A thirteen year old Jadelyn ran around her back-garden (as small as it was if you wanted a good house in Hollywood), her hair tumbling around her face in ratty curls that she should have brushed this morning. She was racing her brothers to the end of the garden, and she could feel the wind flying through her. She reached the other end with a triumphant sprint and turned back around to her brothers.
"Lynnie, you always win…" Her youngest brother Robbie sighed, clutching his teddy bear that the boy had (idiotically in her opinion) called Rex. It wasn't really fair for her to race against a six year old, but who said anything about fair? Jade played to win.
"That's because I'm the best." Jade smirked. "And don't call me Lynnie."
"No, it's because you always cheat, Jade." Jade gave a deathly glare to her second brother, André.
"Would you like to say that to my scissors?" Jade smirked, and André walked over her, his twelve year old body already slightly taller than hers. André plucked the scissors out and tossed them behind his shoulder. "André!" Jade called out, but the scissors had managed to disappear out of sight. "Those were my best scissors…" She said in a rage, desperate to wipe André's smile of his face. However, just as she pulled up her skirts (her Mom seemed to be stuck back in the 1900 by the look of the dress Jade was stuck in), a little so she could actually move and drew back her fists the door of their city house was pulled open, and Mary Darling appeared at the door.
"Robert, André, Jadelyn! Bed time!" Robbie's shoulder literally drooped at the word bedtime. André plastered a smile onto his face, (after all, a perfect gentleman always obeyed his mother) and walked in through the door, shooting his mother a smile. Robbie followed his older brother, before stopping at the door.
"Rex, doesn't want to go to bed." He whispered, before continuing in 'Rex's' voice. "Yeah, woman, don't make me sleep."
Their mother gave a disapproving look to both the boy and his bear, and Robbie hung his head and entered the house.
Jade just stood there, staring at her mother, the words 'What you going to do about it?' on the tip of her tongue, although it was unlikely they would ever be said. Mary Darling put on her best, motherly smile, and looked at her only daughter, with her ragtail hair, and a slight rip in her dress. She wondered what she had done to get a daughter like Jadelyn. She was a good mother. André was proof of that, even if Robbie was… yeah. But Jadelyn just seemed, like she was trying to grow up too fast.
"I'm telling stories…" Mary said, and her daughter blushed. Jade loved her mother's stories, even if she hated to admit it. Sulking, Jade put away her pride and entered the house, producing a very thankful sigh from her mother.
By the time that Jade had slowly made her way up to the bedroom that she shared with her three brothers, her little brothers were already changed, and Robbie was under the blanket, clutching Rex for dear life. With a sigh, Jade grabbed her pyjamas, disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a second later, her hair combed and in the kind of comfy clothes that her Mom allowed her to sleep in.
Beckett Pan crept along the window-still of the Darling's house. He may have been a fourteen year old boy, but he still loved story-time. He was the boy that had sworn several times never to grow up. He was perfectly able to listen to a story ever now and then.
Beck hovered outside the window, listening to the story. It was one of his favourites, one about a little boy on an adventure. But tonight, once the story ended, he had more important business to deal with. He had to retrieve his shadow. He had been flying along Hollywood, on his way to the Darlings for story-time, until about five minutes ago. But then, completely out of nowhere an object that he had figured out (mainly through visits to the elder Darlings window) were named scissors. The moment they had hit the floor, they had severed his shadow from his self, and before he could do something it had attached itself to the middle son and disappeared into the house.
Caterina, his little fairy was almost bouncing against the walls. Beck gave her a glance, and a hiss, "Be quiet Cat!"
Cat didn't mean any harm, she was a sweet little fairy, it was just that most of the time. She didn't know any better. Beck was used to having to explain a lot of things, but Caterina was the epitome of childish playfulness, and that was a good thing. Anything that kept him young was a good thing. Cat went as bright red as her hair as Beck scolded her. She was entirely embarrassed; a fairy's small size only allows them to have one emotion at once.
"I need to listen to story-time." The story was coming to a close as Beck hovered outside the open window. Finally, Mrs Darling closed the book. And Beck stood cautiously, waiting for the noise that meant all three children had fallen asleep.
"Nighty André, night Lynnie…" came the voice of Robbie, the youngest.
