The typical.  Paramount owns everything and everyone, and would
probably be highly displeased to read this.  Therefore, if you're
under 18 or offended by this sort of thing, well, after you read
it, you should feel very ashamed of yourself.
 
 
Peter Pan
by Nancy Brown (nancy@rat.org)
Copyright 1995
 
 
     He was beginning to hate nighttime.  His days were always
filled with flurried activity of one sort or another.  He would
usually be out among them, the people that filled his world now,
offering help, advice, or just a listening ear bent to hear
another tale of triumph or woe.  When he'd started this mad task
of his, he'd been disturbed at the bustle of life that surged and
teemed everywhere he looked.  Now it was merely another facet of
his life, to move through the tide as a calming wind, healing
spirits long-wounded and dying.  During the day, he never had
time to regret the past.
     Night was a different story.  With all the others slumbering
in tiny dreams, he had time to think, to remember with a cursedly
perfect memory.  The night stripped him of his calm exterior,
leaving someone else of whom he had been unaware for most of his
life.  While his associates, and yes some of them he even dared
to call friends, slept, he would lie staring at the ceiling,
listening to his old-fashioned clock, trying to find a way to rid
himself of the thoughts that came unbidden when he closed his
eyes.  Sometimes, the nights were so bad that he could not sleep
at all, and then he would snap at the nearest target.  Like
today.
     He shifted position, trying to fall asleep again.  There had
been a time when he could have made himself shut down for the few
hours of dreams he allowed himself.  That had been a long time
ago, before the strange thoughts had come to him and driven out
all hope of rest.  He could hear the clock ticking, and attempted
not to think of the person who'd given it to him.  The effort was
futile; the avoidance only pushed the thoughts closer, a fact of
which he was certain that same friend would remind him.
     He closed his eyes and remembered.
     Once upon a time, he had not been so troubled.  He had once
had friends around him, good friends, and they had all been
immortal as far as he had been concerned.  He thought of a dozen
times when it had looked like the end of their journeys together,
when the danger they were facing was just too much.  He recalled
an attack by space-faring pirates, when he was certain the ship
would be lost.  He had prepared for the end of his existence,
thinking idly that perhaps he would achieve his impossible goal
in the next, only to watch death slip silently away from them one
more time.  He'd chased it away himself many times.  He had
wondered back then, with a curiosity more intellectual than
anything else, what it would have been like to die there, whether
he would have continued in some form, or been rendered dust to
drift along the spaceways for eternity.  Sometimes, after they
had escaped, he had found himself almost desiring that they had
not, just for the experience.  This had led to a large number of
altercations with his crewmates, some of whom thought him more
cold than the space they travelled.  He hadn't been cold, merely
curious.  Wasn't that the nature of science?  However, he had
observed that humans often had a problem with that.
     After a while, he began to believe that his closest friends
would be as ageless as the stars.  He had known otherwise, of
course.  He had known that the time would come when he would
stand watching his shadow dance upon their graves and he would
mourn them in his own way.  They had known it, too, and he had
seen so many times the knowledge in their eyes, how they would
see grey hairs and wrinkles reflected back at them in still
pools, while his face remained as it had the day they had met. 
He knew that some of them had resented him for that, but back
then, he had not cared.
     As it was, things had not quite worked out that way. 
Despite what he had thought, he had not buried them all.  He had
not accounted for too many factors, about how time and space
would pass through and over them.  Not everyone had died, nor was
everyone old yet.  Somehow, the neverland of the vessel that
called them and bound them had rendered a few of the other Lost
Boys almost as ageless as he.
     But Neverland was not nearly so kind to lost girls.
     There had been one person who had never called him cold, had
never looked on him with envy for his lifespan, had only given
him warm smiles and gentle words.  He saw her face before him, a
smile just touching those soft lips that he could still feel
pressed to his.  Damn this memory of his, anyway.
     She appeared as on the day he'd first seen her, young, not
quite innocent, but gentle and unafraid.  They had been friends
of a sort from the beginning, but he'd known that her heart was
given to another and had never thought about her as more than a
good friend.  Indeed, there was no way he *could* have seen her
as anything else.  Back then, he'd been all business, before his
heart had found the way to feel.  Even after that one *other*
time they had shared and never spoken of again, the mindless
grappling in the dark, she was his friend, first and foremost. 
Perhaps even a better friend, but no more.
     He felt a now-familiar ache, and tried to push it away.  It
was foolish.  She was dead, had been for years, and that was all
there was to it.  He could calculate the seconds that had passed
from when he had heard the news, had actually done so a number of
dark nights.  Had he grieved back then?  Yes, he thought, but no
more than that of a friend for another friend, or a child for a
wilted tiger lily.  It had only been later, after he had learned
the joys and anguish of letting himself feel, that he had
realized the depth of his loss.  The knowledge had come closer
than time itself to killing him.
     Maybe that was why he had been spared the pain, at the
beginning of it all.  The price for such a long life was the loss
of everyone around him while he lived on, still young when his
closest friends grew old.  Things changed within him, though. 
While he had previously been immune to the emotions expressed by
his passionate and short-lived friends, now could feel what they
had felt, and sometimes he regretted it deeply, and regretted too
the pain he'd caused when their emotions had been meaningless
words to him.
     She had been lonely that night, afraid of the crocodiles and
demons that chased her in her own mind.  He had gone to her,
thinking to be no more than a friend and help her through this
one crisis.  She had reached out to him, wanting only someone to
love her, but that was the one thing of which he was incapable. 
In the end, he had been able only to make her body feel better,
