Adult-FanFiction.org : Books

NeverRememberLand	By : ClarySage Category: M through R > Peter Pan > Slash Views: 7728 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Peter Pan, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
NeverRememberLand5
By Cs

There is a time of night in Neverland when even the stars go to sleep, each one winking out, curling onto its bed of the cosmos and breathing with faint snores of dust. Peter had lain on the little green roof of the house for most of the night, eventually falling asleep curled up against the top hat-chimney, one arm circling it with care. Sleep was one of the few times when memories were free, when for a brief time they came back to Pan, flashing as colours and sounds behind his closed eyelids.

When he awoke he could never recall what it was he had seen, and so it never bothered him when he had his nightmares, except at the point when he was having one. If he could remember, he would recall someone’s soothing touch on his shoulders and head, a soft voice uttering gentle statements that made the mares stop running and return to the darkness. But Wendy had gone long ago, so that Peter had forgotten her as much as he’d forgotten the Lost Boys or Tinkerbell. Now when he had nightmares, there was no one to step in and make them go back, and so he rode the mares through the blackest part of the night, when our darkest fears shroud the world.

In normal nightmares things are broken up, scattered and drifting. Fragments come and go; one minute you run and the next you’re somewhere entirely new with a monster ready to nibble at your toes. But in Peter’s nightmares, everything had actually happened. It was as if there was a part of him that never did forget, and at night, when Peter slept, it would scream as loud as it could inside his head. Peter’s dreams were always made of memories, for the one thing he feared was reality.

There was a cave in Neverland, filled with the blackness that can only ever be in a place that sees no light. The ink of the cave is so dark you can wrap it around your hand and bring it back out into the sunlight where is shines and goes translucent as if it is what shadows are made from, and perhaps they are. Peter has been there.

In his dreaming memory he wanders back into the cave, past where the light shines on the floor at the entrance of it, past the trickles of water, sparkles of dust, and murk of half shade. Until at last his feet step into darkness so thick that it feels warm, as if it lives and breathes.

It was there, separated by everything of the daylight, that Peter stood and shivered with an unknown terror. You could never bring a light with you into this cave, the instant the shadows touched it they at once snuffed it out in their fingers, or blew it till it guttered, swayed, and absented itself.

Peter, ever curious if he had the time, wondered what lay in the back of all that darkness, what was it that breathed in his ear and ruffled his hair. Bravery had filled Peter with courage and he had been able to step forward, into the strange embrace of it, against its palpable skin.

He had not called out and asked who was there, he did not stretch forth his hand to feel ahead, nor did he blink and open his eyes wide to see the nothing before him. Instead, and with what typically made him, he went forth with gentle steps and closed eyes, one hand to his dagger, the other to his lips.

After a long and interminable time the black behind his eyelids became a red, silvers lines threading through it and etching paths. His foot bumped something solid and tall and his eyes snapped open to stare ahead at the image that lay before him. Above, a single solemn beam of light fell upon a strange nest.

The nest shimmered and shone, reflecting not merely light, but images it had no right to hold. Inside the nest, buried beneath strings and threads, sharp silver rocks and deep blue crystals, lay a boy.