Then André spoke, "Goodnight Rob, night Jade."
"Goodbye, and good riddance, brats. See you in the morning." The oldest, Lynnie he supposed, remarked.
After a couple of minutes of waiting, Beck slowly crept into the room. After all, it couldn't take more than ten minutes for them to fall asleep, could it? Surely that would be ridiculous. The moment he was inside the Darling's bedroom he was instantly looking for his shadow, thankful for the small light emanating from Robbie's nightlight that made the shadow possible to be seen. Within moments he caught sight of it across the room, next to the daughter's bed. Seconds later he was racing across the room for it, Caterina by his side (determination having filled her entire body). Unfortunately for the two, they hit the wall with a resounding clang, causing Jade to open her eyes, and peer up from her failed attempts at sleep. What she saw shocked her to the core, and Jade did not get shocked particularly easily.
Across the room was a young boy, and what she could only make out as a glowing red light.
"Cat! Get off, I need to catch it!" As the boy exclaimed, she saw a flicker of darkness on the wall that appeared to be… moving. As it disappeared, the boy pounded into the other wall. And then in a matter of moments, another, and then another, until he hit the one right above Jade's bed. She rubbed his head for a moment, wrestling with what appeared to be his shadow, until Beck made what he would later think of as a fatal mistake. Beck looked down. And then Beck stared at the girl looking up at him from under the covers. Beck laughed a little.
"Hi Lynnie!" He exclaimed, never one to be frightened.
It was almost on impulse that she replied. "It's Jade."
"Is it, really? You're parents and your brother..."
"Never mind them. Wait, how do you know about…?"
"I know a lot, Jadelyn Darling."
Jade sat up then, and began to take notice. "Who are you?"
"Beckett Pan, nice to meet you." He smirked. "And now I will catch my shadow." With that Beck shot off again, and pounded on the wall. He had his shadow wrapped around his finger in moment and then turned back to Jade.
"Jade," He said, a very normal tone to his voice, despite the very abnormal situation. "Can you sew?" With that Jade was out of bed immediately and almost halfway across the room.
"Can I sew? What is this, the 1900s? Of course I can't sew, here's some super-glue." She grabbed a little white bottle and Beck caught it, beginning to literally glue his shadow back onto his body. She took this opportunity to examine Beckett closer. He was a beautiful boy, with a beautiful smile, but that didn't seem to completely explain him. He was fairly dark skinned, and had the most amazing brown eyes that she had ever seen, as well as a couple of dimples in his cheeks that were shown often, even in the minute she had known him. And his hair… his hair was the type that, although he was a boy, her little cousins would love to do up in braids.
The only problem was; that this incredibly attractive boy… was stark raving nuts. He was insane, totally gone. He actually thought that he could glue on a shadow. Not to mention he was trespassing.
"Get out!" Jade exclaimed, suddenly back to her wits.
The boy looked up at her, confused. "But Lynnie", this time, she knew he was using it to annoy her, "We were having so much fun!" He smirked at her.
"Well, now we're not. You're a crazy guy who thinks he can fly. News flash: this isn't a movie. So please, leave…"
"Jade, if I can't fly, how am I going to get out? I came in through the window. Are you going to shove me out again, so I fall to my death? But it doesn't matter, I can fly." To illustrate his point, Beck flew over to Jade, hovering a little off the ground.
"Just get out…" This was a tiresome thing, and Jade needed sleep. She was so sleep-deprived that she was actually seeing incredibly attractive, flying boys.
"Okay!" Beck was suddenly cheery. "Cat, do your thing." Beck headed towards the window as Cat made her way over to Jade, before bopping up and down near her, until Jade was covered in dust. Then, to her surprise, she slowly started to drift up in the air. Jade began to scream, waking both her brothers.
As André began to rub his eyes, Beck looked at them, and as if as an after-thought he remarked "Oh, and them too."
As Caterina began to do her job, the boys joined Jade up in the air. When Beck was comfortable that none of them were going to fall and die on the way there, he headed out the window.
"Next stop, Neverland…"
Jade stared. This guy was insane. But did that mean that she was insane as well? Because there they were, the four of them, slowly drifting right out of the window.
