Lost and Found 7: Beautiful Creatures | JHS (M)
✴ Summary | Peter Pan AU ✴
↳ The only hope you had of ending your exile and earning your life back came in the form of an infuriating and uncatchable man: Hoseok. He seemed to love the endless game of cat-and-mouse you two played - so much, in fact, that you were unsure if you were the cat or the mouse. What he failed to realize was that there was a third player, and this one wasn’t after him. The Crocodile hunted you with an intensity that rivaled the way you chased Hoseok, but with one difference: the games he played were deadly.
✦ Pairing: Peter Pan Hoseok x Captain Hook Reader
✦ Supporting Cast: Smee + Ex Lost Boy Namjoon; Tinkerbelle Yoongi; Lost Boy Jimin; Lost Boy Seokjin; Lost Boy Jungkook; Original Characters
✦ Word Count: 7.5k
✦ Genre: Enemies to Lovers / Smut / Fluff / Angst / Fantasy / Thriller / Humor / Action Adventure
✦ Rating: Explicit / 18+
✦ CW: sexual content (aggressive sexual tension, rough kissing) / violence (action sequences similar to the previous chapter) / swearing / other (survivor’s guilt, open water, krakens, tentacles, horror mermaid lady)
The ocean is greedy today; her violent waves calming only enough for her to open up and swallow you whole.
Plunged into ice, you seize up. A burning pain competes with the cold as your muscles spasm. You fight to recover from the shock, but the sea is uncaring. It continues to push and pull at your body as if you were a ragdoll. It’s an onslaught of agonizing disorientation. Which way is up? Which way is down? Which way is the kraken?
Fear comes first. Fear of pain, fear of death, fear of the kraken, fear of failure. Failure. Sharkbait and the others. What if you fail them? Sharkbait and the others. Your crew. Your family.
The fear suddenly transforms into something both new and intimately familiar. It becomes the thing that has, for better or worse, driven you the most. So fear comes first, then comes anger.
You twist and turn and thrash in the water, hard enough you feel your spine crack, until you finally spot the beams of light peeking through the surface. Kicking your feet, you race upwards towards those golden rays, towards the sun. At this moment, nothing matters more than breaching the surface.
But you want that precious air so badly that when you finally make it, you gulp the air down too quickly. A nauseating mixture of saltwater and oxygen floods your lungs, making you choke and sputter until a full-blown coughing spell has you bobbing up and down with the waves.
With the slightest semblance of recovery, you scan the ocean and map out where you are in relation to the ship and kraken.
Shit.
Up until now, the monster seemed content with exploring the ship through tentative touches and sweeping arcs of its tentacles, like a child with a puzzle toy. But those things are no longer enough — not since you’ve blown an arm or two to smithereens. With the investigation over, the kraken slowly but surely closes in on the ship, using steady, calculated movements to wrap its two longest arms around the hull of the ship and drag itself closer. It’ll keep going until it has got the ship locked in a violent embrace, held still by every one of those arms, and then it’s going to cleave the ship in two. Afterwards, it’ll drag its plaything and everyone aboard it — your crew, your friends, your family — down with it.
If you’re going to defeat this creature, you need to do it soon. You’re running out of time faster than you can figure out what to do with it, and that’s before you even consider the impossible task of outswimming a living, breathing sea-monster. Even on your best day, even if you had two hands, even if you possessed extraordinary strength and agility, you could never outswim a kraken. What do you do? What can you do? Rapidly flicking your gaze back and forth between the kraken and the ship, an idea pops into your head.
Oh no.
If racing the creature back towards the ship is an impossible task, then all you need to do is change the task, right?
Oh no, no, no.
You breathe out a laugh and smile bitterly because, naturally, the solution you’ve come up with is even more insane than outswimming a sea-monster. Because of course it would be.
“Gods help me,” you grumble before taking the deepest breath of your life. Once your lungs feel as if they’re filled with so much air they’ll burst, you dive back down into the water and swim not towards the ship but towards the kraken.
Knowing what you’re swimming towards doesn’t make the sea beneath the surface any less foreboding. In some ways it’s worse because, although the saltwater stings your eyes and blurs your vision, you can still make out what you think is the silhouette of the kraken below. It makes your stomach twist itself into a tight, skillful knot any sailor would be proud of.
Somehow, you keep on kicking. You keep diving deeper and deeper into that midnight-blue chasm — and it is so, so dark! It’s so dark you could be swimming directly into the monster’s maw, and you wouldn’t even know it until it was too late.
You shouldn’t think about that any more; there’s no time to second-guess yourself or succumb to fear. What you need to do is focus on something else instead. Your aching muscles? Your burning lungs? Fuck, how are they burning already!? There’s no way you’ve been down here that long.
Maybe you’ll drown before you’re eaten.
