A Crown of Pixie Dust & Thorns

Indie Selective OUAT Multi Muse RP Blog || Muse and Mun are 18+ || Established in 2012 || penned by Morgan

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Here's a full list of all the playable characters on my blog:

Peter Pan

Harry Jones

Wendy Darling

Mal

Malcolm Pan

Tinkerbell

Click their names for their bios! :)

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter watched Felix break apart in front of him, but the jealousy didn’t loosen its grip. Every place Felix named struck Peter like a fist beneath the ribs. His imagination supplied every detail he hadn’t asked for. Felix beneath someone else’s hands, his scarred face tipped back, his breath catching the same way it had against Peter’s mouth minutes ago.

Peter’s hand remained at Felix’s throat. Felix no longer looked at him. His head had bowed, golden hair falling forward to hide his face. Something twisted in Peter’s chest when a broken sound escaped Felix. Felix had never disobeyed him. Whatever Peter demanded, Felix had always given it to him.

For the first time, Felix had reached his limit.

Peter should have stopped. He knew it, and still he didn’t. His grip loosened, though his thumb continued to trace Felix’s pulse.

“Look at me.” Peter’s voice came out rough.

When Felix didn’t move, Peter took his hand from the tree and caught Felix by the jaw. He forced Felix’s face up until their eyes met. Guilt cut through the jealousy.

“Stop crying,” Peter said quietly. His thumb followed Felix’s scar, the familiar ridge slick beneath his touch. “You don’t get to fall apart while I’m still standing here.”

Guilt tangled with hunger until Peter could no longer tell one from the other. Felix trembled beneath his hands, and Peter could no longer pretend it was desire. Firelight caught in the tears on Felix’s cheeks, bright and sharp as broken glass.

Peter released Felix’s jaw, then let his other hand fall from his throat. His fingers dragged down the front of Felix’s tunic, catching the tremor still running through him.

“Get in the tent.” Peter’s voice came out steadier than he felt. He jerked his chin toward the tent beneath the thinking tree.

[lankyboyfelix]

Felix’s world shrank to the iron grip on his chin, yanking his tear-streaked face upward. He couldn’t see anything but blurred firelight and the accusing force behind the hand that held him. His jaw ached, humilation burning across his skin, but he didn’t dare resist. He felt stripped raw, every secret and shameful act exposed, every weakness on display.

Stop Crying.

He tried to stop crying, tried to swallow down the sobs clawing at his throat, but they just kept coming, wild and shaking. Felix bit his lip so hard it hurt, forcing himself to obey. The taste of blood was sharp and grounding. He blinked furiously, desperate to do as he was told, desperate not to make things worse.

The grip shifted, fingers trailing down the scar that cut across his cheek. Felix froze, every muscle rigid with dread. The touch was slow, and for a fleeting moment, he didn’t know if it was meant to comfort or condemn. All he could feel was the heat of shame, memories of that fateful night with Rufio, the guilt, the fear that he would never be forgiven.

His thoughts spiraled. Was this it? Was this the moment everything was taken from him? Would Peter cast him out, hurt him, strip him of what little place he’d carved in this savage world? Felix’s heart hammered in his chest, breath shallow, his stomach twisting with terror.

The next words, an order, sent him scrambling blindly away from the fire and into the darkness of the tent. He stumbled, legs shaking and when his knees hit the ground he didn’t resist. He pressed his face to the earth, arms curled beneath him, surrendering completely. He was nothing now, nothing but regret and dread and the raw hope that maybe, somehow, he could survive this.

“Do your worst,” Felix whispered, voice hoarse and broken, barely more than a plea. “I deserve it. I won’t fight you.”

He stayed there, forehead in the dirt, hands trembling, waiting for pain, for banishment, for whatever punishment would come, knowing that, whatever it was, he would not run.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter stood there for three heartbeats. The fire crackled behind him, shrinking now that his magic no longer fed it. The night air pressed against his skin, cold where Felix’s body had been.

He followed.

The tent closed around him, warm and dim, scented with pine resin and damp earth. Felix knelt at the far end, shoulders drawn tight, facing away. The canvas filtered the firelight into something soft and amber, catching the gold in his hair and the silver line of his scar.

Peter dropped to his knees behind him. Close enough to feel the warmth coming off him. Close enough that everything unsaid crowded the space between them.

He reached out and pressed his palm flat between Felix’s shoulder blades. Felix sucked in a sharp breath. Felix's spine went rigid beneath his hand.

“You don’t get to hate yourself more than I hate him,” Peter said quietly. His fingers spread across the thin fabric of Felix’s shirt, finding the familiar geography of old scars beneath. “He touched what was mine. I’m taking back every part of you he had.”

Felix didn’t answer. He didn’t pull away. Peter slid his hand to the nape of Felix’s neck, threading his fingers through the soft hair there. He tipped Felix’s head forward and pressed a kiss to the base of his neck. Felix shuddered beneath his mouth.

“I meant what I said,” Peter murmured against his skin. “Every mark on you belongs to me. I’m going to make sure you never forget it.”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

It should not have hurt. She knew him. Knew the shape of his evasions, the way he wrapped truth in cruelty and called it necessity. Knew better than anyone that whatever softness he offered was usually followed by a demand. A life hidden in corners. Stolen in clearings. Denied wherever the light could reach them.

"So that's it." Her voice came out flatter than she'd intended.

Peter was still close enough for her to feel the heat of him in the cooling air, but she stepped back anyway. Then another, until his hand slipped from her waist and there was finally room to breathe.

“You stand here and tell me all of this”—she gestured once between them, the stream, the cold at the edge of the clearing, the kiss that still burned on her mouth—“and then ask me to let you pretend I mean nothing.”

She laughed once, softly. It held no amusement at all.

“For my safety.”

Wendy wrapped her arms around herself, less for warmth than to stop her hands from shaking. “Do you know what’s absurd?” she asked. “That I believe you. I believe that thing would hurt me to hurt you. I believe Neverland is monstrous enough to ask this of you.” She finally looked at him. “And I am still angry.”

Because of course she was. Because he had finally said something real and immediately buried it beneath conditions. Because he was asking her to be content with being treasured in secret while being treated like a stranger in daylight. Because some ugly, traitorous part of her had heard That's yours, Wendy and wanted to cling to it.

She hated that part of herself.

“When others are watching,” she repeated. “What does that mean, exactly? That you’ll sneer at me before the Lost Boys? Mock me? Drag me somewhere by the wrist if I displease you, and I'm supposed to remember that you love me?”

[wickedspriite]

For a moment, Peter stilled, caught in a half-shadow at the edge of the clearing. The darkness behind him writhed, hungry for discord. He turned, moonlight carving his face into a mask of regret and stubbornness, wildness and pain.

His voice came out low and rough, threaded with the darkness that clung to him. “You know what I am, Wendy. You know what Neverland makes of me.” He stepped closer, the night seeming to bend around him, presence both magnetic and menacing. “If keeping you alive means pretending you’re nothing to me, I’ll be colder than ice. If it means mocking you, I’ll be crueler than any pirate. If the Lost Boys need a show, I’ll give them one.”

He stopped just shy of touching her, eyes burning with desperate honesty. “But you’re not nothing. Not to me. You are the only thing in this cursed place that makes me want to be more than the shadow demands. If you can’t remember that, then maybe I’m not worth your risk.”

