「 ᴄᴀᴘᴛᴀɪɴ. 」

“It can’t compare to the company I have now.” Gigi greeted sending a welcoming smile his way. The words holding the same genuine warmth they always did. She accepted her drink without shame, sweet and fruity might not have been the most mature of choices but she liked taste enough not to care. Plus, the umbrella always ended up being a cute accessory sitting behind her ear. “But it was alright.”

“So nothing you need me to take care of?” His tone implied he was joking but his words were framed with the promise of a threat. It was well known throughout the Lagoon that if you upset the girls then you dealt with his Rogers not long after. For Gigi, he made sure to see to it personally. 

“Cheers.” She offered the bartender, buying them a shot alongside her own. The blonde had just returned from an amazing afternoon. Lunch —the wives and families always got dinners— a king size bed, then a shower with multiple heads and warm towels and a brand new bottle of her perfume left on the pillow. She’d mentioned last time she was running low, and it was nice to know people listened when she spoke. Even if her damp hair meeting the London air sent a chill throughout her body. “Something fruity too if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Bad date?” Hook quipped, settling into the seat beside her. He didn’t need to specify his drink order at the Lagoon, frequency meaning he could just wave a hand and the bartender knew his regular. Whiskey, neat, from the highest shelf and lacking the little pink umbrella her drink was being decorated with. 

Opal felt herself rendered silent, a task that most were unable to do. She was always talking – happy, sad, angry, or any emotion in between. Her big mouth was considered an equal amount a blessing and a curse. But at James’ word, at his reminder that she would never truly be apart of, it felt like a punch to the gut. He, more than anyone, knew how much she wanted to belong. But it didn’t matter whether she was sleeping in a closed off room in the Fairy or awkwardly fidgeting with the silverware during a dinner at the penthouse… Opal was never meant to belong. She was only meant to be molded into something she wasn’t even sure she’d ever recognize.

“You didn’t take me with you.” She pointed out softly, once she finally mustered up words. It was a fact that haunted her for six years. She’d never been able to understand why. “You left me behind. That’s the definition of abandonment.”

“I couldn’t take you.” He told her plainly, he had barely a plan when he crossed the border the first time. He just had an objective and that was to burn everything George loved to the ground. Six years on, he was more focused, though the heart of his objective remained the same. 

“You were a child and I was attacking an empire with nothing. I couldn’t put you in the middle of that. You’ve seen how they’ve come at me, someone they once called son. What would they have done to you?”

Mason knew the order was coming before the Captain had even given it; he was the only person who understood the weight their line of work could have on somebody. Smee wasn’t the right person for the job, that went without saying and there was nobody else amongst their ranks who could possibly understand what it felt like to have to end the life of another person and then return to your every day life, knowing that they couldn’t. It wasn’t something that Mason looked forward to doing, he didn’t battle as many demons as Josh did and still struggled to understand how he couldn’t turn his humanity off like he could. 

Mason was a brother, a boyfriend and a friend but when the Captain needed him, it wasn’t Mason who walked through the doors of his old office in The Cinema, it was The Croc. The man everyone in Neverland feared. Mason could separate himself from the monster inside of him — Josh had never been able to do that.

“I don’t think I’m the best person to be giving Radcliffe words of comfort,“ Mason started, despite the smoke that continued to rise up against the high rises of Neverland and the fire that raged on; the cold air chilled him through his clothes, and zipped up his leather jacket. “I’ll remind him of what they did to us, however. That at least should shake any of that pesky guilt he’s know doubt drowning in.“

“He doesn’t need comforting.” Hook pointed out, knowing better than most how difficult it could be to reach him in situations such as this. After his month long disappearance, Hook had been sure that would be end of him. The shell that returned more brutal on the job but the afters and the in between had been more unstable. More troublesome. 

“Extend him a lifeline, remind him he’s not the only person who does this. That he may have been the one to carry out the deed but he doesn’t have to shoulder it alone. We did this. All of us.”

“I’m not your little sister.” It almost physically pained her to say the words, but she had to convince herself that it was true. She’d spent fourteen years chasing after Jay Jay with stars in her eyes and a constant plead to have him bring her along on an adventure. But then, he’d left. And she’d remained. Since then, Opal didn’t know where the hell that left them.

“Abandonment isn’t apart of being a big brother, after all. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Not anymore. Hook didn’t add it but it hung in the air between them, she had been only fourteen when he crossed the border. Too young for him to draw into all the carnage that accompanied the first few years he had bled to build his Rogers, too far down a path the Madame had carved out for her since she had looked up with her with doe eyes and asked for ballet lessons. Hook had been priming himself for six years now to go to war with the Darlings, but stood across from Opal with the evidence that that war may put any end to any fondness left between the pair of them was a bitter pill he hadn’t been prepared to swallow. 

