Chapter Text
“If it’s aid of a magical sort ye seek, then you’ll be wanting to find the witch in the woods.”
That’s what the apothecary had told him. The witch in the woods. A designation that brought forth images of an old crone, hump-backed and wrinkled with warts on her nose and long spindling fingers whose knuckles were gnarled and stiff - not the blonde goddess currently grinding an assortment of herbs with her mortar and pestle, her brilliant jade eyes sparkling in the candlelight that was also casting a honeyed glow over her smooth, creamy skin.
“So, you’ve been magically bound, you say?” the witch commented, repeating his reason for seeking her out.
“Aye,” Hook responded, shifting his weight in an effort to maintain an air of command in the presence of the witch who had knocked him off kilter the moment he’d entered her presence.
Stopping her work, she puffed a breath over her lips, blowing away a section of her hair that had fallen from her braid out of her face, and glanced up at him. “Where?”
Distracted by the way her gaze seemed to pierce right through him, in addition to the inexplicable urge he felt to reach over and tuck the errant strand - which she had failed to move out of the way - behind her ear, Hook blinked several times before responding, “Where what?”
A knowing sort of smirk lifted the corner of her mouth and she began macerating her herbs once more, clarifying, “Where on your person is the binding attached?”
Hook reached up and scratched behind his ear, then hastily dropped his hand, not wishing to expose anything more than he already had in the way of vulnerability. “Actually, love,” he said, applying a heavy dose of his captain’s voice to his tone. “It isn’t attached to my person. It’s attached to my shadow.”
The pestle clattered to the floor, slipping from her hand when she reared back with a jolt. “Your shadow?”
Before he could reply she plunged the room into darkness with a wave of her hand, and Hook immediately grasped the hilt of his sword. A flame flickered to life and he blanched, caught off guard by her proximity as she now stood right in front of him holding a single candle. Her focus was not on him, however - or rather, not on his person. With the flame casting his shadow against the wall behind him, she took her time scrutinizing it until she found what she was looking for.
“I see Pan is still up to his usual tricks.”
The name of his current nemesis falling from her lips grabbed Hook’s attention. “You know Pan?”
“Unfortunately,” she muttered, still studying the area of his shadow the boy had attached the magical binding to, making it impossible for him to leave Neverland without the miscreant’s permission while also seeing to it his departures could never last longer than a single night. “He, his son, and his good-for-nothing grandson have all been thorns in my side for years.”
“Son?” Hook exclaimed, taken aback. “Grandson? Are we talking about the Pan? That demon boy can’t possibly be old enough--”
“He’s older than he looks,” she quipped, flicking her wrist and bringing all the candles back to life, filling the room with a warm glow once more.
Their eyes connected and for a few rapid beats of his heart, Hook had trouble drawing air into his lungs. An unguarded, slightly desperate look peeked around the corner of her gaze and her teeth gripped her bottom lip as her eyes flickered appraisingly between his. When his tongue darted out to wet his lips, her gaze dropped and followed the action, her teeth scraping the tender flesh of her lip as it was slowly released, the grip leaving it red and swollen and all too tempting. Perhaps sensing the charge in the atmosphere between them, she made her way back to her work table, retrieving the pestle from the floor so she could continue to grind away at the herbs.
A somewhat forced calm and collected countenance settled over her and she kept her eyes averted from his as she stated, “I can rid you of that binding, but not until after you’ve collected my fee.”
Suspecting his presence was having the same effect on her as hers was having on him, Hook sauntered towards the table with a seductive swagger, boasting, “I have a substantial amount of gold with me. Can we not see to the matter now, love?”
“No,” she answered back, her attention still on her work. “The payment I require is not gold or jewels or any other… pirate plunder you may have pilfered in your, what I can only imagine have been numerous, pillaging exploits.”
He wouldn’t mind numerous pillagings, plunderings, and exploits with the likes of her, but he knew better than to voice such a desire. “What is your price then?”
Looking back up at him, there was now a hard glint in her eyes. “My son.”
Hook balked and his brows snapped together. A son? She has a son?
“He was taken from me and I want you to get him back.”
The hard glint was now obscured by a misty sheen, and though she did an admirable job trying to hide it, he had detected the quiver in her voice when she spoke of her boy being taken from her. Hook clenched his teeth, the muscle in his jaw pulsating with a flicker of fury creeping up within him, along with an instinct he’d thought long dead.
“Aye. I’ll get you your boy,” he vowed solemnly. “Have you any idea who took him or where he’s being kept?”
“I do,” she told him. “His great-grandfather, Peter Pan, took him. He’s in Neverland.”