Dreamtime - One Shot fic
This picture had such a profound effect on me that I actually had a deam about it. My dream actually ended before I could reach out to him, so I finished the dream on paper, as it were. This also is one answer the question posed by #captjameshookthoughts in a post earlier today.
Dreamtime
I’m standing in a dark room in my bedclothes, but somehow, I know it’s not my bedroom. It’s too dark; there’s no faint ambient light from my alarm clock or the nightlight in the bathroom. In fact, it’s almost pitch black. The door isn’t even where it’s supposed to be, it’s right in front of me. I reach out and run my palms across the smooth, well-oiled door and find an iron bolt in the locked position. The door is warm to the touch, but the floor is cold on my bare feet. And I can smell the ocean, cigar smoke, and alcohol, and something like linseed oil but not quite the same.
I keep blinking my eyes trying to get them to adjust to the blackness and turn to look around the dark room. That’s when I see him, only because of the thin shaft of moonlight that’s shining in through a window. One thin sliver of light in a sea of blackness that envelops me and the man straddling a chair with his arms folded across the back. I instantly fight to control my breathing and the volume of my breaths to keep them inaudible. I know this man – even from the back, in this poor light, I know him.
He's been drinking heavily; the smell of rum permeates the air. And I can see a partially consumed glass of alcohol in his hand, but he’s not drinking it. His head is down on his arms and he’s crying silently; I can’t hear a sound, but I can see his shoulders heaving.
I take a few tentative steps towards him, the lavish, lush rugs on the floor feel much better to my bare feet than the bare plank flooring. Now I can see the vicious steel claw that he wears on his right arm, the moonlight makes it gleam. My heart breaks for him. He’s so sad, so lost, so alone. I know this feeling, though not as cruelly as he does, but I am familiar with these feelings. I have my demons that crawl out when I’m alone with my thoughts, and in the wee hours when I’m trying to sleep or worse, into my dreams giving me the kind of nightmares that make you wake up screaming and crying.
I want so badly to reach out and tell him he’s going to be alright. I want to tell him that I’ve loved him since I was a wee boy of five years old. That I’ve never found him scary, threatening, repulsive, evil, disgusting, and a dozen other euphemisms for ‘bad’. I would dearly love to put my arms around his shoulders and hug him, a good long, affirming hug but I don’t think he knows I’m here. At least, he’s given no indication, and he might strike out in anger or shock with the hook.
I know he’s a proud man and the last thing he wants is for anyone to see him so dejected and defeated, so vulnerable. But I also know I can’t just stand here and watch him suffer in silence; my heart won’t let me. I take a few more tentative steps closer, and a board creaks under my weight – I freeze, thinking I’ve announced my presence prematurely, but evidently creaky boards are part of his everyday life because the noise doesn’t faze him.
I steel myself to try and deflect or maybe halt the deadly right arm that is sure to attack any intruder, but I also realize I’m not the strong young man I was in my 20’s or 30’s. I’ve gotten old and somewhat crippled. I can’t even run anymore if my life depended on it, damn that doctor. I have been told though, that I am the most determined man many people have met, and my heart has not weakened under the catastrophes of life, nor has it lost its capacity for love. I reach out ever so slowly to gently lay my left hand on his right shoulder as I softly speak his name.
“Captain Hook, sir?”
He almost jumps out of his skin, leaping to his feet and dropping his drink. He staggers a little bit, probably from the alcohol and being startled. An angry snarl is on his lips and the claw is held high ready to strike, little red spots dot the center of his entrancing blue eyes. Everything inside me tells me to run, but I hold my ground trying to keep a calm expression, my hands up at shoulder height.
“How did you get in here?!” the captain demands. “Who are you?!” glaring at the strange, bearded man in his quarters.
“Please sir,” I start, “Don’t kill me. I’m not here to do any mischief….” He swings the claw at me, and I jump backwards. He misses my throat by fractions of an inch. Good Lord, he is so much taller than me. He must be six foot four at least.
