Chapter Text
“Get everyone who’s going on the mission. Make sure we have all the supplies and meet at Claw Rock at sundown.”
Felix nodded to show his compliance- as if that were even necessary; when had he ever not complied to Pan’s wishes?- and Pan vanished from his sight. No matter how long he lived in Neverland; no matter how much magic he mastered; he’d never be able to simply appear and reappear wherever he pleased, the way Pan did. No one could. A small smirk ticked up at the corner of Felix’s mouth, and he set on his way.
Pan needed more recruits. Too many Lost Boys had died since the last time they’d gone out recruiting, whenever that had been. Neverland made you immortal, but not invincible. A slip of the foot on a clifftop when you were out of pixie dust and well, no more Lost Boy. The ones who learned quickly tended to last forever, and then there were the ones who didn’t. They called it Graveyard Gully for a reason.
Felix sauntered through the forest, whistling a low, ominous sound that sent the littler ones scurrying. Not that it mattered; Pan had a list of who he wanted. If you were on it, you were going, and if you weren’t, you were not. It’s not like you had a say in the matter.
Felix was always at the top of the list. While Pan remained frighteningly powerful in other realms, he wasn’t all powerful the way he was in Neverland. Out of his element, his power had some very subtle limitations- such as he could only see what was in front of him, instead of knowing the whereabouts of every single pair of feet (or fins, or claws) on his island.
He needed more eyes. Eyes that he could trust. Ears that would listen for him. A mouth that would never lie to him. And so he brought Felix.
Felix caught sight of Twigs and stopped in his deceptively lazy walk. The ten-year-old froze behind a bramble.
“Come on out.” Felix’s low, even voice wafted over. “Pan summons you.”
Shaking, but trying to hide it, Twigs emerged upright onto the path. Most of the Boys were as frightened of Felix as they were of Pan; there were always rumors flying around that Felix was as powerful as Peter. Felix found them utterly ridiculous and wanted to squash such blasphemous nonsense, but Pan seemed amused by it and so he let their imaginations run wild.
At least it made Felix’s job of keeping them in line easier.
Twigs stared up at Felix, who was by far the tallest of all the Boys. Hell, he was even taller than some pirates. He peered out from under his hood, his expression the same deadpan it always was.
“What does he want me for?”
Felix let a smirk hint at his lips.
“You’re coming to help recruit.”
Twigs shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable. Felix could tell he wanted to argue. Recruiting was fun for the meaner boys- but less so for the nicer ones. Honestly Felix didn’t know why Pan chose a boy like Twigs to even come. But he never questioned his plans. It wasn’t as if Pan ever failed.
“Problem, Soldier?”
“No, sir.”
“Good.” Felix let the pause go on longer than necessary, just to watch the boy squirm a little more. Maybe he had become pretty mean over the past few hundred years. He mentally shrugged. Not surprising, considering who he adored.
Adored? What the hell? How did a word like that even get in his vocabulary?
“Get your ass to Claw Rock by sundown.” Felix said, and Twigs nodded nervously. The taller boy then gracefully stepped around him, his feet falling nearly silent on the forest floor, as he walked on to the next recruit, completing his mission.
The boys chattered and some wrestled and argued as they waited for Pan at Claw Rock. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, the first star or two about to appear any minute. Felix sat on a boulder whittling with his trusted knife; a blade that never dulled just as he never aged.
Though, when he thought about it sometimes, that didn’t seem to be quite true. He wasn’t always the tallest on the island. In fact he was pretty sure that when he came, he was one of the shortest. He glanced down at his cape. When he first made it, it fell to his ankles. Now it fell to just past his ass. It was a perfect testament to the fact that he had grown—though he couldn’t remember it happening. He tried to remember those first days; what it was like when he was new. Who had been around. He arched and eyebrow, thinking. He couldn’t remember their names. Was anyone still around from his earlier days besides Pan?
Was Felix the oldest?
Maybe that was why Pan chose him to come on these missions so often? He knew he could handle himself.
