Scars
What if Felix had his scar long before he met Peter Pan?
Prequel-ish thing to I Wish The Shadow Would Take Me Away.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing at all. *sobs incoherently*
You are the avalanche
One world away
My make-believing
While I'm wide awake
-Gabrielle Aplin, Salvation
"What is your name?"
It's a simple question. There's nothing particularly anything about it; nothing particularly kind, nothing particularly personal, nothing particularly cruel. Felix knows that. But when he opens his mouth to answer it, he chokes on a sob instead. The boy in front of him tilts his head, eyebrows raised.
"Don't you know it?" He's a tall boy, a little older than Felix is. Well, he looks older. Felix doesn't really know how old he is himself, so he can't be sure.
" Felix," he tells him, and he tries not to cry. He tries not to sink to his knees and kiss the boy's feet in gratitude. Because Felix has encountered a lot of people. Tall people, short people, old people, young people, farmers, singers, soldiers, children. But for as long as he can remember, not one of them has ever asked him for his name before.
No, they each assigned him their own names.
Scar, Scar-Face, and all the variations in between. Felix has heard them all. He's heard them shouted at him from afar, in between bursts of laughter. It seems that there's not a soul left in the Enchanted Forest who doesn't have their own whispered version of the story behind the cut that runs from his temple to his chin, splitting his face into jagged pieces of a puzzle.
But this boy isn't from the Enchanted Forest.
"How did you get here, Felix?" his voice is steady, clear.
"I- I thought I was asleep," he answers, biting his lip. That can't be right. Felix has gone to sleep every night. He has visited many places in his dreams; usually his old home with the Seers, though he can't say he remembers it well. But he has never been to this place before; this beautiful place that has an ocean and a forest and a mountain all at once. He has never had someone to talk to before, either.
"How unusual," the boy says, and then he grins. "Aren't you going to ask what my name is, then? Not very polite, are you?"
Felix starts, shaking his head vigorously. "What… what is your name?" He had wanted to ask, really, he had. He had wanted to know the name of the one who asked him for his name for the first time. But in his experience, things go a lot more smoothly if he keeps his mouth shut. Madam hates it when he asks questions. Sir doesn't like it any better.
"Peter Pan," the boy says proudly, his arms crossed over his chest. "And this is my island."
"You cannot be serious," Felix says incredulously, before he can stop himself. He flinches, knowing that he has spoken out of turn- but Peter Pan only looks amused by his disbelief.
"Well, strictly speaking, I'm normally not," he says. "Serious, that is. But I assure you, this island belongs to me and only me."
"But this is my dream," he says. "It has to be. So it can't be yours."
"You think you made me up?" Peter laughs. "That would be an achievement indeed. I assure you, you may be dreaming, but I am very real- and very awake. As is my island."
"But… you're a child," Felix says, encouraged, if a little unsettled, by the fact that this didn't feel like an ordinary dream- not really. Encouraged, if a little unsettled, by the fact that the boy has not told him to hold his tongue yet; nor has he mentioned his scar.
"So are you," Peter Pan rmarks. "Do you really think it would be better if this place was run by grown ups, Felix?"
He says his name again, and Felix digs his nails into his hand. He won't cry. Not now. This boy, by some miracle, doesn't think he's a freak. At least, not yet. Somehow, he doesn't think that bursting into tears in front of him will decrease the chances of that happening.
"No," he replies honestly. "But I'm surprised that they let you own a whole island."
"Let me? Oh, nobody lets me do anything," Peter Pan says. "You cannot let grown ups ever tell you what to do, Felix."
Felix's eyes widen. "But… you must."
Peter Pan looks troubled by this. He studies at Felix for a moment, thinking. Felix shifts on his feet, cursing himself. He's confused by all this; by this island that he has found in his sleep. He is confused by this boy, more than anything else. But he does know one thing for certain, and that is that he wants Peter Pan to like him. He needs him to. He needs this one thing, this one place where he isn't the scum of the earth.
Suddenly, Peter is standing directly in front of him, very close to where he stands. He raises his hand, but it is only to place a hand on Felix's shoulder. It is warm, and Felix feels warm because of it. Felix stares at it, not quite sure what it's doing there. Most people don't like to touch him. They fear that his scar brands him as ill; diseased. Everybody's afraid of catching it. But Peter Pan doesn't seem the sort to be afraid of much.
"You mustn't let grown ups make you think that," he says, and he is looking at him, straight at him. Felix is finding it hard to breathe. He is being looked at, not his scar, but his eyes.
"You know where I live, but I don't know where you are from," Peter continues, oblivious to Felix's struggles. "You are dreaming of Neverland- my island. That must mean that you believe in something better than your real world."
"I... I think I do," Felix sucks in his breath. "At least, I believe it now." He looks around, and Peter smiles at him. His hand is still on his shoulder, and Felix feels like he could get used to it.
"Would you like to play a game?"
Felix hesitates. He has heard of games. Sometimes, when he is feeling very brave, he asks if he can join them. He always gets the same response. Because of it, he decided that being brave was not a good idea. But now, in this new land, in this dream, he is feeling brave again. So he answers, and Peter Pan grins when he does.
"Yes."
That is his first encounter with the boy and his magical island. But it is not his last.
Felix lives at an apple-farm. It belongs to Madam and Sir, and has been theirs ever since King Julian took the throne. He allocated each of his people a role, a place. Farmers were moved to spin wool, wood lumbers were posted at wineries. And blacksmiths were given apple-farms. They were an unsettled people, out of place and bitter. Yes, their king is benevolent; he has given everyone a home, a trade to work. But Madam and Sir have never hated anything more than they hate their apple-farm- or the boy that lives there with them.
"Scar," Madam barks at him. "Fetch us the apples! Don't be seen by anyone, now. Don't be talking to anyone."
It's the most she ever says to him when she's having a good day. He can't blame Madam for it. She is no farmer. She's got muscles in her arms and legs that are as tough and hard as any man's. She is built for melting iron and shaping swords. Sir, spritely and sharp, is meant for mastering the weapons she makes. They are supposed to work in the business of war and violence. But King Julian has disagreed, and has burdened them with a life of fields and trees and fruit and markets. He has burdened them, too, with their Scar-Faced boy.
"It took me a while to find out the truth," Felix tells Peter Pan on his second visit. He's not sure why he's telling him this; it is a boring tale. But Peter asked him where he came from, who he was, and he is doing his best to answer. "But Sir told me eventually. I am the child of…" he hesitates, but Peter Pan has magic- he will not judge Felix, "a Seer. But Seers are not supposed to have children. My mother made a mistake. A terrible mistake. She had to be rid of me, if she was to continue her path."
"She had a choice," Peter corrects him, and he doesn't know if it makes him feel better or worse. "She could have given up being a Seer. She had a choice; to be a mother or a Seer. She abandoned you." He speaks with a kind of empathy that Felix has never heard before. But he could get used to it, he thinks to himself. He hopes he will get used to it.
"I was found by soldiers of King Julian," he continues. "He assigned me to a couple. To Madam and Sir. They didn't have any say in it. Nobody ever does in the Enchanted Forest."
"Why do you call them Madam and Sir?" Peter asks, and Felix is overwhelmed again because he is being asked about himself- about his life.
"They say I cannot call them Mother and Father," he says, trying to keep a steady voice. "And I am not allowed to use their real names." He doesn't tell Peter that they don't use his, either. He doesn't tell him how it makes him feel every time Peter does.
"Allow," Peter groans. "Always 'allow'. Felix, you cannot live like this. You cannot let them control your life for you."
