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“Maybe, this is it.”
Dream looks down confused at George, his eyes glazed over with a tranquil smile, virtuous and radiant with the moon’s gentle symphony.
“What is?”
“Us,” George sighs, his mellow breath fogging up the air, “Maybe this is all we’ve ever wanted.”
Dream chuckles softly, red cheeks tear-ridden like a river carved against his skin.
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted you to die.”
George’s face is pale as Dream traces his features ever so slightly, just barely grazing the surface of his cold skin. He’s scared that just a touch will shatter the fragile frame of the man laying before him. Can he hold him tighter before time is up? Or will he crumble and slip away like sand in an hourglass between his helpless arms?
Dream doesn’t want to find out.
Warmth in the form of the brightest red spreads across George’s now-stained shirt, creating a dark, condensed center around the arrow punctured into his chest.
(Their polar temperatures dance like the moon and sun embracing each other under the hypnotic hum of the pouring rain.)
“I don’t think I would have wanted me to die either,” George’s chest heaves unsteadily as he coughs up a weary laugh, “but look.”
With what remaining strength he has left, raises a heavy arm to the dotted sky—as if he were simply catching the stars, their gentle light pooling over his fingers and into his fading eyes.
Dream tilts his head up, following George’s outstretched hand.
“What do you mean?” he whispers in a low voice, trembling. The gleaming white lights glow passionate and bright, patterning the night sky with ubiquitous freckles.
Breathlessly, George responds, “Those stars in the sky are already gone. What we are seeing is their dying light, their last, beautiful goodbye to us.” He turns his head towards Dream, “And this is my last goodbye, to you.”
Dream chokes back a sob, “But what if I don’t want to say goodbye?”
His chest rages like a bonfire in the night, the smoke entangling in his throat like vines, hot and fiery, and excruciatingly agonizing. He can barely make out a sound. It feels like his heart is being twisted, thorns wrapping themselves around and digging nature’s barbed wires deep until it is buried in the depths of his soul.
George gazes warmly into Dream’s eyes as he cups his burning face tenderly, setting his heart ablaze.
“You know, I never really disliked being colourblind much. I didn’t know what I was missing, and I didn’t care for it either,” he rubs his thumb gingerly across Dream’s right cheek, wiping away a fresh tear. Dream gently leans into George’s slender hand, cold to the touch.
With a voice almost inaudible, Dream murmurs, “But…?”
“But,” George breathes softly, running his fingers through Dream’s hair and trailing down his jawline, “I wish I could drown in your eyes. See them in their true beauty. Like everyone else sees them.”
Dream inhales sharply, “They’re just a murky green colour.”
“But they’re yours. And that’s what makes them so beautiful.”
George’s heartfelt words linger in the quiet air. It cloaks the moonlit atmosphere with a bittersweet aftertaste. Every single last second is sacred.
Breaking out into tears, Dream’s defence falters and he sobs out, “George, I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to have to wake up tomorrow and realise that you’re no longer beside me, because you don’t have a tomorrow anymore.”
Dream’s body shakes furiously with each breath he takes into his burning lungs, letting out a heart-shattering sob occasionally. His partner, his best friend, his soulmate , resting in his arms as life just slowly seeps out of him with every passing second. He can feel George getting weaker and weaker, the colour progressively draining out of his skin, his eyelids fluttering up and down like velvet curtains closing at the end of the show. But time continues ticking down.
There’s never enough time.
George delicately hums out a gentle reply, “I’m sorry that I can’t stay, as much as you know I would love to.”
He squeezes Dream’s rough, calloused hand as tight as he can. He knows that this will be his final moments with the man he’s spent a lifetime together with.
George exhales a shaky breath matched with a smile so full of love. “But I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
“What, in my arms?” Dream replies with a weak grin, smile lines engraved deep like cracks into his skin.
“Home,” George whispers. "Safe. God, I'm safe. There's... there's nowhere I'd rather be right now, Dream."
He smiles one last time and breathes out, "Thank you, for being home."
The wind pricks their skins as George’s body runs cold. It is quick and subtle, like it never even happened in the first place. His hand drops to the earthy floor with a quiet thud. Blood pools onto the soft ground, dying the grass and staining the dirt with a rich crimson red. Dream watches through a blurry lens as the person whom he has dedicated his entire life to—just floating away like a dandelion with a wish made on it.
George’s final words are imprinted vividly in Dream’s brain, repeating itself over and over again, echoing with a thunderous ring in his ears. It remains eternal and ethereal, forever untainted in Dream’s memories, just as pure as the angel’s mercy.
The silence that follows is harrowing. It’s as if the world has stopped and lost all its colour and beauty. The only sounds that follow are the crickets chirping into the deep, dark midnight, and the deafening wails of a broken man who’s lost the one person where ‘home’ can ever exist in.
But the world keeps on spinning and the sun still rises in the end. The trees will shake against the wind, flowers will bloom without him. The moon comes and goes with stars decorating the sky, forever different from today’s.
George is gone, but his light isn't. It burns, burns, in Dream like the very same stars that no longer exist in the sky. As long as Dream keeps that light aflame, George will be remembered through Dream's darkest nights, showing him the way home.
(Time is endless. It is unbiased and will continue ticking down whether you desperately want it to stop or not. Death is not unfair, it is the silk ribbon you pass through at the finish line. It congratulates and welcomes you with open arms as it does for everybody else.
Death is not a punishment, but simply the dot that ends everyone’s story. )