I totally owned second-person perspective in this story. Totally.

Written for English class. Had to take a picture from the 1800s-1930s and write a story about the people in it.

Inspiration taken from the song "Michelangelo" by Emmylou Harris.

I dreamed about you the night before you came home. You sat by a river that ran through a field full of the greenest grass and the whitest daisies I had ever seen. The river was crystal clear as it rolled over the round rocks on its bed.

You gazed at the water, your eyes blank, but still yours. I wanted to reach out to you, to welcome you home with open arms, but I could not move. Your beauty in the sunlight overwhelmed me, and I simply stared at you.

- - -

When I awoke that morning – the morning you came home – I was smiling even before I opened my eyes. I sat up in bed and read your last letter, addressed only a couple of weeks previously. You had told me you were coming home, that the war was over and Paris had been won. You promised that I would be the first person to see you aside from your mother.

My classes that day at university ticked by slowly with each movement of the hand on the clock. One year, thirteen months, whatever you want to call it – it was over. What I have learned in that time; but it means nothing beside what you have seen and experienced.

The clock finally moved to three and announced the end of the day. I crossed the courtyard, my bag over my shoulder. I tried not to seem too excited to leave, not to interested in something outside my studies. The one time I lifted my eyes from my shoes, I saw you, waiting for me on the other side of the field. I began to run then, not expecting the rush of emotion and excitement.

You still had your pack on your back, your hat on your head – you must have come straight from the shipyard. You were thin, your face gaunt. Something about your eyes was different, too, but that did not matter: You embraced me anyway, in a way no two men should, but that did not matter, either.

"I've missed you, Scottie," you said, and I knew you meant it.

"I'm so glad you're home," I said. I smiled into your shoulder, then let you go. For a few moments, we simply stared at each other, perfectly content to be seeing one another again.

"Come on," you said at last. "My mother wants me home before dinner tonight."

We began to walk as I said, "It's only a few miles to get home. Nothing you can't handle, Soldier."

You smiled, but I noticed something tense in the gesture.

"What was Prussia like?" I asked. Your accent did not register for me any longer; you were as American as I was, not a Prussian immigrant.

"Beautiful, just like I remembered it." You shifted the strap over your shoulder. "It felt so good to see the hills and the sea again." I watched your face, your distant eyes, and wished I had been able to go with you. The way you spoke of your birthplace painted a beautiful image in my mind, the brush held by you, my precious Michelangelo.

"Are you going to go back when you get out of university?" I asked.

You sighed and smiled at me. "I don't know. Maybe."

I watched the path we walked for a few minutes. "What was the war like?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." Your voice was grave, so I did not press the subject. I watched you from the corner of my eye, searching for any sign of what you may have been thinking when your tone told me everything I needed to know. "How's Jim?" you asked, changing the subject to ease the tension.

"He's fine," I replied. "Doing everything an older brother should do. I haven't heard from him in a while, and I honestly don't care to. He wanted to move away, so he can live with not hearing from me."

"You two never got along, not even when we were younger." You almost laughed, no doubt remembering the awkward days my brother had spent watching over us.

I shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I like it better this way."

There was another pause in our conversation. I guess we had said everything in our letters, and I voiced this thought to you.

"Nah," you replied. "We just like to enjoy the silence out here in nature." You were gazing around at all the plant life and trees that surrounded the path, the fields and deer and rabbits. You were no doubt listening to the birds in the trees, always with that musical mind of yours.

We walked in silence the rest of the way home, to our small town where you were sure to be welcomed like a hero. I could tell you had some apprehensions about returning: As the victor of the war, you would be looked upon with some sense of scorn by those who supported France more than a citizen of their own town.

But you did not seem to care. You were home, and that was all that mattered.

"I've missed these streets," you said as we walked through town. You were smiling, a spark of your old self returning to your eyes. I watched your eyes flick around the scenery. "This place is so different from Berlin, so much smaller."

"This place isn't Europe," I said.

"I know, but we were stationed in a town this size over there, and it still looked different." You dropped your eyes, clenching your jaw. "I think I'm going to go home," you said. "The boat ride tired me out."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

You nodded, and we went our separate ways.

- - -

I dreamed about you that night. You walked along the path from university to home, alone. Something about your face told me you were upset, bothered by something not immediately evident to me.

Slowly, the sky grew dark, eclipsing out the sunlight until a crack of thunder announced the arrival of rain. You seemed to enjoy it, closing your eyes and tilting your face to meet it. Your dark hair stuck to your face, something you never liked – something was wrong.

