howtheyshine | Pumpkin Hollow IC Contact Post

He ignores Crichton's hand and hunches into his coat, like a turtle with a shell of outerwear. He is still chest-down on the floor.

"Fine, I'm waiting."

"Suit yourself." Crichton says with a shake of his head. Like talking to a toddler...

He rushes to the kitchen. One montage of sizzling sounds, banging cabinets and food plating noises later, he returns with two plates.

"Here. Don't have any ketchup so I put mustard on yours. You like the color yellow, anyway, don't ya?"

That prompts another muffled growl. But he kind of emerges from his coat a little, smells the hotdog, and then embarks on the awkward process of getting to his feet while trying to look like he is not either interested in the food or still embarrassed that he, a god, got tackled and sat on by this human.

Yellow takes the plate, retreats to the sofa, and stuffs food in his face so he doesn't have to say words.

It takes all the control he has not to roll his eyes. Correction, it's like talking to a teenager. Well, at least he's eating.

Crichton grabs a seat on the far side of the sofa, letting Yellow have some personal space. (Definitely not because he doesn't wanna get in a slap fight, shh.)

"So... you're really not used to that kind of body, are you?" It's extremely obvious.

"So what?" Said around a mouthful. He swallows, or tries to, winces slightly at the fact that it's too big a swallow, and powers through anyway. Yellow coughs and clears his throat. He glares down at the plate.

"I was trapped in Arthur's eyes, of course I'm not used to having a fucking body."

"Yeah. Can't imagine that was much fun for you." Secretly he's praying he isn't about to have to use the Heimlich maneuver. He's pretty sure his first aid certification expired by now.

"I could uh... give you some driving tips, if you want? For starters, you should consider taking smaller bites. The food ain't going anywhere, I promise. You don't have to put it all in your mouth at once."

"Not fun," he says, scornful. "Not fun. Being ripped from my kingdom, stripped of my memories, and imprisoned in the eyes of a liar. Not fun."

He doesn't really feel like eating any more. Yellow puts the remains of his hotdog back on the plate and sets it next to him on the sofa. He's glaring at the floor when he speaks again.

"I'm not John."

Crichton stays quiet for that outburst, simmering in his growing sympathy for the being he'd once actually been kind of... jealous of? Right up until that last revelation.

"Come again?"

Not John? What does he mean not John? Who is he if he's not John? How many damn spirits did Arthur have living in him anyway??

"Who are you then?"

"I'm--"

If he knew the way it would look to someone who's used to having a body, he wouldn't do it. But it makes him feel a little better, and he doesn't have the context to know it's embarrassing, so he scoots back on the couch and pulls his lanky legs up so he can curl into something of a ball on the sofa.

"I," sarcastically dramatic pause, "am what he got when he tried to bring John back from the Dreamlands. Save him from the King in Yellow. I'm... the wrong fragment."

A parasite. A mistake.

The way it looks to Crichton is... this man in front of him is being vulnerable. In his house, on his couch, and Crichton can't turn that away. Even if what he's hearing is horrific on several levels. Some things are also starting to make a lot more sense.

"Sorry. That's a raw deal you got. So... what should I call you? You're not John and you don't have his memories, so you deserve to have your own name."

He stares at Crichton.

"Are you making fun of me?"

It doesn't have any acid in it, though. It's genuine confusion. It seems strange and wrong and an about-face that Yellow doesn't trust.

"What? No." Crichton says in mild confusion. "No, I'm really asking. Do you have a name?"

"Yellow," he mutters, and watches Crichton carefully. "Arthur said--"

He smiles and looks away. "Arthur said I wasn't John, I was a parasite. So he named me Yellow, like the king he hates."

Yellow. Crichton can feel those strange eyes on him, so he's careful to keep his expression neutral. That's actually more about controlling his feelings about Arthur than about Yellow as a name, itself.

What to say? Frell.

"No one likes having their mind invaded. I've... had to share brain space with someone too. Someone who I didn't like. I would have said the same about him." The irony is not lost on Crichton that he was the one to name Harvey, too. It feels like looking in a mirror in an uncomfortable way.

"But you're not in someone else's body now. You're not a parasite any more than the rest of us. You are your own person now. So, do you want the name Yellow? Is that what you want me to call you?"

Another firework flare of temper makes him miss the last part, at least for a moment.

"I didn't fucking invade, he put me there!"

He blinks a few times to try and keep blood tears from welling up the way they did talking to farm-John.

And then he stares because he's not sure what to say. Pick a name? He can change it?

"I don't understand."

"I know. I know." Crichton puts his hands out in concession. "You didn't ask for this. I'm hearing that loud and clear, all right?"

This isn't like Harvey. Harvey had a mission. Harvey served his master Scorpius. Yellow seems... so innocent by comparison. Childlike, even.

"What part don't you understand?"

"I can change it?"

Look he doesn't know how names work, he had ten billion names as the King and he doesn't even remember them.

"What? Your name? Yeah. No one's stopping you. Arthur isn't your dad; you don't have to let him have the honor of naming you."

He's got his chin resting on his knees and he's staring at Crichton like the man just said Arthur is not an unconquerable monolithic force.

Because that sure sounds like what he's saying.

"...How do I pick a name?"

Oh, God, he understands that look so much more than he'd like to. How did they get here? Why does anything connected to Arthur always end up going the strangest way possible?

"I don't know... Maybe the library has a book of baby names you can choose from. Are there any names you remember liking when you heard them?"

His expression goes squinched at the idea of using a book of names for babies. He isn't a baby. It's a meaninglessly human measure of age.

Names he remembers liking, though--

He shakes his head slowly. "I haven't heard that many. Arthur, John, Lily, Jack, Carmichael, Irvine, Larson, Wallace, Andrew, Bartholomew."

He counts them off on his fingers as he says them.

He frowns, and it deepens into a scowl. "And Addison. And Faust. Those were the only names I heard before this place."

Crichton feels like he should be taking notes and writing some of those names down. Some, he's sure he's heard before.

"Hm. Not a lot in that sample size. Can't say any of those really seem to fit. Andrew, maybe, but I don't know. Hey, uh... how long have you even been on a human plane of existence at all?"

"I don't know exactly. Arthur kept getting knocked out." He frowns. "At least one day, maybe two or three. Unless this place counts as human plane of existence."

"Three days... tops?" Crichton just looks at Yellow, like he's seeing him for the first time all over again. He's not a lost child, he's an infant. Practically a newborn.

Frell. It's been too long. He has to say something.

"No wonder you have no idea what's going on." Well. That's...something.

He's about to demand that Crichton tell him what the fuck that look is about, but then the man finally speaks.

"I fucking know things!" DEEP OFFENSE.

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