Thirty years with torture you can't comprehend / Forty years, they're seeking for a means to an end / Fifty years attached onto puppeteer strings / Who would do such terrible things?
Name: Bones
D.O.B.: December 30th, 1724 (Died at 57, 300 y/o, Capricorn)
Identity: Gay cis man (He/him)
Magic status: Demilich (Known only by the Hauntley Inn)
Accent: ??? very difficult to place. Vaguely European
Appearance: 5’8”, white, unusually pale skin with a thick build, brown eyes, and shaggy mid-length salt and pepper hair, along with a permanent circle salt and pepper beard, as well as a tattooed X next to his left eye
Style: Dresses drab and in dark colors, usually a simple t-shirt and pants, often seen in a messy apron
Occupation: Chef at the Hauntley Inn
Relationship Status: Single
What would my character know?: Bones is a bit of a cryptid. He has lived in this town seemingly for decades working at the Hauntley Inn, but he doesn’t participate in town events and only seems to emerge at the most random times and places, such as auditioning for the yearly play/musical every couple of years
If I Google them?: You will find Bones, the 2005-2017 TV series
Other: For Magicks with Perception, Bones will register as inhuman. Being around them may give an “off” feeling, but unless you have come across another demilich, it will be hard to pinpoint what exactly he is
Wolf had one eye, at all times, on Yvette. He did not trust a single centimeter of the woman and all of her charm fell completely flat with him. She was here to cause trouble, he knew it. So as she sat in the dining room, looking for all the world at home, Wolf had his eye on her, intensely.
And it seemed he wasn't the only one. Wolf caught sight of Bones, lingering by the door, longer than he usually would as he watched carefully what the woman was doing.
Hm. They would have to put their heads together. -
------- *Later That Night*-------
"Bones," Wolf said, abruptly as he passed through the kitchen, where King was finishing a few last pieces of washing up. He gestured with his head towards the door. 'Let's talk.' The gesture said, and it was not really a question; it was an instruction.
Holding the back door open, Wolf felt the cool air on his face, and stepped eventually out into the garden, so he could start to lead the way to a quiet, secluded spot where he did not have to fear eavesdroppers.
Of course Bones didn't trust Yvette. He'd had hundreds of years worth of evidence to prove it was a dangerous folly. And yet, since the time she'd come back, he had yet to see her make her usual moves. Sure, she gathered ingredients and reagents, but it was as any sorcerer would, with no ill intent or underhanded methods. As she had promised, she had yet to order him to do a single thing.
Still, he didn't trust it. And he wasn't the only one.
Wolf came in, said a single word, and nodded towards the door. It was a language that Bones spoke well, and he merely put what he was doing to the side. Giving some final orders to King, he slipped out.
Bones could not feel the cool air, but he could see it in the lack of bugs flitting through the garden and the way the grass swayed in the breeze. Once they made it to a secluded spot, he folded his arms and sighed.
Smee wasn't going to flee. Bones had found him once and would find him again. And, more importantly, Smee didn't want to.
Yes, fine, he could admit it. He didn't want to. Being rich and successful was nice, but it was lonely and, quite honestly, boring. There was something romantic about playing at being an outlaw that Smee hadn't realized until now that he wanted so badly.
"We might as well celebrate," Smee said innocently. "I'll have a bottle sent up. Some chocolates and fruits, maybe, too."
It was a long night, but certainly not unpleasantly so. He'd had his fair share of affairs in his time since leaving the crew, but there was something so different being with someone you knew, rather than a one-night stand. It was raw and intimate as each man worked through their feelings of not only each other, but the stretching loneliness that life away from the sea had granted.
Maybe the marriage wouldn't be real, but for just that one night, it was.
From there, it was careful planning. They made appearances with one another in front of all the right people, had a few dates, mostly with Smee's acquaintances, and eventually had a ridiculously staged proposal in public, with someone filming for posterity.
Bones was very careful to keep the entire thing under wraps from Yvette until the right moment. Only once the ring was on his finger did he have the confidence to stand his ground and tell her what was happening.
Of course, she was not pleased. She even tried to use magic to get him to tell the truth, but the old sailor was more than adept at speaking around his half-truths. She would not get what she needed out of him.