"How?" he asks. "I don't understand. How did you do it? How did you become so free? Were you born here?"
He can't imagine that he wasn't. He can't imagine Peter Pan wearing anything but his dark green tunic, his boots, the dagger on his belt. He can't imagine Peter Pan cooped up anywhere, being anybody's son. Being anything but the King of Neverland. He is too free for anybody to think about trapping him. Felix admires him for that, and envies him.
Peter just shrugs. "I don't remember," he says. "I'd imagine I came here the way that you did, to begin with. In my dreams."
Felix almost laughs a little. "How can you not remember?"
Peter smirks confidentially, and he beckons Felix closer. Felix stumbles over his own feet as he does, suddenly stupidly worried that he probably smells like rotten apples and hay. Peter doesn't seem to mind. Felix stops a foot away from him, but the other boy makes an impatient noise, stepping closer. If Felix does smell, he doesn't seem to care.
"I'm older than I look," he whispers in Felix's ear, and he shivers because he is so cold and Peter is so warm. He draws back, and Felix wishes he wouldn't. What a strange thing for him to wish.
"How?" he says.
Peter grins again, that grin that shows all his teeth. He gestures to the island around them. They are standing on the tops of a rocky cliff this time, overlooking the sea. It is beautiful, and everywhere, and empty. Curiously empty. Wonderfully empty.
"Magic," Peter says. "On this island, Felix, anything is possible. You can stay young forever if you wish."
"How long have you been here, then? To have forgotten?" Felix wonders. Peter just shrugs, untroubled. Felix glances at him, and he nods, letting Peter know that he believes him. But he doesn't, really. He thinks that Peter Pan knows exactly how long he's been free. He talks to Felix like he understands him. If he understands him, then he must have been trapped before. And Felix knows that he has been living with Madam and Sir for eleven years and seventeen days. He knows this, just as he knows that if he is ever free like Peter is, he will count every day, every blessing. Peter knows. He must know. But maybe he wants to forget. And in Neverland, you can get what you want. You really can.
"You know, it's curious," Peter says. "Nobody has ever visited Neverland more than once. But you arrived again, just as the darkness fell."
"Really?" Felix says. "Nobody has visited more than once?"
"Well, nobody has visited at all," Peter confesses, and he chatters on, but Felix is just staring at him, bewildered, filled with something he never thought he would feel for anybody else: pity.
Felix would say that he spends most of his time on his own, but he still sees other people. He sometimes wishes that he didn't, but he does, and it keeps him sane. Knowing that they exist. Seeing them, even from a distance. Can someone really have been completely alone for as long as Peter has been?
"And the sun is coming up," Peter finishes his chatter in dismay, and Felix follows his eyes to the glowing orange that presides over the edge of the sea. "Must you wake up, Felix? The days are boring here. And I want to show you the Neverfalls. You can race me down the falls- though, you won't win."
"I don't want to wake up," he says, trying to keep the frantic note from his voice. God, he doesn't want to wake up. He doesn't want to hear Madam's throaty shout; he doesn't want to see Sir's grey eyes glaring at him. He doesn't want to find out whether he will be greeted with a bucket of cold water or the blunt end of an axe when he wakes up. He doesn't want to trudge out in the grass and puddles and hear the whispers and laughs of the other children who dare each other every day to go closer to him, to make contact with the ugly creature with the scar that, rumour tells them, was a deformity that he was born with, a symbol of his cursed lineage.
"Don't, then," Peter says, like it's that simple. "Stay asleep."
"That isn't how it works," Felix says helplessly.
"Sure it is," Peter tells him. "I don't sleep."
Felix blinks at him, shaking his head.
"That's impossible."
"Isn't it also impossible to live forever?" Peter smirks. "Yet that is exactly what I intend to do."
He doesn't even sound merely hopeful. He is confident. He…believes.
Felix feels his lips twitch, and he thinks that this must be what smiling feels like.
And then he feels cold water splash his face.
And he opens his eyes.
And Peter Pan is gone.
Madam is going to the markets today, to sell their apples and to buy metals with what they earned- at least, that which they were permitted by the Kingdom to keep to themselves. It means that they won't have much to eat, especially once they've given the best of their apples away, but Madam doesn't care, and Sir is a twig; he doesn't each much anyway. Felix isn't really taken into consideration. He eats what they give him when they remember to feed him. Otherwise, he is allowed the apples that have fallen on the ground. But today, he doesn't care. Today, he blinks the water from his eyes and bolts from his spot on the floor where he sleeps, nodding when Madam blurts instructions at him, not flinching when Sir smacks him over the head for delaying their trip to the market. They can't set off until Felix has checked the trees for remaining apples, and they don't like waiting. Finally, Felix thinks, they have something in common. He doesn't like waiting, either. Only he is waiting for night-time. For sleep. He pulls his hood over his head, and he thinks that his tunic is almost the same colour as Peter's. A jolt goes through him as does, and he feels his lip tug again.
"Scar!" Madam yells from the kitchen. "Wipe that smile off your face and get those apples- or would you like to sleep outside tonight?"
He scurries out the door, towards the line of trees growing outside. He's holding the apple cart in front of him, dragging it through the mud. It rained here tonight, he realises. It rained quite hard. He must have missed it. In Neverland, the sky had been clear, save for the stars. Thousands of stars. His chest aches as he remembers, and he wants to close his eyes and sleep again. He doesn't see many new apples- but what did Madam expect? He's been here not two days ago, and apples did not ripen so quickly. His stomach lurches and he searches the dirt beneath the trees for something to eat. There's no shortage of rotten apples there, half-buried by mud. But he's become fairly good at scouting out the fresh ones. He sees one, almost green near the stem and branching out in red. Satisfied, he snatches it up, using his tunic to clean it of mud.
"See- he's like an animal," he hears a hiss from behind one of the trees. "He doesn't eat like people."
He keeps polishing the apple, keeping his head down. Pretends he can't hear them. He knows that Jonathan is the one who's speaking, just as he recognises Rebecca's gasp in horror. He knows the names of them all, but to them, he would only ever be Scar. An animal. Not like them, however hard he had once tried to be.
"Can I play?"
He asks in the voice he has practiced; calm, casual, kind. To show that they don't have to be scared of him. He might look scary, but he isn't. That is what he is going for.
But they all freeze, looking at each other with open mouths.
"Do you know how to play?" Jonathan says finally, and the others start to laugh. "Scar-Face?"
"How did you get that scar, anyway?" David adds, flinching away from him. "Better stay back- ghastly thing looks contagious, it does."
Felix feels himself go red, and he knows he is shaking. He can't help it. There are so many people- Felix counts nine- and they are all staring at him, murmuring, pointing at his face. He doesn't want them to look at it. He knows it is hideous. He knows he looks plain frightening. He had thought perhaps people his own age would not mind. He realises now that he had thought wrong.
He doesn't say anything, but they don't stop walking towards him, grubby fingers still pointing, pointing at him- somebody pokes him and they shriek, like it's all a fun game, like Rebecca is the bravest of them all for touching the monster.
Felix is breathing hard. He wants them to go away.
He sinks to his knees, folding himself over, putting his hands over his head as they surround him, and he thinks of a kinder place.
He bites into the apple, not bothering to wipe off the remaining mud. It won't make the apple any sweeter; and this one is not sweet at all. It's sour. It tastes like sick. Still, Felix chews until it tastes like nothing at all.
"God, look at him. He's a beast."
"I've heard his parents were Seers. Best not get too close- he might try to curse us."
"Remember when I poked him?"
He hears, and he hates that he hears.
