Peter Pan, of course, had an exceedingly high opinion of himself. If he were to stop and think about what perhaps might unravel him, he thought it would probably be a disastrous occasion where everything was taken from him. But, clearly, that had already happened and he had been left standing, though shaky, with his wits about him and his self-esteem relatively intact.
However, when he woke up the next morning, bright and early and ready to ride the week and a half to the illusion mansion, he felt as if he couldn't catch his breath. He had slept shallowly, half caught in dreams and memories. He had woken up multiple times in the night, speaking to shadows and ghosts, only to realize he was babbling to the walls. Babbling apologies.
He decided that he simply needed to regain control of himself and by that evening, he would forget all of this nonsense about Gavin. It was just a stupid train of thought simply brought on by exhaustion and the aftermath of the mountains. He had been a good parent to Gavin and what's more, he had most certainly not been to blame for Gavin's death. It was a ridiculous notion brought on by Wendy's sensitivities.
He effectively brushed it off that morning as he swung up onto his horse. Wendy was always quick to see the worst in him. He glanced over at her as she mounted Ash and they began down the winding road through the foothills. Yes, he assured himself, it was no mystery that she had thought that.
However, that assurance dissolved at lunch as they sat eating by a copse of trees that were bare in the wind. Summer had left this place quickly and winter warned that it was on its way. He watched her as she sat primly on a fallen tree slicing up an apple, her dark blue cloak pulled up over her head, dressed in a dark grey travelling dress. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold as she ate her slices and then offered some to both Philipe and Ash.
He realized two things watching her then. The first thing was that Wendy was not quick to see the worst in him in reality. She pestered and lectured, but she had believed ardently in his humanity ever since she had met him. There hadn't been a moment in the past hundred and ten years since he had known her when she hadn't believed in his humanity. She was quick to see the good in him, the humanity.
The second was that this was not something in which he wanted Wendy to see the worst in him. No. He wanted to be a good parent, a good father. This, for the first time in a long time, mattered very much. It made his breath catch in his throat to think that Wendy, kind and brilliant, believed, as ardently as she believed in his humanity, that he had never cared for Gavin. The reasons were there, glaring and real.
He had buried his feelings.
He had declared and believed that he cared for no one.
He had chosen Neverland over Gavin.
He swallowed. The thought was enough to constrict his chest and churn his stomach. Looking down at his lunch of bread, cheese and an apple, he heaved once before he decided to completely abandon his meal. But the nausea didn't abate then. The sickly feeling, the shortness of breath did not leave him all that day or that night when he tried and failed to sleep.
In the morning, he hoped that all this would leave him, but it didn't. He pulled himself out of bed, nightmares and memories of Gavin still twisting around him. It was harder to convince himself that he had been a good parent that day. It was even harder the next and by the third day, it was nearly impossible.
A cold, hollow feeling overtook him. It snapped him up into a rigid posture in which he was fighting all his thoughts, all his feelings, desperately trying to regain control of himself. He had spent centuries smothering his emotions. Was a train of thought, a lingering question, really going to be his downfall?
It felt that way most days.
He was only ever mildly content when he was talking with Wendy. Her soft voice and strong opinions were able to dispel some of the cold that kept his chest tight and his breaths shallow. He tried to dive deep into conversations of spells and incantations during the day and memories of Gavin and novels during the evenings, but everything always brought him back to his child.
His child who he had failed.
No.
No.
He hadn't failed Gavin. This was a ridiculous line of thought. He needed to grab hold of himself.
He had to.
He had to.
XXX
Pan was… unwell.
Wendy had seen Pan unwell before, of course. She had seen him bruised and battered, on death's door, but he had only ever been acutely unwell. Now, he seemed chronically unwell, lingering in a grey malaise that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
The tenuous peace they had formed weeks earlier remained, now transformed into a steady peace that seemed unable to lift. They discussed spells and incantations, metaphors and word choices all about illusions as they made their way to the next mansion. In the evenings, they would sip on mulled wine and reminisce about Gavin or discuss a novel they had both read. If it hadn't been for the terrifying thought that her brother was living in agony, she might have easily slipped into that existence and been… contented.
