Chapter Text
+i. caspian
𓍙
The autumn of the fifth year of Caspian’s reign brings with it the worst day of his life, though it starts much the same as any other.
They’re due for a visit to Beaversdam—partly to attend a harvest feast, and mostly to settle a few matters among the townspeople there. Some of the former Telmarine nobility have been muttering once more about being banned from logging in Lantern Waste. Susan and Edmund agreed with Caspian that it would be wise to visit before tensions rise any higher, and thus avoid the potential fallout. So Caspian, with Peter in tow (“Because you can’t very well go riding all the way across Narnia to deal with this sort of thing alone,” Susan had pointed out, even if Caspian didn’t want nor have time for a proper entourage), spent the morning and a good deal of the afternoon crossing from Cair Paravel to Narnia’s western reaches.
The ride is uneventful, and Caspian fully expects the rest of the trip to be as such. They’ve spent years mediating all sorts of issues between the old and new Narnians, after all. This would hardly be another footnote on the list—if not for the stablehand who leaps out of one of the stalls at Caspian, dagger in hand, as he dismounts from Destrier after their arrival.
It happens quickly enough that Caspian barely manages to grasp at Destrier’s bridle to hold him steady as the stallion squeals and jerks up his head in fright. He sees the flash of the blade, hears the man’s snarl of, For Telmar! and just thinks to angle his shoulder rather than his neck towards the blow, bracing himself—
And then Peter arrives, shouldering roughly into the man and sending his strike awry, even as Peter yanks his own blade from its sheath.
There is a brief struggle, wherein it takes all of Caspian’s attention to keep Destrier from rearing up or kicking out wildly in fright. The horses in the nearest stalls whinny and buck, and one slams a hoof into its door, but soon enough Peter has the would-be assassin backed into an empty stall, sword leveled at his chest. One sleeve is shredded open, blood dripping slowly onto the shavings at their feet, where he turned the edge of the blow meant for Caspian with only his forearm. Peter doesn’t seem to notice.
“Drop your weapon,” Peter says. His breathing is hardly uneven and his tone is level, though Caspian can hear the controlled current of anger running beneath it. “And if you’d be so kind as to tell us who sent you, if anyone, perhaps I’ll let you live.”
It’s an empty threat, Caspian knows, but the man sneers disdainfully at it, even as he eyes the sword and edges backwards another half-step, closer to the stall’s back wall.
“It’s not me you should be worrying about now. Not everyone in Narnia accepts you and your beasts’ filthy rule,” the man hisses, eyes fixing balefully on Caspian, standing frozen in the aisle. He spits upon the flagstones at Caspian’s boots, and Peter starts forward, but before he can do anything, the man’s raised his dagger and slashed it deep across his own throat.
Caspian knows immediately it’s too late. There’s only one thing in Narnia he knows of that can save a man from such a blow, and it’s currently housed in Cair Paravel’s vaults on the eastern shore.
Blood sheets down the front of the would-be assassin’s tunic as he crumples. He’s dead before he hits the ground, even as Peter tries and fails to catch him. For a moment, they both stand among the restless horses and watch the blood soaking into clean straw. Caspian looks at Peter, and Peter sighs, sheathing Rhindon at his hip.
“What a waste,” he murmurs, nudging the fallen dagger with the toe of one boot. “I suppose now we’ll never know if he was working alone.”
Over the thunder of his own heart still echoing in his ears, Caspian says, rather unhelpfully, “You’re bleeding.”
Peter blinks. “Am I?”
Caspian nods towards his forearm, moving to tie Destrier’s reins to the bars of one of the stall doors. The commotion has summoned another stablehand—or perhaps their assassin was merely masquerading as one—whom Caspian dispatches quickly to fetch both his master and Peter’s mare, which fled to the stable yard in the tumult. When he turns back to Peter, Caspian finds him inspecting the slice along his forearm, which thankfully seems shallow enough, even as it bleeds freely down his wrist.
