whynot: etc: oh deer (PEVENSIES)
Las ([personal profile] whynot) wrote2008-10-08 01:01 am

"when it was difficult to let go", narnia, pevensies, pg

It's one thing to waste time doing something enjoyable and eventually realize you're fucked, but it's that much more frustrating when you're wasting time doing something distinctively UNenjoyable. Like being bewildered at your statistics homework and hoping that staring at it in horror will eventually make it comprehensible. So, ON TO MORE ENJOYABLE THINGS.

Seeing as I have no time to do a cumulative recs post, let's try one rec per post, chipping away at it and such. And All Our Yesterdays is Peter/Susan in England, trying to keep it together and falling apart, as a Peter/Susan in England is wont to do.

I am planning to do a couple of drabble-dumps at some point, but I think this one is long enough to merit its own post.

five times in england when it was difficult to let go
Narnia ficlet for [livejournal.com profile] lettersandliars, who knows who didn't start the fire. Pevensies post-LWW. Pevencest if you squint.


1. in london, the first time the train came to take them away to school (back from the countryside, from the refuge of each other and the quickly fading memory of another life). the train doors slide open but the pevensies stand rooted to the platform, as if unsure or maybe unwilling, because stepping on that train means facing all sorts of things they didn't have to, didn't used to have to. edmund cracks a joke about algebra professors, susan wonders aloud whether the weather will improve, and lucy holds on tight to peter's hand as the crowd moves around them, and no one will remember later who says "can't miss the train now" but it's peter who moves as if in response. he kisses lucy's forehead and embraces susan, and the girls attack edmund with hugs until he's red with embarrassment and peter exclaims, "come on!" and they jump onto the train as the doors slide close. they watch their sisters shrink into the distance as the train picks up speed, lucy waving frantically, susan standing straight-backed and still.

and then they are gone.


2. when they can't sleep, especially the first few weeks after the return.


3. when they can't sleep, especially after the first few weeks after the return, when they don't feel as comfortable seeking solace from each other in the middle of the night, not anymore, not here. it comforts lucy to think that maybe this isn't a sign of disintegration, that maybe they all just need to be alone, to mourn in their own way.


4. the first time it snows in england after the return, and lucy says, "it's just like--"

"no it isn't," edmund snaps, so lucy talks about something else instead, but she sidles closer to him on the sofa and rests her head on his shoulder as she does.


5. when susan tells lucy about her first kiss with robert cowan from st. thomas and makes her promise not to tell. but lucy tells peter and edmund finds out, so susan gets angry and edmund makes merciless jokes about robert as lucy, wide-eyed, claims, "but i didn't tell anyone! just peter and edmund!"

peter says to susan, "it's not your first kiss though."

susan doesn't hear him, or acts like she doesn't, tells them they are all very immature people who need to learn to respect other people's privacy. her voice is rising, edmund starts yelling back, lucy is agitated, but out of habit they hold their tongues when peter tells them to.

"susan can do as she likes," peter finally says. "it is a new age after all, after the war."

susan, still flustered, looks at peter, unsure of what to say, of what to do. "thank you," she manages, with a slight bow of her head.

"my lady," peter replies without thinking, bowing his head as well.

[identity profile] zempasuchil.livejournal.com 2008-10-08 05:42 am (UTC)(link)
aaaahhhhh!! the last line, that is like a punch but the loveliest saddest punch ever. oh, god. this whole thing has that tragic/beautiful/happy thing going on, where they comfort each other but they also hurt each other and it gets all muddled up.

thank you for reccing me! it put a smile on my face in this dark hour of thirteen more pages of spanish reading to do for tomorrow.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-10-09 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
you are welcome! you have a lovely way of writing, i can't help myself. i hope that spanish reading didn't kick you over too much.

[identity profile] zempasuchil.livejournal.com 2008-10-09 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
thanks :) it didn't, not really, or at least I like the class enough that I don't feel kicked over. that's good.
ext_2135: narnia: home sweet home (soraki) (cair paravel (timeless-x-love))

[identity profile] bedlamsbard.livejournal.com 2008-10-08 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
oh my babies. also, oh part five. out of habit.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-10-09 04:53 pm (UTC)(link)
FO' REALZ
pevensies AUGH
ext_42328: Language is my playground (Susan and Lucy)

[identity profile] ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com 2008-10-10 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
oh, Susan. Peter...

