Work Text:
Staring down at the sky around him, normal guy sat at his desk. The same old smile plastered on his face. He sighed with stress as he furrowed his brows slightly. Oh how he wished he didn’t have to bear with the.. Empty emotionless color on his body. His eyes flickered down to his grey hands, mixed with his black suit. He closed his mouth, leaving a silent smile. there was nothing to be worried about really, but the main thing he was focused on was how his Monochromatic color scheme hurt his eyes and head. He placed his hands under his desk, feeling a bit shameful that he was cursed with such an insufferable scale. His eyes adverted to the colorful desk in front of him. That’s right.. The only colorful thing in this .. cold blue and white-sky office was the brown swirly wooden desk that floated just perfectly over Normal guys legs.
The mix of the different shades of browns comforted him, causing his smile to increase just a bit. It had reminded him of another employee. The employee being Manuel from maintenance. The brown shades matched Manuel’s hair and his eyes. wait a second.. That’s right.. doesn’t manuel like to paint? He was pretty sure that he had seen manuel painting small designs on old walls before he coated them over with the same color.. repaints are a pain. Normal guy suddenly had an idea. If Manuel could paint.. does this mean he could possibly give normal guy some kind of… palette? He smiled at the thought of it. He looked around on his desk before landing on a black box with a red button and speaker. He pressed the red button and spoke.
“Manuel, requesting Manuel from maintenance to floor 9 please. It’s urgent.”
Manuel sat at his desk, his feet propped up on it while he chewed ferociously at a ham turkey sandwich. His eyes were shut as he enjoyed the warmth of the sandwich. it wasn’t his lunch break but still.. it was safe and wasn’t hurting anybody.. was it? He just hoped no rats came. Once he was done violently destroying that sandwich, he dusted his hands and leaned back in his swivel chair. His hat rested on his face, protecting his eyes from the bright lights that you’d usually see in an office. He whistled lowly and he turned back and forth- honestly he was just messing around in his chair.
After a few minutes of fucking around and- almost falling off his chair once.. The intercom connected to the wall rang loudly with a ‘BEEP’.
upon hearing his name on the announcement AND the word urgent.. his heart dropped. Holy crap he was totally getting fired. He was getting fired from his favorite job! his *favorite* boss was going to fire *him!* He gulped and moved his hat out of the way of his viewing.
He quickly adjusted his eyes before sitting and standing up. He put his hat on, turned the brim around, fixed his hair, grabbed his satchel and began to walk towards the elevator. As he walked, he could hear others mumbling about him. He sunk into his shoulders slightly as his expression was filled with worry.. still he kept a cocky smile. He entered the elevator and placed a finger on the button labeled ‘9’.
The ride felt like hours, each second piercing his heart as he stood in silence.. an awkward feeling crowded the elevator as if it were full with dreadful coworkers. a sudden stupid thought came to his head.. this elevator needs a redesign. it’s very ugly. The elevator came to a sudden halt. Manuel’s head perked up quickly as he pose stiffened. He gulped as he smiled broadly, he still looked like a nervous wreck, the smile literally did nothing to hide it. The elevator doors hinged open, revealing the smiling greyscale man sitting at the brown desk in front of him.
“Ah, Manuel! come in, come in.”
His boss beckoned as he waved him over politely. Manuel walked inside the sky lit room. Well.. It didn’t really count as a *room* really, due to the fact that it was literally just floating furniture in the sky. The “floor” below him, made puddles underneath his feat. These seemed to hold him up- making sure he wouldn’t fall. He stopped a few feet away from the desk. He placed a hand on his neck and chuckled nervously.
“Er… Hey Boss! What seems to be the issue? Sky leaking?”
He joked horribly. Normal guy laughed abruptly at this anyway.
“No silly! i just called you up here to request you a.. favor.”
Manuel looked curious. “So i’m not getting fired?”
his tone confused. “what? no..?” Normal guy responded, quite offended too. “Anyways. Do you remember all those times when you repainted those.. old discolored walls because they were in NEED of a new coat?”
