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prunesquallormdTitle: With A Clouded View (Part 8 of 9)
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia
Pairing(s): Lucy/Susan
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In which there is a culmination and our heroine's life becomes immeasurably more complicated.
Word count: ~6200
Warnings: Sibling (sister/sister) incest. Don't like? Don't read.
A/N: Chapter 1 and initial notes are here, and Chapter 2 is here. Other parts can be found on the "fic: with a clouded view" tag.
I started this part some time round the end of February last year. What with one thing and another, including a major confidence fail and an extensive rewrite, it took something like 8 months to write. I've been holding off on posting till the story was finally finished, so I don't leave it another year to post the next part. Part 9 and the epilogue are now finished and betad. Part 9 needed a bit of tinkering so it's just being re-betad, but it's all over bar the shouting.
So close.
There'll be final comments when I post the last bits, which hopefully won't be long now. Yay :D
Endless thanks, once again, to likecharity, for betaing, encouragement, and being a wonderful person and an amazing friend. Thank you! ♥♥♥
Dedication: It seems a little wrong to dedicate this particular part to anyone in particular (what with the explicit sexytimes and all) so I'll dedicate it to all of you, and especially to all my friends: the ones I know in person and the ones I haven't had the pleasure of meeting IRL just yet. You're all wonderful, and I'm incredibly lucky to have you <3
Disclaimer: Obviously all the characters and pretty much everything else belong to the estate of C.S. Lewis, and Walden Media. This is just for fun!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 9, and Epilogue
Appendix (Various Interludes)
(For those of you who find white on black annoying, there are also copies at my Archive of Our Own page).
With a Clouded View, Part 8
Lucy can’t remember a December this warm. Mostly the prevailing winds from the Great Eastern Ocean have turned Cair Paravel utterly frigid by mid-November, yet she wakes one morning barely a fortnight before Christmas to yet another day of crisp, sun-drenched beauty. The view from her bedroom window is one of bright blue skies, a dark sapphire ocean, the headland still fresh and green. It can't last. Lucy almost hopes that it won't. It seems like her beloved Narnia is doing her best to shake Lucy out of a mood that she's determined to wallow in. Lucy isn't sure whether to be grateful or annoyed.
She hugs a blanket around herself to fend off a draught, eyes still dim from sleep. She's very tempted to burrow back into her bed and sleep the day away. Whatever is the point of being queen if you can't do what you want at least sometimes?
But no. Her siblings are of the school of thought that values duty over caprice. Most irritatingly, it seems to have rubbed off on her.
**
She'd very nearly brought her blanket with her. She wishes she had now. All she wants to do is put her head on the council table, snuggle up as best she can, and sleep till noon. She could probably manage it too. The council chamber is a good deal cosier than the Great Hall and, despite the unseasonable weather, the fire has clearly been well fed since daybreak. The atmosphere is heavy, soporific. Woollen hose, shirt, and doublet are doing very little to help. Head on her arms, lids drooping, she struggles to stay awake. Mid-yawn she meets Susan's eyes, boring into her own. Well, at least Susan has to look at her to express her silent disapproval. She has been signally unwilling to do that for weeks now.
The table is barely half full. It makes it all the more difficult for Susan to avoid Lucy’s gaze and all the more blatant that she's doing her very best to do just that. Harry and Rhee have their places to Susan's right and left. Mrs Beaver, in her habitual place at Lucy's left hand, is knitting (though Lucy knows well enough that she's perfectly aware of everything that's going on around her, thank you so much). With both Shatterstaff and Edmund absent, only distance separates Mrs Beaver from her husband.
Peter, too, is abroad, and Rhyddion and Tumnus also. It makes for a much reduced and rather subdued council. Still, Susan takes the reigns as comfortably as ever, though at this precise moment she's looking distinctly troubled. She has an eye on the window. Lucy wonders whether the serenely blue skies and their fluffy white clouds are as much of an irritant to her sister's mood as they are to her own.
“Well then,” Susan says with a sigh. “We've had not one word of Peter and the others. I fear that they will be absent from our Christmas celebrations. We can only hope that they are on the road and will return any day now, but it grieves me to say that we must plan for the worst.” There's a slump to her shoulders. She looks tired and unhappy. “It seems that Edmund and Shatterstaff have decided to stay in Anvard for Christmas. It was the most ridiculous mission to begin with, and now it will keep them away from us at our most special time.”
Of course Susan resolutely avoids looking at Lucy when she says it.
“And there's no news from Peter at all?” asks Angharad.
“None. It seems that he, Rhyddion, and Tumnus have been delayed Underland. Time is hard to follow there, or so I have heard,” Susan says.
Harry looks dejected. (Rhee too, though she is at least slightly more successful at hiding it). There is sympathy on Susan's face as she turns her head to look at her friend. She places a gentle hand on her shoulder. Harry smiles brightly in response.
“So,” Susan continues, her own smile just as bright as she turns it on the council once more. “We have a lot to discuss. Let's get on, shall we?”
She doesn't wait for a response.
**
Mrs Beaver knits. Derren records. They both make incisive comments when the need arises. Mr Beaver grumbles and blusters.
Susan is brusque, efficient, sweet, controlling proceedings with ease.
And Lucy? Lucy is utterly miserable. She's beginning to think her sister will never talk to her normally again.
**
Finally the council ends (though Lucy was certain for a while that it never would). It breaks up quickly, Harry and Rhee, and the Beavers too, squabbling good naturedly between themselves. Derren meets Lucy's eye for a long, slightly pained, moment, concern written across his face. Lucy smiles, a smile as bright and fake as any she has ever attempted. Derren must know it for a lie. He raises his eyebrows and completely fails to return the smile. Clearly he's waiting to leave the chamber at her side.
Oh that's all I need.
A sharp shake of her head joins the bright, fake smile. She flickers her fingers at him, shooing him out. He's unhappy (clearly), unconvinced (almost certainly), but he complies all the same, with a final, reproachful, glance.
And so Lucy is left standing alone in the council chamber, nose to a window pane, hugging herself miserably. There is the yew alley, away and below, green as summer still, and she remembers a day last spring – so close? Really? It feels like forever. And what has she done? She feels like she's spent most of the last year dragging herself up one ridiculous hill another, and she's not even sure what she's struggling towards any more. Whatever it may have been, it feels not one jot closer. Quite the reverse, in fact.
She realises, finally, bitterly, that she's just tired of it all.
**
Her sister proves to be elusive. She has that knack. It’s annoying at the best of times. She’s not in her chambers (a good 5 minutes of knocking and yelling have established that). Neither has she graced the library, kitchens, or Great Hall with her presence, and when finally Lucy finds herself at the solid, unpretentious door of the Small Hall she is breathless, hot, just a little irritable, and even more miserable.
The hall is even more unbearably close than the council chamber. Lucy is surprised to find it occupied at all, yet there is Harry, tea cup poised half-way between saucer and lips, staring deep into the fire that is roaring in the grate. She takes a few moments to shake herself from her reverie (and in those moments her eyes look sad, troubled) but her smile once she has done so is as warm as ever.
It seems that Lucy has become incapable of not wearing her heart on her sleeve. She winces inwardly at the pity in Harry’s eyes. She wants to tell her that she’s not broken, not sad, she’ll be perfectly ok if everyone would just stop looking at her like that. She doesn’t have the energy. It’s so much easier to submit herself to the sympathy, unwanted or no. At least she doesn’t have to suffer it for long, even if she does have to force that hurt look from her mind as she goes on her way.
(And still she hurts everybody.)
**
Try the stables. That’s what Harry had told her. Lucy hadn’t really believed that Susan would just up and ride (Edmund perhaps, but not Susan), yet here Lucy is, and ride, it seems, Susan has. The paddock is wide and spacious, gate ever open, the ‘stables’ so much more than that (such complexities, when your steed is your friend and equal too). They are mostly unoccupied yet luck is with her. Holly whickers at her from a cosy corner, sleepy and comfortable-looking.
