Narnia fic: "Joie de Vivre" (Peter/Susan)
Jun. 14th, 2009 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardTitle: Joie de Vivre
Author:bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Incest
Summary: One night a year for madness is what they say about Carnival on Galma. Golden Age, Peter/Susan.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Some characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media.
Author's Notes: Originally posted here for Porn Battle VIII. References The False Knight.
The last time he’d been on Galma during Carnival, a group of people had tried to kill him and Peter had had to execute someone for high treason.
The streets haven’t changed much since the last time he was here, still filled with drunk, laughing Narnians and Galmans in brightly decorated animal masks. The buildings lining the streets are decorated with hanging lanterns in a multitude of colors; more lanterns illuminate the painted dome of the Many-Colored Temple and reflect down into the streets below. Wine vendors in half-masks decorated with fanciful grapevines move through the crowd with great jugs of wine hanging from yokes over their shoulders, doling out paper cups of wine to anyone who stops them. One star swill and ten sun vintages are the same tonight: all of it goes free to anyone who asks.
Peter dips his head to accept a strand of cheap glass beads painted in the Carnival colors of purple, green, and gold from a woman in a cat mask in exchange for a kiss, then takes a cup from a wine vendor, draining the heady stuff in one swallow and crushing the paper between his fingers before he lets it follow to the street, where it will be trampled over by thousands of feet before the dawn. The Galmans have convicts clean up the city after festivals like this; he’s seen the mess that’s left behind and supposes it’s a more than adequate punishment for some crimes.
He slides effortlessly through the crowd, taking a few more strands of beads and doling out kisses in return, indulgent of the people that grope him or whisper invitations under the mask of Carnival. Just for tonight, he’s slipped the Royal Guard and it’s more of a relief than he’d thought it would be, to be alone and anonymous, nameless and faceless, just another mask in a crowd of ten thousand masks. He’s not the High King of Narnia tonight, and the feeling of freedom is a high chased by alcohol and kissing, the exuberant atmosphere of Carnival. One night a year for madness is what they say about it on Galma, and they’re still making up for the lack of a hundred years of Carnival; even a decade after the last clinging tendrils of the White Witch’s power in Galma had been burned out, there’s still an edge to Carnival that’s more desperate and defiant than pure joie de vivre alone would offer.
Peter takes another wine cup from a passing vendor, knocking it back the way he might a shot of Belgarine vodka and letting the cup fall before he turns to find a woman in an elaborately feathered and painted hawk’s mask on his other side, lifting a strand of Carnival beads towards him. He ducks his head to accept them; she takes a kiss from him in return and Peter looks into eyes as blue as his own. He starts to jerk away in surprise; her callused archer’s hands close on his wrists, holding him in place.
“Su -”
“Shh,” Susan says against his mouth. “No names during Carnival.”
He acquiesces after a moment, feeling her smile before she kisses him again, settling herself against him, her touches light and precise in invitation. She tastes like wine, her mouth stained red by it, and a little like the spiced meats being sold at a few strategic street corners, where their stalls are relatively protected from the crowd. Peter settles his hands into the wealth of her thick hair, feeling the fine strands of it slide through his fingers, and kisses her back. They’re jostled a little by the crowd surging by, but most people detour around them, opening a miniature oasis in the center of the street.
His sister is a very good kisser, Peter realizes, his mouth suddenly dry.
He hears the beat of drums before the krewe rounds the corner and breaks the kiss to pull Susan out of the center of the street, crowding up against the sides with the rest of the crowd. This one is small, compared to some of the others that he’s seen today, but it’s just as enthusiastic as its larger cousins, men and women masked and painted in Carnival colors and the colors of the krewe - bright, unnatural shades of orange and pink - cheering and screaming and tossing beads and flowers into the crowd. There are a multitude of drums, big and small, beating out rhythms back and forth in a seamless whole; the biggest ones Peter can feel in his bones, in his teeth, all the way until the krewe passes to the other end of the street and turns a corner.
