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Darling Pan Halloween fic, Part 3

A/N: What can I say, the muse was strong today. Once again, rated M, no editing, has nothing to do with "Dark Paradise" except characters and some ships. Would love to know your thoughts. Find Part 1 here Find Part 2 here

~

They survived the night. Eventually, the room had cooled to a tolerable rather than hellish temperature. Wendy was relieved. She’d been convinced she’d awaken- if she did at all –to find her brothers dead and drenched in blood, corpses shriveled on the floor.

Instead, the tiny breeze allowed them to have slept well, and then Wendy had a more salacious thought:

What if, tonight, I open the window even wider? It felt scandalous and indecent, like when her best friend Gretel talked about inviting her boyfriend to stay overnight. But it also felt decadent, and Wendy wondered how she was supposed to resist the idea. The more she thought about it, the more compelling it became, and she reasoned with herself that nothing had happened the night before. Perhaps tonight would be just as uneventful.

Wendy tiptoed to the window, careful to step on the floorboards she knew didn’t creak and keep her footsteps quiet. John and Michael were half-asleep, still sweating in the heat, and while their eyes were shut now, Michael clutching the teddy bear he pretended he didn’t still adore, she knew the slightest noise would rouse them.

Her fingers trembled as they fumbled for the window latch, but before she could open it, John’s voice stayed her hand:

“Wendy. What are you doing?”

Wendy cursed under her breath. John had been pretending. She should have known he would figure it out. Michael might still have some semblance of being a child, but John tried to take the role of Father seriously. He was observant, and likely noticed he’d slept suspiciously better last night than he had in weeks.

Still, now that the truth had been revealed, Wendy saw no point in hiding it:

“I’m- I’m opening the window. I can’t stand this anymore! And neither can you or Michael!” Michael, somehow, was still half-asleep, and John strode over to his sister, trying to keep his incredulity to a whisper.

“Wendy!” John hissed, “Yes, it’s hot, and it’s terrible, but the alternative is so much worse. If you let one of those beasts in-“

“I won’t!” Wendy insisted, feeling that if they’d made it through the first night, they’d passed some sort of test, “It’s perfectly safe. And you can’t tell me you didn’t sleep better last night.”

“You can’t be serious, Wendy. How could you? How could you do this to me? To us?” he gestured to Michael, “We’ve already lost Father and Mother to those animals. We’re all we have left. You opening the window for the fucking wind could get us all killed-“

“Because we can’t let them control everything, John,” Wendy insisted, “And what is a small breeze going to cost us? The window is only cracked open-”

“Everything! It could cost us everything!” he nearly spat at her, utterly furious, “I can’t believe you would put us at risk like that! I- I won’t let you put us at risk like that!” His face was as red as a tomato.

“’Let me?’” Wendy demanded, voice growing shrill as she got in his face, “Who do you think you are, to tell me what I can and cannot do? You are not Father, John!”

“And you aren’t Mother!” John retorted, pacing their bedroom, “She would never approve of you being so reckless! She’d be ashamed of you!“

“Take it back,” Wendy said, her hands tightening into fists, “You take it back right now.”

But John shook his head, “I won’t. We both know I’m right. Mother would never allow this,” with a mirthless laugh, he added, “I’d say go downstairs and ask her, but we lost Mother long ago. And that’s why you’re so mad.”

“She wouldn’t be ashamed of me for wanting to open a window,” Wendy insisted, fighting back tears.

“She’d be ashamed of you for putting comfort over your family,” John riposted, “After all, Father died rather than do that.”

Wendy gasped, “How dare you, John! How fucking dare you!?” She spun on her heel, determined that she would not cry in front of her brother.

Because deep down, she indeed did worry that he was right. * * *

Wendy found herself curled up in a chair in the kitchen. Mary Darling, predictably, was seated in the chair in the living room. Ostensibly, she was looking at the door, but in reality she merely held her wedding photo close. She was muttering to herself, but the woman didn’t respond to Wendy, even as she crept close, and whispered, “Mother?” Wendy would never actually ask whether her mother was ashamed of her, but she still wished her mother would have acknowledged her existence. Instead, Mary’s eyes looked through her daughter, entirely unseeing.

With a sigh, Wendy stood and walked away. She closed the door to the living room and instead passed through the kitchen, wondering whether she could find tea to soothe her raging thoughts. She held the kettle over the sink, beginning to fill it with water. As it sloshed in the metal, the water dripping against the tin, she found herself staring out the window over the sink. There was a window there, and it too had a latch- this one out of John’s reach. Unable to stem the quiet fury she felt at her brother, Wendy reached forward and opened it, the metal screeching slightly. A soft breeze entered the kitchen, and she sighed with relief. Then, a strange determination filling her, she opened it further.

