trinityofone (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trinityofone) wrote2006-05-31 07:45 am
trinityofone) wrote2006-05-31 07:45 am
Entry tags:
Birthday Fic For ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siriaeve: Those Who Wander
Happy Birthday, siriaeve!
I tried to get you something you wanted. (No, not David Hewlett, although I tried for that, too—Canada gets very tetchy when you try to steal her people!) I hope you like it.
Title: Those Who Wander
Fandoms: First Monday/David Hewlett's oeuvre
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~7850 words
Summary: “There’s been some sort of mistake,” Julian said, in the careful-slow tone he reserved for children. "I’m not the person you’re looking for. I’m not supposed to be here.”
A/N: Thanks toneery, lavvyan, and z_rayne for taking on the bizarre task of betaing this. And as always, to siriaeve, my fannish other half. This is for you. Happy birthday.
Those Who Wander
Julian was looking the other way. He didn’t see the man approach, he only felt the sudden constriction around his chest—the air going out of his lungs—and the scratch of hair being pressed against the back of his neck. “It’s you!” said his assailant happily. “I found you!”
Julian batted ineffectually at the hands clasped around his waist and tried to squeeze out of the man’s arms. He had a really firm grip. Julian looked to his colleagues for help, but of course Miguel was too busy laughing his ass off, and Jerry was standing there stupidly, a little ‘O’ of surprise frozen on his face. Christ, did he have to do everything himself? “Call security!” he hissed, then when the man holding him squeezed tighter, nuzzling against his neck, “Hey! Leggo!”
It was not his most mature moment. Julian had always prided himself on being mature.
Jerry was finally unfreezing, stepping forward like he might, if not do the sensible thing and fetch a guard, then at least help Julian pry the human octopus off his person, when the man let go. Almost: one hand still clutched Julian’s sleeve as the man turned to face him, staring up at him, positively beaming. “You have to come back with me!”
“Excuse me,” Julian said, ripping his arm away. “I have work to do.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” Jerry told the stranger gently, though the glare he shot Julian’s way was anything but. “Who are you looking for? Are you lost?”
Julian was already walking away. He could feel the man’s eyes—an intense blue, staring out from a scruffy, bearded face—boring into his back. “Wait!” the man shouted. “Peter!”
Shoulders straight, Julian resolutely turned the corner.
Julian felt out-of-sorts for the rest of the day. He couldn’t concentrate—at one point, he actually had to ask Justice Brankin to repeat himself, which was not only embarrassing, it was deeply unprofessional. He went to splash water on his cheeks and ended up frowning at his face in the mirror: he had a new line on his forehead, one he was pretty positive hadn’t been there the day before.
It was late when he left work—by most standards, although not really by his own. By the time he got home, it was later still. Georgetown was mostly dark, and quite quiet; Julian liked that about it, usually, that it was one of the few sedate pockets in the noisy D.C. area. But tonight it was unsettling. His silent apartment made him feel oddly vulnerable. He closed the bedroom curtains tight.
He awoke to a bright light forcing its way under his eyes. He’d been sure he closed the curtains. He sat up, blinking...and then he was screaming and batting his hands, because he was being attacked by a giant bug. It wasn’t very dignified or manly, but he hated bugs. He really really hated them.
This one was huge—almost the size of his fist—and persistent and kind of glowy. Julian swatted at it, then in a burst of inspiration, reached for the book of legal statutes he’d been reading before bed. He swung and missed, but it was a close thing. When it looped back around...
“No! Stop!” said a familiar voice. “What are you doing?”
Julian yelped again, slipping in a tangle of covers and slamming painfully into the wall. It was the man from the lobby, the one who’d assaulted him. He must have waited, must have followed him home, and now Julian was alone in the apartment with a lunatic... “Stay back!” he said, hefting the book again. “I’ll call the police!”
The man looked like a kicked puppy. “Don’t you recognize me?” he said. “Don’t you know me?”
“No, I most certainly do n—” Julian started, but was distracted again by the big glowy bug. It had landed on the intruder’s shoulder, next to his ear; the man inclined his head, as if he were listening to it. Julian’s cell was in his coat pocket; if he could just inch his way...
The bug was in his face again. Julian went very still: he remembered one of the nuns telling him that that’s what you were supposed to do with bees. This certainly wasn’t a bee, though. It was making some sort of noise, but it wasn’t a buzz—a burble, almost, and through the glow, through the rapid beating of its wings, Julian thought that it almost looked like—
It darted back to the other man, and once again appeared to go into conference with him. This was seeming less and less weird, which was very worrying; Julian needed to do something to regain control over the situation, or—
The man looked up suddenly, mouth downturned, eyes filled with worry. “Tink says you can’t understand her anymore,” he said. “What happened to you, Peter? Why did you leave?”
Julian saw his in. “My name is not Peter,” he said. “You’re mistaken. Now please leave. I can call someone to help you,” he added, because he could be reasonable, he could be compromising; it was how you played the game. “Not get you into trouble. Just...help you.” And your bug, he almost said—almost laughed hysterically. Exposure to the crazy was making him crack up.
The man’s shoulders fell. He had such sad eyes—Julian almost felt bad for him. “Everyone leaves,” he said.
Julian hoped that the resigned tone meant that the man was going to do so as well, but instead he just nodded his head in response to something that the big glowy bug said—right, now who’s delusional, Julian?—then watched it zip off toward the ceiling. Julian couldn’t help himself from following the movement, too—bright glowing streak, like an overgrown firefly. Almost pretty, except suddenly it was like the thing was shedding all over him, and Julian was sneezing and choking on a cloud of shimmery gold dust. His eyes were squeezed shut—he was probably going to have some sort of horrible allergic reaction—so once again he didn’t see the man approach, only felt the moment that his arms wrapped around his back.
“It’s all right,” the man said. “It’s going to be okay, Peter.” Then Julian felt a breeze, felt a lurch as his stomach dropped, and when he opened his eyes and saw pavement, a hundred feet below, he thought that he was falling, that he’d been thrown from the window and was dying. But the ground was receding, not approaching, and he wasn’t falling. He was flying.
Julian screamed.
His—his captor? Kidnapper?—the man who was responsible for all of this still had one arm around Julian’s back, but he wasn’t holding Julian up or supporting him in any way. They were just...flying, the darkened windows and tidy roofs and green trees of Georgetown receding below them. Julian squeezed his eyes shut again; this couldn’t be happening. But he could feel the night air moving all around him, rippling through the thin fabric of his pajamas. He could see the moon looming large and pearlescent in front of them, and the golden glow of the fa—the giant bug lighting their way. Beside him, the strange man’s mouth spread into a wide, crooked smile. As the Earth disappeared behind them, Julian realized that he knew the man’s name.
They landed in the middle of the lushest, greenest forest that Julian had ever seen. The sky was a soft, early-twilight blue-black, and the rising moon (the same but different from the moon they’d left behind) hung low in the sky, illuminating branches heavy with fruit so vibrant and colorful that Julian could taste the juice around the edges of his mouth. They walked through the high grass, and Julian shivered as it softly caressed his bare ankles. The air smelled spicy and rich.
They weren’t alone. Julian could see shadows in the forest, coming toward them through the trees. He was oddly unafraid—his mind felt numb, stunned into a state of shellshocked acceptance. Still, when he saw that the figures running toward them were children—all children, though some were as young as four or five and others were clearly in their early teens—his back stiffened. Children had always made him uncomfortable.
“Grant!” called one of them, a girl with shoulder-length black hair and a pair of crooked glasses perched on her nose. She eagerly allowed Grant to sweep her up into a hug. “You have a beard,” she said, laughing as it scratched against her cheek.
“You were gone a long time,” said the sandy-haired boy at her side. “You got old.”
“Worth!” the girl snapped.
“What?”
A hand tugged at Julian’s pajama pants. The boy standing beside him was completely naked, his hair standing up like he’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Julian started back, and nearly fell over Grant. “I can cross my eyes!” the boy said. “Watch!”
All the other children had been gathered around Grant, but this incredible feat—coupled with “I can also do handstands! Watch!”—was enough to distract them. Or at least to bring Julian more fully to their attention. “Who’s that?” asked one boy, clutching a ratty grey teddy bear more tightly to his chest.
Grant beamed up at Julian. “It’s Peter!” he announced happily. “I found him!”
There was a moment’s hushed silence. Then:
“That’s not Peter,” one of the boys said.
“Worth!”
“What? He’s not! He’s old, he’s even older than David! Older than Grant is now!”
“Is it contagious?” asked another boy, looking up wide-eyed from the stick war he’d been having with yet another boy.
“You can’t catch oldness, dummy,” said his friend. Then his mouth, too, turned down into a worried frown. “Can you?”
“No,” said the girl. She stepped around Grant and stood at Julian’s feet, staring up at him. Julian shifted uncomfortably; the girl adjusted her glasses. “Peter?” she asked.
She sounded so hopeful that Julian almost felt guilty having to tell her the truth. “There’s been some sort of mistake,” he said, in the careful-slow tone he reserved for children. “I’m not Peter; my name is Julian Lodge. I’m not the person you’re looking for. I’m not supposed to be here.”
There was another moment’s silence. A boy with spaceman goggles and what looked like a fake beard drawn on his chin with Magic Marker shook his head. “Man, that’s cold.”
“I told you,” Worth said, though he sounded glum rather than pleased. He stepped forward and gave Grant an awkward hug. “You tried,” he said.
The children were all dispersing, some shaking their heads, others returning almost instantly to their interrupted games. Julian’s brain was re-awakening; he was rapidly becoming aware that he was standing in the middle of a strange forest in his pajamas, on another planet—no, that couldn’t be right. He must have suffered a head injury of some kind.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Can you— What am I supposed to do?”
The girl with the glasses was leading Grant by the hand; she turned and looked at him over her shoulder. “Ask David. He’s been the leader since Peter left.”
Julian let out a frustrated breath. He wondered which of the scrawny, wild-eyed children had...wrestled, he supposed, for the position of leader. “And who’s David?” he called. But the girl had disappeared into the shifting leaves.
Then he turned, and his question answered itself.
There was a man coming toward him. He was wearing leather trousers that looked rather inexpertly sewn and were totally incongruous with his McGill University sweatshirt. His blondish-brown hair was too long in the back—almost a mullet (Julian wrinkled his nose)—and he was young, early twenties at the most, but Julian could already feel a rush of desperate relief at the thought of getting to talk to another adult. But the, the fairy was there, circling around the other man’s head like a halo, and Julian felt a frisson of fear when he saw his eyes: the irises looked frosty blue and blown, deeply penetrating. The man stopped a few paces away from Julian and just stared: like he was staring right into him, seeing things that even Julian didn’t know were there.
