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bedlamsbardTitle: Shine So Bright
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: R
Summary: She doesn't think, she acts. Some things you can't forget. Susan and Peter in England, immediately pre-LB.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and cut-tag from Vanessa Carlton's "Who's To Say".
Author's Notes: Can serve as a prequel to Dust in the Air, no spoilers.
She doesn't think, she acts. Puts her elbow into the gut of the man on her right, brings her foot down on the instep of the man to her left, and that makes them let go of her. Susan rips the bag off her head and spins around, right arm swinging to land a solid punch in Number One's unprotected windpipe. She slams her knee into his crotch and her elbow into the side of his head as he doubles over, sending him sprawling senseless to the ground. Number Two is on her left and she catches his wrist as he swings at her, twisting his arm behind his back and forcing his head down as she brings her knee up into his jaw.
Susan's slow and out of practice, which is why she doesn't see the third man until he grabs her around the waist and pulls her off her feet. "What the bloody fuck is wrong with you, you dozy bint?" he shouts.
Number Two struggles upright, clutching at his jaw, and Susan takes the opportunity to kick him in the chest and slam the back of her skull into the face of the man holding her at the same time. He shouts and drops her.
Susan falls badly, feels her ankle give out beneath her, and scrabbles across the dirty cement until she gets her fingers around the neck of an empty beer bottle. She smashes it into the side of Number Three's head as he bends down over her, backswings to slash the broken edges across his face. He falls backward, screaming as blood pours out from between his fingers.
There's a crack of breaking bone that doesn't have anything to do with her and her brother's calm voice, "Peter, on your nine o'clock. They're all down."
Susan relaxes. "Ow," she says faintly, forcing her fingers free of the neck of the bottle as Peter comes over and crouches down beside her, gets her arm over his shoulder to help her to her feet.
"How bad?" he asks, and his face is shadowed in the darkness of the alley. For some reason it's not strange at all to see him here.
"Twisted ankle," she says. "I can walk."
"You sure?"
Susan puts some of her weight on her ankle, testing it, and says, "Yes."
Peter lets go of her, and Susan blinks and looks around, finally getting a full look at the alley. Number One is out like a light, facedown next to a dumpster, Number Two is crumpled on the ground where Peter either hit him or slammed his face into a wall, and Number Three -- Number Three is on his back, a uniformed airman bent down over him as he whimpers.
Susan looks up abruptly, and what she sees are a dozen RAF officers and airmen staring at her. Of course, she thinks, The Fox and the Lion is an RAF pub, the one Peter's unit frequents when they're in England, and it's no surprise to see Peter here -- Marcus is in Peter's unit, and she and he are always here together, and she can't count the number of times she's seen Peter in here with his men or, occasionally, with Edmund or Lucy. Every one of the airmen is looking at her like she's mad and dangerous, Marcus is looking at her like she's mad and dangerous, and then one of the officers turns and walks away, slow and deliberate. The others follow, leaving Susan and Peter alone with Marcus and the three wounded officers in the alley. Susan knows them -- Marcus's friends, members of his unit, of Peter's unit.
"Marcus?" she says disbelievingly, and her voice sounds odd to her ears, tinny and a little distant. Peter's grip tightens on her elbow.
"Are you insane?" he bursts out. "You know them! This was just supposed to be for fun, just supposed to prove how much --"
There's a roaring in Susan's ears and all she can think of is not again, not again, even here and from him. "Fun?" she hears herself repeat, soft and dangerous. It's not Susan Pevensie speaking. "Fun? You kidnap women and you think it's fun? Am I insane, you --"
Marcus raises a shaking hand and points at her. "I was going to propose to you, you crazy -- I knew he was crazy, I knew his brother was crazy, but I thought you were normal at least, I thought you weren't a fucking lunatic killer without --"
She doesn't see Peter leave her side, just knows the instant he does because a heartbeat later he has Marcus up against the nearest wall, forearm across his throat and knife pressed against his crotch. "Don't you ever fucking talk to my sister that way again."
"Get off me," Marcus spits, and then, reluctantly, the single syllable dragged out of him, "Sir."
"Don't bother with that," Peter says. "This doesn't have a damn thing to do with the Royal Air Force. If you ever, ever come near my sister again --"
"I'll kill him myself," Susan interrupts, feeling reckless and -- young again. It's been a long time since she's felt this way, but her knuckles ache and the thrill of the fight is thrumming through her veins; there's blood on her hands and the scent of it coppery bright in the air. This she knows; she's been here before. She's been here before more times than she can possibly count. She moves forward, every nerve in her body singing with the sheer thrill of it. She can feel the air moving across her skin, smell the sharp tang of Marcus's fear, hear the rasp of Peter's breath in his throat.
"Get off him, Peter," she continues. "I can take care of myself."
