let's play

Emily had been so proud of herself, so, so proud of herself to tear that woman’s head off, especially for Pan and the look of fear in Hook’s eyes as she had chased him had made her laugh out loud when she retreated back into the cave. 

Peter liked his boys wound tightly around his little finger, and his girls wild and reckless. Wendy Darling had been a pleasure to break; once Neverland’s magic had seeped into her veins, she let her golden curls fly loose and ripped up her prim, Edwardian nightgown and had been his queen. Emily had never needed such encouragement. She was wild to the core, a wolf in a little-girl body who sought not to run from the knowledge, but to prove to Peter that she could be all he wanted from a Lost Boy, and more. Bloodstained, she killed for him; her mother was going to be so proud.

”Peter you need to sleep, you shouldn’t be out in the cold, especially not at this time of year.” Stephanie said her brow furrowed slightly. Boy or not she felt sorry for anyone who had to sleep out in the rough at this time of year. 

Peter shrugged – The cold never bothered him anyway. He was about to object, or at least open his mouth to pretend to object, but Steph cut him off short, immediately offering her help. Not a fool, his finely sculpted arse. He could have grinned; she was so easy to play, particularly with her mothering tendencies, even more particularly with what he knew about her poor, absent daughter. The closer Peter could get to her, the more fun it would be when it all came shattering down. She’d be offering him a bed in her spare room by Christmas, he was sure of it.

Gone.

Eschewing Bae’s stammered apology, Peter turned back to face his jungle, the edge of his kingdom, and felt a hollow hate build up in his chest, conveniently forgetting that he had caused his own downfall hundreds of years ago, by breaking the rules. It was their fault – His Truest Believer’s family, Rumpelstiltskin and his impossible wife, the Charmings, and their little saviour – That everything he professed to be able to love was dying. He didn’t take kindly to people messing with his things; he’d triple it, and hurl it right back at them. When he returned to Storybrooke, he’d paint the town red with them.

If Donn genuinely believed that the stunning recollection of a not-so-stunning past would do anything other than mildly annoy Pan, he was sorely mistaken. In fact, the boy pinned beneath him was far more conscious of the fact he was spitting blood, his lungs half-tearing themselves up in this shitty realm, so far from Neverland, and the trickle of the same stuff coursing down his throat from the point of the dagger. Exactly how far did it have to penetrate before he’d be lost to the Dark One’s will? How long before he felt the black cloud settle in his mind and claws sprout from his fingers, and Peter Pan was pushed into the dark in favour of some crazy imp? “Is this how you take all your hosts – Talk them to death? I can only imagine why you only get the pathetic ones.”

"Oh I know you’re not, but you don’t scare me anymore." He felt that all too familiar feeling of resentment and hatred beginning to work it’s way into his chest, burning like acid against the lining of his throat. Rumpelstiltskin had enough hate in him to last three lifetimes, yet none quite so virulent as the hatred that he bore for this fraud of a man before him. He knew that the feeling was mutual; he had known it since he was a child, and that suited him just fine. It would make it all the easier when he drove the dagger right into his accursed chest. 

Pan enjoyed nothing more than to be the centre of attention, the last image before fading eyes or the last thought in an unconscious mind, his story whispered into a child’s ear to whisk them off to Neverland in their dreams. For all he abhorred his own son, he would have felt a sense of failure if he had been but Rumpelstiltskin’s distant memory; hate was not the opposite of love, but indifference. That he had managed to ensure Stiltskin hated him for so many hundreds of years, across oceans and across realms, meant Pan was winning. He whistled low, a cold smirk crawling across his lips as he was threatened, with only the flicker of amusement in his eyes – No fear.

He smiled like a burning sun, as if he were the flames of the fire itself that lit in front of them. He might as well have been; little did he know he’d become a phoenix personified, moments from death, only to be resurrected and pieced together stronger than ever. His fires burned for the boy-king, and the sheer overwhelming loyalty and love he felt threatened to burn him from the inside out at the sight of Pan’s smile. Where others saw a demon, Baelfire had seen a kindred spirit; and make no mistake, Peter Pan was every nightmare personified, but there was something deep down that was hidden, buried under waves of darkness and stars and obscurity. It had resonated with him, like a moth to candlelight and no matter what happened, he always found himself at Pan’s side.

He didn’t want Bae to know, or remember, or even understand. If he questioned his clothes or why the pair of them were lying on a snowy beach on the wrong side of the island, with the second star flickering warningly above them, Peter would have shrugged it off with a don’t-ask-questions glare. It wasn’t just the sickness that had ravaged the adult Neal’s mind and body, or the emotional conflict he had been dragged into with the new involvement of Belle and Failynn in his father’s new family; it was anger and jealousy and resentment and inherent possessiveness – Peter stole his Lost Boys. He didn’t let them be stolen from him.