A young man stands in his bedroom's adjoining bathroom. He has pinned all of his hair away from his face and under a wigcap and is now in the process of using makeup to color all of his visible skin a dull gray. After he has finished that, added a candy-red tint under his eyes and over his cheekbones, set the makeup with powder, secured his black wig on his head with his small candycorn-colored horns already attached, and put his glasses back on, he pauses in his preparations to wander out of his bathroom and over to the desk under his bedroom window. Here, he examines one specific framed photograph for probably the millionth time since he found it in an album in the attic and brought it to his room eight months ago. In the photo his parents, just a couple of years older than he is right now, are posing at a convention with another young man and woman on the day the four of them met. They are all painted gray, with black wigs and assorted candycorn-colored horns, just like he is as he gazes in at them. He would be willing to bet that they met a whole lot of other people cosplaying characters from Hivebent that day, back at the height of its popularity, but he can't imagine anyone else looking better than they do in this photo.
On the far left is someone he has never met, but when he brought the album down from the attic and asked his dad about the pictures from this convention, he had been identified as Dirk Strider, and he is cosplaying Horuss Zahhak. His dad had laughed as he commented that although he hadn't realized it at the time, having just met Dirk that day, his choice in that character was probably not completely unrelated to the goggles he got to wear, which obscured his eyes. Next to Dirk is the young man's dad, cosplaying Rufioh Nitram. It would probably feel a little of weird for any young man to see his father sporting large fairy-type wings and a black and brilliantly red mohawk, but the weirdness is at least decreased by the fact that he doesn't really look like himself, more closely resembling a real-life Rufioh. His left arm is wrapped around Dirk's shoulders and his right arm is wrapped around the shoulders of the lovely young lady to his right. This young lady would grow up to be the mother of the young man viewing the photo, and he spends more time examining her than he does anyone else, every single time. Not only is she the most perfect Aranea Serket he has ever seen, positively resplendent in blue; he's had a hard time dragging his eyes away from her in any photograph ever since she was killed in a drive-by shooting while retrieving the mail right in front of their house a little over a year ago. Eventually he does drag his eyes away from her and to the last figure on the right, a girl identified by his father as Roxy Lalonde, cosplaying Porrim Maryam. She looks perfect enough to fit seamlessly into the group. She has the biggest smile on her face out of all of them and is winking at the camera, leaning her hip against his mother, her right hand on her own hip.
His eyes have just drifted back over to his mother's image when his door suddenly pops open and in bursts his sister Jade, as energetic as ever, currently dressed up as Nepeta Leijon, who has been her favorite character since the two of you discovered Hivebent. "Oh, John, you look pawsitively purrfect! I could swear I'm looking at the real Karkat Vantas right meow!" John laughs, picking up the picture frame and holding it out to her. "You've gotta be kitten me, bringing this out today of all days! You know no cosplay I manage to make can efur compete with mom and the beautiful and mysterious Roxy!" she jokes with an attempt at lightheartedness, handing the picture back with a slight sigh after studying it for a few moments. Jade had taken the loss of their mother even harder than John, and he can tell that she tries to stay strong for his benefit, but this past year has been extremely difficult for both of them, he would even go so far as to say excruciating at times. Not only did they suffer the loss of their mother and sole caregiver, the woman who raised them, but they were also thrown headfirst into a real relationship with their dad. Before their mother passed away, they had only known him only through the occasional semi-cryptic letter and gift all throughout their childhood. Their dad had spent those years traveling the world, and no world could never hold enough adventure for him, so he never ran out of things to share with and teach John and Jade. They knew that he was trying his best to fit seamlessly into his new role as a real dad, to keep them from feeling alone in the aftermath of their loss.
John and Jade knew that their father felt guilty for being gone all those years, probably more guilty than he could have ever found the words to explain to them, and they knew that he had never stopped loving their mother, in his own way. He had sent letters and gifts to her all these years, too, along with the ones he sent to the two of them. Since her death, he had been here for them in a way that no one else in their family had bothered to step up and be, and they didn't want to make him feel alienated, because even through the years when he hadn't been there physically, his gifts and letters had shown them clearly that he loved them with all of his heart, which is all either of them had really needed in a father until recently. Until recently, they'd had their mother, always warm and bright. She had never had to hold a regular job which would have kept her away from them, having inherited a sizable fortune during her adolescence which she had saved responsibly and barely taken anything out of until the birth of her first child, John, and then her second, Jade, a year later. Thanks to her fortune, she was able to always be there, telling the two of them bedtime stories that always involved detectives and elaborate pranks, teaching them how to pull off all the best pranks themselves (which John always showed a lot more interest in than Jade), baking them cakes whenever she felt that they needed cheering up.
Jade dusts the excess powder off of John's clothing and he adds some freckles to her face with eyeliner, then they head downstairs to let their dad know that they're leaving for the convention. They find him on the sofa in the living room watching Avatar, but he gets up immediately upon noticing them in the doorway. "Gosh, you two look wonderful! You've got to let me get a photograph before you go!" "Just a quick one, though, right? I want to get to the convention!" Jade chirps energetically, John responds with a nod and a smile, and off they go to the front porch for a picture. After they have that over with, their dad turns to John. "Promise me you'll drive carefully! I'm entrusting my finest and most delicate treasure to you for the day!" he gives Jade a gentle pat on the shoulder to ensure that his point is clear. John rolls his eyes playfully "Of course I will, dad! I've had my license for six months, haven't I? I haven't been in a single accident!" After a bit of discussion during which they are reminded that they are to meet Roxy and Dirk's twin kids as soon as they arrive at the convention and that they will be expected to produce photographic evidence of the meeting as soon as they return home, their dad walks them to John's sky-blue Hyundai and opens the glove compartment, discreetly slipping one of his revolvers inside and closing it. He gives them each a meaningful look, but they would have been more surprised if he hadn't taken this action, as they have grown used to his insistence that they carry some form of protection when heading into the city. It will just stay in the glovebox until he takes it back out, anyway. He gives them each a hug and heads back inside as their car pulls away, already going through a mental check-list of items he should pack for his afternoon hiking trip.
