#581 words

The chatter from his peers echoed in the crowded hallway. Jaren walked alongside his best friend, John. While in a state of anxiety over their upcoming test in Civics, Jaren tried to vent his stress about it, "Yo, Imma fail this test, John," Jaren whined as he threw his hands on to his face and slowly let them drag down his face. The bleached-haired boy walking beside him let out a small chuckle and nodded his head, agreeing with the statement.

Out of seemingly nowhere, their friends, Tyler and Evan, the gayest couple to exist, walked beside the pair. Jaren turned his head, which caused some of his dark curls to fall over his blue and red eyes. "What the fuck is going on with you two?" The boy with glasses pointed at the couple with all of his fingers.

Tyler had his arm stuck in Evan's tight grasp. "He won't let me go!" he tried to lightly pull his arm away to prove to his point, much to Evan's annoyance. "I just want affection." Evan tightened his grip once again. Tyler then wrapped his free arm around Evan's neck and playfully began to squeeze as Evan let out an overdramatic choking sound, softly scratching at his arm as if to escape his grasp. John eyed the couple then loudly said to him, "Man, you can't have sex with a dead body, so quit chokin' him."

The group of girls walking in front of the four turned their heads. After rolling their eyes and scoffing at their antics, they turned back around and turned, Jaren simply said, "Man, they looked shook," which sent John into another laugher fit. Tyler and Evan waved goodbye as they walked to their class, Tyler's arm firmly wrapped around his needy boyfriend's waist and Evan's arm squeezing onto his neck, Jaren and John walked into their Civics class. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted one of his classmate's notes for the test. "One sec, Imma snatch."

The shorter boy glanced towards the entrance, checking if anyone would walk in and catch him stealing notes. Jaren grabbed the paper and began to frantically copy the notes while his platinum-haired friend talked about the knee-high black boots he wore that day, pretending to be a prostitute.

Roughly a minute before the test, Jaren completed copying the notes, now setting the other notes on the place the paper was before he borrowed the notes. "Dude, touch my leg," John said after several moments of silence, his hand unconsciously tracing basic shapes into the part covering his calf. Without glancing up from his stolen masterpiece, Jaren countered, "Fucking bet."

Jaren looked up from his work and into the ring-wearer's eyes as he extended his hand and allowed it to land on the tip of his boot. Then he swiftly dragged his hand up to John's lower thigh and back to the boot's toe.

„Well, time for soup,“ Asmodeus said and stood up. But, after having another look around, there truly… was no a kitchen. He distinctly remembered a cake being made in this very building. He even partook in the process. But… that was downstairs. Community kitchen, most likely.

I was supposed to get a tooth extracted and a bone grafted in yesterday, but the oral surgeon wanted $940 plunked down, the request aired as if my potential sedation was all that stood in the way of my making the payment. So casual. What is that like? 

I would very much like to slam a door right now. The doors were too heavy for such an action. Not even THIS satisfaction was given to me. So, I merely stormed through the villa, looking for something to do. Just so I didn't have to think about my husband shirking his husbandly duties ONCE AGAIN, because someone had to fall terribly sick right in *this very moment*. And not only that, he shirked them without even batting much of an eye. It was frustrating and somewhat insulting and I- ... I wanted to find a distraction. Yes.

My mother had told me all the stories about this magical place called Neverland. Full of glorious sights and beautiful creatures. I dreamed of going to this world. Every night, I would lean out my window and watch the sky, more specifically the stars. And not just any stars, but two in particular.

Two stars that we right next to each other. I watched them and planned how I would manage to get to Neverland. “Second star to the right, and straight on ‘till morning,” I would quietly murmur to myself as I watched the stars twinkle.

That was a year ago, and I had since, grown up significantly. But I believe. No matter how old I got, no one could ever deter my belief for Neverland, or my overwhelming want to go there myself one day.

That’s why, the night I awoke in the middle of the night, to see a mysterious young boy standing in my window, staring intently at me with mossy green eyes. His lips curled into a devilish smirk as he pushed off my window sill and flew towards me, hovering a mere inches over my bed.

“You wanna go to Neverland?” he asked bluntly. I blinked a few times, trying to decipher whether or not this was just a dream, or actual reality.