She reminded herself often that she shouldn't be contented around Pan, but it was exhausting trying to dredge up hatred and anger that she didn't really feel.
However, despite the quiet ease of life, Pan was growing haggard. His face had grown ashen, his cheekbones jutting out at a deathly angle. There were deep circles under his eyes as she often caught him staring off into the middle distance, trailing off mid-sentence during a story about Gavin. He was far off in those moments, but it was a different distance than usual. A distance that he had not put between himself and her.
It was strange to consider that Pan was unwell. She wasn't even sure if immortals could become sick. Could they? Or perhaps, was Pan no longer immortal? It wasn't a question she enjoyed dwelling on, but she was forced to confront it when he fell asleep at dinner one day, mid-meal. He had been absently picking at his food, making a good show of moving it around the plate. He sat silently, with his head in his hand as Wendy leafed through a new novel she had bought. The dining room was half empty and there was a pleasant hum that the patrons generated. It might have been described as enjoyable.
Suddenly, his head drooped down and his fork clattered to the floor.
She reached over and touched his shoulder. "Pan," she said.
He shook himself awake. "What?"
"You just fell asleep," she said. She paused and considered whether or not it was worth prying. "What is going on?"
"Nothing," he said. For such a practiced liar, she was surprised it sounded like a lie. "I'm just tired."
"Have you been sleeping?" she asked. She still took the sleeping potion nightly, delaying dealing with her grief and guilt until a time when Baelfire was returned safely to her and her brothers. She slept like a rock through the night and had assumed Pan was doing the same.
"Do you always have to be so nosy?" he asked. He sounded irritated, but there was no irritation on his face. No bite behind his words.
"'Wendy, you'll be of no use if you're half-asleep for the next mansion'," she mocked, lowering her voice and trying to take on a stern, cold expression like Pan's.
One corner of his mouth pulled up. Something strange and warm fluttered in her stomach and she squashed it down.
"Baelfire is lucky his survival doesn't hinge on your acting talents," he said mildly.
She allowed herself to grin a little before saying, "Pan, seriously. Are you sick?"
Pan stared at her for a long moment, cold eyes assessing her before he finally said, "I'm not sick. You don't need to worry."
"I'll worry about what I like," she told him primly. "Eat your dinner. You'll feel better."
"You're such a nag," he complained. Again there was no bite behind his words. It was strange to hear him complain without his usual irritation. It almost sounded like banter.
"I wouldn't nag if you would just finish your dinner," she said. He gave her a cold look before digging into his meal. She watched him the rest of the meal, her book lying forgotten at the side of the table as she nagged and he complained and then relented. By the end of the evening, some colour had returned to his cheeks and she was quite pleased with herself when they climbed the stairs up to bed.
However, her victory didn't last long. The next day, he had grown grey and lethargic again. The speed at which he read through spell books slowed. At the beginning, it was barely noticeable, but soon she was outpacing him. A few days later, she was getting through double what he was getting through. He mostly just stared at the books at that point, writing out slow, sloppy notes that just looking at them made her head hurt.
What's more, their conversations began to drift away from magic and spells into literature. Pan began to read the novels that she had made her way through previously. Somehow, he pulled her into conversations about tropes and characters and literary devices while she was trying to study. She almost couldn't resist falling into those conversations, just like she had fallen into that gaping cavern of intimacy. His words had a gravity to them that she couldn't resist. His ideas and observations were fascinating and it was nice to take her mind off of something so urgent, so demanding. It was hard to pull herself out of those conversations; she adored how his mind worked.
One evening, they were hunched over piles of books on their beds at the inn, poring over spells about illusions. Her back ached from leaning in such awkward positions and her hand had begun to cramp long before. Outside, the fall light was receding quickly and soon they would be working only with candlelight. It would be more useful if they called it quits for the night and started early the next morning.
Pan lay on his bed, holding up a large spell book that obscured more than half his face. Perhaps, that was the position to study in, although it seemed he was taking no notes. She wasn't going to pester him about that. His notes lately had been crappy; she was going to pick a fight about useless notes.