The man stared at him for a long time. Then he said, “You look like Arthur Dent.”
Julian scowled. He straightened his shoulders and raised his chin. “I can’t answer for my appearance, as I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and, and...”
“Kidnapped?” asked the man—David, Julian knew; or rather, he’d been told. Quirking an eyebrow, like it was funny. “C’mon,” he said, gesturing as he turned. “I’m sure I can find you something.”
Like Julian would ever touch anything as appalling as David’s clothes.
“Or you can just stay in your PJs,” David said, striding away. “There’s no dress code.”
There was nothing else for him to do. “I noticed,” Julian said, trotting after him. “You really should try to arrange something; one of those children was completely nude—”
David laughed. He turned to look at Julian, over his shoulder; Julian was surprised to see that his eyes weren’t strange, after all: they were a regular blue, warm and friendly. “Rob’s more comfortable unrestricted.”
“So?” Julian said. “You can’t just...do whatever you want!”
“Here you can,” said David, simply. His hands reached out and touched two slender saplings; they parted like curtains, right down to the quiet rustling sound they made as David drew them back. He nodded for Julian to step through, and he did, into what he could only describe as a giant tent, circus-sized, made entirely of bark and leaves, of living trees. The ceiling, high above, was a delicately-woven canopy: Julian had a feeling that it would hold back even the most vicious of rains, but in the daytime, still let in just the right amount of mottled sunlight. The space was airy and pleasant-smelling, intersected by curtains sewn from a variety of different fabrics. As David led Julian between them, he thought he caught glimpses of shadowy figures behind some of the partitions: boys sleeping, and boys reading by flickering candlelight, and boys whispering to each other, huddled in groups or in pairs. He thought he saw the slightly larger form of Grant, bent low in conversation with the dark-haired girl while her friend, Worth, slept peacefully at her side.
“Here,” said David suddenly, throwing back one of the curtains. Inside was a bed of blankets and leaves, almost like a nest, and a small wooden stool with a couple of books and a brass candleholder with a stub of wax stuck on the pricket. Julian felt his lip curl: even his room at the orphanage had been better appointed. Though in an odd way he was relieved that he hadn’t been brought to Peter’s quarters, which he was sure were nicer than these. Relieved that David was at least old enough, sensible enough, not to be harboring any ridiculous illusions.
David handed him a bundle of cloth—a loose linen shirt and a stiff pair of pants that Julian frankly would not be caught dead in. “For tomorrow morning,” David said. “Unless...I was going to walk down to the cove...”
The invitation was flatly stated, without the slightest inclination of hope that Julian would accept, or refuse. But refusal came naturally to him—the thought of having to carry on a conversation with David, to be exposed to that shifting blue gaze, made him itchy and uncomfortable. Sleeping on a bed of leaves probably would, too, but that sounded like a much more sensible option. He wanted to close his eyes, and have this be done.
David nodded. “See you in the morning,” he said, and slipped outside, the curtain floating back into position with a muted sigh.
“I hope not,” Julian muttered. He tossed the clothes David had given him aside, and after a moment’s hesitation, lowered himself onto the bed. It was surprisingly comfortable—not the least bit itchy. Julian’s eyelids fluttered. The world around him started to fade. Julian was sure that he was coming to his senses, that he was waking up.
He had shut the curtains. The light drifting in was filtered, soft. He lay back against the pillow, taking a moment, a moment—his last moment before the alarm went off.
A heavy weight landed on his stomach. Julian gave an unmanly yell and shot out of bed, scattering leaves everywhere. The naked boy (Rob) tumbled back into the nest, laughing. Julian stared. “I brought you a peach,” the boy said, holding it out. Little wells of juice had formed around his nails where he held the fruit, sticky and dripping.
Julian recoiled. “Why am I still here?”
“Grant brought you,” Rob said. Seeing that Julian was less than enthusiastic about the peach, he bit into it himself. Juice, light and fragrant-smelling, dribbled down his chin.
Rob kept talking. “Are you Grant’s friend? Sometimes we can bring friends. Worth brought his friend Leaven and Dave brought his friend Andy. I wanted to bring my friend Joe but at the last minute he decided not to come.”
For a second Rob’s expression turned glum, but he quickly bounced back—and bounced up, parting the curtain. “I’m going swimming! You can come swimming, too. David said that you can stay even though you’re old, so you don’t have to worry about being sent back. You can stay forever!”
The last word echoed as the boy darted out. Julian’s stomach lurched. He could not be stuck here. Logically, he couldn’t even be here, so how could he be stuck? He had responsibilities.
He should find David. Grant had brought him here, but David was the one keeping him, Julian was convinced. He would find David, he decided, examining and once again rejecting the clothes he had been given. He would explain his position—calmly, reasonably—and David would have no choice but to send him home.
Stepping outside in the bright light of day, he expected things to look less strange than they had through the twilight haze. Instead his eyes were assaulted by a bombardment of rich jewel tones: impossibly vibrant greens and blues, and sunlight so warm he could practically see it adding a golden blush to his skin. He tugged the sleeves of his pajama jacket down over his wrists. He could hear voices. He went toward them.
David was standing at the base of a tall tree, surrounded by a cluster of boys. Several of them were jumping up and down, trying to reach the lowest branch, which was well above their heads. One was kicking the trunk and rhythmically (annoyingly) chanting, “Murray! Murray! Murray!” The boy with the teddy bear tugged at David’s sleeve. “Should I go get Grant?”
But David had caught sight of Julian, was staring at Julian: “No,” he said. “I have a better idea.”
Julian knew he was going to regret it, but still he asked, “What’s going on?”
The boy with the spaceman goggles stepped forward. “The boy climbs freely up the tree / and sees reality / and the things he sees / are bigger than himself / and the things he sees / are his reality.” He waited a beat, then snapped his fingers expectantly.
David snapped back, as did most of the other children, even the ones who were rolling their eyes. Julian snapped once or twice too, because at least the poem had been better than Justice Hoskins’ limericks. “That was good, Deadpan,” David said. The boy’s beam was visible even through his goggles.
“So, what?” Julian asked, turning back to the arching spread of bark and leaves. “You lost a kid up the tree and you’re trying to get him down?”
David nodded.
Julian smirked. “But I thought you can do whatever you want here? Doesn’t that include teetering at the top of a ridiculously high tree?”
David smiled placidly—confident, like he knew something Julian didn’t, like he understood everything and Julian...didn’t. Julian’s gut twisted, that horrible sinking feeling he got sometimes, when in spite of all his effort, he still got shot down, he still wasn’t good enough, he still wasn’t fooling anybody.
“It’s like a ritual,” David said, “getting Murray to come down. Someone needs to go up after him.”
“Peter used to do it,” said the boy with the teddy bear.
“Yes, Peter used to do it,” David said. “Julian.” Eyes a clear liquid blue. “Why don’t you try?”
Julian stared up at the tree, at the small solid patch that was most likely Murray. Both boy and tree were swaying in the breeze, like a giant pendulum in an upside-down world. Julian’s stomach dropped, for an entirely different reason. “You’re joking.”
David’s face was kind. “No.”
“I’m not going up there!” Julian said, somewhat hysterically. “I—I’m not very good with heights—”
He could still remember coming to himself on the roof of the orphanage, his bare toes literally suspended over the edge and the ground spinning below him. They’d had to lock him in at night for months afterward, until they were finally sure he had stopped sleepwalking.
David was watching him again, but before he could speak, Julian felt something hard bounce off his shoulder. “Hey!” Another acorn missile struck his back. “Ow! Quit it!”
The boys laughed. Julian looked to David for support, but he was laughing, too, in his own quiet way. Julian frowned; he felt oddly hurt. People laughing at him behind his back he was used to: but not to his face. Not like this.
“I’ll help you,” David said, and now he wasn’t laughing anymore, was talking about more than just the tree. “But you have to make an effort, too.”
“A little bit of mutual back-scratching?” Julian said. He knew plenty about that.
“Sure,” said David, after a pause. “I’m only asking you to try.”
“Right,” said Julian, “sure.” He glanced up the tree again. If a little kid could do it, how hard could it be?
A small jump enabled him to grab the lowest branch. With both his arms around it, he kicked his legs a bit, then half-pulled himself, half-scrambled up, his bare feet pressing hard against the rough bark of the tree trunk. He hauled himself over the branch until he was straddling it, already breathless. He had a long way to go.
“Small bag of marbles says he falls on his butt!” the one he was pretty sure was called Dave said.
“You’re on!” said Andy.
Above them, Julian scowled, and climbed higher.
Right about now, he should be arriving at work, long before anyone else, unless one of Novelli’s brownnosers had spent the night again. He should be taking care of any business that had arisen during the night, and making sure that Justice Brankin had coffee and bagels and The Washington Post waiting for him when he got in. Then, if he had enough time, Julian would sit down at his desk with his own copy of the Post, calm and quiet, secure under the chambers’ muted lights, in this position his hard work had won him: Julian Lodge, a man who would one day make a name for himself.
Instead he was halfway up a tree in his pajamas, holding on for dear life while a seven-year-old boy looked down at him with curiosity and, Julian was sure, disdain.
“You’re not very good at this,” the boy said.
“Yes, well,” Julian said, awkwardly shifting his grip, “my job doesn’t usually require me to clamber up a tree like a monkey.”
“Sounds like a pretty crummy job,” said the boy. His tone was sympathetic.
“It’s a great job!” Julian declared. “It’s a dream job! There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing!” The boy blinked at him. Julian blushed, newly aware of the ridiculousness of the whole situation. “Why am I telling you this?”
The boy shrugged.
“Look,” Julian said, carefully raising his foot another inch. “Why don’t you just come down? I’m sure there’s...swimming and...fruit and stuff.”
“Grant always sits with me for a while first,” the boy said. “And Peter! Peter would take me up to the very top of the tree and show me every part of the island!”
Julian was really sick of hearing about Peter. “Well, ten points for him,” he said nastily.
Murray’s face fell.
“Oh God—don’t cry!” Julian said. Quickly, he scrambled up the rest of the way and lowered himself onto the branch next to Murray, even though he was far from convinced that it would hold them. It did, though. Julian reached out a hand and awkwardly patted Murray on the back.
“Believe me,” he said, “I wish Peter were here instead of me, too.”
Murray nodded. They sat for a few minutes in silence, Julian trying not to think too hard about how high up they were, or about whether the branch was swaying, or if that was wood snapping he heard. Eventually, Murray reached into his pocket (the movement had the unfortunate effect of making Julian jump, which really did set the branch in motion) and produced a pack of candy cigarettes. He offered one to Julian. At the last second, Julian decided not to reject it. The sugar-sweet taste reminded him of something, he thought, his feet dangling a hundred feet above the surface of the earth. But he couldn’t think what.
