Innocence (OUAT/Peter Pan)

Chapter 43: A Saving Grace

There, double update so I can maybe be forgiven? Maybe? *puppy eyes* I'd work on the last 2 chapters right now buuuuut I'm too busy splitting ribs over AVPM xD

ENJOY MY LOVELIES!<3

PETER PAN’S POV

Grown-ups are really so funny. There they stood, mere steps away from the boy and Peter, a distance that should have made him nervous but only made him chuckle internally. So desperately speaking to the boy, the Truest Believer who believed in anything and anyone except them. The Evil Queen, the Savior, the “once” Lost Boy. He even believed in Peter, the biggest liar in the lot!

            Peter half listened, ready to jump in and urge how much he alone believed in the boy when needed, which was of course not often.

            “Because we love you,” the Savior finished. It was almost adorable, all finishing each other’s sentences. Peter bit back a scoff of amusement, he had to look innocent and urgent and not entirely in control in front of the boy.

            Then he felt a pulse. As if his heart suddenly pushed too much and he felt the blood in his head and throat. Then a stab. As if a white-hot knife had been plunged into his shoulder blade, slicing through muscle and shoving past his bones. His hands were tight fists, his teeth already hurt from the second he’d been clenching them. Furtively, he glanced back to see…nothing. It wasn’t a physical wound, or physical pain. The pain was in his mind, it was magic. His magic, the island’s magic, something was very wrong with his island.

            Well of course, he was bloody dying after all. He snarled to himself, this boy needed to hurry it up and give him his heart. Peter spoke more to him, he couldn’t focus on what because his shoulder kept burning, but he didn’t need to. Just encouragement, belief. Belief. All the island ever needed.

            But why was it so sudden? He measured the hourglass out of the corner of his eye, Peter had time still. Another year, small in the life of the island and even in his, but still far too sudden.

            And then it clicked. This wasn’t the island, it was in a concentrated area…his campsite. It was burning, but it wasn’t burning. At least not naturally, and not truly. He’d felt this before, but the power behind it had been different, had been less. Or maybe he’d just been stronger then.

            For the first time since beginning this search, Peter doubted himself. He couldn’t very well make her leave, even after he had the heart of the Truest Believer as his. She would still be so powerful, and she was bound to the island. They would be together for eternity in his Neverland. Peter felt his lips twitch, that didn’t feel like such a terrible thing. To be completely honest, as he might as well attempt to think in the role he was playing—he was still urging the boy that he himself was special, after all—and admit that the years without her had been…different.

            She would hate him. This burning in his back would never leave, and it was excruciating despite the minutes that were passing. She would always be messing up his island with that damn fire. He’d always be dealing with this bloody pain, and he couldn’t think straight with it! Here it was, having him think of being together and missing her and seeing white behind his eyelids and completely missing the boy standing in front of him with his pure, red and gold heart in his hand and holding it out to him.

            A pressure built up inside his chest, for a moment the white pain disappeared as the heart filled him. He could feel the raw, unused and unknown power racing through his veins, so much energy he could swim around the whole of Neverland—seven times. He took deep breaths, trying to control and balance the flood, lifting himself off of the floor of Skull Rock to help. Ha! He didn’t even need pixie dust to fly now. He looked down, breathing heavily with both effort and exhilaration, watching triumphantly as the stupid, helpless grown-ups surrounded the boy’s dying body. The hope in their eyes died, lights fading quickly. As if they’d ever had a chance.