Disclaimer: I don't own Reborn or Peter Pan.
Author's Notes: What do you get when you cross Kokuyo-Land with Neverland? ... Mukuro in tights.
... I thought it was funny.
Shooting Down The Wendy-Bird
Lanchia asks where he goes everyday; where he takes his friends.
In response, Mukuro only smiles and says, "Off to Neverland", and Lanchia bites his tongue to keep from telling the boy he has to grow up – he isn't Peter Pan and life isn't a fairytale. No Lostboys, no fairies and no happily ever after.
As though Lanchia had said it aloud, Mukuro frowns. Reaches up and brushes fingers along the bandage on his eye and thinks that it's about time his Lostboys had a Mother.
X
Chikusa dreams for simplicity. For naivety to be restored, for family and minor little complications of adolescence. He awakens, and reality takes it's stand once more – this horrible looming timer, running out. Black, painful; there, always; dreams are all so far from reach. Ken scolds him, patronizingly brazen.
"We have no families, Kaki-pii. We just have this."
Ken gestures his head to emptiness. Stretching nothingness, longing for footsteps of children to pad on the surface, break the ground with patterns of shoes and dents from slight falls; their Neverland.
Instead of obeying it, Mukuro walks into the centre. He sits down on the grass, and he thinks. He even does what Lanchia does when he's thinking; puts his chin in his hand, furrows his brow and stares at nothing in particular.
There is nothing in particular in Neverland today.
"I think," Mukuro begins, and he smiles his mischievous smile, "It's time we found a Mother."
Ken isn't well versed in the arts of Disney and J.M. Barrie. He pulls a face, makes a remark on girls and their horrors, their flaws and turns to Chikusa. "What would we need a Mother for?"
Chikusa dreams for a family. He nods. Feels hopeful, and Ken pulls another condescendingly bitter face.
"I think," Mukuro continues, apparently uncaring for Ken's immature antics, "We should start search for one."
X
"They're all so plain," Mukuro comments as he watches Miss Bianchi making daisy-chains in her garden. He speaks quietly, so as not to offend and cause an uproar with the young girls family. He was only invited as company for her, while their families held a meeting in the castle, but when he'd asked if she'd liked to play a game – 'Pirates, Indians… tag?' – he'd been ignored. He'd then joined Lanchia by rosebushes.
Lanchia replied in a matching hushed tone. "You shouldn't say things like that. She's very upset."
Mukuro feigns interest, smiles, making it sound more of a statement than a question. "Really."
"Yes, her…" He'd had already gone, and Lanchia caught sight of him by the older girls side, offering a rose.
Mukuro spoke to her gently, because she was upset, as Lanchia said and as was obvious from the blankness in her eyes and the continuous downturn of her lips. He cheered her up, slipping the rose into her hair, and asked much more in return.
Bianchi agreed to be a temporary Mother. She claimed she wouldn't be in Italy much longer, that soon she would leave to richer foreign countries of less brutish culture. Not fully understanding, Mukuro had pressed on another matter, never being one to enjoy the feeling of being looked down upon.
"Why are you sad?"
She dropped her almost finished daisy chain. It fell into the grass and disappeared into green without a sound. Mukuro didn't think she looked sad anymore. She didn't have any expression on when she told her tale monotonously.
"My brother ran away."
It sounded like a lie. It sounded like she was an attention seeking child with a figment sibling. Mukuro began contemplating rejecting her as a Mother, being to young to notice his imagination had ran away with him.
"… Can you play the piano?" she whispered, like the answer would be a secret. The effort of connected flowers was crushed beneath her heel as she stepped forward. Her half-lidded eyes became wide.
Mukuro shook his head. She scowled, this horribly ugly thing, and turned her back on him. He felt like having a Mother wasn't a great idea anymore.
"I apologize for asking. I miss the sound of music in the house…"
He smiles, places a reassuring hand on her back and lowers his voice. "Would you like to see the Estraneo estate, Miss Bianchi?"
X
Chikusa plays the imaginary drums for their Mother the weekend after. She laughs, and her face doesn't look so horribly ugly when she laughs. Bianchi pats his head, like a grown-up woman would have done and looked to be in a much better mood than before, according to the upturned mouth and bright jade gaze.