So she insisted on meeting his fiancee. Bones knew it would come, and he would never admit out loud he was nervous, but he had to quietly wipe his hands on his pants as the doorbell rang. He moved forward to get it but Yvette intercepted him, swinging the door open and blocking him from sight. Her pale blue eyes were sharp and piercing, ready to hook into every little consistency the other man gave her. But despite this, she greeted him with a tight lipped smile.
"Good evening, Mr. Smee. It's an honor to finally meet you. I've heard so much."
NAME: Bones
HOMETOWN: La Cuidad Des Rosas
OCCUPATION: Chef on the Black Siren
LOYALIST/REBEL/OTHER: Serves only his creator
BIOGRAPHY: A long, long time ago, the royal family had a world-famous chef serving them. Nobles would come in from faraway lands just for a taste of his food.
Until one day, he vanished. He was replaced, just like any staff would be. The kings that he served passed on, and the next generations would know neither his name or his face.
And yet, he remained.
Even in the kingdom of Rosas, where magic flourished, necromancy was still an art not to be practiced by well-to-do citizens. But there was one noble woman who sought to live forever, and did not need a King to grant her wish. Instead, she took matters into her own hands and created servants who would help her achieve her goals.
The ascension of King Magnifico did nothing to change the centuries long plot that this chef, now dubbed "Bones" was conscripted into. He works at the behest of his master, who has him working on a pirate ship where she might be able to gather the illegal ingredients that she needs for her illicit sorcery.
To the crew, he is just a chef--one talented at combat and strangely worldly--loyal to his captain and her cause.
Will his happily ever after come in the form of bonds forged with his crew? Or will his magical shackles keep him forever bound?
Bram didn’t know what the hell he was doing out here.
Middle of the damn day, sun high enough to bake the top of his hoodie, Bones stretched out nearby like a ghost in the grass. He should’ve been anywhere else. Home. Work. Locked behind a door pretending none of it was real.
But instead he was here, sitting cross-legged on top of some moss-eaten headstone like he owned it, letting the static noise of the dead hum and gnaw at the edges of his mind.
He wasn’t pushing them out this time. He was waiting. For her.
The woman—the voice—that kept threading into him clearer than the rest. Not a scream, not a howl. Just... speaking. Calm. Like she knew him. Like he was supposed to find her here.
And that’s when he heard it—something sharper than the ghosts. Not a whisper. Not a memory.
A real voice. Living.
One eye cracked open, sharp and suspicious, scanning the graveyard until he caught sight of the figure moving nearby.
Bram didn’t shift from his perch. Didn’t smile. Just sat there like some half-wild sentinel and drawled, voice rough.
It was the least he could do, considering it was his fault she was here. Despite his worst expectations though, she'd been nothing but polite and well-behaved. She hadn't ordered him to do anything. She didn't use him to "collect" from Magicks in the way he used to. She even complimented his cooking.
It was strange. But he knew her better than anyone. Which meant she couldn't be trusted.
So when she left the Inn, he'd go with her, even if it was "just a walk", as she claimed.
"Just a walk" right into the cemetery.
He suspected she might have been scouting to help herself to its contents if not for the person already there. He wasn't mourning, clearly, so this drew Yvette's attention, who was the first to respond.
She spun towards him, listless eyes energetic despite their dull sheen. "Why, I'm far more interested in what you're doing here. Do you know this person?" She asked, nodding to the gravestone he was sitting in front of.
Bones hung back and folded his arms, watching silently for now.
Takes place: Early February 2025
Summary: Bones is reunited with the woman who brought him back to life, and a deal is made
Previous reading: What Died Didn't Stay Dead
--------------
BONES:
It wasn’t possible.
That was Bones’s first thought when he got the call from Wolf. When he’d told him that there was a woman in the park claiming to be Yvette Toussaint, Bones thought it simply wasn’t possible.
He had performed the rites after her death. By all accounts, her soul should be bound to the Underworld, never to be freed again. He’d done everything possible in his power to make sure this possibility could never be gleaned to be a possibility.
And yet, here they were.
Time has always been a funny thing for the undying cook. In what seemed to be the span between sunrise and sunset, decades may have passed. Yet at the end of the year, when everyone was celebrating new beginnings, he was left wondering where the days had gone. It was an endless, tedious slog that somehow zipped by until he found that he hadn’t moved at all.
Against Smee's better judgment, he slipped up. He didn't smile, but something like recognition flashed across Smee's face.
