Chapter Twenty-Two (Peter Pan)

The lights were off other than the green glow of the banker's lamp in his father's study. That usually meant that he was safe. The back of the house would reek of whiskey and sweat and as long as he was quiet, he could ease up the kitchen stairs to his room. He let the sneakers fall from his hand, turning towards the stairs with the ice cold car keys in his hand, planning to toss them on the top of the dryer where the rest of the miscellaneous crap usually ended up. Instead they fell to the floor as he saw the figure filling the kitchen doorway.

"You're late. Curfew was twenty-three hundred hours."

The temperature dropped at least three degrees for each syllable until he felt his insides quivering.

"Screwing that little whore in the backseat, sullying that car already?"

His mouth was so dry. So very dry. "N-no, sir. Dropped her off at nine–"

"And it's twenty-three-fifteen."

"I know." Contrition wasn't acceptable, it never had been. "I was at the beach and... I... I just lost track of time, sir. That's all. It won't," he hesitated, didn't bother to remind his father that it was technically not actually his birthday for another forty-five minutes, "it won't happen aga–"

The words weren't even past his lips before he saw stars in the dark, the back of his head slamming into the wall. Fingers around his throat like clammy iron bars, cutting off the air and he didn't bother to fight. It would just get worse if he did. He didn't cry out. He didn't beg for mercy, even when the next meat hook thrown snapped something in his jaw, even when he tasted blood running down the back of his throat, even when he couldn't stop drooling because he couldn't clench his teeth any longer. When he blacked out, he hoped to wake up in his own bed. He hoped it was all just a–



"I can't...I can't...I can't..." the frenetically whispered words were tumbling past his lips, his voice hoarse, stripped of every last thing that made him the formidable Jackson – no bass, no bravado, no confidence. It trembled, splintered, shattered – blood on his lips, blood on the pillow and he was shaking so hard, hands squeezed into white-knuckled fists, wrists crossed over his chest, hands lodged under his chin. The sheets were tangled around his legs, damp with sweat. His chest was tight, jaw aching, that stabbing pain in his ear that had been absent for months finally back. Nerve damage that had plagued him for years – blamed on wrestling, acquired on the eve of his sixteenth birthday. A raw scream shattered the broken record of madness, the claws of the nightmare finally loosening its grip. Eyes open, seeing nothing but blackness and stars from the stabbing pain, the replay of that night cutting off as that sound tore itself from his vocal chords, burning his throat raw. Before Missy could even sit up, before the light could even come on, he rolled to the floor, knee and elbow barking against the nightstand, the half-full glasses of juice rattling against each other to where it was a wonder none broke or fell. In the feeble glow of the iPod dock, he moved towards the darkest spot, pressing against the wall in the corner. He heard the mattress creak, heard the sharp intake of breath.

"Don't," his voice came out rough, barely there and he swallowed hard, tasting copper. "Don't..." he couldn't remember what he'd been trying to say as the last of the past fell away, leaving him shaken.

Don't touch me. Don't hurt me.

"Don't..." he found the thread, pulled it, felt it unravel even as a sob welled in his throat, "turn the light on."

For a moment that stretched out long enough to feel like a year Missy sat on the bed trying to get herself gathered enough to do anything at all. She'd been so deeply asleep that when his scream jolted her awake and her adrenaline spiked it put her into a strange, almost fugue state. But his voice, the complete wrongness of it drew her up, like a diver through murky waters wanting to hurry but afraid of getting the bends. Once she could move though she was right off the bed, managed to hit her knee on the wall when she lost her balance and had to press both palms against it to get it back when all she wanted most was to get across that space, to get to Jax. "What..." she had to swallow to get her voice to come out sounding less scared. "Are you...just wait. Just wait."

"Miss..." he sounded so sad, so lost. "Shit, didn't mean to wake you."

She made sure her leg would take her weight before she finally got around the bed and moved to where he was. Straight off though she dropped to her knees with a wince she was glad he couldn't see, and carefully held a hand out toward him, but not quite in range to touch. "Don't care about that. Baby." Her tone was softer but she could still hear that scared note. A thousand things that could be wrong taunted her inwardly but she took a breath and pushed them away. "I'm right here, Jax. Not going anywhere."

He closed his eyes against the burning, against the pain in his throat when he swallowed and the stab in his ear that went with it. "Just a nightmare," he murmured, keeping his voice low. "I'm fine now..." the lie came out almost convincing, almost a smooth-as-silk sales pitch ruined by the shuddering breath that followed. "Fucking hell."

