2. Let Go

Cassandra gasped for air as his head broke the water's surface. Weakly treading water, he gagged, trying to rid his mouth of the salty taste. The effort was in vain, and he cursed quietly, once. His voice was too raw to say much else. He'd screamed for help through the entire storm and most of the night afterwards, but it hadn't worked. The injuries Cain had given him were still painful, his ship was still completely in a state of detritus, his crew was still dead, and his treasure was still lying at the bottom of the sea.

The pirate captain clutched weakly to a spur of rock jutting out from the waters, and tried to haul himself onto it. That effort was in vain, too. His body was in a state of exhaustion. He was wounded, freely bleeding, and he suspected one of his ankles was sprained during the storm as well. His body stung as the waves washed against his cuts and his eyes, as if the sea was not yet ready to release him from its watery torture.

He'd lost everything, everything. Even his finest coat, his favorite, was in poor condition, ripped to shreds from being scratched against the rocks and debris of the storm. Cassandra Gladstone had nothing left but his life.

"Dammit!" The captain's hoarse cry echoed for what seemed like an eternity. Closing his eyes for a moment, and hitting the rock he clung to, he knew that his plans were thwarted, again, by the flying pest. "Have at you, Peter Pan." He uttered quietly, welcoming Hook's curses and memories as they washed over his own. Just when he thought he was close to truly obtaining the treasure for his own, Peter Pan and the Wendy-bird had to ruin it all...

Something brushed against his foot, and he opened his eyes again, looking down. There was a shape in the water, pale and ghostly. For a moment Gladstone thought it was a crab, but it rolled over in the gentle movement of the water, and his stomach rolled over with it.

It was a hand-just a hand. A thin stream of blood flowed from the severed wrist, and Gladstone kicked it away with a jerky movement. A choked cry escaped his lips as he scrambled back against the barnacle encrusted rock.

The hand on its own was horrifying, but the clue it revealed for his location was even worse. If there was one place where strewn body parts and dismembered men were common… Gladstone's eyes widened in terror, and this time the memories taking him were his own, not Hook's.

Meridianna. Cain. The fight. Her blood.

"Mermaids," he rasped with horrible certainty. "Mermaid Cove…"

He had to escape. These creatures wanted him. He knew, knew they wanted him for their next meal. To be eaten alive by the mermaids, to be eaten by that damned crocodile, to be swallowed by the sea… He was certain the mermaids were the worst of that lot. He had to escape!

A cold hand slid over his aching shoulder, and a bare arm started to pull him backwards.

"No!" He tried to brace himself against the rock, resisting the pull back as his hands cut on the sharp barnacle shells. "No! Unhand me!" He screamed, choking on the salt water during his struggle, in his desperation to escape. The pull of the hands increased, and he could feel more hands clambering all over his body-slithering their fingers through his hair, probing at his mouth, arms circling his waist...

He lost his grip on the rock, and fell into the water. The hands were still there, caressing him, but pulling him down, down until he couldn't breathe. He could hear their voices, sweet, laughing, affectionate. They were calling his name, as if they had found the lost pet they had been searching for.

One voice was distinct, resonating in his mind instead of his ears, whispering to him even as he lost his breath and his vision turned towards darkness.

Let go.

Cassandra Gladstone went limp as the mermaids claimed him.


He kept his eyes closed when he regained consciousness, inhaling the faint scent of salt and exhaling through his mouth, feeling the same taste along his dry tongue.

Cassandra could not remember, for a moment, as of where he was and how he got here. A memory sunk into his mind, and he immediately recollected the hands grasping at him, clammy to the touch. The whispering of his name, echoing through his ears and his head. Drowning in the dark waters, unable to breathe...

It was only that he realized that he was still breathing. He was alive. But how? He was sure that he breathed in all the saltwater when the mermaids were drowning him into unconsciousness earlier. It shouldn't be possible for him to survive.

His eyes shot open as he felt a ghostly hand brush against his left wrist, and he sat up quickly, pulling his arm away. Exhaling sharply, he turned to his left to see a mermaid, looking up at him with wide eyes of cerulean. She looked like as if she was pondering something as she continued her gaze.

