Chapter the Fourth -- Finally Confrontation
Chapter: 4/?
Pairing: Peter/Edmund
Rating: Finally going up! Rated PG-13ish for seriously offensive language
Story Summary: Takes place after LWW and during Prince Caspian. Edmund tries to recapture his relationship with Peter, who refuses to acknowledge what they had as Kings. After all, how can he admit to loving someone who is a man, and his brother, and a child in a place where every one of those is seen as wrong?
Chapter Summary: Edmund finally confronts Peter about his behavior, and a lot about their past in Narnia comes to light.
WARNING: This chapter contains words that are degrading to homosexuals. I DO NOT in any way condone such language.
Also Disclaimer because I realized I haven't been doing one: I know this may come as a shock, but I am not in actual fact C.S. Lewis, and thus the characters etc. blah blah blah are not mine. Now you know.
Peter jumped almost out of his bed at the sound of the doorknob turning, then settled quickly into a facade of nonchalance in time, he hoped, for his brother's entrance. Edmund for his part stayed at the door, leaning against it; neither boy spoke for the longest time. Edmund watched Peter pointedly not watching him, then finally sighed and said, "your bangs have gotten long."
Peter was immediately defensive. "Incredible," he snapped, "not one minute and already you're on about my appearance. Want to cut them short then? Like some kind of bloody-- like you--"
"Like a wife?"
"A MANSERVANT!" Peter bellowed, red in the face.
"You'll wake mum," Edmund pointed out off-hand, and then, in an even more casual tone, "No. You look good this way."
Peter opened and closed his mouth in award-worthy imitation of a fish. Suddenly he became aware that it was a bed he was sitting on -- he jumped up as if burning coals were hidden under the duvet, then settled with equal haste onto the desk chair, arranging his face to suggest that he'd spent the entire evening in it. Then he realized that the relocation had brought him closer to Edmund, and jumped violently again.
"I need to dress for bed," Edmund announced,ignoring him, and swept past to dig underneath the pillow on his bed. Pajamas found, he drew his shirt over his head, allowing his back to arch and holding the position maybe slightly longer than necessary. Peter made a sound very much like a man trying not to asphyxiate at the sight of his brother's half-naked body.
Edmund stopped moving with his back still to Peter; only now he was speaking, and what he said was this: "Once upon a time, there was a kingdom called Narnia, ruled by two kings and two queens." Peter listened with shoulders tensed, his eyes fixed on the story-teller. "It was a magical land, and a happy one; but there was a problem. Narnia belonged in a children's fairy tale, and her monarchs, though once children, grew up. And there is no room for adult thoughts in a place where the only humans beside yourself are your siblings.
"There was, perhaps, some expectation of a development between the oldest King and Queen. But when there are only four people who don't have hooves or beards down to their knees in the entire damn country and your High King --" "Stop it, please," Peter desperately interjected, " -- is a fag, well then, it becomes a whole new kind of fairy tale, now doesn't it?"
"SHUT UP, ED!"
Edmund whirled around, eyes alight with bitterness. "'Ed?' No. No pet names here, not now. You think people didn't notice? That foreign envoys didn't realize that negotiations went a whole lot better for them when they replaced the serving girls with serving boys? Peter the Magnificent, they called you -- and you made sure to sit in a way that your 'magnificence' was fully on display. Didn't. You."
"They called me Magnificent," Peter hissed in an enraged whisper that threatened to strangle him with its vehemence, "because when I rode my unicorn towards the enemy with my sword held high and the sun on my tunic, I struck fear into their hearts!"
"Well they got weak at the knees, certainly," Edmund shot back, "but I wouldn't attribute it entirely to the tunic, was I you."
Peter screamed as quietly as he could under the circumstances and grabbed his brother by the shoulders, but the boy continued on mercilessly, laughing quietly to himself. "I guess it's no surprise, really, when you put someone who's like that on the throne and then see to it that every man who's legs allow it wears tights --"
His tirade was cut off by Peter, who threw him backwards into the bed and shut him up by clamping his forearm down on his neck. "You too," he growled, "Don't you dare pretend that none of this applied to you!"