The thought pierces your mind like a skewer through meat and brings worse thoughts with it: thoughts of monsters scarier than beasts, thoughts of men, thoughts of one.
Something cuts through the water fast enough you barely have time to brace for impact. What if it’s him? What if your fear summoned him to the dream!?
The tentacle that hits you square in the chest steals the last bit of your breath away by forcing a garbled scream out of you, but it comes as a relief — a relief — because the idea of dying by his hand is somehow worse than dying any other way.
But relief doesn’t last long. How could it, when the suckers pinching your skin hurt even more than freshly fractured ribs and drowning? Just like an octopus, the suckers grow larger as the limb thickens; unlike an octopus, even the small suckers at the tip of the tentacle, the ones you are now intimately familiar with, are larger than your clenched fist.
Although not all the suckers secure a grip on you, the ones that do more than make up for the rest. They move entirely independent of one another as if each one has a mind of its own, reacting to your presence and resistance to keep you trapped. One of them angles towards your arm, puckering up on the spot just above your hook straps. Another twists and pinches at your hip so violently, you fear the force alone will gouge a hole in your side.
The ride on the tentacle is exactly what you needed, but if you stay a passenger for too long, you’ll either find yourself crushed between it and the ship or your weight and gravity will enable the suckers to tear chunks of flesh out of your body, so there’s no time to focus on the pressure and pain. Your next step needs to be figuring out exactly how and when to get yourself unstuck once you reach your destination. You’ll need to work fast to get those suckers off of you.
Blinding light and salty air welcome you as soon as the tentacle breaches the surface. Struggling to adapt, you gasp, choke, and sputter on brine. Half a second is all the time you have to figure out your next course of action: hook or hand? Hook or hand to cut, pry, wrench yourself free with?
The hook won’t work; you can’t risk it getting caught up in the kraken’s thick, gelatinous flesh. Fingers it is. You growl.
WIggling your arm back and forth, you struggle against the suckers to free yourself. They react to your every movement, twisting and flexing with so much dexterity that every time you think you’ve finally broken free, a brand new one finds a way to latch back on.
As anger and adrenaline flood your veins, you bite your bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. You didn’t want your escape to hurt, but there’s no other way. Calling on every drop of strength you can muster, every itty bit of willpower you have left, you tear your arm away and pretend you don’t feel the small circles of your flesh tear away with it. Fingers free, you word fast on the suckers left clinging to your chest, stomach, and other arm. The final sucker pinches, pulls, punishes the skin on your left arm, so you dig at it. You dig, claw, gouge until — with an audible pop — you finally break free.
And then you fall.
Even in the midst of all that pain, fear, and struggle, how could you forget you were going to fall? A dozen new scenarios flash through your mind. Maybe you won’t have time to bleed out after all. Maybe you’ll break your back instead, or perhaps impale yourself on something on the deck. Maybe you’ll plunge right back into the ocean, and maybe this time you’ll finally drown.
You squeeze your eyes shut and try bracing for impact, but something wraps itself around you before you can crashland onto the deck or cannonball back into the ocean’s depths — something warm, something equal parts soft and unyielding, something comforting. You don’t need to open your eyes to know this something is actually someone.
Hoseok. Of course it’s Hoseok.
But Killian’s voice is the first one you hear. “C-Captain, are you out of your goddamn mind!? What the bloody hell was that?”
“Where’s Bones?” you bark as soon as Hoseok sets you down onto the deck. You ignore Killian.
“Still below deck,” Nora answers.
Thoughts racing, you twist your arms and examine the damage done. Although the kraken popped your skin like a beetle under a boot, ,you’re far better off than anticipated. The small, tight circles where the skin is gone are still surface-level. They’re not bleeding very much at all. You exhale a sound that’s supposed to be a sigh, but it comes out sounding more like a growl.
“And where’s the kraken surfacing?” you ask.
“By the bow,” Hoseok says.
You hiss through your teeth. “Killian, take Sharkbait and gather up the barrels from below. Carefully, very carefully, because if you set them off, we die. Understood?”
“Understood, but C-Captain…” Killian’s tongue darts out across his lips and he rubs a ghostly hand across the stubble on his chin.
No.
You clench your jaw before your chin has time to tremble.
“Shark-k-k,” he stutters, unable to stop himself from blinking hard on every ‘k’ sound.
NO!
“Ch-Ch-Ching, sh-she said-”
“Killian!” you bark, mercifully cutting him off so he doesn’t have to say it.
The hand that has been rubbing back and forth along his chin suddenly flies upwards to his brow. It’s a piss-poor attempt at shielding you from the anguish screwing up his face.
You want to comfort him like Nora would, but you’re not his adoptive mother. You want to reminisce with him like Bones would, but there’s only room for one strange uncle figure on this ship. You want him to laugh like Ching would, but right now you can’t be his friend. At this moment, you are his captain and nothing more; you are Captain Hook. Act like it: give him a task and get him moving. The distraction is what he needs most right now, and if you need to be firm to be kind, then so be it.