If he were being truthful with himself, he missed those days. Sure, in Smee's current job, he did plenty of swindling and stealing and cheating. There was a reason he'd ended up in the business world. But it wasn't the same, lining someone else's pockets instead of his own, being a cog in the machine of a corrupt system instead of rebelling against it.
And he missed Bones. Of course he did.
"You aren't going to give me much of a choice, are you?" Smee said, although it was evident from the look on his face that he wouldn't need any more convincing. "Well- alright, then."
It was when that recognition flashed that Bones knew he had won. And despite this all being essentially manipulation and extortion, there was still a boyish way his heart fluttered in elation. Perhaps it was the victory, perhaps it was the knowledge that soon he would finally be free from decades of servitude. Or maybe it was something more.
His smirk turned into an all out grin as the man verbally agreed. "Oh, I can't wait to go ring shopping," he teased, though underneath the shit-eating grin was a warmness he hadn't felt in many years. "No, but really. We don't need to draw it out for too long, just enough to be legally enforceable," he mused.
"We can discuss more of the details tomorrow. I'm sure I've kept you far too long for your liking." And at this point, he trusted that Smee would not flee were he to be left alone. Because if he did, Bones would hunt him down. As he went to move towards the door, however, he hesitated, casting him a coy glance. "Unless…you'd like me to stay?"
It was a tender gesture, the kind Smee hadn't been the recipient of in many years. He lived a solitary life now. A necessary price to pay for privacy. Smee told himself that he didn't mind, that he was happier alone...
Well, it just wasn't very fair, was it? To work out Smee's exact weakness like this?
Smee crossed his arms and turned away. "Believe it? Nobody would believe it to begin with. That I abandoned an entire life of bachelorhood to marry a hotel chef?"
The reasons not to were plenty. Smee didn't have to look very hard to find them. And that was a good thing, because the longer he stayed alone in this room with Bones, the harder it was going to be to listen to those reasons.
At last, Smee pulled away from him, crossing his arms to guard them from being grabbed again. He also turned away, and Bones immediately missed the feeling of his breath bristling against his stubble. Since his days on the ship, intimacy had been few and far between. While he wasn't expecting anything from this whole charade, who knows where things might lead...
"Oh, what's there to bachelorhood anyway? Everyone eats up a story of love rekindled. Or love found over a meal, if that's the story we want to go with. That's the fun part--we get to make the narrative."
He stepped around, sliding back into Smee's eyeline.
"Come on. It'll be just like old times. Swindling people without a care in the world!"
Smee narrowed his eyes. He didn't really understand the magic Bones was mixed up in. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. But Bones wasn't exactly giving him a choice.
"You were responsible for yourself the moment you stepped back onto dry land. All of us are. Don't try to blame me for your mistakes," Smee hissed.
That had to be the reason Bones had sought him out, right? To punish the person he believed to be the source of his problems. It couldn't be anything... anything more. It was hatred, like the hatred coursing through Smee's own veins.
Bones sighed long, his grip on the other man's hand loosening slightly. He rubbed his thumb across his knuckles while his expression wavered ever so slightly.
"I don't want to fight, Sam," he murmured. "I don't want anything from you besides your signature on a marriage certificate. Of course, we'll need to play up some appearances, you know, make people actually believe it, but once the magic is broken, I'll be out of your hair and you can go back to…"
His voice trailed off as he finally pulled away, looking around at the ostentatious decoration of the hotel room. "Whatever this is."
Nick raised an eyebrow at that. At their age, 'losing count' was both surprising and not. He didn't remember every year of the last century, many of them blurred together. But major events stood out as anchor points that everything else flowed around. He might have lost count. But there was an anchor point.
He would feel better if he had a sense of when that was. It might cover the entire time he'd been in town, but by how much?
"Among other things," he said. If Bones was going to be vague as shit, Nick wasn't going to point out the rest of the elf community. He'd rather keep the attention on himself if it had to be anywhere.
With a sardonic smile, he said, "Funny how retirement looks on both of us."
For Bones, it was the opposite. He wanted to lose count. There was a time where he would keep track of his years but every new decade wracked up, with no end in sight, was more depressing than it was worth. Perhaps for an elf's kind, where this is natural and expected, there was more of a sentimentality that came with age.
But his age was an abomination, and it did not deserve to be remembered.
He did make note of the vague response, though it did match his own. There were many reasons for magicks of all kinds to settle down in Swynlake, so it wasn't so surprising to him that a vagabond like Nick might find roots here.
