Details, details, you breathe in when I exhale - for kitsuneasika
Title: Details, details, you breathe in when I exhale
Author: canttakeabreath
Recipient: kitsuneasika
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Hints of incest, spoilers for the entire series.
Summary: And Susan holds them all together.
Author’s Notes: Title from "Siberia" by Lights. Ooodles of love to [redacted] for the beta, and [redacted] for the push ♥.
Details, details, you breathe in when I exhale
Susan is obnoxious at twelve. Peter thinks it's because she's bossy, too old for herself, she has to be practical and sensible. "I'm always right," she says, nose up in the air. "And Mother said--"
"I don't really give a damn," Peter explains. "Mother isn't here. I'm here. And I make the decisions."
"Because you're a boy."
He'll give her that one. "And because I'm older."
Peter loves Lucy because she's bright and beautiful and leaps before looking, because she doesn't argue with his setting the rules, and while he doesn't initially believe her about the wardrobe and a magical faun, her being proven right isn't terribly surprising. When it happens it feels inevitable; it feels like the world has just fallen into place, snow settling on the ground, on his shoulders, just like it ought to.
It takes Susan a bit longer to get there. At first she trips on her mink coat in snow, and then she trips over her gowns on carpeted stone. Her dancing master calls her a disaster, and Susan's ears and face burn with humiliation even as Lucy determinedly stares out of a window pretending not to hear. Peter flattens himself against the wall and pretends not to be watching.
+ + +
Initially, they spend every evening together and wait for Aslan to return and firmly escort them home. Lucy refuses to leave Tumnus's side during the day, telling him stories about England and her past so that he might never forget her, following him through the woods to see the greenery they'd wrested from the White Witch in return. But when the sun sets, she climbs into Peter's bed, dragging Edmund along for company. Eventually Susan joins them, cold feet rubbing up against Peter's calves.
"One more day," Lucy whispers into the pillows, "just one more, Aslan. Please."
Lucy had always been Aslan's favorite. One day turns into two, twelve, two hundred.
A decade later, Peter forgets that they'd ever worried about going home.
+ + +
It's been years since his siblings have shared his bed, but Peter still wakes up feeling oddly empty in the mornings. He washes up, dresses with the minimal amount of fuss, and slips past his servants into the back corridors of the castle. Susan picked the room over the garden years ago. It'd been empty and barren then--but she's since populated it with flowers from all over the kingdom.
Sometimes he doesn't wake her. Instead he watches her get up on her own, shuffle out of bed, and slip into a heavy velvet dress. She smoothes the fabric along her stomach and twists this way and that, and Peter thinks she's never looked more beautiful than those moments of placidity when she gives up, shrugs her shoulders, and lets her hair down.
"'Morning," he says then, finally stepping out of the shadows.
"You could knock."
Her hair is dark and sleek, and Peter wonders what it would be like to tangle his fingers in it. He hums noncommittally, and she whisks by him.
"We have that party tonight, don't forget. Ambassadors from Archenland will be there."
Peter dimly remembers berating her for trying to act like an adult when they'd been children, pressed into maturity by the horrors of war and their absentee parents. He remembers wanting to protect all of them--not just Edmund and Lucy. Now he watches her navigate politics and wishes he hadn't been so short sighted.
She'd been born a queen, Peter knows now. It's just happenstance that Narnia gave her a crown.
+ + +
Lucy's a natural at handing state parties. She brushes off suitors by clinging to Susan until they're both red in the face from exertion. She parades around with Mr. Tumnus. She never leaves Edmund's field of vision.
It seems to take Susan a bit longer to fall into a pattern of comfort. It bothers Peter more than he'd like to admit. Those are my siblings, he thinks protectively, constantly monitoring the three of them from the crown room's dais. And then, I need them.
But eventually the three of them begin to make friends outside of the immediately family. Lucy stays out for days at a time, visiting bands of travelling badgers, or exploring uncharted territory with Edmund tagging along to resolve land disputes. Susan cultivates her own relationships with the border-nations, inviting them to take dinner with the kings and queens of Narnia, and treating them to tours over the Great River.
And it takes him just as long to let go, but eventually Peter does. He stops asking why Susan requests money and horses and a few weeks of break from her duties to go south for a bit, and when she comes back with thick trade agreements and coin, he doesn't begrudge her the victory as he once would have. Edmund is the first to toast to her brilliance. She laughs and drinks deeply from the heavy silver goblets of Cair Paravel, lips shimmering wet from the wine and eyes bright with excitement.
