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Yellow didn’t believe that she needed to be the center of attention. As long as it stood, she’d rather the opposite. Attention always seemed to make her skin crawl. Eyes on her, tracking her every movement. Those eyes of pity when she can’t figure out a solution. Faces twisted in empathy when the lucky block was destroyed.
Empathy that Yellow didn’t need.
Not when Blue still has those burns on her legs that flare up in pain so bad some days that she can’t walk.
Not when Green still struggles to even look at a note block after the concert and any flash of silver sends him into a panic attack.
Not when Red refuses to talk about what happened when he was at the monster school.
Not when Orange keeps falling asleep standing up and doesn’t remember anything from the showdown fight.
So no, Yellow did not find her struggles needing to be highlighted when everyone seemed to be struggling with so much worse. Not when hers were insignificant. Just little stones compared to the huge boulder of a mountain.
Little stones felt like boulders on her back now.
She woke up to the sun piercing through her curtains. She didn’t fall asleep in her bed last night, rather at her desk, bent over a blueprint of…something. She earned herself a crick in her neck from that alone.
However, that was barely acknowledged compared to the searing pain in her back. It felt like something was crawling under her skin, threatening to burst out. It didn’t help that there was a migraine in the front of her head, so painful, it felt like it was dripping.
She stumbled to her feet, nearly falling backwards. Then she took lumbering steps towards the stick’s shared bathroom, praying that no one was in there.
She was lucky, as she stumbled into the empty bathroom, not even bothering to flick on a light. The door was quickly shut behind her.
She looked into the mirror and froze.
Right there on her forehead, where the essence of Luck once ingrained into her skin, blood began to drip. She moved her hand to touch the area, but instead just let her hand hover as the blood dripped down her face, dripping off her nose, pooling on her glasses.
“What…?” She mumbled in confusion. How was it bleeding? It never bled before. Not even when it was in her skin. burninghurtinginfectingothers.
Yellow wasn’t given time to question as her back washed over with white hot agony as something shifted under her skin again. It was such a disgusting feeling. Somethingsundermyskinohmygodithurts. Her hands scrambled against the marble counter, looking for something to grab, something to quell the tearing pain. Something shattered against the ground.
(probably their toothbrush holder. She kept telling the others to get a plastic one because it would be less likely to break if Red accidentally knocked it off the counter. He would be the most likely out of all of them anyways. How ironic it was her instead)
Her legs shook with the pain that made her body feel both hot and cold at the same time. Her arms desperately ached with how hard she was grasping the edge of the sink. Willing for all this pain to go away.
(Or maybe it was the fear making her cold, and the pain making her hot. That made sense anyways.)
The door slammed open and a flash of Green appeared in her peripheral vision, but she didn’t turn her head to look at him. His mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear him.
(Since when were her ears ringing? Why did she only notice now? What was happening??)
Then there were hands on her arm. This didn’t hurt. Those were the gentle hands of Blue, she recognized. Hands that put bandages over cuts and set broken bones. Hands that guided Yellow out of her chair at 3 in the morning and gently pulled coffee out of her hands.
(Hands made to hold hers…)
Hands that rubbed circles into the back of her hands now. Oh so gentle, so caring. Bluecanhelpfixthepainmakeitgoaway—
“Yellow…” Blue’s voice was gentle and the only thing that cut through the fog of the pain that seemed to come straight from her bones. ”I need to know where it hurts.”
Yellow could barely manage a whine. Everywhere she wanted to say. It was not a logical answer though. And if nothing else, Yellow was logical.
There was only one place that truly burned like lava to skin. Only one place that she couldn’t see to figure it out. The place where something shifted under her skin.
“My…my back,” Yellow whimpered. Blue quietly guided Yellow to the floor and gently lifted up her shirt to look. There was a soft gasp and Blue’s hands almost shook from where it held onto the fabric of Yellow’s clothing.
“How bad is it?” Orange asked from somewhere nearby. Blue sucked in a breath.
“I need a scalpel, a surgical one. And a healing potion. In fact, just get the whole damn first aid kit and some towels,” Blue commanded. There was the sound of retreating footsteps as Red settled down in front of Yellow, taking her hands into his.
“It’s all going to be okay,” Red whispered. Yellow hoped he was right as she responded with a low whimper.
“What—What’s going…on?” Yellow asked Blue when she got the bravery to talk again, voice catching with each breath in as pain raked up her spine.
“I—“ Blue didn’t get the chance to finish as Orange rushed in with the first aid kit and a few kitchen towels in his arms.
Blue grabbed it all from him and quickly handed out a weakness potion to Yellow. Yellow was confused but with a small nudge from Blue, downed the whole thing in one go.
Yellow’s shoulders immediately slumped downwards as her knees went weak and both Orange and Green reached out to steady her from falling forwards. Her body relaxed, but it barely numbed the pain. She whimpered again and Red squeezed her hands, whispering a few reassurances.
