The best ideas come to you at 3 am. Another Post-SBurb/SGrub-Sadstuck, this time with a focus on the kids. Didn't turn out as I hoped it would, but I like it and I really hope you enjoy it!
They're celebrating.
They don't have any music, but they dance anyway to the beat of their hearts that are soaring. Gray hands intertwine with pale pink ones, two universes, two races united through victory and friendship. Laughs and sobbing fill the air just to get lost within the rhythm of feet drumming and hearts singing.
There are no more obstacles no more killers and no more Time Lords to rain on their parade and when they look upwards, their imagination paints the endless nothingness with sparkling stars.
It sinks in; they'll go back home home home.
They're so young but have died thousand deaths and carry their battle scars with pride back home home home. They are the glorious warriors of a battle and they'll carry their victory within their hearts back home home home. Knights in shining armor, Heirs in gowns, Seers in robes, Witches in magical dresses.
Oh they're young and they're glorious.
Your name is JOHN EGEBERT.
You're outside, washing your car as you have done for over an hour or so already; the vehicle's been clean for almost just as long, yet you want to be sure you washed away every spec of dirt.
"Hey Dad, I'm going over to Jessica now. See ya!" your daughter calls as she walks past you and the flowerbed of roses. You named her Vriska. (It reminds you of spiders and fairies and of distant universes.) With a sigh you look up from your work to watch her skipping over to your neighbor's house, her blonde hair bouncing with every step. She has beautiful cerulean eyes.
Now you can barely concentrate on your task again, getting lost in your daydreams again. Your daughter's quite something, probably because she's a Scorpio.
Once she came home from a friend with her hair colored cerulean with water colors and matching blue lips. You suppose you should've scolded her, but instead you bought her cerulean fairy wings at the mall and magic-8-ball. (Because magic rules, science is bullshit. Your daughter's a pretty and dangerous fairy.)
She got in trouble for bullying other kids at her school, yet you didn't reprimand her, you embraced her and told her that if anything was bothering her, she could talk to you about it. (You believe you recall a cerulean girl once baring her vulnerable side to you, the one she hid underneath gray skin and blue smirks.)
There were small notes hidden everywhere for her to find, full of words of support and paternal affection. Your wife thinks of this habit as odd, but something nagging at the back of your head tells you that Vriska will be delighted to open the notes and see their content. (You always were and you miss a love you can't remember with a heartbreaking intensity.)
All in all, you are content with your life. You have a regular job and a wonderful family. There is no reason for you to complain. Why is there this weird sadness that overcomes you when you crane your neck up to the sky to look at the sea of stars then?
Something is missing; so many holes in your childhood memories. That has never been an issue though. You grew out of trying to chase down the things lost. Did you?
After dinner and watching the news, you retreat to bed. There's tiredness and wistfulness weighing you down into the land of dreams filled with (do you remem8er me do you remem8er me do you remem8er me no I don't remember you who are you did you forget?) fairies.
Your name is ROSE LALONDE.
On quiet winter nights like this, you go downstairs into your living room, equipped with either writing utensils or her knitting needles. The roaring fire in your chimney reflects on the tall windowpanes, setting the forest beyond them aflame. The sight fills you with sense of nostalgia you long gave up on trying to analyze.
Tonight you decide to continue knitting that hoodie you have been working on for a while now. Three have been completed already, in blues, yellow and orange, shades of red. This one is black with a simple white design on the front. You aren't one for fashion, you have the feeling the elaborate designs should be entrusted to women who (can wield chainsaws) have more talent for it.
With a loud meow, Jasper jumps on the armrest of your arm chair, black fur shiny and thick. (You enjoy dressing him up in suits and the dress of a princess.) "Not now, Jaspers" you tell him with a tired smile and gently nudge him with your elbow to signal that you are not in the mood for cuddling sessions. He won't take no for an answer and proceeds to rub his body against the warm sweater you're wearing, so you get up and open the liquor cabinet that someone you don't remember filled with plenty of alcoholic beverages. The taste never appealed to you; every once in a while you still end up sipping on a glass of martini.