“Damn,” says Peter, sounding much calmer than Caspian feels. “I rather liked this tunic.”
Caspian laughs, albeit shakily. The ground seems unsteady beneath him, suddenly. “Perhaps we ought to have let you wear your armor after all.”
Peter’s not one to wear full armor for naught but ceremony, of course, but he prefers to wear leathers, or at the very least bracers and his sword, most days. There’d been a fuss about it from Susan (and, though Caspian regrets it now, from himself as well) as they prepared for their departure this morning, and Peter’d grumbled and rolled his eyes but given in soon enough, stowing such gear in his saddlebags in favor of a slightly more formal tunic than usual. It provided no such protection from the assassin’s blow.
“Ah, but we can’t have our friends in Beaversdam thinking this is an unfriendly visit,” Peter quotes Caspian’s words from this morning back to him with a raised brow, and Caspian’s face warms.
“Well, it’s not as though I knew there would be knives involved,” he manages.
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst,” Peter says with a shrug. He doesn’t sound too put out about it. “That’s what Susan says, anyway. Better me than you, though, yes?”
Caspian blinks. “What?”
Peter rolls his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not Narnia’s acting King, you know. He wasn’t even after me.”
“The Narnians still call you High King,” Caspian can’t help pointing out. He steps forward into the stall and reaches for Peter’s wrist. “Let me see that.”
He does not say: You are still King to me, because probably Peter would laugh, or maybe because Caspian’s throat is oddly tight at the moment, rendering it difficult to speak.
Peter waves his free hand, seemingly unbothered by his own blood smeared across his palm. “Old habits. Everyone knows I’m just the poor sod you keep around to dispose of assassins and irritating courtiers. And you needn’t bother, really; it’s just a cut, and a shallow one at that. I’ve had worse.”
Despite this insistence, he has yet to remove his arm from Caspian’s grasp.
Caspian snorts despite himself, turning Peter’s wrist carefully to inspect the wound. He’s right; it’s not very deep at all, though it runs from elbow to outer wrist and has already soaked the remains of his sleeve.
“Let me,” Caspian insists as Peter tries to pull free, likely of a mind to dig out the bandages Lucy had insisted he pack in his saddlebags and see to things himself. Old habits, indeed.
By now, Peter’s wayward mount has been led, lathered but docile, back into the stables, and Caspian wastes no time retrieving the necessary supplies to see to Peter’s forearm as the stable master and his men set about disposing of the body and the blood-soaked sawdust and straw. Caspian takes his time with the bandages. Somehow, between the two of them, it’s Caspian’s hands that are unsteady, as though he’s the one losing blood.
“Thanks,” Peter says quietly when Caspian finishes. With his good hand, he rolls back the remains of his bloodied sleeve. Even in the golden light of late afternoon, he looks more than a little pale. Perhaps he lost more blood than Caspian realized. But still, he smiles crookedly at Caspian’s evident worry and adds, “Good as new.”
In that moment, Caspian believes him.
He’ll regret it later.
𓍙
Their host—Terelle, one of the former lords of Beaversdam, imprisoned during Miraz’s rule but freed and restored to his home, if not his entire original holdings—apologizes profusely for the attempt on Caspian’s life, but little progress is made by way of identifying the man who made it. This is not the first time a belligerent Telmarine (nor even old Narnian) has sought to end Caspian’s rule, and he thinks admittedly little of it after a point. In turn, Peter seems distracted, or perhaps overtired, so Caspian decides it’s best set aside for the moment. It is unlikely, after all, of another attempt so soon after such a failure.
They spend some time in diligent discussion, mediating early talks between nymphs and Dryads and humans which cannot wait, no matter how road-weary either of them might be. It’s only afterward, as they make their way from forest glade to the courtyard of Lord Terelle’s house amid the falling twilight, that Caspian realizes how quiet Peter’s become through all of this.
