This was a private request made by a fellow author who wishes to remain anonymous. So the credit goes to her first. But she was really polite while asking and so easy to work with when I had questions, so I agreed to write this nonetheless.
It's basically Peter/Susan – with a Borgias vibe. So...you know...don't like it, don't read? Mostly movie-verse.
I.
The Magnificent and the Gentle were more than the High King and Queen.
With the Golden Age underway, they became the Father and Mother of the Land, became a set as its rulers, the South and the North, two sides of the same coin.
In the heavens is where the sun belonged and that's where the sun has always been.
II.
Having stumbled back through the Wardrobe, common Human life consumes them once more while coming face to face with the Professor.
Lucy was the youngest in either world, the most impressionable, so Narnia had impacted her childhood in more ways than one; she's always thinking in the shadow of the Lion. Every so often Edmund sits there on the stairs and reminiscences Aslan with her being the Young King he was. His thoughts are still quite fresh too.
Although, Peter and Susan are the eldest, and at first...they feel robbed of their years in comparison, feel distant from the weight and glory they used to carry.
They are but a mere boy and girl again, without crowns, without a Kingdom to foster. That is the strangest part for them both.
III.
They each take it day by day, accommodating, tolerating, because all they can do now is wait for a sign.
Susan's ever so fickle with her facts and her logic, but at the very least, she still understands. She understands Peter better than anyone. She's known him longest. Before there was Edmund and Lucy after all, it was just him and Susan once, following each other everywhere they went.
(As a little boy, Peter would often refuse to sleep after dark and he'd watch over her cradle whenever their mother couldn't...and even when their parents were present in the room, his tiny naïve heart was still so adamant on keeping infant-Susan safe.)
Upon one dark starless night, to Peter's surprise, it's Susan he finds awake after hours, sitting alone by candlelight on the floorboards of the Spare Room.
Her gaze doesn't leave the oak panels of the Wardrobe as comes in quietly, whispering her name and lowers himself to her level.
"I have loved Narnia," she confesses into the stillness. "But now it seems...impossible."
"Impossible loves," sighs Peter. "I am very much afraid can become an addiction."
IV.
"Ever hear the tale about the monk and the nun?" Peter asks her suddenly, as if he just needs to say something to drown out the sound the rain hitting against the glass.
"The monk and the nun?"'
"A Brother and a Sister of a joined sanctuary. They happened to meet one day in the gardens to pray and neither of them could not deny it was meant to be."
Susan breathes out, somewhat drowsy from the weather and she leans in to rest her curls over his shoulder. She used to do this much more when they were the Magnificent and the Gentle relining along the seashore, watching their siblings splash around in the waters with the Mermaids and Mister Tumnus. Back when those things were part of the norm. "Did they fall in love? Even if they made their vows?"
He tucks her under his chin as his thumb draws mindless patterns up and down on her arm. "Yes, Su. With a love as sheer and all-consuming as the love of God."
V.
"Hey there, Peter."
"Hello, Collette," he responds on plain instinct, nursing his bloodied lip with his sleeve. It's been a while since he's fought like that—to just fight with his fists instead of swords—to just fight because he was angry that day and it nothing to do with upholding his honor.
"I...don't care what they say, Peter. That other boy deserved what he got." The semi-familiar schoolgirl smiles back at him without much shyness, in a suggestive way that typically can make men wild and yearn for more.
He was about to say something else, merely to thank her for the support possibly, but then, "—Peter!" Susan's alerted voice cuts through the air from down the hall, and his attention from Collette is completely derailed.
"I need to go, Collette," he says quickly, grabbing his bag. "My sister calls."
(It is a code of manners. A High King always hails the High Queen whenever she requests an audience from him.)
VI.
They happen to overhear Lucy humming the Narnian lullaby Mister Tumnus had taught her long ago as she brushes out her hair before bed, making herself sleepy.
"Leave her," Peter orders Susan pleadingly out in the corridor; she has opened her mouth, trying to be sensible and smart again. "It comforts her. She loves the song because of Tumnus."
"This love we have is blind," Susan reminds him.
"Blind, deaf, and dumb," Peter agrees with her, "but it's not going to kill her for one night."
VII.
"Oh, just shut up for once, Susan."
