Author's Note: I keep getting reminded by Darth Vader saying, Apologies accepted, Captain Needa, whenever I write the word 'apology.' It is appalling, really.
Partly movie-verse, partly book(ie)-verse. I'm sure C.S. Lewis would be aghast at what we write today, and I'm sure the skeptics of Hollywood or whoever the hell produced the movie would rather expect it. If there are males, there is slash.
Disclaimer: Screw all you buggers, I'm going to make millions off this, intellectual property be damned.
Later Note: Thanks, everyone who told me Edmund was spelled with a 'u'. Because I really am sort of an idiot.
---------------------------
Apology
Edmund has felt forever the urge to prove himself, to be something more than the second youngest. He burns with ambition to be better than he whom he admires – Peter, so strong, so good and noble, golden-haired and shining. Edmund looks up to Peter through long dark lashes but he can never admit to Peter how much he means to him.
He can never outdo him, either.
And so this simmering resentment seethes and froths beneath his skin, itching like dry skin under plaster. Edmund longs to scratch, but he can't – quite – reach.
They struggle, body against body, fists flying and feet flailing, sweat and blood mingling – Edmund grunts a stifled noise of pain as Peter's knuckles crash with his nose, and grunts again in surprise as Peter smacks himself with Edmund's elbow, and blood trickles down over their lips in twin trails of misery.
He fights to the death Peter's authority. He fights and fights and fights and when he is finally beaten, sometimes with a black eye, sometimes with a twisted ankle after Peter punches him and he trips on a cricket ball, he refuses to apologize because that would mean he had given in, given up, become inferior.
(Peter thinks he's a stubborn, surly little bugger, but doesn't say so. He fights, too, because that is the Natural Order of things: birds fly, fish swim, brothers fight, make up, and fight some more. Only, they never make up, not anymore.)
---------------------------
Edmund takes the White Witch's hand because he wants to believe that she will really make him king over Peter. He wants to believe that he is truly better than Peter, for once, because this is what he has always wanted, all his life.
That, and her Turkish Delights are frightfully good.
He takes the chance to run Lucy down, because for once he is better than someone, but feels only a little triumphant as she bursts into tears and Peter shoves him into the wall.
Later, he doesn't say sorry, not really.
He only begins to say sorry when Mr. Tumnus is dragged out the icy door, whimpering with bright eyes gone dull with agony, leaving him alone in the freezing cold of blue and white to ruminate of treachery and pride.
---------------------------
The whip flicks around his ankles, tripping him. His legs ache, and his hands are slowly going numb – Edmund wishes they would just stop feeling already; the rope burns his wrists in a throbbing pain that refuses to let him ignore it – but they keep going. Edmund's feet blaze and blister under the wobbling of his ankles. The ground is treacherous, and betrays the torn soles of his shoes.
Edmund hurts, hurts all over, but he doesn't want this to stop, not yet. If they stop, they will have found Peter, and Susan and Lucy, and the people he betrayed without a second's thought. And Edmund is not ready still, not ready to face his family, his best friends, not ready to apologize and say his words with truth.
So Edmund keeps this half-run, half-trot that sears his body, stumbling and lurching as thick black lines coil about legs. He keeps running, keeps thinking, keeps on going, one pain-laced step at a time. His wrists become rubbed raw, the whip begins to draw hot, itchy trickles of blood that soak his socks and dry into prickly trails. He runs, and he is glad.
---------------------------
When the White Witch's broken staff thrusts through his armor, through skin and flesh and bone, all Edmund can think of is how he never actually said sorry. He falls to the ground, breath harsh and gasping in his ears, and below the confused muddle of panic and discord, he thinks of how he and Peter have always fought and fought and fought but never apologized. His hand scrabbles at the cold, unyielding metal beneath red velvet and he thinks, I am going to die, and he whispers, Peter, I'm sorry.
His fingers clench convulsively at the grass; he can feel blood and causticity spread wetly across his abdomen; his breath hitches with pain as the acid burns a little more of his body each second. He wants to scream but the air he manages to gasp in is not enough to even exhale. Instead, he whimpers, and the hot blood chokes his throat.
(Peter is fighting for Edmund, now; he wants to make this witch pay, wants her to die because Edmund surely has – don't think that; Edmund will be alright, he has to be okay. But as her two swords cross and thrust towards his throat, as his back twists back desperately, he forgets that he is fighting for his brother and starts to fight for his own life.)
Things roar strangely in his ears; around him, warriors scream and die and kill; Edmund still breathes, still apologizes silent apologies.
(Peter yelps as the Witch's sword pierces his arm, pinning him to the ground. He blocks, and something in his arm tears as his shield is knocked away. Looks upward with wide eyes at the gleaming point and thinks, I failed you, Edmund.)
When they reach him, he can no longer see, just, breathe, sorry, in, out, Peter, breathe. Hands cradle his head, touch his unfeeling arms. Cold liquid burns his lips and tongue and forces itself down his throat, and everything
stops
as spider webs of calcium spin themselves into the soft curve of rib, as acerbic corrosion dissolves into nothing, as gaping holes pinch together, as he does not die.
Edmund inhales, exhales, opens his eyes. Above him, Peter almost cries with relief as he pulls him into an awkward hug that tangles the chain of their armor, their arms; they clutch and grasp and reassure each other of their tangibility and life. Edmund feels Peter's warmth against him, so different than their hostile punches, feels Peter's soft hair tickling his cheek, feels Peter's body shaking.
He closes his eyes and finally says, I'm sorry.