As politely as possible, he extricates himself from the handful of men still vying for his ear and casts about for Peter. He’s standing a little ways off, one hand braced on the low wall that rings the inner courtyard, the other resting on Rhindon, as always.
But when Caspian steps closer, it’s clear something is wrong. Peter’s face is nearly as white as his knuckles where he grips the sword’s hilt for (it almost seems) dear life. In the last light of evening, sweat gleams on his brow, which is creased as though he’s in pain.
“Peter?” Caspian asks, reaching to lay his fingers against Peter’s elbow, and Peter flinches with his whole body. “Are you all right?”
Peter says, rather dazedly, “I don’t know. I feel—”
He coughs, suddenly, and it’s an unpleasantly wet and rattling sound. He’s barely drawn in one breath before he coughs again, hunching in on himself as it wracks him. It sounds more like a retch. A moment later, Peter spits a mouthful of something onto the wall and stares at it for a few seconds before swinging his gaze up to Caspian’s.
“Well,” he says faintly, “that’s not good.”
Caspian looks, and even in the gathering dusk he can make out the gleam of blood upon stone.
“Peter—” he begins, which is about when Peter’s knees buckle and he collapses.
𓍙
Caspian, being so close, manages to catch him, but not without stumbling and going hard to his knees upon the flagstones. Peter’s breathing is ragged against Caspian’s neck, and he makes no move to rise.
He makes no move at all.
There’s a great deal of noise and clamor and people rushing about all at once, as it turns out the right hand to the King collapsing is at least half as worrying to the others as it is to Caspian.
“Peter,” Caspian says, which garners no response. Peter’s skin is hot to the touch. He’s silent and burning in Caspian’s arms. “Peter.”
Someone takes Peter from him, then, and someone else helps him to his feet. They’re going to take him to a bedchamber, they explain, and a healer has been sent for. Caspian swallows hard and gathers himself, nodding, but stops before following the knot of people bearing his friend and general into the house.
“Your Grace?” asks a lingering servant uncertainly.
“A moment,” Caspian says, and makes a decision. He turns and hurries back toward the forest’s edge. Any Narnian, he thinks, will do, be it nymph or Beast or neither.
Fortunately, there are still several Dryads clustered there, talking and watching where the human delegation retreated to Lord Terelle’s estate. When they see Caspian approaching, they step out from the trees to meet him.
“My King,” says one, tall and thick as an ancient beech. “What ails you?”
“Not me,” Caspian replies. “Peter— the High King is wounded. We must get word to Cair Paravel.”
“Queen Lucy,” the Dryad realizes immediately, nodding. “Worry not, my King. The tidings of Trees are swift.”
Caspian says, “Thank you,” and then nothing else, for he finds his chest aches with equal portions of worry and relief. Perhaps it’s an overreaction on his part, sending for Lucy and her cordial when Peter might well be recovered by dawn. But the sight of fresh blood on the flagstones will not leave his mind, and Caspian finds he would rather overreact in this case than face the alternative.
𓍙
When they escort Caspian to Peter’s room, the healer is already there, long dark braid falling over her shoulder and brow furrowed deep as she examines the wound on his forearm. Stepping closer, Caspian inhales sharply as he catches sight of it, bared of bandage and sleeve. The edges of the cut have gone black and withered.
“Giantsbane,” the healer says by way of greeting, glancing up at him as Caspian crosses to Peter’s side. “He’s been poisoned. How did this happen?”
“The blade,” Caspian realizes grimly. “There was— there was an assassin this afternoon.” He swallows, unable to look away from Peter’s still face, the pained crease of his brow. “Thwarted, we thought. How serious is it?”
He is only passingly familiar with giantsbane. Herblore was never prevalent in his education from Dr. Cornelius, and the others had dismissed the idea of using it in their battle against the giants three years before. It was too difficult to harvest, supposedly. So how did the assassin acquire it?
