Broken Barrier : Peter Pan X Reader
Author's Notes: This is a story based off one of my recent tiktoks. My tiktok is retrointhenow, the same as my tunblr here! I have tried shifting before and have yet to be successful. I don't have tips for shifting. I'm also not interested in making a part two for this so please don't ask.
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"Come on." I groaned staring at my ceiling. It's been about a week since my last shift to Neverland. Things went exactly as I wanted them, I set my timeline as a nice calm period. I had everything I wanted. The boys were nice, the mermaids haven't tried to drown me yet, and life was good. Recently I've had trouble shifting back, time moved slowly in Neverland compared to my actual reality, but I think Peter is starting to catch on.
There was a two month break between shifts and Peter heavily questioned where I was. Thankfully I was able to blame the met,aids but I couldn't use that excuse again. Sometime I forget that the language dialect is different that what I'm use to so I'll slip up when I'm talking. I think that's part of what gives me away. At least I wrote down in my scripts that my clothing was different.
Finally I was able to relax and dream of Neverland. It's hard to describe how I get there. But it's like someone turns on a light and then I'm there.
The island was hot and humid today. I analyzed the terrain surrounding me and noticed that I wasn't to far from dead man's peak. A long hike back to base camp. Without a doubt Peter knew I have arrived. He knew everything that happened on his island.
"Y/n ? That you?" I heard someone call. I walked toward the voice and Devin ran around a tree.
"Oh hey Dev! Beautiful day today isn't it ?" I smiled and joined him on his duties. Devin was my best friend, without me writing that in. He was the first to greet me and actually welcome me to the island.
The boys were a little skeptical about a girl arriving in Neverland. Of course Wendy was there, but Peter only kept her as collateral for the Darling boys. Peter had no agenda for me though.
"Don't tell him I said this. But I think Pan has been worried about you." Devin picked some berries.
"How so ?" I worked at another bush. Of course I wanted Peter to like me, but I decided to let it happen naturally. It's my own desired reality where I could control anything but I wanted something to feel real. Besides, I want to know how he would really feel about me.
"He's been running around the island searching for you. He's had quite the bad attitude as well." He frowned and stood up. "If I didn't know better, I'd say Pan cares about you." I passed my bowl to him and rolled my eyes.
"I would like to think so, but Peter has quite the attitude without me being present. Besides, we was probably doing his island perimeter checks." My heart swelled with joy at the though. Could he actually like me ? No, no he's too busy. But Devin wouldn't lie to me. Then again he is a boy. Best not to get my hopes up.
Together Devin and I made to long trek back to the camp. We talked about what happened since I left last. Fortunately he was easy to gaslight and confuse about my whereabouts. I just took pieces of what he said and included them into 'my' story about where I was. From what I gathered Felix has been running the camp as Pan hasn't been around recently. Could that be because of me ? No, I'm stretching to read between the lines.
"Hey Y/n, long time no see huh?" Felix greeted me. I felt myself flush with worry.
"Not such a long time. I'm never too far away." I tried to play it off. It's hard to live two realities simultaneously. Sometimes I mix up my realities and say the wrong thing. One time I was talking to my real world friends about Felix, forgetting that he doesn't truly exist.
We all hung around camp for a while, tidying up and finishing up the daily chores Pan had set for the day. Pan had yet to make his grand appearance since I've shown up.
"Rumor had it, Y/n, that Pan is avoiding you." Jack, one of the older boys, nudged me.
"Huh? What do you mean avoiding me ?" I picked my head up from the fire and looked at the lost boy.
"I don't know, but no one has seen you for a good two days. Since then he's had this twisted look on his face. Kinda perplexed." He threw sticks into the fire.
You know the saying " speak of the devil and he shall appear"? I tend to think that's true, cause right after Jack said that Pan waltzed in. Everyone went silent, only the crackling of the bonfire could be heard, Aline with the island creatures too.
"Carry on." Pan said. Slowly the noise picked back up. He walked to his tent. The boys started dancing as the sound of the Pan pipe started. Peter played a slow and mesmerizing rendition of the iconic 3 note Peter Pan melody.
"You should go talk to him." Felix sat next to me. I peeled my eyes open as I started to fall asleep.
"About what ?" Pan continued to play soothing songs. He knows how much I love listening to him play.
"Come on. I'm not stupid. I know you like him, and I believe with a best friends intuition that he likes you to." He gave me a comforting smile.
