& ʟᴏsᴛ/ʙᴏʏ

A portal. Lost Boys. Neverland pulling at people like a tide that never fully receded.

She’d known, in the abstract way that you know things about a person you love, that George’s past wasn’t something you could fold up and put away in a drawer. She knew it in the way he sometimes went quiet, staring at nothing, or the way he never slept through a full night without waking at least once. Small things. Things she had catalogued and chosen to love alongside the rest of him.

“So you went,” she said flatly. “You and your siblings went to stop them.”

She turned away from him and walked to the window because she needed somewhere to put her eyes that wasn’t his face.

He went to protect something. She understood that. She did. She understood the instinct to handle it before it became someone else’s problem. Before it became her problem.

What she couldn't get past was the note.

The note.

Not a phone call. Not even a text. Just a note she read at two in the morning while sitting on the bathroom floor not wanting to wake the kids. A note that convinced her he'd finally gotten tired. Tired of her. Tired of the Underworld. Tired of the death and bloodlust that followed her like a shadow. She'd sat on cold tile for twenty minutes reading the same few lines over and over again, trying and failing not to cry.

“You could have called me,” she said to the window. The street below was quiet. A car moved through the intersection at the end of the block, unhurried, indifferent. “You could have woken me up. You could have said, Eve, something's happening. I have to go. I'll be back. That’s all it would have taken. Instead I sat on the bathroom floor at two in the morning convincing myself you were done with me.”

She heard him move behind her. Not toward her, just a shift in weight. She knew the sound of him the way she knew her own breathing.

“I thought you'd left us. Left me,” she said. “Not because of Neverland. Because of me. Because of all of it. Everything I am.” She pulled her hand back from the glass.

All he had done was an attempt not to burden her or the kids. Neverland-related bullshit was something he always tried to keep down low, in his mind saying it out loud made it real and real meant it could reach her and the kids. All his work over the years would go down the drain if that happened.

had his note being so bad? The note made it into something small and unimportant. Exactly what he expected the whole situation to be but no.

It had turned into something terrible that did the unthinkable: reduce eve to this.

George stood behind her, not quite touching yet but close enough she could feel him standing there "can you look at me please? " He cleared his throat before green eyes met red ones in the window's reflection

"I’m sorry i didn’t tell you. This whole thing was a mess. The type i wouldn’t want you or the kids to ever get involved with if I could help it. But what I’m even more sorry for is that I made you feel like this. Like I could ever leave you just like that”

She leaned against the wall opposite her work, the brick cool through her leather jacket. The smell of spray paint and cigarette smoke hung between them in the narrow alley.

“My mother thinks I'm going through a phase,” she added. The words slipped out before she could stop them. “She keeps suggesting I channel my creativity into something productive. Like town council meetings. Which sounds like a punishment, personally.”

She dug another can from her bag. Electric blue.

“You know,” she said, popping the cap free with a sharp hiss, “if you're going to lurk around while I work, you might as well make yourself useful. Hold these.”

Harry's heart hammered hard enough that he was certain George could hear it. The leather of his jacket creaked as he breathed. He couldn't stop looking at George's mouth. At the faintly chapped bottom lip. At the mark where he'd probably been worrying it with his teeth when Harry wasn't around to see.

Harry shifted his weight. One step. That was all it would take. One step forward and there would be nothing left between them. His boot scraped against the ground. He didn’t remember deciding to move.

"you want to hear the truth?" his voice was positively shaking with all the emotions he couldn't let out otherwise "about how much i want this-want you? that it keeps me up thinking about it and how much i can't have it" george's voice trailed off as he stared into those blue eyes was nothing but another reminder of how much he wanted this, how he wanted Harry

oh, to hell with it

“Thanks,” Malcolm muttered, his voice rough.

George's jaw tightened. Malcolm knew that look. Anger. Not at him. Never at him. At Peter. The thought twisted something unpleasant in his stomach.

“I can walk,” Malcolm said. The words came out tighter than he intended. His ribs protested the moment he shifted his weight. “Just need a minute.”

