and the bells rang for our wedding; only now do i remember it clear. WHO: ‘Edward Rich’ & ‘Vivienne Rich’, with some guests. WHAT: The unhappy husband finally wakes up to the vampire he used to be. The divorce is messy. WHEN: Dawn of Day 2, after the domestic strangeness of the night before. WHERE: His dream!apartment (i.e. tent) at the Circus.
When he opened his eyes, he wanted to die.
The sun was bright and hard and harsh behind his eyelids and he wanted to roll over, to sling his arm over the two nubile, slick-skinned nymphs in his lavish crimson bed. Another couple hours of rest and indolent relaxation, please. Perhaps another frolic beneath the covers before facing the day-to-day (night-to-night?) life of the Circus. Eyes still closed, his hand crept out, seeking warmth (he was always too cold) and the bare spread of an arse to pinch --
Only to suddenly get some knobbly knees and elbows driven into his side, hard and determined, a small creature twisting and writhing and turning and nearly flipping him right out of the bed.
Edward’s eyes shot open. He blinked, dazed, and shoved the animal back -- the child merely whined, burrowing deeper into the covers between its father and mother.
Fuck, he thought, pressing his knuckles against his forehead, digging the bone into his skin. His son. The eldest daughter asleep in the bedroom beside theirs. It was only a mere half-remembered dream. He was fully-clothed (decently clothed, even, in a set of flannel pyjamas that Vivi had gotten him this Christmas) and the child was splayed out between him and his wife. His beautiful wife.
But she’d lost the power of novelty long ago; he knew Vivi inside and out, her whims, her flights of fancy, the way her face looked in the morning before she’d put on makeup, the delicate onset of wrinkles around those wide doe eyes, every curve and turn of her naked body. He knew it like a fucking tapestry and he’d grown tired of it. He wanted a new landscape to explore, new moles and scars, a new canvas (one to plant his teeth in, except no, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?).
Edward rolled out of bed, leaving the boy (his face is indistinct, vague in the way that all dreams are) to occupy his father’s place, limbs sprawled, sinking into the mattress dent made by Edward’s body over the years. The man’s perpetual scowl was already drumming its way into place. Their small apartment felt stifling, suffocating and overwhelming in its domesticity. There were family photos on the walls (he’d smiled, back then) and drawings by the children, there were--
He stepped directly on some plastic toy, and he shouted, cursing, a stream of non-family-friendly expletives spilling from his mouth.