GLADIOLUS
A Willel ficlet
It’s late one night when El comes into Will’s room after a nightmare, it’s routine by now after a few years of living together as siblings. She’s laying in his bed, the warm light from his bedside lamp illuminating the room in a soft glow.
He doesn’t shut it off, he knows it helps her just as it does him.
The room is silent as he waits for her to speak first, if she wants to. He is no stranger to silent nights following nightmares, taking comfort only in the others presence. A sign that they are still here, that they won the war waged against them from the midst of their childhood, despite how it bled into their adolescence.
She runs a trembling finger across her wrist, her breath shakes with each inhale.
“I wish it would wash away.” Her voice shakes too, her words bitter to hear, he’s sure they’re even bitter to the taste.
His eyes land on the two black marks on her wrist, just an inch south of her palm. A cruel reminder of all she’s been through, a sick mark of trauma that has just barely faded with time.
“I hate it.” Her voice is softer now, her eyes drifting from her wrist to meet his. “I hate it, Will.”
He understands. He understands in the same way Jonathan understands, how Max understands, Nancy and Dustin.
Physical marks left on them. His scar on his hip from his possession, Nancy and Jonathan’s scars on their palms from cutting them to lure the Demogorgon, Max’s loss of vision and the slow of her mobility, Dustin’s limp from his leg never healing quite right.
The scars fade over time, sure, but hurt like an open wound at the slightest glance. They serve as a reminder of what was taken from them, stolen from their tiny grips like they ever stood a chance. Cruelty branded, a permanent mark everlasting on their bodies. On their minds.
His eyes drop to her wrist, his hand cupping hers gently as he runs a finger along the dark marks on her pale skin.
“Maybe, when you’re eighteen, you can get it covered up.” He says, looking up to see her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Her head is cocked to the side.
“Covered up? I can do that?” She looks down at her wrist, her eyes a little brighter now. “With more tattoos?”
“Sure, if that’s what you want.” He traces along the numbers again. “Would you?”
She smiles, a gentle yet genuine smile pulling at her cheeks. She nods. “But what would it be?”
“Anything you want.” Will adjusts in the bed, his blanket falling completely into his lap and pooling around his legs. “Something you find meaningful or, if you want, just something you think looks nice. Something you like.”
She thinks for a moment, silence stretching on as she stares at the mark on her skin. Her smile only widens as the seconds tick by. He knows that look, the sparkle in her eye shining iridescent in the low lighting of his bedroom.
“A flower?” El glanced up at him. “I like flowers.”
“Hold on.” He smiles, getting up from the bed and making his way over to his bookshelf. He searches for a moment, producing an old cloth-bound hardcover book, the golden accents shimmering in the dim lighting of his lamp, the title ‘The Language and Poetry Of Flowers’ glittering. “Did you know flowers can have meaning? Like, symbolization of different things.”
“Really?” His sister perks up then, craning her neck to see the book as he flips over the cover and carefully leafed through the pages. His eyes skim through the words as he glances up, nodding with a small smile.
“Really.” He stops at the page he was looking for, grinning a bit to himself. “Mom loved picking flowers from the meadow when she was little. Hawkins gets some pretty diverse kinds of wildflowers, so my grandma got her this book so she could learn what they meant. These ones were always her favorite, but they’re native to South Africa, so she only ever saw them through her book.”
He turns the book towards her, the page showing a mix of pink and red and yellow flowers. She stares in awe.
“Gladiolus?” She breathes, a gentle hand caressing the page.
“It’s Latin for sword,” He leans closer, his finger pointing out the text below the picture. “Some people believe Gladiators from Ancient Rome wore them as protection. But it’s also means strength and courage, to overcome. Just like you always do.”
“I love it.” El sniffs a little, her eyes wetter than they had been before. “It’s perfect, Will.”
He smiles, reaching over to his nightstand and ripping out a page from his sketchbook before marking the page and handing the book to her. “Here, so you have a reference when you decide to get it.”
“Could…” El chews on her lip, her fingers fidgeting with the corners of the book. “Could you draw it for me one day? I want it to be from you, if that’s okay.”
Her words twisted into his chest, squeezing around his heart like a warm hug. His face broke into a smile.
“Of course,” He says, taking the book back from her outstretched hands. “I’d love to.”
She smiles at him, laying back in the bed with an expression of serenity. Her hand fell from her wrist for the first time that night and suddenly, it felt like everything would be okay again.
60 notes
·
View notes
Never getting over the scene where Erzberger is discussing their next course of action with the other German politicians and generals, when one of them points out that with the coming winter and threat of Bolshevism, the soldiers are better off dying with honour on the battlefield than from starvation on the journey back.
Immediately, without even a moments hesitation, Erzberger cuts down that thought, slices through it like butter with a hot knife, because his son is 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥. He is below the ground, buried face down in a field hundreds of miles away from his family, left rotting in a sap trench, or maybe even burnt inside a nameless coffin, pallid and lifeless, his ashes floating in the wind only leaving behind a putrid scent.
His son is dead, and there is no honour in that. There is no comfort, no reprieve, no solace. Just a boy who died, nameless, and alone, out of thousands of others who have, or maybe will, suffer the same fate.
And so they sit, Erzberger's words hanging in the air - a tension so palpable you could reach out and 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩, settling between them.
They are reminded of the physical consequence of war. Men who sit in their comfortable chairs, eating meals made in courses instead of rationed in quick bites between battles, they are met with the tangible evidence of loss, and it is discomforting.
Erzberger sits, his point made, and the group less open about their reluctance to the armistice than they were in the beginning. Erzberger sits, but his son will never get the chance to again.
17 notes
·
View notes