All I seem to be writing lately is non-con. *sigh*
The title is from 'One Girl Revolution'.
"Susan? What are you still doing in there?"
What do you think? "Waiting for him to bleed out," she said instead, scooping out the remnants of pale pink soap from the basin. "That's why the water's on."
Edmund would have appreciated the joke, but instead she heard footsteps and then Lucy pulled the door open, peaking in.
"Do you mind?" Susan snapped, because it was bad enough that she had to bring Lucy along at all; she could already see the smirk on Joanna's perfectly powdered face. Not allowed out alone again, Susan dear?
Lucy only stared though, a deep line through her forehead, dancing just above her eyebrows. Almost all the magazines said wrinkles are much more likely for frowners, but Lucy refused to listen, almost as adamantly as she refused to make herself up.
This time though, Susan didn't understand. The face looking back at her from the mirror was as beautiful as it got for her; she might not have Anne's chiselled cheekbones or even Joanna's expensive, imported make-up, but she was vibrant enough for men to notice her. Tom had said that it was the way her smile lit up her face that had done it for him, but the last time she's seen him he'd had a tiny blonde girl at his side, feeding her miniscule morsels of dry cake.
"What's the point," Lucy asked quietly, "if you don't even look like yourself?"
Beauty, she thought, and sighed. "You'll understand one day," she said, though she doubted Lucy ever truly would.
Vera Lynn wailed out of the broken gramophone as Susan sipped carefully at her drink. Small, delicate sips, ladylike, while she longed to just down it in one long delicious gulp like the majority of the attending soldiers do. One of them was watching her, though, so she refrained. It was the one in the corner, with small glasses and bronze skin; his neck and chin scorched a red more vibrant than his hair. He seemed bored with the proceedings, one hand playing idly with his hat, the other constantly adjusting his glasses.
She made her way over, wineglass still in her left hand.
The man rose upon seeing her approach, and gave a stiff nod. Up close his hair seemed wilder; vines of it curling over his ears like ivy upon a tree. She smiled, the slight and meaningless Spare Oom smile that never let boredom shine through.
"Good evening, Miss." His voice lilted at the end, as if on a question.
"Pevensie," she answered.
"Ah," he remarked, bushy eyebrows rising momentarily. "I had the," he paused, tongue darting out to wet his lips. It seemed eerily reminiscent of the reptiles they had studied in biology at St. Finbar's. "Pleasure, so to speak, of meeting another Miss Pevensie earlier. She was quite something," he finished, hand smoothing over the edge of his hat.
"My sister has a lot of character," Susan said firmly. It was one thing to talk with their siblings about Lucy, and quite another to do so with a stranger, especially when the conversation was not purely complementary.
"Indeed, madam. Would you do me the honour?" he stretched out a hand.
She took a final sip before placing her glass aside, and fixing him with a levelling look. It used to make presumptuous, sexist ambassadors falter, but the man didn't even blink. "I think not," Susan said. "You have neglected to inform me of your name, Sir."
"In that case, I must apologise. I was quite caught up in your beauty," he answered, and Susan had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from giggling, knowing too well what Lucy would have said to anything like that. "I am Lieutenant James Rowell."
He hadn't moved his hand back, so Susan reached out and rested her own on top. It felt strangely like a sacrifice, something heavy and real, more like dancing with Prince Rabadash than any of the other soldiers she'd danced with this season.
James led her out to the middle of the rented town hall, currently being used as the ballroom floor and took her in his arms, one hand reaching down to rest on her hip. It was the normal position for this specific dance, but even so, it made her flesh crawl, goosebumps prickling across her skin. It's just one dance, she told herself as he whirled her around and she caught sight of Lucy. Her sister's eyes were bright and slanted like a cat's in the moonlight, her mouth pursed in obvious disapproval. Lucy had never liked those kinds of parties, especially not in England.
It seemed peculiarly long, though, the disk spinning round and round, and the Lieutenant holding up their linked hands for Susan to do the same. And when it was finally over, he took her to the side and brought her another drink, and it would have been rude to refuse.
She didn't remember much else about that night; only pain and a faint sense of loss, coupled with the illusion of being pulled apart from the inside.