“Don’t presume to give me orders! And how the Hell did you get in my cabin?!” I can tell he’s fighting the urge to eviscerate me on the spot and I’ve no idea why I’m still alive. It is at this point I begin to wonder if I’m having a really strange dream… except I never know that I’m having a dream when I do. But I definitely felt the leather harness that holds the barbarous hook and base to his right arm when I touched him. Never dreamed anything like that before.
“I thought I was having a dream,” I say as he attacks again, only this time I manage to grab his right forearm and hang on to it. Odd, I think, my voice doesn’t sound quite right to my ears. It sounds younger than the 59 years I’ve walked the Earth.
“And why would you dream about me?” he growls, fighting to free himself from a grip I haven’t possessed in almost 30 years. “Having a nightmare, were we?” He reaches for my throat and begins to try and choke me with his left hand, inadvertently tugging the beard hairs on my neck.
“No sir,” I grunt. “I was actually hoping nothing would wake me from dreaming.” I’m trying to lean back and away from his hand while still maintaining my grip on his right arm.
“Rubbish!” he snorts derisively. “Why did Pan send you?! What are you here to do to me?!”
“Pan?!” I snap back, surprised at the vitriol in my voice. “That little bastard?! I’d kill him on sight if I ever saw him!” I snarl between gritted teeth.
“Balderdash!” He manages to snatch his right arm free but does not make another attempt to kill me – not yet at least. “No one hates Pan except me.”
“You’re wrong, sir.” I reply, adopting a more relaxed stance, my hands back up as more of a sign that I’m not armed and have no intentions of fighting. “I’ve hated that mosterous, evil little prick ever since my mother read me the story when I was five. You have no idea how many times I played at killing him and that damned crocodile.” He releases my throat, eyebrows raised.
He snorted again, convinced I’m lying. “No little children love me,” he paused, a fleeting look of heartbreak gracing his handsome features. “No one loves me.” Though he had quickly wiped his face on his left shirt sleeve, his face is flushed more from his weeping than from anger. He knows I can see it and it gnaws at his pride. “Get out, now!” He thundered. His right arm drops to about his rib cage as the all too familiar feeling of impending defeat washes over him.
“I don’t know how!” I reply, frustrated. “I don’t know how I even got here in the first place. And your door is locked from the inside!”
Hook looked over his shoulder suspiciously; indeed, the door was still bolted and as he looked around his state room, no windows were open either. Confusion enters his mind. “Who...?” he began. “How...?” He has finally noticed my left forearm and the tattoo on the inside of it. His eyes go wide with shock and disbelief. “Where did you get that?!” he stares at my arm. There, in full color, is a hook. No, not just any hook but his hook and base, permanently etched onto my skin.
“I had that done about 10 years ago,” I reply, feeling a little less frightened. I hold my arm out for him to have a better look. I feel his fingers close tightly around my left wrist as he jerks my forearm towards him. He looks at the claw at the end of his right arm, then at the tattoo several times.
“It’s… mine,” he finally stammers in complete disbelief. “Who did this? One of Pan’s….”
“No!” I interrupt. “I had it done in Charleston while I was vacationing at the beach. That little asshole has nothing to do with my tattoo!”
He slowly releases my wrist, still staring at the tattoo. “But why would you want this…” he gestures with his hook, “as a tattoo? It’s repulsive. It disgusts me.”
I begin, feeling a knot trying to form in my throat, my stomach suddenly feels like a bottomless pit. “Sir, I have loved you for fifty-four years. Captain Hook, I love you so much I have, at times, feared it was sinful to love another person that much. Sir, I have carried you in my heart all these years, and I wanted something to let the whole world know where my allegiance lies.” He likes it when I call him “sir”; I can see it in his ever so blue eyes, eyes I want to drown in.
He just stares at me, unblinking, his eyes evidently used to the darkness of his unlit cabin. I tell myself he’s probably wondering about my flannel lounge pants and V-neck t-shirt. I’m sure he’s never seen any attire like mine. He’s also still wondering whether or not to just gut me on the spot. I’m sure of it. Why should he trust this old man in his room, who somehow got in through a locked door.