"Funny, indeed," he replied. "Well. I have no quarrel or further business from you, at least from where we last left off. If that's really all there is to it, I guess we just...continue on with our lives." Or death, in his case.
Dated: February 2nd, 2025
Summary: Wolf's (@wolf-innsheepsclothing) search for John Cunningham comes to an end
WOLF:
He felt as though that scent had been lodged in his nostrils for days; the bitter taste at the back of his mouth at every breath. They had tried to tell him he had imagined it, that none of it had been real - just a chance resemblance and his vigilance playing tricks on him. It was impossible, they said! But they didn’t know, none of them knew, none of them understood what it was to hear the way he heard, to see as he saw, to smell as he smelt.
The wolf was never wrong.
He crossed the street, hand wrapped around the keys in his pocket as he made his way towards the park, ready to cut across it to the back of the Inn.
The scent came again.
Immediately the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Musky and unpleasant and reeking of dirt and ash, but he knew it. Wolf’s back straightened, and his head turned. He paused with one foot on the curb, swivelling around as he tried to catch sight of its owner.
John Cunningham.
He felt the wolf stirring in his chest, hackles raised and fangs bared as he turned this way and that. He had not imagined it. It was real. John Cunningham was here. His heart skipped a beat. His breath came faster.
No. This time, Cunningham would not escape him.
He could not see him, but there were other ways. Wolf closed his eyes and breathed deep. His eyes snapped open again, and he began striding towards the park, tracking the scent as he went.
YVETTE:
Life was such a novel thing.
The cool breeze billowing her ashen hair out from behind her. The sounds of conversation drifting in and out as she passed by others on the path. The footfalls of each and every step she took forward. These were the kinds of things that others took for granted.
But not her. After decades of limited senses and static movement, the buzz of the world around her was positively intoxicating. There was much that would be forever lost to her--a full, warm belly or waking in a comfortable bundle--but all of it paled in comparison to the sheer power of presence.
Life was novel. Agency was power. And she was feeling very powerful right now.
Yet, there was more to come. Even after more than a year of pulling herself together, she wasn't at full strength. Her senses were still awakening to her and her magic was becoming anew.
She only noticed the oncomer too late, when they were almost on top of her. Turning to face them, she smiled, an unusual look of recognition behind darkened, deadened eyes. "Well, hello there."
WOLF:
Wolf followed the scent as best he could, trying to act as if he was simply walking - but the purpose in his quick, silent steps was easy to see - as he bore ever down on that scent. At every moment he expected that horrible bald head to loom into vision and to hear that voice that he had been dreading. But at least it would not be for long. This time he would deal with John Cunningham, and this time he would stay dead.
But the scent came closer and the figure never did-
Instead. Wolf looked around, confused at what his senses were telling him. Ahead was a young man, playing with a child in the late snow, and a smartly dressed woman walking.
Some magic was at work here. His heart sank, realising there must be some disguise in play. He paused, eyebrows furrowed into one continuous line of heavy scowl as he waited for a moment.
The woman. It was the woman.
He came striding towards her, eyes blazing, bearing down on the woman who hid his enemy.
“You-” he growled, only remembering not to simply grab her at the last moment. “How are you here? What are you- How-”
YVETTE:
She was pleasantly surprised that he didn’t so much as grab her, despite the way that fire alit behind his eyes. What a good, trained boy he was. A good thing to keep in mind.
“Me? Has my dear onglet told you about me? Why–” She paused for a moment, lips pursing and fingers curling under her chin as the calculations ran. Although the darkness of her eyes did not reflect it, her fluid, animated motions betrayed a livelihood to her corpse-like appearance, that even an illusion spell couldn’t hide.
“Oh, no. You’re speaking of the vessel, aren’t you? That’s right, your senses are keener than the rest.” She dared to reach forward and flick his nose. “No need to fret, mon choit, the man you are looking for is well dead and gone. I simply repurposed what he left behind.”
WOLF:
Something was wrong. It took barely a beat of his heart to know it. The way the body moved, the purse of the lips and the curl of the fingers, the curious accented voice - things could be faked, a disguise could be crafted and worn until it became indistinguishable but this did not fit.
Wolf’s mind raced to try and catch up with his senses. Whatever this person was, who smelled horrible and wrong and evil to him, it did not feel like John. Even though it smelled of him. His heart thudded uncomfortably in his chest. The woman’s words curled and curved, something sinister in the shape of her mouth even as she began to speak again.