And there Edmund goes, stomping out.
There are some bad days yet in between when the tension and the waiting to return (if they return) digs too deeply under their skin. Their nerves get rattled and they'll end up arguing about both their past and their present. Peter gets into more fights at school in spite of her protests. Lucy can't recall if Tumnus' hair was red and his fur was brown—or was it that his hair brown and his fur red? And then, Susan forgets that Edmund can turn cold and resentful, just like her, if she's ever pushed too far. Besides, Edmund is there to be balanced out by Lucy, as Peter can balance her out—and that is how they're divided, as the High monarchs and the Young monarchs; as the Father and Mother of the Land and the Beloved Children of the Land, as Peter and Susan, Edmund and Lucy, North and South or East and West—therefore, sometimes, Edmund and Susan do have a harder time finding that same balance amongst themselves—it just doesn't work the same way and the common ground is lost.
Thus, afterwards, despite everything her mind believes to be rational, Susan's heart stumbles and she breaks into tears.
Peter walks into the kitchen while her hands are trembling over the teapot.
"Have I become so hard to love?"
"No," Peter says, drawing closer to calm her, "no, Su, you're not."
VIII.
Susan looks on tenderly towards Prince Caspian, and Peter looks at Caspian gazing back at Susan.
He doesn't like it. It's a sort of silent feeling that's akin to jealously, or brotherly worry, or both.
Peter just knows that Caspian could become a threat to their whole dynamic.
(Why is she taking his side?)
IX.
Lucy's much-youthful expression is still alight with questions. "...Was that what Aslan was talking to you and Susan about this morning? Leaving us here?"
"Yes—among other things," said Peter, frank and sincere. "I can't tell you all of it now. There were things he wanted to say just to Su and me, because we are not coming back."
X.
Narnia slowly fades behind them in their wake.
Peter and Susan must keeping soldiering on in the outside world, their real birthplace.
He focuses on college options for now...and maybe the War, she, on fashion and having teatime with the other girls from the city.
They never leave each other's side for too long if they can help it though. Susan, regardless, still needs his shoulder to lean on periodically, and Peter deems her the only person he really has left to live for here. If he's anything now, it's still being a protective brother.
And occasionally, when they're all alone, Peter might still say, "Yes, Your Highness" in response to even her smallest of complaints and half-saddened scolding eyes.
In contrast, there are certain random events (like Peter traveling further away for his schooling) that may trigger the true emotions which Susan thinks she must hide.
Peter sees right through her, catching a brief glimpse of the Gentle Queen. "How long will you be away this time?"
Peter shrugs, checking the paperwork he has with him. "I won't know for sure till I get there."
"Well, come back soon."
Peter frowns in slight confusion. "Why do you say that?"
"I don't feel completely safe unless you're nearby. That's all. You're my rock."
XI.
Tonight, she's talking to Colin across the street and Peter stops and observes them, irked by the sight.
XII.
But lately, Susan's been having peculiar dreams, vivid ones involving Jadis.
She's not sure why this is precisely and in these dreams she never really questions it because they're just dreams.
She just happens to be there with the White Witch. They stand close to each other, directly face to face, and there's usually a forest around them. Snow, mist, dark trees. Regardless of the various subtle changes in scenery however, one detail of the dream always remains, it's constant.
(Better the Devil you know, than the one you don't.)
Jadis reaches forward with an eerie sense of grace and takes hold of Susan's hand, glancing over her palm, inspecting the pale lines, and she reads her future.
Susan merely lets Jadis do so without muss fuss or contempt, and she lingers there in place, her sky-blue eyes steady and curious. Listening, watching, listening.
"Deep within, you love someone else, a man who is not yours. Someone else who is closer to your heart," Jadis foresees. "Too close."
Susan retracts her hand, and then—she wakes, rushing back to reality, the back of her neck damp with sweat.
XIII.
"I'm not marrying him," she informs Peter. "I don't care what they says about us. He's not the right one for a long and happy marriage."
He shakes his head and leans against the railing. "I didn't think you would anyways."
"Still, no matter which way I turn, brother, Narnia or here—I can't seem to find that which will make me truly happy." Her voice is like ice...but even ice cracks on the surface when things get too heavy. "Why can I not be happy?"