“Truth be told, I have never encountered giantsbane in my lifetime,” the healer admits, leaning on her fists atop the coverlet. “I’ve only studied it. It is something of a myth. Supposedly it only grows far up in the northern wastelands, and the giants there guard it fiercely. It’s deadly, so they say.”
Caspian wonders, for just a moment, if the man from the stables was among the soldiers who went with them to the north back then; if that’s how he learned of such things, and perhaps found it growing in the scrublands across the Shribble. He wonders if he lost someone, and if that’s why hatred gleamed sharp in his eyes as he lunged at Caspian.
It’s not me you should be worrying about, he’d said, a terrible sort of smile on his face as he glanced from Caspian to Peter, at the wound on his arm, the one that has since laid him low. The wound Peter had taken for him, for Caspian, unthinking. Unhesitating.
Caspian closes his eyes and tries very hard not to be sick. He cannot afford weakness, not now.
“How long,” he manages to ask, “does he have?”
“Without knowing for certain the strength of the dose, and with so much information lost? I cannot say, Your Majesty. There’s no way to tell.” She sounds apologetic. When Caspian looks at her, he sees the faces of the healers who had come to tell him that his mother was gone, given in to her sickness and her broken heart not a year after his father died. The same terrible, useless sympathy.
“Your best guess,” Caspian commands, and prays to Aslan his voice does not shake like the rest of him is threatening to.
The healer looks away, busying herself with wrapping clean cloths around Peter’s forearm. “A day, at best. If...if your attacker wanted it to be slow.”
If he had wanted Caspian to suffer and die in as much agony as possible, she means.
Caspian exhales. “At worst?”
He dreads the answer. He also needs to know.
“I don’t expect he’ll live to see the dawn,” she says, soft as Peter’s labored breathing between them.
For a moment, and only a moment, Caspian closes his eyes again and breathes slowly, shakily, trying desperately to be steady. To gather himself. The healer’s eyes are dark and terribly understanding in the lamplight when he meets her gaze. She’s done this before, he can tell—seen what is to come and delivered the news to unwilling ears. He wonders how she bears it.
“Is there nothing you can do?” he asks.
“From what I know of the poison,” the healer tells him gently, “there is no cure. Only…”
Caspian waits. She sighs.
“Only mercy, I’m told.”
“No.” His answer is immediate; he will not allow that. He cannot. He’s not so certain he could grant such a thing even were it Peter himself asking it of Caspian, rather than lying supine and silent upon the bed. Peter is not going to die. He cannot. Not now, after everything.
“Your Majesty—” she begins, but Caspian shakes his head.
“You misunderstand me. There is one hope, still. The Queen’s cordial.”
The healer’s brows shoot upwards. “I thought that was mere legend. A myth.”
Caspian nods to Peter between them, setting one hand upon his wrist. “So is he.”
Under Caspian’s fingers, he’s fevered, unmoving, slipping away. Don’t, Caspian wants to tell him. Don’t you dare.
“I’ve already sent for it,” he tells the healer instead, and cannot help but hold onto Peter a little tighter.
She considers this. “And for now?”
“Now,” Caspian says, and swallows hard, “we pray I was meant to die slowly.”
𓍙
Time passes in an agonizing trickle that evening. The healer goes to find what she can to ease Peter’s fever and any pain, though Caspian can tell she thinks there is little hope of either. For the most part, Peter does not wake. Caspian sits at his bedside, fingers clasped about Peter’s uninjured wrist.
Sometimes, Peter thrashes, then curls in on himself with pain. Sometimes, it seems, he dreams. Once, Caspian looks at him and sees his eyes open, staring, distant.
“Peter?” he asks, heart leaping.
Peter says, hoarsely, “Better me than you,” so quiet Caspian wonders afterward if he dreamed it. He looks once more, and Peter’s eyes are closed, breathing stilted, blood gathering at the corner of his mouth. He does not move again.
It is the longest night of Caspian’s life.
