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I allowed myself to hope that this Darling was the last, that this time everything would work out, that we would forget this rotten brood and go back to the life we had before them.
I still remember the first unsuccessful attempt. Then I cursed a lot in the language that I used to see the dreams in. The language I hardly remember now. Pan cursed even more and crushed the skulls of... Ten? Eleven people? Anyway. Now he quickly turns on his heels, not even looking at the unconscious girl on the floor, and silently walks away. I follow him, leaving the twins to clean up the mess as usual.
Pan is fierce, sharp and fast. I could easily catch up with him using my magic, but right now it would be a lunge, so I just follow him a few yards away. He knows I'm following him, so he doesn't close the tomb door behind him, but he completely ignores me as he falls into the bed.
“Pan.”
“Hm?”
Peter looks at me blankly from behind the canopy, but I know he's listening intently. I really have no idea what to say to him. I've never been very supportive, and I'm not sure he needs any pretty words right now, like the ones the twins are so expertly pouring into the ears of the Darling girls. So I just walk up to his bed and wheeze:
“Move.”
He arches an eyebrow surprisedly, but clears some space next to him. For some time we just lie silently, staring at the dark ceiling, until I break the silence first:
"Wanna kill someone?”
“Do you?”
“Always,” I smile crookedly.
Pan pauses for a few seconds, drumming on the belt buckle with fingers (he never notices he does it), but finally shakes his head:
“Later. Now I want to sleep”
I nod and carefully hug him to me; surprisingly, he does not object. He puts his head on my chest, fits in and lets me hold him like that. Pan gives a faint shiver as I run my hand up and down his spine and press lightly between his shoulder blades. He is always tense, as, in fact, I am. Life and remnants of magic pulse under the warm skin. It would be more honest to say smolder, but damn, that's too much unpleasant truth for one day.
I lean a little lower, closer to his wet hair. Whatever the weather and season, Pan always smells the same: autumn forest, chestnuts and mountain-ash. I want to inhale his scent more deeply, collect it with my lips and feel it on the tip of my tongue. But I do not kiss. At all. Even if it's Pan.
He stretches sleepily in my arms and I slide lower so he can fit more comfortably.
“Just kick your ass out until sunset, I'm not a wench to spend a night with you.”
“I don't spend nights with them,” I snort, then, after thinking a little, lightly push his side:
“Pan?”
“Hm-m?” – he grunts dissatisfied. I pulled him out of his sleep.
“You don't spend a night either, it's daytime. It's literally... Opposite things.”
‘Shut up,” he grins and turns to the wall, and in a moment I can only hear his steady breathing.
We have to hold out about another twenty years.