Archive of Our Own

Yellow was not, by nature, a timely person.

Granted, it wasn’t as though time passed down there in their world in any way a human might recognize as sensible — it would make more sense to a Darkner if a clock walked up to them gesticulating with genuine hands than if it merely perched on a wall — but it remains that there was at least some communal sense of movement that guided their patterns of arrival, departure, mealtime, and rest. It was how Green knew that it was far too early when Aqua started jumping on their bed, how Seth knew it was far too late when their writing kept them up past sunset (even if sunset itself seemed to last forever), how Orange derived pleasure from her long training sessions, and how all of them knew that an empty seat, zabuton, or counter stool, devoid of any remnants of white fur, meant something more disappointing thirty minutes into a scheduled performance than it did at the start.

Yellow seemed either unaware of this pattern or unable to act on it. It was as though he’d been hard-coded with a cowboy’s natural inclination for the sunrise and sunset as sole markers of the day’s passing — excepting, of course, the excitement of high noon — and could no sooner adhere to this foreign schema than he could stare directly at the sun (though, on occasion, he did try). Between that and his penchant for letting just about anyone rope him into participating in a side quest — Kaw Kaw racing with Orange, ingredient collecting for Green, pencil wranglin’ for Seth — the odds of getting Yellow to show up on time for anything were slim. 

It didn’t help that there was always the possibility that Yellow had set himself upon a more rigorous and demanding arena of side quests, insisted upon by no one else but himself. Thus his lateness was both commonplace and, in the pit of Blue’s stomach, core muscles flexing as he raised himself in and out of a plié, a perpetual footnote in a catalogue of possible concern. 

Today, however, Yellow proved timely. He announced his arrival in the wings with a clatter of spur jangling and heel clicking, each sounding as though an attempt at muffling had been made, neither having succeeded. 

Hearing this, Blue smiled luxuriously into a downward stretch, cresting an arm over his head and down to the floor, tethered by another to the bar. He felt the muscles in the back of his heel exert themselves at length and held them there for a moment, not only tolerating but welcoming the strain, as he stared with a playful focus at the gloss of the floor. His pose was as precise as a pair of scissors, opened to the limit of their radius.

When he rose, he rose chin-first, and his gaze lifted fluidly to lock with that of Yellow, half-shadowed off-stage. 

Yellow’s hat jolted up in surprise at being caught, casting light down beneath the open brim and illuminating a swath of flustered expression.

This satisfied Blue. He raised himself slowly and methodically back up into a standing position.

“I’m glad you could make it in time for rehearsal.”

“I wouldn’ miss it fer th’world,” Yellow rumbled, taking that as his cue to step onstage.

“Ap-bap-bap,” Blue tsked. He pointed a finger with fairy godmother precision at Yellow’s feet. “Shoes off on the dance floor, dear.”

“Ah, right, o’course,” Yellow said, and he plopped down to shuck them off, his back curved towards Blue, who occupied himself by doing a mental run-through of their choreography (and, of course, by watching Yellow’s shirt shift and ripple across his broad back).

More than a few seconds and several cerebral arabesques later — anticipation making it seem like a few seconds longer than usual — Yellow was back up on the dance floor, wiggling his striped socks. A toe poked out of his left one.

“Do you remember what sequence we left off on?” Blue asked, lowering a hand from his face as he recovered from his bemusement. He glided over to the center of the floor.

“The one with’um the crossed feets?” guessed Yellow. He trekked over to meet Blue. “And then I open up and you do yer spin across me?”

“Precisely. I was thinking we’d start back up there.”

“Sounds good t’me!” Yellow hooked his thumbs in his belt.

His hands, Blue noticed for the first time, were each wrapped in a bandanna, or rather, the two torn halves of one singular bandanna (although bandannas, by nature, do not divide into mere halves, but rather undergo mitosis into separate smaller bandannas, like worms). It was an interesting interpretation of Western clothing style, but then, most of Yellow’s approximations of the genre tended to be a little to the left of the mark, not that any of them truly knew where the mark was in the first place. He was still under the impression that the quantity of tin stars one possessed directly corresponded to rank. Sadly, he hadn’t stumbled across any more of them yet.

“Stretches first, buttercup,” said Blue, reminded somehow of this oversight. Like all the other flowers, they’d scaffolded their nicknames around vague notions of species, none of which applied with any real gravity to the forms they now found themselves in. Yellow was as much a buttercup as he was a goldenrod, just as Blue himself was equally bluebell and bluebonnet and, on occasion (Yellow’s occasion), cornflower. “I wouldn’t want you pulling anything.”

Yellow opened his mouth in an “o” and nodded attentively, promptly bending himself over into a perfect fold and touching the tips of his toes. He hissed slightly as he did so, his back jumping before settling into the pose. One hand reorganized itself to push up on his rapidly loosening hat.

Blue shook his head and began walking the perimeter of Yellow, running through simple moves as he did so. “Dear, what have I told you about stretching more often? You’re going to end up like your right-hand man if you don’t do it daily.”

“Shi can stretch,” Yellow countered, voice half-muffled by the floor (as well as by the ends of the bandanna tied around his neck, which had swung forward to tickle the front of his face). “Jes’, he can only do it vertical-like. Up-an’-downs’um.”

“I’m sure,” said Blue. He arched a toe up to his thigh as he raised in and out of point, while at center, Yellow straightened up and swung a knee back behind him, hooking a hand around his ankle. It slipped out of his grasp once, then twice, accompanied all the while by a grimace, until he finally succeeded in striking up a wobbly balance. This lasted an astounding five seconds before Yellow let his leg fall and repeated the same process with the other, this hold equally as tenuous.

“It might be easier to grab on if you removed your hand wraps, my dear,” Blue advised, stepping from seconde into an épaulée, one leg angled away from his body, arms extended outwards. “Though of course —” he paused the motion and winked in Yellow’s direction — “they are quite à la mode.” His toe traced the floor. “You’re more than welcome to resume your endeavors in cowpoke fashion after the rehearsal.” 

“Right you are,” said Yellow, steadying himself. “Good thing I’m all done with’um that’un.” He swung his arms confidently behind his back and went to link his hands together, then abruptly switched courses to a cross-body shoulder stretch. In doing so, he looked remarkably like a wind-vane.

Blue stepped and bent and tip-toed and turned until eventually he found himself back at his original point. He returned to center and gave Yellow the signal to stop. Already the cowboy was covered in a faint sheen of sweat, drops of condensation beaded like dew along the precipice of his cheekbones and the scruff of his chin. 

“Warmed up?” Blue asked, looking up at Yellow through half-lidded eyes.

Yellow’s mouth twitched up out of its exhaustion. He blinked rapidly in the other direction, wiping sweat from his brow. “Sure am!” 

“Excellent,” purred Blue. He assembled himself in second position, watching as Yellow scrambled to do the same. “Hands?”

Yellow extended his hands obediently to Blue, who shook his head.

“Your wraps, love.”

“Oh!” said Yellow, drawing back. He looked down at the bandannas then back up at Blue. “But I’m finished with all the stretcherin’.”

“You’ve certainly finished getting your body ready to move,” said Blue. “But now that it’s time for said preparation to blossom into performance, don’t you think it would be easier to, say, hold my hands without the extra fabric in the way? I do know so well the pattern of your callouses, my love.”

“That y’do. Still’um,” said Yellow, who always needed extra encouragement, “y’sure?” 

“Positive,” said Blue, smiling.

“Alrigh’,” said Yellow uncertainly. “If’n it would make you happy.” 

He considered the bulbous knots protruding from the backs of his hands and rotated them once, palm-up, then back, palm-down, searing both sides with a frowning scrutiny. Finally, he drew one hand back in preparation to combat the cinch.