“Lucy, daaaaarling,” she says in that lazy, good-humoured whinny of hers. “So long since you’ve visited. I’ve missed you. My morning gallop is so much less enjoyable without you.”
“Holly,” Lucy says, both happy and remorseful. “I’ve missed you too, truly I have. I fear my friendship has left very much to be desired these last few months. You’re not the only one I’ve neglected. Can you ever find it in yourself to forgive me?”
Holly doesn’t reply immediately, instead busying herself with rolling onto her feet. She looks like she would have preferred to stay lying there for at least an hour or two longer. Lucy is all sympathy. Standing at last, Holly is soon at Lucy’s side, soft lips brushing her ear in a kiss.
“There is nothing to forgive, dear one,” she says, her breath warm on Lucy’s face. “So, can it be coincidence that Susan was just here? And she so neglectful too, these last month. Could it be that you have something you need to say to her?”
“Holly, don’t tease me, please,” Lucy sighs. “Other days, just not today, all right?”
For all that a horse could never be said to have the most piercing of gazes, yet still Holly’s black, liquid eyes freeze Lucy in place. Lucy shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot in silence. And then,
“Well then,” Holly says, a hint of a laugh in the movement of her head and the music of her voice. “A gallop perhaps? It would do us both good. And who knows who we might meet?”
**
It's ten minutes' hard ride to the outskirts of the forest, half an hour more to a suitable glade.
They have passed no one, human or animal, and it surprises her. For all her sadness she would be happy for more company. She’s not even sure that they’re going to that place. But, it’s where it started. It would be fitting for it to end there.
And yet she doesn’t direct Holly. There never was any directing her, a free horse of Narnia goes where she wills. Lucy is too busy luxuriating in the winter sun, crisp and bright, but warm also; skies of pale blue, clouds the colour of the snow that should be underfoot (probably will be, not too far into the new year. Narnia’s winters are usually predictable). Gulls cry, the only other living things now. No sign of her sister, no sign of anyone. Holly comes to a halt at the edge of the forest, breathing hard. She whinnies delightedly.
There is no other noise. It seems unreal that it should be so, and yet. Lucy cannot even detect the sound of her own breath, and the breeze on her face is as silent. The world is a picture, stripped of noise. She feels muffled, half asleep. She wants to ask where Holly is taking her. She can’t summon the energy. Besides, she knows.
**
The glade is exactly as she remembers it. Exactly. There is even less sign of winter here; it’s as if it has been trapped in time, preserved in amber. Not a fallen leaf, the grass as green and lush as spring. It’s seems impossible, miraculous. Perhaps it is.
Susan is alone, no sign of Fern (“her” horse, though one might as well say that Susan is herhuman. Somehow she doesn’t seem to have heard Lucy’s approach. Although she has made no attempt at stealth, still every noise seems deadened. Holly is a few minutes behind her, cropping grass beside a stream, and the noise of her contented whiffling had followed Lucy for a matter of a only few footsteps. And now there is peace; soft, comforting.
Lucy watches her sister from the shadows for the briefest moment. She has laid out a blanket, another round her shoulders. There is a pillow beside her, and saddle bags, but she simply sits, arms round her legs, head on her knees. Her hair is loose, pooling on the ground around her. Lucy’s breath catches a little at the sight of it. In the silence it reverberates like a sneeze. Susan doesn’t look up, yet Lucy thinks she detects a stiffening in her, a twitch in her otherwise motionless form. And as she draws the deepest, quietest of breaths, desperately trying to decide what she should do, or say, that’s when Susan does look. Her eyes find Lucy’s in moments. There’s nothing, nothing at all, she could do to avoid it, even if she wanted to.
Caught red-handed, she does her best to look innocent. Probably she falls far short. Casual, nonchalant, relaxed, innocent. Lucy can’t help feel that none of these words have applied to her for a long, long time (or, possibly, ever).
One look at Susan's face makes perfectly clear how much of a mess Lucy has made of it. Again. She looks tired. Her eyes are red and puffy. Lucy didn’t think it was possible to feel any more wretched. She was wrong.
Even as Lucy is reaching for something to say Susan rises to her feet, palming her eyes for a brief moment, as if to wipe away tears. She drops the blanket as she approaches Lucy and enfolds her in a tight, fierce hug. It doesn’t help Lucy’s ability to form words.
Where before Susan had been bathed in a shaft of sunlight, here she is in shadow, her face only partly visible. It makes it a little easier. Still, not the deepest gloom could hide the way that her sister looks at her, or rather fails to look. She’ll hug her, it seems, yet she is still unable to meet Lucy's eye.
Susan draws breath to speak but Lucy is determined now. Here is where it ends.
“Lucy dear, I …,” is all that Susan can utter. Lucy allows her to go no further.
“I'm sorry. I'm just sorry, all right? I don't know what I was thinking, I just know I can't bear this any more,” Lucy says, all in a rush. The more she says the less she feels able to stop herself. “You can't even stand to look at me. And I know it's all my fault and don't you think that I'd take it back if I could? I just want things to be back the way they were before and I don't know how they ever can be and I've broken everything and caused everyone trouble and I don't even know how it all started but I just wish I could stop it and I can't. And I'm sorry.” She talks herself to a breathless halt, tears stinging her eyes, knowing that if ever she lets herself cry she won't be able to stop for the longest time.
Lucy thinks that this must be what heartbreak feels like.
Susan is still, her face unreadable. Silence settles over them again, broken only by the sound of Lucy’s breathing. She hates how desperate it sounds - harsh and and high, like an animal in pain - but she just can't bring it under control. Susan looks grim and unhappy, her jaw set, her eyes lowered. Lucy waits for as long as she can stand. It's not long.
“Please, just say something, will you? Please?” Her voice cracks on the last word. It won't be long now before the tears come.
And that is when it happens. She doesn't see it coming. How could she? One moment, Susan is stock-still, silent, totally impassive. The next, there is the brush of her lips against Lucy’s own, her arms circling Lucy's shoulders awkwardly, their noses bumping. Aslan knows, it's hardly as Lucy dreamed it, yet there it is. And clumsiness, awkwardness, words regretted and unspoken, none of it matters now.
It’s a hard kiss, angry even, bruising her teeth, leaving her breathless, but it's unequivocal. It lasts a few seconds at most, mere fleeting moments gone all too quickly, but it changes everything.
Susan pulls back from it so quickly that Lucy stumbles slightly. She realises that her arms are hanging limply at her sides. Her eyes are closed, her mouth half open. She must look like a complete idiot. She closes her mouth concertedly, opens her eyes, but otherwise entirely fails to collect herself.
“There, are you happy now?” Susan is breathing hard. She sounds furious. “You say you're sorry but really Lucy, did you want to do this to me? Do you like that you have? Oh Aslan, what were you thinking?”
And for once, it is Susan who flees, though she doesn't go far. Scooping up first one blanket, then the other, she tries fumblingly to force them into the saddles bags for a few moments. Defeated, she crumples to the grass. She's sobbing, drawn out, racking, sounds, each one an almost physical pain to Lucy. Her heart feels squeezed, it's all that she can do to draw breath and even then her own breathing is ragged.
Staring at her own feet, paralysed, and in a moment so inappropriate she wants to cry herself, she remembers it vividly: this same woodland grove in spring; leaves and shade and sunlight; her own breathless silence; wordless ecstasies, moans and cries.
There is a familiar heat, that tingle in the pit of her stomach. Oh Aslan, not now.
She shakes herself, bites the inside of her cheek to bring her back to some sort of reality. She doesn’t know how long she has been frozen in her own memories. Susan is no longer sobbing, though her breathing, as heavy and painful as before, testifies to how little it would take to make the tears come again. Lucy can't bear to listen to that noise, the rasp of Susan's breath, for long. Crumpled on the ground, bathed in sunlight as bright as a summer’s day, Susan's eyes (unreadable even now) follow Lucy's progress towards her. She is expressionless, unblinking, her gaze steady, but in this light the dark rings around them are so much more clear. Lucy wonders when she last slept
.