Eventually I realized, this was real, and this boy above me was actually asking me if I wanted to go the Neverland. The place I had dreamed about since I was young. I nodded excitedly, and his smirk grew to a grin. He grabbed my hand and pulled me up, not giving a chance to register what was happening.

The next thing I knew, we were outside, flying over the streets of London. We flew up and up towards the second star, and soon, all I could see was a kaleidoscope of colors, swirling around me. Not long after, the colors disappeared and were replaced with the sight of an island in the middle of an endless sea, but it didn’t look like the world I’d heard so much about.

This mysterious boy held my hand as he led me around the island, showing me the sights. But I didn’t like what I was seeing. Mermaid Lagoon was desolate, abandoned. The water had browned and any plant life that had once thrived there was long gone.

The Indian Village was next. There were two Indians left. They looked bony and pale, as if they hadn’t eaten in days or maybe even weeks. On top of that, they both looked sickly ill, almost green in the face. All the teepees had long been destroyed.

Finally he brought me to the tree trunk, the one that was meant to lead me to the hideout of the Lost Boys and Peter Pan. But the tree was wilted and dead. The mysterious boy threw me down the trunk and slid into the hideout, landing roughly on the hard, stone ground. The smell was repulsive and if that wasn’t bad enough on it’s own, then the sight that was in front of me was.

Corpses hung from the ceiling, hanging upside down, their arms hanging limp, some of their fingertips brushing the ground. There were mermaid, Indians and Lost Boys. All long gone to the other side.

 She's not always there when he wakes up. At first, he'd been devastated, but by now, he's come to accept it – but he doesn't have to like it.

He'd been astounded to find that, in Pete's world, she worked for Torchwood, especially after all that godforsaken place had done to them – to her. She'd explained to him that, after the Cybermen invasion, Pete Tyler – whom she'd grown to call Dad – had taken over Torchwood to make sure the agency ran without corruption. “And... it was the closest thing to travelling with you,” she'd breathed, looking at her hands instead of his eyes. Needless to say, they spent a lot of time otherwise occupied that night.

And because of that job, she was sent here, there, and everywhere at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes Torchwood was kind to them and allowed for an hour of goodbyes before whisking her away to god-knows where; most of the time, she got a call, grabbed her bag, and was off.

Last night must have been one of the latter nights.

He woke up expecting to see her still asleep, pink lips half open as soft snores escaped, but was greeted with the disappointing sight of an empty bed. Her pillow, cased in a navy blue slip with pink and yellow swirls stitched into it, was achingly level, no indication that her head had been on it any time recently. He sighed heavily, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Unlike his room on the TARDIS, where he could look at any constellation or galaxy or sky he wanted, this new ceiling with Rose was white. It was the little things such as this that made his heart long for his ship to the point where it physically hurt. Usually Rose was able to rid him of those longings. That thought only made him feel worse this morning.

He was about to roll back over to sleep off his melancholy only to be distracted by the shrill chirping of his cell phone on the nightstand. With a groan, he reached out blindly, picked it up, and pressed the green button. “'llo?” he grunted.

There was a chuckle on the other end of the line. “Good morning to you too, Doctor,” Rose's voice floated through the speaker. He was wide awake in a second.

“Rose! I was just–”

“Asleep? Yeah, I could've guessed.” There was a smile in her voice he could practically see.

“When are you getting back?”

“We just got on the zeppelin a few minutes ago, so a few hours at the least.”

He groaned theatrically. “That long?”

“Hey, one of us has to be the breadwinner.” He may have taken offense, had she not made a valid point.

He paused for a beat. “You're okay?”

He heard her sigh, miles away. “I'm okay, Jake's okay, Ossie's a bit banged up, but she'll bounce back.”

They fell into a comforting silence for a few minutes before she spoke again. “Pilot's telling me to get off the phone. But I'll see you in a few hours, yeah?”

“Not if I see you first,” he echoed her words from what seemed like eons ago; her breath hitched.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

When his head hit the pillow again, the dark cloud hanging over him had evaporated; the next time he opened his eyes, Rose Tyler would be occupying the pillow beside his once again.