"I'll make you happy, Su," he reassures her, hand slipping under her elbow. He means it, too. "Hearts may break yet. But not yours. Not again."
Susan is torn. She doesn't know if she should laugh or cry in front of him. "And...what of you, gallant brother of mine?
"Look, Su. England. Germany. France. Italy. They can crumble to dust right here and now for all I care. Just as long as there's you there with me until it all ends. Like the old days."
She sighs heavily and her lashes flutter downwards. "Like Father and Mother."
(Not like their Father and Mother, he knows, but like the Father and Mother of the Land.)
XIV.
Some men in scholar uniforms will boast about certain things; their wealth, their privileges, or knowledge.
The baker who sells Susan bread on Thursdays knows he is very old looking, though he is not blind. He notices in between flashes of coats and quick words, how her brother Peter watches her every move, in the store or amid the crowds gathered on the street. God forbid she should stray too far ahead of him where he can't reach her. Peter stands guard by the entrance as she comes up to pay for the day and then he opens the door for her on the way out like a pure gentleman, as if he's done this a thousand times before.
Whatever their private glances mean, it really is none of his business. But, the baker does see.
Peter Pevensie is a man who flaunts a secret or two.
XV.
While Peter must carry on with his studies, Susan catches a horrid fever back at the house that lasts for three days straight. She's currently bedridden of course, sticky and pale against the yellow sheets, constantly drifting in and out of slumber.
After she stirs once more on the fourth morning, with the sun stinging her eyes, Peter is there. He's kneeling at her bedside and stroking her hair, asking her if she's alright. She smiles despite herself, squinting. "Is that my brother?"
"Yes."
"The brother who loves me?"
"The same."
"...Why is your touch the only touch that truly comforts me?"
Peter cracks a smile at her in turn. "You really do have a fever. You're practically delirious."
"But, why?"
"Why, what, Su?"
"Why I am burdened with this feeling...that feels so natural, and good...when you're here? God seems to sit in the very room with us. And when you do go away...I manage to forget you. I forget you, and forget them, and forget the lamppost. I can ignore them and I don't worry about any of that. But then...with one touch of your hand, God comes rushing back."
Peter's humor is then shrouded with a strange unsaid darkness. "God, or the Devil?"
"Whatever it is, it's overwhelming sometimes."
His hand simply rises and falls again coming to rest over hers, not finding the proper answer for that. Peter clutches her fingers tightly and does not miss the rough shape of an engagement stone she's now wearing scraping against his palm.
XVI.
"You'll like him, Peter. Owen has money, and he fences. He's good at it, too."
He casually stands there behind her with his arms crosses as she applies her new lipstick at the mirror. "I'll see."
Grinning, she finishes and twirls in her skirt. "How do I look?"
Peter merely scoffs and rolls his eyes. "You look beautiful, sister. As always."
At dinner, proper introductions are made and small talk about their careers and colleges are exchanged; then, at one point during their meal, Susan comments about the cold draft coming from the ceiling above her chair. And before anyone else at the table can react, Peter's draping his own coat over her shoulders.
XVII.
Twilight colors claim the sky beyond the windowpane and Susan finds a rare moment of peace and solitude in her own bedroom, laying comfortably under shadows and listening to the soft hum of music coming from the record player.
She doesn't even give it much thought when Peter checks in on her a bit later and he just eases himself onto the bed beside her, so close that their arms and hips are touching, and eventually one hand of his starts picking at the loose threads on her top quilt while his other idly plays her own fingers between them.
Minutes roll by by, thus finally, Susan turns her head upon the flowery pillow. "Peter?"
He also turns his slightly towards hers to let her know that he's listening to her. "What, sister?"
"I still would ask for your blessing," she whispers softly, warmly. "For our marriage."
This makes Peter's lips curl. "But, Su. What would people say?" he pauses teasingly. "Well—no matter. As your loyal brother, I'm not really in the position to deny you much of anything, am I? So, yes, you have my blessing."
She clearly tries her best not to smile, so she won't indulge him. She bites her lip before needing to correct him. "My marriage to Owen, Peter."