She says that their Neverland was missing something, and then she spent the rest of the day telling tales about her poisoning her imaginary brother with cookies while decorating the nothingness with daisy-chains. They gracefully tumbled over tree branches, over patches of dry dirt.
Ken says it looked girly, but he blushes when Bianchi frowns at him. Chikusa says it looks sweet, and Mukuro can't help but agree.
In the evening, they play Pirates. Word from word, Mukuro became a boy who never grew up, never worried, never had to suffer. Who had the perfect Mother handed to him while he flew carelessly with Tinkerbell.
Bianchi writes her name in the dry gravel, underneath one of her handmade daisy-chains, and she leaves without a second thought when her Mother calls.
"She wasn't our kind of Mother," Ken says. The scars on his face are a little bolder, a neon red. Mukuro wonders what they'd do if the one straight across his face simply burst open, but he's relatively sure Lanchia would know. Lanchia was a grown-up after all.
Chikusa sulks for a while. He dreams of Bianchi, of his hair being tousled and bright jade eyes. Mukuro doesn't tell him that Bianchi hallucinated family members, because he doesn't think it's fair.
"You're right, Ken." He smiles reassuringly at the smallest boy, who only frowns, and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "She wasn't the Mother for us."
Chikusa can't help but disagree.
X
When Mukuro asked Lanchia what his Mother was like, he says he doesn't know. He says he only had his family, and that his family was enough. Mukuro doesn't much care for their family, or the Mafia at all. The Estraneo's don't care for him as anything more than a test subject. He doesn't want to grow up like Lanchia, so he vows to find the perfect guardian soon.
X
"She's too rough to be a Mother."
Lal Mirch has a burn on her face. A gaping wound, red and crisp; Chikusa thinks it's unfair Ken judges her by this, when he has an even larger his scar across his face. He doesn't say this, because Mukuro and Chikusa pretend to see nothing stretched cheek-to-cheek on their friend's face. It's never been mentioned, alike Mukuro's eye and the barcode on Chikusa's cheek.
It's exactly this that leads Mukuro to believe that she and her burn mark will fit in perfectly, but he's sadly mistaken. She frostily declines to be guardian to them, but follows them to Neverland anyways.
She then scoffed the nothingness and the daisy-chains. Ken then scoffed her cape and it's uselessness.
Chikusa doesn't like her as a Mother. "Leave if you'll only mock us," he tells her, and after that she calms, plays for a while before telling them that the emptiness was much too empty.
"But there are daisy-chains," Ken points out.
"Daisy-chains aren't enough."
Lal leaves her cape in the centre, and forgets it when she's called for. They only came across each other for two days, while she, her step-brother and parents travelled Italy in search for a perfect home and she'd wandered by the iron bars of the Estraneo estate. Mukuro thinks that's a lie, however. He then thinks that all children lie too much, and he asks Lanchia if he lies often.
"That depends," Lanchia says, and he drinks his grown-up coffee and nods at Ken and Chikusa goodnight, "Where do you kids go everyday?"
Mukuro feels annoyed. Lanchia always asks this and the answer never changes. He smiles anyway, sweetly; innocently. "Neverland, of course."
Lanchia frowns. "Then children do lie too often."
X
Chikusa dreams for a normal life.
He's a lab-rat throughout his childhood, and every night he thanks Lanchia for allowing them outside; taking them to the outside world when they ask. Every night he thanks Mukuro too. He wants a Mother. He wants to know the feeling of being loved before he grows up. He wants to be tucked in at night, cared for.
He thinks a lot about Bianchi. While Ken and Mukuro gathered more flowers for her work, he listened to her go on about her brother.
"He deserted everything so easily… we don't even know where he's gone, Kaki-pii…"
In Neverland one morning, sitting on Lal's cape, he shares this with Mukuro and Ken. They mutter back and forth about the wonder of the outside world, about life away from Mafia and emptiness. Mukuro looks amused as Ken and Chikusa animatedly chat on running away in soft voices, in case they're overheard.
"Running away isn't simple," he says with a little laugh. "Not for us."
Chikusa deflates. Ken is even upset by this.
Mukuro tilts his head. "I didn't say it to depress you both. Why can't we just focus on now for once? Why can't we stop planning for the future for a day?"