He slapped away the hand that reached out to touch him, a barely restrained growl - hoarse and animal - in his throat.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” Wolf snarled, no more reassured at the idea that this was something else taking John’s body. A demon? A dark magical being? Another necromancer? None of those possibilities were any good.
YVETTE:
With the ferocity of his slap, she expected a sting of pain to shoot up her arm. But instead, it was deadened, with the pressure of the hit thudding to completely numbed senses. So this was what it was like, to masquerade amongst the living with all its troublesome features stripped away.
How delightful. Why had she not done this sooner?
A jolt of curiosity sparked in her. What was to happen, should she back this wild animal into a corner and provoke it to lash out at her. Were it to tear her to shreds, to rip her throat out, to stain the snow with congealed brown blood–what would that feel like, if anything at all? How long would it take her to put herself back together? How far could she push herself?
Although she no longer had a taste for food, that insatiable hunger still gnawed away. And now, she would have a lifetime to fulfill every experimental desire.
But, in time. For now, there were other matters that needed to be attended to. “You may call me Lady Yvette Toussaint,” she said with a fluid curtsy, gauging his reaction for any sense of recognition. When one didn’t appear, she pouted. “I see. My onglet hasn’t mentioned me at all, then. What a pity. He always was such an obstinate boy. Well, I better be off to see him, then, if you don’t mind escorting me back to the manor. I believe it’s being called the Hauntley, now?”
WOLF:
He most certainly would not be calling her by such grand terms when she had done nothing to earn his respect. The name sounded as if he had heard it somewhere in the very distance, but in this moment it meant nothing to him. Wolf bared his teeth.
Onglet. She kept saying that as if it meant something to him, or to anyone, a curious term that he didn’t recognise, despite knowing a fair bit of French. Something here still felt wrong to him, and he certainly did not want to take her to the Inn.
If anything he wanted to throw the defences high and keep this stranger aberration from ever gaining access.
“You have no rights to go there,” he growled, moving to bar her path. “You are not welcome here.”
YVETTE:
The Lady looked wholly unimpressed at the wolf’s attempts at intimidation. In fact, as he bared his teeth, her deadened eyes widened with curiosity and interest. Werewolf teeth were a rare commodity in potion making. While she certainly had no need for her age anymore, there was still so much to explore, magically speaking. The wonders she could perform with his parts.
But for now, she needed him alive and whole. She shook her head, ashen waves rippling across her shoulders. “On the contrary, I am bound there, mon petit choit. My very soul is tied to the location. I intend to sever that so I may go freely, but I do need to pick up my things before I can do that.”
The distrusting look on his face caused her to sigh. “It’s simple necromancy. You can discuss the matter with your dear leader and she can confirm it’s the truth. Or, if you need immediate gratification, I can call in a reference at this very moment.”
WOLF:
“Impossible,” Wolf shook his head. “The owners would know. They would have put a stop to this.” There was no way that the Hauntley’s would have allowed a rogue necromancer - if that was what she was, and the sickening stench of John Cunningham’s charred body gave him little reason to doubt it - to bind themselves to the Inn. Certainly not without warning Wolfgang about it.
And how would Snow have known nothing about it? She would have warned him if she had noticed something of that nature.
He was torn. Part of him still long to simply sink his teeth into her, to grip on with great jaws until all the life went back out of this aberration. Or simply snap its neck and be done with it, no matter what the Swynlake PD then did to him. But if something else was wrong, if this person had come back once for the Inn, then what was to stop her doing it again?
And if she would leave, once she was done? Was that the better option? Man and wolf waged uncertain war inside his head, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he tried to work out what to do.
YVETTE:
“Oh, this happened long before it was called the Hauntley Inn. This was all done at the behest of the Lady Miracle, back when she was alive. Quite some time has passed since then, it would seem,” she mused, looking out at the park around them. Everyone was carrying technologies she had yet to fathom–but was eager to learn.
She looked back to the wolf, who was glaring daggers in her, but clearly on the fence about what to do. She could work with that.
“I have an associate who can vouch for me, or at very least, what I am capable of. I believe he’s still going by the name “Bones”, yes? We have quite the history. I simply mean to talk to him, gather my things, and then I’ll be on my way. It will be happening one way or another, so wouldn’t it be best to do it under your dutiful, watchful eye?”
