we have matters to discuss.”
Cautiously, Wendy climbs off the bed and takes a seat across from him, same as the night before. He’s holding a mug, now, instead of a wine goblet and Wendy smells coffee. It smells like home.
“Do you drink it?” he asks, nodding towards the carafe.
“No,” Wendy whispers, clearing the sleep from her throat. “My mother says that it will stunt your growth and your mind if you drink it too young.”
Hook laughs then, a soft, almost fond chuckle that surprises Wendy. “My mother said the same,” he tells her, then takes a sip, looking at her mischievously over the top of his mug. “I never listened. Started drinking it at thirteen.” He pours her a cup and pushes it over towards her, and it feels like a test.
Wendy holds the mug, allowing the warmth to seep into her hands. The smell is wonderful and brings tears to her eyes. Gosh, how she misses her mother. She brings the mug to her lips and blows on it, carefully, before taking a small sip—the way she watches her mother do every morning. Wendy’s face scrunches up and she puts it back down again immediately. Across the table, Hook laughs that soft chuckle again. “It’s a taste that has to grow on you,” he admits. “Like wine.”
Wendy takes some of the bread, instead, ripping big wonderful chunks to eat with butter. “Perhaps,” she shrugs, though she doubts either taste will ever grow on her. They eat in silence for a few moments, and there is something almost dreamlike about it. The morning light coming in from the window, the gentle rocking of the boat on the waves, the clink of their silverware, and the smell of the bread, coffee, and eggs. It all feels like something from back home… but not quite. She is acutely aware of the fact that she is in a magical land, with a pirate, but there are enough glimpses of home that makes it feel in-between, some other world. She’s almost disappointed, when Hook clears his throat and breaks the moment.
“So, Wendy Darling…” he studies her, leaning back and nursing his cup of coffee. His hair is down again, loose waves across his shoulders and back, and Wendy doesn’t like the way that her eyes keep lingering there, enraptured. She wants to run her fingers through it and see if it’s as soft as it looks. She expected pirates to be greasy, gruff, and dirty. His hair looks as salt-softened as the mermaids’ in the lagoon. The morning light makes him look delicate and even pretty. “We’ve established that I have no need for a child-mother,” he says, shocking her back to look at his face.
Wendy bites at her lip. “I have no desire to be one,” she says, suddenly irritated by it all. “Peter decided that. Apparently he doesn’t know what else girls could be.”
Hook lifts a single eyebrow. It’s a skill that Wendy immediately wants to practice, herself. “Did he, now?” he asks.
Wendy nods, unsure if she should be giving him any information, at all. Hook is the enemy, if she is on Peter’s side. And… she is, isn’t she? She was. She wants to be.
(She thinks that she should want to be).
“And… what role did you want?” Hook asks. There’s something coaxing about it; probing, but not pushing. He’s good at this, Wendy realizes, she wants to tell him, even knowing that it’s all a farce.
“I don’t see why I should tell you anything,” she says, because she remembers that needle-like smile and the sword against her throat. Just because he is capable of being gallant and reminding her of home, doesn’t mean that he isn’t equally just as capable of harming her.
He nods in acquiescence, still leaning back in his seat, causal, open, non-threatening. “I can understand that,” he says. “Tell me this… what has Peter told you, about me?”
Wendy tries to raise a single brow and fails, both going up together. Hook opens his arms, chuckling, and Wendy realizes for the first time that his hook isn’t on, his left hand ends at a stump at his wrist. “I give you my word that I won’t harm you for repeating his words. I’m curious, nothing more.”
“Parlay?” Wendy asks, remembering the mention of the code in one of her pirate tales from back home.
Hook’s eyebrow raises again, and impressed look falls onto his face before he smiles, nods towards her, and agrees, “parlay.”
“He calls you his nemesis,” she tells him. “He says that you’re a traitor. A grown up. The antithesis of everything that he stands for.” She nods towards his wrist. “He did that to you, in a fight, and now you want revenge.”
Hook holds up his stump of a wrist, twisting it in the sunlight. It’s scarred over. His face, when he studies it, is a strange combination of fury and acceptance. Wendy has no idea when it happened. Peter always makes it sound like a few weeks ago, but the wrist to Wendy’s eye looks to be healed over well, not red and newly cut. “He did,” Hook finally says. “And, yes, I do.” He looks back at Wendy, eyes locking with her own, grave. “He’s more dangerous than he seems, at first. He’s very charming, when he wants to be. When he likes you. When he wants you. It doesn’t last.”
