A/N — Written for Assignment 6, Floristry: [task 4] Write about a trip down memory lane
"You need to rest," Susan says gently, resting her hand on Dennis' shoulder, wanting to pull him into a hug but unsure if that was what he needed right now.
Theirs was an unusual friendship, built upon too much loss, too much responsibility, all at such a young age. There were few good moments they shared; they hadn't really known each other before. Before all the fear and fighting, before the hate spread so far that those like Susan and those like Dennis had to run and hide just to survive.
Denis turns the page of his photo album, seemingly not hearing her.
It had been a gift, something they'd created for him out of his brothers many boxes of old photos. Something to remember the boy who was taken far too young in a war that he should not have had a part in fighting. But as the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, as the calendars rolled over to a new year, Dennis had rarely put down the photo album.
But it was worn now, the pages curling at the corners, the plastic sheeting holding the photos in place yellowing and lifting up, allowing the photos to slide about within their protective covering.
"Dennis," Susan whispers. "Please. You can't live like this." He only shakes his head in response, sniffing loudly. He doesn't wipe at his eyes, and thought they are red-rimmed, Susan can tell that there are no tears. He hasn't cried in a long time, but that does not mean he is okay.
She wants to say, "This isn't what Colin would want," because despite not having known Colin particularly well, she knows he would not have wished to see his brother like this, but she knows Dennis well enough now to understand this is not what he wants to hear. Not what he needs to hear.
Instead, she sits down beside him, back leaning against the wall and legs stretched out in front of her, and with a quiet, "May I?" she pulls the photo album so that it is spread across both their laps.
She points at a picture, two boys with capes made from bedsheets and wooden spoon swords pose dramatically, standing on their beds. The room around them is in the type of disarray that only comes from a game well played, and their faces are bright with laughter. It's an old muggle photo, the two little boys frozen in their frame, but it's beautiful in its simplicity, this captured moment. "Tell me about this picture," she whispers, the moment feeling too private for normal voices despite the two of them being the only ones in the room. "What game were you playing?"
Dennis sniffs again, but he cracks a smile. A broken smile on the face of a broken boy, but Susan is so very glad to see it.
"We were pirates," he says, releasing a shaky laugh. "The Two Terrors of the Seven Seas." He rests his head into the crook of Susan's shoulder, curling into her side as she turns the page, pointing to the next photo. Another frozen moment, the same two boys, slightly older. One is missing a tooth, grinning proudly to show it off, and the other is pulling faces in the background.
She's settling into the rhythm now, of this familiar activity; she feels as if she were there during the moment each of these photographs was taken, as if she had experienced it all along with these two boys she wished she'd known when they were happy and healthy and whole.
But still, she asks, "And tell me this story?"
Because it may not be good for him, always reliving these moments, always living in the past, but this is what Dennis needs right now, and Susan will do whatever she can for him.