All They Had Were the Nights
Author's Note: In case you missed it before, this is Peter/Susan incest. I don't mean to offend anyone with this, so if you oppose the couple, don't burden yourselves with reading this. Flames are welcome if you have a problem with the writing or the story, but really, you have been warned that you're getting yourself into incest by now.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
All They Had Were the Nights
He had always watched her sleep. Even when she was a baby, as her older brother, Peter had felt it his duty to spend the hours during which Susan slept so innocently standing over her, as her silent guardian, ready to come to her aid if she should happen to cry, because he hated when she cried. It wasn't that the noise bothered him, but he took his role as her older brother seriously, and for his little sister to cry meant she was wanting for something. Peter made it his vow to give her everything she ever wanted in life. At the time, the house they lived in was small, and he and the baby had shared a room, a fact his parents felt guilty for. "Young boys", they said, "need their sleep too. They shouldn't have to share their room with little sisters who could cry during all hours of the night, keeping their big brothers awake." But he didn't mind, and after a while, his parents just assumed Susan wasn't a crying baby during the nighttime, despite her wailing cries during the day. He knew the truth though. Peter knew that he was the reason Susan never cried, because if she did, he would hurriedly scoop her up into his arms, and would sing to her, or talk to her, or play with her until she quieted down. It was a fact he never told his parents. It was a secret between brother and sister, and one that he treasured.
Then, Edmund and Lucy had been born. Susan was older then, and didn't cry during the nights, but Peter didn't complain when his parents told him that he would need to share a room with her in their new house because unlike her, Edmund and Lucy cried, and both he and his sister needed sleep at night. It only made it easier to watch her. He tried to rationalize it to himself, to say that he was just being a good brother, but he still couldn't explain why Edmund's wails made him cringe, yet when she so much as pouted his insides tightened. Peter tried to make himself believe that it was because Edmund was a boy, and he only felt the brotherly instincts that made him keep vigil because she was a girl. But Lucy disproved that theory. It's not that he didn't love Edmund and Lucy, but something was different about her. She was different. Peter convinced his mother to let him move his bed next to hers, and at nights he lay on his side, guarding Susan from nightmares and the bad and scary thoughts that travel to children's minds during the night. If some unwanted spirit had slipped passed him when he had fallen asleep, startling her and waking her up as cold sweat ran down her face and she struggled to catch her breath, he was right there next to her, his presence calming them both. He liked that.
Eventually, all the children grew older, and they grew apart as they branched out of the house. As they did, Peter found his own friends, and she found hers. It was hard for him. He didn't like knowing Susan didn't need him. He didn't like knowing she had other friends with whom she could trust her secrets, whom she would call upon in times of joy or fear or pain. He never got to see her during the day, but at night—night was when he could be near her. And for that reason it was his favorite time of day. He told himself it was because Susan was his best friend, and it was the only time he got to see her, to know she was okay, but something was nagging at him that it wasn't the whole truth. Something more was going on. Something deeper, more complex than a boy of his age could rationalize, try as he might.
One night, when he went in their room Susan was rolled over in her bed facing the wall. Instantly Peter knew something was wrong. He knew enough from years of watching her that she slept facing him. He never asked her about it, but he liked to pretend it was so she could remind herself that he was there to protect her while she slept. He also knew that when she slept Susan stayed in one place the whole night, as if posing for some painter trying to capture her likeness while she slept. She never faced the wall. She was avoiding something—she was avoiding him. The realization dawned on him all at once almost knocking him backwards with the blow of the knowledge. Peter came to her slowly, cautiously, unsure of how to approach her. He sat on his bed cross-legged and reached his hand out to touch her back. He felt her tense under his touch and he pulled back as if his hand was searing him. Eventually he coxed it out of Susan that a kid at her school was bullying her, and the teacher didn't want to get involved. The next day, when he came home bruised and bloody, Peter winked at her, and the yells from his parents were drowned out as she smiled a large smile and ran up to hug him. He had been restricted to his room for a month, but that was okay him. Susan stayed in their room too, reading or talking with him or writing. It didn't matter what, because she was weathering his punishment with him, to thank him. And it was wonderful.
