Work Text:
“I know. You had it sorted."
Edmund walked off after addressing Peter, trying valiantly to hide how shaken he was, though the tension in his jaw gave him away. A few feet away, Caspian heard this exchange as if he were underwater. Everything he heard and saw had taken on a distant, shimmering quality. He was too disconnected from himself to feel his hand, but some tiny part of him vaguely remembered that he was bleeding.
The witch seemed to linger in his vision like an afterimage of a bright light. She was gone, but he still felt frozen in place under her piercing gaze. He struggled to breathe comfortably as the biting cold that clung to him made his lungs tighten. He did not think. He couldn't, not yet, but he felt. It's a simple emotion, but fear can be quite incapacitating, especially when there is no real threat to face.
"Sit down," Peter said sharply, cutting through the first few gauzy layers of Caspian's trance.
When Caspian only managed to turn his head enough to look at him in confusion, Peter huffed in frustration and grabbed Caspian's shoulders, pushing him to the ground unceremoniously.
"I told you to sit down," he said as he crouched down at Caspian's side, taking hold of his bleeding hand to examine it. After a few moments, Peter stood up again.
"Wait here. I'll only be a moment."
Then, he left. Without Peter's warm, steady presence at his side, Caspian felt himself slipping deeper into his cold, disconnected state. He leaned back against the stone table and stared at a shard of ice at his feet. It hadn't even begun to melt yet. Time seemed suspended to him, and though he felt that a significant amount of time had passed, the shard of ice remained stubbornly present. He did not want to think of the witch. More importantly, he did not want to think of the implications of her ability to tempt him, so he made no effort to pull himself out of this state.
"Caspian. Caspian, look at me."
He lifted his gaze, watching as Peter slowly came into focus. He was patting Caspian on the cheek in an attempt to snap him out of it. Caspian had no idea how much time had passed. It had felt like an eternity, but in reality, it was probably less than five minutes.
"There you are," Peter murmured as he smoothed Caspian's hair back with one hand. "I'm going to stitch up your cut, alright?"
He didn't wait for a response. He appeared to understand that Caspian did not possess the capacity for that at the moment. Peter set Caspian's hand palm up on his own knee and began to stitch it up. He was slow and precise, clearly practiced. Caspian could feel faint tingles in his hand but not pain or the sensation of the needle passing through his skin. He watched Peter's focused face with the same intensity that he stared at the shard of ice with earlier.
"Were you angry with me a few minutes ago?" he croaked out, surprising himself with the sound of his own voice. Peter seemed surprised too, but he did not look up from his work.
"No, why do you ask?" he asked in a level voice. Caspian had noticed the Peter was remarkably good at that, at pretending that he was entirely in control of himself. It made his slip-ups all the more unnerving.
"You spoke like you were angry with me."
Peter sighed. He said nothing for a long time, and Caspian began to think that the conversation was going to end there. He looked away, his ears burning with something akin to shame.
"I was scared."
Caspian's head snapped back to its previous position to stare at Peter with his mouth hanging open. That went completely against all that Caspian knew of him. High King Peter the Magnificent did not get scared. He had to be brave. If he wasn't, how were they ever going to win this war? Caspian had hoped that Peter could be brave enough for both of them. He was trying to ignore his own fear, but it trailed after him everywhere, snapping at his heels like a feral dog. Peter still would not look up from the wound he was mending.
"What?" Caspian asked hoarsely.
Peter opened his mouth to speak but hesitated for a moment. When he finally spoke, he did so slower and more cautiously than he typically did.
"Is that so hard to believe?"
"Yes," Caspian answered immediately despite knowing that was the wrong thing to say. "You have done a great number of brave deeds. Why would you feel fear in that moment?"
Peter tied off the sutures, pretending that this required much more of his attention than it actually did to avoid responding for a moment. When he was done, there was no way for him to avoid the conversation anymore. He continued to look at Caspian's palm even though there was no longer any need to.
"I'm not that brave," he murmured. "Well, I can be, I suppose, but every brave thing I ever did was in the service of others. When I am the only person in danger, it's different."
"How so?" Caspian felt present enough now to sit up a little straighter.
"I don't know," Peter replied with a shrug that failed to hide the constant tightness in his shoulders. "When someone else is in danger, I feel that there's something worth defending. I always find that I'm no good at being brave when I'm the only person who's being threatened."
"You pushed me out of the way. That was brave." Caspian found that the further his encounter with the witch receded into the past, the more connected with the present he felt. He was aware enough now to attempt to provide some comfort, but that also meant that he was beginning to feel the pain in his hand.
"That was for your sake. It wasn't until you were out of the way that I felt afraid."
"You were brave for me?"
"Yes."
Peter glanced up at Caspian's face for just a moment before quickly looking back down at his sutured palm, as if he wanted to see his expression but couldn't bear to look him in the eye.
"Maybe I'll have to be brave for you. Then, each of us would have someone to defend him when he feels frightened," Caspian murmured as he lifted his injured hand to just barely graze his knuckle against Peter's jaw.
Peter's head shot up, and he looked very much like he wanted to refuse such an offer. For several moments, all he could manage to do was gape at Caspian. No one had ever offered him anything like that. Like most eldest children, he had devoted his childhood to the thankless job of defending his siblings and their happiness. There had never been anyone to take care of him. Everything in him railed at the suggestion. At that moment, he felt more like he was being mocked than anything else, but Caspian looked at him steadily, waiting for his acceptance with an open, unchanging expression.
The kindness in his eyes made Peter's resolve crumble entirely. He took Caspian's hand in his, careful not to brush against the wound, and kissed it with what can only be described as fervent fealty. To his own great shame, he realized he was crying. Not just a stray tear or two, but the kind of burning tears that stream down uninhibited. He wanted to turn away and hide his face, but when he found there was no pity in Caspian's countenance, only a desire to understand, he did not feel so ashamed of himself.
"Hasn't anybody ever looked out for you?" Caspian asked with gentle curiously as he wiped Peter's tears away. The pain in his hand was once again forgotten.
"I was a king," Peter said as he smiled sadly through the last stray tears that streaked down his cheeks. "I was never a prince."
"I'm sorry," Caspian murmured. "I can't fix that. I can look out for you now though."
Peter just smiled at him as he tried compose himself. He didn't trust himself to not start crying again if he thanked Caspian.
"Besides, being a prince isn't quite so fun as it sounds. Sometimes, there's plots to murder you," Caspian said with a mock-serious expression.
Peter couldn't help laughing even though he didn't find what had happened to Caspian funny at all.
"That's a fair point. No one ever plotted to murder me in my childhood. At least, not as far as I know."
"Really? No plots against you? I'll have to ask your siblings if they never got fed up enough with you for that."
"Is it so hard for you to believe that no one ever got annoyed enough with me to want me dead?"
"Yes," Caspian answered with a grin, followed by an exaggerated yelp when Peter cuffed him playfully on the ear.
Peter stood up and helped Caspian to his feet, careful not to brush against the sutured cut in his palm.
"Come on, something to eat will do you good."
Peter led him out of the room. Really, he was providing much more help than Caspian needed at this point, but Caspian wasn't about to tell him that.
Caspian glanced behind him for just a moment at the image of Aslan on the wall, and he felt the last bit of clawing cold that lingered around him melt into a comforting warmth.