Sweetheart Deal [Peter Pan, PG, Hook/Pan]
Author: Chloe
Rating: PG
Notes: I fear I may be sent to hell for writing Disney slash, although addictedkitten did it once and she hasn't been tarred and feathered yet. This was written for the third color challenge over at contrelamontre, sadly I think I interrupted it wrong. Either way, thanks to my beta, jrivka, who looked it over and liked.
Summary: "The moth don't care when he sees the flame, he might get burned but he's in the game..."
Sweetheart Deal
The sunsets in Never Never Land were like the sunsets everywhere else. A bleeding canvas ripped apart by a pirate's cutlass, a lost boy's dagger, or an Indian's feathered arrow. Surely, the sunsets were beautiful--streaking across the sky with orange and red and pink, burning the horizon and lighting the faces of the boys who watched in tattered clothes with soft warm light that sat upon the apples of their rounded ageless cheeks--but they were common. Unlike the sunsets though, Peter Pan was anything but common. Peter glowed like the sunsets, radiant at any hour, exuberant and hopelessly youthful. It would be cliche to call him a beacon of light, but he was. Peter with his thick mass of unruly red hair, his golden skin, and his hazel eyes that were always gleaming with some mischievous plan half formed.
It was because Peter was so uncommon and so young and yet old as well (because he'd lived many years. The lost boys were not immortal, but frozen in time and thus granted longer lives) that James Hook wanted him. It was moth and flame syndrome. James fancied Peter was something like the flame-- bright and dangerous but with incredible drawing power. It did take a significant departure from his natural pride to admit that he was the unwitting moth if Peter was in fact the flame. It made him the weaker party and he knew it ... but Peter did have incredible drawing power. Peter drew James to his side like a no other force James had every encountered. It was strange and tempting and horrible and the constant fight was all part of some deeper manifestation of desire that James was sometimes afraid only he recognized. Peter was, after all, a little boy; but there was a part of James Hook that was sure Peter was anything but as well.
Old, James told himself late in night when the air was thick with heat and the mermaids sang restlessly and often lewdly from their cove. Peter was old and only retained the picture of youth. Old damnit, James told himself. Peter was still so callow though, he would concede. Callow and rash, and often overly cocky. But James liked that, it made the fight far more interesting. Peter was unpredictable too, he had none of the habits that came with age and James also liked that. Peter Pan... the boy's name sat on the edge of his tongue and James fought desperately to keep it from becoming a mantra, lest a mantra spoken aloud. Smee would worry about his sanity then and he spent enough of his time talking about Pan as it was. Damning him to hell and the like, not begging for his presence.
Peter Pan, Peter Pan, Peter Pan... Peter soaring across the sky at sunset, his body wrapped in green cloth and decorated fresh picked leaves. Peter Pan with his dagger clutched in one hand and advancing with a feral look in his eyes. Peter taunting and teasing and blowing raspberries as he floated deftly just out of reach. In James' youth (When had be been young? He'd been the same fop of a man for longer than he could remember.) there had been women, but none so coy as Peter. And it killed James, certainly it killed him. But like the sunsets and unlike Peter, his yearning felt common. It was quite real though, so he held onto it dearly and gladly let it spark and consume him when Peter was near and when they were in the thick of the fight.
End.