Chapter Text
For all the sense of finality that conversation had—how much paintbrush thought it was the end of everything good about Lightbulb and their friendship, how deep a pit it left in their chest—Lightbulb came back to the room the next day.
Fan was there, and he greeted her with a nod of his head like it was completely normal for her to show up unannounced. It probably is; probably has been, for a while, but Paintbrush has been too far away to know.
They don’t talk, the two of them. Lightbulb speaks to Fan for a while, words scattered throughout the quiet of the room sparingly, but Paintbrush is almost completely quiet. They consider turning up their headphones, drowning out the conversation and the fact that Lightbulb is there at all, but they just can’t do it; she’s here, in front of them, and it’s not the end of the world.
Paintbrush missed sharing space with her—not having to talk, or do much of anything, just painting or reading while Lightbulb chatters amicably by their side.
It’s not quite the same, obviously; every time they catch Lightbulb’s eyes, they can’t help but turn away sharply, like they’ve been burned. It got a good crick out of Paintbrush’s neck, but the shame of being caught looking made their cheeks heat and eyes fuzzy.
“I’ve been thinking about asking OJ for a good blender,” Fan says, either not noticing the tension in the room or choosing to ignore it. It was probably the latter, considering the smile on his face and his need to avert conflict wherever possible. (You wouldn’t think that to be a trait of his, after watching season two of Inanimate Insanity, but he’s calmed his invasiveness from back then.
Still a nosy bastard, but one with a good heart and a need for chaos.)
“Yeah?” Paintbrush says; the first word they’ve uttered since Lightbulb walked in. Their nose is still in their book, but they’ve read the same line over and over as they occasionally peer over at Lightbulb. Pull up the anchor, my love, for salvation is adventure, the line repeats.
She’s looking right back. As soon as she catches their eye, she gives a sheepish smile that perfectly mirrors the one from the night before. Paintbrush doesn’t know how to feel about that.
“Yeah!” Fan says, tapping his knuckles against the bedside table. “I want to start drinking all those, like, super fancy thick smoothies I see online. They look good.” He hums contentedly, then goes back to looking at the magazine he’s clearly engrossed in; probably the place where he saw a ‘good blender’, whatever that entailed.
Fan has long since convinced Paintbrush that he’s sticking around, no matter what happens; at least, to a degree. Because Paintbrush knows that something may come up, no matter how hard they swerve in an attempt to avoid it, and they know that they’re probably the one that’ll lead right into it.
They’ve always been a bit of a trailblazer.
Lightbulb is still fixated on them. Paintbrush wants to say something; maybe cough into their fist, make her head whip away. Because that’s how this is supposed to go; Paintbrush is supposed to be aloof, and she’s supposed to pull away like she’s been burned.
There’s no script for this; there’s never been a script for anything, with Lightbulb.
I think that’s why I hated you at first, Paintbrush thinks, knowing that their thoughts are clear on their face; they always are, always have been. Paintbrush wears their heart on their sleeve, and they’re damn proud of it, most of the time.
Now, though? Lightbulb looks away, slowly, not like ripping off a Band-Aid but like pulling away a blindfold from your eyes.
And isn’t that just the perfect analogy? She’s clearly seen what everyone else has, now; the Paintbrush that puts up too many walls, even now. Do you have the fight to crawl past them, now?
Paintbrush hopes the answer is no. They pray that the answer is yes.
---
“I brought snacks,” Lightbulb announces to Paintbrush, walking in. the two of them have fallen into routine, even when Fan is nowhere to be found; the elephant in the room has been pushed into the corner, and Paintbrush will take what they can get.
Their walls haven’t been broken through, but Lightbulb takes her time to gingerly climb over them and away every day. It’s nothing. It’s everything. It’s a sign, screaming See? I’m here. I’m not going to leave.
Yes, you are, Paintbrush replies. The silence is perfectly maintained. Lightbulb’s face still falls.
They reach for a stale packet of pretzels, anyway, murmuring a thank you. Her face lights up again; that’s the kind of smile they want to see all the time.
You shouldn’t smile like that for me, Paintbrush thinks. Save it for someone who won’t shatter it. Who can look at you for longer than five seconds at a time.
Someone who’s worth staying for.
Lightbulb is two seconds away from beginning to pace; Paintbrush can see it, from the way she stands on the balls of her feet and her arm slightly shakes. “You’re on edge,” Paintbrush murmurs, because… well, what else are they supposed to say? “You don’t need to be here… if you don’t want to be. I’ll be okay.”
No, you won’t. Paintbrush has gotten better at lying, recently. They’re not sure if Lightbulb is one of the people who can see past it, and they’re not too keen on finding out.
Lightbulb looks over toward the door, and Paintbrush expects her to walk out with some murmured excuse that neither of them actually believe. There was nothing keeping her there; she could go, Paintbrush has given their blessing.
But Lightbulb just sits on the foot of the bed, her basket of snacks balancing on her thighs as she sits. “Why wouldn’t I want to stay?” She says, not looking at Paintbrush. I miss your eyes. Is that weird? Paintbrush wonders. It probably is. They’ve been a shade darker, as of late, and they feel like that might be their fault too.
Paintbrush scuffs the floor with their foot. This is the closest they’ve sat beside each other since… Well…
“Oh, it’s C, isn’t it? None of the above!” Lightbulb exclaimed, as if a lightbulb had gone off over her head. (Yes, it’s ironic. But it’s also the perfect analogy, Paintbrush thinks.)
