Snowflake (Peter Pan OUAT x Reader)

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Sure," his voice was blank; revealing nothing to you, yet that alone revealed everything. You had hurt him, cut him deep, so far that he couldn't even find it in himself to be angry. You clenched your hands, your shoulders stiffening as you stepped into his tent.

The last time you were here you had entered too sleepy to function and left wide awake, every nerve ending on fire. This time you were entering much the same way you had left, only the fire you now had in your veins burned as cold as ice.

When you finally looked at Peter, his eyes were as blank as his voice, looking somewhere only he could see. You scanned his face, refreshing your memory of the lines you knew so well. You wanted to reach out and trace them with your fingers, but you didn't dare.

You sat down beside him on the bed, cautiously taking his hand in yours. He absentmindedly intertwined his fingers with yours loosely. You looked at your two hands connected as you tried to figure out the best way to break the silence.

"That's right, dearie. Say all the right words so you can get him back." You glared at Rumplestiltskin, who was sitting nonchalantly on one of the wooden chests. "Well, go ahead dearie. What are you waiting for?"

You almost responded, but remembered Peter just in time. It would definitely help your fracturing relationship if you started talking to air instead of him. You gave a small sigh and begun.

"Peter...Peter look at me!" He turned his gaze towards you. It looked blank, but you could see the hurt buried deep in his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry. I really am sorry. I—this darkness in me makes it really hard for me to trust anyone. It's fighting within me, trying to make me care solely for myself, and, right now, it's winning." You said the last words quietly. Voicing them made them seem too true.

"I'm getting paranoid, and when you took your knife back without letting me know, it scared me. That dagger controls me and I got far too scared to let anyone, even you, have any sort of hold on me. I admit it, I only went to you, I only kissed you so I could steal the dagger, so I could hold my freedom in my hands. But then I got worried. I knew that the pirates and possibly others would do anything in their power to take the dagger, to make me their slave. There was no way I would ever let that happen. So, I cut off my shadow, sending it to take the Dark One dagger and hide it far away, so that even I couldn't find it.

"I know that what I did was wrong, I know that I shouldn't have stolen it from you. I know that I should have come to you and talked about what was bothering me, but I didn't. I just went ahead and did whatever felt best to me. I misled you, lied to you, and stole from you without giving much thought to what I was doing. Again, I'm very, very sorry and I want to try to make it up to you in any way I can. I know that's a terrible apology, but I'm going to be honest with you, completely honest with you from now on, so I told you the whole truth. Could you, maybe give me another chance?"

Pain shone in his eyes, pain you had caused. He turned away to hide it, but you saw his shutters open wide before he hid. "Can...can you just give me some time?" his voice cracked just like your heart.

"O-of course." You stood up, his hand falling limply from yours. "I'll be waiting whenever you're ready." You stood there for a heartbeat, longing him to look you in the eye one last time, but he didn't. Then you left, the pain that you had caused him expanding in you, filling you with guilt. And the worst part? You would have made the exact same decisions again in a heartbeat.

There was no way you would be able to sleep. Lying down would only help the guilt, and the power, overtake you. There was only one person you wanted to go to right now, one person who could help make the darkness appear light, Snow White. Her cheery voice, big smiles, and caring heart were exactly what you needed right now.

You started following the familiar trail to Snow's tree house. It wasn't that far from your own, within shouting distance, but both of you wanted it to seem like you were the only person in the woods when you needed it to. (Although, that was more Snow kindly agreeing to it because you wanted to see nothing but the trees when you looked out your window, to view no signs of humankind. You wanted to feel like you were the only person in the world whenever you chose, but still be close enough to her and Pan's camp that you could visit anytime.)

The expression in Peter's eyes kept playing over and over in your head, like an annoying tune, only it was so much harder to push away because all your thoughts brought you back to him.

-Thinking of the trees made you think of their bark, which led you back to kissing him against the tree just to get the dagger, which obviously led back to his broken eyes

-Thinking of the path made you remember running along it with Peter, trying to hide from the lost boys, his hand in yours, which led to you grasping his hand as a way to try to bridge the gap between you, and his watery eyes

-Thinking of the dreamshade you had just avoided led you to the only cure, the water from the spring in the heart of Neverland, what everyone had toasted in honor of Savior Henry, the last liquid you drank before becoming the Dark One, when everything spiraled towards you damaging your relationship with Peter

-Thinking of Snow made you think of the true love's pouch she given you, which made you think of said true love and how you had wounded him

That was when the darkness fixated itself within you, pointing out something you hadn't considered. Peter had lied to you before, what if he was lying now? The hurt in his eyes appeared real, but you were sure that he was a good enough actor to pull something like that off. He'd done it before, who knows how many times. Everyone believed him about Henry, and yet Henry was still alive and you weren't sure whether he really did need Henry's heart. (You assumed that he did, and that was the reason for the hourglass, and that he had gotten it as a precaution for if and when the curse was broken, but you couldn't be sure. He could be lying about all of that.)

Or what if the reason he was so believable was because there was a measure of truth in everything he said? What if the expression in his eyes was partly true, it was how he would feel when you found everything out, how he might already be starting to feel because he suspected you knew quite a bit, how he would feel once your shadow brought you information about the curse. How long would it even take for your shadow to find it? You guessed shadow's worked quickly, but this curse was likely quite rare and carefully concealed. If your shadow was anything like you, though, it would find it.

At this point you arrived at the bottom of Snow's ladder. You sighed. You really needed some sanity in your life and you hoped Snow would bring it to you. You grabbed the rungs and quickly pulled yourself up.

You started to call out "Snow!" as your head lifted high enough to see inside, but your greeting died in your throat. Snow was in her treehouse alright, but she wasn't alone.