Pan's Blood pt. 2
Author: Azul Bloom
Beta: lexyhamilton
Pairing: Well…I think it's safe to now say Peter/slightlyolder!Wendy
Rating: PG-13 .. .maybe closer to R.
Description: Second installment to "Pan's Blood". Loose ends hopefully tied up. Somewhat chan. Het. Deception/Revelation/Sort of resolution. Violence. Implied rape. Character deaths. Not really this or that. More like the unwanted lovechild of Fluff and Darkfic. Ooh … pun unintended. Nevermind.
WARNING: I'm known for fluff, but this is a little more twisted. Do not read if that is not your cup of tea.
He watched as the first bursts of sun crashed through the dark of night, washing away the twinkling stars and cold quivers. Two bodies lay on the deck, the boy and the man and his blade was tainted with the blood of them both, merged crimson beautifully shining against the light of the new day.
He was so young, and yet already so very spoiled. He had taken two lives. First the boy's and then the captain's. But which hurt him more? To kill his own blood, unknown to himself, but still very much his blood, or to kill the one who had nurtured his being and very consciously made him who he was?
The island had seemed to lose all warmth the minute the tip of his sword pierced through the boy's stomach, his beautifully bronzed skin breached and his blood trickling to the ground, first a few drops, falling quietly and peacefully, but as he fell to his knees right after his blade had fallen with a mighty clank, a dark pool of his life formed below him. He had looked completely shocked that he had lost, his eyes wide and still very unwilling to believe it was done with.
He looked to his hand, clutching his fierce wound and finally, his eyes calmed. There was undeniable proof and he believed it. That was it. He turned to look at the culprit, no, not the boy, but the captain. Hook smiled wide, his cackle almost audible and the fiery red seeping into the opaque blue of his eyes, as if it truly had been his hand that had driven in the sword.
Aleck felt a sort of relief, but not the kind he thought he'd feel once he'd avenge his parents' murders. He had expected Pan to be a coward in the end, crying out for mercy; for release from his evil deeds, just like any soulless villain, but it had not been so. Instead, Pan simply sighed, coughing a bit, more blood spurting out from his mouth. He smiled placidly and sat up as much as he could on his knees, holding his wound to slow down his demise.
"Useless mermaids." He said and scoffed. "They'd never failed me before."
"They never fail, Pan! Not even now!" Hook said, smiling viciously.
Peter pondered the captain's words for a mere second, but what time was there left to give it any importance? There were more pressing matters to attend to before retreating into the night. He turned to the young pirate before him and held out his bloodstained hand. "Cod-guppy…" Peter called out so very gingerly "Right fun that was! But now, for you have vanquished the mighty Pan, I ask of one thing from you. I ask you to return what is rightfully mine."
Aleck had trouble finding his voice, but once he did he said, "You deserve nothing, great Pan! But to show you the mercy you failed to show others, I shall comply. So tell me, what is it you say belongs to you?"
Peter coughed, finding his life slipping dangerously from his grasp. "The kiss." He said. "Around your neck." He pushed his hand as close as he could to the boy. "Give it back."
"Filthy wretched liar!" Aleck cried out stepping away from Peter's grasp. "And still you persist to take her away from me! Die and join her now!"
Peter gazed at Aleck with querying eyes, but finding nothing more than hatred within the boy; he turned to Hook, who could scarcely contain his enjoyment.
"Oh, my dear boy!" he mocked, making his way to Peter's side. "My poor, pathetic foe!" Just for show, he kicked him in his wound with the tip of his boot, causing the latter to stifle a pain-ridden cry. "Did you not know…" He knelt on the balls of his feet to bring himself close to Pan's level. "…Miss Darling has long been dead?"
"How could he not know!" Aleck interjected indignantly. "Did you not slay her yourself, Pan!" But when he turned his attention back to the boy, he saw him weeping silently with his head turned down, his tears joining the crimson on the deck. Weaker now, he could no longer hold himself up and he feebly tumbled to the ground, lying listlessly on his side.
It was a pain beyond that of his flesh that surged through his body. Perhaps he would have been able to hide the emotion, but what was left to defy now? It was her doing, he desperately told himself, for if only she had not fled from the island, perhaps she'd be alive today. The foolish girl had chosen to grow up, grow old, and death was her reward. And yet, he found a little piece of himself asking for the girl's forgiveness for having left her side. "When?" he managed.
"Oh" Hook pretended to ponder, "I'd say about…14 years or so."
How old had she managed to become? How long had it truly been since his last visit to her window? "What became of her?" he mumbled.
"Not much, really." Hook replied. "She had but one joy in her pathetic life, so it was truly an act of mercy when that impoverished existence was cut short."
Aleck's whole body quivered with a mix of rage, hatred, and confusion, but it was Peter who asked what the former was unable to acknowledge. "You… Did you…?"
