third time's the charm.

light that smoke: that one for giving up on me, and one just 'cause they'll kill you sooner

[gordftw]

It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (via jenniferlawrencs)

[missxmisunderstanding-blog]

She’d hardly been worried about herself with the question–undoubtedly, the Pirates didn’t seem to mind that she gave alcohol to the Island’s younger residents. Trade was trade, money was money. No matter how she went about it, the pirates had few rules for Bambi, so long as she kept them happy–and she had every intention of doing so. But that was beside the point. 

Instinctively, Bambi reached out her own hand to lay over Three’s, concern in her eyes and a soft smile on her face. “Why?” The question was curious but gentle, not pushing, but… certainly laced with confusion. There were plenty of bambini perduti who made their way through this bar on their own time–why shouldn’t Three be allowed to as well? 

[threebadthings]

She’s so sweet. Sometimes it weighs on Three, the knowledge that if (or rather when) the time comes, he will cast her aside without so much as a second thought. Bambi is a good person, she has done nothing to earn his vitriol, and still he will end up hurting her if it means getting what he wants. It’s a despicable way to be, he knows that too, but it’s too late for him to be anything else now.

Her soft smile earns a shadow of Three’s own, a sad, anxious expression that flickers across his face like a ghost. He deals in half-truths because they are easier to keep track of than outright lies, and because his honest-to-god hurt over everything that has happened to him on this accursed island has served him better than anything else. He turns his hand beneath hers, giving it a shy squeeze before he answers. “Because I’m different than them. I’m... older. I know I don’t look it, not much, but it’s enough that it matters.”

“I want to belong, but there are other things I want too. Things they wouldn’t understand.”

[vladddy]

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Bad Blood - Bastille

[flickerinyoureye]

Flicker almost (almost) jumped, hearing a voice from above that she had not clocked. Or, at least, she’d thought whatever was rustling branches was the wind, or a creature. Turning her large eyes upwards, she spotted them; a shape, hidden in a nearby tree. Probably a boy, judging by the voice. After several seconds of silences, she answers. “Now you have.” After a moment, she adds, “You got the lyrics wrong.”

[threebadthings]

At least the girl seems as startled by his presence as Three had been by hers, it makes him feel a bit better about making such a stupid mistake - one he won’t make again in a hurry. He peers down at his companion through the foliage, considering her, and finds her clear blue gaze unsettling. It feels like she sees right through him. 

"Is that so?” He asks, settling back against the tree trunk and hopefully out of her sight. “How’s it meant to go then, clever clogs?”

[twisty-curly-blog]

He should have known far better than to think he could have pulled one over on Three. After all, who could know him better than his best friend? That was the purpose of them, right? The ones who knew you best. When the question is asked, his smile falters once more. For one, it doesn’t feel right lying to Three, especially when he knows the boy would never lie to him, and for another Curly knows that Three would be the last one to laugh at him, unless it was in good nature. So he hesitates for not those reasons, but one much more related to him: he’s embarrassed. “Are y’mad? ‘Course, ‘course I do,” he says, sending a playful hit against his arm. A beat, another, and he already feels guilty for not telling the full truth. He looks away, suddenly bashful, and mutters, “Ijustdunnohow’t,” 

Even the slightest touches hurt, but at least they don’t hurt as much as they used to. “Ah, come on. Slightly ‘r Three? The answer’s easy,” he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. 

A look of confusion crosses his face, but it’s replaced by a bright look of a new idea, “Well, y’ve got t’be in it too, right? Can we fit ye in? Will Roldy Doll mind?” 

[threebadthings]

“You never learnt?” It’s easy to forget that not everybody on the island has received as much of an education as him, but Three still feels stupid for letting something so easily exploited slip through his grasp - sure, many of the Lost Boys are complete idiots, and even though reading doesn’t exactly come up very often in their day-to-day, it’s plain to see how embarrassed Curly’s inability makes him. It’s a weakness.

