lost_boy | forever a lost boy

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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.]

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Days had gone by. Days. I was constantly on edge, watching and waiting and keeping guard as best I could. I checked the traps and I helped my friends fish and find the right berries and roots and mushrooms that were safe to eat, but I did all of it while watching Peter. And he did everything while watching me.

He was planning something and I knew it, but I couldn't be certain what it was. Mostly he focused on Richie, sensing something in him that he had once liked in me, something that made him pick certain boys over others, and while he hadn't gone so far as to actively try and turn Richie against me like he had with Charlie, he was paying an exceptional bit of attention to him. Taking him under his wing, so to speak, teaching him about the Island. He was doing it to others, too, watching me as he paid them extra attention. I wasn't his any longer and he knew it, so he wanted to take people from me if he could.

It wouldn't be long before he tried something. I could feel it in the air. It was something heavy, like humidity on a particularly hot summer day.

I was cleaning fish when it happened. Quick, efficient, I was gutting them, removing the scales, putting the meat aside so we could cook it later. Suddenly, without warning, Peter was standing in front of me and I glanced up at him, then looked back down at my work. The less he and I spoke, the better.

"You're almost a man now, Jamie," he said, his tone conversational. "Have you noticed?"

I looked up again, faintly wary now, but said nothing.

"You're not supposed to be here. Not if you're a man," he continued, slowly walking around me. He had his own knife and I knew it wasn't really possible, but it felt as if the scar on my thigh throbbed in reaction at the sight of it. "That was always the way, wasn't it? The boys who grew up, we sent them off to face the Many-Eyed."

"Or to join the pirates," I reminded him mildly. I could sense others watching us, but I didn't want to look at any of my friends and risk shifting Peter's attention to them. As long as he was focused on me, they would be safe.

"Or to join the pirates," Peter echoed, agreeing with me. "But I think you'd be better off with the Many-Eyed. You've already killed one of them, haven't you? And they were very upset with that. I almost think I owe you to them for what you've done, breaking our agreement with them like you did."

"The agreement I didn't know about," I answered through gritted teeth. "Because you didn't tell me."

Peter continued as if he hadn't heard me, stepping closer. "They would be happy to see you, I think. Maybe it's time, Jamie. You're not my Jamie anymore, you're not the boy I did everything for."

He stepped closer still and I tightened my grip on my knife, but it didn't matter. Even if I stabbed Peter properly, he would never die and I knew it. As he smiled and watched me, I stared back at him, the both of us holding our knifes, the both of us waiting to see who would make the first move.

In the end it was him. He reached out in a flash and grabbed me by the hair. My knife came up and I slashed out, but Peter was suddenly gone. And yet he wasn't. He was still holding me by the hair, but he was no longer standing on the ground, and I knew he was flying again. Finally doing it in front of me, letting me see for the first time, and I cried out both in pain and in rage. Peter's small fingers twisted in my hair and suddenly he was dragging me, yanking me away from my work with the fish, pulling me with all his strength in the direction of the Many-Eyed.

I dropped my knife when he yanked again and no matter how hard to scrabbled for it, my fingers wouldn't close down around the handle again. All I could do was swing blindly at Peter, hoping I would connect.

[Okay! So this is Jamie's top level for anyone who wants to defend him from Peter. If you don't want to be involved in the actual physical fight, you can also tag Jamie after the fact and help him come to the decision that it's time to go join the pirates!]

It's a little like Regan's, when it comes down to the nuts and bolts: a lurking sense of danger without much she can do about it, and she finds herself missing the modern technology she's grown adapted to, but not nearly as terrible as it could get in Paris sometimes. She's had to gather edible fruits and nuts and knows how to clean game and fish, and so that's where she makes herself useful here, just as she did there.

