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I Fall VictimThis is how it goes. Henry’s lying in his bed, arms akimbo as he stares up at the ceiling, tries to piece the parts of his memory that feel empty, as if something’s been taken out from them. There’s a large, gray spot right above his bed and and he thinks that in this light, it looks like some large bird. Like a swan, maybe, a swan about to take flight. Outside his door, the whole apartment smells of what can only be describe as saccharine — it’s the scent of cinnamon and vanilla, warm apple pies and strudels. There's Mom (it always feels strange to call her that, like the title doesn't befit her, like it was never hers), playing chef all of a sudden. Beneath the cloying sweetness is the smell of grease and rotten eggs, and it curdles the pit of Henry’s stomach to the point of making him almost sick.Henry’s not sure why his mother is attempting to cook. He figures things must be getting serious between her and Walsh, if she’s trying to shed her title of Most Abismal Cook in The World. Normally, the man in question would take her out to dinner at some restaurant or another, typically fancy enough for Mom to spend some time dressing up and applying on makeup, leaving him alone to play video games all night and eat snacks. When they’d first started dating, Henry would call once or twice to know if he had to wait up for her.“I’ll be there soon kid,” she would say sometimes, the amount increasing with each date. “We’re just getting dessert.”Just getting dessert was code for fucking — no matter how much she tried to deny it — which meant Henry was staying alone at night, which suited him just fine, thank you very much.Pots and plans clang like thunder and his mom curses as she burns her hand. It sounds and smells like she’s bringing all of New York’s desserts into the kitchen.He hopes they don’t fuck with him in the apartment.Inside Henry’s room, it’s muggy and decalescent, even for autumn. He had kicked off the pillows and blanket, even the bedspread, took off his shirt and shorts until it was just him in the mattress. He could open a window, but the heat had turned him sluggish, so he forces himself to breathe through the sugary aroma and withstand the suffocating heat. Henry wonders if this is how he’ll die.Reaching down, he nudges at the open math textbook on the floor. Scrawls of geometry exercises are interpolated with his own drawings — crude renditions of wooden swords and half-sawed trees, their branches bare. Not Henry’s best work by far, but their unassuming, nothing to call his mother and have long, teacher-parent-social worker conferences for, and Henry likes it that way.On the margins of the book is where his better work lays. He’s taken up drawing eyes recently. His mom’s, almond shaped and with dark circles under them even when she gets a good night’s rest, which sometimes gained distant, glazed-over stares. His English teacher’s, which furrow whenever Henry fails to bring in an assignment. Just last week he’d drawn a pair of eyes, the pupil like polished obsidian and wet like the bottom of well, lashes long and curled. A woman’s eyes, their expression so deep and mournful that Henry had quickly crumpled up the page he’d made them on and thrown it away, unable to look at them.But these eyes, his newest obsessions which litter the edges of his notebooks, interpolated into maths and science notes, were his best work by far. Serpentine eyes, their gaze kind and misleading. Just as cold and as calculating, as if their owner were waiting for the right moment to strike. Henry had worked tirelessly to convince his mom to buy him those professional coloring pencils, and he’d spent days awake finding the perfect mix of tones. Emma didn’t worry if Henry spent his nights awake, worried so much with Walsh and pleasing him. Small mercies.His math teacher had even commended Henry on his talent, cutting her reprimand him on his flightiness in class short when she saw the drawings. “These are wonderful Henry. They’re so lifelike and vivid. Did you copy them from somewhere?