#petervel

             ❛   survival  is  a  talent .   ❜

           zelda's tinted lips  quirk into a sour little scowl as peter's fumbling hands fiddle with the remote     ---     the former's protests drowned out by the latter's deranged explanations.     “  you're talking about the nuance of   ‘ the kissing booth, ’   peter,   the  nuance.     of   ‘ the kissing booth. ’  ”     they're only more or less displeased with having to sit through not one,     but  two  movies of the same caliber now that he has them in his cheesy-netflix-movie-ridden trap ;   zelda looks on the big red   ‘ N ’  growing menacingly on the television screen in front of them   (  accompanied by the droning sound that has never failed to mark the more...     turbulent  nights in the lavish pevensie-harkinian living quarters  )     in abject horror.     it becomes increasingly clear that there is no turning back.

          they have only heard awful,   terrible  things about this film...     so much so,     one will find zelda is of the opinion that dance dance revolution hardly counts as actual dancing,     which they make sure to let peter know while the whirlwind of an introduction whizzes past the film's first five minutes.     not even the red,   leaking face of  joey king  phases them.

𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐂𝐇 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒.  He could not report back to Jadis without them DEAD.  eyes wide with glee when he noticed a familiar figure walking towards him.  JADIS hadn’t let him JOIN in the first time.  He had only seen the statue’s after she was done with his siblings.   He remembered how he once had felt a little guilt for his actions, before it was washed away.   ESPECIALLY when he was told what THE LION would do to him.   kill him in cold blood,     judge him.   TAKE HIM AWAY from the only person he had felt truly cared about him.    ACTUALLY gave a toss.   he didn’t understand why the other version of himself stayed LOYAL to people who had never even noticed he was struggling.  Still, eyes now darken as he approached the other.   ❛ Brother, it’s been awhile. ❜

             the hall was lavishly decorated, and pools of sunlight illuminated gleaming tile. just as much as the room shone, it seemed to disappear into the fabric of is kefta. a dark blot in the cheery space. aleksander was used to it, to standing out for the color. his color. 

            he had been sure to brush his fresh kefta clean from any dust, been sure his boots shone before he entered the hall and approached the king. it was always one king or another. someone new to bow to. someone to appease and convince until he could have his way. but at least this young man seemed open to an alliance. fjerda and shu han had always been out of the question, and the kerch were far too concerned with money and trade and whatever other sins that dirty city of ketterdam harbored.

          “Forgive me if I overstep, my liege,” he says as he bounds after the high king, easily scaling a tower of crates so he could be more at the king’s eye level. “But must the squirrels be present at every meeting?”

𝙽𝚂𝙵𝚆 𝙼𝙴𝙼𝙴𝚂 𝙿𝚃. 𝟸

@petervel​ asked: [ GLANCE ] : sender can't resist glancing down at the receiver's lips as they're talking. ( ehehhehehehhhehehehehhehehehhehhhehehe)

                     IT’S      NOT         an   argument,   but   it’s   certainly         tense      .      given   the   empty   space   of   peter’s   missing   brother   between   them,   that’s   to   be   expected.   nikolai   fairly   sure   peter   believes   he   had   no   hand   in   edmund’s   disappearance,   but   it’s   hard   to   convince   someone   of   that   a   hundred   percent   until   said   missing   person   is   back.   their   words   are   clipped,   somewhat   sharp,   and   as   they   go,   they   get   closer.   and         CLOSER      .   until   they’re   nearly   nose   to   nose.   it’s   brief,         oh   so   brief      ,   but   nikolai   catches   it.   that   swift   dip   of   his   eyes.   despite   himself   and   despite   knowing   it’s   probably   only   goint   to   raise   tensions         EVEN      HIGHER      ,   nikolai   can’t   help   but   smirk.   

              “   when  you’re  dead...   ”       echoes,     soft as feathers     ⸺     it flits past the cold of caspian’s lips as fingertips gently ghost the row of peter’s protruding clavicle,     enchanted forest permanently carved into their worn-down skeleton.     with all but a millimeter of space between their flesh,     caspian still pictures vividly well how peter will scald him like a  true  blazing  star.     (   they would let peter burn them up until they're nothing but soot as black as the night that fills them.     caspian  would  ask  sweetly.   )      the hypothetical rattles against caspian’s sternum in ways they aren’t privy to even in his entire lifetime of long-stretching centuries  &  marking history like a thumbprint to a window pane.

              “   do you  know  what it would take to kill you?   ”       pattering like rain at the edges of a thunderstorm,     their words were as if it would take their entire fleet,     as if it would take the whole world crumbling into nothing,     as if it would take crossing through the pitch-black treacherous span of their hollow chest      ⸺     (   the truth is that  it  will  not  take  much  to  kill  peter.     the both of them are well aware of the unnerving reality attributed to the bond tethering sun  &  shadow summoner in tangled nooses :     if anyone has the power to take the sun summoner’s life,     it is  the  black  heretic  who casts the light out of him like a fist around voiceless gun.   )     caspian tries to clothe the naked truth,     lies  for  what  he  wants  to  be  the  final  time,     lest the fear utter itself into rationality.     seconds tick by like centuries,     their next question holding the only promise licked tantalizingly clean with a truthful tongue,     hope,     they find,     is a fickle,     friendless thing.      

              “   do you think i would  let  that happen to you?   ”

              the  nation  of  ravka  will  fall  to  its  battered  knees.     each soul still treading on the soil of the earth will never once again rest until the heavens bring peter back to him.     not because caspian will love him that much more in death,    but because caspian cannot possibly love him more than how much they do now.     (  it’s an ecliptic sort of love.     all - consuming,     a ring of fire indicating where peter bleeds out of the dark hole of their shadow.  )       “   i will love you now even if it  slaughters  me.     does that answer your question?   ”

            like  all  other  afternoons  spent  in  a  similar  fashion,     it feels as if the world would shift violently if caspian were to tear himself away from this moment     ⸺     picturesque,    so level with the sky that  nowhere  else  would be a more perfect place to lay one’s musing head,     one’s lounging body,     one’s beating heart.     while caspian discovers a ticklish spot ‘neath where neck meets bottom of skull,       (   he feels the wildflowers  &  lavenders a part of the  breathing  field,     much like peter’s palm is a part of caspian’s chest,   )       these uncharted grounds of forks washington,     crawling with nature,     cradles them from the curve of their spines to the swell of their cheeks     ⸺     eyes searching  &  pouring parts of themselves into the other.    

            caspian ponders for a frozen second how he could ease himself into the next day  &  find himself a different person,    dabbled  &  fashioned with the parts of peter that drain into his gold - gilded irises,     as if his smiles were caspian’s only  lifeblood.     there are words stuck in his dry throat,     perhaps praying :     with  you,     it’s  always  new.     you  make  me  new.