"I've known that since we were both children," Peter says, stepping back. He flips the knife around in his hand and offers it hilt-first to Susan.
"Don't be ridiculous," she says, pushing his hand aside. "It wouldn't accomplish anything to slit his throat except a charge of murder, and I don't think that's what either of us really want."
He offers her a faint edge of a grin as she moves past him. "You do have a point there," he allows, tranquil.
Marcus starts inching his way along the wall away from her as she approaches. "Get away from me," he snaps. "Stay away from me, you crazy --"
"No," Susan says. "I've changed my mind. Give me the knife, Peter." She holds her hand out without looking, and Peter puts the hilt in her hand.
Marcus blanches. "You -- you can't --" he begins, and Susan slams the knife into the wall beside his head, the blade going three inches into the soft mortar between the bricks.
She doesn't have to look behind her to know how Peter's standing -- legs spread, arms crossed over his chest, gaze calm and cold and disinterested.
"You are," she says softly, "a coward and a fool, and you are damned lucky I am who I am, or you would be dealing with Scotland Yard now, and not me and my brother. Think very carefully about what you're actually doing the next time you think something is romantic -- I'll give you a hint: kidnapping is not generally high on that list. If you're looking for courtship rituals, the Greeks aren't really the ones you want to be emulating. That's the only piece of advice I'm going to give you, that and a warning -- don't even think about coming near me again." She reaches up and jerks the knife out from beside his head and turns away, breathing hard.
The adrenaline from the fight is starting to fade now and Peter catches her when she stumbles, taking the knife from her hand and pulling her into a hug. "You're getting slow in your old age, Su," he murmurs to her in Narnian, soft enough that she can pretend she imagined it if she wants, and then, over her head, "You'll be damn lucky if I don't bring you up on charges, Flying Officer. But pack your bags, because you won't be flying with me anymore."
"Peter," Susan says into his shoulder, "let it go. Let's go. He's not worth it."
"Yeah, I know that," Peter says, and still doesn't move for another few heartbeats.
Out in the street, the airmen from The Fox and the Lion are still gathered there, and Peter jerks his chin back towards the alley and says, "Llewellyn, take care of them. If any one of them even thinks about filing charges, kindly remind them that they just got their arses beat my sister. Belby, can you leave a message with the barman that I had to take Susan back to her flat? I was supposed to meet Ed here."
"You don't have to --" Susan begins, but Peter shakes his head and grins at her as the airmen start to disperse, muttering to each other.
"You're not getting rid of me that easily, Su," he says.
Her recklessness hasn't faded. "I didn't mean that," she says. "I meant that after this, I really need a drink. Or three."
Peter laughs. "I think I can do that," he says.
She's more or less familiar with Peter's squadron, since most of them are Marcus's friends as well, but there are a number of other RAF officers here that she only knows by face, not name. All of them seem to be oddly enchanted by her in a way she hasn't seen since the last time she was in Narnia, and it turns out that Peter doesn't have to buy her drinks after all; they fall over themselves to keep her glass full.
"Travison was always too full of himself anyway," a flying officer named Dunnington says, leaning back in his chair. "Always going on about something the Athenians or the Spartans or whoever did better. I know he talked about pulling something like this, but I didn't think he'd ever actually do it. What kind of crazy do you have to be to talk your friends into grabbing your girl off the street to bring to you?"
"What kind of crazy do you have to be to fall for that tripe?" someone else asks, and laughs.
Susan leans into Peter's shoulder, working her way through her second scotch. He's got an arm around her shoulders, careful and certain, and hasn't been saying all that much.
"All right, Susan -- may I call you Susan?" Flight Lieutenant Haweis asks.
"Well, it is my name," Susan demurs. "And if you just call me Pevensie, you might get me confused with him."
"No danger of that," Pilot Officer Belby mutters.
"Susan, then," Haweis says. "Now, I've known Pevensie since we were at Cranwell together, and I know better than to ask him where he learned to do things no other pilot knows how to do. I know he didn't learn them when he was marooned with the Yanks, because he was loony before that."
"Thanks, Haweis," Peter drawls. "It's good to know you care."
"Always," Haweis says, and grins before turning his attention back on Susan. "Now, Susan. I just have the one question."
"All right," she says indulgently, sipping at her drink. "What is it?"
"Did you learn to do what you did to that load of idiots out there at the same place your brother did?"
"Who do you think taught it to her?" Peter laughs.
Susan punches him lightly in the chest. "Not that. You were out gallivanting around the west with the Red Company, and I was back at the Cair with Ed and Lu and Osumare Seaworth --"
"All right, Su," Peter interrupts abruptly. "Okay, I think you've had enough to drink, I'm going to take you home now."
