EDMUND : why not just tell me ?? / @multimess. accepting.
a deep, ancient sigh spills from peter’s chest ; an overflow of the grief that he’s been holding close to his chest like a losing hand of cards from the moment he & susan were taken aside and told that they would not be coming home again. now that edmund’s lament for his torch has finally faltered in its ability to hide the truths that feel twisted & sour in his mouth, he notices that the air is different here. stifling. the tie that he’d fastened around his neck weeks ago now feels as if it may strangle him, and with each passing moment that the train solemnly carries on down the tracks, peter feels more and more likely to scream cry collapse. ( but he would never : not in front of his siblings, not if he can help it. )
❛ i would have, ❜ he begins carefully, acutely aware that this conversation is far from private. ❛ su & i just didn’t get the chance. it’s hardly as if we could’ve all sat down for tea & biscuits before — ❜ he will not speak the lion’s name. not now. ❛ — before we were sent back to london, in any case. ❜
he’s quick to turn to the hushed solitude of his bag — pawing through latin and linguistic textbooks in an attempt to look sufficiently busy — but even as the minutes tick by, peter still feels his brother’s eyes linger on him, and his faux surrender comes in the form of a fond, terribly absent, smile. there is a hollow, he realises, where his heart should be. ❛ look — don’t worry about us, ed. you & lu still have time left : that’s the bit that matters. ❜