“You’re lying,” he says finally, his words laced with scorn fueled by all his previous experiences. “I am loathsome. I have done unspeakable things. I am horrid to look at. I am so detestable, so vile, so hideous that I can barely stand to look at my own reflection so how can anyone look at me without revulsion?”
I feel myself smile gently, my posture relaxes further, and, lowering my hands slowly I take a small step towards my childhood…my lifelong hero. I am inundated by love and empathy.
“You’re none of those things in my eyes. I’ve never felt anything but love towards you, sir. Well, and sorrow for what that hateful beast Pan did to you.”
“I will not tolerate your pity!” He says acerbically.
“It’s not pity.” I insist. “Sorrow is different from pity. Sorrow and grief are born from love. Pity is reserved for the stray dog that’s been so mistreated it doesn’t trust humans enough to even let you get close to it so it can’t be helped or fed or anything.” I heave a sigh. “And I do love you, so very much.” I realize that I’ve inadvertently just compared him to a stray dog and pray he doesn’t pick up on it. “I – love - you!”
“You what?” he stammered, shocked. “But how?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was an enlightened child.” I grin for a moment but it’s a fleeting moment of satisfaction because Hook starts shaking his head.
“No,” he says flatly. “No, this cannot be. You must be lying to save yourself. NO ONE loves me. Do not try deceit with me… whoever you are. I am alone and unloved, and always will be.”
“I’m not lying, and you are not unloved!” I almost yell at him, a little angry for being called a liar. “I can’t help it if Pan has lied to you and…” I pause. Had Wendy and her brothers already visited Neverland? “And any of the stupid children Pan has brought here. It’s not my fault they’re all blind as bats and gullible to Pan’s lies. I loved you from the first time my Mom read the story to me.”
“Story?” Hook queried, puzzled. “What story?”
“Um,” I begin, thinking how to put it delicately. He’s been hurt enough as it is, no need to heap more humiliation upon his heart. “Well, one of the children Pan brings here, she decides to leave and go back to her parents…”
“The storyteller!” he exclaimed. “I remember her. The Wendy.”
“Well, after she grows up, she and her husband write a book about her trip and adventures here.”
“I thought she was different,” Hook says wistfully. “I thought… but no. No children…” he stopped short and looked back into the eyes of the strange man in his cabin. They were not critical of him. They did not hold him in contempt. There was no hate in them. If eyes were truly the window to one’s soul, then this man had laid his bare for Hook to see.
“Before tonight I have never met anyone who claimed to love me, or even cared for me. Maybe Smee but….” His expression fell back to one of utter dejection and grief and he staggered back to the chair to sit before his knees buckled.
This time I follow him, again laying a hand on his right shoulder as I squat to look him square in the eyes. “I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you, so long as I draw breath into my lungs. And I’m not the only one. Peter has lied to you, because there are plenty of children who love Hook, and even more like me who never stopped or forgot you.”
He tried to look away but could not, even though he desperately wanted to. He could feel his eyes burning as they had earlier this evening before he started drinking. A single tear crept down his cheek, and he was consumed by shame and humiliation and closed his eyes. “Please go away,” he said hoarsely. Wasn’t it enough to be constantly harassed and humiliated by that flying demon child? Now he was confused and bewildered by the appearance of this strange man in his cabin and even more so by his words and tattoo.
Was he the one that was dreaming? Surely, he’d had enough to drink to be in an alcohol induced haze. Would he awaken in the morning to realize this was all a callous dream? He looked back up at the man. “What is your name?” he sighed glumly.
“It’s Edward, but Ed works too.”
“Edward?” Hook echoed. “Edward…” he said again, thoughtfully. The face that beheld him was still smiling, eyes twinkling with utter joy at being in his presence. “I know that name,” he says, “though I don’t remember… but Neverland makes one forget.”