"Come on," she said, rubbing her neck. "Let's turn in for the night."
He didn't respond, only gave a small humph.
She considered him a moment. Surrounded by piles of books, he was simply a shadow flickering in the dim light in his now-characteristic dark clothes. She crawled off of her bed and stood beside him. She gently pried the book from his hands, only for another to fall with it.
She glared down at her novel.
"Dracula?"
He nodded, nonplussed, lounging in the bed. "It's pretty good."
She ripped the book out of his hands. "Have you gotten through any of these books?" she asked, gesturing to the pile in front of him.
He shook his head.
"I thought you had gotten—I'm so much farther behind than I thought," she grit out. "I wouldn't have gone so in-depth if I had known you didn't read a single word today." She felt the fury rising like bile in her chest as she slammed the novel onto the side table.
He looked up at her, face neutral and distant. "Temper, temper," he chided, his voice weak.
"You've been no help the past week and we are a day away from getting to the illusion mansion. We don't have a solid plan, we don't have any more information on the spells and you've been reading novels," she lectured.
He turned to her. "What I am doing and what you should be doing is conserving your energy. We have all the information we're going to get and there's nothing else we can do. So chill out and remember that you can't control everything," he told her. He looked cold as usual, but something stirred underneath his frigid façade, a swift current racing under a frozen lake.
"Conserving your energy?" she asked, hands on her hips. "Is not eating and sleeping conserving your energy?" He stood and began to put the spell books back into their enchanted bag. His movements were slow and graceless.
"I told you not to worry," he told her over his shoulder as he made his way into the bathroom.
He shut the door but she still shrilly said, "I'll worry about what I like."
"I'm aware," came his muffled voice through the door.
Irritated, she put the books on her bed away and got her night clothes together, waiting for him to come out of the bathroom. When he came out, changed, a few moments later, she stepped into his path.
"I'm done with the nagging for today," he said before she could say anything.
She gave him a disapproving look. "Tell me what's wrong and I'll stop nagging," she said.
He scoffed. "Since when have we become each other's confidants?" He tried to take a step around her but she blocked him.
"Since I didn't tell you what was wrong and it blew up in our faces," she told him. She knew he had hated those weeks of tense silence and heartache just as much as she had. She had hated how much his loss by her side had affected her, but she had hated his loss even more. "I think it would be wise not to relive that."
He stared down at her, eyebrows furrowed together. He was close enough that she could smell him, a wind whipping off the ocean, pine and mint mingling together. It was a heady combination with his eyes on her, bright and heavy.
"We won't," he said. He finally was able to step around her and make his way towards his bed.
"You're being stubborn," she accused, pointing a finger at him.
He sat down on the bed and reached for Dracula on the side table. He pulled back the covers and settled down among the pillows before opening the book. "So are you," he said simply, eyes on the page.
"Just tell me," she demanded.
"I'm just tired," he repeated without looking up.
"Well, then, if you're going to be this pig-headed, get to sleep now so you won't cause any problems tomorrow when we get to the mansion," she bit out. She dressed quickly and clambered into bed without a glance at him. If he was going to be stubborn, then she would let him stew in his decisions. She had more important things to think about than Pan potentially not sleeping incredibly well.
XXX
Peter knew what lies sounded like, felt like. Lies came out of his mouth almost as easily as his next breath did. They were always so beautifully constructed, twisted around truths and formed into a shimmering mirage that people wanted to believe.
That had always been the key, right?
It was easy to tell lies not because he was the best liar ever. It was because he knew which lies they wanted to believe. And it always came back to belief, didn't it?
What was even stranger as he continued to lie and scam his way into power and immortality was that people confused belief and reality all the time. They believed that their brother was on Neverland, so he was. They believed he had a shred of humanity left in him, so he did. And he had always wondered how they could be so deluded. It was a belief. There was nothing concrete to back it up. Couldn't they see that?
But lying awake the next morning, he understood all the Lost Boys he had tricked.
For nearly a century he had stood on the solid fact that he had been a good parent to Gavin. His behaviour could not be faulted and he was beyond reproach. Wendy was simply a nag with a moral compass she tried to shove on everyone.