Hook finally let out the suppressed laugh and the truth was unmasked after so many years. "Yes! Oh God yes! You couldn't possibly know how badly I'd wished to tell you!" He reveled in his moment of triumph, stroking Pan's hair, the gold slowly fading, as did his life.
Aleck stumbled backwards, his sword dropping from his grasp and falling to the deck with a lonely clank. Hook looked to Aleck, the boy's frightened expression betraying the confusion in his mind. A twinge of remorse and guilt crept into Hook's conscience but it was a mere drop into a sea of life-long villainy. There would be no lying to the boy now, and if Aleck tried to exact his rightfully deserved retribution upon his person, than his fate would be sealed, and Hook hated to think he'd lose such a masterful protégé. It had been the very delight of it all to keep Pan's child as his second. But alas, it had all been planned out years ago and there was no turning back. "I longed for this day." He whispered into Peter's ear, his breath hot against the youth's increasingly cold skin. "I longed to tell you… to describe to you, how the gleam in her eyes dulled and the warmth of her body faded right in my arms!"
The last of Peter's reservoir of energy was thrust into rage, but there was nothing he could do, for his body no longer responded to his will.
"And…!" Hook cried out, drawing out the best of his revenge as much as he could. "How shocked do you believe I was when I learned that little Pan, the boy who won't grow up, did such a naughty thing! Why, it is unfathomable! The perversion that is you!" he said with giddy enjoyment. "I feel inclined to deem you a man!"
Peter felt disgusted at such insult, but it was the previous bit of Hook's spiel that did more harm. The perversion. Could Hook possibly know of that which lay so deep in Peter's thoughts. That which had not fled into obscurity because there was not a day he did not recall the sheer pleasure and tormenting shame? It was a perversion?
"What do you speak of, Hook?" Aleck asked, afraid to know.
But Hook simply ignored the boy and went on with his delightful torment of Pan. "I merely thought of killing her off, but you know, she did grow to be quite the luscious wench. I can't say I blame you for giving in to desires, I sure don't blame myself."
Peter grimaced in confusion over Hook's words, but Aleck grasped on to the meaning. "You…." He whimpered.
Hook pulled Peter's hair to make the boy's eyes meet his, driving in the meaning of his final blow. "And how she cried. How she feared. How she cowered. But in her defense, I must say she was just as strong as you boy, for she lay dying from my hook's slash into her chest and though she cried …nay…pleaded for mercy….it was not for herself, but for her child."
Hook turned his eyes, leading Peter's to Aleck, who blubbered and quivered in baffled anger. "For Aleck…your son."
Peter gasped both for air and from bewilderment. In his perplexing innocence, it was never quiet understood how it was that children came about, but he knew it was from a man and a woman that they came and if it was from him that Aleck was, than that would make him…
"You…lie!" Peter blurted, blood bubbling in his mouth.
"I assure you Pan, in the face of death, I become honorable. Never have I denied any dying man, woman or child honor."
Peter spat at Hook, soiling his kept face with his blood and spit. The captain slammed Peter's face unto the floor and kicked him once again, thrusting his body a few inches away and against the mast. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, regaining the mental upper hand. Grinning, he tossed the soiled cloth to Peter urging him to clean himself for he should not meet up with Wendy in such a disheveled manner.
Upon the revelation, Aleck had lost all feeling in his legs and he crashed unto the floor, disgusted at himself, his origin, his deeds, his captain. He felt he was suffocating under the pressure of so much. The lies! The vile lies! The even more disturbing truth! Pan was but a boy and Aleck had apparently surpassed him in age! But it was not so much his disturbing paternity that struck his soul so horridly. It was that he…had…been used to kill his own…
Hook sauntered over to where Peter had landed, once again bringing himself close to his eye level. "Proud and insolent youth," he whispered darkly. "For the sins of your childhood, you pay by the acts of your manhood."
Peter looked at Aleck, realizing that those eyes that had disturbed him since the very day he had first met them where indeed a contorted image of Wendy. It was her innocence destroyed and her own self living on, trapped within a cage of torment and hurtful anger toward himself. The boy's gaze had penetrated his gleeful mask because it was as if Wendy glared at him, it was as if Wendy despised him. It was as if Wendy had become a pirate servant of Hook.
"Release her!" Peter struggled to say and it was clear that his mind was leaving him. Hook laughed and Aleck cried a tear for his own doing. But there was peace for Pan, for in his final moments he saw Wendy separate from the pirate-boy and turn to him, seeking out to cradle him into her arms. With a gentle smile, Peter closed his eyes and his head fell with a quiet thump to the floor. The gold completely gone from his skin and hair and the warmth completely ripped from the land.
"Thus perished Peter Pan," Hook whispered to himself and his spirit was finally freed. He sighed with content but that serenity did not last long. Seeing Peter's head drop in death, Aleck rushed to him and turned the boy about, desperately searching his face for any sign of life, but there was nothing more left on him than that smile permanently left upon his lips.