𓍙
The healer gives up hope an hour before dawn. Caspian can see it in the line of her shoulders and set of her mouth when she checks Peter’s fever, lifts his limp arm to peer beneath the dressing at his wound. It’s been hours since he last stirred. Only the erratic beat of his pulse beneath Caspian’s fingers and the heat of his skin is proof that Peter yet lives. Caspian is afraid it will not be for much longer.
Salvation arrives from the east, as it so often does.
All at once, there is a great beating of wings and sudden shouts from the courtyard outside, and hope clatters to life again in Caspian’s chest. He shoots to his feet, but no further—cannot quite tear himself from Peter’s side. Some irrational part of him is terrified that if he removes his fingers from Peter’s wrist, he’ll finally slip away, unmoored and unobserved at last.
Not a moment later, Lucy bursts into the chamber, hair wind-snarled and wild, cordial clenched tight in one fist. She flew here, it seems, via gryphon, if Caspian were to guess. Well, that would certainly be faster than a horse.
“What happened?” she demands, rushing to her brother’s side, fingers ready at the stopper.
“Giantsbane,” Caspian tells her, and Lucy hisses in a breath through her teeth. “It was meant for me.”
“Wound or ingestion?” she asks, and he marvels at the steadiness she retains in the face of it all. This is the closest Caspian has seen a man come to death and yet live, the first time he’s known Peter to be so near to the threshold of Aslan’s country since the day they stood at the world’s end and considered the wave rising up above them, and he feels nothing short of frantic.
But Lucy? Lucy is calm. Even distressed, even worried, she stays steady, a well-keeled ship on the sea.
“Wound,” the healer says, peering over Lucy’s shoulder, as Caspian struggles to calm himself. “His arm—yes, just there.”
Lucy nods. “He’ll need two drops, then, if it’s already in his blood. It eats you up inside, giantsbane. Caspian, open his mouth for me. I’m going to get these bandages off.”
It’s all terribly quick after that. One drop of cordial into the now-weeping wound on Peter’s arm and suddenly there’s nothing but sound flesh. One drop into his open mouth, one coaxed swallow, and moments later his breathing smooths back into normalcy, his face relaxing as he sinks into true sleep.
Caspian watches all this from the bedside and wonders why it is that it’s only now he feels he cannot breathe.
“All right,” Lucy says, slipping her cordial into a pocket and coming to sit on the edge of the bed beside Caspian. It’s just then that Caspian realizes she’s not wearing the pouch she always keeps the cordial in, as though she was in too much of a hurry to strap the belt around her hips and merely snatched the bottle from Cair Paravel’s vaults to get here faster. “Tell me what happened.”
And Caspian does. When he finishes, Lucy sighs, strained and somehow fond as she looks down at Peter’s sleeping form before them.
“I’m glad you sent for me when you did,” she says. “It’s nasty stuff, giantsbane. Much longer and it might’ve been too late.”
“I should have realized sooner,” Caspian replies. “I wish I had. He…he seemed fine, at first. For hours.”
“Yes, well,” Lucy sighs, smoothing back a tangled, sweat-matted lock of hair from her brother’s brow, “he’s always been good at that.”
Caspian wonders, “Being fine?”
Lucy says, sadly, “Seeming.”
𓍙
Dawn creeps in, soft and quiet, and soon after, Peter begins to stir. Every part of Caspian aches as he draws himself to his feet and excuses himself from the sickroom. Lucy, for her part, doesn’t question Caspian’s sudden and overbearing need to be anywhere but here. She simply nods and tells him she’ll help Peter freshen up when he wakes, and, You look after yourself, now. Get some rest.
Rest would be nice, Caspian thinks. If only his body would allow him to take it. He finds himself in the stables instead, pointedly avoiding the still-empty stall where this misadventure began. His heart has not left his throat for hours, not even after Lucy’s arrival and the color returned to Peter’s face. In the near-wreckage of morning, Caspian is a thing of unspent terror and need, and he cannot stand to stay here any longer.
