36. Threads
Cecil closed his eyes and breathed out through his nose in a manner that strangely comforted Beverly, in that instant.
He didn't seem alarmed. This whole thing must have crossed his mind more than a few times, in the previous hours.
You were brought back here to be found. You are meant to be seen.
The city's bones creaked underneath her.
She was morning. She was a shout, a whisper, a breath. She was the wind whistling at the runner's back.
Beverly Penn, a ghost. Heartless, feverless. Pliant and indestructible and massive. Reduced now to a speck.
You are water.
This darkness. The bottom of a sky of paint.
Water, a mouth forever fed. American rain, joining the void of the river that had claimed her partner's life.
"Beverly," Peter murmured.
His voice was careful. He was seated on the shore, still.
With every passing wave the sand softened underneath him and draped over his legs, the black clothes, the fingers on his hands. Like threads wrapping around a needle. Roots hugging the earth.
He belonged to the city. Though cruel and confusing, it was the only home he'd ever had.
He understood it. Its weaknesses and secrets. Its lines of action, its cogs and wires and patterns.
He'd given her instructions on how to contain her own fire. She'd only begun to get accustomed to all the threads that now curled around her fingertips. The machinery. The way things worked…
Beverly walked forward. Her feet fell lightly upon the sand, the water gurgled beside her.
The sunlight whispered to her, beckoning her to sink into it. To bleed out and spread her infinite arms along the city. For the weight in her chest to surrender to the breath they all shared.
She'd always belonged to it. These threads of sunshine. The maps that lay invisible to everyone else. Peter Lake was reality and she was a scream. She was an impact, an emotion, a feeling…
And he was still with her, in her tent, in their little cocoon of bedsheets and walls of fabric.
With or without a light, he clung to her.
She had dipped herself into his eyes so often. She knew how to traverse the city of darkness veiled within his gaze. Her many gazes had rendered her an expert. His every feeling and doubt and dread…
You're a musician, yeah?
In life she saw him so clearly. In death, she still did.
His heartbeat was now replaced by the musical breadth of his breathing. Thick and ragged. Slow and easy. Painfully leisurely, almost deliberate.
Beverly did know how music worked. This was a machine she knew how to operate, without question.
You know what keys to press…
"We need to leave, the sun is rising," Cecil said. His nostrils flared, his tongue slithered between his lips. "They'll send them after you. We need to go. Beverly, you should use that earring of yours right about now."
Wait.
One more caress of the breeze on her skin.
One second longer under Peter's gaze, looking at him, being seen in return.
Look at me, see me like I see you…
To be so clearly real to him and to the rest of the world…
You're here… You're real…
Night was crumpling and images peeked at her through the veil of time.
Sounds.
His desperate breathing. The dry squealing of chalk against concrete.
A neigh. Athansor was near. He hadn't forsaken them.
Sights…
Glass and metal, molten giants.
The city, alive, living, maturing, polishing itself into a monstrous beauty of crystal.
Peter Lake, dressed in black, so puny within it. Though his face reflected no worry. He was beautifully calm.
He would turn his face to the sunshine through the winter-clouded sky and close his eyes, let her in.
You're the same you, in every color.
And more. More.
She needed more.
Her soul rumbled with hunger.
"Beverly."
Her lover's voice. He sensed her dizziness. Their souls were forever weaved into unity. She would never cease to exist to him, no matter what state she was forced to be in. They were together, adrift, at sea.
More…
"Honey, you need to fly. You need to-"
"She's flying now. She's seeing something. Give her time, Cecil."
"He can find her," Cecil murmured. "Can't you see? She still has a light to give, wings to clip, a harness to be stolen. If her vessel is lost- He already knows you're here. If he learns of her gift, if he knows she's here…"
"He'll know of her miracle. He can strand her, too…" Peter's voice had darkened.
"You don't want to know what they do to fallen folk. They starve them to ashes. If Beverly's-"
"No. No. They won't. If those bastards touch her again-"
"She can evade them in the sunshine. She's already done so."
"Athansor fled the same way… He became the sun…"
"He hasn't left you. Neither will she."
"I know. I know that. That's not what worries me… I…"
Notes. Crickets…
Peter was worried for her. He understood how much she hated to be invisible. To be bereft of conversation or returned gazes. To see all so sharply and receive not one reciprocated glimpse.
Stars, we give so much yet receive very little.
The pain and horrors that had accompanied her in her three days of complete solitude.
They'd walked together, two bodies, spirits, dead yet whole, claimed by gravity, the previous evening. The world was blind to them, save for a few. They who they needed to meet. They who would make their presence worthwhile.