He feels burning at the back of his eyes, and he thinks of Peter Pan. He imagines that he would be disappointed if he could see Felix now. He thinks that, if he were more like Peter Pan, these children would not mock him like this. He sniffs, and he stands a little taller. He lowers his hood. Pausing, he takes another bite, slowly. He moves along past the trees, picking the ripe ones he finds from their branches. He pretends he can't hear them.
He is patient. He needs to be. So he waits some more. While they taunt him from the shadows, and Sir and Madam call him like a dog to their cart, he waits for the sun to descend. He hears the moans of the other children. They play in the sunlight, and they want it to last forever. Maybe they are right. Maybe that's why he's not like them.
He hides in the sunlight- it burns his skin. He waits for the night, and he plays in the dark. He is an animal.
Felix doesn't think he'll ever forgive himself for the time he wastes lying still, trying to fall asleep. All those hours spent nervous, restless, wanting to be in Neverland, fearing that tonight, he will dream of his mother instead. Fearing that he won't be able to find his way back to Peter Pan's island. His eye prickle and he stares at the ceiling, the stone floor hurts his back. He's tired from hauling apples in carts all day; his hands are blotched with burns from the melted copper Madam is forging into swords. It was his fault, she had said. He stood in her way.
He feels like he has been lying here forever. The light of the moon streaking past dusty, yellow curtains seems to be turning into sunlight. He panics. He feels ill.
He is so tired. So very tired.
Then everything around him starts to blur.
When he opens his eyes to the wide ocean, toes burying themselves into soft sand, he almost laughs in relief. Neverland.
"There you are." He whirls around, and Peter Pan is standing there, his hands on his hips. He looks annoyed. "You took your time."
"I couldn't sleep," he says. Peter huffs and turns around, starting to walk away. Felix looks after him, taken aback. "Where are you going?" He hears the 'lost' in his own voice, and he cringes. Peter glances over his shoulder, and he looks surprised to see him standing still.
"To the Neverfalls," he says, as though it ought to be obvious. "Don't you remember I said I'd show them to you?"
Felix nods, relief flooding through him, and he totters after Peter.
The sand makes his feet heavy.
Peter doesn't slow down for him, but he catches up soon enough. They walk in silence into the trees that line the sand, Peter leading the way deeper into their midst. Felix doesn't mind the quiet. It gives him the chance to look at the forest, really look. It's not like the Enchanted Forest. It's darker here, more dense. The trees all seem to be speaking to each other when their leaves rustle. This whole place feels alive. He thinks about what Pan said, about how Neverland is magical. He thinks that he believes him.
Peter doesn't ask any questions as they walk. It is only when Felix spies a great, tall waterfall gushing and pooling into a dip in the earth that he stops, casually resting a hand on Felix's shoulder to stop him, too.
"Here it is," he announces.
"It's…very high up," Felix says uncertainly, remembering what Peter said about racing him down the drop. Peter grins at him, that grin that seems to come so naturally to him. Felix looks at it, puzzled, and a little jealous. He wishes he could smile like that, without even thinking about it.
He thinks of his mouth tugging at the sides this morning when he went outside to pick apples. Maybe he can.
Maybe Peter's grin is contagious.
"Are you scared?"
"No," Felix says at once. "Of course not."
"Good," Peter says. He slides his hand across Felix's back, leading him towards the rocky path leading to the top of the falls. Felix swallows past a nervous lump in his throat as he gets a closer look at the falls. The rocks close to it are wet and covered in fine moss, slippery to touch. The water is merciless, and its spray is cold as Winter. He doesn't want to slide down it, not really. But Peter wants him to do it.
He breathes in slow, because it helps him to calm down. It's the one thing that Madam taught him that he likes to think about: how to calm down. Sometimes, after Sir has hit him harder than he means to, and Madam has told Felix that he didn't mean it and to stop screaming or else the neighbours might start to talk, Madam sits with Felix. She puts her hand on his back, and she tells him to breathe slow, in, out, in, out. It's easy, she says, just liking counting to ten. It takes a while, but it works.
Peter's hand is still around his shoulder, and he feels like he's back at the apple farm- but not really. Peter's hand is warmer than Madam's, and he feels it through his shirt. Peter's hand is soft, not scarred by callouses like Madam's hand. Peter doesn't have his hand on his back because he is trying to stop Felix from attracting unwanted attention from the neighbours and he doesn't want to get the authorities involved. Peter has his hand on Felix's shoulder because he is helping him climb the Neverfalls. It's strange, but it's true, and that makes it even stranger. But it's a good strange. It's a strange that Felix can get used to.
Just as he thinks it, the weight of Peter's hand is gone from his shoulder; Peter is using it to brace himself against the rock surface, and Felix needs both his hands, too, to keep himself steady. Still, he doesn't think he has ever felt the absence of a touch more than he does now. It's like that hand has left a stamp on his back, a brand boiling hot so that it is seared into his skin- a space that's for Peter's hand, and his hand only. No bigger, no smaller. He wonders if Peter realises that his hand has left a mark on him. He wonders if he meant to. He wonders if it even means anything at all. Then his hand lands on a wobbly rock, and he is left flailing, supported momentarily by his right arm only, and, as he swipes at another rock with his left, he wonders instead why he's so clumsy. His hand finds a steady rock to grab onto, and Peter's hand lands over his, securing his grip. He looks sideways, and Peter is there, eyes fixed on Felix.
"Are you alright to keep going?" he asks, and he's not worried- but nor is he annoyed at Felix for slipping, and that's another first.
He nods. "I can make it." Peter grins and mutters something about being a good sport, but Felix doesn't quite hear it. As soon as he nodded, Peter's hand was gone, and the other boy was climbing onwards and upwards, having left another invisible mark on Felix.
Felix catches his breath for just one more second, looking up after him. He thinks about scars.
One touch, one moment of contact, and that's all it takes. One prick on an old nail, one tumble off a horse onto gravel ground, one swing of a rusted axe early in the morning when you're drunk. He hates them. He hates each and every scar on his body, and he has a few- some that no one else can see, and one that everyone can. But maybe there are different kinds of scars. Scars that are more like the ones that lie in those places that nobody ever sees. Invisible scars, not from scrapes or falls, but from a hand on your hand, stopping you from falling.
Felix hates scars. They're ugly and they're rude and they don't let you forget.
But there are some scars, he thinks, the scars that come from touches.
There are some scars that he doesn't mind at all.
They reach the top of the waterfall at last, and Peter Pan doesn't even look a little bit tired. Felix muffles a yawn with his fist, swinging his aching arms by his sides. Peter, already restless, bounds over to the very peak of the Neverfalls, gesturing proudly down at the fall. And oh, what a fall it is. Impossibly steep, with white water flowing down, fierce and loud. It will swallow Felix whole.
"It's something, isn't it?" Peter remarks.
Felix doesn't say anything. His palms are already sweaty from the climb, and, now that he's standing still, he realises that there is a chill in the night.
"You don't want to go down the falls, do you?" Peter guesses, his eyebrows going up. They do that a lot, Felix notices. He likes noticing habits; although mostly, he does it from a distance.
"I- not particularly," he says shamefully. Peter frowns at him, but not the kind of frowning he sees at the apple farm. This is a curious kind of frowning; a frowning that is trying to figure him out.
"You don't talk very much," Peter says. "Do you know that? And you're jumpy."
"Sorry." Felix doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't talk much, no. He's not really the chatty type. Words, he learnt quickly, are meaningful. Words have power. Felix doesn't have any power, and he doesn't think it would be wise to claim any. He's jumpy, too, he supposes. It's a habit that keeps him safer in the Enchanted Forest, and it's a habit that follows him to Neverland.