Wendy’s mind goes unbidden towards Tootles’ warnings. The flashes of anger that she’s seen from Peter. The slap, hard and sharp and sudden, only days ago across her cheek. “How do you know that?” she asks, soft.
“Because, I was one of his Lost Boys, once,” Hook admits. Wendy sucks in a sharp breath as the truth of it solidifies in her stomach. Hook isn’t looking at her, his gaze is unfocused, his mind not here, not focused on the current moment. “I loved him, once,” he adds in a shameful whisper. “I thought that he loved me, too. But… I had grown up feelings,” he spits and Wendy hears Peter’s voice coming out of his mouth. It’s like the slap against her cheek all over again; the fury in Peter’s eyes as she backed away, her stomach curdled with shame and her eyes full of tears.
They fill with tears, now, and when she looks up, she sees that Hook’s match her own. There’s an awful understanding between them, and she balls her hands into fists to try and get a hold of herself. “Did you try to kiss him?” Hook asks, and the shame doubles. Before she can say anything, deny it, Hook’s voice continues in a tremulous whisper. “I did.”
Wendy snaps her head up in shock. Hook isn’t looking at her, his gaze fixed out the window, a defiant, hunched set to his shoulders. “It wasn’t a crocodile.” He lifts his wrist up. “It was Peter’s dagger, agonizingly slow, while he and the boys held me down and taunted me. Then he fed it to the croc, after.”
The worst part is, Wendy can picture it easily. Wendy can hear the taunts with absolute clarity. She can feel her back in the mud, the spittle on Peter’s mouth and the venom in his tone. She can hear the mermaids tittering and teasing, trying to calm him, but still making fun of her as they did so. It might have ended with a part of her cut off, too, if they hadn’t been there. One of them had distracted Peter with enough flattery that he got up, forgetting his fury, and did a trick. Wendy hadn’t moved, shaking with fear and shame and confusion. The mermaid that Wendy had kissed met her eye, right before Peter flew them both away, but Wendy hadn’t been able to hold her gaze. That familiar nameless ache between her legs had curdled and left her hot and furious with herself—more confused than ever.
Peter forgot. And for that, Wendy was grateful. She thought it was only because it was a mermaid, because it was a girl. She thought it was Peter’s jealousy. She thought that Peter had wanted her to—
She closes her eyes against the other memory; her lips on Peter’s own, the rage boiling right back, quick-hot, the words just as cruel. The knife at her stomach, only her brother’s protests and distraction saving her, once again.
None of the boys had distracted him when it was Hook in her place, it seems.
She meets Hook’s gaze, and their connection settles between them, horrible and solid. Wendy lifts her nightgown, showing Hook the gash on her side, still raw and red. Not as deep as it could have been, but jagged and painful and if she were back home, Wendy knows that her mother would have shuffled her right to the hospital for stitches. Hook clucks his tongue and nods. “I thought so.” He pushes back from the table and goes over to the vanity, lifting a small tin and passing it to her. “Rub this on it in the morning and the evenings,” he orders, and makes no other move to touch her.
Wendy doesn’t know how to parse this information. She has a million questions and she doesn’t know how to ask any of them. Instead, she whispers, “how old are you, really?”
Hook snorts, derisive, as he rubs his thumb across his scared wrist. “Twenty,” he says. “Tomorrow.”
Wendy snaps to attention. “How do you know?” she asks, greedy and terrified. “That it’s tomorrow?”
Hook looks at her with something like pity. Or maybe sympathy. Wendy hates it, either way. He nods towards a calendar on the wall. “Time is hard to track, here,” he admits. “You have to really focus on it. The place wants you to forget. I had to go back home, to remember.”
Wendy stands up on shaky legs and walks over towards the calendar. The days are crossed off, methodically. When she sees today, she gasps and nearly doubles over with shock. “It’s July?” she whispers, horrified. They left before Christmas. Wendy is not twelve anymore. Her birthday was last month.
“Happy birthday,” Hook says, and she realizes that she has said all of this aloud.
“You, too,” she answers, rote. The ringing in her ears is growing, she can feel her limbs starting to shake, and the lovely breakfast is threatening to come back up again.
