open } burn the land and boil the sea

[unhand]

♬ I'm On a Boat - The Lonely Island

WHO || Hook and anyone who wants to visit him
WHAT || Catch-all post for Jolly Roger interactions.
WHERE || The Jolly Roger, docked in the Thames
WHEN || ~whenever works~
HOW || idk go with your heart

[Hook's pretty much abandoned his room at the castle now that his home is put back together. He's at the Jolly Roger nearly every day, cleaning, doing minor repairs, or sailing her around just for fun.

If asked nicely, he might give a tour.]

Comments

[uncurse]

... Excuse me?

[ she doesn't need a sense motive check of 24 to realize he's not talking about their mission. her brow steadily furrows as indignation builds. ] What the hell is that supposed to mean?

[unhand]

I talked to Faye. [Come on Emma does he have to fill in every single detail. IT WAS YOUR STEAMY LESBIAN AFFAIR.]

[uncurse]

... Yeah?

[ she's not following, homie, you gotta give her more than that. ]

[unhand]

[His sense motive of 20 (which is magic for him omg) makes it clear she has... no idea what he's talking about. Between the fact that it would be a pretty obvious line to follow if she'd slept with Faye and her frequent expression of disapproval of sleeping with someone her age, he starts to get the idea that maybe, just maybe, Faye was just a very convincing liar.]

...and she led me to believe some stories I'm beginning to think weren't true.

[uncurse]

She does that. [ emma ain't even surprised, and while she'll be asking faye about it later, it's nothing for her to be worrying about right now. but she has to do a double take because her sense motive of 29 has her attempts to put it out of her mind only making it clearer what hook was getting at. ] Did you think - ? [ she can't even voice it because that's the dumbest fucking thing she's ever heard and she sincerely hopes hook isn't that gullible. she shuts her mouth, shakes her head. ] Forget it.

[unhand]

She was very convincing. [Which may or may not confirm her suspicions.] Not all of us have your superpower. [His sense motive is a +1 HE REALLY IS THAT GULLIBLE.]

[uncurse]

I'm pretty sure for a story like that, most people don't need a superpower to spot it's a bunch of crap.

[unhand]

It did seem... surprising. I never took you for a hypocrite. I simply see no reason she'd have to lie to me about that.

[uncurse]

We're talking about a lost little girl who supplements control for the fact that she can't remember a day in her life when she's believed someone loved her. She doesn't want a reason, she wants a reaction. [ and now emma sounds pissed about it, actually, because that lost little girl is someone that emma understands implicitly and she feels closer to faye than she does most adults because that lost little girl is still stuck inside of her somewhere, and someone had taken advantage of her once, too. ] How hard is it for you to get through your head that she is a kid?

[unhand]

[It would help if she looked like one, but Hook's not stupid enough to say that to Emma.

But her words make a lot of sense. He hadn't thought much about Faye past her attractiveness and her being a lovely, willing distraction. He hadn't thought about why she'd want to have sex with him. Why wouldn't she? Plenty of other lasses did. But she was young. Younger than Hook had realized at the time, but still.

Emma isn't the only one that can relate to Faye. Hook can remember the love of his brother and the loyalty and respect of his crew, but all that was centuries ago. Before he lost his hand. Before Neverland. Faye wasn't the first woman he distracted himself with and even when it didn't go that far, he'd often found flirting a far too easy way to get what he wanted. It wasn't love, but it was something. Love was terrifying and far too rare. At least lust and sex were understandable and useful. A game, but one he could win.

But lost or not, he was a grown man. He didn't always have much wisdom, but he'd lived long enough to have his naivety and innocence stamped out. At Faye's age, he'd still had his brother, and hadn't even figured out just how seductive he could be. She shouldn't have had to find out so young.

He knew he could hardly be the cause of Faye's troubled life. As angry as Emma was at him, Faye probably had been going after reactions like his for far too long for the individual encounters to matter much. But that didn't mean it had been right to sleep with her when another woman was so thoroughly on his mind. He should have known better. They both should have, but well, he was the adult.