but he had not known, nor really cared, to ease her heart.  Years
later, he knew the pain she'd felt, and was feeling it himself,
but it was far too late to go back and tell her so.
     The ticking of the clock was going to drive him mad.
     He rolled over again to face the ceiling.  He was never
going to get to sleep like this, with all the old faces in his
eyes and her lips against his ear whispering.  He needed to get
out and run.  He needed to sleep.  He needed something he could
not quite define because it had not been until recently that he'd
been aware of its absence.
     Without his realization, his hand had slid down the length
of his body and was resting on his stomach, warm and patiently
waiting for his notice.
     How lovely she had been, he thought, how lovely and how kind
to me, and I could not see it.  The strange memory resurfaced and
demanded notice.  They were standing, and she before him, going
to her tiptoes to press her lips against his.  He'd known
immediately what she wanted, but had been prepared to gently push
that aside for the moment to give her what he had thought she'd
needed.  She had seized his wrists, her eyes begging, then
released them, knowing his strength to be much more than her own. 
She'd touched him, softly, and he could feel her cool hands
against his shoulders, hear her whisper the words that she needed
him.  How could he refuse this one request of hers?  Based on
what he knew of her, he'd calculated the effects of pushing her
away versus allowing this, and perhaps his own thoughts had
become somewhat muddled because the answers had never made sense
later when he dared allow himself think about it.
     He felt her lips brush his again, and lost himself to the
fantasy/memory.
     He returned the kiss softly, just touching her mouth.  When
this had been real and she in his arms, there had been no other
before her.  He had not even considered this thing the humans
called lovemaking before that point; afterwards, he had
considered it an interesting exercise, refusing to acknowledge
that perhaps there had been more to it for him.  Time had passed,
and now he had known other lovers, though not many.  There had
been three women, each one precious to him, and one man, with
whom his friendship had only grown fuller, warmer.  Were she
still alive and with him, he could bring her joy, rather than
merely pleasure.
     He whispered her name in the empty room, letting the word
fall from him like a cool rain.  It had been so long since he'd
spoken it, and the sound tasted both unfamiliar and sweet.  He
said it again, and felt her lips kissing his neck.  He reached
out, in his thoughts gently stroking her soft breasts, moving
with the eternal motion of Earth's ancient seas.  Memory and wish
combined as he moved his head to suckle upon that sweetness,
lapping his tongue against the awakening nipple.  Movement
brought the other into his view, and his teeth took hold, biting
just lightly enough to draw a gasp from her.
     He felt her dream-fingers draw down his back, and he
shivered as if a cold steel hook had moved along his spine.
     His hand moved down a few inches to take his shaft into his
fingertips, holding it lightly.  But it was her hand touching it
with a delicacy he had never dreamed possible, soft as a fairy's
breath.  It was her hand grasping it now, moving to the rising
head and rubbing against the hot tip.  He moved his other hand
down to stroke against her damp, fair curls.  He extended one
finger, imagined it rubbing against soft folds and an engorged
nub slick with anticipation, finally slid it deep within her. 
The answering gasp brought a tighter hand around him, pulling
urgently.  Fingertips danced across the head, teasing and
stroking, then the hand dipped back to his base and squeezed.
     He extended another finger, moving them back and forth in an
increasing rhythm, pushing, probing and drawing back wet. 
Meanwhile his other hand, as hers, grasped him hard, using a
roughened palm to caress his over-sensitive shaft, then
disengaging to fondle the tender sac beneath it.
     His skin burned to his touch, as if he'd caught some fever. 
He moaned almost inaudibly, then froze in fear that someone had
heard him.  No one came in, and he continued with more passion. 
He could almost feel her pressed against him now, breasts pushing
against his chest, tiny teeth biting his neck, with his own face
buried in her sunlight-colored hair.
     He rolled over to his stomach again, and in his mind, he
entered her in one motion, as he had so long ago, when this had
been merely another experiment.  He felt a yielding tightness
around him, possessing him in a way he'd not known before her. 
He captured her mouth with his, tasting, exploring.  He thrust
into her again, his hand clenching tightly over and over as he
remembered her deep quakes inside when she had cried out his name
so long ago.
     He pushed again, tearing her name from his throat in a near-
soundless gasp.  He felt a minor explosion inside and his soul
flew joyfully into the night.  Warmth raced from his stomach to
his toes as a gush of sticky liquid poured into his hand and
dripped to his thin sheet.  Without even thinking, he rubbed it
onto his softening penis, pulling away from the bed as he had
pulled away from her, covered in her fluids.  He saw her smiling
face against his pillow, fair hair askew around her, eyes already
closing into sleep.  He could hear her heart beating slowly, then
realized that it was not her at all, but merely the clock,
counting out the hours until he was also merely a memory.  She
faded from his sight and he stared into an empty pillow that held
only his sweat and not her slumbering head.
     He rolled over onto his back, adjusting himself enough to
not sleep in the damp spot.  Already, he felt drowsiness coming
upon him, but he still felt as though he had unfinished business. 
He had not done something important, and it bothered him, kept
him from dreaming yet.
     He had satisfied her then, and she had gone back to her life
and he to his, neither mentioning the incident to the other
again.  She had needed more from him, but he had been incapable
of more, and she seemed to realize it, as that old crocodile Time
went by and eventually captured her in his jaws.
     It had all been long ago, and he had grown up much since
that night.  He had changed, and he knew that it was indeed for
the better.  He could give her now what she had wanted then, the
one thing she had needed more than his body sending her to happy
flight.
     "I love you," he whispered to her in the darkness.  He
closed his eyes again and fell into a sleep that brought no
dreams.
 
 
 
     Everyone noticed the Ambassador's curiously improved mood
the following day, but D'Tan warned them not to inquire too
deeply into their Vulcan mentor's personal affairs.
 
The End