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Shortly after returning home after the events of Narnia, Peter began having nightmares.
Terrible, terrifying, and all consuming. They left him with a hoarse voice and tear stained cheeks; cold sweat drenching his bedclothes.
The first few times, his screaming awoke the entire house, and the children’s mother would rush into his and Edmund’s shared bedroom, crouching by Peter’s bedside; stroking his hair, and shushing his tortured whimpers. All the while, the rest of the Pevensie Children would look on in desolate understanding.
Mrs Pevensie blamed the war. WWII, obviously. What other war was there? What else could possibly leave her eldest child visibly shaken and petrified at breakfast time, if not for the impending threat of the Nazis?
What she failed to notice was the way Peter would look straight through her comfort when it happened, and instead, straight for his younger siblings. She failed to see the way his eyes would frantically land upon his brother and sisters; wide like saucers, fingers clenched around her shoulders. She was not the one he wished to be holding.
Soon, the rest of the Pevensie children realised Peter’s episodes weren’t just the occasional thing. They were happening nightly.
The older brother they all looked to for answers was suddenly resigned to a shell, a shadow. He looked so small - like his body wasn’t his, as if he was playing dress up in someone else’s clothes.
Always the protector, Peter took to sleeping downstairs, on the sofa; ratty blanket covering his once broad frame, and his father’s old tie stuffed into his mouth, alas to stop the inevitable screams that plagued his family so.
He would creep back upstairs once he was awakened by the terrors, heavy limbs stumbling into his bedroom, a quick eye glancing towards his baby brother before settling himself into his covers; wide awake, yet exhausted.
“Tell me about them,” Susan whispered one day, when it was just the two of them.
He shook his head. “No, Can’t,” his eyes were focused on his other two siblings through the window outside, playing a rather unorthodox game of cricket. A ghost of a smile graced his tired features.
“It might help,” she prompted, taking his hand in hers. “Please, Pete. We’re worried about you.”
Peter gave her a desperate look. A thousand words crossed his mind, a dissertation of explanations danced around him, yet his mouth was stuck like glue. He took a stunted breath.
“That’s just it, Suze. I’m so worried.“
How could he tell her? Tell all of them? Tell them how every moment they weren’t in his grasp, his heart heaved. How his gut clenched in fear the moment he didn’t know the whereabouts of even just one of them. That he dreamt every night of Lucy drowning, of Edmund held for ransom, of Susan with a dagger to her neck? He squeezed Susan’s hand tight in hopes that that would be enough.
They figured it out sooner, rather than later.
It was the night Peter said their names.
He’d never done that before, never spoken during one of his episodes, but upon hearing his and the rest of his siblings names fall from his brother’s lips in anguish, Edmund raced to his sisters’ room and brought them all to Peter. One by one, they all climbed into the tiny bed, and wrapped their arms around him, frantically trying to soothe the boy they all once thought was invincable. When Peter eventually came to, the crying didn’t subside, but was instead replaced by tears of unfathomable relief.
He cradled Lucy’s cheek with one hand and gripped onto Susan’s waist with the other; his forehead pressed to Edmund’s. He kissed Lucy’s nose, and Edmund’s eyelids and Susan’s hair. His hands were shaking and his whole body was tremoring but he felt the most comfort he had in a long while.
They got it, then. All of them. The girls moved their beds into their brothers’ room and they spent nights talking and reminiscing of all the good times, holding and reminding and just being. They did this time, and time again, until Peter stopped hyperventilating when they weren’t close enough to touch. They did it until Peter finally told them to give him some, ‘bloody space for once!’
The anxiety never fully went away, but Peter no longer felt so alone.