It's the rarest thing, to see her sister completely unguarded, but she's seeing it now. She feels that a single ungentle touch could break her into a thousand pieces. But she can't not touch her. Everything inside her is screaming that, more than anything, Susan needs to be held, and so hold her she does. Gently, yes, but firmly too, both protective and comforting. Susan jumps slightly as determined if hesitant arms circle her. It's not the most comfortable hug that Lucy has ever given; she's kneeling before her sister, bending down a little awkwardly so that she can hold her properly. Susan doesn't protest, merely letting her head fall to rest on Lucy's chest. Physically unable to look her sister in the eye (for which she’s frankly grateful), instead Lucy buries her head in Susan's hair.
When Susan starts to speak, her voice is so soft that Lucy has to strain to hear. The roar of blood in her ears, her own breathing, threaten to overwhelm it.
“I'm just tired, Lu. I'm tired of holding everything together on my own. And I'm tired of not knowing what to say to you, and of having to push you away just because we want the same thing.”
Lucy knows that she should respond. She’s still struggling for the right thing to say when Susan continues.
“I’d still like to know what you were thinking.” She lifts her head; her hair brushes softly past Lucy’s face. Lucy can’t think, let alone speak. Susan is finally looking her full in the eye now. “Really Lucy, I’m serious. What possessed you?” Susan sighs and shakes her head. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. It’s far too late now, in any case. One day though, you really must explain to me what it was that was going through that ridiculous head of yours.”
Susan’s face mere inches from her own, Lucy struggles to order her thoughts sufficiently to proffer a response.
“I, ah …” is all she can seem to manage. And then, in chorus with the sinking in her stomach, “What do you mean, it’s far too late?”
“Oh Lucy. You really have no idea do you? Don’t you think at all?” Susan asks, exasperation apparent in every syllable. And then there are soft lips on Lucy’s own once more; Susan is speaking against her mouth, even as Lucy’s lips part beneath hers, whether in invitation or shock even Lucy couldn’t say for sure. “Lucy Pevensie, you really are the most ridiculous, annoying, infuriating person I have ever known.”
It’s not a sisterly kiss. It’s so far from being a sisterly kiss that, in the few moments before she stops thinking at all, Lucy worries that constant doubt and desire have finally driven her mad. She manages to mouth one (pointless, idiotic) question against Susan’s lips, “What are you doing?” And then her mind stops and her body takes over.
It’s nothing like that stolen kiss on her birthday, so many sleepless nights ago. Susan is soft, warm, entirely yielding yet demanding too. She drags her mouth from Lucy’s for the smallest moment to demand incredulously, “Oh Aslan, Lu, what does it look like I’m doing?” and then their lips crash together again. It’s a kiss that begins hard and demanding and then flows into something softer; it becomes gentle, hesitant even, as if Susan, suddenly beset with doubts, is seeking reassurance. She doesn’t have to seek for long. Lucy’s surprise is short-lived; she answers Susan’s questions, spoken and unspoken, with a gentle, bewildered eagerness. A whimper rises in her throat, unbidden, and even to her it sounds utterly broken. She pulls Susan closer, their lips graze together, softly but determined, mouths opening and closing, little licks and nibbles, awkward and unpractised but far from shy.
For all that she’s dreamed of this, Lucy realises that she has no idea at all what she should do. She wonders if Susan does either. And then she feels the tangle of fingers in her hair, the slight pressure as Susan pulls, gently urging her head backwards. Susan slides her lips from Lucy’s own as Lucy yields to the demand, down and over her chin, under it, and then, with only the briefest pause, she nuzzles into Lucy’s neck, kissing, licking, biting. It pushes Lucy entirely into the realm of the non-verbal. If she had thought that she was unable to form words before, this is something else entirely. She moans, sighs, whimpers (though less brokenly now, she thinks). The warmth in her belly is fast becoming unbearable. She presses her legs together, aware at the same time of the heat and prickle in her cheeks. She can’t possibly be blushing, can she?
Susan’s lips falter at a place a little above her collar bone.
“Don’t stop. Please, just keep doing that. Please?” Lucy is sure that she has never sounded more desperate.
In response, she feels a warm breath against her skin as Susan blows, slow and teasing, tracing towards the dip at the base of her throat, from where, ghostly soft, the memory of a kiss, she begins to nuzzle her way up the column of Lucy’s neck once more. Lucy is one ecstatic sigh. She smiles broadly when, finally, Susan’s eyes are at a level with her own again. Susan smiles back, hesitant still, in spite of all. The smile flickers like a candle flame across her lips, there and gone and back once more.
“Are you all right? Is this all right?” she asks.
Lucy can’t quite believe that she has to check. “Oh, Su. Of course this is all right. It’s wonderful. You’re wonderful. Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you to do that?”
“Um, not just since your birthday, then?” Susan says.
“Not just since my birthday.”
“Did you never worry what people would think? Or how I’d react?”
Lucy swears inwardly, presses her legs together even harder, trying to ignore the growing heat at the apex of her thighs.
“Of course I worried. I’ve done nothing but worry for months. And I’d really like to stop worrying and just kiss you. So could we please stop talking?”
She tries hard not to sound petulant, though she’s certain that she fails badly. Susan doesn’t seem to mind. Her answering smile has none of her previous trepidation, no flicker of concern. It is broad, easy, welcoming. Finally, it is everything that Lucy has dreamed of.
She smiles back, her heart pounding fit to burst.
Their mouths are so close, it’s almost too easy to bridge those last few inches. She feels like she should savour the moment, it’s been so long in coming. But she can’t.
There is nothing desperate about this kiss, nothing rushed, hard, or violent; yet nothing hesitant or doubtful either. It is slow and wondering, eager but languid too. Susan’s eyes had widened very slightly as Lucy’s lips travelled those few inches, but they were smiling, not troubled, and her lips had opened just as quickly, her tongue flickering, moistening them, with just moments to spare. And now, with all the discomfort of their position (it may be the warmest December she can remember, but the middle of a forest in winter is still hardly the perfect place, or time, for this) every move they make pulls them closer still. Lucy feels more than hears the whimpering that starts in Susan’s throat, echoing her own of, when? Moments before? Minutes? It washes away what few doubts remain.
Briefly, unwillingly, she extricates herself from Susan's embrace, takes up the blankets and lays them out, one atop the other. They shuffle on to them, a soft, comfortable bed in the wilderness, and ah yes, that's much better. No chill, no hard bumps or stones poking into knees and other places, just Susan: kneeling herself; smiling. Flushing slightly, but it's a flush that reaches down her neck to her chest, desire, not embarrassment. She doesn't flinch when Lucy puts her hands on her knees, spreading them, moving forward until she's kneeling between them. Then, her hands on Lucy's shoulders, Susan actually smirks.
"Now then, where were we?"
Lucy answers in the only way that feels appropriate. This time the kiss is so energetic that it overbalances them both. Susan topples backwards; it’s all she can do to whip her hands off Lucy’s shoulders to halt her imminent collapse.
"Hey, careful!" Susan says.
It doesn't discourage Lucy though, quite the reverse. She kisses Susan all the more enthusiastically, snaking her arms around her neck, pulling her in tightly. Susan pushes into her in her turn, parting her lips beneath Lucy's own, flickering her tongue. Lucy feels it: gentle, questioning, questing. She opens her own mouth a little, her tongue dancing and flitting around Susan's as they kiss. The softness of her mouth is like nothing Lucy has imagined, however much she's fantasised about kissing her (and she has no idea how many times she might have done that but it's a lot).
An image flashes into her mind. How they must look. The grove is a patchwork of brilliant sunshine and soft shadows, emerald green grass, the trees ringing them clothed in dun and white and a green just a vivid. Susan’s dress, rucked up and crumpled, reflects the emerald, intensifies it. Lucy feels dull by comparison. She falls back onto her heels, allowing Susan to loom above her in the most delicious way. Her head is back as far as she can force it.
