Peter flew aimlessly around the island. Memories flew through his mind unbidden, without permission.
"Stop it! Stop it!" He clutched at his head, fingers digging into his scalp. "No! Go away!" They shouldn't be allowed to return! He had banished them, and they were supposed to stay banished.
The Lost Boys had grown up, the Lost Boys had left him, and they were happy. Happy without Peter. They just left him like that, to grow up. Why…? He didn't understand it. They had never needed parents, never needed teachers, never needed adults. They were fine without adults, so why would they leave? Why would they willingly turn into those?
The Lost Boys were happy without him. He was right there and they hadn't even noticed him. They'd forgotten all about him…
And Wendy.
Wendy was his Lost Girl. His Only Lost Girl. And she had left him too. She had grown up without him, had left him behind. He was nothing more than a children's bedtime story to her now. She had left him to become a Mother.
And those children, they were her children. Someone else had taken his place. There was someone else in her special place, that place that had always been only for him. Someone called Husband. Hook had been right. He had told Peter, and Peter hadn't listened, because Hook was an Adult. But now Wendy was an Adult too. She was a Parent, a Mother.
Did that mean that someday she too would lock him out? Would that window someday be barred, locked? Would Wendy leave him behind? His Wendy…?
Peter had sunk, had fallen from that high place of his. His feet grazed the dirt, and he gasped, shooting back up into the sky. What had he been thinking? They didn't matter anymore! He was never going to grow up, would never need to, and anyone who did were nothing to him.
"So there is something that can get to you, eh, boy?" Peter whirled around, knife already out and raised reflexively. It had been years, and yet his body still reacted to the sound of Hook's voice.
The man himself had changed. Had Peter simply seen him while passing by, he would have thought the man a stranded pirate or another Indian. He hardly looked anything like the regal pirate captain he once was, resembling more of a beast now than anything else.
"Hook," Peter growled, and all it took was that hideous grin and Peter threw himself at the man. So he had survived. Then Peter would just have to make sure he stayed dead this time.
Hook laughed as he dodged another swipe of Peter's knife, despite barely being able to keep himself upright. "What's wrong, boy? No jokes this time?" The Captain sneered, and Peter flipped over the hook that reached for his neck, kicking the man in the back. Well, if he missed the insults so much…
"And I thought you didn't like being called a codfish!" The hook swiped at him again, and Peter barrel-rolled out of the way, laughing. All those thoughts and memories plaguing his mind before had fled in favor of the joy as that oh-so-familiar rush of adrenaline coursed through his veins.
Peter hadn't realized how much he missed the fighting, the action—the lack of boredom. He let out of a whoop of delight and did a backflip in midair, grabbing the old hat on the Captain's head as he passed overhead. The boy hovered just out of Hook's reach as he plopped the hat on his head with a smirk.
"I see you still haven't lost the vanity, Pan." Peter's grin faltered. Why was Hook so calm? He had never been this calm in the past, always shouting insults and making desperate lunges. Brown eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Hook only seemed to get more pleased. "You've gotten smarter. Perhaps I should give you more credit—you've grown up a little."
That struck a chord in his heart that Peter didn't want to listen to at that moment. "I have not!" He retorted indignantly, and Hook laughed.
"Oh, but you have, boy! You're not even a boy anymore, are you? You're a young man!" The boy-who-never-grew-up huffed, face heating up as his chest swelled with anger.
"I am not!"
"And why do you say that? Because you still look the same? Haven't you realized yet, Pan?" The pirate asked gleefully. "You don't have to grow old to grow up!"
Peter's anger faltered, his height dropped, just a little, and Hook lunged. Peter didn't react fast enough, tumbling to the ground as Hook's weight introduced gravity into the mix. The plumed scarlet hat flew off somewhere as the two wrestled for several moments.
Peter had the weapon, even managing to get a few swipes in with his knife, but Hook was bigger, stronger, and he pinned Peter underneath his larger frame. The knife was tossed away into the underbrush. The blond growled, but Hook only leered at him.
"Looks like, this time, boy, I win."
The last thing Peter saw was that damned hook before pain exploded in his skull and blinded him with white.
Updating? Ha, what's updating?
But seriously, thank you Ghostkid33 for making me aware of exactly how long it's been. I've been busy lately, and to top it all off, that writing mood left me. Like, I look at all these half-finished chapters and think 'I'm going to finish these!' And then I close out of it five minutes later cause I don't feel like writing. On the up side, though, it's not like the last time this happened where I played video games. I'm doing something productive this time! Well, drawing, but for me that's productive.
To answer that thing, you know, about saying I'm going to update and not updating, yes, I WILL update. Whether that's tomorrow or six months from now… that's another story. But I hate abandoning stories, so even if it takes me three years, I will eventually finish whatever story it is I'm writing. And in the case of this one in particular, I know the rest of the plot (that's a problem for a lot of stories for me), so it's just a matter of dragging me into writing it.
