The Tale of the Two Peters
Michael Darling always waited until the house was quiet before he opened the small wooden box his grandmother had given him. Inside, wrapped in silk that shimmered like moonlight, was a book with no author’s name — only a silver star embossed on the cover.
His children, Emma and James, were finally old enough to hear it. They sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes wide in the lamplight.
„Is this about Uncle Peter?“ Emma whispered.
Michael smiled — that complicated smile of someone who’d loved two different versions of the same person. „In a way. But this is the story the fairies tell. The one Peter himself might not remember.“
He opened the book and began to read, his voice carrying the weight of someone who knew this wasn’t just a story.
Once upon a time, before time learned to count, there was a boy who lived on an island made of starlight and stubbornness. His name was Peter, and he had never been sad, never been scared, never wanted anything he couldn’t have by simply wishing it so.
He could fly — not with wings, but with the absolute certainty that falling was something that happened to other people.
The island was called Neverland, and it was perfect. Pirates fought with honor. Mermaids sang without drowning anyone. Lost Boys played forever without ever getting tired or hurt or lonely.
It was perfect because nothing ever changed.
***
Until the night Peter felt something new.
He was watching another boy — laughing, golden, impossible — and his chest grew tight. Not painful, exactly. More like… hungry. He wanted to touch that boy’s hand. He wanted to know what his name tasted like. He wanted—
And that’s when everything went wrong.
Because Peter had felt desire. And not just any desire — he’d wanted someone like himself. Another boy. And Neverland, built on the innocence that children are told to keep, couldn’t hold such a truth.
The island began to shake. The sky flickered. The very air seemed to scream.
Want is dangerous to a place where nothing ever changes. But wanting this—wanting him—was unthinkable.
The island did the only thing it knew how to do: it tore Peter in two.
Half of Peter stayed behind. This was the Peter everyone knows — Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. He kept the laughter, the adventures, the absolute certainty that tomorrow would always be exactly like today.
But he also kept the forgetting. He doesn’t remember what he wanted. He doesn’t remember who he wanted. He just knows that sometimes his chest aches for no reason at all.
The other half of Peter fell.
He fell through the sky like a comet trailing sorrow and song. He fell so far and so fast that by the time he landed, he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was something new — something that had learned what it meant to want, to ache, to burn.
The world gave him a different name. They called him Peter the Diva.
And oh, honey—oh, beloved—he is magnificent.
He walks the earth draped in starlight and defiance, in every color the rainbow ever dreamed. He appears wherever queer souls gather to build their own small heavens.
He’s there for the little boy, six years old, slipping into his mother’s heels for the first time, heart hammering, wondering why they fit so perfectly. The Diva kneels beside him and whispers, „You look beautiful.“
He’s there for the teenage boy staring at himself in the mirror at 2 AM, trying to say „I like boys“ out loud, choking on the words because everyone’s told him it’s wrong. The Diva stands behind him, a hand on his shoulder, and says, „Say it again. Say it until it sounds like truth.“
He’s there for the trans girl thrown out into the rain at sixteen, backpack and broken heart, nowhere to go. The Diva catches her before she falls too far. He bends reality itself — the air softens, a door appears, a safe place manifests — and he says, „You are exactly who you’re supposed to be. Come here, daughter. You’re home.“
He’s there for the two girls kissing behind the house where no one can see, pulling apart with shame already curling in their stomachs. The Diva bends the air around them, makes the moment holy, takes the shame and burns it to stardust. „There is nothing wrong with this,“ he tells them. „This is how love learns to fly.“
He catches every queer child who falls from Neverland’s sky.
And he teaches them that landing doesn’t mean dying.
It means living.
***
Michael paused, his voice thick. Emma was very quiet. James was staring at him with those too-knowing eyes children sometimes have.
„Dad,“ Emma said carefully. „Are you… telling us something?“
Michael took a breath. This was the hardest part. „I’m telling you the whole story, love. The one I should have told you sooner.“
He turned the page.
***
You see, Neverland remembers what it did. Deep down, beneath all that laughter and those eternal sunsets, the island knows it was built on a lie.
So once in an age, when the weight of that lie grows too heavy, Neverland pays tribute.
It lets one fairy feel.
Just one. Always a boy. Always the one with curious eyes and a too-tender heart.
That fairy begins to notice things. The way sunlight catches on Peter Pan’s hair. The curve of another boy’s smile. The ache of wanting to be close in ways that have no name in Neverland.
And the moment that want crystallizes into longing—
The fairy begins to fall.
Peter Pan turns away. He always does. He can’t bear to watch.
But the Diva—oh, the Diva — he runs.
He bends reality itself to catch that falling fairy. He slows time, softens space, tears holes in the fabric between worlds just to make the landing gentle.
He catches him in rain-slick alleys and forgotten bookshops, in crowded clubs where music drowns out fear, in quiet apartments where chosen family gathers.
And he holds that fairy — that boy, trembling and new and terrified — and says the two words that change everything:
„It’s okay.“
Reality itself shifts when the Diva speaks. The sharp edges of the world go soft. The cruelty dims. The hate loses its teeth, just for a moment, just enough.
The fairy lands.
And the Diva teaches him what longing means. What desire means. What it means to want and be wanted, to touch and be touched, to love in the way he was always meant to love.
He protects him—fiercely, the way only someone who remembers being torn in half can protect — until the fairy learns to walk, to laugh, to choose.
And when that fairy decides, finally, that landing was the right thing — that this messy, complicated, beautiful world is worth staying in—
He just can.
***
„Like Pinocchio?“ James whispered.
