Flying. He was actually flying. It wasn't quite what he'd expected, but then how did he expect it to feel? He wanted to liken it to swimming, but that didn't seem quite right. It was more like that terrible moment when you miss a step, or when you're ascending them in the dark and misjudge, thinking there's one more step than there is. Your gravity gets thrown off balance, you don't quite know which way is up, and your stomach lurches, expecting the very worst. But you know it's all absurd, you're not going to die from flying with a lost boy any more than you are from thinking there's one more step than there really is.

Sherlock seemed to be taking to it a bit easier than he was. He supposed, somewhat bitterly, that it was just because he was younger, that his faith was stronger, that he was able to be happier, because he didn't have the heaviness of adulthood beating onto his shoulders, weighing down his waistcoat and slowly hanging him by his tie. The worst part was that he'd come to like the suits. The way he gained adult's respect by wearing it, became more trusted. His views weren't tossed aside uselessly like a child's.

In truth, he felt like a child wearing his dad's suit, trying to be grown up and only half managing it. Well, grown ups weren't allowed in Neverland, so he had to try to forget that.

'You alright, Myc?' A voice directly above him asked, and Mycroft switched his gaze from staring at the land below him to flipping, looking up. Greg was flying incredibly close to him, nearly chest to chest, smiling slightly with a look of concern in his eyes. 'You're slowing down.'

So he was. Nearly stopping, in fact. All that adult thought must have affected him. 'Yes. I'm… I'm fine.' It was difficult to concentrate with the boy so close, his own loose tee resting over Mycroft's blazer.

'You don't look so fine. In fact you look… Grown up.' The words were said with vague distaste, as if he was regretting his decision. Mycroft felt the anchor in his stomach again. Greg was right. He wasn't cut out for Neverland. He should go back to being a politician in the making, to being miserable and working behind a boring desk, with all the other boring grown ups.

'Hey. Hey…' Greg's hands connected with Mycroft's forearms suddenly, and Mycroft recognised the wind rushing past his ears wasn't moving with him, more past him from above. He'd been falling. The very opposite of flying, of Neverland, of childhood. 'Careful, there.'

'I- I'm sorry. I'm not good at this. For this.' Mycroft shook his head, still not quite flying alone.

'Are you alright?' Sherlock flew in time with them, to one side, clutching John tightly and frowning. 'Myc?'

'It's fine, Sherlock. Go ahead for us, yeah?' Greg smiled reassuringly. 'You know he way. Your brother and I are just talking.' Sherlock nodded, flying ahead with ease and clearly choosing to ignore the strong grip Greg had to Mycroft to stop him heading down to the Thames below them. Greg, meanwhile, flipped in the air so Mycroft was using him as support. Instinctively, he clung onto Greg around his waist.

'Don't worry.' Greg laughed, resting his arms folded behind his head. 'I won't drop you. I'm not an idiot.' Regardless, Mycroft was too sensible to let go of his death grip. 'Mycroft, I know why you stopped flying.' His voice was quiet, calm. 'You started thinking about hold adult you are, how much of a grown up you are. You stopped believing in yourself. You need to let go a little, honestly. You're perfect for Neverland.'

'But… I'm not. I'm not fun at all. I hardly smile, hardly laugh. Look at me, I'm not exactly a child any more.'

'Neither am I.'

'But you're happy, I never am.'

'Maybe this is exactly what you need.' Greg smiled, wrapping his arms around to hold onto Mycroft's hands and pull them free, holding both their arms out to either side, a like kid pretending to be an aeroplane. He quickly hooked his legs around Mycroft's, twisting their arms enough to hold onto him tightly, and started spinning.

The wind was rushing past his ears again, glimpses of the land below him, above him, to the side, were disappearing fast, becoming smaller and smaller until the houses were impossible to make out, and they were hitting the clouds, being covered in a fine layer of mist, drenching their clothes delicately. He tried shouting for Greg to stop, he was going to fall, he was going to die. But his complaints were mysteriously stolen from his lips, vanished before they had to chance to reach Greg's ears, lost in the space they had just occupied, plucked and hidden within the clouds. Instead, he found himself laughing, laughing so much he could hardly breathe. Like all the laughter he'd been prevented by his father was being released as he got closer and closer to Neverland, further and further from the clutches of adulthood.