The car ride is long but pleasant, with the windows rolled down just enough to let the Autumn breeze in without the risk of undoing the styling they had put into their wigs, the radio blaring the music of an alternative rock station. They arrive without incident at the hotel where the convention is being held and wait in line to get their passes. They end up being stopped several times for pictures on their way upstairs, dodging a few awkward shipping-pose requests, so it isn't until about half an hour after arriving at the hotel that they manage to make their way to the Starbucks where they were instructed by their dad to wait for the Strider-Lalonde kids. Even so, they are the only ones in the shop at the time of their arrival, so the other kids must be running even more late than them. John orders a turkey and swiss sandwich and a white chocolate mocha, Jade orders a peach raspberry yogurt parfait and a strawberries and creme frappuccino, and they head to a table in the back left corner to await the arrival of these kids they have never even met. "Doesn't it feel an awful lot like we're kindergarteners being set up on a play date?" John asks rhetorically, slight irritation evident in his voice. Jade sighs and nods, stirring her frappuccino with her straw. "I bet they feel the same way. We just have to get a picture for dad, then who says we actually have to spend the rest of the day with them? It sucks, but it'll be over fast." John taps the screen of his phone to check the time, steadily watching the entrance to the coffee shop. "Hey, you know what I've been wondering?" John turns his attention back to Jade, raising his eyebrows quizzically. "Yeah?" "What if they're actually cool? I mean, their parents were, right? And at the risk of sounding like dad, we do have a lot in common, judging by what we've heard."
John has just opened his mouth to respond to his sister when he notices two figures at the edge of his peripheral vision, entering Starbucks and looking around. Sure enough, these must be the kids they've been pretty much commanded to hang out with, and the kids seem to know that after their first glimpse of John and Jade, too. They are very close to the same height, the guy perhaps two inches taller than his sister. He is dressed up as Gamzee Makara, "sober" version, and his only visible deviation from canon is the pair of dark sunglasses covering his eyes. His clothes are even slightly splattered with olive-green and blue "blood." He seems pretty composed and uninterested in his surroundings, although John notes that sunglasses like those could potentially hide a lot. She is cosplaying Eridan Ampora, and doing a good enough job that if John and Jade hadn't been able to instantly tell that her brother was in fact male, and if they hadn't known that they were meeting a brother and a sister here, they just might have been unable to correctly guess her gender, or at the very least unsure of whatever conclusion they managed to come to. She is studying them with curiosity and interest shining clearly in her eyes. She glances up at her brother and then confidently leads him over to John and Jade's table. "Hello! John and Jade English, I presume? I trust that we're not mistaking you for someone else?" John meets the gaze of Jade, who is smiling serenely, then glances back and forth between the others. "That's us. Sorry, I don't think our dad actually mentioned your names to us..." He allows his voice to trail off. The guy speaks before his sister can jump in ahead of him. "Dave and Rose Strider-Lalonde, bro."
"It's nice to meet you!" Jade exclaims with genuine warmth. "Your cosplays are just ridiculous! I mean, in the best way possible, of course! I have officially adopted a new headcannon Eridan and Gamzee as of thirty seconds ago." Rose smiles brilliantly back at her. "Oh, you two look fantastic as well! We had no idea what to expect, coming in here, but I can assure you, you have exceeded anything we could have imagined." Dave smirks. "Gotta admit, finding out for sure that we weren't set up for a play date with a couple of scrubs is pretty sweet. We had a story all ready to go about my torturous nonexistent migraines, in case you happened to be so excruciatingly lame that our reps would have been put in danger of irreparable damage just by exposure to you." Rose gives Dave a pointed look, jabbing her elbow into his side. Jade laughs before catching herself and pressing a hand over her mouth, but Rose just smiles and Dave doesn't seem to care about her reaction either way. He sighs with mock frustration in Rose's general direction and then sits down, pushing his chair close to John's. He leans forward and takes a sip through John's straw. "White chocolate mocha. Awesome." John stares blankly at him for a brief moment before bursting into laughter, Jade and Rose joining him moments later; even Dave manages a slight smile before taking another long sip of John's mocha and beginning to eye his sandwich.
Ten minutes later the group is making their way toward the dealer's room, slowly but surely, dodging people outside of their group and stopping frequently for people asking for pictures. A genderbent Tavros Nitram stops them for one just shy of their destination and John hands her his camera, asking her to take one for him as well. Rose hands hers to the girl, too. They all lean together and wrap their arms around each other, Dave on the left, then John, then Jade, and Rose on the right, each of them smiling their biggest genuine smile. After the photos are taken and their camers are returned, they all become instantly aware of the fact that they can now seperate whenever they want, even right this instant, and they each wait for one of the others to suggest it, but in the end the suggestion never comes. They would later come to discuss their meeting in great detail, and would all agree that it should have felt weird how naturally they all fit together, like four pieces of a puzzle who had never even realized before that day that they were puzzle pieces, that something was missing, that they had never been complete. Interestingly, it never felt the slightest bit weird to a single one of them. The four of them were a perfect combination and Jake, Dirk and Roxy would often joke amongst themselves that as a team, their kids could have accomplished anything they set their minds to, perhaps even ruled the world.