The following is only loosely based on Peter Pan.
He is ten years and two months old the first time it happens.
He's leaning on his window sill, staring at the tree line in the distance, his mind completely and uncharacteristically blank. His parents are asleep in their room, and he is here, alone.
His mother is dying and Stiles doesn't think he can handle it.
He sees something in the distance-a flicker like candlelight. Suddenly his head feels like sludge. Everything slows, and before he knows what is going on, he is somewhere new?
He's in a jungle that looks like he's just stepped into a Disney movie and colors are brighter and more colorful. It's beautiful and brilliant and new and he can feel his mind spinning with possibilities.
He explores and spins and jumps and runs and plays.
After he's spent a few hours playing by himself, Stiles thinks about Scott. Stiles wants to tell Scott about it, and suddenly he's in Scott's room.
He wakes Scott up, the other boy blearily asking Stiles why he's in his room.
But Mrs. McCall is in the room too quickly.
"Stiles! Your parents are worried sick!"
Worried? Sick?
His mother was dying.
Stiles starts to cry.
He's ten years and two months old when he first ends up in Neverland.
And everything changes from there.
Stiles does eventually tell Scott about it. He doesn't believe him, of course, but Stiles is persistent.
Scott tries to be a good friend, Stiles knows that. But he doesn't want to talk about his mother and he doesn't want to say goodbye.
He's ten years and seven months old when his mother dies, and it hurts too much to think about.
The night after the funeral, Stiles leans out his window. He's wearing the same clothes he wore to the funeral-red dress shirt because the white one is dirty, black pants that are a little too big-and he's crying and pleading to see the jungle again.
He can feel the pull of magic bringing him through the sludge again, back to the magical wonderful place he escaped to when they first told him she was dying.
This time, he doesn't think about anything but the jungle and the beach and the whole island. This time, he says to himself, he's in Neverland. As in, Never Think Again Land.
He makes a home in the wreckage of an old ship. Sometimes he fishes for food, but mostly he eats berries. It's more filling than he remembers fruit to be, but the magic of the place is a blanket explanation. He doesn't understand this place at all, and he loves it all the same.
He marks the days by scratching lines into the wooden wall of his bedroom using rocks. It reaches fourteen days before he sees anyone else.
There is a man. His face is burnt and scarred, and his smile is wicked with sharp pointed teeth and blood on his cracked lips. Stiles hides when he sees him, and he doesn't even know why.
The man is gone soon after. Stiles doesn't see him again for a long time.
He makes a wish on a star for a friend thirty one days after coming to Neverland.
He's in Neverland for thirty-two days when he finds the faery. It's not like the other faeries. His wings are more like a dragonfly's wings, and his skin sometimes looks like scales. And there is a tail, like a lizards.
The faery also looks like a miniature version of the one kid he's always disliked. He's alive but he's cold to the touch and won't wake up and he doesn't think he can handle someone dying right now, creature or not.
Things go a little strange from there. The faeries won't take him in, and none of them will tell him why.
Stiles ends up ripping part of his sleeve off and wrapping it around the little body. He makes a nest for him next to his hammock, and eventually falls asleep himself.
The faery wakes up before Stiles does, but it's not very long before.
The faery does turn out to be Jackson. Neither one of them knows why he's no longer human, but after a verbal fight that leaves them both upset, Stiles knows why he ended up in Neverland too.
Jackson found out he was adopted, and decided to run away. The same night that Stiles wished for a friend.
Jackson and Stiles do not become immediate friends. They argue constantly, but they are all they have right now. Jackson never learns to fly very well since the other faeries refuse to interact with him, so Stiles takes to carrying him about the island.
Fifty eight days after coming to Neverland, Stiles finds a tree spirit who calls Jackson a Kanima. They don't return to the part of the island they found the tree spirit at, but Jackson becomes Kanima instead of Jackson after that.
They live together in the husk of the ship for another twenty three days before things change again.
Scott shows up crying and confused. He tells Stiles that everyone thinks he ran away and got kidnapped, especially when Jackson went missing too.
Stiles doesn't learn for nearly two days that the reason Scott ended up in Neverland now is because Scott's dad left them.
The three of them live together for nearly six months before someone new ends up in their part of Neverland. His name is Isaac and Scott immediately latches on to him. Stiles can't help but be jealous, because Scott is his best friend. But he grows to like Isaac over time, and the jealousy lessens.
Kanima starts calling Scott and Isaac the "Lost Boys", but Stiles stays just Stiles.
None of them talk about the families they left behind.