"Peter," she protests, and he picks her up easily. She puts her arms around his neck and her face into his shoulder and hears him say, "Sorry, lads, but I've got to be off. If you see my brother, could you tell him where I've gone?"
"Of course," Haweis says, and Susan puts her head back to look at him upside down. His eyes are bright with interest.
"Thanks," Peter says, and adds, "Come on, Su."
Peter doesn't have to ask where her flat is, even though he's never been there before. It's probably for the same reason she knows how to find his flat, the one he shares with Edmund and sometimes Lucy. It's been six years since they were close, but they're all bound to each other by more than blood alone, no matter what passes between them. He gets her keys out of her purse and her door open, kicking it shut behind him, and navigates the tiny dark apartment until he finds her couch and puts her down on it.
"I'll get you some water," he says.
Susan puts her head back and closes her eyes, breathing heavily through her mouth as she listens to the sound of Peter's footsteps fading away. The lights flick on a moment later, warm through her eyelids. She runs her thumb over her bruised knuckles, though that's the least of her worries.
Peter settles back onto the couch beside her. "Here," he says, and Susan opens her eyes, focusing with a little trouble on the glass he's holding out.
"Thanks," she says, and takes it with both hands, sipping at it gingerly.
"Are you all right?" he asks, resting his hand lightly on her back, just between her shoulderblades.
"Yes. No. I don't know." Susan leans over to put the glass down on her battered end table and then bends down over her knees, threading her hands through her hair as she clutches at the back of her skull. "Peter, I --"
"It's all right," he says.
"No, it's not," she says, straightening. She reaches for him clumsily and Peter catches her wrists. His expression is worried, sincere, earnest -- so damn calm that she could kill him for it. "It's not," she says clumsily. "Peter, I lied, I said all those horrible things and I didn't mean them, I didn't mean -- I didn't mean to --"
"It's all right," he says again. "Su, it's all right. I know."
"No, it's not," she repeats. "It's not -- I have to --"
Peter cups her face in one hand, his fingers and palms callused in all the wrong places. "Susan," he says gently. "I know. It's all right. I know what you did and I know why."
"I don't think you do," Susan insists, but gives it up and puts her head against his shoulder. "I just wanted it all to be over," she whispers. "Wanted to forget, because I thought that I could, but I can't, I can't --"
"Oh, Susan," Peter says, sounding like his heart's breaking. "Come here." He pulls her into a hug, and Susan shoves away whatever dignity she has left and clambers up into his lap the same way she might have all those years ago, back when they were children. He kisses her hair. "It's all right. I forgave you a long time ago."
"How?" she whispers. "How could you do that, after everything?"
"I just did." His voice is soft and his arms around her are familiar. "It's no worse than anything else we've done to each other over the years. I think the others forget that sometimes."
It's been so long since they've been here, since they could be here. Susan makes a soft sound in the back of her throat and presses her lips to the edge of Peter's jaw. He goes very still.
"Thank you," she says. "Peter, I -- I missed it."
"What did you miss?" He smoothes a hand over her back, skin warm through the thin fabric of her blouse.
"Fighting. I can't believe I -- what the hell is wrong with us, Peter?" she demands, suddenly furious, and pulls back to look at him. She reaches up to touch his face, running her fingers over the faint, small ridges of scar tissue around his eyes. "We're killers, every one of us. Were we like this before? Is that why he chose us? Or did he make us into this?"
"Does it matter?" Peter says. "We are what we are, Susan. We can't change that."
"I know," she replies, his face cupped between her hands. "I've tried." And she kisses him.
Peter pulls away, his eyes wide. For a moment his hands clench on her back, and then he turns his face away. "You're drunk, Su," he says, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Let me put you to bed; I'll sleep on the couch."
Susan puts all her weight on him and wraps both her arms around his neck. "You don't have to do that," she says. "Stay with me instead."
Peter's eyes flare wide in surprise again, then he says, the lightness in his voice forced and unnatural, "Yeah, you're definitely drunk. Come on." He starts up, and Susan wraps her legs around his hips, clinging like an octopus.
"I know what I'm doing," Susan says and tilts her head down to kiss him properly.
His mouth opens immediately beneath hers, warm and familiar. "Susan," he breathes, stumbling a little under her weight.
"Fuck it, Peter," she says breathlessly between kisses, and he makes no attempt to stop her now. "I want you to take me to bed."
"Susan," he says again. "Are you --"
"I'm sure." She tangles her fingers in his hair to pull his head down, get a deeper angle, and Peter groans in the back of her throat and walks her backwards to the nearest wall, bracing her there as he works a hand down her back to pull her skirt up, fingers warm against her bared thighs.