„Like all of us,“ Michael said quietly. „Like anyone who chooses to be real instead of perfect.“
He looked at his children — these two small humans he’d brought into the world with the man he loved, the man currently reading downstairs.
„I met Peter Pan when I was a boy,“ Michael said. „He taught me to fly. He showed me Neverland. And for a while, I thought I’d stay forever.“
„But you didn’t,“ Emma said.
„No. Because one night, I met the Diva.“ Michael’s voice went soft. „I was seventeen. I was standing in my bedroom, staring at my reflection, trying to say the words. Trying to admit what I’d known since I was six years old. And I couldn’t. I was so scared.“
„What happened?“ James asked.
„The air changed,“ Michael said. „The room smelled like starlight and cigarettes. And there was a man standing behind me in the mirror — beautiful, terrible, draped in more colors than should exist. And he said, ‚Say it, darling. Say it out loud.‘ “
Michael’s eyes were wet now. „So I did. I said, ‚I’m gay.‘ And he smiled and said, ‚I know, beloved. I’ve been waiting for you.‘ “
Emma reached for his hand.
„He taught me to land,“ Michael continued. „He showed me that the world beyond Neverland was full of people like me — people who’d fallen and learned to fly in different ways. People who’d chosen to be real.“
„And you chose to land,“ Emma said.
„I chose to land,“ Michael agreed. „I chose this life. Your father. You. All of it.“
„But you still miss flying,“ James said, with the clarity children have before the world teaches them not to see.
„Sometimes,“ Michael admitted. „Sometimes I miss the simplicity of Neverland. But then I remember — Neverland couldn’t hold all of me. It couldn’t hold the parts that wanted, that loved, that changed. Only the real world could do that.“
He turned to the last page.
***
The fairies say that every mortal who learns to land with grace carries a piece of the Diva’s stardust in their heart.
And every time someone says „I’m gay“ for the first time, every time someone chooses their true name, every time someone loves fearlessly despite a world that tells them not to—
That stardust glows.
The Diva feels it, wherever he is. He smiles. He lifts his face to the sky.
And in Neverland, Peter Pan’s chest aches a little less.
Because every soul that lands is proof that desire wasn’t the enemy.
It was just the next part of the story.
The part where we learn that growing up doesn’t mean losing wonder.
It means choosing what to wonder about.
And sometimes — often — that means choosing to wonder about each other.
To want each other.
To love each other.
To become real for each other.
The fairies say that someday, the two Peters will meet again. When enough fallen souls have learned to land with grace, when enough mortal hearts carry the Diva’s stardust, when the world finally learns that queer love isn’t a fall from grace but a different kind of flight—
The two halves will become whole.
And Neverland will finally learn what it should have known all along:
That the boy who wanted another boy wasn’t broken.
He was just learning how to love.
***
Michael closed the book and looked at his children — these perfect, complicated, real children.
„So,“ he said. „Questions?“
„Are we going to fall from Neverland too?“ Emma asked.
„No, sweetheart. You’re already on the ground. You get to choose whether to fly or not.“
„What if…“ James hesitated. „What if we fall anyway? Not from Neverland, but from… other things?“
Michael pulled them both close. „Then the Diva will catch you. Or someone who learned from him. Or me. Or your father. Or each other.“ He kissed the tops of their heads. „You’re never falling alone. That’s what family means. That’s what chosen means.“
„Dad?“ Emma’s voice was very small. „If I… if I ever need to say something scary… will you be the Diva for me?“
Michael’s heart broke and healed in the same moment. „Always. Both of you. Whatever you need to say, whenever you’re ready — I will catch you. I promise.“
Outside, the stars wheeled overhead — some rising, some falling, all of them burning bright.
And somewhere between Neverland and London, between innocence and experience, between the boy who never grew up and the man who learned that growing up was the bravest magic of all—
The Diva smiled.
Another child was learning to land.
Another heart was choosing to be real.
And in that choice, that terrifying, beautiful choice—
The world grew a little softer.
A little kinder.
A little more like home.
Michael tucked them in, turned off the light, and paused at the door.
„I love you both,“ he said. „Exactly as you are. Exactly as you’ll become.“
„Even if we fly?“ James asked.
„Even if you fly.“
„Even if we fall?“ Emma whispered.
„Especially if you fall,“ Michael promised. „Because I’ll teach you what the Diva taught me — how to land with grace, how to love without shame, how to be so fiercely, completely yourself that reality itself bends to make room for your joy.“
He closed the door softly.
Downstairs, his husband looked up from his book. „Did you tell them?“
„I told them,“ Michael said, and kissed him, tasting love and every choice that had led him here. „I told them everything.“
„How’d they take it?“
„Like children whose father just taught them how to fly and land,“ Michael said, smiling. „Like children who know they’re safe either way.“
Outside, a star fell — or maybe it rose. From the ground or from the sky, it was hard to tell anymore.
The Diva caught it either way.
He always did.
Do with this text what the fuck you want.
Copy it, print it, expand it, shrink it.
But never let a fairy fall.
The Tale of The Two Peters by Jascha Ezra Urbach is marked CC0 1.0.
If you want to print this one out I got you covered. This PDF is designed to be printed as Brochure on A4 Paper – print it double sided and staple it in the middle.
The Berlin based author Jonah Ravenshead is using this text as a base for their own lore to write „Twinkerbell“ – a queer erotica retelling of Peter Pan where Peter is not the main character. You can find all you need to know on their websiste.
@jascha Thank you
@jascha 😥
Very lovely, beautiful story! ❤️🤩😍🏳️🌈