Three relaxes his features into a gentle smile, an expression rarely used on anyone save for Bambi these days. “I can teach you, Curls- I mean, if you want me to. I learned a bit at school before I came here, and I want to help.” 

It’s the answer he had been expecting. He has earned Curly’s loyalty over the past few years, though a part of him still hurts when he is forced to acknowledge that he didn’t have it before. It took Three becoming this before he got what he wanted, and there’s no going back from here. “Oh yeah? I s’pose I wouldn’t want to be Slightly then!”

“He’s not here, is he,” Three points out with a smirk. “Admittedly I don’t think I’d want to be any of the other kids though, you’re the only nice one. I guess I could be Grandpa Joe? But he’s really old...”

[twisty-curly-blog]

He makes a face as Three berates his excitement, but listens anyway. Hero is surprisingly good company, but he could never surpass Three and he isn’t quite prepared to have him lose his visiting privileges. He waits patiently–as patient as Curly can be, which isn’t very much, as he was practically vibrating with excitement–but when Three pulls the book out of his ever-present coat, even he isn’t fast enough to stop his face from dropping. He loves stories as much as anyone else (if not much, much more) but…books? He can’t–but then, as if Three has read his mind, just like that he’s back to his initial joy. If they were to read it together, perhaps Curly could pretend well enough that he was making sense of the letters on the pages. Besides, if it’s Three’s favourite, then it must be something exceptional. 

He holds it carefully in his hands, as if he’s worried he’ll break it if he’s not gentle. No one’s ever given him a book before. “…Yeah,” he says, softly at first, before shaking his head and returning to his usual demeanour. “I could use a story or two t’keep me company!” His request doesn’t even take thought on his part. Slightly was snooty enough about his own silly pages, and he figured he’d take it away if he knew, “Pft, y’didn’t even need t’say!” 

“’Course I do,” he says, as serious as he can manage, before a smirk appears on his face, “’Course, I’d like it better if it was Curly and the Chocolate Factory,” 

[threebadthings]

Three doesn’t miss much these days, and that flicker of dismay, quick as it may have passed, does not go unnoticed. He tilts his head to one side, trying to work out if he’s made a mistake - his intuition isn’t usually wrong, but even he can’t always be right. Curly had always loved stories before (and Three remembers very well how he would pester Pan and Slightly and even Tiger Lily for all the ones they knew), but perhaps that, like so many other things, has changed? “Are you sure? You’re allowed to say so if you don’t want to read it, Curls. We’re mates, I won’t be offended.” It is his favourite though. He thinks of his mother’s high-pitched version of Charlie, and his dad struggling through Willy Wonka’s twisting dialogue in his thick Russian accent... it’ll be strange to read it with somebody else.

“Just checking. Gotta make sure you can be trusted to keep my secrets,” Three says, gently nudging Curly in the ribs as though he’s only joking. As though he doesn’t have a thousand secrets to keep.

“It could be Curly and the Chocolate Factory. I’m sure Roald Dahl won’t mind if we change one name.”

[twisty-curly-blog]

He nods, his mouth making an ‘oh’, as if he remembered what a car was (when, in actuality, he had little to no idea). He tried to imagine what it would be like if he were to do the same–to announce his presence before attacking someone–and it seems really…ineffective, to put it kindly. But then, what did he know?

He’s about to ask what ‘things’ entail, and why they were so important that they preceded Curly on Three’s list of priorities, but suddenly Three is talking gifts and it’s all Curly can do to not shoot up straight out of bed. He manages fairly well, sitting up stiff as a board, so focused that he barely reacts to the pain that shoots through him in protest. “Me? Grump? Would ye look at this face?” He points to his smile for emphasis, “Never! Don’t tease, what’ve ya got for me?”