“This is going to hurt Yel, I’ve got to cut open your skin,” Blue told her, voice steady despite the slight shake in her hands. “Orange, hold her shirt up for me.”
Orange did as she said and Red shifted to help Green hold her up, still keeping one hand in hers.
“Okay, here we go…” Blue mumbled mostly to herself. Then there was the feeling of the knife cutting into her skin and Yellow yelled, trying to shift away from it.
“Hold her steady,” Blue told Green and Red, and the two grabbed Yellow more firmly as she began sobbing.
There were two cuts made, parallel lines on her back, and when Blue finally pulled the blade from her skin, the blood from her forehead mixed with sweat and tears on her cheeks.
“We’re almost done, Yel, I swear. All I need to do is get the wings out now.”
Taken at face value, it sounded horrid. It sounded like torture. But in Blue’s gentle, sweet voice, it sounded manageable.
It was torture. Or something worse. As Blue reached a hand into her back, touching the massofsomethingthatkeptmovingkeptshifting, it felt like she was reaching her hand into her back to pull out a rib. And Yellow was screaming, begging, praying for her to just stop. To take her hand out of her back, away from bloody flesh.
Suddenly, the pain on that side lifted, leaving a hollow ache in its place. The hand retreated from her back. It was bliss, peaceful for just a moment.
“I’ve got one more, then you’re done, dear.”
Oh fu—
Pain again, fingers reaching for her ribs, to pull them out, one by one. She didn’t scream this time. This time she just whimpered as Red squeezed her hand.
And then it was over.
Or not.
But as the needle and thread went into her skin, it no longer hurt like it did before.
(Dang, that weakness potion must’ve been pretty strong, if she couldn’t feel the stitches. That just means that the pain she was feeling must’ve been so bad.)
”How are you doing, Yel?”
Blue’s voice was calm, nothing compared to what had just happened. Yellow just mumbled something incoherent, burying her head in Red’s shoulder.
Blue laughed gently and it rang around her head.
“I figured so. That weakness potion is strong, that’s why I leave it in the first aid kit.”
The hands moved away from her back and Yellow let out a content sigh.
“Okay, all we need to do now is clean you up, I think a bath is in order. You three, get out.” Blue commanded, voice light and laughing.
The three were hesitant but after a pointed look they left the bathroom, closing the door as Blue started filling the bathtub. She poured just a little bit of soap, the rose one that Yellow liked, and kept checking to make sure the water wasn’t too hot. Yellow watched with an impassive expression as the weakness potion worked its course.
Blue helped Yellow into the water, avoiding getting the area around her wings wet. (Yellow chose to ignore the way her balance felt skewed and wrong.) As she lowered Yellow into the water, Yellow kept her eyes on Blue, never taking them off. Blue began with Yellow’s forehead, that had stopped bleeding at some point, then worked her way to the wings.
She was gentle with them, running the damp cloth over them as the water turned murky with mahogany. Yellow’s eyes began to slip close as she hummed contently.
“Your wings are beautiful, you know,” Blue shattered the silence between them, voice slipping into a whisper. “Better than the fake lucky block ones. And they’re healthy.”
Yellow didn’t know what to think about that, but just hummed in response. Blue sighed like a single mom. There was only the sound of water dripping off of the towel for a while.
Yellow must’ve fallen asleep at some point because she woke up on the couch in the living room. Blue was gently running her hands through Yellow’s wings. Green sat on the floor, leaning his back against the couch as he aimlessly scrolled his phone. Orange was propped up on the other side of Blue, sleeping quietly for once. Red had Yellow on the other side, rambling about something.
The lights were low and it was cozy. Yellow was tempted to fall back asleep again, but Blue noticed her wakefulness and stopped her hands.
“You need to eat something,” Blue told her. Always so caring. So meticulous about the sticks taking care of themselves.
Red perked up when he heard Blue and quickly jumped up and ran off towards the kitchen with a shout that he was grabbing some leftover soup for Yellow. This woke up Orange, who startled awake with a half yell. Green glanced up at them, and then back down as he refocused back on his phone.
Red was quick to return with a bowl of potato soup, quickly handing it to Yellow. It was mostly the potato bits, since Yellow didn’t like the broth. Yellow nodded in thanks as she slowly consumed the taters.
“You know we love you Yel, right?” Red asked, voice barely above a whisper and so thick with emotions, it almost made Yellow choke on her soup.
”Yes, of course I know that,” Yellow immediately responded. She met Red’s eyes, and almost felt guilty for the love that was shown to her.
“We’re going to get through this together,” Orange said from the other side of her. “We can research and figure everything out. You’re not alone.”
“Not right now though,” Blue interjected. “Right now you rest and make sure those stitches don’t get pulled.”
And Yellow…Yellow couldn’t help but feel like that was an okay decision.