Blue was only half-paying attention when Yellow unwrapped the knot from the back of the first wrap. With knobby, capable fingers, he untangled the opposing ends of that sheath of paisley from one another and let them fall wrinkled to either side, fastening undone. The rest of the bandanna, however, did not immediately follow suit; rather, the majority of it still clung to the skin of his palm with surprising stubbornness. Quickly, hesitantly, and with his hand half turned-away, Yellow took up an edge and began to peel the material from the plane of his hand. The fabric came up in a flash of gummy dark orange patches, which he promptly crumpled out of sight and into a pocket, flipping his free hand over as he did so and starting on the next.

Blue’s attention lingered. 

“Yellow, dear, stop.” Blue reached out reflexively, his hand alighting atop Yellow’s and pausing him midway through the act of untying the second bandanna. “What was that?”

Yellow froze. “Whad’y’a mean?” He drew out his vowels as though they were sugar beets he intended to refine into molasses. His hand, the one facing down on top of the other, stilled beneath Blue’s, his fingers tangled in the knot.

Blue fixed him with an urgent look and brought his fingertips creeping over to the lip of Yellow’s downturned hand. “Can I please take a look?” 

“Ain’t nothin’ much t’look at,” Yellow said. “Honest. I mean, I ain’t gone stop you, if’n y’want t’look, ‘cause who’m I t’do any stoppin’ —“ Blue began turning his hand over — “someone like me, a no-good half-Justice who couldn’t stop a fly from biting a donkey’s rear —“ Blue gasped, and Yellow started talking faster, tripping over his words — “least not when it was half an accident, and either way, it’s jus’ some evidence o’ Justice well done, thas’ all, and when y’look at it my way, it’s —.”

“My love.”

Yellow bit down on his tongue. 

“My love, my love, my love.”

Blue looked up at Yellow with shining eyes, his brows knit together in third position and his beautiful lips half-parted. One of his hands flitted up to rest on Yellow’s upper arm, while the other nudged itself between Yellow’s hands, touching the edge of the handkerchief on the still-wrapped one.

“Is the other one like this?”

Yellow looked as though his mouth were the site of speech’s burial, all full of sand and enamel grave markers. He unclamped his tongue. “The Justice was consistent.” 

Blue pulled the rest of the knot loose with a delicate relevé of the fingers and peeled the handkerchief from his partner’s palms. With more care than Yellow had seen fit to apply, he folded the handkerchief, tucking the dried, reticulate patches away into its interior without touching them. Then, hesitating a moment, he slipped it into Yellow’s vest pocket alongside its partner, all a tad more awkwardly than he would’ve liked; regrettably, his leotard left little room for the storage of evidence. 

This done, the palms of Yellow’s hands were left to hang open mid-air, fingers blooming upwards toward the light so that the nasty orange arc spanning his palms was on full display, like the brushstroke of some terrible sunset. Parts of the gash had begun to darken and grow stiff in an effort to repair themselves, but most of it was still wet with sap and glistened where the skin had pulled apart from itself, or where the handkerchief had pulled new, temporary skin up with it. Yellow’s hands were rough, yes, and frequently calloused, a quality Blue rather enjoyed, but never did they appear so unreconcilably ravaged. It looked as though his palms had been flayed by the long arm of a whip. 

The stage might as well have been all trap-door, if the sudden pit in Blue’s stomach was any indication.

“Honey.” He cradled the underside of Yellow’s knuckles, a thumb running along the edges of his upturned hand. It sounded as though some sand must have gotten into his mouth as well and stuck itself along the back of his throat.

“It looks worse’n it is,” Yellow whispered, his posture emulating something of a deer in headlights.

“Does it hurt? It must hurt.”

“No. I mean, yes. Yes, a little, but only when I open my hands or close ‘em or if’n I reach my fingers out too far.”

“It sounds like you’ve covered a fair portion of hand-related activities.”

“Not dancing, though,” said Yellow. “Didn’t say nothin’ about dancin’. Fact, we can pick right up where we left off.”

Blue shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”

Yellow bristled. “Hold on now,” he said. “Y’cain’t let me rain on yer parade like that! If yer disgusted with me, I can jes’ put the kerchiefs back on — look.” 

He started to withdraw, only for Blue to stop him with a touch of his hand. “I’m putting rehearsal on hold for the day, Yellow.”

Yellow lowered his hand. “Y’don’t wanna dance with me?”

“I’d like nothing more, my love. But we have to take care of this first.”

“I don’t see why we gotta,” Yellow said, lower lip beginning to wobble above a quicksand chin. “Seems t’me like we’d be cuttin’ somethin’ short. Mid-trial, if’n y’will.”

Blue tilted his head at him. “Sweetheart, why didn’t you come to me? Or someone else?”

“Like — before? Or-or-or, like after.”

“Any time.”

Yellow scrunched up his nose in an effort to keep the landscape of his face arid. “Wouldn’t be real Justice-like. Offhandin’ responsibility like that.” The tips of his fingers twitched, phantom tremors of a quelled desire to pick and tear. “I wanted t’be decisive fer once.”

“Oh, Yellow,” said Blue, touching a hand to Yellow’s face and rubbing his thumb over the raised angle of his cheekbone. “That’s not the kind of decisive anyone ought to be.”

“But I’m not jus’ anyone,” Yellow said. The little points of stubble along his jawline bent as he leaned into Blue’s touch. “I’m a Justice.”

“There’s some truth to that,” agreed Blue, the words coming easily from a wellspring of dormant thought. “You are a Justice, and a very good one at that. However —“ he patted Yellow’s cheek with the barest reminder of a fingertip — “you are not the only Justice. Others too are striving to do what’s right and meeting with similar challenges. You know that, don’t you? Your position may not be an enviable one, my love, but it is not an abnormal one.” 

“I dunno what yer… I don’ understand,” Yellow croaked out, directing his eyes skyward and blinking hard in an effort to negate the threat of flash flooding. The Lumens above illuminated the brim of his hat in a heavy halo.

Blue pressed his lips together and gave Yellow’s cheekbone another rub, feeling keenly the divide between them in both language and ideology. He withdrew his hand and took Yellow’s in his own. “That’s alright,” he said. 

Yellow’s gaze flicked down to Blue’s, uncertainty unshuttered in his eyes. 

“You and I are going to continue this conversation in a moment. Before we do that, however, I want to make sure we attend to your injuries. Would you be alright by yourself if I stepped outside for a moment? I want to see if Green would be willing to put some food on.” 

Yellow blinked down at Blue. “Well, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” 

Blue made a face back at him, sheepish and incisive yet still elegant, as all Blue faces are. 

“Oh.” Yellow chuckled wetly and looked askance. “Righ’. Nah, y’dont gotta worry. I’ll be good. Here, I can even get some practer’c’in’ in!”

To demonstrate, he pulled his injured hands abruptly away and began arranging his feet first in one position, then another, shifting from clumsy angle to clumsy angle in a jangling display of determined redirection. “This’un here, and that’un there, then y’grapevine this’a way… jus’ like that.”

“Very good,” Blue commended, hand on the railing. “I’ll check your form when I get back.” And he slipped off.

***

Cliffside, rōka, diner. Rock and wood slat and linoleum tile. Tip, heel, air. 

When he returned, Yellow was turning pirouettes in the center of the dance floor, and his face was shining-wet. Unaccustomed to moving around without his boots (and to graceful movement in general), he would lose his balance every so often and drag the rhythm along with him, stumbling a step before righting himself and resuming the rotation, and doing so with such a frequency that it became almost a part of the choreography. He stumbled all the more when he spotted Blue on his return and made a grab for the brim of his cowboy hat as if that would help steady him as the world, presumably, revolved before him.

Blue strode forward and steadied him properly around his hips. 

“I been practer’c’in,” Yellow said, his smile a tad loopy. He sniffed. “Gettin’ real good at that turnin’ round thing.”

“That you are,” said Blue, casting a semi-sturdy smile up at him.

“Y’get us a bite t’eat?” 

“Almost. Green’s cooking up something for us right now. Special order.” 