"Bossed them around, didn't you?" Peter says. "Good on you."
Susan tilts her head. Strands of hair slip out from behind her ear. "I always know best."
It’s the exactly same thing she used to say to him when they'd been children, only now Susan is no longer gangly and uncomfortable in her body--she's powerful and strong, and maybe Peter's just never been able to see that part of her before. But as pieces of hair fall to frame her face, he's seized by admiration. It's immense, overpowering, and inescapable.
Because you're a girl, he almost says. It's not true. It's because she's a queen, but Peter can’t say that either. Instead he staggers to his feet, dizzy and disoriented, and finds his way to an empty corridor where he tilts his forehead against the wall until it's flush with the cool stone.
"Are you alright?" she calls. "Peter--are you--"
He winces. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I--do you really need to go to Calormen?"
She sounds disapproving. "We've been through this. It would be advantageous."
"I wish you wouldn't," he whispers.
Susan doesn't respond immediately. She runs a hand up Peter's shoulder, and his nerve endings explode. He drowns in the panic of his heartbeat.
"Peter," she says again, "is everything okay?"
And it is, of course it is, there aren't missiles or wars or enemies to tear them apart any longer. He's fought those battles already. They've won. Only now Peter feels like he's losing all over again and time is slipping through his fingers, grains of sand finding every crack in his composure.
"It will be," he tries to choke. But it isn't, he's lost control, and Susan is there with her thin fingers pressing into his arms, her cold hands tucking hair behind his ear, and suddenly he's holding her and touching her and asking please please please knowing that he can't articulate exactly what he wants.
But of course, Susan can. She kisses him softly--first on the forehead, a cool press to his skin, and then on each cheek. "You're magnificent," she says. "Magnificent."
Peter has never felt less magnificent.
+ + +
She goes, and they fight another war. It's an easy attack, but it's still battle and Peter feels sick to his stomach remembering that he must once again protect his family from invasions. Susan welcomes him home and thanks him, threading her fingers in his hair, and Peter collapses into her.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I shouldn't have let you go."
"There are things we need to do. I had to go, Peter. Even if it was a trap." She doesn't chide him for trying to protect her, but he senses her discomfort. There's steel beneath her soft skin. She wants to exercise it just as much as he wants to never let her.
"I'm sorry," he says again. "I can't help it."
"I can take care of myself, Peter."
He knows. He really does. His fingers interlock behind her waist, chin pressing into her neck and wishes she'll never have to. "You're right," he says finally."
"I'm always right."
+ + +
She's right about the stag, she's right about the end of the war, and she's right when she tells the rest of them to forget Narnia. Peter misses being king, and it taints his relationships. He finds himself isolated by his peers. He's the gentle leader they trust and love and respect, but he's not their friend, and so he works his way through high school and university. Professor Kirke is the closest he gets to a companion, and so when he's called back to Narnia by a vision, he scrambles at the chance to return.
"Come with me," he says. The phone line is bad, and it crackles. He clings to the plastic phone and listens to her breathe.
"Don't do this," she pleads. "They don't need you. You can be Peter. You be magnificent when you're here as well. You don't need to go back for that."
He shakes. He doesn't tell her how much he misses her curls and the way she used to press against him in the halls of Cair Paravel. He doesn't tell her that he dreams of the four of them in bed together, that he wakes up in a sweat and reaches for a sword that's no longer there. He can't tell her about the nightmares he has of her being carried away from him.
"You really won't come?"
"I can't. I have meetings. They're important."
Her voice is strong and steeled for rejection. Peter finds himself falling in love with her all over again.
"Goodbye," he says, not trusting himself. "I'll call when it's all over."
"Be safe."
+ + +
Eventually, there is an end in the End. Eventually time moves forward and more friends join their party--teachers, schoolmates, children he'd known growing up. They're surprised to find themselves in Narnia, and Peter has to teach them what it means to be living in Aslan's Country and Aslan's world. To ease their transition he tells them stories about Cair Paravel and a wicked witch. They understand immediately that Peter's been preparing himself for death for much longer than they have, and so they listen, rapt and attentive. And even as they mourn the family and friends they've left behind, Peter tells them to be strong, and Lucy sings songs about the sister she loves and misses so very much.