She's hulling nuts not far from Jamie, seated casually turned sidelong so that she can keep one eye on the others while he's got his head down working. At first she can't hear what they're saying, but Peter's voice, already higher than Jamie's with youth, pitches up as he says You're not my Jamie. She sees Jamie's shoulders tense. It seems so ludicrous, this petite, wiry boy staring down Jamie, nearly a man. And yet, she's seen gamins in Paris take down a full grown man, without any magic at all. If someone's smart, and brutal, and quick...

They're all waiting. Waiting for what?

Peter strikes forward, and she sees Jamie's knife flash -- and she's on her feet, but suddenly Peter's in the air. It steals her breath, but Jamie's knife goes tumbling from his fingers and she lunges for it, throwing herself forward and closing her fingers around it, scrabbling up onto her feet to brandish it.

"Put him down."

Edited 2019-10-23 05:31 (UTC)

Peter only laughed, the high, tinkling sound of a boy enjoying himself greatly at some wonderful game. It would have been such an innocent sound if not for the fact that he still had his hand on my hair and was busy trying to yank me clear off my feet. He rose higher in the air and my feet lifted, then settled once more.

I was almost a man, just like he'd said. I wouldn't be so easy to carry off.

"Or you'll what?" he asked Eponine in a sing-song voice. "Surely Jamie's explained things to you, hasn't he? I've seen him whispering. This Island is mine and so is everything on it."

"We don't belong to you," I shouted up at him.

"I don't give a fig for whose island this is," she says, lifting her chin, "I think it'll still hurt if you bleed."

"Jamie's not yours. You had it right, didn't you? He's not your Jamie. He's his own man, and I'm no one's girl. My own father couldn't keep rule over me, some petulant little boy won't. You didn't bring me here, did you? Someone has more control over who gets to be on this island than you, and you know it and I bet it scares you to bits."

She doesn't know that for certain; she doesn't know what takes them to these places in their dreams, or even whether that is what's happening now and if they will all awake all right. But she does know there's no way Peter can explain why they're here, not really.

Eponine wraps her free arm around Jamie's waist, setting her feet and her jaw as she adds her weight.

Edited 2019-10-24 05:37 (UTC)

It made my heart ache to have Eponine trying to defend me, to hear the way she snapped back at Peter in ways no one had ever felt brave enough to do before. In the years I had spent on the island, no one had ever thought to defend me, not until Sal, but I knew part of that was that I hadn't needed defending.

Until the weeks before I left for Darrow, I had always been Peter's favourite. Sometimes I wasn't sure if I was more angry with him for having been so terrible or with myself for needing to grow up. Maybe if I had just stayed young I never would have known.

But then I wouldn't have had any of these friends either. Real friends. And I wouldn't have Eddie.

"I'll just send you both to the Many-Eyed," Peter said cheerfully enough when Eponine added her weight to me. It shouldn't have been possible, but he dragged us along, through trees, over the crisp vegetation, until the buzzing sound of the Many-Eyed grew painfully loud.

They should, between the both of them, be too heavy for this, for this flying child to be able to haul one, much less both of them off their feet. When he redoubles his effort, Eponine suddenly jolting up after Jamie, she lets out a yelp, slipping down.

For just a moment she has the instinctive thought to let go: it'd be a hard tumble but she's done that before. He'd have to choose between them, and she could run.

But she can't make herself do it. She kept herself alive for years by making quick, selfish decisions -- and maybe that voice in her head that does is cleverer, she's not sure -- but she can't just leave Jamie now, the way she couldn't just let Peter and he fight.

Instead, she clings, hanging on for dear life around Jamie's waist as they're both hoisted over canopy and jungle. She hauls herself upward, even dares to try and swing one arm out to slash at Peter's wrists, though the fear of falling overcomes her almost immediately. Eponine cringes as her efforts almost certainly drag Jamie downward against Peter's grip, but if she falls now she's dead.

Maybe they both are anyway. Her skin prickles as the buzzing below them grows louder. She's never been afraid of spiders, but this isn't how she planned to go.

He's done this before. Killed a Many-Eyed, just like he said. And there are two of them now. She has to believe they'll be all right.