And just like that, they broke through the clouds. Glancing back was like looking at a solid yet soft substance. The only proof they'd been through it was a big tear in the fabric of the cloud and their clothes that were sticking together and to their skin. Beside their own tear was a slightly smaller one that Sherlock must have made.

Looking up, Mycroft saw all the stars were still a long way away, twinkling down at them as if laughing gleefully with him, a part of their secret, a part of the journey to Neverland that every lost boy took. That Peter had taken many a time. They were following the path of their hero. Scratch that, he was about to stay on the same island as Peter, had been living for his whole life if the same house as him! One star was getting closer though, and looking like less of a star. He could only describe it as a supernova. Colours of all types, some he had never seen before and couldn't begin to actively describe, that hadn't been discovered yet by grown ups but could only be noticed by children, were spreading out of the centre, which was both dark and bright. Small and yet bigger than anything he'd seen before. It seemed to be rapidly approaching but simultaneously drifting further away.

'Sherlock!' Greg called, his voice reverberating through his chest, allowing Mycroft to feel it as well as hear it. 'Come back for a minute, here's where it gets tricky.'

Sherlock did as asked, flying alongside them again, grinning madly, his hair a mess around his pale face. 'That's it, isn't it? The portal.'

Greg laughed cheerily. 'Yes. A portal, I suppose that's a good way of describing it. You're going to have to hold onto me, okay? Both of you are.' Without warning he let go of Mycroft, dropping a few meters below him. Mycroft was suspended in mid air, and for a moment he was sure he'd fall again, back through the clouds that he knew weren't going to catch him, all the way back to London, to the pavement that he'd spread himself across exaggeratedly as his final act.

But no, Greg said he wouldn't. He wasn't going to get to the entrance to Neverland only to give it up like this. No way. He was going to get to Neverland, and he wasn't going to let his maturity stop him. Greg laughing again brought him back to reality, and he realised his was standing on the air. It was a strange sensation, being suspended over nothing without so much as a harness. It was magnificent.

'See? I told you you could do it!' Greg clapped, flying over him in a loop and stopping in front of him, extending a hand slowly, eyes growing serious. 'Both of you, I need to ask one more time. I'm not like Peter, I don't just whisk people off without thinking about it. Are you very sure you want to do this? Just getting into Neverland is dangerous. There's a chance you won't make it to land.'

The words chilled Mycroft to the bone, yet intrigued him. 'I don't want either of you to have to go on without the other. If I'm unable to go with you, just keep going forward. Don't stop until you reach Neverland. When you do, stay out of view of the ship.' It was like giving orders to an army, Mycroft realised, but this wasn't a game. 'Try to look around. Can you whistle? Good. Make a low whistle, at this pitch.' He paused, whistling one note. 'And the twins will find you. They should be on duty. Now, are you very sure you want to do this?'

Mycroft looked down at Sherlock, who was staring at the portal, still exuding the colours he wasn't able to comprehend. He wondered if Sherlock saw more of them than he did. If it pulsed for him like it did for Mycroft. Sherlock looked entranced, like nothing else would do for him. He couldn't go back, and neither could Mycroft. He nodded determinedly, taking Greg's wrist tightly, gripping it as Greg did the same. 'We're quite sure.'

Greg smiled at them, repeating the action with Sherlock. 'Well then, let's go to Neverland. Stay as close as you can.'

They set of into the portal at a run, and Mycroft expected more that a simple sensation of being ripped apart and put back together again at the same time as being squashed into one single atom and blown apart. But suddenly the sky was grey instead of inky black, and a solitary island was spread beneath them.

And a cannonball flew straight over their heads, narrowly missing Greg's hair to such a degree that his hair ruffled with something other than natural air.