Suddenly they were whizzing along the air, so fast that Jade could barely see. André was just beginning to wake up, and blinked twice before taking in the massive gap between them and the land below.
"What is this chizz?" André screamed, and Beck turned towards him. With a glance towards Caterina, the flying four stopped.
"We are going to Neverland. How many times do I have to say that?"
"But what… put us down! This is kidnapping!" Jade screamed and Beck gave her a look.
"Will you be quiet?"
"No, and you can't make me!"
Beck laughed quietly. "Okay, Jade, you're on a time out. That's what I always do with the lost girls."
Jade opened her mouth again, but nothing came out. Beck glanced at Caterina once, and Cat grinned with pride.
"Cat, go warn the Lost Girls I'm coming home, will you?" Beck said through his grin, and the little fairy soared off into the distance as the four began to move again, Robbie still fast asleep.
Back in Neverland, the Lost Girls were anxiously chatting.
"When Beck gets back, he's going to ask me out!" One of the eldest called.
"No, Beckett is mine!" Called another.
"Shut up, Mags!" came the voice of Nikki. This was not an unusual occurrence around the Lost Girls. Most, if not all, of them had liked Beck at one point. That was why they seemed to colonize around him. Right now, all they were doing was pretty much sitting there, and waiting for him to get back.
Suddenly, the little red-headed fairy burst back into the scene.
"It's Caterina!" One of the young girls cried and suddenly everybody got up from whatever they had been doing to kill time and crowded around the fairy.
Nikki, the undisputed leader of the Girls took the centre spot around the sparkly fairy. Around her, the girls tried to arrange their hair, and began to wish that they had the utensils the mermaids did. After all, they were messy had been on the island for a long time (no-one knew how long, because after all, years didn't pass in Neverland).
Nikki hushed the older girls, and began to speak to the little fairy. "Beck's coming back?" Around her, the older girls cheered. "Shut up, would you? Cat, what?" Nikki pulled a grimace at the other girls.
"He's brought another girl with him…" The girls jaws dropped and Caterina took centre stage.
"Uh huh… so she's pretty is she? So she's funny? So he likes her?" Nikki continued.
"So you think he likes him too?" One of the other girls asked, and Caterina gave a massive nod, jealousy filling her body. If she was human, she would have been bouncing up and down, but she was fairy, so she was hovering, moving slightly with the wind.
"What do you want us to do?" Another of the elder girls asked, and the fairy flew over to the bow and arrows that they kept for their adventures.
The girl gave a smile, and picked up the bow, putting the arrow on the string as a couple of flying kids came into sight.
Nikki put up her hands. "No, Mags! Don't!" But it was too late, Mags pulled back the string and let the arrow fly.
A still mute Jadelyn Darling took one look at the arrow heading towards her with an incredible speed and tried her best to move away, but Beck was looking in the opposite direction. In a matter of seconds she felt a sharp pain pierce her side, and then suddenly everything went black.
She woke as her body was being shaken. The pain was almost gone. She slowly opened her eyes to find Beck directly above her.
"Lynnie? Are you alright?"
She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a rough grunt. Her mouth was as dry as if she'd just spent the last three years wandering the desert. It was probably due to her not being able to speak in the long journey flying where only an aeroplane should fly. If she remembered her science correctly (which was a rare thing for Jade) then they shouldn't have been able to breathe due to how thin the air was up there, but that hadn't stopped them.
After swallowed multiple amounts of saliva, Jade finally managed to croak something out.
"Don't call me Lynnie." Her brother's nickname for her was really becoming a nuisance now.
Beck fought between relief and laughter. He gave a smile towards the girl who could really think of things like the name she was called when she had almost died. That reminded him.
"Who knocked her out of the sky?" Beck said, his smile disappearing as he walked among the last girls.
Maggie instantly hid the bow and arrow that she had used behind her back, trying to fix her face so it didn't give away the tell-tale signs. Unfortunately, she trusted the other girls to watch her back. But the others wanted Beck just as much as she did and were very happy to have her out of the picture.
"It was Mags!" Came the answer within moments.
Beck walked among them and stopped in front of Maggie's trembling face. Right now, Maggie was red as a beetroot. That thankfully reminded her of something.
"Cat made me!" She called, and the dark-haired boy's suspicious eyes fell upon the little fairy.
