₁.₀ YES TO HEAVEN; peter pevensie ✔

015.

There's a strange sound in Peter's ears. Ringing... No, buzzing, that's more fitting. Like an intrusive fly on a summer evening, its wings beating rapidly as it is drawn to the warmth of the human body, to the scent of sweat. Something one hears in the background at all times because it is impossible to simply ignore it. Not a second of silence, not a moment to rest as one slowly descents into madness.

Except now the fly is a word. And the word is - impossible.

Peter is half conscious of the way his mouth opens when his knees hit the ground. But, although pain shutters his bones upon the impact and a shadow of a wince crosses over his features, no sound escapes past his lips. He feels his throat go dry all of a sudden, a taste of something stale and unpleasant on his tongue.

The boy-king can't take his eyes off the girl in front of him, watching her intently as though he was underneath some kind of a spell. It doesn't matter that he's already seen her move, that he's heard her speak - Peter needs to make sure his senses are not deceiving him in the most cruel of ways, that it's not just a play of light on one of the garden statues that knocks all the air out of his lungs and causes his heart to lose its rhythm.

He's still kneeling there in the middle of the path, fingers grasping onto the grass at his side's involuntarily, when she straightens her posture. A few steps, that's all it takes for her stand over him, the sun behind her back creating a halo around her head; Peter's eyes burn as he refuses to look away, a stinging sensation accompanying the tears that gather in the corners.

"What is this?" Peter finds himself asking at last, almost surprised by the strangeness of this raspy voice that seems to be coming deep from his own throat. "A dream?"

Painfully slowly, she bends her knees into a crouching position until her head is at the same level as his. She's so close Peter can imagine feeling the fabric of her trousers brushing against his own clothes if he was to move an inch or two, the brim of her hat could even bump against his forehead. So close he can even see freckles on her nose, those few slightly darker specks scattered over her skin. So close it's impossible to miss the look in her eyes - the same ones that used to look at him with sparks of anger or playfulness inside them, and yet so different now that they are filled with indescribable sadness.

Those are also the eyes that he's seen staring blankly into space, unblinking. But that's the image that plagues him in his sleep often enough, so Peter casts it away now. Or tries to.

"Or a dream of a dream," comes an answer to his question and the tone in which it is uttered - no more than a whisper, really - is just as melancholic.

Still as a statue himself, Peter follows the movement of her arm as it rises. It does so slowly and hesitantly, an yet he half-expects to feel the warmth of the girl's palm on the skin of his cheek. He yearns for it, actually, deep within his own heart, and the strength of this newly discovered need comes as a surprise. And it kills him, it kills him when her fingers stop mid-air, barely inches from his face and not nearly close enough.

And Peter knows why. He knows what it is that stops her from reaching further, what it is that leaves her with her arm extended towards him but never meeting its destination. The truth dawns on him as a pitiful sigh slips past his lips, heavy and unpleasant as it is.

As long as neither of them attempts to touch the other and all the illusions and idle hopes are kept from shattering, they can pretend.

Despite his rather choleric nature, Peter knows how to pretend. It feels as though he's done nothing but that as of late - whether it was regarding being the eldest sibling in a country suffering the repercussions of war or being a king and leading an army into one... Better or worse, he did his best to upkeep the image of a person who knows what they're doing.