Hook recognizes it. Wendy barely feels it when his arms slip around her, she’s just cradled in his arms, shaking, and then she is back in the bed, still shaking. Her mother must be out of her mind with worry. Somewhere, distantly, she hears Hook tell her to open her mouth, feels something disgusting and cold placed on her tongue, and then her mind goes fuzzy. Sleep. Someone says. Her mother? Hook? Peter? She doesn’t know, her body can’t handle any of it, and she succumbs, her eyes closing and her racing heart slowing as sleep overtakes her.
…
…
There’s a moment, when she is sitting shoulder to shoulder with Peter, their hands working together to weave a basket, when Wendy thinks: I could live like this forever. Tink is flitting around them, offering instructions. Her brothers are dancing around the fire with Peter’s boys, hooting and hollering and so happy that Wendy’s heart aches.
The world of operas, and parties, and men, and motherhood, is so far beyond her, here, that she can’t even really fathom it. It doesn’t seem real. This, this is real. Neverland and all its wonders, are the realest thing that she knows, and Peter gave it all to her.
She kisses his cheek. She doesn’t even think about it, she’s just happy and wants to show him. Peter looks at her like she’s one of the pirates in the Jolly Roger—confusion and irritation the only emotions on his face. “Why did you do that?” he demands.
“I’m happy,” she says, feeling a little unsure.
“You’re weird,” Peter says, and jumps up to fly with Tink. Wendy’s cheeks flush with embarrassment, and she takes a moment to try and stuff it down before getting up to dance with the boys.
Peter forgets, and drags her up to fly. He holds her hands and helps her flip, cheering her on, and Wendy tries to forget herself, to enjoy the moment again. She is flying. But, she can’t, it’s tainted, now.
She ruined it.
Maybe magic can’t save her.
…
…
It’s light, when she wakes again. At first, Wendy thinks that she only slept for a short time, but she’s too groggy for that. Her bladder is protesting loudly, and when she stumbles up from the chamber pot to look at the calendar, another day is crossed off.
July 16 th.
She has been thirteen for exactly one month, and she had no idea.
She slept through Hook’s twentieth birthday. In his bed. Where he has been sleeping, Wendy has no idea. There is a strange kinship that Wendy feels for him, now. She doesn’t know what to do with that.
A knock on the door startles her and she yelps. Childish. She chastises herself for it. Mr. Smee sticks his head around the door. “Are you decent?” he hollers.
“Um,” Wendy looks down at herself. She has been wearing a dirty nightgown for eight months, apparently. There is nothing decent about it. “Somewhat,” she lands on.
“Wonderful!” Mr. Smee says, and barrels into the room, his arms full of garments. “The Captain thought you might want to avail yourself of some of our clothing. And he will join you for breakfast shortly.”
“Oh…” Wendy says, watching mutely as Mr. Smee throws the bundle onto the bed, beaming, as he turns around to look at her. She feels awkward and young and too exposed, but the old man only ever looks at her face.
“Make use of any of it that you wish,” he declares, and then leaves the room.
Wendy stands there a moment longer, then jerkily walks over to look everything over. She suddenly wants to rip the nightgown off—it hadn’t bothered her until now. She’s worn other things—scraps of clothes that the boys all grab at from a communal pile. She has taught Curly to sew and mend garments. They make use of soft leaves and all kinds of materials in the forest, but Wendy wants real clothes more than anything in this moment.
Of course, it’s all far too large for her, and it’s all designed for men. Pirate’s clothes. Sailor’s garments. Some flashier than others. Wendy recalls Hook’s bright red coat and smiles. She digs around, and selects a few things before glancing over at the vanity. It feels indecent, to be snooping through Hook’s things, but she does it. It’s a pirate ship, after all. A pirate takes what she wants. Certainly if she is being made to walk the plank, soon, then she might as well. Although, she is beginning to wonder if that’s truly the future Hook is planning for her.
“Yes,” she whispers excitedly to herself, when she finds a small sewing kit. Back home, she hated embroidery time, but it has proven to be a very useful skill to have, thus far. Wendy lays garments on the floor and sits down cross-legged, getting to work on tailoring some things to fit her properly. She’s so caught up, that she doesn’t notice when Hook slips inside with breakfast.
“Well… you’re resourceful,” he declares, causing her to flinch and stick her thumb with the needle. “Shit, sorry,” he says and grabs it before Wendy can blink, dipping it into his goblet. Wendy hisses at the sting of the alcohol, but he doesn’t relent for a moment or two. “I apologize,” he says, releasing her thumb a beat later. “Both for startling you and for my language. We’re… not used to having ladies present.”