A shiver of sheer wanting passes all through her. It becomes a shudder, she pushes up into it, up off her heels, up against Susan. And Susan topples backwards in the most undignified manner, giggling breathlessly against Lucy’s mouth, pulling her down with her. Even if she cared to, Lucy couldn’t have kept her own balance. She barely manages to reposition her hands to stop herself from landing too heavily on Susan's belly. Even so, she hears her yelp slightly, though she can still detect that same breathless giggle at the edges of the sound.
"Hey, clumsy. That hurt!" Susan says, though there's no reproach in her voice.
"I'm sorry," says Lucy, far more serious than Susan sounds. And then (and she can't quite believe that she's saying it), "Would you like me to kiss it better?"
"Ah, I’d like you to just stay here and hug me. Do you mind?" And again, Susan sounds worried, doubtful.
"Of course I don't mind." She nuzzles into Susan's neck, clinging to her, so tightly, like she’ll slip away, vanish back into the woods - away, further and further away - if she once gives her the slightest chance to escape . "I really am sorry." She's apologising for so much, for far more than she could ever put into words.
"It's all right, dear, really it is. Now hush, and just hold me, will you?"
She does. Her nuzzles become nibbles, her tongue flickering at Susan's jawline, tracing upwards to that little dip behind her ear. She thinks she could listen to that slight hitch of breath, the almost silent gasp and ‘oh’ forever.
"By the lion, Lucy, are you actually trying to drive me mad?" Susan asks, breathless.
Stopping, with the most heroic of efforts, she pushes up a little until she is able to look Susan full in the eye. Her mouth is curving upwards again in that little smirk.
Lucy thinks that her own smile probably looks just as smug.
"Of course not. I'm hurt that you could even think such a ..."
But she doesn't get the chance to finish. There are Susan's lips on her own again, near ravenous this time.
There's a warmth that infuses every part of her. It feels almost like the grove around responds to them, warming, becoming gentler, brighter. A soft breeze kisses her neck and there is nothing of the harshness of winter in it. In this place at least, for these few fleeting moments, it is spring once more. Lucy wonders if she's as flushed as Susan is. She's trying hard not to think about the heat in her belly but it's getting more and more difficult. And then Susan wriggles, just so, and she's pushing her thigh against Lucy, and she stops trying not to think about it. She starts to roll her hips as she slides her lips from Susan's mouth to nuzzle at her neck again. The warmth grows, only intensified by the rasp of Susan's breath. The movement in Lucy's hips is reflected in Susan's own. It's not soft or gentle, not any of the things that Lucy imagined. It's a quick, animal grinding; harsh, needy, greedy.
It's starting to become incredibly frustrating. With every movement she makes Lucy is hoping for the soft, yielding touch of skin, and everywhere she feels nothing but clothing, enclosing, impeding. Everywhere that is, but for Susan's neck, stretched tight now as Lucy kisses and nuzzles and nips. Susan has thrown her head full back on the ground and her hands in Lucy's hair pull down firmly. She's sighing, over and over. There's a phrase niggling at the edges of Lucy's memory, something from that life that she can barely remember. Ah yes, that's it. Her sister sounds just like the cat who's got the cream. It won't be long before she starts to actually purr.
And still their legs twist around and around each other, seeking a pressure that is always just out of reach. In spite of the frustration of it all, they've become more languid now; there's still that thrust and roll of the hips that is far from innocent but it's almost lazy.
Susan giggles but a moment later she's serious once more. Lucy can almost hear the frown in her voice.
"What are we going to do, Lu? What are we going to tell everyone?" She sighs. "There's nothing we can say that anyone will understand, is there?"
Lucy's own sigh is mostly muffled in Susan's neck, though her lips are no longer so busy as they had been. "I don't know. I really don't." She sighs again, as if she's trying to let go of all of their worries on a breath. "Do we have to tell anyone anything? Whose business is it? And really, what would we say?"
She can feel Susan growing tense as she speaks, her throat bobbing convulsively. The moment is slipping away, she can feel that too. She can't let it. Not now, not after she's waited so long. She pushes (unwillingly) away from the curve of Susan's neck till, at the fullest extent of her reach, she is able to look into her sister's eyes. And it's all there. All the fear and hope that Lucy has held inside for so long, reflected in the face beneath her.
Susan's hair is dishevelled, her lips red and bruised. There is a mark on her throat that hadn't been there before, pink and bordered by the faintest indentations. Teeth marks. Oh.
"Can we worry later? Please?" Lucy whispers. She can feel the colour rising in her face again, a heat that might be mistaken for embarrassment in almost any other situation. "I really just want to kiss you. Can I do that please?"
Susan's reply is a small, tight smile. Lucy can't even begin to interpret what it means, and she's no more enlightened when Susan puts a finger to Lucy's lips, tracing them lightly.
"Act first, think later, then?" Susan asks. Accusingly? Reluctantly? Perhaps both, or neither.
Lucy laughs quietly. "Well, it's stood me in good stead for most of my life, hasn't it?"
Susan sounds rueful now. "That it has. Perhaps I should have spent more time doing and less time worrying. Do you think things would have been different if I had? Perhaps I should start now."
The words are barely out of her mouth and her whole demeanour changes; it's like a dark cloud moving from the face of the sun. And with the lifting cloud comes action. A quick tip and a roll and Lucy is thudding, entirely unexpectedly, onto the ground, part on and part off the blanket. She couldn't really say that she minds, especially when Susan immediately follows up on her advantage. Their positions are reversed in a matter of moments, Lucy flat on her back (giggling breathlessly, pleasantly flustered), Susan poised above her. Lucy couldn't move if she wanted to. She flexes her fingers; it's about all the freedom she has. Susan has her wrists pinned and, Aslan, she would never have expected the effect that that is having on her. Lucy wriggles, her eyes fixed on her sister's. Susan isn't smiling but at least she doesn't look like she'd rather be anywhere but here. Even when Susan releases her, fingers trailing across Lucy's chest to linger at the laces of her doublet, it doesn't cross Lucy's mind to struggle. She nods slowly, an answer to a question that Susan has yet to ask. Her breathing slows. She waits. Susan's fingers are quick and deft; laces slide, ease, and unknot. Piece by piece, doublet, hose ,and shirt, Lucy is divested. She makes no move that isn't directed; she feels like her mind is running to catch up. Each brush and caress sends jolts of sensation through her; every direction and silent order has her quivering.
When Lucy - flushed and breathing quick but deep - is down to her undergarments, Susan relents long enough to address her own clothed state. It is not a graceful disrobing, it's too quick and eager for that. In moments she's standing there, a thin green underdress the only thing protecting her from Lucy’s eager eyes, seemingly at a loss for what she should do next. Lucy answers that particular question mostly unthinkingly. Pulling the top blanket to one side briefly, she rolls under it. The pillow (and why had Susan even brought a pillow? Lucy decides that she must ask. Later) is already more or less in the right place. She throws the top blanket aside, smiling quick and nervous.
"Well, don't just stand, silly. Come in, will you?" She's shocked at how hoarse her voice is. Her teeth are chattering. It can’t be the cold.
**
Bare minutes later, under-garments have joined the other little piles of clothing strewn on the grass and now there are simply smooth limbs amid warm blankets; curve of breast and hip; flesh to flesh and mouth to mouth. The cadences of Susan's utterances - gasp, moan, sigh, giggle, hiss, every sound and none - wash over Lucy, exciting and soothing all at once, drawn out of her by Lucy's hands and fingers, her lips and her tongue.
And now it comes to this, a hitch of breath, slickness and heat. As her sister clings to her, breath coming in whimpering gasps, Lucy's fingers stroke, single-minded and exact. When the storm comes, it is overwhelming. Her sister's body, closer to her than she's ever been, is one long trembling wave; no part of her is still, her voice in Lucy's ear is a wordless, endless, keen.