He shifted a hand to cradle the small of Yellow’s back, and the cowboy in the cup of his palm all but melted in response. He let it rest there a moment, reveling in the sensation of their two bodies standing so close, the cowboy warm and alive beneath his palm, the very edges of Blue’s tutu crimping against him. It didn’t quite provide the same thrill as a well-executed pas de deux, motion and syncope taken in stride, two moving as one, but then, that motion would be nothing without that hold preceding it granting it its strength, nor, doubtless, the necessary respite bestowed by the one following it. 

Admittedly, Blue was getting a bit tangled in his own metaphor, letting the silence drag on for the same reason Yellow wasn’t rushing to interrupt it.

“I think we need to have a bit of a talk, love.”

Yellow let out a breath. “I was worried you’d say that,” he admitted, lower lip stuck out plaintively. “Why cain't we jes’ dance our words — like’um them bees do? Wouldn’ that be simpler?”

“Because we’re not bees, Yellow. We’re… well, whatever we may be, we discuss matters. Besides,” he said, rubbing a thumb along the small of Yellow’s back and letting his expression drop ever so slightly to the embroidered patterns on Yellow’s vest. “I think enough has been said by way of action already.”

Yellow paused in a well of silence that seemed to take the shape of not enough. He shook his head. “I dunno, Blue. It ain’t real purdy business. I don’t think you’d like it much.”

“Do courts not have stenographers? Crimes their witnesses?” Blue tried.

Yellow tried this on for size; begrudgingly, it fit. “Alrigh’,” he conceded. “Alrigh’. I’m not sure what I’d need’a stun-agro fer, let alone four of ‘em, but if’n it’d please you, I suppose it’s my duty t’give y’the full court report.”

“Nothing would make me happier. Come,” he said, rising up on pointe to give Yellow a peck on the tip of his nose. “Let’s take a seat, shall we?”

Yellow flushed a very confused shade of meringue and let himself be led to the edge of the deck, where Blue bade him sit, taking the lead and relaxing down into the soft pile of his floral tutu. Yellow followed along, folding over gangly knees into a sitting position, one hand in Blue’s safe custody. He glanced at Blue, as if looking for approval that he’d done the act of sitting right.

“There,” said Blue, granting him a smile from beneath a delicate curtain of white lashes. “Isn’t that better? Especially,” he added, “after all those pirouettes?”

“That’s what they’re called!” Yellow let out a curt chuckle, like the shucking of a potato peeler. “I done forgot.”

“And now memory has graced you once more. Might you help do the same for me?”

Yellow tilted his head and his smile. “What, with dancin’ moves? I rather think yer the ex-per on that.” A rare, speedy spark of realization flicked across his features. “Oh, no, not dancin’ moves.”

Blue shook his head.

“Are y’sure?” Yellow’s unoccupied hand flitted up to adjust the brim of his hat. After a second thought, he took it off and set it next to him, allowing the hair beneath to stick up at straight, static angles.

“Please,” said Blue.

“Right y’are then.” Yellow shifted in his sitting position and settled his gaze somewhere in the middle ground, where it could be safe from Blue’s attentive stare, at least at the start. The space behind the dance floor fell into shadow not far from their feet; even the lights above knew where the attention was.

“It weren’t nothin’ real special,” Yellow began, his words plunking out over the stage like an out-of-tune piano. “The hand thing, that is. Dunno why I settled on it either, though I’m sure yer wonderin’. Think sand woulda taken too long, an’ my room was too far away. Orange was still playin’ with my revolver, so that weren’t an option. 

“Honest, it started out as jest a walk. I wanted t’clear my head with all’um that fresh mountain air ‘n all. Sunset in the background, e’rethin’ all pinky-orange, wind blowin’ through the trellers. It weren’t half bad. You’d’a liked it. I almost liked it.

“Problem was,” he said grimly. “I started gettin’ ideas. ‘An you know I’m not real talernted in the ideas department. But this one seemed mighty convincerin’. Real solution-y ‘n proper. Like it’d, I dunno, fix e’rethin’. Or at least somethin’.”

The deep blue leaves of the tree set back behind the glass backstage wall rustled in a wind neither of them could feel. It caught Yellow’s eye, and he turned back to regard it for a moment, twisting his torso around with what Blue now thought he recognized as a slight wince. 

Blue watched him, watching it.

A long moment passed before he turned back.

“‘An’ so,” he said. “I kept listenin’. An’ it kept seemin’ more and more appropry-ate, ‘till I could feel it through m’whole body.”

Blue was not expecting it when Yellow turned his gaze on him. His eyes were intense in a way Blue thought both of them were seldom privy to, as though the plodding piano rhythm of his words had discovered their muscle memory by way of the callouses at his fingertips.

“Y’ever get that feelin’? ‘Fore the music starts back up, when yer standin’ there in the wings, plannin’ out yer next moves? ‘An the music keeps gettin’ closer ‘n closer, ‘n louder ‘n louder, till all y’can feel is how ready yer body is t’move?” His stare was heavy enough to hang by. “So y’do?” 

His head swiveled away at a drift. 

Blue waited, watching as Yellow dragged his fingers along the brim of his hat — one bump, two bumps — then let them go limp. He was about to respond, to say anything, when Yellow, the bullet flying straight and true, softly stated: “I tied my rope to one of ‘em whirligig flowers.”

Blue brought a hand to his lips. “You weren’t about to —.”

When Yellow looked at him it might as well have been from across the wind-rush void that separates two cliffs.

In lieu of putting the act into words, or in preference against it, Blue lowered his hand to his neck and gave it a tap.

Yellow frowned at Blue’s neck for a moment, reaching a hand up to his own, before it clicked, and he was back from across that great divide.

“No, nothin’ like that,” he corrected, waving the suggestion off. “Though I suppose I coulda, if’n I’d thought of it.” He paused, as if filing the idea away for the future. 

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” said Blue, dourly.

“Right you are.” Yellow moved to rub the back of his neck, before catching himself and remembering the state of his palms, course-correcting to put his hand palm-up in front of him, like the one whose knuckles Blue was currently rubbing.

“Anyways,” he continued conversationally, now pointedly looking away from Blue, “with’um that whole whirligig thing. I was jes’ hopin’ I could get it t’drag me along behind it — y’know, rough me up a bit on all ‘em rocks. Nothin’ too fancy.”

A carefully vacant non-expression made its home on Blue’s face. 

“So’s,” said Yellow. “I got all laid up with my tummy on the ground an’ my arms in front o’ me holdin’ the rope an’ waited fer the wind t’start movin’ along. And sure ‘nough, it did! Shucks, it struck up a mighty good speed, too. It was like wrasslin’ a bighorn mule, not that I’ve ever had the pleasure.”

“My dear,” said Blue, “the skin of your stomach, is it… alright?”

“Oh, heh, stomach, knees, elb-ers. It’s all a bit scraped up, o’ course,” Yellow said. “Had t’change shirts ‘n pants ‘n all.”

Blue swallowed heavily, eyes flicking down to the aforementioned extremities, all of which remained interminable beneath the material of tough work cargo. “I suppose we’ll check on those in a moment, then.”

“I weren’t able to hold on too long, mindja,” Yellow assured. “The wind picked up an’ started blowin’ real strong-like, more’n I’d expected, an’ since it were movin’ that there flower along with it, my hands kept slippin’, try as I might t’hold on. Then came along this great big gust and — shoo-ee! It yanked itself outta my hands, leavin’ me jes’ inchworms from the cliff’s edge. Why, my durn nose was practically pokin’ out over it, but here I was, so caught up in e’rethin’ that I hain’t even noticed.”

Blue took in everything about his partner — the harvest-season scruff along his jaw, the dotting of sunspots across his cheeks, his nose, its strong angle pointing down to a hooked smile of bright, uneven teeth, all of it framed by the tufts of straw-stiff hair which splayed out over the expanse of his forehead and out from the nape of his neck, where freckled skin receded beneath plaid. He considered how close he had been to losing this. Then, he closed the distance between the two of them and, a hand taking root in that aforementioned scruff, kissed him. 