"Cat…" He said slowly, "Did you…?" The little fairy's body filled to the brim with anger, that her Beck was angry at her because of some other girl. She nodded furiously, carrying the power of a tiger in a body the size of an ant. "Cat!" He said angrily. "Apologise!"
Caterina shook her head, and went as far as to fly over to Jade and stick her tongue out at her.
"Caterina."
"Do it."
"Now."
Eventually the little fairy calmed down and looked at Jade. And then she flew away again. Jade looked around her to see if she should have been seriously impressed by that. They had looks of awe on their faces.
"There. She says she's sorry." Beck told her, helping her up. "Now, these are the Lost Girls." He said gesturing at the huge gaggle of girls surrounding him.
André gave a little smile at them (because what could he say; he developed early). "What are they doing here?"
"We're here for Beck of course!" A little girl said, and then quickly covered her mouth. Jade's guess was that she was far too young to be supposed to be crushing on Beck. The girl looked about six, and was one of the youngest of the group.
"I don't know. They just showed up asking to stay with me…"
"And you let them?" Jade asked incredulously.
"I'm a nice guy." There it was again, Beck's amazingly beautiful smile. Jade seemed to be captivated under it. But she shook it off. "And they're nice girls, come on." Beck grabbed Jade's hand and pulled her through the girls, starting at one end of the line. This end was obviously made up of the older girls.
"This would be Nikki, the oldest, and the boss when I'm not around." He smirked, and Nikki gave him a glare. She was obviously not take in by Beck's charm, which Jade had to admire her for a little. She shot Nikki a special little smile as Beck continued to forcibly drag her down the line.
"Then there's Livvy." He said in front of a tall girl, with a tan and brown hair. She looked nice, but Jade honestly didn't care that much.
"Maggie." This one came out as more of a grunt, and Jade recognised her as the girl that had shot her out of the sky.
"Alaina and Elisa." She was getting towards then youngest now, as the two girls crossed their arms, annoyed at being grouped together.
"Dream and Turtle." After hearing those two names Jade cocked an eyebrow.
"Don't ask. They just turned up named that."
And the last one was the girl that she had seen before.
"I'm Smee… Smii… Smaa..." The six year old repeatedly tried, and failed to say her own name. Beck gave her a reassuring look and she blushed beneath it.
"Her clothes have Smee… no wait, Smaa… Well, we call her Smiley."
For a moment Jade was just going to blurt out, 'what an idiotic name', before she looked at the six year old girl in front of her.
"Well, that's nice." Jade whispered to the girl whose face was appropriately filling with a smile. The look that Beck gave her (because even after knowing her for only a day, he could tell that wasn't normal behaviour for Jade) was nothing compared to the looks of pure shock she got from both of her brothers. Jade, still with the forced smile on her face for the little girl, turned back to Beck. "CAN I GO HOME NOW?"
Beck almost had to cover his ears. Jade may have only been able to speak for a few minutes, but God that girl was able to scream.
"Home? Now? But the fun's just beginning!" Beck smiled at Jade. "Please stay!"
From behind them Robbie held his bear tight. Rex snorted. "So you're going to kidnap us and leave us full on an island of babes? Fine by me."
The girls old enough to understand what he said gave the small boy's perverted bear a look.
"No, of course I'm not going to leave you here! I'm staying with you!" Beck said, and immediately smiles appeared on the Lost Girls' faces. "Or rather, you're coming with me." And once more, the family drifted up into the air. As an afterthought, he turned back. "Come on, Cat."
Jade had to admit it. Neverland was amazingly beautiful. It had a stunning blue sea, and a cloudy blue sky. It was only Beck's green clothes that prevented her from getting a headache. And to be honest, it seemed to be populated with girls. That didn't seem particularly odd considering what she had seen of Beck so far.
The mermaids were amazing. They were like the girls she had always hated back at school, but they had fins, and were perfectly allowed to live in bikinis.
As they flew overhead the mermaids looked up, focusing their eyes on Beck.
"Hey Beck!" Came a scream from one of the mermaids. She lunged for him as Beck swerved to try and avoid the frantic screaming.
"Um… hey Trina…" He said, as they continued onwards.
