Peter hasn't spoken to me for days and I'm not gonna lie he must control the weather cause it's been raining enough to flood for days, maybe I should go talk to him. Make the first move and do the responsible thing. I made my way to Peter's house I guess or that used to be his secret lair and once I had finally got inside after bribing that stupid pixie to leave us and notice Peter curled up on the thing he called a bed.
He turned to face me when he heard footsteps and realized it was the pixie. "What are you doing here?" He looked tired and beaten. So unlike the Peter I was used to now.
"It's not very pleasant outside." "Is it raining?" He asked. "Pouring. For a good few days, enough tot start a flood. Any chance that's going to stop soon?" I continued in my most pleasant tone. I had been so angry at Peter, but now that we were actually face to face, I felt quite bad for the things I had said.
Without saying anything, Pan slowly made his way to the exit of his "lair" climbing up the roots that served as a ladder to get back up to the surface. Since I had absolutely no idea what was going on and I didn't want to say anything else to tip him off, I just followed him in silence.
It was still raining once we got outside, but not as heavily as before, which had to mean something, right?
Guess he does control the weather then. The earlier downpour had reduced to a soft autumn rain. The tree was large enough to shelter us from most of the rain, and after a few moments of silence, Peter sat down on one of the large roots sticking out of the ground right next to tree against which he leaned.
"I don't like sitting here." He commented randomly, looking around. "I prefer to be high on a tree branch, but I can't fly so I'm stuck down here." I cleared my throat as I sat down on a root a few feet away from Peter.
What should I say? Should I even say something? Should he try to comfort him?
"Don't think I've actually ever seen rain here? Is there any chance of that stopping soon?" I asked again, hoping to find out just how bad Peter was still feeling about all this.
"I don't know. I don't make the rain." He shrugged. "But don't you control and you're the reason it's raining?" I tried to keep my voice gentle in an attempt to open a door to our situation because I had no idea how to bring the obvious subject up again.
Peter turned his head to give me a heartbreaking look, that actually made my eyes tear up. "No. You are." He spoke brokenly. I sat mouth agape again. I was the reason, ok? We're getting somewhere. "I'm sorry." He blurted out after a few moments of silence during which I was still trying to find a direction for us to go in. "For what exactly?" i asked. "I-I don't know." He muttered, giving me a desperate look. "For whatever I said that hurt you. I didn't want-... it was never my intention...." he trailed off, falling silent and looking away again.
I wasn't even sure what all had upset me in the first place - it had been everything, starting with Peter's harsh behavior. Call me stupid and whatever but I'm actually into lovely-dovey romantic stuff and candlelight dinners and soft touches and kisses. But how am I supposed to explain that to a kid like Pan that didn't understand any of it. "It's fine." I told him with a sigh, not knowing what else to say. I had gone over so many things I wanted to say to Peter in my head, but somehow found myself unable to form the words to actually say it. Peter pouted and his eyes teared up.
"No, it's not, because you would rather be dead than be another second here with me!" Peter cried out with a few tears escaping, his sadness was accompanied by a heavy increase in the rain, I sighed.
"I didn't mean that. " I told him.
"Then why did you say it?" He asked hesitantly.
"People say a lot of things when they're angry." James shrugged, how was I meant to tell Peter that I wanted to be with him. I want him to come home with me so he can be a part of my family as well as be with me.
"So you wouldn't rather be dead?" Pan asked hopefully, allowing the rain to calm back down a bit.
"No, I'd rather you stop doing things that you know nothing about,"
"I know what I'm doing! Like-like what things?" he stammered, giving me another one of those looks that made him seem so unlike himself. "Was it the money thing? But grown-ups on Earth do that!" He try to defend himself, I ran a hand over my face. "What grown-ups, Peter? Tell me, who did you see doing this?" He shrugged.
"It was this man who wanted to do something with this lady somewhere by the docks, but she was very annoyed - just like you - but after he gave her money, she looked a lot happier." Pan said firmly. I nodded, suppressing a smile. "Yeah, she was a prostitute, Peter." "Oh. And... you're not a prostitute?" He asked slowly, giving me a confused look.
"No, of course not. It's someone that other people pay for sex." "What's 'sex'?" He asked confused.
"...Uh...That's...Sex is what you saw that man and woman doing. It's a term used to describe intimacies between two people." Another one of those things that sounded so much better in my head. "Like kissing?" Peter asked curiously, giving me an eager look. "No, not that kind of intimacy. But it's not important anyway, what's important is you need to not do these kind of things you know nothing about."
"Is that what you miss about being in London? Someone to have sex with for money?" He asked, I shook my head. "No. Yes, I do miss being with someone but that's not the only reason. I miss my home, I miss my family, my Mother, my siblings, my aunts and uncle, my grandparents. I remember what they look like but that was too long ago. I've always looked for a partner that I could have and rely on and that could be welcomed into my family and be a part of it." "I've never talked to anyone as much as I talk to you..." Peter mumbled quietly. "Really? You seem talkative enough." I chucked.
"Can't I be your partner your looking for? Or does it have to be someone on earth, what makes people there so different?" "It's different because on Earth I would be with someone my own age." "You can't do this again." He said and I couldn't really argue with him. How many times had I played the age card.
"It's just if I were ever to be with someone and have a partner it should be someone my own age, who wants the same as me." "But what do you want?" Peter asked me desperately. "I've tried doing everything I could think of that you might want, but it's always wrong..." he finished sadly.
"What do you want?" I asked him. I knew I wanted him and I knew I wanted home, why can't I have both without complications? "I don't know." He mumbled after a short pause. "I know that I don't want you to be sad. Or angry at me... Or hurt. I-I want... to be able to talk to you about random things. Like this. And I want to see you smile even though you barely ever do it, but when you do then it makes me really happy."
He was so sweet, my eyes were tearing up a little. The rain slowly came to a complete stop as Peter continued talking, the only background sound now coming from the water dripping off the trees all around them. "I want to listen to stories you tell me, and I want to hold your hand and kiss you... all the time. But most importantly, I want you to be happy."
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in and I stopped myself from starting crying. "Thank you, Peter. I know what I want and it's all those things too but I want you happy too and I know you're not gonna be happy away from Neverland but I can't stay here. I'd love nothing more than to take you home with me and let you be my partner and part of my family but you're simply too young and I too much older than you.
If I was younger or you were older then it could maybe have a chance of working out but not like this. You'd be as happy in London as I am here it's one of those unfortunate things and for each of us to get what we want, we have to part ways. I'm sorry, Peter but you don't want to stay in London and I can't stay here there's no other way." He looked at me and nodded sadly.
"I want you to be happy and I don't want to lose you, I don't know what it is but I've never felt this way about someone before and I don't want to give it up because I like it, James. Can I call that instead? It's better than Hook." I chuckled. "Yeah it is, of course you can. And you know Hook is my real name, James is but Hook isn't." "Then what is it?" I smiled. "My full birth name is James Niko Riviera. My family have an array of nationalities and they made my middle name Niko so they could call me that half the time because they didn't like any shortened version of James like Jay or Jamie so they chose Niko instead.
I know it's bizarre but that's my name and I like it, could be worse after all." We talked about another few things before I turned to Peter. "I don't want you to be alone." "But I want to be enough for you but I'm not cause I'm too young." I sighed and leant my forehead against his, not knowing what to do or say.