The little girl. The red-haired little girl.
But Pearly and his goons were part of the fabric they were embroidered into. They had eyes that could see. Hands that could touch.
I just wish I hadn't hated her.
She'd poured her heart out to him and he'd promised to believe her every word. He'd kept his promise, as had he kept every other vow he'd made to her.
He'd returned to the city with her. He'd never left her side.
"Peter, they don't know you're dead, have you even considered that?"
"Yes. I was just thinking that."
"It means they don't know of her intervention."
"Unless they find her."
"Unless they-"
"Give me a moment."
Her own voice was soft and urgent. So small in comparison to all this breath the city provided.
Light and wind formed her limbs and tongue. The last time she'd felt this tiny, in the tent, with him, she'd found power in her reclaimed humanity. Now she was just tired.
She could see the notes. She'd glimpsed at the runny-inked partiture, the scratched lines, the reformed melodies. The long symphony she'd have to play.
Forever she'd been starved. Now she was so full of… everything. Mechanisms and secrets and hidden roads. So much so that it unsteadied her.
I still feel you.
Was this the mechanic in him, within her? His breath, emerging from her throat? Or maybe the thief in him, even. Beverly would help them steal.
Or was it all hers, from the very beginning? Her need for answers and paths to follow. Her reliance on faith to keep herself afloat. She needed this, too. More than ever.
You've never left my side. Not even when you've lost your ticket.
She could taste the champagne that had claimed her life. The salt on Peter's skin. The wind he'd gifted to her, when he first took her running…
You're incapable of abandoning anyone you love, Peter…
Gravity allowed her to be whole. For her face to take shape and her fingers to feel. To be light rid her of all the privilege of the human senses. She was only then completely dead. Formless, a memory, a sign, a hint.
Without uttering another word, she stretched out a hand.
Remind me where I am.
Peter Lake stood up shakily, sand and salt smeared to the darkness of his clothes. His shapeless hair, plastered to his buzzed temples, the buzzed scalp. Black eyes so large with worry that Beverly felt a bit embarrassed.
He went to her and grabbed her hand, squeezed it gently. Cecil watched them, the ghost of a grimace stroking his lips.
When had been the last time he'd been allowed to hold the hand of the one he loved?
What had earned her such luck?
Feel me as I feel you.
His wet, cold skin. The thick flesh of his fingertips. His thumb, following a familiar path, along her knuckles. So often he'd caressed her this way while they were alive…
"Remember what I told you," he breathed.
"I do."
"You've already saved me… Now it's time to make it worthwhile."
What difference did it make? This death, that life?
The only thing missing was a couple of beating hearts and a fever. And crickets, now replaced by faces.
Peter's. Willa's. Her father's. Her mother's.
Beverly and him had been on the run before. Hidden away, in the Coheeries, avoiding the wolves.
They'd ensconced themselves for a little while within the walls of a tent.
They knew they couldn't leave Cecil estranged, though. That the city now housed her grieving family. That Pearly Soames knew where to find them. He'd gone to her before…
No.
If he knew she was now a miracle-giver, a star in the sky, he'd do everything in his power to drown her.
To rip her family apart until there was nothing left to salvage, before taking her down as well.
To sink her completely into the city and in turn destroy every chance for the ones she loved to find a little bit of peace before they went. Or a home, once they left…
Her family.
And Peter.
The magpie, the thief. Her friend, her lover, her miracle.
Cecil had told her that Pearly Soames had a bone to pick with Peter, specifically. It already had given that bastard great pleasure, to take his lover away from him. To torment him to death.
But she was his death, now. Peter's.
His life, too.
And Pearly couldn't know. Never. He couldn't sink her.
She was the one with the lists now. The one with solutions. The nurse, trying to comfort a doomed child as best as she could.
Peter had always seen her as the answer to every question. As confidence and strength and power.
You're mighty, everpresent, he'd said to her.
A scream. A miracle.
Peter Lake had returned to her and given her wings when he could have run away, forsake New York and all its monsters…
His first gift to her had been his courage. Not a bar of chocolate.
You taught me courage, Beverly. The courage to stop… and wait.
She needed to reciprocate it.
Even shapeless and faceless… she was mighty.
She was sunshine. She was winter. She could walk among Pearly and his men without being noticed once.
I didn't know Isaac had another daughter.
Now more than ever, being an afterthought came at great advantage.
When her face turned to Peter's, it was clenched in determination.
I'm here.
And a light shone upon his features at the sight of it. The flash of a grin, toothy and large and brimmed with pride, took over his face.
