Autumn Nights - A Narnia Oneshot Challenge

Safe Haven

TW: Drinking/intoxication, parental strife

Promt: Apple Cider

~October 1939~

They should have known doors didn't muffle yelling. 

No, they did know. 

They just didn't care. 
Nick rolled on to his stomach, holding his pillow over his ears. At this rate, he'd never fall asleep. 

But as quickly as it started, it stopped. For one blissful moment, it was silent. Nick held his breath. One minute, two minutes—at the fifth minute a tiny tap came from the door. Nick sighed, throwing his pillow across the room. 

Jill was on the other side of the door, clutching her teddy by one arm and dragging her blankey. She looked up with big, pleading eyes. "I can't sleep."

"Join the club," Nick said. She waited, still gazing up at him. He sighed, stepping out of her way. "Come on."

Jill giggled and ran to his bed, clambering on and securing her sacred spot, the side closest to the wardrobe. Nick climbed in next to her, snuggling beneath the covers. He threw an arm over her. 

Just as sleep was stealing into his thoughts, a little voice pulled him back to consciousness. "Nick?" 

"Hmm?" He murmured. 

"I don't like it when they yell." 

He didn't open his eyes. "I know, kid."

 "It's scary…"

He rolled the other direction.

A thud shook the floor. 

Nick's eyes snapped open.

"What was that?" Jill asked, burying half of her face in her stuffy. 

"I'll go look." He tied on his housecoat and walked into the hallway. 

At the bottom of the stairs laid the heap of his father. 

He muttered a curse under his breath and jogged down the stairs, kneeling beside the man he had never called "dad". Mr. Pole groaned, eyes half opened. 

"Hey, Nicholas—" he slurred. "Your mother kicked me out of my room." His eyes rolled around, unfocused. 

"Shhh," Nick put an arm around his father's back, "I don't want you to wake anyone. I'm moving you to the couch." 

"Sure—" 

His father babbled incoherently as they stumbled to the sofa. Nick dropped him on it unceremoniously. 

"Good night." He left his father in the sitting room, heading back up the stairs. 

Jill sat in the hallway, little legs handing through the bars of the banister. Nick's stomach twisted. 

"Daddy's drunk again?" 

He nodded. 

Jill bit her lip and glanced around the hallway before looking back at Nick, still standing on the landing. "I'm not sleepy."

"Here, I've got an idea—" he headed up the rest of the staircase, crouching down beside her. "Hop on." 

Jill squealed, her special, quiet inside squeal reserved for adventures with Nick, when Mummy and Daddy couldn't know. Her brother hoisted her onto his back. 

He took the staircase at the other end of the hall so they wouldn't pass their father. 

Safely in the kitchen, he dumped her on the counter before getting out mugs and digging through the fridge. He heated two mugfuls worth of apple cider on the stove and scrounged around for some biscuits from the tin. A few minutes later, he presented the midnight feast to his sister. She clapped. 

"Careful," he said, wary of scalding liquid in the hands of a 6-year old, "it's hot."

She wagged her head sassily. "I know that." She held the mug up beneath her nose, pressing the side against her lips to feel the warmth. The steam curled in front of her eyes. She giggled. 

Nick smiled. 

"Storytime!!" She declared, reaching for a biscuit. 

Her brother rolled his eyes, but couldn't hide his smile. "Really?" She nodded. "Well, what do you want me to tell?"

"Tell me more stories about the pirate and the lady! The ones you've been writing."

"Okay, okay," he relented. "But you'll have to remind me where we left off—"

"The lady was walking the gangplank," Jill said, eyes wide, kicking her feet with excitement. 

"Oh, right, the gangplank—okay," Nick cleared his throat and set down his apple cider. "The Marauding Pirates cheered as Lady Fiametta approached the edge of the springing board, a thousand leagues of icy death waiting to swallow her whole—that is, if the sharks didn't first. It seemed all hope was lost…" 

Jill listened with bated breath as her brother told his tale, her apple cider all but forgotten beside her. Storytime only drew to an end when she began to sway a little on her perch, and Nick decided it was bedtime for both of them. But that was okay, because he let her stay the whole night in his room. Snuggled beside him, she dreamed of pirates and biscuits, and ladies and apple cider, and brothers who tell the best of stories.