#AGSHDHFKGLHLHLJLLJ the whole time u kno

[westywallowing]

a small one-shot that goes with my dnf comic here, based off of @taxolotl fanart and idea :)

"you like music, don't you George?"

george looks up at the sudden question.

"Yes, I'd say I do. why do you ask?"

XD runs his fingers over the flowers, small fairies gently nudging his hands back in hello. the sun cascades over his hair and wings, making them glow like starlight. "Music is a very human invention," his face is devoid of any imperfections, bare of the familiar freckles and scars that litter the similar face of another, as he speaks. "Gods have no need for it."

He tilts his head. "But that melody you hum to yourself. Why does it get stuck in my head?"

He hums a few bars and George looks to him sharply, his eyes and lungs and head filling with longing and heartache. but gods such as XD don't understand heartache.

"Why do I know the words? like a long lost memory?" He asks, lifting a small flower fairy into his palm.

"I'll swim and sail on savage seas," he sings quietly. "With never a fear of drowning."

George's hands begin to tremble at the familiar words, they drive needles into his lungs like fire. XD continues without pause.

"And gladly ride the waves of life,"

His image flickers, and suddenly George is transported several years back. Before the fighting, before the war, before the torn bonds. When they just were.

The image flickers, and suddenly there is no longer a God in front of him, but merely a man. A man with a once big smile, and even bigger heart.

"If you would marry me." the man in his memories would sing. Oh, how he longed to hear him again.

In his treasured memory, he recalls the next verse spilling from his own lips. They were filled with sunlight and saccharin melodies. "No scorching sun nor freezing cold," past George recites, reaching a hand to run down his lovers cheek. "will stop me on my journey."

and then it disappears. it fades away in dusts of time and winds of sadness. and then he's back, basking in the presence of an ancient being who sang the melody of his other half.

"If you will promise me your heart," XD sings, but it sounds like he's coming to an end. George knows that it isn't the end. Whether that means the end of the song or something else, maybe he will never know. But the song isn't over, and it begs him to finish it.

"And love," he whispered, breath hitching.

In the distance, past fields of grain and groves of trees, through walls of steel dripping in purple glow, he swore he could hear it. the last verse.

"And love me for eternity." a voice sang, one achingly familiar. one devoid of grace after having come so obsessed with obtaining it. now reduced to what he always was. human.

but George heard him. he believes that he'll always hear him, forever.