“I have something I’d like to give you if I may, sir,” I ask, proudly raising my broken body to all of my five-foot, six inches height. “I’ve been keeping it safe for you for 54 years.”
“That’s an awfully long time, in some places. What is it?” Hook asked suspiciously, but curiously.
“If you don’t mind, sir...” I quickly straddle Hook’s legs and plop down onto his lap, simultaneously wrapping both arms tightly around the man. I lay my head on Hook’s left shoulder, waiting to be torn asunder by the claw but I will not pull away. I will not hurt this poor, shattered soul further. If I die, I die happy.
Hook raised his eyebrows and stiffened briefly, then slowly relaxed. He found himself the recipient of the first affection, the first real hug he could remember receiving since his own childhood with Aunt Emily, ever so long ago. His first instinct was to shove the man away; centuries of rejection were hard to surmount. The fellow began to speak softly but with so much conviction: “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Over and over until Hook could hear nothing else in his mind but those sincere pledges.
Then he felt it; a warm, peaceful sensation emanating from Edward and seeping into his own body, into his very soul. His arms slowly found their way around Edward, careful to keep the point of his claw turned away from the man and returned the hug.
I try to swallow the knot in my throat away; I don’t want to bawl in front of him, but I can feel my eyes leaking tears anyway.
Hook gazed down upon the head and took note of the silver that far outnumbered the darker hairs. For a fleeting moment he thought he saw a small boy asleep on his lap, but after blinking several times in disbelief he plainly saw the older gentleman who had called him ‘sir’ out of respect. Who left no doubt in Hook’s mind that he was, indeed, loved, by at least one soul. It eased some of his pain. It made his existence in this living Hell a little more bearable.
Hook stayed in the intoxicating embrace even after Edward became hoarse and ran out of ‘I love yous’ or just succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep with his head on Hook’s breast. Without purposely meaning to, he let his chin rest atop Edward’s head, heaving his own purging sigh. His eyelids fluttered and Hook gave in to the emotionally draining exhaustion – and in all probability the effect of the large amount of rum he had consumed earlier, and fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
He was alone again in his cabin when he awoke as grey dawn began to light up the sky, once again confused and perplexed. His guest was gone with no evidence he’d ever been there, and Hook’s cabin door was still bolted from the inside. As much as he hated to admit it, he missed his odd, bearded visitor. He slid the bolt open for when Mr. Smee would come with his tea and breakfast. He looked forward to it; for once he actually had a good appetite this morning and no hangover.
While he waited, he sat again in the chair with his arms folded across the back and pondered what had happened the previous night. He again felt very alone and lost, but he also felt the corners of his mouth flick upwards briefly as he heard a voice in his mind like a metronome: “I love you. I love you. I love you…”
He found wispy, silvery hair, not very long, on the sleeve of his shirt. No, it indeed had not been a dream. Strange by all accounts, but as real as he was himself. Hook would spend many hours pondering exactly how his visitor had reached Neverland and if he would ever return. But he was left with one comforting thought; that no matter what else Pan took from him the imp could not change the fact that at least one soul loved him unconditionally.
I awaken with a start to the rumble of thunder and rain pounding on the roof of my house. Lightning flashes again and my heart breaks: I am no longer with him. I want to go back! I sit up on the side of my bed and weep bitterly until I have to go the bathroom to blow my nose, clear my sinuses, and wash my face. The very idea of an almost 60-year-old man crying like a child over a stupid dream…
I turn the bathroom light on to get my washcloth and dampen it with cold water. I look at myself in the mirror, eyes bloodshot and swollen from weeping and choking on my own snot… and then I see it. A single strand of long black hair, curly, on the right shoulder of my white undershirt. No one in this house has hair that long. It must be his. It has to be his! It wasn’t a mere dream after all. I take the hair and carefully deposit it in an envelope, then tuck it away in my bedside stand. And though I already miss him dreadfully and wonder if I will ever cross into his world again, at least I have made sure that Captain Hook knows he is neither alone nor unloved.