Warnings screamed their way into Cassandra's head, and he inhaled shakily as he backed away from the mermaid as much as he could, only to realize that he had already backed into the arms of another mermaid breathing down his neck. He recoiled in an attempt to get away, but the effort was in vain as others appeared, grasping at his arms, legs, or entwining their fingers in his hair. His head was partially pulled back, giving their hands access to his throat...

His voice finally found an outlet, having been stuck in his throat in terror for so long.

"No!"

He thrashed violently against their grasp, pulling his arms and legs away from their icy touch. "Unhand me!" Cassandra roared as the hands loosened from their once firm grip. "Can none of you be merciful enough to kill me when I was unconscious!? Can none of you show that mercy, if you are all going to consume me alive!?" He slapped the last hand away from him, before collapsing onto his side. He shut his eyes tightly, unwilling to watch the mermaids prepare to devour him.

Instead of hissing, or the baring of fangs, he heard a voice speak to him.

"...Did you slay Meridianna?"

Cassandra felt his stomach roll over with the words. They wanted him to confess, make him even more pathetic looking before they tore him apart. It made sense-he was sure they wanted to confirm that he was the one that killed one of their kind, after all.

"Yes." He choked out, his throat going dry as he answered. "I did. I killed her."

There was nothing but silence for a moment. Cassandra held in his breath, not daring to breathe as he knew what fate would fall upon him. Sooner or later, the kill would occur.

Instead of the baring of teeth or the screams of rage, he heard soft laughter echo in his ears.

Laughter? Impossible. It had to be impossible. He must be dreaming, imagining it all-at least he thought he was until he heard the laughter again. Daring to open an eye, the sight of a smile playing at the edges of one mermaid's lips immediately confused him. Some mermaids were whispering slivers of amusement to each other, while others were still laughing, finding the notion of killing Gladstone completely ridiculous.

Were they not angry at him for killing one of their kind? That didn't make sense! Why were they not angry at him!?

A memory imprinted itself into his mind, and Cassandra blinked to see himself on the ship, the Jolly Roger. Sword in hand, he ducked once as Cain tried to punch him, before he tried to stab the flying pest. Gladstone felt rage bubble through his chest and seep into his mind as he screamed words of hatred towards the teen in front of him.

"Have at you, Cain! Have at you, Peter Pan!"

There was a scream ("No! Stop it!"), and Gladstone felt himself being pushed backwards. He regained his footing quickly and stabbed forwards, unwilling to let whoever it was get away with assaulting him in such a manner. He wouldn't let anyone get in the way of this fight against Cain, and he would make sure of it himself.

The blade pierced flesh, and his eyes widened to see Meredianna's eyes grow blank as blood tricked down her chest.

"Murderer!" Cain screamed back at him, rushing forward to hold the dying mermaid in his arms as he glared at the pirate captain. "Murderer! See all of those mermaids watching us? They now know which one of us they'd rather eat, and it's not going to be me!"

Gladstone turned to his left, and he saw the mermaids, smiling and gazing at him as if they had found their newest plaything.

Smiling?

The memory washed itself from his mind in a heartbeat. Cassandra blinked to see a mermaid, her beautiful face, accompanied by long black locks, inches from his. She appeared to be smiling quietly, gazing into his eyes as if they were shimmering jewels. He found himself lost in the mermaid's eyes for a moment-they were pulling him into their gaze, luring him with some sense of security. He did his best to not get carried away by her beauty, and instead struggled to understand what they were trying to say to him.

"...You were smiling not because you wanted to eat me." He carefully spoke, wincing at the hoarseness of his throat. "You were smiling because you wanted Meridianna to die, and I killed her for you."

The mermaid's smile widened, before she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

He wasn't expecting such contact so soon; he knew from tales about them that they were like this, seducing the unlucky sailors that would become their meals by using their beauty and their voices, but Gladstone never thought that they would dare to kiss someone that killed one of their kind. He had never been kissed like this before, as far as he could remember-this touch felt tender, soothing, almost loving, and he didn't know how to react to any of this. It felt so...different than anything else he'd experienced.