Then they were teenagers. Their parents had made Edmund move into his room with him, and she moved into Lucy's room. Their parents said it just wasn't proper anymore, given their ages, but he suspected that they knew something he didn't—something they were afraid of, and were trying to prevent. Night was the only time they had together, and even that had been taken away from him. Try as he might, Peter couldn't fall asleep without her, without knowing she was all right. So he waited until Edmund was asleep and he snuck down the hall and into her room. Lucy and Susan were always already asleep, so he would creep into the room, shutting the door softly behind him as he stood in the doorway, watching her chest gently rise and fall as the moonbeams from the nearby window fell across her face, illuminating her body in an unearthly glow. Peter would watch her sleep for hours, knowing that over the years something had changed, but not entirely. Eventually he would go back to his room, and would fall asleep, the memories of how peaceful Susan looked sustaining him until the next night. He watched her go through one crush after another, some of them turning into boyfriends, others still turning into forgotten fantasies.
One night, as he crept into her room to watch her, he heard a muffled sob coming from her bed. He was tentative at first to alert her to his presence, but his resolve strengthened when she called out softly for him. He stepped quickly and quietly until he was by her side, and asked her what was wrong. With a broken voice husk from tears, Susan told him that her boyfriend had broken up with her because she wasn't good enough for him. Peter felt his blood boil as he told her how stupid her boyfriend had been to not realize how beautiful and how intelligent she was and how kind hearted. His ramblings were cut off as her hand reached out for his, and he felt his anger dissipate as she pulled him onto the bed next to her. He brushed away her tears with his thumb, finding himself noticing how soft her skin was underneath his hands despite himself.
Eventually, as he soothed her, kissing the top of her head and telling her in hushed tones how special she was, Susan asked him if he would hold her. Her voice was so quiet and so hesitant that he almost hadn't heard the request at all, but when she asked him again, "please?" without hesitation Peter scooped her up, wrapping his arms around her tightly as she snuggled down into his chest. His muscles tightened, and he knew in that moment, something had changed between them, something they couldn't go back from, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. On some level, he must have been aware that the feelings he felt toward his own sister were wrong, but at that moment, with her dozing off peaceably in his arms, Peter found he didn't care. What mattered then was that instant of pure bliss when they didn't have to be brother and sister, just for a couple hours in the night, when the dark could erase their sins, not just from each other, but from the rest of the world. After that, although he never stopped sneaking in to watch her sleep, Peter never approached her again, never coming as close as they had that night. His mother and father never questioned why he always looked so tired in the mornings, and neither did Edmund or Lucy, although he suspected the two latter knew why. Some days he wished he could tell his sister how much he loved her, how he watched her sleep every night just to see her at her most content, and know she was safe. The thing that stopped him was the possibility of her reaction. To see her recoil at his profession of love for her would break him, he had no doubt.
One night, when he came in to watch her, he saw her curled up and facing the wall. He called out to her asking if she was awake, knowing full well she was. Susan's reply was muffled and faint, and it caused him to seize up in panic as he began pacing toward her. He stopped cold when he heard her tell him to not come any closer, a sense of foreboding deep within him. Her voice was forced and quiet, as she told Peter that a boy had asked her to be his girlfriend, and she had accepted. The wind was knocked out of him in that moment, as he struggled to maintain an air of indifference and confusion as he choked out the words "why should that matter to me?" He saw her body slack visibly as she sighed deeply and not bothering to hide the pain and tears from her voice as she told him that they had to stop, because it wasn't normal and it wasn't right. And it wasn't fair to either of them. That put him over the edge. It was one thing to say that it wasn't "normal" or "right", but it was another thing all together to say that it wasn't fair to them. He found the words escaping his mouth long before he thought to stop them. "What makes you think you know anything about the pain I'm feeling?"
What Peter discovered was that Susan wasn't nearly as heavy a sleeper as Peter thought she was. He discovered that she had known he watched her sleep, and that she waited every night for him to come in, often taking pains to make herself more attractive to him. Peter wanted to laugh at the ridiculous notion that she would dress herself up and put make-up on to go to bed just to be watched, but just knowing that she did it for him made him all the more confused. When he asked her why she let him watch her, why she felt she had to feign sleep, her response shocked him. "Maybe it's because I enjoyed it as much as you did." Her response was so honest and so simple it sent Peter's head reeling. In that moment he wanted to tell her that he loved her, that he saw how beautiful she was, that it didn't matter what anyone else thought because it wasn't their business, but what he said was "Don't date him, Sue." He closed his eyes and waited for the blow to come. "Peter, we can't let ourselves be taken away. It's not how brothers and sisters should behave."
