Peter Darling

by Austin Chant

  Peter had the feeling that Hook was trying to comfort him. "You're not making any sense."

  "They're toys, Pan. I hate to see you weeping over them as if they were real."

  A strange chill ran down Peter's spine. "What?"

  Hook blinked slowly. "Hadn't you ever realized? It's just you and I, Pan. Those boys of yours are toy soldiers."

  "That's not true," Peter said, his heart thumping, "that's horrible, they're not—"

  He stopped.

  He remembered coming to Neverland as a boy and, finding himself alone and outnumbered by pirates, wishing for playmates. He had wanted boys like his brothers, a little younger than him, who would look up to him and follow his orders. One by one, such children had appeared, until he was finding a new Lost Boy every time he turned a corner in the woods. And as soon as the hideout had started to grow cramped, they had stopped coming.

  As if his wish had been summoning them. Or creating them.

  Hook was watching him, a frown digging into his brow. "You didn't know."

  "I thought—" Peter could hardly shape the words, his lips trembling with disbelief. "I thought they were real," he whispered.

  "Well, they are as real as Neverland can make them, but—good God, Pan, no wonder you've been so upset."

  Peter drew a sharp breath. "What about the pirates?"

  "My inventions, not yours."

  The question he really wanted to ask caught in his throat for a long moment before he could voice it: "What about you? Are you…?"

  Hook gave a startled scoff. "Me? I was here long before you, and I plan to be here long after. Yes, I'm real." There was a faint gleam in his eye. "You didn't think you invented me, did you?"

  Peter realized he had been terrified of that, terrified that Hook too could be swept away from him with a thought. But if it was at least the two of them… He took a deep breath, feeling adrift but less afraid than he had been a moment ago.

  "And Samuel?"

  Hook faltered. "What do you think?" Before Peter could venture a guess, he gave a sharp little laugh and looked away. "He was a dream. Someone to warm my bed where it was safe to imagine such things."

  Even if Samuel weren't real, Hook's grief was, and it twisted at him. "I'm sorry."

  "It's all right," Hook said. "It doesn't pay to take things so seriously here, Pan."

  He sounded like he wanted to put the memories away and forget them, and Peter couldn't blame him for that.

  In the gloom, he could not see much of Hook's face, but there was clarity in that. The contrast of shadow and firelight peeled away his wild hair, his pirate coat, and even the hook itself. It left a man with a careful, aloof expression, skeptical eyebrows and a sardonic smile that came often and easily. He could almost be ordinary.

  "Who are you?" Peter thought to ask.

  Hook did not seem to notice that this was the first time Peter had ever wondered. He replied unhelpfully, "James Hook, captain of the Jolly Roger."

  "Is that really your name?"

  "As far as I'm concerned." Hook laughed to himself. "I don't recall my old surname, but Hook suits me. I've been here long enough that it doesn't matter. Can you imagine going back to boring, ordinary life once you've experienced this place? Well, I suppose you have—and I did too, long ago. But wherever I came from, it paled in comparison to this place, so I decided to stay."

  Peter hunched his shoulders. He didn't know where Hook came from, but he knew that for himself, the real world wasn't boring—it was something worse than that.

  Hook was contemplating him again when Peter looked up. "We'd best move on," he said. "Your time is short."

  Eight

  "As the fearsome Hook prepared to send his helpless victim off the plank, he had no idea who was watching from above." Peter stretched one foot across the divide between two tree branches. Below, John snarled convincingly and menaced Michael with a sharpened stick, pushing him toward the end of a wooden board laid across the ground. Peter kept one eye on his brothers, but looking down made him nervous, so he focused on climbing around to the branches above them. "Little did Hook know that Peter Pan was preparing a daring rescue! When all hope seemed lost for Hook's prisoner, he heard…" Peter cleared his throat and called out in his clearest, most confident voice: "Hook! If you feed that boy to the crocodiles, I'll cut you to ribbons!"

  John whirled around, feigning shock. "Who is that? Where's that coming from?"