When came to, her limbs felt heavy and her eyes swollen shut. It seemed to take forever to open them, but when she did her vision was utterly blank. She blinked hard, twice, and only then noticed the lamp. The ceiling, she thought groggily and tried to push herself up, but her arm gave out from under her and she collapsed back down. There was a dark bruise forming by her wrist, with four dark crescent marks underneath it. Nails, sharp.
Peering around the room, she realised she was in her own bed, but couldn't remember how she had gotten there.
"How do you feel?" Lucy asked, coming into their room, and though her sister hadn't slept there while Peter and Edmund have been away, even her bed looked slept in; the covers tossed haphazardly over the bed the way Lucy always left them. "I only popped out of the room for a minute or so," she continued, handing Susan a cup of hot chocolate.
Without thinking, she reached out for it, and sipped it thankfully, not even caring that it burned her throat. It took a couple of sips to realise that Lucy's hands were empty and she was already fidgeting.
"Sorry," she said, "Was this yours?" Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, the words strangely shaped.
Her sister gave a brief nod, biting her lower lip. "You haven't answered."
"I don't even know, Lu." Susan said tiredly, and that was the worst part.
It wasn't not even that unfamiliar a feeling, which made it even worse; the memory of tumbling out of a cramped wardrobe onto Edmund, suddenly shoved into itching clothes and a memory with more blanks than her moth-eaten cardigan could still make her flinch.
"I went looking for you after Marjorie went home, but I couldn't see you anywhere until Rebecca told me she thought she'd seen you go outside earlier" said Lucy later, "You were slumped against the door to the back entrance."
"The back entrance hasn't opened for years," Susan interrupted sensibly. "Lucy, that makes no sense."
"I don't know what you were doing there," Lucy snapped. "I couldn't even wake you up; I was so scared something terrible had happened to you."
"I don't know what happened to me," Susan said quietly, drawing her thumb over one of the bruises on her forearm. Even with such a light touch, it hurt. "Nor how I got these."
"Someone beat you up," said Lucy, "That soldier, probably, if he's the last one you remember talking to. Rebecca said you went outside with him. Drink up."
"We can't just assume that, Lucy," she hissed out, but obediently took another few sips.
"It's the only explanation that makes sense," said her sister, staring at the raw, purple skin. "Where did you put the bruise cream?"
"What bruise cream?" Her head felt heavy. She set the cup down.
"The one you make Peter use every time he gets in a fight."
"In one of the drawers." Susan answered, lying back and pulling the covers up to her chin.
Lucy took a slow, deliberate look around. There were three chests of drawers in this room alone. "Which one?" she asked.
"With all the other creams. Bathroom, I think."
Lucy gave a brisk nod, and rose, taking the cup along with her.
Susan heard the bathroom door creak open, and then some rummaging, but her eyes felt so heavy, and by the time Lucy came back, tub of cream in hand, she was already fast asleep.
She dreamt of drowning at sea, gasping for air until she realised that the water was blood and the air was blood and then she couldn't even see anymore, because there was something wet against her eyes, and she thought that was probably blood too.
She woke up shaking and gasping, blood smudged across the upper half of her thighs and on the took a couple of minutes for Susan to realise what it means, but when she did, it was almost a relief.
She told herself it was just a foolish dream, and got up, dunking the bloody sheets and her nightdress in the bathroom sink, before splashing her face with cold water and stepping into the bath. It was wet, but she didn't slip, and when she finally got out, so was the bathroom floor, so she must have splashed around without even realising it. It felt like stepping into the sea, that first, calm blessing that reminded her of stepping into Narnia again, the sound of the crushing waves roaring into her ears like a very familiar lion.
Even the emperor over the sea, she had thought then, could not be as great as Aslan himself.
And yet he had abandoned them, like worn-out toys a spoilt, bratty child had grown tired of. Sometimes Susan thought it would be easier just to forget it all.
She was smoothing her skirt down when Lucy came in, and drew up short.
"You're not well," she said, "You shouldn't be up."
"I have to," said Susan, "My secretarial course."
Lucy made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. "You wouldn't wake up last night," she said quietly, "and we still don't know what happened."
"And we probably never will, and there's nothing we can do about it." Susan snapped, dropping down onto her bed and pulling her left shoe on. "I'm not some damsel in distress, okay? I'll be fine. It was hard enough to get the placement anyway."
