The gnarled lamps flickered along the walls as Meghan drew the chipmunk coverlets closer, like the light were shivering in tandem with her. She tried hard not to think of her blankets as the skins of formerly living, cute rodents, but even though the feelings of exhaustion from a long day of travel and relief at finding a warm bed began to set in, she still could not set herself at ease.

Everything was so strange here.

Her hands still bore some red stains from the berries they'd had for dinner, still a little sticky as they smoothed out the blankets. She was glad that she hadn't been so adventurous as to try the grubs that Twiggs had brought out. There were some things about this world that she was not yet ready to experience, maybe not ever. All she wanted was to find Ethan and get out.

Meghan Chase sighed and fell back onto her bed.

No, that wasn't it. Of course she wanted to find her younger brother, but she would be lying if she said she would be happy to leave the Nevernever. Robbie- no, Puck- had said that there would be dangers here, but apart from the danger of being a little grossed out at dinner, it hadn't seemed so bad. In fact, she kinda liked...

"Sleeping yet, princess?"

Robin Goodfellow poked his head into Meghan's field of vision. Meghan started, then rolled her eyes, and sat up.

"I'm never going to be able to sleep with you bothering me, Robbie." She stuck her tongue out, falling easily back into their old routine until something hit her about her reply. Things were different now.

She swallowed and drew the blankets a little closer, wary of the chipmunk claw still attached to the skins. Puck cocked his head.

"What's with the weird face? I didn't disturb your beauty sleep, did I?" He made a woeful face, hand raised to forehead in mock distress. "Anything but that."

Meghan couldn't help but smile. "It's kinda strange to me that you're still the same."

Puck snorted. "What, me be anything other than your goofball best friend? I hope you're joking, princess, because asking me not to be like this is an awfully tall order."

Actually, it really would just take one order, one command that he no longer uphold his promise to be her best friend and he would be free. Oberon would be ticked, but the promise Puck had made to the Summer King expired a while ago. He wouldn't even have to use that lie that he bargained for with the oracle or anything. One careless little command from Meghan Chase and everything was back to the way it was meant to be.

The truly strange thing about tonight was that Puck wasn't quite sure that that was what he wanted anymore.

"No, I mean," Meghan rolled the words around in her mind a little as though tasting the bouquet of a fine wine, "I mean that you're not Robbie. Robbie was a lie, wasn't he? Just an identity that you took on so you could pretend to be a human. You're not him. You're...Puck."

Still smiling but with the wattage significantly dimmer, Puck moved a little closer to Meghan on the bed. "Don't say it that way, you'll make me think you're disappointed."

"I'm sorry." Meghan shook her head, waves of blond hair running across the blankets like rogue streams. "I'm not. Disappointed, I mean. It's just that it's like I'm meeting you for the first time, like you're a totally different person from the guy who was my best friend." She frowned. "Well, who I thought was my best friend."

"Oh, is that it?" Puck stood, paused a moment, and the whirled around and rested his elbows on her knees, propping his chin up. "Truth or dare, princess. Here's a truth. I am every bit the same person you've known all these years, the same person who promised to always be your best friend, as I am Lord Oberon's jester and a singularly capable faery. It's up to you whether you see it that way or not. But it doesn't stop it from being true." He grinned, a little dangerously, a mix of the Robbie she'd known all those years and that strange, wild creature lost to magic she'd glimpsed on her stairs back home.

Meghan swallowed.

"So," Puck still was looking her with hints of a challenge creeping into his voice, "your turn. Truth or dare?"

She pursed her lips. Robb-Puck shouldn't even have to ask this. He already knew everything there was to know about her anyway, and it wasn't like she'd choose a different answer than the one she normally did.

"Truth."

"What are you thinking?" Puck asked. "Seriously. I don't care if you're grossed out by the fact that I ate a bug or whatever, I want to know what's going on in your head right now."

Giggling, Meghan fake-gagged at the memory for R-Puck's benefit and then frowned. This was getting ridiculous. It wasn't like she could change how she thought about someone in a few hours, not when they'd been with her her whole life, at least as long as she could remember. No one could do that.

"Time's a-wasting, princess." Puck smiled down at her expectantly. "What, you gonna chicken out?"

"Like I ever do." Meghan retorted, rising to the taunt. "I guess it's just you."

"Me?" Puck looked genuinely surprised. Meghan had seen his look of pretend-surprise many times over; you hardly went a day being around Robbie without him feigning astonishment about some grand prank he'd just pulled off. This was different. She wasn't sure if she'd ever seen this look before.

