lost_boy | all this has happened before

We were running. Running from Peter. Running toward the pirates.

It hadn't been difficult to convince the others this was our best option, not after all Peter had done. They knew now, they had seen what he was like, they'd been viewed under the cold, dismissive gaze of Peter Pan and understood he thought nothing of them. Of us. Because I may have been his favourite once, but it was clear I was too grown up, too close to being a man to be loved by him any longer.

I knew that had upset me once, but now, surrounded by my friends, running toward other friends, I didn't feel that same sense of loss that I had before. As with Charlie and Sal and Nod, I was choosing these good people, people I loved, and I was turning my back on Peter.

We crossed the Island, skirting the plans with the Many-Eyed, taking the path up into the mountains, toward Bear Cave, and then beyond. I paused at the cave, remembering Harry and his death here, but only for a moment. I had learned long ago how to mourn my friends while on the move and today was no different. My other friends needed me now, they needed me to lead them to safety away from Peter.

Leading the way down the mountain path, past the Marking Rock, I could see the camp and the cove in the distance, the shipped docked where it usually was when the pirates weren't away, raiding whatever places they were able to find. And I could see people. Pirates, yes, but familiar faces, too, and I picked up my pace, hurrying the others toward them.

[Coming together post! Gathering, as usual, Jamie and everyone who was with him at the tree is going to come to the pirate camp/the Jolly Roger, so feel free to have threads that take place on the ship or on the shore at the camp. Also feel free to employ fairies if you like, they'll be spying for Peter, who'll be coming soon enough. In a few days I'll post a second top level for Jamie and Peter's big final fight where Jamie will be losing his right hand.]

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"Aggie, it's me," I said quickly, slightly out of breath from my run down from the mountain trail. It was such a relief to see her, to know there was someone like her here on the Island, someone the likes of which I knew Peter had never seen.

And it was a relief to see her safe.

"There are a bunch of us coming," I added, coming closer. "We woke up back in the tree where I spent most of my time. With Peter. I think... I think anyone under eighteen woke up there and anyone over woke up with the pirates."

It takes Aggie a second to realize who it is–still so keyed up from the dangers of the last day–that she doesn't lower her hands until a few long seconds pass and the words sink in. "Jamie. You're okay! You're..." She pauses, tries to dim down the adrenaline and use her brain instead of her instincts. "Most of your time. So this is your world?"

She can't help but drift back to her former, quickly-dismissed comment about how this place seems like some kind of fairytale version of a place. The thought strikes her again now anew as she considers what she knows of both Jamie himself and a story she vaguely remembers from reading at the library.

"Peter...Pan? Is that who you mean?"

"It's where I... well, where I spent the fifty years before Darrow," I said. I couldn't say it was home, really, and I couldn't say it was the place where I had grown up, because I hadn't, not until those last few weeks.

But it was mine, I supposed, more than anyone else's.

I nodded when Aggie asked about Peter. She wasn't the first to know his name like that, even though I was sure I had never said it in Darrow. Not like that. I wasn't sure I wanted to know how they all knew who he was. The possibilities made me feel like I was losing my grip on everything I had known.

"Peter Pan," I said, my voice soft. "Yes, that's him."

"Fifty years," Aggie breathes. She isn't sure which sounds worse. Being in and out of conscious death for three hundred years or being caught in timelessness, awake the whole time, for fifty. It's made her perception of time strange, especially in unfamiliar places like this. It's hard to think of Jamie persisting on like that.

"I think he's some kind of fairytale for a lot of people." She narrows her eyes, considering the island she's spent the last few days on. "People forget that fairies aren't always nice."

A fairy tale. That gave me pause and made me wonder just how many people knew about Peter and had never said so when I told them about him. It made me wonder, too, what my part of such a story might be. Aggie says it as though people don't realize what a monster he can be and I wonder if that makes me the monster instead.

"No," I agreed. "They're not. He isn't nice, not at all, but he's... well, he makes it seem as though you're the only one in the world when he cares for you. It's just that his care doesn't always last very long."

He forgets you then. And that leaves you feeling small and alone.

Aggie knows what it is to be made into the villain of her own tragedy but she's long stopped sparing herself any pity. What they did had wronged and harmed her and she had wronged and harmed them right back. In the end, Aggie had just been the monster everyone thought she was to begin with.

"He's charming," she concludes, frowning. "But he's no prince."

Leaning over, she reaches out for Jamie's hand and gives it a squeeze. "You're my friend." She doesn't care what the storybooks say about who Peter Pan ought to be. Everything she knows about Jamie has proven to her more than once that he's got a good heart.

To Aggie it might have only been a small gesture, but for me, it did wonders toward bolstering my confidence. I had never really been just like Peter, even if he wanted to believe otherwise, and I had escaped him once before. I could do it again.

I could be a better person than the one he wanted me to be.

"Thank you," I said, squeezing Aggie's hand gently in return. "I just hate that I dragged you all here somehow. None of you should have to live through Peter's foolishness."

Aggie doesn't let go of Jamie's hand, letting their fingers comfortably interlace in a way that has no expectations or illusions attached, a gesture between friends. "I think it Darrow," she admits. "This happens to people, sometimes. It might not feel good to hear it right now but our bodies should be safely asleep in our homes."

She wrinkles her nose, fully aware it sounds terrifying all on its own.

I nodded and said, "It happened to a bunch of us at the Home recently. Beverly, too. We all fell asleep for days and in that time we were somehow in Regan's home, too. It- it was awful."

I hated saying that, because Regan was my friend and I had very much liked her parents, but Richie dying right in front of Eddie and everything that happened after was something that would never go away.

Aggie blows out a breath and nods. A lot of them come from unpleasant worlds and it seems like Darrow takes pleasure in sending them to those rather than anything that might pass for safe or ordinary. Jamie's home is pretty enough but she's already encountered the less than pretty dangers that lurk beneath it, even without directly meeting this Peter Pan.

"That's Darrow for you. It never plays nice."

"I hate that I've brought you all with me," I said. "But I am glad I'm not alone."

I wasn't sure what would happen to me here without the rest of them. Peter could be so cruel, so dangerous, but also so manipulative and convincing. If I was alone, if I thought there was no chance to see my friends again, I had to wonder if I might end up back with Peter. Only long enough for him to kill me, of course, because I was too grown up for him now. He didn't like seeing me like this. Almost a man.

It had been a surprise to find I liked growing up, but Peter would never be able to. And he would never keep anyone who could.

"Scary with you is better than scary without you," Aggie says, leaning over to give him a hug. There's something about this Peter that leaves Jamie rattled in a way she can and can't place. It's somewhere between fear and love, leaving him on unsteady ground. Aggie, who lives on that territory, can understand.

"You've got us now. Who needs Peter?"

all this has happened before

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