No Bravery | dunkirk au

The Whirling Ways of Stars That Pass

December 5th, 1943:

Alex had never known what it meant to be in love.

His whole life, Alex had only heard about love: his parents - his mother, mostly - had always referred to it whenever they talked about Alex's future; one of the quotes Alex had heard a lot while growing up had been "When you'll fall in love, then you will know...", over and over again. The two weren't the most effusive people when it came to showing their love to outsiders: conventions, customs and traditions had convinced everyone from a tender age that public displays of affection were to be considered tacky and pertaining to a lower social class, made of rough and crude.

But in the privacy of their own home, the Coxs would sometimes let go of the thick glaze that covered the British middle class and dared to show bits and pieces of the unadulterated young love that had tied them when they were both 18. A rush, a glance, a touch, a smile, a laugh, the fixing of a tie, a loving pat on the shoulder, hands held tight over the table during dinner.

For a long time, Alex had thought that love would've shown itself in his life underneath those forms: whenever his mother started talking about his future and how different life would've been when he would've finally fallen in love with a girl, Alex would always start seeing himself - or an idealised version of himself, to be precise - sitting at a dinner table, holding hands with an unknown woman - most of the times it was always a brunette, like his mommy - and eating a roast dinner.

Growing up - around the age of 11, to be precise - Alex had understood that love wasn't only made up of those things. It happened gradually, not all at once, but slowly he started seeing that there was something in his parents' eyes: it was like a small glint shining right in the middle of their pupils, whenever they were looking at each other, guarding over each other or simply talking about each other.

Then Alex had started to understand that the gestures he had witnessed and dreamed about experiencing one day with his own wife were a direct consequence of the glint. The love his parents felt for each other showed itself in the glint Alex would catch a glimpse of, from time to time, and got transferred to the physical gestures.

Love was stored in those gestures.

Too bad for Alex, his father wasn't very good at the 'feelings' talk. Alex had kept growing up without knowing how to recognize when that same glint would've started showing in his eyes. Hell, he didn't even know how the love that should've produced that sparkle in his eyes was supposed to feel. Or taste like, even.

He had tried asking his classmates, once or twice, disguising the question as something else, just so they wouldn't have mad fun of him or called him a 'girl' for wanting to know about such wimp things.

But much to his displeasure, all of his friends didn't really care for those things: everything they cared about was finding some girls that didn't care about social norms as much as their parents would've liked them to, and have some fun with them. With no intention of marrying them, of course.

Thinking that would've been a way to perhaps have a shot at lighting the match that would've fueled the glint in his eyes - the Love-Glint, Alex secretly called it - Alex had started following in on his friends steps. He would always go for the girls he found prettier, the ones that made his lower stomach clench a bit.

Not all of them were up to the games he copied from his classmates, but those who were would always giggle a lot and twist their hair's locks with their index fingers. The thing had gone on for a couple of years, since Alex was 16 to when he turned 18.

Then things had started to change again.

His friends had started to fall in love. The real type of love, the one Alex had been observing inside of his home. The one that would give you a glint in your eyes and make you want to hold hands with someone over a dining table at night.