WARNING: this story is a serious "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" and some of its elements may be disturbing to you, the reader. Without spoiling anything for readers who are alright with such fics, this here contains:
• incest
• blood and gore
• sexual fantasies which contain dark elements to them
• age differences (canonically Pan, like a good chunk of the cast, is possibly hundreds of years older than Henry. even in his youthful appearance, Pan is roughly 16-18 when Henry is around 10-12 years old and then there's… other pairings)
• there's also some frank discussions throughout the fic of, but not limited to: bodily fluids, puberty, self-harming, body horror and childbirth So if any of that bothers you, turn back. those who stayed, have fun!

I Fall Victim

This is how it goes. Henry's lying in his bed, arms akimbo as he stares up at the ceiling, tries to piece the parts of his memory that feel empty, as if something's been taken out from them. There's a large, gray spot right above his bed and and he thinks that in this light, it looks like some large bird. Like a swan, maybe, a swan about to take flight. Outside his door, the whole apartment smells of what can only be describe as saccharine — it's the scent of cinnamon and vanilla, warm apple pies and strudels. There's Mom (it always feels strange to call her that, like the title doesn't befit her, like it was never hers), playing chef all of a sudden. Beneath the cloying sweetness is the smell of grease and rotten eggs, and it curdles the pit of Henry's stomach to the point of making him almost sick.

Henry's not sure why his mother is attempting to cook. He figures things must be getting serious between her and Walsh, if she's trying to shed her title of Most Abismal Cook in The World. Normally, the man in question would take her out to dinner at some restaurant or another, typically fancy enough for Mom to spend some time dressing up and applying on makeup, leaving him alone to play video games all night and eat snacks. When they'd first started dating, Henry would call once or twice to know if he had to wait up for her.

"I'll be there soon kid," she would say sometimes, the amount increasing with each date. "We're just getting dessert."

Just getting dessert was code for fucking — no matter how much she tried to deny it — which meant Henry was staying alone at night, which suited him just fine, thank you very much.

Pots and plans clang like thunder and his mom curses as she burns her hand. It sounds and smells like she's bringing all of New York's desserts into the kitchen.

He hopes they don't fuck with him in the apartment.

Inside Henry's room, it's muggy and decalescent, even for autumn. He had kicked off the pillows and blanket, even the bedspread, took off his shirt and shorts until it was just him in the mattress. He could open a window, but the heat had turned him sluggish, so he forces himself to breathe through the sugary aroma and withstand the suffocating heat. Henry wonders if this is how he'll die.

Reaching down, he nudges at the open math textbook on the floor. Scrawls of geometry exercises are interpolated with his own drawings — crude renditions of wooden swords and half-sawed trees, their branches bare. Not Henry's best work by far, but their unassuming, nothing to call his mother and have long, teacher-parent-social worker conferences for, and Henry likes it that way.

On the margins of the book is where his better work lays. He's taken up drawing eyes recently. His mom's, almond shaped and with dark circles under them even when she gets a good night's rest, which sometimes gained distant, glazed-over stares. His English teacher's, which furrow whenever Henry fails to bring in an assignment. Just last week he'd drawn a pair of eyes, the pupil like polished obsidian and wet like the bottom of well, lashes long and curled. A woman's eyes, their expression so deep and mournful that Henry had quickly crumpled up the page he'd made them on and thrown it away, unable to look at them.

But these eyes, his newest obsessions which litter the edges of his notebooks, interpolated into maths and science notes, were his best work by far. Serpentine eyes, their gaze kind and misleading. Just as cold and as calculating, as if their owner were waiting for the right moment to strike. Henry had worked tirelessly to convince his mom to buy him those professional coloring pencils, and he'd spent days awake finding the perfect mix of tones. Emma didn't worry if Henry spent his nights awake, worried so much with Walsh and pleasing him. Small mercies.

His math teacher had even commended Henry on his talent, cutting her reprimand him on his flightiness in class short when she saw the drawings. "These are wonderful Henry. They're so lifelike and vivid. Did you copy them from somewhere?

"I dreamt them up," he answered, after a moment of silence, with a shrug. It wasn't too far from the truth.

