lost_boy | forever a lost boy

I woke with a start, my eyes open suddenly, instantly awake and without the slightest bit of grogginess that sometimes followed me into the morning. In Darrow, I had allowed myself to relax. When I slept, especially the nights I snuck into Eddie's room, I slept heavily. I slept like someone who felt safe, but this morning as I came awake, I knew everything had changed.

Somehow, I had known it even before my eyes were open, but now that they were, I could see everything in the dim sunlight that filtered in through the roots of the tree.

Slowly I sat up. The animal skins and furs piled on top of me fell away and it was a strange sort of relief to discover I was still wearing the t-shirt and striped pyjamas pants I had fallen asleep in. If nothing else, that meant Darrow hadn't been a dream, I hadn't gone there in my mind in some desperate attempt to escape Peter. Darrow was real and I was no longer there.

The very thought of it broke my heart.

I inhaled shakily, stifling the sob that wanted to slip out, then looked to my left. If I was here, it would be time to wake the other boys. Time to tell them what Peter was really like, but as I reached for the shape I thought would be Charlie or Nod or Crow, I realized the person lying next to me was familiar, but not for the reasons I would have thought.

I gaped at them, then turned to my other side and flung back the animal furs. I stood, stepping over shapes, pulling back the furs and skins so I could see those around me and another sob almost slipped out of me as I realized I wasn't alone. My friends were here. My friends from Darrow. I was overwhelmed with relief and gratitude for just a second before an absolute terror the likes of which I had only felt once before replaced my pleasure.

If they were here, they weren't safe. Not a single one of them. Peter would know I cared for them far more than I could ever care for him. He would see them as a threat.

As if my very thoughts had summoned him, a shape from the other end of the tree moved. Peter, holding a sharp blade in one hand and a rough piece of wood he'd been carving in the other, stepped into the midst of bodies, most of them still groggy, having just been pulled from sleep. He looked them over, a king surveying his domain, then smiled at me.

His teeth were perfect, tiny white pearls; his baby teeth. The ones I had knocked out the last time I'd seen him.

"Hullo, Jamie," he said cheerfully. "Welcome home."

[Initial post for anyone under 18. Feel free to use this for explanations, adventure, run-ins with fairies or mermaids or Peter, who will be outwardly cool to everyone, but won't be violent yet. In a few days I'll post a new top level for Jamie and Peter's fight.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"There are pirates?" He had kind of thought pirates were made up. Or, they existed once upon a time, but just like that -- once upon a time. Like in Treasure Island, or Peter--

Peter. Whoa. Like --? You can't just come from Neverland, though. Luke thinks. Or maybe you can, because there are all kinds of things Luke got told were just stories that are real in Darrow. But Peter Pan's supposed to be nice. Maybe not exactly safe, but not dangerous. Definitely not more dangerous than the pirates.

If this is that Peter, the books are wrong, because he doesn't think Jamie would lie to him.

"I've read stories about pirates," he says, because that's the closest he can get to saying what he's thinking without it just being weird. "I definitely think we should stay away from them."

Even though I had said it and even though I was nodding along with Luke's words, I was at the same time wondering if the pirates might be our safest course of action. They didn't particularly like me, that much was true, because I had killed a great number of them and cut the right hands off many, many others. But if the choice was between me or Peter, I knew they would always prefer me.

And if I was being honest, I thought I might prefer them over Peter, too.

"We'll see what happens," I said to Luke. "Would you like to come outside? I can show you around the Island a little bit. You can see where I spent so many years."

That's a lot less scary than what Jamie's been saying, and he nods eagerly. "This isn't anything like home for me," he says, even though, duh, and he feels a little silly. "You have to show me everything."

"You weren't born here, right?" he asks. He and Jamie have talked about where they both came from a little bit, but at the Home, sometimes just in Darrow, it's just easier not to talk about before. Jamie never talks about having a mom or dad or anything, so Luke doesn't ask, but he doesn't really know the beginning of everything on the Island. "How long did you live here?"

"No, I was born in London," I told Luke. "In England. It was a very long time ago, though."

I climbed up through a gap in the roots and into the sunlight, then turned back to offer a hand to Luke to help him through. Charlie had always struggled to scramble up through the roots and he and Luke were about the same size, so I wanted to make sure Luke wasn't stuck trying to follow me.

"I was here... well, I'm not sure exactly. I think I've worked it out to being around forty or fifty years, but there are no real seasons here and it's difficult to keep track of the passing days."

It's a big reach. Luke stalwartly climbs as best he can -- having had a treehouse helps -- but when Jamie offers a hand he grasps onto it, relieved for the extra help.

"Whoa," Luke says, blinking in the change of light. He's not sure what's more amazing, being born in London or being here for fifty years. "There's no way you're fifty." Then he grins, a little, because it's kind of a good joke. "You're older than some of the adults in the Home."

"Well, sort of," I said with a small smile. "And sort of not. When Peter took me from London, I was just eight years old and living here meant I could stay eight, so I did. For a very long time. It was only just before I came to Darrow that I started to grow up bit by bit."

I paused and glanced around, then said, "I think that's why Peter started to hate me. He saw me growing up and he didn't like it. He said I wasn't meant to, but being young forever is a terrible thing."

I was happy to be growing up.

It is Neverland! They're really in Neverland, that's the only place people don't grow up. Only, he isn't sure that knowing that is a good thing, if Peter's really dangerous and not like the movie. "I saw a movie about a place like that, once," he says, which he thinks sounds like he's smart, and doesn't say he knows who Peter is.

Luke nods. "I wouldn't want to be little forever ever. When you're bigger you get to do more things." He says it quietly, though, the same way Jamie's kind of being sneaky.

Even Wendy and John and Michael ended up going home.

I wasn't sure what to make of that, the idea that a film existed out there somewhere with a place similar to Peter's Island. I wondered if it was as frightening a place sometimes, or if there was someone like Peter who had somehow dreamed it all up and controlled it.

It couldn't have been. People didn't let kids watch scary movies and Luke was still very small.

"Peter can be very picky," I said. "He doesn't like when boys are too grown up and he doesn't like when they're too small either. I don't ever want you to be alone with him."

Luke doesn't know if this place can be the same Neverland -- it seems impossible, the movie's just a cartoon, and nothing seems as nice, especially not Peter who must be very dangerous if he can scare Jamie who's basically a grownup. But there's a Peter, and a place where no one grows old, and maybe the story's just inspired by a true story: there are a lot of movies that are like that. Stevie always says that means it's not really the way it happened, that based on is maybe true but inspired by definitely isn't. And then someone tells him he's ruining it, usually.

"I promise I won't," he says, nodding seriously. "I'll stay with you." Then he thinks maybe Jamie wouldn't want him staying with him, and he says, "Or, or someone else from home." He looks around. There's not a lot of other little kids, but there's Rosie and Eponine who are both nice.

"Um," he adds, frowning. "What do we do?" If they're stuck here, they can't just stay away from Peter forever.

forever a lost boy

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