The second he was out of the tree, Murray was racing off to play with Hector like nothing had happened. Julian’s reunion with the ground was much less graceful; he stumbled, innate awkwardness and his fear of heights reasserting themselves after the fact. He could feel David’s eyes on him, and felt oddly ashamed: his pajama pants were muddy and the sleeve was torn; there were leaves in his hair.
Perhaps he would be willing to reconsider his position regarding David’s spare clothes.
But David had his own ideas. “Come on,” he said, inclining his head, leading Julian through the dispersing crowd.
“Where are we—” Julian started, before realizing that it didn’t matter. It was all out of his hands here.
David led him through the forest, a winding path that seemed to follow a logic that Julian couldn’t quite grasp. He was beginning to realize, however, that the forest was unlike any he had ever seen before. There were no stinging nettles or sharp branches snapping back. The grass was soft against his bare feet.
“When did you first come here?” he asked. “Who found this place?”
“Peter found it,” David said. Of course. “He founded it. It was a long time ago.”
The woods opened up, widening into a sunbright clearing. In the center of it was a pool that could only be described as crystalline, the water shimmering and impossibly clear. It was being fed by a glistening waterfall, a sparkling sheet of water like a silver curtain. Rob was splashing around at its foot. He saw David and Julian and waved. “It’s nice to be clean!” he sing-songed.
David laughed. “If you’re ready to get messy again, I should tell you that Grant’s been helping Worth rebuild the maze.”
“Really?” Rob clambered up out of the pool. “I’m going to beat Leaven’s record!” He raced off.
“Maze?” Julian asked, despite not really caring about the answer.
“It’s pretty cool,” David said. He pulled his sweatshirt over his head and tossed it aside. “A while ago Worth got the idea of designing a huge labyrinth like a parterre garden. We all compete to see who can get through it the quickest, and then we take it down and Worth builds a new one. They’ve gotten more complicated each time, and now they usually have mud traps and other challenges—it’s really fun.”
“Fun,” said Julian. “This is how you spend your time.”
“Yeah,” said David, and took off his pants.
Julian flushed and turned away. It wasn’t fair that this should follow him here. That even with the universe turned upside-down, that this should remain, the one constant.
When he heard a splash, he chanced a glance back. However, the water was really too clear to do more than slightly obscure anything, and Julian forced his gaze back up. “Maybe I will go check out that maze,” he said.
“Don’t be stupid,” David said. “You’ll be lost within minutes—you’ve yet to establish any connection with the island. Besides, you’re all scratched up and dirty after your adventure in Murray’s tree. And Rob’s right,” he added, ducking his head back, taming the mullet into something a little less shameful, “it is nice to be clean.”
Julian thought about his crisp white sheets and his immaculate suits and ties and perfectly starched cuffs. He missed them so badly he ached. And beneath that ache was the old memory, the old repulsion: of the clothes they’d found him in, of what they’d saved him from, helped him to rise above.
“I would really prefer to shower at home,” he said, resolutely looking no lower than the top of David’s head. “If you would just show me the way. I can’t—I can’t stay here—”
“Sure you can,” David said, and because Julian had been looking in precisely the wrong place, he didn’t notice the position of David’s hand until it was closing around his ankle, yanking him forward and into the water.
He came up sputtering. “Are you nuts?” he shouted. “You can’t—you can’t bully me, like—”
“Shh,” David said, swimming closer, circling Julian like a shark. “Relax. Have some fun. And take off those ridiculous pajamas.”
Julian’s back was pressed hard against one of the rocks, slippery and soft with moss. His fingers scrambled over the surface as David leaned into him, his own fingers nimble. “Let it go,” he whispered, gently unbuttoning, parting the fabric. Julian shivered as the jacket slid from his shoulders and into the water, floating away. “Just let it go.”
Slowly, Julian shook his head.
David’s eyes fluttered closed. His fingers were warm against Julian’s temple. “I know you’re in there,” he whispered. “But I won’t. Not without your permission. I won’t.”
Won’t what? Julian thought, but before he could get up the courage to ask, David was shooting backward through the water. He came up under the waterfall, tilting his head back, water sluicing over his shoulders and his pale, perfect chest. Julian had to force himself to turn away. He dove down deep, his pajama pants still clinging to his legs. The water rippled all around him and he watched it move across his exposed skin, warping and distorting, until he almost didn’t recognize himself anymore.
They cooked dinner over an open fire that Hector lit with a flick of his fingertips. This was too much: there was weird, and then there was weird. “So now you’re an X-Man?” Julian demanded.
“Don’t be stupid,” Hector said, going back to the game of cards he was playing with Murray and Steven. “The X-Men aren’t real.”
Julian turned away from the sound of their laughter and walked over to the boy who seemed to be in charge of cooking. He was one of the youngest ones on the island: very blond and very serious, to the point where Julian had started to get an uncomfortable Children of the Corn-vibe. Then the boy had smiled, wide and bright, and Julian felt like he did sometimes when the Justices made a good decision, a right one—like some great wrong had been fixed, the world made a better place.
“Hey,” said Julian, watching the small hands move through confident chopping motions. “Leon”—speaking the name before he had even fully registered that it was the right one. “Aren’t you a little young to be doing that?”
Leon scraped his ingredients into the simmering pot. “You’re old to be doing what you’re doing,” he said.
Julian’s shoulders stiffened. He’d been somewhat late out of law school, yes, but under the circumstances...
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Playing dress-up,” Leon said.
“I did not choose these clothes!” Julian once again asserted. He most certainly hadn’t, nor would he ever again: David’s pants chafed.
Leon shrugged. Then he carefully lifted up the large wooden spoon. “Taste?”
Julian couldn’t think of a polite way to refuse, so he braced himself, leaning down to take a sip of the stew’s hot broth. The liquid slid past his lips and flavor exploded on his tongue, spicy and sweet and perfectly seasoned. Julian straightened up, surprised. For the first time that he could remember, food tasted like it was supposed to. It didn’t even need a pinch of pepper.
Leon grinned.
They all gathered around in a circle to eat; it reminded Julian of the kind of summer camp he would have claimed to have attended had anyone asked. Julian found himself sitting between Hank and Joe as he ate his stew and drank the glass of cool, slightly fizzy cider he had been given. There were multiple conversations going on: Julian could hear Grant telling a story that seemed, bizarrely, to be about derivatives trading. Leaven appeared to be the only one really following, but eventually the story shifted to something more general about the city where Grant had been living, and the circle hushed, all the other conversations fading away. The children seemed both intrigued and afraid of “the world outside”; next to him, Joe clutched his teddy bear closer. When he glanced over, Julian realized that Joe was tentatively looking at him: and so was Hank: and so was Grant, even as he finished his sentence, as he trailed off. The mouthful of cider Julian had been drinking bumped uncomfortably down his throat. “What?”
“Where did you live?” they asked him. “Did you have your own house? What was it like? Did you grow up there? Did you have friends? Did you have parents? Did they make you feel safe? Did they make you feel at home?”
Julian’s mouth opened. He didn’t like their questions. They reminded him too much of the ones he used to get asked: Do you remember your mother?
“Hey,” David said softly, although his voice carried across the whole circle, perfectly clear. “Remember what Peter used to say?”
“None of that matters here,” said Virgil.
“None of that matters here,” said Anders.
Joe squeezed his bear tight. “None of that matters.”
“He brought you all here,” said Julian, finally figuring it out. They nodded: one or two, then several, then all of them, saying, “Yes,” and “He did,” and “That’s right,” and “Peter.” David didn’t say anything. He looked at Julian.
Julian asked, “Why?”
It may have been the firelight, casting shadows on their faces, but they looked too old, much older than boys, as they turned to him.
“Because,” said Gus.
“Because bad things happen out there,” Steven said.
“But Peter came,” said Michael.
“Peter came,” said Hank, “and drove the monsters away.”
“He saved us,” Leon said.
“He saved us.”
“Oh,” said Julian. He looked down at his hands. “Oh.”
He did what he could, helping to clean the odd assortment of bowls and plates, pumping water into the big wooden sink using the system that Worth and Leaven had built. When they were done, and the boys had wandered off again, Julian walked away from the light of the fire and into the woods. He was a little nervous, but he didn’t think he would get lost. He didn’t think he could, not here.
He walked until the trees receded and the ground drew up short, the high cliff jutting out over the sea. He’d forgotten to roll his sleeves back down after doing the washing up and he shivered a little as the breeze flowed over his bare arms, but it felt good. He felt...
He sensed David coming up behind him before he heard him or saw him. “Yes,” he said, and turned just in time to see David shut his mouth on his question, to see his lips turn up into a grin. “Yes, take me down to the cove.”
They walked side by side in silence. Julian knew where he was going, but he liked having David there to show him.
The cove was a gentle insweep of water, almost completely surrounded. They came out of the trees and onto a slender crescent of soft, sandy beach. Julian reached down and picked up a shell, rolled it around in his hand. When he looked back up at David, his brow was furrowed. He said, “It’s too quiet.”
David nodded. “The mermaids have all left.”
Julian wanted to ask him if he was joking. He knew he wasn’t.
Instead he said, “Why did he leave? Peter?”
David sat down and dug his bare feet into the sand. “He would,” said David, twisting his hands in his lap, “from time to time, he would travel out there, searching for those who needed his help. But he would always come back.”
“Except,” said Julian.
“Except,” echoed David, sifting the sand between his fingers, “one time he didn’t.”
Julian looked out at the crystal-clear water, at the vivid image of the stars reflected back. Diving into that sea would be like swimming in the night sky, Julian knew: rare and wonderful and perfect.
Again he asked, “Why?”
David shrugged: a slow, almost painful roll of his shoulders. “It happens to the best of us. We get lost.”
“Lost,” Julian echoed.
David looked up at him, the movement sudden, his gaze penetrating and sharp. “I looked for you,” he said. His voice was raw, and for the first time since Julian had met him, he looked out of control. It was terrifying.
“I looked and I looked. But I...gave up. I gave up too soon. I’m sorry, I—”
“I’m sorry,” Julian said. And he was, because they still hadn’t found him, the man they were looking for. There was just him, just Julian, lowering himself awkwardly to his knees and reaching out a tentative hand toward David’s shoulder. “I wish—”
David caught his fingers, caught his mouth. Julian wanted to jerk back, but even more he wanted to chase that lost, desperate look from David’s eyes, to give him...
David’s hair was soft and his skin was warm. He tasted safe—even though this was wrong, this was dangerous—and familiar—even though Julian couldn’t remember, wasn’t remembering... “We,” he breathed, pulling back, drawing a finger across the line of David’s cheek. “We never...?”
“No,” David whispered. “Last time, before...we were boys.”