Beverly saw the map, the lines, the places they'd been and the places they'd go.
I'm here, darling.
"There you are," he said, breathless.
He was seeing the woman in red. The flame. The one who'd danced without gloves at the New Year's Eve party.
The woman who'd made a friend of a thief without a second thought.
She was the same her. In every color and every shape. She couldn't let her new form convince her otherwise anymore…
Here I am.
The morning called to her. Her roads thickened, the ink stained her fingers. Her single earring caught the glimpse of a new day in a sharp green glint.
"When you sing, and you will sing," she told him, "I'll be the air you breathe. The curve in your voice. The sun on your face. We're still bound to the same place. I feel you… Feel me, too. Even when you cannot see me."
Her eyes moved along his features. The waterdrops on his eyelashes. The lips that now trembled as their regained smile slowly crumbled.
"Don't forget that I'm still here," she breathed, with a touch of dread. She squeezed his hand in return. "Not like when I first left you. Promise me-"
All of a sudden Peter Lake bent greedily toward her and kissed her mouth.
It was a ravenous, passionate motion, so very alive, so very impatient. This was how she'd kissed him on the staircase. Her, him. Beverly whimpered softly against his lips. His hands cupped her face.
She heard Cecil huff out a small, excited laugh, nearby.
She liked that. She liked it very much.
When they broke away Peter Lake leaned intimately into her. Arms wrapped fully around her shoulders, forehead and nose pressed to the top of her head.
We're here. We still exist.
Beverly breathed deeply into his wet jacket, the thick fabric, the salt, the cold. She looked at his eyes and her green-laced fingers stroke his face. The sharp stubble, the sunken skin of his cheeks, the thin lips. She drank at every sense he provided her with.
When we return to the city, stay with me.
Peter shook his head. "When you haven't been a sight, you've been a sound. When you haven't been within my reach, you've been on my mind. A thought. A wonder. An answer. Always nearby. You've never left my side, Beverly Penn… You won't leave it now. No matter where you are. You'll always exist to me."
And if anyone disapproves...
"I'm not afraid… I'm not going to run… I'm going to find my light. I'm going home with you."
... climb.
He wasn't ugly. He wasn't ugly at all. How could he ever find himself ugly? How could she'd ever found his voice to be the only undoubtedly-attractive aspect to him?
Do what you did before.
He was the most beautiful thing in the universe.
"One more," she said under her breath, "one more…"
He kissed her again, with the same fiery finality. And she pushed back against him with a similar ferocity. They clung tightly to each other, locked in position, for a little while. She would be air and sunlight and winter and be all around him, for who-knew how long. This wasn't farewell for them, really… but it did feel like it.
Climb and find me.
Author's Note: To anyone who is here today, thank you for reading.
So... hello! Here is the thread to the needle, the end to the beginning, Chapter 21 versus Chapter 36 :3 Get it?
Yes, Peter and Beverly are finally getting "separated" again and I am going to finally move onto rewriting the plot of the movie that comes after Peter returns from under the bridge. Both he and Beverly will be in the city, doing their own things, but always together, in some form or another.
I am so happy when I see that my headcanons on the worldbuilding not only make sense when put into practice, even when I initially feared that I was being too complicated with them, but that they can feasibly explain things that are in the narrative - like how Cecil and Peter both reach the conclusion that, since Peter has been seen again, he can put Beverly in danger. Peter has lost his way to return to the safety of Beverly's star, and now he's stuck on the city, unable to disappear into the sunshine until he is given a light of his own - by "a friend of his own making," like I made Cecil explain some chapters ago.
In the movie, Pearly is super confused by how Peter is "alive" for so long when he's not an angel or a demon, and Lucifer, at the end of the movie, tells him "it's the girl." It's Beverly who protects him and leads him to Abby till the very end, even if she's unseen to everyone else. She's his miracle, he was never hers.
So... I'm definitely doing this in my version :3 That is, I'm making Pearly remain ignorant to Beverly's help until the very end. Because I just love how Pearly underestimates Beverly till the end and sees her as only a damsel in distress, a martyr. And he gets punched in the end for it.
So I have so many plans for this, in addition to of course leading Peter to his eventual destiny, meeting Abby, his chalk drawings, Cecil being given back his coins, etc;
1) Peter, with the help of Cecil and Beverly, is going to convert all of Pearly's men into good people, because he has proven that that is possible, and he is stealing the gems back, which I find so iconic (not me patting myself in the back rn, lol, I'm sorry, I'm just so happy that I love what I'm writing and planning, it's so satisfying when that happens XD) and I'm so ready to write it because I wish this had happened in the movie, instead of Athansor just sinking all of the demons into the ice at the end XD I want Peter to be a proactive demon-converter in his free time while he's not looking for Abby, because he needs to have something to do while he waits, I mean... it's gonna take 100 years.