Hardly caring how exhausted he is, how he hasn’t eaten in hours and still wears yesterday’s now-rumpled travel clothes, Caspian saddles Destrier before the household is fully awake, and then he rides.
𓍙
He gives it three hours before someone comes looking, if past experience is any indicator. Peter tracks him down in one, maybe less. Somehow, Caspian doesn’t find that surprising.
“I thought I might find you out here,” Peter says, reining his dappled mare to a halt beside where Caspian stands on the bank of a stream, allowing Destrier to drink. In the early morning light, with his hair still damp from washing, he looks— well, fine, really. A little tired, but wholly intact and at ease. Quite well on the whole. Caspian wonders idly why that bothers him.
He’s got an idea, is the thing. He’s had all night and the last lonely, quiet hour to put together quite a lot of pieces he’s been, if not ignoring, at least largely unaware of for some time. A lot of time, perhaps.
Of course, Caspian doesn’t know what to do about any of that, so instead he asks, “How did you manage it? I wasn’t even going anywhere.”
“The Trees pointed me in the right direction,” Peter replies. He does not dismount, and instead gazes searchingly down at Caspian for a moment. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” Caspian repeats, incredulous. Beside him, Destrier tosses his head restlessly, throwing sparkling droplets into the air all around. “You…you nearly died.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Caspian clarifies, “For me.”
Peter shrugs. “The point stands.”
The most infuriating part of this, Caspian thinks, is how nonchalant he is about it. How unbothered. As though it ought to be that way.
“How can you be so comfortable with that?” he pushes, nearly strangling Destrier’s trailing reins before catching himself, easing his grip. But Peter’s seen it. He always seems to notice everything, or at least everything about Caspian. It renders things rather difficult to hide, which isn’t something Caspian’s given much thought before. He’s never really had to.
In lieu of an answer, Peter asks, “Can I show you something?”
As though Caspian would ever tell him no.
Gathering up Destrier’s reins, Caspian remounts and follows Peter deeper into the forest.
𓍙
They don’t go very far. Once, Peter draws his mare to a halt and peers ahead through the thicket, frowning, but then an old fir twists so something halfway between branch and hand points them slightly northwards.
“Thanks,” Peter tells it, and they ride onwards. Eventually, he says, “Here, I think,” and dismounts. They ground tie the horses and continue on foot. After a few minutes, Peter shoulders into a clearing, Caspian in tow, and there it is.
They’ve told him about the lamp-post before, and he’s heard of it often enough in all the legends—the ever-burning tree of iron for which Lantern Waste was first named—but Caspian never thought of seeing it, not since the Pevensies’ return. It seemed less important, somehow. Now he finds himself marveling at it, its flame still lit after over a thousand years, two thousand; iron untouched by rust or decay. It’s much closer to Beaversdam and to the old capitol than he realized.
Strange, to think he spent his childhood dreaming of a King who entered and left Narnia not five miles from the castle of Caspian’s youth; a King who is now a friend to him, among other things, and a dear one at that. Who stands close enough here for Caspian to reach out and touch.
A dangerous thought, that. He wonders how many such thoughts he’s had without realizing.
“What you were saying before,” Peter begins, and his voice is the only sound in the entire wood. It’s oddly quiet in this part of Lantern Waste, as though the entire forest is holding its breath. He’s staring up at the lamp-post, but then his gaze shifts to meet Caspian’s, clear and steady and not in the slightest apologetic. “I don’t regret it. Taking that knife, and all. I’d do it again if I had to.”
“Why?” Caspian asks, halfway between plea and demand. It’s not very kingly, but then, Caspian hardly feels like a king out here. He certainly feels, though, which is perhaps the entire problem.
“Some things,” says Peter simply, “are worth dying for.”
Caspian shakes his head. “Narnia needs you alive.”