Suddenly, you dropped to the muddy path, your eyes darting around. The woods dissolved into fire: flames and crackling, far to close for comfort. I tried to yell, to cry out your name, my dear Michelangelo, but you could not hear me. I wished you could, if only to know that I was there with you.

You rolled into a ditch, curling into a ball and covering your head as you waited for the fire to come. Still, you whispered to yourself. Something I could not hear, nor did I think I would ever hear.

Eventually, the fires were quelled by the rain, leaving you behind in the middle of a sea of ash and dust and mud.

- - -

That day was Saturday, the night a celebration for yours and others' safe return. It was a brisk night beneath a clear May sky – no sign of the rain from my dream. I did not tell you about that dream. I preferred to keep it quiet to not upset you. I had no idea how you would react.

"Scottie," you said. I looked at you, drawn from my thoughts. You wore your favorite hat, part of your refusal to wear your military uniform to the celebration in town square. The red-brown band around the brim brought out your copper eyes, nearly molten by the excitement I saw there. You were really glad to be home, almost relieved in a sense. "Where were you just now?"

I smiled. "Nowhere." We walked along tables filled with treats and drinks, stealing small sips of alcohol when our mothers were not looking. "This is great." I held up a cup of cider to toast you. "Welcome home, Michael."

You tapped your glass against mine and we drank. Your mother came up behind you then, and I motioned for you to give me your glass. I hid it behind my back with my own cup, and casually set them on a table as I moved beside you to talk with your mother.

"Mein Schatz," she said, hugging you with tears in her eyes. "Willkommen zurück. Ich leibe dich." Her German, I could never understand. She spoke so fast, unlike you; you slow down your speech so I can pick up on words.

You wrapped your arms around her, trying not to breath in the direction of her face. "Ich lasse dich nicht weider." You held her for a while longer until she pulled back and looked at you.

"Komm," she said, and took your hand to lead you to where a crowd had gathered. I followed, and we soon stood in the front of the crowd, looking up at a man who stood on a table. This was your moment to shine, to let the town know of your heroism. I glanced at your face, and you seemed to have realized, but I did not see the joy I would have expected.

"Welcome, citizens," the man on the table said. He spread his arms wide as if to engulf us all. "Tonight, we celebrate the return of two brave war veterans who have just returned from the Franco-Prussian War in Europe. There, they were enemies. Here, they are brothers."

You looked down, and I tapped your arm in a silent, concerned gesture. You smiled at me and returned your eyes to the man.

"François Delabrière and Otto Fürst," he continued, using the name strangers call you; "we thank you and toast you for the duty you have shown to your own countries, so far from home." He raised a glass someone had handed him and toasted the air, then drank.

I laid a hand on your back in congratulation and you jumped, startled out of whatever reverie you were lost in. Your smile was weak as you took me by the wrist and led me out of the crowd.

"Are you okay, Michael?" I asked as we moved down the street, nearly empty now.

You turned to me. "Why did we never court?"

My eyes widened. "I don't know what you mean," I said slowly, knitting my eyebrows slightly. If only you meant what I hoped you meant, my world would be complete. You could take your paintbrush to new heights and never let it come back down.

You took me by the front of my jacket and moved us between two houses, where I leaned against the wall. "You know what I mean, Scottie. Our letters this past year? You can't tell me they were just between friends. I told you things I would not even tell my mother. Tell me why."

"Michael…" I folded my arms across my chest and looked back at the street. For a minute, I did not speak. I looked at you when I did: "We could be shot, Michael. We could be hurt. I don't even want to think about what could happen to me, let alone to you." I paused and looked over your left shoulder. "I don't know what it's like in Europe now, but it's different here."

"Ich leibe dich." You barely let me finish my sentence before you spoke, your voice rich with emotion. "Do you know what that means?"

I did, my beautiful Michelangelo: I love you. It means I love you. I could not tell you, though; I could barely breathe – and that temporary moment of weakness was when you kissed me, and I realized just how much I had missed you while you were gone.

You rested your forehead against mine, both our eyes closed. My fingers played with the hair on the back of your neck, and I breathed the scent of you slowly. This was true peace – but something in the way you held me showed that you were not quite so calm.

"Tell me about the war, Michael," I said.

"What?" You pulled back and looked at me quizzically.

"You're not talking about it," I explained. "What happened to you over there?"

You swallowed thickly, your eyes fixed on mine. "Scottie," you said as you brushed hair out of my face, "can you save me?"