They didn’t kiss for very long, but it was enough for the thought to cross Blue’s mind that if he blew into Yellow’s mouth, it might be enough to keep him alive for next time. He did not act on this.

“Blue?” said Yellow, bewildered and rumpled, when he pulled away.

“Forgive me,” Blue said, the ghost of chitin passing over his face. “Mr. Butterfly was overcome.” There was a sweet taste on his tongue; Yellow had been biting the inside of his cheeks.

“We-yell. Thas’ alrigh’,” Yellow said, a confused muddle of half-expressions fighting for preeminence over his face. “I ain’t gon’ complain about no smoochin’.” 

Blue’s head angled away. Mr. Butterfly provided Yellow with a shaky, hand-drawn smile.

Yellow’s face fell.

“Ain’t you gonna tell me yer mad at me?” Yellow prompted softly, the silence driving hesitance into him. 

Blue caught himself and looked back at Yellow, waiting patiently at his side for some admonishment or encouragement, whichever he might deign to give him. Mr. Butterfly folded off in a wink, and a sad, easy smile slipped onto his face beneath it. He reached a hand out to cup Yellow’s cheek. “No, darling, of course not. I’m very glad you told me.”

“Y’don’t seem very glad,” Yellow said, hand curling away from Blue’s every so slightly. “I know I done messed up. Y’can be un-glad.”

Blue rubbed his thumb over the edge of his palm, drawing him back. “It’s true,” he said. “That it happened does not bring me any great joy. Far from it. Knowing I could have so easily lost you… it is a very scary feeling, Yellow. Knowing what happened, however, and having you here to tell it to me — that, at least, I can be grateful for. I hope you know how much you mean to me, and that I’m quite proud you could get that off your chest.”

“Shucks. Thanks, Blue,” Yellow mumbled, flushed between drawn brows. “Y’mean loads to me, too. I, uh, I do still feel like it’s kinda on there, though? The chest thing, that is. Is it s’pose’tuh feel like that?”

“Sometimes,” Blue hummed. “For some people. I must imagine the discomfort would not be dispelled so easily by admission. Perhaps there is more you want to tell me?”

Yellow frowned, seemingly trying to figure out where ‘want’ factored into the conversation, or perhaps merely searching for a kerchief with which to wrap the topic away entirely.

“I certainly have some more questions, if you’d do me the honor of fielding them. But first,” Blue said, reading the line of tension along his partner’s brow and the suggestion of flight about his posture, “I feel it would be prudent to address any other thoughts you might be having in this particular moment.”

The corner of Yellow’s mouth twitched up. “Um,” he said. “Lotta things.”

“Grant me some of them.”

“Yer sweet,” Yellow said automatically. “Thas’ one o’ them.  An’ I can be real dumb. Thas’ another. An’ them whirligigs, they was s’posed’tuh make me feel better, but what feels better is sittin’ here with you, even if I wanna crawl out o’ my skin a little bit, but I think I’d do it again if given the chance. Sorry.” 

Yellow’s shoulders winched up to his ears.

Blue rubbed at his arm. “I’m glad there is some relief to be found in our sitting here together. I only wish I had known to make it available to you earlier.” He trailed his hand up to the nape of Yellow’s neck and scratched freely at the base of his hairline, no brim there to worry about disheveling. “And I can only hope my presence can be called upon in the event of any future instances, should they arise.”

Yellow closed his eyes, his head relaxing under Blue’s touch. 

“Y’said y’had questions?” he muttered.

“They can wait a tick,” Blue said. He carded his fingers through tufts of Yellow’s hair, pitch-fork thick and matted with sweat and dust. His brows pinched. “I do, however, think we ought to head to the baths now, mm? Get you cleaned up?”

Yellow scrunched his face up, and Blue waited for him to voice his contention.

“Yer gonna see them,” Yellow whimpered, after what looked to have been some serious internal negotiation. 

“I won’t look unless you give me permission to do so. I already regret that I was so hasty with your handkerchiefs; I would’ve proceeded with greater care, had I known.”

“We-yell, thas’ alrigh’. Y’were jest thinkin’ ‘bout what’s best fer dancin’. An’ then you was all worried ‘bout me, or somethin’.”

“Yes, worried,” Blue said quickly. He forced himself to calm his voice. “I was quite worried.”

“‘M sorry,” Yellow mumbled. “Shouldn’ be makin’ y’worry.”

“You’ve done no such thing. My worry is my own, and it arrives only by providence of my care for you.”

Yellow gave a hum so unconvinced it almost tripped its way into a chuckle.

Blue, watching Yellow with no small amount of concern, brought his fingers down out of his hair to rub encouragingly at his back.

“You’ll come with me to the baths, won’t you, my love? Let me help alleviate some of your pain.”

“D’okay,” Yellow sniffed. 

Blue took his hand back and, planting it on the ground, pushing himself gracefully up. He skipped off-stage and grabbed Yellow’s boots from the wings. When he returned to Yellow’s side, his feet were buoyed by mist, and he sank lightly off the stage and onto the floor below.

“Let me,” he said, holding up the boots.

From his perch up on the stage, Yellow gave him a look that suggested he’d be flattered if he weren’t so purely anxious. He granted permission with a bob of his head, and Blue began slipping first one boot, then the other, onto Yellow’s feet, hiding away his stripes. 

“You should let me darn that sock of yours. That can’t be comfortable.”

“Durn it? It ain’t bad enough fer all that.”

Blue’s lips twitched up in a surprised little smile. He traced the teal and brown roses along the flanks of the boots with his gaze. “Well, I suppose you’ll have to let me mend it then.”

“Huh,” Yellow said, as Blue rose smoothly back up onto the stage beside him. “‘Spose that’d be alright.”

Blue offered a hand to Yellow, who almost took it, before a flash of shame arrived to strangle his act of acceptance. “Y’don’t wanna touch that,” he said abruptly and scrambled to his feet on his own, putting the wound palm-down on the stage as he shoved himself up. “It’s nasty. Downright.” 

He wavered on the edge of the stage, hands lost in midair, unable to be clasped in the safety of one another.

“Alright,” said Blue. He stooped to pick up the hat.

When he’d righted himself, he presented it to him with a small smile that said let me have this instead. The cowboy, looking so desperately small in spite of his height, took the hat and placed it back atop his head, fixing the brim front and back.

“Shall we?” Blue said. 

Yellow nodded and let him take the lead.

It felt strange to abandon the stage without having first graced it with a performance, but perhaps, Blue reasoned, the drama was taking place off-stage that day. Swimming, too, was both exercise and art, when performed in synchronicity.

He reached the door and, finding that Yellow was no longer by his side, turned and looked behind him.

Yellow stood paused in the wings, his shoulders hunched, hands shoved into his armpits. 

“Can I put my kerchiefs back on?” he muttered, the brim of his hat angled away from the doorframe. “It’s jes’… there could be others, an’ they’d… they wouldn’… I don’ wanna halfta lie.”

“Of course,” said Blue, touching him on the arm. “Let me.”

Yellow fished the handkerchiefs out of his pocket and handed them to him. It grated at Blue, lining the dried patches in the fabric up with the raw slickness of Yellow’s palm, but he swallowed his revulsion with the assurance that the wounds would not be left to sit for much longer. As easy as it would be to wave his hand and wash away all that pain, he knew this instance called for a less fleeting kind of care.

Blue’s hand on Yellow’s back, the two left the stage.

***

Steam curled around their ankles and padded their lungs as they entered the humid interior of the onsen. Gradated baths of various depths receded down to the right of the main walkway, while to their left, a great sunlit expanse of mountains stretched off into the distance, their slopes littered with the outlines of bonsai trees. None of them had ever made the attempt to venture over in that direction and see whether their feet would find solid footing or if it was merely that the heat of the sauna was strong enough to conjure up a mirage miles-off.