His words lingered, sharp and bitter, but for an instant his eyes softened as he stepped in, closing the distance with a single deliberate stride. He reached out, letting his fingers trail along her jaw and down the line of her throat and collarbone, a touch that was both possessive and longing, a silent promise of what he’d only allow in secret.

Behind that touch lay a truth both of them understood: Peter’s humanity had been warped the moment he bargained with the shadow. His moral compass was shattered, his ability to love warped by magic and loss. All he could give Wendy would be flawed, selfish, and marked by the darkness that ruled Neverland.

Yet as he drew her close, his voice dropped to a velvet murmur, dangerous and intimate. “When it’s just us, no masks, no games. Then you’ll know what I am to you. Behind closed doors, we can have whatever we want. I’ll give you everything I can, Wendy. Everything that’s left.”

He leaned in, his breath a whisper at her ear. “What I feel for you is real, even if it’s wrong.”

His jaw tightened as he fought to keep his composure, wildness barely leashed. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you alive, even if it means you hating me for it.”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

“You keep saying that. Everything that’s left. As though what you’re offering me is whatever the Shadow spared. Scraps from its table.”

She looked at him. Peter was still inches from her, his jaw tight, the wildness in him barely leashed. His hand lingered near her throat, trembling just as it had in the stream.

“Behind closed doors, no masks, no games. But the moment we step outside, you’ll become what Neverland needs you to be, and I’ll be—what? Your prisoner? Your ghost? The girl you refuse to notice?”

Her throat ached. She refused to let it show.

“You’re not asking me to survive. You’re asking me to go back to being invisible. To smile while you pretend I don’t exist. To believe we’re only real when no one is looking.”

Frost crawled over the nearest fern. Darkness stirred beneath the canopy.

“I chose you,” she said. “With my eyes open. Knowing every cruelty you’ve committed. I chose you anyway. But I didn’t choose to be your secret.”

Wendy laid both palms against Peter’s chest. His heart still beat too fast beneath them. His warmth seeped through the thin fabric of his shirt.

“I won’t be your hidden thing,” she said. “Not for the Shadow. Not for the Lost Boys. Not for Neverland. Not even for you.”

She let her hands fall.

“If you want me, you’ll have to choose me where people can see it.”

She didn’t see it move. One moment the Shadow waited at the treeline, patient and watchful. The next, it was behind her. A razor-sharp force raked across her back before she could turn. Pain tore through her, and the ground rushed up to meet her. She hit the dirt hard, warmth already spilling down her spine.

Wendy’s arms shook as she forced herself onto one elbow. The Shadow’s eyes narrowed, but she refused to look away.

“Coward,” she hissed.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter tried to speak, but his throat wouldn’t work. The wound was gone here, wherever here was, but the pain had only moved deeper. Somewhere older. The kind that didn’t bleed.

“Felix...” The name scraped its way out. “I don’t deserve to see you.”

But God, he was glad he could. Maybe seeing Felix meant he hadn’t ruined everything beyond repair. Or maybe this was one last cruelty before he was sent wherever monsters went. He stepped closer and caught Felix’s familiar scent, though nothing here should have carried one. Pine. Salt. Smoke from a Neverland campfire.

“I’m sorry.” Peter raised a hand to Felix’s cheek. His fingers appeared to rest against Felix’s skin, but Peter felt nothing beneath them. “I’m so sorry.”

Far away, a monitor beeped beneath the muffled voices of people working over him. Something tugged at him, pulling him back toward the noise. He ignored it.

[thebirdlass]

Felix lingered in the mist, arms crossed, his gaze sharp and guarded. When Peter, desperate and aching with regret, reached out to touch Felix’s cheek in a gesture of apology, Felix pulled back, shoulders stiffening. There was fondness in his eyes, but hurt ran deeper; betrayal that time hadn’t erased.

Peter’s apology hung in the gray air. Felix let out a brittle laugh, shaking his head. “Forgiveness, Pan? After all this? Why does that matter to you now?” His voice was softer but edged with pain. “You made your choice. No matter how hard it was for the rest of us… you chose power. You chose yourself. Over all of us. Over me.”

He took a step back, putting more space between them. “You want me to say it’s alright? That it never mattered? It did. It always did. But it’s too late to change any of it now.”

Felix glanced in the direction of Wendy’s faint voice through the mist. “She’s waiting. She still believes in you. Go back to her, Peter. Live your life… that’s what’s left for you. Redemption isn’t mine to give. And honestly, I don’t know if I could.”

His figure began to fade, words heavy in the silence. “It’s too late for us, Pan. But it’s not too late for you. Go.”

And as Felix started to vanish into the gray, leaving Peter with the memory of that distance, the ache of what was lost, but with the hope that was Wendy, who refused to give up on him.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter’s hand fell through the empty air where Felix had been. The gray swallowed the last glimmer of him, but not the look of hurt Peter would carry forever.

He didn’t deserve to go back to Wendy. He wasn’t owed redemption. And he couldn’t seize it for himself. Felix had carved that truth into him deeper than John’s bullet ever could.

The beeping pulled harder, dragging at his chest. A hand pressed flat over his sternum. A voice yelled, “Stable!” Another said something about lucky.

He wasn’t lucky. He was cursed.

The gray thinned and light broke through in harsh stripes. His mouth was dry. His left side burned with a deep, grinding heat that pulsed in time with the beeping nearby. He tried to open his eyes. One cooperated. The other stayed shut.

Turning his head proved harder. His neck protested with a dull, stubborn ache. The room was small. A curtain hung to his left, drawn partway closed. Through the gap, he caught the edge of a window. Dark. Still night. Or night again. He didn’t know how long he’d been under.

He was alive.

He should have been relieved. He wasn’t.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Tink sat on a tree branch with her wings folded tight against her back, staring up through the canopy. She'd climbed high enough that the shouting from camp had faded into the trees.

Leaves rustled behind her.

Either someone was terrible at moving through the forest, or they wanted her to know they were there. Either way, they were interrupting a perfectly good afternoon. She glanced over her shoulder. One of Pan's Lost Boys. Teddy. The girl.

“Pan better have a good reason for sending you,” Tink said. “Otherwise, you're wasting both our time.”

@lostintheneverwoods

[lostintheneverwoods]

Teddy carefully climbed up into the tree and perched next to Tink. She didn't say anything for a long moment, just watched the fairy sit there.

"Pan doesn't have a good reason for anything," she said finally. "But he does want to see you. He's in his treehouse." The meaning was clear, he wasn't going to take no for an answer. "Better hurry," she said quietly, jutting her chin towards the ground to indicate that Tink needed to go ahead of her. "You don't want to keep him waiting."

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Tink rolled her eyes and stepped off the branch. Her wings snapped open just long enough to slow her fall, then folded tight against her back again. She landed lightly, knees bending to absorb the impact.

She straightened and brushed a smear of dirt from one knee. “What does Pan want?”

[lostintheneverwoods]

Teddy scurried down the tree after Tink, not bothering to wipe the dirt off her palms. "I'm really not sure. He's been raving about something with the pirates recently. Perhaps he's sending you somewhere we can be rid of you."

She skipped after Tink, feeling a bit lighter around the fairy. "You know he doesn't really tell me that much. Really just talks at me to be honest."

[kingoftheneverwoods]

“Of course he doesn’t,” Tink muttered, shoving aside a low branch as she quickened her pace. Pirates. Just what she needed today. “Pan only remembers people exist when he wants something. The rest of the time, he’d rather nobody speak at all.”

