a real boy

She rather thought some of the cats reminded her of P himself, a little scraggly and wiry like they've lived far longer on their own than they should've. Sloane always wanted a house full of animals, birds on the windowsill and dogs greeting her at the door. Funnily enough though, her father's houses were always so big, so vast that animals would've just gotten lost. Hopefully these kitties would never get lost, and never have to live on their own again.

A smooth haired grey one stretched it's paws against the bars of the crate, and Sloane held her palms up like they could shake hands. Or just touch and connect with each other through the pads on her fingers.

"This one's name is Rose. That was my grandmother's name."

As she spoke though, another spotted tabby rubbed it's side against her knuckles too, asking for soft scratches.

"Oh, but this one's just begging for love," Sloane bemoaned, "You're not getting one?"

Sloane White is his friend, and her grandmother had been named Rose. Rose, like the flower. Rose, like the friendly gray cat.

“They like you,” he smiles, watching as the two cats vie for her attention. “You should get them. Both.”

It’s a bold suggestion, but he believes that is what would be best for all of them. The two kitties could keep one another company, and they could both keep her company. Together. That way, none of them would ever be alone again.

Then, as she questions him about adopting one for himself, he purses his lips and shakes his head in a firm negative.

“No. It’s better for them to stay here than be with me. The street is no place for a cat.”

And for that very reason, the dealer had no fucking clue why P wouldn't leave well enough alone and kept trailing around Snake Eyes. After every time Lorcan tried to ward off the kid, all but telling him straight up that this wasn't a good crowd and wasn't a safe place for the cherub-faced and honorable. Eventually though, Lorcan saw in P what he'd noticed in himself years ago. Back when he'd still used a fake ID to get into the casino. The thrill of deviance, the excitement of winning, and the idea of belonging to a place kept him coming back. Of course it only occurred to Lorcan that he might want to leave after he realized he couldn't. He should've paid more attention to the lyrics of that Eagles song.

When P had asked about the "dust" he'd heard whispers about, Lorcan all but told him to walk in the other direction. Upon consideration though, Lorcan had been a kid who stumbled upon the underbelly of the town despite all warnings too. If P was going to get into the world of pixie dust and other drugs eventually, Lorcan figured it did the most harm reduction to introduce it in a controlled environment with someone P trusted. Though Lorcan, again, had no fucking clue why P had decided to trust him among everyone else in town.

"Yeah, I figured," Lorcan opens the door with a laugh, already smoking a joint as he welcomes the street kid into his humble apartment. He hands it off to P, assuming he'd also want to take a drag, then turns to show the place, "Drop your stuff anywhere, shoes by the door, and come grab a seat."

The words “What is that?” nearly come tumbling out of his lips before he can stop them, but he thinks better of it and successfully reins in his curiosity for the moment. It’s a… cigarette, he thinks. He has seen cigarettes before. They were available in almost any store, everywhere, and he would often find their butts littered along the streets — especially near the casino.

Now, this one doesn’t look or smell like any cigarette he has ever come across — but if Lorcan had been smoking it, how bad could it be, really? Blinking owlishly at it for a moment, he rolls it between his fingers before tentatively bringing it to his lips to follow in his friend’s example and do as he had done.

It’s common for first time smokers to cough. To struggle and choke as they draw smoke into their lungs and their body rejects it, attempting to violently expel it back out of them in the only way it can — but he doesn’t seem to struggle at all. He smokes with an ease that suggests he has done it before.

It burns, yes, but not in a way he doesn’t necessarily like. It tastes bad, and it smells worse, but it feels… good. It feels good.

No sooner than the smoke billows from his lips, he allows his backpack to slump from his shoulders before following his friend further into the apartment and taking a seat beside him, crossing his legs underneath himself as he hands the lit cigarette back to Lorcan.

“Was that it? The pixie dust?” The youth asks, perhaps a little too bluntly.

Anyone who hangs around the less picturesque parts of Godscobh as often as he does is bound to come across hushed whispers of the words pixie dust at some point — but hearing about it is not the same as knowing what it is, particularly for someone as clueless and inexperienced with the realities of this world as he is.

@childofhcll

Sloane was careful not to stick her fingers into the grate, but she held herself close to the wall of the kennel to see if a kitty would make eye contact with her.

"Argh! They're all sooooo cute. How are you supposed to pick?"