Yellow leaned back against the wood paneling and loosened the bolo and kerchief ensemble around his neck. He removed his hat and held it in his hands.

Blue, feeling grateful for the lightweight fabric of his leotard, joined him by his side.

They stood a moment, looking out at the layers of mist billowing off the surface of the water in bodysome wisps. Not even the welcome shower of a watering can could trump the delight of such an immersion in water and heat as they were now welcome to indulge in. While it was wondrous enough to be given voice and body, it was all the more wonderful to be given places in which to experiment with these gifts and experience them to their fullest.

“Before we unwind,” Blue said, speaking out into the heavy air. “I was wondering if you might be interested in telling more about what led up to this.”

Dew dripped from the blades of slumped grasses into the water below, the noise no more than a pin drop against the backdrop of rushing water. Amidst the rocks, small creatures, smaller than ever needed to be given name, scuttled about the angular stone edges of the ishigumi.

When Yellow, his profile wooden in Blue’s periphery, didn’t immediately reply, Blue continued. “If I knew what it was that affected you so terribly, perhaps it would enable you and I to do something to prevent it from happening in the future, or at least to minimize its effect. Besides,” he said, the water burbling in eddies of heat below, “I think this bath might be better enjoyed if you were able to cleanse yourself not only physically, but mentally.”

Beside him, Yellow surveyed the surroundings, his face flushed with condensation, and, deeming it tranquil (that is to say, devoid of people) enough, nodded in cautious agreement. He hung his head. “I done got myself into a bit of a dis-arguement, is all.”

“A disagreement? With who?” 

“Nobody,” he muttered, turning his hat in his hands.

“That seems a rather difficult feat,” said Blue. “Are you certain?”

“I don’t mean to omit evidence,” said Yellow, skittish. “There was another person. It’s just, it ain’t impordant that they were there.” He toyed with the brim, pushing tension along its rigid edge. “They’re no criminell, after all.”

“Be that as it may,” Blue ventured, resting a hand lightly on the hat, “I think it would help me understand the situation better if I got to know who this is about. They’re not in any trouble, don’t worry.”

“Alrigh’,” Yellow agreed, with no small amount of hesitation. “If yer serious, and so’s long as we agree that it don’t really matter, then… then I suppose it was with’um Orange.”

“Orange? But she didn’t have any part in all this, did she?”

He shook his head. “No, no, we was just talkin’.”

“Must have been some rather serious ‘talking’.”

Yellow nodded thickly. “Was.”

“Would you mind telling me what you and her were talking about?”

“Only the single most important thing in the world!” said Yellow. The brim bowed under the pressure of his frustration.

“Justice?” Blue hazarded.

“Justice.” A solemn nod, as from a sentinel cactus standing guard in the middle of the desert, doubly confirmed it. “And how I jes’ ain’t no good at bein’ one.”

Blue drew back in surprise. “Did she say that?”

“Not in so many words.”

Blue relaxed. “Let’s maintain a commitment to the evidence then. What did she say?”

“I cain‘t rightly launch into it without doin’ a bit o’ setterin’up.”
“As is natural.”

Yellow huffed, adjusting his neckwear nervously. “Well,” he began. “Me an’ her were out by them paper walls doin’ our kind o’ practer’c’in’, all fightin’-like. She’d go ahead an’ throw some punches, I’d make like a kitchen ‘n counter ‘em. I’d send my lasso whippin’ her way, ‘an she’d jump up above it. Event-erly, I gave her one o’ my guns an’ we worked on her aim — put a good few holes through that there paper, lemme tell ya! — but mostlys we was punchin’.” 

The crooked smile that had wandered onto Yellow’s face faltered, finding itself out in the open and about to encounter something it didn’t want to face. “She can get real touchy ‘bout her damage dealin’, y’know?”

Blue nodded. He was as aware of the little flower’s sensitivities as he was of everyone else’s.

“I made sure not t’make it obvious,” he said, looking as though he’d rather plunge himself, hat and all, in the water, than continue to relive the memory, “but I — oh, yer gonna hate me fer this — I weren’t givin’ it my all when I was fightin’ her. It’s true! I know it sounds awful comin’ from such a deder-cated do-gooder as I’ve tricked you int’uh thinkin’ I might possibly be, but I’d never forgive myself if I hurt her, Blue! All’s ‘em lil’ human bones… She’s jes’ so tiny. I had’tuh hold back, I had,’tuh, even if it was jes’ a little, even if I had’tuh do some trickin’, Blue, I couldn’t not try my durndest to be careful with her. 

“An’ I thought I was doin’ a purdy good job at it too! Bein’ careful with her, bein’ careful with her feelin’s, not punchin’ too hard, lettin’ some of ‘er punches land on me. 

“‘Course, she’s got smart eyes, even if they’s so small. She caught on right quick, stopped wailin’ on me an’ started tearin’ intuh me instead, only this time it was all metaphoric-like, sayin’ stuff like how I was in-salting her, how I was trainin’ her only t’make fun of her, how I clearly thought I was th’bigger guy an’ wanted t’show off, how I couldn’ be th’bigger guy since Asgore clearly didn’ think I was or he’d let me help ‘im with his investy-gatin’ —.”

“Asgore?”

Yellow stopped his tirade, stricken. His hands, hat and all, flew to his face. “I weren’t s’posed t’mention that,” he mumbled.

“Honey,” Blue said. 

Yellow buried his face deeper into his hat. 

“You didn’t approach him again, did you?”

“I jes’ wanted t’help.”

“Honey…”

“He’s workin’ so hard all on his lonesome, Blue. What if ‘e gets in o’er his head, an’ he ain’t got nobody t’lend ‘im a hand?”

“Sweetheart, it’s very noble of you to want to help, but Asgore… he’s always been more of a lone ranger, wouldn’t you admit?”

“Maybe that’s why he ain’t caught the criminell yet!” Yellow insisted. “He don’t got a trusty pardner t’look fer evidence an’ interry-gate suspects an’ th’like. I could be his deputy, Blue!”

“Yellow…”

“I could! Don’t’cha think I could? What’s so wrong with me that I couldn’?” Yellow’s chin crumpled in parallel with the corners of his hat. “What’s so wrong with me?”

“Oh, Yellow, dearest, there’s nothing wrong with you. That’s not at all what I meant.”

“Ain’t it, though? Look at me, I go doin’ stupid stuff like — like this! —“ he flung a bandaged hand into the air — “at th’slightest drop o’ my hat, but what else can I do? If I were a better sheriff, he’d want me by his side, but I’m not, and I ain’t never gonna be, so what can I do?” His face twisted up and he turned staunchly away from Blue.

Something large and armored within the catalogue of Blue’s esteem was subjected to a very, very stern glare. Then, he reached out and put a hand on his love’s shoulders.

“Yellow,” he said. “Nobody thinks that about you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re one of the most dedicated, conscientious, determined purveyors of justice I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. That some people are too wrapped up in their own misconceptions of right and wrong to see that is no condemnation of your effort.”

“I wanna help him so bad, Blue,” Yellow muttered. He leaned into Blue’s embrace and lay his head on his shoulder. “He’s doin’ work that matters, I can jes’ tell. Work that’s so much bigger’n all’a us. What if I could make the difference?”

“I’m sure you could. And maybe in time he’ll come to see that.”

“We don’t got time.”

Blue rubbed Yellow’s back. “I know.”

Yellow sniffed and wrapped his arms around Blue. When he spoke next, it was so quiet Blue could hardly hear it: “I gon’ miss you.”

“Hush, don’t talk like that. Here, sit." He guided the both of them down onto a drier patch of wood planking and tried to get the conversation back on track.

"Did anything else happen? You went to see Asgore -- what was it, yesterday?"

Yellow nodded.

"What was he doing?"

Yellow shifted his head to talk more clearly. "Papers. Always his papers. I ain't even good at readin', don' know why I thought I could --."

"He was working on his research?" Blue interceded tactfully.

