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lollytea · 1 year

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Imagine if Willow sprinkles Hunter with pixie dust, and she's about to explain he needs to think happy thoughts to fly, only to see he's already floating off the ground.

"Whoa, what happy thought were you thinking?"

"Well, nothing really, I was just listening to you."

Her just being there is his happy thought.

[Now on AO3]

"It doesn't work on me," He claims, like the Know-It-All he is.

Willow is already coaxing a daisy into existence as he says it. It pokes through the forest floor, unusually exuberant for dusk hours, dimly illuminated by a fairy's magic touch.

"Are you calling my dust faulty?" She scoffs, plucking the flower out of the ground and twirling it teasingly beneath her chin. "How presumptuous."

"No," Answers the pirate. If you could even call him that right now. He's shed his immaculate gold coat and that large and ridiculous (but oh, so funny) hat of his.

He's taken every measure to be as inconspicuous as possible. Nobody aboard that ship can know about his little late night rendezvous with a fairy. Especially not if he doesn't intend to bring her back in a jar.

He has long since retired that ambition.

"It's no different than any other fairy's dust," He says, slow and cautious. "The crew has....obtained it a few times in the past...."

Willow doesn't say anything but her presence still makes him squirm. She already knows what becomes of fairies that pirates get their hands on.

"And it doesn't work on me...." He concludes.

"You sound disappointed."

"I'm not."

He's a liar, among other things.

Willow opts to not mention how transparent he is in his longing to get tangled up in the stars, to test the feel of foamy cloudstuff in his hands, to soar the way the Lost Boys do.

He's so enraptured with winged creatures, she notices.

This boy wants to fly. This boy wants to become Lost in a way that matters on this island. And the only thing stopping him is his own stupid heart.

He's my uncle, he had whispered the last time she begged.

"I refuse to believe you're immune to dust," Declares Willow. "You are no different from any Lost Boy."

She means that in more ways than one. He even looks like one tonight. Young and sloppily dressed, his bare hairless face spotlighted by the fat silvery moon hanging overhead.

It bothers him that it's so difficult to grow a beard. It makes her heart sink a little every time he laments how impatient he is to grow up.

"I'm nothing like a Lost Boy," He retorts for the billionth time.

If she felt a little more argumentative, she'd ask him to state their exact coordinates on the map. And he'd flounder for an answer, because he's never been in this part of the island before. Willow led him into the depths of the forest by the hand in the dead of night.

He's a boy.

He's lost.

It would make him all mad and huffy if she pulled that on him. Which would be funny. But she doesn't want to make him mad and huffy right now.

Willow shimmies closer, rustling the leaves underneath her. "I think you just never learned the trick of dust. It's not like fairies to give the secret away to just anyone."

He's not looking in her direction. Which is annoying. She could get drunk on how it feels to have his eyes poring over the sight of her.

It was once an impish sort of delight. A delicious satisfaction that he found her such an irksome creature yet he was unwillingly attracted to her shape, to her smile, to her eyes.

It's different now. Less unwilling on his part. And at some point or another, she found herself blooming pink roses beneath the skin of her cheeks when he looks at her like that.

She likes being looked at. But she now understands that she likes being looked at by him. She wishes to hear the thoughts in his head as his eyes hang off her bare shoulders.

"So..." Willow croons, her fingers finding the sharp bend of his jaw. She brushes the skin, gingerly avoiding the sensitive edges of his scars.

"How about...." her palm connects to his cheek and she still marvels over how perfectly fitted her hand is for cupping his face. She guides his gaze towards hers. The eyes that she finds pretty to settle on the face that those eyes find pretty.

"You trust me on this...." Her soft spoken utterance is emphasized with an affectionate rub of her index finger on the sweet spot behind his ear.

He likes being touched there. She found out back when he was trying very hard to not like her.

Once his eyes are set on hers, confused but hopelessly soft, Willow lifts the daisy to her lips and blows.

A string of glowing pollen rises from the buttery pistil and drifts in his direction. It's as though it already knows tonight's assignment is proving a Know-It-All wrong. It's the only way to needle a big pretty smile outta him.