Wendy rolls her eyes, sticking her thumb into her mouth, grimacing at the slight hint of alcohol. “I’m not a lady,” she tells him.
“Aren’t you?” he asks, tilting his head to study her. “You apparently know Eton boys. You knew every bit of silverware and when and how to use it properly. You’re clearly educated, and… you’re newly thirteen.”
Wendy bristles underneath all the truths. “All of that is why I left,” she admits. She’s already told him the truth of everything else, she might as well.
“Gallant men, decadent balls, and the opera not something that you dream about in bed at night?” he asks, a cruel twist to his mouth before he quickly drops it, looking apologetic.
“No,” Wendy says, pushing herself up and gathering her clothes. “Where can I change?” Hook waves his arms around his chambers. Wendy’s cheeks flame hot with embarrassment. “Not in front of you,” she hisses.
“Ah… so you are a lady,” he grins.
“No, but you’re…”
Hook gulps whatever is in his goblet. She doesn’t think that alcohol is meant to be drunk in the mornings, but perhaps pirates have different rules about it. “A man, ” Hook teases, wiggling his eyebrows in a way that Wendy knows is lewd. “Where you have been among boys these past few months.”
Wendy stiffens, suddenly remembering Grandmother’s words about never allowing herself to be alone with a man who is not her father. Hook rolls his eyes and turns around, facing the window and sipping more of his… wine? Vodka? Wendy has no idea. “Relax, Darling,” he says, and Wendy doesn't know if it’s a term of endearment, or simply her surname—she’s heard the pirates talk amongst themselves, and many of them only call each other by their surnames. “I’m not attracted to children,” he snorts. “You might be a lady in some other life, but I’ve got no use for one, here.”
Attracted. The word sticks in Wendy’s ribs. That’s it. That’s why. Attraction is why she kissed the mermaid. Kissed Peter. It’s why she keeps looking at Hook’s hair and lips. It’s that nameless ache between her legs. There is a word for it. And Hook said it casually, as if it is something perfectly normal.
“What do you have use for?” Wendy demands. He keeps his back turned, so she pulls her nightgown up over her head and begins to dress herself.
“Well… that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he says. Wendy tugs the pants up, fastening them with the belt. None of the shoes will fit, so she doesn’t bother with them—she’s been running barefoot for months now, anyway. She smooths down her shirt and then sucks in a calming breath.
“Done,” she calls out, only a little shaky.
Hook turns slowly, his eyes studying her. Then, he grins. “You look like a pirate. Which leads nicely into my proposal.”
Wendy’s eyes widen. “You want me to be a pirate?”
Hook’s single eyebrow goes up, again. “What do you think about Red-Handed Jill?”
“Jill’s not my name,” Wendy counters.
“No one on this ship goes by their real name,” Hook says with a shrug. He motions towards the table, and Wendy’s stomach growls loudly. She digs in.
“Your name isn’t Jas Hook?” she asks, after a few bites.
“No,” Hook says. He holds up his left hand, the hook in place, today. “Self-explanatory. I leaned into it.”
“And… Jas?”
Hook hesitates then meets her eye. “My first name is James. Jas is a decent shortened version. Much better fit for a pirate, don’t you think?”
Wendy looks at him. “I like James.”
He blinks in surprise. “Well…” he clears his throat. “Don’t you ever call me that,” he says, and Wendy can tell that he means it. “Not unless we’re alone,” he offers.
She holds her hand out across the table to shake. “Alright, deal.”
James grins at her, shaking her hand. “So… Red-Handed Jill?”
“I…” there is a part of Wendy that wants to say yes. She’s always loved stories of pirate adventures. There is something romantic about sailing off to new seas, living on a ship amongst friends. There is something that she likes about James. But—
July 16 th. Eight months.
Her brothers.
“Only if you took John and Michael, too,” she says.
James frowns and shakes his head. “I’ve got plenty of men. Enough boys, too. Teenagers. What I don’t have is a girl, a clever right hand. First mate. Not a proper one.”
“I can’t leave my brothers with Pan,” Wendy says. “I won’t.”
James sighs, clearly irritated. “I’m not bringing them, Wendy.”
“Then I’m not coming,” she says. “I’ll take them home.”
“How?”
“I’ll… we’ll fly,” she says, though she doesn’t sound sure. “We flew here.”
“With Peter’s help,” James reminds her.
“I…” Wendy squares her shoulders. “I’ll figure something out,” she declares. “But I’m not leaving them.”
