Chapter Text
Felix and Peter, two boys Killian hasn’t seen in four months. They are his soul mates, the ones who didn’t want him.
So he hunted, prowled for someone, anyone, to fill the void they left aching in his chest.
Eventually he found that special someone; he ran into her three-hundred and fifty miles away from the quaint town of Storybrooke, Maine, in the dusty streets of Brooklyn, New York. She had been wondering down the sidewalks in a pastel green dress that fluttered in the new spring breeze and appeared to glow as the street lamps reflected off the sequins embroidered on the skirt. Her odd nature of simply a lavender scarf to cover bare shoulders during a time of year when the snow was just beginning to melt set his curiosity ablaze, and he was overcame by the urge to meet her, talk to her.
And he did.
She pushed him away at first, told him she had some place to be; but his persistence was virtue and he eventually got her to stay and speak to him.
Maybe it was the familiar grace of a female presence so close to him. Maybe it was the way her fiery auburn, almost scarlet, hair cascaded over her shoulders in ringlets down to the small of her bare back. Maybe it was the pronounced curves of her waist, the round perk of her breasts, or the tender touches only a woman could possess that sent chills down his spine. Maybe it was her smooth, red lips pressed against his; or just her femininity, a quality not even Peter Pan could fully grasp (even with his soft skin; lack of protruding muscle; and long, dark lashes).
They met up a few times after their first encounter. Some meetings began with coffee and ended with sweaty bodies stuck together under ocean blue sheets; some had relaxing dinners or walks through the park that came to a close with a kiss in a hallway then retreating steps away from one another. Neither would call what they were doing “dating”, but they wouldn’t call it “not dating” either; they were lovers in the easiest of terms. Killian assumed it was because both of them needed a person in their lives thus far. Seeing as both their parents passed when they were merely teenagers and they each had lost their soulmates. For Killian it was Peter and Felix wanting him to leave, and for her, her lover simply vanished from thin air; she had no clue what came of him, just that one day the lines which were engraved under the curve of her breast ached then vanished. Both were alone with no soul mates or family to get them through their grief.
So when their lives collided the walls shook; opening themselves up to the world, they clung to one another for solace. They knew what they had wasn’t love, just merely comfort to survive a world where no one wanted them.
She’d kiss his wrist, her soft red lips brushing over the scars and jumble of what used to be letters. He’d kiss her pale flesh everywhere, his pink tongue tracing every line and contour, searching for little red lines, to no avail. Her skin was bare, no signs of a soul mate anywhere. She was truly alone, and because there was no definitive person to take her away from Killian, they both knew that he was going to be the one to leave.
They don’t know when his presence will vanish, much like her love’s; but it’s coming, their nerves feel it like an itch, and she dreads it down to her very core, just as he does.
The day came, sooner than they hoped, and it came with rapid knocking at four a.m.
Peter stood behind the door red-faced and sweaty hair matted to his forehead. His eyes were tinged and blotchy with purple bags just below. Felix nowhere in sight.
“Peter what are you…?” Killian pauses, jaw slightly ajar and taking in all of the disheveled Peter before him.
The boy coughs and speaks slowly, “Felix is dead,” and Killian’s knees weaken and he wants to fall to the floor in a puddle as emptiness consumes his chest, but he didn’t crumble; the anger he felt towards the boy’s overtook the sadness in a whirlwind of rage. “He was hit by a bus and I- I didn’t know where else to go. Killian, please?”
The man straightens his back as he glares toward his only soul mate, curious as to why the boy begged after the confrontation a few months earlier.
Was he asking for forgiveness? For a second chance to be together? His azure eyes squinted in angry contemplation, pursing his lips as well. Yes, he wanted them to reacquaint and fall in love, but the woman, where would they go? He sighs wonder tugging at the matter of his brain for a decision, whom to choose?
“Killian, who is it?” Her own question is answered as she approaches, clad in a blanket and the lingering aroma of sex radiating from her skin. Killian had shown her old photos of the boy when they lay tangled in dirty sheets sometimes.
Peter catches whiff of the scent, for his nose twitches then the familiar smell of Killian rings all the mental warning bells. A venomous growl tears through the boy’s throat and he roars in jealousy, stepping around Killian to defend his love.
“Peter?” He watches as the boy stalks toward the woman who in turn steps back. “Peter!” he shouts; the boy glances back but doesn’t retreat, simply snarls as he creeps closer like a mother lion prepared for attack to protect her kin.
“Who are you?”
The woman nervously gnaws on her lower lip, glancing between the two male then speaks, “No one, just a... girl.”
“Well, this man is mine;” Peter points directly at him.
Killian scoffs, “Says the boy who didn’t want me to begin with!”
Peter’s arm falls as does his face. “I never said that.”