It's Lucy who makes everything right. Peter leads the band, but it's Lucy who brings them together. At night she kisses him gently and Peter is reminded that Lucy is not his little sister anymore--she's already grown up a queen and learned more from Susan than she ever had from Peter. She slides her hand into Peter's, and her grip is overwhelming.
"It'll be okay," she says brightly. "Susan will come."
He squints further up and further in. "I hope she'll find the way."
"You worry too much. She'll be fine. Susan will be fine."
They sit and watch the sun set, evening sky streaked with orange and gold and purple. Peter exhales deeply and imagines Susan under the exact same sky, waiting for their return. He imagines her growing up and finding a job and an apartment on her own. He imagines her getting married and walking down the aisle and giving herself away. He imagines her writing books and revising histories and changing the world with a smile and will of steel.
"She's Susan," Lucy continues simply. "She knows what she's doing. She'd want you to trust her."
The thought is powerful. And as Lucy looks away, Peter realizes that she's right--that Susan has always wanted to be acknowledged as powerful, as strong, as capable. Susan has never needed Narnia the way Peter, Edmund, and Lucy have. Instead, Susan has always needed Peter's trust and faith.
He bites his lip and vows to give it to her. Properly, this time.
"Yes," he says. The word is painful. He swallows twice. "After all, she's always right."
+ + +
The moment it happens, Peter feels it. Something in his bones rattles and shakes. And as he turns around he sees a girl in grey with wrinkles around her eyes and skin hanging off her thin frame. And as she steps forward he sees the black hair she used to have and her bright smile and shining eyes and rushes forward at the same time she does.
He squeezes the air out of her chest and tangles his fingers in her hair. "Susan."
It's like a part of him has returned. Like there's snow under his boots and a crown on his head. Like Narnia is whole again.
She cries. "I did well, Peter. I hope you didn't worry."
He kisses her and answers honestly: "I didn't. I trusted that you would."
+ + +
Original Prompt that we sent you: I'd love a fic centered around either Peter/Susan and/or a friendship between Susan and Lucy- if you can manage both, that would be fantastic and I would love you forever and ever. I'd like it best if it spanned over the years, from their rule as Kings and Queens until Susan's eventual redemption, but I'll take anything where they're all reunited again gladly. (In the case of the Lucy+Susan friendship, I also don't mind it only being set in the Golden Age.)
Author: canttakeabreath
Recipient: kitsuneasika
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Hints of incest, spoilers for the entire series.
Summary: And Susan holds them all together.
Author’s Notes: Title from "Siberia" by Lights. Ooodles of love to [redacted] for the beta, and [redacted] for the push ♥.
Details, details, you breathe in when I exhale
Susan is obnoxious at twelve. Peter thinks it's because she's bossy, too old for herself, she has to be practical and sensible. "I'm always right," she says, nose up in the air. "And Mother said--"
"I don't really give a damn," Peter explains. "Mother isn't here. I'm here. And I make the decisions."
"Because you're a boy."
He'll give her that one. "And because I'm older."
Peter loves Lucy because she's bright and beautiful and leaps before looking, because she doesn't argue with his setting the rules, and while he doesn't initially believe her about the wardrobe and a magical faun, her being proven right isn't terribly surprising. When it happens it feels inevitable; it feels like the world has just fallen into place, snow settling on the ground, on his shoulders, just like it ought to.
It takes Susan a bit longer to get there. At first she trips on her mink coat in snow, and then she trips over her gowns on carpeted stone. Her dancing master calls her a disaster, and Susan's ears and face burn with humiliation even as Lucy determinedly stares out of a window pretending not to hear. Peter flattens himself against the wall and pretends not to be watching.
+ + +
Initially, they spend every evening together and wait for Aslan to return and firmly escort them home. Lucy refuses to leave Tumnus's side during the day, telling him stories about England and her past so that he might never forget her, following him through the woods to see the greenery they'd wrested from the White Witch in return. But when the sun sets, she climbs into Peter's bed, dragging Edmund along for company. Eventually Susan joins them, cold feet rubbing up against Peter's calves.
"One more day," Lucy whispers into the pillows, "just one more, Aslan. Please."
Lucy had always been Aslan's favorite. One day turns into two, twelve, two hundred.
A decade later, Peter forgets that they'd ever worried about going home.
+ + +
It's been years since his siblings have shared his bed, but Peter still wakes up feeling oddly empty in the mornings. He washes up, dresses with the minimal amount of fuss, and slips past his servants into the back corridors of the castle. Susan picked the room over the garden years ago. It'd been empty and barren then--but she's since populated it with flowers from all over the kingdom.