James sighs again. He looks disappointed. “That,” he points. “Is why I would have wanted you. But, alright Wendy Darling. I’ll help you get your brothers home.”
“Really?” she asks, completely taken aback.
“Peter will be furious,” he grins. Needle-like; and there is the imfamous Captain Hook.
…
…
When Peter flies them to Neverland, he holds Wendy’s hand for most of the way. His grin is bright and full of excitement—delighted by Wendy’s sheer wonder. His hand is warm in Wendy’s own, sure and steady.
She loves him, in that moment.
She always will, despite everything. Peter showed her magic. Peter taught her to fly.
She’ll never forget him.
…
…
John and Michael fight Wendy. Fight the pirates. Fight against going home. They join in with the other Lost Boys, swinging sharp sticks and hollering and declaring Wendy theirs. Their mother, not their sister. They don’t even remember their real mother.
She has to get them home.
Peter is, indeed, furious. He speaks of Wendy as nothing more than a possession, a toy that was taken by a man that he hates. Not his friend. Not a person that he loves.
Wendy hates him, in that moment.
She always will, despite everything. Peter stole her away from home. Peter hurt her, and humiliated her, and laughed at her, and scorned her. And made her seem wrong simply for her own feelings.
She’ll never forget him, but, he will likely forget her.
He always seems to.
…
…
They offer to take the Lost Boys along home, too. The twins refuse. As does Slightly. Nibs and Tootles look like they are considering it, but worried. They keep glancing back at over Peter.
“GO,” he hollers. “ANY IDIOT WHO WANTS TO GROW UP, GO. GET OUT OF HERE.” He lowers his voice, deadly calm, not child-like at all. “I’ll kill anyone who stays, if they want that.”
Tootles runs to her, Nibs and Curly half a step behind.
Peter screams the entire time that the ship sails up into the night—propelled by a magic all its own. The fact that grown ups might possess magic, too, is so enraging to him, that Wendy watches as he bashes his sword against the ground, over and over and over again. His is face so red it looks like he’ll burst. She watches the rest of the Lost Boys run away from him, hiding in the trees until Peter forgets and it’s safe to come back out.
Michael is thrilled to be on a flying pirate ship. John is more subdued about it, but Wendy can tell that he’s excited as they all are. She knocks her shoulder into his own, grinning.
“You look like a pirate,” he declares, a hint of surprise in his tone.
Wendy looks up at James, steering the ship. Close enough to hear them. “They call me Red-Handed Jill,” she says, and John whoops with delight. When Wendy glances back up, James catches her eye, and winks.
…
…
Her mother cannot stop crying. She refuses to let the three of them go. Father sputters at the sight of Tootles, Curly, and Nibs, but promises that he will find good homes and proper names for them all. Wendy clings to her mother and curses herself for scaring her. She doesn’t regret going—she can’t, not truly—but, she does regret staying for so long.
She looks back up towards the sky and the open window. She can’t make out individual pirates on the ship, it’s moved too far away, now. But she holds her hand up, anyway, and one of them waves in response.
Wendy smiles, and tucks her face into the crook of her mother’s neck, inhaling deeply.
…
…
She is two days shy of her eighteenth birthday, when there is a knock at her window. Wendy wakes, groggy and sleep-mussed, to look out and see a figure hovering outside.
Peter, she thinks, panic and excitement mixing together.
It’s been years since she flew. She is still not quite a lady, despite her mother’s best efforts. Home was hard to adjust back to, after the wonder of Neverland. Forcing herself to fall in line, when she had been moments away from becoming a pirate, was a harder pill to swallow after a week or so of relief at being home.
She does, though, for the most part.
The dread for her future still lingers; the nameless ache between her legs gains a name and a certain understanding; but, Wendy puts her wooden swords away, and locks her window at night. She forces herself not to think of them, and all they represent, again.
Until the knock.
Wendy sucks in a breath, and only has a moment to try and decide what to say to Peter, when she sees instead, the face of James Hook, holding onto a rope and tapping his hook lightly against her window, sporting a charming grin.
Of all the things that she expected, this was never one of them. Peter, or Tink, or one of the other boys, maybe. Never Hook.
“Are you going to let me in, Wendy Darling!?” he calls out through the closed window.