She glanced back. Teddy was still close behind, quicker on her feet than Tink had given her credit for. “Pan can’t kill me. The last thing he wants is a war with the fairies.”

Tink had stopped calling herself a princess years ago. That didn't make it any less true. Her mother, Queen Clarence, had never approved of Tink’s bargain with Pan. Pan gave her sanctuary after she ran away. In return, she worked for him. As long as Pan respected fairy territory—and Tink remained alive—her mother tolerated the bargain.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

The Lost Boys’ campfire flickered beneath Neverland’s purple dusk, throwing shadows across Peter’s face as he sharpened his dagger. The blade caught the firelight with every pass of the whetstone. He’d been at it for nearly an hour, long after the edge should have been perfect. A faint dusting of steel marked the ground near his boots.

Rufio dropped down beside him on the log, close enough that Peter could smell the pine sap on his clothes. Peter didn’t look over. He kept dragging the stone along the blade’s edge. The silence stretched between them, and Peter had gotten good at filling it with noise. He’d been filling it for days, whenever Rufio looked at him with an expression caught somewhere between anger and disappointment.

“You want to say something.” Peter kept his eyes on the blade. “Then say it.”

@lostintheneverwoods

[lostintheneverwoods]

Rufio hesitated. He'd spent the better part of a century at Pan's side. There was no fear between them, just a steady understanding of the hierarchy and a friendship tainted by power imbalance.

"You didn't punish the twins enough," he said finally. "You know I respect you, Peter, but really? Extra chores are insignificant. It doesn't change the fact that they messed up the hunt and we're going to have less food for however long it takes to track down something else. You're not that lenient. What are you playing at?"

[kingoftheneverwoods]

The whetsone paused mid-stroke. Peter's thumb rested against the flat of the blade, feeling the last vibration fade through the steel. Rufio was still watching him. Irritating. He set the whetstone across his knee before looking over. Rufio still wore that stubborn certainty. It had been useful for a century. For the last three days, it had been intolerable.

“The twins are ten. They dropped a net. So they didn’t get food for two days. They didn’t betray anyone. They didn’t disobey me.”

Peter turned the dagger in his hand, watching firelight slide along the edge. “What do you think I should’ve done? Flayed them? Hung them from a tree? Cut off their hands? Little bodies can’t handle that much pain, Rufio.

“Yours can. If you've forgotten who you're talking to.”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter found Teddy where the forest gave way to scrub and the air carried the sharp smell of salt. He came to a stop beside her.

“Shouldn't you be with the others?” he asked.

@lostintheneverwoods

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter held her gaze. The uncertainty in her voice was worth more than any flinch.

He let the silence stretch another heartbeat, long enough for its weight to settle. Then he turned away with the same casual indifference she'd shown him at the water's edge.

"Sit by the fire," he said without looking back. "Don't speak. Don't move. Dinner's in an hour."

"You'll watch." Next time, she'd think before saluting him.

He walked to the edge of camp, where the shadows pooled beyond the firelight. No one would see him brace his swollen hands against the rough bark of a tree. Pain lanced through both wrists. Peter breathed through it without letting anyone hear. Pan didn't bleed where his boys could see.

[lostintheneverwoods]

Teddy stood there for a moment, watching him leave. She moved once he was out of sight. She plopped down on the closest log, hands folded in her lap, eyes trained on the dirt. She didn't cry. She didn't look at anyone.

She wasn't stupid, or scatterbrained, she was simply existing. Teddy wasn't malicious about their noncompliance. They were just tired, in a sense. Decades of the same wild loneliness weighed on their shoulders like a heavy winter coat: suffocating in the humid jungle air.

She could feel the others looking at her. Whispering. Laughing. She probably wouldn't be allowed to eat tonight and no one would bring her food. Her vision unfocused as the sounds of the Lost Ones went on around her.

Teddy owed Pan an apology. It wouldn't mean anything, but the formality was an unpaid debt.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter rested his forehead against the bark and closed his eyes. The bark was rough and cool beneath his skin. He let himself linger there before pushing away.

He rolled his wrist carefully, testing his range of motion. His left thumb bent, but the movement sent fiery pain up his forearm. Perfect. He hid both hands in his jacket pockets and turned back toward camp.

Teddy was exactly where he had told her to sit, rigid as a fencepost. Good. At least she could follow instructions when the consequences were clear. He skirted the edge of the clearing, moving through the gaps in the torchlight. No one looked at him directly. They made themselves smaller or found sudden work for their hands. One of the younger boys pretended to mend a tear in his shirt, the needle trembling between his fingers.

Peter settled on the log nearest the fire, close enough to feel the heat but far enough from Teddy that no one could mistake it for forgiveness. He stretched out his legs, all lazy ease while his wrists throbbed inside his pockets. He flexed his fingers until the pain dulled into something he could ignore.

“Someone get the rabbit on the spit,” he said.

One of the older boys scrambled to the cooking fire. Nibs, perhaps, or Slightly. Peter had never cared enough to learn which. The boy hurried to skewer the rabbit over the cooking fire.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter was slipping.

Ceiling lights streaked above him, too bright and too fast. Hands pressed against his chest, his side, his throat. Someone cut through his shirt. Cold air struck the wound and stole what little breath he had left.

“BP’s dropping—”

“—type and cross, get it now—”

The voices came from somewhere above him, warped as though they had to reach him through water. Peter tried to turn his head. His body wouldn’t obey. Something covered his mouth and nose. When he reached for it, a hand caught his wrist and held it against the mattress.

“Stay with us, son.”

Son. The word landed wrong. He almost laughed, but the oxygen mask swallowed the sound, turning it into a wet cough that tasted of iron. His vision flashed white, collapsed into darkness, then found the lights again.

He was on a table. Then he wasn’t.

He was back in Neverland. Felix stood before him beneath a sun that burned too bright, looking past Peter at something behind him.

Peter turned and saw—

Wendy.

No. She hadn’t been there. She couldn’t be there.

Neverland dissolved. Cold flooded his arm through the line buried in his vein. His heart stumbled. Someone swore.

“V-tach—get the pads—”

Pain struck, sharp and electric, everywhere at once. His back arched from the table before hands forced him flat again. The room disappeared and returned in pieces: an unfamiliar face, a monitor beeping too fast, the smell of antiseptic, blood, and something bitterly chemical beneath it all.

He searched for Wendy. She had been holding his hand. He could still feel the ghost of her fingers against his palm, impossibly warm.

She wasn’t here.

Of course she wasn’t. They wouldn’t let her in. John and Michael would see to that. They were probably holding her behind some locked door, telling her what he was and everything he had done. She would be crying because she believed them or because she couldn’t stop them from taking him away. Either way, he was the reason.

His chest tightened. Not from the wound. From something worse.

She chose you, and this is what it costs her.

The monitor beeped unevenly. Someone adjusted the mask over his face. A voice mentioned blood. Another answered with numbers he couldn’t hold onto.

He closed his eyes. Pain coiled around his ribs, tightening with every breath. He counted them. One. Two. Three. Four.

Then the numbers slipped away.

Felix. The name surfaced without permission, as it always did when Peter grew too tired to bury it. The tin box was still at the mansion beside the dead fire, growing cold in an empty room. He should have buried it. He should have done something. Someone would find it. Open it. See what he had carried all this time because he had never learned to let go.

They already knew. John had told them what Peter was.

