a/n: my own personal take on peter pan. it’s modern and it’s dark. it’s also the first thing of its type that i’ve written, so comments and stuff would be appreciated. enjoy!

one ; in the pitch dark.

I fumble for my purse and light a cigarette as the club doors open and intoxicated teenagers near enough my own age stumble out. They are hot and sweaty and smell of alcohol and other substances that I can’t quite name but recognise.

This is what I do every Friday. I stand outside the club for a good two hours (usually dressed in something skimpy because it’s what he likes) and wait for him. Usually he’s one of the last people to come out and he always has his arm around some stick thin blonde girl with a bust that’s bigger than mine, but by now, I’m used to it.

A few minutes pass and I can feel the cigarette’s heat between my fingers. The end of it serves as my light in the dark, even though I’m standing by a lamp post (the lamp’s light is dim and flickers, I think it’s going to give out any minute now), and I’m quietly counting to ten, waiting for Adrian to rear his head among the throng of the crowd so that I can take him home.

Eventually I see him with the dark circles under his eyes, the pasty complexion and the black hair that is currently slicked to his skull. Even from a good few metres away, I can tell that he is sweating fiercely and that his heart is racing a million miles an hour. From where I stand, I see his legs tremble and shake, and I see his arm firmly on the bottom of some stick insect specimen who giggles and touches his arm.

Funnily enough, I’m not bothered.

Adrian and I have an agreement, you see. Well, it’s not really an agreement… it’s more of an arrangement. If I look after him (against my will, I can assure you) every now-and-again, he leaves my brothers alone. Fair play, I assumed when I reluctantly agreed to it, but now I constantly find myself wishing that I’d told him where to stick it (where the sun doesn’t shine, of course) and defended my brothers a bit better.

He staggers over to me, wide-eyed and with a suspicious air to him. He says something, but I’m not listening, because there is alcohol thick on his breath, like someone layered a slice of toast with too much butter, and as his fingers wrap around my wrist, I can feel the tremors leaving his body and entering mine.

There is a beat as the girl he was with stares at me and walks away. I watch her swagger, the way she sticks her hips out in order to prove that she has some sort of asset that men might want, but there is nothing there. She walks like a skeleton, and I’m sure that she rattles when she walks and probably sounds like one, too.

Adrian says something else and I turn towards him, dropping my cigarette on the floor and stamping it out with the heel of my stiletto. It’s a requirement, you know, to meet him looking my best. I wonder why I have to bother—it’s not like he cares, anyway, because he comes out high or drunk and doesn’t notice—but it’s part of the deal, so naturally I have to go with it.

“What?” I ask, and as I speak, mist forms where my breath touches the air. The night is cold, which irritates me slightly, because - as always - I am forced to dress like a prostitute. It’s like a ritual of public humiliation. “Adrian, I can’t—”

He presses his clammy, wet lips to mine and I am aware of intoxicated hands running through my hair, then down my back, fiddling with my skirt, undoing the button—no, he has to stop. I swat his hands away and stumble backwards, almost falling into the roads. That’s another thing about these damn stilettos: I can’t walk in them all that well.

“Wendy…” he murmurs, and something isn’t quite right in his eyes. I ignore his whisperings and drag him to the old, outdated Ford I have parked a few yards up the road, strapping him into the passenger seat and telling him to stay put. He gurgles something that I can’t understand and I ignore him once again, putting my seatbelt on and starting the engine.

The digital clock in my car reads ‘00:39’ and I grit my teeth repeatedly as I check that the road is clear and start driving back to his house. I’m grateful for the fact that all I have to do is drop him off back at his place and then drive myself home, or else I think that I actually would go crazy.

We drive in silence for ten minutes, me with my attention fixed firmly on the road and Adrian with his head pressed up against the window. I don’t know what he’s taken and I really don’t care—it could be a mixture of alcohol and ecstasy and I still wouldn’t give a damn. It’s not fair to say that I hate Adrian, I just loathe him an awful, awful lot.

I pull up at his parents’ house and get him out of the car. He makes a groaning noise as I help him up the driveway and promptly vomits all over me. I curse loudly, shoving him to the side and marching him up to the door. It takes ten seconds for me to ring the bell and support him whilst I wait for one of his parents to open the bloody thing.

His mother answers. She smiles, then frowns at the sight of her son and looks me up and down. I can smell the sick radiating off me and I, too, am wrinkling my nose, as is she. Without a word, I push him towards her and she takes his weight, struggling slightly. Like with me and Adrian, his mother and I have an agreement. A different one.

Once that’s over and done with, I’m back in the car and speeding home. The car smells of Adrian and I smell of Adrian and I can’t wait to get his revolting reek off my skin. I park the car haphazardly, letting myself into the three-bedroom house I share with my parents and two brothers, before I stumble up the stairs in a drunken and exhausted manner and collapse on my bed.

The last thing I smell before I drift off into sweet slumber is Adrian, and I want to be sick.