"Peter," she says, reaching for the buttons on his shirt. "Peter, God --"
"Bed," he says against her cheek. "Where's your --"
He moves back enough that she can get her feet on the floor, and Susan catches the front of his shirt in both her hands, pulling him along with her as she moves backwards, fumbling open her bedroom door. They go stumbling together onto her bed, Peter stealing kisses between trying to get her blouse off as she pushes his shirt off his shoulders. His trousers come off sometime after he rips her skirt, and then they're skin to skin on her threadbare quilt. She pushes him down and straddles him, palms moving smoothly down over his chest, the three parallel lines over his left ribs, the starburst of scars on his left shoulder, the nick at the base of his throat.
"Where's that from?" she asks. That one's new.
"Burma," Peter says. "Same place as these." He offers her his hands for inspection, the knife scars along his fingers and palms, and she says, "For a pilot, you need to stop getting into knife fights," leaning down to kiss him between the words.
"Trickster knows I try," he mutters, and then he rolls them over, and may Aslan help her, but she's missed this, missed him.
Susan wakes up to sunlight spilling through her open window onto her bed and her brothers' voices in her kitchen. Yawning, she swings her legs over the side of her bed and regards the ruins of her skirt for a moment before she gets up to pull on underwear and button on Peter's uniform shirt.
"-- out of your mind?" Edmund is saying as she comes into the kitchen.
"Only on alternate Tuesdays," Peter replies, turning away from her stove with her kettle in his hand. Edmund must have brought him a change of clothes -- probably when he broke into her flat, although she's not particularly surprised about that; she knows her brother -- because he's dressed in civilian clothes, not his uniform. When he sees her, he smiles, warm and sudden and so delighted that Susan can't help but smile back.
Edmund, leaning against her kitchen table, turns his head and glares at her. "Susan," he says flatly.
Her smile falls away. "Edmund," she returns, trying to ignore the sharp stab of hurt. Just because Peter's forgiven her clearly doesn't mean the rest of her siblings have, and that's -- that's only to be expected, she supposes. Still, it hurts.
"Morning, Su," Peter says, and puts the kettle down to come over and hug her briefly. "I think you look better in my uniform than I do," he adds, grinning, and she smiles back.
"Yes, and she's heard that from half your pilots," Edmund says, pushing off the table. "Come on, Pete, we're going to be late."
"No, we're --"
"Yeah, we are." His voice is flat. "One should also factor in little things like traffic along with the actual time of arrival."
Peter rolls his eyes. "We're picking up Lucy and Eustace and Jill Pole at the rail station," he explains. "Do you want --"
"No, she doesn't," Edmund interrupts. "Peter, I'm serious, we're going to be late."
"The world is not actually going to end if we are," Peter says, glancing over his shoulder, but he pulls away from Susan anyway. "Hang on to my uniform for me? I'll come back for it later. And the kettle's hot."
"All right," she agrees, and leans back against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest.
He's turning away when he stops and leans back in to kiss her, and Susan gets a hand in his hair, pulling his head down to hers.
"Oh, for the love of Aslan," Edmund snorts.
"I did miss you," Peter says, and she lets go of him only reluctantly. He turns back and smiles at her before he leaves, and she can hear Edmund berating him all the way down the hall.
"I missed you too," Susan murmurs, touching her lips briefly, and goes to make tea.
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: R
Summary: She doesn't think, she acts. Some things you can't forget. Susan and Peter in England, immediately pre-LB.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and cut-tag from Vanessa Carlton's "Who's To Say".
Author's Notes: Can serve as a prequel to Dust in the Air, no spoilers.
She doesn't think, she acts. Puts her elbow into the gut of the man on her right, brings her foot down on the instep of the man to her left, and that makes them let go of her. Susan rips the bag off her head and spins around, right arm swinging to land a solid punch in Number One's unprotected windpipe. She slams her knee into his crotch and her elbow into the side of his head as he doubles over, sending him sprawling senseless to the ground. Number Two is on her left and she catches his wrist as he swings at her, twisting his arm behind his back and forcing his head down as she brings her knee up into his jaw.
Susan's slow and out of practice, which is why she doesn't see the third man until he grabs her around the waist and pulls her off her feet. "What the bloody fuck is wrong with you, you dozy bint?" he shouts.
Number Two struggles upright, clutching at his jaw, and Susan takes the opportunity to kick him in the chest and slam the back of her skull into the face of the man holding her at the same time. He shouts and drops her.
Susan falls badly, feels her ankle give out beneath her, and scrabbles across the dirty cement until she gets her fingers around the neck of an empty beer bottle. She smashes it into the side of Number Three's head as he bends down over her, backswings to slash the broken edges across his face. He falls backward, screaming as blood pours out from between his fingers.
There's a crack of breaking bone that doesn't have anything to do with her and her brother's calm voice, "Peter, on your nine o'clock. They're all down."
Susan relaxes. "Ow," she says faintly, forcing her fingers free of the neck of the bottle as Peter comes over and crouches down beside her, gets her arm over his shoulder to help her to her feet.