"From what?" Your eyes were so sad, so pained – I wanted to take your fears away forever.

"From these images." You closed your eyes and shook your head as if to clear your mind. "From what I've seen and heard and done. I can get the mud or the dark or the fright out of my mind. I want it gone. Ich willst es verschwinden." Your voice cracked and you rested your head on my shoulder and cried. I held you tightly, lighting your dark and scaring away your monsters.

"Is there somewhere we can go to talk it out?" I asked after a while. Any minute, the townspeople would begin to leave, and I was not quite ready to let go of you yet. "Why don't we go to your house?"

You nodded, and we walked to your house in silence. I found myself glancing at you often, making sure your face stayed the stony mask you had put on when your head left my shoulder. I wanted so badly to put a hand on your back or an arm around your waist, but people began to walk behind us, and I was not that bold. You probably would have been, had your veins not been marble and your heart fragile glass.

At your house, we locked ourselves in your bedroom and sat on the floor. I listened as you spoke, comforted you when you broke down, tried to smile as you told of the Prussian troops' mud fights in the middle of the rainy nights. My broken Michelangelo, why did those things have to happen to you? You had been a simple artist before you had left, and you had come back secretly shattered.

Your mother knocked when it was time for dinner, but you said something in German and she left us be. She did not know what was going on in your head, and you said she did not need to. You did not want to worry her with that you called your "petty war stories."

Eventually, night fell, and we had moved from the war to lighter topics of conversation. I yawned as you told a story about a friend you had had before you had moved from Prussia.

"I'm not boring you, am I?" you asked.

"No," I replied, smiling.

You patted your lap and I laid down, your warmth engulfing me even as I stretched out. You continued your story and I listened as long as I could, until your gentle hand on my shoulder lulled me to sleep.

- - -

That night, I dreamed you were an angel, flying high above the clouds. Your wings were white, but flecked with grey all the same. You seemed driven by something, your gaze determined and your fists clenched. The sun cast a shadow across your face as you flew away from it.

Suddenly, your wings began to shred. They yellowed and crumpled and broke apart into fragments of papers, of the letters you wrote me while you were away. The scraps drifted gently downwards, but you fell. Like a rock, you began to plummet to the ground – but you seemed to accept it: You rolled to your back and closed your eyes, letting the wind take you as you made yourself aerodynamic.

I screamed your name, some disembodied voice, and you opened your eyes and looked directly at me. Your gaze was intense as two angels swept in from either side, catching you as scraps of paper fell around you.

Your wings disappeared completely as the angels lowered you through the clouds and toward the ocean below. As quickly as they had appeared, the angels let go of you and you dropped some thirty feet into the water, never looking away from me.

- - -

My mother said she was not worried about me when I never went home for dinner. She told me she understood that I wanted to spend time with you, but she did not really understand. She could not know your stories or our feelings for each other, and she certainly could not know that we planned to run away when we both graduated university.

I would have to return to my classes Monday, so we spent most of Sunday together. There was a definite change in you: your eyes were brighter and your laugh more genuine. I found myself falling even more in love with your smile and the way your accent sounded. As far as we were concerned, we belonged to each other, and no one could take that away from each other. We would escape to a place where no one knew us, where we could start over, just you and I – Scottie and Michelangelo, destined for the stars when daylight ceased to exist.

"We could go to Canada," you said.

"We would have to learn French," I replied, laughing. We walked along the path between university and our town, an area that was deserted enough for me to hold your hand like letting go would cause a great chasm to erupt between us.

"We don't have to go to Québec," you said. "But we'd miss out on that fine French culture."

"What's a little wine and caviar?" I let go of your hand and faced you, wrapping my arms around your neck.

"Nothing but luxuries," you said, resting your hands on my waist. You pulled me into a drastically simplified waltz. "And the dances under an Indian moon, dressed in outfits fit for kings, listening to an orchestra playing Bach and Mozart while you rest your head on my shoulder and wish the night would never end."

I smiled at the thought, gazing into your copper eyes that seemed to glow with prospect. I stole a kiss from your lips, and your eyes became warm.

"But we don't need that," you went on. "Because we have each other, and we always will."

A loud bang rang out then, and it took a moment for me to realize that it was a gunshot. I looked wildly around, holding on to your arms tightly. Where the shot had come from, we needed to make sure we were out of danger.

In the direction of home, I spotted my brother, shotgun raised. "Jim," I said. "What are you doing?"

"Scottie." Your voice sounded horrible, strained and out of breath. I looked at you, and you were staring at me, holding my arms tightly. The muscles in your jaw were tight, your breath ragged. Slowly, you dared yourself to look down; my eyes followed.

