Dear Dream

Day 3: Flowers

“I promise you. I promise I’ll come back.”

He promises, George thinks wistfully. He promises such a thing- to offer George with his word on something, to uphold it. It’s as if he’s saying that he’ll give the world to him, just for him. But somewhere is the lingering thought in George's mind is that he won't come back. That the cruel war that had riddled their land will take him too, and he will be left wonted and worry worn. George shivers at the thought.

“You promise?”

That you’ll come home to me?

And as if he heard those unspoken words. Dream beams at him.

“I promise. You won’t even notice that I was gone, my love.”

George releases a wet and broken laugh at the cheesy pet name. Dream does too before pulling him back into his embrace.

They stay there for a bit. The war can wait.

“I promise I’ll be waiting.”

(or, the war au with letters and oscar wilde quotes.)
George meets Dream on a cold winter day in the middle of world war two.

George strolled past the towering shelves filled to the brim with books, eyes scanning the tall and sleek mahogany wood housing the hundreds of paperbound knowledge. His steps echo across the almost barren walls, every click of his heel reverberated in his ear.

No one visits the library that often anymore, not ever since the war started anyways.

He closes off to a section by the end of the aisle for kids books. He takes in a deep inhale, the comforting scent of worn paper and something familiar to grass, filling his nose as it soothes the aching muscles in his body, the tension leaving his bones.

He doesn’t get why people don’t go here anymore.

Sure, people have found their own ways of coping during this heinous time. He’s seen men at street corners downing bottles of whiskey, to avoid the fact that their sons are getting bombed outside the border of their land. He pretends not to notice the women gouging themselves in their houses as they seek each other’s company whilst their husbands drink their sorrows. He watches the children run about in the center, blissfully unaware of everything around them.

Everyone has their way of getting through the war.