Willow is gonna get that smile, whether he likes it or not. She's a rascal like that.

Dust clings to his cheeks, spilling down his neck and sinking under skin.

"I promise you're not immune to dust," Says Willow, because she won't allow him to be. If he wants to fly, he'll fly.

He's staring at her with wild eyes now, every blink an agonizing interruption of his beholding.

She hasn't realized until now just how close their faces are. Nose to nose.

Feeling the tickly heat of his breath makes her smile.

"All you have to do is..."

He gasps.

Willow gasps.

They are no longer nose to nose because he is jerkily rising off the ground.

Amusingly, once he's a few inches into the air, he awkwardly tips forward and his feet continue to ascend. He's floating upside-down now, startled and confused yelps erupting from his throat. Willow stands up, trying to swallow her giggles as he desperately stretches his arms out to claw at the ground for some sort of anchor.

He's wobbling further and further away from her now and with a flutter of wings, she rises to meet him by the heads of the trees.

"Hiiiiiii~" She singsongs in an imitation of something he said to her so very long ago when things were so very different.

His flipped body has caused his shirt to hitch. It hangs in a baggy pool at his armpits.

Willow cannot help herself. She pokes his bare belly with a silly sounding "boop!" making him squeak ("Willow!") and scrabble to yank the fabric back over his figure. His legs are kicking erratically, attempting to put himself to right.

She doesn't indulge in the antics for much longer, instead opting to take pity on him. Lost Boys are like this sometimes too. But only in those first few minutes before they realize that they're perfectly safe, just a little inexperienced.

"Don't you worry," Says Willow, taking him by the waist and flipping him rightside-up. "You just haven't got your sky legs yet,"

She lets go of him once his position has been righted but he is not having it. Willow lets out an embarrassing noise herself as a pair of arms awkwardly throw themselves around her. His breathing rattles in her ear, his heartbeat a thick pound against hers.

Willow blurts out the first thing she can think to say. "First time?"

"Obviously!" He snaps, though there's a tremor to his tone.

She laughs to hide her brain's stubborn fixation on how defined the arms around her are.

"Hey now, I gotcha," She says comfortingly. With a bit of effort, she manages to rearrange their entangled bodies so it's not so...so much.

They now float at the respectful distance of any two teenagers having their first dance, complete with his arms loosely looped around her neck and Willow's hands rested against his hips.

Hm. Well. It's no longer so much but...

Now it's not enough.

To right that wrong this instant, Willow hums mischievously. "After all...."

Those respectful hands slide up his sides,

"I finally got my diabolical little fairy hands on a pirate."

They linger on his ribs.

His breath gets caught.

"I'm not gonna let him go."

They travel back down to his hips.

He's frozen in the way he tends to freeze, but it doesn't deter the heat. It blotches his face, his ears, even seeping down his neck.

He used to slap her touch away when she got playfully handsy with him. That stopped a lot time ago.

Instead, his grip around her tightens, though his gaze falls bashfully.

Willow grins.

He liiiiiiiiiikes it.

"How does flying work?" Asks the pirate.

"Well, it basically means not being on the ground," Answers Willow intelligently.

"No. I mean....why am I flying right now?"

Oh.

Right.

She had forgotten that he went blasting off before she could even explain the trick of it.

He looks troubled, a little bit on the scrunched up side. She expects that the reality of his situation will sink in sooner or later but...he needs answers first.

He's wanted this. He's wanted to fly. But it isn't like him to be satisfied without knowing the How and Why.

"Well," Says Willow. "What were you thinking? Before you began to fly?"

His eyebrows shoot up. "I-I wasn't thinking anything specific."

He's out of his depth and it's making him panic.

"Why? What was I supposed to be thinking?"

She smiles. "Your happiest thought."

"Oh...."

"Why?" She asks, leaning into his space. "What were you thinking?"

His brain is bizarrely shaped and she's obsessed with the idea of rummaging around in it.

She likes it when he allows the makings of the contraption to sputter out through his lips.

What are your happy thoughts, pirate?

But he never gives her an answer.

He doesn't need to.

What that boy does instead is give her a look. It's a strangely quiet look for such a loud face.