The cats he had met throughout the streets of Godscobh were always different from one another. Some were obviously cared for, someone’s beloved pet with their shiny bell collar, who weaved between his legs during the day and returned home at night. Others were old, disheveled, abandoned or wounded. Vulnerable. Like him.

It always made him wish that he could keep them safe, take them in somehow, but he knows he can’t — he had only barely survived the winter on his own, staying warm by constantly moving and scrounging up whatever money he could get his hands on in order to keep himself fed, he does not have the means or the ability to become responsible for another life on top of that.

Sloane does, though — and she could really make a difference in some of these kitties’ lives. These strays with nowhere else to go, who no one else would choose. If anyone could love the unlovable and want the unwanted, he believes it’s her.

“You should pick whichever one needs your help the most. I think.”

Tim's in the park, teaching a few new Lost Boys some tricks to escape a chase. Could be from a sale gone wrong, come Crocs being assholes, or some cops trying to bust them. Tim believes in preparing for the get away.

Whenever he's doing stuff like this, he usually attracts some other people wanting to watch or learn some tricks too. Kids especially though most hardly stay long before their parents haul them away.

He's working with the guys, showing them how to get over some concrete barriers using only one hand as leverage. He notices a guy watching very curiously.

"You wanna try, bro?" he calls.

Suddenly, it’s no longer important. It doesn’t matter. Not as much as this, anyway.

“Me? You’re talking to me?” Bright blue eyes widen, twinkling with excitement as one of the boys — the one who had been teaching the others in the first place — calls out to him and invites him to join them. People never invite him to do anything with them. This is a chance he does not want to miss.

The yes is so instant it doesn’t even leave his lips before he is already jogging over to where they stand.

Carefully setting down the bags which hold all of his worldly possessions on the floor, he straightens his back, looking to his new friend for direction.

“How can I do what you did?”

@tootleloo-timothy

Though she’s still smiling like it’s all a joke, she means it when she says, “You should be fine here, if you can protect yourself.” She gives him a once-over. “You seem scrappy enough.”

Having nowhere else to go, that she could understand. “So, you're a wanderer, huh? I guess everyone has to stop running at some point.” She leans back against the shelf next to her, studying him. He hadn’t answered her question about a job. Was he okay? And how long would he be able to avoid the worst parts of Godscobh doing something truly scarring to him, if he was all on his own? Something about the thought pricks at her heart.

He has the look of a Lost Boy to him, and she’s starting to get that protective instinct over him that she has with the Boys. She wonders if maybe Pan would consider putting him on a few tasks. If P would even be interested. If it would even be right to drag him into their world. But if he had nothing else . . .

“Are you looking for any work?” she tests.

Well, now. The young man may not know where these Olympian Gardens are or how to find them, but he does know that he absolutely has to see that for himself.

When she tells him, next, that he should be okay here if he knows how to protect himself, there is something that crosses his expression. Some manner of unreadable emotion that makes him stand a little taller. More confident. More sure of himself.

“I can. I am,” he answers, and it surprises even himself to hear how certain he had sounded of that.

As soon as she brings up the thought of work, however, he is forced to keep himself from making a face about it. While it may be true that he doesn’t know much about what she might have in mind for him, he knows that it probably involves both effort and diligence on his part — two qualities he knows to be lacking in himself, and that he knows he is utterly uninterested in developing.

But, at the same time… Even he has to admit that he does need the money. Badly.

“That depends…” he bites, cautious, shoving his hands into his pockets and shifting his weight back and forth between his feet. “What did you have in mind?”

@acommonfairy

“Yes. I loved it,” she says, the words earnest. She smiles at him encouragingly. “And I would genuinely love to hear anything else you want to play.”  

She looks over the stranger, wondering if maybe she’s seen him before and forgotten, and notes his ragged clothes. Maybe it’s his personal style?

He doesn’t seem familiar. Sometimes Odette can be so lost in her own head and world, so if he’s been in this town a while, she wouldn’t know. Has he been regularly playing at this store, bringing a little bit of magic to this street, and she only needed to walk a different route to find it?

“How did you learn to play like that?” she inquires.

The answer comes only in the form of another melody, at first, hands gliding across the keyboard as deep, sorrowful notes ring out — a short tune that ends abruptly and unceremoniously. To the ears of one as attuned to music as the both of them are, it becomes clear what this is: An unfinished piece. A part of something greater, more comprehensive, of a whole that has been lost.

“...Would you believe me if I said I don’t remember how I learned to play?” The young man asks, this time, not rising to meet her eyes as he speaks.

@swanprncess