"How bad?" he asks, and his face is shadowed in the darkness of the alley. For some reason it's not strange at all to see him here.
"Twisted ankle," she says. "I can walk."
"You sure?"
Susan puts some of her weight on her ankle, testing it, and says, "Yes."
Peter lets go of her, and Susan blinks and looks around, finally getting a full look at the alley. Number One is out like a light, facedown next to a dumpster, Number Two is crumpled on the ground where Peter either hit him or slammed his face into a wall, and Number Three -- Number Three is on his back, a uniformed airman bent down over him as he whimpers.
Susan looks up abruptly, and what she sees are a dozen RAF officers and airmen staring at her. Of course, she thinks, The Fox and the Lion is an RAF pub, the one Peter's unit frequents when they're in England, and it's no surprise to see Peter here -- Marcus is in Peter's unit, and she and he are always here together, and she can't count the number of times she's seen Peter in here with his men or, occasionally, with Edmund or Lucy. Every one of the airmen is looking at her like she's mad and dangerous, Marcus is looking at her like she's mad and dangerous, and then one of the officers turns and walks away, slow and deliberate. The others follow, leaving Susan and Peter alone with Marcus and the three wounded officers in the alley. Susan knows them -- Marcus's friends, members of his unit, of Peter's unit.
"Marcus?" she says disbelievingly, and her voice sounds odd to her ears, tinny and a little distant. Peter's grip tightens on her elbow.
"Are you insane?" he bursts out. "You know them! This was just supposed to be for fun, just supposed to prove how much --"
There's a roaring in Susan's ears and all she can think of is not again, not again, even here and from him. "Fun?" she hears herself repeat, soft and dangerous. It's not Susan Pevensie speaking. "Fun? You kidnap women and you think it's fun? Am I insane, you --"
Marcus raises a shaking hand and points at her. "I was going to propose to you, you crazy -- I knew he was crazy, I knew his brother was crazy, but I thought you were normal at least, I thought you weren't a fucking lunatic killer without --"
She doesn't see Peter leave her side, just knows the instant he does because a heartbeat later he has Marcus up against the nearest wall, forearm across his throat and knife pressed against his crotch. "Don't you ever fucking talk to my sister that way again."
"Get off me," Marcus spits, and then, reluctantly, the single syllable dragged out of him, "Sir."
"Don't bother with that," Peter says. "This doesn't have a damn thing to do with the Royal Air Force. If you ever, ever come near my sister again --"
"I'll kill him myself," Susan interrupts, feeling reckless and -- young again. It's been a long time since she's felt this way, but her knuckles ache and the thrill of the fight is thrumming through her veins; there's blood on her hands and the scent of it coppery bright in the air. This she knows; she's been here before. She's been here before more times than she can possibly count. She moves forward, every nerve in her body singing with the sheer thrill of it. She can feel the air moving across her skin, smell the sharp tang of Marcus's fear, hear the rasp of Peter's breath in his throat.
"Get off him, Peter," she continues. "I can take care of myself."
"I've known that since we were both children," Peter says, stepping back. He flips the knife around in his hand and offers it hilt-first to Susan.
"Don't be ridiculous," she says, pushing his hand aside. "It wouldn't accomplish anything to slit his throat except a charge of murder, and I don't think that's what either of us really want."
He offers her a faint edge of a grin as she moves past him. "You do have a point there," he allows, tranquil.
Marcus starts inching his way along the wall away from her as she approaches. "Get away from me," he snaps. "Stay away from me, you crazy --"
"No," Susan says. "I've changed my mind. Give me the knife, Peter." She holds her hand out without looking, and Peter puts the hilt in her hand.
Marcus blanches. "You -- you can't --" he begins, and Susan slams the knife into the wall beside his head, the blade going three inches into the soft mortar between the bricks.
She doesn't have to look behind her to know how Peter's standing -- legs spread, arms crossed over his chest, gaze calm and cold and disinterested.
"You are," she says softly, "a coward and a fool, and you are damned lucky I am who I am, or you would be dealing with Scotland Yard now, and not me and my brother. Think very carefully about what you're actually doing the next time you think something is romantic -- I'll give you a hint: kidnapping is not generally high on that list. If you're looking for courtship rituals, the Greeks aren't really the ones you want to be emulating. That's the only piece of advice I'm going to give you, that and a warning -- don't even think about coming near me again." She reaches up and jerks the knife out from beside his head and turns away, breathing hard.
The adrenaline from the fight is starting to fade now and Peter catches her when she stumbles, taking the knife from her hand and pulling her into a hug. "You're getting slow in your old age, Su," he murmurs to her in Narnian, soft enough that she can pretend she imagined it if she wants, and then, over her head, "You'll be damn lucky if I don't bring you up on charges, Flying Officer. But pack your bags, because you won't be flying with me anymore."
