Gamzee never understood what the big deal was with nightmares. If you woke up from a nightmare, you were instantly happy to be awake. Good dreams were pretty cool, too. But the really, really great dreams, the ones where things are perfect- those are the worst. Because then you wake up and then you're having a nightmare.

It was a simple enough dream. But it had Tavros in it. That was enough right there. Gamzee lay on his stomach, his head burrowed into his pillow. "Are you up? Hurry your ass up." Oh, right. Karkat.

Karkat had insisted that he go back to school after a week. Lately he hadn't been doing much but laying around in bed, sometimes staring at the dog-eared pages of Tavros' copy of Peter Pan, without really reading them. He'd ended up, though, giving it back to Tavros. Well, sort of. He'd asked Mrs. Nitram if he could put it in Tavros' casket.

Tavros' casket. There were a lot of unpleasant memories that Gamzee had but the very, very worst was at Tavros' funeral where he saw Tavros for the last time. He was a mess, tears streaming down his cheeks. "H-here, Tav," he had managed to choke out, tucking the book at Tavros' side. "Sorry it took me so long to get that back to you."

Since he gave the book back to Tavros he didn't have much to do. One day he went to Tavros' grave and gave him some flowers. The grave was practically buried in flowers. He wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say, and couldn't stay long before he wanted to leave and lock himself back up again.

He felt like he was that girl in the blue dress, Wendy at it was time for him to grow the fuck up.

He didn't have to grow up with Tavros. He'd always loved that. He could be as childish as he wanted because Tav was the same way. They could be all up and serious one minute, then be sniggering over a fart joke the next one. It was fun.

It was a really, really great dream.

Gamzee hadn't had the heart to read Tavros' book for the past few days. Sometimes he read a paragraph or two, but it didn't register. He stared at it now. It sat on his night stand, on top of his newly bought copy of a Peter Pan picture book. He wasn't quite sure why he got it, but it made him feel a little bit better to have around. He frowned at the composition book, his name scratched in big letters on the little white box on the front. He hoped that Tavros wouldn't be upset that he wasn't reading it yet. He whispered a quick apology to Tav and got dressed for school.

Gamzee silently shut himself in Karkat's car. Normally he walked to school, but he didn't feel like walking the half mile to get there. There was really no incentive now to get to school, was there? "If you're having too much of a shitty time, call me." Gamzee glared at him, then took his phone out of his pocket and called Karkat without a word. "Oh for fuck's sake, Gamzee. I'm doing this for your own good. I don't want you to go and turn into your old self. You and me, we're behaving pretty well lately. I don't want you to accidentally fuck it all up for yourself." Gamzee frowned, then hung up his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

At school he got pitying look. Some random girls hugged him. He stared at them blankly. Motherfucking stop that. He didn't want pity, but he let everyone pat him on the back and tell them how sorry they were that his best friend had died. Yeah, whatever. They'd all forget about it in ten decided he would force himself through the day to satisfy Karkat, so he kept his mind empty and did his work. He mechanically answer ed all of the inquiries about his wellbeing with "Fine" that obviously suggested that he was not at all fine.

Kanaya and him were quiet at lunch. After a while he felt like crying, so he excused himself and sat on the floor of the bathroom until lunch was over. Overall, the entire day was hell.

When he got home he sat down on his bed. He stared at the wall, which had a few drawings of various things (mostly dragons.) Pinned over the other drawings was his picture of him and Tav. He flopped around and picked up the battered composition book. For a long, long stretch of time he stared at the cover, then opened the book and stared at Tavros' handwriting. He smiled slightly about the way Tavros painstakingly added his own stuttering and faltering, as if he was trying to retell everything exactly as it had happened. After a while, Gamzee opened to the page where he left off.

My favorite day we ever had was the day after school ended. I had just woken up and was staring groggily at the alarm clock, trying to decide whether or not I should sleep in or not. There was a knock at the door. Mom had gone to work, so I got into my wheelchair and went to go answer it.

"Hey, Tav! It's the first day of summer vacation!" You reminded me. I smiled and nodded. "Hey, look what Karkat's lending me today." You took your keychain out of your pocket and pushed a button. Outside, Karkat's grey Toyota honked twice.

"H…his car?" You nodded excitedly.

"He has the day off and I've been bugging him for a while since I got my license months ago and haven't gotten to use it. So then he said," here you put on your very best Karkat face and said what came next in a surprisingly accurate impression of Karkat's voice "'God damnit, Gamzee I'll let you have the day with my car if you will shut the fuck up about it. God.' And so now I have the car for the day! We can do anything you motherfucking want!

"That's really cool!" I said. "I'll go get ch-changed."

Karkat's car, of course, was nothing to behold. It was an old, pre-owned sedan that smelt like old fast food and old cloth seats and general old (haha.) It was loud when it started up but I was pretty excited. "So where do you wanna go, little buddy?" I thought about it.

"Wh-what if we just go wherever we decide to? We can m-make up our day along the way. I mean… unless you have a better place in mind." You grinned.

"I had no ideas anyway. I like that one." You twisted the key in the ignition. "Let's see where we end up!"

So we did. First we went to breakfast at a diner in the center of town. You tried to pay for my breakfast but I argued that you always paid, and after a while of back-and-forth arguing I finally paid the bill.

Next we drove around for a long time, on and off highways. "Do you have any idea where we are?" I asked. You shook your head, and we both grinned. We went into a movie. It was a really, really boring movie, so once it was over we laughed.

After the movie we ended up kissing in Karkat's car, which always makes me laugh because if he knew that, he'd probably freak out and yell about what the proper use of his car was, that not being it. Then we both realized we were hungry and ate. You remember it all, right? It was my favorite day because we just got to be us for hours and hours on end without school or anybody else to worry about. Maybe when I get out Karkat will let you borrow his car and we can go somewhere.

Gamzee hated when Tavros said when I get out in the book. He'd done it before, too. He knew that Tavros probably was trying to convince himself when he was writing it that he would get out. But now it hurt. Now that there was no when I get out.

Time to wake up from your happy dream, Wendy.