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You’ve all heard the tale, I suppose, of how all children grow up, except one. Something usually occurs and children are thrust out and into adulthood, like a rocket. Zooooom! Now, it wasn’t that James couldn’t remember how he passed most of his youth, it’s just that it wasn’t very pleasant. So he chose to forget, like we all do. A few magical waves of our fingers and it’s gone, buried deep, never to return again. It wasn’t until many, many, many years into his adulthood, that his childhood demons caught up to him.
On a dreary evening, down a narrow street with private gates and gardens locked to those that didn’t live on the block, a casual couple walked hand in hand.
Q nudged James’s shoulder with his own, “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Don’t know, can’t remember.”
“Was it so long ago, you can’t think that far back?” Q asked, smiling as he kept his eyes forward.
James nudged him with his elbow, “Har, har, I don’t recall thinking I wanted to be anything.”
Q’s brows furrowed at this statement, “Well, did you ever want to be something impossible, when you were a child?”
“No.” James’s answer was quick and negative.
“Surely, you must have. A fireman, or a pirate…”
“All adults are pirates.” James said automatically.
“What?”
“What?”
“You just said all adults are pirates.”
“Hmm, so they are.” James gave Q’s hand a slight squeeze.
“James, really. You’re hardly a pirate.”
“I did join the Navy.”
“That doesn’t qualify, hmmm, maybe it does. What about me, I’m not a pirate.”
James looked at Q with amused patience, “No, perhaps not a pirate of the sea, but of cyberspace, you might be.”
“Oh.” Q pushed his glasses up his nose. “Oh dear, that is true. I’m a pirate. I think I would have preferred to have been a Lost Boy.”
“A Lost Boy?” James asked.
“One of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys. Really, you’re old enough to know the story of Peter Pan, all children grow up, except one.”
“Fairy tales and nonsense.”
“Oh, but it’s not nonsense!”
“It’s a children’s bedtime story, meant to be told to all the good little boys, girls and Q’s to keep them occupied so that Mother and Father can have some quiet time.” James tripped over his own feet at the end of his sentence. As if a memory had struck him.
“James?”
James shook his head, “Sorry, just had a thought.”
Q huffed a laugh, “Well that’s a rarity, do share.”
“Hush, pup.”
They continued on their stroll, and into the gated park they entered. The wrought iron creaked, the electric lamp lights were glowing golden along the neat path that wound around the well tended yews, boxwoods and cut grass. “Welcome to Neverland, Q.” James said, continuing their joke as he escorted his young man inside. “I’ll try not to lose you.”
“See that you don’t. Once you lose a lost boy, they stay lost forever, unable to find their way back without-”
“A little bit of faith, trust and pixie dust,” James finished.
Q threw his head back with true amusement, “You DO know the story, you awful man.”
“I don’t know it, I just remembered...a bit.”
“It’s enough, I love this park at night.”
“We shouldn’t make it a habit.”
“I know. Such a shame.” Q quieted as he noticed how restless James seemed to become. Checking over his shoulder, Q looked back, the gate had shut behind them and the park seemed silent. He looked forward, James was still watchful, his body tense. “Something wrong?”
“Wind doesn’t seem right.”
“The wind?” Q snapped his mouth shut as a cold and foreign wind blew across their path, scattering the dead leaves. His shoulders hunched to his ears in the sudden onslaught, leaves battering his ankles. A fog rolled in, covering the ground in waves. “James?”
“It’s just weather Q, we’re alright.”
Q looked up at him, James didn’t look as certain as he spoke, “Should we go back?”
“No, it’s just weather, as I said. I would know these things, remember, I’m a pirate.” He looped an arm over Q’s shoulder and pulled him close. He bussed his cheek and when Q turned for a full kiss, he obliged, all the while watchful of their surroundings.
Their surroundings were watchful of them as well. An old fashioned spyglass was pushed through the cast iron garden gate and tracked the couple walking along the winding path.
“It’s him!”
“Are you sure?”
“Course I’m sure, I remember what he looks like, smells like. It’s faded a bit, but that there’s Peter Pan! He’s gotten big. Crocodile will like that. Them lost boys were never very filling. Ouch!” The speaker was stopped from rambling as a metal hook lashed out, swiping the spyglass roughly from his hands. “Cap’n”
The spyglass was pushed back through the gate, “Why, indeed, I spy with my little eye, something starting with Peter Pan.”
“Looks like he married that Wendy lady. Ouch! What?”
“That’s not Wendy, much less a lady. You’re eyes are getting old Smee, that be a lad and NOT a lady and I don’t see nothing resembling a wedding band either.”
“Now what?” Smee asked after the Cap’n had looked his fill.
“Now, we wait for the opportunity.”
“And then we snatch and grab?”
“And then we snatch and grab.”
“Yo ho!” Smee cried, “Ouch!” His Cap’n hit him hard on the head again.
“Fool! You’ve caught his attention, come, we return to the ship. Now!” The duo, an odd portly man with striped shirt and the tall dark haired man with his hair pulled back into a queue, took off down the fog covered street.
Their presence had not gone unnoticed, due to Smee’s enthusiasm. Both James and Q turned.
“Yo ho.” James said, repeating Smee. “Yo ho.”
“There be pirates in London, James. Maybe I’ll get that chance to be a lost boy. Ow!” Q jerked at his hand, James had squeezed it roughly at the end of his sentence, his fine bones grinding hard against each other. “What?”
“Sorry Q,” James gave a bit of attention to Q’s abused digits, they were priceless to his work and it wouldn’t do to damage them carelessly. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright. Should we go?”
“In a bit, we came out for a walk and we haven’t finished it. It’d be a shame to leave when we’re perfectly fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite. Plus, I had plans to take you over to the darkest corner, and get tangled in the ivy, with the brickwork digging into your back. Ow!” James laughed as Q punched him in the shoulder, hard.