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Summary: What if the Destiny Islands was part of Neverland, and the story of Kingdom Hearts began there, with all of our boys being Lost Boys? And what if one of them started to grow up?
Writer: beckychan
How Not to Grow Up in 10 Easy Steps
Part 1
The sky was a brilliant blue that day. Of course, the sky was always a brilliant blue here. Blue sky, aqua sea, white sand. Nothing ever changed. And for some, that was enough. But not for Riku. He'd been feeling a strange urge, almost like someone calling him from somewhere beyond the farthest horizon. He spent many a day now nestled in the always green branches of trees that had no business being always green.
There's got to be something more. I know it.
"Riiiiiiiiku!"
The silver-haired boy rolled his eyes. That would be Sora, wouldn't it? A year younger and always running after the older boy, who was stronger and faster and kept the other boys from picking on him too much. The occasional roughing up was fine. It was needed. Sora would be the omega wolf forever if Riku never let him get beat up.
Sora was the youngest, which was to say the newest Lost Boy. Riku had been the first to arrive after Peter, and so was thought of as second in command, and he'd also been the one to find the spiky-haired brunet floating amongst the seaweed that fateful morning. Riku had hauled his limp body to Hangman's Tree. He wasn't a grown up, so he wasn't a pirate. That made him a Lost Boy.
Riku had been the first thing Sora had seen when he opened his unexpectedly blue eyes, and it had been something like imprinting. He'd followed the older boy around like a puppy since that day.
That had been five years ago, give or take. Five years without aging after who knew how many years before it. Riku felt guilty. Peter strictly forbade the Lost Boys from marking time, but ever since Sora had shown up, Riku had started. Perhaps that's why he'd started to feel like something was missing, like his life wasn't the grand adventure their leader always made it out to be. Because he was aware of time passing.
There's got to be more!
"There you are!" Sora bounded up, all smiles and spikes. "Peter's been waiting! He says that the Indians are on the move."
"Again?" Riku drawled. Indians didn't interest him today. He didn't feel like playing catch-me, catch-you with the red men, and possibly being tied to a stake if the Lost Boys didn't win.
Peter forbade them from ever admitting to losing. Not winning was something different entirely.
"Tiger Lily's gonna be the ju-udge," Sora urged in a sing-song voice.
"So?" Riku said, keeping his face impassive. Inside, though, his stomach was doing flip-flops. That was another thing that had started happening recently. Riku had started to notice that the females on the island – the mermaids, the fairies and Tiger Lily – were girls. The realization made him blush, which he hated, and he'd told Sora in confidence about it, which meant that the younger boy teased him about it at every available opportunity. "Shut up," he added for good measure.
Sora laughed, grinning at his best friend.
"Alright, I'm coming." Riku heaved a sigh and hopped out of the tree with the ease of someone not bound by gravity.
The younger boy took off, his oversized shoes making oversized prints in the sand. Riku couldn't help but smile at his over-energetic enthusiasm. "Just fly, knucklehead," he laughed as he himself took to the air instead of crashing through the underbrush.
It was a few moments before Sora joined him in the air.
"Right! I knew we were gonna fly back! I was just testing you!"
"In that case, race you to the tree!"
And the boys took off at break-neck speed, each trying to be the first to reach the goal.
High above the Neverland sky, just waiting for dark, so it could be all the more magnificent, a meteor shower hovered on the brink of falling. It waited until the sun had just finished sinking, so that the light of the falling stars would be reflected in the pink and golden sea. A perfect sunset to be followed by a perfectly phenomenal astrological event.
From their place in the Indian Village (the Lost Boys had not won the game that day, but at least it ended in a party), Riku and Sora watched the event.
"Fairies!" Sora exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Millions of them! Peter, Peter, fairies are falling from the sky!" He pointed enthusiastically.
Peter looked up at once from where he had been drum dancing with the lovely Tiger Lily, who batted her eyes prettily every time he looked at her (and made Riku seethe, not that he would ever mention this to his leader). "Tinkerbell?" the boy summoned. A golden ball of light that rang like the sound of a hundred bells flew next to Peter Pan and landed on his shoulder like a delicate ballerina (Tiger Lily scowled at the ball of light, which looked as smug as a ball of light can look in reply). "Tink, is it fairies?" he asked.
The pixie being addressed looked at the sky, then laughed so hard she nearly fell off his shoulder.
No, she said, her bell-like voice ringing in Sora's ear. You silly ass, they're stars.
Sora's eyes grew large. Riku knew that look. "I want to catch one!" Sora exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Come on, Riku! Let's go catch a falling star!"
At least it was different. In a manner of speaking.
In Neverland, things are always the way children imagine they should be, and so the beach near Mermaid Lagoon was littered with thousands of glittery fragments of fallen stars, spread across the sand like diamond dust. And one girl.