@twpan , tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies from the lake
his nails dig deep into his skin, but he can’t feel it.
metal on his tongue and fire in his heart, hyungwon could boil the water he finds himself swimming in if he’d had all the magic of the sea witch in her depths but as it is, he’s only a mermaid; as it is, he can only watch. the scowl on his lips looks almost like it’s been written in stone, and he supposes when it comes to peter - especially lately - it might have been. ( hyungwon may feel drugs running through his system on a good night, but peter is an addiction he hasn’t been able to rid himself of since neverland. ) his mood always tips scales when it comes to peter pan, and there is no in between. there are only extremes.
for now, hyungwon watches and bides his time even though he should know better than this, thinks he knows better than this. peter pan has always found a fascination in all the things that he was not, so the vicious metal he’s about to spit from his mouth is only but a pointless feeling and nothing more. he watches their curves and their lines and the shape of their mouths when they talk to him, when they flank him, when they steer him out of the path of his pool.
had peter not promised to see him today?
venom runs through his veins instead of the blood that should be spilling from the way he’s digging his nails further into his skin. hyungwon wonders why he bothers when peter doesn’t put up much of a fight but only comes to the realization in his head that he’s probably used to this behaviour. it hasn’t changed since neverland, when his sisters would tear his attention away and he’d forget about the boy sitting on the rock.
“ typical peter.” he mutters under his breath, and hyungwon’s about to dive back into his pool to lay on the bottom and forget. nevermore will he get his hopes up for peter pan. ( he can’t count the number of times he’s thought that very same thought in his head. )
his head is about to breach the depths when he sees it, though. something isn’t quite right and hyungwon can’t quite put his finger on it, so he pauses for a moment and goes deathly still. it’s in the way that peter carries himself stiff when hyungwon has never seen him as anything but loose limbed and uncaring because that’s more typical peter pan.
he’s still sitting deathly still in the water and peter is still sitting just as uncomfortably as before. hyungwon fights with himself internally; a battle not to care about it because peter has never once cared about him, versus everything that pulls him to his side. it’s clear which one wins when hyungwon finally pulls himself from the depths of the pool, all dripping wet and grabbing for the towel that sits folded by its side. within its folds and wrapped up tight is the very glamour that he dislikes to use, but still he lets the magic swath his body and give him legs for the time being.
wrapping the towel around his waist, he stalks through the club and parts seas with the dark look in his eye and the drops of water that fall from his skin to the floor.
all hyungwon knows is that if peter blows him off after putting on legs to get involved, he’s going to fucking drown him.
he doesn’t like the club all that much. he doesn’t like the way the burly men at the entrance eye him suspiciously through wrinkles and sweat and only let him in because hyungwon told them to. he doesn’t like the way the place smells of the sticky medicine the patrons toss back glass after glass or the steady pulsing thrum of the music that shakes the building like cannon fire.
normally he makes a point of coming before business hours, but he’d got caught up napping on a rooftop after leaving mundy police officers in his dust. they kept telling him stealing was ‘illegal’ and he kept telling them he didn’t even know how to spell illegal. and he’d promised the merman that he’d pay him a visit today. and though peter’s enemies would fight the very thought with their lives, his friends would assure that peter pan was a boy of his word.
he has the pool in sight, starts his tricky weaving beeline through shifting bodies, mundy and fable alike, only to be stopped in his tracks by a trio of young mundy women with hands that cling to his clothes like brambles and wet seaweed.
they coo at him, tell him he hardly looks old enough to be in a place like this, giggle when his nervous, charming laughter melts away, when cheeks flush and his face goes hard. their perfumes suffocate him like a cloud, their nails are sharp and painted, like their faces, and all he is aware of is hands in his hair, hands on his arms, hands on his back. we’ll take care of you, one says. another asks him what he’s drinking, offers him the sticky sweet medicine swirling red and bright in her glass. the third drags a hand down his forearm, starts to tangle fingers with his, and he snatches his hand away. they only laugh, pressing in further, surrounding him like sharks in open water.
something wells up inside of him that he isn’t familiar with, something too hot and too much; it’s strange and uncomfortable and he doesn’t like it.
he knows what he’d do if he was in neverland and surrounded by deadly creatures with not a friend in sight.
his hand hovers toward the familiar handle of his blade, resting in his pocket, even as hands continue to muss his hair and touch his cheek and tug at the fabric of his shirt. his heart pounds in his ears, almost as loud as the music, and he’s already counting down the moments until he can catch his captors unaware, until he can cut them down and break free from their clutches.
he doesn’t notice his friend parting crowds, on his way to save him, his hand sliding into his pocket and closes around the handle of the dagger.