"Peter," Susan says into his shoulder, "let it go. Let's go. He's not worth it."
"Yeah, I know that," Peter says, and still doesn't move for another few heartbeats.
Out in the street, the airmen from The Fox and the Lion are still gathered there, and Peter jerks his chin back towards the alley and says, "Llewellyn, take care of them. If any one of them even thinks about filing charges, kindly remind them that they just got their arses beat my sister. Belby, can you leave a message with the barman that I had to take Susan back to her flat? I was supposed to meet Ed here."
"You don't have to --" Susan begins, but Peter shakes his head and grins at her as the airmen start to disperse, muttering to each other.
"You're not getting rid of me that easily, Su," he says.
Her recklessness hasn't faded. "I didn't mean that," she says. "I meant that after this, I really need a drink. Or three."
Peter laughs. "I think I can do that," he says.
She's more or less familiar with Peter's squadron, since most of them are Marcus's friends as well, but there are a number of other RAF officers here that she only knows by face, not name. All of them seem to be oddly enchanted by her in a way she hasn't seen since the last time she was in Narnia, and it turns out that Peter doesn't have to buy her drinks after all; they fall over themselves to keep her glass full.
"Travison was always too full of himself anyway," a flying officer named Dunnington says, leaning back in his chair. "Always going on about something the Athenians or the Spartans or whoever did better. I know he talked about pulling something like this, but I didn't think he'd ever actually do it. What kind of crazy do you have to be to talk your friends into grabbing your girl off the street to bring to you?"
"What kind of crazy do you have to be to fall for that tripe?" someone else asks, and laughs.
Susan leans into Peter's shoulder, working her way through her second scotch. He's got an arm around her shoulders, careful and certain, and hasn't been saying all that much.
"All right, Susan -- may I call you Susan?" Flight Lieutenant Haweis asks.
"Well, it is my name," Susan demurs. "And if you just call me Pevensie, you might get me confused with him."
"No danger of that," Pilot Officer Belby mutters.
"Susan, then," Haweis says. "Now, I've known Pevensie since we were at Cranwell together, and I know better than to ask him where he learned to do things no other pilot knows how to do. I know he didn't learn them when he was marooned with the Yanks, because he was loony before that."
"Thanks, Haweis," Peter drawls. "It's good to know you care."
"Always," Haweis says, and grins before turning his attention back on Susan. "Now, Susan. I just have the one question."
"All right," she says indulgently, sipping at her drink. "What is it?"
"Did you learn to do what you did to that load of idiots out there at the same place your brother did?"
"Who do you think taught it to her?" Peter laughs.
Susan punches him lightly in the chest. "Not that. You were out gallivanting around the west with the Red Company, and I was back at the Cair with Ed and Lu and Osumare Seaworth --"
"All right, Su," Peter interrupts abruptly. "Okay, I think you've had enough to drink, I'm going to take you home now."
"Peter," she protests, and he picks her up easily. She puts her arms around his neck and her face into his shoulder and hears him say, "Sorry, lads, but I've got to be off. If you see my brother, could you tell him where I've gone?"
"Of course," Haweis says, and Susan puts her head back to look at him upside down. His eyes are bright with interest.
"Thanks," Peter says, and adds, "Come on, Su."
Peter doesn't have to ask where her flat is, even though he's never been there before. It's probably for the same reason she knows how to find his flat, the one he shares with Edmund and sometimes Lucy. It's been six years since they were close, but they're all bound to each other by more than blood alone, no matter what passes between them. He gets her keys out of her purse and her door open, kicking it shut behind him, and navigates the tiny dark apartment until he finds her couch and puts her down on it.
"I'll get you some water," he says.
Susan puts her head back and closes her eyes, breathing heavily through her mouth as she listens to the sound of Peter's footsteps fading away. The lights flick on a moment later, warm through her eyelids. She runs her thumb over her bruised knuckles, though that's the least of her worries.
Peter settles back onto the couch beside her. "Here," he says, and Susan opens her eyes, focusing with a little trouble on the glass he's holding out.
"Thanks," she says, and takes it with both hands, sipping at it gingerly.
"Are you all right?" he asks, resting his hand lightly on her back, just between her shoulderblades.
"Yes. No. I don't know." Susan leans over to put the glass down on her battered end table and then bends down over her knees, threading her hands through her hair as she clutches at the back of her skull. "Peter, I --"
"It's all right," he says.
"No, it's not," she says, straightening. She reaches for him clumsily and Peter catches her wrists. His expression is worried, sincere, earnest -- so damn calm that she could kill him for it. "It's not," she says clumsily. "Peter, I lied, I said all those horrible things and I didn't mean them, I didn't mean -- I didn't mean to --"
"It's all right," he says again. "Su, it's all right. I know."