“I suppose I wouldn’t know, I’m apparently not one. I didn’t abandon you, I just stopped being the pet they let look in the inner circle but never actually join it. Any plans on doing that one day or will you spend another decade living a life our once upon a mother deemed not good enough for her real daughter?”

“Did you know–?” Opal questioned softly as she titled her head. There were a million questions she wanted to ask, mainly about how James could do that to a family. But she knew this was the best way of getting a straight answer out of him.

“I did.” Hook answered truthfully, seeing no need to sugarcoat it for Opal. If she was big and bold enough to let herself be used by a married, washed up excuse for a Lost Boy then she could hear about how he didn’t even blink when it came to deciding that Lost Boy would be taken care of. 

“I also knew that as unfathomably stupid as Dante Blackwell was, he wouldn’t take his twenty year old mistress to a Lost Boy meeting at the Loft. You defying Mary Darling with a slap in the face like that, tut tut, we’re more alike than I thought, little sister.”

“Holy shit.” 

It was crass but it suited the moment as Hallie looked between the fire and the man who was undoubtedly responsible. While she had spent enough time in town to know what happened when retribution was called on, this took things to a level she had not yet seen. 

“You certainly don’t do things in half-measures.” 

Hook chuckled, looking every bit proud as the fire in the distance raged on. Perhaps it was sadism to take such pleasure from something so grim, but it wasn’t the act itself that was tickling him, but rather the win. 

“Nothing like a little fireworks to elevate the mood.”

“And you’ve had busier nights than most lately.” Opal responded sarcastically, folding her arms across her lithe frame as she looked at someone that she used to call a brother. But now it was nothing but disappointment and sadness that marred her eyes.

“I’m only assuming because the body count is rising.”

Hook picked up on the accusations that were underlying her words, but the didn’t respond to it directly yet. 

“If there’s something you want to say to me, go right ahead.”

“I wish others had the privilege of your protection, Captain!” Sadie’s tone was laced with loathing, anger that he had stoked and used finally brimming on the surface. 

“I did what you asked because I thought that no matter what, you cared about your supposed people more than you wanted revenge!” Struggling against his grip, Sadie tried to push him again, for once not caring to be the gentle flower in the corner for people to stare at as she slowly died inside. 

“You are just like George Darling. You didn’t care about that man- that his children would wake up every night wishing that they had been the ones who had died instead of him so they wouldn’t know the pain of living after everyone else is gone.” Flashes of laying under that bed filled her vision, her senses overwhelmed by the smell of blood, the look of death, the soft sirens as they approached in the distance- too late, they were always too late. Shaking her head, she tried to rid herself of the images, tried to make it all stop but it was too much. Yanking her hands away from him finally, Sadie wrapped her arms tightly around herself, willing the world to make it stop. 

“I went to that penthouse for my friend. That place has haunted my nightmares for years because you told me stories about the monsters who lived inside. I didn’t know they had made you one too.” 

Hook let her go, taking a step back from her as though her telling him he was like George was a physical blow. They certainly shared some qualities, an unshakeable symptom of his time in that Penthouse but they were different people. That’s what Hook was about. He strived to take what the man had and turn it into something better. 

“You are right about one thing, I didn’t care about that man. I never have. Nor his little brats that walked around here every bit as entitled as the Darlings. But don’t you insinuate that I don’t care about my people. My people, mine. That those Lost Boys tried to burn alive, that can’t be let slide, Sadie. What kind of leader would that have made me if I didn’t retaliate? If I didn’t avenge that?”

There was no innocence to be found across the border in that Loft, they were all cogs in a machine operated by a man who would chew them up and spit them back out like he had done to him. Better he use one body to show that than set the Loft alight and see how many were caught in it. 

“I told you the truth about that place. All I’ve ever done is tell you the truth about this world and I’ve never asked you to pick a side. I never will but things are going to get bloody around here and fast, so if any part of you still trusts me you’ll be smarter about forming friendships with anyone who would lead you to the Penthouse.”

Opal paused at the familiar voice, turning on her heels to face James. She never felt the sense of fear some felt when they looked at him, but after Dante – it was difficult to give him her usual warm greeting that would have usually accompanied her with a smile.

“Every night is busy night around here.”

“Mm.” Hook agreed, though his sources told him it wasn’t particularly business as usual. That had been what he wanted, to cause disruption as well as to target George where he knew it would hurt. Where he had known he wouldn’t expect. 

“Certainly appears that way.”

“Someone get me either my brother or your Captain, now.” Michelle didn’t need to raise her voice to make it clear that it wasn’t a question as she walked into the church. She had dealt with enough horrors in her life to know how to make a point without making a scene. 