"I know." Peter sighs, eyes fluttering up to the canopy, away from her staring. The mockery stops because his Susan is far too practical for jokes such as these tonight. "I know what you meant. Of course I'd say do whatever makes you happiest."
She gives in and moves to grace his cheek with a tankful kiss, but Peter shifts sideways again, and it lands on the corner of his mouth.
It lasts for two seconds longer than it probably should have. Peter however, does not dispute and he lets her to the one to pull away first.
XVIII.
So, what is the main problem now? Wolves can come in many forms, many guises.
"Su, you don't have to do this. Just leave. We'll go somewhere else. To one of those small fishing villages along the sea, where no one knows our names. Start over."
(He says this because he's Peter. The Wolfsbane. And he's saved Susan from Wolves before, long ago. He should be able to again. He would.)
She noticeably shudders, quietly, briefly, wiping a tear away. "But, he'll—he isn't—I did tell him it shouldn't ever happen again. I won't stand for it."
Peter presses the wet cloth in his hand carefully to her swollen bruised cheek, trying to suppress the fire of ire still raging inside of him. "If he did it once, he'll do it again. Eventually."
They lock eyes. "It's because of you."
"Me?"
"He doesn't...favor how I spend more of my time with you when you come around, and not him. He's threatened to cry scandal." Susan can't even say her own fiancé's name anymore. Owen has been reduced to 'he' now.
"We're family, Su," Peter asserts, "we love each other and we enjoy each other's company. Everyone knows that. Where is the scandal in that?"
(You don't even need a glittering crown to be handled like a Queen. A good man should still treat you like one anyway, no matter what.)
XIX.
From the pavement leading to the pub, Peter can't help it when he tunes out his classmates and looks toward the southern sun; he wonders what she's up to since he left.
XX.
The front gate-man allows Peter into the Sherris household, one month later.
He follows the sharp sound of two rapiers clanking on each other fervently until he reaches the large doorway of the exercise hall, watching Susan's fiancé train with another man dressed in a white helmet.
They both stop to face him when he takes another step forward, their chests heaving with the all excitement and helmets are lifted off. "Peter Pevensie," Owen greets him with forced pride, already trying to size him up and remain the alpha in the room.
"Owen Sherris."
Smirking, Owen continues, "I'm glad to hear we are on a first-name basis. Come! Spare with me, brother!"
A spare rapier is tossed at him before he can decline, but Peter's muscles somehow still remember how to catch a blade by the hilt in midair before it stuck the ground. He stabilizes his grip, eyes alert. "Brother-in-law," he corrects Owen openly. Because he knows what Owen's hands have done to Susan. Then and last night. He knows he's in the presence of a big bad wolf parading around in a sheep's wool, and he won't be fooled. He won't be overly friendly either.
"But certainly you could love me as a brother, yes?" Owen retorts. "Don't you love your siblings?"
"I do. Magnificently."
"So I've gathered."
And just like a Wolf, Owen leaps with no further warning and strikes hard. Peter backtracks, blocking his blade high above his head. "Are you trying to provoke me, Owen?"
"No, dear chap." Owen feigns stupidity, subtly mocking him. "I hoped to spar, not fight." He attacks again, and Peter parries, ready to waver him. Their rapiers hit right on cue—once—twice—thrice—in a loud clang, click, clash fashion.
Peter scoffs. The tension thickens. "Su said you were talented with a blade."
"Are you that surprised? Or were you so certain that you could cut me down?"
"I would never harm what my sister loves," Peter recites to him. "Besides, what happened to just sparring?"
"Does she love me...," Owen's jaw tightens, and his following glare is to accuse Peter of thievery, treachery, and all the above, "...as she loves her brother?"
It is Peter's turn to scowl. Whatever happened to just sparring, indeed. "You have quite a dangerous sense of humor, Owen Sherris."
"You have no idea. And this once-beloved city of mine is now a pit of whispers, and gossip, rumors and stigmas that have left me to wonder what is and what isn't true about your sister."
Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia these days. Its stories of old hurt her too much to just sit around and dwell over all that had happened in their Golden Age. But she's still Susan, his sister, his own friend. He'll defend her honor to his grave if anybody else besides him criticizes her for keeping secrets to herself. "Though surely you realize that you should never take rumors too seriously," he advised him.