The plains of the Many-Eyed are the same plains where the fairies live. The fairies I killed by accident when I lit their fields on fire. Somehow, though, there's no fire damage when Peter flies us lower and lower over the grass and I can see little glittering lights flitting here and there.

The fairies had never shown themselves to me. Not until now. They were excited, I thought, because they were Peter's, too.

Peter began to fly down toward the plains. The grass caught at us, long and dry, and then suddenly he had released my hair, dumping me to the ground and Eponine with me. The buzzing hum grew louder and as Peter laughed, flying away, I slowly stood.

"We need to run," I said in a low voice.

Eponine plummets as Jamie does, and throws her free arm out in instinct: she can't tell if it was a smart decision, giving Jamie's legs some room, or terrible, for her shoulder takes the brunt of the fall and she winces as she rolls over, getting to her feet.

She's already prepared to do just that and nods, urgently. "You lead, you know this place, and I'll follow. I've still my knife if we need it."

I wished I still had my knife, but it was lying discarded somewhere by the tree, and I knew I wasn't going to have easy access to any other kind of weapon. It was good that Eponine had hers, but I would have felt better if we were both armed.

"This way," I said, touching Eponine's arm before I made for a path that cut through the plains. The buzzing of the Many-Eyed grew in volume and I didn't know if we were going to be able to avoid them, but I certainly wanted to try. We would never escape if there was more than one.

"Hurry!" I called. "They're too much for us to face a whole pack."

Eponine follows him, taking off behind him. Jamie's taller and swifter than she is, but despite being more a sprinter -- she moves in quick, decisive spurts, always -- she's stubborn. The grass whips across her legs and arms. She ignores it and the pain in her shoulder, keeping pace with Jamie as best she can.

"Why do they hunt in packs?" she calls back, to which she knows there is no answer. That seems unfair; she's never seen a pack of spiders before. She's never seen a giant spider, though, at all: the why might be as easy as that Peter finds it amusing.

"They don't," I answered. "They don't hunt at all, not in the traditional sense. They just live in packs. In family groups. I've never been in their territory before, not like this."

I ducked into the grass, lowered to my knees and paused for a moment so I could listen. The buzzing was further away and I didn't know if the Many-Eyed even knew we were here. Peter might have told them, I couldn't put that past time, but it didn't seem like they were coming after us.

A fairy flew close to my ear, lashing out at my cheek, but I just swatted her away, ignoring the burn of pain where I bet she had cut me. The Many-Eyed were a much more prominent threat.

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Stan can say this is the most fucked up camping trip he's ever been on, and he's pretty sure he wants to throw up most of the time. Maybe he needs to pick up the slack left by Eddie, or honestly, maybe it's just how fucked up all of this is.

He can work hard, at least, and while he wouldn't be doing anything particularly squeamish, his obsessive need for order and sameness means there are tasks here and there he can disappear into doing. It at least seems to mostly keep that little asshole off his back, though Stan knows instinctively he's not safe.

When he sees what's happening between that tiny creep and Jamie, his stomach drops out, and he freezes up a little bit. It feels like his mind is trying to leave his body somehow, like he's coming apart, for the flicker of a moment it's three lights, and teeth, and darkness everywhere else.

Jamie yells, and Stan can move again. "Shit," he says, knowing the ass-kicking that's coming, but not able to watch Jamie die. He goes for something tried and true. scrabbling on the ground for a decently sized rock, and when he thinks he's close enough, he lobs it right at Peter's back.

For a moment, I was stunned and frozen to the spot. No one ever stood up to Peter. No one. Even I hadn't been able to do it for a long time, not until mere days before ending up in Darrow.

But Stan did it in a split second. He didn't even hesitate, he just grabbed for a rock and hurled it with incredible accuracy. It struck Peter hard in the back, right between his shoulder blades, and I knew Peter couldn't really be hurt, not for long, but in that moment I heard something crack and felt ferociously victorious.

