I’m honestly not sure if this is much good, or really worth giving as a gift, but I’ve tried something new here, and I’m hoping you may like it, Hollye. You’ve provided the fandom (and our pirate!) a lot of painfully delicious whump over the last few years. Particularly with “What Lies Beneath the Mask” - my personal favorite! You also wrote one of my favorite examples of KnightRook fic in your recent MC “We Make Our Own Fate”. I’m attempting to incorporate those things in this little drabble for you. I don’t really know where this came from otherwise; I had something else in mind, but then this is what I ended up with instead. Contains Season 7’s Wish!Hook/Old Hook and Rogers, KnightRook, and of course some whumpage, if those are things people aren’t interested in. Most of those are new things for me to try writing as well.
Enough of my rambling - here goes:
“Saved From What Might Have Been”
Rough hands grasp him harshly, grappling at him from all angles and lifting him bodily from his seat at the gaming tables. He brays out in displeasure, swatting at those forcing him to the tavern door, at first thinking it is a ill-timed and less-than-humorous jest. However, as raucous voices laugh and jeer in approval, hooting and hollering and stamping feet accompanying shouts of “Good riddance!” and “Bout time ye boys were takin’ out the trash!”, Jones begins to struggle in earnest. He jerks within the hold of many, bucking and swinging wildly, though his punches go wide, made effectual with too much drink and the number of opponents holding him back. His attempts to dig in his heels only lead to him tripping over the raised board at the tavern entrance when the group pauses to open the door. Their combined grip lessens slightly, but before Hook can gather himself to whirl and fight, he is tossed forward unceremoniously, hurled into the street face first.
Once he would have been on his feet in an instant, charging forward to take all comers, but the air is knocked from his aging lungs, and he feels the ache and disorientation throughout his aching joints as he pushes himself to scruffed hands and knees, glaring at those who mock him from the doorway, barring re-entry to the one place able to temporarily silence his demons.
A shaking, unsteady hand wipes away mud from the rain drenched streets and the coarse and unkempt gray hair hanging in his eyes as well. His voice is a hoarse growl when he warns, “You lot should know better than to cross a pirate!” He attempts to stand imposingly to his full height, hand tucked in his belt and hook in plain view, to inspire the sort of respect and fear he had once done and ignore the shooting pain in his knees and hip.
The mob of half a dozen or more look unimpressed, but still Jones moves forward, meaning to shoulder his way through them and back to his table indoors. However, upon nearing the group, he is shoved back harshly, sending his still unbalanced form staggering back again. Rage blinds him along with the dizziness of a half-drunken haze. Brandishing the hook, he makes to charge into the fray once more, when he is stopped cold by their leader’s words.
“Think carefully, ye doddering old fool,” the man’s deep tone orders. “Ye’ve cheated yer last at my tables, and used up the last of me goodwill. Payin’ customers’ve complained long enough. You’re no captain. Where’s yer ship? No sailor nor pirate; no more, at any rate. Yer a has been, a worthless old drunk. And this be yer warnin’ - stay out of my tavern or face the consequences!”
The words sink in just as deep, and perhaps even more painfully than the hard landing had moments before. The grizzled man seems to shrink, his shoulders slumping as he faces the small mob barring his way. Though his bravado does not leave him, he sees that it will not serve him victory and there is no swaying the men standing against him. There’s nothing for him here - no longer can he seek refuge, drown his sorrows and try to forget. He wants to wipe that hateful sneer from the taven keeper’s face; to carve his mark in the skin of all their thick hides with the sharp point of his hook and prove their insults wrong. And yet… defeated he knows those words have long since turned into ugly truth.
“I’m not sure he’s gotten the message yet, Ed,” one of the burly louts adds gruffly, stepping from the collective shadow of the pack and circling around behind the old sailor, hands balled into fists.
“Ye may be right, Connors,” another chortles cruelly. “Seems he might be half witted as well as one handed!”
Outmanned he might be, but Jones still isn’t one to take such abuse in silence, and is about to tell them so when a sharp kick to his legs from behind buckles both his knees and sends him to the ground once more. Before he can begin to get up or even roll away from the unseen onslaught, another heavy booted foot hurries forward to step down on the arm that had hit the ground hardest, causing a garbled yelp to escape his chapped lips. The thug’s full weight on the joint makes an audible crunch of bone and sinew and it is all the aging Jones can do to bite back the sting of tears at the pain.