"It would never work anyway." I shrugged.
"You never know. He fronts whoever he's near you. Tries to act tough. But behind closed huts, he thinks about you." Felix stood up and brought me with him. "If things don't work out you can alway, according to Pan "go back to your world". " I felt my body stiffen. No way. I mean, yes Pan somehow knows everything, but he can't know about my world. Or that I even exist outside of Neverland. Might have to make a note about that when I wake up.
I drug myself to Pan's hut and nervously opened the tarp.
"Need some company?" I poked my head in.
"I think you're gonna come in anyway." He sat his flute down and walked to his desk.
"Observant I see." I fully stepped into his room. I had seen his hut before but never fully pictured it. He had a small bed and a decent desk cluttered with papers. He whisked his arm over the desk and the parchment disappeared, most likely to his desk in the Thinking Tree. The thinking tree is his actual home, he only stays in the camp hut for temporary reasons.
"Is there something I can help you with ?" He sighed and turned towards me. Looking directly at me for the first time today. His Forrest green eyes searched my being. I made my way around the hut before sitting on the twin sized bed.
"You haven't spoken to me today." I crossed my legs and cleaned the dirt from under my fingernails. I heard the creaking of his wooden desk from him sitting on it.
"Where do you go ? When you leave here ?"
"I don't-"
"Bullshit." He stopped me. "I know everything Y/n. You often forget that." I folded my hands together and chewed on my lip.
"Something's are unknowable. Even unexplainable." I held my breath and hoped he wouldn't be able to figure anything out. He cracked a smile, he got me. I know magic can pass through the fairytale realms, even to a place where magic certainly doesn't exist ?
"I know you're not really here. In Neverland. You go somewhere else when you disappear for days at a time. Especially that time you left for two weeks. I feel it." He hopped off the desk and walked towards me.
"I'm right here. Sitting in front of you. You're looking right at me." I challenged him. If I learned one thing, it was how to battle with Pan, verbal and physical. I felt my face heat up, my tell.
"I might be looking at you Y/n, but I'm not seeing you. You have this thousand yard stare and sometimes it's like you're not even here." Thousand yard stare ? I just get lost in my own mind sometimes. Unfortunately I fell weak to Peter Pan, no matter what. I could hang with Peter and his games just long enough but I always fell short just before the finish line. Always fumbling the bag.
"You always knew too much for your own good." I smiled sadly. Would I break his heart if I told him he wasn't real in my life ? Even though I had been visiting Neverland for months it felt like years. I felt like I had a second family, I had real fun being with the boys, living in a land of magic was indeed enchanting.
"I know that if we lived in the same reality that maybe we could be together like you want." He stroked my hair and lifted my head to look at him. I tried my hardest to not look at him. He knew, and it broke my heart instead. "Look at me Y/n." I slowly dragged my eyes to look at him, tears filled my waterline.
"Do you think that could actually happen ? Us being together if I was truly here ?" My voice faltered with each word. It feels wrong to ask that. Knowing it's not real to me. I have a real life, not this made up fabricated dream world.
He had moved his index finger from under my chin to my cheek to cup it. He gently stroked his thumb across the area, catching a stray tear. "I think friends don't look at each other the way we do unless we wanted something more." His voice was soft and soothing.
I leaned into his touch and closed my eyes. Everything felt so real. "It could never work. It wouldn't be real. For either of us." His other hand held mine.
"For what it's worth. It feels real when we're together."
So was it wrong for us to lead each other on like that ? Pretending what we had was real ? Maybe so, but neither of us had been happier than in the moments we spent together.
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But eventually I went back to my reality and left Peter in his. I still get visions in my dream of him, but that's all they are. I haven't even tried to shift in months. But we knew this would happen at some point. You can't postpone the inevitable. Now it's time to move on. Move on from something that never truly happened.
Peter's POV
"She's not coming back. Is she?" Felix stood next to me, staring at her empty hut.
"No. But she'll never forget us. We're always going to be a part of her." Felix nodded and walked off to join the other boys. I'll find where she came from, I'll search for her and bring her back.
Until then I'll watch her hut. Waiting for her to walk out, waiting for her to come home.
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Gemstones Episode 3.2: Kelvin's butt buddies, gay Percy, two toxic families, and a lot of soldiers
Episode 3.2 introduces Eli's estranged brother-in-law Peter Montgomery, his sons, and a disturbing super-macho mirror of Kelvin's God Squad.