"Don't apologise," Peter says. "Apologies are boring and unnecessary."
"Yes."
Peter looks pleased at that. "That's it? No arguing? Well, I suppose I can deal with that." He steps back from the Neverfalls and turns to Felix. "It'll be fun, you know," he says quietly, directing Felix's eyes down to the rushing water. "An adventure. Besides, you climbed all the way up here." Suddenly, and Felix doesn't have a clue how, Peter is behind him, and he's got both his hands on Felix's forearms, pushing him gently but firmly closer to the edge. Felix flinches, closing his eyes as he gets closer- he thinks Peter is going to throw him straight in. But he stops, leaving his fingers around Felix's arms, and he just keeps talking, right in Felix's ear. "I promise you'll be safe. You won't get hurt. Just do it, Felix. Don't you want to take a leap? Don't you want to be free?"
Felix glances, not at the cascade, but at the horizon. In god-knows-how-long, the sun will begin to rise in Neverland, and in the Enchanted Forest. In god-knows-how-long, he will be waking up on the floor with a bruised back, and trees empty of apples to eat, and Madam and Sir, eager to test their newly crafted weaponry on a subject that won't dare make a peep.
He wants to be free of it.
He so wants to be free of it.
"That's it, Felix," Peter says, like he can tell what he is thinking. Maybe he can. Felix closes his eyes and nods once. Peter guides him just an inch closer to the tip of the Neverfalls. He lets go, and stands beside Felix instead. "On my count," he says. "Three, two," Felix loosens his arms and stares determinedly at the horizon. "One." He shuffles forward. His feet connect with air. He falls.
Felix hears a whoop of laughter as he hits the water, and before he knows it, he is laughing, too. The fall is exhilarating- being weightless, even for the shortest of times, feels surreal, and it makes Felix giddy with the most bizarre brand of happiness. His skin where the water sprays it feels like fire, before the burn. He is rushing down, faster and faster, and it's like his insides are falling with him. He peers over to Peter. The water is billowing up around him to make room, and it's hard to tell whether he's in front of him or behind him.
Maybe Felix will win.
That's got to be the first time he's ever thought that. His mouth spreads to show his teeth, a grin just like Peter's, and he pushes down with his hands, helping himself along the way. Peter catches his eye and gives him a look, a look that tells him that Peter understands what he's trying to do, and he intends on winning. Felix leans back and he speeds up considerably, hurtling down towards the big drop- the sheet of water that hangs between him and the lake below. In his head, he counts it down, bracing himself. His nerves are tickling, and in a way, he can't wait for the final fall.
Five. Four. Three. Two.
The slippery surface that had been beneath him is gone. He falls. He falls quickly. His feet hit the water, and his body crumbles after.
Felix splutters, circling his arms and legs in the water repeatedly to keep himself afloat in the lake. His heart his positively shaking in his chest, stuttering from the thrill of the fall. There's water in his nose and soaking his hair, and drops cling to his eyelashes so that when he blinks, they obscure his vision. It takes him a minute to get his bearings.
He hasn't had a lot of experience with water, so he starts to flap his arms about, trying to propel himself to the rocks that surround him. He glances from side to side, but he sees no sign of Peter.
Before he has time to search any further, a small wave splashes him quite directly in the face, making him scrunch his eyes shut to keep out the water. He coughs, and he hears Peter's laugh, loud and pleasant. The boy is in front of him, clearly not as bothered by the water as Felix is. His eyes are bright.
"We'll call it a tie, then," he says. "And I'm being generous."
"That was," Felix says. "That was-" he can't quite finish.
"Fun?" Peter suggests. His smile fades a bit. "You aren't used to having fun, are you? Are all kids like this, where you come from?"
"Like this?" Felix feels the euphoria that has taken over him since he jumped washing away, gently letting him go.
"You know," Peter says. "So…not like a child."
Felix closes his mouth in a tight line, even though he knows that it makes his scar stick out even more. He feels Peter's eyes on him, and now there's no mistaking that he's looking at his scar. He holds his breath, waiting for the questions- or for Peter to simply back away from him in silence. But then Peter looks down, and instead he is considering the new blotches on Felix's hands and arms from Madam's weapons.
"Those are new," Peter comments. "Did you get into a fight?"
Felix doesn't say anything.
"Did you win?" He sighs when Felix is quiet still. "Come on, let's get you out of here, then. You clearly don't know how to swim." Felix just nods, feeling another, ineffable jolt as Peter Pan guides him to the rocks. He lets Felix get up first before he easily pulls himself up, shaking off the water that's trapped in his sleeves. Felix copies him, and he's astounded by the sheer amount of water that he discovers is clinging to his clothes.
"You keep looking at the sky," Peter observes. "You don't want to wake up again, do you?"
"Not particularly," Felix admits. "That's why I'm here, isn't it? Because I dreamed about somewhere better."
"Indeed," Peter purses his lips. "I don't see why you can't simply stay asleep. How hard can it be?"
"You don't sleep," Felix says, a little offended. "How would you know?"
"You'll quickly learn there's little I don't know, Felix." He's smug. When you live on an island where you are the King, you can afford to be.
"Peter," Felix begins.
"Pan, please."
"Pan," Felix says. "Can we- that is, the sun is coming up, and…" he sucks in his breath. "Can we go down the waterfall again?"
The grin that splits across Peter's face now incites one on Felix's own.
Peter claps his hand on Felix's back, and he swears it is in the exact same spot as before, like it fits there naturally. They climb the rocks again, and this time, it's easier to get up. Felix knows which stones to trust, and which will crumble under his feet. This time, he doesn't look at the horizon when he jumps. He faces the cascade, and he is not afraid.
Felix passes the days chewing his lip and tapping his foot. He wakes up earlier than usual, and he tends to the apple trees before Sir and Madam start barking commands. Madam seems actually pleased that he's working harder, and Sir is distracted by his visiting brothers over the next week or so. His burns heal, and no new ones are inflicted. It won't last, of course, he knows that. But right now, this is enough. Enough to make him feel invincible, like he's finally won. Like everything is better than okay. It really is. Every night, he gets to ride waterfalls and climb high into the stars. Every night, he gets to swim in restless oceans and race along stretches of yellow sand. Every night, he gets to see Peter Pan and play, just like the other boys. Of course he is better than okay.
"There are mermaids here, you know," Peter says, and Felix frowns, because he's heard that word before, he has. He just doesn't quite know what it means.
"What is a mermaid?"
Peter grins. "I can show you, Felix. But I must warn you- they're not always the friendliest of creatures."
"I'm not scared," he replies, because he's not. He's scared at the farm. He's scared in the Enchanted Forest. But Neverland isn't scary to him; not anymore. Peter is pleased, and so Felix is pleased as well.
"This way, then," Peter says, and he is off, headed towards the rocks that lie between the ocean and the sand. Felix doesn't mind the salty spray of the waves that reach for him as they get closer. It's a nice feeling; it reminds him that the island is alive, too, the flow of the waves like a heartbeat, pulsing steady as time passes.
"Do the mermaids live in the water?" he asks.
"What kind of question is that?" Peter says. "Of course they do. You do know what a mermaid is, Felix?"
"Of course," he hesitates. "Vaguely."
Peter chuckles, but he elaborates nonetheless without a mocking word. "Half human, half fish. They breathe air, but don't a lot of it- the lucky creatures."
"They're infamously beautiful," Felix adds what he remembers. "That's what I've heard of them, anyway. Are they beautiful?"
"Beautiful?" Peter snorts. "They'll beautifully drown you if you aren't careful. They feast on human flesh on occasion, you know."