But the fact that he had been a good parent sounded a lot like a lie, felt a lot like a lie these days. And the more he tried to reason it away with the cold rationality he enjoyed so much, the more the fact crumbled into fantasy.
At first he had reasoned that Gavin, though he was Peter's child, had been a Lost Boy on Neverland. Death came with that.
But that was cruel and callous. And though Peter Pan the boy king could most certainly be called those things, Peter the parent most certainly shouldn't be any of those things. No parent should be any of those things.
Next, he reasoned that it was out of his hands. He couldn't have predicted what the Lost Boys could do nor could he have controlled them. He had had to kill off many of them that night to keep the peace… but Gavin's murder had not been a surprise and he had spent weeks with Wendy arguing about whether the child should even go back at all. And didn't he pride himself on his control of the Lost Boys?
At one point he even floated the idea that perhaps Wendy's grief-stricken conspiracies had been right and that it had been Felix who had orchestrated it behind his back and so it couldn't have been his fault. But Pan had still set the wheels in motion with his decisions and he had still sent Gavin back to the Lost Boy's camp to keep the peace so he could keep his power.
For days he had been arguing back and forth with himself, trying to find proof that he had been a good parent. To reassure himself that it was a fact that he had been a good parent. He had been a good parent, hadn't he? I was a good parent, he told himself. But the thought was shaped like a lie. He so desperately wanted to believe it. He would have given over his own heart if it could mean that he believed again that he was a good parent.
But even if he believed, it didn't make it true.
He simply would have been wrong, walking around with a delusion keeping his heart together. Walking around like Wendy, believing so ardently in a truth that just wasn't.
And he told himself that it mattered far more to him whether or not he was actually a good parent than whether or not he believed he was a good parent. He valued reality over belief, after all. Belief made people do silly things like hand over their heart for their half-wit brother.
But determining if he was indeed a good parent still had him circling over the same ideas that he had already deemed incorrect. But that still didn't stop his mind from spiralling.
Every thought, every breath was tied up in it. He couldn't go more than a few moments before being dragging into his mind that was now just a place with crumbling beliefs. How had he been so sure of himself barely a week and a half ago? None of these thoughts would have ever crossed his mind two weeks ago, but now they filled his days.
The night before had been torturous. Wendy had tried to nag him into telling her what was wrong. He had almost broken then; he so desperately wanted to tell her what was wrong. He had felt like he was about to burst from his skin at any moment because he just needed to tell her.
He wasn't even sure why he wanted to tell her. Did he want her to reassure him that this was all just nonsense that he was thinking? Did he want her to tell him the truth?
But why would he tell her any of this?
They weren't each other's confidants. They were each other's unwilling partners brought together by the second star to the right. They were only civil because they needed to discuss spells and word choices. But these days, that felt like a lie too in the face of their quiet, peaceful conversations about novels and metaphors, Gavin and his dimples.
They were just a means to and end to each other. She needed him to get Baelfire back. He needed her so he could get Neverland back.
Neverland.
What he had sacrificed Gavin for.
Where he would reclaim his throne and glory and what? Amass a following of Lost Boys again? Perhaps stumble upon another Gavin? But Wendy wouldn't be there to convince Peter to save him, or to raise him in her treehouse, or argue with him about sending him back…. Without Wendy, would he have even saved Gavin that first day?
His blood chilled in his veins. He looked over at Wendy would was still curled up in her bed, her back to him and her mane of gold curls poking out from her blanket.
Would he have saved Gavin that day without Wendy?
Or would Gavin have led a miserable, short life on Neverland as he had lived a miserable, short life in the Enchanted Forest?
Had Gavin had a good life, at all?
Peter didn't know. He didn't know what to believe anymore.
He pulled himself out of bed, his heart hammering in his chest, unable to catch his breath. He paced the room for a few moments, desperately trying to dispel all the thoughts that assaulted him.
He was Peter Pan.
He had lived four hundred years in complete control of his thoughts.
He wouldn't fall apart at the seams because of some overthinking.
