undergrounds | ᴛʜᴇ ᴅaɴɢeʀ ɪs I'ᴍ ᴅaɴɢeʀoᴜs. aɴᴅ I ᴍiɢʜᴛ ᴊusᴛ ᴛeaʀ ʏou aᴘaʀᴛ.

ᴄʟᴏsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ Nᴀɴᴄʏ.

He promised the girl a night out, and the night out he's going to give. He's arguably a bit late in keeping up with his promise, yet Killian isn't always known for his promptness. There were things that required his attention at the Nest, after his long stay away, and now it's a matter of putting all ducks in a row again. There's unrest about all the territories being siezed around them, but for all the whispers about it, Hook cares little for it. As long as the wolves don't accumulate much more land, he hopes to stay out of it. He likely won't be that lucky.

Perhaps this will be a welcome distraction for him as well as Nancy. He'd picked her up like a proper gentleman, and food had gone first — he may not eat much anymore, but he'd made sure to do it well for her sake — and now they're off to the second part of their adventure. It's not far a walk, so he suggested they do that, though that's perhaps hard on the poor girl's feet.

"If you can guess what's next I might have to give you a prize," he teases her with what is very nearly a grin. She's been a bit odd tonight, he has to say, yet it's been some time he spent time with someone he's genuinely fond of. Probably because he is not genuinely fond of many.

ᴛʜᴇ Jᴏʟʟʏ Rᴏɢᴇʀ. ( ᴏᴘᴇɴ )

Hook is nearly always at his pub by night, though not always in the front. He'll invite certain people to the back room — generally vampires, who are welcome to have a little blood with their alcohol thanks to the fangbangers that are friendly with the nest, but not necessarily just them. The only rule is no fighting on the premises, and if you break the rules you're not likely to stay long.

If Killian isn't found in the bar itself, he's probably in his office. At times working on problems for the nest. And if you're really lucky, you might spot him in the company of a small, precocious grey kitten. She has a bed in the corner but she always sleeps in the most inconvenient place imaginable.

ᴘᴏʀᴛ ᴏғ Lᴏɴᴅᴏɴ. ( ᴏᴘᴇɴ )

It doesn't matter how long it's been since his epic, sea-faring adventures; the pirate will always exist in him, and that means that he spends a lot of time by the water when he's landlocked to London. He is often there close to evening, wishing for the city lights to be a little dimmer so he can catch a glimpse at the stars, but sometimes he's there during the day.

He even takes on odd jobs aboard on occasion, when he misses being out on the water enough. It's not that he doesn't have his own boats, he just misses the sensation of working on a crew. If you spot him, don't expect him to stop until the day's work is done.

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"Some have treated it like a date," she pointed out. They wined her and dined her in a nice hotel, then left the money on the night stand with the room paid until 1 and brunch already ordered for you. Those were always the best sorts of nights. The ones that she found herself enjoying. There was nothing wrong with that, either.

"But I don't actually date-date." See? Very low bar. If she did date-date... No one would be comfortable dating a prostitute. "Oh! Wow, that's some high-class there, slipping past the velvet ropes." She grinned at him, the smallest of dimples appearing on her cheeks.

She was about to question him about his sort of club when he brought her in and she could properly hear the music. She raised an eyebrow. "Can't say that I have. But let's see if I can rise to the occasion."

"As a gentleman should." He'd never had to pay for sex before, even back when he was surrounded by ladies of the night and wenches in taverns it had been pretty easy to find someone to fill his bed when he wanted them. Still, he liked to think he gave every one of them a night to remember. It was a point of pride.

Killian didn't wait for many things, and certainly not lines. He shifts shoulders upwards at her pointing it out, clearly not repentant. If he couldn't get in instantly he'd probably not go in at all or get a new way. He frowned at the confession she didn't date at all, because he didn't see any reason why she shouldn't. "That's bound to change sooner or later, so I'd best enjoy the time I get." Presumably a boyfriend wouldn't expressly enjoy her running about with a dashing man. He knew he wouldn't in that situation.

