disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: to Chloe, on her birthday. OR AT LEAST, IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE. AND THEN CANON FUCKED ME INTO THE NEXT CENTURY GODDAMN
notes: this was supposed to be demon!pan/wendy and it is still is. sort of.
notes2: barfs.
title: symptomatica
summary: Just another Saturday night. — Wendy/Peter, Felix, Henry.
—
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(small-town stars)
Her lipstick smeared dark plum against her hand, imprinting on her skin like a bruise.
Wendy Moira Angela Darling rolled over and tried valiantly not to vomit. Her head swam with the pounding of last night's music and lights, and the taste of vodka was still thick like acid at the back of her throat. Waking up was a dry-mouthed hell, and it was only going to get worse.
"Y'know, Wends, this is a bit unhealthy."
"Go away, Peter," she said groggily. "You're not real, and it's too early for this."
"You need to—"
"I don't need to do anything. Go away."
She rolled over again, and went back to sleep.
—
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(another fist¸ another wall)
Wendy never told anyone that a seventeen-year-old boy lived in her closet. They'd storm the place; they'd rip it apart trying to find him. When they couldn't, they'd call her crazy and lock her up, just like they'd done to her mum. Her Gran would never forgive her, and wouldn't do a thing to stop them.
They couldn't see him, after all, and they said these things ran in the family.
Sixteen and a mess, Wendy wore her skirts too high and didn't believe in anything anymore.
"I could make them go away," he said in her ear. She didn't have to look to know he was talking about the girls sitting across the room.
"Go away, Peter, I'm trying to work," she murmured under her breath. It was a little lackluster. These days, she was starting to overlook the vitriol. One day, she was going to forget it entirely, and then where would she be?
He touched the inside of her thigh, pale fingers against paler flesh, and laughed all the way out of the room.
—
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(you're beautiful tonight)
"Kidnapping children is a terrible pastime."
"His name's Henry, and he's going to save Neverland. You should come."
"No, you'd never let me come home. I know the rules. And don't eat his heart, Peter," Wendy sighed, tucked her honey-colour curls behind her ear. "You did that to the last three, and it's not very nice. I'm surprised Felix hasn't locked you up, yet."
"Felix wouldn't dare. I'm not very nice," he said carelessly, hanging upside down from her ceiling fan.
"Stop that," she said. "Who do you think you are? Spider-man?"
"No. I'm Peter."
"Pan."
"Not to you, Wendy," he said. "Not to you."
—
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(go kiss the liquor off his laugh)
Sometimes, Wendy stumbled into bed after the city lights had extinguished themselves.
Sometimes, she dreamt:
leaves in your hair, sunlight across your eyes, branches beneath you—branches? why branches?—and you shift and he laughs into your mouth. a tingling low in your abdomen and he looks at you looks at you looks at you with dark eyes dark hands dirt under his nails crusty red and flaking away and you love you love and his tongue against the seam of your lips but the breathing gets hard and you're drowning the water fills up your senses and all you can hear is peter laughing and you think bad luck, that but probably it could be worse—
Wendy woke up gasping for air and reaching for the lamp on her nightstand. The shadows in her closet flickered.
But there was never anyone there.
Peter didn't stay during the night.
The slick wetness between her thighs gave Wendy an idea of why.
—
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(put on my dancing shoes real tight)
"When are you going to say yes and just come with me?" he exploded, one day when she was doing maths. "Everyone else says yes!"
"I'm not going to say yes, Peter. Why can't you understand that?"
"Because you're supposed to say yes!"
"Well, I'm not!"
"Why not?!"
"Because I don't want to!" she yelled back, and she hadn't even realized she was shouting until her lungs were contracting with the effort of it. "Because I've got brothers who need me! Because you're not real!"
"You believe in me," he said, very quietly.
"Not because I want to," Wendy said bitterly, and pushed him out the window.
—
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(shiny apologies)
"I'm sorry."
"Leave it."
—
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(look up from the pavement)
Her heels pinched. The key in the lock didn't fit and she laughed into someone's broad shoulder, her whole frame shaking. Wendy fell against the door, trembling with it. She batted away the hands that reached down to help her up.
Time passed, though she didn't know how much.
"What're you doing down there?"
"Oh," she said. She blinked up at him, dopey from the rigours of a night spent drinking. She wasn't wearing knickers. "Hello, Peter."
His hands were dark and glossy in the light from the streetlamp. Wet, when they curved around her face. In the morning, she knew there would be dried brown marks over her skin, the exact colour of old blood.
Somehow, she didn't much care.
"Wendy," he said, "Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. What're you doing to yourself? Why're you letting this happen?"
"I don't know," she said, and it was true.
"Let me take you away," he murmured. "Please."
She'd never heard him say please before.
"Okay," Wendy breathed. "Okay."
She closed her eyes to block out the image of his head thrown back, laughing. The sound was a harder thing to forget.
Forgetting was easy, though, when you really wanted to.
—
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(almost fine)
Wendy didn't like Felix.
Felix didn't like Wendy.
But Peter didn't like to share his toys, even with the people he liked best. He had the boys build her a palace. Only really it was a box built of sticks that swung in the trees, and sometimes she slept there. There were no Lost Girls, Wendy reflected—she wasn't lost.
Belief was a heady thing, in Neverland.
Wendy pushed against the bars, and didn't ask to go home.
—
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(just another saturday night)
Henry reminded her of Michael, by way of his big eyes and the belief still along his bones. He was about that young, too.
Wendy couldn't look at him for long without wanting to be sick.
Peter watched her, and grinned with all his teeth.
—
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fin.