"They sound delightful," Felix says, masking his alarm. Peter throws a glance over his shoulder at him and flicks an eyebrow up, like he's waiting for Felix to ask to go back. But he just lifts an eyebrow back at him, and Peter shrugs, grinning as he turns back around and raises his voice, like he's addressing a whole crowd. Really, it is just Felix.
"We're to stand on that boulder- the tall one near the sea. The mermaids will come when I call them. But Felix, it's best not to stand too close to the edge." There's a challenge in his voice. But then, there rarely isn't.
"If you say so," he says. "Pan." He hasn't forgotten what Peter asked him to call him. He doesn't know why, exactly. But he does it, nonetheless.
Peter's sigh carries in the breeze. "I could get used to that," he says. "Obedience." He grins. "You're rather a loyal subject. What do you say, Felix? Will you be my second in command?"
"That sounds…good," he admits, shuffling forwards in the sand. Peter's reached the rocks already, and is manoeuvring himself through them expertly; jumping from rock to rock light on his feet. He makes it look easy. Felix draws himself up carefully, and he leaps across to his first rock. It is unsteady under his bare feet and he bites his lip as the skin under his foot splits, blood leaking into the stone. He crouches and uses his hands to help him travel from one rock to another. Peter folds his arms when he sees what's holding Felix up.
"Come on, Felix," he says. "It's easy. Just jump."
"I tried that. I'm not as good as you." He flushes. Peter smiles, but he starts to make his way back towards Felix, skipping over the stones until he lands beside him, hand held out.
"Come on, then," he says. "Do it with me."
Felix eyes his hand, swallowing hard. He draws himself to his feet, ignoring it when his feet sting and bleed some more. But Peter doesn't. He frowns when he spots the dark red on the rocks.
"I say, you are always injured," he remarks. "Do you do it on purpose?"
"No," he says gruffly. He reaches out for Peter's hand, and the other boy grasps it firmly, all-business.
"Right," he says. "Now, on my count. We're going to jump to that rock."
"Right."
Peter counts them down from five. Felix tries; he makes sure his feet leave the ground as Peter says 'one'. But, while Peter Pan lands gracefully on the tips of his toes, Felix only barely makes it, stumbling for balance.
"I can't do this," he says grumpily, but Peter shakes his head.
"Rubbish. This is Neverland, you can do anything."
"Neverland or not, I still can't balance," Felix points out. But Peter is unconvinced.
"Again. Ready?"
He counts. They jump. Felix has to lean on Peter to stay standing. But he's made it. He lets out a single, disbelieving laugh. He's made it.
"Again."
Peter doesn't give him time to celebrate. Not until they reach the boulder.
And they do.
By the time they get there, Felix and Peter are jumping in time, and Felix doesn't even have to stop when he lands. He's nowhere near as elegant as Peter is, but he's starting to think that nobody can be. He doesn't mind.
The boulder is black, and if Felix's feet are still bleeding, the rock won't show it. Truthfully, he can't feel the cuts anymore. The sudden pressure of landing and jumping, it numbed the soles of his feet. Peter isn't holding his hand anymore. His hands are on his hips and he's looking at Felix, a smirk playing at his lips.
"Told you," he says.
"You did," Felix agrees. He knows he's smiling back- he knows what smiling is like, now. Peter eyes it, as though noticing it for the first time. Maybe this is the first time he's really seen it. Then, after a moment, he's squinting out into the ocean instead. It's shimmering under the stars, but the moon is not at its brightest and it's hard to see.
"Where are you then?" he ponders aloud. "Come on, then. I've brought you somebody new. Felix- a boy visiting in his dreams. Don't be rude, now. Say hello."
The water is still, and if he were here with anybody but Peter Pan, Felix would say that it was because there were no mermaids in the ocean- that they weren't coming.
But it is Peter Pan, and so Felix waits, staring into the water in expectation.
Sure enough, it begins to ripple, and the splashes of tails shower Felix's skin with beads of water from the side of the boulder. He leans over the edge just a little, and he is simultaneously, instantaneously, haunted by what he sees there.
A girl.
Such a beautiful girl. She has long hair that is stuck to her back, and bright, bright eyes. She is smiling at him. She is reaching towards him, pale arm catching the light of the stars, and there are webs between her fingers. Behind her, he sees a coiled tail, swaying from side to side. He catches his breath.
"Look around you, Felix," Peter says proudly, and he does, starting as he realises that the girl who smiled at him is not the only mermaid here. He spins around, counting. There are seven mermaids lining the boulder, each reaching towards he and Peter like they were gods. The mermaids, of course, where angels. Stunning and pure, and-
"Careful," Peter warns, and he feels a spark of something foreign go through him as he realises that Peter has his arm hooked around his middle, holding him away from the very edge of the boulder. "Well, Felix. What do you think of them?"
"They're… they're…" he can't quite find the words.
"Hello there," the first mermaid, the one with the brightest eyes, purrs. "What is your name, new boy?"
"I'm Felix," he says. The girl smiles and repeats his name, voice like honey.
"I like you, Felix," she says. "Don't we like him?"
The other mermaids chorus their agreement, and the water around them ripples as their tails move.
"You've brought us a treat, Pan," a frizzy-haired mermaid says, and her fingers lock around Felix's ankle.
He doesn't mind. He's feeling awfully giddy. In fact, he's got half a mind to jump into the water with the mermaids. Surely they'd be so much fun to swim with.
"Now, now," Peter says, "This one is mine."
"Everyone is yours," another pouts. "We just want to have a little fun."
"Scar!" He can hear it. Somewhere, he can hear it. Madam calling him. He hears the clang of metal, hears Sir, yelling.
"You, boy- get over here. Get over here, and don't you make a sound."
He flinches and he blinks. He sees the mermaids, fingers laced around his foot. He sees the sea around them. It's not nearly so calm anymore.
"You're… you're all so beautiful," he mumbles.
Then he blinks again, and he sees something else.
A woman. A woman in the water, just past the mermaids. A woman with sown eyes and a grubby dress, mouth opening, wailing. Wailing for him. His name, and only his name.
"Felix! You have to save me, Felix. My son. I'm sorry. Save me, Felix. You're the only one who can."
"Mother?" He's bewildered. She can't be here. How can she be here?
He pushes it from his mind. It doesn't matter how. He has to save her. He has to.
And she is drowning.
He starts towards her, crying out- and then he growls. He meets resistance. There's something around his torso, pulling him back, pulling him away from her. She fights it, struggling with all he has. He can hear muttering, singing, the mermaids around him. Suddenly, he feels the fingers around his ankle slip away. Then he hears something, something right in his ear.
"It's not real, Felix. Wake up. Wake up."
He knows that voice, he does. But he cannot for the life of him put a name to it. He strains against his bonds, because- well, he must. He must save his mother. He must go to her. She's said she's sorry. All he has to do is save her. Then they can be together. Be a family.
He hears an angry murmur in his ear, and then he is spinning- spinning awfully fast-
He blinks.
The mermaids are gone, as is the water. He's no longer standing on a boulder, but instead, his feet touch sand. There's still that restraint around his middle, pulling him back from his mother. But he cannot see her anymore.
Panting, he whirls around, and he sees Peter- sees that it was his arm, wrapped around him, stopping him from saving her.
"Why did you do that?" he says, raw and furious and unable to contain it. "Why did you stop me? She said she was sorry! I could've saved her! I could've-"
"Felix," Peter cuts across him. "That was not your mother."
"You don't know that," he blurts out, and he knows by now he's started to cry. "You can't know that. You didn't let me try."
