(Untitled)

[highking]

Peter Pevensie enters the bar from the House of Arch, through the magical portrait on the wall. He gets dinner from the bar--a lamb chop and green beans--and sits down with it by one of the windows looking outside. It's really very fine out there, he thinks; maybe he'll take a walk or a ride after he eats.

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[awesome_lilly]

Lilly's glancing out the window too, trying to decide if she and Indy might want to escape the Mel-Mike reunion by camping out tonight. She doesn't see Peter, which is just as well.

It's been some time since he was someone she kept an eye out for, after all.

[highking]

She's still someone he keeps an eye out for.

On another night, perhaps, he'd leave her in peace, but he's in good spirits after talking to Lucy and Caspian.

He returns his plate and utensils to the bar, then hesitantly crosses to her table. "Hullo, Lil."

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly blinks and looks up, startled.

"Pete."

She knew he wasn't gone. Lucy occasionally made oblique references to her brothers, but still. She wasn't really expecting to see him again.

"Uh. Hi."

[highking]

"Hi," he says. Awkwardly. "How have you been?"

[awesome_lilly]

"Um, pretty good. Busy."

Lilly doesn't really get awkward so much as she gets right to the point.

"How about you? I mean, aside from invisible?"

[highking]

He colors faintly. "I suppose I deserved that," he says in the tight sort of tone that suggests he really didn't. "I didn't imagine you wanted to see me. And then it became a sort of habit to see hardly anyone."

[awesome_lilly]

"Oh, well, that depends," Lilly replies coolly.

"Bar's still an interesting place to be, and there've been plenty of times I'd have loved to see my friend Pete around. Only, he seems to have disappeared even more thoroughly than you did."

[highking]

His face tightens. "That's unfair."

[awesome_lilly]

"Unfair how?"

Lilly stares up at him.

"Unfair like... you didn't disappear? Without so much as a note, an explanation, an 'I'm going off to be emo for a while, see you when my eyeliner runs out?'"

[highking]

"I tried to give you some space," he says defensively. "But I have never stopped being your friend. I've always cared for you, Lilly. Surely you know that."

[awesome_lilly]

That deflates her a little bit.

"Yeah, you have a funny way of showing it. Because there's giving people space, and then giving them the impression that you've taken up hermit-style living and are never going to see them again."

But only a little bit.

[highking]

"Yes, it's so very clear from this warm welcome that you've been dying to see me again," he says sharply.

[awesome_lilly]

"Warm welcomes only last oh, about the first month or so of voluntary disappearances," Lilly retorts.

"They start cooling off pretty quickly after that. By the time you've been gone long enough that a normal girl could have like, had a baby, you lose out on the whole running towards each other in slow-mo deal."

[highking]

He has no idea what that last part meant. "I didn't think you wanted to see me."

[awesome_lilly]

"I didn't. I was pissed off at you, we were fighting... not exactly something completely new for us."

Her voice gets a little bit quieter.

"Only before, you gave enough of a shit to try and work it out with me. You didn't just run away."

[highking]

"It wasn't because I--didn't care enough to try and work it out," he says, quietly. "I just didn't think we could anymore."