Peter was frustrated. For so long he hadn't cared about what society would think of them, but what she would think. Now, to find himself presented with the very object of his passions, that she wanted him like he wanted her—well, it was too much for him. "Susan, we're more than brother and sister. I don't love you how I love Luce or Ed! I've fallen in love with my sister, and couldn't do anything about it, because of you Sue, because I didn't think you could possibly love me. Now that you're telling me you do, you can't expect me to keep doing nothing about it. If I have to fight for you Sue, I will." To drive his point home, Peter closed the space between them in two quick steps, and scooping his sister up, kissed her. Their kiss was long and deep, conveying emotions of longing and a desire far deeper than the two had known. When they finally broke apart, Susan let out a sob, and as Peter turned to leave, called after him softly through the night "Don't leave." Always unable to deny her anything, he turned around and laid next to her on the bed as she scooted over to make room for him. Slipping under the covers, he entwined his legs with hers and pulled her as close to him as he could get her, so that she rested on his chest, determined to not let her slip away. He absently stroked her hair, as she fell asleep, her soft breaths and gentle smell lulling Peter into a dreamless sleep. He awoke to Susan kissing him softly, her hand on his face and her hair tickling his neck. She told him that it was morning, and they would be expected to get up soon, and it would probably be best if were in his own bed. The night was gone, and with it went their cover of the dark and the shadows that shrouded their secret from the rest of the world.
Not long after that night, they were sent away to the country, and not long after that, Lucy discovered Narnia. Narnia, it turned out, ended up being the best thing that ever happened for the two eldest Pevensie siblings. When Peter had been preparing to go off to battle, Susan was left with her mind reeling. Peter—her Peter was readying himself to lead men three times his age to their deaths, and he was fighting amongst them, putting himself at the hands of a ruthless enemy while he tried to fight for and defend a land not his own. The awareness of just how real the threat to his life was startled Susan, and the knowledge that she could let Peter march off to his death without so much as a word passing between them of what he meant to her, the man she loved dying before she ever had a chance to be his out of the shadows, where they didn't have to be ashamed and hide their feelings. She was determined that she stop him—no matter what the cost. The night before he left for battle, Susan waited for the men to go to sleep, save a few guards, and slipped into Peter's tent. When she first opened the flap, her resolve weakened as she caught sight of him resting peaceably, her shadow covering his moon-soaked body from where she stood at the tent flap. She stepped quietly over to him mesmerized by the sight of him so vulnerable and serene. As if of it's own accord, her hand reached out to brush away stray hairs that had fallen over his face. As she did so, her soft hand the ghost of a whisper against his skin, Peter spoke for the first time. "Well this is certainly a turn of events." Susan jumped at the noise and flushed a deep scarlet as she stammered, completely at a loss for her reason for coming. Remembering, she averted her eyes and told him she didn't want him to go to fight. Propping himself on his elbow, Peter reached for Susan, putting his finger under her chin, forcing her to make eye contact. "Why?"
Susan was bewildered by the question. When she asked him "Why what?" his response was solemn. "Why don't you want me to fight?" Susan snapped at the question. "You know damn well why, Peter." Susan swore she saw his lip twitch, but he voice remained steady when he asked if he really did know. "You've never told me you know." This time, Susan required no further clarification. "What do you mean? I've told you plenty of times that I love you." Peter smiled a sad smile.
"Sure, you've told me as my sister, and you've told me as my friend, but not once have you told me as my lover. I want you to say it."
"I didn't come here for that Peter. I came to ask you to not go through with this."
"Why?"
"Because I'm asking you to."
"As what? As my sister? As my friend?"
"As the girl you said you'd do anything for."
"Some things are bigger than us, Sue. Go back to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."
The next morning, Susan stood next to Peter as he donned his armor, the words that flowed from her heart to her throat bitten down, not passing through her lips. As he rode away, it finally dawned on her just how much she had left unsaid. Desperate, she threw out a wager in her mind to anyone who would listen that if Peter could be kept safe and returned to her, she would follow her heart and say what had been left unsaid. She only hoped some higher power would take her bet, and giver her the opportunity to do so.
The night after the battle as laid in her chamber in Cair Paravel, she waited for him to come like she knew he would. The minutes seemed to drag and the night seemed to halt, each footstep of the guards echoing in the halls sounding like his footfalls, each rustle of a bird's wings sounding like the swish of his cloak, the possibilities causing her stomach to catch in her throat in anticipation. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of nights the door opened, and she knew it was him. Throwing cautions to the wind, she was the first to speak.
"I thought you weren't going to come tonight."
"Sue, I'll always come back to you."