The monster who killed Felix. The boy who tore out hearts.

He deserved this.

[thebirdlass]

Wendy sat in the hospital’s visitor room, hands clasped tight as she prayed desperately for Peter’s life. Every sound in the hallway made her heart jump, hope and fear tangled inside her.

Michael slipped into the chair beside her, guilt written on his face. “I’m sorry, Wen. I should’ve been there—”

She shook her head, eyes fixed on the floor. “Not now, Michael. I just need him to live.”

He fell silent, and Wendy went on waiting, her prayers quiet and urgent in the fluorescent-lit room.

Somewhere far from the harsh lights and anxious voices of the hospital, Peter floated in a gray, endless space, the world above slipping away like a fading dream. In that hush, a familiar presence stirred—steady, loyal, unmistakable.

Felix stood before him, looking just as he had in Neverland: sharp-eyed, a sly grin twitching at the corner of his mouth, arms crossed against his chest. The edges of him shimmered, not quite real, but more solid than anything else in this misty in-between.

“Figures you’d end up here, Pan,” Felix said, voice rough with a hint of affection and exasperation. “Always did like to make things difficult.”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter tried to speak, but his throat wouldn’t work. The wound was gone here, wherever here was, but the pain had only moved deeper. Somewhere older. The kind that didn’t bleed.

“Felix...” The name scraped its way out. “I don’t deserve to see you.”

But God, he was glad he could. Maybe seeing Felix meant he hadn’t ruined everything beyond repair. Or maybe this was one last cruelty before he was sent wherever monsters went. He stepped closer and caught Felix’s familiar scent, though nothing here should have carried one. Pine. Salt. Smoke from a Neverland campfire.

“I’m sorry.” Peter raised a hand to Felix’s cheek. His fingers appeared to rest against Felix’s skin, but Peter felt nothing beneath them. “I’m so sorry.”

Far away, a monitor beeped beneath the muffled voices of people working over him. Something tugged at him, pulling him back toward the noise. He ignored it.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Wendy held onto him, her fingers fisted in his shirt as the warmth of his magic settled over her. Dry clothes. A comfort she hadn't known she needed. His kiss had been fierce. Possessive. Trembling. That tremor had said more than any declaration ever could.

When they broke apart, the air between them still crackled. Wendy kept her hands on his chest, feeling his heart still racing beneath her palms. The Shadow at the treeline pulsed once. A deep, cold warning lifted the hairs on her arms despite the warmth of her dry clothes.

She didn’t look at it. She kept her gaze on Peter's face, watching the wildness in his eyes settle into something steadier. Something almost like peace.

The Shadow rippled, dark tendrils reaching further into the clearing. The temperature dropped as frost spread across the nearest leaves. Wendy’s breath came out in a small cloud. She tightened her hold on him and rested her head against the curve of his neck.

“Will it hurt you?” she asked.

[wickedspriite]

Peter’s gaze darkened, centuries of cunning and fear flickering behind his eyes as the Shadow writhed at the edge of the clearing. For a long moment, he said nothing, torn between the urge to claim Wendy and the cold knowledge of the danger that brought.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, haunted. “You asked if the Shadow will hurt me.” He glanced at the shifting darkness, jaw set. “It might. It’s punished me before, but I can survive it. What I can’t survive is letting it hurt you. And if it thinks I care too much, that’s exactly where it will strike.”

He drew her closer, the possessiveness in his grip tempered by a rare, aching vulnerability. “To keep you safe, I’ll have to give the Shadow what it wants: control, the illusion that nothing’s changed. The Lost Ones can’t know. No one can. Not yet. For now, I may have to treat you as if you mean nothing to me, at least when others are watching. It’s the only way I can keep you safe…and keep what I have.”

He rested his forehead against hers, his hand cupping her cheek, a touch gentle and desperate. “Don’t ever believe what you see. What’s real is what I hide from everyone else. That’s yours, Wendy. Even if I have to act like it isn’t.”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

It should not have hurt. She knew him. Knew the shape of his evasions, the way he wrapped truth in cruelty and called it necessity. Knew better than anyone that whatever softness he offered was usually followed by a demand. A life hidden in corners. Stolen in clearings. Denied wherever the light could reach them.

"So that's it." Her voice came out flatter than she'd intended.

Peter was still close enough for her to feel the heat of him in the cooling air, but she stepped back anyway. Then another, until his hand slipped from her waist and there was finally room to breathe.

“You stand here and tell me all of this”—she gestured once between them, the stream, the cold at the edge of the clearing, the kiss that still burned on her mouth—“and then ask me to let you pretend I mean nothing.”

She laughed once, softly. It held no amusement at all.

“For my safety.”

Wendy wrapped her arms around herself, less for warmth than to stop her hands from shaking. “Do you know what’s absurd?” she asked. “That I believe you. I believe that thing would hurt me to hurt you. I believe Neverland is monstrous enough to ask this of you.” She finally looked at him. “And I am still angry.”

Because of course she was. Because he had finally said something real and immediately buried it beneath conditions. Because he was asking her to be content with being treasured in secret while being treated like a stranger in daylight. Because some ugly, traitorous part of her had heard That's yours, Wendy and wanted to cling to it.

She hated that part of herself.

“When others are watching,” she repeated. “What does that mean, exactly? That you’ll sneer at me before the Lost Boys? Mock me? Drag me somewhere by the wrist if I displease you, and I'm supposed to remember that you love me?”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter's grip tightened until he felt the tendons shift beneath Felix's skin. He heard Felix breathing behind him, careful and measured—the rhythm of someone trying not to panic. The fire surged higher, eating at the dry bark of the nearest trunk, and Peter didn’t bother to leash it.

One night. A mistake. I thought I’d never have you.

He spun around.

The movement was too fast. Too sharp. He caught Felix's eyes widening, the backward tilt of his chin, but Felix didn't step away. He never did. Even now, with Peter's magic crackling at his fingertips, the fire roaring behind him, and every cruel thing he'd ever done written across his face, Felix stayed.

Peter caught the front of Felix’s shirt with both hands and yanked him forward. Felix stumbled half a step, close enough for Peter to see the pulse jumping at the base of his throat, his lips parting around a sound that never escaped.

Peter kissed him.

Not soft. Not careful. His mouth crashed into Felix’s with all the jagged, ugly force of everything he’d been refusing to feel. His teeth caught Felix’s lower lip hard enough to taste copper, and Felix made a noise—small, startled, raw—that went straight through Peter’s chest like a blade.

He kissed him again. Deeper. Hungrier. His hands fisted in Felix’s shirt, twisting the fabric until his knuckles ached. Peter shoved him backward. Felix's shoulders struck the trunk of the thinking tree, bark scraping through the thin fabric of his tunic. Peter followed him. Pressed him there. One hand fisted in Felix's shirt, the other flat against the tree beside Felix's head, fingers digging into the wood until splinters bit into his palm.

“You had something I didn’t give you. Something that belonged only to you,” Peter said against Felix’s lips, the words ragged and broken. “And you kept it from me.”

His hand shook where it pressed against the tree. Magic leaked from his fingertips, scorching a black mark into the bark. He didn’t care.

“You let someone else have something that was mine.”

He pulled back just far enough to see Felix’s face. His lips were swollen and red where Peter’s teeth had bitten into them.

He looked ruined. Beautiful. Peter wanted every mark on Felix to belong to him.

