A Dangerous Game: Part II
A Once Upon a Time Fanfic
He takes the princess back to his ship, much to the displeasure of his crew. The last time he brought someone back for more than a night was Milah, but this–this isn’t that. The princess is going to get him his revenge, and then she’s going to get him as much gold as her parents are willing to pay in ransom, and he along with his crew can live out the rest of their lives in luxury. They’ll thank him in the end.
He hesitates just outside his cabin, hand on the doorknob. He could swear he hears her voice, but there shouldn’t be anyone else in there. He only left her for a moment to clean the dreamshade off his hook.
He pushes open the door to find the cabin just as empty as he expected. She sits on the edge of his bed, dressed only in a thin shift she must have had under her dress, and he makes no effort to hide the fact that he’s admiring her figure. She watches him just as intently, eyes tracking him across the narrow room though she never moves.
“Who were you talking to?”
Her eyebrows draw together slightly. “You. I told you to come in.”
He arches an eyebrow, smirking. “Did you now? Invited me into my own cabin. How kind of you.”
A pretty blush creeps down her neck, but she doesn’t look away. “I thought you knocked.”
It doesn’t sound quite right, but he didn’t hear her clearly enough to dispute it, and it’s not like there was anyone else in the room for her to be speaking to.
He takes off his coat, hanging it beside the door, then pulls the hammock from a chest. He strings it across the room, pretending he doesn’t feel her gaze on him.
“You’re sleeping there?”
“Aye. As I said before, it is my cabin.”
“I meant you’re not taking the bed.”
“It would be bad form to take the bed and relegate you to the hammock. Unless you’re proposing we share?”
He turns and is surprised to find her sitting on his desk. He hadn’t heard her move.
She levels him with a hard jade stare. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
He smirks. “You can’t blame a man for trying, Swan.”
She jerks back slightly, clearly startled by the nickname, then her hand comes out to find her necklace. She tilts her head, watching him carefully. “And what am I supposed to call you?”
He sweeps his hook out, bending into a deep bow. “Most call me Hook.”
“Well, Hook, I never did thank you. For saving me.”
He takes a step closer, tapping his lower lip. “Perhaps some gratitude is in order.”
One corner of her lips twitches up. “Yeah, that’s what the ‘thank you’ was for.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that all your freedom is worth to you?”
Her grin widens, showing just the glimmer of teeth, before a mask descends, wiping her expression carefully blank. Her eyes drift off, staring at something just over his shoulder. He looks back, but can’t tell what she’s looking at.
“Swan?”
Her eyes snap back to his, and she smirks. “Please, you couldn’t handle it.”
He leans close enough to hear her breath catch. “Maybe you’re the one who couldn’t handle it.”
He doesn’t really expect it.
He’s been flirting with her all day, and she’s been giving it right back, but he assumed that was where she would stay–safe, on the verge of something, but never crossing the line.
He doesn’t expect her to hook her fingers around the back of his neck and drag his mouth to hers, and for a moment, he’s frozen. Then her hands slide down to his chest, fingers slipping into the neck of his vest and running down bare skin, and that jolts him into moving because he’s been drawn to this woman since he first saw her, and he’ll be damned if he misses kissing her.
Her lips are hesitant and careful against his, but when he runs his tongue along the seam and she lets him in, she responds just as enthusiastically as he does. She moans when he tangles his fingers in her hair, tugging gently, and shivers in his arms when he runs the sharp point of his hook lightly down her spine.
He’s kissed plenty of women in his overly-long life, seeking a numbing distraction from his ghosts and revenge, and that’s all he was expecting from this, but her fingers trail sparks along every bit of skin she can find, making him feel alive for the first time in decades.
She pulls back, but tightens her grip, keeping him close, and he takes the moment to catch his breath. He hears her breath catch, but doesn’t think much of it, until she whispers, “he’s gone.”
“What?” But her lips are on his again, and nothing else seems nearly so important.
He realizes he’s tangled in her when they finally part, her legs twined around his waist, hiking her skirt up past her knees, and one of her hands running through his hair, the other tucked into his vest–
She grins triumphantly as she lets go of him, displaying the flask she somehow lifted off him.
He feels like he’s been doused in cold water.
Because somehow he managed to forget what sort of game they’re playing. That they’re both just using each other to get what they need, and then they’ll go their separate ways.
She lifts the flask to her lips and raises her eyebrows, clearly expecting him to make some sort of comment, but he still feels too dumbstruck to think of anything to say.
He staggers back a step, hoping he managed to say something to excuse himself, before fleeing above deck. He takes over at the wheel, needing something to do to keep his thoughts away from the woman sitting alone in his cabin. But every time he finds himself touching his lips as though he can still feel her warmth there, he wonders if it’s a fruitless endeavor.
He wakes with his head pounding, and he wonders just how much he had to drink last night. It’s difficult to recall, which is unusual. He’s usually rather conscious of his limits.
The second thing he notices after his pounding head is how quiet the ship is, and a sudden certainty fills him that something is wrong.
He scrambles up, ignoring how the sudden movement makes his head even worse, and throws on his coat, dashing up the stairs.
It’s darker than he expects, nowhere near morning, and he looks up, automatically trying to gain his bearings through the stars. But these aren’t the stars he grew up learning. Instead, horribly familiar constellations take form over his head, rooting him in place with panic.
Neverland, a place he vowed never to return to. Twice.
And he has no idea how he got here.
His crew works silently, hunched and tense, like mice believing they can hide from a hawk, and it feels like they never left.
Did they?
The thought claws its way up his throat, choking him with the idea that maybe their escape, all these months they’ve been free, have all been a dream, torn away with the coming day. He realizes–they’re going to die here. There’s no way out, never was, and without the passage of time, they’re just targets for Pan to pick off one by one for his own amusement.
“Hook?”
He whirls around and sees her.
Standing limned in the moonlight, she looks like an angel, a savior, and he’s moving before he realizes it. He leads her back to his cabin, but they don’t even make it through the door.
“Hoo–”
His name ends on a gasp when he crushes his mouth against hers, and he takes the opening. It’s desperate and frantic, and when he backs her into the wall, she hooks her fingers in his belt and pulls him against her. She breaks away, tilting her head back to catch her breath, but he doesn’t stop, mouth running along her jaw and down her neck. He needs to touch her, needs to taste her to prove to himself that she’s not just an apparition, and he tells himself that it’s because she’s the only evidence he has that he hasn’t gone mad.