Peter carefully reached inside it, touching the shoulder of the boy, fingers finding warmth there where none was expected. His hands had felt a beating when he touched the chest of the boy, his fingers relaying heat and breath. Then, so slowly it was barely noticed, the boy’s eyes had opened, green with the fires of emeralds, slitted and sly, and by far too familiar a thing.

~~~

It is always at this point that Peter snapped awake, the nightmares running away, forgotten with the opening of his eyes. Except on that night, the image still lay before him, teasing him from within the memory. In the faint light left before the dawn, a pair of green eyes with a damp luster stared at him, lips curled into a knowing smirk.

“It was you,” Peter accused, before the nightmare slipped away entirely. “It was you in the funny nest of glass, I know it was you.”

Nap’s lips rounded only at the corners, a ghost of a smile. “No,” he said simply, rolling as if to turn away, Peter’s hand clutching at his shoulder preventing a full revolution.

“Yes, I know it was you.”

“No,” Nap said again, struggling to turn away. He wanted to go below, fall into Peter’s bed and try to forget, but Peter’s fingers dug into his shoulder, the nails biting.

“It could only have been you,” Peter hissed, “who else would be in my image?”

Nap suddenly smiled, a truly heartless smile, savoring the word he uttered next as if it were syrup on his tongue as it slid off. “You.”

Peter’s eyes widened, mirrors showing his own face smiling back at him, and then they shattered, tears of shock and bewilderment sliding down his cheeks like tiny molten stars. His chin trembled, and he whispered a single, soft, “no.”

Delight was in Nap’s countenance as he moved closer instead of trying to escape, fascinated by the emotion on Peter’s face. “You don’t know, you can’t remember it, except when the night falls over you and the dreams come. And now you look at me and you know the truth, don’t you?”

Peter shook his head rapidly back and forth.

“It was you, you found yourself, buried beneath shining stones of silver, breathing and staring back at you. And it was reflected a hundred times more, each one of you the same.”

Nap’s lips jerked upward at the corners as if pulled by strings. His voice was soft, barely a whisper, which terrified Peter all the more than a shout would have and sank beneath his skin like blades. “I’m your nightmare, aren’t I, Peter? I’m the thing you most fear.” He reached out, gently palming a soft, wet cheek, his eyes almost tender. “I’m what happens when you can no longer forget.”

Mutely Peter’s lips moved, opening and shutting without a sound, though they formed the word ‘no’ over and over again. He tugged without strength and tried to break free, but with just the hand cupped to his cheek he found himself rooted and unable to escape. Nap moved closer, his hand sliding down and curling around a shoulder, leaning to press his forehead against Pan’s. “I wonder what would happen if you remembered this. This most terrifying thought of all, not that you will remain forever alone, but that instead, you will never be alone.” His breath touched Peter’s cheek; his eyes alight with curiosity, his hand as light as air.

He could feel it then, as if a cloudbank were lifting from his mind, as if the heaviness and pressure were finally going. A black swirl of memory could almost be seen if one looked close enough, gliding from one head to the other. Nap’s mind felt hollow for a long moment, and the light in Peter’s eyes seemed to die, banked in memory, before it flared.

Nap reeled back, as if struck, another heavy thought filling the void of the one that had left, and in his mind and on his body he felt fists and feet. Blows rained down on him, though he seemed to give as good as he got, and for each bruise he gave one in return. He fell from the sky then, his eyes opening wide as he saw his own face, his hands clutched at his own neck. With a deep shudder he came back from the memory, his eyes narrowing in anger. For it had been his fight with Peter he had remembered, only from Peter’s side, and now he recalled both. It twisted inside his skull, unable to reconcile. Two memories bobbing and weaving separate yet the same. One Peter’s, one Nap’s, and it was far worse than having merely one side of Peter’s memories. They confused each other, getting tangled and torn, fitting awkwardly together. Nap whimpered in a high wavering shiver of sound, drew breath, and wailed.

The shriek of horror bounced off the water, it wailed along the paths of the fairies, it bawled endlessly louder, until it was joined by another voice, the same voice. Then, in a tide of volume it rose until it was nearly soundless.

And then, just as piercingly as it had begun, it stopped, everything going quiet in a rush.

The two boys lay face to face; one of them still cried softly, the other seemed frozen in place as if some part of him would tear the moment that he moved. Slowly, Peter wiped away his tears and reached a hand out to just touch Nap’s face, fingertips leaving trails of moisture in their wake. “Nap?”

The other boy remained still, his eyes not moving, frozen on a precipice of sanity, a yawning void below him.

“Nap?” Peter tried again, none too gently slapping Nap’s cheek. “I’ll take it back,” he said in a broken voice. “I’ll take it back if you do.” He did not want to know what he knew now, did not want to recall the cave, the other Peter, and the knowledge that he was not the only one. He couldn’t understand it; too many holes lay open before his wandering mind, too many questions, too many answers hidden in the corners.

Nap’s mouth slowly twitched, and then stretched into a rictus of a smile. In his eyes was Peter’s face, and as he tumbled backwards over the ledge in his mind, he saw Peter’s face grow farther away, a hole at the top that got tinier as he went. Until at last it was but the spark in Peter’s eye before everything went black.

tbc...
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

NeverRememberLand