Manuel thought for a second. He scratched his head for a second before remembering.
“Oh yeah! i do. They were really ugly.. speaking of ugly- i think we should redesign the-“ “Anyways. I’ve noticed your.. little doodles. Just before you paint over it with a boring shade of grey.”
Normal guy interrupted Manuel before he could even finish speaking. Manuel furrowed his brows slightly before brushing it off and listening. “You have talent, manuel. I assume you like to paint?”
Normal guy smiled at him and he leaned forward and placed his arms on the desk, intwining his fingers as he did so. Manuel smiled, this time without the nervous tension. “Well.. i wouldn’t exactly say talent.. and yeah.. I color from time to time.” Manuel said with a flustered laugh. he waved his hand at him with a grin. Normal guy hummed before nodding. “Well.. I want to ask you a favor as i said earlier. It may seem a bit un casual.. but.. I would like for you.. to paint me.”
Pause.
Manuel stared at him with a look of disbelief. his mouth unhinged slightly as he switched between looking at normal guy and a random place in the sky.
“I’m sorry? paint you?..” Normal guy looked away with a hint of an embarrassed face. “Yes. Of course, you don’t have to do it. i just thought it’d be refreshing to have some.. color. Like you.”
Normal guy referenced as he looked manuel up and down and smiled softly. Manuel’s eyes widened slightly as the words finally hit him. He laughed slightly. “I’m- up for it. But how would i paint you? do you mean just your skin thats showing or your entire upper body?” Normal guy burst into nervous laughter.
“Manuel! You can’t just come into my office and suggest that! how unprofessional of you. obviously i mean just the skin that shows.” Manuel regretted his word’s slightly as he laughed it off. “You do realize that this comes off easily though right? so anyone or anything you touch will be covered in paint?” Manuel added as a fair warning.
Normal guy thought for a second as he nodded. “I understand. but if you are going to paint me, i suggest that you do so quickly. your lunch break is close and i bet that sandwich didn’t fill you up.”
“what? how did you know i was eating a sandw-“
“get to work.”
Manuel nodded quickly as he unclipped his satchel and dug through it carelessly. He then pulled out a punch of paint supplies that he had stashed in his satchel a few days ago and forgot to take out.. thank god he still had them. He walked over to normal guys desk and placed down the items. he looked around and clicked his tongue.
“err… do you have another chair?..” just then out of nowhere- a chair came in from behind him and bumped into manuels legs, causing him to land in the chair perfectly. how magical! He took note of this. He then opened up the paints and poured some into the small white paint palette.
Normal guy stared at the palette. he seemed intrigued by all the different types of colors. Manuel thought hard about what normal guy would look like. he grumbled before getting a Slight idea of what he thought he would look like. He grabbed a red and mixed it with white, creating a glossy salmon like pink. After that he mixed it with a beautiful orange, creating a peach color. He then got a bigger brush and picked up some of the color, dabbing it onto Normal guys skin. Normal guy tensed at the feeling of the cold paint against his skin. He noticed on how focused manuel was. His eyes adverted to the hand being painted. It looked.. good. it went well with his suit. his smile grew just a bit brighter. After about 20 minutes of painting normal guys skin, and having one instance where Manuel accidentally painted his eye, Normal guy actually had color. There were hints of light blushing and red on his body that mixed with his peach color. Normal guy stood up and looked at his hands. He smiled excitedly and laughed.
“Look at me! im like a human!” Manuel watched as normal guy laughed and took in the look and appearance of an actual human. this honestly.. made him smile too. He laughed with him as he rested his head on his now paint stained hands. Normal guy turned to manuel. Just a slight shimmer in his eyes- one that wasn’t there before.
“Thank you, Manny.”
Manuel perked up with a slight bit of shock. A nickname? this was.. new. But.. he didn’t seem to mind. He smiled and chuckled.
“Yeah.. Anything for you, Norman.”