"I thought you said it was boring."
"Very few people are willing to employ women in any sort of useful or interesting occupation," said Susan, adjusting the straps on her right shoe. They still rubbed uncomfortably against her feet when she walked, and the blisters caused hadn't healed yet, but there was always a price to be paid.
"Why?" Lucy's voice sounded small.
"I suppose they think we're less capable," she answered. "Anyway, it was the same back ho- in Narnia."
"But we fought against it there!" her sister exclaimed. "Remember, fair sister," she started, heartbreakingly regal, as if words could bring back a world both of them are barred from, "I rode to the wars, and you handled so many affairs of state and we both taught all the archers in the army."
"It's different here," said Susan. "We're not important; we're just two girls with too large ambitions who think and want too much."
"It doesn't have to be that way," said the girl who had been the queen who was always valiant. "We could try, at least. I'm sure there are others who disagree with the way things are done in this country, even if they don't have anything to compare it to."
"Yes, the Germans," Susan snapped.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it!"
"Things will change," she added soothingly, because after all, she had been the gentle one. "When Mother was born, women couldn't even vote for themselves. That was a privilege reserved only for the men. But it took time; change always does. Peace wasn't immediate when we defeated the White Witch."
"Aslan defeated the White Witch." Lucy insisted, ever the faithful one.
"Yes," she said, "but he's not here now."
"He said to look for him in this world too; the time Ed and I were there with Eustace. If only we could find him, things might be alright again. He can do anything, remember?"
"Yes," Susan said, "Let's go around talking to lions. I suggest starting with the London Zoo."
Lucy's eyes were wet, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to care. The problem with not letting on how hurt you were was the way the detachment set you apart, and made careless, casual cruelty the easy, only option.
When Lucy spoke her voice was quiet, commanding in the way they'd all learned in Narnia. "He's not a tame lion, you know," she said, words that didn't belong in a tiny English flat with spilt watery tea and dull frumpy clothes. The familiarity of the words made Susan cry too, until she was sobbing out all the hurts she'd stored up inside her since their first return to the Professor's house, where she'd prowled around listlessly like a predator stuck inside a stifling cage.
Lucy held her tightly, and that was familiar too, because in the end, the only thing they were always left with was each other.
She was walking back home with a straining bag of groceries in her hand when she tripped over a loose stone and went flying forwards, only managing to catch herself on a brick wall leading off to a side alley at the last minute, her hand stinging from the impact. She leant against it for a minute, scraping red dust from under her fingernails, when some chance impulse made her look to her side, away from the main road.
There were two bodies further down, curled towards each other and obscene in their publicity. She was about to turn away when she realised that the figure underneath was flailing as if trying to escape, large hand positioned perfectly over her mouth.
It was an instinct learned in Narnia that made her charge forwards; most English girls would have been too afraid of the danger to themselves. In a way, Susan couldn't blame them; she knew what happened in England to women who got forced, knew what everyone muttered behind their backs.
The rush of anger roaring in her ears made the run to them seem almost instantaneous, and then she was pulling the man off the whimpering girl. He was heavy in her arms, resistant and angry at being interrupted, and oddly familiar.
"Bitch," he grunted, trying to shove her away, and it's only then that she recognised the lieutenant from last night. The sight of him aroused a queer sensation in her: fear and mad panic in a way she hadn't felt since Maugrim's attack so many years ago.
It made her want to turn back, to forget what she'd seen and just run; but once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen only meant something if she made it, and besides, she knew that she would never have been able forgive herself for turning away.
So when Rowell tried to push her away, Susan whacked him across the face with her bag. He cringed back from the blow, and she fumbled in her skirt pocket. It was warm outside, so she wasn't wearing many layers, and the leather holder had been digging into her thigh since she'd left the house. She pulled the knife out of it with one smooth motion and leaned forward. When Rowell finally pushed away from the wall and towards her, he impaled himself on the knife.
Susan could almost see when he realised this; could recognise the way he tried to slide himself off the knife in vain, blood already spreading to cover most of his thin uniform jacket. He opened his mouth to speak but no coherent words came out, only a faint gurgling sound. Then he slumped forwards.