“I dreamt them up,” he answered, after a moment of silence, with a shrug. It wasn’t too far from the truth.Henry can only glimpse a few things in his dreams. Whatever his mind conjures up is veiled by a purple fog and flames licking at his ankles — he sees swords covered in gore and men with golden, rumpled skin and sharp teeth, offering their hands out and beckoning to tell them, tell them everything, all his woes and suffering and promising to heal him, for a price. He sees a woman, dark haired, on her knees and crying before a rotting apple tree, as if her very heart has been torn to pieces. Princesses baring swords and ready for battle live alongside mothers rocking their slaughtered children to sleep, and women with glittering, translucent wings baring them aloft as they grant wishes.Henry’s dreams are disjointed scenes of castles and fairy tales and death, images that briefly dance through his mind before they’re lost in the full fog that covers every corner of his life. But on the nights he does not dream of fairy tales, he vividly remembers the ocean, the scent of sweat and bodies and wet fur, knows the heat and smoke, feet stomping rhythmically.And the music. Henry can’t quite remember the music, but he knows its there. He sees himself in those dreams, dancing aimlessly, uncaring of anything in the world as he kicks up sand, beating sticks together rhythmically, beneath an unbelievably starry sky. Then he wakes up, and the howling melody is replaced by New York traffic in his ear, drowning out everything else.The smell in his room is stronger now, unable to be ignored unless Henry leaves the apartment altogether, and he would were he sure his mom wouldn’t lock him out accidentally. There’s a pain inside him as well, that doesn’t let him move, deep in stomach, pulsating and rumbling, almost like hunger. Henry presses his wrist against his navel in hopes of driving it away, the force enough to bruise the next morning, and is surprised when he moans, the pressure drawing out a painfully-sweet sensation.He thinks that ignoring it will help, but as minutes tick by, the sensation only worsens. Images of alien parasites in movies cross through his mind. Would he die in the room and his his mother find him in a pool of his own blood, xenomorph feasting on his stomach? Henry runs his fingers across it, digs his nails in until they’re stained with red and yet it remains, pain doing nothing to soothe it — pulsing and aching and tightening and hungry. He presses his thighs together and whimpers. The slow gnawing takes over until it‘s unbearable, feels like it’s buried deep in the marrow of Henry’s bones. So he stays like that, with his hand splayed on his navel, sweat beginning to plaster his hair to his forehead.A moment of hesitation. Then, he slides his hand lower, smearing blood as he does so.Henry’s fingers are clumsy and uncertain. The flesh between his thighs feels hot and firm beneath against his hand. He scratches again, this time softer, unsure, until he wraps around and tightens, thumb flicking the oversensitive tip. He gasps and his hips cant and careen, bucking hard into his touch. Blunt nails dig into the heated flesh. It hurts.(It’s perfect.)There is no rhythm or reason to his movements. The bed springs cry in protest underneath him as he bounces. Henry is dimly aware that his mother is just behind a thin, wooden door, and at that his legs spread open, wide, wider than he ever knew he could open them. His thighs are taut and they tremble as his hand continues its painful pace.A cabinet slams shut, louder than it deserves to be. It makes Henry jump. He’s kicked all the pillows off the bed, so he settles for biting down on his left wrist, teeth digging in further with each upward stroke until he can taste blood on his tongue. His room feels like the inside of the oven now, smells just as sweet.The swan on the ceiling is looking at him, disapprovingly. Henry closes his eyes tightly, refusing to meet its gaze, and instead sees the shape of thin lips wrap around wooden pipes, their owner playing a melody he can’t quite hear.It’s the same song from his dreams, he knows it. It echoes in the room, the melody haunting, a siren’s song that begs to be heard and danced to. Henry pumps up, in time to the song, and in his mind the owner of the pipe stops playing and looks at him, the rest of his features obscured save for a pair of vividly green eyes.(He's in a room now. No, a cave. There's no fire to engulf him but instead the slippery cool walls that enclose him, he can see a narrow opening, light, a shadow that moves away. Closer? The cave closes in on him, he's been here before.
”Henry.”
“Peter,” he whispers, and the ghost of a hand tightens around the column of his throat as he cums.)The sensation frightens him. Leaves him shaking worse than the spring leaves on apple trees, a trembling, tiny thing that could be carried off by the wind at any time. One second the world is dark behind his eyelids and the next it’s flashing white lights, fire and breathlessness.When he opens his eyes, he sees no one, but the sensation of the hand is burned into his skin. Slowly, with his clean hand, he traces where the fingers would’ve gripped and swears he can feel bruises.Henry whispers again. “Peter.” But this time, he is alone.
