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Caspian lies on a couch in Cair Paravel’s library, air warm and scented with cedar and cinnamon, Edmund’s lap warmer, where Caspian’s head rests. Edmund’s fingers stroke through Caspian’s hair, slow, slow; long indirect kisses. Edmund reads from the volume held in his other hand, and his voice rolls and crests and bears Caspian’s drowsing mind along as though become the echo of the ocean falling into Narnia’s shore just beyond the window. Or perhaps the Eastern Ocean echoes Edmund—Caspian could believe anything of his love in times such as this, eyes closed, stopped only by his human body from purring in contentment.
Above him, Edmund’s voice softens and slows, winding gently to the end of a chapter. Caspian waits, but it doesn’t resume. He makes a wordless but perfectly dignified noise of complaint; Edmund’s chuckle is quite uncalled for.
“You pouty baby,” Edmund says.
“Well, ‘f you wouldn’t keep stopping…”
“I keep thinking you’re asleep. I’m trying to be polite and not wake you.”
“I’m not at all sleepy; I’m listening.”
“Mm-hm.”
Edmund still sounds far too amused, but when Caspian cracks a suspicious eye open, he’s smiling down at Caspian, not at all teasing or smug but soft and dreamy and love-drunk. He looks like he’s watching a kitten and a puppy play together; he looks like he’s watching the sun rise in perfect watercolour flames and it’s his birthday. He looks like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
As soon as he sees Caspian seeing, Edmund flushes red and pretends he’s not hiding his face behind his book. Caspian laughs, and reaches up a hand to Edmund’s fingers hovering above him, bright against the deep scarlet leather, running the pads of his own fingers over Edmund’s knuckles.
“All right; I am mostly listening. I confess to dreaming a little.” He traces the base of one of Edmund’s fingers. “About how good a ring would look here.”
The flush quite swallows Edmund’s face. He uses his thumb as a bookmark so he can thump Caspian’s forehead lightly with the book, though a grin is peeking around the corner of his mouth, too.
“Bring this up later, when you’re not half-asleep.”
“I do mean it, Ed.”
“And you can mean it later.” Edmund’s voice is ever-so-slightly breathless, startled sunlight in his lungs under his casual words. “I’m in the middle of a story.”
Caspian beams and closes his eyes, truly wishing he could purr.
“Keep reading the story, then.”
Edmund threads his fingers through Caspian’s hair again, and does.