"Mhm."

"And you offered to help?"

"Thas' righ'."

"And he turned you down."

"Imfaddic -- em-fat-ick --."

"Emphatically?"

A nod.

"Orange was there to see it."

 "Yes'm. She'd wanted pointers."

Blue frowned. "No Flowery, though?"

"Nuh-uh. Jest us."

"Did he...." He almost didn't want to ask. "What did he say to you?"

Blue could feel Yellow's frown against his skin. It took him a moment to pipe up. 

"'I'm not in th'mood t'play cowboys,'" he rumbled. 

For a long, white-hot moment, Blue couldn't bring himself to respond. "That's a very cruel thing to say," he said finally.

Yellow shrugged apathetically into Blue's side.

"And what of Orange?"

"'Not now, little one,'" Yellow repeated, voice gruff with casual uncaring. "'Cain't y'see I'm busy? Cain't y'see I got real work t'do?'"

Blue glowered out across the water.

"Shouldn'a disturbed 'im."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Weren't it?"

"No." Blue tucked Yellow's head under his chin. "It wasn't."

He rested there a moment, jaw tense and mind busy.

"What happened after that?"

"Left. Got outta his hair. I took Orange t'do some practer'c'in, so's she could still get some tips from someone, at least."

"What a kind gesture. I’m sure she appreciated it.”

Yellow huffed into Blue's shoulder. "Whate'er good it did," he mumbled.

"You were both hurting, my dear. It seems to me that what happened was rather to be expected."

Yellow shifted slightly and didn't respond. 

"You and her can talk it out tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll have cooled down by then.”

“Mm’kay.”

That was alright. He’d make sure to get the two of them in the same room tomorrow. He imagined somewhere a very similar conversation was being had with Pink.

“And that was it, then?” Blue said. “You fought, and then you, well, you really fought, and then you both set off on your separate ways?"

“Thas’ th’long an’ short of it.”

Blue leaned his head back against the wall. “You slept like this last night then.”

Yellow paused, then nodded.

“I’d wondered where you’d gone.”

“M’sorry. Idda been too tricky t’hide it.”

“I know.” He sighed through his nose. “If there comes a next time, love, could I trouble you to act differently? To seek me out? Before or after,” he clarified.

Yellow glanced up at Blue.

“Id’d be kinda frequent.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Y’say that now, but —.”

“And I’ll say it again later. Yellow, when have you known me to ‘just’ say anything? I would do our faculty of speech no such disservice.”

He looked down at Yellow and caught his stare. Yellow was looking up at him in mute admiration.

“I really do mean it, love. The next time you feel like this, you come to me. Is that understood?” He leveled the eyebrow.

Yellow found his tongue again. “Yes, Blue, I — I’ll try. I swear t’it.”

“Good. Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said. “I’d imagine you’d have to be a little sweaty by now. Would I be correct?”

Yellow gave a lopsided grin. “Lil’ bit.”

Blue smiled back. “Come on.”

***

Undressing wasn’t something they did often. The same way time found them in an unusual pattern, so too did the instinct to change outfits miss most of them by a mile. They had the ability, of course; there were closets here and there with changes of clothing — pajamas, evening wear, active wear — if any of them desired it. Some, like Orange, who curled up for naps in the same bandanna and tank top she worked out in, saw no such need. Others, like Green, on whose apron stains tended to disappear of their own volition if they didn’t think about them for long enough, never had the occasion to want for such a thing. Dresses held a strictly functional appeal for Aqua, allowing her to vary her spin velocity; comparatively, there was likely no world in which Seth would ever change. 

Blue had the pleasure of making up for everyone else’s ambivalence with a stocked wardrobe of light blue slips, sheer tights, and floral dancewear. A part of this distinction was the necessity of varying outfits for performance, but another was pure indulgence; Blue enjoyed the act of disrobing as much as he enjoyed its sister act of dressing up. Hips in motion beneath lush tulle or abdominals relaxed in exposed air, he relished all human delights fabric brought with its presence, as well as its absence. To experience a change in states was a luxury he had never before known.

Yellow, also being a performer, had some variety in garb, but its variation was more subtle. It lay in the embroidery of his vests, the circumference of his brim, the style of his boots. He knew what he liked, and he wore it often, and he wore it well. 

It had been but a few times that Blue had had the privilege of watching him change, and he did so now with undisguised interest, tainted only slightly by the weight of his concern for the other.

Yellow undid the accoutrements around his neck and put them carefully in a little pile. With practiced precision, he undid the top half of his buttons; then, with less practiced uncertainty, he undid the bottom-most set, shucking the shirt and vest off his shoulders and into the pile, revealing, in doing so, the bare flesh of his torso. 

Blue couldn’t help that the attention of his gaze was immediately drawn to its surface, though he wished his instincts could have tarried a moment or two this time around.

The skin of Yellow’s stomach glistened an angry orange, the layer of fat marred with irregular hatch marks of raw, irritated flesh. Where Blue would normally find himself tracing the outline of Yellow’s abdominals and the trail of soft filament leading down his pelvis, now his vision was compromised by this mutilated patch. So too were Yellow’s elbows, the joints inside prodding the underside of scabbing skin as he undid his belt, damaged, and when his pants had been shucked down to his ankles, it was clear his knees and upper thighs were in much the same state. The irregularity of the coverage gave the injuries an appearance of unintentional tragedy, rather than deliberate action, which, had Blue not known the situation and, above all, Yellow, he might have been able to believe. To see any injury left unhealed, however, when this world had granted them the tools to heal themselves at a rate hitherto unknown to their fragile flower bodies, was suspect in and of itself. There was no need for pain here; that was the outside world’s imposition. 

“There y’have it,” said Yellow, pressing his knuckles into his hips. “I’m in ma birthday suit! Or rather —“ he considered the underwear still on him and grinned sheepishly — “m’half-birthday suit. Y’reckon I try fer a cannoned ball?”

“Perhaps just walking in would be fine,” Blue advised, tearing his eyes away from the washboard rubbings on Yellow’s thighs.

“Y’know best.” Yellow hummed amicably and turned to face the baths, his angular figure silhouetted against the low-lying mist. “In I go then! Yippee Kay Yay — slow-style.”

Yellow began traipsing unevenly into the water, glancing back now and again for encouragement. It rose above his ankles and turned the trichomes along his legs into a wetlands, the sharp valley below his tibia an underwater ravine. Below the surface, his legs distorted into a wobbly funhouse parody of themselves, substantiability rendered uncertain, a reflection of a reflection.  

Blue lowered himself into a crouch and watched a peculiar reaction come over Yellow as the steaming water rose above his knees and began to intrude upon the threshold of irritated skin. Instinct instructed him to flinch ever so slightly at the pain of healing skin meeting all-encompassing heat, but where one might normally be tempted to regard that as a deterrent and, in so doing, hesitate along a given course, his pain in continuing forward seemed, horrifically, to warp before Blue’s eyes into an encouragement, turning acknowledgement into acceptance as the sensation was made welcome and invited to lap all the more stingingly at the bent and bare parts of his legs.

Because the discomfort was not, in this case, an indication of anything injurious, but the natural response of a body stripped of its standard insulation and exposed to an extreme of temperature, he could do little but watch this private snag of his partner’s psyche at work, sliding without fanfare into place among the series of similar misinterpretations that had come together over time to comprise that shifting undertow of determination run sour which so instructed Yellow in his actions.

Yellow, for his part, gave the water an experimental splash and shivered like a dog. “Toasty!” he declared.

Blue watched him from the side. “I’m glad it’s to your liking,” he said. 

“Oh, certainly,” Yellow said. “Only —“ he looked back, grinning crookedly, and rubbed the back of his neck with the outside of a thumb — “it, uhm, it feels a smidgin weird if yer out there in yer purdy too-too an’ I’m, well —“ he chuckled — “I’m stark bloomin’!”

“I suppose it might,” Blue conceded, smiling.