The kiss broke after a moment, and it was only then that he realized that the mermaid's hand was gripping onto the ripped collar of his ragged shirt. One harsh tug was all it took for him to fall into the salty waters of the cove.

His eyes snapped open-a bad idea, as he felt his eyes sting a little from the salt-and he flailed in the grasp of many hands, the mermaids trying to pull him downwards while he desperately tried to grab onto something to pull himself out. He managed to grab onto a spur of rock somehow, but it did not help him get any farther away from the mermaids' cold hands. Struggling to hold his breath, he continued to thrash about in their grasp until the black-haired mermaid appeared right in front of him, touching his cheek with one hand. She extended the other hand towards where he was grabbing onto the rock, trying to pull himself out of the water. Grabbing him by the wrist, she tried to pull him away from the rock, but he refused to let go.

"Let go." She whispered, tilting her head forwards so that their foreheads touched. "Let go." Her hand lowered from his cheek towards his throat, ghosting over it before trailing to his shoulder.

It was then that Gladstone lost his breath. He shuddered as his shaky lungs forced him to inhale, and it was then that he realized he could breathe.

Breathing underwater should not be possible, not without any sort of equipment to assist him with such a task. Here he was, though, breathing without anything to help him. It felt the same as breathing in real air-it didn't feel like breathing in the water was any different than that. Glancing at the mermaid in front of him, before glancing upwards, he inhaled deeply before making his decision. If they truly adored him for killing Meridianna, perhaps it meant that they were dragging him into the waters to help him in some way. He wasn't sure about that theory, but he was sure that they probably didn't wish to kill him yet. He was willing to take that risk-he had nothing to lose but his life now, after all.

Letting go of the rock, he immediately felt himself get dragged deeper into the water. He couldn't help but let out a soft gasp in surprise as several other mermaids approached him, caressing his injured form with utmost care. Cooing to him gently as they buried him in their grasp, they soon began to tend to his wounds. He twitched a few times, his wounds still stinging from the saltiness of the water, but he reassured himself that he was in reasonably safe hands.

As they continued their mending, Gladstone took the opportunity to close his eyes and think-or at least, try to think while some mermaids kept kissing his face and running their fingers through his hair. He found it a bit distracting, but he tried his best to keep his thoughts on track. They had the same enemy as he did-Cain Hargreaves. They seemed delighted at the death of Meridianna-did that mean that Meridianna and Cain were in love with each other? That must have been why the mermaids were mad-they must have been jealous, Gladstone figured. Was that why Cain was so mad at Gladstone after he (unintentionally) murdered her? It must be so-why else would Cain be so angry?

Gathering the remnants of his strength, he gently pushed away a few mermaids that were trying to kiss him for the fortieth time, apologizing to them before he started to explain. "We can work together," He managed to say. "We both have someone we hate, and that is Pan, no, Cain..." He bit his own tongue lightly-he needed to keep his focus, stop letting Hook's memories wash over his own, at least for now- "We worked alone before. Neither of us were successful, were we?"

The mermaids all exchanged glances with each other, before they seemed to nod in agreement. He heaved a sigh of relief-they weren't offended, and that was the last thing he wanted to do now-and then he continued. "If we work together...we have the land and sea covered. All we have to do is..." He coughed a bit-he hoped that he wasn't getting sick soon from his possibly-infected wounds- "All we have to do is find a way to pluck him from the skies. He'll be reduced to a corpse, which all of you can feed upon to your pleasure." He tried to give a grin, but found himself too weak to do so. He was tired, so tired, and the injuries, with the sleepless nights on top of that, urged him to sleep very soon. "Does that...sound alright?"

He never heard a definitive 'yes,' but a kiss to his forehead helped give him the impression that they had an alliance. Closing his eyes, he let himself succumb to slumber, wishing to regain his strength so that he could go achieve what he wanted for so long.

He was going to find Cain, and fight him. This time, though, he would have the upper hand to destroy Cain completely.


Author note: It's...been a while since I've done anything with this fic...whoops... Hopefully this chapter (albeit short) made up for the delay, and I hope that I can get the next chapter up sooner. Thanks for your patience (and reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated)!