Cry

"Tootles, why are you crying?" The little boy's response is muffled by his arms, folded around his head, resting on his bent knees. "I can't hear you when you do that, Tootles, what's the matter?"
Peter bends his head down to peek into Tootles' face, tear-streaked and pink. His hand is batted away when he tries to lift the little boy's chin up, and he hears Tootles' voice chirp sadly, "You never cried for us, Peter…"
A little surprised by the child's statement, he protests, "I didn't know how."
"But you cried for Wendy."
"I loved--" Peter stops himself a little too late to take it back; he meant to say, ' I loved Wendy.' "Yes, I cried for Wendy. But I don't want to cry again, not even for her, Tootles."
He lifts the little boy's face up with a strong hand around his delicate jaw, and before he can even grace the Lost Boy with a smile, he felt two thin arms wind themselves around his neck in a loose hug. He gathered the small child onto his lap, folding his legs underneath him and resting his hands on Tootles' slight hip and back.
"I wanted it to be me you were crying for, Peter. Why didn't you ever cry for us?"
"Hush. I didn't know how to cry before Wendy came."
After a moment of quiet twilight, lighting the faces of the two boys who sat wrapped around each other, Tootles spoke up, the words floating softly on his boyish voice. "Why didn't you kiss any of us before Wendy either?"
"Because I didn't know what a kiss was."
"Will you kiss me now that you do?" Tootles' answer was a chaste, soft kiss, just a brush of lips against his cheek, light as a feather from a songbird. Without meaning to, he let slip another shimmering tear that slid hesitantly down his cheek until it came to rest on Peter's lip.
"Tootles, why are you crying?"