  "'Tis I," Peter shouted, "your mortal enemy, Peter Pa—"

  The branch broke under Peter's heel as he stepped forward to give the rest of his speech. He caught a glimpse of John's face, which sported a look of comical horror, before he slammed into the ground.

  His wrist, which had been between him and the dirt, exploded in pain when he tried to use it to push himself up. "Ow," Peter cried, rolling onto his back and clutching his arm to his chest.

  "Wendy, are you broken?" Michael exclaimed, wandering off the plank to stare down at him.

  "Let me see," John said importantly, crouching down and pushing his glasses up his nose. He spent a few minutes poking and prodding at Peter's arm to determine if it was broken. "You might lose the limb," he reported.

  Peter was more upset that this meant the game was over, and that it might mean he wasn't allowed to play in the tree anymore. Mrs. Darling had made threats over his various bruises and scrapes before, but his arm seemed more serious. Still, it hurt too much to ignore. It was an awful pain, growing as his brothers picked him up and dragged him inside. And it wasn't only his arm—it was his whole body. His chest ached, raw as a cough, hot as a furnace, throbbing like a fever…

  *~*~*

  "Pan! Pan!"

  Peter dragged himself from a deep, dark place.

  He was sweating so much he felt as if he had melted, and his body was shaking violently. He could feel his bones trembling against the floor. A thumb and forefinger pulled one of his eyes open, and a face swam into view above him, but he could not make sense of it. He tried to speak, but words eluded him; he gasped like a drowning man.

  His chest was on fire, all of it, centered around a singular searing pain. Hook touched the skin near the wound and Peter sobbed and thrashed at him, too weak to fight. "God damn and hellfire," Hook hissed. "I thought you had more time."

  It took all Peter's strength to stay conscious, the cave blurring around Hook's face.

  "Nothing for it," Hook said. He took Peter's chin and pried his mouth open. Peter tried instinctively to bite as Hook fit something between his teeth and forced his head back.

  A vile liquid slid down his throat and he swallowed convulsively, tasting its bitterness all the way to his stomach.

  "What," he managed to croak.

  "The antidote," Hook said. "You idiot," he added for good measure.

  He almost needn't have spoken. Peter could feel the substance spreading through his body; it was as quick as the poison had been, a silvery frost that seemed to snuff the fire in his blood. The fever receded so fast he was still gasping from the heat when it was suddenly gone. It left a potent exhaustion in its wake, black spots dancing in front of his eyes and threatening to swallow his vision.

  What he could see was that Hook was very close to him, frowning. His fingers slid through Peter's damp bangs and pushed them away from his brow, and Peter's breath shook in his chest. He could smell the cigar Hook had smoked earlier. He made a startled noise of protest as Hook slid an arm around his shoulders, lifting him away from the wall. The heat of his body made Peter realize how cold he was in comparison. Working awkwardly with his one hand, Hook wrapped something warm and thick around Peter before setting him back against the wall.

  Peter stared blankly at the shiny blue velvet for a long moment before he realized he was wearing Hook's coat.

  "Better?" Hook asked.

  "Don't touch me," Peter said thickly. He didn't like the feeling of his body warming to match Hook's; it made his skin crawl, like the shiver of electricity. He couldn't make sense of it
with his head spinning, his limbs so heavy and weak.

  Hook gave him a strange look from under his eyelashes and rose, stepping back. Peter lolled his head to the side to watch him, but that made him dizzy, and the world soon faded to black again.

  *~*~*

  "Mother!" John bellowed. "Come quickly! Wendy's hurt!"

  They burst into the parlor and froze when they found it full of more grown-ups than usual. There was Mrs. Darling, as expected, but she was pouring tea for Mr. Darling, who ought to have been at work, and a stuffy-looking gentleman with a severe mustache.

  "What's all this?" the gentleman asked. At a glance, Peter could see that he was the kind of grown-up who did not like children.

  Mr. Darling looked mortified. "My—my children," he said. "You three, what on earth is this about?" He was staring at Peter with a kind of growing anger, his face turning pink.

  "Wendy fell out of a tree and broke her arm," John said, standing up straight as a soldier.

  The stuffy gentleman had glasses like John's, and he adjusted them as he bent forward. "Goodness," he said. "Is that your daughter?"