“Couldja maybe — oh,” he said, worrying his hands, “I don’t wanna suggest nothin’!”

“You are suggesting something, love. And I don’t mind it one bit. I’d be happy to join you au natural. For —“ and he rose and began to stretch the elastic in the back of his skirt and shimmy it down his legs — “is not our most true, honest form that which bears no ornament, no cumbersome garb which might seek to disguise or obscure our make, so called into existence by the Fountain’s blessing?”

“I think’um we was born into bein’ with our clothes on,” Yellow interjected, flushed a brazen mango from the tips of his bangs to the bobbing angle of his neck. “But I tigress.” 

Blue tilted back his chin and laughed a laugh like bluebell chimes. “You’re too much, Yellow. By which I mean, of course, that you’re just the right amount.”

“I’m glad my much-ness is to yer liking,” Yellow accepted bashfully.

Blue arranged the petals of tulle delicately on the ground next to Yellow’s pile, where they sat like a pair of flowers sprouting out from between the planks of wood. The tights, bunched safely up, joined them a minute later. Then, he slipped first one toned shoulder, then the other, out from beneath the stretched nylon of his leotard, prompting Yellow to spin around and face away, ears saffron-tipped.

“I’m lookin’ away! I’m not lookin’!”

“Darling, why such hesitance to look?” Blue said, allowing himself the luxury of a slow change, as he glanced back over his shoulder to catch glimpses of Yellow. “I’m no shrinking violet.”

“I suppose thas’ righ’,” said Yellow, facing the opposite direction. “Y’ain’t violet! Unless’n, o’ course, violet’s another one of yer cinnamons.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective,” said Blue. He removed his dance belt, feeling the snugness about his waist drop away as he pulled it over his hips and down his legs. His pistil bowed out into the mist, freed from the hold of the shapewear. Blue stood at the edge of the pool and observed the sensation of humidity across the whole of his body, relishing its comfortable weight against his skin. There had occasionally been problems with humidity in their glass bell jars, in the event that Asgore had over-watered and the sunlight coming through the windows had turned the condensation into steam. One time, Asgore had returned in the morning to find that Yellow had been joined by a little yellow companion, a dapperling, which had sprouted up by the base of his stem. It was harmless and easily dealt with, but Blue had always thought that had they had human forms at the time, Yellow would’ve been afflicted with an amusing congestion. How much more particular might his speech have sounded then.

Out in the water, a twitch of Yellow’s head indicated to Blue that he’d turned around and peeked at him, then turned away in a flush. The way he splashed his hands aimlessly in the water had rather the feel of a cover-up for the action — unneeded, of course. 

Blue stretched his arms over his head and knelt down at the edge of the bath. He sat on the damp wood and, swinging his legs out over the water, submerging them one poised toe at a time. The heat rose up over his calves, soothing the muscles beneath, though they’d entered into little strain today. 

When his thighs were level with the ground, the water flush around his knees, he glanced up, catching Yellow’s gaze this time and pinning it in place with a smile. Yellow looked at him with the singular amazement of someone who, while the rest of the crowd was clustered about one telescope, oohing and ahhing over a star, had turned the focus of his ever so slightly and discovered a galaxy.

Blue, elegantly, raised his body off the planks with arms so well-toned they’d scoff at the idea that such an act could require any sort of effort and slid himself down into the water. It came up over his waist, and he was in.

***

Of the many blessings Blue had been granted by the Fountain, healing was one of the ones he appreciated the most. It turned the angry shade of Orange’s bruised knuckles back to an inoffensive tangerine when she overexerted herself and sealed the scabs on Aqua’s knees when she tripped. With a simple shower, he could regrow the skin and keratin at Seth’s fingertips from a chewed nub to a healthy page-finding length. The ability came in most handy, however, when it came to Yellow, who found himself getting into scrapes at a greater rate than the other flowers. If Blue didn’t know any better, he’d say Yellow sought them out; he did know better, and he knew that was the truth. 

Waiting so patiently in the water, it was hard to believe his Yellow could ever find himself deserving of such brutality. But he did, and he had, and he might do so again, though Blue was at a loath to imagine it. At least here, by Blue’s side, in the cradle of the water, there was no further brutality to be found — only an offer to recover from it.

“Enjoying yourself, love?”

Yellow nodded eagerly.

“I feel like I’m in one o’ Green’s stews. All fulla new-tree-ants an’ th’like. Like I could melt into a soft veg-table.”

“How pleasant,” said Blue, arriving in front of him in a quiet train of ripples. 

“I been — I been so nervous all day,” Yellow admitted. “Like m’head’s not there, but my body’s too there?”

Blue cocked his head softly. “And now?”

“‘S a lil’ better.” He shrugged, half-smiling.

“Would you be open to further improvement?” Blue put a hand on Yellow’s arm. 

Yellow glanced down at his arm. His gaze dropped to his hands, and then, because it was close by, his stomach, that bare amount peeking out above the surface. A distant, self-fascinated revulsion glazed over his features. It said I did this, then ceased to know what to do with that information from there.

The conversational beat offered to him fell out of the air and into the water, where it was dissolved by the heat. 

Blue rubbed a thumb along his arm. “Is there a reason you’d be against it?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“Not a good one,” Yellow mumbled.

“Could you share it with me, that I might view it too?”

Yellow frowned, looking faintly sick. His chest rose imperceptibly.

“'Cause what if I deserve it, Blue?”

His voice was barely audible over the trickling of the water from one pool into another.

“What if I’m s’posed t’keep it, hurt ‘n all. How’m I s’posed t’take responsibility for my actions if I jest let you magic it all away?”

Blue considered this. He stepped forward and put a hand on Yellow’s waist. The motion forced Yellow to look up into Blue’s steady gaze.

“Would you heal me if I were injured?”

Yellow’s eyes went wide. He nodded mutely.

Blue nodded back. “You would, wouldn’t you? Yellow, we are so, so fortunate to be able to heal ourselves the way we do. If we were well and truly human, you would have to bear that responsibility. You wouldn’t get a say in it. Your body would carry that toll for weeks, even months, the same way your mind does, and there wouldn’t be anything you or I could do about it. Do you know how sad that makes me? Imagining you going through that?”

Yellow swallowed.

Blue looked at him searchingly, speaking with great emphasis. “You are attached to your pain in a way I have learned to understand, in the same way I strive to understand all of you, even if that understanding comes tinged with concern, and I will always respect your will. But Yellow —“ he held on tight, grounding him — “Yellow, I have been granted such a unique, precious gift to lift from others the burden of suffering, and right now, my blossom, you are suffering. Won’t you let me make use of it?”

Yellow’s lower lip trembled. He glanced down at the water, shying away from the intensity.

Somewhere in the distance, something like a frog croaked its call.

Blue frowned. Then, he stepped back, crouched down, and, dipping his hands in the water, splashed Yellow.

Yellow blinked and had opened his mouth to respond, when Blue darted around to his side and splashed him again. 

“Wh — Blue? Hey!” Yellow received another splash, but this time he was ready and pushed water right back at Blue in a great spray.

Blue was spattered with water. He grinned and ducked behind Yellow, forcing him to spin around. Yellow yelped and leapt back. “Not so fast, pardner!” He smacked the surface clumsily with his hands, pushing waves at Blue.

Blue keeled back gracelessly, angled his hips, and retorted with a quick, arcing drag of his fingers, droplets spitting up in a spray.

Yellow sputtered and dived to the side. “A ricka-shay?" he squealed. 

Blue leveled an eyebrow at him.

“Oo, you’ve got it comin’ to ya now,” Yellow said. He brought his arms up and sent his forearms crashing down, eliciting a great plunking splash from the baths.

Blue laughed and hollered, water coming down all around him. Then, in one swift movement, he dove under the water.

Yellow only had a second to prepare when he felt Blue seize him by the legs and lift him up. He shrieked and made a grab for a hat that wasn’t there. “Blu-u-ue!” 