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia
Pairing(s): Lucy/Susan
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In which there is a culmination and our heroine's life becomes immeasurably more complicated.
Word count: ~6200
Warnings: Sibling (sister/sister) incest. Don't like? Don't read.
A/N: Chapter 1 and initial notes are here, and Chapter 2 is here. Other parts can be found on the "fic: with a clouded view" tag.
I started this part some time round the end of February last year. What with one thing and another, including a major confidence fail and an extensive rewrite, it took something like 8 months to write. I've been holding off on posting till the story was finally finished, so I don't leave it another year to post the next part. Part 9 and the epilogue are now finished and betad. Part 9 needed a bit of tinkering so it's just being re-betad, but it's all over bar the shouting.
So close.
There'll be final comments when I post the last bits, which hopefully won't be long now. Yay :D
Endless thanks, once again, to likecharity, for betaing, encouragement, and being a wonderful person and an amazing friend. Thank you! ♥♥♥
Dedication: It seems a little wrong to dedicate this particular part to anyone in particular (what with the explicit sexytimes and all) so I'll dedicate it to all of you, and especially to all my friends: the ones I know in person and the ones I haven't had the pleasure of meeting IRL just yet. You're all wonderful, and I'm incredibly lucky to have you <3
Disclaimer: Obviously all the characters and pretty much everything else belong to the estate of C.S. Lewis, and Walden Media. This is just for fun!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 9, and Epilogue
Appendix (Various Interludes)
(For those of you who find white on black annoying, there are also copies at my Archive of Our Own page).
With a Clouded View, Part 8
Lucy can’t remember a December this warm. Mostly the prevailing winds from the Great Eastern Ocean have turned Cair Paravel utterly frigid by mid-November, yet she wakes one morning barely a fortnight before Christmas to yet another day of crisp, sun-drenched beauty. The view from her bedroom window is one of bright blue skies, a dark sapphire ocean, the headland still fresh and green. It can't last. Lucy almost hopes that it won't. It seems like her beloved Narnia is doing her best to shake Lucy out of a mood that she's determined to wallow in. Lucy isn't sure whether to be grateful or annoyed.
She hugs a blanket around herself to fend off a draught, eyes still dim from sleep. She's very tempted to burrow back into her bed and sleep the day away. Whatever is the point of being queen if you can't do what you want at least sometimes?
But no. Her siblings are of the school of thought that values duty over caprice. Most irritatingly, it seems to have rubbed off on her.
**
She'd very nearly brought her blanket with her. She wishes she had now. All she wants to do is put her head on the council table, snuggle up as best she can, and sleep till noon. She could probably manage it too. The council chamber is a good deal cosier than the Great Hall and, despite the unseasonable weather, the fire has clearly been well fed since daybreak. The atmosphere is heavy, soporific. Woollen hose, shirt, and doublet are doing very little to help. Head on her arms, lids drooping, she struggles to stay awake. Mid-yawn she meets Susan's eyes, boring into her own. Well, at least Susan has to look at her to express her silent disapproval. She has been signally unwilling to do that for weeks now.
The table is barely half full. It makes it all the more difficult for Susan to avoid Lucy’s gaze and all the more blatant that she's doing her very best to do just that. Harry and Rhee have their places to Susan's right and left. Mrs Beaver, in her habitual place at Lucy's left hand, is knitting (though Lucy knows well enough that she's perfectly aware of everything that's going on around her, thank you so much). With both Shatterstaff and Edmund absent, only distance separates Mrs Beaver from her husband.
Peter, too, is abroad, and Rhyddion and Tumnus also. It makes for a much reduced and rather subdued council. Still, Susan takes the reigns as comfortably as ever, though at this precise moment she's looking distinctly troubled. She has an eye on the window. Lucy wonders whether the serenely blue skies and their fluffy white clouds are as much of an irritant to her sister's mood as they are to her own.
“Well then,” Susan says with a sigh. “We've had not one word of Peter and the others. I fear that they will be absent from our Christmas celebrations. We can only hope that they are on the road and will return any day now, but it grieves me to say that we must plan for the worst.” There's a slump to her shoulders. She looks tired and unhappy. “It seems that Edmund and Shatterstaff have decided to stay in Anvard for Christmas. It was the most ridiculous mission to begin with, and now it will keep them away from us at our most special time.”
Of course Susan resolutely avoids looking at Lucy when she says it.
“And there's no news from Peter at all?” asks Angharad.
“None. It seems that he, Rhyddion, and Tumnus have been delayed Underland. Time is hard to follow there, or so I have heard,” Susan says.
Harry looks dejected. (Rhee too, though she is at least slightly more successful at hiding it). There is sympathy on Susan's face as she turns her head to look at her friend. She places a gentle hand on her shoulder. Harry smiles brightly in response.
“So,” Susan continues, her own smile just as bright as she turns it on the council once more. “We have a lot to discuss. Let's get on, shall we?”
She doesn't wait for a response.
**
Mrs Beaver knits. Derren records. They both make incisive comments when the need arises. Mr Beaver grumbles and blusters.
Susan is brusque, efficient, sweet, controlling proceedings with ease.
And Lucy? Lucy is utterly miserable. She's beginning to think her sister will never talk to her normally again.
**
Finally the council ends (though Lucy was certain for a while that it never would). It breaks up quickly, Harry and Rhee, and the Beavers too, squabbling good naturedly between themselves. Derren meets Lucy's eye for a long, slightly pained, moment, concern written across his face. Lucy smiles, a smile as bright and fake as any she has ever attempted. Derren must know it for a lie. He raises his eyebrows and completely fails to return the smile. Clearly he's waiting to leave the chamber at her side.
Oh that's all I need.
A sharp shake of her head joins the bright, fake smile. She flickers her fingers at him, shooing him out. He's unhappy (clearly), unconvinced (almost certainly), but he complies all the same, with a final, reproachful, glance.
And so Lucy is left standing alone in the council chamber, nose to a window pane, hugging herself miserably. There is the yew alley, away and below, green as summer still, and she remembers a day last spring – so close? Really? It feels like forever. And what has she done? She feels like she's spent most of the last year dragging herself up one ridiculous hill another, and she's not even sure what she's struggling towards any more. Whatever it may have been, it feels not one jot closer. Quite the reverse, in fact.
She realises, finally, bitterly, that she's just tired of it all.
**
Her sister proves to be elusive. She has that knack. It’s annoying at the best of times. She’s not in her chambers (a good 5 minutes of knocking and yelling have established that). Neither has she graced the library, kitchens, or Great Hall with her presence, and when finally Lucy finds herself at the solid, unpretentious door of the Small Hall she is breathless, hot, just a little irritable, and even more miserable.
The hall is even more unbearably close than the council chamber. Lucy is surprised to find it occupied at all, yet there is Harry, tea cup poised half-way between saucer and lips, staring deep into the fire that is roaring in the grate. She takes a few moments to shake herself from her reverie (and in those moments her eyes look sad, troubled) but her smile once she has done so is as warm as ever.
It seems that Lucy has become incapable of not wearing her heart on her sleeve. She winces inwardly at the pity in Harry’s eyes. She wants to tell her that she’s not broken, not sad, she’ll be perfectly ok if everyone would just stop looking at her like that. She doesn’t have the energy. It’s so much easier to submit herself to the sympathy, unwanted or no. At least she doesn’t have to suffer it for long, even if she does have to force that hurt look from her mind as she goes on her way.
(And still she hurts everybody.)
**
Try the stables. That’s what Harry had told her. Lucy hadn’t really believed that Susan would just up and ride (Edmund perhaps, but not Susan), yet here Lucy is, and ride, it seems, Susan has. The paddock is wide and spacious, gate ever open, the ‘stables’ so much more than that (such complexities, when your steed is your friend and equal too). They are mostly unoccupied yet luck is with her. Holly whickers at her from a cosy corner, sleepy and comfortable-looking.
