Baelfire lay on his back inside his bamboo cage.
Around him, the branches of the Hanging Tree swayed in the pleasant breeze.
He knew he was in the Hanging Tree specifically because there was a sign nailed to the trunk that read, 'Hanging Tree' .
You know, just in case someone missed the skeleton swaying in a noose several branches over.
Ever since the teen had woken up to Piper's goons -sorry, Lost Boys- hoisting him into the air, he'd been left in isolation.
For days now, he'd been dangling in his cage waiting for dehydration or starvation to claim him. But as the hours dragged on and a distinct lack of hunger or thirst refused to plague him, Baelfire had concluded it was never going to happen.
Apparently, it was impossible to succumb to hunger or thirst in Neverland.
The true point of being in the cage became clear to Baelfire then.
The Pied Piper wanted him to suffer knowing that death was oh-so-close yet oh-so-far.
A fall from this height was guaranteed to snap his neck after all. All he had to do was find a way to drop and he'd be home free.
Unfortunately, the illogically thin rope keeping his cage suspended refused to fray.
Baelfire had tried everything from gnawing at it with his teeth to rubbing his boots against it in the hopes the fibres would eventually wear away.
No such luck.
He sighed.
What had he done to deserve ending up in Neverland?
Had it been accepting that Magic Bean from the Blue Fairy?
Had it been wishing for a better life on a Blue Star?
Or had it been his selfish desire to escape magic and everything it encompassed?
Perhaps it had nothing to do with his decisions at all and he was instead being punished for his relation to the Dark One. Surely one couldn't exactly go about their life being the embodiment of evil's son without some divine retribution, right?
"If only my dad wasn't the Dark One," he mused. ' If only you hadn't been born,' a vile part of him countered.
The teen peered up through the bamboo bars at the rainbow arcing across the sky.
If only he could be struck by lighting...
The odds of that happening were slim to none, he knew. The weather in Neverland seemed to reflect the sprite's moods. And lately, he'd been particularly happy. The sun was shining, the monkeys were chirping, the dragonflies were buzzing. By all accounts, it was shaping up to be another perfectly pleasant day in the tropics.
How wonderful.
"YO! BUTT FACE!"
Balefire idly rolled his head to the side to look down at the Lost Boy shouting at him. He looked to be around three or four years old.
"What?" he called back.
"PAN SAYS YOUR A BUTT FACE! HAHAHA!"
Baelifre went back to staring at the rainbow. "Can you even spell 'Butt Face'?" he replied.
"I SURE CAN! B-U-T-F-A-S. Butt Face!"
"Wooooow."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'WOW' ? I SPELLED IT RIGHT!"
"Sure you did."
"I DID!" His little foot stomped the ground, "I DID! I DID! I DID!"
"Ah huh."
The literal toddler stomped his foot again. "I'M GONNA TELL PAN YOU'RE BEING A BUTT FACE!"
"Is that 'Butt Face' with two T's or one?" Baelfire countered.
"SEE! SEE! YOU'RE A BIG FAT MEANY!"
As the tot turned tail and ran, Baelfire shouted after him, "IS THAT 'FAT' WITH TWO T'S OR ONE?!"
The distant shout of frustration that followed warmed his cold black heart.
The skeleton hung from its branch disapprovingly.
"What?" Baelfire snapped.
The skeleton said nothing. The gleam of its lone gold tooth said it all. Balefire crossed his arms and huffed.
Whoever the skeleton had once been, be they pirate, Indian, fairy, or Lost Boy, they were probably down in Hades right now having a jolly old time partying with their relatives and childhood pets. All while Baelfire was up here stuck on the Plain Between Plains unable to die.
"Lucky bastard," he swore to himself.
"Whose a bastard?"
Peter Pan appeared next to his cage, floating on their side several stories up. Baelfire scowled at them.
"You are," he deadpanned.
Pan held a hand to their heart, feigning sadness. "That hurts, Bae. Right here."
"Don't call me that," he growled.
"Call you what?"
"Bae."
A predatory grin spread across the fake teen's lips.
"How about we play a game," they said. "If I win, you'll become a Lost Boy. And if you win, I'll stop calling you Bae."
"How about you let me starve to death and I'll let you call me anything you like."
Pan pretended to think about it, tapping their chin and everything.
"Mmmm. Nah. Let's play my game!"
With a snap of their fingers, Baelfire suddenly found himself tied to the trunk of a tree amidst a campsite full of boys of all ages. He immediately tried to wiggle out of his bonds but quickly found that they had been enchanted somehow. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't twitch a single muscle.
Only his facial features were under his control.
"Lost Boys! Listen Up!"
Pan stepped through the foliage on the other side of the camp. The dozen or so "Lost Boys" instantly perked up at the presence of their leader.
"Everyone huddle up! It's time for some target practice!"
As the slipshod group gathered around a spot supposedly designated beforehand, the smug sprite skipped over to a very unimpressed Baelfire.
"Seriously, Piper? This is your game?"
"It's Pan now, and yes. The rules are simple: If you close your eyes, you lose."
They pulled a bright red apple from behind their back and balanced it atop his head.
"Try not to flinch," they winked.
"Ha. Ha."
The fae proceeded to skip back to their group of goons and single out the redheaded tot who'd tried and failed to taunt Baelfire earlier.
Pan handed him a loaded crossbow pulled from thin air.
"Don't worry if you hit him, Sticky," they told the kid, "Bae won't mind."
"I MOST CERTAINLY WILL!"