Together, they pushed through the vines and stepped back onto the beach. Moonlight washed the sand silver. Malcolm kept his eyes on his boots. Left foot. Right foot. George matched his pace without a word. He always did.

The whistle cut through the quiet kitchen. Wendy pulled the kettle from the burner. She poured hot water into two mugs. Steam curled upward, carrying the familiar scent of chamomile between them.

“Until now,” she repeated. “Try that again with actual information.”

“Depends,” she said. “If by tag you mean a desperate cry for attention, then no. If you mean a public service, then absolutely.”

She stepped back to study the mural. Black and green slashed across the brick, sharp enough to make the alley look a little less dead. Better. Not good. This town had a gift for making everything feel staged, like someone had built it out of cardboard and expectations. But better.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Mal said. “Now this alley has culture.”

A smirk tugged at her mouth before she could stop it. Annoying. She turned the can in her hand and listened to the metal ball rattle inside.

Most people in this town either stared too hard or pretended not to see anything. He was doing neither. Just standing there like he'd walked into a movie halfway through and decided to stay because the set design was decent.

“Can’t,” Harry repeated, quieter now, as though saying it slowly might somehow change the answer. “Or won’t?”

He stepped closer before he could stop himself. Close enough to feel George’s breath against his face. It would have been easy. Terribly easy. One inch. That was all that separated them. Instead, Harry held himself still through sheer force of will, every nerve in his body lit up and straining toward George.

That was fine.

Malcolm pressed the heel of his hand against his mouth and kept walking. Left foot. Right foot. The rhythm was the only thing keeping him moving. His ribs screamed every time he drew a breath, and the cut above his eyebrow had already bled through the rag pressed against it.

He didn’t look back at the clearing. He didn’t need to. Peter’s laughter still echoed somewhere behind him, bright and careless as a bell. The Lost Boys had scattered like birds after the show was over. Malcolm knew the pattern.

They’d be excited for a while.

Then they’d feel guilty.

Then they’d pretend it never happened.

The tree line thinned.

Sand replaced dirt beneath his boots. White sand, pale as bone in the Neverland moonlight. The ocean stretched out ahead of him, black and silver. Nobody came here at night. The mermaids had claimed the cove years ago. Even the Lost Boys stayed clear of it after sunset. Malcolm had found the ledge by accident when he was nine—half-drowned and bleeding from a gash in his leg Peter had told him to walk off. The rock shelf jutted over the water, hidden behind a curtain of hanging vines. The tide reached just far enough to kiss the stone before retreating again.

He ducked through the vines. The rock was cold against his back. He peeled the rag from his eyebrow. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle. Not deep, then. His fingers moved to his ribs, pressing carefully beneath his arm and working downward. Not broken. Bruised. Badly bruised, maybe cracked. His left knee throbbed where someone—Nibs, probably; Nibs had a thing for knees—had caught him with a stick.

His mother couldn’t see him like this. He couldn’t bear the tears she would try to hide. She’d already cried enough over him. A lifetime’s worth. Probably.

Footsteps rustled beyond the vines. He didn’t look up. He knew those footsteps.

A few seconds later, George pushed through the vines. George always found him.

“I’m fine,” Malcolm whispered. He tipped his head back against the rock and immediately regretted it. Pain flared through the back of his skull, and he winced.

Wendy sat up. The sheets tangled around her legs, and she kicked them free with more force than necessary. She swung her feet to the floor. Cool wood met her bare feet. She didn’t bother with a lamp.

She padded down the hallway toward the kitchen. She filled the kettle and set it on the stove. Before the flame could fully catch, a floorboard creaked behind her. She turned, one hand still on the stovetop knob.

George stood in the kitchen doorway, his hair sticking up on one side, his T-shirt twisted from sleep.

“Darling, what are you doing up?” she asked quietly.

Mal snorted and turned back to the wall. “Wow. A ringing endorsement. I should put that on a flyer.”

Harry shook his head. “Why shouldn’t ye have? What’s wrong with touching me?”