i will not die

🌊 / nick

Malia was unsure how to respond. He seemed to feel deeply about it, even though she herself only viewed it as a storybook. So, she shuffled closer to him, scanning his expression for a while, looking for social cues. “You’re sad,” Malia commented, eyebrows frowning in concern. “Why? You wanna…’ be free? You belong with the lost boys?” Pairing his comments now to the earlier one about wanting to be a lost boy, that was the conclusion Malia drew. Maybe she was wrong, but he didn’t seem happy, he seemed down and out of place.

Nick wasn’t expecting that observation. He glanced up, meeting her gaze, eyes widened in surprise. It passed quickly, though. He didn’t know the woman, and shouldn’t have made assumptions. It just wasn’t common for people to make conclusions about him, was all. He usually went by unnoticed, always slipping through the cracks. His mother said he’d been like that since the day he was born.

Malia frowned at him. “You wanted to be one?” As someone who’d spent so much of her life trapped in wolf form, with no adult supervision, she’d certainly felt like one before. Not so much now, since she’d still managed to age as a human. And she’d found her father in the process. “I don’t get it. Why would anyone wanna’ be lost?” Malia shook her head, the confusion evident on her face.

“Yeah,” he frowned back, sharing in her concern. “Because.. they weren’t really lost. Maybe in their parents’ eyes, but… they were free. And they made a home for themselves, and they had each other. They were brave, they wandered Neverland all on their own. They didn’t fit in this type of world, they belonged there. They understood it, and it understood them.” He shrugged. Nick had always hoped he’d find his own version of that one day — of feeling like he belonged.

“It should be,” he nodded. “I think everyone gets it, that’s why. I mean, who wants to grow up? To get old and sick?” He sounded quite conversational despite the frown on his face. Nick nodded again, resting his elbows on the table, and his chin on his hands. “The Lost Boys are my favourite. I always wanted to be one.” Although in a way, he’d become exactly that. Nick smiled at the thought, but it never reached his eyes.

Adjusting back to human life was becoming increasingly difficult. Malia was always frustrated, and although her speech was fine, apparently her social cues were completely off. She continued to feel cold without her fur coat, and she had no idea how to read, putting her leagues behind her school peers. If she’d known how hard it would be living like this after eight years in her wolf form, she would have told herself never to travel towards Alexandria, regardless of how thankful she was for the Crescent pack's kindness. Glancing down at a book a teacher called Clara had given her, her eyebrows pressed together, muttering to herself as she attempted to learn. “To… die will be an… aw - awfull - fully? Awfullee big --”

As he closed distance, Lexa stepped back. Her hand went behind herself, reaching for the dagger she always kept in her belt, only to find it missing. During questioning, they’d disarmed her, and informed Lexa that weapons were reserved for training centre use only. It wasn't until now she truly understood the gravity of it's absence. “I’ve never heard of this ‘Licia. My name is Lexa.”

“Lexa?” Nick echoed, his eyes finally narrowing into a frown, watching her movements closely, not because he was concerned, but because he wanted to be completely certain this wasn’t Alicia. He knew Licia better than he knew himself, and already, the differences in Lexa’s behaviour was palpable. So why couldn’t his brain compute this? It wasn’t like his parents hadn’t betrayed them multiple times before. Was this their doing? Did Madison know about this? “I’m… I’m Nick. Nick Clark. You - ” How the fuck was he going to word this? “You look… exactly like my younger sister. Like. Exactly.”