  Mr. Darling's face turned an even deeper shade of red, and he shot Peter a venomous look. "It's a game she likes to play," he snapped. "Mary—"

  Mrs. Darling was already sweeping forward in a swirl of skirts, rushing all three children upstairs. She sent John and Michael off to the nursery and pulled Peter into the washroom.

  "Mother?" Peter hated crying, but he was on the brink of it, swallowing and trying to force the tears back. He didn't care about the pain of his arm, only the look on Mr. Darling's face. "Why's Father mad at me?"

  Mrs. Darling was busy scrubbing the dirt from his cheeks. "He's not mad at you, dear," she said, which was what she always said, and Peter didn't believe her. "Your father is entertaining a very important man from the bank and wants to present the best picture of his family, that's all."

  "What does that mean?" Peter asked, screwing up his face. Mrs. Darling tutted and began scrubbing at the dirt on his arms instead. "I'm not the best picture of his family?"

  "Dear heart," Mrs. Darling said in the soothing way that always made Peter feel worse. "When you've grown up a bit more, you'll understand. The way you play with your brothers is very sweet, but you let them get you into all sorts of trouble. Now, when your father wants someone to see the best picture of his family, he wants to see you behaving like a young lady, not like Michael and John."

  "But I don't want to."

  Mrs. Darling didn't seem to hear him. "Right now your father is probably feeling embarrassed because Mr. Martin saw his daughter dressed as a boy. So why don't we get you dressed up in your prettiest frock and you can go downstairs and introduce yourself to Mr. Martin properly? I think that would make your papa feel much better."

  The very idea of parading in front of his father and a strange man in a pretty frock made Peter's skin crawl. "My arm's broken," he cried. "I can't go downstairs."

  "It's not broken, dearest; you've been moving it. I'm sure it's just sprained." Mrs. Darling smiled, as sweet as always, but there was something unmoving in her eyes. "We'll visit the doctor to be sure once Mr. Martin has gone home."

  There was nothing for it. Peter let himself be cleaned up, had his hair brushed out and safely contained in ribbons, and was marched down to the living room in a blue silk dress with his aching right arm dangling at his side as if it didn't hurt. "George, dear?" Mrs. Darling called, in her honeyed voice. "Wendy's coming down to say hello to Mr. Martin."

  Mr. Darling looked braced for impact when Peter and Mrs. Darling came into the parlor, but when he saw Peter in his dress, he abruptly relaxed. His smile softened as if he had recognized someone he cared about in a stranger's face.

  "There's my young lady," he said gruffly. "There's my beautiful girl."

  Nine

  Pan was scowling in his sleep when Hook returned to their makeshift camp. Hook looked enviously at him—Pan was still bundled in his coat, and Hook hadn't the heart to take it back, which meant he was wearing only his blood-soaked shirt and slowly freezing to death.

  His scouting had failed to provide him with any additional sources of light, warmth, food, or indeed anything but pale tunnels and a lot of uncomfortably sharp stalagmites. They were thoroughly trapped, without resources, and the stab wound Pan had inflicted on his shoulder was growing more painful by the hour.

  Hook hunkered down beside the aforementioned devil. Pan was a different creature when he was asleep; the cleverness and cruelty smoothed out of his face, leaving behind a young man who could almost be mundane. That was the trick of him, of course. His magic was all in the way he moved, like he had a mastery over the world which entitled him to bend its rules.

  In sleep, however, he was obviously human, especially while pale and curled up inside a coat many sizes too large for him. Hook didn't like it, much as he should perhaps have enjoyed seeing Pan brought low; it felt wrong to see him helpless. It plucked at sympathies Hook had almost forgotten he had. Knowing that Pan had been playing their game unwittingly, thinking that the stakes were truly life and death for his Lost Boys, made Hook feel all the worse for him.

  "Hurry up and feel better," he said. He wasn't expecting a reply, but Pan shifted in his sleep, groaning something indistinct.

  Hook frowned. Pan's face was twisted up in distress, his jaw clenched. Concerned that he might still be feverish, Hook felt his forehead.