For a day, they roam Neverland without Mothers, but in the night before they return to the mansion, they carve Lal Mirch's name into the dirt alongside Bianchi's and the emptiness feels a little more full.
X
Lanchia asks again where they were. He only asks Mukuro, while the boy is in his bed.
"Neverland." The answer won't change.
The grown up sits forward on his chair, puts his chin in his hand, furrows his brow and stares at nothing in particular. There is never anything in particular in the mansion.
"Rokudo, they're beginning to question where you children go."
Mukuro didn't see why they would. He and his Lostboys always returned.
"You might be ordered not to leave the grounds soon."
"We never leave the grounds," Mukuro replies without emotion. "We never have without you. We can't."
They were tracked. They were cornered by their 'family.' Mukuro spared Lanchia any arguments on this, however – Lanchia was unaware of what the other grown ups did in the family. He only stared at the floor and frowned, so that his mouth went in line with the black tattoos on his cheek.
"Soon," he murmurs, and the child can pay attention or he can ignore it for now, for a few more days, "You'll have to grow up."
Mukuro smiles and pretends he hasn't heard this; always will.
X
The delivery girl I-Pin is warmly invited to Neverland. She hands the food to the grown-ups, who usher her next to the children and she laughs. Mukuro laughs too; she's very beautiful, even more so when she smiles. Mother's should be beautiful.
They take her hands, lead her in. Second to the right, and straight on 'til morning Ken thinks over and over again. She can only spend five minutes with them, and Ken believes it's enough.
"All our Mother's before left something here," Ken says to her quietly. He doesn't know why; he's blushing and staring at the ground and wishes so much that his face was scarless and smooth like hers.
I-Pin brightens up. She pats his back, laughs again. Takes off her white bandana and ties it the thick branch hovering above the centre. Mukuro says it's not quite like daisy-chains and capes, but then he says they aren't much alike either, and he smiles.
For two minutes, they tell her about Neverland and she listens. Ken thinks she's an ideal Mother – she isn't a child, but she isn't grown-up yet either. She stays ten minutes longer, losing track of the time writing her name in the dirt and playing tag through the trees.
"Mr Kawahira's probably angry with me," she says, and they walk her to the Gate to the Outside World. She waves goodbye, smiles her beautiful smile and leaves. How short, Ken thinks. How unfair.
He takes a step forward –
And the collar around his neck buzzes and screams for him to turn back before they're caught.
X
Chikusa doesn't speak to Ken for a while. Mukuro smiles at him all the same, just with a tinge of resentment. Ken can't blame them, but he says, "Wouldn't it be worth it?"
He means the Outside World. There's a part of him yearning for it, for a family and a Mother to tuck him in at night, care for him. Chikusa dreams of it. Mukuro puts his chin in his hand, furrows his brow and stares at nothing in particular, thinking about it.
X
It's a weekday. Monday, to be exact.
Mukuro walks alone into the basement, down staircases, past bedrooms, and he meets the Doctor at the Gate to Hell. He looks up, because the Doctors so tall and realises half of the mans unfathomable face is hidden. "Oh," he says to himself, and he yanks the bandage off his eye.
It doesn't help. He feels frighteningly bare and vulnerable, because he's never seen his right eye in the mirror, and it must be special. The people who inspect it never tell him what's so strange about it, but he's not very certain he wants to know either.
Mukuro smiles at the Doctor. He doesn't know why, in accordance to the Greek book Lanchia gave him as a gift, it was the equivalent of smiling at Charon on the way across the river Styx.
"It's going to be a little different today." The Doctor puts on a soft voice. It doesn't sound right from his mouth. He's too bulky, too manly.
"Okay." It's not like Mukuro can decline; it's not like he has any idea what's happening.
X
Hell isn't burning fires and torture for eternity. It's absolutely nothing; stretching emptiness. It's black abyss, and while Mukuro wonders a thousand wonders at a time, it begins swallowing him. He wonders if swallowing him will help him escape. He wonders if he can escape, or if he should search the nothingness for a door, a crawlspace, even. He wonders if he's been here before, then for some reason, he wonders what's so great about Mothers. Lastly, he wonders about his eye. Hell makes him go insane for he doesn't know how long.