“Killian!” You repeat, clenching your fist so your nails bite into the meat of your palm — whatever it takes to stop yourself from breaking. “Find someone else and get below deck.”
“Yes, Captain,” he says, dropping his hands to his sides and swallowing hard. With a sniffle, he gives you a curt nod. “Of c-course, Captain.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Chaos surrounds Hoseok on all sides, yet he can’t take his eyes off of you. It’s as if your visage eclipses the danger of splintering wood nearby, your voice drowns out the cannon fire from below deck, your presence erases every rational thought he has about waking up before the nightmare becomes reality and kills him. The truth is that Hoseok can’t wake up — not now, not anymore — and even if he could, he wouldn’t. All because of you.
Arista’s magic might have built this plane of unreality, but you were the design. The ghosts that haunt your mind weren’t meant for his eyes, and neither was this softer version of you. Truth be told, seeing it all, seeing you, stripped bare like this hurts him. Anger stirs inside him, boiling up and over, and it’s all directed at himself. How is it that, in all the time he spent running his fingers along your sharp edges just daring you to cut him, he never asked where they came from in the first place? How come he never considered the possibility that the ferocity and determination he loves so much were carved into being by the jagged shards of your heart?
Hoseok is forced to accept that you aren’t the woman he thought you were. You’re so much more. He just wishes this wasn’t the way he found out.
As you give orders to Killian, Hoseok’s gaze flicks down towards your left arm until his attention finally settles on your hook. He swallows hard, but the knot of emotion caught his throat just bobs like a barrel in water. Your arm would be another person’s weakness, and here you’ve gone and transformed it into a weapon for yourself. It shouldn’t have been so hard for him to figure out that you wear your wounds like armor.
As you stride past, Hoseok’s fingers tingle. Arista’s magic blocks him from using his, but he can still feel the shadowy tendrils creeping up his arms. “What’s the plan?” he asks.
Instead of replying, you snatch a coil of rope off the deck and begin fastening it to the end of a long, thick harpoon. At first, he suspects you didn’t hear him, but then you make the mistake of meeting his gaze. Your stoicism must’ve slipped away alongside Killian.
“What’s the plan, Hook?”
"Didn't you hear Bones?" you ask mockingly, cocking your head to the side. In a poor imitation of Bones’s accent, you continue, “we’re ‘bout to blast that beastie back to the Locker. Add s’more blackpowder and it’ll be a skoosh!”
The tight-lipped smile you give Hoseok afterward is a poor replacement for enthusiasm or confidence. Finding for once that he wishes you were taking things more seriously, Hoseok doesn’t smile back. Neither does he say anything; he only waits.
Scoffing while you knot off an end of rope, you continue, “Blackpowder. The barrels in the net are full of them. You’re going to take the net, fly it over to the kraken’s head, and drop it.”
“And then?”
“And then I’m going to blow them up.”
“Then why do you need the rope, Hook?” Hoseok asks, gesturing towards your handiwork.
Rising to your full stature, you meet his gaze and set your jaw in stone. “If I miss, or if the barrels get too wet, or if the timing is off, then it’ll be a waste of time and lives. We won’t have time to try again, so if I’ve only got one shot. I plan on making it count.”
Hoseok’s entire body tenses. The pain is the worst in his neck, so he cracks it as he tries unscrambling his thoughts and slowing his breathing. The anger and adoration he’s feeling bleed into one another and suffocate him like smoke in his lungs.
It was only a few moments ago that Hoseok plucked you out of the sky, a few moments ago that you tore yourself out of the kraken’s grasp, a few moments ago that Hoseok dropped you, then watched you disappear beneath the ocean’s surface not once, but twice. Every change you get, you put yourself in worse danger than before. If the circumstances were different, Hoseok might understand it, but your driving factor isn’t the same as foolhardiness that leads the Lost Boys into danger. It’s not that you’re foolhardy or adventurous, it’s that you have a deathwish.
Lashing out quick as a viper, Hoseok grabs you by your upper arm and forces you back around. “Why you?” he asks, swallowing hard because he already knows the answer and wishes he didn’t. “Why not one of them?”
“No one else dies,” you say, voice colder than ice while your eyes are ablaze. “No one.”
“They’re already dead, Hook!” Hoseok says, exasperated. “They’re already dead, why are you so quick to join them!?”
All he gets in return is more heart-wrenching defiance. It’s the same stubbornness he fell in love with, and he hates it. There’s no winning against a look like that, not when you’ve already made up your mind.
“Then me,” Hoseok says. Although his voice is thick with desperation and his face crumples, he’s resolute in his offer. “Let it be me.”
“No!” you bark.
