Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia.

Accidents and Lacerations

And I still hold your hand in mine.

In mine when I'm asleep.

And I will bear my soul in time,

When I'm kneeling at your feet.

-

"Try not to kill yourself."

The words come out flat. It doesn't matter, anyway. His brother doesn't look up; doesn't seem to hear. It isn't the first time he's said those words, it's far from it. But it's the first time he worries it might happen, in a strictly literal word per word meaning.

The last time he'd said it, his brother had been going to war. He'd phrased it differently then. 'Try not to get yourself killed.' It was always directed at his brother, never the other way round, or towards anyone else. The older of the two was prone to accidents, prone to every tragedy that could befall a man, sometimes even found danger where there wasn't.

But accidents- oh no, this wasn't what it was about. He backs towards the door, not wanting to take his eyes off his brother. He never wanted to leave. He eyes the bandages and the scars, injuries he himself would never know the pain of. Too many accidents for one lifetime, in his opinion. Now it seemed stupid to have worried about that. He wished the latest had been an accident: how easy that would make everything. A blood transfusion, nightmares, yes, scars, pain, a few nights in the hospital, fears, tears- and then everything would be alright.

To think how relieved he'd been when his brother had came home several months ago. The war was over, his brother was alive. That, back then, seemed to signify a happy ever after. After all, someone who lived through a war could obviously live through anything.

Right?

The last time he'd said those words, his brother hadn't been lying in the hospital bed, nearly dead from lacerations across his wrists. He hadn't carefully planned every detail, making sure everyone was out of the house when he did it. He hadn't cut the phone lines just in case. He hadn't done every little thing right, so he could end the life he'd fought so hard for every previous time.

It had to have been something related to the war. It couldn't have been because their parents had gotten a divorce in his absence, only a month before he'd returned. It couldn't have been because of last week, when his girlfriend of three years had broken up with him. It couldn't have been because of the argument they'd had three days ago and had yet to fix.

"My brother isn't suicidal." he'd said. "Anyway, he wouldn't leave me."

That he was sure of, but then again, he'd also been pretty sure his brother would never have tried to off himself. He gives the quietest of sighs, one which expresses all the feelings he cannot put into words.

The door opens and his sister enters. She doesn't glance his way. No one has in days, the attention is always on his brother, the one who's currently bedridden. He doesn't mind.

"Peter," she says. "You can't do this. Ed wouldn't have wanted it."

He looks up then, staring right through his younger brother. "You know what was the last thing I said to him? 'I wish you were dead.' And guess what, Su? Now he is." His shoulders start to tremble, and then he's crying. Susan holds him tightly as he sobs.

"I can't live without him, Su." he whispers, as the very person he is talking about falls to his knees by the bedside, crying harder than Peter himself.

The last time he'd said those words, he'd known it wouldn't happen. It had been a way Edmund showed his love, and Peter's reply would always reassure him. Ed, I won't, in a voice so certain that Edmund would remember it and be comforted every time he missed Peter. Peter loved him too much to leave him, he'd survive anything just to return to his younger brother.

When had that become a problem?

Peter would never leave him, which was why three days after Edmund's death, he'd tried to kill himself.

"Try not to kill yourself," Edmund repeats, the tears making it hard for him to see his brother. "Promise me, promise me, Pete. Say it."

The room grows dark around them as Edmund waits.

And Peter says nothing.

-

I didn't originally mean for it to be a Narnia fanfic. I've never written a Narnia fanfic, although I love reading them. I only realized what I was writing when Susan entered. I was like 'wait- this is Narnia! That's Susan, and Peter. And that's Edmund'. It's really rather strange. Thanks for reading, review?