WOLF:
The mention of Lady Miracle did nothing to improve Wolf’s suspicion about all of it. He had not forgiven the ghost for all she had done to Snow, and where he had formerly trusted the house’s silent cohabitants, not he felt only suspicion.
Even The Captain no longer felt like a companion. Wolf was still angry with him.
He snarled at the mention of Bones, something protective and angry inside him that at the same time wanted to know just what damn secrets the Chef had been keeping from them now. He knew something strange had happened.
“I will call ahead. And only then will I let you come to the Inn.” Wolf played for time. If this sorcerer had unfinished business that involved Bones, he wanted him forewarned, and he wanted Gregoria at the ready with whatever they could muster in case it turned ugly.
YVETTE:
Despite his snarling, she remained calm and composed, watching him with simple bemusement. She knew her goals would be met one way or another. They always were. Even if it took her over a year to reconstitute, or over several decades–over a century even–for her spell to activate, she always got her way. That’s why she was standing here alive while so many corpses laid in her wake.
“Of course,” she replied with a pleasant smile. Because why threaten when polite conversation was so much more productive? “Oh. And do please tell my onglet that I say hello. I’ve missed him ever so much.”
Bones had expected as much. But if he thought he was going to get rid of him that easily, he had another thing coming.
He squeezed the old cod's hand and used it to pull himself back to his feet and flush against the other man, their faces close enough to feel the breath on his whiskers. "On the contrary," he began, his voice barely above a whisper, "I'm quite serious."
His grip on him tightened, and he waited to see how the other would react. Would he try to pull away? Would he become violent? The anticipation of it all shivered up his spine. He missed getting physical like this. His new line of work so rarely allowed for it.
Smee's heart raced. How had he even gotten himself here? Everything about this trip was a mistake. From the dinner to the hallway to right here, right now, Bones's face inches from his own.
Fear flickered across Smee's face, but there was something more to it than that.
Desire. Yes, even after all these years, he still wanted Bones. It was a foolish and perhaps even dangerous desire. But he did.
"Or what, Bones?" Smee whispered back, though he made no movement to yank his hand away. "You'll tell everyone my secrets? And where will that leave you? Still in whatever horrible deal you made with a dangerous Magick. Try another tactic, if you want this so badly."
Bones knew very well what fear looked like. He'd become quite accustomed to that look, their eyes filled with horror before they saw nothing at all.
This was something different. Something not quite as familiar, but exhilarating all the same. His grip on the other's hand tightened but he resisted the urge to pull him even closer.
He chuckled darkly, his breath hot and heavy. "I'll be stuck in the deal either way. At least if I take you down with me, then I won't be the only one suffering. Then maybe I can start going after the rest of the old crew, one by one. The lot of you deserve it. I may have signed the paper but you all the ones who handed me the pen."
"Around three and a half years." That number still had the power to make him lurch if he thought about it too deeply. The last time he'd spent that long in the same place had been somewhere around a century ago.
But it was fine. He was coping, and his life was good. As long as nothing interrupted it to stop it staying that way.
"I've lost count," he replied simply. It had been at least a decade, maybe two, maybe more than that. Honestly, he'd been here longer than he hadn't been here, at least concerning the time frame that the elf would know. As much as he had longed for his freedom, once the chains were broken, there was nothing to help the weight of guilt that crushed down on him. It was merely more than a few years until he sought out the Hauntleys. The rest, from there, was history.
"As I recall, you don't usually make roots like that." It was one of the few details he knew about the other. "Is that the Morey's doing?"
"Very funny, Bones," he said. "Now get out of my suite."
There was a time, of course, when it wouldn't have been a joke. When it was all Smee wanted and could never have. Not that Smee would have admitted it to himself, but his mind sometimes wandered to those times lately when he ran out of distractions.
In retrospect, Smee had been in love. Hopelessly so. With a goddamn pirate. One thing no self-respecting seaman should do.
Anyway, that was all a long time ago, and the notion was absolutely preposterous. He had moved on. He didn't need to be associated with a liability like Bones. And those feelings were gone, whatever remained of them.
Bones had expected as much. But if he thought he was going to get rid of him that easily, he had another thing coming.
He squeezed the old cod's hand and used it to pull himself back to his feet and flush against the other man, their faces close enough to feel the breath on his whiskers. "On the contrary," he began, his voice barely above a whisper, "I'm quite serious."
His grip on him tightened, and he waited to see how the other would react. Would he try to pull away? Would he become violent? The anticipation of it all shivered up his spine. He missed getting physical like this. His new line of work so rarely allowed for it.
