The deck was a mess of noise. War cries and the clanging of metal filled the air, and Harry quickly looked up to try and spot Pan. There. He sat, perched on some of the rigging, clearly looking for the best opening. Harry flinched as he suddenly swooped down into the tangle of flashing blades below. He really hoped Pan was as capable as he seemed.

Surprisingly, the pirates seemed to be winning. Probably due to the abundance of rope and netting lying around that they tied the boys up with.

Several minutes later Harry saw his chance when Pan (the only remaining free Lost Boy) flew down to cut some of the ropes. Harry quickly snatched him about the waist from behind.

"Over here, Dobson! The rope! Help me tie him to the main mast. You, Briggs, grab his knife."

Louis, being notably smaller than Harry couldn't do much to fight back with his arms pinned to his sides. He couldn't reach to bite either, but he gave several vicious kicks to Harry's shins. One of the crew members snatched his knife away and he gave a scream of anger. Louis was very much not used to having anything but the upper hand. He couldn't fly and he had no weapon now.

Harry turned him and shoved his back against the mast of the ship as several of his men circled rope around. They cinched it tightly enough that Louis had to let out a gasp of air for lack of space. One of the men made a rather elaborate looking set of knots at the end, pointedly testing them where he could see. Louis sagged against the mast, thinking. He couldn't see how he was going to get out of this one.

The obnoxious feathers on Harry's hat swayed as he turned to face his men and their groups of tied up captives.

"Take them belowdecks for now...the plank just may need to be tested later," he said in the most Hookish voice he could muster. He had been practising, but he still felt guilty. They were still children, honestly, some of them didn't look more than seven.

He turned to face Louis as the Lost Boys were dragged out of sight.

"Well, I don't suppose this is where you thought you'd be by the end of this little...attack?" Harry was honestly a little amused by how upset Pan seemed to be that he'd been captured. He wondered if this had ever happened before. Pan was usually very sure of himself. Harry was not a mean spirited person, but he couldn't help rubbing it in just a bit that cocky little Pan had finally been caught.

Louis spit at him and Harry clucked his tongue as it fell short.

"I don't think so, Pan. You can't catch me."

"What are you gonna do? Just keep me here forever? You know I can't really die, so you'd better just go ahead and kill me so we can start over."

Harry's eyes gleamed.

"But that wouldn't be nearly as fun, would it? Over so soon? I would hate for all the planning that surely went into this to go to such a waste. In fact, I just might let you stay here forever."

"You wouldn't, you're too nice. Look at you, you've probably never even squished a bug. You just don't have the guts to look me in the eyes and stab me."

Harry just shook his head, walking closer to lean over him.

"You talk so big, but you're not so tall now that you can't fly, are you?"

Aʀᴛ ʙʏ ᴘᴀssᴛʜᴇᴘᴇɴᴄɪʟ ᴏɴ Tᴜᴍʙʟʀ

Louis's pride was hurt and he was angry, but he was also noticing a sort of charged atmosphere between himself and Harry. He sensed that Harry's relaxed taunting held some sort of underlying tone as well. It felt almost as if his anger and Harry's banter were just a sort of...joke. Very odd.

Harry snatched the small green cap from his head with the hook.

"The tables have turned now, eh?"

"They'll turn back soon enough. And I'll make sure they stay that way next time."

Harry looked closely at Louis's face and gently placed the hat back on his head.

"It wasn't a dream, was it?"

Louis's brain immediately jumped to that night in the pixie clearing, but he pushed those thoughts away.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

A small, half-smile made its way onto Harry's face.

"Yes you do. Smee told me he saw me go for a walk at sunset and never heard me come back. Did you wake up somewhere else too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Louis insisted, gritting his teeth, unsure as to exactly why he could feel his face flushing.

"I'll take that as a yes. You had a crease in your face from my shirt the whole night," he let the tip of the hook leave a light scratch along Louis's left cheek. "It looked utterly ridiculous, you know. You always look faintly ridiculous. So self assured, but your clothes don't even fit. And that silly hat," Louis looked pointedly at the thing sitting on Harry's head and Harry chuckled. "I know, not that I'm one to talk. And yet...you're not really silly at all, are you?"

"Certainly not. I'm intimidating, and I will kill you once I get these ropes off. Plus my clothes aren't ridiculous. If anything, your obnoxious red, ruffled, feathered getup is ridiculous."

Harry laughed.

"And there you go again. You know you aren't much the little boy you think you are. I'm not sure if you ever were, but, regardless, you aren't anymore."

"What? What do you mean? I'll always be a boy, I'll never grow up if I don't want to."

"Really? And that's what you want? I'm not sure that's true. I took everyone's word for it at first, but no," he placed the hook under Louis's chin to turn his face up. He looked closely at his eyes and tilted his head to the side. "No, you've most certainly done some growing."

Louis was speechless. His mind was in an absolute turmoil. What did this fake pirate know? He would never, never grow up! But what was he looking at? How did he sound so certain? And what, really had just happened in those last few minutes? Louis had been so angry and then, and then...Louis's thoughts continued in uproar.

The heel of Harry's boot ground satisfyingly on the deck as he turned sharply and left, 'accidentally' dropping a knife where Louis could reach it with his foot as he did so. He just hoped Louis didn't have his crew murdered in their sleep. It would take him a while to get loose anyway.

