Celandine's Chronicle (celandineb) wrote in cels_fic_haven, @ 2008-11-02 19:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | narnia fic, narnia fic caspian/edmund, narnia fic edmund/eustace, narnia fic eustace/jill |
Narnia fic: Bound to Be [Edmund/Eustace, adult]
Title: Bound to Be
Author: celandineb
Fandom: Narnia
Pairings: Edmund/Eustace, Eustace/Jill, Caspian/Edmund
Rating: adult
Warnings: none really
Summary: From the time Eustace falls in love with Edmund, it takes years before anything happens... but some things are bound to be.
Note: ~11,200 words. For realpestilence, for her livelongnmarry request. I was trying desperately to finish this before the US elections, and just managed. *g* The title is taken from the Dream Academy song of the same name.
Eustace wondered, afterward, if the fact that Edmund had been the first person he saw and spoke with after his un-dragoning -- that Edmund had been the person to whom he felt comfortable telling what had happened -- in some way presaged everything that came later.
It certainly was not until after that night that he began to think of Edmund as a real person, someone he might like, not just as one of his annoying Pevensie cousins. The way that Edmund had listened when Eustace talked, had seemed to care about what had happened, made Eustace realise that perhaps Edmund didn't despise him or look down on him as he had always supposed.
He began to watch Edmund the day that the Dawn Treader left Dragon Island. Not stare, not follow him around, but simply observe him. Edmund had been a king, and although Eustace had never had much use for the notion of ruling monarchs -- far too old-fashioned and of questionable worth in a modern society -- he saw that there was something about the way that Edmund and Caspian (and Lucy too, a bit) acted that set them apart from the others aboard ship. It was a self-assurance, Eustace decided, that never quite became cockiness. A self-command great enough to listen to others and learn from them without being threatened.
Eustace admired, even rather envied that. Harold and Alberta's friends were all terribly clever, but they liked to show off their cleverness. They either tried to put each other down in conversation, or else divided up their areas of competence so finely that there was no one against whom they could be measured. Eustace thought it would be much nicer to be like Edmund, liked as well as respected.
"Would you teach me how to use a sword?" he asked several mornings later as the wind made the sail flap above them in the sunlight.
Edmund stared at him for a moment, and Eustace flushed, remembering how at the beginning of their adventure he had asserted that he was a pacifist.
"It seems as if it might be useful, and anyway a sword is more honourable than a gun," Eustace muttered.
"What's a gun?" asked Caspian.
"Don't let's talk about guns," Lucy said with a shudder.
"As you wish." Caspian gave Lucy a little bow. "But since you are keen to learn the sword, Eustace, I will lend you one of mine. Either Edmund or I can instruct you."
"I too would be happy to do so," piped Reepicheep.
"I... I think you might be too skilled for me," said Eustace awkwardly. He was really thinking "too small," though he knew the Mouse was considered a dangerous fighter. He had appreciated Reepicheep's efforts to cheer him when Eustace had been a dragon, and didn't want to hurt Reepicheep's feelings.
"Better to be taught by one more skilled." Reepicheep cocked his head, drawing his sword and twirling it.
"We could all help," Edmund offered, and Eustace smiled gratefully at him.
The lessons began that very morning. Eustace found that, in fact, Reepicheep was an excellent instructor despite his size, better at explaining things than either of the other two, although because of the differences in how his and Eustace's legs and arms moved, Eustace could not always do everything suggested.
Eustace practised with the Mouse for over an hour, which Reepicheep said was more than enough for a first lesson. He rested in the shade by Lucy afterward, his eyes turned toward Edmund, who was standing with Caspian by the rail. Caspian's hair gleamed gold in the sunshine, but it was the darker Edmund to whom Eustace's gaze was drawn.
Unaccustomed muscles ached from the exercise, but Eustace's heart was sorer, watching them. He had hoped -- for what? Suddenly he felt foolish, a sheepdog puppy hoping for a word of praise for its inexpert chasing of the sheep.
"You did well," said Lucy softly at his elbow. She followed his glance. "Both Caspian and Edmund thought so, I know."
"Did they?" Eustace couldn't help asking.
She nodded. "I know my brother well enough to be sure of that."
Eustace would have liked to have heard it from Edmund's own lips, but for that time he had to be content with Lucy's assertion.
He practised each day for the rest of the voyage under Reepicheep's tutelage. His moment of greatest triumph, however, came not long after the beginning of his lessons, when the Sea Serpent attacked. Without stopping to let himself think, Eustace drew the sword that Caspian had lent him and began to hack at the creature's long scaly neck. To his dismay the scales were impenetrable, and indeed the sword broke upon them, though he kept up his efforts with the shattered remnants until he heard Caspian calling for everyone to push instead.
After they had escaped from the menace, Eustace apologised to Caspian for destroying the sword.
Caspian laughed it off, saying, "Better it should come to such a worthy end," and arranged for Eustace to borrow a sword from Drinian so that he might continue practising.
All through those weeks Eustace tried hard not to let anyone see how he watched Edmund, being especially careful on the rare occasions when Edmund was alone on deck. It would be all right if someone thought he was admiring Caspian; everyone seemed to. There was a kind of aura about Caspian, perhaps because he was king, perhaps just because he was himself. Eustace wasn't sure. Days and weeks of watching the two of them together, though, made Eustace realise how deep their affections for each other ran, and forced him to acknowledge the qualities in Caspian that had doubtless attracted Edmund. Edmund's virtues Eustace had no trouble in recognising, nor his physical attributes, which indeed Eustace found himself dwelling on more every day, though he concealed that.
He might have fallen into melancholy, but that his attempts to learn swordsmanship both invigorated and exhausted him, so that he slept each night deeply and undisturbed.
When Caspian declared that he would go on to the End of the World, Eustace felt for a bit as if he might suffocate. The one thing he had counted on was that if and when he returned to his own world -- which seemed more distant day by day -- it would be only himself and his cousins who did so. He could not imagine any of the Narnians going there. To his relief, though, it was but a short time before Caspian acknowledged that he could not leave... and it was a greater, if guiltier, relief when Edmund and Lucy were told that they could not again return to Narnia.
Harold and Alberta's house seemed cramped and dull after his return, and all its open windows were as nothing compared to the fresh breezes he had grown accustomed to on the Dawn Treader. Eustace quickly realised that he had changed irrevocably, in ways that made his parents not quite comfortable. He was almost glad when the summer holidays were over and it was time to return to Experiment House, though it also meant that Edmund and Lucy returned to their schools as well, and he would not see Edmund until at least the next holiday.