Hes Just A Lost Boy.whatever Im Not Doing This Rn - Tumblr Posts

the art of losing (and then, again, being found)

oikawa; 2,208 words; fluff and fluff and straight till morning -- also fulfilling my peter pan au for the 31 days of aus; dedicated to @fuckinglevi

for as long as the world can remember, there has always been a peter — a running away kind of boy — and there has always been a wendy — a learning to fly kind of girl.

for as long as he can remember, oikawa has always been lost. he’s just never been fussed about the losing bit. because you see, for as long as he can remember, there’s always been the second star to the right, the brightest on the horizon, and if he’s got that, then at least he always knows where he is — physically, he means. so he can’t be that lost, right? even if he is the head of the lost boys, and it’s kind of their thing to be — well… lost.

he meets you on a balcony at dusk, right after sunset, when the sky is still light enough to see, but dark enough for the first glimmer of stars. he meets you in the midst of your last, lingering daydreams, and it was this that drew him to you, inexplicably, irrevocably. it was gravity and dusk and the sinking sun. it was truth and wandering and knowing you’re the one.

“you look like you’re thinking about something real serious,” he says. to which you yelp and nearly stumble off your feet. you clutch at your metaphorical pearls and slate a glare at him the way you’d seen your momma do at passersby when they jeer or say something unsightly.

“you scared me!”

oikawa cocks his head, “mah — you don’t seem all that scare-able but… i might be wrong.” his grin is sly and catlike and you can’t help but blush.

“i — i’m not scared!” you puff out your chest and let yourself take him in — him and his wind-swept hair and sky-kissed cheeks, the dulcet light of fading day draped across his shoulders like a lingering promise.

“good! then you’ll do just fine,” oikawa says, jerking his chin towards the darkening sky with a toothy grin.

“f-fine for what?” you ask.

oikawa sighs a soul-shaking sigh, “for getting lost, of course!”

you frown, “for… getting lost?”

“yeah! c’mon — it’s easy — here, i’ll help you up —” he holds out his hand, crouching on the wide white banisters of your second floor bedroom, the small terrace overlooking your family gardens. you lick your lips and peer over the edge. it seems like an awful long way to fall, if you were to fall that is.

“but… what if…” you crease your brows and bite your lips.

“i won’t let you fall. c’mon — i promise.”

you look up, and your eyes catch on the crescent moon curve of oikawa’s smile. behind him, the sky is a velvet skein, studded with so many gem-like stars. you want to run your fingers over them, wonder if they’d catch beneath your palms like the tiny pearls on your momma’s favorite black dress —

“okay then.” you say, reaching up to take his hand.

he smiles, something sweet, something real — and pulls you up beside him.

that was three, or four, or maybe even five years ago. and since then, you’d learned so much from him, met all his lost boys, been to the edge of the earth and over it — to neverland and then back again.

you’d met the marveling mermaids, the nebulous tree-nymphs, the flamingo-dotted lagoons, and the treacherous trails that leads up to the ever-rushing waterfall, where legend says that the first ever lost boy and the first ever lost girl had held hands and jumped —

“ — and they were never seen again…” oikawa says, the campfire casting brilliant orange shadows dancing across the planes of his laughing face.

you laugh, rolling your eyes as you lay back on the soft grasses and cast your eyes up at the sea of never-ending stars.

a few minutes later, you feel a body settle in the grass next to you. and you don’t have to look over to know who it is. by now, you know oikawa by mere presence, by the way his body cuts through the air, by the pattern of his breaths, by the way his laughter rings against a moonless night.

“do you ever miss it?” you ask, not looking at him.

“miss what?” he asks, and his voice is light and playful, though you can feel him go still.

something — something holds him still, even when he wants to sway with the tall grasses and sing with the stars. he stays, his eyes fixed on you.

“home,” you say.

oikawa licks his lips and casts his eyes up. he inches closers to you, close enough for his leg to brush against yours. he doesn’t answer.

because how is he to tell you that he’d long since forgotten what his home had looked like? he knows he must have had one — all the lost boys do. but isn’t it their job, then, to be lost as they are. isn’t it part of who they are to be here and there and nowhere, all at once?

how’s he to tell you that ever since the day he met you — you were the only place that’d ever felt like home?

that not even this vast neverland could ever replace you?

“i…” his lips are dry and his throat is drier. he swallows hard and looks for the second star to the right and straight on till morning and —

he shakes his head, and thinks he oughta try something different.

“do… do you ever miss… home?”

you laugh, pillowing your head on your interlocked hands. and it’d be a lie for him to say that he hadn’t noticed the change in you (and the changes in himself), the way that your round, girlish cheeks had slimmed, the way his own childish jaw had hardened, had lengthened in the days and months and… had it really been years? since he’d known you?

“sometimes… the things i can remember of it, that is,” you say.

oikawa bites back a wince. because of course — of course, you’d still remember those wide, white banisters, and that beautiful rose-filled garden. of course you’d still remember the lace-trimmed curtains that had hung over your huge french windows. of course, he couldn’t expect you to forget your darling mother and your darling father and your darling, ever-so-darling life — the one that you’d left behind.

but… he’d be remiss to say that he hadn’t at least hoped.

