Work Text:
You felt like Blue.
No wonder it was your name.
Blue, light blue, dark blue, ocean blue, night sky blue, bright day blue. All its hues, all its shades. You felt like a different kind of blue every day.
—*—
"She's a sweet girl."
"Was."
"Pearl."
Silence.
"She likes- liked to hang out with the flowers. She feared someone would try to give them to her because it meant the flowers would die for nothing."
Sofi was staring at the ceiling, and Pearl was looking angrily at the turned-off television, as if it would speak to her. Martha was telling her new friend, Finneas, a little about her daughter.
"She also liked the sun, though she would get burns easily."
"I always told her to use sunscreen, and she usually ignored me, so it suits her."
"Pearl."
She got up, upset.
"Pearl, don't be like this." Finneas said, his smile faltering. Pleading.
Pearl was also pleading, faltering. She was angry, annoyed.
She hated black so much; she hated the black silk decorating Blue's photo, she hated how she was looking so normal in that other picture, and those fucking photographs, all of those fucking things, she hated everything about it.
"I'm leaving."
"Pearl!" Finneas tried, but not hard enough, to keep her in the room.
The living room where she could still feel the smell of pure
Blue.
—*—
Pearl ran away; that's what they would do if Blue was with her.
She decided she was leaving.
Gravel under her shoes, the sound of the water, the little rocks at the beach, the birds, the strong wind. Everything was Blue it was so fucking Blue.
She hated Blue.
The color is always so dull, so bland, so out of life. It was the color of the clear sky, so it meant it was too hot, but it was also the color of the icy winter, so it was too cold.
It was the color of her own eyes, so it was too intimate, and it was the color of her nails when they first met, so it was also a memory, but Pearl wanted to forget everything about the color that she hated so much.
She looked at the ocean.
It was also the color of nothingness.
Martha was so dumb. She would never be able to understand her own daughter. She actually hated flowers. She didn't like their grassy smell, or how sometimes it was way too sweet, or how it could smell like shit. She hated that they died so fast, and she hated that she could never take care of them properly, because everything she tried failed, so everything she did was in vain. She hated flowers.
"When we move into the new house, we'll have a lot of plants, but if I see you with one single flower, I'm signing for a divorce." Blue had said, staring at the blue sky, one day when it wasn't so blue.
Pearl had laughed until her lungs gave out and her stomach ached.
"Can I buy fake ones? I like how colorful they are."
Blue had said yes to that.
Pearl had so many fake flowers on her walls, on top of the fridge, at the entrance, at the garage. So many Purple flowers. There were lavenders, violets, hortensias, and hyacinths. She loved Purple. It was the color Blue was wearing when they had their first kiss.
It was the color of her wedding dress.
Pearl was moving out that day. She was running away, because that's what they would've done if they could.
Let the world burn to the ground. She couldn't care less.
She hated Blue so much.
She was packing her things, watching the lavender wall of their room. The blue frames of every single portrait. She watched the white of their sheets, the pearl color of the armchair.
She watched as those men asked again and again if it was really ok to dispose of everything, if it was really ok to take it to the recycling deposit. She said again and again that it was what she was paying them to do.
"I can help you with that." Pearl laughed, seeing Blue struggle to place the armchair close to their bed.
"I am an independent woman, I know what I'm doing."
A crack sound.
"Was that your back?"
"Shut up and help me." Blue had said, and Pearl had laughed.
Martha texted her a day after she left. Pearl didn't want to read, she decided she would ignore it, she wanted to get rid of them, she wanted to forget everything about them. About her. She hated Martha for not trying hard enough.
'Tell me if you need help! Sofi can help if you ever need some decoration :)' Was what the message read. She hated Martha.
She ignored it.
"Don't you understand that I'm fucking LEAVING?"
She hated blue, because it was the color of her tears.
She hated Blue because she was not there, even if the sky was still there. She hated Blue because she decided to leave her like that, even if the ocean was still right there.
She hated everything about that color because it was so empty of everything that looking at it was like looking in the mirror. She hated Blue because she loved that color. She loved purple, because it was the color of her hair when she was still fourteen.
She hated blue because it was the color of what took her away.
"My mother is just so- AAGH! I can't stand her!”
Pearl laughed.
"What happened?"
"She asked if I liked women, and I said that I didn't know. She told me I can't not know about it. Pearl. I don't know! How would I know? I'm only seventeen! I have never kissed anyone, and, like, you can't be sure until you try it."
Pearl lifted her eyebrow.
"What— what's about that face? Am I weird?"
"I like girls."
Blue gasped.
"Have you ever... kissed, a- a girl?"
Pearl laughed, and nodded.
"I had a girlfriend when I was twelve. You can barely call that a relationship, but, well, I always knew that I liked girls. It was just so... girls are a lot more appealing, I guess, than boys."
Blue messed around with the hem of her purple dress. It was a beautiful dress, full of pearl-colored flowers.
"Can.- hum. Could you- oh gods, what am I even trying to say.."
"Blue."
Blue had looked at her, with confusion written all over her face, and Pearl had smiled. She looked beautiful in each and every expression.
"Do you want to discover? If you like girls or not."
"Yes!"
Pearl scooted over, sitting right next to the sky next to her, so bright and Blue, so full of everything. She leaned in.
"Can I kiss you?"
"Y-yes..."
She left, because she was gone.
Blue was really a terrible color, she thought, as she stared at the bright blue wall in front of her. The wall with many drawings of clouds and tiny stars on it.
She left because Martha could never understand her own daughter.
She left because Finneas could never help her again.
She left because Sofi was like the spitting image of her old sister.
—*—
She stared at the wall and at her arms and legs, all full of paint splatters of blue, pearl-white, and purple.
Pearl had dreamed of being a doctor. Blue had become one. They shared that shitty hobby of taking care of everyone, but never themselves.
She hated the blue uniform Blue was wearing when she lost another life. Pearl hated the blue uniform she was wearing when she got in the ambulance and lost her.
She hated everything about the color on the wall of her new home.
"Redecorating? It's good for you, Pearl! How about we paint the kitchen a dark green or something?" She heard Blue's voice.
"I don't really like green that much."
"I think you hate me even more, so why care about the color of the kitchen?"
"You never said if you liked dark green or not."
"Then maybe that light yellow?"
Pearl nodded at herself.
She left everything behind, because Blue couldn't save that girl. She left everything behind because she couldn't save Blue.
—*—
"So like, you want to be a doctor!? That's so cool!" Blue had said when they were fourteen.
"Yeah, I know.
"So, hum... you're going to save like, a million people and call it a day? I didn't know you had it in you. You seem..."
"cold."
Blue was shy, and didn't answer. Pearl laughed a bit.
"I know, but I actually like people, you know?"
Blue stared at her.
"Maybe it has to do with your eyes."
"What?"
"That you seem to be cold when you're not."
Pearl stared at her. Blue nodded.
"Yes, definitely your eyes."
And Pearl rolled them in annoyance.
"You're not cold at all to anyone, and yet that's your name."
They laughed a little.
—*—
She could've saved so many people, and yet, she lost her.
So she left.