Jack grinned at the pitiable, wizened chef, the oft target of Jack's whims as he sent back dish after dish most nights. He didn't mean to make an enemy of him. It was not the chef's fault that Jack had a black hole for an appetite. That his bones rattled in his body and his headaches threatened to split him in half. That nothing, no matter the cut of the meat or the age of the wine, could satiate the worms wriggling in Jack's very soul.
It did not surprise Jack at all that the Staff might send him. Just take a look at that scowl! He had no clue what the chef's... diagnosis was (probably not a vampire, definitely not a sorcerer, not a ghost) but maybe Jack would find out tonight. If you poke a dragon, eventually it woke up.
Jack jumped down from the piano and then flipped the Lady Algerian Hawking around so his date could get a good look at Bones too.
"Does it?" asked Jack. "Why? We're all having a good time here, huh? We're all behaving ourselves!"
Something toppled to the ground with a suspicious crash.
Despite popular belief, Bones did not actually mind when dishes were sent back to him. After all, he was no longer a member of the tasting world and food science had changed so much since his time of eating splendor. Everything he knew now was careful experimentation and observation, which did not always go exactly to plan. A meal sent back was a challenge for him to push himself and make something better.
But then they kept being sent back. Meal after meal rejected, no matter what he tried. He'd forced King to ask every question he could think of to try and discern the man's palette, but at every turn he was foiled.
While it was definitely difficult to get under his very tough skin, this man certainly had a way of digging.
In a flash, he suddenly burst forward, ripping away the Lady Algerian Hawking from the other's grip and foisting her away. His speed and reflexes were inhuman for a man of his age and he clearly had some physical prowess that was not reflected in his muscle definition. His expression, however, remained a grim glower.
"It does. Call this whole thing off. I don't want to have to start throwing people out."
That was an unhelpful answer. Of course, it was the kind of answer he would probably give in the same situation, and he might have even appreciated it if he wasn't trying to run mental calculations on if there was any chance he could dislodge Isaac from town.
The answer that followed surprised him. "You work at the Hauntley? With Snow?"
Their lives were tinged with a ridiculous layer of irony. Clearly.
"I work at Al's Comic Barn in town these days. And I live with my partner Isaac Morey." The brother of the man dating Bones' boss. Nick had spent Christmas dinner with her. Hell, he'd been to the Hauntley a handful of times for their events.
"Yes. With Snow," he repeated. She was the face of their business--she had to be. The rest of them weren't exactly marketable material. It was a point in Nick's favor that he knew of her.
In fact, he knew of many others, name dropping some other businesses and people in the town. He'd clearly been here for some time, and made something of a life for himself. Was it purely just coincidence for them to run into each other again?
Their degrees of separation weren't even that far when it came to Morey involvement. Though he had never heard of that particular name during the time of the sun room renovation. "How long have you been here?"
Smee couldn't help it. He was intrigued. Meddling with magic never ended well— surely Bones had known that.
Of course, he was going to approach whatever Bones said with a healthy level of skepticism. Bones was just as much a liar as Smee was. And yes, Smee certainly thought Bones would lie to him to get what he wanted.
"What sort of magical contract?" Smee asked. "That isn't me saying I'm going to help you. I've got no reason to, from where I'm looking at it. But I must admit, I'm curious."
Bones couldn't help but smirk to himself. Typical Smee, too curious for his own good. Out of all the old crew he could've run into, he was particularly lucky that it was this one. He couldn't imagine he'd be able to draw in old Hook with a story like this.
"One drawn up by a rather fortuitous witch," he mused, picking up some decoration off the table and considering it before putting it back. "One that gives her ownership of my being as long as she sees fit. Unless, of course, I were to belong to someone else. Usually, this would be done at her own behest, but there are different types of ways to bind yourself to a person. Selling and trading are the go-to's, but there's magic in a vow. An ever-lasting bond declared between two people."
He turned on a heel and began to approach the other man. "I need someone who is willing to make that declaration. Someone who would have me and hold me forevermore. I believe you, Mr. Smee, are the only one who can free me from my shackles."
"All this to say." He reached out and took his hand in his own before dropping to one knee. He had nothing to present, nothing to offer, but his mere heart and soul. Gazing up at him with the most soulful eyes his could muster, he asked, "Samuel Smiegel, will you marry me?"
