An Awfully Big Adventure

Chapter 3: A Taste of Death

Louis wasn't exactly sure why, but when he returned back to the hollow tree that served as the Lost Boys' house and told them all about what happened with Hook's sneak attack, he didn't tell them about the fact that there had been a new Hook.

For some reason, Harry's big childlike eyes and apparent inability to lie made Louis want to help him. It was almost laughable that Harry would be trying to attack him. Although Louis would always be a child (and was extraordinarily proud of this fact), he couldn't help but think that Harry looked like a child too. Before, the adults had been the enemies because, well, because they wanted everyone to run things the adult way. The old Hook and his crew had all been grown ups, and Louis had snubbed his nose at them and tried to thwart their every move, but Harry...he was young too. It was hard to reconcile what appeared to just be another Lost Boy as the 'enemy'.

Tink had apparently noticed his unusual quiet and tried to get him to tell her what he was thinking about.

"Go away Tink, I don't want to talk right now. Bother one of the other boys or something."

She fluttered angrily, but left Louis to his thinking anyway.

"Peter! Why do you look like you're thinking?" one of the boys called out.

"Because I am."

"Well, save it for later, we're supposed to be having a feast. You're starting to look grown up."

Louis sighed.

"Of course I'm not. You can't always just use that to make me change what I'm doing. We all know I'm never gonna grow up, not if I can help it!"

"Well come back over and have some fun instead of sitting alone all gloomy-like," someone else chimed in.

Louis reluctantly put his thoughts about Harry to the side for the time being.

~*~

Harry sat in his office with his boots up on the desk. He was brooding and contemplating L— Pan. Brooding, specifically, because Harry thought it a rather Hook-ish description.

Pan had not been in the least bit what Harry had expected in any way. This particularly bothered him because Harry had already known he didn't know the first thing about being a pirate or his crew, but he thought he could at least anticipate a tricky little boy. It should be fairly simple to just focus on catching him and forget that he didn't know how to be a pirate, sure, but Robert had neglected to tell him quite a bit.

More than just simply spirited and a little conniving, Pan was apparently capable. He had knocked out Harry's entire crew with apparent ease, aided of course by the flying that Harry had also not been told about. And apparently there was a whole group of boys like him? Harry was definitely beginning to see the necessity of Neverland choosing to keep Hook alive.

And although Robert had said Pan would never grow up, he seemed to already be somewhat grown. Whether he liked it or not, Harry had seen the calculating look in his eyes when he was discovering that Harry was the new Hook. And he'd been mature enough to trade his real name for Harry's. Though he was small, he definitely looked to be in his teens, so he really was not much the boy he thought himself.

Harry still didn't know what to do with him, though. The whole feud seemed like a farce to begin with, and Harry didn't have a cunning or nefarious bone in his body. He supposed, though, that he had no other options. What else was he to do with his time?

~*~

Three days later and Harry had finally come up with a plan. Well, it wasn't really a plan, but he felt it was time he did something. They were going to storm the tree that the crew had told him the Lost Boys lived in.

The crew insisted that with enough soot, no one would be able to tell he wasn't the old Hook. Pan might even doubt himself. Harry, for his part, just felt, well...sooty.

They attacked at sundown in hopes that all of the boys would actually be there. They were, but that did not mean things went as they had hoped.

As soon as they entered the tree, the boy nearest them let out a war cry and leaped at one of Harry's crew, who impaled him with a knife, but then all of the boys were swarming them. Peter was above it all, flitting about and inflicting harm at random. Although he was very invested (as much as Louis could be, anyway) in his permanent battle with Hook, it mattered much less to him whom he was fighting, and a lot more that he was fighting at all. Battle was exciting and he hardly cared who had just stabbed when he was busy admiring the speed and precision of his own attack.

"Peter! You switched sides?" the boy he was fighting yelled.

"I've got to make it interesting somehow," he replied, before flipping over the boy's head and kicking him in the base of the skull. Perhaps this was part of the reason none of the Lost Boys had ever grown up. Unlike Louis, they aged normally (well, one could only assume it was normal, what with Neverland's odd time), as did Hook's crew.

After a rather short time, both sides were decimated, but it was clear Hook was losing. And shortly after that, Hook was the only one of his crew remaining standing and Louis flew up to him.

"Shall I end this now?"

"Until tomorrow," Harry said casually, feigning disinterest as Pan brandished his dagger. He really hoped Robert was right about the whole 'not dying' thing because it looked like that was about to be tested. Louis plunged the knife into Hook's stomach and twisted.

"I suppose I'll see you later then." And if he didn't, Louis was sure he would forget.

He and the remaining Lost Boys dragged all of the bodies outside, not bothering to check if any were actually dead or alive. They would be gone by morning either way.

None of the boys brought up Peter switching sides. It was, after all, something he did fairly often, and only the newest children didn't know that. All the new ones were most likely in the pile outside now anyway.

"Swimming in the lagoon?" Louis suggested.

All the remaining boys cheerily agreed, and they soon forgot everything that had happened as they splashed in the lagoon under the moonlight.