Paintbrush smiles fragile enough that the very wind could knock it off their face.
“I don’t know,” Paintbrush admits. Anything louder than a murmur would break what they had—the illusion that everything was fine, that they can sit side by side to each other and have it mean something.
“I didn’t think—you know. That you’d want to be around me, after everything I said. It’s been a long time since we’ve even…” been in the same room. Like we are, right now. “It’s weird, isn’t it? That I was so… defensive.”
Lightbulb’s brow furrows. “I’ve gotten over it. Looking for approval, I mean,” she says, voice loud compared to the quiet murmurs. It causes Paintbrush’s head to whip up. Lightbulb’s hands are balled into fists, curling into the bottom of the dress she’s chosen to wear today.
“…Yeah?” Paintbrush says. They let their volume raise, as well. They’ve always insisted that they’re a leader, but Lightbulb is so easy to follow.
“Yeah. So you didn’t have to defend me; I think Cabby was just trying to find common ground with you. You know the last few events of season two never premiered; she couldn’t have known.”
Guilt simmers in Paintbrush’s guilt. Their palms probably have crescents in them, and they wonder, for a fraction of a second, if Lightbulb’s might as well. “But,” Lightbulb says, “I do appreciate you sticking up for me. You’re a real pal; you always have been, Painty.”
The nickname makes something in their chest sing; it’s been too long, truly, and the history of this friendship feels like coming home, digging into the dirt and finally finding water—relief.
“…Maybe,” Paintbrush sighed. “I’m… glad you think that.” Each word is harder to squeeze out of their throat, but after they have, it’s like they could finally breathe again.
The room falls back into silence. It’s all they can do, and all they need.
---
Lightbulb coming to and from Paintbrush’s room becomes a routine that they expect; one that they might even enjoy, look forward to. Not that they’d ever admit it…
One thing that they cannot let happen, no matter how often Lightbulb implies that she’ll do this as long as she possibly can, is for themselves to get comfortable. This is not forever, they’ll repeat to themselves in the mirror long after Lightbulb leaves.
(They brush their hair after she leaves, because they know that she won’t care about appearances; that she prefers when they don’t spend forever obsessing over their straw-blonde hair looking exactly right.)
The Paintbrush in the mirror stares back, skeptical. You don’t even believe your own lies, Paintbrush thinks to themselves.
Opening the window, letting in some air, Paintbrush assesses their situation. They can’t lie to themselves; they’re getting comfortable, they’re holding on so tight to this tentative friendship with Lightbulb that they fear the rope they’re clinging to will snap under their weight.
This has never gone well. Paintbrush argues with themselves, biting the inside of their lip as they think; brows furrowed, ink pooling at the page they were supposed to be writing their thoughts into.
The hopeful, rational voice speaks up from far away. Why does this feel like the exception, then?
Paintbrush grinds their teeth together. I don’t know. But it’s not—It can’t be. You’ve thought that too many times.
“You look like you’re about to explode,” Fan provides unhelpfully from where he’s sitting. His pen glides smoothly across his paper, getting his emotions and feelings across not perfectly, but well enough to be understood.
Paintbrush is good at emotions. They’d even argue that it’s what they’re best at!
So why can’t they move their pen? Why won’t the words explode onto the page like their emotions, a broken dam letting them free?
And lest we forget, the latest wacky nonsense from Lightbulb!
Their pen moves. A sentence forms before they can even really think about it.
I think I was too hard on Cabby. it reads. That’s it; a total of eight words. Just reading them back makes Paintbrush choke on their own emotion—what was the name of that disease, where unrequited feelings make you choke on petals?—because it’s true. If they could go back and apologize, they would, but…
I wasted my chance at saying sorry because I was too prideful. And becaus e
They feel a little silly, staring at a book knowing what it’s going to say next despite the page being empty. They know what they need to write, but would it really be that easy to confess it to this almost-empty diary?
You’ve screamed your emotions from rooftops before, they justify. This is child’s play. Just write it down.
Paintbrush’s grip on the pen gets tighter. But I’m scared.
The triumphant, unwilling-to-lose part of their mind grins like a viper. Do it anyway.
And becaus e I think I love Lightbulb too much to let that pride go.
There it was. Written plain as day in ink, already drying. Solidified. After a moment of contemplation, they pick up their pen again. They hadn’t even remembered setting it down.
I think I love Lightbulb too much to let it go.
Baxter clicks from his aquarium. Dinnertime, they suppose. The book closes, and Paintbrush smiles at it as they place it on the bottom shelf of their bedside table. For good measure, they stick a sticky note onto it; “TOUCH = DEATH”.
Fan might forgo the sticky note, being as nosy as he is, but there’s nothing written in there that he doesn’t already know; probably things he knew before Paintbrush had ever realized it, so far back that they don’t remember the exact moment it happened.
These feelings are an old, old friend, and they’ve put them on hold to get Baxter his dinner before. So Paintbrush busies themselves with finding his shrimp snacks in the Hotel OJ fridge, thinking about what they’re going to discuss with Lightbulb when she comes around tomorrow.
What if she doesn’t come? A traitorous whisper hisses.
Paintbrush grabs the shrimp snacks, shutting the fridge with their hip and waling out with a click as their boots hit the tiled floor. She will, they think, and believe it to be true.