“Why not!?” Hoseok snaps back. His fingers twitch at this side as his body itches with need, and he realizes he’s angry — angry with you, angry with the situation, angry with himself for being too selfish to let you go before people got hurt. “They’re dead, Hook. They’re dead, and they’re not coming back! None of this matters but you, so why do you think-”
It’s your turn to lash out, but instead of striking him, your hand grasps the back of his neck. You kiss him rough, all tongue and teeth and hunger. When he does feel your lips, they’re weather-worn and chapped from seaspray and strong winds. They scrape against his own in the most delicious way — delicious because there’s a plush softness he knows is hidden beneath that rough exterior, and he wants to kiss and lick and suck that spot until there’s nothing left but sweetness.
The anger Hoseok had forgotten jolts through him when you curl your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and pull. The sting is immediate. A low growl, both needy and aggressive, rumbles in Hoseok’s chest as you rake your nails between his shoulder blades. It hurts him, you hurt him, and now Hoseok wants to hurt you back.
Sucking your bottom lip into his mouth, Hoseok shivers when you moan into the kiss. He swipes his tongue against your lip, then pulls it between his teeth and bites. Hard. Your moan transforms into a threatening sound of your own as the taste of iron and salt hits both your tongue and his own. Hoseok doesn’t care because he’s angry — angry, afraid, and in love. And everything is worse because, for whatever reason, you don’t want to lose him either. The reason could be small, it could be nothing at all, but it’s there. It’s there. He breaks the kiss with a loud hiss.
“There are so many places you could go where I can’t follow you, Hook,” Hoseok says, catching his breath between words, “but death isn’t one of them. Get us back alive, or else.”
“If I die, then you can bring me back and kill me yourself.” you say. “Promise.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
The sudden loud throat clear from your right tears your thoughts away from the memory of Hoseok’s tongue in your mouth and the uncomfortable fluttering of your heart. It’s a welcome distraction until you look up and see the red splotches discoloring Ching’s face and the wet shimmer in her eyes. The look on her face, the fear and appreciation she feels for you, guts you like a hook in your belly.
“Hey now,” you grunt, lifting the harpoon cannon with her and Nora to mount it on the gunwale. “I can’t have you going soft on me now, Ching.”
“Soft? Who says I’m going soft?” Ching asks. “I’m just happy to finally be rid of ya’,” she lies, sniffling loudly and rubbing her face into the crook of her elbow.
You exhale a sharp breath, one that’s almost a laugh. “Yes, and you didn’t even need to mutiny.”
“Oh, there’s always time for a good mutiny,” Nora says with a warm, grandmotherly smile that makes your chest ache, “especially if we work fast.”
You click your tongue against your teeth. “If it’s between you and the kraken, I think I’ll take my chances with-” You trail off, attention diverting to Killian, James, and the second harpoon cannon they’re carrying instead. “Just what are you doing?” you ask, captain voice back on just like that.
James jerks his head towards the cannon you’re mounting, while Killian does his best to shrug and look noncommittal.
“He asked me to help him, Captain,” Killian says, “lots of g-gesturing since I didn’t realize he’s mute, but we got moving quick enough.”
You cast a pointed look at your brother. “James,” you begin, voice stern but questioning to indicate that while you are willing to hear him out, you expect an explanation. Although he doesn’t answer right away, you give both him and Killian time to finish carrying the cannon over to the gunwale before prompting him again. “Just what are you thinking, James? We should only need one.”
James gestures from to the spot you know the kraken is lurking, then violently jerks his thumb across his throat from ear to ear, moving in a slicing motion. Afterwards, he points at the cannon he brought, back to the cannon, and then to himself.
“No,” you say flatly, although a part of you already knew, deep down, why he had hauled the cannon up from below deck. “I won’t allow it.” Needing to save face, you begin turning away from James, but as soon as you do, he grabs your shoulder.
The heat of his palm is the spark that ignites you.
“I am the captain of this ship, and my word is law,” you snap. Unadulterated rage has swept you off your feet — rage that isn’t directed at James, your crew, the kraken, or even their murderers because the source doesn’t come from without but from within. You did this, you allowed it, you caused all of this suffering at loss. It might not have been your hands that killed them, but it’s your soul that pays the price. “No one else dies.”
James saves you from those thoughts with a kind, albeit pained look. He squeezes your shoulder and taps beneath your chin with his other hand. Already, your conviction falters; if you had the strength, you would curse yourself. “No one else,” you repeat, voice cracking against your will.
Raising his brows, James gives you a pointed look until he’s certain you’re staring back at him despite your wide, bleary eyes. He cannot speak, so instead he mouths two seemingly insignificant words.
I know.
Three seconds, two words, one person are all it takes to break you.
James is dead. Sharkbait is dead. Your entire crew, save for one Lost Boy, is dead. You are too, you suppose. A fragment of your heart has died alongside each and every one of them. Hoseok will join them if you fail, and you doubt your soul could endure yet another loss on your behalf.