"No, no, no, no," Aleck whispered hoarsely. He turned to Hook. "It…was…you lied to him, right? To further his torment? To make him squirm in his final moments…" but it was a vain hope, for Peter had seemed truly shocked and torn apart by the revelation of his mother's death. 'No' he told himself trying to push away the truth. He looked to Hook for any sort of resolve and comfort, but the captain only looked back to him with a stoic and distant gaze, silent and cold.
Against Hook's damning silence, Aleck screamed out for answers, for sane justification of the murder he had just committed, but Hook only replied with a backhanded blow to his cheek that sent the boy to the ground, broken and whimpering.
The crew watched with surprising pain for Aleck, grimacing and hiding their empathy as it all became undone. They'd all chosen their lives by some means or for some reason or other, but Aleck had been pushed into it, through spiteful deception and false compassion. And then there were those who had resented Hook since the day he had killed the girl. Aleck was one of them, but so much more. He could have been what they all wished they might have been, and Hook had destroyed even the notion. It was unbearable to watch.
"Men!" Hook cried out. "Today! Tonight! Forever more! We celebrate for Pan is finally gone!" He picked up Peter's bronze sword and meant to keep it as spoils and a reminder of his greatest triumph. "Toss the carcass overboard!"
"No!" Aleck stumbled to his feet and stood above Peter's corpse.
"Are you going to be a thorn in my side now, boy?" Hook asked, stepping closer to him.
Aleck knew not what to do. His thoughts and emotions were still a jumbled mesh. There was rage and mourning, pain and suffering but where it was assigned to was yet to be determined.
"The way I see it is that you have a number of options. I am not inhuman and I do feel a sort of…responsibility for your state. So I offer you these very generous choices. Number 1. Return to London, to your governess' home and do with your life what you please, for we shall never meet again. Number 2. Live as you have lived for the past year. Aboard my ship, part of my crew and my second, my heir. Or Number 3. If you deem this to be an ultimate betrayal then I will dutifully but not entirely gladly rid you of your pain and take your life. You have till the eve to choose."
Aleck weakly fell to his knees and forearms, his forehead on the ground and tears pouring down from his eyes. The last option seemed the most enticing, for how could a broken shell of a boy live on after such an atrocity? Alas, there were things needed to be done, and miles to walk before he slept. "London" he blurted out amongst sobs.
Hook sighed. He'd hoped the boy would remain by his side but it was his word he had given to do as he requested. Perhaps it was for the best. Since Aleck boarded his ship to stay, there where occasions in which Hook felt a ghost staring at him from across the dinner table or deck, but when he'd look up, afraid to see a ghastly figure, there would only be the boy. Perhaps now, Pan would join the wench in tormenting him and life would be unbearable. "Fine." He turned to order Cookson to prepare the ship for departure to the mainland by the following morning and Aleck took the opportunity.
The boy rushed to his feet, scooping up his sword and closing in on him with more masterful speed than the crew had ever known him to be capable of. But Hook was quick himself and turned in time to block the blow with Pan's sword.
"And this is what you truly chose then?" Hook questioned. "Join them then. You have outlived your purpose."
The crew watched as Hook and Aleck fought, aiding neither. But the battle only lasted a few blows and steps, for Hook was at a disadvantage. Aleck fought with rightful fury on his side and force of two seeking reprisal. In the end, Hook made a false move and Aleck drew his blade into his chest, dead center of his callous heart. Wide-eyed, the captain went down, his eyes remaining on the boy. Such an odd sight was his last, for there in one single being, was the heart of the girl, the strength and soul of Pan, and the form of the pirate captain James Hook.
The crew allowed a moment of silence for their fallen captain and some even did so for Peter Pan. Aleck mindlessly pried his blade from the captain's body. Hook had promised him his revenge upon this day, and it had been just so, but things had unraveled completely wrong and there was much to ponder, weep and suppress. Too much, in fact, and the call of the blade became enticing.
He moved to Pan's body and placed the acorn in his hand, closing the fingers around it. He wondered if the island would forgive him; allow him peace; allow him a home. He wondered if he'd find a home anywhere. But as a reply, the maternal land offered her embrace. He watched as the light of the new day slowly pushed away the cold that had shocked the island, the cascading gold trickling onto the forests, waters, and landing lastly onto the deck of the Jolly Roger. It warmed his skin and cuddled Peter Pan's lifeless body, covering it with its lovely gold, but Hook's body remained in darkness for the sun still refused to shine upon it.
And this is how it ends, he thought. This is how the story unfolds. To his right was the body that had been Captain Hook, and his crew. To his left laid Peter Pan's mortal being with the island weeping behind him for it now lacked a king, either pirate or boy…and Aleck was painfully, both.