She can't gather together the words to describe that look because it feels too much like a secret. What she will say is that it's hers. It's all hers.

Her secret pirate.

His secret fairy.

"Oh..." She doesn't like how her voice shakes but what can she do?

He makes her feel so very fragile sometimes.

It's happening.

Aw thorns, it's happening.

Willow's wings speed up without her say-so and the two bodies shoot higher into the sky, the pirate howling in surprise.

She laughs. What else can she do but laugh?

But now that she's laughing, it's very difficult to stop. It's getting to the point of hysteria.

She's his happy thought.

And you know what? He might be hers too.

The sudden lift has made him lose his grip on her and he's now paddling through the sky, reaching out his hand to hers.

Willow takes it.

And while she's at it, she takes his other hand and gives him a giddy twirl.

He's accustomed enough to the weightlessness by now that he doesn't react with horror. But rather, it surprises a giggle out of him.

Terribly encouraged by the bubbling sound, she spins him again and he laughs harder.

He makes those dumb snorty noises.

She's going to spin him unconscious if he keeps doing this to her.

It's in his eyes now, she can see it. Something is beginning to kindle, the realization that this is it.

He can fly.

His smile is gold.

She never would have taken the air above the forest for a dance floor but there's nothing conventional about anything she does with this boy.

Their bodies rotate across the stars, like the little dancers in that music box she found once.

They try to imitate the grown-ups in those books he likes to show her. It's his idea.

Two hands, one small and round with short fingers and a cushiony palm, and one long and narrow, fingers all lean and knobbly. They find each other and the mismatched fingers intertwine.

Willow's other hand is on his shoulder while his is on her waist. It's loose, no longer fearing his life up here.

He can't dance while standing on the ground, so he certainly has no footing in the sky. But that's alright, floating and touching is enough.

He tells her stories.

She listens.

She flirts and she jokes.

He blushes.

Sometimes he responds with something just as immaculately phrased.

She blushes.

Her cheek is resting against his chest when she utters the words. "Guess what..."

"What?"

"There was a fairy ball tonight."

She wasn't supposed to tell him that.

The subsequent silence leaves her to wonder why she told him that.

"So why are you here?" He asks, which is even worse.

Willow doesn't give him an answer.

She doesn't need to.

It's her lips buttoned in an pointed 'You know why' sort of way that spells it all out. As wrung tight with nerves as she is, her lips quirk up with amusement as that heart of his begins to riot against his ribcage.

"Oh..." He says.

"Oh..." Willow responds.

The night dances on. The stars observe with indifference.

Neverland itself doesn't care if a fairy waltzes with a pirate.

Its only those with a pulse that take issue.

He doesn't say the words. Not exactly.

Instead, he says "Willow. I think...I think there might be a problem...."

The warmth of his body is soaking into her. It's making her sleepy.

"And what's that?" Willow asks, looking up.

After a moment of contemplation, she adds "Hunter,"

The pirate's name is Hunter.

She likes that his name is something that's allowed on her tongue.

She feels his shoulder stiffen beneath her hand at the mention of that name. It seems to tangle up the words he already had on the tip of his tongue.

She squeezes the spot she's holding, hoping to relieve a little of the tension.

"I..." The hand holding hers is damp. She can feel it tremble. "I don't think I can get down,"

"Is that so?" She teases with a tilt of her head.

Like she's forgotten. He's her happy though. It's so cute she almost wants to let loose an undignified squeal.

But the lines of Hunter's face only tighten. Every worry etched into his features is naked underneath the moon's glow.

"I don't think I can ever get down again," He states, simple and soft.

His eyes are on her and they burn like always. She doesn't know what kind of fire Hunter was born in but his eyes never stop burning.

Willow's mischievous smile dips as his words pierce her through with the viciousness of a dagger, yet her stomach doesn't fill with blood, but warm liquid gold.

You don't fall in love in Neverland.

You don't fall at all.

You fly.

#drabble written in my brainrotted haze #its kinda messy and unpolished #i wrote it all in one go #on my phone too #also it is very late and not a lot of people are gonna see this #yippee tho #vibrates about fairies #huntlow #neverland au

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