Chapter Text
Yellow sits by the foot of his bed, head resting on the wood, face stained with tears. The sound of blues fancy old dress tearing after getting caught on yellows boot spur replaying in his mind as he grips his boot. He looks down at then and pulls the spurs off the boots and throws them at his wall before throwing the boots too. He pulls his knees to his chest and hugs himself trying to come up with any idea for a punishment. After coming to castle town its been even harder to enact justice on himself, it wasn’t really easy at the castle but now its even harder; even aqua has managed to stop him! Each time he set up something there was always someone there, theres not place where he's alone except his little room all the way uptop the castle. He stands up and leaves his room trying not to cry again and goes down to try and find tenna, that tvs always awake at the weirdest times.
“you never know what someone wants to watch!”
he'd say awake before the sun rises. Yellow slinks into a side room with a couch, and to his surprise theres tenna sitting on the table legs crossed filing his glove covered fingertips. Tenna jumps up seeing someone enter.
“up so soon? I knew the people couldn’t stray away from the screen for that long! But seriously did you wake up or could you just not sleep?”
tenna says enthusiastically before dropping the volume of his voice being a little more, genuine; yellow isn’t particularly the biggest fan of people prying, especially since he's up after crying because he tore a dress.
“ise just couldn’t get a wink o’ sleep”
yellow says sitting down on the couch as tenna sits up, setting the near useless nail file in his pocket.
“so the usual?”
tenna asks as yellow nods. Tenna turns the dial on his head before landing on, an odd show. Yellow watches it for a few moments before *something* shows up, he jolts covering his eyes before peaking through his fingers before once again covering his eyes. Tenna pulls a hand mirror out the same pocket with the nail file in his and as soon as he sees what show is playing he changes the channel to the cowboy show yellow likes so much.
“oh my! I am so sorry yellow I didn’t realize-… don’t tell anyone we have access to that channel, please?”
yellow nods behind his hands before setting them down and watching the cowboy show, guilt still set ontop his shoulders. After about an hour of the show yellow abruptly stands up, shakes tennas hand and leaves wordlessly. Once he's out of sight he bolts upstairs. He bursts through the door so hard it hits the wall and shuts itself and falls to his knees sliding a little to his dresser beside his bed. He opens the second drawer in which is one of aquas knifes that he confiscated. Pulling it out he starts backing up on his knees until he hits the corner of the room. Still thinking about the dress he pulls it up to his right wrist. Taking a deep breath he rubs it against the skin expecting a cut but nothing happens. Confused he moves it off his wrist, heart still beating rapidly. He stands up leaving the knife in the corner and lays down in his bed. He can only lay there for a few minutes before putting himself back in the corner, knife back where it was. Taking a few breaths and squeezing his eyes shut he thinks about everything he's failed to punish himself for. Losing oranges boxing gloves, running into aqua and knocking her over, dropping greens eggs they asked for, falling off the boat when flowery took him fishing ruining the trip, accidentally tearing a page out of seths book after turning it too hard. Then without thinking he slices; the pain is minor to what he expected even though that’s a case he finds himself crying. Despite that he still keeps his eyes closed and does it again, over and over again a cut for every “crime” he committed. Opening his teary eyes looking down at it, the cuts are shallow, barely bleeding most of the blood accumulated around the cuts but not spilling down unlike he thinks he deserves. Then, his mind still on how he ruined blues dress, hearing words blue never uttered in his mind, he slashes. The pain is instant and strong, he drops the knife and grabs his arm right above the cuts trying not to scream, trying to keep his sobs quiet, trying to make sure this time he gets the proper punishment.
Yellow walks through the castle until he finds himself in the diner. He sits down smiling and orders a drink from green. After a few moments green hands it to him but he accidentally knocks it out greens hand causing it to spill. Green quickly tries to reassure yellow knowing how he gets over things like this but he simply apologizes and offers the clean up the mess. Green freezes in surprise at yellows shockingly calm reaction before nodding and making him another cup while he gets up the juice with some napkins.
After he gets his second juice he pays and leaves. As soon as he's out the diner he slinks over to the hallway, hiding himself behind a decorative table he pulls off one of his boots and pulls out something wrapped out. He unwraps it before pulling up his right sleeve and closes his eyes, the warmed metal against his skin feels almost disgusting but right in a way.
‘it belongs there’
‘Make it quick and be done’
‘No harm done if no harms seen’
the thoughts build in his head making him feel like he's about to blow up. He's done it plenty times before but he can never stop the tears in the corners of his eye. Thinking about the juice that soaked greens apron he slices, thinking about the napkins he wasted by not being careful he slices, for thinking about him keeping this from everyone, he slices. After a moment of just breathing, he opens his eyes and rewraps the knife, his eyes somewhat focused on the look of his aching wrist. The ‘scratches’ are still red, tapping them he winces, they’re still swollen and he doesn’t know why.
“Maybe I could ask Seth about it”
he thinks to himself before suddenly realizing what that would mean, an admission to something like this. He's heard them say he's gotten so much better about not hurting himself in the name of ‘justice’ and golly just the thought of disappointing them after they got their hopes up hurts worse than any wound. He hears someone coming down the hallway and quickly throws the knife in his boot and yanks down his sleeve.
“what are you doing on the floor, mew?”
looking up he sees pink looking down at yellow with her hands on her hips. Yellow looks up at her, words halting in his throat. Its right there, he could show her, he could tell someone, she doesn’t even know him that well they’ve never talked. Shes the perfect person to tell but he just can’t.