2) I want Beverly to help her family, particularly her father, and I want her influence to tie up with the fact that Willa grows up to be the head in charge of The Sun, Isaac's newspaper (the third Penn), and for her to also help her mother... the fire. Yeah, I need to think of a way to make this weird little addition I made to the worldbuilding make sense, but... I'll get there :3 I hope.
3) I want Peter and Cecil to convince Pearly and co. that Peter has miraculously survived the bridge fight, in order to keep it a secret from him that Beverly is the one keeping him awake and giving him, ironically, life in death. Because if Pearly were to learn that Peter is dead and Beverly is the one guiding him to his miracle, like how Cecil did... Pearly would hunt her down too. He'd sink her star. Steal her means of traveling and guiding (the earring, as is my version's worldbuilding), and prevent her from helping, not only Peter and Cecil, but her family as well. I feel like this makes a lot of sense, that Beverly is the one with the means to fly, and that she needs to stay unseen, in sunlight and wind, to help them.
4) I reaaaaally want to include a subplot where Beverly helps Cecil during the final days of the woman Cecil loves, the one he wishes to guide to his star when she dies. So yeah. I love me so cute romance, as you may have noticed.
I loved giving Beverly this burgeoning boost of confidence in this chapter, where she slowly grows the determination to not falter and do what she is meant to do. That she is not a feverish woman with dreams and wonders: that she is actually mighty.
And I have her acknowledge that, in the same way that she has led to Peter's hope, he has led to her self-confidence. For her to believe that she is strong.
In the movie this is only shown in how Peter asks Beverly to dance with him and she initially says that she can't, that it'll kill her, but upon seeing him risk his own life to save Isaac from the furnace incident, she decides to be brave in return and go with him to the New Year's Eve ball. Which then leads to her taking it a step further and deciding to be with him that night.
I reference that here, that "his first gift to her had been his courage." The man who could have run, but stayed, surrounded by enemies, in a city that he's never really belonged to, just because he wanted to be by her side.
And of course I have explored this concept deeply in "A Star in the Lake," and now in here too. I love to see my own versions of these characters evolve, along with their relationship. I am touched by the fact that I can call this Peter and this Beverly my own, that I have developed them into people that are crafted with my own heart, my own story... I cherish them :3
Beverly is such an optimist when she's alive, but I feel like death (at least the way I depict death in my stories) would have shattered some of that optimism, given that the person she loves, and her family, are still trapped in the city and beyond her reach.
Combine that with how, in my version, she and Peter and bound to the same star, and they feel one another, even when Peter has lost his way to return to the sky, so she feels his pessimism at times, as I've already described in previous chapters. I love having Peter actively fight against his pessimism and find peace, like I showed in Chapter 34, not only for his sake, but to allow Beverly to rest easier and be calmer - to explain, my plan was that, when Peter and Beverly return to New York to look for Cecil, Peter is so flooded with doubt that he and Beverly are incapable of traveling through light. As Cecil said, "Peter isn't light, he's heavy with regrets." So I have tried chipping away at his pessimism chapter by chapter, until he literally travels through light in his sleep and ends up back in the river, given that he feels like he needs to be there (which is my explanation as to how he ends up back in the bridge in the film, in my version he doesn't come back to life at all), and this helps Beverly travel through light.
So here... when I make him tell her that he isn't afraid, that he won't run, and that he will go home with her, I wanted that to be the climax of his character arc, his complete surrender of his doubt. At least, I wish to make him more proactive and less pessimistic from now on.
At the end of ASITL, he is literally drowning in his own self-hatred after Beverly's death, and in TFOTM, I made him start like that, but now I want him to be hopeful. To trust Beverly and Cecil, even going against his own old doubt (which won't ever leave him, but he will fight against it) and to just keep going. I'm very happy with this...
And I'm very proud of how I've written their farewell chat. It's concise, and passionate, and touching, and giving them more kisses just adds to the urgency :3 I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it.
Oh and it goes without saying that making Cecil openly laugh like a fangirl when Peter kisses Beverly in front of him made me so happy 3 Don't worry, Cecil is getting a farewell too, my best boy deserves hugs as well.
Well. That's all for now, Chapter 37 is coming soon, here is your hug *hug* Thank you for being here, no words can suffice for me to tell you how much I appreciate you for taking time in reading my stories... Thank you, once more.