"Why dear brother," Edmund returned, all wide-eyed innocence, "do you mean before or after you fucked me for the first time against a castle wall?"
Peter fell back as if the words were capable of physically harming him and covered his eyes. "Don't, Edmund. Not with that body. Please, please, stop."
The moment passed into expectancy: again, it was the younger who spoke. "Why, Peter? Why me? God knows I wasn't your first. Why choose me to ma--"
"Edmund." Peter reached up -- their hands and eyes met in a silent plea. "Edmund."
"To marry, Peter. We were married, husband and husband, together."
Edmund's hands wove the strands of their past together in front of him. "No matter what the foreign emissaries said behind our backs, we had ourselves a wedding to rival any one of Mr Tumnus' stories -- do you remember? Fauns fluting while the nymphs danced around us ... Lucy was absolutely delighted, she couldn't stop laughing."
A pause. A breath.
"Peter. Why did it have to end when we came back?"
Another silence.
"Because," Peter finally told his clenched fingers, "I'm not High King here. Here, it'd be ... homosexuality, and incest, and god Edmund pedophilia --" The words formed a noose around his neck, and the sentence ended in a choked sob. Tears from his face fell on his brother's -- his husband's -- lap.
Edmund ran his hand comfortingly through Peter's hair, but the words that needed saying flowed from his mouth unchecked.
"Did you ever love me? Or was I just the most convenient shag?"
Peter glared up at him through the disheveled mess the conversation had made of him. "Never," he snarled, and the word released a fresh wave of tears. "Not once. I never, never loved you."
King Edmund the Just of Narnia judged the words of his High King. Then slowly he nodded to himself and, deigning to lower his head, kissed each and every lie out of Peter's mouth.
"I understand," he whispered into them.
After that, the boys never once touched.
Pairing: Peter/Edmund
Rating: Finally going up! Rated PG-13ish for seriously offensive language
Story Summary: Takes place after LWW and during Prince Caspian. Edmund tries to recapture his relationship with Peter, who refuses to acknowledge what they had as Kings. After all, how can he admit to loving someone who is a man, and his brother, and a child in a place where every one of those is seen as wrong?
Chapter Summary: Edmund finally confronts Peter about his behavior, and a lot about their past in Narnia comes to light.
WARNING: This chapter contains words that are degrading to homosexuals. I DO NOT in any way condone such language.
Also Disclaimer because I realized I haven't been doing one: I know this may come as a shock, but I am not in actual fact C.S. Lewis, and thus the characters etc. blah blah blah are not mine. Now you know.
Peter jumped almost out of his bed at the sound of the doorknob turning, then settled quickly into a facade of nonchalance in time, he hoped, for his brother's entrance. Edmund for his part stayed at the door, leaning against it; neither boy spoke for the longest time. Edmund watched Peter pointedly not watching him, then finally sighed and said, "your bangs have gotten long."
Peter was immediately defensive. "Incredible," he snapped, "not one minute and already you're on about my appearance. Want to cut them short then? Like some kind of bloody-- like you--"
"Like a wife?"
"A MANSERVANT!" Peter bellowed, red in the face.
"You'll wake mum," Edmund pointed out off-hand, and then, in an even more casual tone, "No. You look good this way."
Peter opened and closed his mouth in award-worthy imitation of a fish. Suddenly he became aware that it was a bed he was sitting on -- he jumped up as if burning coals were hidden under the duvet, then settled with equal haste onto the desk chair, arranging his face to suggest that he'd spent the entire evening in it. Then he realized that the relocation had brought him closer to Edmund, and jumped violently again.
