New chapter! Which means I took the liberty to go back and change the errors in the last chapter (embarrassing, really). Alas! Here we are again. I figured I could build on the Lost Boy aspect of this. In fact, there're some aspects of Peter Pan in here. Have fun, as always!

Spoilers: Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness

Disclaimer: Peter Pan belongs to J.M. Barrie and Caster Chronicles belongs to Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohle

Life was a controvert, a hypocrite and a liar. He knew that.

He'd known for a long while, since he understood the reason of gold eyes and the sting of a word. He knew that the way one knows to live. He knew in the way that one recalls a distant memory: briefly, dully and, suddenly, sharply. It sat in his heart, where it lay dormant, where the pings of the piano were the only rhythm he could fabricate into the semblance of a heartbeat, the barest whisper of the pattern of humanity. He knew it in the way his bones ached and bruises bloomed, in the fading of flowers and the sweaty language of a desperate soul.

Sitting there, against the wooden stairs of Ravenwood, it seemed so much more real. So much more threatening. And so much better than anything he could have thought of. There wasn't the slightest complaint in his mind. Everything was…surreal. The dust motes hung in the sunlight gleaming off his shoes. The silence clung to the walls. It was warm, a warmth of simplicity, a flat heat that came naturally, for certain. Silas- Father, he corrected- was away on a trip of some sort or another. And since Mother had left it was always a certain brand of quiet, be it muted or thunderous. The absence of it, of noise, was deafening. The lack of it, of bars, was freeing. The contradiction didn't slip his mind. How something could be both enthrallingly torturous and beautifully, chaotically inspiring.

Rooms away, past the boy with the loose waistband and collar agape, albeit fastened, his brother contemplated the lack of their father.

Life…life was more desperate. He knew that it had to deal with the lack of commotion. It made people strange, when nothing fulfilled the anticipation. It made his father's hands wander and his breath smell of the alcohol cupboard. It drew his mother from him and what brought him there, here, into this problem. Life was what made him a lost boy, essentially. It certainly made him wonder what would happen if his father weren't as free with his scotch, what would happen? Would it take him somewhere, off into some different life, where his mother's fingers carded through his hair and Hunting's cries were softer? Or would they end up here, always here, wandering aimlessly through a home they didn't know, to a destiny that they hadn't planned?

His father didn't mind the change. His touches grew bolder. He called Abraham over more often. Macon…caught in the cross hairs multiple times had learned to regulate every breath. He created rules for himself to help predict. If Abraham had the urge to drink, there was always a repercussion, usually to Macon's head. Scotch meant a deal went awry; where as bourbon meant a man had been executed. In the former, silence was ushered, where the second required false congratulations. He acted accordingly.

But, then, he slipped. He tripped. His soul rippled and the pings pinched in his feet and a thunder rang in his ears. His father's hand was on him, and it was scotch this time, it had to be scotch, because fingers were carded into his hair and his vision blurred.

Life was more than light and darkness. Darkness, he had come to realize, was more than a lack of light. He remembered glancing under beds for ghouls, in the murky memories, thinking the darkest of souls must have been terrifying. How meeting their gaze was supposed to save him from the predators of shadow, he had no idea.

This room was the same sort of inky, spanning some unknown feet around him, and yet it was warm. Not too large, then. His brow furrowed. He struggled forward, toward what he hoped was the door. Yet, his hands met the wall, and his ankles were weak. A relatively tall room, he had to admit. High enough ceilings for him to stand, but his palms slid across it softly. Hysteria started, dim and sharp in his stomach. Surely it wasn't something intentional. No, they must've forgotten about him. It had to be that. The door, though, could save him.

He shuffled across the wood floors with relative ease, barring the ache in his ankles where steel had bruised and the itch where his scalp was raw. The knob was clammy against his cool skin. He jarred it quickly. It rattled in his palm. Locked. A huff of a laugh escaped him. Locked in. He leaned his forehead against the door, focusing on stable breaths. He wouldn't suffocate; the thin, dim ribbon of light above the floor was evidence of that. Scare tactic, then.

Macon resigned himself to sitting against the wall. His head leaned back. No, the darkest of things were hardly lightless rooms.

He'd wager the monsters he'd looked for as a child had simply migrated down the hall.

Of course, there were days when life only consisted of light and dark. Of day and night. When the titles had forced themselves to be the only thing of importance, many years later, he had to admit it didn't matter where the ghouls were.

This time, he stood rather than sat, leaning his weight into his palms, against the polished wood. His monsters had fled for darker realms, and light had found its way flecked into his temples. Time had faded the bruises, but not the memories. The night raged heavy in his thoughts, just behind his eyes, as though the creature was trying to break its way out through his head. Soon, he'd have to lock the door.

The cracked ink battered his mind, but it was a pleasant prickle of newly perceived information. He'd read it numerous times before, but in this blazingly desperate state, it put a new slant on the issue. Time. All they needed was a bit of time, a bit of luck...

His thoughts stalled. Gods, it was so clear! How he'd convinced himself into the delusion of a difficult action was beyond him. So very tragically simple. All they needed was a participant, someone who was beyond saving, and someone with both nothing to lose and nothing to gain and-

Him. No Caster would know the dangers in this. No Caster would dare participate in it, once informed. But he wasn't a Caster. Oh, the ruse of this. Surely someone would have known, someone would have thought of this. Surely somewhere, there was a writing of the Duchannes or some enlightening piece of trivia on the curse they had. However, it wasn't like that. It wasn't so polarized. The only thing linking him to her was a crudely made twist of fate that ended in Silas's brood of illegitimate bastards.

The lock clicked shut. He tried the knob, for thoroughness, and delighted in the faint tightness it caused in his stomach. Stiff, the metal jarred against his warm palm.

For once, he was glad life had made Silas a dark creature.

Life was a hypocrite. Leah's hand was heavy in his. He knew those two facts. Life, constantly forcing them to make memories and taking everything away, was hypocrisy. Run from your past, to save something special, and you begin to forget your motive. That was the problem with running, he supposed. Sitting and waiting for the threat, though, with your oddity was a certain sort of insane…and, historically, seemed a self-execution. So, he did neither and he participated in both.

He let Leah shorten the line his life would have run, and, in return, he stalled. Time was rushing past him, surging through him, ripping him apart in some parody of a dissection, burying itself in his bones and racing through his veins. Oh, it was wonderful, this energy, this passion. Yet, he knew, he had altered everything.

Leah held him, not yet moved him from his spot where he collapsed against the wall. Instead, she cradled him, held him against her with her arm slung uncharacteristically casually around him. "Second to the right and straight on 'til morning," she sighed.

"What?"

"Directions. You look a bit lost, brother-mine." She stiffened as his breathing hitched.

"Neverland? Really, Leah?" She shrugged. He leaned against her shoulder. "I'd enjoy a proper apology, before this takes me."

"There's not enough time for that," Leah murmured, as the trembling began. It shook his frame, dancing over his skin, entirely too much at the time, and yet he felt like he could do so much more.

"There has to be." Quietly aching.

"Why?

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December," Macon supplied.

Leah's palm tightened. "In my experience, the people most worth caring about- my December roses- have been very simple folk."

Macon shook his head gently, against the tremors. "You aren't simple, Leah," he conceded.

"And you don't believe in God." He hummed disconcertingly. "You believe in what you see, what you touch." She sighed, holding him closer to her as the shaking subsided. "Well, Macon Ravenwood, I believe in you."

Leah stood over a rather odd plot of land, in an odd cemetery that ghosted over her memory. Life was cruel like that, she supposed, as she rested a small note under the abundant flowers.

To die would be an awfully big adventure.