“Lucy, daaaaarling,” she says in that lazy, good-humoured whinny of hers. “So long since you’ve visited. I’ve missed you. My morning gallop is so much less enjoyable without you.”
“Holly,” Lucy says, both happy and remorseful. “I’ve missed you too, truly I have. I fear my friendship has left very much to be desired these last few months. You’re not the only one I’ve neglected. Can you ever find it in yourself to forgive me?”
Holly doesn’t reply immediately, instead busying herself with rolling onto her feet. She looks like she would have preferred to stay lying there for at least an hour or two longer. Lucy is all sympathy. Standing at last, Holly is soon at Lucy’s side, soft lips brushing her ear in a kiss.
“There is nothing to forgive, dear one,” she says, her breath warm on Lucy’s face. “So, can it be coincidence that Susan was just here? And she so neglectful too, these last month. Could it be that you have something you need to say to her?”
“Holly, don’t tease me, please,” Lucy sighs. “Other days, just not today, all right?”
For all that a horse could never be said to have the most piercing of gazes, yet still Holly’s black, liquid eyes freeze Lucy in place. Lucy shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot in silence. And then,
“Well then,” Holly says, a hint of a laugh in the movement of her head and the music of her voice. “A gallop perhaps? It would do us both good. And who knows who we might meet?”
**
It's ten minutes' hard ride to the outskirts of the forest, half an hour more to a suitable glade.
They have passed no one, human or animal, and it surprises her. For all her sadness she would be happy for more company. She’s not even sure that they’re going to that place. But, it’s where it started. It would be fitting for it to end there.
And yet she doesn’t direct Holly. There never was any directing her, a free horse of Narnia goes where she wills. Lucy is too busy luxuriating in the winter sun, crisp and bright, but warm also; skies of pale blue, clouds the colour of the snow that should be underfoot (probably will be, not too far into the new year. Narnia’s winters are usually predictable). Gulls cry, the only other living things now. No sign of her sister, no sign of anyone. Holly comes to a halt at the edge of the forest, breathing hard. She whinnies delightedly.
There is no other noise. It seems unreal that it should be so, and yet. Lucy cannot even detect the sound of her own breath, and the breeze on her face is as silent. The world is a picture, stripped of noise. She feels muffled, half asleep. She wants to ask where Holly is taking her. She can’t summon the energy. Besides, she knows.
**
The glade is exactly as she remembers it. Exactly. There is even less sign of winter here; it’s as if it has been trapped in time, preserved in amber. Not a fallen leaf, the grass as green and lush as spring. It’s seems impossible, miraculous. Perhaps it is.
Susan is alone, no sign of Fern (“her” horse, though one might as well say that Susan is herhuman. Somehow she doesn’t seem to have heard Lucy’s approach. Although she has made no attempt at stealth, still every noise seems deadened. Holly is a few minutes behind her, cropping grass beside a stream, and the noise of her contented whiffling had followed Lucy for a matter of a only few footsteps. And now there is peace; soft, comforting.
Lucy watches her sister from the shadows for the briefest moment. She has laid out a blanket, another round her shoulders. There is a pillow beside her, and saddle bags, but she simply sits, arms round her legs, head on her knees. Her hair is loose, pooling on the ground around her. Lucy’s breath catches a little at the sight of it. In the silence it reverberates like a sneeze. Susan doesn’t look up, yet Lucy thinks she detects a stiffening in her, a twitch in her otherwise motionless form. And as she draws the deepest, quietest of breaths, desperately trying to decide what she should do, or say, that’s when Susan does look. Her eyes find Lucy’s in moments. There’s nothing, nothing at all, she could do to avoid it, even if she wanted to.
Caught red-handed, she does her best to look innocent. Probably she falls far short. Casual, nonchalant, relaxed, innocent. Lucy can’t help feel that none of these words have applied to her for a long, long time (or, possibly, ever).
One look at Susan's face makes perfectly clear how much of a mess Lucy has made of it. Again. She looks tired. Her eyes are red and puffy. Lucy didn’t think it was possible to feel any more wretched. She was wrong.
Even as Lucy is reaching for something to say Susan rises to her feet, palming her eyes for a brief moment, as if to wipe away tears. She drops the blanket as she approaches Lucy and enfolds her in a tight, fierce hug. It doesn’t help Lucy’s ability to form words.
Where before Susan had been bathed in a shaft of sunlight, here she is in shadow, her face only partly visible. It makes it a little easier. Still, not the deepest gloom could hide the way that her sister looks at her, or rather fails to look. She’ll hug her, it seems, yet she is still unable to meet Lucy's eye.
Susan draws breath to speak but Lucy is determined now. Here is where it ends.
“Lucy dear, I …,” is all that Susan can utter. Lucy allows her to go no further.
“I'm sorry. I'm just sorry, all right? I don't know what I was thinking, I just know I can't bear this any more,” Lucy says, all in a rush. The more she says the less she feels able to stop herself. “You can't even stand to look at me. And I know it's all my fault and don't you think that I'd take it back if I could? I just want things to be back the way they were before and I don't know how they ever can be and I've broken everything and caused everyone trouble and I don't even know how it all started but I just wish I could stop it and I can't. And I'm sorry.” She talks herself to a breathless halt, tears stinging her eyes, knowing that if ever she lets herself cry she won't be able to stop for the longest time.
Lucy thinks that this must be what heartbreak feels like.
Susan is still, her face unreadable. Silence settles over them again, broken only by the sound of Lucy’s breathing. She hates how desperate it sounds - harsh and and high, like an animal in pain - but she just can't bring it under control. Susan looks grim and unhappy, her jaw set, her eyes lowered. Lucy waits for as long as she can stand. It's not long.
“Please, just say something, will you? Please?” Her voice cracks on the last word. It won't be long now before the tears come.
And that is when it happens. She doesn't see it coming. How could she? One moment, Susan is stock-still, silent, totally impassive. The next, there is the brush of her lips against Lucy’s own, her arms circling Lucy's shoulders awkwardly, their noses bumping. Aslan knows, it's hardly as Lucy dreamed it, yet there it is. And clumsiness, awkwardness, words regretted and unspoken, none of it matters now.
It’s a hard kiss, angry even, bruising her teeth, leaving her breathless, but it's unequivocal. It lasts a few seconds at most, mere fleeting moments gone all too quickly, but it changes everything.
Susan pulls back from it so quickly that Lucy stumbles slightly. She realises that her arms are hanging limply at her sides. Her eyes are closed, her mouth half open. She must look like a complete idiot. She closes her mouth concertedly, opens her eyes, but otherwise entirely fails to collect herself.
“There, are you happy now?” Susan is breathing hard. She sounds furious. “You say you're sorry but really Lucy, did you want to do this to me? Do you like that you have? Oh Aslan, what were you thinking?”
And for once, it is Susan who flees, though she doesn't go far. Scooping up first one blanket, then the other, she tries fumblingly to force them into the saddles bags for a few moments. Defeated, she crumples to the grass. She's sobbing, drawn out, racking, sounds, each one an almost physical pain to Lucy. Her heart feels squeezed, it's all that she can do to draw breath and even then her own breathing is ragged.
Staring at her own feet, paralysed, and in a moment so inappropriate she wants to cry herself, she remembers it vividly: this same woodland grove in spring; leaves and shade and sunlight; her own breathless silence; wordless ecstasies, moans and cries.
There is a familiar heat, that tingle in the pit of her stomach. Oh Aslan, not now.
She shakes herself, bites the inside of her cheek to bring her back to some sort of reality. She doesn’t know how long she has been frozen in her own memories. Susan is no longer sobbing, though her breathing, as heavy and painful as before, testifies to how little it would take to make the tears come again. Lucy can't bear to listen to that noise, the rasp of Susan's breath, for long. Crumpled on the ground, bathed in sunlight as bright as a summer’s day, Susan's eyes (unreadable even now) follow Lucy's progress towards her. She is expressionless, unblinking, her gaze steady, but in this light the dark rings around them are so much more clear. Lucy wonders when she last slept
.