“Seriously, John,” Wendy sighed, into the quiet, “I don’t get what was so bad about this.” The wind rustled her hair, and she breathed in the night air, taking a forbidden glimpse at the stars above. They were just as beautiful as she remembered, and looked much better than through the pane of glass upstairs.

“Oh yes,” a voice teased, “You are quite a rebel, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone waiting at the window before.”

At the entirely unexpected sound, Wendy startled, smacking her head against the ceiling. She cried out in pain, lifting a hand to her scalp to see a tiny trail of blood. Wendy stumbled back from the window, hands clapped to her mouth. Her mind couldn’t focus on what she should do- slam it shut? But that would mean sticking her hand out the window, within reach of the creature.

For a creature is what it had to be. It couldn’t be a man, for no man would be enticed to her porch by the scent of her blood. Though, she mused with discomfort, if it were a man, he was so beautiful he almost hurt to look at.

In the darkness stood a silhouette crowned by bronze hair and emerald green eyes. He was tall, and confident, and leaning close enough to the window ledge that he might be a lover trying to whisper in her ear.

“Oh my God,” Wendy whispered, practically shaking. She lunged for her counter, partly to grab a paper towel, and partly for a knife that she held before her.

The vampire arched a perfect eyebrow at her, “Not God. I go by Peter, actually. What do you go by, darling?” He’d been strolling about town- it was his habit to traverse the area when he needed to think –and outside of Granny’s, the place was typically abandoned at night. The mortals kept their doors and windows locked, and the Lost Ones imbibed at the bar. It was a distinct, relatively separate existence, designed to keep the mortals safe. But this woman was flirting with danger- though, he thought the knife was hilarious. Peter had no idea what she thought she’d do with it. It wasn’t a stake, and it wasn’t imbued with holy water. It couldn’t harm him any more than a rabbit could harm her.

Still, he admired the bravery it took for her to hold it, even though she had no idea what to do with it.

Wendy froze, her thoughts skittering in time with her terrified heart. How did the creature- the vampire – it- he – know her name? Peter, he’d called himself, and he’d called her by her last name. How long had he been watching her? Did vampires do that? Did they stalk their victims?

She’d never thought that, but, John was going to murder her if she somehow survived this.

“How do you know my name?” Wendy held the knife aloft. She’d meant to tell him to leave, but she had to know how he’d figured this out. If he had, did he have friends? Was there a horde on the way to her house right now?

Peter raised his other eyebrow and whistled, “Easy, darling. It was an educated guess. Your mailbox bears the family name.”

Wendy’s face of drained of color.

He’s right. Damn him, he’s right. Still this was like eating the apple in the Garden of Eden- she could take down their name in the morning, but it’s not like she could away the knowledge from Peter. Unless she killed him, of course.

But how could she do that when she was bleeding from a head wound?

Deciding she had to stall for time, Wendy tried to calm her racing heart, “Don’t call me that.” Was it better that she stay quiet and keep him focused on her? She wasn’t sure how she could take down a vampire all by herself, but she would be damned if she got her brothers in his sights. Accordingly, she tried to kept her tone low.

“Why not, darling? It’s your name. Unless you’d care to tell me your first name, of course,” Peter grinned, his own voice lilting and somewhat cheeky, “I gave you mine.”

“Wendy,” she finally offered through gritted teeth, “My name’s Wendy.”

“Wendy,” Peter breathed in as though he were scenting a fine wine- and, Wendy realized with some nausea, she very well might be that to him –“I can call you that, if you’d prefer. Tell you what,” he cast his green eyes from her slippered feet to the top of her head, eventually meeting her own blue gaze, “You put the knife down, and I’ll call you Wendy.”

“I’d be stupid to put down a weapon in front of a vampire.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Peter retorted, clearly amused, “That knife can’t harm me, but it can harm you. Let me dissuade you from making a mistake. You’re already bleeding, Wendy. It’s a small wound, and it will close quickly. You smell divine, I’ll give you that- but you’re shaking like a leaf. You’re more likely to cut yourself with that knife, and then you’ll have bigger things to worry about than me,” he took one step closer to the window, so close that if she hadn’t pushed the pane his nose would have touched the glass, “You see, I’m a gentleman. I can control myself, and the others will stay away if I’m here. But even I can’t keep them away if you’ve got a mortal wound-“

“Why’s that?” Wendy snapped, beginning to feel as though he were threatening her.