They were men now. For better or worse, Julian thought, kissing David, tentatively touching; for better or worse, they had grown up.
Light crept behind Julian’s eyes and he woke up. It was the middle of the night. A familiar glowing dot was circling above his head. Julian sat up, the sand shifting beneath his body. “What is it, Tink?” he asked, sleepily.
I have something to show you.
He yawned. “Can’t it wait?” He looked at David, curled next to him on the beach. “We’re sleeping.”
She darted closer and tugged sharply at his ear. “Ow! Okay, fine, I’m coming.”
He got up and followed her through the woods. Neither one of them made a sound.
They walked along one of the sloping juts of mountain until they reached a sharp cut in the rock face, a dark hole. “I don’t remember there being a cave here,” he said.
Go in.
“I don’t remember...” Julian said, and suddenly the world shifted, or snapped back. He stared up at the fairy. Her mouth moved—wordlessly to him now, but her gestures were clear. He hesitated once at the opening, then stepped inside.
He was standing in front of his mirror, getting ready for work. He made a last futile effort to get his hair to stay down, then moved on to the things he could change: straightening his suit jacket, pulling tight his cuffs. He peered closer to the mirror’s surface: his tie was somewhat askew. He reached up to adjust it, but the more he moved it, the more he straightened and tugged, the more crooked it became. He would have to start over. Yes, start all over again—the whole outfit! He pulled off his jacket, ripped off his shirt. Trousers and shoes and underclothes—but the jacket’s weight was still heavy and hot against his skin, the tie—still crooked!—a tight band. He dug his fingers in deeper and pulled free the fabric. There were so many layers—even as quickly as he stripped them off, as they piled up beside him on the floor—there were still more of them, jackets and shirts and ties— He’d worked so hard to put them on, to make sure that every button was done up right, and now they wouldn’t come off, off, off—
His fingers dug into the soft skin of his wrists as he fought to find a decent grip. Then he lifted, he pulled, he tore—
His arm jerked out and smashed the mirror, little shards of glass raining all across his bedroom. Spilling out the open window, and down onto the pavement far below.
The world was far below him, and he was above it; he was flying, his arms out and his head back, his body straight and pointed like an arrow. He soared over the island, down through the trees. He could see his boys, his friends—sleeping, or walking together, or swimming in the moonlight. It was too quiet, but they still laughed together, and there would be laughter again. There would be singing again, and shouting and music and joy. He had come home.
Peter landed gently at the water’s edge. David was asleep in the sand, his body curled in on itself, his mouth slack. He looked...different. Peter quirked his head. He supposed it had been a long time.
He knelt at his friend’s side. He had the strangest urge to...to brush a hand over his cheek, to press his mouth to David’s. Peter was in favor of listening to his urges. He leaned in, watching, fascinated, as his breath made David’s eyelashes flutter—dark, fragile lines against his cheek.
David stirred. “Julian...”
He made some noise, some answer in return, and stumbled backward into the sand.
He lay there, sprawled, watching as David woke up the rest of the way. Watching as David’s eyes widened to a startled, icy blue. “Peter?” he said.
“I...” He swallowed. “I think I...” He pulled himself back up to his hands and knees, into a crouch, a perch. “I think I’m kind of both.”
David reached out a hand. He looked like he wanted to caress his ailing mind...which he could do, Julian realized, Peter knew. “How do you feel?”
That was an easier one. “Strange.”
He thought for a moment, then added, “Good”—straightening up, lifting off. He swooped out over the cove, staring down at himself in the glassy water. He felt better now, back in his own clothes. Material, soft and skintight, holding fast to his legs, camouflaging him with the color of the leaves. Although... He touched a hand to his bare throat, then moved it lower, straightening the neckline of his forest-green tunic. That was much better.
Yet still the water beneath him was rippleless and still. He swept lower and touched a hand to it, fingers ghosting over the surface. I’m back, he thought. I didn’t mean to leave, I’m sorry...
It hit him then, the full magnitude of what he had done. He drifted back down to the sand, shoulders slumping. “David...” he said, and he could hear the tremble in his voice. He sounded like a frightened little boy.
“I got so lost...”
“Yes,” David said.
“I...” Peter touched his face, touched the stubble on his cheeks—felt the hair on his chest, felt the full force of his body. “I grew up.”
“Yes.”
“And so did you.”
David nodded.
“And...I like that,” Julian admitted. “Here, I’m allowed to like that.”
David reached out and touched his cheek, cupped the back of his neck, drew their foreheads together. “We can do whatever we want,” he said, and Julian understood why he sounded sad even though he was happy. “Here.”
Peter was coming to understand it, too. “Whatever we want.” He took a breath. “I want to see everybody again.”
“They want to see you,” David promised. “They’ve—we’ve all missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Julian said. “I didn’t mean...”
“And I never meant to give up on you,” David said. He drew back. “I did, though. For a while.”
“I became someone else,” Peter said, “for a while.” He lowered his voice, cheeks flushed. “I was a...a Republican.”
David frowned. “Really?” Then he shook his head. “Well. It’s not like you killed anyone.”
“I hardly think that being in favor of responsible fiscal policy and states’ rights is the equivalent of—” Julian broke off when he saw the weighty look in David’s eyes. “Oh.”
“You’re not the only one who’s lost his way,” David said, seriously. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t still find our way home again.”
“Home,” he said, looking around him: at the trees and the ocean and the shining night sky. At David, watching him with worried, adult eyes. He wanted to put innocence back into them, back into the world. But even, even here—he couldn’t have everything he wanted. Not all at once.
Still, he wanted to help people. He had always wanted that, even when other goals had obscured it, made it faint. So, “I made this place to be our sanctuary,” Peter said. “And I’ll fight to preserve it,” Julian promised.
He said, “I won’t leave. Not again.” And he took David’s hand, and he walked with him, back through the trees. He heard the boys whispering his name as he passed through, gathering around, touching his arms and his hands. He wanted to grab each one and hold on tight, and never, never let go.
Grant was sitting by the fire when they approached, the whole lot of them. The crowd parted and Peter walked between them. He watched as Grant rose awkwardly to his feet. Tentatively, like a man oft-burned, Grant started to open his arms, but before he could move more than a couple of inches, Julian grabbed him, held him. His shoulders were broad and warm; there was forgiveness in every touch.
He could feel David’s hand secure on his shoulder and see his name curving a dozen mouths upward into a smile. Julian hugged Grant tight.
“Thank you for finding me,” he whispered, cheeks damp and streaked with fairy dust. “Thank you," he said, "for bringing me home.”
NOTES:
1. Siria mentioned a while back that she wanted a story in which John Sheppard was Peter Pan. This isn't quite that, but Julian begged and begged to play the part. You know I can’t resist a man in a bowtie. *g*
2. Because it gets pretty crazy after a while, here’s the full cast of characters (in order of appearance):
Julian Lodge (First Monday)
Grant Jansky (Traders)
Joan Leaven (Cube)
David Worth (Cube)
Rob Fitzgerald (Joe’s Wedding)
Joe Dobson (The Penthouse)
Andy (Nothing)
Dave (Nothing)
Deadpan (Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel)
David Kellum (Scanners II)
Murray (Treed Murray)
Hector Freimark (Mutant X)
Steven Lunney (The Boys of St. Vincent)
Leon Linden (Pin)
Hank (Elevated)
Virgil C. Dunn (Cypher)
Anders Raeborne (Darklight)
Gus Gruber (The Triangle)
Michael (Century Hotel)
...with guest appearances by TECG and Jerry.
3. Credit where credit is due: the premise is obviously nicked from the movie Hook, although it's been a really, really long time since I've seen that, so I'm not sure how close bits of this may or may not be. Deadpan's poem is a total rip-off of "Dog" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, because I couldn't write beat poetry to save my life. And the scene where Julian tears off layer after layer of clothing is inspired by The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
But true credit must go tosiriaeve. Have a wonderful birthday, and a wonderful year. I'm going to miss you so much.
siriaeve!I tried to get you something you wanted. (No, not David Hewlett, although I tried for that, too—Canada gets very tetchy when you try to steal her people!) I hope you like it.
Title: Those Who Wander
Fandoms: First Monday/David Hewlett's oeuvre
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~7850 words
Summary: “There’s been some sort of mistake,” Julian said, in the careful-slow tone he reserved for children. "I’m not the person you’re looking for. I’m not supposed to be here.”
A/N: Thanks to
neery, lavvyan, and z_rayne for taking on the bizarre task of betaing this. And as always, to siriaeve, my fannish other half. This is for you. Happy birthday.Those Who Wander
Julian was looking the other way. He didn’t see the man approach, he only felt the sudden constriction around his chest—the air going out of his lungs—and the scratch of hair being pressed against the back of his neck. “It’s you!” said his assailant happily. “I found you!”
Julian batted ineffectually at the hands clasped around his waist and tried to squeeze out of the man’s arms. He had a really firm grip. Julian looked to his colleagues for help, but of course Miguel was too busy laughing his ass off, and Jerry was standing there stupidly, a little ‘O’ of surprise frozen on his face. Christ, did he have to do everything himself? “Call security!” he hissed, then when the man holding him squeezed tighter, nuzzling against his neck, “Hey! Leggo!”
It was not his most mature moment. Julian had always prided himself on being mature.
Jerry was finally unfreezing, stepping forward like he might, if not do the sensible thing and fetch a guard, then at least help Julian pry the human octopus off his person, when the man let go. Almost: one hand still clutched Julian’s sleeve as the man turned to face him, staring up at him, positively beaming. “You have to come back with me!”
“Excuse me,” Julian said, ripping his arm away. “I have work to do.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” Jerry told the stranger gently, though the glare he shot Julian’s way was anything but. “Who are you looking for? Are you lost?”
Julian was already walking away. He could feel the man’s eyes—an intense blue, staring out from a scruffy, bearded face—boring into his back. “Wait!” the man shouted. “Peter!”
Shoulders straight, Julian resolutely turned the corner.
Julian felt out-of-sorts for the rest of the day. He couldn’t concentrate—at one point, he actually had to ask Justice Brankin to repeat himself, which was not only embarrassing, it was deeply unprofessional. He went to splash water on his cheeks and ended up frowning at his face in the mirror: he had a new line on his forehead, one he was pretty positive hadn’t been there the day before.
It was late when he left work—by most standards, although not really by his own. By the time he got home, it was later still. Georgetown was mostly dark, and quite quiet; Julian liked that about it, usually, that it was one of the few sedate pockets in the noisy D.C. area. But tonight it was unsettling. His silent apartment made him feel oddly vulnerable. He closed the bedroom curtains tight.
He awoke to a bright light forcing its way under his eyes. He’d been sure he closed the curtains. He sat up, blinking...and then he was screaming and batting his hands, because he was being attacked by a giant bug. It wasn’t very dignified or manly, but he hated bugs. He really really hated them.