The crowd flows back into the street and Peter stops to tuck the red flower he’s caught behind Susan’s ear, bright and a little awkward against her hawk mask. She laughs and stands up on tiptoe to kiss him again, sliding her fingers into his belt and pulling him against her so that Peter can feel every curve of her body, slimly muscled from hundreds of hours of weapons practice. He closes his eyes and breaks the kiss, breathing hard through his mouth, and says, “We can’t -”
Her full lips are soft against his cheek as she says, “We can. One night a year for madness.”
“Not us,” Peter says, but even before the words have left his lips he knows it’s a faulty argument. Nameless and faceless; tonight is the Galman Carnival. Nothing matters.
“Especially us,” Susan whispers, kissing his cheek. “No names. No faces. Tomorrow it never happened.”
Mad. He’s gone utterly mad. But it’s Carnival; it’s the one night a year for that. He cups his sister’s face in his hands and kisses their names from her mouth, the tips of his fingers brushing against the thin, pliant wood of her mask. His own knocks against it, a small, awkward sound that’s lost in the rowdy drunkenness of the crowd.
They go together up a set of twisting metal stairs to a roof garden opened up for the night to the hundreds of people that will pass an hour or more together. There are little nooks and crannies cleverly designated by vines trained on wide trellises, creating the illusion of privacy. Anyone could walk by, anyone could see - their wife, their husband, their brother, their sister. But it’s Carnival. None of it matters.
Susan takes two cups of wine from a vendor who’s resting from the press of the crowd, handing one to Peter and flipping the faun a golden sun. “Happy Carnival!” she says, and he bares his own wine-stained teeth in a wild grin that’s the last thing Peter sees before they’re both standing in a nook at the corner of the roof, where he can clearly hear the sound of the raucous party of the street going on below. He knocks his own cup against Susan’s in a mockery of a toast and knocks it back. A good vintage; it goes straight to his head and Peter draws in a sharp breath, wavering on his feet for a moment before he tosses the cup away and goes to kiss Susan again, reaching around for the buttons on the back of her dress as she undoes the ones on his shirt.
One moment she’s fully dressed; the next moment she’s stepping out of her gown in nothing but her skin and her mask. Peter sheds the last of his clothes, barely aware of the weight of his mask on his face, and puts an arm around her waist, pulling her against him as they kiss. Her creamy skin is so smooth that the sword calluses on his fingers don’t catch on it when he drags his hands up her bare back, rolling them over onto the floor, strewn with grape leaves and the purple and gold petals of the King of Carnival flower.
Peter kisses her mouth, her neck, the curve of her shoulder, mouthing at her breasts and worrying at them a little with his teeth, making Susan laugh and slide her fingers through his hair, pulling him up for another wine-flavored kiss. She tilts her hips up against him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he slides into the slick, tight heat of her.
“Oh,” she breathes, the word stuttering out between her teeth, and Peter runs his hands up along her arms, trapping them above her head. He holds himself as still as he can as he kisses her, aware of the strain building up at the base of his spine, until Susan gasps and bucks against him, saying, “Aslan’s teeth, please -” with a break in the middle of the words.
And God, gods, but it’s good, in a way it shouldn’t be, shouldn’t ever be, moving into his sister and feeling her body against his, Susan wrapping herself around him as she curses and he muffles his gasps on the soft skin of her shoulder. She digs one heel hard into the small of his back, her arms flexing under his hands, and Peter licks the sweat from the base of her throat, kissing her crookedly, so that their masks knock together again. Around, the sweet, heady scent of crushed flower petals rises into the air.
“I love -” she begins raggedly, and Peter kisses her so that he doesn’t have to hear the confession, already nearly lost beneath the shouts from below, the drums as another krewe passes down the street.
He lets go of her wrists to cup her hips in his hands, fingers skating over the edge of scar tissue beneath her ribs. His lips bruise kisses against her throat as Susan lets her head fall back, gasping incoherently as she comes, her hands suddenly on his back and drawing red lines down his shoulders. He can feel the steady thump of the krewe’s big drums, faster and faster, and the sound vibrates down his spine and goes straight to the point where he and Susan are joined. The edges of his control are unraveling as he rocks into her, her thighs tight around his hips, her breasts soft against his chest. Peter kisses her off-center, messy, missing her mouth entirely, and comes with the ecstatic celebration of Carnival ringing in his ears.
