An Awfully Big Adventure

Chapter 13: A New Hook

Once they arrived back at the pixie city, Tink immediately flew to Louis' side.

"At least three of them are alive ⁠— I'm not sure about the fourth. Yeah, well, they wanted to eat the water nymphs. I know, I know, Ha⁠—uh," he coughed lightly. "Hook made me leave. Well yeah, it was probably for the best. We'll catch up with them again later if they pull anymore of this funny stuff."

He looked over to Harry. "Come on, let's help."

"What can we do?" he asked.

"Oh. Yeah." Louis glanced back at Tink. He seemed to be forgetting more and more often that Harry couldn't understand her. Maybe it was just that he wasn't used to having someone else around all the time. "She said there isn't a whole lot we can do because we're too big, but we can get rid of the broken stuff," he gestured to the branches, and large, glittering hunks of buildings strewn about the clearing.

"Right."

Some time later, Harry flopped down onto the grass, and patted the spot beside him for Louis to come lay down. They had finally finished getting all the debris into a neat pile in the corner of the clearing ⁠— though it had taken a surprisingly long time to do so.

He grunted as Louis flopped down on top of him instead of next to him, but he wrapped his arms around him to keep him there anyway.

"So what do you suppose we should do about those guys? Are we assuming they're supposed to be the new Hook and crew?"

"Did it look like they were going to stop killing things to you? We need to stop them. Maybe he's supposed to be the new Hook, maybe he isn't ⁠— either way I don't think they should stay here, and I'd much prefer them dead."

"But⁠— I don't know, do you think maybe Neverland brought him here so he could take my place so that we don't have to worry about keeping being enemies?" Harry asked hesitantly.

Louis picked his chin up from Harry's shoulder to look him in the face. "What? I don't care ⁠— we can't just let them continue! We're figuring this out, whatever, we don't need him to take your place." Harry wasn't looking at him, and Louis carefully brought up a hand to turn his face over to look at him. "Harry, it's not worth it. I didn't know⁠— if you want to stop being Hook, we can fix that, but these guys are really bad. Besides, if that's what Neverland really wants, they won't really die. I don't think it is, though. I mean look at how much destruction they've caused...even if it brought them, I think it wants them gone now."

Harry closed his eyes and sighed, flopping his head back onto the grass. "Yeah, sorry. I don't want them to continue, it just...seemed like an opportunity, like it fit too well to not be intentional."

"Well Neverland does have a lot of sway, but that doesn't mean we can't choose to do what we want. And what I want is them to stop hurting everyone, so we've got to get rid of them."

"Do we have to kill them?" Harry asked, swallowing hard. "I know⁠— I know it's not a big deal to you, but⁠— but I never meant to kill anything, and I know they deserve it, but I still feel bad. My crew, I, have killed so many Lost Boys that didn't deserve it, I just don't think we should unless we don't have a choice."

He hadn't said anything before, hoping that he would never be in a situation where he was expected to kill again since Hook and Pan had stopped fighting, but he couldn't hold his tongue now. Harry didn't know exactly what it had been like before he'd arrived in Neverland, but it was clear Louis didn't have a problem with killing.

Harry had seen him kill countless numbers of his own Lost Boys and, well, he tried not to think about that often. He tried not to think about the children he hadn't realised yet wouldn't wake up that first time. Or how, even though he hadn't directly done anything since then, he still watched it happen. He tried not to think of a lot of things, and it was actually disturbingly easy to put out of his mind.