James knows this — he knows all of it when no one else does — and why shouldn’t he? You, the real you, wouldn’t exist without him, just as the real James wouldn’t exist without you. In spite of your differences, becoming the same person was the truest expression of self either of you ever had. So of course James knows the truth — he knows you.
As if to prove this, James takes your hand in one of his and your hook in the other. Without wavering, without looking away, he pushes your collapsed hands towards your chest, towards your heart, then pulls them backward to settle over his own. He pauses, holding your hands there for a moment, before releasing your hook and pointing towards the kraken. You don’t need words or even gestures to know his meaning: two souls, one heart; a shared beginning and a shared end.
“Together?” you ask, eyes wide.
James nods and smiles.
“Together then,” you agree, matching his expression with a smile of your own because this is what should have been. You don’t want to die, and you certainly don’t want your brother or crew to die either, but if you had a choice, then this — together, in glory — is how you would go.
Spinning on your heel, you turn to face the others.
“Ching, Killian, get ready to take a shot with the harpoon cannons. Nora, join Bones below deck. Round up the other men from below and have them come up on deck. We need them to keep the ropes tight if all goes to shit.” You rattle orders off and snatch a pair of harpoon guns off the deck.
Pausing for a moment, you awkwardly weigh them in your hand. They’re heavier than they look, even on their own, meaning they’d be difficult to aim from the hip even if you weren’t in motion. You chew your bottom lip. James is the better shot, but you’ve been operating with one hand for far longer. Maybe you’ll fare better than expected after all.
There’s a series of loud clicks as Ching loads and readies the first harpoon cannon then an audible ffffwttp! as the harpoon fires. Killian follows suit with the second harpoon cannon less than a second later. As soon as their actions have registered, you turn to Hoseok to tell him to take flight and discover he’s already in the air.
Setting one of the harpoon guns aside for yourself, you toss the other to James. He catches it effortlessly and holds it in his left hand while the right coils a thwart of chain around his arm. You click your tongue against your teeth. Your brother is going to have a much harder time sliding down the stretch of rope than you are, but he’ll have to make due; there simply isn’t another option.
“Ching, Killian, get below deck,” you order, readying yourself. “If we fail, then you need to be ready to give this beast everything the ship has got.”
Your crewmates nod, but then Killian says, “alright, but if you die, then we’re going to have a long, nasty c-conversation, C-Captain.”
“I’ll hold you to it, darling.”
With one foot hoisted onto the gunwale, you stare out across the sea. The kraken’s mantle, your target, has fully breached the surface. James comes up beside you and readies himself to zipline down the stretch of rope, but before he does, a moment of stillness passes between you two.
Forcing yourself to meet his eyes, you rediscover a piece of your heart that had been missing ever since you lost your poor brother. Timid, inquisitive, sweet James — your very best friend. The fear in your heart dies more and more with every second you hold his gaze because bravery never came naturally to James… at least, not like it did to you. Every drop of courage he possesses was earned. If he isn’t afraid to die alongside you, then you mustn’t be either. If there’s a smile on his face, however sad it may be, then you must match it with one of your own.
“Together, James. On the count of three,” you say, speaking loudly to ensure you’re heard.
“One.”
Your body tenses as you ready yourself; your heart pounds.
“Two.”
You take a deep breath, fully knowing that it might be the last one you ever have.
“Three!”
You push off the gunwale, leaping forward and hurtling yourself down the rope while James does the same. The rest happens within the span of seconds, but fear and adrenaline stretch those seconds into a lifetime.
Spotting your movement, Hoseok drops the net of barrels from his spot high up in the sky. You glide down the rope both faster and slower than expected, operating on instinct as you raise the harpoon gun, estimate where the barrels will be in a half of a second, and take aim. You fire your gun at the exact moment that James fires his.
The loudest sound you’ve ever heard nearly bursts your eardrum, and it’s followed by two impossibly louder bangs as the barrels explode. You realize, too late, how close you are to the explosion, and although you were aware of the consequences in theory, there’s no way you could’ve prepared yourself for this level of pain.
You’re flying into the kraken’s maw, but it’s fire that consumes you.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
A single heartbeat allows you to draw air into your lungs; the second allows you to blow out the flames. A strangled sound fills the air with the second breath you take because things are different now. Your lungs aren’t filled with fire and smoke, but with water. Saltwater.
You choke, cough, drown on the taste of the sea, and when you finally manage to catch your breath, you vomit more of the same. You clutch at your neck with one hand and claw at the stone platform with your hook, scratching deep lines into the rock. Your throat spasms around something far more solid than seawater. It’s smoothing but unyielding — enough to block better airflow.
Rolling with every heave of your stomach and cough of your lungs, you force the object up through your throat and into your mouth. It clacks painfully against your teeth as you spit it out into your palm.