Peter’s hand left the tree and found Felix’s throat. His thumb pressed against the pulse point, feeling it stutter and race beneath his skin. Possession coiled through him, dark, ugly, and sharp enough to hurt.

“He’s dead,” Peter said, and the words came out flat, devoid of the grief he should have felt. Maybe he did feel it, somewhere beneath the jealousy. He couldn’t tell anymore. “He can’t answer for what he took. So it falls to you.”

His grip tightened on Felix’s throat. Just a fraction. Just enough to feel the muscles tense beneath his palm.

“Tell me, Felix.” Peter leaned close enough for his lips to brush the shell of Felix's ear. “Tell me what he did to you. Where he touched you. What sounds you made for him.”

His free hand slid down Felix’s chest, fingers splaying wide over the thin fabric of his tunic.

"And then," Peter whispered, his voice low and dangerous, "I'm going to erase every trace of him from your skin."

[lankyboyfelix]

Felix swallowed, the warmth of Peter’s body or breath on his skin, did nothing to thaw the cold dread in his belly. Peter’s grip to his neck was unyielding. Felix’s heart pounded in his ears as he forced himself to speak, to give Peter the truth he demanded, even when it stripped him bare.

“I let him kiss me,” Felix whispered, the words tasting like ash on his tongue. “On the lips. I let his hands—” He hesitated, his face flushing hot with humiliation. “They were on my chest, my thighs… even lower. He touched me everywhere, Peter. I let him.”

The confession felt like poison, each detail dragging him deeper into shame. Felix’s eyes stung, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Peter. “He… he grabbed my... my ass. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t stop any of it.”

He shook his head, voice trembling, raw and small. “I’m not proud of it. I feel… filthy, even saying it out loud. Like I’m something less, all over again. I never wanted you to see this part of me.”

His breath hitched, the next words caught in his throat. He tried to go on, but the weight of it all crashed down: regret, humiliation, the fear of being truly seen and truly hated. Felix’s voice broke, nothing left but a whisper. “I can’t. I—” His head bowed, shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry, Peter. I can’t say any more.”

He stood there, stripped to the bone by memory and shame, waiting for Peter’s judgment, unsure if he would ever feel whole again.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter watched Felix break apart in front of him, but the jealousy didn’t loosen its grip. Every place Felix named struck Peter like a fist beneath the ribs. His imagination supplied every detail he hadn’t asked for. Felix beneath someone else’s hands, his scarred face tipped back, his breath catching the same way it had against Peter’s mouth minutes ago.

Peter’s hand remained at Felix’s throat. Felix no longer looked at him. His head had bowed, golden hair falling forward to hide his face. Something twisted in Peter’s chest when a broken sound escaped Felix. Felix had never disobeyed him. Whatever Peter demanded, Felix had always given it to him.

For the first time, Felix had reached his limit.

Peter should have stopped. He knew it, and still he didn’t. His grip loosened, though his thumb continued to trace Felix’s pulse.

“Look at me.” Peter’s voice came out rough.

When Felix didn’t move, Peter took his hand from the tree and caught Felix by the jaw. He forced Felix’s face up until their eyes met. Guilt cut through the jealousy.

“Stop crying,” Peter said quietly. His thumb followed Felix’s scar, the familiar ridge slick beneath his touch. “You don’t get to fall apart while I’m still standing here.”

Guilt tangled with hunger until Peter could no longer tell one from the other. Felix trembled beneath his hands, and Peter could no longer pretend it was desire. Firelight caught in the tears on Felix’s cheeks, bright and sharp as broken glass.

Peter released Felix’s jaw, then let his other hand fall from his throat. His fingers dragged down the front of Felix’s tunic, catching the tremor still running through him.

“Get in the tent.” Peter’s voice came out steadier than he felt. He jerked his chin toward the tent beneath the thinking tree.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

The Lost Boys’ campfire flickered beneath Neverland’s purple dusk, throwing shadows across Peter’s face as he sharpened his dagger. The blade caught the firelight with every pass of the whetstone. He’d been at it for nearly an hour, long after the edge should have been perfect. A faint dusting of steel marked the ground near his boots.

Rufio dropped down beside him on the log, close enough that Peter could smell the pine sap on his clothes. Peter didn’t look over. He kept dragging the stone along the blade’s edge. The silence stretched between them, and Peter had gotten good at filling it with noise. He’d been filling it for days, whenever Rufio looked at him with an expression caught somewhere between anger and disappointment.

“You want to say something.” Peter kept his eyes on the blade. “Then say it.”

@lostintheneverwoods

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Wendy felt the heat of his breath against her mouth and the cold gathering at her back as the Shadow drew closer. The fine hairs along her arms lifted beneath its weight. She kept her forehead against his and refused to look toward the treeline. She wouldn't give it the satisfaction.

Her hands slid from his hair to rest at the base of his throat. His pulse hammered beneath her fingertips, too fast for someone who claimed to feel nothing.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t have to kill or threaten or bargain. You just have to stop running.”

He was trembling. She had seen it before during the darkest hours of certain nights, when he thought she was asleep and his face forgot to lie.

Her thumbs moved once against his skin.

“I choose you,” she said. “Even knowing what you are. Even when choosing you costs me.” She let the words settle between them. “I’ve always chosen you. That’s the part you keep missing.”

A droplet slid from his hair and traced a path down her wrist.

“You said you'd do anything to keep me,” she said. “So would I. That's what I've been doing all this time. Keeping you.” The corner of her mouth almost lifted. “Even when you made it very difficult.”

The cold at the edge of the clearing sharpened like a blade laid across the back of her neck.

I know you’re there. I don’t care.

She pulled back just enough to look at him. He seemed younger than she had ever seen him, younger than his face or his years, younger even than the island itself.

“If Neverland falls,” she said, “we fall together. If it survives, we stay together. Those are the only terms I'm willing to accept.”

[wickedspriite]

Peter looked at her, something dark and electric twisting in his wild, ancient eyes, awe tangled with possessiveness, but also caution. The world shrank to just the two of them: her hands at his throat, his breath mingling with hers, the shadow looming at the treeline, restless, cold, and dangerous. For the first time, Peter stared it down, his own magic crackling at his fingertips, defiance sharpened by fear for Wendy.

A dangerous, unsteady laugh escaped him. “Together, then,” he whispered, voice both steel and uncertainty. “Even if the shadow hates us for it.”

With a cautious snap of his fingers, magic warmed the air and, in an instant, dressed them both in their familiar, dry clothes, whole again. He drew Wendy close, one hand at her waist, the other threading gently through her hair.

“Let it watch,” he murmured, voice tight and fierce. “But never turn your back on it, Wendy.”

He kissed her, fierce and protective, but trembling with fear of what the shadow might do. The darkness writhed at the edge of the clearing, and Peter held her tighter, unwilling to let anything take her from his arms.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Wendy held onto him, her fingers fisted in his shirt as the warmth of his magic settled over her. Dry clothes. A comfort she hadn't known she needed. His kiss had been fierce. Possessive. Trembling. That tremor had said more than any declaration ever could.

When they broke apart, the air between them still crackled. Wendy kept her hands on his chest, feeling his heart still racing beneath her palms. The Shadow at the treeline pulsed once. A deep, cold warning lifted the hairs on her arms despite the warmth of her dry clothes.

She didn’t look at it. She kept her gaze on Peter's face, watching the wildness in his eyes settle into something steadier. Something almost like peace.