Blue, beaming, spun him around. 

Yellow kicked his feet out, giggling. “No fair!”

Blue hoisted him up, then plunked him back in the water.

Yellow yelped.

They were, the two of them, breathless. They stood there panting, Blue with his hands on Yellow’s waist, a giddy, brazen expression on his face, Yellow looking flustered but decidedly pleased.

“Now have I earned the honor?” Blue said.

Yellow shook his head, grinning. “You can be real tricksy sometimes, y’know that?”

“I’m aware.”

Yellow huffed and rolled his eyes obligingly. “Fine,” he said.

“‘Fine’ what?” 

“Fine, y’can work yer magic an’ heal me. But only so’s I can get the upper hand next time!”

An overwhelming sense of relief flooded Blue’s senses. 

“I thought as much.”

He willed a cloud to gather above them, an action that didn’t need a flourish, but was usually accompanied by one. This time, however, he wouldn’t be doing so; he wanted to keep his hands on Yellow. The mist overhead solidified and grew heavy with all the condensation the room had to offer. When the storm broke, and the cloud began to shed its weight, the tears it released came easy to Blue. 

Drop upon drop fell from overhead and onto their heads, slicking Yellow’s bangs into a dripping overhang above his nose and dotting Blue’s arms with beads. The droplets pattered into the water, imbuing it with amniotic life. It glowed faintly, as one might expect, but more than that, it seemed to thicken, not in substance, but in quality, as if it were becoming more itself than it had been before.

As the cloud peppered Yellow with raindrop kisses, Blue followed suit, tracing an irregular path first along his shoulders, then along his collarbone, striding across his chest and down his arms all the way to his wrist, where he planted a kiss with care in the tilled croplines of his veins, before tracing his way back up to his neck and, finally, his lips. 

Yellow, less hesitant to lay hands on Blue with his palms looking as they did then before, but still cautious, left his hands to hover in midair relative to Blue’s waist, fingers twitching occasionally and face flushed through. Breath stuttered in his chest in the intervals where he and Blue paused to come up for air. The water was alive and jumping around them.

In the end, it was Yellow who broke their reverie and pulled away.

Blue’s breath caught as the cowboy sank down in the water before him until his chin was scarcely above the surface, briefly, and with an unexpected twinge of delight, mistaking his movements as precipitating something worth the anticipation. This was until he saw that Yellow’s face was wet not only with rain but with free-flowing tears and snot, both of which had to cross only a short distance before merging with the larger body of water.

“This is too sweet,” he muttered, looking distressed at the notion. “Yer bein’ too sweet.”

The sound of the rain on the water made almost a hushing noise.

“I do believe I’m being the appropriate amount of sweet for such a lovely cowpoke as yourself,” Blue countered, lowering down in the water to match Yellow’s height. The tips of his locs broke the meniscus of the water and grew glitteringly damp about his face.

Yellow looked down at the reflections folding out from the two of them, the parallel image wobbling as much as his chin.

“I ain’t ever even seen a cow,” he burbled.

“Well, I’m certain you’d know exactly what to do if you saw one.”

Yellow sniffed. “Dunno. Don’ think it’d listen to me much.” He sniffed again and dragged a hand across his face. “Blue, can I tell you somethin’?”

“Of course, my love. Anything.”

Yellow nodded, as if assuring himself that it was indeed alright. “I know sheriffs is s’posed t’be all fearless-like,” he said, words trembling like so many ripples, “an’ everyone respects them ‘cause they keep people safe, and they always do what’s right, but —“ an involuntary gasp of air shuddered through his throat, pitching his next words up until they were teetering on a razor-thin point — “I don’ think I trust myself t’keep me safe. An’ I’m scared that what I’m doin’ ain’t right.”

Yellow cried into the water, minute tremors hitching the water around him in disorderly ripples. Much like sand will vibrate into geometric configurations when prompted by the right resonance, the water rearranged itself around his keening.

“Oh, honey.”

Yellow shook his head and sunk beneath the surface of the water, that geometry of reactionary suffering spilling all around him. His hair swayed about on top like golden strands of corn-silk. 

“Sweetheart,” Blue tsk’ed.

He inhaled steadily and followed suit, submerging his face in front of Yellow’s. 

All was warm, from Blue’s chin up to his cheeks and all the way to his hairline. He parted his lashes and looked through a miasma of heavy pearlescence at the face of his lover, glowing yellow in the quiet beneath the surface. 

Yellow’s face was scrunched up tight, lips sealed in an unhappy parenthetical line, closed off on one side against the water and chest-hitching sobs on the other, with an exception made only for the faint bubbles which pushed their way shudderingly out from between his lips. 

With care, Blue leaned forward between the writhing strands of straw-blond hair and cupped Yellow’s face in his hand.

The line holding Yellow’s brows taut relaxed a little, faintly surprised, as Blue pressed his lips first against his left cheek, then his right. Minute bubbles escaped each time, tickling their way up Yellow’s face. The light from above filtered through in wavering strokes across their faces below, shining with its own subterranean luminescence. In this uncertain and unearthly light, Blue placed both hands on either side of Yellow’s face and planted the final kiss upon his lips. Then, he drew both their heads, in linked procession, out of the water, and sound rushed back in.

Yellow gasped, dripping, his eyes fluttering open, while Blue swiped his thumbs across the browline and valley of Yellow’s face, pushing the water away from his eyes. Yellow openly gaped at him, his lashes beaded with water and his hair slicking to his forehead. His chest rose and fell in uneven attempts to regain control over the pattern of his breath. 

Words could do little, even if there had happened to be any around at the moment. The skin of his stomach was smooth, the skin of his elbows was smooth, and when he lurched forward to hug Blue, who was ready to receive him, the hands that he wrapped around Blue were smooth.

***

“I think,” Blue said carefully, “when you’re ready, that we ought to go to Flowery about this.”

They were sitting on the side of the baths, drying off. 

Yellow froze, towel in hand. His hair was sticking up every which way. “Flowery? Why Flowery? That ain’t necessary.”

“We don’t need to tell him any of the specifics,” Blue said, squeegeeing water out of his hair. “Just enough to impress upon him the fact that Asgore’s behavior has affected you significantly, and I know you’re not the only one who feels that way. Flowery is Asgore’s best friend; perhaps he of all people could talk some sense into him.”

“I don’ think he’s gonna be impressed at all,” Yellow said doubtfully. “I think he’s more likely t’be anger-y.”

“Whatever would he be angry at you for?”

Yellow wound the towel around his hands, doing and undoing the bind. “What wouldn’ he? I bothered Asgore, ‘n worse, I blubbered t’you about it. He’ll never spar with me again.”

But the towel was a soft thing, and his voice sounded tired, like he was repeating old thoughts out of habit rather than conviction. 

“That doesn’t sound like the Flowery I know.”

“Don’t it?” 

Blue pursed his lips. “Let’s get you that food. I’m sure it’s getting cold by now. We can discuss this more later.”

“Oh.” Yellow slumped with relief. “Yeah, alrigh’. That sounds good.”

Blue laid a hand on Yellow’s shoulder, pulling him in close. “And then, my love, what do you say we slip into something more comfortable? Head to bed?”

Yellow, looking halfway there already, nodded muzzily into Blue’s side. “I get t’wear m’pajamas?” he mumbled.

“Mhm.”

“‘S not even evenin’ time yet.”

“That’s alright.” Blue pressed a kiss onto the top of Yellow’s head. “You’ve done very well, Yellow. You deserve some rest.”

“How nice,” said Yellow. He nosed into Blue’s shoulder. “How awful nice.”

“I think so, too.” Blue rubbed his hand up and down Yellow’s arm, then gave it a squeeze. “Now, come on. You’ve got a grilled cheese in your future.”

Yellow straightened up in excitement. He followed Blue up as the two of them wrapped towels about their waists. Then, taking their clothes with them, they walked out of the onsen.

All the rest they left behind.