Chapter Text
It starts the night after Dad leaves. Or really it's more like something ends. Certainly things change. But for Peter this just makes everything harder.
He's lying in bed, wide awake, staring into the dark, and he can still feel Dad's hands on his shoulders, heavy, so heavy.
“Take care of them for me, Peter.” (Not 'Pete’, ‘Peter’.) “You'll have to be man of the house for a bit. Hold down the fort for me, son. I'll be back as soon as I can.”
And the words rattle around in Peter's brain so he can't sleep.
He's thinking about taking the seat at the head of the table everyday now, not just for birthdays.
But then he hears Edmund, from his bed on the other side of the room, and he's crying, very quietly, but Peter knows what his brother trying to cry without being noticed sounds like. They've shared a room since Ed was two.
Peter rolls over, he knows what to do, what he usually does, because the only time Ed ever cries is in the dark, in the middle of the night.
He pushes away the blankets, slithers warm feet to cold floor, pads through the pitch black, knowing the exact number and length of steps to take.
Hand on Ed’s shoulder, lumpy under the blanket, and he's sitting down on the edge of the mattress when Ed goes stiff.
“Go away.”
And Peter doesn't understand at first, doesn't understand that harsh, wet whisper.
But he stills, trying to, trying to understand.
He understands the hand shoving his away better, understands the shifting and squeaking of the sharp roll-over Ed does, toward the wall, knees and hands knocking into it, so he’s pressed up against the wall, as far as he can get from Peter's hand.
“Ed?” His whisper is so small, so uncertain.
“Don’t touch me, leave me alone.” There's a bite to Ed’s voice, like frost. Ice.
Peter swallows hard, lowers his hand to his side, and for the first time all day something prickly and painful balls up in his throat. So he turns away himself, quickly, cold somehow, shivering as he crawls back under his covers.
Still he can hear Ed’s ragged breathing, and he can't see his brother's back through the dark, but he can feel it.
There's a chill in the air.
Like the wind heralding a storm.
Ed is on the other side of the room, and yet he feels far, far away. Peter doesn't know what it means, doesn't know what to do with that.
Peter closes his eyes in the dark, and he doesn't cry.