Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Author:Austin Chant [Chant, Austin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Gay, Fantasy, Trans, Fairy Tale, Romance
Publisher: Less Than Three Press, LLC
Published: 2017-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

Nine

Pan was scowling in his sleep when Hook returned to their makeshift camp. Hook looked enviously at him—Pan was still bundled in his coat, and Hook hadn't the heart to take it back, which meant he was wearing only his blood-soaked shirt and slowly freezing to death.

His scouting had failed to provide him with any additional sources of light, warmth, food, or indeed anything but pale tunnels and a lot of uncomfortably sharp stalagmites. They were thoroughly trapped, without resources, and the stab wound Pan had inflicted on his shoulder was growing more painful by the hour.

Hook hunkered down beside the aforementioned devil. Pan was a different creature when he was asleep; the cleverness and cruelty smoothed out of his face, leaving behind a young man who could almost be mundane. That was the trick of him, of course. His magic was all in the way he moved, like he had a mastery over the world which entitled him to bend its rules.

In sleep, however, he was obviously human, especially while pale and curled up inside a coat many sizes too large for him. Hook didn't like it, much as he should perhaps have enjoyed seeing Pan brought low; it felt wrong to see him helpless. It plucked at sympathies Hook had almost forgotten he had. Knowing that Pan had been playing their game unwittingly, thinking that the stakes were truly life and death for his Lost Boys, made Hook feel all the worse for him.

"Hurry up and feel better," he said. He wasn't expecting a reply, but Pan shifted in his sleep, groaning something indistinct.

Hook frowned. Pan's face was twisted up in distress, his jaw clenched. Concerned that he might still be feverish, Hook felt his forehead.

At his touch, Pan's eyes fluttered open and he gasped.

Hook snatched his hand back, half expecting to be bitten for his trouble. Pan had felt quite cold, no trace of the poison fever remaining, but he looked disoriented. His sharp green eyes darted around as if he were not quite sure where he was, and then fixed on Hook.

"My apologies," Hook said. "I meant to let you sleep for as long as you could."

"It's fine," Pan said hoarsely.

"You look more like the living than you did. How are you feeling?"

"Fine." Pan pulled Hook's coat tighter around his thin shoulders. He didn't look well.

"Perhaps I should have clarified. Are you still about to succumb to the poison, or can we take that particular worry off our plates?"

Pan's brow wrinkled. "I feel better," he said in a tone of slight suspicion. "You gave me the antidote. Why?"

"Because I fell asleep on watch and woke to find you dying." Hook said it lightly, not allowing his tone to give away how alarming it had been to hear Pan crying out in his sleep, to discover him sweating and shaking. It had occurred to Hook that if something had gone wrong—if the vial of antidote had been cracked in their struggles—Pan would be gone, and it would be his fault.

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