[threebadthings]

Honestly, Curly is so easy to please, Three wonders why he ever thought he’d have any difficulty rejoining the Lost Boys’ ranks. With each kind word passed between them, all he can think is that he’s that much closer to getting what he wants. “Oi, sit still or else Hero’ll end up kicking me out for disturbing you,” Three chastises, but he smiles indulgently as he slips his hand inside the breast pocket of his enormous coat, producing a battered copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which he presses into Curly’s hands. “S’one of my favourites. I thought maybe you’d want to read it with me or something?”

“But, uh, don’t tell Slightly, yeah? He’ll only ask where I got it, and we both know he won’t like the answer. Our secret?” Another factor in Three’s grand plan - get them all to start hiding things from each other, and wait for paranoia and distrust to take their toll.

“You do like it, right?”

[twisty-curly-blog]

He has to think for a moment of a clever response, but he comes up short. “What’s a police siren?”

He hadn’t expected him to take so long, and before he can begin to frown, Three smiles and all is well. “Well, what’s th’point in comin’ when I’m asleep? I’m a trillion times better when I’m awake, eh? Unless I talk in my sleep, but that’s not fair, ‘cos I don’t get t’laugh at my own jokes that way,” 

[threebadthings]

“They stick ‘em on the tops of cars to warn you the coppers are coming,” Three explains confidently, even though he’s not completely sure that’s right. Why would the police want you to know they were coming? Surely it’d just give criminals a chance to escape.

He laughs, because Curly does talk in his sleep and half the time it makes as much sense as the nonsense he spews when he’s awake. “I can’t help being busy in the day, I’ve got stuff do. Things.” None of which are the things he’s supposed to be doing. “Anyway, you can’t be annoyed at me because I brought you a present, and you can’t have it if you’re in a grump.”

[threebadthings]

who's your best mate???????????

“Give over, you muppet, you know it’s you.”

[threebadthings]

What do you wish the island had that it doesn't?

“Juice. Like proper juice, in a carton. The kind you buy from a supermarket.”

“What? It’s the little things…”

[threebadthings]

What would you do if the next person to walk through the echo caves was Peter?

Kill him.

[threebadthings]

What is your favorite place on the island?

“Why, are you looking to spend some time with me?”

“I guess I like Cannibal Cove the best, other than Hangman’s Tree, of course. There’s something about all that open sky, and the sea…” 

That ‘something’ being that it doesn’t remind him of the forest where he spent so much of his banishment, trying not to be frightened of monsters made out of the dark.

[threebadthings]

Who would you most like to meet?

“Uh… I don’t know, maybe the fairy king? Or Dawn, just for curiosity’s sake.”

“And of people I already know, it might be nice to see Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily again… it’s a been a long time.”

[threebadthings]

do you believe in love?

“Don’t be soft.”

Of course.

[threebadthings]

What would you do if the next person to walk through the echo caves was your mother?

Three’s smile fades as he pictures it, his tiny mother with her doll-like features, tearing the hem of one of her pretty sundresses as she crawls out of the caves and into the cold sunlight of Neverland. He imagines running to her, being held in her arms as if he was a little boy again, and breathing in the faded scent of home. 

Would she even know him after all these years?

“My mother would never come to a place like this,” he says, because he doesn’t want to think about it any more.

[threebadthings]

Why are you called Three?

“Because third time’s the charm?”

[twisty-curly-blog]

He waves away his hand half-heartedly, “Ha! My singin’s better than any of ya, I reckon I’d give a siren a run for her money,” he only winces slightly at the mention of Mer. 

“…’Sides, what am I meant t’do when all of ye have forgot about me?” 

[threebadthings]

“Yeah, a police siren maybe.”

The question almost makes Three frown, the skin between his eyebrows dangerously close to puckering. He can’t let Curly think he doesn’t care, it would ruin everything, so he sits down on the bed beside him and offers his characteristic grin. “Just ‘cause you’re always asleep when people come to visit don’t mean they’ve forgotten you, Curls. I didn’t forget.”