No. Her heart beats. She remembers the sword at her throat. Hook hangs there, all his strength centered on his one arm as he dangles, four stories above the ground. It’s been almost four years since she saw him last, but he looks unchanged at first glance. Still flickering, candle-like, between boy and man—hard and soft all at once, never staying long enough to make a term stick.
He smiles at her and doesn’t hide his teeth, baring those sharp needles, like the ones that she no longer pricks her fingers on as she embroiders—she has mastered the performance of ladylike behaviors, nowadays. She wonders if she appears similarly to him, now; flicking in and out between girl and lady.
His smile shifts, that almost soft thing that she remembers from the day he told Wendy about Peter. She still remembers the sword, but she also remembers the feeling of him lifting her into his arms, cradling her kindly, and tucking her into bed.
She opens the window. Perhaps, she has not entirely mastered the performance of ‘lady’ quite yet.
“Wendy Darling,” he drawls on a laugh, “I thought you might let me drop to my death for a moment, there.” He bends over and sucks in a deep breath, showing Wendy that it was taking more effort than he originally presented to hold himself there.
It might be a manipulation to get her to trust him. Wendy does know much more about Eton boys, about men in general, now—she is not so easily bought.
“That would leave me with a pirate, splattered against my sidewalk and irritating questions to answer to the police, the public, and my parents.”
“Ah, yes, the three p’s,” Hook says with a mock-gallant nod. “I remember them well.”
“Do you?” Wendy counters.
Hook straightens, smooths down his tail-coat, and smiles—all rakish charm. It’s irritating to know that Wendy is enamored by it, but she doesn’t let that show. “I do, indeed, Wendy Darling. I always be sure to leave Neverland long enough to remember.”
Wendy can’t school the way that her face drops, her breath going rabbit-fast—excitement and terror mixing together. “Do you?” she asks, forcing some calm into her tone. “You look… unchanged, from when I saw you last,” she tells him, but, even as she says it, Wendy realizes that her first assessment is wrong. He still looks youthful, it’s true; his skin is smooth, his hair is soft and tussled, and his body is lean and agile—but he is undoubtably a man. A pretty, slightly more effeminate one, but, up close, you would never really mistake him for a boy.
“Do I?” he asks, grinning. He clocks Wendy come to the realization, and she is not prideful enough to pretend that she wasn’t wrong.
“Perhaps not,” she admits.
“You, however, look much changed,” Hook says, and takes a moment to study her properly. It’s late, and she is—once again—before him in a nightgown. It’s a shapeless thing, but his eyes are keen, and a pirate is not a gentleman, despite Hook’s occasional playacting at one. He looks her up and down and does not pretend otherwise.
Wendy watches him watching her. She has felt the gaze of men and boys many times over the last four years—much of it unwanted. She knows what it feels like to have their eyes linger on her body, leering and possessive. She knows when there is danger lurking behind their eyes, even when they think that she is completely unawares. Hook’s gaze is not possessive, or lewd. He’s taking her in, and she senses the hint of appreciation, of attraction, but he moves on, remains on her face and gives her a cheeky grin.
“How often have you left Neverland, in the last four years?” she asks, deeply curious.
“A few times,” he says, a little cagey. Then, he sighs and moves to sit at her window bench, pausing, just before sweeping his tailcoat out, “may I?”
Wendy nods her permission, and he sits, smoothing his trousers before looking back up at her. She likes the height advantage. She’s grown, in the last four years—she’s taller than her mother, equal with John, to his absolute displeasure—but, Hook still has an inch or two on her when they stand side by side. “How many is a few?” she asks, wanting him to stop being vague with her.
He doesn’t know her that well—and he knows her better than anyone—and he catches the hint of frustration where no one else in her life does, these days. “Nine times, exactly,” he says. “Six of those for 3 months, approximately. The other three for only days at a time.” The cheeky grin comes back. “Specific enough for you?”
Wendy rolls her eyes, and sits down at the edge of her bed, crossing both her legs and her arms. “Yes,” she allows. “And why are you here? Now?”
For the first time all evening, Hook looks a little unsure. “Well… I have a proposition for you,” he says.
Wendy blanches. “I beg your pardon?”
“If I recall—and I do my level best to take meticulous time—you turn eighteen in two days, do you not?”
“I do,” Wendy says, her voice flat, giving nothing away.
“Have you made plans?” he asks. If he truly was an Eton boy, once upon a time, then Wendy knows exactly what he is really asking. Is she betrothed?