"She wasn't real," Peter says clearly. "Felix, the mermaids played a trick on you. Do you remember what I told you? About how they would drown you if presented with an opportunity?"
Felix nods, trying to listen- trying to hear him because it sounds like he's saying that it isn't his fault that his mother drowned, and he wants to believe that.
"Well, even though they weren't exactly presented with an opportunity, they decided to give it a go anyway," Peter says with distaste. "They made you hallucinate- see things that aren't really there. Hear things that aren't being said. It was all just to get you in the water, Felix. It was all so they could drown you. None of it was real."
Felix shakes his head, over and over. He shakes his whole body. He is kneeling in the sand, now, and he is sinking into it. He closes his eyes, and tries to control his breathing. In, out. In, out. It doesn't sound hard. But when you've heard the voice of a mother you only remember in your dreams begging you to save her, it becomes almost impossible. Peter stays standing. He's panting too. Maybe the magic he used to transport himself and Felix back to the beach had taken its toll on him.
"Why… would they do that?" he says hoarsely.
The ghost of a smile touches Peter's lips. "They're bored," he says. "I suppose I was the last newcomer they encountered on this island- they were here when I arrived."
"Did they do it to you, too?" He says hollowly. "Did they… make you see things?"
"I don't remember," Peter shrugs. His expression softens. "That's all it was, Felix. Just seeing things."
"I know," he says stiffly. "I know."
She said she was sorry. He'd never dared to think of that before. Never dared even dream that she might come to him and tell him that she was sorry, that she'd made a mistake. That she would take him back.
"Your mother is a Seer," Peter says.
Felix just nods.
"That means you have magic in your blood, Felix," he continues. "Magic. Like me. You can learn how to use it to protect yourself, you know. Against the mermaids magic. Against forces back in your world."
Felix grimaces. "I don't have magic. I'm nothing like you, Pan."
"Nonsense," Peter says. "You're magic alright. And we'll work on you being more like me." He grins.
I'm sorry.
Save me.
"The mermaids were beautiful," Felix says numbly. "If I had drowned, they really would have drowned me… beautifully."
What was a more beautiful death than saving your mother from drowning? Dying believing that you could be forgiven, that you could have a family that didn't call you 'Scar' after a wound they gave you?
"I shouldn't have shown them to you," Peter says, a dark undertone to his voice. "Not until you've had proper training. I thought they would play nice."
"It's okay," Felix clears his throat. "I mean, I'm glad I saw them." He hesitates. "What do you mean, 'proper training'?"
"Well," Peter says reasonably, "if you're to be my second in command, you'll need to have certain skills. Knowledge about the island, and so on. That is, if you still want to be my second in command?"
"I do," he says, smiling as best as he can. He's being offered a position- as a trusted confidant, as an ally. Someone who can be relied upon. Of course he wants that.
"Good," Peter says. "Of course, you'll have to stay in Neverland, in order to truly fulfil the role."
Felix catches his breath. Peter says it in all seriousness, like it's a real and possible plan. But of course, it isn't. It can't be.
"I wish I could," he says dully. "You know I can't sleep forever. I don't even know if I'm really here. I know my body isn't- I get cuts here and I wake up without them."
"Yet you're still here," Peter muses. He steps forward and glances at his foot. "And you can bleed." "And you can feel." He traces a single finger down Felix's arm, watching with a kind of fascination as he shivers in response- although Felix is sure that Peter doesn't truly know why. He's not even sure he knows why himself. Peter steps back, having proven his point. "So why not? Why can't you stay here?"
Felix thinks about it every minute of the day once his eyes betray him and open, tearing him away from Neverland. Why can't he stay asleep? Peter Pan doesn't sleep. Why must Felix?
Somehow, already, it seems he is cheating sleep. He spends his nights as awake and alive as he has ever been. He thinks about what Peter said, about his mother being a Seer. About what that must mean for Felix. But he has never been powerful or magic before.
Still, he needs a way. He needs to get away from here, he realises that now. He realises that maybe it isn't his fault he isn't more like Peter Pan, or the other children in the Enchanted Forest. He realises that maybe it is because he has a Madam and Sir instead of a Mother and Father. Because of the scar on his face.
He still remembers it vividly on occasion. The slashing noise, the heat of blood on his face, that feeling like he was ripping in half and everything inside him was spilling from the wound. He remembers Sir's curses and Madam yelling at Sir, something about King Julian, something about the Millers next door. Something about how people would find out.
He was young when it happened, so he doesn't recall much else. Sometimes, when they talk about his Scar, he pretends that he doesn't remember where it came from. They seem to believe him- maybe because they want to. But he knows the truth. He knows that it was Sir and his dagger, before the sun rose and after the moon was gone from the sky, with an array of empty glass bottles littering the floor around him. Felix had asked about his real mother. His scar was the only response he had received.
"Scar," Sir calls now, and Felix starts, hands flying to the cart. He's supposed to be washing the apples- individually and by hand, sorting them from one cart to the next. His mind has been somewhere else. "Have you quite finished, mutt?"
"Almost, Sir," he replies, keeping his head down. Sir clears his throat with contempt.
"Look at me when you're talking to me, boy," he says. Felix stifles a sigh, but he lowers his hood, dropping it onto his shoulders. He looks at Sir, right at his eyes. "I hear you've been terrorising the Millers' kids. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"The- Jonathan and Rebecca?"
Sir narrows his eyes. "Now how do you know their names?"
"I've heard people call them that," he mumbles, fighting the urge to pull up his hood, to hide behind it as best as he can. "I haven't been terrorising them, Sir."
"That's not what Mrs Miller tells me," Sir goes on. "She says you've been lurking close to the woods deliberately."
Felix shakes his head. "I have to go near the woods to pick apples, Sir, but I-"
"What do I say," Sir interrupts, "what do Madam and I always say, about drawing attention to yourself? Bloody Scar-Face. You're not normal- you realise that? You realise you make people uncomfortable?"
"Yes, Sir." He is numb. He wants to be numb. He knows what's coming next.
"Well, you know I can't just take your word for it," Sir says. "You know I need to teach you a lesson." He grabs Felix's hood, yanking him backwards by the fabric, and Felix lets him, knowing it will be worse if he fights. Sir leads him into the shed.
Felix closes his eyes.
Felix doesn't get back to his space on the floor until late tonight, and when he does, he is too sore to lie down. He tries to lean against a stack of hay so it's supporting his back- but the bruises along his spine throb and he bites back a scream in frustration.
It hurts. It always hurts so much.
He just wants to get to Neverland. He just wants to be somewhere where this isn't all he has to look forward to tomorrow.
He closes his eyes. He tries to ignore the pain.
Minutes turn to hours.
The sun begins to rise.
Felix is still caught in the land between asleep and awake, aching and throbbing and stinging jolting him between the two. His eyelids are heavy. Soon Sir and Madam will come to wake him up.
Soon-
"Where were you?" he hears an annoyed voice say, and he blinks.
He doesn't remember closing his eyes. In fact, he knows for a fact that he wasn't quite asleep yet. But somehow, here he is, lying in cool sand that soothes his bruises, with Peter Pan kneeling beside him, squinting at him. "Come on, get up." He takes his hand, dragging upwards, and Felix feels a shoot of intense pain shoot up his arm. He groans, staggering backwards and landing on his bruised leg.
"What the hell happened to you?" Peter says, and there's no mistaking the horror in his voice. Felix glances down self-consciously. He hasn't had the chance to look at himself properly since Sir took him to the shed, but he knows he can't be a pleasant sight. Judging by the way Peter is staring at him like he's something truly awful, he's fairly sure his wounds may well be as ugly as they feel.
