Slamming the door on those thoughts, she balled them up and tried to throw them into a wood chipper in her mind. God, she really needed to get laid more.Stop thirsting after the creepy murder pirate! Wait.
Fuck.
He can read your thoughts.
Chugging the brandy, her cheeks were hot as she walked over to the bar to pour herself a second one. Really, it was an excuse to hide her obvious blush. But it was too late. “Sorry.”
That sent him into a peal of deep laughter. “For what?”
“You can read my thoughts.”
“Only when we’re outside of stories. Whatever just happened is your own business. But now I’m deeply curious. What did you think to yourself that was so scandalous you had to apologize?”
“Nothing.” It was a bad lie. A really bad one.
“Hmm.” He was suddenly right behind her, his presence at her back causing her to jolt in surprise. “Really? Nothing at all?”
When the point of his hook scraped along the edge of her jawline, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, she shuddered.
It was an open door. An invitation. She wondered—what would he do, if she turned around and—no, no, no. He’s trying to kill you and your sister. He’s trapped you here. He’s an eldritch monster. It doesn’t matter how hot he is as a pirate.
At least her thoughts were her own, now. Or at least, that’s what he was telling her. It was possible he was lying. But it didn’t matter either way. She wasn’t going to take the bait. “Nope. Nothing.”
“Pity.” He was gone as quickly as he had been there. “The matter remains—we cannot simply kill Pan to make for an interesting story. It’s cheap. Uninteresting. Shock value. No, we must play within the larger narrative at work. It must bewritten in.Work with thethemes.”
Okay, fine. Sure. That made sense, she guessed.
Trying to focus her thoughts back to the more important matter at hand, she walked over to a bench by one wall and sat down, needing to feel something stable underneath her. She sipped the brandy that time. “So, all right. Peter Pan is about childhood innocence versus growing up and the fear of death. Captain Hook is afraid of death, in the form of the crocodile with a literal ticking clock in its stomach.”
“Mmhm.” He was standing at the window, gazing out over the bay.
“I’d say we force Peter Pan to grow up, but that’s been done.” She sighed.
“Nowthatfilm is fantastic, and gloriously underrated.” Hook chuckled. “Even if I was annoyed at the ending, as I usually am.”
“It’s one of my favorites.” Pulling her legs up onto the bench, shecrossed them underneath her. “Talk about a movie that got the point of the original and played within the themes without feeling the need to break anything. And I like the ending.”
When he shot her a look, she only smiled sweetly back at him. If he was going to drop her into holes and give her a hard time, she was going to return the favor. Especially if she knew he wasn’t going to murder her since she was on his “side.”
“The one thing I appreciate about it the most was that they felt no need to give me some sodding weepy melodramatic backstory.”Hook grimaced as if it made his stomach churn.
Curious. “I mean, I don’t disagree, I don’t think all villains need a tragic backstory. But I thought you’d want to be understood. Empathized with. Have people on your side. Y’know, redemption in the eyes of the audience.”
The expression of sheer and total disgust and horror on his face—like she’d just recommended eating a baby, though she suspected that would actually get less of a reaction out of him—was so overblown it was comical.
Laughing, she shook her head. “Okay, okay. Clearly that’s not what this is about. Sorry.”
“Redemption.” He spat the word out like it was cancerous. “Why would I ever want something like that? I am what I am, my dear! I am a monster. And I embrace that. Whether or not it is necessary for the audience or the reader to understandwhythat iteration of myself became the monster is up to the needs of the story. Sometimes, yes. Wonderful. But this?—?”
He gestured in front of him with his hook, as if referencing the world outside the ship. “This sickening need to make me sympathetic in every new piece of media is a waste of good villainy! It’s missing the entire point of what I’m meant to be! Now that is goddamn tragic, if you ask me.”
“Noted. Killing the hero won’t count. Check. Don’t needlessly try to redeem the villain. Check.” She chuckled into her glass of port asshe took another sip. It was helping to settle her nerves. And made him a little easier to talk to.
“Thank you. No one likes being proselytized to.” He went to the bar to top off her glass and pour himself a second. “And I receive enough half-assed lectures from my brother.”
After replacing the bottle of brandy on the bar, he sat down next to her on the bench. “They will be going to visit the mermaids.”
“That’s where the story really kicks off, doesn’t it? You attack them there, you injure Pan, he almost drowns…and I forget what happens after that.” It’d been a long time since she’d read the book, to be fair.