The Shadow rippled, dark tendrils reaching further into the clearing. The temperature dropped as frost spread across the nearest leaves. Wendy’s breath came out in a small cloud. She tightened her hold on him and rested her head against the curve of his neck.

“Will it hurt you?” she asked.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

The words lodged in Peter’s chest beneath the jealousy, the anger, and the last defenses of his pride. He stared at the fire he couldn’t control, its flames leaping and twisting with all the fury he refused to show. His reflection warped in the dark water, the face of a boy who had spent centuries pretending he needed nothing.

Felix’s hand remained on his arm, its warmth seeping through Peter’s sleeve. He wanted to tear himself free. He wanted to lean into it.

“You thought you couldn’t have me.” Peter’s voice came out rough, scraped thin. “That’s what you’re saying.”

He turned slowly, as though dragging himself against a current.

Felix stood too close for Peter to pretend he couldn’t read him. Shame and hope tangled in his blue eyes, forming something Peter still refused to name.

“You thought I’d never want you,” Peter continued. “So you went to him instead.”

It wasn’t a question. Felix’s face had already answered it.

The fire surged behind him, heat pressing against his back as his magic answered the storm inside him. Felix didn’t flinch or step away. He kept his hand on Peter’s arm and let himself be seen.

Peter unclenched his jaw only when it began to ache. He caught Felix’s wrist and pulled his hand away, but he didn’t release him. His fingers closed around the narrow bones, finding the steady pulse beneath Felix’s skin. He was here. Real. Within reach.

“Say it.” Peter tightened his fingers around Felix’s wrist. “Tell me what you did with him.”

Even Peter heard the cruelty in it. He needed Felix to put the truth into words before his imagination made it worse. Jealousy ate through him, sharpened by the knowledge that he had forfeited any right to it. He had done this. He had taught Felix, year after year, that wanting Peter would earn him nothing but scraps. Now the consequence stood before him with scarred cheeks and a hope Peter had nearly starved out of him.

Peter’s grip tightened on Felix’s wrist.

“Say it,” he repeated, quieter now. “Then we decide what this changes.”

[lankyboyfelix]

Felix stood behind Peter, his hand resting on Peter’s arm, the silence between them thick with old loyalty and new dread. He had never truly defied Peter before, never pushed back, never withheld anything that was asked of him. But now, with the memory of that night with Rufio twisting inside him, he found himself hesitating. It was private, raw, and not a story he ever wanted to tell, especially to Peter. Not when Rufio was gone, lost to them both.

Peter didn’t turn around, but his hand shot back, fingers wrapping tight around Felix’s wrist in a grip that was dangerous, almost bruising.

Say it. Tell me what you did with him.

Felix’s breath caught, the fear and turmoil inside him rising like a tide. He wanted to pull away, to hide, but Peter’s hold on his wrist would not let him flee back into the safety of the shadows. “Peter, I—” Felix faltered, his voice unsteady. “I’ve never kept anything from you before. Never wanted to. But what happened with Rufio…” He swallowed hard, the words tangled with shame. “It wasn’t what you think. It was a mistake. I was lost, and I thought I’d never have you. It was just one night. It didn’t mean what you’re afraid it did.”

Peter’s grip tightened, silent and unyielding. Felix winced, but held his ground. “You want every detail?” Felix’s voice was hoarse, trembling. “I don’t know if I can give you that. Some things… they’re hard to say. Especially now, with Rufio gone. Talking about him like this, it feels wrong. Like picking at wounds that’ll never heal.”

He looked down at Peter’s hand on his wrist, then up, speaking to Peter’s back, his own eyes shining with fear and longing. “I’ll tell you what you want, if that’s what you need. Just, please, Peter. Don’t ask me to pretend it meant more than it did. Or that it was ever more than a mistake.”

Felix stood there, heart pounding, not sure if the truth would save him or shatter everything they had left.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter's grip tightened until he felt the tendons shift beneath Felix's skin. He heard Felix breathing behind him, careful and measured—the rhythm of someone trying not to panic. The fire surged higher, eating at the dry bark of the nearest trunk, and Peter didn’t bother to leash it.

One night. A mistake. I thought I’d never have you.

He spun around.

The movement was too fast. Too sharp. He caught Felix's eyes widening, the backward tilt of his chin, but Felix didn't step away. He never did. Even now, with Peter's magic crackling at his fingertips, the fire roaring behind him, and every cruel thing he'd ever done written across his face, Felix stayed.

Peter caught the front of Felix’s shirt with both hands and yanked him forward. Felix stumbled half a step, close enough for Peter to see the pulse jumping at the base of his throat, his lips parting around a sound that never escaped.

Peter kissed him.

Not soft. Not careful. His mouth crashed into Felix’s with all the jagged, ugly force of everything he’d been refusing to feel. His teeth caught Felix’s lower lip hard enough to taste copper, and Felix made a noise—small, startled, raw—that went straight through Peter’s chest like a blade.

He kissed him again. Deeper. Hungrier. His hands fisted in Felix’s shirt, twisting the fabric until his knuckles ached. Peter shoved him backward. Felix's shoulders struck the trunk of the thinking tree, bark scraping through the thin fabric of his tunic. Peter followed him. Pressed him there. One hand fisted in Felix's shirt, the other flat against the tree beside Felix's head, fingers digging into the wood until splinters bit into his palm.

“You had something I didn’t give you. Something that belonged only to you,” Peter said against Felix’s lips, the words ragged and broken. “And you kept it from me.”

His hand shook where it pressed against the tree. Magic leaked from his fingertips, scorching a black mark into the bark. He didn’t care.

“You let someone else have something that was mine.”

He pulled back just far enough to see Felix’s face. His lips were swollen and red where Peter’s teeth had bitten into them.

He looked ruined. Beautiful. Peter wanted every mark on Felix to belong to him.

Peter’s hand left the tree and found Felix’s throat. His thumb pressed against the pulse point, feeling it stutter and race beneath his skin. Possession coiled through him, dark, ugly, and sharp enough to hurt.

“He’s dead,” Peter said, and the words came out flat, devoid of the grief he should have felt. Maybe he did feel it, somewhere beneath the jealousy. He couldn’t tell anymore. “He can’t answer for what he took. So it falls to you.”

His grip tightened on Felix’s throat. Just a fraction. Just enough to feel the muscles tense beneath his palm.

“Tell me, Felix.” Peter leaned close enough for his lips to brush the shell of Felix's ear. “Tell me what he did to you. Where he touched you. What sounds you made for him.”

His free hand slid down Felix’s chest, fingers splaying wide over the thin fabric of his tunic.

"And then," Peter whispered, his voice low and dangerous, "I'm going to erase every trace of him from your skin."

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Pain surged through Peter with every jarring step. Wendy’s fingers stayed locked around his hand as they carried him through the mud and rain. The world drifted in and out of focus: lantern light, shadows, Emma’s stern face, Michael’s uncertain eyes.

He tried to answer, but managed only a weak cough that tasted of copper and rain. His shirt clung to him, heavy with blood and water. Every heartbeat drove pain through his side.

They reached the road where Emma’s yellow bug waited, its headlights cutting through the darkness. David helped ease Peter toward the backseat while Emma kept one eye on John, standing several feet away with his shoulders slumped.

“Wendy,” Emma said. “You can ride with us, but you need to let go of his hand so we can get him into the car.”