Sometimes he doesn't wake her. Instead he watches her get up on her own, shuffle out of bed, and slip into a heavy velvet dress. She smoothes the fabric along her stomach and twists this way and that, and Peter thinks she's never looked more beautiful than those moments of placidity when she gives up, shrugs her shoulders, and lets her hair down.
"'Morning," he says then, finally stepping out of the shadows.
"You could knock."
Her hair is dark and sleek, and Peter wonders what it would be like to tangle his fingers in it. He hums noncommittally, and she whisks by him.
"We have that party tonight, don't forget. Ambassadors from Archenland will be there."
Peter dimly remembers berating her for trying to act like an adult when they'd been children, pressed into maturity by the horrors of war and their absentee parents. He remembers wanting to protect all of them--not just Edmund and Lucy. Now he watches her navigate politics and wishes he hadn't been so short sighted.
She'd been born a queen, Peter knows now. It's just happenstance that Narnia gave her a crown.
+ + +
Lucy's a natural at handing state parties. She brushes off suitors by clinging to Susan until they're both red in the face from exertion. She parades around with Mr. Tumnus. She never leaves Edmund's field of vision.
It seems to take Susan a bit longer to fall into a pattern of comfort. It bothers Peter more than he'd like to admit. Those are my siblings, he thinks protectively, constantly monitoring the three of them from the crown room's dais. And then, I need them.
But eventually the three of them begin to make friends outside of the immediately family. Lucy stays out for days at a time, visiting bands of travelling badgers, or exploring uncharted territory with Edmund tagging along to resolve land disputes. Susan cultivates her own relationships with the border-nations, inviting them to take dinner with the kings and queens of Narnia, and treating them to tours over the Great River.
And it takes him just as long to let go, but eventually Peter does. He stops asking why Susan requests money and horses and a few weeks of break from her duties to go south for a bit, and when she comes back with thick trade agreements and coin, he doesn't begrudge her the victory as he once would have. Edmund is the first to toast to her brilliance. She laughs and drinks deeply from the heavy silver goblets of Cair Paravel, lips shimmering wet from the wine and eyes bright with excitement.
"Bossed them around, didn't you?" Peter says. "Good on you."
Susan tilts her head. Strands of hair slip out from behind her ear. "I always know best."
It’s the exactly same thing she used to say to him when they'd been children, only now Susan is no longer gangly and uncomfortable in her body--she's powerful and strong, and maybe Peter's just never been able to see that part of her before. But as pieces of hair fall to frame her face, he's seized by admiration. It's immense, overpowering, and inescapable.
Because you're a girl, he almost says. It's not true. It's because she's a queen, but Peter can’t say that either. Instead he staggers to his feet, dizzy and disoriented, and finds his way to an empty corridor where he tilts his forehead against the wall until it's flush with the cool stone.
"Are you alright?" she calls. "Peter--are you--"
He winces. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I--do you really need to go to Calormen?"
She sounds disapproving. "We've been through this. It would be advantageous."
"I wish you wouldn't," he whispers.
Susan doesn't respond immediately. She runs a hand up Peter's shoulder, and his nerve endings explode. He drowns in the panic of his heartbeat.
"Peter," she says again, "is everything okay?"
And it is, of course it is, there aren't missiles or wars or enemies to tear them apart any longer. He's fought those battles already. They've won. Only now Peter feels like he's losing all over again and time is slipping through his fingers, grains of sand finding every crack in his composure.
"It will be," he tries to choke. But it isn't, he's lost control, and Susan is there with her thin fingers pressing into his arms, her cold hands tucking hair behind his ear, and suddenly he's holding her and touching her and asking please please please knowing that he can't articulate exactly what he wants.
But of course, Susan can. She kisses him softly--first on the forehead, a cool press to his skin, and then on each cheek. "You're magnificent," she says. "Magnificent."
Peter has never felt less magnificent.
+ + +
She goes, and they fight another war. It's an easy attack, but it's still battle and Peter feels sick to his stomach remembering that he must once again protect his family from invasions. Susan welcomes him home and thanks him, threading her fingers in his hair, and Peter collapses into her.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I shouldn't have let you go."
"There are things we need to do. I had to go, Peter. Even if it was a trap." She doesn't chide him for trying to protect her, but he senses her discomfort. There's steel beneath her soft skin. She wants to exercise it just as much as he wants to never let her.