“I’m not talking about Narnia. And anyway,” he adds, voice sharpening just a bit, “Narnia needs you alive, or have you forgotten? You’re King, Caspian. You’re important. Needed. You’re not disposable. Lion’s mane—without you, none of us would even be here! Of course I’m not going to regret not letting you die.”
Caspian looks away. “That’s not— that’s not what I meant. Not really.”
A very long and quiet moment passes. And then:
“Then what do you mean?” Peter asks, very keenly.
Truthfully, Caspian didn’t start out this conversation intending for this to happen. He wasn’t planning on saying anything, least of all the truth, maybe ever. But Peter is here, and beautiful, and so alive in the misty morning light, so like that first day they met, when not so long ago Caspian thought he would lose him forever. Everything is different, now, from then and from that morning in the Shuddering Wood, though perhaps (Caspian now realizes) he feels the same. Always has, maybe, or very nearly so. And suddenly Caspian is too tired to think of hiding anything anymore.
He admits, quietly, “I cannot stand to lose you. I am realizing that now.”
Once said, it cannot be taken back. He braces himself, just a little, for— oh, anything, really. Confusion, gentle rejection, awkward discomfort. Even anger.
Peter still manages to surprise him, after everything.
He asks, “What makes you think it’s any different for me?”
Caspian looks at him, then, and there is warmth in his gaze, and realization, and a little bit of wonder. And Caspian understands.
“Oh,” he says. “I— you— I didn’t realize.”
“I didn’t either,” Peter replies. He raises one shoulder, lets it drop. “For a time, anyway.”
“When did you?”
This earns him a crooked sort of smile. “Ettinsmoor.”
Caspian winces. “Ah.”
“Yes, so maybe think twice before you yell at me over taking a knife for you.”
“At least I wasn’t poisoned,” Caspian can’t help complaining. “Aslan’s teeth, Peter, you’re impossible.”
Peter shrugs. “You like it.”
“I do.” The words are out before he can think better of it. Caspian’s face goes ridiculously warm, but Peter seems equally embarrassed at the admission. Turnabout’s fair play, Caspian supposes. He repeats, softer, “I do.”
He takes one of Peter’s hands in his, then, running his thumb across Peter’s knuckles, the faint scars here and there. Peter inhales, then surprises Caspian by laughing softly, shaking his head just a bit.
“What?” Caspian enquires, curious.
“Just— they’ll all be so insufferable about this,” Peter explains.
Caspian frowns. “Who?”
“Lu, Edmund, all of them.” He snorts. “Don’t get me started on Liliandil. I’ll never hear the end of it from her.”
“Liliandil knows?” Did everyone but Caspian? He’d wondered why they’ve been so close of late, why the star-daughter always seemed to be giggling and raising her eyebrows significantly at Peter, thought that maybe— but no. It couldn’t be further from the truth, mildly embarrassing as it is.
“Well,” Peter says, coloring slightly, “they’d all say I’ve never been very subtle. It’s not one of my strengths, so I’m told.”
“Oh?” Caspian tilts his head, captures Peter’s other hand, simply because he can, and because Peter lets him.
Quieter, Peter continues, “They’ve been telling me I ought to hurry up and kiss you for years now, you know.”
“And I would say they were right,” Caspian replies, for he’s feeling very bold just about now.
“Oh, you would, would you?”
He says, simply, “Yes.” Peter hums thoughtfully, watching him, and Caspian can’t help adding, “But I have also heard it said good things come to those who wait.”
“Yes, well,” murmurs Peter, “I think there’s been about enough of that.”
And he does kiss Caspian, then, under the rich autumn sky, the lamp-post solid and still-burning at Caspian’s back and the Trees whispering delightedly all around. He tastes a little of cordial, still, sharp on the back of Caspian’s tongue, but he’s breathing and moving and alive under Caspian’s wandering hands, so really, Caspian doesn’t mind. He thinks it very likely Peter doesn’t either.
He decides that’s perfectly good enough for now.