You have to keep your mind off of those dreams you keep having. (Dreams of elegant women with sleek black hair, jade eyes and black lips.) They have you waking in the middle of the night and make you restless. You used to hope that perhaps coming to terms with (her) them, weaving (her) them into your novels would end your misery. They've been material for your most successful books about an authoress who struggles with her constantly drunk mother and a fashion designer fighting against the madness knocking at her door. You'd never admit that to anyone.
Once upon a time you used to find pleasure in overanalyzing people's dreams and deciphering their psyche, though it's no fun when you are the patient and you honestly have no idea where this mysterious woman haunting you is supposed to come from. (Sometimes she brings company with her, a blur of blue that reminds you of buckteeth, a red clock that screams irony or a friendly green window on a golden ship.)
One day you'd like to meet that stranger who feels like you've known her for years. You're so lonely. If only you could recall, but this little something keeps eluding you.
Your name is DAVE STRIDER.
Only minutes ago you got a call from your ex-wife, telling you that your son is coming over this week-end and that you should get all that expired food out of your fridge. "No problem" you replied and hung up, contemplating for a second whether you should ignore her.
Begrudgingly you leave the hazardous mess of your apartment to make a little trip to the supermarket down the street. Of course you could simply order pizza again, but you don't feel like having another argument with your kid's mother about healthy diet and responsibility. Just one of the reasons why it never worked out between you and her. She should appreciate it that you removed all the sharp swords from the reach of your child; shadows of memories inform you that you grew up holding a katana in your hand to defend yourself.
Someone in the aisle for cornflakes recognizes you and asks for an autograph. "Sure thing" you say, accepting the pen the guy pulled from the pocket of his jeans. Oh god he looks like he fears you'll bite his head off. He's clad in the shirt of some horrible, horrible rap duo. (Sick fires, sick fires for all eternity.) "Here you go." He stares admiringly at the crumbled piece of paper with your signature on it and a horribly drawn dragon beneath it, then back at you. "T-Thank you!" he stutters and absconds.
While waiting in line you spot a box of chalk. You can never resist.
That thing over with, you return to your apartment. On the way there, a clown stands and your heart stops for a second. It takes a few tries for you to pass him by. You halt outside of the apartment complex and you pull out the chalk. One by one, the colorful things get thrown into a trashcan. Merely the red one remains, as usual. Like a child, you crouch down and draw dragons and angry crabs. Children observe you and you can hear their snickering.
"This is art yo, I'm a fucking art genius" you explain and point at the extremely shitty drawings. This would me more fun if someone with a toothy grin were at your side, cackling madly. It's become too boring for you to confuse people with your infinite levels of irony when there's no one to impress and no one to beat and no one to appreciate it.
Back in the apartment, you start to pack away the useless shit littering the floor. Some mindless, tedious work will keep your head clear.
At night you can't sleep, because there's a puppet somewhere, waiting for you to sink into the waiting abyss of dreams. Your former wife used to lecture you about how there was no goddamn puppet anywhere, but you never believed her.
She even went as far as to send you to a soul-doctor. Oh what an amusing experience that was, you've known better (tentacle) therapists than that pathetic guy, even though you cannot remember ever meeting one before.
You have forgotten something important and suddenly your chest feels hollow, like you miss someone. Your heart aches and bleeds and you have no idea who you could be missing.
The ticking of the countless clocks hanging on your walls eventually lulls you into sleep. (Knights standing on turntables, a twin sprouting wings, jumps through times and battles alongside friends forgotten from long ago.)
Your name is JADE HARLEY.
You live on an island by yourself and you warp your reality into dreams where you can play with the friends who've returned home home home but are lost at the same time and grew up, forgot their battle scars and glory.