Felix felt the electric presence of his king a second before everyone else. Everybody shut up and tried to stand at attention, though a scuffle over a beetle continued on the sideline. Pan allowed it to continue. He nearly always approved of roughhousing.
“Everybody got his mask?” Pan said, his voice low and even and soft, but frighteningly commanding. Felix lived just to hear it. The words didn’t matter. He’d obey whatever they were.
Each boy held up his own handmade mask, some ridiculous, some creepy.
“Capes?”
Hands all raised, holding capes.
“Sticks?”
Sticks were all displayed.
Pan nodded his approval. He reached behind him- completely for effect, since there was nothing behind his back- and when he pulled out his hands, they were full of glowing green pixie dust.
Everyone’s eyes lit up; whatever qualms they’d had about going now forgotten. Pan rarely shared the dust with anyone. And nobody would turn down a chance to fly.
Pan laughed gleefully, his voice boyish but the sound too maniacal to be innocent. He raised his hands and sprinkled the dust on everyone. The boys whooped and hollered and spun in it, and Felix smiled at their gleeful exclamations as their feet lifted off the ground.
“Yeah, this is great!”
“I forgot how awesome this is!”
“Thanks for letting me come, Pan!”
The king smiled in that quirky way he did, when he walked over to his second-in-command, who sat perfectly still and patient on the boulder.
“Your restraint confounds me.” Pan said, a playful uptick of his eyebrow as he pulled more pixie dust from thin air. He held his palm open inches from Felix’s face and blew.
The glowing powder swirled into Felix’s face, seeping down his neck as it got trapped in his hood, tingling his spine as it traveled down to his toes. He didn’t dare blink when Pan’s face was so close to his; the elation from flying paled to the surge he felt from that face, inches from his; those emerald eyes, trained on his.
Pan smirked and stepped back. Felix rose and the two floated off the ground together, easily catching up with the less experienced fliers. Pan took the lead and spread out his arms, racing through the clouds, daring the other boys to keep up with him. He never once looked back; if you fell behind, he’d let you fall. While the other boys played and somersaulted through the clouds, throwing bits of white puffs at each other, getting drenched, Felix calmly took his place just behind Pan’s right shoulder. He wasn’t interested in clouds. He’d flown through thousands of them, and at this point, they were old. There was only one thing he ever found interesting anymore.
They landed in a wheat field; Pan’s feet touching down soundlessly; Felix’s almost as graceful; followed by the noisy crash-landings of the others. There were giggles as wheat was tumbled through and straw got stuck in hair and capes.
“Perfect place for a fire.” Pan said, and they started gathering. No mind was paid to whatever poor farmer was losing his crops to the playful antics of boys building a bonfire in his field. If he had any young sons he was probably about to lose them as well; a few square yards of lost wheat wouldn’t matter in comparison.
The boys built the fire and loudly started to dance around it, and Pan started to play his enchanted pipes. Splinters of silver ran from Felix’s ears and through his brain as he let the song take over him. He hardly ever danced; but when he heard that song, he couldn’t help it- as if any of them could. Hundreds of years flowed together for him as hundreds of bonfires danced before his eyes; all of them a blur in his memory. The boys around the fires changed, the places changed, even Felix changed as he slowly grew taller- but one thing remained the same. Felix glanced over at his king as he played, his eyelashes lowered as he looked at the ground, his lips flush as he blew gently over the pipes.
The tingling spread through Felix’s body and started to collect in one particular spot between his legs. He sweated beneath his hood as the tingling turned to a burn, and then fire. He was grateful for all the layers of cloth he wore to hide the reaction happening between his legs. His cheeks burned; his ears flamed. He became lost in Pan’s music like he hadn’t ever before. His lungs panted for air; he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Felix.”
Pan spoke it in a low tone, barely above a whisper. Yet Felix heard it on the other side of the bonfire, though it roared between them. He would always here Pan call.
He was at his king’s side in an instant.
“Yes, Pan?”
The boy who ruled over him raised his green eyes, boring them into Felix’s skull, into his mind, into his heart. Did he know what Felix had just been feeling? Would he be angry, furious? Was Felix about to lost his title as Longest Lived Lost Boy?