Peter’s vision dimmed as they maneuvered him into the backseat. Pain lanced through his side. Wendy climbed in beside him and caught his head before it struck the door.

The engine rumbled to life, and the headlights bounced across the rain-slicked road as the car pulled away. Peter tried to focus on Wendy’s face, but it kept dissolving into light and shadow. He tightened his grip on her hand as much as he could. It wasn’t much, but her fingers closed tighter around his.

“Felix,” he whispered, the name slipping out before he could stop it.

He didn’t have the strength to say the name again. The tin box was still at the mansion.

Lost.

The car struck a pothole. Pain tore through Peter’s side, bleaching the world white.

[thebirdlass]

She heard the name escape his lips, and a chill ran down her spine. Confusion washed over her like a stormy sea. Was Peter entangled with Felix? Was he drawing closer to death?

Wendy pleaded, her voice trembling with desperation, “Please, you have to hurry. Don’t let him die.”

She squeezed Peter’s hand tightly, as if her sheer will could hold him there. “Peter, you can’t leave me. Do you hear me? You promised you wouldn't leave me.”

The car jolted as they hit a pothole, and she felt a sinking feeling as she realized there was no longer any sign of life in him. “Peter!” she cried out just as they pulled into the hospital's emergency entrance.

Before she realized what was happening, the car door swung open, and they began pulling Peter from the vehicle onto a stretcher. “Please, don’t let him die!” she cried, her heart racing as she tried to follow them. But her brothers held her back, gripping her arms and forcing her to stay put.

There was nothing else she could do, Michael told her, but to let the doctors do their job. Wendy's heart raced as she stared at Michael, uncertainty clouding her thoughts.

She wanted nothing to do with any of them. Shaking off their grasp, she hurried into the hospital. Although she wasn’t allowed in the operating room, she lingered in the waiting area, anxiety swirling inside her. Her brothers stayed nearby but kept their distance, whispering to Emma and David on the other side of the room, no doubt sharing their version of events.

She was consumed by worry, her mind fixated on what was happening in the operating room. She glanced down at the blood on her hands, Peter's blood, and fresh tears streamed down her flushed cheeks.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter was slipping.

Ceiling lights streaked above him, too bright and too fast. Hands pressed against his chest, his side, his throat. Someone cut through his shirt. Cold air struck the wound and stole what little breath he had left.

“BP’s dropping—”

“—type and cross, get it now—”

The voices came from somewhere above him, warped as though they had to reach him through water. Peter tried to turn his head. His body wouldn’t obey. Something covered his mouth and nose. When he reached for it, a hand caught his wrist and held it against the mattress.

“Stay with us, son.”

Son. The word landed wrong. He almost laughed, but the oxygen mask swallowed the sound, turning it into a wet cough that tasted of iron. His vision flashed white, collapsed into darkness, then found the lights again.

He was on a table. Then he wasn’t.

He was back in Neverland. Felix stood before him beneath a sun that burned too bright, looking past Peter at something behind him.

Peter turned and saw—

Wendy.

No. She hadn’t been there. She couldn’t be there.

Neverland dissolved. Cold flooded his arm through the line buried in his vein. His heart stumbled. Someone swore.

“V-tach—get the pads—”

Pain struck, sharp and electric, everywhere at once. His back arched from the table before hands forced him flat again. The room disappeared and returned in pieces: an unfamiliar face, a monitor beeping too fast, the smell of antiseptic, blood, and something bitterly chemical beneath it all.

He searched for Wendy. She had been holding his hand. He could still feel the ghost of her fingers against his palm, impossibly warm.

She wasn’t here.

Of course she wasn’t. They wouldn’t let her in. John and Michael would see to that. They were probably holding her behind some locked door, telling her what he was and everything he had done. She would be crying because she believed them or because she couldn’t stop them from taking him away. Either way, he was the reason.

His chest tightened. Not from the wound. From something worse.

She chose you, and this is what it costs her.

The monitor beeped unevenly. Someone adjusted the mask over his face. A voice mentioned blood. Another answered with numbers he couldn’t hold onto.

He closed his eyes. Pain coiled around his ribs, tightening with every breath. He counted them. One. Two. Three. Four.

Then the numbers slipped away.

Felix. The name surfaced without permission, as it always did when Peter grew too tired to bury it. The tin box was still at the mansion beside the dead fire, growing cold in an empty room. He should have buried it. He should have done something. Someone would find it. Open it. See what he had carried all this time because he had never learned to let go.

They already knew. John had told them what Peter was.

The monster who killed Felix. The boy who tore out hearts.

He deserved this.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter found Teddy where the forest gave way to scrub and the air carried the sharp smell of salt. He came to a stop beside her.

“Shouldn't you be with the others?” he asked.

@lostintheneverwoods

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Peter held her gaze. The uncertainty in her voice was worth more than any flinch.

He let the silence stretch another heartbeat, long enough for its weight to settle. Then he turned away with the same casual indifference she'd shown him at the water's edge.

"Sit by the fire," he said without looking back. "Don't speak. Don't move. Dinner's in an hour."

"You'll watch." Next time, she'd think before saluting him.

He walked to the edge of camp, where the shadows pooled beyond the firelight. No one would see him brace his swollen hands against the rough bark of a tree. Pain lanced through both wrists. Peter breathed through it without letting anyone hear. Pan didn't bleed where his boys could see.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

His breath was hot against her ear. His fingers dug into her shoulders hard enough to leave bruises she would find later in the looking glass, purple fingerprints she would trace and try not to think about.

She didn’t flinch.

She let him hold her there, caught between the cold at her back and the heat of him in front of her. She thought about what he had just said. The threat beneath the promise. The way he had snarled it into her hair as though violence were the only language he trusted.

I’ll never let another take my place.

Her ribs ached. Not from his grip, but from the truth buried beneath it. The truth he could not bring himself to say any other way.

She raised her hands slowly, not to push him away but to rest them against his chest. His heart hammered beneath her palms, fast and furious and terrified. The most honest part of him.

“You don’t have to kill anyone,” she said quietly.

She kept her hands against his chest. His warmth seeped into her palms while water dripped from the ends of her hair onto her collarbones. She felt every breath and every frantic beat beneath her fingertips.

“There won’t be anyone else,” she said.

She said it plainly. Not because it was easy, but because he deserved the truth after managing to give her his.

She looked up at him. His face was inches from hers, water clinging to his lashes, his lower lip caught between his teeth. A fine tremor worked through his jaw.

"You don't have to kill anyone," she said again, softer. "Because I'm not going anywhere. I can’t."

She kissed him carefully and deliberately. Her hands slid from his chest to his face, her fingers threading into the wet hair at his temples. She held him there because she knew that, given the smallest opening, he would run.

[wickedspriite]

As Wendy’s lips met his and her fingers threaded into the damp tangles of his hair, Peter’s breath caught. For an instant, he melted into her touch, eyes closing as if surrender were as natural as flight. Her hands anchoring him, tugging him closer, made the wildness in his chest ache with something almost human.

He pulled back, trembling with the effort to let her go. Opening his eyes, the dangerous glint gave way to wonder. “You always do that,” he whispered, his voice rough. “You touch me like I’m real, like I could stay.”

His one hand slid from her shoulder up to her face, his thumb brushing gently along her cheek as he held her close. “You keep me here, Wendy Darling. Even when I want to run, even when I want to ruin everything just to prove I can’t be held. You make me want to stay.”