"You ready for the date with me? Annabelle, grab my seashell purse!" The mermaid's voice faded as they moved onwards.
For Beck, all of this was totally normal. Trina had asked him out on a date three months ago, that didn't mean it was ever going to happen. Beck didn't really go on a date with anyone. There was no point. Relationships were supposed to grow as they got older and progress from a childhood crush (or so he had been told). When the relationship wasn't going anywhere it seem like it would end (or so he had been told). So it was stupid.
He glanced back at Jade for a moment. He didn't know exactly why he had taken her with him to Neverland. It was just that she seemed… different. Different from all the girls, and different from the routine that he lived in. It seemed like it was just about time for Captain Sikowitz to try something stupid. That was his ship in the corner of Beck's eyes, after all.
It shocked Jade a little how fast Beck soared towards the ship, and landed on it in a flash. In front of him was an adult, shaggy hair falling down his back. You could make out a cutlass in one hand, and his other hand… his other hand had been replaced with a microphone. He turned around slowly.
"Welcome Beck, we meet again." Jade almost laughed at the cliché as the pirate (she could tell by his earring) threw back his head in a fit of maniacal laughter. Her laughter died a little as she saw the girls from earlier magically tied up around a post.
"Tori Lily…" Beck breathed out and her eyes followed his to a latino girl, surrounded by men. She was obviously the main target of their attack. Beck's eyes narrowed. "Captain Sikowitz, let her go!" He screamed, and lunged at the captain. Captain 'Sikowitz' as apparently he was called, stretched out his hand, and there positioned carefully was Beck's fairy. Everybody on the ship could identify Caterina by her red hair, even when its light was almost extinguished. Suddenly, the two men were flying, and Jade sighed around her. She was supposed to just sit here and do absolutely nothing, wasn't she? That was her job as the damsel in distress. But no. She was Jade Darling, and this was not going to be the way she rolled. She moved quickly, grabbing a separate sword that one of the pirates had managed to leave lying around somewhere, and lunged through the crowd.
For a while, it was going well. It didn't take much of an effort to free the Lost Girls (as annoying as they were), or to rescue the so called Tori Lily. She was holding her own against the pirates, and she felt exhilarated.
But that stopped as she felt the sharp blade of a cutlass around her neck.
"Jade!" She heard a scream, that she could only assume was Beck. Jade knew that it was all over. She hadn't really taken this seriously, but now, was she going to die? Was it truly possible that she would never see Hollywood again? And where were her brothers? She needed to make sure they made it home alright.
She shut her eyes, and she leant back into the man and his knife, leaning her weight against him, and kicking to break free, she drew her elbow back into her chest… and the knife went right across her throat.
Jade West woke up gasping. For a moment, she had to wonder if it had really been real. She had been Jadelyn Darling once upon a time, after all. Before her parent's had split up and everything had gotten complicated. Before she preferred to be known by her mother's last name, rather than her father's. She wondered if she had just made up that boy with an angelic smile that just happened to look so much like the new boy in her school yesterday. Quickly, she dismissed the notion of it all being true, and once more placed her head on her pillow.
As Jade fell asleep, Beck Oliver looked on outside her window, marvelling that he had finally found a girl for whom he would find a family, leave Neverland, and grow up.
Okay, I'm not super proud of this one-shot, especially the ending, where I kind of just got frustrated with it. If you couldn't tell, this was Peter Pan, although I massively played around with the plot and made everything happen at once at the end.
This is part of a fairy-tale competition on the Topaz Awards forum, and as always everybody is welcome, and we've just started a new competition as well, on Genderswaps. At the risk of sounding like I'm begging, please check it out.
Also, did you see that blue button? The one that says review? You wouldn't be alone if you missed it. Hundreds of people miss, or simply ignore that button, which makes it feel unloved. It had been considering suicide recently. But we can do something. Spend as little as a minute of your time to send a review, and you can make that blue button feel loved. (By the way, who else finds it really weird that it's suddenly become a blue button instead of a line of text?)
Please don't favourite without reviewing and don't alert at all. It's a ONE-SHOT. (And oops, that used to say don't favourite with reviewing, that was a typo... but nevermind.
The Name Is A Lie, As Is The Cake
I-Am-Not-A-Smiley-Person