He pulls his flask out from his pocket and takes a swig.]

It's finally sinking in.

[uncurse]

Good. It's about damn time. [ there's a flicker of conflict in her expression as she watches him, seeing something shift within him, but she can't get a good read on it. too much going on beneath the surface. so she just nods, squares her shoulders. ]

[unhand]

[He offers her the flask.]

It won't happen again.

[He doesn't just mean sleeping with her, which he's already sworn off. He means misunderstanding her so completely.]

[uncurse]

[ she watches him warily for a moment before she reaches out to take the flask and raises it to him with a grateful nod. she takes a sip, tilting her head a bit because the rum burns as it goes down, worse than any she's had. not particularly surprising, granted. ] How close to making shore are we?

[unhand]

Another hour and we'll make shore. [Hook's ship is ~magic~ so who even knows what the time is in real life, it doesn't matter. He waves his Hook past her at a desk with drawers.] I was simply coming in to grab some charts. It's not a shore I know well.

[uncurse]

Well, don't let me stop you. [ she makes a sidestep, turning to gesture for him to move past her with the flask, then holding it out to offer it back to him. ]

[unhand]

It's not urgent. [He takes the flask back from her and moves towards the desk anyway. He puts the flask down and starts rifling through it until he comes out with a map that looks glaringly modern in the old fashioned cabin, especially while being held by an old fashioned pirate.]

[uncurse]

[ she falls into a comfortable silence, watching him with only a mild interest as he rifles through the desk. 'it's not urgent' seems like an invitation for conversation, but she doesn't have much to say. she hasn't had the energy to focus on much other than a way to bring her father back from what's tantamount to exile, and it's clear in the distracted distance that reflects in her eyes. ]

[unhand]

[Hook slips the maps under his arm and picks up the flask, taking another sip and watching her.]

Have you talked to him at all since he left?

[uncurse]

I can't. No communication. Wherever he is ... [ she doesn't even know that. doesn't even know if he made it safely, she realizes. she shakes her head. ] It's part of the deal. If he's gonna stay away from Amara, he needs to stay away.

[unhand]

Not for much longer. [They've got a plan. They're getting a magic apple. The corner of his mouth twitches up in what could become a hopeful smile, but doesn't quite make it there.] If this works.

[uncurse]

I'm not hanging my hopes of breaking the curse of the Magi on a magic apple from some goblins. [ in other words, she's here, risking everything to try this one thing and she doesn't even think it will really work. she just has to try. ]

[unhand]

[His expression softens. That's Emma all over. Doing things she doesn't entirely believe on the off chance it might help. Hook doesn't know if he trusts the info coming in either (mostly because of the source), but at least he believes it's possible, maybe even likely, that it'll work. If they can retrieve it, at least.]

It's the best chance we've got. Unless you've been coming up with better ideas?

[uncurse]

[ she shakes her head, glancing down. truth be told, she can't stop wishing there were some way that just finding mary margaret could fix this. true love's kiss had broken curses before, but the problem was that it wasn't charming who was cursed. it was amara. and amara seeing mary margaret and david together was a sure way for her mother to wind up dead. it wouldn't be some family reunion. ]

I'm just not going into this expecting miracles. That's all I'm saying. [ and she wishes she had better ideas, but she's not the magic expert here. gold is. and he'd be a considerable amount better at it, she can't help but reflect bitterly, if he remember a damn thing about his life before the curse. ]

[unhand]

Have hope, Swan. [He says it softly, stepping in a bit closer as he does. He may be taking this expedition with his own grain of salt, but he does believe there's at least a good chance it will work. Well, a medium chance, anyway.] Miracles happen.

[uncurse]

Not to me, they don't. [ there's a slightly embittered, tight-lipped smile at that, the forced kind that's more of an attempt to be polite than anything. ]