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Pleasure and PainHe's thirteen, fourteen next week, and sitting in a booth in an ice cream parlor while his mom and Emma fight outside. He didn't remember their being an ice cream parlor like it in Storybrooke before. All his ice cream had been homemade. It reminds him of the little hipster places in New York, trying hard to be vintage with their stained wood tables and rusty decor and chalkboards, the bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. He went to one with Emma and Walsh before Hook decided to re-enter their lives. It was autumn, and they'd bought a sundae for them to share and apple sorbet for himself. He'd remembered knowing he'd liked it, despite never having tried it and when he took a bite, the pink treat melted instantly in his mouth (he had flashes of Regina in his mind for days, of growing gardens and glowing, dark rubies, or was it hearts?)Henry doesn't remember the way it tasted, like how most of New York is now a fuzzy memory, but he remembers it smelt nice, and orders one. The gangly waiter (Henry's sure it's the Boy Who Cried Wolf, whatever his name was) almost drops his scooper when Emma slaps Regina. It's muffled by the windows but still rings loud and true. Henry doesn't look up from his homework. This isn't anything new. Pan though, he's amused at that. He keeps Henry company these days, looks the same as he did when he ripped Henry's heart from his chest. He doesn't talk much. Just watches with his hands on his lap. Watches and waits. The waiter brings the sherbet. It's just as cold as he remembered, pink like a scooped out tongue, and when Henry takes a bite, it tastes like nothing.He learns the word ‘orgasm’ from a sex-ed book that looks nearly 30 years old and is just as outdated, tucked away in the farthest corner of the library. Henry's frightened by his orgasms, by the warmth that spreads in his belly, by the strange, haunted sounds he makes that echo in his room. For days, he doesn't sleep, and he's convinced that the imprint of finger-shaped bruises rings around his neck like damning evidence. He sleeps on his back with his hands stuffed under the pillow, even when they remember head back to Storybrooke. The fear that the shadow will come back is always present, though it never visits. (He stays with his mom, the Queen, one night. She's making apple strudel and the house smells like it used to, before Emma and the curses and everything else — like cinnamon and sugar; warm, honeyed things curling everywhere. Henry's back in Neverland, with its pearlescent shores, the perfect silver sphere of a moon on a sky all shades of blue. He's standing barefoot on the edge of a craggy cliff made of black, volcanic stone. Cold water gets between his toes. He can see the world entire from here, if he tries. Henry. The shadow gives him a parody of a smile. Its dark fingers wrap around his neck, an unrelenting grip, a vaporous noose. Its incorporeal form is solidifies with every snap and crack of Henry's bones. They're in Neverland, in a cavern, in his room, and Henry's not sure whether he groans out of fear, or ecstacy. You'll always have me.)Henry dreams about Pandora’s box these days, and they all know it. It’s a source of tension between his mothers now. Regina blames Emma, Emma blames Regina, they blame each other, and then blame Gold. Regina blames Hook, somehow — as always — and Emma becomes defensive as Regina mocks her about her poor standards — as always. He can hear them fight late into the night about everything and anything, while he tries to sleep, hand over his rightfully returned heart. Henry dreams, and he’s in that cave again, but he’s not afraid. Not now.He's fifteen and the others at school don't like him. When he was seven, he thought it was because his mom was the Mayor, and a little scary if you made her mad. When he was ten, he thought it was because Regina was the Evil Queen and he was the thing she loved the most.Now, he thinks they just don't like him out of principal.Of course, Henry doesn't blame them. He doesn't like himself most days either.Edward sneers the most for someone who Henry thinks shouldn't be able to brag. At least he wasn't half hedgehog for most of his life. August tells him Hans has always been an ass ("More like ‘Hans My Ass’, huh?") and should just ignore him. But it's hard. There's always one of those ugly little twists of the mouth on his features, a wrinkle in his nose. His hair always seems to spike up when he looks at Henry, like some sort of animal preparing to defend itself. Edward looks at him like he's ready to stomp Henry down if he moves.“Because he’s terrified.” Pan's breath is unusually hot for a ghost. It skims his cheeks during Science class. Arms that are neither here nor there lay over his shoulders.“Of what?”Pan laughs, his voice these days barely above a whisper. His lips are so close Henry thinks he might kiss his cheek. “Why, he's terrified of you, little snake.”The inside of the box reminds him of his nightmares. Except rather than suffocating and consuming fire, it's a welcoming cold and darkness that surrounds him. Henry lays on the ground of the open, cavernous space, legs drawn to his chest, and waits. He wonders if this is what it’s like to be hollow, to die. “I don't want to die,” he cries when Pan visits. “You won't die.” The hand that cradles his face is his own. In the outside world Pan wears his skin like a wolf with sheepskin on its back, but here the illusion falters, paper-thin and translucent. “You're giving me your body and heart, that's all.” The heart beats in his chest, red veins luminous under the skin. It looks alien — it is alien, fighting and beating faster when near to its rightful owner. Henry shivers at the phantom pulse in his veins, retreats further into the damp hole he has made for himself, seeks its comforting protection. The walls cradle him. “But that's everything! I won't have anything left then.” “Henry.” Behind Pan, the narrow entrance to the cave shines with light. “You'll always have me.During the summer when he’s 13, Henry grows. It’s a late spurt, and