Pixie blacksand for you. “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is stuck in my head.

Here is some Blacksand, and I hope you feel betterer soon. :hugs:

…

The shop had been Sandy’s idea.

Pitch had protested at first, had resisted with everything he had in him. “It’s too risky,” he’d said. “You can’t just make shops appear out of nowhere where there’s never been a shop before,” he’d said. “Someone will notice that we’re not really human,” he’d said. “Why are you so set on operating a curio shop anyway?” he’d asked.

None of it had mattered, because in the end, as always, Pitch hadn’t been able to resist the little dreamweaver, no matter how much he might have wanted to. Which was why, instead of flitting through the lengthening shadows of trees to worry joggers in the park, he was leaning against the dark wood counter of a little hole-in-the-wall shop that Sandy had decided to open out of what had, moments before, been a solid brick wall, waiting for a couple of aging hippies to stop ogling the window display and come in already.

This body didn’t fit quite right, either. It itched, in ways that he couldn’t possibly scratch without scaring away the prospective customers and revealing his true self, which would be entertaining, but would also probably – no, definitely – make Sandy mad at him. And that was something that Pitch didn’t really want to risk, not so soon after…well, after. So instead, he sighed, and fixed on a smile that he hoped looked just this side of predatory, and waited for the bell above the door to jingle.

 A sudden smack to his backside made him whirl, to see Sandy smiling innocently. “Don’t give me that look,” Pitch snarled, which only made Sandy’s smile grow wider.

“Not now, dear, we’ve got customers.”

Pitch was fairly certain his jaw hit the floor. Sandy was talking? Sandy hadn’t voluntarily spoken since – since – he tried to remember the last time he’d heard Sandy’s voice, and came up blank. Was it because they were both playing human? Or was it just to torment him further?

He had a sneaking suspicion that the latter was the truth. Just one sentence in those lullaby-soft tones, and Pitch was already feeling uncomfortably weak at the knees.

He had just enough time to recover before the door swung open, setting the little silver bell hanging from the frame merrily chiming. There was something very familiar about the couple who stepped in, looking around in something akin to awe, but Pitch couldn’t quite put his finger on what. He gave them a few moments to browse, the smaller and rounder of the two gravitating to a display of gold chains, some thick as his wrist, others fine as spider’s silk, while the taller and darker of the pair came dangerously close to touching a ring of heavy keys that Pitch somehow felt certain were cursed.

“Can I help you?” he asked, smoothly, stepping out from behind the counter and smiling at the way both of the customers jumped.

“Oh! Uh, no thank you, we’re just looking,” the smaller, rounder one said, nudging his companion, who was frowning at Pitch as though Pitch were a particularly difficult equation he was trying to solve. Pitch raised an eyebrow, and the man’s frown turned thoughtful.

“Don’t I know you fr-”

“Are you scaring the customers again?” Sandy’s mellifluous tones broke into the conversation just as Sandy did, wrapping an arm around Pitch’s waist as casually as though he did it all the time. Pitch stared down at Sandy in surprise, and Sandy flashed him a grin that was just a hint too wide, before turning a more normal smile to the two strangers. “Are you two looking for anything in particular, or just browsing?”

Ten minutes later, the strangers had left with some sort of blown-glass contraption, the purpose of which Pitch couldn’t even begin to guess at. Sandy smiled as he clapped both hands together and the door of the shop slammed closed of its own accord, the bell frantically jangling as the shop dissolved around them into swirls of dreamsand, leaving both Pitch and Sandy standing on the street. It took everything Pitch had not to sigh too disappointedly when Sandy shook off his human disguise, grinning from ear to ear and babbling in symbols again. Instead, he let his own disguise slip, and concealed the sigh as one of relief when the insistent itch dissolved with it. “Well, I hope that was worth it to you.”

Sandy only nodded, bobbing up and down in a disgustingly adorable fashion.

“Who were they, anyway?” Pitch asked, his curiousity getting the better of him for a moment. Sandy’s smile turned mysterious, and he shrugged. “What? Oh, fine then, don’t tell me. Now that you’ve got that out of your system -”

He wasn’t sure how it was possible to interrupt someone with silent giggles, but Sandy managed it anyway. Pitch took a deep, steadying breath before asking, “You don’t really mean to go through this whole charade again, do you?”

The hopeful look that Sandy gave him in answer should, Pitch decided, be classified as a highly dangerous weapon.

“Fine,” he growled. “You know I’m not going to say no now.”

Sandy signed a smiling face, before dissolving it into a streamer of gold that wound its way delicately around the back of Pitch’s neck, coiling interestedly around his ear. Cheer up.