"No, it's not," she repeats. "It's not -- I have to --"
Peter cups her face in one hand, his fingers and palms callused in all the wrong places. "Susan," he says gently. "I know. It's all right. I know what you did and I know why."
"I don't think you do," Susan insists, but gives it up and puts her head against his shoulder. "I just wanted it all to be over," she whispers. "Wanted to forget, because I thought that I could, but I can't, I can't --"
"Oh, Susan," Peter says, sounding like his heart's breaking. "Come here." He pulls her into a hug, and Susan shoves away whatever dignity she has left and clambers up into his lap the same way she might have all those years ago, back when they were children. He kisses her hair. "It's all right. I forgave you a long time ago."
"How?" she whispers. "How could you do that, after everything?"
"I just did." His voice is soft and his arms around her are familiar. "It's no worse than anything else we've done to each other over the years. I think the others forget that sometimes."
It's been so long since they've been here, since they could be here. Susan makes a soft sound in the back of her throat and presses her lips to the edge of Peter's jaw. He goes very still.
"Thank you," she says. "Peter, I -- I missed it."
"What did you miss?" He smoothes a hand over her back, skin warm through the thin fabric of her blouse.
"Fighting. I can't believe I -- what the hell is wrong with us, Peter?" she demands, suddenly furious, and pulls back to look at him. She reaches up to touch his face, running her fingers over the faint, small ridges of scar tissue around his eyes. "We're killers, every one of us. Were we like this before? Is that why he chose us? Or did he make us into this?"
"Does it matter?" Peter says. "We are what we are, Susan. We can't change that."
"I know," she replies, his face cupped between her hands. "I've tried." And she kisses him.
Peter pulls away, his eyes wide. For a moment his hands clench on her back, and then he turns his face away. "You're drunk, Su," he says, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Let me put you to bed; I'll sleep on the couch."
Susan puts all her weight on him and wraps both her arms around his neck. "You don't have to do that," she says. "Stay with me instead."
Peter's eyes flare wide in surprise again, then he says, the lightness in his voice forced and unnatural, "Yeah, you're definitely drunk. Come on." He starts up, and Susan wraps her legs around his hips, clinging like an octopus.
"I know what I'm doing," Susan says and tilts her head down to kiss him properly.
His mouth opens immediately beneath hers, warm and familiar. "Susan," he breathes, stumbling a little under her weight.
"Fuck it, Peter," she says breathlessly between kisses, and he makes no attempt to stop her now. "I want you to take me to bed."
"Susan," he says again. "Are you --"
"I'm sure." She tangles her fingers in his hair to pull his head down, get a deeper angle, and Peter groans in the back of her throat and walks her backwards to the nearest wall, bracing her there as he works a hand down her back to pull her skirt up, fingers warm against her bared thighs.
"Peter," she says, reaching for the buttons on his shirt. "Peter, God --"
"Bed," he says against her cheek. "Where's your --"
He moves back enough that she can get her feet on the floor, and Susan catches the front of his shirt in both her hands, pulling him along with her as she moves backwards, fumbling open her bedroom door. They go stumbling together onto her bed, Peter stealing kisses between trying to get her blouse off as she pushes his shirt off his shoulders. His trousers come off sometime after he rips her skirt, and then they're skin to skin on her threadbare quilt. She pushes him down and straddles him, palms moving smoothly down over his chest, the three parallel lines over his left ribs, the starburst of scars on his left shoulder, the nick at the base of his throat.
"Where's that from?" she asks. That one's new.
"Burma," Peter says. "Same place as these." He offers her his hands for inspection, the knife scars along his fingers and palms, and she says, "For a pilot, you need to stop getting into knife fights," leaning down to kiss him between the words.
"Trickster knows I try," he mutters, and then he rolls them over, and may Aslan help her, but she's missed this, missed him.
Susan wakes up to sunlight spilling through her open window onto her bed and her brothers' voices in her kitchen. Yawning, she swings her legs over the side of her bed and regards the ruins of her skirt for a moment before she gets up to pull on underwear and button on Peter's uniform shirt.
"-- out of your mind?" Edmund is saying as she comes into the kitchen.
"Only on alternate Tuesdays," Peter replies, turning away from her stove with her kettle in his hand. Edmund must have brought him a change of clothes -- probably when he broke into her flat, although she's not particularly surprised about that; she knows her brother -- because he's dressed in civilian clothes, not his uniform. When he sees her, he smiles, warm and sudden and so delighted that Susan can't help but smile back.
Edmund, leaning against her kitchen table, turns his head and glares at her. "Susan," he says flatly.