“Nearly all of them have come. But there is one boy here I sense isn’t getting to us. Go find out what’s the matter.”
Relief washed over Felix. Pan was sending him on the most important part of the mission. Obtaining stragglers. He still trusted him completely.
“Understood.” he said, and headed off towards the village. He heard Pan’s flute beginning to play as he walked away, and the feeling tried to return. He shook it off and stepped out of the fog. He had a mission to complete.
The village was quiet. A few crickets chirped; a horse snorted softly. Felix walked boldly down the center of the street, his club slung over his shoulder, waiting to be used on whatever poor soul crossed his path. He eyed the houses, searching. Bedroom windows were open where boys had been sleeping and were now gone, curtains eerily billowing in the summer breeze, unaware of the wails they would hear in the morning when their frantic parents would begin to search for their sons. Then he passed other windows, boys sleeping peacefully in their beds, unable to hear the call of Pan’s song; the call of the Lost.
Felix never quite understood it. Children only came to Pan if they were already Lost; if they knew they were already unwanted. So why did the parents care suddenly in the morning? His surely didn’t. His father, too drunk to even know how many children he had, his mother too busy finding other men to sleep with, and then the way his father would come into his bedroom…
Felix angrily swung his club at a rat that scurried across the street. It landed with a thud and a squeak against the nearest wall. He would not think of that. He would not think of them. His life before Neverland was irrelevant. There was no life before Neverland, before Pan.
His heart fluttered just at the thought of the name.
He heard a ruckus, and turned to the left to see a building with a candle burning. He walked around the side and peered in through a window covered in bars.
Inside was a boy, perhaps fourteen, shouting to be let out, “or else.” He was locked in a jail cell. Ah, so that was the problem.
“Pssst.” Felix whispered.
The boy hushed and looked around frantically.
“At the window, moron.”
The boy turned, his eyes wild, his brown hair unkempt, his clothes disheveled. He was absolutely one of them.
“Do you hear it?” he whispered. Felix smirked.
“Every night.”
“Get me out of here, so I can go to it.”
“That’s the goal.”
Felix looked up and surveyed the window. It looked sturdy. Unlike Pan, who was powerful wherever he went, Felix had no magic when he left Neverland. He’d have to find some other way to get the boy out.
“There’s a key, on the table.” the kid said, pointing. Right, of course. A key.
Felix walked around to the front of the building and entered through the door, not particularly caring if he encountered anyone. Luckily for them, no one was there.
He walked over to the table and slid the key off the side, catching it with a finger. He twirled it around as he walked towards the door to the jail cell.
“Anybody gonna come when I let you out?” Felix asked.
The kid snorted.
“Like anyone cares what happens to me.”
Felix smiled. Not a smirk, not half-grin, but a full, true smile.
“They do now.”
He turned the key and the lock fell to the floor. The kid pushed the gate open and ran down the street towards Pan’s song. Felix chuckled to himself. He agreed completely, of course; though he was better now at not showing it.
He stepped back into the street as well and started to walk back the way he came. He reached the edge of town and stepped into the wheat, walking blindly, unable to see over the tall stalks. No matter; he would just listen for Pan’s…
He stopped. He listened.
He heard nothing.
He shrugged, and pressed on, certain that Pan had a good reason to stop playing, and would start again any minute. He looked up at the stars as he walked, a chill going through him at their unfamiliar patterns. Whatever realm they were in, he didn’t think he’d been in it before. The twinkling white specs made no sense to him.
He continued walking, for a good ten minutes, and slowed down. He should have been at the fire by now. He sniffed the air, trying to smell the smoke. Nothing.
He listened again. The night was silent.
Had they…left?
He shook his head. Impossible. Pan would never leave him behind. He pressed onward, walking faster, his heart beating rapidly as he became more and more lost. He walked for what seemed like hours, until he came to the edge of the field…the other edge. He looked out and saw a farmhouse silhouetted against the night sky, bathed in moonlight. He turned around and looked back, and saw only wheat.
The night was silent. The fire was gone.
His veins turned to ice.
He’d been left behind.