  At his touch, Pan's eyes fluttered open and he gasped.

  Hook snatched his hand back, half expecting to be bitten for his trouble. Pan had felt quite cold, no trace of the poison fever remaining, but he looked disoriented. His sharp green eyes darted around as if he were not quite sure where he was, and then fixed on Hook.

  "My apologies," Hook said. "I meant to let you sleep for as long as you could."

  "It's fine," Pan said hoarsely.

  "You look more like the living than you did. How are you feeling?"

  "Fine." Pan pulled Hook's coat tighter around his thin shoulders. He didn't look well.

  "Perhaps I should have clarified. Are you still about to succumb to the poison, or can we take that particular worry off our plates?"

  Pan's brow wrinkled. "I feel better," he said in a tone of slight suspicion. "You gave me the antidote. Why?"

  "Because I fell asleep on watch and woke to find you dying." Hook said it lightly, not allowing his tone to give away how alarming it had been to hear Pan crying out in his sleep, to discover him sweating and shaking. It had occurred to Hook that if something had gone wrong—if the vial of antidote had been cracked in their struggles—Pan would be gone, and it would be his fault.

  Really, that was an outcome he ought to have been content with. Wasn't it Pan's job to survive all Hook's attempts to kill him?

  Then again, whose fault it was made little difference if, in the end, Pan was suffering and Hook didn't want him to.

  Pan looked as conflicted as Hook felt. "Where would be the fun in you expiring now?" Hook asked him. "Do you think I'd really rather spend the rest of my short life wandering these caves alone?"

  "No," Pan admitted. "That sounds boring."

  "Boring and probably fatal. A dreadful combination."

  Pan almost smiled. Hook saw him stop halfway and scowl instead. There was still something tense and uncertain hanging around him, something in his face like an echo of pain. It was probably not in Hook's best interests to pry, and yet…

  "You looked like you were having an unhappy sleep," he said. "Were you dreaming?"

  Pan hunched his shoulders. That was it; Hook saw the crack in his expression. Pan wrapped his arms around his knees in that defensive way he had. "Yes," he said shortly, clearly not intending to elaborate.

  "Tell me," Hook said. He raised his eyebrows when Pan glared at him. "Why not?"

  "You'd use it against me," Pan said.

  "Give me some credit. I've done a fine job of terrorizing you thus far without access to your nightmares." />
  "That doesn't mean you wouldn't," Pan said, though rather halfheartedly.

  "I find that enemies are the most satisfying people to share secrets with," Hook said. "If you must tell someone, tell someone who's sensitive to all your vulnerabilities, on account of trying to exploit them."

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "I'm making excuses for you," Hook said impatiently. "You seem like the type to bottle up without an excuse. Talk to me or not; the choice is yours."

  Pan's ears turned pink. He stared at the floor. "I was dreaming about my father," he said abruptly.

  "Ah. Dead?"

  "No."

  "Mine is," Hook said. "My mother as well."

  "Oh," Pan said, looking vaguely chagrined. "Sorry."

  "There's no need to be. They died when I was small. The only relatives I had left, in fact, were the ones who barely knew my parents, and they shuffled me around constantly, each of them hoping that one of the other relatives would like me enough to adopt me permanently." It was a very old memory, and it had lost almost all its sting. "There, you've a secret of mine. Tell me one of yours."

  "My father didn't love me," Pan said. "Nobody did."

  Hook paused, startled not only by the sentiment itself—it had never occurred to him that Pan could be unloved—but by the way he said it. There was no doubt or hope for reassurance in Pan's words, only bruising certainty.

  "They all wanted me to be someone else," Pan continued. "But I wasn't. So they didn't want me."

  "So you ran away to Neverland," Hook said, and Pan gave a stiff nod. "But they still torment you in dreams."

  "They don't mean to," Pan said, his voice fading a little. "They just do."

  "It'll get better. I used to have dreams like that needling at me every hour I spent here. But they do go away with time—as a matter of fact, I couldn't tell you what I used to dream about." Hook laughed through the uncomfortable thought that he had probably forgotten terrible things that now lay out of reach of his mind.