Needless to say, very lovely.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-10-11 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you!

[identity profile] animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com 2008-10-12 04:50 am (UTC)(link)
Agh! It's so sad and depressing and, okay, I'm just starting to think being pulled out of England and slammed back in and yanked back out and shoved back in and (for the younger two) dunked back in and sent back out AGAIN just screwed them all up beyond all recognition and WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA.

But this is beautiful and the second one, how it just sort of hangs there and it's just a *suggestion* but it's still there and it's still hard. And the last one, and Peter, oh *Peter*.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-10-13 07:46 pm (UTC)(link)
UGH I KNOOOOOW. when they all came tumbling unceremoniously back out of the wardrobe at the end of lww, it was like WTF?!?! that's gonna fuck a head up. that's gonna break some hearts!

and thank you! :)

[identity profile] lettersandliars.livejournal.com 2008-10-13 03:03 am (UTC)(link)
aghhhh this is even better the second time around. it still makes my heart hurt in the best way possible. i've decided that number four is my favorite, and i have an overwhelming urge to write edmund/lucy now.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-10-13 07:51 pm (UTC)(link)
i am glad you made me write this! and why don't you?! she and how free her love is and how ready her forgiveness (how soft her hands still are), and you know who needs love and forgiveness (AND SOFT HANDS) though he won't admit it to himself? EDMUND THAT'S WHO. or at least, in my head. HMM.

[identity profile] lettersandliars.livejournal.com 2008-10-17 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
and he really wishes he could give in to her warm mouth and soft hands and for a while, back in narnia, he does. but in england, when peter isn't just his brother any more, he is the oldest and when susan has her hair pulled back so tight she looks more like a school teacher than a queen, edmund finds himself snapping back at lucy just like the rest, like it is a reflex (but only because it sounds better than a mistake.)

(i've just realized i've never written anything about edmund that wasn't golden age. i don't want him to be sad and homesick!)

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-10-17 09:05 pm (UTC)(link)
LUCY IS PATIENT. she will not let her brother down by letting go, and although he doesn't see it as a favor now, he will in the future, she knows it, she feels it in her bones and blood and dreams (those things that are forever).

<333 MOAR PLZ

man, all i do is write about their homesickness. my default fic mode is mopey. hmm, and about memory, that word (and 'remember') comes up a looooot in my narnia fics.

[identity profile] lettersandliars.livejournal.com 2008-10-18 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
and it only goes to show that lucy is everything edmund isn't, because ever since they left--came back, which is worse?--he has found himself more black-eyed and defeated than the worst battles he'd ever fought. he closes his eyes and every time he hears the cries of capillaries and arteries and veins singing the glory of king peter the magnificent before that royal fist ruptures them into silence (a moment of silence for the dead, there is no high king in england). and every time, lucy comes out after him, wraps her thin arms around him tight and whispers the old narnian lullabies in his ear. edmund tries to let himself be soothed but mostly he just remembers the old lucy, the person she was or will be, how her 'i love you's are always the most mundane, the easiest, the most expected, but she says them with the same ferocity that she wields a dagger and they always leave you breathless. it takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize that she hasn't changed at all.


ahaha, i am wayyyy long-winded. my favorite words are 'warm' and 'sleep' and 'sun' and i am very obvious about it.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-12-10 10:21 am (UTC)(link)
UHHHHHHH apparently i am late with my reaction but i would like to say: this edmund/lucy drabble = YAY

lucy and the mundaneness of her fierce love <3

[identity profile] mydnight-dreams.livejournal.com 2008-10-13 02:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Awe! That last line... Makes me wanna cry because you know he's not joking but completely and unhappily serious. I love this even though it hints about Lucy/Edmund and Peter/Susan.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2008-10-13 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
thank you so much! peter/susan is my not-so-secret narnia otp and it tends to leak out into even the gen pieces. so. i'm glad you like it!

[identity profile] marycontraire.livejournal.com 2009-01-03 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
The last line hurts.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2009-01-03 10:11 am (UTC)(link)
muscle memory is a bitch.

[identity profile] laura-sommeils.livejournal.com 2011-01-23 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Ow, the last line It was, like PJASPJDASDAS SO HEARTBREAKING <3 And when Lucy was going to say It was just like in Narnia, and Edmund said No, it isn't <3333333333333333
I love it :D

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2011-02-24 08:42 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you so much! Man I love the Pevensies and their heartbreaking ways.