Desperately needing to catch your breath, you hold it for a moment, then roll it about your palm. It’s small — still large enough to restrict airflow in one’s throat but small nonetheless. Smooth, too. You don’t need to open your eyes to know you’re holding the pearl you came for.
“Hoseok,” you groan, voice hoarse from everything your mind and body has endured. “Hoseok, we-”
Your heart stops as your gaze finally falls upon him — upon quiet, unmoving Hoseok.
“No.”
The pearl clatters against stone as you drop it and crawl over to his still form.
“Hoseok.”
When you smack his cheek to rouse him, you aren’t gentle, and still there’s no response.
“Hoseok!”
You slap him and nothing changes.
“No, no, no, no, no, Hoseok!”
You don’t need him anymore, but your heart is pounding. Pounding? No, not quite — it’s breaking.
“Hoseok, please!”
Just shy of panicking, you press your fingers to his pulse point and focus on feeling for a rhythm. Any rhythm will do, so long as he’s alive. And thank the gods, there’s something! A thready, faint pulse, but something!
You check for air.
Nothing. No faint breath tickling your cheek, and no rise and fall of his chest. There’s simply nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing!
A low, gravely voice cuts through the cacophony of fear. “He’s still dreaming, sister.”
“How!? It was my dream. Why is he still asleep!?”
“It’s possible he doesn’t want to wake up,” Arista says, “and it’s possible he doesn’t know you’re awake. Have you any reason to believe he wouldn’t abandon you?”
You do, don’t you? You just don’t want to admit it.
“No,” you lie, glaring at Arista and clenching your jaw. “Wake him up.”
“If I could, I would.” Arista crawls backwards off the stone and dips into water. As soon as she has resurfaced, she wheezes, “There’s nothing more I can do for him if he won’t wake up on his own, sister. My condolences.”
Fingers twitching with the itch to strangle her, you barely resist the urge to tell her she can take her condolences and shove them up her blowhole. If Arista can’t help you save Hoseok, then she doesn’t matter right now.
You scramble closer to Hoseok, then drag your knuckles across his sternum. Nothing, still nothing.
“Shit!” you hiss through clenched teeth. “Don’t you fucking die on me!”
Shifting so you’re kneeling beside his head, you tilt his chin upwards with your hook and pinch his nose. You close your lips around his. You give breath, eyes locked on the rise and fall of his chest, and then you give another. Turning your face towards his, you whisper prayers against his skin.
“Please, Hobi. Please.”
When you press your mouth against Hoseok’s this time, his lips move.
Before you have time to react, before you’ve even had time to realize what’s going on, Hoseok’s hand flies upward and clasps the back of your neck, pulling you in deeper and holding you close. Caught off guard, you gasp. Hoseok seizes the opportunity to slip his tongue inside your mouth.
Moaning into the kiss, you suck his tongue and forget, for half a second, that Hoseok has scared the shit out of you. The growl forming in your chest transforms into a full-on snarl. As if unsure what to do with your hands, you both curl your fingers into his shirt to grip him tightly and simultaneously push yourself away.
“Did you miss me, Hook?” Hoseok asks, arching a brow and flicking his tongue across his teeth.
“If you ever scare me like that again, I’ll kill you myself,” you spit.
Hoseok hisses through his teeth. “Promise?”
“What a sweet reunion,” Arista cuts in, sounding anything but earnest.
“Did we get the pearl?” Hoseok asks.
“Yes,” you say, face contorting with displeasure, “and it’s all because you listened to me. Imagine if you did that more often.”
Sitting up, Hoseok chews his bottom lip for a beat, then says, “now’s not the time to talk about that.”
“Mm, we finally agree.”
“The pearl,” Arista prompts, unfurling a gnarled hand so that her needle-like fingers stretch towards you.
Resolve wavering the moment your fingers smooth over the pearl’s surface, you grit your teeth. You know in your heart that your crew is already dead, that the dream you had only mattered to yourself and Hoseok, but their sacrifices and pain still felt so real. Arista’s ghosts suffered greatly for the pearl; it’s difficult to give up so freely.
“What will you do with it, sister?” you ask, fingers momentarily closing around the pearl before you drop it into Arista’s palm.
“I’ll fasten a necklace for you,” Arista says, “so that you might keep its powers close to your heart at all times.”
“Thank you.” You bow your head in respect. “Your assistance has rivaled the sea’s bounty.”
“Such manners,” Arista muses. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the honor of acquainting myself with an unanchored. I think I should add an extra spell or two to the necklace. I can’t, in good conscience, let you go without them.”
Your stomach somersaults. Whatever she means, it can’t mean anything good for you. Hesitation prevents you from inquiring further; Hoseok fills in the silence.
“Will your preparations take long?” Hoseok asks. “Will it be a while?”
A thick, wet choking sound escapes Arista’s throat — like a laugh combined with a wheeze. She flicks her tail, splashing water up onto the platform.