Floodgates now open, the group falls on him completely. A broom handle cracks along his spine, ale is poured over his head, rocks pelt him over and over, and kicks rain across his abdomen until he feels one connect with his ribs. His breath is stolen by the blazing white hot agony, and for a second his consciousness wavers. All thought of fighting back ceases, and instead Hook merely curls in upon himself, trying desperately to shield his head and vital organs until their attack is over.
After what seems an eternity, the beating slows, the miscreants back away as they spit on him and issue final warnings not to enter the establishment again. One even mutters that he might as well curl up there in the gutter where he belongs and wait to meet his Maker. In that moment, Jones wonders if he may be about to do so as his breath comes in harsh, ragged pants around the fragments of at least one broken rib scraping torment against his lung.
The sky opens in a frigid downpour again as the other men leave him in a crumpled heap. They go back inside, flush with victory and high spirited in his defeat. The greying man shivers from the cold and shock, the agony of his wounds and the decimation of his pride almost pulling him under.
However, he cannot give in yet, there is something he must still do. He cannot die here in this alleyway, even if he does deserve just such an inauspicious end. No, there is someone who would miss him, who needs the few pilfered coins and the crust of bread he had managed to hide before they discovered his game. ‘Alice,’ he wheezes, the name barely more than a whisper in the rainy deluge and the crash of thunder.
Half limping and half dragging his sorry carcass from the outskirts of the village, through the storm to the foot of her tower, the old buccaneer collapses at the base of the high, impenetrable edifice holding his darling girl prisoner. Tugging on the rope attached to the basket where he has placed his hard-won treasures, he hopes that his Alice will hear the bell at the other end, letting her know he has something for her, over the tumult. Squinting against the pelting drops, the wavering of his vision and encroaching unconsciousness, he waits for even a glimpse of her at the window far above. He can no longer climb to her; his old bones and poisoned heart having separated them physically years ago.
Minutes flow by, lengthening and playing tricks. Has she turned away from him too? “Alice!” he cries, his voice as broken as his body dying out on the howling wind. “Alice, my Lass! Are you there?” No answer comes, and her honeyed curls and beguiling smile never appear over the ledge. Even she has gone… he failed her too… just as he had feared…
~~~~***~~~~
Two delicate hands shake Rogers into wakefulness, his Alice’s concerned voice ending his nightmare anxiously. “Papa, wake up!” she pleads. “I’m here! You’re dreaming! Wake up!”
Blinking against the strangely wavering bluish light from the television still playing in the living room before him, he turns to see his grown daughter, restored to him just before they came here to Storybrooke in the United Realms, seated on the edge of the couch at his hip. Alice leans over him, where he had fallen asleep watching the nightly news, her hand still clutching his shoulder where she shook him awake. Her eyes are wide as she studies his face, sure that something real has disturbed her stoic and strong father.
He still feels a bit blearily fuzzy-headed, the dream having muddled him with the anguish and shame slow to fade from his brain. “Alice? Did I wake you? ‘M sorry, Love. You can go back to sleep.” He runs a hand haphazardly back through his dark hair, just beginning to show a few strands of silver, in an attempt to clear the cobwebs and offer her a tentative smile. Shaking his head, Rogers hopes the thin excuse will appease his grown child enough to drop her queries into what troubled him.
“You were calling my name, Papa,” Alice offers hesitantly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He sighs, reaching out to cover her hand on his shoulder and twining her fingers with his to squeeze tightly in affection. “No, Lass, no need. It’s nothing to worry about. We’re both here safe and sound. All’s as it should be.”
Not one to be easily dissuaded, she leans forward, pressing her forehead to her father’s playfully but holding his gaze with her curious eyes. “Are you sure?” she presses.
“Aye,” he nods with certainty, a bit more of the usual twinkle returning to his eyes as he stands to meet the day and pulls Alice up beside him. “No use worrying your pretty little head about me. Let’s have some breakfast, shall we?”
A matching sparkle of mischief lights her eyes as well. “Is there marmalade for the toast?” she returns cheerily.
“Of course there is, what do you take me for?”
“Then, let’s do it!” she exclaims, looping her arm through her papa’s as they troop into the kitchen. He follows easily, a full-throated laugh bubbling from his chest, only too happy to let the last shadows of the dream fade with the light of day.
Tagging a few others who (may?) enjoy - not sure this will be all of my usual readers’ cup of tea?