‘don’t say it’
‘don’t let her hate you’
‘she’ll never forgive you’
“I’s just gettin’ a rock outta my boot.”
he said putting his boot back on, feeling a little bit of blood starting to slowly run down his arm. Pink moves her torso to the side instead of just tilting her head.
“you don’t look like you’re doing so hot, mew.”
“that’s just because ise a lil’ cold today”
“no not like that! Y’know like not good. You look like you’ve been doing bad today.”
before yellow can think about what he did that was bad he finds himself being dragged on the floor like a blanket by pink. Not knowing what to do he just stays quiet as she drags him through Castletown until she throws him onto a chair Infront of some kind of half blend between a bar and café.
“so…”
“so?”
pink parrots back at yellow as a dummy slides two drinks over too them. Yellow looks confused at what was just handed to him, picking it up he examines the brown liquid in the small glass. Pink looks over at yellow staring at the drink before setting her hand on his shoulder.
“it’s milk dummy.”
he snaps his head over to her dumbfounded. He points at it as he asks her about the color.
“I done ain’t ever seen no brown milk. Youse sure it ain’t bad ‘r something?”
pink chuckles for a second shaking her head.
“no silly, its chocolate!”
yellow pauses, shaking a glass a little causing the milk to swirl a little.
“but you done said it was milk?”
pink laughs again covering her mouth with her hand.
“I did! Its chocolate flavored milk! Just try it!”
she says finding the whole situation amusing. Yellow tries to laugh with her as he takes a sip but ends up spilling some on his shirt. She takes the glass out of yellows hand and grabs the other one trying to set it in his right one.
“you’re using the wrong hand yellow”
“I am?”
she suddenly drops the glass seeing fresh blood staining yellows shirt sleeve. Following her gaze he quickly jerks away and jumps out his chair.
“I had done tripped and scraped my arm! I’ll go clean this up, I’ll pay you back, promise!”
he said before running out pinks little hang our corner. Pink despite not fully trusting him decides to leave him be, accusing him of lying is the best idea from what she heard from orange. Yellow bolts for his room holding onto the bleeding spot of his arm until he runs into who might be the second worst person to run into; flowery. Yellow forces his feet down stopping himself abruptly almost throwing him down.
“woah there buddy we’re you going in such a hurry?”
flowery says looking at yellow holding his wrist.
“sorry ise just tryna get to my room, scraped myself and I wanna get the blood out my shirt before I get it all stained”
Flowery reaches out to yellows right arm but he jerks away, pain shooting up from the near raw feeling cuts.
“like I done said I should be gone goin’”
“well see you later yellow. Just remember if, something, happens to come up just lettuce know! We’re here for you y’know that?”
Yellow freezes at those words, theres no way they’d be there for him! He's a liar! He's pathetic! He can’t even punish himself in a way that matters! He's done foolered them, got their hopes up and has been hiding everything from them! He's a criminell!
‘don’t let *them* hate you.’
“well I appreciate the senty-ment but right’n now I ain’t got anything to lettuce y’all about”
he says stepping around flowery before making his way to his room, sweat starting to accumulate on his forehead as his arm starts to throb.
Later that night yellow lays in bed picking at the scabbed over cuts. Rubbing the wounds before carefully as he can pulling up the scabs opening the pussing holes once more, the pain is so sharp his vision blurs and near instant but he can’t help himself. Scratching and pulling and poking until warm streams of blood run down his arm and onto the horse-shoe print sheet set on his bed. He wipes the sweat forming around his eyes that’s mixing with his tears with the other hand as he just stares at the mess he made out of himself. Squeezing his eyes shut as he shivers, he stands up and opens his window and sits on the sill as coincidentally it begins to rain. He leans his head against the sill he sticks his right arm out, letting the rain fall onto his wounds pretending it was one of blues healing rains. He wipes his sweat away still thinking about maybe what could happen if blue saw.
“oh dear I'm so sorry this happened to you.”
“I still love you”
“you’re pathetic you liar.”
“what cowboy can’t even do proper justice?”
his thoughts quickly turn to the worse as he struggles to keep himself up right, then without warning he falls backwards out from the window and onto his bed with a soft thump.
Time passes that yellow can’t count at the moment. With a fuzzy mind he can vaguely remember the lights changing and the faint sounds of footsteps, the only thing he can remember clearly is an insane, near boiling pain in his right arm. After even more time that yellow never bothered to count he finds himself slowly opening his eyes feeling almost as bad as he did in the window. Slowly moving his eyes, he sees he’s not in his room, the canopy over the bed adorned with deep azure silk and ribbons, the flowers growing by the windows, the clothes rack filled with perfectly aligned costumes and the tiny stage blue uses to practice his performances. After running into the second worst person to see at a time like this he just happens to be in the room of the very worst person, or maybe it’s the best? He glances over and sees blue sitting on the edge of the bed, back facing. He shifts a little and closes his eyes, blue instantly picks up on the movement and walks over to yellow. He brushes the hair off yellows forehead before sliding his hand down to yellows cheek. He just rests his hand there for a moment before taking the wet rag from behind his neck and leaving to rewet it. Once blue leaves the room he stops stand on pointe and lets his footsteps become as heavy as yellows injuries lay on his shoulders. How could he have not noticed?! He should have known it was suspicious that yellow suddenly stopped punishing himself. He grabs a few locks of his hair and tugs on them trying to relieve his stress but it only does as much as pulling on hair can. After going down some stairs he finds a sink in the hallway. always this castle and weird things being set in hallways. He turns on the cold water and soaks the rag before ringing out most of the water and returning to yellow. He closes his eyes as he enters his room, dreading the sight of yellow so weak and broken. But when he opens his eyes he's met with the sight of an empty bed.