Jack floated down onto the cloud, settling as gently as one of his snowflakes. "Hey there little man, you okay with some company?"
Sandy turned to him, surprised at the sudden appearance but very pleased with it. He didn't mind when Jack called him that – though there were quite a few other spirits that would feel the edge of his temper, which, while usually mild, could be sharp as his whips – if they called him that.
Jack, though...from the first it had sounded like an in-joke.
Jack settled onto the cloud and reached up into one of the streams of Dreamsand. Dolphins burst from the sand, leaping and dancing around Jack before streaming down towards a child's home.
Jack watched it go, seemingly content with the silence for the moment as Sandy went back to work.
Occasionally he would lift a hand, as if to touch another stream of Dreamsand, but each time he hesitated and pulled back.
"Does it bother you, when people touch your sand?" Jack asked, the suddenness of the question making Sandy pause.
Sometimes, he finally answered in soft, sparkling lights. Some people have no respect for it, and that bothers me. You never have. Bothered me, I mean. Why?
Jack shrugged, but spoke when he would usually have kept silent, continuing his own personal promise of being open. "Just wondered if it was something like Tooth's flights or Bunny's chases – you know, a courting thing disguised as something else. Something that could be intimate if both people knew about it, but isn't unless they're both in on it."
Sandy watched Jack for a moment before drawing his attention. It could be. If both knew, he said. But it would be special. Like how...touching someone's hand means something different for different people and different situations. It would be pretty obvious.
Jack looked back up at the streams of sand overhead with a small hum.
And, very slowly and deliberately, reached up to run a finger along one stream.
Sandy shivered, mouth forming a silent 'o', and he winked at Jack, who was frosting over in a blush but not backing down.
His frost sparkled along the sand, and he watched it spiral down to a child's home after another second of watching Sandy, remembering the first time it had happened.
Sandy had been so happy about it, and to judge by the smile on his face, he still was. The mix of fun and joy made a special dream, he'd said.
"I have to ask," Jack said after they'd sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. "I asked Bunny, and Tooth, and Katherine and Nightlight. Why? Why didn't you tell me?"
Sandy paused a moment, and Jack gave it to him, to organize his thoughts.
The light show that commenced was complex, and it was a good thing Jack had spent so much time over the last few years working to understand Sandy's lights rather than relying solely on the shapes and charades, as without it he probably wouldn't have caught more than one word in five.
The answer, in the end, boiled down to what Jack had suspected – a fear of losing him, of it never being the right time to speak up without hurting him, things spiraling out of their control.