Henry can only glimpse a few things in his dreams. Whatever his mind conjures up is veiled by a purple fog and flames licking at his ankles — he sees swords covered in gore and men with golden, rumpled skin and sharp teeth, offering their hands out and beckoning to tell them, tell them everything, all his woes and suffering and promising to heal him, for a price. He sees a woman, dark haired, on her knees and crying before a rotting apple tree, as if her very heart has been torn to pieces. Princesses baring swords and ready for battle live alongside mothers rocking their slaughtered children to sleep, and women with glittering, translucent wings baring them aloft as they grant wishes.

Henry's dreams are disjointed scenes of castles and fairy tales and death, images that briefly dance through his mind before they're lost in the full fog that covers every corner of his life. But on the nights he does not dream of fairy tales, he vividly remembers the ocean, the scent of sweat and bodies and wet fur, knows the heat and smoke, feet stomping rhythmically.

And the music. Henry can't quite remember the music, but he knows its there. He sees himself in those dreams, dancing aimlessly, uncaring of anything in the world as he kicks up sand, beating sticks together rhythmically, beneath an unbelievably starry sky. Then he wakes up, and the howling melody is replaced by New York traffic in his ear, drowning out everything else.

The smell in his room is stronger now, unable to be ignored unless Henry leaves the apartment altogether, and he would were he sure his mom wouldn't lock him out accidentally. There's a pain inside him as well, that doesn't let him move, deep in stomach, pulsating and rumbling, almost like hunger. Henry presses his wrist against his navel in hopes of driving it away, the force enough to bruise the next morning, and is surprised when he moans, the pressure drawing out a painfully-sweet sensation.

He thinks that ignoring it will help, but as minutes tick by, the sensation only worsens. Images of alien parasites in movies cross through his mind. Would he die in the room and his his mother find him in a pool of his own blood, xenomorph feasting on his stomach? Henry runs his fingers across it, digs his nails in until they're stained with red and yet it remains, pain doing nothing to soothe it — pulsing and aching and tightening and hungry. He presses his thighs together and whimpers. The slow gnawing takes over until it's unbearable, feels like it's buried deep in the marrow of Henry's bones. So he stays like that, with his hand splayed on his navel, sweat beginning to plaster his hair to his forehead.

A moment of hesitation. Then, he slides his hand lower, smearing blood as he does so.

Henry's fingers are clumsy and uncertain. The flesh between his thighs feels hot and firm beneath against his hand. He scratches again, this time softer, unsure, until he wraps around and tightens, thumb flicking the oversensitive tip. He gasps and his hips cant and careen, bucking hard into his touch. Blunt nails dig into the heated flesh. It hurts.

(It's perfect.)

There is no rhythm or reason to his movements. The bed springs cry in protest underneath him as he bounces. Henry is dimly aware that his mother is just behind a thin, wooden door, and at that his legs spread open, wide, wider than he ever knew he could open them. His thighs are taut and they tremble as his hand continues its painful pace.

A cabinet slams shut, louder than it deserves to be. It makes Henry jump. He's kicked all the pillows off the bed, so he settles for biting down on his left wrist, teeth digging in further with each upward stroke until he can taste blood on his tongue. His room feels like the inside of the oven now, smells just as sweet.

The swan on the ceiling is looking at him, disapprovingly. Henry closes his eyes tightly, refusing to meet its gaze, and instead sees the shape of thin lips wrap around wooden pipes, their owner playing a melody he can't quite hear.

It's the same song from his dreams, he knows it. It echoes in the room, the melody haunting, a siren's song that begs to be heard and danced to. Henry pumps up, in time to the song, and in his mind the owner of the pipe stops playing and looks at him, the rest of his features obscured save for a pair of vividly green eyes.

(He's in a room now. No, a cave. There's no fire to engulf him but instead the slippery cool walls that enclose him, he can see a narrow opening, light, a shadow that moves away. Closer? The cave closes in on him, he's been here before.

"Henry."

"Peter," he whispers, and the ghost of a hand tightens around the column of his throat as he cums.)

The sensation frightens him. Leaves him shaking worse than the spring leaves on apple trees, a trembling, tiny thing that could be carried off by the wind at any time. One second the world is dark behind his eyelids and the next it's flashing white lights, fire and breathlessness.

When he opens his eyes, he sees no one, but the sensation of the hand is burned into his skin. Slowly, with his clean hand, he traces where the fingers would've gripped and swears he can feel bruises.

Henry whispers again. "Peter." But this time, he is alone.