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By Hook or By Crook	By : OktoberBlack Category: M through R > Peter Pan > Het Views: 14973 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Peter Pan, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Disclaimer: Not my characters (except for the ones that are). Not making any money off of them. Wish I were, never going to be. Don’t sue me, please.

Sorry this is taking so long. I have lots of excuses, but really, none of them matter. I could whine at you about long hours working or marking, or how I’ve just started an online course that demands a lot of my time… or how I’m trying to get to the gym and go to bed earlier during the week.
I know none of that matters. What matters is the story. So I’ll try and write a little bit every day and hopefully I’ll get another chapter online before the end of next week. Keep your fingers crossed!

By Hook or By Crook (for want of a better name)

Chapter Fifteen: The Jungle

The first checkpoint turned out to be a crude hut made of sticks and mud. It was more of a lean-to, really, with a piece of badly cured leather stretched across it. And it stank.
“God,” I muttered, my hand over my nose as I entered the darkness within.
“I know, but it’s the best we’ve got,” Martin said, as he pulled out a bundle of clothing from a trunk in the corner of the hut. “Here. These should fit.”
“Thanks,” I said, and took the clothes. I looked at what they’d provided and was more than just grateful—finally, I’d get to wear pants and a shirt again! I started with the panties they’d provided, relishing the feeling of wearing underwear. No bra, unfortunately, but one couldn’t have everything. Then I pulled on the black leather pants and the white linen shirt. They’d also included a pair of boots that didn’t fit very well. They were too big, so I put on a couple of pairs of socks to help the cause and walked out of the lean-to. Martin had changed outside the lean-to and was now dressed entirely in black.
“It’s time to go,” he said, with a glance at his pocket watch. “We don’t want to lose our head start.”
“We certainly don’t,” I agreed fervently, and followed him into the jungle, away from checkpoint number one.

It was still early in the day because the attack on the Jolly Roger had taken place just prior to dawn. The sun had risen while we were fleeing the docks, but it was hard to feel its effects deep in the jungle where we were. We could see well enough, but it was cool and damp under the cover of the trees. Martin led us up a densely foliaged path, hacking his way through the undergrowth with a machete. I followed, trying desperately to keep up. He set a wicked pace. We stopped a few hours later when we came upon a stash of water and food. It was wrapped up tightly and suspended from a high tree branch so animals couldn’t get at it. Martin shimmied up the tree and cut it down; I caught it. We divided up the water and food (bread and cheese), and sat for a bit, silently eating and resting.
“What will you do now that Simon’s…” I started, but couldn’t finish.
“Dead? Now that Simon’s dead?” he asked bitterly. “I don’t know. Simon’s sole objective at the moment was getting you to safety, so that’s what I’m going to do. After that? I’ve no idea.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “Finish up. We’ve got to get going.”

We started up the mountain again, the path through the jungle growing wilder with every hour. Every three or four hours we stopped to recover a stash of food and water. I marvelled at how organized Simon had been; he’d obviously planned this extremely well to be able to leave supplies all along our path through the jungle.
“How long will it take us to reach this Stephano person?” I asked during one of our rest breaks. We’d been walking long enough that the sun was beginning to sink, although it was hard to tell in the depths of the jungle.
“I’d say about another three or four hours of walking,” Martin said. In the encroaching darkness, his black skin was hard to make out against the blackness of his clothing. His white eyes stood out in his face as he blinked at me. “We’ve made a good pace though, I’ll give you that.”
“Thanks. It’s been brutal,” I admitted, and finished off my water. “Time to go, eh?”
“Right.” He got up and we continued up the mountain. The path grew steeper as we continued upwards and soon we were climbing more than walking up it.