It lasted only a moment, though, because then Peter turned. He turned that cold, cruel gaze on Stan and all I could do was scramble to my feet and try to prevent what I knew was going to happen next. But I had forgotten one crucial thing, having only discovered it right before I left the Island for good; Peter could fly. Even as I leapt for him, his feet left the ground and he suddenly wasn't where he'd been only a moment before.

I cursed as he flew straight for Stan, then got to my feet again and gave chase.

Stan immediately regrets his decision.

At least, he regrets the part of it that means a tiny flying creep is coming to fucking murder him. Oh fuck, he really hadn't thought this through, he's not going to be able to fight off the psycho Peter Pan. Panic flares up in Stan and he takes off running.

If they were both running, he thinks, he might have a shot, because his legs are longer.

But they're not both running.

"FUCK!" Stan shrieks, not even sure which direction to run, just running.

I was running, too, my legs and arms pumping, faster than I had ever been during my time on the Island, and I thought that was likely what gave me the advantage. Peter was used to me as I had been when I was eight, but my body had grown up ten years since then, and my legs were long and strong, and I was fast. Faster than Peter.

Just as he reached Stan and grabbed him by the hair, I hit Peter had from behind. We went tumbling to the ground, all three of us, and my arms were around Peter's waist as I tried to drag him off Stan.

"Let go of him!" I shouted, slapping at Peter's hand, then rearing back to punch him hard in the nose. I heard and felt bone crack, knew it wouldn't matter, the Island would only heal him, but at least he finally let go of Stan's hair.

As awful as it is, she's used to this. Not the specifics of it, not in the slightest, but Beverly spent most of her life waking up in a place where she didn't feel safe, ruled over by someone who meant her harm. She knows how to keep her head down and not draw attention to herself. She knows how to fight back when needed, too, though her memories of doing so are so distant that it sometimes feels as if that was someone else, or perhaps she just dreamed it. What she is certain of, though, is that it's always been easier to stick up for someone else than to defend herself. That's as true as ever when she hears Jamie's voice cry out in pain, then looks up to see Peter hovering off the ground, dragging Jamie by the hair.

She feels a little ill, and for a moment, she's so blindingly furious that she doesn't feel like she's present in her own body, like someone else is moving her limbs and deciding what she'll do next, her vision unfocused and herself on some strange sort of autopilot.

Only once she hurls it through the air as hard as she can is she even aware of having picked up a rock in the first place. It connects with its target — Peter's head — hard, and a sick sort of satisfaction washes over her, though there's no relief yet. He won't give up without a fight, she's sure, but she's willing to give him one. "Hey, asshole!" she shouts, another rock ready in her hands. "Put him the fuck down, you psycho creep."

Peter grunted out a cry of pain when the rock connected and his grip on my hair relaxed enough that I slipped back down to the ground. I landed easily, then grabbed for my knife and backed up swiftly, moving in the direction the rock had been thrown from. I didn't dare take my eyes off Peter, but I heard Beverly's voice, strong and angry, and I was so fiercely glad for her presence and her friendship that it felt almost like a physical blow rocked me.

No one had ever stood up for me before. Not like this. I had always been the protector and now there was someone I loved, one of my very best friends, and she was standing tall and furious with another rock in her hands. In that moment, I knew my mother would have loved Beverly, too.

Peter wiped blood from his nose, it dripped to the ground and was absorbed, just like all the blood spilled here before. Then he smiled and flew at us without another word.

Beverly hasn't been this overwhelmingly, dizzyingly angry in a long time. It's almost startling, except it's better than being afraid, cowering from some monster who wants to control everyone and everything. As soon as Jamie is close enough, she grabs at his hand with her free one, clutching it tightly, then throws the second rock she picked up. Her aim isn't quite as good this time, being on the move and not having the element of surprise on her side, but it still hits hard. It probably shouldn't feel as good as it does, hurting him, but he hurt her friend, and she won't just sit back and let that happen.

"What do we do?" she asks, keeping her voice low but just loud enough for Jamie to hear. She hadn't exactly stopped to think it through when she threw the first rock, only desperate to keep Peter from hurting Jamie. "Any ideas?"