Dead, she thought, and pulled the knife out of him, wiping it against his sleeve before returning it to her pocket. Then she turned towards the girl still cowering against the wall.
"It's alright," she said slowly, the way she had used to pacify frightened Talking Beasts as queen. "He can't hurt you anymore."
The woman just blinked up at her for a minute. "Susan?" she said cautiously.
"Yes, who," Susan stopped herself then, because even with make-up smeared and running down her face, her usually luscious curls matted and mostly flat against her face, the older Wilson girl was still recognisable. "Joanna," she finished.
"Did you – I mean, is he – What did you do?" Joanna's words were fast and garbled, as if they were forcing their way out of her mouth without even being considered, and she was staring at Susan as if she had suddenly morphed into something feral and foreign, or declared herself to be a fervent supporter of the Nazi Party.
Susan felt a flare of annoyance rise up inside her. Calm down, she told herself, but she couldn't help it: the fights she was so used to had gone on and on, an endless pile of corpses lying across hundreds of fields that made up hasty battlefields, and she never stopped killing after only one man.
"He's dead," she said shortly.
"But how – why do you have – how could you make yourself do it?"
"He deserved it," Susan answered shortly, because really, it was that simple.
"But - it was my fault," Joanna stammered out, poor little rich girl taught society standards more than practicalities, "I must have done something: people don't just – I deserved it, they always do."
Susan felt unexpectedly sorry for her, and more thankful than ever for Narnia. "Grow up," she said instead. "Not everything is always the way they would make you think."
Joanna stared back at her, and Susan could practically see the cogs in her brain turning to accept this new information; for all her faults, Joanna Wilson had never been stupid.
"Thank you," she whispered, nodding slightly, and then added, "Susan, your cardigan."
Susan looked down. The worn green wool was splattered with drying blood, forming stiff spots that clung to the shirt underneath. She didn't care: everything had to be paid for, and what's one or two items of clothing against fulfilling part of what had been her duty in Narnia and remained so at heart?
She gave a small, unladylike shrug, but when she looked up, she saw that Joanna had taken off her coat and was already holding it out.
"Take it," she said. "It's the least I can do."
She probably had ten others at home, so Susan reached out and took it. It was a fine coat, cut in this season's most popular style and obviously brand new, though wet at the back from being pressed agains damp brick. She ran her hand along it, wiping off the errant red dust and admiring the soft fabric.
"If I tell my father he'll see to it that you're rewarded," said Joanna then. "Properly, I mean."
"If you tell your father, I will be arrested," Susan returned. "You cannot."
"But-" Joanna started.
"You owe me," Susan interrupted, because it was the only way out, and she could not afford to be investigated. Their parents were already extremely puzzled by their offspring, without truly knowing anything at all – they didn't need to know that their eldest daughter, the dainty, polite, gracious one, was an unrepentant murderer a thousand times over.
The other girl watched Susan put on what had been her coat in silence, only speaking after Susan had buttoned it up, and slid the knifeholder into its large pocket, though the sdden lightness against her thigh felt extremely unsafe.
"Thank you," she repeated herself finally, as if that meant anything at all, as if it changed years of taunting and preening in front of Susan, years of getting stared at by boys Susan used to like.
"I would have done the same for anyone," Susan answered, because no one deserves being raped, not even criminals, and Joanna Wilson was never anything worse than just another spoilt kid, and walked away, heels thudding on the narrow pavement, and didn't even look back.
Everyone had to learn to cope by themselves sooner or later, and Joanna Wilson was long overdue. After all, Susan had been doing it since she was twelve.
She tried to scrub out the blood, but it was no use. The stains stayed there like the ones on Lady Macbeth's hands, except that Susan had never let herself regret anything at all, and if the blood was imagined she would have drowned in it long ago.
"Hurry up, I need the bathroom!" Lucy yelled.
"Just a minute," she answered, abandoning her task. "Waiting for him to bleed out, remember?"
"Oh, Su," Lucy said, and even through the door, Susan can hear her sister's fond sigh. "That was only funny the first time."
No, Susan thought, it never really was.
She dried her hands, and walked out of the bathroom, and into a life that seemed suddenly more familiar, as if Narnia was closer than ever before.