~*~

Harry was awoken by his door creaking open. He opened his eyes very slightly, still keeping them hooded, to see who was there. Anyone walking into his private cabin in the middle of the night without knocking or an invitation was not to be trusted. He watched as a careful figure eased its way inside and floated forward. Pan. Harry decided to wait until he was close enough. Pan floated directly above his hammock and brandished the knife that Harry had dropped for him. Harry shot his hand up abruptly, knocking it out of his hand and onto the floor, before grabbing his wrist and rolling, dragging him to the floor and landing on top of him. He pressed his forearm over Louis's throat.

"Hello Pan, what a pleasure to see you here."

Louis squirmed underneath him, and Harry pressed his weight down harder to stop him moving.

"Tut tut, another thing you didn't think through very well. And you tried to kill me with my own knife, how cold."

"Get off of me, Hook. You would have done the same."

"Oh, on the contrary, I would most certainly have not. If I had been captured and given an out where there was no other, I would have simply taken it and left. Not gone back to bite the hand that fed me."

"Then you clearly are lacking in courage."

"No, Pan, I just have more intelligence than courage. What did you do with the Lost Boys? Did you set them on my crew?"

"No, I just cut their ropes and told them to leave, they've all flown away."

Harry relaxed.

"Good. You should've done the same. I've been having my crew teach me hand-to-hand combat. Horace is rather good and I've learned quite a bit, wouldn't you say?"

"Perhaps. If you hadn't pretended to be asleep it might not have been enough, though."

"Of course it would. You're so self-assured, it's infuriating."

"I try. Can I get up?"

"Will you go straight back to the island and leave my dagger here?"

"Yes."

Harry slowly eased off of him and rolled onto the floor, using the edge of his hammock to pull himself to standing. He held a hand out to Louis, who took it, this time with no hesitation, and let Harry pull him to his feet.

"What's that around your neck?"

Harry looked down to see that his locket has fallen out of the collar of his shirt.

"Nothing. None of your business."

Louis darted forward and grabbed the locket, diving over Harry's head to pull the necklace off before Harry could stop him.

"Come on, give it back. That's important!"

Louis flew up so his back was flat against the ceiling where Harry couldn't reach.

"I just wanna see what it is⁠— oh it opens!"

"Come back down here!"

"I'm just looking," Louis squinted and held the locket closer to his face, trying to make out the picture in the dark.

"You can't see a thing. Seriously, come down and give it back."

"If I come back down will you light a candle and show me the picture?"

"No. It's none of your business."

"Please? I'll just not come down if you don't swear it."

"Okay, fine, it's not that interesting even."

Louis came down to stand beside Harry and held his hand with the locket clenched securely in toward the unlit candle.

Harry sighed and struck a match from the bundle tied to his hammock and lit the candle.

"Okay now you can see, satisfied?"

"This is you?" Louis asked, pointing at the small curly haired boy in the middle of the picture.

Harry sighed and held his hand out for the locket.

"Can I have it back now?"

"No, who are these people?"

"My parents," Harry answered tersely.

"What? Why do you have a picture of them?" Louis sounded appalled.

"Because I wanted to bring a reminder of them with me."

"Why?"

Harry gritted his teeth.

"Can you just leave already?"

Louis let the locket drop into Harry's waiting hand.

"Fine," he flew toward the door and opened it, looking over his shoulder in confusion when Harry exited right behind him.

"I'm following you because I still don't trust you."

"And here I thought you said you did," Louis muttered.

"And here you insisted you had no idea what I was talking about earlier," Harry shot back.

"Fine," Louis held up his hands in surrender and walked out of the room and up to the deck with Harry following close behind.

He clambered up onto the railing of the ship and flew straight up. He paused for a moment as if in thought, then did a quick flip and zoomed back to give Harry a peck on the cheek.

"Wh-what was⁠—?" Harry stuttered, thrown again by how quickly the dynamic changed with Louis.

"It's a thimble. Wendy said people on Earth do it as a sign of thanks. I guess you didn't have to let me go...either time," he shuffled his foot in the air uncomfortably as he stood slightly above Harry. Louis was not at all used to giving thanks, but he thought perhaps the situation had merited it (although if it hadn't been Harry he still wasn't sure if he would've done it).

"That's not⁠— er, that's not⁠—" Harry cut himself off, "Well Wendy's quite a forward little⁠—" and again, "Thimble?"

"Yes, it's an Earth thing. I thought you might be familiar, but perhaps you're from somewhere else?"

"I'm from Earth, but that's not a thimble, it's most definitely called a kiss. And it's only for⁠—"

"Well, it's the same thing," Louis interrupted, "and I haven't got time to stand here and chat about your strange Earth things all night. I've got to get some sleep at some point." Louis saluted him and flew off as Harry started to speak again.

"But it's⁠—" he sighed. Damn. Harry dragged himself back to his cabin whilst his mind spun. He was going to have to get his thoughts about Pan in some sort of order. He looked down at the open locket sitting in his hand and sighed.

He didn't know how he felt. He wished he could be back home with his parents. Safety was in Cheshire, and he missed them and his comfortable little home. At the same time, though, they had sheltered him so much, and whilst this wasn't always great (or even mostly), there was something so amazing about it all. I mean, he got to see mermaids and pixies and all other sorts of fantastical things, and he wasn't sure he could bring himself to regret it.

It was awful, but dear God if it wasn't the most interesting thing that had happened to him.

Harry shut the locket and put the chain back around his neck, tucking it safely under his collar where it belonged. He laid back down in his hammock and put his palm over the locket, so he could feel the comforting shape through his shirt. It is what it is. He would make it through.