Origins

Origins VI

 The sunlight pierced my eyes as I woke up. I moved to put an arm up to shield my eyes, but my arms were trapped. Nico had his arms wrapped around me. We must've hugged while we were asleep and didn't let go. Not that I minded. I felt myself redden slightly. Thank God Nico wasn't up. If he was I'd never hear the end of it. I carefully extricated myself from his arms so I didn't wake him up and moved to the front of the ship to watch the sun rise over the sapphire water. Tinkerbell flew up and sat on my shoulder. She laughed.

"So you and Nico..." she started.

"I know. Not yet necessarily," I said. There was hidden meaning in her words. She was asking if Nico and I were together. We weren't. We were best friends. Hugging wasn't so odd for best friends...was it? I heard Nico's footsteps behind me.

"Good morning, Neeks," I said, turning around.

"Same to you, sunshine," he said.

"Oh, I'm sunshine now, am I?" I asked.

"If I'm 'Neeks,' then you're 'sunshine' or 'Pete,'" he said.

"I'm so calling you 'sunshine' now!" Tinkerbell laughed, nearly falling off my shoulder.

"I support that idea," Nico said, grinning.

"What?" I asked.

"Your fairy is going to call you, 'Sunshine.' I'll do the same!" Nico said.

"How can you understand her? No one else can," I said.

"Dunno. It just came naturally," Nico said.

"Well, whatever the reason, I'm still cooler than you," I said.

"Nah, I'd say we're equally cool," Nico put his arm around my shoulder. Tinkerbell moved up to my head.

"If you were anyone else, I'd contest that," I returned the gesture. We looked over the water as it began to shine in the sunlight when I heard heavy steps ascend the staircase.

"Nico! Peter!" Hook said. We turned around, arms back at our said, faces red.

"Yes, Jim?" I asked. I called Hook by his first name for no other reason than to annoy him. He preferred to be called Captain Hook, or sir. But I'm special. So I called him by his first name.

"For the last time, it's 'sir' to you. And over there," Hook pointed to a black spot in the distance, "That's land." Land. The word was like a symphony after being on a ship for so long.

"Do you know what land that is, Jimmy?" I asked. Hook didn't answer. Instead, he picked me up and promptly threw me off the side of the ship again. I let myself submerge, just for fun, then flew back up. I stopped flying and tumbled to the deck, dripping wet. Tinkerbell was spinning in circles from laughing so hard, and Nico was cracking up. I couldn't help but think how cute his laugh was.

"Of course I know. Wake the others. I'd rather you find out in person than have me explain it," Hook replied. As Nico and I approached the stairs, I couldn't resist throwing in one last sally.

"You could've said that before throwing me overboard again," I said. Hook chuckled softly.

"Help Nico wake the others, boy," he said.

I was assigned to waking up the twins, seeing as Nico had chosen to wake up Jason and Ralph. Usually I would wake them up by violently shaking them, but over the time we'd spent at sea, I started to notice I had other abilities. I wasn't very good at them yet, but I thought it was worth a shot. I closed my eyes and imagined two pans. I felt something like a handle in my hands. When I opened my eyes, I had two frying pans, the size of my phone in my hands. I started banging them together. "WAKE UP DAMIEN! WAKE UP TANNER!" I yelled over the din of the pans banging together. Damien rolled over. Tanner got up, took the pans out of my hands, and threw them out of his porthole window.

"Oh? How long have you been awake?" I asked, knowing full well the answer.

"Since you decided to come in here and wake us up in the most annoying way since we've been at sea!" Damien said, pulling his shorts on.

"Why the rude awakening?" Tanner asked.

"Come upstairs and I'll show you," I laughed, and quite literally flew out of their room.

When I got back above decks, Nico, Ralph, and Jason were already there.

"Is it true? Land at last?" Ralph asked? Aside from Nico, Ralph was the least annoying of my friends during this voyage. That's partially because he'd spent the first few days seasick, but at least it kept him from annoying me.

"It's true. I can't wait to get on solid ground again," I said.

"Says the boy who can fly," Nico said, smirking.

"Flying wasn't my choice, Neeks. And besides, if you could fly you'd exploit it too," I said back. Nico turned slightly red when I called him "Neeks." At that moment, the twins came upstairs, stretching in unison.

"Well, the Sleepyhead Brothers finally woke up," Jason said, walking over and putting his arms around their bare shoulders.

"What are we supposed to be excit-'' Damien started, then stopped, his mouth hanging open. The land we'd seen earlier was much closer now.

"Land," the twins said in unison.

"Yeah," I breathed out. "Land at last."