"I'm sorry," he says again. "I can't help it."
"I can take care of myself, Peter."
He knows. He really does. His fingers interlock behind her waist, chin pressing into her neck and wishes she'll never have to. "You're right," he says finally."
"I'm always right."
+ + +
She's right about the stag, she's right about the end of the war, and she's right when she tells the rest of them to forget Narnia. Peter misses being king, and it taints his relationships. He finds himself isolated by his peers. He's the gentle leader they trust and love and respect, but he's not their friend, and so he works his way through high school and university. Professor Kirke is the closest he gets to a companion, and so when he's called back to Narnia by a vision, he scrambles at the chance to return.
"Come with me," he says. The phone line is bad, and it crackles. He clings to the plastic phone and listens to her breathe.
"Don't do this," she pleads. "They don't need you. You can be Peter. You be magnificent when you're here as well. You don't need to go back for that."
He shakes. He doesn't tell her how much he misses her curls and the way she used to press against him in the halls of Cair Paravel. He doesn't tell her that he dreams of the four of them in bed together, that he wakes up in a sweat and reaches for a sword that's no longer there. He can't tell her about the nightmares he has of her being carried away from him.
"You really won't come?"
"I can't. I have meetings. They're important."
Her voice is strong and steeled for rejection. Peter finds himself falling in love with her all over again.
"Goodbye," he says, not trusting himself. "I'll call when it's all over."
"Be safe."
+ + +
Eventually, there is an end in the End. Eventually time moves forward and more friends join their party--teachers, schoolmates, children he'd known growing up. They're surprised to find themselves in Narnia, and Peter has to teach them what it means to be living in Aslan's Country and Aslan's world. To ease their transition he tells them stories about Cair Paravel and a wicked witch. They understand immediately that Peter's been preparing himself for death for much longer than they have, and so they listen, rapt and attentive. And even as they mourn the family and friends they've left behind, Peter tells them to be strong, and Lucy sings songs about the sister she loves and misses so very much.
It's Lucy who makes everything right. Peter leads the band, but it's Lucy who brings them together. At night she kisses him gently and Peter is reminded that Lucy is not his little sister anymore--she's already grown up a queen and learned more from Susan than she ever had from Peter. She slides her hand into Peter's, and her grip is overwhelming.
"It'll be okay," she says brightly. "Susan will come."
He squints further up and further in. "I hope she'll find the way."
"You worry too much. She'll be fine. Susan will be fine."
They sit and watch the sun set, evening sky streaked with orange and gold and purple. Peter exhales deeply and imagines Susan under the exact same sky, waiting for their return. He imagines her growing up and finding a job and an apartment on her own. He imagines her getting married and walking down the aisle and giving herself away. He imagines her writing books and revising histories and changing the world with a smile and will of steel.
"She's Susan," Lucy continues simply. "She knows what she's doing. She'd want you to trust her."
The thought is powerful. And as Lucy looks away, Peter realizes that she's right--that Susan has always wanted to be acknowledged as powerful, as strong, as capable. Susan has never needed Narnia the way Peter, Edmund, and Lucy have. Instead, Susan has always needed Peter's trust and faith.
He bites his lip and vows to give it to her. Properly, this time.
"Yes," he says. The word is painful. He swallows twice. "After all, she's always right."
+ + +
The moment it happens, Peter feels it. Something in his bones rattles and shakes. And as he turns around he sees a girl in grey with wrinkles around her eyes and skin hanging off her thin frame. And as she steps forward he sees the black hair she used to have and her bright smile and shining eyes and rushes forward at the same time she does.
He squeezes the air out of her chest and tangles his fingers in her hair. "Susan."
It's like a part of him has returned. Like there's snow under his boots and a crown on his head. Like Narnia is whole again.
She cries. "I did well, Peter. I hope you didn't worry."
He kisses her and answers honestly: "I didn't. I trusted that you would."
+ + +
Original Prompt that we sent you: I'd love a fic centered around either Peter/Susan and/or a friendship between Susan and Lucy- if you can manage both, that would be fantastic and I would love you forever and ever. I'd like it best if it spanned over the years, from their rule as Kings and Queens until Susan's eventual redemption, but I'll take anything where they're all reunited again gladly. (In the case of the Lucy+Susan friendship, I also don't mind it only being set in the Golden Age.)