Her smile falls away. "Edmund," she returns, trying to ignore the sharp stab of hurt. Just because Peter's forgiven her clearly doesn't mean the rest of her siblings have, and that's -- that's only to be expected, she supposes. Still, it hurts.
"Morning, Su," Peter says, and puts the kettle down to come over and hug her briefly. "I think you look better in my uniform than I do," he adds, grinning, and she smiles back.
"Yes, and she's heard that from half your pilots," Edmund says, pushing off the table. "Come on, Pete, we're going to be late."
"No, we're --"
"Yeah, we are." His voice is flat. "One should also factor in little things like traffic along with the actual time of arrival."
Peter rolls his eyes. "We're picking up Lucy and Eustace and Jill Pole at the rail station," he explains. "Do you want --"
"No, she doesn't," Edmund interrupts. "Peter, I'm serious, we're going to be late."
"The world is not actually going to end if we are," Peter says, glancing over his shoulder, but he pulls away from Susan anyway. "Hang on to my uniform for me? I'll come back for it later. And the kettle's hot."
"All right," she agrees, and leans back against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest.
He's turning away when he stops and leans back in to kiss her, and Susan gets a hand in his hair, pulling his head down to hers.
"Oh, for the love of Aslan," Edmund snorts.
"I did miss you," Peter says, and she lets go of him only reluctantly. He turns back and smiles at her before he leaves, and she can hear Edmund berating him all the way down the hall.
"I missed you too," Susan murmurs, touching her lips briefly, and goes to make tea.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 06:43 am (UTC)"Get off me," Marcus spits, and then, reluctantly, the single syllable dragged out of him, "Sir."
lolz <3
YOU AND YOUR GREEKS
SU YOU ARE A LIGHTWEIGHT
i think you got typo and mean 'he': even though she's never been
calluses in the wrong places :-( aww
lol octopus
TRICKSTER <3
peter/susan smilessssss warm my heart. god i'm so easy when it comes to these two.
OH ED. YOU ARE JUST JEALOUS, secretly missing your ot3 sexytiems.
OMFG THE FOX AND THE LION HOLY SHIT <333333333333333333
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:40 am (UTC)My Greek Tyranny and Democracy prof does not know what terror she hath wrought. *grins brightly*
PETER AND SUSAN AND EDMUND TOOOOOOO.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:56 am (UTC)god, i so fear the day when i actually get around to reading THE BOOK OF WAR. sun tzu! von clausewitz! and the whole of machiavelli.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 07:37 am (UTC)OHHHH PETERRRRR IF ONLY YOU KNEWWWWWW
I LOVE Susan being kickass! oh man!
I like initially-resistant-to-the-sexings Peter. It's nice to see him so protective when usually Susan is the one telling people not to do crazy things.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 07:24 pm (UTC)ARGH, PETER! WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?!
Loved this very much.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:42 am (UTC)Thank you, and I'm glad you liked it!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 09:05 pm (UTC)Question: How did Susan end up in Narnia? Did she get pulled from whatever she was doing??
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:44 am (UTC)Hey, when the horn of Narnia summons them, they don't have a choice but to answer. One would hope that she'd at least managed to get dressed first.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 10:38 pm (UTC)"Of course," Haweis says, and Susan puts her head back to look at him upside down. His eyes are bright with interest.
This is just the best tipsy visual ever.
Edmund breaking into the flat! (How did he know Peter was there? Or does the bar message "walking Susan home" automatically translate?0
I take it this is a more incesty background than the warsverse? Because Edmund did not seem surprised AT ALL. Plus, you know, the giant vat of subtext/text that is Dust
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:50 am (UTC)The Warsverse is getting more and more incesty every time I write in it. *facepalm* But I always use Warsverse background. Although at this point I also use the ot3 thread (http://lassiterfics.livejournal.com/66387.html?thread=759379#t759379) as post-VotDT background.
Although to be fair, in my head they did not get really incesty until post-LWW and post-PC, when it's all angst-flavored.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 11:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 02:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 03:05 am (UTC)I loved this. Oh, me. You write the Pevensies just how I like them.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-10 04:00 pm (UTC)Mmm, Pevensies, violent by nature...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-11 01:01 am (UTC)Amazing.
Incredible.
What else can I say?
You should definitely add this to the Peter/Susan fic archive!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-11 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 07:30 am (UTC)But holy hell woman. I LOOOOOVE your Peter/Susan stuff. OMG:KJJWHSER:DHEWB!!!
Ok, done now.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-18 03:34 am (UTC)*explodes with glee*
Bed, baby, this is awesome, as usual! Oh, Peter! But they don't die this, time, right? Because this is a prologue to Dust, right? *clings*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-18 06:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-18 09:51 pm (UTC)Wow
Date: 2008-12-20 07:15 pm (UTC)Re: Wow
Date: 2008-12-20 11:36 pm (UTC)