“come with me,” you say, turning your smile at him, and he reacts too late. he knows he is helpless against it — your smile.

your smile, your smile — your smile.

the sunlight and moonlight and distilled-down starlight of it all.

he could get drunk on it — even if he’d never really know what that word had meant in the first place, he thinks — he knows. it must be something like this. something like the dizziness that fills him nearly to the brim, the weightlessness of the world, even when he’s sitting perfectly still.

“i — i can’t.” he looks down at his interlaced fingers.

“why not?”

“i’m — i’m a lost boy,” its a weak stab at his usual bravado. he knows, and yet…

you slate him a dubious glance.

“well… you found me, didn’t you?”

he gapes. he has no good answer. because you’re right — he had found you. but… hadn’t that been his job? to find you and then to lead you… but to lead you what? astray? he didn’t like to think of himself as someone who leads people astray but… isn’t that what lost-people are?

“you… i…” oikawa stutters, frowning as he tries to piece together his thoughts .

you sit up, stretching your fingers towards the endless stars of the milky way, cast about the sky like so many careless, thoughtless points of light.

“come with me. you’ll be alright… and if you ever wanted to come back here… you’ll be able to find it again.”

oikawa shakes his head, “no… neverland isn’t for those who have been found… it’s —”

you sigh, rolling your eyes, “only for the lost boys and girls and ones who never grow up… yes, yes, i know… but…” you chew on your lips and twist your fingers, “what if… what if i wanna grow up? but i wanna still be your friend too? what then?”

oikawa feels his breath catch in his chest, like a sailor on the first notes of a siren’s deadly song.

“t-then… i guess you have to choose…” but even he can tell that there’s no conviction there, that doubt has already seeped the cracks and crevices of his wandering heart.

you heave a deep sigh and knit your arms, “well, that seems like a raw deal to me!”

oikawa blinks, startled at the hardness to your voice. and then, he starts to laugh, a bright, orange peels and sunrise kind of sound, a light, owl-feathers and starlight kind of sound. he laughs and laughs, and eventually, all his lost boys are laughing with him, holding their bellies and rolling on the soft, tall, flamingo-grazed grasses.

“i-it’s not funny!” you insist, your cheeks burning as you watch them all, rolling around in laughter, great, sharp peels of it echoing towards and eternally lightening horizon.

“b-but it is! a-and you’re right!” oikawa finally wipes at his eyes, still grinning wide as he straightens up again, dusting his clothes of the stray bits of grass, “i think it’s time for me to take you home.”

he reaches out a hand and for the first time in forever, you hesitate.

how many times had you reached out to take his hand? how many times had he held you strong and fast — just like the first time he’d taught you how to fly.

“c’mon… trust me.”

you smile, and you take his hand.

later — much later — when walking the moonlit paths of your very own rose garden in your very own home, you’d wonder about the miraculous days you’d spent in neverland. about how surreal they seemed, even now, like the frames of a long-forgotten dream.

“darling, what are you thinking about?” oikawa smiles as he hooks his chin over your shoulder and loops his arms around your waist. his voice is sweet and light and husky as the dusk, settling over the far horizon.

“nothing… just… wondering…”

“about what?”

you let your head fall onto his shoulder, letting your gaze trail upwards towards the first of the flickering stars.

“about… the flamingos. and the mermaid lagoon.”

“oh, i’m sure they’re being well taken care of,” his voice is rich and full of laughter, even as he spins you round to brush his lips against yours, his eyes are the color of glowing amber, sharp and hard and everlasting, “i left very specific instructions to iwa, you know.”

you roll your eyes, “i know, but…”

“ah, ah — no but’s — except maybe this one —”

you squeak as his grin twists lascivious and his hands wander south.

“darling!” you collapse into oikawa’s chest, laughing as he swings you around, dipping you low to capture your lips, kissing you sweet, kissing you full, kissing you till your breath is nothing more than a hummingbird-yearning in the center of your chest.

“yes?”

you licks your lips, your cheeks warm, “do you… ever miss it?”

“what? neverland?”

you shrug, casting your eyes up towards the now star-strewn sky.

“i suppose sometimes… it’s hard not to, isn’t it? but…” he grins again, tugging you to him as he stars to hum and your steps fall in line with his, the pair of you swaying in the light of the shy, waning moon, beneath the silver-kissed hems of silken clouds.

“but… what?” you ask, pressing your cheek to his broad chest, counting the steady badump-badump of his very solid heart.

oikawa wraps his arms around you and holds you tight.

“you found me… didn’t you?”

you smile; you nod; you keep on dancing in your moonlit garden.

“do you regret it?” you ask, after a long, long while.

oikawa scoffs, “do you?”

“do i what?” you look up.

“do you regret it? being found?”

you lick your lips as you consider his question.

“no,” you say, “not one bit… because i got to get lost with you.”

“then… there’s your answer,” he says, as he leans down to press his forehead against yours.

and far, far above you, the second star to the right flickers and winks and shines, acting as a guide for all those who are lost, and all those still in the process of being found — it shines and it shines, bright and bright and bright.

the second from the right, and straight on till morning light, right on to a promised ever — neverland.