The man sighs, “Close enough.”
Peter glances back to woman who now retreated away, leaving them alone.
The boy stares at Killian his green eyes darkening with regret and anger (at himself). He mumbles, “I need you, Killian.” The boy sniffles but no tears swim in his eyes, “You’re all I have left.” His slender hands clench his rough, tattered coat tighter around his lithe form; he appears weary as Killian takes him in fully for the first time.
The man is quick to see the askew points of his hair with visible knots (seeming not to have been brushed or bothered in days). He notes the protruding collar and cheekbones, but Peter’s always been thin; yet this seems different. He looks feral and decrepit.
“When was the last time you ate?”
Peter shifts his gaze, eyes glance toward the dirty tile floor then the dusty yellow curtains and the lumpy, scratchy couch. He murmurs, “Yesterday.”
Killian scoffs knowing the simple word to be a lie. Closing the still ajar door, he guides the boy to the kitchen with a simple command of: “Come.”
He quickly fixes a peanut butter sandwich that Peter scarfs down in a heartbeat, proving his term of “yesterday” to be false, but Killian doesn’t mention it. He says instead, “Why?”
Peter stares for a heartbeat then sighs, resigning from his usual games to be open, maybe because this time he needs the soulmate before him to be on his side.
“Felix and I would always eat together,” he pauses, “but you knew that. And I guess trying to eat by myself just reminded me that I was by myself and that you were fuck knows where. So I just stopped.” Peter shifts in his seat removing his coat as sweat beaded on his bronzed skin, allowing Killian to better see how far his bones stuck out. He continues, “It wasn’t a conscious thing.” The boy snickers eyeing the empty plate, his face paling. “I suppose, my subconscious took over and I simply forgot, and when I remembered I felt sick to my stomach.” He shrugs.
Killian runs a calloused hand through his dark locks, pulling a bottle of cranberry juice from the metallic fridge and a glass from the sink. He feels Peter watching his every move, calculating and predicting future words and motions like he use to when Killian…. He shakes the thoughts away, but Peter continues to drink in his every action so he drinks the overly sweet and fruity juice.
Curiosity wasn’t always Peter’s best quality and right now, even with the boy speaking no words, it bugged the hell out of Killian. “Ask or say what you want, boy.”
The lad twitches but speaks “You’ve changed.” There’s a grin playing at his pale mouth and he points a skinny finger to gesture between Kilian and his glass. “No rum?”
“So?
“I like it.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
The boy laughs shaking his head in seeming disbelief at the audacity in which Killian spoke. When the body racking with giggles soothed Peter became sullen once again as Killian's fierce, ice cold gems burned into him. He loosens his jaw to speak, breathing in before confessing, “Come hom-” but he’s cut off.
“I won’t leave, Peter,” Killian’s words are stern and forceful; they showed no hint of wavering as his mind did earlier. I can’t leave.
Peter sees this. The boy fiddles his tongue around his mouth contemplating which move to make, to convince Killian to leave. “She’s not your soulmate, Killian; I am! Her name isn’t on your—” but again he’s cut off and this time he’s stuck. Time seems to slow after the two words Killian muttered and the boy stares frozen in the moment, as if someone pressed a pause button for only the room.
"She’s pregnant.”
Killian slightly hesitates as Peter’s shoulders tense. He pondered if the boy felt lost, or more so than normal. He wondered all the possible thoughts running through the messy blonde head of his. Then the idea that Peter might leave because of this entered Killian’s head. True, the grudge he held over the boy was still strong, yet it was Peter who came looking for him, his Peter. The boy longed for his return as much as Killian had for months.
It was a lie to have called what Killian felt the day he walked away freedom, because he wasn’t free by any means of the word. He was still tied down by fate, a curse in and of itself. He desired so heavily in the first few weeks to return, like the red string never severed; it merely stretched, and the further away he was the tighter the pull was to go back.
Then Killian met a girl and she made him feel, not as wonderful as he did with Peter and Felix, but close enough. And now, Killian has settled. He is perfectly fine with ‘good enough’, because he doesn’t want to be thrown away by lovers anymore. He yearns to settle and be loved, truly and completely loved, by his partner, whether it be the owner of the name engraved on his skin or a woman just as lonely as him or maybe a child.
So he got what he longed for, a happy home and then a baby, but Peter, precious Peter. Killian can’t fathom letting the boy go now that he’s back and aching for him. He chose Killian to fill the void which Felix’s death left, where Killian knocked-up a woman he barely knew for a distraction, for something to truly love (in the form of an infant).
He gnaws on his lip; Did Peter really want him that bad, though? The boy, who admitted to wishing they never met, wanted him? The whole situation made Killian so...
c o n f u s e d .