england / december 17, 1946

word count: 929

xXx

Edmund Pevensie took the stairs two at a time and dropped down onto the sitting room landing with his nightshirt still untucked and hair tangled in his eyes, wandering out into the mid-morning kitchen where leftovers lay scattered over the abandoned breakfast table.

He'd just grabbed a scone when Lucy's sharp giggle came from the sitting room followed by Peter's muffled voice, and he wandered back out to investigate as he munched, downing the whole pastry in two bites.

"There you are," said Peter, glancing up from the couch where he sat buried amongst a nest of at least four blankets beside Lucy, bundled up like Eskimos with two small tubs between them labeled chocolate and vanilla. "Only took you half the day."

Edmund paused and did a double take. "Is that… ice cream?"

"Yeah, why?"

Edmund squinted into his brother's obviously teasing eyes. "In the middle of December?"

"It was on sale," said Lucy, so dreamily there may as well have been stars twinkling in her huge blue eyes.

"Well, yeah, who eats ice cream in winter?"

"Who wakes up at eleven and questions anyone's life choices but his own?" asked Peter.

"I resent that."

"You used to get up early in December," said Lucy, nibbling chocolate ice cream from her spoon. "In Narnia, anyway. You could have gone to the shops with us."

"I didn't have end-of-year exams in Narnia," said Edmund, wandering up to the sofa, "I've got a month's worth of sleep to catch up on, now. And Harvy's General isn't exactly a stroll down to Glasswater."

Lucy shrugged. "Or you just got boring."

Edmund flopped down between them and snatched Lucy's spoon from her hand, digging out his own scoop of chocolate and eating it in one bite.

"Ew, that's mine!"

He shrugged. "I don't mind."

Lucy shot him a glare, and Peter passed his own spoon across Edmund to her.

She took it and smiled, digging into the chocolate tub again as if nothing had happened. "Thanks."

Edmund furrowed his brow in offense. "Well that's nice, what's he got that I don't?"

"Manners," said Lucy around a mouthful of chocolate and spoon, and Edmund stabbed the vanilla tub in protest, eating an even larger scoop than the first.

He squeezed his eyes shut a second later as his head tingled sharply with the cold, and Peter laughed.

"Alright, alright," he grumbled, snatching a blanket off of his brother and burrowing deeper into the cushions, leeching as much body heat as he could while his brain thawed. "I see how it is."

In the next room, the front door banged open, and Lucy perked up at the shuffling of boots and crunch of paper grocery bags just before their father ducked into the sitting room.

"Oh, there you—" He stopped in the middle of the room and looked at them as someone else shut the front door, sunlight from the bay window at their backs shining bright through his golden hair and a sea of dust motes floating around his broad shoulders, halfway through shrugging his grey woolen coat off. "What are you doing?"

"Achieving thermodynamic equilibrium," said Edmund.

Mr Pevensie scanned the three of them with sharp blue eyes already dancing somewhere between confusion and amusement. "Is that ice cream?"

"It was on sale," said Peter and Lucy at the same time, and Edmund offered up his spoon.

Mr Pevensie took it, settling down between him and Lucy as the latter scooted to the very end of the sofa to make room, and Edmund squished uncomfortably into Peter with a cough of protest.

Lucy leaned over her father's lap to reach for another scoop as he dug one out for himself and ate it with a thoughtful nod of approval, ignoring Edmund's failed attempts to wiggle out from under him.

Susan poked her head in from the kitchen. "I don't know where mother wants me to put the—" Her eyes landed on them and she stopped, blinked—and indeed it must have been a very strange sight to take in all at once; three grown (or nearly grown) men bunched onto the tiny sofa and bundled up with nearly every quilt they owned while Lucy crawled over their legs to reach the vanilla.

Edmund thought he could see the faith in humanity leaving her eyes as she turned wordlessly back into the kitchen to sort the grocery problem out herself.

Peter laughed, and Edmund winced.

"Ow, Dad, you're crushing me."

Mr Pevensie only grinned, and Lucy sing-songed from the other side of the sofa.

"That's what happens to spoon thieves."

"Oh, shut up."

His father turned to him and he shook his head instantly as the pressure on his ribcage redoubled.

"I didn't mean it, I— ow, I didn't mean it, ey, Peter, help—"

Peter laughed again, but this time shifted just far enough to give his brother room to breathe, hauling him up out of the sea of blankets attempting to swallow him.

The second Edmund caught his breath he swiped the spoon from his father and stabbed it into the chocolate tub, and the very next instant found himself caught up in a suffocating bear hug with a sharp bark of a laugh.

"Hey— oof— get off—"

And in the kitchen, Susan smiled to herself, shaking her head with a sigh as Edmund's laughter and pleas for his life rang through the house, snowflakes drifting lazily into the London streets outside the window; though for a moment amidst the good-humored shouts of her family, it felt more like another world altogether.