“I don’t see much point in that,” Pitch retorted, trying to keep his voice cold even as the tendril of dreamsand stroked the sensitive shell of his ear. Sandy rolled his eyes, before conjuring a tiny cloud of sand, just enough to float him up to whisper into the ear that his dreamsand wasn’t currently teasing.

“If I’m playing human, you’ll get to hear my voice again.”

Pitch licked his lips and swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly and inexplicably dry. “I suppose I could suffer through.”

*INTERNAL SCREAMING* this one was wonderful and precious and I drawing for it later

Sandy has been looking forward to the field trip for weeks, so naturally it rains the day of. The unlucky few without umbrellas are given the option of partnering up or staying in the classroom for a free day, and as much as Sandy wants to go, almost everyone -including his friends- have partnered up already. Being mute is sometimes quite a pain all on its own, but in this case Sandy can’t even call out to see if anyone is still free to share! He slumps a little bit, silent in a way only he can be, and prepares to settle in for the long haul of a boring day in the classroom.

Perhaps that’s why it comes as such a surprise when solitary, dire-looking Pitch Black taps him on the shoulder and firmly asks if Sandy wants to share his umbrella. Sandy has never talked to Pitch Black before, caught up in his own hovering solar system of friends, but decides that it can’t hurt. After all, Pitch has never given him the impression of being a bad person. He’s very quiet and can disappear into the background as easily as Sandy does, but sometimes Sandy can spot bruises on his knuckles and peaking out of the collars of his sweaters. Sandy thinks about it briefly, and concludes that it probably took Pitch a lot of courage to come up and ask to be partners!

Sandy puts on his best grin and nods, and Pitch loses some of the tension that always seems to hunch his shoulders. He even manages a small, tired-looking smile that Sandy does his best to encourage, despite how quickly it vanishes. A short ways off the teacher calls for everyone to get ready and line up, and the pop of umbrella’s unfurling sounds all around them. Sandy, with nothing better to do, turns to watch as Pitch begins to unstrap and unwind his own. 

With a quiet click the umbrella opens wide like a bat’s wings, black canopy stretched wide over wire and taut around its large frame. It comes as such a shock Sandy’s heart skips a beat and he doesn’t notice  it at first, but when he finally manages to focus his heart is sent pounding for an entirely different reason. Underneath the dull polyester fabric of the umbrella, there’s yellow. Well not yellow, precisely, but mustard and gold and yellow-green don’t glow like this color does. Pitch holds it up over their heads, and there’s just enough blue-grey light in the air to push through the canopy and  wash them in that color.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it? I love rainy days,” Pitch mutters quietly, happily, but Sandy is barely listening. Under the umbrella’s low-light, Pitch is shining. His olive skin, normally pale-ish and faded, is picking up glittering highlights and color. He looks healthy and vibrant; his hazel eyes turning a shimmery gold color and his black hair shot through like the rays of the sun. Even the dark fabric of his sweater is affected, little lights glittering and jumping around on tiny loose threads. The sharpness of Pitch’s cheekbones softens and the mottled bruises beneath his eyes don’t seem quite as harsh; all his shadows turn a hazy violet and everything seems warmer. Intimate.

Sandy clears his throat and turns away, hoping the cold air will help the burning of his cheeks. It’s relief is minimal. When he manages to swallow down the pounding in his chest and turn around, Pitch is looking at him strangely. Sandy simply shrugs and grins and is for the first time thankful of his muteness, because it enables him to grab the umbrella by the handle (half overlapping Pitch’s hand) and use it to steer the other boy over to where their classmates are lining up. Pitch doesn’t say a word, but neither does he protest when Sandy never quite lets go of the handle once they’re in place. His hand is very warm beneath Sandy’s, despite the chill, and he is kind enough to pretend not to notice when the shorter boy takes peeks at him.

By the end of the day Sandy’s cheeks are sore from all his smiling and he is contemplating how to go about adding a new planet to his solar system.

IS BEAUTIFUL AGHHHH

Wishing on a Star

gretchensinister:

“What? That doesn’t have anything to do with the original title! There’s no reason for them to have changed it.”

“I don’t caaaaare.”

“I’m just saying, Garder Quelque Chose Pour la Bonne Bouche worked perfectly well! And what else will have been pointlessly changed, then?”

"I’m sure you’ll tell me. But we’re going to watch the movie dubbed because I want to knit.”

“But the narrator…”

“In the dub it’s Jim Dale. Come on, the movie night was your idea.”

***

            Pitch Black, resident of a small neighborhood in a grand city which we shall not name, the opening shot having definitively established the location—to say nothing of the content of this story and the music currently playing behind my voice—had, for many years, followed daily the same routine.

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I GONNA BE LAYING ON THE FLOOR UNDER MY DESK BECUASE I DON’T EVEN

THIS FIC

AHHHHHHHH