You were shot, your shirt stained red already. You sent a brief glare Jim's way, then collapsed to the path.

"No," I said, catching your head before it hit the ground. "No, no, no. Michael."

You sucked in each breath carefully, trying not to harm the wound in your precious body. You stared at me, your eyes anguished. How I wished I could take your pain away again, just like in your room the night before.

"Jim," I called to my brother, daring to take my eyes from yours. Jim lowered the shotgun and simply watched us. "Go get the doctor, Jim."

He seemed to scoff at me, leaning casually on the shotgun while you lay dying in my arms.

"Please, Jim," I cried. But he did not move. I wanted to swear at him, to curse him back to where he had come. My mother had told me he would be arriving that day to welcome the veterans back. He had probably found us here, where he had watched us play back when we were children.

I propped you up on my leg and you let your head rest in the crook of my elbow. "Hold on, Michael," I said to you. "Someone will find us. Someone will come. You'll be okay and we can go to Canada and dance and eat caviar."

"Don't forget the wine," you said, your voice weak. Your eyes were growing distant with each moment that passed, but you still tried to focus. You kept your eyes locked on mine, and I feared that if you blinked, you would be gone.

I laughed, the sound strangled as my eyes welled. "How could I forget the wine?" I looked at Jim once more, pleading one last time: "Please, Jim." He simply shook his head and began to walk away.

You reached up and put your hand on my shoulder, letting it move down my arm until you grasped my hand. For a moment, you bared your teeth, then your body relaxed in my arms. "I'm sorry, Scottie," you said, your voice barely a shaky whisper.

"No, Michael," I said. You blinked then – a long motion – and I feared you would not open your eyes again. But you did, and they were weak. So weak. "Ich leibe dich," I whispered.

"Ich auch," you replied. You stared at me for a few more moments, then your eyes closed, and I knew you were gone.

I let out a yell, but even that did not stop the strange sort of pain raising up inside me, one that was not real but felt more deadly than the bullet that pierced your flesh. I held your body close, sobbing as I rocked back and forth, back and forth.

My precious Michelangelo, painted red by your own blood.

- - -

Last night, I dreamed about you. You laid in a field of pure white daisies, engulfed by their swaying mass. I knelt beside you, watching over you but not quite touching you. Your eyes were closed, and I knew you were dying even as your chest continued to rise and fall with slow, shallow breaths. Above us, a hawk let out a lonely cry, one I have echoed many times these past few days.

I laid down next to you and took your hand, stroking your skin slowly. You were dressed in a robe as white as the daisies around us, no trace of blood or pain anywhere on your body.

You were peaceful, moving on to the next stage of your life in the most beautiful place I had ever seen.

- - -

Two days have passed, my lonely Michelangelo. Your grave sits before me like some strange marble shrine, and damp dirt wets my knees as I kneel on the ground. I have barely spoken to anyone since you died, but I have heard enough talk around town.

Jim came only because he had heard that you were back. His fiancée's brother had been killed in the war, fighting for the French, and she had returned to the country to be with her family. Jim could not stand for that. He could not go on, knowing that the "one who killed him" still lived.

You always said he did not like you, that you would rather roll in a mud puddle than be under his watchful eye. He did not have to hurt you, though. He could have gone to France with his fiancée if he loved her so much. What reasoning led him to you? The Prussian army killed her brother and you were the one he shot? He killed you so does that mean I have the right to shoot him? I do not know.

Your mother gave me a letter that she found in your room. It has my name on it in your neat handwriting. I have not been able to open it, to afraid of what memories and emotions it may bring up.

But I must read it. I owe you that much.

- - -

Scottie,

I hope this letter never makes it to you. I simply needed a place to write down my thoughts without speaking.

I dreamed about you many times since I came home, always the same dream. You sit beside a river, your elbows resting on your raised knees. You lean against a large tree that casts you into its shade. You're weeping, but for what, I cannot tell you. You let your tears fall down your cheeks, where they drip from your chin to your lap.

I am not there. I cannot speak to you, no matter how hard I try. I open my mouth to say something, but my voice is gone. Does that mean that I am gone? That I am what you are crying for?

The dream scares me. I do not know what to make of it, whether I should be frightened or not. But let me tell you, Scottie: I am scared. I am scared to death. For myself, for you. I do not know what to do except write this letter that will never see your eyes. That way, I know nothing will happen to me. With you, nothing can happen to me.

Michael