He desperately wanted to wake Wendy up. He wanted to blabber about all of these thoughts and crumbling beliefs and lies that he had once thought were facts to her. But he held back, his hands balled into fists at his sides as he watched her sleep, completely unaware of the soap opera that was playing out in his head.
She remained completely unaware when she woke up and dressed. Remained completely unaware over breakfast and as they packed up the horses. She had no idea what was going on as they began the ride to the illusion mansion. She rode beside him on Ash, her hair done up in a braided bun and curls framing her lovely face. She was wearing her usual dark blue cloak over a light blue dress. She was a vision just then as he gazed at her. They were in the middle of nowhere, on the way to some hellish, booby-trapped mansion, but she was a vision in the grey landscape. Good and radiant.
Wendy, good and radiant and incredibly intelligent.
She had remained steadfast in her beliefs for so long.
She understood all her reasonings and stood by them.
If there was anyone in this world or the next, she would know the answers to the questions that were burning through him.
He spent the entire morning with his eyes on her, trying to pluck up the courage to even begin to ask her. What ended up happening instead was that he was only capable of giving her one word directions to the mansion so she gave him a questioning look, but didn't press for any of the conversations they usually had.
Over lunch, she let him be, sitting with her back against a tree by the side of the road, apple in one hand and spell book in the other.
The silence was crushing. If they had been chatting as they usually did, he might have been able to bring up Gavin casually and not dump his terrifying thoughts and ideas on her without any warning. He still wanted to act like his normal self, cool and calm and totally in control of his emotions. Not this skittish wraith he had become that didn't know what was fact or fiction.
He wondered, too, if she didn't like the silence. He knew she was nervous about this next mansion. She had been scrambling for information for weeks, not wanting to relive the mansion in the mountains. And he knew she hoped that Baelfire was in this one because there was such a dearth of information about it. She might have also wanted to talk to calm her nerves, hear his steady advice about the spells they would use, reassure her.
But she kept her nose in her book throughout the entire meal.
When they got back up onto the horses, he thought perhaps that that moment was the time to bring it up, but when he opened his mouth it was dry and no sound came out. Instead, they trudged along the road that was turning into little more than a path as they neared the mansion.
He continued to stare at the back of her head like some tongue-tied oaf. She still seemed to glow amongst the bare trees and the grey sky. He almost felt like he could feel her warmth at his finger tips, bright and urgent, just like her.
He felt the urge to ask her then. To let everything spill from his lips. And then to his horror, it wasn't an urge anymore. It was actually happening as he asked her, "Bird?"
She turned, her face serene. She had read over breakfast, too, still irritated with him for reading Dracula instead of the spell books, but by the end of the meal, she told him that he needed to read the novel she was reading after she was done with it and then explained the themes that were brought up. It was a way of saying she forgave him without any words and he felt, looking at her across the small table as she clutched the book to her chest, the smell of her tea and fresh baked bread wafting through the inn's dining hall, that perhaps he didn't deserve this peaceful moment or her silent forgiveness.
"Yes?" she asked, no hint of the irritation from the night before on her lips.
"Do you think Gavin had a good life?" he rushed out, so afraid that if he didn't say that just then, he never would.
She pulled Ash's reigns, halting him in the middle of the path, startled. She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes assessing. With her golden gaze on him, he thought perhaps she was aware of the whirlwind that was in his head. She was looking straight through him.
She was silent for a long time, simply staring at him. He thought perhaps she wasn't going to say anything and almost began to urge Philipe forward before she said, "His life was so short."
He wanted to tear out his hair. He already knew Gavin's life had been short, but had it been good was the question. He had prided himself on not being good for the past four hundred years and he wasn't stubborn enough to know that he wasn't the expert. Wendy was. Wendy the good, who had Lost Boys following after her from the moment she had been installed as Neverland's doctor, whose smile was warm, whose hands were soft and comforting. Wendy was good, in every sense of the word. She would know, but she needed to actually answer the damn question.
Her brows furrowed together as she thought, eyes drifting to her fingers twisting around her reins. Without looking up she said, "There were years of his life that were good."
