summer stained blue

chapter seven - yellow

"Look at the stars," Finn hummed. "Look how they shine for you, and everything that you do, and they were all yellow."

He tucked his bottom lip between his teeth, furrowing his brow in concentration as he poured the paint into a plastic tray. His only experience with painting came from redecorating his childhood bedroom over and over again. The walls went from dark blue to pastel green to light blue to dark gray over a span of six years.

Even after all of the changes, he was never happy with his room. It may have been his space, but it was always his father's house.

"I came along, I wrote a song for you, and all the things you do, and it was called yellow." As he balanced the plastic tray full of paint on the ladder he had set up in the middle of his living room, Finn already felt a bit better -- a bit more in control. "So, then I took my turn, what a thing to have done," he sang softly, "and it was all yellow."

There was something about living alone that Finn cherished when he was in Chicago. He didn't mind the loneliness there, but here, he felt unbelievably alone. Maybe it was harder knowing that everyone knew him, he thought as he climbed the ladder, because they still didn't care.

"Your skin, oh, yeah, your skin and bones. Turn into something beautiful. And you know, you know I love you so," he hummed. "You know I love you so."

He dipped just the tip of his paintbrush into the bright-colored paint, swirling it around a few times just to watch the paint follow the brush. Then he drew it back, shaking the stray drops of color back into the tray, and lifted the brush to the blindingly-white ceiling.

"I swam across, I jumped across for you. What a thing to do," he murmured. "'Cause you were all yellow."

He had gotten a few weird looks when he went to the hardware store and picked up two gallons of bright yellow paint. The weird only looks increased when he announced to the cashier that he was painting his living room ceiling.

"The ceiling?" the teenage worker had repeated. His tone earned him a sharp warning glare from his supervisor.

"Yeah, the ceiling. I don't mind the wall color so much."

As he stood staring at the harsh whiteness, Finn only felt more justified in his decision. It was vast -- the never-ending nothingness. He refused to drown in an ocean of nothingness.

"I drew a line, I drew a line for you. What a thing to do, and it was all yellow."

He brushed a tentative stripe of paint across the ceiling, secretly a bit terrified that he would hate the color as soon as he saw it on the wall. He tilted his head to the side, pursing his lips out as he thought.

It wasn't an obnoxious yellow. It wasn't sticky-note yellow. The color was bright but soft around the edges, the muted yellow of a fading sunrise. It was yellow like a sunflower, warm and happy and natural.

Happy. Maybe someday he could be as happy as his ceiling was about to be.

"Your skin, oh, yeah, your skin and bones. Turn into something beautiful. And you know, for you I'd bleed myself dry." He smiled as he sang to himself, falling into the steady rhythm of brushing the paint onto the ceiling, back and forth. It was therapeutic, he thought, as he hummed under his breath, "For you, I'd bleed myself dry."

A knock at the open door nearly startled Finn off of the ladder. He clutched at his chest with the hand not holding the paintbrush, cursing uncontrollably, "Fucking hell! You're never supposed to sneak up on a man on a ladder!"

Ashton's amused voice rang through the small room. "Well, I didn't exactly know you were on a ladder, did I? You should hang a warning sign on the porch."