“Mrs. Radcliffe.” Hook greeted, a stern look around the church clearing it without the need for words, leaving just the two of them for what he imagined was going to be an unpleasant conversation. 

“Your brother is indisposed, so that leaves you with me. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Despite the turn of her head in a show of exhaustion, her client still pressed a firm kiss onto her lips. She went with it, as she was meant to do ; anything was better than allowing herself to mull over this past week. Diving herself headfirst back into her job seemed to be the only way to go. Her painted lips curled into a coy smile as she waved him goodbye, watching him disappear into his sleek car as he drove off. She glanced over her shoulder at The Black Sheep, contemplating stopping for a drink before deciding to head towards the Hollow instead.

“Busy night?” Hook asked as he watched her suitor walk off, his jaw tense. It would never sit well with him that Opal had wound up in the business she was in, even though she had been bred for it. One of the hardest things for him to shake about his life on the wrong side of the border had been the dark haired girl he used to carry around on his shoulders when she had been far younger and far more innocent. 

Hayden: People in The Lagoon are coming in and talking about an explosion heard on the other side of the border.

Hayden: That have something to do with the ban on bordering hopping?

Hook: Very astute.

The air was thick with fire and smoke. Mason could smell the burning metal and rubber, amongst other things as he returned to Neverland after completing another task for the Captain at the last minute; another rising rival at that needed reminding who the streets of Neverland belonged to. Disappointment and irritation had churned inside his stomach when the Captain had told him he was being pulled from the Dante job. Mason had been casing The Lost Boy’s home for the last couple of nights and had even found a place he could watch the chaos and misery unfold from without being seen or heard.

Josh wouldn’t have stuck around to witness his handiwork, that was were they differed. Josh was weighed down by his demons, each life he took another burden to carry on his shoulders while Mason found pleasure and satisfaction in taking a life. Something dark and dangerous had awoken in Mason when he had found his ex-girlfriend in bed with another man, murdering them both in cold blood. 

That something was The Crocodile. 

“It’s done.“ Mason said, spotting the Captain once he had found his way back into their territory and joining his side. The smell of burning metal and rubber was stronger here than it was on the outskirts of Neverland, strong enough that Mason thought if they stood here long enough they might just start to choke on the rising smoke. “Where’s Josh now?“

Hook only nodded in response to Mason’s information. With Croc, he never needed more than that after a job. He had a passion unmatched for his work, which is why Hook threw him the ones that called for the most brutality first. He took it all in his stride, masterfully finding a balance between what he did and how he lived. 

Josh hadn’t done the same.

“The Lagoon or the Sheep I’d imagine.” Hook knew him well, knew his habits, knew how he reacted and knew how deeply he let his work effect him. With Mason tied up and Smee still at arms length with the inner mechanisms, there was no one else who could could carry out the task, and they both knew it. 

“Do throw your eye on him, won’t you.” It wasn’t a question but an order. Mason wouldn’t be the Williams he wanted to see but he was the one who understood the ins and outs of the job, even if empathy seemed to allude him. 

Hook anticipated he would receive a visit from Mason’s youngest sister.

Sadie had found herself staring out the window of the car, unable to look at Smee and what she was sure was a smug expression on her face. Only after she was finally seated could she realize where Lewis and the other Darlings had gone after that ill timed dinner. Panic seized her just as she caught sight of Hook outside the window. 

“Stop the car.” Her voice still shook, no firmness there, but as he came firmer into view, she saw the look on his face. 

He had wanted this, hadn’t he? He had wanted to turn her into that girl from his story, or he wouldn’t have done this. The only alternative was that he simply hadn’t cared enough to know what it would do to her. 

“Stop the car!” She shouted finally, pounding on the back of Chase’s seat before pushing open the car door and scurrying out. 

“You did this!” Unable to comprehend or remember herself, Sadie ran to Hook, shoving him in the chest with as much strength as she could muster. “I told you- I never wanted this and you used me to hurt them!” Covering her mouth with her hand, Sadie felt as if she might be sick again. 

Hook’s triumphant mood was soured by Sadie’s appearance. He was glad that she appeared to be physically fine, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have questions, namely what the hall had she been doing across the border rubbing elbows with Darlings. Just the thought felt like a betrayal to him, all his warnings and lectures when she had first landed on Monique’s doorstep of what festered across the border falling on deaf ears. 

He gripped her wrists, intent to restrain and not threaten, holding on until she calmed herself enough not to make another strike for him. Her upset was just but he was still a Captain and no one spoke to him like that. 

“I took what you gave me and I used it. I did. That’s on me, not you. Now I’m sorry if this is the first time it’s well and truly dawned on you that isn’t a fucking game but you make a conscious choice every time you cross that border. You go where my protection can’t help you. Did you have a nice time in the Penthouse?” 

Opal: This was you, wasn't it?