Potential for Darkness (Peter Pan)//(Robbie Kay)

65 ~ Blue Moon

I am back!!! (after disappearing once again for far too long) And I'm very excited to share the second to last chapter with everyone :)

Btw I'm not even going to try to deny that the first part of this chapter is completely self-serving and I just wrote it because I missed writing interactions between the two

<<<Day 264>>>

Adelina pressed the heels of her palms to her eyelids, twisting around under the covers to find a more comfortable position. A scrape against stone resounded somewhere outside, far away enough that it could simply be the wind loosening a pebble, yet still close enough that it caught her attention. Her state of survival was never-ending. She held in one breath. Two breaths. That sound again, closer. Footsteps. The moon visible outside her window was blocked out for an instant as a shadow flitted past, then a hand was on her doorknob, turning it.

Silent, stealthy, the person didn't yet know that she was awake and was trying their best to remain uncaught. Adelina controlled her breathing, steadying it into falsefully rhythmic rises and falls of her chest. Despite the almost complete darkness reigning in her room, she could feel the person's presence as they eased the door shut and slithered over to her on near-soundless feet. No glint of a weapon.

Adelina didn't know why she was still in bed, didn't know why she wasn't screaming at that intruder and making them find out why, exactly, breaking into her room would be the greatest and last mistake of their life. There was something comforting in that prowling presence, something hypnotizing about watching them go through all the precautions so as not to be caught, something liberating in knowing that they had come for her specifically.

The mattress dipped as the person sat down at the edge of the bed. Still, no sign of aggression. No sign of anything, actually, as they remained perfectly still, watching her sleep, watching her chest rise and fall to a cadence they knew by heart. Then, there it was; a touch. Feather light against her bare arm, fingers sliding up and down the skin, tracing invisible patterns only they could decipher. The warmth of their skin was stark contrast to the chill of the night, enough to make goosebumps rise on her flesh in response to their caress.

The person shifted their weight, halting their gentle touch at the base of her wrist, right over her pulse. Her very-much-alive, very-rapidly-beating pulse. A sigh: a confession, an accusation.

"I know you're awake, Love."

Tears threatened to spill at his voice. Fury and resentment, betrayal and agony, heartbreak and grief. All that the thought of him had invoked these past days was washed away by the relief of his presence besides her, of his touch against her skin, of his voice directed for her ears. She had missed him so.

Adelina swallowed past the lump in her throat, not moving an inch, not opening her eyes. He could still be a figment of her imagination. "Are you here to kill me?"

Pan drew back, and she wondered if he was leaving, she wondered if he was pulling out a dagger. But he returned only moments later, laying his body down beside hers, not quite touching. His hand sought out her face in the darkness, inching slowly until it brushed past her jaw, her lips, to her chin. He gently pried her head towards him, thumb stroking indolent circles under her mouth. She knew he was waiting for her to open her eyes- to finally have the courage to look at him. Yet he would not bark out the order, he would wait for her to do it of her own volition. Finally, lashes wet and sticking together, she dared meet his gaze.

Are you here to kill me?

"Never," he whispered, voice hoarse. "Never again."

And then there were real tears slipping down her face as she stared into his eyes, as she was met with the regret and pain that weighed on his soul. His fingers caught the droplets before they tumbled onto the pillow, wiping them away as if making them disappear could somehow erase all that he had done.