Looking down at the floor in desperation, Mukuro finds his reflection. To be precise, he finds a crimson eye without a pupil; no glitters of light or warmth. It starts to light up. A flame. A Japanese kanji lettering in his eye.
In a heartbeat, everything plainly comes cascading down.
X
('I wonder if I'll ever find a- ')
X
Chikusa and Ken aren't allowed to see him for days. They ask Lanchia, hopeful, but he stares at them apathetically, shrugs, and goes back to just thinking; goes back to being lost without Mukuro to please.
They go to Neverland alone – 'Second to the right, and straight on 'til morning,' Chikusa thinks, and when they take seats in the centre, he thinks that the emptiness has never looked so empty. He asks Ken if he thinks Mukuro is dead.
"Kaki-pii, don't be so stupid."
Chikusa doesn't think this classifies as a real answer. He dreams of playing games of the silent way back to the mansion, staying close by Ken's side, slumped over. "Are we just children?" he asks, but he's sure Ken isn't smart enough to reply with anything intelligent or worthwhile.
He isn't. Chikusa dreams of Mukuro's company.
X
Mukuro is standing over the Doctors bodies. Lanchia is bent over them, hunched, staring at his crimson hands.
He turns around and he smiles. And he says that he wants to get out of this place. He says, "Let's forget about Doctors and Mothers and Neverland." Chikusa and Ken aren't sure what that means. Lanchia isn't sure what the Hell is happening, just keels over and grips the ground.
Blood drips onto the floor from a cut across his cheek - Mukuro smiles wider.
X
"This isn't what I wanted to live like on the Outside," Ken mutters to Chikusa one day, in a deserted warehouse they've been living in, when Lanchia stumbled in, drenched in blood once again, looking sorrowful, unable to stop himself looking sinful.
Chikusa looks at Mukuro, who smiles back. They owe him enough to keep their mouths shut.
X
… Right?
X
Mukuro keeps he and his Lostboys hands unstained. He piles it on Lanchia, slaughter after slaughter. He says there's fairness; says Lanchia's the grown up, he get's away with it. His name still travels somehow, and when Chikusa, Ken and Lanchia are hauled to prison, he sits alone in the warehouse. It's been years since The Mansion, since Neverland and the Three Runaway Mothers. He doesn't think of them much. It's too late to be cared for, now. (… Right?)
X
"Nagi." Mukuro outstretches his hand. He smiles, hides his weakness, and she looks dumbstruck momentarily, before she stares into his mismatched eyes and looks desperate. She reaches out and takes it, then simply drops, simply falls into him.
Her face is set in some hideous scowl of pain. She has scars along her face, her arms; some will probably fade, others remain. She's beautiful, really. He traces his hand along her jaw, smiling.
She's perfect.
X
Chikusa dreams of nothingness.
Stupid Chrome, he thinks when the girl trails their tracks. Ken turns and makes a face at her, mutters something about wanting Mukuro back. Now they don't have to try and keep their mouths shut; now they follow orders.
Now there's no need for dreaming.
X
(Mukuro confuses Hell with Heaven. Emptiness is Purgatory, Hell is a boiling hole in the ground and Heaven is warmth in the clouds; the skies.
Mukuro knows better than all of this.)
X
It's night, at Kokuyo Land. It's cold. Chikusa and Ken are trying – pretending – to sleep. Around them, there's nothing of value. There's something, just nothing important. They both find themselves dreaming for nothing, with importance. Of Neverland, the Three Runaway Mothers. They both find aches forming in their hearts.
Chrome drags two ragged sheets over them. It doesn't help too much. It's still freezing, and she won't understand how much the gesture means.
They do; that's all that matters. For one moment in the slight shine of the Outside World from the windowpanes, Chikusa and Ken watch her tuck them in.
She looks beautiful.
Then she pulls one over herself.
"Goodnight, Mukuro, Chikusa, Ken."
They don't reply. In her mind, Mukuro only answers with a smile.
X
She's perfect.
Author's Notes: I guess Lanchia was like, Tinkerbell or something.
Thanks for reading, I hope it was enjoyable. (God knows I've been loving cracking stupid jokes about it for the past week.)
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