We reached the final portion of the path when the sun had completely set. We had to navigate by the stars that were just beginning to come out and I found it hard to follow Martin because he was really hard to see. The path had turned into an almost vertical surface and Simon or one of his cohorts had left a rope tied to a rock or tree trunk above us, to aid us in our climb. Martin went first and I followed, gripping the rope tightly as I tried to find foot holds in the darkness with my overlarge boots. I was gasping and sweating by the time I reached the summit. At the top were more jungle and the entrance to a cave. There was a light in the cave and by that light I could just make out Martin’s hand, motioning me to stop and be silent. I waited while he slowly walked into the cave.
“Stephano?” he called softly. A voice replied, but I couldn’t make out what it said. Martin motioned to me to join him, so I slowly walked into the cave. The light was from a single torch near the entrance. Further in, the cave separated into what seemed to be different rooms, each one lit with a lantern. The lanterns had patterns and pictures cut into their metal sides, so whimsical shadows slid around the sides of each room, making the rooms both cheerier and a bit creepier. Stephano was in the main room to the right side of the cave. He sat at a workbench, and tinkered with what looked like a radio. The room was filled with mechanical parts and bits, TVs and radios, computers and pieces of cars and boats.
“What do you want?” Stephano demanded crankily. “I’m busy here.”
“We can see that, Sir. We were hoping you could help us though,” Martin began. Stephano turned to look at us; he was wearing a pair of mismatched glasses, where one lens was an extreme magnifying glass and made his right eye look huge.
“What?” He looked us over. “Help with what?”
“Miss Mann here is from your world,” Martin began. Stephano cut him off.
“My world? My world?” He jumped off his chair and began to pace the room. “My world. Where is my world? What world are you talking about? I was born there, but raised here, then I returned there and decided to come back here to live. So which world are you talking about?”
“I think you know very well what world we’re talking about,” I snapped. “Can you send me back, or not?”
“Oh, I can. I can indeed. I go back and forward all the time. Where do you think I get my treasures from?” Stephano indicated the junk the surrounded us. I glanced at Martin but he didn’t seem to find this odd. “But I have a price. Can you meet my price? That’s the real question.”
“What is your price?” Martin asked.
“My price, my price,” the old man muttered. “What is my price?”
“Yes, what is your price?” I asked, exasperated. I didn’t have a lot of patience for such mumbling stupidity.
“My price is three hundred gold pieces. Take it or leave it.” Stephano sat back down at his workbench.
“What? You’ve got to be joking!” Martin exclaimed. “Where would we find three hundred gold pieces?”
“I don’t know. If I knew, then I’d have three hundred gold pieces, wouldn’t I? You’re the one that wants the service. I’m the only one who can deliver the service, so I can demand whatever I want for it. Law of supply and demand, that.” Stephano looked at us through his bug glasses. “If you can’t pay the price, then you can leave. It’s as simple as that.”
“Isn’t there any room for… negotiation or something?” I pleaded. To come that far and to be denied the one thing I really wanted… no, I really needed! How incredibly unfair.
“Nope. I need the money to buy some things I want for my collection. Either pay up or go.”
“What about half now and half up front?” Martin asked. Stephano squinted at him.
“You have one hundred and fifty gold pieces?”
“Well, no, but I’d be more likely to be able to get part of it than all of it.”
“Go away. You’re boring me,” Stephano said, gesturing to the mouth of the cave.
“But…” I started.
“Go!”
“Come on, Cassie,” Martin said, taking my hand and pulling me from the cave.
“But we have to try and…” I whined, but Martin cut me off with a sharp look.
“We’ll give him time to think about it,” Martin said, and led me away from the cave and into the jungle that surrounded it. “We’ve got some bedrolls stashed in the jungle just along here. I think Simon knew it might be hard to convince him to help you.”
“Great,” I muttered, but followed Martin all the same.

We slid into the blackness of the jungle; Martin kept a hold of my hand, because I couldn’t see a thing. He stopped not too far away from Stephano’s cave and bent to light a small lamp with a match.
“We can’t have a fire in case Hook and his men followed us, but we’ve got food here and wine, and a couple of bedrolls. We’ll spend the night and then try to talk to Stephano again tomorrow morning.” He hung the lantern on a tree branch, from which it shed a weak light. Then he prepared the campsite, handed me food, and laid out the bedrolls. We ate a silent meal of more bread and cheese, but with red wine this time, and then lay down to sleep. I was exhausted and fell asleep almost as soon as I’d laid down.

Several hours later, I was awakened by a loud noise. I sat up and looked around me, but the lantern had gone out and the jungle around me was dark. I could just make out a small light in the distance, back toward Stephano’s cave.
“Shhhh…” Martin said from right next to me, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
“You scared me!” I accused him in a whisper.
“Shhhh! It’s Hook!” Martin said, and I could hear him stand up.
“Take me with you,” I whispered and he grabbed my hand, leading me back toward the cave. We crept through the dark jungle, Martin leading me toward the torchlight in the distance. When we finally reached the edge of the trees, we stopped and crouched low to hide and watch. Hook was standing in front of the cave, a dozen pirates behind him. They held the torches that I’d seen from our distant campsite. Stephano stood at the cave mouth, glasses now perched on top his head.
“I demand to know where they are,” Hook was saying. I assumed he meant us.
“I have no idea,” Stephano said. His whole “bizarre muttering freak” act was completely gone. I knew he was putting us on! “I told them my price and they couldn’t pay it, so they left.”
“Price? Price for what?” Hook asked. He casually fingered his hook with his good hand.
“She wanted to return to the real world. You know. The world of Wendy… where the Lost Boys come from,” Stephano said, with a vague gesture toward the night sky. Hook glanced over his shoulder at the stars.
“I see,” he said, and then he seemed to give Stephano a closer look. “I remember you. You were one of Pan’s boys. But that was… years ago, wasn’t it?”
“T’was,” Stephano said. He seemed almost proud that Hook recognized him. “I found a way to get home so I took it. Came back here later when I realized I still didn’t like that world. But I’d grown up by then, so I couldn’t go back to being a Lost Boy.”
“And now you live here. I’ve heard of you,” Hook mused. “And you know how to go between the worlds, do you?”
“I sure do,” Stephano agreed. “I go back there whenever I need something I can’t get here.” He looked around as though checking to see if anyone were spying on him. I supposed he truly was a bit squirrelly. “I like to tinker with electronics, y’see. Can’t get that kind of stuff anywhere but there.”
“I see,” Hook said. “And if she brings you the price you want? You’ll send her back, will you?”
“Sure. Why not? I’ll probably do it for nothing, actually. I’m going back in a few days anyway, to get a few things I need. It’s just as easy to take two back as one,” Stephano admitted. I almost jumped up and revealed myself at that statement. He’d take me back without paying! I could go home in just a few days! I turned to Martin to whisper my joy to him, when I heard Martin gasp.
“No!” he whispered.
“What?” I asked, turning back to look at Hook.

Hook had killed Stephano, his hook still lodged in the other man’s guts.
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By Hook or By Crook