Title: "But Esau Ran to Meet Him," from Genesis 33.4. Jacob has tricked his father Isaac into giving him the inheritance. Esau is furious and vows to kill him, so he flees. When he returns after 20 years, Esau behaves as if he is happy to see him, but....
Stephen's abusive wife: Stephen, who was fired as Judy's guitarist after her brothers discovered their affair, is trying to tell his wife Kristy that he was "laid off," not fired. She doesn't buy it. It's a highly abusive relationship: she calls him "an unemployed, cokehead piece of shit who sulks all day." He screams "Fuck you!", and she hits him with a glass blender. Shattered glass all over his face and head, in front of the kids! Whoa, scary.The Gemstones and their partners argue, but they never use abusive language or physical violence. Except for the time that Amber shot Jesse in the butt.
Later, Judy meets Stephen at Spanky's Cafe, a real restaurant in North Charleston, and offers him $10,000 to leave her alone: "I don't want to see you no' mo'." But he still wants her. Judy points out that he's married, but it doesn't matter: "I'd leave my family in a second if I could have you. I'd murder them." Say what? This guy is a psycho. Of course, he should leave his abusive wife, but murder her...and the kids?
Kelvin's Butt Buddies: Jesse and Amber's adult son Gideon, who moved to California to become a stuntman, is back, lying on the veranda in a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette, holding a box of Lucky Charms cereal, and sulking. The background song by Buddy Knox tells us: "I think I'm going to kill myself." He injured his neck, and may never do stunt work, tumbling, or martial arts again. At least he's displaying a nice chest.
In a much, much nicer parallel to the Stephen-Mandy confrontation, Gideon's parents order him to stop feeling sorry for himself, get off his butt, and go to work for the church. But he doesn't want to preach. Ok, so he can become Eli's driver. Remember that the long-term driver, Walker, was fired.
We cut to Gideon on his first assignment, driving Eli and the siblings to see if May-May's kids are ok. They are living with her estranged husband, Peter Montgomery, and his militia, the Brotherhood of Tomorrow's Fires: they expect end of civilization, like Eli's Y2K scare back in 1999. Eli calles them preppers: "They want to make sure they don't run out of toilet paper."
On the way to the compound, at the defunct Boy Scout Camp Wooden Feather, the siblings discuss their cousins, Karl and Chuck. Kelvin says that he always found them "kind of dumb and strange." But you haven't seen them since 2000, when you were ten or eleven. How much do you remember?
Judy: "That's why I'm surprised you weren't butt buddies with them."
He gets annoyed, not because she alludes to him being gay but because she implied that he's also "dumb and strange," and therefore perfect for the Montgomerys.
Not the God Squad: Bizarre signs like "Now we will see" greet the family, along with multiple armed guards. They pass Jacob (Stephen Louis Grush) cutting up a deer. Kelvin smiles at him -- think he's hot, buddy?. Then a military-style obstacle course; guys practicing martial arts; a guy taking a shower outdoors (no beefcake); and finally the mess hall, where about thirty militia men are having lunch.
Wait -- no women and children? The actual far-right militia movement has many female participants, but this is a male-only space, like Kelvin's God Squad in Season 2, but with scruffy guys in military fatigues instead of flexing musclemen. It is dedicated to phileo instead of eros, buddy-bonding instead of homoerotic desire. An article on Doomsday Preppers notes that these male-only groups "cultivate a dangerous vision of apocalyptic manhood that consummates a fantasy of national virility in the demise of feminine society." Women are weak and fragile, their civilization doomed. Only the "manly love of comrades" can survive the Apocalypse.
May-May's son Chuck ushers Eli and the siblings in. They are greeted by Cousin Karl (Robert Oberst), who is delighted to see them; and Uncle Peter (Steve Zahn, below), who is not. It's time for church, so get out! No, the siblings offer to help lead the service: Jesse will preach, Judy will sing, and Kelvin will perform some "feats of strength" for the kids -- the only time he references his muscles during the season. No kids around, but maybe the militia guys would like to see some masculine beauty.
Uncle Peter rejects the siblings' offer. They are "phony fakers," entertainers, interested in making money rather than saving souls.
Kelvin's Gay Friend: At the Salvation Center, Jesse, Kelvin, and designer Percy (Aaron Goldenberg) are going over the plans for the new executive boardroom. Percy has a gay-stereotyped name and occupation, so we can safely identify him as gay.