“Do you think age has slowed me down, Hoseok?” Arista asks. “Because I assure you, it hasn’t. Can you say the same?”
You perk up, brow furrowing. What?
The only explanation you get is Hoseok’s eyes, swallowed in darkness, as he glares at Arista. He’s angry. Why?
“They should be finished tomorrow,” Arista continues. “Where do you intend to spend the night?”
“Somewhere dry,” you respond, almost instantaneously. “Away from the water.”
Arista cocks her head, scrutinizing you with those glazed, bulbous eyes. “A sailor who fears the sea is a curious thing, and an Unanchored, no less.”
“I’m not afraid of water, and especially not open water, such as the sea. Put me on a ship surrounded by water on all four sides, even one floating above the denizens of the deep, and I will feel right at home,” you say, chin tilted upward as if you need to hold your ground against the mermaid. “I respect those threats, but I do not fear them. That right is reserved for one creature — part man, part beast — and only him. He just so happens to have an affinity for water.”
“All the best monsters do, sister,” Arista says, sporting a large, nightmarishly toothy grin. “And that’s exactly why you should spend your night here.”
You quirk your brow and angle your head towards her, trying to trace her logic. Finally, you simply ask, “why?”
“Magic,” Hoseok answers on Arista’s behalf.
“Magic,” she agrees. “Mine, if you want to be particular.”
You frown. “And just how do you expect to keep us safe if you’re not here?”
“I can hide this place.” She gestures with her freehand as if underscoring the emptiness of the cavern. “Hide it so that the only ones who can find it are myself and those you choose to invite in.”
“And what about my dreams?” you ask, recalling how you had accidentally summoned The Crocodile before.
“I can help with that too, if you’d like,” Arista says, plucking a shell off of her necklace. “The same magic that put you to sleep before can put you to sleep again, and without me to re-route it, you can guide the dream yourself. Would you like that?”
You swallow hard.
“I think I should like that very much,” you admit, nodding along. “Thank you, sister. Your kindness is unparalleled.
Arista bows her head. “Of course. Rest now, and tomorrow morning, I’ll bring both the necklace and the map.”
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“You’ve been unusually quiet, Hoseok,” you observe, giving him a once-over before returning your attention to stoking the fire. Leaning back as the flames calm, you grab a round, purple fruit and dig your hook into its flesh to peel away the skin. You wait a beat, but when he doesn’t answer, you prompt, “Hoseok?”
“I’m just thinking,” he says.
“Also unusual,” you quip. The corners of your mouth twitch, almost curling into a smile as you jest.
Hoseok’s eyes flutter shut and he sighs; if the smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes, you’d begin to worry.
“I’m thinking about you, Hook.”
“Is that unusual, too?” you ask. The way your heart skips in anticipation surprises you more than whatever his answer could be.
“Yes,” he says, raising his brow as he thinks it over. Then he bites his bottom lip. “Well, no,” he admits. This time, his brows scrunch together, worried, as he tries to figure out the best way to explain his thoughts. He finally settles on, “I think about you often but not like this. It’s different.”
A much longer pause than you’d expected passes between the two of you, stretching the silence out until you ask, “well, are you going to tell me? Or are you going to keep the truth from me, just like you kept your age to yourself?”
“I’m not keeping anything from you,” Hoseok says, watching you out the corner of his eye. When you hum a questioning sound, prompting more, he explains, “you’ve never asked about me before.”
You frown. “That’s not true,” you argue, “I’ve done nothing but ask about you.”
“You’ve asked me what I can do for you,” Hoseok says, shaking his head. “Not…” he pauses, flicking his tongue out across his lips anxiously, “not about me.”
“Then I’ll ask you now,” you declare. “Arista hinted at so many different possibilities… so just how old are you, Hoseok?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“You’re insufferable,” you say with a snort.
“I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to,” he admits, eyes creasing in the corners as he smiles at your reaction. “Truthfully, I’m unsure. All I know for certain is that it has felt long.”
“Surely you have family who would know?”
Hoseok inhales sharply through his nose. “Actually, I don’t — not now at least, and if I ever did, then I suspect they’ve been dead for a very long time.”
“The Lost Boys, then?” you ask. “They might be able to guess.”
Hoseok nibbles on his bottom lip some more, forcing you to concentrate on watching his eyes just to keep your mind from wandering.
“Neverland is my oldest memory,” he explains, “my oldest, longest, memory. Everything and everyone else came later on.”
Your gaze flicks from the fire to his face and lingers there. “What does that mean?”
“Out of all the living things in Neverland — out of the Lost Boys, the fairies, the animals, the trees and flowers and grass — I am the oldest.”
“How is that possible?” you ask, scooting from your spot on the platform to move closer towards him.
