Peter Pan was not a sap, or an effe, or any manner of words that allowed for boys to feel such emotions as love, even the word disgusted him.
Or, at least he imagined he should feel that way, but he wasn't much feeling like himself these days. He had offered Wendy a place in …his bed. The idea that something like that would leave his mouth was abhorred in itself, regardless of the flush that tinged his cheeks when he imagined what they had done on the beach. Every so often his vision would haze over and he would find himself acting, and feeling, as if he were something else. A man. He could imagine that this was what manhood felt like, or at least the best, if not strangest, way he could have thought it would be. He still felt like a boy when it happened, only… he had the pulling sensation to get closer to Wendy. He didn't believe he could ever be close enough to cure the swell in stomach whenever he saw a flash of her bottom in the little dress made of leaves, or the shorter fur dress she had on right now.
She was ignoring his anger, which seemed like an odd reaction; didn't she know who he was? Had she expected him to love her back?
"Peter Pan does not love." He had said to her when she brought the word up. He wasn't quite sure anymore though. If he were to be honest with himself, he wasn't actually sure what it was to love, he didn't know how it felt. It scared him. Love was a huge grown up thing, something only men and women did, not Peter. Peter was a boy. Or he should have been, but he did look like a man. Not a man like the Pirates, not dirty and hairy and certainly not evil like they were. So what did it mean for Peter to feel like a boy and look like a man?
"Peter?" A small voice asked from somewhere standing at the end of the bed.
Peter raised an eyebrow, allowing the boy to speak.
"Peter, Slightly hasn't come home. He never misses dinner." Tootles stammered, wary of the sharp look in his leader's eyes.
"Sometimes people do things they wouldn't normally do." Peter sighed, speaking more of his own behavior; he pointedly looked at Wendy as he reprimanded the boy.
Wendy smiled brightly at her old friend and continued to serve the lost boys what appeared to be some sort of black pudding. She didn't mind the harsh way Peter looked at her, she'd dealt with it before, she knew she shouldn't have said that word to Peter. As much as she loved him like a woman, she loved as he was, and if that meant she didn't get to go around spouting her feelings then so be it.
Of course, Wendy was very good at lying to her own self, and was very much dismayed by his reaction, but she was a good British girl and kept her upper-lip remarkably stiff. Mostly because despite the fact that she was only eighteen, and would remain so forever, she loved him very much and she did not wish to push him farther away. She had, in fact, just gotten him back.
"Oh, Peter? Would you like some blood pudding?" She wondered, catching his eye, and she knew that he was trying to glare. "I know that you're French, but everyone could benefit from a full English breakfast."
"Not hungry." He muttered, and turned his head away from her.
"Oh, that's a shame, I'll set some aside for you, but I don't know how long things are going to last, I'll have to invest in some sort of ice box." Wendy shrugged, and tried desperately to keep the chipper edge in her voice. "Now, boys, as soon as I'm done cleaning up its story time, and then bed."
"Wendy Lady, no!" a few of the little boys shouted out in protest.
"Yes, now twins, you're finished, help get the bedding out. Tootles, you too."
Wendy let out a low humorless chuckle as she turned around to clean up what was left of the black pudding and eggs, how could she be so good at something she so absolutely detested? Her anger flared, causing her cheeks to flush, how dare Peter do this to her?
She took as deep a breath as she could muster and returned to putting the sausage on a larger plate to bring to the Pickaninny Tribe as a gift. She could do this; she could just be the mother all the little boys wanted, isn't that what Peter had brought her here to do that night anyway? To tell stories and coddle children? She had always imagined that Peter had wanted her, but she knew, she was stupid and she was foolish because she knew, that Peter had never and never will have the capacity to love.
She grabbed the plate of blood pudding and climbed up the ladder that led to an outlook. The cold night air slashed at her pale cheeks, Neverland is what she wanted. She couldn't imagine being anywhere else, this was her home. She had always just imagined that it would involve Peter finally excepting her. She would have choked out her first sob, if not for a brilliant shooting star that passed overhead just as she dropped her head in her dirty hands. She smiled faintly and shut her eyes tight, barely audibly Wendy wished for him. For Peter, for her boy, for The Boy.
/
"Cap'n, Cap'n!" Smee shouted, rushing toward the Captain's quarters on the infamous Jolly Rodger. "Cap'n!" He called once more as he opened the door into the dark room where Captain James Hook was sleeping of a rather tremendous hang over.
"Smee." The dark haired man growled, pulling himself away from the intrusion of light.
"Oh, you'll like this Cap'n, we done got us a Lost Boy, dat scrawny one been giv'n us trouble."
"There are several scrawny Lost Boys and they all cause me trouble."
"Pan's replacement, the little queer." Smee howled in joy, knowing his Captain would be very pleased.
"Slightly Soiled?" Hook mused aloud to himself, allowing the extra minute to run a hair through his mane of onyx curls "Well. Let me see him!"
/
A/N: Elloooo! I realized in the last chapter that I should properly excuse myself. I have been absent on updating for almost a moth because I was finally taken to an eating disorder clinic, but I'm back and I'll start updating more regularly. For those of you also reading IN The Deep, I'm sorry but I'm waiting until I catch up with Supernatural to update. Reviews? Your love can guilt me into updating faster :3