Notes: Took a different direction with this one than my other story. It's solely cartoon-based with the only movie influence being the notion that movie-Clumsy wanted to be less clumsy...but cartoon-Clumsy never seemed to care. Oh, and Brainy's a bit of a jerk. Happy reading!

You with the sad eyes
don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
it's hard to take courage
In a world full of people
you can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
can make you fell so small

-Cyndi Lauper

True Colors - part 1

For any other individual, washing dishes was a mindless task.

Really, how much concentration did it involve? Soap and water and the endless cycle of wipe-lather-rinse hardly required the precision of a master craftsman.

And yet, for Clumsy Smurf, it was indeed a task that required all his focus; he needed to think on every little move he made before making it or the entire washbasin would be full of not only sudsy water, but broken crockery as well.

It was just the way things were.

As with everything else in his life, Clumsy had to try harder and pay closer attention to what he was doing.

It didn't help that it had been a long, smurfy day and he was tired.

It also didn't help that his partner in this task was Brainy.

The Summer Solstice Festival had only come to an end an hour or so ago and clean-up was just beginning when Brainy had loudly volunteered his services in any way needed, which is how the duo had wound up in Greedy's kitchen, Clumsy washing, Brainy drying.

Brainy had been friends with Clumsy long enough to know the safer choice was letting him wash. It was a lot harder to break a dish floating in water than when holding it several apples off the ground. Brainy knew the probability of dishes being broken was high anyway, but he had still enlisted Clumsy for help, which made Clumsy puff up with pride, despite the fact that he knew Brainy asked him only because he hated to do such a mundane task without some one to listen to him natter while he worked.

Clumsy didn't mind. It was the way things smurfed, after all, and it was fine with him.

The pair worked in companionable silence in the beginning, with the background noise of the others drifting in to the kitchen as they completed their own post-festival chores. Brainy was meticulous as always, making sure each and every dish was dry and streak-free before adding it to the pile of dinnerware waiting to be shelved.

Clumsy allowed himself to relax a little; they'd been working for a while without a single thing being broken and the sounds of others humming and singing while they worked lifted his spirits. It had been a good day – No, a great day. Any sort of festival or celebration inevitably left Clumsy deliriously happy; it really didn't take much to please him and spending time with his friends –especially Brainy- was a sure enough way to get him smiling.

Just thinking about the festival had him smiling again as he scrubbed at a particularly sloppy soup bowl; a soup bowl that was heavy in his tired hands, and soapy and slippery and…

Before he realized what had happened, the bowl had slid from his hands and crashed to the floor, shattering at his feet and causing Brainy to jump.

"Clumsy!" The spectacled Smurf squawked, doing an odd little dance-hop away from the broken pottery. Neither of them had been hurt, but Brainy looked like he'd just had the fright of his life, leaning back against the counter, the hand holding his dishtowel pressed dramatically over his heart. "You know you need to smurf attention to what you're doing!"

"Gosh, I'm so sorry!" Clumsy's eyes were wide beneath the brim of his cap as he looked at the mess surrounding their feet. "I didn't mean to-"

"You never mean to." Brainy snapped, tossing the towel down on the counter and stepping gingerly over a large piece of pottery. "You stay put. I'm going to get a broom and trash bin."

Clumsy didn't dare move. Instead, he looked down at the broken bowl on the floor, his spirits sinking.

It wasn't that he'd broken something again, or that Greedy would be upset about it. They were all used to Clumsy's bumbling awkwardness and the resulting disasters and he was easily forgiven for his mishaps. No, it was more that Brainy was annoyed and when Brainy got annoyed he got bossy and when he got bossy he talked in circles about things Clumsy only half understood.

But when Brainy returned, the broom handle clutched in one hand and dragging a dustbin behind him, he was weirdly silent and simply set about briskly cleaning up Clumsy's mess, brows drawn together behind his glasses, mouth a thin little line.

Clumsy didn't know what to do. Should he help? Brainy had told him to stay put, but it was his mess. He fidgeted a little, then stooped to pick up a large, blunt piece of the bowl.

Brainy's head snapping up stopped him cold. Their eyes met, Brainy's owlish behind his glasses, Clumsy's still wide. "Don't you ever get tired of being so clumsy, Clumsy?"