"The pirates," I said breathlessly. Beverly's second rock had hit Peter hard enough to knock him off course and it had given us precious seconds. The tree wasn't exactly safe, but at least he couldn't fly around inside and dodge away from us, so I pulled Beverly quickly in that direction, then scrambled down between the roots with her until we were inside and safe. Well, safer, anyway.

"I think we have to go to the pirates," I said, keeping a close eye on the possible entrances Peter might use. "All of us. Daine said there are some others there, Elio and Magnus and Eowyn. I think we'll have a better chance being with them and..."

I exhaled shakily and said, "I really think I become a pirate, Bev. Or I would if I still lived here. I think it's the only option for me, for any of us right now. The pirates are the boys who used to be with us, but grew up. I think we'll be safe with them."

By the time they duck down inside the tree, she's winded, arms wrapped around herself to try to keep her from shaking. Now isn't the time for that. Later, maybe, she can freak out about all of this, but for now, they have to get somewhere safe, and if Jamie thinks the pirates are their best bet, she's willing to take his word for it. He knows this place. And from what she's pieced together, from his stories and the coat that showed up for him a while back, she thinks he's probably right about becoming a pirate if he were still here.

"Okay. Then we go to the pirates," Beverly says with a nod, her voice coming out on a rush of breath. "How do we get there from here? And how do we get away from him?"

I thought for a moment, silent, my brow furrowed. We needed to make sure everyone was on the same page, that we all left at the same time, because there was strength in numbers.

"Peter will get bored," I said. "If we won't fight him, he'll lose interest and go find something else to do. I think we ought to keep watch from here and when he goes to do something else, we gather everyone up, or as many people as we can, and we get them all to spread the news."

I breathed deeply, then said, "We'll leave tonight. When he's sleeping."

Beverly visibly relaxes, just a little, when Jamie tells her that Peter will get bored. She's still tense, not wholly convinced of it yet, but Jamie knows Peter far better than she does, and if she thinks he'll lose interest for now, then she believes him. She just doesn't want to let her guard down yet. Though she's been in dangerous situations before and faced monsters of all different sorts, and though there's a good chance that they'll wake up in their beds in Darrow like they did after they were at Regan's, she still can't ignore the kind of danger they're in.

"Okay," she agrees. They'll stand a better chance that way, anyway, all of them going instead of the two of them making a run for it now, and they won't be leaving anyone here at Peter's mercy. "Tonight. We can make it until then."

"I wish we weren't here," I said. I stepped away from Beverly, feeling stupid and childish, like I was small all over again when the thing Peter hated most about me was that I was growing up. "I wish Darrow hadn't done this to us. I never wanted any of you to have to see him and know what he's like."

I didn't like them seeing how I had spent so much of my life. Maybe I had never been as bad as Peter, but I hadn't been good either. I had done terrible things and the evidence was painted all over this Island.

Maybe the Battle Rock had taken all the blood I had spilled, but I knew it was there.

"It's okay," Beverly says without hesitation. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it sucks, but it's not your fault." Jamie would never have put them all in danger like this. She hasn't had any doubt about that since she first woke up here and realized what was going on. Of course she wishes it hadn't done this to them, too, that she could be back in Darrow where she belongs, but there's nothing to do about that now. All they can do is try to get through this, and hope they wake up afterwards like they did before.

Her expression and voice soften a little, and for a moment, she can't quite bring herself to meet his eyes. "We've all known monsters, Jamie."

I nodded, not quite able to look at Beverly either. It was something a lot of us had shared, I knew, living in situations that were scary or hard or populated by people who wanted to hurt us. It meant we all understood each other a little better, I believed, but it was too bad that we had to have such an awful thing to bond over.

"I know," I said softly, then reached over and took Beverly's hand. I squeezed gently and tried to smile, then gave up, knowing she wouldn't fault me for it. "And we'll be okay now. We have to be."

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