"Yeah." She continued hastily, as though scared that if she stopped she might lose her footing, not be able to continue where she left off. "Everything is really weird here. And not in a bad way, it's just, well, obviously not the way that it is back home. But what weirds me out the most is that, despite all these faeries running around through the wyldwood and everything, the thing that's probably freaked me out the most is, well, you."

Slowly, Puck lifted himself off the bed. His voice shook a little at the edges and was a little breathy at first, but after a few words he hid it admirably. A Puck, after all, never gets caught.

"Woah. I know I'm one-of-a-kind, princess, but you have a way of putting it rather bluntly." His characteristic joking manner had resurfaced. "If I'm the strangest thing you see as we go through Faery, then I will consider you the luckiest person alive and make you a cake full of kittens. Believe me," he made his way away from the couch, over to his own pile of blankets, "I am sure I won't hold the title of Strangest Thing in Faery for long."

"Wait, Robbie!"

Meghan inwardly cursed herself. She was never going to get used to this. Puck, Robbie, everything was all mixed up.

"What?" His grin was the same, she noticed. Even when he was dressed like something out of a Renaissance fair or one of the fantasy animes that they used to watch together, that grin was still just the right bit crooked, just inviting enough to make her ask:

"Can I still call you Robbie?"

Puck rolled his eyes dramatically. "Are we still having this discussion? Yes, princess, yes. You may call me anything your heart desires. Puck, Robbie, Robin, whatever. Wha-at?" He held onto the vowel extra-long, pretending to be annoyed and yawning widely. "Something still bothering you? Come on, some of us actually need our sleep."

"Earlier. What would have happened if I hadn't chosen truth, but said dare instead?"

A few moments paused. Meghan felt the heat rise in her face as Robbie smiled at her and then shrugged, turning back to his bed. The lamplight danced along the gnarled tree walls as she listened to the sounds of blankets shifting and Puck making himself comfortable. She heard him let out a sigh and then laugh softly.

"Maybe someday, princess, you'll choose it and find out."

-o-

A Puck never reveals all his tricks.

The moss squelches under his boots a little bit as he makes his way through the wyldwood in the dark. When he woke up a few minutes ago, he thought that he'd heard tapping at the window and had remembered that he'd forgotten to both check with Twiggs about his home's precautions as well as warn Meghan about the night-time side of Faery. He supposes, as he gently picks his way through the underbrush, that it's not all that different from the day-time side, except that all the dangerous things that come after you in the day just try a little bit harder when the lights are off.

Puck swallows, then holds very still.

Somewhere, someone is crashing through the forest. Someone is desperate. And desperate in Faery usually means dead.

Meghan's bed was empty when he checked it. That was incentive enough to begin this wild chase. He knows that he should have told her something more, should have given her the full run-down on all the creatures that go bump in the night around here, but he also knows that she's scared. She's even scared of him and he can't, won't blame her. He knows that she has made a leap into unfamiliar territory on familial gusto and sheer bravado alone. And, okay, maybe by asking her to see him as he really was he guilted her into it.

In the distance to his left, there's a splash, the sound of arms slapping water, and a voice crying for help.

At once, Robin Goodfellow is a blur.

Moss slides by him like he's slipping on sponges, the scent of rotting, wet wood hangs heavily in the air, and even as his lungs breathe in the dark glamour of the forest he can taste danger spiking the atmosphere like a cruel salt.

The surface of the lake glows like a glass with luminescent smoke curling in tendrils underneath it. Meghan's wet form shatters the top layer, her arms and legs kicking out, struggling to get back to shore, shocked with cold, like her limbs aren't comprehending the orders that her brain is sending about swimming. But that's the Nevernever for you.

One mistake, and you're gone.

He dives into the water in a rush of cold and adrenaline, a part of him surprised that there isn't some kind of steam- he's on fire and freezing with her at the same time- and then he notices the horse's head eerily bobbing towards them, its lips slightly parted.

That it doesn't have pupils is its most striking feature, followed by the sickly color of its skin, a pale white, almost green tint, and the seaweed-like tangles of hair that make up its mane. It is calm but persistent, as though some unseen current of the lake is bringing it towards them, like a fallen log or branch, something mundane and harmless.

It is anything but that.

His frozen arms strike the water like a drum, pushing them forward. He shoves Meghan towards the shore, but either her fingers are too cold to grasp it and pull herself out of the water or she's bewitched by the serene, haunted stare of the horse's head, because she doesn't make a motion to get out until Puck forces her upward, propels her body out of the lake and she has to use her arms to catch herself before she falls onto land.