"But was his life good?" he repeated. This was not the answer he had wanted. Not the reassurance he was so desperate for.
She looked up at him, brown eyes large and sad. "I don't know what his life was like before we had him, but I don't think it was good." She looked just as she had when Gavin had first told them that he had been abused by his birth parents. He knew without a doubt that she was in that moment, her heart shattering as their child had explained what had been done to him.
"But, overall, was it good?" he asked again.
She shook her head. "I'm not the one who can answer that. Only Gavin can," she said, her voice thick. This was painful to her and part of him knew he should stop, but a larger, more demanding part of him couldn't at this point. "But I think Gavin was happy for the little time he was with us and I'd call those two years good."
It wasn't the answer that he had been hoping for, but Wendy had been honest with him and he was grateful for that. He was also grateful when she flicked her reins and urged Ash along without asking him why the hell he was asking about this. He felt, again, looking at her ride Ash toward the mansion that he didn't deserve that.
They continued on in silence until they reached the winding trail that would lead to the mansion. He was cold and tense, all his muscles rigid, and his mind universes away from where they were. He couldn't control himself when he blurted, "Was I a good parent?"
Wendy turned again, stopping Ash on the path. This time she didn't turn in her seat so she could look at him. Instead, she turned the horse around and cantered up so she was looking directly at Peter, her knee brushing his. He wished she wouldn't get so close or look at him with that burning gaze. He didn't want her to see the turmoil he was in.
"Were you a good parent?" she repeated, for clarification. He nodded. He hadn't needed to ask if they were good parents. He already knew that Wendy was. That couldn't be shaken. Because that was a fact and no one could ever convince him was a belief.
She tilted her head, her eyes searching his face. It was like she was looking into his head, seeing every single desperate thought, sifting through the strands of terrifying ideas and crumbling beliefs. "I think you were as good a parent as you were able," she finally said.
"What does that mean?" he demanded. He didn't want her to be careful with her words. He wanted her to be like she always was, brutally honest and unafraid to call him on his shit. "Just tell me the truth if you think I was a bad parent."
"Do you think I would have let you anywhere near Gavin if I thought you were a bad parent?" she snapped. He paused. She most certainly would not. "I'm not going to just give you an answer you want. I'm only going to tell you the truth and that's what I did."
"But what do you mean I was as good a parent as I was able?" he asked.
She took a deep breath. "You were good to him those two years. You were responsible and loving and fun. You understood him and were deeply committed to him. But you know how I feel about your decision to send him back," she told him, her gaze searing.
He dropped her gaze. "So, the answer is no."
She gave him a sharp look. "No, the answer is you were as good a parent as you were able." She shook her head and looked down the path for a moment, collecting herself. "Pan, you know who you are and I know who you are. Neverland was always going to come first for you."
Something cracked in him in that moment.
It should never have come first, he wanted to scream. He wanted to screech it from the rooftops until his throat was raw and bloody.
For a moment, he was drowning in a sea, caught between gigantic waves, suspended above an unfathomable depth. There was nothing solid anywhere near him, nothing to cling to and no land in sight to steady him and carry him. He needed something to buoy him, something to mark where he was.
Neverland is supposed to come first, a voice said to him, lifting him up out of the water, onto a familiar ship. One that had once been comfortable and safe.
"I should have come to grips with that back then," Wendy said after a long moment, pulling him away from his thoughts. Her eyes shone and Peter regretted every single word. He had selfishly dredged up Wendy's own guilt and grief without thinking. "I should have gotten off that island. Just forgotten about Baelfire and taken Gavin."
I should have gotten you off that island. I brought you both there and neither of you deserved to be there.
He wanted to tell her that. Desperately. But when he opened his mouth, no sounds came out. She just stared back at him, her eyes still shiny. He could see the years in her then, the grief she had lived through and the words he had wanted to say died on his tongue. They were so insignificant in the face of what he had done to Gavin… to her, it would have been insulting if he said anything at all.
After a moment, she brushed at her eyes and turned Ash back towards the mansion. "Are you done with the questions?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yes."
But he knew what a lie sounded like, felt like. And that most certainly was one.