The question caught him by surprise and Clumsy blinked, taking a step back and tripping over his own feet in the process. He stumbled, only keeping himself from falling on the broken shards of ceramic by catching the edge of the washbasin on the way down.

"Well gee, Brainy…" He frowned a little as he pulled himself back upright, considering the question. No one had ever asked him that before; no one ever really questioned any one about their nature. It was simply understood that there was one defining trait that made each Smurf unique. "…Maybe a little bit, sometimes."

"Then why don't you ask Papa Smurf to smurf something about it?" Brainy straightened to his full height, hands planted on his hips as he regarded his friend. "I, Brainy Smurf, am certain Papa would be able to fix you. Why, with Papa's help and my guidance, you could be totally different!"

You could be totally different. A strange feeling washed over Clumsy at those words; a feeling he'd never felt before and couldn't name. It settled, cold and hard, in the pit of his stomach, making him feel worse than anything ever had before. Even the time he'd smurfed himself into a green scaly thing and no one wanted him around hadn't made him feel as queer as Brainy's words.

"Golly, Brainy, I don't want to be any different." As soon as he said them, Clumsy knew the words would fall on deaf ears. Brainy had that look on his face, his eyes glinting behind his glasses; that look that meant he was about to go off on a tangent and there was no stopping him.

"Clumsy, Clumsy, Clumsy…Of course, you're not looking at the big picture." Brainy had stopped cleaning and was now pacing a careful path through the pieces of broken pottery on the floor. "If you were less clumsy and more graceful, why the possibilities would be limitless! You would be able to help Handy without spilling nails. You would be able to assist Farmer with the gardening without stepping on the plants. Perhaps even Papa Smurf himself would ask you to help him, if you were less likely to damage things."

"Brainy…" The feeling was getting worse with each word that fell from Brainy's big mouth. Only now it was spreading, growing from just a cold lurch in his stomach to an icy hand clenching around his heart. Was this…Was this what Brainy really thought? That he needed to be some one different? How could he be Clumsy if he was no longer clumsy? How could he be himself?

"Why, your whole life could change."

"I don't want my life to change, Brainy!"

"Oh Clumsy, of course you do." Brainy pushed his glasses up his nose, eyes bright and shiny behind the thick lenses, expression earnest and eager. "Everything would be so much easier if you didn't have to worry so much about being careful. It would be better. You would be better."

And Clumsy could feel his heart breaking.

Still staring wide-eyed at his friend, he took another step back; this time he stumbled, falling squarely on his tail. Somehow, he managed not to land on a single piece of the shattered bowl –shattered like his heart- but it wouldn't have mattered if he had; he hurt so much already that no physical pain would have mattered.

Brainy wanted him to change.

Brainy, his best friend in the world; the only Smurf he felt totally at ease with. Sure, he knew the others loved him despite his faults. And he also knew that they didn't understand his close friendship with Brainy. Clumsy didn't know how to explain it himself; there was nothing common between them, no one interest they shared but each other.

Clumsy loved Brainy; loved him fiercely. Brainy was like a river, his energies always flowing, and if there was one saying Clumsy understood, it was that still waters did indeed run deep. On the outside, Brainy was calm and collected, smug and self-assured. But underneath all of that, Clumsy knew, his friend was an emotional wreck, always eager for approval and desperate for some one to listen to him. And Clumsy was always there to lend an ear and agree with Brainy's theories, more out of love and friendship than any real understanding of said theories.

Clumsy would never change a single thing about Brainy, even though he didn't understand him. Brainy was perfect exactly as he was.

Apparently, though, he didn't feel the same way.

For another long moment, Clumsy gaped at his friend, mouth working, but nothing coming out. There were words –so many words- but nothing seemed right…What do you say to something like that? Then, finally: "No, Brainy." He couldn't make his voice anything more than a sad whisper, "I like myself how I am. And…"

"…And…" Suddenly, the big kitchen felt entirely too small, as if the walls were closing in and there was no distance between him and Brainy. Clumsy scrambled back and up, desperate to get out of there; to run off to the woods or go home and hide or…or…Or it didn't matter what. He just needed to leave.

"I smurf how I am…And I thought you did too!" Without looking back, Clumsy stumbled his way out of the kitchen, tugging the door shut behind him and leaving Brainy standing amid a mess or broken ceramic and soap bubbles, the broom still clutched in his hand.