Peter Pan
A Young Boy No More
By Raekitty13
Disclaimer: Yeah... still not James Matthew Barrie. Sorry to disappoint you.
Author's Notes: thank yous go out to MistFairie93 & dAnnYsGiRl777! Thank you ever so much! You guys are truly amazing.
Okay, so there was this Final Jeopardy question the other night, about Children's Authors. I told my dad that I totally bet all I had... (not that I had anything at all) and the question was something along the lines of: "This author lost his mother at the age of 8 and knew that someday all play things would have to come to an end and he would have to grow up" or something like that, and I shouted, and I DO mean SHOUTED, "JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE! Sir James Matthew Barrie if you want to get technical because he was knighted in England but I'm not sure if he lost his mother at 8, I know he lost his brother when he was little and his mother died shortly after because his brother was her favorite and..." -- sorry, random tangent, just figured you'd wanna know just how obsessed I am... lolz jks
And uh, sorry about all of the improper grammer, horrid spelling, time it took to update this and the lack of well written material.
Chapter Sixteen- Revival of the Devil
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Okami asked me for the third time in a row as we climbed to the edge of the volcano on our stomachs.
"Do we really have any other choice?"
"Yes."
"No," I said pointedly. "I am not selling you and Tink out for some guy."
"Is he really just 'some guy', Jess?"
I couldn't answer at first. I wanted to say, "Yeah, duh," but I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to tell a lie so huge, so fake. I couldn't say that Peter was just 'some guy' because he wasn't, was he?
And Fuzzy Wazzy wasn't fuzzy either, was he? Gah... I just wanted to cry, right then and right there, again. Crying was just about all I had accomplished over the past two hours. After waking up from what had turned out to be a nightmare, I hadn't moved at all for the longest time. I couldn't. I was stuck, sobbing my heart out.
Not that crying did me any good. I knew that, but I still couldn't use that information to save Okami. I knew that crying wasn't going to save him and Tink. I knew that crying wasn't going to resurrect Hook. I knew that I had to stop crying. But it was so hard, not only because it hurt, but because I knew that crying would save Peter. And no matter how many times I told myself the little white lie that Peter meant nothing to me compared to Tink and Okami, I just couldn't believe it, just like I couldn't stop crying.
Gah! Boys, crying, heartbreak, it was all a vicious cycle. Would it ever stop?
It had to. And it had to end now.
I sniffled as dignifyingly as I could have (come on, this was like my fortieth time just randomly bursting into tears. Twenty times of which, I was stagnant).
"Let's do this." I was waiting for Okami to ask me if I was sure I was ready to do this, but he didn't. He must have been thinking along the same lines as me.
We were wasting time.
I closed my eyes and finally managed to pull myself over the ledge. The feeling of impending doom, which I generally feel when I'm five hundred feet above ground, mind you, began to set in even before I opened my eyes. I could feel the gravity pulling on me from every which direction. I opened my eyes slowly, positive that I had started to tip, head over heels into the very pit of the volcano.
I hadn't, but with my eyes open, I was terrified to breathe. I swear, if I were to let out too much air too quickly, I'd end up a Jessica Elisiah Liteman pancake, squashed by my own weight four hundred feet below where I was teetering.
"SEARCH FOR MY BODY. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE IT. WHEN YOU DO, I WILL APPEAR AND YOU CAN LEAVE."
"Holy fucking shit!" So much for not exhaling too quickly. I mean, completely throw that idea of staying out of the volcano right out the window- er, right off the cloud?
Hook's comment scared me and I lost what little balance I had in the process of jumping out of my skin. I was falling, fast. I wanted to scream, but opening my mouth only sucked what little air there had been in my lungs out, leaving me both stomach-less and breathless.
I just kept falling. Four hundred, five hundred, how ever far up were were, it was pretty far up, and let me just say that, even at the speed I was falling- which was bloody fast- was going to take me forever to actually reach the bottom.
Suddenly I felt what little air I had left rush out of me as gravity kicked back into gear. And kick it did, I felt as if all my bones had been crushed to dust. Specifically in my torso area.
"Uhg," gasped a deep voice from somewhere below me. Who had I landed on? How were they still alive? How was I still alive?
"God, Jessie," It was when he said my name that I realized I was crying again. I don't know if it was because I had known it was his voice all along, or because I seriously thought I was going to die. Dying would have been so much easier... "Eat enough sad thoughts at breakfast? I swear you've gained like twenty bazillion pounds between then and now... Seriously! Happy thoughts would be fantastic right about now.. how about now? Now? Happy thoughts, Jess... Happy thoughts! HAPPY THOUGHTS!"
I continued to sob and we, Peter and I, continued to fall. While he had added friction to fall, It wasn't enough to halt my downward spiral, actually it was more like sandpaper against already worn skin. My fall was beginning to pick up momentum once again, and at a sickening pace.
"You know," Peter said, unperturbed by the fact that we were falling to our untimely deaths. "I was serious when I asked you to stay with me forever in Never Land. And that offer still holds true. Jessie, I don't hate you. I could never hate you. Let's turn back now. Let's turn back and live together, happily ever after. We still have a chance."
Stay with me forever. I don't hate you, could never hate you. Jessie. Together. Happily ever after. Together.
His words instantly made my heart feel light. And suddenly, we weren't falling any more. I didn't dare to open my eyes, but his arms tightened around my waist. We were now headed back up, no longer free falling.
"It's okay," Peter assured me, and I realized I was still crying, my face buried in his chest. "It's all right, Jessie."
I was going to nod, but instead, I simply moved my head from his chest to his shoulder. He wasn't angry with me. I betrayed him and he still wanted me to stay with him. Why?
He's lying. I realized it the moment I looked at his face. It was etched in pain, he was hurting. The words he had said, were said for both his benefit and mine. They were only said to save us, not because he actually meant them. While his voice had been convincing his face was an open book.
I turned away from his face as if my own had been scorched, burnt by his sun kissed looks. We were at the edge of the volcano, I could feel solid ground beneath my feet. Or at least I could, until I saw it. At first I couldn't even tell what it was. It just looked like a lump of white.
It wasn't until I felt the chill of Hook's ghost that I realized I had locked my eyes upon his body. Before I knew it, the ground was trembling violently, the only thing holding me up right was a very scared looking Peter. I saw Hook rush down to his body, and I knew, somewhere in my body that we were all in danger as the world shook again.
"It's going to blow!" I heard one of the lost boy's shout.
"Let's go!" Peter yelled, dragging me by the arm away from the mess I had created.
As soon as we were off the volcano and halfway back to Peter's I felt the sky rip open behind us, stirring the wind and clouds into a swirling vortex of horror. Now, not only the ground was rocking back and forth, but the sky was eating itself and anything in it's path.
"Peter, the Never Land isn't going to make it. Once that Volcano blows..." Jacob whispered.
"So does the Never Land," Peter finished, looking as mad as I was starting to feel. "Think I don't know that? I've know the Never Land was falling apart for a while now. After All, it is a part of me."
"Then why did you want me to stay?" I demanded.