Missy had to try twice to say anything, she hated that because her heart was telling her to hurry, her man needed her. "Those are...those are the worst. You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to." She took a shaky breath before she scrubbed under her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Can I please though, Jax? Sit with you? I think I need to."

"Yeah. C'mere," he held out his arm, the one that wasn't pressed against the wall, feeling his elbow still throbbing, "tell you, if you wanna know. If you promise not to..." he trailed off, not bothering to finish that thought because he was pretty sure she'd already been crying over him.

She scooted in close, into that space he made for her and the strangest thing was, she could instantly tell all the little things that did for her. Her pulse slowed, it didn't hurt to breathe, that panic he was hurt melted away. "I'll listen, baby. I... you know, I'll keep it safe. Like you did for me, when I told you about..." she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "I was right. I did need to."

"Snarked about it. Pretty sure I've gone there since we've been together but I've talked so much shit it's all started to blur together." He sighed, his arm tightening around her, the quaking he felt inside starting to finally abate just a little. "Dreamt about my sixteenth birthday... big deal, milestone for every guy. Fingers crossed, hoping to get handed four-wheel freedom – most the guys in my grade did. But see, I never asked for one. I knew it was going to carry a price tag I couldn't afford. That's the thing. Never wanted one because I knew it was going to just be one more avenue for disappointment – give me enough rope to hang myself with. And I did. First night. No concept of time. Windows down, music blaring on the radio and I drove too far. Didn't time it right so I'd be back on time and it doesn't even matter on the excuse. I was just walking by the water, listening to the wind in the palms. I wasn't doing anything wrong but you know... it was a good lesson. Never been late for anything since." The words were halting, start-stop, licking his lips, closing his eyes, fidgeting. His hand was touching his jaw, fingertips pressing into the tender spots against another white-hot flare of pain.

"Don't think I ever told anyone the full story. How dumb it was. He kept hitting me in the face. I don't even know how many times. Glass jaw then. Went down hard and I never... you didn't dare fight back. Woke up in the hospital. He'd told them I came home and passed out. Said I got into a fight and my knuckles were scuffed up, it was already documented well enough that they bought it. Woke up and I couldn't say a fuckin' word contradictory. And that car sat for weeks. Wouldn't touch it. Couldn't. Missed a week before I could go back – my first concussion too – another fuckin' milestone and then I just... I was useless until June. I went to school. Got kicked off the varsity team. That was sixteen – April of '87. Learning experience, I suppose." He opened his mouth as far as he could and then slowly, slowly closed it, knowing she would hear the click in the otherwise silent room. "That's where I was tonight. In the back mudroom with the blows raining down, too chickenshit to stop them, too goddamn stupid to even turtle up, protect my face, my head." He looked at her for a second, shaking his head. "Happy... birth- fuck."

Missy's voice was incredibly soft, her heart hurting with each beat. "Jackson." She turned a little so more of her touched him. "It wasn't stupid, baby. It was instinct. If you'd fought, reacted like people who haven't been through it always brag they would, he'd have killed you." She lifted her hand, she wished she could do more, say something that would make a difference, but he'd held onto this for so very long.

Her fingertips touched his temple, feather light. "I hate him, you know how useless that is? For every asshole thing he ever said to you, did to you. But please, Jax. Hear what I'm saying, and what I can't figure out how to, that too. You're mine now. All of you, just like I'm all yours. That means things like this, things like I told you. I can't go back and make it not happen. But I can love you right now, and every day I've got left on this earth, and I hope it matters to you, same way."

"Don't want it to... Miss, I'm not that guy. I'm not gonna bitch and moan and say if I had that big ol' eraser or a big blue phone booth time machine or whatever else would do the trick that I'd undo. It's my damage. It's... just sometimes I wish I wasn't so fucking weak. It's been almost thirty years. It's... God all these fucking benchmarks. All these years between and you think I could just selectively pick a different one. Dwelling... whatever you wanna call it. I'm just..." he sighed, letting his eyes close against the burning where tears usually would have been. "I want you to love me. God I do. I even want that to be enough and most days it is. It fills the void so well that I forget who I really am. I can almost fool myself. But out there... they... they know. That's why there's never the respect I deserve after all the work I put in. They're just waiting for me to take that tumble because they can see the same thing he did... same thing they all did. I'm unworthy."

"Well fuck them and what they think they see." There was a hiss in her voice, a hint of danger but not for him, never for him. "Baby these are the same goddamn brainless motherfuckers who when they did a poll thought it would be a good idea to bomb Agrabah to kill terrorists. They belittle you, they shout the worst things in the world at you, I've heard it. Because they can't be you, they can't sack up and face the people that do the same thing that they're doing to you. They talk mad shit online but if you cornered them in a hallway they'd be standing in a puddle of piss deep enough to drown in."

