A Powerful Thing.

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters. I am not making any money.


A Powerful Thing.


A cold wind blew through Neverland, unlike any other before it. Tiger Lily had said her people called it the wind of change. Peter Pan did not like the sound of that, nor did he hold much affection for the strange feeling that was eating at his soul. He couldn't be sure, as he had never experienced it before, but he thought he was afflicted with worry. It was an odd sensation, one of burning, as if a hundred iron-smithing gnomes had set up shop inside his belly. What had ever given him cause for worry? Not the pirates, they were nothing but amusement to him. Not his Lost Boys, they could handle themselves just fine. First in Neverland and now in the world beyond. There was one exception though: Slightly.

His darling Slightly, blessed with the purest of minds and the most luminous of hearts. he should not have left Neverland. The more Peter thought about him out there in that vast expanse of corruption, the more the worry-fire burned him from within. The world would take Slightly's innocence. it would tear him up and leave him to bleed, damaged, on it's cold paved substrate. Peter jolted up.

"I can't let that happen," he yelled over the empty bay, "I won't!"

He was ready to take off; to save his Slightly from the horrors of corruption, when he found he was unable to fly. The worry-fire had sapped him of his happy thoughts and he was too fatigued to fight it.

"In the morning then. In the morning I will save him."

***************************************

In the dead of night, Slightly lay wide awake in his bed with perfect pillows and perfect sheets. The starched cotton chafed the delicate skin of his back and he lay staring at a ceiling where there should be stars. How he longed for the softness of moss and ferns, the earthy scents of the forest. How he longed for his friend Peter Pan. He had made a mistake coming here. It had taken him a while to realize it, to admit it to himself. After all, isn't this what he had always wanted? Apparently not. Definitely not.

The children at his school made fun of him. They mocked the way he spoke and ridiculed his gentle nature. Though his family was large, he had never before felt so alone. More than anything he wanted to see Peter, but he was afraid.

"Will he remember me? Will he forgive me for leaving him?"

And so Slightly's mind toiled, weighing the agony of his new life against the possible rejection by his old friend. More than once he cursed the day the Wendy had flown into his life. Peter had said they were not in a state fit to move her, and Slightly had proclaimed she would have to die then. Part of him wished she had.

"No! I musn't think like that," he said steadfast.

How could he have had such a horrid thought? What was this place doing to him? He knew he had to leave, or Peter truly would not know him if they met again.

I shall bring him something special, something powerful.

********************************************

Peter awoke to a new morning, but didn't open his eyes immediately. Instead, he just lay with his eyes closed, listening to the songbirds celebrating the joy of a new day. He envied them so.

"Peter?"

Pan kept his eyes shut. Now his mind was playing tricks on him.

"Peter, are you awake yet?"

No! Could it be?

Pan opened his eyes as fast as he could and nearly lost them in the familiar doe brown ones staring down at him.

"Slightly, it *is* you!"

Peter leapt to his feet with unbound exuberance and tackled his beloved friend. The two young boys rolled around on the ground, toppling over each other in an oh so familiar play fight. The taught muscles of preadolescent legs rubbing against one another in glorious friction. Finally they came to a stop, Peter straddling his young friend and grinning broadly. Before Pan could speak, Slightly held out something shiny.

"I brought you something," he said.

It was a silver thimble.

"A ki..."

There was no space for Slightly to finish the word; Peter had brought their mouyths together in a ferocious embrace. Suddenly the birds, the sun, the whole entire morning melted away around them. There was nothing but lips, full and hot, locked in a seemingly eternal embrace.

A powerfull thing indeed...