"I… it's supposed to teach me a lesson," he says uselessly. "How…how did I get here?" he glances around. Even here, the sun is rising.
"You were almost here, but not quite," Peter says distractedly. "Like a shadow. I pulled it until you showed up. Felix, you can't go back to the Enchanted Forest."
Felix looks at Peter Pan then, really looks at him. His eyes are wide, and he's wearing the same green clothes, and he's talking like he's made up his mind- Felix is going to stay in Neverland and that's that, just because he says so.
Felix starts to laugh. He laughs so hard tears nag at the corners of his eyes, and Peter, oblivious, starts to grin in response.
"What's so funny?"
"You," Felix says. "You- really think it's that easy, don't you? You think I can just decide to stay here."
"Why can't you?" Peter says, not understanding.
"Because," Felix says, "I have to wake up, just like I have to sleep. Because I'm not magic, I'm human."
"Oh, but you're not," Peter says. "They don't treat you like a human, Felix. And we become what people tell us we are."
"Then I've become a feral dog," he snaps.
"You're free," Peter says, eyes glinting. "I'm telling you that you're free, so it must be true."
"It doesn't work like that," Felix blurts out. "Not in the Enchanted Forest. You wouldn't understand. You live in a world where everything you want just… but I don't. And I… I have to stop this," he realises, a sense of wordless terror coming over him. "I can't just pretend I don't live there. I can't just spend every day waiting for night."
"What exactly are you saying?" Peter asks, mouth set in a tight line.
"I don't live here," Felix shakes his head. "I'm not like you. I can't pretend I am. I can't come here and climb waterfalls. It's not real. But this is," he gestures at his bruised leg. "I need to remember that. I… need to stop dreaming of Neverland."
Peter draws in a breath sharply, folding his arms across his chest.
"Well, that's a rather dramatic conclusion you've reached," he says coldly. "What makes you think you can do that, anyway? You don't believe that you can stay here, what makes you think you can control your dreams? You can't stay awake forever."
"If you have a way," Felix says desperately, "if you know a real, proper way for me to come here and really stay here, don't think for a second that I will not take it." He glances at the sun, glaring down at them. "But I can't do this. I can't."
Peter watches him, expression unreadable.
"There's always a way," he says at last. "We will find it in time."
"Time," Felix echoes. He sniffs, pulling at his sleeves. "Time is no friend of mine, Peter Pan." He gestures to the rising sun as proof.
"You're not very optimistic," Peter tells him. Felix drops his eyes to the sand.
"So you don't know a way."
"Of course I know a way," Peter says at once, but Felix knows it's only his pride talking.
"It's been… nice," he croaks. "Meeting you. Meeting Neverland."
"Don't say all that rubbish," Peter snaps. "That's the sort of thing grown ups say instead of good-bye."
"Goodbye, then," Felix says, and he means it. His heart aches for Neverland, aches to stay. But he can't stay forever. So he shouldn't stay at all. Shouldn't torture himself like this.
He feels this dream he's in slipping away from him, and he looks at his hands and feet, unsurprised as they begin to melt away before his eyes.
He waits for Peter to say goodbye. He doesn't.
The boy on the beach doesn't say a single thing as Felix fades away, into his own reality. Into his apple farm, where he's bruised and battered and whispers follow him through the streets.
Felix doesn't see him again the following night, or the next.
He counts the days, marking them off, a reward for all the nights he spends fighting with himself, wanting to go back there but knowing it would be nought but a distraction- and he can't live like that.
He counts one hundred days. Then one hundred and ten. He keeps counting and counting, and eventually, he starts to really believe it:
That he will never dream of Peter Pan again.
In a way, he is right.
But in another, he could not be more wrong.
Felix is taller than he was when he met Peter Pan. So tall he has to bow his head and crouch when he goes to the apple trees, avoiding the branches that hang precariously close to his head. Jonathan and Rebecca and David are taller as well, so they crouch too as they spy on him. They have well-formed theories about his scar now. He amuses himself a little as he overhears them.
Rebecca thinks that he was born with it- that he was so ugly that even the Seers, scarred and ugly as they are, were disgusted, hence they cast him out.
Jonathan and David agree that it is most likely the result of a bloody fight in which Felix killed his own father. The scar, they say, is all he has left of his biological parent.
He wonders what they would say if he told them the truth.
He spies some good apples lining the very top of the tree and sighs. Madam will notice if he misses even one of them. Still, he's not half bad at climbing now. He lodges his foot into a intersection between branches and hoists himself into the tree, straining on his toes to reach the apples. He collects them in his shirt, creating a make-shift bag of it. It makes it harder to climb higher up, but he likes it up here. It lets him forget about the farm below. Here up in this tree, he can pretend-
But it was no good to remind himself of that, so he pushes it far from his mind, furrowing his brow in concentration as he searches for more apples.
Then he feels something snake around his foot. His eyes widen and he glances down, ready to fend off whatever animal has a hold of him-
But what he sees is not coated in scales or fur. It is a human hand, pale and small. Not a grown ups hand. His heart leaps, and it's against all probability, all reason, but he says it anyway.
"Pan?"
He hears a boy's laugh, and he's breathing hard, unable to believe it-
"Got him!" he hears, and the boy tugs at his foot. Caught off-guard, Felix slips backwards, falling messily to the ground and banging his elbows against the trunk of the tree as he does- the apples in his shirt fly everywhere. He hears another laugh then, a girl's, and, with a sinking sensation, he realises whose hand it was.
He blinks, body throbbing from the impact of the fall, and Jonathan is above him, a triumphant grin on his face. Beside him, Rebecca has her hand over her mouth. David has one arm around her- and another around a second girl, one who looks vaguely familiar.
"We got him," the strange girl whispers. "Are you going to do it now?"
"David, give us a hand, would you?" Jonathan says. Felix is too dazed to struggle as the two boys pick him up off the ground and pull his hands behind his back. He feels rope slide against skin, and he flinches as they tie his wrists together, just a little too tight.
"What are you doing?" he croaks, and the girl steps back from him, as though it comes as a shock that he can talk. Perhaps they meant to render him unconscious.
"Shut up," Rebecca commands, and David flashes her an approving look. She's being brave. She's putting the beast in his place.
With a last tug, Jonathan takes hold of the end of the rope that's tied to Felix, and he starts walking.
"Come on, Scar-Face," he says, and the others laugh, if a little nervously. Felix's muscles ache as he stumbles forward, following them deeper into the woods than he's been allowed to venture before. He doesn't see why. Looking around, he sees that it's dark here. Dark and empty. Surely this would be the ideal place for someone like him to spend his time?
Jonathan stops at a particularly large tree trunk. Its branches have all fallen off, but the trunk itself is still there, sturdy and thick. He tugs at Felix's rope, and his wrists burn. Then he starts to wrap the rest of the rope around the tree.
Nerves take hold of Felix, and he finally finds he is able to control his movements. He starts to run-
David trips him, and Jonathan yanks hard on the ropes binding him. Rebecca shoves his spine until he is facing the tree, and he is pressed flush against it. He winces as splinters sink themselves into his skin, and he struggles, trying at least to throw them off him. It's frustrating and it's frightening that he can't seem to make a single one of them budge.
The new girl is watching from a distance, eyes wide as Felix meets her stare. He looks at her, pleadingly. Surely she can see that he doesn't mean them any harm; surely she can see that he's scared and hurt. She opens his mouth, and hope hammers through his veins because maybe, he thinks, today is the day that somebody finally asks him how he is, or what his name is, or tells everyone to stop.