There was a soft half-laugh, half sigh of despair. "Told you... fallen angel. Got that wrath shit down. You're not unworthy, Jackson. You're mine, I chose you, I fell for you. No one ever, ever made me feel the way you did. I wish you were really hearing me. Because until our eyes met that first time I was half alive at best and trying to jump that line feet first to see if what they say about a bright white light was true. You... you're more worthy than you know, and if I was really the goddess you say I am, I'd give you all the magic weapons and shit like in the old stories to prove it."

Softer still. "I really would."

"I hear you." The words came out so very small, humbled, etched with despair of their own, like he wanted her to understand he wasn't willfully obtuse or no-selling her out of spite like The Dark Horse would. "I went too far." He was back to talking about that night. "I liked the sound of the waves – storm was blowing in off the coast, I think. The wind in the trees. Like voices telling secrets and I was the only one who could hear them even if I didn't understand a goddamn word. Been chasing that mystery since, trying to figure out what they were trying to tell me. Sounds fucking stupid, doesn't it?" His laugh was bitter.

"No." Her voice was still soft, but there was a hint of steel in it. "No, it doesn't. You touched mystery that night, what else were you supposed to do but listen? Jax, nothing you say like this, that you share with me? None of it's stupid. Just like you're not stupid. He told you that, and you were just a little kid, you're supposed to love your parents and they're supposed to protect you. But we both know that... that's not always how it is. None of it was ever your fault, and I can't... I can't understand how nobody ever told you that before. Not like it's easier to believe just because I'm telling you that now. But goddamnit, Jax. Fuck. It wasn't ever you, baby. It just wasn't and that kills me knowing you've had to bear all this pain alone all this time. It's too much for any man, and you're..." She sighed soft, moved in his embrace enough that she could press the softest kiss imaginable to his jaw. "You think you're broken, love. You think you're ruined. But you're not. They tried so hard, they keep trying. But all they've really done is given you sharp edges and you've quenched yourself in their blood so many times that you think you're nothing more than a weapon. But you're not just that. You're not 'just' anything."

"But I am." His eyes were still closed, the warmth of that barely-felt kiss radiating through the numbness. "I'm just Jackson. I'm just a wrestler. I'm just Peter-fuckin-Pan, so damned scared of growing up, of growing old and feeding the wolf at the door because I need... I need that... I need his approval before I stop and I'm never going to get it – always gonna have his voice in my ear, telling me he shoulda just let the whore give him a blow job instead and every time I wrote my initials on something there was a reminder. So yeah, Miss. I'm a lot of 'justs' depending who you ask." His eyes opened and he turned his head, looking at her. "So which one am I today? The killer? The fighter? The champion? The usurper?" He sighed, "or'm I just the headfucked old man who loves a fallen angel? Miss... I can get behind that. I need to stop reaching. I need to stop this ludicrous fumbling at fuckin' Never-Never-Land, tryin' to find the secret to immortali–"

"Jax." She cut him off gently, her big eyes were shining a little in the soft light from that iPod dock. "No. You're you. You're my man, and you love me. I don't want anything else. So whichever you that you're wanting to be I'm going to be right with you. So if that's who you are today? I'm not arguing with you, and saying you're not 'old' because you know how I really feel about that. It's... Jesus Fucking Christ, baby. Just that you love me, that's miracle enough."

"Give you anything else you want, Miss." The subtext was there without saying it. He wasn't enough and no matter how deeply, how fully, how goddamn monogamously he applied that, it wouldn't suffice. "Just name it."

"Jax." Soft, that same way she'd started the last thing she'd said to him. "You know the only thing I'd want that I don't have, I don't even really need. I have you, and I'll keep saying this every damn day if I have to. I fucking love you, you make me happy. You make me want to be in this world. I don't need a ring, or a piece of paper that would just make those asshats that hate you say you were just stacking up another wife. I'm yours, baby. That won't change. So, there we are. I mean it when I say I have everything I want. Because it's always you, baby."

Jackson shifted, turning towards her, pushing his back into the corner as both arms wrapped around her. "Love you," he whispered, not caring that the entire universe had conspired to undercut those words completely, "I do, Miss. You..." his voice shook but he kept going, letting her see everything, letting her hear the truth in that quaver, "so goddamed much."

Missy sighed and nestled in as his arms wrapped around her. "I never will get tired of hearing you say that. Never take it for granted either. I never realized you know, when I said no lines? That I'd get everything in the world I needed."