It's the rarest thing, to see her sister completely unguarded, but she's seeing it now. She feels that a single ungentle touch could break her into a thousand pieces. But she can't not touch her. Everything inside her is screaming that, more than anything, Susan needs to be held, and so hold her she does. Gently, yes, but firmly too, both protective and comforting. Susan jumps slightly as determined if hesitant arms circle her. It's not the most comfortable hug that Lucy has ever given; she's kneeling before her sister, bending down a little awkwardly so that she can hold her properly. Susan doesn't protest, merely letting her head fall to rest on Lucy's chest. Physically unable to look her sister in the eye (for which she’s frankly grateful), instead Lucy buries her head in Susan's hair.
When Susan starts to speak, her voice is so soft that Lucy has to strain to hear. The roar of blood in her ears, her own breathing, threaten to overwhelm it.
“I'm just tired, Lu. I'm tired of holding everything together on my own. And I'm tired of not knowing what to say to you, and of having to push you away just because we want the same thing.”
Lucy knows that she should respond. She’s still struggling for the right thing to say when Susan continues.
“I’d still like to know what you were thinking.” She lifts her head; her hair brushes softly past Lucy’s face. Lucy can’t think, let alone speak. Susan is finally looking her full in the eye now. “Really Lucy, I’m serious. What possessed you?” Susan sighs and shakes her head. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. It’s far too late now, in any case. One day though, you really must explain to me what it was that was going through that ridiculous head of yours.”
Susan’s face mere inches from her own, Lucy struggles to order her thoughts sufficiently to proffer a response.
“I, ah …” is all she can seem to manage. And then, in chorus with the sinking in her stomach, “What do you mean, it’s far too late?”
“Oh Lucy. You really have no idea do you? Don’t you think at all?” Susan asks, exasperation apparent in every syllable. And then there are soft lips on Lucy’s own once more; Susan is speaking against her mouth, even as Lucy’s lips part beneath hers, whether in invitation or shock even Lucy couldn’t say for sure. “Lucy Pevensie, you really are the most ridiculous, annoying, infuriating person I have ever known.”
It’s not a sisterly kiss. It’s so far from being a sisterly kiss that, in the few moments before she stops thinking at all, Lucy worries that constant doubt and desire have finally driven her mad. She manages to mouth one (pointless, idiotic) question against Susan’s lips, “What are you doing?” And then her mind stops and her body takes over.
It’s nothing like that stolen kiss on her birthday, so many sleepless nights ago. Susan is soft, warm, entirely yielding yet demanding too. She drags her mouth from Lucy’s for the smallest moment to demand incredulously, “Oh Aslan, Lu, what does it look like I’m doing?” and then their lips crash together again. It’s a kiss that begins hard and demanding and then flows into something softer; it becomes gentle, hesitant even, as if Susan, suddenly beset with doubts, is seeking reassurance. She doesn’t have to seek for long. Lucy’s surprise is short-lived; she answers Susan’s questions, spoken and unspoken, with a gentle, bewildered eagerness. A whimper rises in her throat, unbidden, and even to her it sounds utterly broken. She pulls Susan closer, their lips graze together, softly but determined, mouths opening and closing, little licks and nibbles, awkward and unpractised but far from shy.
For all that she’s dreamed of this, Lucy realises that she has no idea at all what she should do. She wonders if Susan does either. And then she feels the tangle of fingers in her hair, the slight pressure as Susan pulls, gently urging her head backwards. Susan slides her lips from Lucy’s own as Lucy yields to the demand, down and over her chin, under it, and then, with only the briefest pause, she nuzzles into Lucy’s neck, kissing, licking, biting. It pushes Lucy entirely into the realm of the non-verbal. If she had thought that she was unable to form words before, this is something else entirely. She moans, sighs, whimpers (though less brokenly now, she thinks). The warmth in her belly is fast becoming unbearable. She presses her legs together, aware at the same time of the heat and prickle in her cheeks. She can’t possibly be blushing, can she?
Susan’s lips falter at a place a little above her collar bone.
“Don’t stop. Please, just keep doing that. Please?” Lucy is sure that she has never sounded more desperate.
In response, she feels a warm breath against her skin as Susan blows, slow and teasing, tracing towards the dip at the base of her throat, from where, ghostly soft, the memory of a kiss, she begins to nuzzle her way up the column of Lucy’s neck once more. Lucy is one ecstatic sigh. She smiles broadly when, finally, Susan’s eyes are at a level with her own again. Susan smiles back, hesitant still, in spite of all. The smile flickers like a candle flame across her lips, there and gone and back once more.
“Are you all right? Is this all right?” she asks.
Lucy can’t quite believe that she has to check. “Oh, Su. Of course this is all right. It’s wonderful. You’re wonderful. Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you to do that?”
“Um, not just since your birthday, then?” Susan says.
“Not just since my birthday.”
“Did you never worry what people would think? Or how I’d react?”
Lucy swears inwardly, presses her legs together even harder, trying to ignore the growing heat at the apex of her thighs.
“Of course I worried. I’ve done nothing but worry for months. And I’d really like to stop worrying and just kiss you. So could we please stop talking?”
She tries hard not to sound petulant, though she’s certain that she fails badly. Susan doesn’t seem to mind. Her answering smile has none of her previous trepidation, no flicker of concern. It is broad, easy, welcoming. Finally, it is everything that Lucy has dreamed of.
She smiles back, her heart pounding fit to burst.
Their mouths are so close, it’s almost too easy to bridge those last few inches. She feels like she should savour the moment, it’s been so long in coming. But she can’t.
There is nothing desperate about this kiss, nothing rushed, hard, or violent; yet nothing hesitant or doubtful either. It is slow and wondering, eager but languid too. Susan’s eyes had widened very slightly as Lucy’s lips travelled those few inches, but they were smiling, not troubled, and her lips had opened just as quickly, her tongue flickering, moistening them, with just moments to spare. And now, with all the discomfort of their position (it may be the warmest December she can remember, but the middle of a forest in winter is still hardly the perfect place, or time, for this) every move they make pulls them closer still. Lucy feels more than hears the whimpering that starts in Susan’s throat, echoing her own of, when? Moments before? Minutes? It washes away what few doubts remain.
Briefly, unwillingly, she extricates herself from Susan's embrace, takes up the blankets and lays them out, one atop the other. They shuffle on to them, a soft, comfortable bed in the wilderness, and ah yes, that's much better. No chill, no hard bumps or stones poking into knees and other places, just Susan: kneeling herself; smiling. Flushing slightly, but it's a flush that reaches down her neck to her chest, desire, not embarrassment. She doesn't flinch when Lucy puts her hands on her knees, spreading them, moving forward until she's kneeling between them. Then, her hands on Lucy's shoulders, Susan actually smirks.
"Now then, where were we?"
Lucy answers in the only way that feels appropriate. This time the kiss is so energetic that it overbalances them both. Susan topples backwards; it’s all she can do to whip her hands off Lucy’s shoulders to halt her imminent collapse.
"Hey, careful!" Susan says.
It doesn't discourage Lucy though, quite the reverse. She kisses Susan all the more enthusiastically, snaking her arms around her neck, pulling her in tightly. Susan pushes into her in her turn, parting her lips beneath Lucy's own, flickering her tongue. Lucy feels it: gentle, questioning, questing. She opens her own mouth a little, her tongue dancing and flitting around Susan's as they kiss. The softness of her mouth is like nothing Lucy has imagined, however much she's fantasised about kissing her (and she has no idea how many times she might have done that but it's a lot).
An image flashes into her mind. How they must look. The grove is a patchwork of brilliant sunshine and soft shadows, emerald green grass, the trees ringing them clothed in dun and white and a green just a vivid. Susan’s dress, rucked up and crumpled, reflects the emerald, intensifies it. Lucy feels dull by comparison. She falls back onto her heels, allowing Susan to loom above her in the most delicious way. Her head is back as far as she can force it.