“No,” she says. Not for lack of trying on Albert Whitmore’s part. He’s been doing his damndest to court her for the last two years. Her father approves of the match, as does her mother, but Wendy has stalled at every opportunity. Albert is very good at being charming, at playacting gentlemanly kindness—but he only ever looks at her as a possession. He forgets to lift his gaze up from the swell of her breasts constantly, and he takes every given opportunity to touch her body, no matter how clear she has made her position on the matter known.
“University?” Hook asks.
Wendy clucks her tongue in irritation. “My father hasn’t yet agreed,” she admits. Not for lack of trying on her part.
“Well then,” Hook says, and leans forward, ready to discuss options with her as though she is an equal. Wendy finds that she likes it. “My proposal, then,” he says. “But first, I’d like you to answer a few questions for me.”
“You came to my home, ” Wendy starts.
“The proposal will be revoked and a waste both of our precious time if these questions aren’t true. I’m merely trying to grant you the respect that you deserve, Wendy Darling.” Wendy rolls her eyes again, and Hook grins at the sight, pointing. “That’s a promising start.”
“What are your questions, Hook?” Wendy snaps. “It’s past midnight.”
He straightens, face going serious. “Are you happy to be home? Out of Neverland?”
Wendy pauses. She knew this would be coming, but the truth is, she doesn’t have a clear answer for him. Yes, she is happy to be home, in many respects. She knows, now, that she never would have been able to live there, with Peter, in any sort of long term. There are a great many things that chafe at being home—her parents trying to push her into a marriage with a man that she finds loathsome, and refusing her more schooling, among the first. There have been many slights of a similar nature over the years—girls are not meant to make decisions about themselves. But…
She’s glad, not to be stuck forever at twelve. Her body changing came with many horrible new rules and aches, but with aging, comes knowledge. Understanding. Wendy enjoys learning, she always has. She is proud of the high honors diploma that she was given last week. She likes understanding her mother better, now. And she marvels, at the ways that she has finally come to understand herself.
But, she does miss flying.
“Yes,” she answers Hook after a beat to think on it. “For the most part. I’m glad that I left. I needed to.”
Hook nods in understanding. “Now, are you glad that you left then, or are you glad to be rid of it, forever?” he adds.
Wendy looks up at meets his gaze. “What are you proposing?”
Hook shakes his head. “Not yet. I want—”
“Just tell me.”
“Have you ever kissed another mermaid?” he asks, shocking her into absolute silence.
“I never told you about that,” Wendy says, in a horrified whisper.
Hook nods, his face gone gentle. “You did, sort of,” he admits. “In your sleep, that night.” Wendy’s face goes bright red with shame, until she remembers him telling her about his own ill-advised kiss with Peter. “However, the mermaids and I—contrary to Peter’s belief—are old friends. Maren also told me about it, a little while after we took you home.”
Maren. Wendy cannot believe that she forgot her name. Neverland is good at that.
“There are, obviously, no mermaids in London,” Wendy says, sounding a bit too similar to her Grandmother for her liking.
Hook laughs, bright and airy. “Metaphorically, then.”
Julia. Wendy’s mind instantly conjures up the image of the servant girl, pressing Wendy up against the kitchen wall of her uncle’s country home last summer. Her face flushes and Hook claps his hands together in delight . “Quiet,” Wendy hisses at him. “If you wake my parents up, I assure you, my father will kill you, and then me.” Hook’s grin only widens and Wendy glares at him. “Have you kissed any of your fellow pirates, lately?” she whisper-hisses.
That gets the grin off his face. But only momentarily. “As a matter of fact, yes,” he smoothes his trousers, almost primly. “I’ve got something of a new crew, these days. Which almost leads nicely into my proposal. But, I have a final question for you, first.”
“Go on, then,” Wendy says with a resigned sigh.
“Wendy Darling… how does Red-Handed Jill sound to you, these days?”
He is smiling, as he asks her. The cheeky, mischievous one, but there is enough softness to his eyes that she understands the seriousness of his question. He saw something in her, back then, and it’s still there, now. A kinship. An understanding, between the two of them.
Wendy feels it, too. She always has, despite her better judgement.
“What—exactly—are you proposing, James?” she asks him, and if anything, the use of his first name only further adds to his glee, instead of dampening it.
“I find myself in need of a First Mate,” he tells her. “I’m putting together a new crew—some old remain, Mr. Smee says hello—and we’re sailing further and further from Neverland, these days. Or rather, exploring the truth depths of it, properly now. I thought, you might perhaps be up for an adventure.”