Morning arrives with a truly impressive hangover and cool ocean air settling over his bare skin; Peter hears himself groan and winces as the movement jars his head, his mask a heavy, unfamiliar weight on his face. He raises himself up on one elbow, pulling the thing off and setting it aside, blinking at the sudden influx of light; the mask had slipped down his face to shade his eyes.
He looks down as someone moans against his skin: Susan, curled against his side with her mask half-off and pressed awkwardly into his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her bare back and holding her close.
“Oh, my head,” she whimpers, the words humming against his skin.
Peter pushes her mask carefully off her face, smiling a little at the red lines left behind. She raises her head to look blearily at him, gaze sharpening and turning to worry after a moment.
“Susan,” he says, and kisses her.
Her mouth opens beneath his, soft and welcoming, and Peter kisses her until a shriek from elsewhere on the roof makes them break apart. “One night a year for madness,” he says slowly, her cheek still cupped in his hand, and Susan takes a deep breath.
“One night,” she agrees slowly. “Nothing matters on Carnival.”
But it’s not Carnival anymore; Peter passes her gown to her silently, reaching for his shirt and trousers. The fine fabric feels scratchy against his oversensitive skin and he smoothes his palms down the sides of his trousers, momentarily uncertain of what to do with them.
“Are you decent yet, your majesties?” his bodyguard Hazhir inquires, the leopard suddenly at the entrance to the nook. Behind her, Peter can see the shifting striped and spotted fur of a whole passel of the Royal Guard great cats, almost certainly those assigned both to his and Susan.
“You followed us!” Susan accuses, jerking on her boots and doing up the laces so quickly that one of them snaps in her hand. She swears and tosses the broken piece of leather aside, fastening the laces lower.
“Of course,” Hazhir agrees, unfazed, and Peter sighs as he buttons his tunic on over his undershirt.
“Back to the real world,” he says, and Susan rolls her eyes at him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, still stained red with Carnival wine.
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Incest
Summary: One night a year for madness is what they say about Carnival on Galma. Golden Age, Peter/Susan.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Some characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media.
Author's Notes: Originally posted here for Porn Battle VIII. References The False Knight.
The last time he’d been on Galma during Carnival, a group of people had tried to kill him and Peter had had to execute someone for high treason.
The streets haven’t changed much since the last time he was here, still filled with drunk, laughing Narnians and Galmans in brightly decorated animal masks. The buildings lining the streets are decorated with hanging lanterns in a multitude of colors; more lanterns illuminate the painted dome of the Many-Colored Temple and reflect down into the streets below. Wine vendors in half-masks decorated with fanciful grapevines move through the crowd with great jugs of wine hanging from yokes over their shoulders, doling out paper cups of wine to anyone who stops them. One star swill and ten sun vintages are the same tonight: all of it goes free to anyone who asks.
Peter dips his head to accept a strand of cheap glass beads painted in the Carnival colors of purple, green, and gold from a woman in a cat mask in exchange for a kiss, then takes a cup from a wine vendor, draining the heady stuff in one swallow and crushing the paper between his fingers before he lets it follow to the street, where it will be trampled over by thousands of feet before the dawn. The Galmans have convicts clean up the city after festivals like this; he’s seen the mess that’s left behind and supposes it’s a more than adequate punishment for some crimes.
He slides effortlessly through the crowd, taking a few more strands of beads and doling out kisses in return, indulgent of the people that grope him or whisper invitations under the mask of Carnival. Just for tonight, he’s slipped the Royal Guard and it’s more of a relief than he’d thought it would be, to be alone and anonymous, nameless and faceless, just another mask in a crowd of ten thousand masks. He’s not the High King of Narnia tonight, and the feeling of freedom is a high chased by alcohol and kissing, the exuberant atmosphere of Carnival. One night a year for madness is what they say about it on Galma, and they’re still making up for the lack of a hundred years of Carnival; even a decade after the last clinging tendrils of the White Witch’s power in Galma had been burned out, there’s still an edge to Carnival that’s more desperate and defiant than pure joie de vivre alone would offer.
