Color

seiya234:

Home.

She needed to get home.

Willow felt a blinding headache beginning to form between
her eyes, at the very top of the bridge of her nose, and she sighed. It was an
old familiar headache, and she reached for the bottle of naproxen in her purse,
knowing it wouldn’t do much but still hoping without hope that it would work
this time.

Next to her on the sidewalk, Acacia chattered, vivid butter
yellows and sugar bright light, that would burn away the darkness. Hank was on
her other side, calm and slow burning blues, with a white core at his center.

Their colors she could bear; they were her siblings, the
other parts of herself that made her whole. And, if Willow was being honest,
she was used to Hank and Acacia and
their blues and yellows.

What she wasn’t used to was the substitute teacher they had
for their first period AP US History, Mr. Dockery, who was deep throbbing blood
red and Willow could almost taste the contempt and wasted opportunities from
him through the mental shields that Uncle Dipper had showed her how to make so
many years ago.

She wasn’t used to bumping into a senior in the cafeteria,
and having waves of ultramarine wash over her, sadness so deep and dark that
she felt like she was going to drown.

Willow wasn’t used to having a car pass her on the way home
and taste the ochre overtones of a hateful argument between an old woman and her
daughter go through her as sure as a punch to the chest.

Hank turned to her and asked her something, but she couldn’t
even make out her brother’s words, only see him as worried periwinkles, and the
white part of his flame beginning to burn brighter as he focused his attention
on helping her.

Acacia for once must have noticed the mood she was in, and
simply wrapped her arm around her sister, enveloping Willow in her warm citrine
and golden glow.

It had gotten to the point by the time they got home that
she couldn’t even make out the features of her siblings, only their auras,
their colors.

Her mom, bright primary color red and blue and yellow, was
both comforting but at the same time made her want to cringe and curl into a
small ball on the floor.

Luckily, Willow’s mom understood.

Her mom knew, and
simply scooped Willow up into her arms (even though Willow had about a foot on
her mom at this point) and carried her up the stairs into the attic, to their
room.

She plopped Willow on her bed, and quickly left, though not
before telling Willow that “Dinner at six, okay Will-Cat?”

The door shut behind her and finally Willow was alone.

Blessedly alone.

She reached under the bed and began to pull out the four or
five comforters and crocheted blankets that she kept under there for days like
this.

Willow pulled them all over her and curled into as much of a
ball as she could make herself into.

The world around her was grey and black and white, and above
all, quiet.

Finally, she felt the tightness in her chest begin to ease,
the headache begin to fall a way.

Willow was home.

(Twenty minutes later another weight joined her on the bed,
and her uncle was there, dropping golden tears in her hair.

He didn’t need to. It wasn’t his fault…well, mostly not….but
she didn’t mind him stroking her hair as she took his hand in hers.)