Work Text
After Dunkirk, Peter is lost. He’s lost, and he’s lost everything.Most nights he wakes up in a cold sweat, a name on his lips that makes him want to scream. He doesn’t. The nightmares are bad. What’s worse is when he dreams.
Peter is gazing off, full of worry, when a tap on the arm breaks his trance. George is smiling up at him from where he lays on the bright hardwood. “Hey,” he says excitedly, “I can see you! I can see again!” Peter, overwhelmed with relief, breaks out in a grin. He can’t help but notice for the millionth time that George’s eyes are the color of the sea. “Oh that’s fantastic! Do you feel better then?” “Loads. Still got a bit of a headache-” Peter shoots him a worried glance “-but I can see and I think I’ll be fine, really,” George concludes. Peter couldn't have asked for better news. He had been so scared, so frightened by what the outcome might be. But George is okay. He’s going to make it. George is alive.
He’s not. Peter wakes up and screams this time. He screams because it’s not fair and he doesn’t understand why the most important person in his life was taken from him when they had so much left to see. George, who was always eager to help anyone and everyone. George, who always saw the bright side of things. George, who was only seventeen. George, who he loves. Loved. Peter screams.His mother rushes in first and she’s crying, because she already lost one son to the war and now she’s losing another to grief. His father follows behind with a sad look in his eyes, knowing that in the morning he’ll walk down to the pier alone again because Peter, who’d been lending a hand on their boat since he could crawl, can’t even stand to look at it anymore. His mother holds him and tries to wipe his tears away, and he’s stopped screaming and he’s asking “why him why him why him” and his mother is answering that she doesn’t know and that she’s so sorry. It’s not her fault. After that he tries not to sleep.It’s a sunny day when Peter finally brings himself to leave the house. He starts walking with no destination in mind, through a town that he’s known all his life but has never felt stranger to. Soon enough he can hear the crash of waves and the ocean comes into view. He stands there and stares for a long time. The color reminds him of someone’s eyes.