This one was huge—almost the size of his fist—and persistent and kind of glowy. Julian swatted at it, then in a burst of inspiration, reached for the book of legal statutes he’d been reading before bed. He swung and missed, but it was a close thing. When it looped back around...
“No! Stop!” said a familiar voice. “What are you doing?”
Julian yelped again, slipping in a tangle of covers and slamming painfully into the wall. It was the man from the lobby, the one who’d assaulted him. He must have waited, must have followed him home, and now Julian was alone in the apartment with a lunatic... “Stay back!” he said, hefting the book again. “I’ll call the police!”
The man looked like a kicked puppy. “Don’t you recognize me?” he said. “Don’t you know me?”
“No, I most certainly do n—” Julian started, but was distracted again by the big glowy bug. It had landed on the intruder’s shoulder, next to his ear; the man inclined his head, as if he were listening to it. Julian’s cell was in his coat pocket; if he could just inch his way...
The bug was in his face again. Julian went very still: he remembered one of the nuns telling him that that’s what you were supposed to do with bees. This certainly wasn’t a bee, though. It was making some sort of noise, but it wasn’t a buzz—a burble, almost, and through the glow, through the rapid beating of its wings, Julian thought that it almost looked like—
It darted back to the other man, and once again appeared to go into conference with him. This was seeming less and less weird, which was very worrying; Julian needed to do something to regain control over the situation, or—
The man looked up suddenly, mouth downturned, eyes filled with worry. “Tink says you can’t understand her anymore,” he said. “What happened to you, Peter? Why did you leave?”
Julian saw his in. “My name is not Peter,” he said. “You’re mistaken. Now please leave. I can call someone to help you,” he added, because he could be reasonable, he could be compromising; it was how you played the game. “Not get you into trouble. Just...help you.” And your bug, he almost said—almost laughed hysterically. Exposure to the crazy was making him crack up.
The man’s shoulders fell. He had such sad eyes—Julian almost felt bad for him. “Everyone leaves,” he said.
Julian hoped that the resigned tone meant that the man was going to do so as well, but instead he just nodded his head in response to something that the big glowy bug said—right, now who’s delusional, Julian?—then watched it zip off toward the ceiling. Julian couldn’t help himself from following the movement, too—bright glowing streak, like an overgrown firefly. Almost pretty, except suddenly it was like the thing was shedding all over him, and Julian was sneezing and choking on a cloud of shimmery gold dust. His eyes were squeezed shut—he was probably going to have some sort of horrible allergic reaction—so once again he didn’t see the man approach, only felt the moment that his arms wrapped around his back.
“It’s all right,” the man said. “It’s going to be okay, Peter.” Then Julian felt a breeze, felt a lurch as his stomach dropped, and when he opened his eyes and saw pavement, a hundred feet below, he thought that he was falling, that he’d been thrown from the window and was dying. But the ground was receding, not approaching, and he wasn’t falling. He was flying.
Julian screamed.
His—his captor? Kidnapper?—the man who was responsible for all of this still had one arm around Julian’s back, but he wasn’t holding Julian up or supporting him in any way. They were just...flying, the darkened windows and tidy roofs and green trees of Georgetown receding below them. Julian squeezed his eyes shut again; this couldn’t be happening. But he could feel the night air moving all around him, rippling through the thin fabric of his pajamas. He could see the moon looming large and pearlescent in front of them, and the golden glow of the fa—the giant bug lighting their way. Beside him, the strange man’s mouth spread into a wide, crooked smile. As the Earth disappeared behind them, Julian realized that he knew the man’s name.
They landed in the middle of the lushest, greenest forest that Julian had ever seen. The sky was a soft, early-twilight blue-black, and the rising moon (the same but different from the moon they’d left behind) hung low in the sky, illuminating branches heavy with fruit so vibrant and colorful that Julian could taste the juice around the edges of his mouth. They walked through the high grass, and Julian shivered as it softly caressed his bare ankles. The air smelled spicy and rich.
They weren’t alone. Julian could see shadows in the forest, coming toward them through the trees. He was oddly unafraid—his mind felt numb, stunned into a state of shellshocked acceptance. Still, when he saw that the figures running toward them were children—all children, though some were as young as four or five and others were clearly in their early teens—his back stiffened. Children had always made him uncomfortable.
“Grant!” called one of them, a girl with shoulder-length black hair and a pair of crooked glasses perched on her nose. She eagerly allowed Grant to sweep her up into a hug. “You have a beard,” she said, laughing as it scratched against her cheek.
“You were gone a long time,” said the sandy-haired boy at her side. “You got old.”
“Worth!” the girl snapped.
“What?”
A hand tugged at Julian’s pajama pants. The boy standing beside him was completely naked, his hair standing up like he’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Julian started back, and nearly fell over Grant. “I can cross my eyes!” the boy said. “Watch!”
All the other children had been gathered around Grant, but this incredible feat—coupled with “I can also do handstands! Watch!”—was enough to distract them. Or at least to bring Julian more fully to their attention. “Who’s that?” asked one boy, clutching a ratty grey teddy bear more tightly to his chest.
Grant beamed up at Julian. “It’s Peter!” he announced happily. “I found him!”
There was a moment’s hushed silence. Then:
“That’s not Peter,” one of the boys said.
“Worth!”
“What? He’s not! He’s old, he’s even older than David! Older than Grant is now!”
“Is it contagious?” asked another boy, looking up wide-eyed from the stick war he’d been having with yet another boy.
“You can’t catch oldness, dummy,” said his friend. Then his mouth, too, turned down into a worried frown. “Can you?”
“No,” said the girl. She stepped around Grant and stood at Julian’s feet, staring up at him. Julian shifted uncomfortably; the girl adjusted her glasses. “Peter?” she asked.
She sounded so hopeful that Julian almost felt guilty having to tell her the truth. “There’s been some sort of mistake,” he said, in the careful-slow tone he reserved for children. “I’m not Peter; my name is Julian Lodge. I’m not the person you’re looking for. I’m not supposed to be here.”
There was another moment’s silence. A boy with spaceman goggles and what looked like a fake beard drawn on his chin with Magic Marker shook his head. “Man, that’s cold.”
“I told you,” Worth said, though he sounded glum rather than pleased. He stepped forward and gave Grant an awkward hug. “You tried,” he said.
The children were all dispersing, some shaking their heads, others returning almost instantly to their interrupted games. Julian’s brain was re-awakening; he was rapidly becoming aware that he was standing in the middle of a strange forest in his pajamas, on another planet—no, that couldn’t be right. He must have suffered a head injury of some kind.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Can you— What am I supposed to do?”
The girl with the glasses was leading Grant by the hand; she turned and looked at him over her shoulder. “Ask David. He’s been the leader since Peter left.”
Julian let out a frustrated breath. He wondered which of the scrawny, wild-eyed children had...wrestled, he supposed, for the position of leader. “And who’s David?” he called. But the girl had disappeared into the shifting leaves.
Then he turned, and his question answered itself.
There was a man coming toward him. He was wearing leather trousers that looked rather inexpertly sewn and were totally incongruous with his McGill University sweatshirt. His blondish-brown hair was too long in the back—almost a mullet (Julian wrinkled his nose)—and he was young, early twenties at the most, but Julian could already feel a rush of desperate relief at the thought of getting to talk to another adult. But the, the fairy was there, circling around the other man’s head like a halo, and Julian felt a frisson of fear when he saw his eyes: the irises looked frosty blue and blown, deeply penetrating. The man stopped a few paces away from Julian and just stared: like he was staring right into him, seeing things that even Julian didn’t know were there.
The man stared at him for a long time. Then he said, “You look like Arthur Dent.”
Julian scowled. He straightened his shoulders and raised his chin. “I can’t answer for my appearance, as I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and, and...”
“Kidnapped?” asked the man—David, Julian knew; or rather, he’d been told. Quirking an eyebrow, like it was funny. “C’mon,” he said, gesturing as he turned. “I’m sure I can find you something.”
Like Julian would ever touch anything as appalling as David’s clothes.
“Or you can just stay in your PJs,” David said, striding away. “There’s no dress code.”
There was nothing else for him to do. “I noticed,” Julian said, trotting after him. “You really should try to arrange something; one of those children was completely nude—”
David laughed. He turned to look at Julian, over his shoulder; Julian was surprised to see that his eyes weren’t strange, after all: they were a regular blue, warm and friendly. “Rob’s more comfortable unrestricted.”
“So?” Julian said. “You can’t just...do whatever you want!”
“Here you can,” said David, simply. His hands reached out and touched two slender saplings; they parted like curtains, right down to the quiet rustling sound they made as David drew them back. He nodded for Julian to step through, and he did, into what he could only describe as a giant tent, circus-sized, made entirely of bark and leaves, of living trees. The ceiling, high above, was a delicately-woven canopy: Julian had a feeling that it would hold back even the most vicious of rains, but in the daytime, still let in just the right amount of mottled sunlight. The space was airy and pleasant-smelling, intersected by curtains sewn from a variety of different fabrics. As David led Julian between them, he thought he caught glimpses of shadowy figures behind some of the partitions: boys sleeping, and boys reading by flickering candlelight, and boys whispering to each other, huddled in groups or in pairs. He thought he saw the slightly larger form of Grant, bent low in conversation with the dark-haired girl while her friend, Worth, slept peacefully at her side.
“Here,” said David suddenly, throwing back one of the curtains. Inside was a bed of blankets and leaves, almost like a nest, and a small wooden stool with a couple of books and a brass candleholder with a stub of wax stuck on the pricket. Julian felt his lip curl: even his room at the orphanage had been better appointed. Though in an odd way he was relieved that he hadn’t been brought to Peter’s quarters, which he was sure were nicer than these. Relieved that David was at least old enough, sensible enough, not to be harboring any ridiculous illusions.
David handed him a bundle of cloth—a loose linen shirt and a stiff pair of pants that Julian frankly would not be caught dead in. “For tomorrow morning,” David said. “Unless...I was going to walk down to the cove...”
The invitation was flatly stated, without the slightest inclination of hope that Julian would accept, or refuse. But refusal came naturally to him—the thought of having to carry on a conversation with David, to be exposed to that shifting blue gaze, made him itchy and uncomfortable. Sleeping on a bed of leaves probably would, too, but that sounded like a much more sensible option. He wanted to close his eyes, and have this be done.
David nodded. “See you in the morning,” he said, and slipped outside, the curtain floating back into position with a muted sigh.
“I hope not,” Julian muttered. He tossed the clothes David had given him aside, and after a moment’s hesitation, lowered himself onto the bed. It was surprisingly comfortable—not the least bit itchy. Julian’s eyelids fluttered. The world around him started to fade. Julian was sure that he was coming to his senses, that he was waking up.