Her breath comes out in shudders and triple-gasps as the horse's head looms still nearer, as Puck pulls himself out of the water just before the horse gives a wailing neigh, opens its mouth wide with surprising speed, and chomps its rotted, moss-caked teeth down on the spot where Puck's head used to be.

Both of them stare as the still surface of the water reforms, the smoke again begins to curl under the glass, now undisturbed and perfect, as the horse retreats back under the water, glaring at them balefully until it is no more. Its eyes, white and piercing, are the last to fade. The night air cuts into them and both girl and faery are reminded of how very silent the wyldwood can be.

Meghan takes a deep breath. "Puck, Robbie, I-"

"Not now, princess." His eyes are dark and dangerous, a side that he's tried hard not to show her but that still comes out. Meghan is silent.

He walks her back to Twiggs' tree again, one arm around her, guiding her back. It's only when he's toweling off her hair inside that he starts talking to her about it, asking her convivially how she liked meeting her first kelpie, and then the story comes out. Meghan shivers under a mountain of squirrel and chipmunk furs, her eyes wild and hooded, suspicious at each creak of the tree. There was a light outside her window and Ethan was there, or at least something that looked and sounded a lot like Ethan. Puck resists the urge to make a snide remark, because a part of him understands. Redcaps get to people, especially people under duress, and Meghan is no exception. She's still human, after all, and she still trembles, even after he and Twiggs have convinced her to change into a pair of dry, old clothes leftover from one of Twiggs' grandchildren.

But no one can stay up all night, even in the wyldwood, when night is sometimes very variable. Eventually, Twiggs goes back upstairs to the further recesses of his tree nook to his chambers and the candles glimmering along the treetrunk's walls are extinguished.

Puck makes to get up to return to his own, slightly diminished pile of furs, when a hand on his arm stops him.

Meghan is calmer now; her eyes have lost their edge. But still, she's shaking.

"Stay." She whispers, her hold tightening. Her voice is calmer, more like herself, but her grip is not.

Faery will do that to you. It will take everything that you hold dear and rip it from you, make your most treasured, wondrous memories seem dull and dusty in comparison. Humans and faeries, as he has known all along, are not two things that mix well.

Puck smooths out a patch of fur next to her. Meghan is wrapped in blankets like a giant caterpillar, as though seven layers of chipmunk fur will be enough to keep the bad dreams out. They won't be; Puck knows better. She will still dream of water and a disembodied head floating towards her, strangely foreboding and intriguing at the same time, and then she will dream of teeth.

But, he thinks as he nestles into her back, when she does dream of teeth, he will be there, will always be there, with one arm over the mess of furs above her waist and his breath warming the nape of her neck, the coverlets warm from where their bodies press together through the blankets. He knows that she will wake up gasping, shivering, but he will be there, maybe a little bleary-eyed and groggy at first, but still there.

It is perhaps the greatest truth of that night, but he will never admit it. Partially because he half-hopes that she knows already and half-dreads it, but partially because he is a Puck and, on principle, whenever they play these games of truth and dare, he always chooses dare.


Author's Note:

Thanks for reading! This chapter was a bit of an experiment: I wanted to try a dialogue-heavy scene coupled with a very descriptive, action-filled scene and see how it turned out. Let me know what you guys think! I love hearing what people like about this, but I also like hearing what you guys think I should do more of or work harder on. I know action's been a little bit lacking, but the next chapter's going to be pretty intense!

Thanks also for the well-wishes. It means a lot.

In the spirit of killing one's darlings (and resuscitating them?) , here is a snippet of this chapter that didn't make it into the final draft, but seemed like a good example of the crackfic that my brain devolves into when writing late at night:

-o-

Puck rolled his eyes dramatically. "Are we still having this discussion? Yes, princess, yes. You may call me anything your heart desires. Puck, Robbie, Robin, whatever. Though," he paused, as though lost in thought, "I would advise against True Names or lolcat titles in public."

"Lolcats?" Meghan raised an eyebrow. "Am I seriously having a conversation with the same Puck that tricked people in A Midsummer Night's Dream about lolcats? I'm not sure if I can believe faeries know about that stuff."

Puck gave an overly dramatic bow. "Believe whatever you like, princess. But ask yourself this: who do you think placed the very first pancake on a bunny?"

Meghan swatted at him with her pillow, laughing. "So are you Ceiling Puck or Basement Puck?

"Seelie Puck, technically."

It wasn't until Puck was again making his way to his pile of furs that she remembered what she wanted to ask him.

-o-

So there you are: a zombie darling. Thanks again for reading this silliness and I hope this is a good example of why editing is your friend. Ceiling Puck versus Basement Ash is not a story that this fic (or author) could ever hope to do justice to.

-cy.