Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tinkerbell woke up from the thudding sound of heavy footsteps climbing up the entrance to her tree house. In the blink of an eye, she was on her feet and moved through the darkness, catlike and silently, her knife in her hand. She rounded the intruder elegantly, grabbed of his hair from behind as soon as he was visible and yanked his head back, holding her knife against his throat.

The tall figure stumbled a little, and she heard the squeaking of leather and the hoarsely muttered curse: "Bloody hell!"

"Hook?" she blurted out in disbelief and let go of him, taking a few steps back again. Quickly, she lit her lamp. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

The flickering flame threw weird shadows across his scruffy face, painting a sinister pattern on his handsome features. But the shadows under his strikingly blue eyes, she noticed, weren't just an illusion created by the dim lamp light. He looked weary and tired. "Not exactly a warm welcome for a friend, love," he mocked and tilted his head.

"Oh, are we friends, now?" the fairy asked with a sarcastic undertone and put her knife away again.

"Well, we aren't foes, are we," he retorted and sauntered over to her. "And if I'm not mistaken, our last encounter was pretty... friendly." he ran his tongue along his bottom lip in a blatantly lewd gesture and smirked that infamous smirk, but Tinkerbell noticed that it looked a little forced. Something was off with him. Still, his smug attitude was infuriating. Did the pirate really think he could show up after weeks of absence without a notice, and she would just be here waiting to let him into her bed again?

"You're disgusting," she shot at him and scrutinized him with narrowed eyes. He was a little unsteady on his feet; his previous stumbling hadn't been only due to her pouncing on him. Her nostrils caught a whiff of rum. "And you're drunk," she added with repellence. "Remove yourself from my quarters."

"My apologies, Lady Bell," he replied in a slight slur and swayed out his right arm in an exaggerated bow. "Actually, I've tried to liberate you from my presence on this lovely island." She raised an eyebrow in question, and for a moment his eyes left hers, and his jaw clenched. "Alas, again, I was thwarted." His voice had a hard edge now, and she waited for him to go on. He slumped down on a chair, reached for his flask and uncorked it, taking a deep gulp from it, while she rolled her eyes. He closed his eyes for a second, letting the burning liquid roll down his throat, head thrown back, before he added: "And another poor unfortunate soul got harmed in the way." His voice was rough and almost lifeless now, sobered, and Tinkerbell was shocked at the amount of self-loathe she heard.

"What did you do?" she asked, a hint of softness in her voice now.

He tilted his head in a shrug and took another swig from his flask. "Oh, I just added another mark to my list of villainous deeds," he snorted. "Just what you'd expect from a pirate."

"Hook." She went over to him and put one of her small hands on his leather-clad shoulder. "Tell me what happened."

He didn't look at her when he answered. "A sweet, innocent girl asked for my help. I saw a chance to use her to escape from Neverland." His jaw clenched again, and he tilted his head in a fatalistic shrug. "So, I betrayed her."

Tinkerbell didn't understand what he was telling her, but it wasn't really important. She was sure he was right to feel guilty about whatever he'd done, but she also knew he wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose. He might be a smug bastard and a pirate, but she'd heard enough of his story and seen enough of his behavior to know that there was more to him than that. In fact, she'd come to realize pretty early after she'd met him that he was someone driven by despair rather than a real villain. He was a poor, unfortunate soul himself. His ringed fingers thrummed a restless, maddening rhythm on the ever-present flask. Firmly, she curled her fingers around his to stop the erratic move and squeezed them. "Hook," she murmured again in a soothing voice.

Suddenly, he jumped up from the chair, freeing his hand from her grasp in one brisk move, and grabbing her chin roughly, pushing her against the wooden wall. Her eyes widened in surprise – not one moment was she afraid of him – when he bore his red-brimmed stare into them and growled: "Killian. My name – is Killian." At her gasp, he let go of her face just as briskly and almost staggered back, rubbing his hand over his mouth. "I'm... I'm sorry, I..." His voice was broken, and he shook his head while retreating to the exit, his faced bathed in shame. "I apologize for my behavior and the disturbance," he muttered.

Tinkerbell reached out quickly and got hold of the sleeve of his heavy leather coat, holding him back. He froze in mid-movement and stood rooted to the spot. "Stay," she simply told him and, when he turned around to look at her questioningly, added: "I missed you, Killian."

A dim light flickered in his eyes when he heard his name, his true name. "You did?"

She nodded and took a step nearer. "Sure. We're friends, aren't we?"

Later, in her small bed, she cradled his head against her chest when he'd finally fallen into an exhausted, restless sleep, often interrupted by twitches and groans. Killian Jones might not be part of Pan's brigade, and he was most definitely a man and not a child – but he was above all the epitome of a Lost Boy, if she'd ever seen one.