Sleep.
All George wanted to do was sleep.
Just close his eyes and drift off into nothingness.
He is so tired.
He hadn't slept in so long.
And he is
just
so
tired.
Because every time he closed his eyes all he could see was his brother's face staring back at him, forever frozen into an expressionless mask. Blood marring his temple, hair in disarray, eyes wide open and just….staring. Staring straight at him as if he was still alive and asking George why he didn't try harder, move faster, think quicker, do ANYTHING to save him. To save his twin. To protect his other half.
George had thought a lot about Fred after the battle was over. Remembered their childhood, their mum mixing up their names, meeting ickle-Ronniekin's new first year friends who became as good as blood, and ditching that hag Umbridge in what might possibly be one of the proudest moments of your lives second only to seeing the shop up and running. Because they had done that. Both of them had done those things. Together.
But now George's mum doesn't have the chance to mix their names up. George runs the shop alone. He had refused to hire any new help. Not because he wouldn't have appreciated someone helping him handle everything. But hiring new help would mean they would help him keep up with the accounting seeing as how he was complete rubbish at it, and Fred's spiky chicken scratch handwriting would be hidden behind pages of some new scrawl who wouldn't even blink at the carefully written numbers in the stores ledger.
Which reminds George of his empty flat. The rooms he used to share with his brother before he moved out of the Burrow. George had tried to stay in the flat that he and Fred lived in above the store but being exposed to that concentration of everything Fred had been to him was overwhelming. Charlie had come to fetch George for dinner a month after the final battle and found him almost catatonic in their shared living room surrounded by old notebooks that Fred had written in, carelessly taken pictures, and firewhiskey bottles. Mrs. Weasley had practically forbidden him from living on his own after that. The room he stays in now seems empty. It barely holds a trace of Fred, and George had barely made any impact on it either. The only sign that someone is living in the room is the bed's slightly wrinkled sheets and the dirty t-shirt that George had pulled off before making his nightly attempt at sleeping.
Even without anything to remind George of Fred he's still there. Hovering in corners that they used to hide in before attempting to grab Percy's head boy badge and turn it into something more befitting his personality, drifting through the pantry that they used to raid for midnight snacks, reclining at the foot of any bed George attempt to rest on. He's everywhere.
In the kitchen, in the store, in his bedroom, in the hallways, in the bathrooms, in the living room, in the streets, in the books he reads, in the songs George hears, in the food he eats, in the conversations he overhears, in the people he sees every day, in the flash of red hair he sees out of the corner of his eye when he turns a corner to fast.
Fred is everywhere.
And nowhere.
And all George wants to do is sleep.
… … ...&.. ... … ..imagine a line break here… … ...&… … … …
Fanfiction . net was having a minor melt down about line breaks so that's just going to have to do. I haven't written any fanfiction in about a million years because school is attempting to kill me. Hopefully this isn't crappy. The last few things I've posted on here haven't been exactly quality fanfics so maybe this'll turn things around. Hope you enjoyed it.