Peter takes another wine cup from a passing vendor, knocking it back the way he might a shot of Belgarine vodka and letting the cup fall before he turns to find a woman in an elaborately feathered and painted hawk’s mask on his other side, lifting a strand of Carnival beads towards him. He ducks his head to accept them; she takes a kiss from him in return and Peter looks into eyes as blue as his own. He starts to jerk away in surprise; her callused archer’s hands close on his wrists, holding him in place.
“Su -”
“Shh,” Susan says against his mouth. “No names during Carnival.”
He acquiesces after a moment, feeling her smile before she kisses him again, settling herself against him, her touches light and precise in invitation. She tastes like wine, her mouth stained red by it, and a little like the spiced meats being sold at a few strategic street corners, where their stalls are relatively protected from the crowd. Peter settles his hands into the wealth of her thick hair, feeling the fine strands of it slide through his fingers, and kisses her back. They’re jostled a little by the crowd surging by, but most people detour around them, opening a miniature oasis in the center of the street.
His sister is a very good kisser, Peter realizes, his mouth suddenly dry.
He hears the beat of drums before the krewe rounds the corner and breaks the kiss to pull Susan out of the center of the street, crowding up against the sides with the rest of the crowd. This one is small, compared to some of the others that he’s seen today, but it’s just as enthusiastic as its larger cousins, men and women masked and painted in Carnival colors and the colors of the krewe - bright, unnatural shades of orange and pink - cheering and screaming and tossing beads and flowers into the crowd. There are a multitude of drums, big and small, beating out rhythms back and forth in a seamless whole; the biggest ones Peter can feel in his bones, in his teeth, all the way until the krewe passes to the other end of the street and turns a corner.
The crowd flows back into the street and Peter stops to tuck the red flower he’s caught behind Susan’s ear, bright and a little awkward against her hawk mask. She laughs and stands up on tiptoe to kiss him again, sliding her fingers into his belt and pulling him against her so that Peter can feel every curve of her body, slimly muscled from hundreds of hours of weapons practice. He closes his eyes and breaks the kiss, breathing hard through his mouth, and says, “We can’t -”
Her full lips are soft against his cheek as she says, “We can. One night a year for madness.”
“Not us,” Peter says, but even before the words have left his lips he knows it’s a faulty argument. Nameless and faceless; tonight is the Galman Carnival. Nothing matters.
“Especially us,” Susan whispers, kissing his cheek. “No names. No faces. Tomorrow it never happened.”
Mad. He’s gone utterly mad. But it’s Carnival; it’s the one night a year for that. He cups his sister’s face in his hands and kisses their names from her mouth, the tips of his fingers brushing against the thin, pliant wood of her mask. His own knocks against it, a small, awkward sound that’s lost in the rowdy drunkenness of the crowd.
They go together up a set of twisting metal stairs to a roof garden opened up for the night to the hundreds of people that will pass an hour or more together. There are little nooks and crannies cleverly designated by vines trained on wide trellises, creating the illusion of privacy. Anyone could walk by, anyone could see - their wife, their husband, their brother, their sister. But it’s Carnival. None of it matters.
Susan takes two cups of wine from a vendor who’s resting from the press of the crowd, handing one to Peter and flipping the faun a golden sun. “Happy Carnival!” she says, and he bares his own wine-stained teeth in a wild grin that’s the last thing Peter sees before they’re both standing in a nook at the corner of the roof, where he can clearly hear the sound of the raucous party of the street going on below. He knocks his own cup against Susan’s in a mockery of a toast and knocks it back. A good vintage; it goes straight to his head and Peter draws in a sharp breath, wavering on his feet for a moment before he tosses the cup away and goes to kiss Susan again, reaching around for the buttons on the back of her dress as she undoes the ones on his shirt.
