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“You don’t read much, do you?”
Peter grunted, staring at the wallpaper. Ghastly pattern, green and gold and
old.
The arms around him tightened.
“Of course you don’t.” Elias mused, and Peter felt one of the arms around him loosen again, fingertips brushing against his skin as a curl was brushed away.
“I read a play once. Aimed towards children. It was something I knew was going to remain.”
The hand trailed into his hair. Peter did his best not to respond to the touch, intimate and burning. He already felt himself burning from their earlier activities, aching deep inside as traces lingered.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Peter Pan?”
The pause was long this time, expectant. Peter sighed, scanning his miniscule knowledge of popular media. He didn’t come up with anything, especially not a play . He’d never been to one, only the operas Elias dragged him to occasionally, and he had no desire to read a script on its own “...no. I don’t know Peter Pan.”
“The boy who never grew up.” Elias said, continuing his gentle petting. “Abandoned by his mother, you see.”
Peter tried to hide a wince. Elias’s fingers paused, so he knew the attempt was in vain. He closed his eyes instead, as if shielding from the smugness he knew was coming. “...He never could get past playing pretend.”
“What’s your point , Elias?”
Silence, full of poisonous implication. Peter turned over, staring at him. Elias smiled, leg sliding through his and free arm slipping between Peter’s head and the pillow.
Peter thought, not for the first time, how easily Elias could have been a part of the Web. Manipulative, wrapping you up so gently and securely you didn’t realize you were trapped. Not until you tugged.
“How did you pick Peter?”
“...It was inside a jacket.” Peter said quietly.
His eyes closed. He saw the bright raincoat, heard his childlike voice, defiant until it was screaming, telling the man to Go away. Go away! He wasn’t sure what happened when the world changed, but the jacket fell to the ground. He’d picked it up, thumb passing across the label on the neck of it. He took both the name and the coat with him. “...It fit to take it from someone else.”
He’d cut off his braids on the train, and when his mother and family greeted him, he’d pitched his chin up and said he was Peter. He’d killed that little miserable traumatized child. Confused as they were, pushing everyone away. He’d killed them. Her.
Just the same as he’d known he’d killed the man in the rain jacket. A jacket he still had tucked in his belongings for occasional wear.
“I can imagine.” Elias said softly, tilting Peter’s chin up. He could feel the eyes on him trying to get him to open his own. He swallowed.
“...What happens to Peter Pan?” He asked instead, feeling a thumb trace under his chin, trying to coax him into looking. He wouldn’t fall for it. “Since you’re so insistent on comparing us.”
Elias hummed, and the pressure lightened. No doubt because he was Looking away. Looking up the ending, perhaps.
“He loses everything. Everyone.” Elias smiled, Peter could hear it in his voice. “He doesn’t remember them.”
How? Why? What would a protaganist like Peter have to gain from that? Was he like him? Or was this a trick meant to draw him into a deeper talk, one that would dip into trauma and fear of lingering affects of it. Peter wouldn't ask.
“Good.” Peter said softly.
Lips pressed against his cheek, just a brush, but it stung with knowledge of Peter that was unsaid. “I thought you might say so.”