"What would you say, if I said I never wanted you to leave."
"I'll always have to leave you, the dark only keeps for so long."
"I thought I was going to lose you today, and I decided something. What if I said the dark wasn't enough? What if I said, I wanted you in the light too? What if I said I needed you always?"
Peter could hardly believe his ears. Susan had always been the rational one, the practical one, yet here she was telling him just the night wasn't enough for her. By way of response Peter bent down and kissed her. A small part of him half expected her to fight him, to shove him away and tell him she had never wanted him as he wanted her in that moment, but what happened was that Susan pulled her arms around him, pulling him closer to her, their kiss a passionate one, full of urgency and lust. As they kissed, her arms wound around his back and neck and her fingers ran through his scalp, her nails scraping him slightly in their wake as she frantically grabbed at tuffs of his hair. Peter couldn't say he wasn't caught off guard, but he caught on fast, deepening their kiss as he sucked her upper lip, his tongue begging for entrance to her mouth, which she willingly gave. As they broke apart, breathless, Susan nuzzled her head against Peter's chest, and spoke softly. "I love you Peter." It was so quiet that Peter almost didn't hear it. But he did, and he was all that needed to hear it, because she said it for him and no one else. His heart soared. Later that night, Peter and Susan made love for the first of many times to come.
The next morning, as the bright rays of sunshine seeped into the castle, Susan and Peter walked down to the dining hall hand in hand. Susan would tighten her grip on him whenever they passed anyone, and he would squeeze her hand reassuringly. Finally as they approached the large oak doors to the dining hall, behind which sat their two younger siblings, Peter removed his hand from Susan's and placed it instead around her waist. Taking a deep breath, the two stepped into the room where Edmund and Lucy were already assembled. They walked over to a chair, Peter again detaching himself from Susan to pull her chair out, kissing her on the cheek as she sat, then taking his own seat next to hers and taking her hand in his again. The two stopped and checked their younger brother and sister for reactions. What they saw were a smile from Lucy that Peter was fairly certain was a smile congratulating them on finally figuring out some puzzle she had previously solved, and a small nod of approval from Edmund. The rest of the kingdom had been just as easy to deal with. Peter thought it was because they people of Narnia owed them their freedom and land, while Susan thought it was because monarchies had histories of blood relationships to preserve the scarcity of the royal bloodline, but Edmund and Lucy thought that it was because Peter and Susan weren't as sneaky as they thought they were, and everyone had already figured it out. Whatever the reason, Peter and Susan were finally realizing it didn't matter, because it was nobody's business but their own.
From then on, Peter and Susan still had their nights, but they had the day too. Peter learned to memorize Susan's every feature by the sun as well as the moon, and it was good, the two finally being able to enjoy everything they had tried so hard to avoid. However, the nights were still special for Susan and Peter, the most intimate moments occurring then, when the once coconspirator of nightfall signaled the start of an intimacy no longer shrouded in sin and secrecy. As they grew older together in the magical land of Narnia, the King Peter and Queen Susan found themselves truly at peace with their citizens, and more importantly themselves, as their love grew deeper and more mature than they ever could have hoped. Then, one day, their world came crashing down around them when, while horseback riding, The queens and kings of Narnia came upon a wardrobe that led them back so many years ago, no time passing, and with it, the minds of the people staying just as stationary in their obstinacy. Peter and Susan were no longer men and women or kings and queens, but two teenagers who could be nothing more than brother and sister by the light of day, when the rest of the world was watching, all the memories of their former life buried beneath the burden felt by a man and woman trapped in the bodies of children. A man and a woman who had spent their life together as one, only to have it erased and brought back to a time they had fought to move beyond.
For now, they could never experience kisses during the daytime, or holding hands in the light. They could never tell each other how much they loved one another when the sun was out, or wake up next to each other, content to lie together in the morning hours. They had to shelter their looks, and hide their touches. Peter and Susan had all the experiences of men and women a great many years older, for they had lived the lives of those men and women, yet now they found themselves trapped in the wrong time, in bodies far too young for their maturity level, in the wrong land, where they could not be accepted. All they had left were the nights, but Peter and Susan would make them count.
Fin.
Author's Note: Originally I was planning on making this a "mature" fic, but decided that I would split it up, so I could get a "T and under" base for it, with a companion piece detailing their first encounter in Narnia, and maybe another about the after-Narnian encounters for those who want to read it. Those of you willing to read two mature companion pieces, be on the lookout. Those who are happy with this, please drop a review!