"But you are the source of them, Peter!" Owen lunges a third time, his rising temper being set loose, hell-bent on overthrowing Peter. Their rapiers sing another sharp melody of steel snapping at steel, parrying and thrashing back and forth. "And as rumor has it, there are bound to be three in this marriage, not two!"
Peter regulates his breathing. In. And out. In and out. He tosses his blade aside and turns to make his leave. "Because you are both so dear to my heart."
XXI.
The telephone had rang so painfully early that morning, Peter knew it couldn't have been anyone other than his sister. She immediately asked him if he could come and get her. Her voiced was hushed, but Peter could hear her shaking. And then...there was a distinctive thump in the background on her end of the receiver, making their connection fall dead. Peter had been sprinting out the door in an instant.
"My things," Susan mentions now, enquiringly.
Peter makes sure she's tucked neatly and securely in the front seat of the borrowed car before he turns back to the vacant mansion. He holds his hand up. "I'll get them. Stay here."
Owen is still in the same position Peter had found him a bit earlier when he had arrived, barging through the doorway—sprawled over the bottom step of the great marble staircase, ribs heaving, his right cheek sporting three fresh bloodied lines. Marks most likely made from his sister's nicely-painted nails—Owen's white shirt is also ripped open at the shoulder.
(Peter's nearly overflowing with sickly pride, seeing this. Serves Owen right. Just because Susan was once crowned as The Gentle, that didn't mean she did not know how to be violent.)
Owen seethes, baring his teeth as he watches Peter walk by him again over the broken glass just to gather up the last of Susan's luggage. "You can't just take her."
"Oh, but I must." Peter replies simply.
Though Owen's tone is dark, dripping with venom and revulsion. "Because you love your precious sister?"
Aggravated, Peter glares down the man who tried to soil his sister's hopes and reputation one final time, before he gives Owen's foot a single hard kick—hard enough to make it twist sideways—and over Owen's moans, Peter actually scorns himself on his way.
"Too much."
XXII.
Three years pass.
Neither Peter nor Susan wish to discuss the funeral ever again, or how they hadn't stayed in the cemetery for that long either when it was all over anyhow. And neither of them ever voice the fact that Peter was supposed to board that dreadful train of death along with Lucy and Edmund. He never did because Susan had asked him beforehand to wait at the station for her so that she could wave them off goodbye in person...but sadly, she was a little too late getting there, and Peter had missed the last chance to board by a minute.
So Peter flees to Wales for a time searching for his new self, or something like that, contemplating joining the army. Susan sails away to explore America afterwards until Peter chooses a particular hot day to write her a letter, originally sent through their mother. Susan willingly responds and then Peter suddenly feels very nostalgic at the sight of her elegant Y's and S's curving over the folded parchment.
Their personal notes and cards travel back and forth all winter long, and, in conclusion they mutually decide to meet up again in London for that upcoming summer.
There are still layers of pain and longing hardened between them. They rarely contact their parents anymore, even if it'd make more sense to do so in these conditions than to not. And maybe Peter will smoke a cigar in the afternoons. Susan, meanwhile, has been dying her hair three shades lighter—like brown sugar—than her natural raven-black.
(She's tired of wearing black, she'd said.)
But nevertheless, there is always love there too, a love well alive and forever festering beneath their suffering. It's a love that only seems to deepen and tighten as some sort of repercussion.
XXIII.
There is Peter breathing, rasping against her neck.
And there is Susan's hands slowly drifting across his skin, mesmerizing him in the dark.
XXIV.
Susan overlooks the sunset, the clouds, the crashing green waves and threads her fingers through the golden sands beneath her where she sits, reveling the oddly-pleasant feel of it. She breathes in the silence, tilts back and molds into a quiet, leisure-mannered Peter.
Soon four small ships return to shore. Nets are gathered up, sails are drawn in, fish are weighed and counted and priced for the marketplace over on the docks.
Then the one thin, scraggly and carefree fisherman they now have as a neighbor beams down at them while he heads back to his hut up the hill. "'Ello, Miss Savannah. 'Ello Percy."
Peter, courteously, returns the greeting. "Hello, Wilmer."
"Beaut'ful night to be out by the sea, in'it?"
"Indeed."