He had shut the curtains. The light drifting in was filtered, soft. He lay back against the pillow, taking a moment, a moment—his last moment before the alarm went off.
A heavy weight landed on his stomach. Julian gave an unmanly yell and shot out of bed, scattering leaves everywhere. The naked boy (Rob) tumbled back into the nest, laughing. Julian stared. “I brought you a peach,” the boy said, holding it out. Little wells of juice had formed around his nails where he held the fruit, sticky and dripping.
Julian recoiled. “Why am I still here?”
“Grant brought you,” Rob said. Seeing that Julian was less than enthusiastic about the peach, he bit into it himself. Juice, light and fragrant-smelling, dribbled down his chin.
Rob kept talking. “Are you Grant’s friend? Sometimes we can bring friends. Worth brought his friend Leaven and Dave brought his friend Andy. I wanted to bring my friend Joe but at the last minute he decided not to come.”
For a second Rob’s expression turned glum, but he quickly bounced back—and bounced up, parting the curtain. “I’m going swimming! You can come swimming, too. David said that you can stay even though you’re old, so you don’t have to worry about being sent back. You can stay forever!”
The last word echoed as the boy darted out. Julian’s stomach lurched. He could not be stuck here. Logically, he couldn’t even be here, so how could he be stuck? He had responsibilities.
He should find David. Grant had brought him here, but David was the one keeping him, Julian was convinced. He would find David, he decided, examining and once again rejecting the clothes he had been given. He would explain his position—calmly, reasonably—and David would have no choice but to send him home.
Stepping outside in the bright light of day, he expected things to look less strange than they had through the twilight haze. Instead his eyes were assaulted by a bombardment of rich jewel tones: impossibly vibrant greens and blues, and sunlight so warm he could practically see it adding a golden blush to his skin. He tugged the sleeves of his pajama jacket down over his wrists. He could hear voices. He went toward them.
David was standing at the base of a tall tree, surrounded by a cluster of boys. Several of them were jumping up and down, trying to reach the lowest branch, which was well above their heads. One was kicking the trunk and rhythmically (annoyingly) chanting, “Murray! Murray! Murray!” The boy with the teddy bear tugged at David’s sleeve. “Should I go get Grant?”
But David had caught sight of Julian, was staring at Julian: “No,” he said. “I have a better idea.”
Julian knew he was going to regret it, but still he asked, “What’s going on?”
The boy with the spaceman goggles stepped forward. “The boy climbs freely up the tree / and sees reality / and the things he sees / are bigger than himself / and the things he sees / are his reality.” He waited a beat, then snapped his fingers expectantly.
David snapped back, as did most of the other children, even the ones who were rolling their eyes. Julian snapped once or twice too, because at least the poem had been better than Justice Hoskins’ limericks. “That was good, Deadpan,” David said. The boy’s beam was visible even through his goggles.
“So, what?” Julian asked, turning back to the arching spread of bark and leaves. “You lost a kid up the tree and you’re trying to get him down?”
David nodded.
Julian smirked. “But I thought you can do whatever you want here? Doesn’t that include teetering at the top of a ridiculously high tree?”
David smiled placidly—confident, like he knew something Julian didn’t, like he understood everything and Julian...didn’t. Julian’s gut twisted, that horrible sinking feeling he got sometimes, when in spite of all his effort, he still got shot down, he still wasn’t good enough, he still wasn’t fooling anybody.
“It’s like a ritual,” David said, “getting Murray to come down. Someone needs to go up after him.”
“Peter used to do it,” said the boy with the teddy bear.
“Yes, Peter used to do it,” David said. “Julian.” Eyes a clear liquid blue. “Why don’t you try?”
Julian stared up at the tree, at the small solid patch that was most likely Murray. Both boy and tree were swaying in the breeze, like a giant pendulum in an upside-down world. Julian’s stomach dropped, for an entirely different reason. “You’re joking.”
David’s face was kind. “No.”
“I’m not going up there!” Julian said, somewhat hysterically. “I—I’m not very good with heights—”
He could still remember coming to himself on the roof of the orphanage, his bare toes literally suspended over the edge and the ground spinning below him. They’d had to lock him in at night for months afterward, until they were finally sure he had stopped sleepwalking.
David was watching him again, but before he could speak, Julian felt something hard bounce off his shoulder. “Hey!” Another acorn missile struck his back. “Ow! Quit it!”
The boys laughed. Julian looked to David for support, but he was laughing, too, in his own quiet way. Julian frowned; he felt oddly hurt. People laughing at him behind his back he was used to: but not to his face. Not like this.
“I’ll help you,” David said, and now he wasn’t laughing anymore, was talking about more than just the tree. “But you have to make an effort, too.”
“A little bit of mutual back-scratching?” Julian said. He knew plenty about that.
“Sure,” said David, after a pause. “I’m only asking you to try.”
“Right,” said Julian, “sure.” He glanced up the tree again. If a little kid could do it, how hard could it be?
A small jump enabled him to grab the lowest branch. With both his arms around it, he kicked his legs a bit, then half-pulled himself, half-scrambled up, his bare feet pressing hard against the rough bark of the tree trunk. He hauled himself over the branch until he was straddling it, already breathless. He had a long way to go.
“Small bag of marbles says he falls on his butt!” the one he was pretty sure was called Dave said.
“You’re on!” said Andy.
Above them, Julian scowled, and climbed higher.
Right about now, he should be arriving at work, long before anyone else, unless one of Novelli’s brownnosers had spent the night again. He should be taking care of any business that had arisen during the night, and making sure that Justice Brankin had coffee and bagels and The Washington Post waiting for him when he got in. Then, if he had enough time, Julian would sit down at his desk with his own copy of the Post, calm and quiet, secure under the chambers’ muted lights, in this position his hard work had won him: Julian Lodge, a man who would one day make a name for himself.
Instead he was halfway up a tree in his pajamas, holding on for dear life while a seven-year-old boy looked down at him with curiosity and, Julian was sure, disdain.
“You’re not very good at this,” the boy said.
“Yes, well,” Julian said, awkwardly shifting his grip, “my job doesn’t usually require me to clamber up a tree like a monkey.”
“Sounds like a pretty crummy job,” said the boy. His tone was sympathetic.
“It’s a great job!” Julian declared. “It’s a dream job! There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing!” The boy blinked at him. Julian blushed, newly aware of the ridiculousness of the whole situation. “Why am I telling you this?”
The boy shrugged.
“Look,” Julian said, carefully raising his foot another inch. “Why don’t you just come down? I’m sure there’s...swimming and...fruit and stuff.”
“Grant always sits with me for a while first,” the boy said. “And Peter! Peter would take me up to the very top of the tree and show me every part of the island!”
Julian was really sick of hearing about Peter. “Well, ten points for him,” he said nastily.
Murray’s face fell.
“Oh God—don’t cry!” Julian said. Quickly, he scrambled up the rest of the way and lowered himself onto the branch next to Murray, even though he was far from convinced that it would hold them. It did, though. Julian reached out a hand and awkwardly patted Murray on the back.
“Believe me,” he said, “I wish Peter were here instead of me, too.”
Murray nodded. They sat for a few minutes in silence, Julian trying not to think too hard about how high up they were, or about whether the branch was swaying, or if that was wood snapping he heard. Eventually, Murray reached into his pocket (the movement had the unfortunate effect of making Julian jump, which really did set the branch in motion) and produced a pack of candy cigarettes. He offered one to Julian. At the last second, Julian decided not to reject it. The sugar-sweet taste reminded him of something, he thought, his feet dangling a hundred feet above the surface of the earth. But he couldn’t think what.
The second he was out of the tree, Murray was racing off to play with Hector like nothing had happened. Julian’s reunion with the ground was much less graceful; he stumbled, innate awkwardness and his fear of heights reasserting themselves after the fact. He could feel David’s eyes on him, and felt oddly ashamed: his pajama pants were muddy and the sleeve was torn; there were leaves in his hair.
Perhaps he would be willing to reconsider his position regarding David’s spare clothes.
But David had his own ideas. “Come on,” he said, inclining his head, leading Julian through the dispersing crowd.
“Where are we—” Julian started, before realizing that it didn’t matter. It was all out of his hands here.
David led him through the forest, a winding path that seemed to follow a logic that Julian couldn’t quite grasp. He was beginning to realize, however, that the forest was unlike any he had ever seen before. There were no stinging nettles or sharp branches snapping back. The grass was soft against his bare feet.
“When did you first come here?” he asked. “Who found this place?”
“Peter found it,” David said. Of course. “He founded it. It was a long time ago.”
The woods opened up, widening into a sunbright clearing. In the center of it was a pool that could only be described as crystalline, the water shimmering and impossibly clear. It was being fed by a glistening waterfall, a sparkling sheet of water like a silver curtain. Rob was splashing around at its foot. He saw David and Julian and waved. “It’s nice to be clean!” he sing-songed.
David laughed. “If you’re ready to get messy again, I should tell you that Grant’s been helping Worth rebuild the maze.”
“Really?” Rob clambered up out of the pool. “I’m going to beat Leaven’s record!” He raced off.
“Maze?” Julian asked, despite not really caring about the answer.
“It’s pretty cool,” David said. He pulled his sweatshirt over his head and tossed it aside. “A while ago Worth got the idea of designing a huge labyrinth like a parterre garden. We all compete to see who can get through it the quickest, and then we take it down and Worth builds a new one. They’ve gotten more complicated each time, and now they usually have mud traps and other challenges—it’s really fun.”
“Fun,” said Julian. “This is how you spend your time.”
“Yeah,” said David, and took off his pants.
Julian flushed and turned away. It wasn’t fair that this should follow him here. That even with the universe turned upside-down, that this should remain, the one constant.
When he heard a splash, he chanced a glance back. However, the water was really too clear to do more than slightly obscure anything, and Julian forced his gaze back up. “Maybe I will go check out that maze,” he said.
“Don’t be stupid,” David said. “You’ll be lost within minutes—you’ve yet to establish any connection with the island. Besides, you’re all scratched up and dirty after your adventure in Murray’s tree. And Rob’s right,” he added, ducking his head back, taming the mullet into something a little less shameful, “it is nice to be clean.”
Julian thought about his crisp white sheets and his immaculate suits and ties and perfectly starched cuffs. He missed them so badly he ached. And beneath that ache was the old memory, the old repulsion: of the clothes they’d found him in, of what they’d saved him from, helped him to rise above.
“I would really prefer to shower at home,” he said, resolutely looking no lower than the top of David’s head. “If you would just show me the way. I can’t—I can’t stay here—”
“Sure you can,” David said, and because Julian had been looking in precisely the wrong place, he didn’t notice the position of David’s hand until it was closing around his ankle, yanking him forward and into the water.