Everyone watched with baited anticipation as Sticky gingerly cranked the weapon and took aim. His little arms were shaking so badly, it would be a miracle if he hit his mark. Though considering the weapon had clearly been conjured using magic, Baelfire didn't have his hopes up.
The Lost Boy known as Sticky took a deep breath, double-checked his aim, then squeezed the trigger.
Baelfire mentally braced himself for pain... only to relax as the bolt whizzed by, completely missing him.
In fact, the shot was so bad the arrow ended up embedded in an entirely different tree.
A course of "Oooohs" filled the clearing. The redhead's lower lip began to wobble.
"Now, now," Pan soothed, "Try again."
They snapped their fingers and a fresh bolt appeared in the boy's fumbling hands.
Everyone cheered the toddler on as he loaded up the crossbow and aimed again. Just as he was about to fire, Pan nudged the bolt higher.
Sticky looked up at them questioningly.
"You want to hit the apple, not his nose," the fae chided.
This time, against all odds, the arrow struck true. The soft thwack of the arrowhead piercing the apple practically echoed through the camp.
If Baelfire had been capable, his jaw would have dropped.
Peter Pan whistled, "Not bad, Sticky. Not bad."
Much good-natured ribbing greeted the blushing redhead as he was absorbed back into the group one back pat at a time.
Baelfire, meanwhile, tried to ignore the apple juice now slowly seeping into his curly mop of hair.
"Who wants to go next?"
A multitude of hands flew into the air.
"How abooout… Felix!"
The lone seventeen-year-old of the group stepped forward and withdrew a set of twin daggers from his makeshift belt. The Piper's grin widened in vicious delight. At another snap of their fingers, two fresh apples materialized on each of Baelfire's stock-still shoulders.
The teen wished he could shake them off.
"You've got two tries," Pan magnanimously declared.
The blond smirked, "I'll only need one."
Without any preamble, Felix casually flicked his wrists and sent the wickedly sharp daggers careening through the air.
A satisfying "THUNK! THUNK!" followed.
All the Lost Boys, from the three-year-old to the nineteen-year-old burst into applause.
Pan clapped along with them, a look of supreme satisfaction plastered across their face. All Baelfire wanted to do was sit down.
He raised his voice and asked, "Are we nearly done here?"
The group went silent. Not even the leaves dared rustle.
Pan turned around slowly. "Why? Are you not having fun, little fire?"
Baelfire rolled his eyes,
"Fine. If we're really doing this then you might as well aim for something vital. Say, my heart or my liver."
"A human can survive without a liver."
"Then aim for my heart. Or better yet, my throat."
The Lost Boys' eyes shifted from Baelfire to Pan. Back and forth, back and forth.
"Alright," Pan conceded, "Felix, you're up!"
Felix eagerly took the crossbow from Sticky's unresisting hands and loaded it with an efficiency that belayed expertise. Judging by the teen's skill with knives, he had probably done this many times before. Baelfire was unsure whether that should worry him or not...
As Felix took aim, the fae again took the liberty of adjusting the height of the crossbow. The Lost Boy didn't question it.
"Ready... aim... FIRE!"
Baelfire stared at the bolt head-on as it whistled through the air and pierced the flesh of his gut.
He waited for the agonising pain to overwhelm him... yet none came.
The injury didn't hurt at all.
He peeled one eye open. Yep, he'd definitely been hit. So where was the pain?
Peter Pan let out an impressed whistle, "What a shot, Felix! Good job!"
"All in a day's work, milord," Felix smirked.
He took his bow to the crowd as they hollered and hooted while Pan lazily sauntered over to Baelfire. They ever so casually ran their hands over the exposed end of the bolt before giving it a good, hard yank. The squelch of blood and sinew being torn rang in his ears.
And yet...
Why the HELL didn't it HURT?!
"He got you good," Pan mused. "I'm genuinely impressed. He managed to miss every single one of your vital organs."
"Yay me."
The sprite ripped the arrow out of his gut. Paradoxically, the wound began to knit itself back together.
"What?"
"Do you understand why it would be futile to jump off a cliff now, Baelfire?"
"Yeah... I do..."
"Good."
The fae clapped a hand on Baelfire's shoulder, breaking the enchantment keeping him still. His entire body slumped against the tree.
"I concede you won this round but don't get too comfortable. This is just the beginning! Neverland has so much more to offer than immortality and eternal youth. Just think; if you joined us, you'd have a family! A place to belong! That ache in your heart would vanish and you'd spend your days having fun and being free. No rules, no adults-"
"Just you," Baelfire finished.
An expression the teen could not quite place flashed across the sprite's face.
"Unlike your father, we actually want you, Baelfire. You wouldn't be neglected here."
Baelfire's brows furrowed, "I wasn't neglected."
"Yes. You were."
"No. I wasn't."
"Then why did you leave?"
He opened his mouth to reply, to say something, anything. Yes, he'd left. But that wasn't because his father was neglecting him!
It was because... because...
His father had changed. He had changed. The magic, the castle, the deals, the blade... it wasn't like before.
Before, he'd had a proper home. Before, he'd had friends. (Before, his father had loved him.)
Baelfire closed his mouth.
Pan patted his shoulder, taking his silence as a concession.
"It's alright. I get it. You don't have to explain anything to me, little fire. I'm on your side, remember?" They snapped their fingers and the apples and bolts vanished.
"One day, you'll look back on your old life and wonder why you ever cared. I promise."
'That is not a good thing,' Baelfire thought.