"You've a very fine teacher." The lights were low but once they made it far enough, it was clear there were plenty of dancers. Enough to disappear in while she got a hang of the steps.

"Pity they weren't all gentlemen, then." Some of the gentlemen bought her other nice things, but those were rare. Mostly those were the older vampires who had more than enough money to throw around after centuries of life.

"Any boyfriend, I'm sure, wouldn't want her running around with men period. Which means no income, except for what I'm stealing, which meant losing a portion of that to Fagin as well. Unless any boyfriend decided to become, in essence, my pimp. Which I'd rather not deal with entirely, so I just call the whole thing off." Immediately, one of Nancy's hands snapped to her mouth, covering her lips in shock at what she just said. "I fucking hate this curse!" But at the same time, she felt something lifting, a weight on her shoulders becoming lighter. She blinked.

"Let's pretend that never happened, and you show me these steps." Please, please, please, let her get what she wants this time.

Well, he imagines that is a great deal more than she intended to say. He frowns and it's a bit of a battle, trying to decide what to say, and what might be too much. Despite how averse he is to affection and actually caring for others, the hopeless fool that had fallen for Milah still lived in him. He believed in love, even if it was a dangerous condition indeed.

"If it's something you want, Nance, don't give up before you even start." It was something he couldn't wholly support, when he himself wished he could remove himself from love entirely. Loving once had been painful enough, he didn't intend to try it again. Still, it had been beautiful enough when it lasted that he couldn't dismiss it entirely. The only one who could make that choice was Nancy herself.

He was all too willing to distract her with showing her the steps, though, taking her hand and leading her closer. "Try not to look at your feet, and follow my lead." The pace of the song was slow enough, it wasn't too hard to draw her into the steps. Most of salsa involved adopting your own flavor to the beat, and he suspected Nancy would do just that once she was comfortable with the movement.

Nancy looked up at Killian with shining eyes, bright with adoration. "You always know what to say," she confessed, blinking. The curse had gotten her, understandably, more emotional than usual. Everything was closer to the surface.

But she'd take those words and keep them close. Write them down somewhere, maybe in her Book of Shadows, where she kept her experiences with magic and the supernatural. To help her learn. She had another where she jotted down spells as she learned them, but it was good to keep records of everything else. You never knew when you'd need an alibi, anyway.

She watched Killian's feet closely, moving along with him. She slid into the rhythm easily enough, only occasionally thinking too hard about it and fumbling. But she was an adept dancer, part of growing up where she had. There was always music in the den, and you couldn't stay for more than a few days before being forced to learn something. Fagin was an old Fae, and you went with it for fear of upsetting him.

"You're a good teacher," she told her partner, moving in time to the beat. A glance over her shoulder told her it was best to really get into it, so, she did, for better or for worse.

Love was both the best and the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Killian wasn't sure that he'd be the same man if he had never lived it. It'd made him a better man, then, but age and distance had soured what had once been quite beautiful. It was hard to remember the good parts of being in love when he had spent so much more time mourning it.

Still, Nancy was young. Maybe there was hope for her. The world had never been terribly kind to him, wrenching away everything it ever given him only after he'd had long enough to mourn it when it was gone. Granted, the world did not seem to have been terribly kind to Nancy, either, but perhaps he had it in him to hope better for someone else.

She did seem to take to the steps quickly, and he thought that she might. It would have been a fools errand to take a completely graceless girl dancing, but he never thought Nancy to be such. She took the steps quickly and he did his best to guide her, even managing something perilously close to a grin as she started to get more confident. "A grand teacher and a grander student," he declared, and as she found the beat and the wild air around them, he didn't think too much about bringing her closer and doing the same. Salsa was a dance of life and fire, and he didn't have much of that left in him, but it was nice to pretend on occasion. They were a bolt of red and black on the floor, and hopefully in the end, she wouldn't think him a poor date.

He'd taken too many girls out in his three centuries to be a shabby date.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅaɴɢeʀ ɪs I'ᴍ ᴅaɴɢeʀoᴜs. aɴᴅ I ᴍiɢʜᴛ ᴊusᴛ ᴛeaʀ ʏou aᴘaʀᴛ.

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