Caspian/Edmund: Transition (2/2): Discovered

[clovenbuttercup]

Title: Transition (2/2)
Characters: Caspian X, Edmund Pevensie, Other(s)
Relationships: Edmund/Caspian
Setting: Dawn Treader
Notes: Filmverse, I suppose. A sequel to Vulnerable.
Rating: T
Warnings: None
Summary: A decision made in a heartbeat on a whim brings unlooked-for consequences.

Chapter One: Night

You’re not all that tired yourself. That’s not to say you don’t need sleep. But because you’re not recovering from trauma, you need much less than Ed. And your mind is churning, turning over the events of the day to analyse them. But you don’t want to leave Ed. Even though you should.

Carrying Ed through the door of his bedchamber is an unconscious parody of a wedding night and in your heart you know it. In the dim light, you could swear you see a child’s cradle sitting near the bed. You almost drop Ed from the shock of it but pull yourself together. When you look again, you can see nothing out of the ordinary. You shake your head to clear it, deciding your mind is playing tricks on you. It’s hallucinating things to make you want what you cannot have. You and Ed could never have children together. Even if the impossible were to happen and Ed stays here in Narnia with you.

Ed chooses that moment to shift in your arms. It prompts you to stop fretting over things that are not and never were there. Instead, you concentrate on getting the man you love into bed before you do something stupid like dropping him.

Working as fast as possible, you lay Ed down on the bed. He's tired enough that even before you can remove his boots, and cover him with the woollen blanket from the foot of the bed to keep him warm overnight, he’s asleep. You brush a gentle kiss to his forehead.

‘Good night, my love,’ you whisper.

And this is where, by rights, you should head back to your own quarters. But when you've just got him back after three years when he’s been out of your reach, you don't want to leave him at all just now.

You cast your eyes over the room, something you suspect you should have done much earlier, looking for somewhere to sit. You can see chairs. But they’re too far away to give a clear view of the bed and, with what Ed’s been through in recent days, you still don’t want to let him out of your sight. So, you concede defeat for the interim. You remove your boots before climbing into bed beside him and pulling him into your arms. As you curl around him, you empty your mind of everything except Ed.

You intend to stay only a short while. Although you’re reluctant to leave him, you’re even more reluctant for anyone else to find you here; what’s between you and Ed is private. The last thing you want is to have to come up with a reason you’re here, because you doubt there’s a reason you could give that won’t make others suspicious. But you soon realise you’re more tired than you’d thought. And with Ed lying heavy in your arms, surrounded by the smell of him and soothed by the slow seeping of warmth from his body, sleep overcomes you before you can make yourself do anything about it.

So wrapped up are you in your love for this man that no nightmares come to stalk your dreams.

You sleep like the dead.

The next thing you know, somebody is brushing against you. Never compos mentis when first woken from sleep, you startle awake. And, again because you are never at your best first thing, you forget for a moment where you are, and that you’re with Ed. You sit up by reflex and, disoriented, you panic. Then someone, who by dint of scent and touch you decide can only be Ed, moves against you again for a moment. You pull him into a tight embrace and hold him there for a good few minutes, needing the physical contact with him while you let yourself wake up. When you’re almost ready to face the world again, you’re quick to notice how Ed’s body has stiffened against you and his entire attention is elsewhere.

‘Ed?’ you murmur, your lips against his neck.

‘Caspian?’

That’s not Ed’s voice.

And once again you wish you’d left last night when you should have done. You curse under your breath, hoping Ed can’t hear. And when you feel rather than see him flinch in reaction, you know he heard you. Your hand goes to his hip, a reflex action and not a conscious decision, and when he leans into your touch you almost sigh in relief.

You release Ed from the embrace with a suddenness that has him whipping around to face you. The wounded expression in his eyes tears at your heart. Unable to tear your eyes away from him but uncertain what to do you cup Ed’s face with your hand and give it a gentle caress, holding Ed’s gaze, before dropping your hand again. When you look across to the doorway, you notice Eustace staring back at you, a confused expression on his face. Eustace’s appearance makes Ed’s earlier strange behaviour more understandable. Lucy, with a mixture of apology and exasperation written across her own face, stands a little behind Eustace. You’d wager she was trying to stop Eustace barging in where he wasn’t wanted. Because that’s the person Lucy is.

‘Can somebody,’ Eustace says in a tone laced with faint disgust, ‘tell me what the hell is going on?’

Birds and beasts; it had to be Eustace, of all people, didn’t it?

Ever since you woke you’ve been running on sheer instinct. And hearing the disgust inherent in Eustace’s tone tells you he is a potential threat to the man you love. At least in the short term. Following your intuition is as easy as breathing, and you move between Eustace and Edmund to defend the man you love with your own body should it be necessary. Ed means too much to you; you’re not about to lose him now, not so soon after getting him back. Especially not after he’s been unwillingly outed to the last person he wanted to find out about your relationship.

You knew this confrontation has been coming. If it hadn’t happened now it would, at most, have been a matter of time. But how do you, and Ed, explain this in a way Eustace can understand?