He spoke quietly, but there was steel beneath the words. "You say there won't be anyone else," he murmured, "but I want to hear you swear it. Not for Neverland, not for the Shadow, for me. Because you want me, even when you shouldn't. Because you choose me, even when you know what I am."

His fingers flexed against her skin, a warning and a plea tangled together. "Tell me, Wendy. Tell me you choose me. Even if there's nothing left at the end but the two of us and the ruins of this place."

You don’t have to kill anyone, Peter. I’m not going anywhere…

Peter pulled back to stare at her for a heartbeat, searching her face for any sign of doubt. When her words settled in, something in his posture eased, the ruthless tension melting into something raw and uncertain.

A crooked, dangerous smile flickered across his lips. “You say that now,” he murmured, the threat in his tone softened by a strange, aching relief. “You say you’re not going anywhere, and maybe… for once… I believe you.”

He leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers, his hands trembling just slightly. “If that’s true, then I don’t have to kill anyone. But you should know, Wendy, I’d still do it if I had to. I’d do anything to keep you.”

He drew her closer, his breath mingling with hers, the fierceness of his grip now laced with a desperate tenderness. The shadow at the edge of the clearing twisted and writhed, but for that moment, Peter’s world was only her.

[kingoftheneverwoods]

Wendy felt the heat of his breath against her mouth and the cold gathering at her back as the Shadow drew closer. The fine hairs along her arms lifted beneath its weight. She kept her forehead against his and refused to look toward the treeline. She wouldn't give it the satisfaction.

Her hands slid from his hair to rest at the base of his throat. His pulse hammered beneath her fingertips, too fast for someone who claimed to feel nothing.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t have to kill or threaten or bargain. You just have to stop running.”

He was trembling. She had seen it before during the darkest hours of certain nights, when he thought she was asleep and his face forgot to lie.

Her thumbs moved once against his skin.

“I choose you,” she said. “Even knowing what you are. Even when choosing you costs me.” She let the words settle between them. “I’ve always chosen you. That’s the part you keep missing.”

A droplet slid from his hair and traced a path down her wrist.

“You said you'd do anything to keep me,” she said. “So would I. That's what I've been doing all this time. Keeping you.” The corner of her mouth almost lifted. “Even when you made it very difficult.”

The cold at the edge of the clearing sharpened like a blade laid across the back of her neck.

I know you’re there. I don’t care.

She pulled back just enough to look at him. He seemed younger than she had ever seen him, younger than his face or his years, younger even than the island itself.

“If Neverland falls,” she said, “we fall together. If it survives, we stay together. Those are the only terms I'm willing to accept.”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

The fire roared behind them, flames climbing higher than they should have, driven by something Peter couldn’t leash. Magic crackled along his fingertips, raw and uncontrolled. He stared at Felix’s hand gripping his, at the pale knuckles and the bloodless cast of Felix’s face in the firelight.

One night. Only once.

Peter’s jaw worked. Jealousy gnawed behind his ribs, alive and vicious. It was stupid. Worse, it was undeserved. He had spent centuries refusing to name what Felix was to him, keeping him at arm’s length and offering nothing but scraps of attention and cruel tests of loyalty. Of course Felix had looked elsewhere. Of course someone had stepped into the space Peter refused to fill.

That didn’t make it hurt less.

“You hated yourself,” Peter repeated. His voice came out too quiet, too even. “After.”

He pulled his hand free from Felix’s grip, and the sudden loss of contact left his skin cold. Peter turned toward the fire as the flames surged and twisted, throwing misshapen shadows across the ground. His reflection stared up from a pool of dark water at the base of the tree, pale, hollow-eyed, and too thin. A ghost wearing his face.

“Good.” The word escaped before he could stop it. He closed his eyes. “I’m glad you hated it.”

It was petty and cruel. He didn’t take it back.

He pressed his thumb against the pad of his index finger, feeling the magic crackle there, unstable and hungry. Neverland answered. Roots shifted beneath the soil, the trees leaned closer, and the air thickened with the taste of ozone and fear.

He hated how transparent he became whenever he stopped performing, how easily the island dragged into the open everything he had spent centuries refusing to name.

“Did he touch you the way I touch you?” The question escaped before Peter could stop it, low and dangerous. He kept his back to Felix. If he turned and saw the answer on Felix’s face, whatever composure he had left would shatter. “Did he put his hands on you and call you his?”

Peter clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. He had forfeited the right to be jealous centuries ago.

[lankyboyfelix]

Peter stood with his back to Felix, shoulders tense and silent, his silhouette sharp against the firelight. The question lingered in the charged air, and Felix could hear the ache beneath the anger, the fear of being replaced.

For a moment, Felix hesitated, grief and longing warring inside him. Then he stepped forward, closing the distance with careful, quiet steps. He reached out, his hand trembling, and laid it gently on Peter’s shoulder. The touch was soft, uncertain, seeking permission to bridge the space between them.

“Peter,” Felix murmured, his voice low and true. He trailed his fingertips down Peter’s arm, resting his palm at the crook of Peter’s elbow. “It wasn’t like this. Not even close.”

He waited, hoping Peter would turn, but pressed on when he didn’t. “I tried to forget you. I thought if I let someone else close, maybe I could stop wanting what I couldn’t have. But it was empty. I was empty.”

Felix squeezed Peter’s arm, desperate for him to listen. “No one’s ever touched me the way you do. No one’s ever made me feel like I mattered… like I was real. Even now, with your back turned, it’s you. Only you.”

He leaned in, voice barely above a whisper behind Peter’s ear. “There’s no one else. There never was, not really. I need you to believe that.”

[kingoftheneverwoods]

The words lodged in Peter’s chest beneath the jealousy, the anger, and the last defenses of his pride. He stared at the fire he couldn’t control, its flames leaping and twisting with all the fury he refused to show. His reflection warped in the dark water, the face of a boy who had spent centuries pretending he needed nothing.

Felix’s hand remained on his arm, its warmth seeping through Peter’s sleeve. He wanted to tear himself free. He wanted to lean into it.

“You thought you couldn’t have me.” Peter’s voice came out rough, scraped thin. “That’s what you’re saying.”

He turned slowly, as though dragging himself against a current.

Felix stood too close for Peter to pretend he couldn’t read him. Shame and hope tangled in his blue eyes, forming something Peter still refused to name.

“You thought I’d never want you,” Peter continued. “So you went to him instead.”

It wasn’t a question. Felix’s face had already answered it.

The fire surged behind him, heat pressing against his back as his magic answered the storm inside him. Felix didn’t flinch or step away. He kept his hand on Peter’s arm and let himself be seen.

Peter unclenched his jaw only when it began to ache. He caught Felix’s wrist and pulled his hand away, but he didn’t release him. His fingers closed around the narrow bones, finding the steady pulse beneath Felix’s skin. He was here. Real. Within reach.

“Say it.” Peter tightened his fingers around Felix’s wrist. “Tell me what you did with him.”

Even Peter heard the cruelty in it. He needed Felix to put the truth into words before his imagination made it worse. Jealousy ate through him, sharpened by the knowledge that he had forfeited any right to it. He had done this. He had taught Felix, year after year, that wanting Peter would earn him nothing but scraps. Now the consequence stood before him with scarred cheeks and a hope Peter had nearly starved out of him.

Peter’s grip tightened on Felix’s wrist.

“Say it,” he repeated, quieter now. “Then we decide what this changes.”