“What are the strings?” she asks, still wary. Peter’s eyes, full of fury flash across her mind. She has no desire to join into their feud, especially not now.
“Only small,” Hook says, admitting to the fact that there are, indeed, some strings. “As I mentioned, we’ve been leaving Neverland for more and more stretches, these days. I’ve got something of a con going in London,” he comes out and says, truly shocking her for the first time since he climbed through her window. “They think that I’m a respectable young man, but… a wife would alleviate their growing suspicions considerably.”
“A wife!?” Wendy yells, far too loudly. They both go silent and listen for a full minute, but thankfully, her parents aren’t particularly light sleepers, and Wendy’s room is far from their own. “A wife? ” she hisses again, once the coast seems clear. “You have got to be joking.”
“No,” he says with an easy shrug. “Not really. But also, yes a little bit.”
“James…” Wendy warns.
“Here is the proposal, Wendy Darling,” he says, sensing—correctly—that she is about to be done with his bullshitting. “I am in need of a partner. A true one. Someone that I can rely on. Someone who will carry out my orders to the crew, but who will call me out on my foolish ideas in private. The wife part is simply part of the con, and doesn’t need to be legal, per say, only appear to be so.” His face shifts, he’s been serious this entire time, but there is something gentle, focused, to his words as he adds, “I promise, I have no untoward implications here. I will not claim any marital rites upon you. Nor force you into any legally binding promises. If you wish to leave my ship at any time, I will allow it.”
“But…” Wendy says, waiting for the catch.
Hook shrugs. “That’s it. I want a First Mate who is clever, who understands me. Truly.”
Wendy hasn’t yet met a man who lays it out that simply, but she doesn’t trust it. Not truly. Peter was a liar, but so is Hook. “And if I never once agree to go to your bed?” she asks. “If I in fact, want to go into a mermaid’s?”
Hook’s grin turns sly and wicked. “Then I will press you for details, after, and be delighted for you.”
“James…”
“Wendy Darling, I will not lie to you and tell you that I would kick you out of my bed. You have grown into a beautiful young woman. And, though I tend to mostly find myself appreciating the male form, I enjoy spending my time with women, occasionally, as well. But, what I truly want from you is partnership. I want you to be a pirate on my crew. That is why I am here.”
“What about Peter?” she asks, because they’ve both been dancing around it for far too long.
“He’s still ruling the roost in the forest,” Hook admits. “Still stealing boys from their beds and slitting their throats whenever they cross him. He has mostly forgotten our feud—he leaves Neverland less and less, these days, so he forgets more. But I will not lie and say that we don’t cross paths, we do. You will. If you come.”
Wendy pictures it. Peter with his dagger, flying above her. “I have never been schooled in anything beyond embroidery, painting, dance, singing, piano, and cooking,” she admits. “My childhood swords have long since gone to some other child to play with, James. I’m not a pirate.”
“But, Wendy Darling,” he asks, holding his right palm out, open and waiting. “Do you want to be?”
“I…”
Yes. Her mind reels. No. She wants to go to university. Yes. She doesn’t want to marry Albert Whitmore. No . She never wants to see Peter again. Does she? The balls and the corsets and the lingering hands of men all still await her, regardless of what she wants. But… time also moves differently, in Neverland. They weren’t gone for eight months, here. It was fuzzy and hard to grasp. James says that when she wants to, then she may simply leave… and Wendy believes him.
She looks down at the palm, open and waiting, then back up to James Hook’s face. A needle-like smile spills out across her own lips, and when Hook recognizes it, the mirror of it appears on his own. Wendy slips her palm into Hook’s. Their hands fit. The grip is strong and steady, without feeling overpowering. “Yes,” she says, her voice clear, decisive. “I accept your proposal, James.”
He tugs her up towards the window, towards his ship, waiting for them up in the sky. Flying, she will get to fly, again. Second star to the right, then straight on till morning. Wendy slips on her coat, tosses some of her belongings into a rucksack, and takes Hook’s hand again. “Hold on tight, Darling,” he says, gripping the rope with a strength that despite herself, Wendy finds appealing. She has never been this close to a man that isn’t her father or brothers—and they are not much of a hugging family. It’s nicer than she thought it would be, because of everything that Hook represents, has promised, and wants from her, and she holds on tight.
A pirate.
The rope hauls them up after two long tugs from Hook, and Wendy laughs, bright and wicked, as they fly through the night.