He came up sputtering. “Are you nuts?” he shouted. “You can’t—you can’t bully me, like—”
“Shh,” David said, swimming closer, circling Julian like a shark. “Relax. Have some fun. And take off those ridiculous pajamas.”
Julian’s back was pressed hard against one of the rocks, slippery and soft with moss. His fingers scrambled over the surface as David leaned into him, his own fingers nimble. “Let it go,” he whispered, gently unbuttoning, parting the fabric. Julian shivered as the jacket slid from his shoulders and into the water, floating away. “Just let it go.”
Slowly, Julian shook his head.
David’s eyes fluttered closed. His fingers were warm against Julian’s temple. “I know you’re in there,” he whispered. “But I won’t. Not without your permission. I won’t.”
Won’t what? Julian thought, but before he could get up the courage to ask, David was shooting backward through the water. He came up under the waterfall, tilting his head back, water sluicing over his shoulders and his pale, perfect chest. Julian had to force himself to turn away. He dove down deep, his pajama pants still clinging to his legs. The water rippled all around him and he watched it move across his exposed skin, warping and distorting, until he almost didn’t recognize himself anymore.
They cooked dinner over an open fire that Hector lit with a flick of his fingertips. This was too much: there was weird, and then there was weird. “So now you’re an X-Man?” Julian demanded.
“Don’t be stupid,” Hector said, going back to the game of cards he was playing with Murray and Steven. “The X-Men aren’t real.”
Julian turned away from the sound of their laughter and walked over to the boy who seemed to be in charge of cooking. He was one of the youngest ones on the island: very blond and very serious, to the point where Julian had started to get an uncomfortable Children of the Corn-vibe. Then the boy had smiled, wide and bright, and Julian felt like he did sometimes when the Justices made a good decision, a right one—like some great wrong had been fixed, the world made a better place.
“Hey,” said Julian, watching the small hands move through confident chopping motions. “Leon”—speaking the name before he had even fully registered that it was the right one. “Aren’t you a little young to be doing that?”
Leon scraped his ingredients into the simmering pot. “You’re old to be doing what you’re doing,” he said.
Julian’s shoulders stiffened. He’d been somewhat late out of law school, yes, but under the circumstances...
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Playing dress-up,” Leon said.
“I did not choose these clothes!” Julian once again asserted. He most certainly hadn’t, nor would he ever again: David’s pants chafed.
Leon shrugged. Then he carefully lifted up the large wooden spoon. “Taste?”
Julian couldn’t think of a polite way to refuse, so he braced himself, leaning down to take a sip of the stew’s hot broth. The liquid slid past his lips and flavor exploded on his tongue, spicy and sweet and perfectly seasoned. Julian straightened up, surprised. For the first time that he could remember, food tasted like it was supposed to. It didn’t even need a pinch of pepper.
Leon grinned.
They all gathered around in a circle to eat; it reminded Julian of the kind of summer camp he would have claimed to have attended had anyone asked. Julian found himself sitting between Hank and Joe as he ate his stew and drank the glass of cool, slightly fizzy cider he had been given. There were multiple conversations going on: Julian could hear Grant telling a story that seemed, bizarrely, to be about derivatives trading. Leaven appeared to be the only one really following, but eventually the story shifted to something more general about the city where Grant had been living, and the circle hushed, all the other conversations fading away. The children seemed both intrigued and afraid of “the world outside”; next to him, Joe clutched his teddy bear closer. When he glanced over, Julian realized that Joe was tentatively looking at him: and so was Hank: and so was Grant, even as he finished his sentence, as he trailed off. The mouthful of cider Julian had been drinking bumped uncomfortably down his throat. “What?”
“Where did you live?” they asked him. “Did you have your own house? What was it like? Did you grow up there? Did you have friends? Did you have parents? Did they make you feel safe? Did they make you feel at home?”
Julian’s mouth opened. He didn’t like their questions. They reminded him too much of the ones he used to get asked: Do you remember your mother?
“Hey,” David said softly, although his voice carried across the whole circle, perfectly clear. “Remember what Peter used to say?”
“None of that matters here,” said Virgil.
“None of that matters here,” said Anders.
Joe squeezed his bear tight. “None of that matters.”
“He brought you all here,” said Julian, finally figuring it out. They nodded: one or two, then several, then all of them, saying, “Yes,” and “He did,” and “That’s right,” and “Peter.” David didn’t say anything. He looked at Julian.
Julian asked, “Why?”
It may have been the firelight, casting shadows on their faces, but they looked too old, much older than boys, as they turned to him.
“Because,” said Gus.
“Because bad things happen out there,” Steven said.
“But Peter came,” said Michael.
“Peter came,” said Hank, “and drove the monsters away.”
“He saved us,” Leon said.
“He saved us.”
“Oh,” said Julian. He looked down at his hands. “Oh.”
He did what he could, helping to clean the odd assortment of bowls and plates, pumping water into the big wooden sink using the system that Worth and Leaven had built. When they were done, and the boys had wandered off again, Julian walked away from the light of the fire and into the woods. He was a little nervous, but he didn’t think he would get lost. He didn’t think he could, not here.
He walked until the trees receded and the ground drew up short, the high cliff jutting out over the sea. He’d forgotten to roll his sleeves back down after doing the washing up and he shivered a little as the breeze flowed over his bare arms, but it felt good. He felt...
He sensed David coming up behind him before he heard him or saw him. “Yes,” he said, and turned just in time to see David shut his mouth on his question, to see his lips turn up into a grin. “Yes, take me down to the cove.”
They walked side by side in silence. Julian knew where he was going, but he liked having David there to show him.
The cove was a gentle insweep of water, almost completely surrounded. They came out of the trees and onto a slender crescent of soft, sandy beach. Julian reached down and picked up a shell, rolled it around in his hand. When he looked back up at David, his brow was furrowed. He said, “It’s too quiet.”
David nodded. “The mermaids have all left.”
Julian wanted to ask him if he was joking. He knew he wasn’t.
Instead he said, “Why did he leave? Peter?”
David sat down and dug his bare feet into the sand. “He would,” said David, twisting his hands in his lap, “from time to time, he would travel out there, searching for those who needed his help. But he would always come back.”
“Except,” said Julian.
“Except,” echoed David, sifting the sand between his fingers, “one time he didn’t.”
Julian looked out at the crystal-clear water, at the vivid image of the stars reflected back. Diving into that sea would be like swimming in the night sky, Julian knew: rare and wonderful and perfect.
Again he asked, “Why?”
David shrugged: a slow, almost painful roll of his shoulders. “It happens to the best of us. We get lost.”
“Lost,” Julian echoed.
David looked up at him, the movement sudden, his gaze penetrating and sharp. “I looked for you,” he said. His voice was raw, and for the first time since Julian had met him, he looked out of control. It was terrifying.
“I looked and I looked. But I...gave up. I gave up too soon. I’m sorry, I—”
“I’m sorry,” Julian said. And he was, because they still hadn’t found him, the man they were looking for. There was just him, just Julian, lowering himself awkwardly to his knees and reaching out a tentative hand toward David’s shoulder. “I wish—”
David caught his fingers, caught his mouth. Julian wanted to jerk back, but even more he wanted to chase that lost, desperate look from David’s eyes, to give him...
David’s hair was soft and his skin was warm. He tasted safe—even though this was wrong, this was dangerous—and familiar—even though Julian couldn’t remember, wasn’t remembering... “We,” he breathed, pulling back, drawing a finger across the line of David’s cheek. “We never...?”
“No,” David whispered. “Last time, before...we were boys.”
They were men now. For better or worse, Julian thought, kissing David, tentatively touching; for better or worse, they had grown up.
Light crept behind Julian’s eyes and he woke up. It was the middle of the night. A familiar glowing dot was circling above his head. Julian sat up, the sand shifting beneath his body. “What is it, Tink?” he asked, sleepily.
I have something to show you.
He yawned. “Can’t it wait?” He looked at David, curled next to him on the beach. “We’re sleeping.”
She darted closer and tugged sharply at his ear. “Ow! Okay, fine, I’m coming.”
He got up and followed her through the woods. Neither one of them made a sound.
They walked along one of the sloping juts of mountain until they reached a sharp cut in the rock face, a dark hole. “I don’t remember there being a cave here,” he said.
Go in.
“I don’t remember...” Julian said, and suddenly the world shifted, or snapped back. He stared up at the fairy. Her mouth moved—wordlessly to him now, but her gestures were clear. He hesitated once at the opening, then stepped inside.
He was standing in front of his mirror, getting ready for work. He made a last futile effort to get his hair to stay down, then moved on to the things he could change: straightening his suit jacket, pulling tight his cuffs. He peered closer to the mirror’s surface: his tie was somewhat askew. He reached up to adjust it, but the more he moved it, the more he straightened and tugged, the more crooked it became. He would have to start over. Yes, start all over again—the whole outfit! He pulled off his jacket, ripped off his shirt. Trousers and shoes and underclothes—but the jacket’s weight was still heavy and hot against his skin, the tie—still crooked!—a tight band. He dug his fingers in deeper and pulled free the fabric. There were so many layers—even as quickly as he stripped them off, as they piled up beside him on the floor—there were still more of them, jackets and shirts and ties— He’d worked so hard to put them on, to make sure that every button was done up right, and now they wouldn’t come off, off, off—
His fingers dug into the soft skin of his wrists as he fought to find a decent grip. Then he lifted, he pulled, he tore—
His arm jerked out and smashed the mirror, little shards of glass raining all across his bedroom. Spilling out the open window, and down onto the pavement far below.
The world was far below him, and he was above it; he was flying, his arms out and his head back, his body straight and pointed like an arrow. He soared over the island, down through the trees. He could see his boys, his friends—sleeping, or walking together, or swimming in the moonlight. It was too quiet, but they still laughed together, and there would be laughter again. There would be singing again, and shouting and music and joy. He had come home.
Peter landed gently at the water’s edge. David was asleep in the sand, his body curled in on itself, his mouth slack. He looked...different. Peter quirked his head. He supposed it had been a long time.
He knelt at his friend’s side. He had the strangest urge to...to brush a hand over his cheek, to press his mouth to David’s. Peter was in favor of listening to his urges. He leaned in, watching, fascinated, as his breath made David’s eyelashes flutter—dark, fragile lines against his cheek.
David stirred. “Julian...”
He made some noise, some answer in return, and stumbled backward into the sand.
He lay there, sprawled, watching as David woke up the rest of the way. Watching as David’s eyes widened to a startled, icy blue. “Peter?” he said.
“I...” He swallowed. “I think I...” He pulled himself back up to his hands and knees, into a crouch, a perch. “I think I’m kind of both.”