Peter was surprised at her outburst (he was genuinely trying to warn her), “Well, you’d need an ambulance then. And you’d have to get out of your house to go in the ambulance, right? Whereas if you just have the wound on your head…you can stay inside.”

“Why’s that matter? You’re out there,” she waved the knife in his direction, trying to figure out if he was bluffing.

“Exactly. I’m out here, Wendy,” Peter smiled, and this time when her heart skipped a beat, it wasn’t due to terror alone, “A vampire can’t enter a home uninvited, but if you were to hurt yourself further, and come outside….” he shrugged, the gesture somehow unbothered even as he implicated her demise at the hands of other vampires, “So you see, you’re really better off putting the knife down.”

“If I do,” Wendy hazarded, “Will you go away?” She wasn’t entirely sure what response she was hoping to hear. Her common sense, her instincts, all said she should want him to go. But there was something about him that drew her in. He was every dark sorcerer in all the books she read at night, the temptation she should not touch, lest she be trapped in a fairy world forevermore.

Peter’s eyes sparkled like emeralds, as though he could hear her very thoughts, “I can’t promise that, Wendy. It would be…ungallant of me.” In truth, he was enjoying himself far too much sparring with her to actually leave. He’d needed a break from Granny’s, from the constant blur of dancing and dreaming, from Bel’s worried glances, from Lily’s entreaties…

Wendy was the opposite of Peter’s entire existence in almost all ways. She clearly hated vampires, and had no interest in being one or supplying blood to one. But she was pushing back against him, and while she was a rulebreaker, she was clearly brave under all her snippy comebacks. While opening the window at night might be innocuous at first glance, it was probably the most courageous and reckless thing anyone had done in this town since the Infestation started. Then she’d had the gall to pick up a knife, ready to defend her idiot brothers and useless mother. Admittedly, if Wendy did exit her home, and if he really did want to kill her, he absolutely could. He suspected they both knew it. But the fact that she still stood tall anyway…

Peter was fascinated. He didn’t know what Wendy would do next, and that was…exciting, in a way his life- or unlife, rather –hadn’t been in a long time. She didn’t seem to want to be an ordinary mortal, much as he didn’t want to be an ordinary vampire.

In his mind, that made them alike. And if they were alike, he wouldn’t let another Lost One get a claim on her.

If Peter left while she was wounded, someone would eventually smell her. Ostensibly, they were all satisfied by Granny’s, but the reality was, every Lost One had the undeniable urge to hunt. To chase. To pin down their prey. Sometimes, they would get glimpses of the mortals through the windows, traces of a scent, and the vampires would stake (the irony of the phrasing did not escape him) their claim on a mortal- if the mortal were ever to be so foolish as to leave.

Nibs had staked a claim on Grace Jefferson months ago, when she broke her ankle skateboarding at sunset. Her frantic father had dragged her inside, quickly covering her bleeding ankle. But he hadn’t been fast enough to clean the trail of blood off their deck. A pack of Lost Ones had swarmed the property, but it was Nibs who got there first- and so it was Nibs who won the right to her if she were ever so careless again.

As far as Peter knew, Grace and her family were blissfully oblivious to this. But the other Lost Ones weren’t. And while Grace had followed all the rules perfectly since that fateful day, it would only take a small slip for Nibs to claim her.

Peter was fairly certain the mortals didn’t know about this practice. Mrs. Lucas might, and perhaps the girls at Granny’s had an idea something was amiss when the Lost Ones suddenly disappeared all at once, but no one dared mention it. The peace they had was too fragile as it was.

Peter didn’t want to shatter Wendy’s peace any more than he had, so he dared not tell her. But his reasons for staying on her porch were now twofold: a mission partly to stand guard, keeping others who would stake a claim away…and partly to enjoy himself as he staked his own claim. Despite this, he didn’t plan on drinking her blood, he promised himself. He was going to prove Bel wrong. No, instead, he would stand watch over Wendy Darling.

Maybe, if he were lucky, she’d even deign to talk to him more.

Wendy appraised him. What Peter was saying matched the legends she knew. Vampires could not enter a dwelling uninvited. The books she read beneath her covers said they could be harmed by stakes, and Father Gold preached that garlic, holy water, and various talismans could ruin them. Peter could be lying to her, she supposed, but why would he? If he really could just step across the threshold without any penalty, what was he waiting for? Even if was lying about the knife, there was no reason for him not to enter her house.

Slowly, cautiously, she placed the knife back on the counter.

Peter smiled again, and she resisted the urge to shiver at the sight of his canines.

It was more obvious than ever that he wasn’t human.

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