A shiver of sheer wanting passes all through her. It becomes a shudder, she pushes up into it, up off her heels, up against Susan. And Susan topples backwards in the most undignified manner, giggling breathlessly against Lucy’s mouth, pulling her down with her. Even if she cared to, Lucy couldn’t have kept her own balance. She barely manages to reposition her hands to stop herself from landing too heavily on Susan's belly. Even so, she hears her yelp slightly, though she can still detect that same breathless giggle at the edges of the sound.
"Hey, clumsy. That hurt!" Susan says, though there's no reproach in her voice.
"I'm sorry," says Lucy, far more serious than Susan sounds. And then (and she can't quite believe that she's saying it), "Would you like me to kiss it better?"
"Ah, I’d like you to just stay here and hug me. Do you mind?" And again, Susan sounds worried, doubtful.
"Of course I don't mind." She nuzzles into Susan's neck, clinging to her, so tightly, like she’ll slip away, vanish back into the woods - away, further and further away - if she once gives her the slightest chance to escape . "I really am sorry." She's apologising for so much, for far more than she could ever put into words.
"It's all right, dear, really it is. Now hush, and just hold me, will you?"
She does. Her nuzzles become nibbles, her tongue flickering at Susan's jawline, tracing upwards to that little dip behind her ear. She thinks she could listen to that slight hitch of breath, the almost silent gasp and ‘oh’ forever.
"By the lion, Lucy, are you actually trying to drive me mad?" Susan asks, breathless.
Stopping, with the most heroic of efforts, she pushes up a little until she is able to look Susan full in the eye. Her mouth is curving upwards again in that little smirk.
Lucy thinks that her own smile probably looks just as smug.
"Of course not. I'm hurt that you could even think such a ..."
But she doesn't get the chance to finish. There are Susan's lips on her own again, near ravenous this time.
There's a warmth that infuses every part of her. It feels almost like the grove around responds to them, warming, becoming gentler, brighter. A soft breeze kisses her neck and there is nothing of the harshness of winter in it. In this place at least, for these few fleeting moments, it is spring once more. Lucy wonders if she's as flushed as Susan is. She's trying hard not to think about the heat in her belly but it's getting more and more difficult. And then Susan wriggles, just so, and she's pushing her thigh against Lucy, and she stops trying not to think about it. She starts to roll her hips as she slides her lips from Susan's mouth to nuzzle at her neck again. The warmth grows, only intensified by the rasp of Susan's breath. The movement in Lucy's hips is reflected in Susan's own. It's not soft or gentle, not any of the things that Lucy imagined. It's a quick, animal grinding; harsh, needy, greedy.
It's starting to become incredibly frustrating. With every movement she makes Lucy is hoping for the soft, yielding touch of skin, and everywhere she feels nothing but clothing, enclosing, impeding. Everywhere that is, but for Susan's neck, stretched tight now as Lucy kisses and nuzzles and nips. Susan has thrown her head full back on the ground and her hands in Lucy's hair pull down firmly. She's sighing, over and over. There's a phrase niggling at the edges of Lucy's memory, something from that life that she can barely remember. Ah yes, that's it. Her sister sounds just like the cat who's got the cream. It won't be long before she starts to actually purr.
And still their legs twist around and around each other, seeking a pressure that is always just out of reach. In spite of the frustration of it all, they've become more languid now; there's still that thrust and roll of the hips that is far from innocent but it's almost lazy.
Susan giggles but a moment later she's serious once more. Lucy can almost hear the frown in her voice.
"What are we going to do, Lu? What are we going to tell everyone?" She sighs. "There's nothing we can say that anyone will understand, is there?"
Lucy's own sigh is mostly muffled in Susan's neck, though her lips are no longer so busy as they had been. "I don't know. I really don't." She sighs again, as if she's trying to let go of all of their worries on a breath. "Do we have to tell anyone anything? Whose business is it? And really, what would we say?"
She can feel Susan growing tense as she speaks, her throat bobbing convulsively. The moment is slipping away, she can feel that too. She can't let it. Not now, not after she's waited so long. She pushes (unwillingly) away from the curve of Susan's neck till, at the fullest extent of her reach, she is able to look into her sister's eyes. And it's all there. All the fear and hope that Lucy has held inside for so long, reflected in the face beneath her.
Susan's hair is dishevelled, her lips red and bruised. There is a mark on her throat that hadn't been there before, pink and bordered by the faintest indentations. Teeth marks. Oh.
"Can we worry later? Please?" Lucy whispers. She can feel the colour rising in her face again, a heat that might be mistaken for embarrassment in almost any other situation. "I really just want to kiss you. Can I do that please?"
Susan's reply is a small, tight smile. Lucy can't even begin to interpret what it means, and she's no more enlightened when Susan puts a finger to Lucy's lips, tracing them lightly.
"Act first, think later, then?" Susan asks. Accusingly? Reluctantly? Perhaps both, or neither.
Lucy laughs quietly. "Well, it's stood me in good stead for most of my life, hasn't it?"
Susan sounds rueful now. "That it has. Perhaps I should have spent more time doing and less time worrying. Do you think things would have been different if I had? Perhaps I should start now."
The words are barely out of her mouth and her whole demeanour changes; it's like a dark cloud moving from the face of the sun. And with the lifting cloud comes action. A quick tip and a roll and Lucy is thudding, entirely unexpectedly, onto the ground, part on and part off the blanket. She couldn't really say that she minds, especially when Susan immediately follows up on her advantage. Their positions are reversed in a matter of moments, Lucy flat on her back (giggling breathlessly, pleasantly flustered), Susan poised above her. Lucy couldn't move if she wanted to. She flexes her fingers; it's about all the freedom she has. Susan has her wrists pinned and, Aslan, she would never have expected the effect that that is having on her. Lucy wriggles, her eyes fixed on her sister's. Susan isn't smiling but at least she doesn't look like she'd rather be anywhere but here. Even when Susan releases her, fingers trailing across Lucy's chest to linger at the laces of her doublet, it doesn't cross Lucy's mind to struggle. She nods slowly, an answer to a question that Susan has yet to ask. Her breathing slows. She waits. Susan's fingers are quick and deft; laces slide, ease, and unknot. Piece by piece, doublet, hose ,and shirt, Lucy is divested. She makes no move that isn't directed; she feels like her mind is running to catch up. Each brush and caress sends jolts of sensation through her; every direction and silent order has her quivering.
When Lucy - flushed and breathing quick but deep - is down to her undergarments, Susan relents long enough to address her own clothed state. It is not a graceful disrobing, it's too quick and eager for that. In moments she's standing there, a thin green underdress the only thing protecting her from Lucy’s eager eyes, seemingly at a loss for what she should do next. Lucy answers that particular question mostly unthinkingly. Pulling the top blanket to one side briefly, she rolls under it. The pillow (and why had Susan even brought a pillow? Lucy decides that she must ask. Later) is already more or less in the right place. She throws the top blanket aside, smiling quick and nervous.
"Well, don't just stand, silly. Come in, will you?" She's shocked at how hoarse her voice is. Her teeth are chattering. It can’t be the cold.
**
Bare minutes later, under-garments have joined the other little piles of clothing strewn on the grass and now there are simply smooth limbs amid warm blankets; curve of breast and hip; flesh to flesh and mouth to mouth. The cadences of Susan's utterances - gasp, moan, sigh, giggle, hiss, every sound and none - wash over Lucy, exciting and soothing all at once, drawn out of her by Lucy's hands and fingers, her lips and her tongue.
And now it comes to this, a hitch of breath, slickness and heat. As her sister clings to her, breath coming in whimpering gasps, Lucy's fingers stroke, single-minded and exact. When the storm comes, it is overwhelming. Her sister's body, closer to her than she's ever been, is one long trembling wave; no part of her is still, her voice in Lucy's ear is a wordless, endless, keen.