David reached out a hand. He looked like he wanted to caress his ailing mind...which he could do, Julian realized, Peter knew. “How do you feel?”
That was an easier one. “Strange.”
He thought for a moment, then added, “Good”—straightening up, lifting off. He swooped out over the cove, staring down at himself in the glassy water. He felt better now, back in his own clothes. Material, soft and skintight, holding fast to his legs, camouflaging him with the color of the leaves. Although... He touched a hand to his bare throat, then moved it lower, straightening the neckline of his forest-green tunic. That was much better.
Yet still the water beneath him was rippleless and still. He swept lower and touched a hand to it, fingers ghosting over the surface. I’m back, he thought. I didn’t mean to leave, I’m sorry...
It hit him then, the full magnitude of what he had done. He drifted back down to the sand, shoulders slumping. “David...” he said, and he could hear the tremble in his voice. He sounded like a frightened little boy.
“I got so lost...”
“Yes,” David said.
“I...” Peter touched his face, touched the stubble on his cheeks—felt the hair on his chest, felt the full force of his body. “I grew up.”
“Yes.”
“And so did you.”
David nodded.
“And...I like that,” Julian admitted. “Here, I’m allowed to like that.”
David reached out and touched his cheek, cupped the back of his neck, drew their foreheads together. “We can do whatever we want,” he said, and Julian understood why he sounded sad even though he was happy. “Here.”
Peter was coming to understand it, too. “Whatever we want.” He took a breath. “I want to see everybody again.”
“They want to see you,” David promised. “They’ve—we’ve all missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Julian said. “I didn’t mean...”
“And I never meant to give up on you,” David said. He drew back. “I did, though. For a while.”
“I became someone else,” Peter said, “for a while.” He lowered his voice, cheeks flushed. “I was a...a Republican.”
David frowned. “Really?” Then he shook his head. “Well. It’s not like you killed anyone.”
“I hardly think that being in favor of responsible fiscal policy and states’ rights is the equivalent of—” Julian broke off when he saw the weighty look in David’s eyes. “Oh.”
“You’re not the only one who’s lost his way,” David said, seriously. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t still find our way home again.”
“Home,” he said, looking around him: at the trees and the ocean and the shining night sky. At David, watching him with worried, adult eyes. He wanted to put innocence back into them, back into the world. But even, even here—he couldn’t have everything he wanted. Not all at once.
Still, he wanted to help people. He had always wanted that, even when other goals had obscured it, made it faint. So, “I made this place to be our sanctuary,” Peter said. “And I’ll fight to preserve it,” Julian promised.
He said, “I won’t leave. Not again.” And he took David’s hand, and he walked with him, back through the trees. He heard the boys whispering his name as he passed through, gathering around, touching his arms and his hands. He wanted to grab each one and hold on tight, and never, never let go.
Grant was sitting by the fire when they approached, the whole lot of them. The crowd parted and Peter walked between them. He watched as Grant rose awkwardly to his feet. Tentatively, like a man oft-burned, Grant started to open his arms, but before he could move more than a couple of inches, Julian grabbed him, held him. His shoulders were broad and warm; there was forgiveness in every touch.
He could feel David’s hand secure on his shoulder and see his name curving a dozen mouths upward into a smile. Julian hugged Grant tight.
“Thank you for finding me,” he whispered, cheeks damp and streaked with fairy dust. “Thank you," he said, "for bringing me home.”
NOTES:
1. Siria mentioned a while back that she wanted a story in which John Sheppard was Peter Pan. This isn't quite that, but Julian begged and begged to play the part. You know I can’t resist a man in a bowtie. *g*
2. Because it gets pretty crazy after a while, here’s the full cast of characters (in order of appearance):
Julian Lodge (First Monday)
Grant Jansky (Traders)
Joan Leaven (Cube)
David Worth (Cube)
Rob Fitzgerald (Joe’s Wedding)
Joe Dobson (The Penthouse)
Andy (Nothing)
Dave (Nothing)
Deadpan (Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel)
David Kellum (Scanners II)
Murray (Treed Murray)
Hector Freimark (Mutant X)
Steven Lunney (The Boys of St. Vincent)
Leon Linden (Pin)
Hank (Elevated)
Virgil C. Dunn (Cypher)
Anders Raeborne (Darklight)
Gus Gruber (The Triangle)
Michael (Century Hotel)
...with guest appearances by TECG and Jerry.
3. Credit where credit is due: the premise is obviously nicked from the movie Hook, although it's been a really, really long time since I've seen that, so I'm not sure how close bits of this may or may not be. Deadpan's poem is a total rip-off of "Dog" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, because I couldn't write beat poetry to save my life. And the scene where Julian tears off layer after layer of clothing is inspired by The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
But true credit must go to
siriaeve. Have a wonderful birthday, and a wonderful year. I'm going to miss you so much.
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Once again, I express regret that we can't squee over SGA together. *pout* Isn't there some stupid show you could hook me on in return?
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I am in awe.
*klo*
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I need to watch more Joe and David films...but that was good!
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I love the story, though. Julian finding his way back out of the restraints he's built for himself. And the growing up. Poor Peter. It does sound like fun, at the end, though - all of them on the island together :) That'll sort him out soon enough. And awww, Grant, and awww, Dave. And Rob and his nekkidness! And the Dawn-Treader-esque scene (which I spotted and loved, because it fits so well here). Awesomeness.
omg island full of baby Hewletts
PS: Are you doing a central post for Things For Siria? I seem to remember that you were going to.
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Do you think I should? Won't it be redundant, 'cause she'll see most (and has already seen some) of it anyway? But I will if you so advise.
I'm glad you liked the story!
omg island full of baby Hewletts
That was my thought almost exactly. =)
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Well, I thought it might be nice and central. Easy reference, as it were. On the other hand, if you have eg already shown her
I'm glad you liked the story!
It was v. cool! :) I would have offered to beta, but had seen precisely none of the things you asked for...
That was my thought almost exactly. =)
It is a good thought. I approve. Thoughts like that should be encouraged and rewarded.
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I want Sheppard to be the Pan now.
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“Because bad things happen out there,” Steven said.
was like a sucker-punch as I was reading along, because wow, did that movie and DH's portrayal of Steven break me.
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Secondly, while getting my hair done, I called the GHD hair straighteners DHDs. I have Atlantis on the brain.
Thirdly, OMG I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. I started reading this in the car on the way down. I got to the end of the first page while we were sitting on O' Connell Bridge, and I was sorely tempted to get out of the car, run back to college and squish you. The Peter Pan thing! And, and Julian and Grant! And Rob with the naked and the cleanliness! And the little confession at the end about being a Republican, and the fear of heights, and Hector not being an X-Man, and, and, the fact that this is possibly the biggest crossover in the history of ever! SO MUCH HEWLETT, I AM VERKLEMPT.
Oh, and Deadpan's beat poetry! I actually had a monstrous fit of giggles at that (and his beard! drawn on with marker!) somewhere around Kildare, and my dad asked me if I was okay.
And I was okay. BECAUSE THIS IS AWESOME. AND GRANT GOT THE BEST HUG IN THE WORLD, EVER, AT THE END. I love you so much.
I am also much more amused than I should be at the fact that I knew exactly who all the Hewlett characters were without looking at the notes at the end.
*begins to look for tickets to the US. puts on Pegasus underwear*
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Secondly, while getting my hair done, I called the GHD hair straighteners DHDs.
Hee! I'm sure it could be passed off as a slip of the tongue. Although it might also be a good way to catch out other fans...
I am SO GLAD you like the story. I really wanted to do Peter Pan for you, but John wouldn't cooperate, and then Julian was all cute and uptight and...yeah. And the Island of Hewletts...it's Daveania! For real! (We should go there!)
I am also much more amused than I should be at the fact that I knew exactly who all the Hewlett characters were without looking at the notes at the end.
I am not surprised. You are very talented! *vbg*
*begins to look for tickets to the US. puts on Pegasus underwear*
1. YAY!
2. All comments should end thus. And did you see that we've apparently started a trend?
3. YAAAAAAAAAAAY!
I hope the rest of your birthday is fantastic (or at least survivable). Thank you so much for putting up with me all year; you made Ireland welcoming and wonderful. *glomps you* *gets verklempt again*
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And the Island of Hewletts...it's Daveania! For real! (We should go there!)
YES. For it is my birthright to go forth and visit the land of my true cultural heritage. It's totally enshrined in the UN Charter on Human Rights.
And this story is awesome. I love the way your mind works.
Thank you so much for putting up with me all year; you made Ireland welcoming and wonderful.
No, it should be me thanking you for putting up with me and making me laugh and goofing around with me and just generally being a wonderful, wonderful friend. :)
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I still say you should deal with this by talking loudly about David Hewlett's ass and gay sex and the true love of Rodney and John. Trust me, the subject will never come up again!
...Possibly because she won't be speaking to you, but...
No, it should be me thanking you for putting up with me and making me laugh and goofing around with me and just generally being a wonderful, wonderful friend.
Can I say that meeting you was probably the best part of coming here without it sounding really cheesy and kind of gay? Because it's true.
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Can I say that meeting you was probably the best part of coming here without it sounding really cheesy and kind of gay? Because it's true.
Well, if it's really cheesy and kind of gay, then I'm the corniest early-season Willow Rosenberg that ever was. *nods firmly* Because getting to know you has been really, really wonderful.
Damned lack of instant teleporting.
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Yikes! What did you do? How did you get them back? That would not be the story to be found with, especially in a Catholic family...
Perhaps with the combined powers of two corny, early-season Willows, we can invent a teleporter?
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Perhaps with the combined powers of two corny, early-season Willows, we can invent a teleporter?
A teleporter, and we can acquire a Rodney McKay or two. Or three. And maybe a Flan.
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I totally had IMDB open, so I could keep track of the boys. *g* Rob, the naked boy really had me giggling. It's cool that you chose some of DH's more broken characters to rescue and take to Neverland. I'm going to have to go finish watching Scanners II now. *sigh*
The hive mind is a funny thing. I had a Sheppard as Peter Pan idea a few weeks ago. Yours turned out very different and oh so much better.
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Also, forget the Pegasus galaxy - I wanna gate to the Planet of the Hewletts!
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Beautiful.
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made me laugh and laugh. :)
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That was such a delight. :D
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must go finish the fic but just wanted to say this now :D
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There have been some good stories, but this is the best.
I tried watching First Monday when it originally aired and couldn't due to personal difficulties with Julian's character. He reminded me of too many bad things at that point. I was a bit hesitant to read this but I'm so glad I decided to take the plunge. Julian as Peter - you took an interesting idea and created brilliance.
Hook doesn't appear in this story but did you ever decide who had the part? And what about Tink?
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