Background Alert: Aaron Goldenberg and Jake Jonez' video sketches, with the Mean Gays invading your dinner party, rejecting you as a hookup, and so on, have gone viral, with upwards of 35 million views across social media platforms. In 2024, they "invaded" the Razzie Awards, giving them a national spotlight.
Back in the board room, Kelvin lays on the campy behavior and criticizes Judy's choice of color scheme, becoming a hip-wiggling, eye-rolling, sassy Queer Eye for the Straight Guy host. He has been swishing like a Mean Gay all season, making sure that anyone who talks to him for a moment will figure "it" out.
When Martin comes in to tell them about a meeting with the Board of Ministers, Jesse orders Percy to "get the f* out," but Kelvin says goodbye nicely, while fiddling with his "wedding ring." Why is Kelvin being nice to him? In universe, he recognizes another gay person. Structurally, we learn that Kelvin has gay friends. He and Keefe are closeted, but not isolated: they are participating in the local LGBT community.
Gaslighting BJ: The siblings visit Eli at his fishing cabin to reveal that the Board of Ministers is "disgruntled," unhappy with how they are running the church. But Eli refuses help: he won't always be around, and they have to learn to work together to solve their problems.
Then Judy and BJ's Date Night: they leave the theater, discussing how cool it was to go to a movie and throw popcorn at people's heads. "Lately we haven't been on the same page," Judy comments. BJ doesn't know what she's talking about, so she digs herself in deeper, claiming that they were "on a break" when she was on tour. Uh-oh, when you are on a break, you can see other people.
When he protests, she gaslights him, claiming that he said it. Manipulative, but not nearly as crazy as last season's Judy.
Where's Keefe? Judy/BJ and Kelvin/Keefe scenes almost always run parallel, so we should see the guys having marital problems immediately before or after Judy gaslights BJ. But Keefe does not appear in this episode; we see Kelvin swishing it up in the board room instead. This suggests that Kelvin's conflict is not with Keefe, but rather with his new position of authority. It's one thing to be obviously gay while doing low prestige, nearly invisible jobs, and quite another to be gay while running the church.
Peter is Bat Shit Crazy: Time for church in the militia compound. While the men sing "Power in the Blood." the feds raid! Guys are being grabbed, assaulted, even shot and killed! Cousins Karl and Chuck manage to escape, even though the guy in front of them is grabbed.
They run to the "safe house": a middle-aged women is sitting on a chair in the woods, making a sandwich while half-naked kids frolick. It is a surreal scene. Who is she? A militia man's wife? A nature spirit? The guardian of the underworld? She wordlessly points to a nearby cabin where ten or twelve militia guys have gathered, and we return to ordinary time.
Peter wants to know who alerted the feds -- the Gemstones? And why did Karl and Chuck invite them in the first place? Are they traitors?
"No, Mama invited the Gemstones. We had nothing to do with it."
Peter doesn't believe them. To get them to confess, he cuts part of Jacob's ear off! Karl intervenes, and Peter orders his men to get him. The Cousins run. Whoa, is he planning to disfigure his children? This is even more toxic that Stephen-Kristy, like Kelvin's tyrannical rule of the God Squad times a thousand.
Cut to Gideon driving Eli to a cheap motel, where Chuck, Karl, and May-May are hiding. Peter is gunning for them -- and for the Gemstones. His goons are parked right outside. So you ask Eli to come to your hotel and get spotted by the goons? Good thinking, Sis.
The Shoe-Throwing Match: The Board of Ministers, representing every area of church administration, from finance to end-of-life services, want to know the siblings' plan for handling the declining membership. They can't think of anything except an impromptu catch phrase, "We three and thee." You were notified of this meeting far in advance, plenty of time to think of a plan. The meeting devolves into a shoe-throwing fight. Kelvin continues to promote femme-gay behavior by wearing a glittery vest.
Meanwhile, Eli agrees to hide the Montgomery Boys in his mansion. To escape Peter's goons, Gideon has do some fancy stunt driving, crash a few cars, plow through a golf course, and slam on the brakes to make his assailants crash into each other -- just below a "were you injured at work?" ambulance-chaser billboard. The end.
Work problems, marital problems, and now a militia gunning for them. The siblings are spiraling!
The full review, with explicit soldier photos , is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends
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