“I wish I knew more,” Hoseok admits, wetting his lips. “One day I just woke up here. There was nothing but sand, sea, and sky.”
“You’ve never considered leaving?” you ask. “Never considered trying to find out if there’s someone out there who might know more about you?”
Hoseok’s expression darkens, causing the last semblance of a smile to evaporate off his face. “I’ve told you before, Hook,” he says. Instead of the playful tone you’re used to or the recent melancholy, there’s anger. “I can’t leave because Neverland won’t let me. You have no idea how many days I’ve spent staring at the spot on the horizon where the sea meets the sky and wishing I could see past it.”
When Hoseok looks up from the fire and meets your gaze, your stomach somersaults. The whites of his eyes are gone, consumed by a familiar darkness that only shows up when he’s using magic. You tongue your cheek, trying your damnedest not to show your concern as you piece together what it means for you if he can manipulate the shadows without drawing power from somewhere else.
“And you truly don’t remember anything from before? Not even a fragment of a memory?”
“Before Neverland, there was nothing.”
“Not even a feeling?”
Hoseok opens his mouth to reply, then thinks better of it and clicks his jaw shut. The way he worries his bottom lip with his teeth tells you he did think of something. A pained sigh escapes his lips, and then he admits, “there was a feeling. Just one, but it was… it was everything.”
You wait for him to go on, but all he does is cast his gaze back downward. “You don’t want to tell me more.”
“That’s not it,” Hoseok says with a small shake of his head. “I just don’t want to remember how it felt to be that lonely. It was there before I even woke up. I can’t explain it,” he says, clenching and unclenching his fists as if stretching his fingers.
Your heart hurts.
After taking a moment to look him over, you shift your weight forward and pivot until you’re kneeling before him. He looks back at you, and although his eyes are still dark with magic and emotion, the anger has been replaced with curiosity.
“What are you doing, Hook?” he asks, voice a full octave lower than you’re used to hearing from him. It makes you shiver, but instead of answering him, you reach up and touch his face.
He doesn’t stop you — not when your knuckles brush his cheekbone, not when you trace the strong lines of his jaw, not even when your fingers ghost across his lips. All Hoseok does is watch you with those impossibly black eyes and let his lips part.
It’s a trick of the mind — or of the heart — that his breath burns hotter against your skin than the flames at your back. When it becomes unbearable, your fingers travel lower, lightly tugging on his bottom lip on the way down. For a moment, his throat is pressed against the palm of your hand, and it’s in that moment that you realize you are the vulnerable one.
You continue the downwards stroke until you can feel a steady thump, thump, thump. Aside from the eyes searching your face as you touch him, Hoseok is completely still. So why is his heart beating so fast and so hard?
Your breath catches in your throat when you flick your gaze upwards. Either the look in his eyes holds you captive, or you allow it to — which is scarier?
“Hoseok.” Your voice is so soft, barely above a whisper, but it carries within this chamber. Throat suddenly dry, you swallow hard. “If you weren’t the bane of my existence, then I think you’d be one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen.”
“If I weren’t the bane of your existence, then I wouldn’t be me.”
A hint of mischief returns to his face, but instead of frustrating you like it normally would, it softens you towards him. Unsure of what answer you’re even looking for, you search his expression. It takes a moment, a long moment with your hand against his chest and your lips so close to his, but you finally ask, “why do you always look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I haven’t hunted you. Like I haven’t hurt you. Like I haven’t purposefully been cruel.”
“I don’t know any other way to look at you,” Hoseok says, cupping your jaw and angling your face towards his. “There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, Hook.”
Hoseok closes the distance between the pair of you until his lips are a hair’s breadth away. “I might never see the world beyond Neverland’s horizon,” he whispers, “but it would be enough if I could just see past yours.”
It’s a struggle to find your voice and move your lips when all you can think about is moving them against his. “Of all the things you could ask, what do you want to know most?”
When he answers you, his voice is gentler than you think you’ve ever heard it before.
“Your name,” he pleads. “Tell me your name.”
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A/N: Hello again, everyone! How are you guys doing? 🥺 Things always seem to be crazy for me, so I hope you’re doing well, staying healthy, and making room for fun. If you liked this chapter or if you have any gut reactions or theories, please let me know! I’m always so excited to read your responses. As an update, I’m possibly a little bit more than halfway through the first draft of the rest of Lost and Found... like, the whole series, not just a single chapter, to clarify. I think I’m going to work on finishing up the first draft of everything before going back to rewrite, edit, and post each upcoming chapter. I’m not sure how long this will take me, but I’ve got the next 2 chapters fully written already, and I’m halfway through the one after that. I anticipate there being 2-3 chapters after that third one. So like. Maybe. Sixish chapters left of LaF. Total? That’s obviously highly subject to change depending on where the characters take me and how long things end up being in their final form, but YEAH. Anyway. I hope you’re all doing well. ILY. 💜💜💜
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