all of a sudden his clothes don’t really fit him well and his voice cracks and he’s walking on coltish legs. His grandparents say he’s growing into a fine young man. Emma says he’s finally growing into himself. No one else makes a comment, but they roll their eyes when he trips on himself and makes Ruby fall. Again. Henry doesn’t feel like he’s growing into himself. He doesn’t know who that is. He feels half-made in this skin of his, too small for him. In the shower, he claws at himself until pink rivulets run in the water, hoping that whatever is inside can free itself, fingers breaking through his ribs, then arms and legs. A new him. Pan tells him he’s just teneral — a callow, pale, soft-bodied thing that has yet to go through its ecdysis. In his dreams, in the cave, Henry watches Pan’s hands cross over his flat belly, where the childhood fat has begun to recede and be replaced by a leaner self. Drops fall from stalactites and pass right through his arms. He’s only solid when he touches Henry. (Neither says it, but Pan needs him. That heart in his chest, that power he can wield. His shadow latched onto the brightest thing it could find and that was Henry. He needs him to live, and he will, as much as Henry lets him. No one will ever know how he fought inside that cave until its walls trembled and Pan tripped in the right time. Henry wonders if this is what power feels like.) Henry goes to the library the next day and picks up a dictionary. Shadowed hands rest on his thighs, crawl upward like spiders. Ecdysis is the process of shedding the old skin, he reads. He tries the word in his mind, mouths it, speaks it to himself. “Ecdysis.” Like serpents and spiders and insects. Shed the old skin, grow, become something new. “Ecdysis,” he says again, runs his fingertips over the raw sides of his body. Henry likes it.“You’re such a fucking freak, Mills.”He’s fifteen and he’s sitting outside with a book on West African fairy tales in his lap. It’s almost summer again and the sun makes the apples of his cheeks flush. Henry doesn’t know it, but Nicolas Zimmer watches and thinks they look just like the fruits that grow in Regina’s trees, too plump and red to be true. Some nights he dreams about tangling his fingers in Henry’s hair and taking a bite, and he wakes up embarrassed and in need of a cold shower. “I said you’re a fucking freak.” Edward’s hair stands on end once again, looking like a hedgehog’s ass. He kicks Henry's book away. “A freak, just like your moms.” Henry comes to with the sound of Pan laughing in his ears. His lips feel like they’ve been bitten, his knuckles and bruised and bloody. He can taste iron his mouth whenever he licks his teeth. Someone cries out for a teacher. It’s Roisin and Ailbe who pull him away. Roisin’s hair is coming free from its long braid as she holds him back, screaming “ it’s not worth it, he’s not worth it! ”. It’s pretty hair, a hue that the sun turns burnished and deep. He wants to wrap it around his wrists and pull. Hair red as the blood on Edward’s mouth. Rose red. Henry laughs at his own joke and spits venom into his eye before he's dragged away.Mary Margaret makes him visit Edward, against Regina’s wishes. She tells him he fractured several bones and shattered Edward’s ulna. Henry brings him pistachio ice cream (Edward is allergic to dairy) and a premade apology. In the hospital, Edward’s nose is broken, the left side of his face is swollen and his lips are split. Nicolas is there. The two share a smile outside, over stale vending machine snacks and watery soda. “I brought him his homework.” Nicolas holds the offending papers up. “I came to say ‘sorry’.” “Are you sorry?” “No.” The story of how Henry Mills beat up a kid and sent him to the hospital will go down for weeks as the most talked about thing in town before it stales down and becomes another staple of Storybrooke. But for now, it is new and it is different. Henry can see Nicolas’ interest. His eyes shine with adventure. Impulsively, he asks Henry to hang out in the weekend. He agrees.In Regina’s home, Henry showers. He sheds his uniform, soaked in Edward’s dry blood. Pan wipes his body clean reverently. He takes Henry’s hand and licks the blood from his knuckles. His tongue is inside Henry's mouth, over his skin, baptizing him. But it's not Pan. He blinks, and Roisin's red hair covers her chest, plastered to her body, to every curve, from the water. He blinks again, and it's Nicolas with those sneaky, wandering hands of his that raise welts into Henry's sides. He blinks again, and it's Edward, his grinning mouth stained with blood. Henry kisses his — her, their — neck, bites it as he cums, teeth reaching into the marrow. Pan is the one who brings him back. Blood covers his face. “Little snake,” and Henry laughs, the sound more like a hiss.He's fourteen and sitting in a booth in an ice cream parlor while his mom and Emma fight outside. Regina slaps Emma. They’re fighting about Killian and letting the whole town know that good-for-nothing pirate will ruin Emma’s life if she lets him. Henry knows she’ll let him, and best of all, he has a front-row seat with ice cream for it. Pan sits across from him. He sits with his hands on his lap, watching and waiting. He can’t do much these days but that. Henry has open a book on greek mythology and reads to him. He runs his tongue over his sharp incisors. “Did you know that Pandora’s box held all the evils in the world? When she opened it, they all came out, and the last thing that remained in the box was Hope, which they say was the biggest evil of them all.” A few tables away, Semele Savalas shudders. Her father had left her underground for years until a man had freed her and made her marry him. She still cries in small spaces and is sympathetic to Henry having been trapped in the box. How brave he is, she once told his family, spending all that time trapped and desperate and alone. He’d smiled blankly and nodded in answer, ignoring Pan’s defeated scowls. The waiter brings the sherbet. It's just as cold as he remembered, pink like a scooped out tongue, and when Henry takes a bite, it tastes like victory.