"I need to dress for bed," Edmund announced,ignoring him, and swept past to dig underneath the pillow on his bed. Pajamas found, he drew his shirt over his head, allowing his back to arch and holding the position maybe slightly longer than necessary. Peter made a sound very much like a man trying not to asphyxiate at the sight of his brother's half-naked body.
Edmund stopped moving with his back still to Peter; only now he was speaking, and what he said was this: "Once upon a time, there was a kingdom called Narnia, ruled by two kings and two queens." Peter listened with shoulders tensed, his eyes fixed on the story-teller. "It was a magical land, and a happy one; but there was a problem. Narnia belonged in a children's fairy tale, and her monarchs, though once children, grew up. And there is no room for adult thoughts in a place where the only humans beside yourself are your siblings.
"There was, perhaps, some expectation of a development between the oldest King and Queen. But when there are only four people who don't have hooves or beards down to their knees in the entire damn country and your High King --" "Stop it, please," Peter desperately interjected, " -- is a fag, well then, it becomes a whole new kind of fairy tale, now doesn't it?"
"SHUT UP, ED!"
Edmund whirled around, eyes alight with bitterness. "'Ed?' No. No pet names here, not now. You think people didn't notice? That foreign envoys didn't realize that negotiations went a whole lot better for them when they replaced the serving girls with serving boys? Peter the Magnificent, they called you -- and you made sure to sit in a way that your 'magnificence' was fully on display. Didn't. You."
"They called me Magnificent," Peter hissed in an enraged whisper that threatened to strangle him with its vehemence, "because when I rode my unicorn towards the enemy with my sword held high and the sun on my tunic, I struck fear into their hearts!"
"Well they got weak at the knees, certainly," Edmund shot back, "but I wouldn't attribute it entirely to the tunic, was I you."
Peter screamed as quietly as he could under the circumstances and grabbed his brother by the shoulders, but the boy continued on mercilessly, laughing quietly to himself. "I guess it's no surprise, really, when you put someone who's like that on the throne and then see to it that every man who's legs allow it wears tights --"
His tirade was cut off by Peter, who threw him backwards into the bed and shut him up by clamping his forearm down on his neck. "You too," he growled, "Don't you dare pretend that none of this applied to you!"
"Why dear brother," Edmund returned, all wide-eyed innocence, "do you mean before or after you fucked me for the first time against a castle wall?"
Peter fell back as if the words were capable of physically harming him and covered his eyes. "Don't, Edmund. Not with that body. Please, please, stop."
The moment passed into expectancy: again, it was the younger who spoke. "Why, Peter? Why me? God knows I wasn't your first. Why choose me to ma--"
"Edmund." Peter reached up -- their hands and eyes met in a silent plea. "Edmund."
"To marry, Peter. We were married, husband and husband, together."
Edmund's hands wove the strands of their past together in front of him. "No matter what the foreign emissaries said behind our backs, we had ourselves a wedding to rival any one of Mr Tumnus' stories -- do you remember? Fauns fluting while the nymphs danced around us ... Lucy was absolutely delighted, she couldn't stop laughing."
A pause. A breath.
"Peter. Why did it have to end when we came back?"
Another silence.
"Because," Peter finally told his clenched fingers, "I'm not High King here. Here, it'd be ... homosexuality, and incest, and god Edmund pedophilia --" The words formed a noose around his neck, and the sentence ended in a choked sob. Tears from his face fell on his brother's -- his husband's -- lap.
Edmund ran his hand comfortingly through Peter's hair, but the words that needed saying flowed from his mouth unchecked.
"Did you ever love me? Or was I just the most convenient shag?"
Peter glared up at him through the disheveled mess the conversation had made of him. "Never," he snarled, and the word released a fresh wave of tears. "Not once. I never, never loved you."
King Edmund the Just of Narnia judged the words of his High King. Then slowly he nodded to himself and, deigning to lower his head, kissed each and every lie out of Peter's mouth.
"I understand," he whispered into them.
After that, the boys never once touched.