But,
"He's looking at me," is all she says. He hangs his head against the tree, closing his eyes. Of course. Of course.
"Don't worry, Katherine," Jonathan says. "He won't be able to when we're through with him."
"I can't believe we're doing this," he hears Rebecca's voice from behind him. It reeks of excitement.
"It's about time somebody did," Jonathan replies. "Vigilantly justice. All in the name of King Julian, of course."
"We're doing our Kingdom a favour," David adds. Jonathan finishes tying the rope, and Felix is trapped- trapped against this tree with his hands behind his back. "What will we charge him with, then?"
"Hmmm," Rebecca says. "I'd say ten lashes to begin with."
The group murmurs their agreement, and Felix scrunches his eyes closed. This is happening. This is really happening.
"Please," he says weakly. "Please, don't."
"Maybe we won't," Jonathan says. "If you promise not to turn us into toads in our sleep."
"I don't have magic, Jonathan," he says. There's silence then.
"How do you know my name?" the boy's voice is trembling.
"I- I've heard it-"
"He's got dark magic," Jonathan announces before he can say another word. "That's how! And who knows what else he knows? David, now. Before he tries to curse the whole Kingdom."
"I'm not going to curse anyone-" he is cut off by a terrible scream, and it is only moments later that he realises it is his own. The kind of pain that stings and stings until you think that surely it must fade away but it doesn't is searing through his back, and the only relief is warm and trickling down his spine.
"He even screams like a beast," Rebecca says, and there it is again- the sudden and remorseless flick of a whip, and he screams again.
"Stop," he begs them, even though he knows they will not listen. "It hurts-"
"Did I say you could talk?"
The whip breaks across him again, and all he sees is bright white. He grinds his teeth together. A thought crosses his mind, now:
What if this is it? There's only so much a person can take before dying, and he is bleeding heavily and the pain is so great- surely he'll soon pass out. And after that, how long will it take before he bleeds out? How long before he dies?
It'll be over when he dies. It'll all be over. He closes his eyes, and waits for the next lash.
He hears screaming, and he supposes it must be his own again.
But then he frowns. Because it isn't. It's Jonathan, crying out in absolute terror.
"What is that?" he hears Rebecca scream, and then someone else says "Run!" and he hears footsteps, running, running, running away. From what?
He hears the crash of a body hitting dry leaves on the earth, and the screaming stops.
He twists in his ropes, peering over his shoulder, unsure of whether or not he is hallucinating. Everything is hazy; he sees two tree trunks where he is sure there's only one, and he sees three Jonathan's, lying on the ground, unmoving.
Hovering over him, he sees three of something else. Three shadows- the exact shape of a person, but unattached to one. It is gliding towards him, a wispy arm outstretched.
He's hallucinating, he decides.
Or is he already dead?
He goes limp against the tree, closing his eyes. The last thing he sees is the shadow coming closer.
He wakes up to pain. Then heat. Then pain. Heat again.
He groans, instinctively going to roll over-
"Don't move."
He freezes, in every way that a person can possibly freeze. It's like his mind shuts down with his body, unable to comprehend what he is hearing.
That voice. The voice from his dreams. The voice he stopped listening to one hundred and ten days ago.
"Pan?" it's barely audible.
"The one and only," is the cheerful response, and Felix darts up again, stopping only when pain shoots up his back. "Didn't I tell you to stay still? You're not healed yet."
"Healed?" He pants, glancing about. He's lying on a bed of moss, surrounded by trees. He hears birds in the trees- the kind of birds they didn't have in the Enchanted Forest.
Peter's hand is hovering inches over Felix's bare back. "My magic should speed things up- but these lashes are deep. Healing them completely isn't exactly going to be easy."
"What happened? I don't understand," Felix trips over his words. "Am I dreaming? How am I here?"
"Speaking of things that aren't easy," Peter says, an edge to his voice, "given that you refused to visit anymore, I had to go about finding a way to bring you to Neverland myself. Of course, I would've gone to find you if I could- but I haven't left the island, and I can't say I'd know how to find my way back." He pauses for effect. "Then I realised- I didn't have to go myself. My Shadow could do it for me."
"Your Shadow?" Felix remembers, then- the dark shape that moved towards him as he bled against the trunk of that tree. He remembers the whips bearing down upon him.
"All I had to do was rip my Shadow off," Peter says, as though it's a routine, everyday procedure. Felix gapes at him. "Then I sent him to the Enchanted Forest. It took a while to find you- of course, it would've been a lot easier if you would just dream of Neverland." He glares at Felix.
"I- sorry," he says.
"Anyway, it seems as though it arrived right on time." He looks at Felix seriously. "You were almost killed by that group of children."
"I thought I was killed," Felix confesses. "I thought I was dead."
"No such luck," Peter almost grins, but it disappears before Felix can truly appreciate it. "You should've told me."
"Told you?"
"How you were getting your injuries everyday," Peter says. "How they were treating you. I could've killed them all."
"Killed them?"
"What do you think I had my Shadow do to those miserable fools who tied you up?" Peter says with relish.
Felix does sit up, then, even though it hurts him.
"They're dead?" He's known Jonathan and the others for as long as he can remember; from a distance, but even so. It's odd to think that he isn't there anymore. It's odd to think that he's dead- because of Felix.
"Of course they are," Peter says. "They deserved it and I was more than happy to give them what they deserved. Just as I am more than happy, Felix, to offer you permanent residence here in Neverland. If you're not going to throw an unreasonable fit this time."
"I- I can stay?" Felix says, and he does start to cry. "I can really stay? God, yes. I would love to. I love-" he stops himself, shaking his head lightly.
Peter watches him, a bemused look on his face.
"You're an odd one," he tells him. "And you cry. A lot."
"I don't."
" You do. More than I've ever cried in my life."
"I bet you've never cried," Felix says. "Look at you. You don't have anything to cry about."
"And now, neither do you," Peter replies. Felix looks at him, unable to quite believe his ears.
"You ripped your own Shadow out," he says incredulously. Peter nods, more than a little smug. "Didn't it hurt?"
"Not really," Peter boasts, but Felix doesn't believe him for a second. He can't believe it. He really can't. People have made him hurt before; he's used to that. It's what people do, they hurt each other. But Peter Pan hurt himself so he could help Felix. He hurt other people- killed them- because they had tried to kill Felix. He is on Felix's side; and that thought is as foreign as it is wonderful.
Peter is squinting at Felix's face now, taking in the scar that splits it in two. "I can heal that too, you know," he says. He reaches for Felix's face, fingers barely brushing his skin, and Felix sighs; he feels warm. He feels his skin smoothing over, healing, slowly.
The object of years of stares and laughs and fear and isolation, simply fading away under the fingertips of the boy who had already saved him from all of that.
He shakes his head gently.
"No," he says. "This one… I want to keep."
Peter stares at him, dumbfounded. "Odd," he repeats, but he's grinning now. He drops his hand to his side. "Very odd."
Then he starts talking about changes in the island. Something about the mermaids; something about an Echo Cave. Something about a mysterious picture of a boy- a Believer.
Felix just reaches his fingers to his scar, tracing over it. It feels tough and rubbery, like it doesn't belong there. But in a way, it does. It's his mark; the mark that reminds him that he isn't like everybody else. The mark that reminds him that his mother didn't want him, and Madam and Sir wanted him even less. The mark that reminds him that there's only one person who's ever looked at his face and not at his scar.
Yes, there are some scars that need to stay with you; for that is all that a scar is.
A reminder of days past.
Felix has forever to bear his scar; and forever to thank Peter Pan for it.
Hi there! Thank you for reading! Please leave a review to tell me what you think :-)