One moment she’s fully dressed; the next moment she’s stepping out of her gown in nothing but her skin and her mask. Peter sheds the last of his clothes, barely aware of the weight of his mask on his face, and puts an arm around her waist, pulling her against him as they kiss. Her creamy skin is so smooth that the sword calluses on his fingers don’t catch on it when he drags his hands up her bare back, rolling them over onto the floor, strewn with grape leaves and the purple and gold petals of the King of Carnival flower.
Peter kisses her mouth, her neck, the curve of her shoulder, mouthing at her breasts and worrying at them a little with his teeth, making Susan laugh and slide her fingers through his hair, pulling him up for another wine-flavored kiss. She tilts her hips up against him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he slides into the slick, tight heat of her.
“Oh,” she breathes, the word stuttering out between her teeth, and Peter runs his hands up along her arms, trapping them above her head. He holds himself as still as he can as he kisses her, aware of the strain building up at the base of his spine, until Susan gasps and bucks against him, saying, “Aslan’s teeth, please -” with a break in the middle of the words.
And God, gods, but it’s good, in a way it shouldn’t be, shouldn’t ever be, moving into his sister and feeling her body against his, Susan wrapping herself around him as she curses and he muffles his gasps on the soft skin of her shoulder. She digs one heel hard into the small of his back, her arms flexing under his hands, and Peter licks the sweat from the base of her throat, kissing her crookedly, so that their masks knock together again. Around, the sweet, heady scent of crushed flower petals rises into the air.
“I love -” she begins raggedly, and Peter kisses her so that he doesn’t have to hear the confession, already nearly lost beneath the shouts from below, the drums as another krewe passes down the street.
He lets go of her wrists to cup her hips in his hands, fingers skating over the edge of scar tissue beneath her ribs. His lips bruise kisses against her throat as Susan lets her head fall back, gasping incoherently as she comes, her hands suddenly on his back and drawing red lines down his shoulders. He can feel the steady thump of the krewe’s big drums, faster and faster, and the sound vibrates down his spine and goes straight to the point where he and Susan are joined. The edges of his control are unraveling as he rocks into her, her thighs tight around his hips, her breasts soft against his chest. Peter kisses her off-center, messy, missing her mouth entirely, and comes with the ecstatic celebration of Carnival ringing in his ears.
Morning arrives with a truly impressive hangover and cool ocean air settling over his bare skin; Peter hears himself groan and winces as the movement jars his head, his mask a heavy, unfamiliar weight on his face. He raises himself up on one elbow, pulling the thing off and setting it aside, blinking at the sudden influx of light; the mask had slipped down his face to shade his eyes.
He looks down as someone moans against his skin: Susan, curled against his side with her mask half-off and pressed awkwardly into his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her bare back and holding her close.
“Oh, my head,” she whimpers, the words humming against his skin.
Peter pushes her mask carefully off her face, smiling a little at the red lines left behind. She raises her head to look blearily at him, gaze sharpening and turning to worry after a moment.
“Susan,” he says, and kisses her.
Her mouth opens beneath his, soft and welcoming, and Peter kisses her until a shriek from elsewhere on the roof makes them break apart. “One night a year for madness,” he says slowly, her cheek still cupped in his hand, and Susan takes a deep breath.
“One night,” she agrees slowly. “Nothing matters on Carnival.”
But it’s not Carnival anymore; Peter passes her gown to her silently, reaching for his shirt and trousers. The fine fabric feels scratchy against his oversensitive skin and he smoothes his palms down the sides of his trousers, momentarily uncertain of what to do with them.
“Are you decent yet, your majesties?” his bodyguard Hazhir inquires, the leopard suddenly at the entrance to the nook. Behind her, Peter can see the shifting striped and spotted fur of a whole passel of the Royal Guard great cats, almost certainly those assigned both to his and Susan.
“You followed us!” Susan accuses, jerking on her boots and doing up the laces so quickly that one of them snaps in her hand. She swears and tosses the broken piece of leather aside, fastening the laces lower.
“Of course,” Hazhir agrees, unfazed, and Peter sighs as he buttons his tunic on over his undershirt.
“Back to the real world,” he says, and Susan rolls her eyes at him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, still stained red with Carnival wine.